Donna was sitting on the couch when her parents arrived, Andrew cradled peacefully in one arm, the phone clamped to her ear. She nodded a greeting and saw, from the pinched expression and hard set of her mother’s jaw, that there was going to be trouble.
One problem at a time.
‘Oh, come on, Danny,’ she said, turning her attention back to the call. ‘There must be something you can give me, anything – I’m desperate here.’
At the other end of the line, Danny Brooks gave a long, frustrated sigh. They knew each other from Donna’s time on the Chronicle in Glasgow, had worked as reporters together. After the cuts that had driven Fiona Clarke to Sky, Danny had followed the well-worn path that led from journalism to PR and ended up working for Police Scotland. He saw all the press releases the police sent out. More importantly for Donna, Danny also saw what didn’t make it into the press releases, the details that were deemed too sensitive for public consumption.
And, thanks to Danny’s fondness for working practices that would have made a Murdoch blush, he owed Donna a favour.
‘Look, I gave you everything I could yesterday,’ he said, in a self-pitying whine that made Donna want to grind her teeth. ‘Most I can tell you is it looks like the victim was tortured.’
‘Yeah, but how? Come on, Danny, I need something on this, a line, an angle, to get me ahead. This is important.’
Danny sighed again. She could almost hear the thought stumbling through his head, and bet he was scraping his hand over his shaved scalp. It was why he was so bad at the casinos they’d visited after a late shift: Danny had so many tells he might as well have been broadcasting his intentions via megaphone.
‘All right,’ he said, voice flat with resignation. ‘I’m not sure how much use this is, and then that’s it. We’re even. Okay, Donna?’
Donna agreed, knowing they were nowhere near even. He’d hacked the private messages of a cabinet secretary at Holyrood, and all to expose his grubby little secret of an affair with his counterpart on the opposite benches. Not that Donna really cared that a senior politician had been caught with his pants down, but if the government ever found out that he had not only been hacked but had used public money to keep the journalist quiet . . .
Nah. It was going to take a hell of a lot more favours to settle that debt.
‘Go on, then,’ she said, feeling her mother’s gaze fall on her again.
‘Okay. The victim was definitely tortured. It was fucking obvious from the way the body was found and the state of the poor old bastard who called it in. And he’s known to us. Everyone’s talking about it. They got an ID on the victim. Whoever it is, he’s got previous.’
Donna swallowed the bubble of excitement that was rising in her throat. ‘I take it there’s no way . . .’
‘Not a fucking chance,’ Danny said. ‘Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you. But that’s the thing. I don’t know. Whoever he was, they’re keeping his name close to their chests. Need-to-know kind of stuff.’
Donna thought back to the press scrum at Cowane’s yesterday. To the harassed DCI who had given a faltering, uneven statement to the press. Clearly not a big fan of being front and centre. She sympathized but, like her, he’d have to get used to it.
‘Okay, Danny,’ she said. ‘Thanks. Say hi to Jill, will you?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied, in a petulant tone that reminded her of how much she disliked him at times. ‘And I mean it, Donna, this is it. You want anything else, go through the Stirling press team.’
‘Danny, we both know that’s not going to happen,’ she said, cutting the call before he could reply.
She put the phone down, her dad taking that as a signal to get out of the room. He murmured an excuse about putting the kettle on and scuttled away. She watched him go, then turned back to Andrew, who was still sleeping contentedly.
‘So what was that about?’ her mum asked, jutting her jaw towards the phone.
Donna returned her level gaze. Her mother had never approved of Donna’s career choices or her life in general. Andrew had built something of a bridge between them, but still the disapproval simmered. ‘Work,’ she said. ‘Following up on the murder I worked on yesterday. It’s a big story, national. If I play it right I could really get something out of this.’
‘Hmm.’ Her mum’s eyebrows arched.
Donna felt a snarl of anger, forced it down. She didn’t want to lose her temper in front of Andrew. And the last thing she needed was her mother storming out in a melodramatic huff. ‘Mum, I really appreciate you taking him today,’ she said, standing and offering Andrew to his gran, who took him willingly. She looked down, eyes softening, arguments melting away.
Donna watched her mother, heard her dad bustling around in the kitchen. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said softly. ‘This means a lot. It’s a big story. If I play it right, it could really open doors for me.’
Irene Blake looked up at her, something Donna couldn’t name flashing in her eyes. ‘That’s all for the good,’ she said. ‘But just remember what comes first. We love taking Andrew, but he needs his mother. Especially since his father is nowhere to be seen. And you chasing stories and trying to restart your career won’t help him.’
Donna took a deep breath, tried to compose herself. She was about to speak when her dad came into the room, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits like a peace-offering. He looked between his wife and his daughter, reading the tension in the room, nodded, then set the tray on the coffee-table in front of the couch. He flicked Irene a look, an entire conversation passing between them, then gave Donna a smile. ‘You got time for a cuppa before you head off, love?’ he asked.