There were three tumblers on Mal’s desk and a bottle of single malt in his hand. He seemed to be under the impression they had something to celebrate. The latest issue of the Courier was ready to go to print, and Claudia Rothwell was on the front page yet again. Leanne was only marginally relieved that the photo Mal had chosen was one of her welcoming Hilary Clarke’s dance students onto the stage. The shots of Amelia being hugged tightly by her ‘hero’ were buried inside, but not deep enough in Leanne’s opinion.
Mal poured a generous measure of whisky into each glass. ‘You did a good job. Both of you.’ He glanced only briefly at Frankie before concentrating back on Leanne, keenly aware of which member of staff needed the pep talk. ‘We’ve given the town a happy ending of sorts.’
‘It’s not over.’
Mal sighed as he pressed a drink into her hand. He went to say something in response, but thought better of it. He sipped his whisky before trying again. ‘In another month we’ll know the root cause of the fire. We have to bide our time.’
The whisky burnt Leanne’s throat and the notes of smoke made her want to gag. ‘I wasn’t talking about the investigation,’ she said. ‘I’m talking about Claudia. There are some serious questions that need answering.’
Mal picked up a set of page proofs and found Leanne’s feature set around endearing photos of Claudia and Amelia. ‘There are no questions as far as I’m concerned. Amelia has her hero. Hell, the town has its hero. It’s here in black and white.’
‘I wrote what you told me to write.’ There had been a lengthy telephone call the day before when Leanne had been struggling to submit her copy, and it was fortunate that she had been working from home. Slamming down the phone wasn’t a sacking offence. Hitting your editor might have been. Her only push back had been to slip a line into her article about Claudia losing her mum, if only because Claudia had asked her not to, but it was a hollow victory. ‘I follow orders,’ she said.
‘Good. Let’s remember that, shall we?’
Frankie had grown tired of waiting to be passed her drink and grabbed the remaining glass from Mal’s desk. ‘Cheers,’ she said wryly.
‘What do you think, Frankie?’ asked Leanne.
‘It’s not Frankie you have to convince,’ interjected Mal. ‘It’s our readers, the ones who trusted you to find Amelia’s hero and believed you when you said you had.’
‘I was wrong,’ Leanne said, struggling to free herself from the web of lies she had helped Claudia construct. ‘If I’d heard the paramedic’s description of what Claudia looked like after the fire, I would have known she couldn’t be the same person Rex Russell described.’
‘If you were so convinced Claudia was lying, why go ahead with the reunion?’ Mal challenged. ‘I’ll tell you why. There was a little voice inside your head telling you that you might be wrong. Victims of trauma make unreliable witnesses. One of yours had seen hundreds of people that night, and I doubt very much that she could recall the detail of Claudia’s injuries as well as she claimed. And as for the other, Rex has said all along that he can remember very little. Did you try speaking to him again?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
Rex had apologised for feeding Leanne the wrong information, having been there at the service to hear the paramedic’s speech. ‘He doesn’t want to go against the swell of public opinion. The blood could have been Amelia’s. The torn fingernails could have been false.’
‘Then why are we still having this debate?’
‘Have you looked at Frankie’s video yet?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘Amelia suffered head injuries. Her recollection was never going to match Claudia’s, and especially twelve months on.’
‘Except it was Amelia who remembered the torch quite clearly,’ said Leanne. ‘And it wasn’t a detail that had simply slipped Claudia’s mind. She didn’t have a clue what Amelia was talking about. You don’t confuse an usher’s full-size torch with one you can fit on a key ring, especially when it’s something you supposedly own.’
‘Claudia thought she was pulling a dying child out of the rubble and she went on to suffer a miscarriage. Memories can be repressed, and besides, the two of them seemed quite clear about what Claudia had said to her that night.’
‘You’ve just said we can’t rely on the memory of someone with a head injury. Amelia is open to suggestion, and Claudia quoted things that I’d expect anyone would say in that situation.’
‘Sorry, Leanne, but I’m not convinced. You never wanted Claudia to be our hero. You’ve been against her from the start,’ Mal said. He drained his glass. ‘You’ve been blinded by your personal feelings and, to be blunt, I don’t trust your judgement.’
‘What about mine?’ asked Frankie, finally able to get a word in between the warring factions. ‘I’ve spent the last month or so speaking to genuine victims. You say the town found a hero, well read your own paper, Mal. There were plenty of heroes that night. People who were caught up in circumstances they hadn’t been prepared for and who lost their lives while saving others. The seventy-one-year-old who pushed a child away from certain death, the man who lifted children over his head before the crush squeezed the last drop of life from him, not to mention the firefighters who went in and saved more lives. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t feel right including Claudia in that list.’
‘Why not?’
‘For the same reason as Leanne. It’s a gut feeling.’
‘I’m not pulling the story based on a gut feeling,’ Mal said. ‘We launched the search for Amelia’s rescuer and the only person to come forward was Claudia. Quite frankly, I don’t care if she is or isn’t the person who actually saved the girl. The only alternative is that the real hero is amongst the dead, and she’s not exactly going to come back from the grave to dispute Claudia’s claim now, is she?’ His cheeks glowed with the effects of alcohol and frustration.
‘So that’s it? We let Claudia get away with this?’
Mal sank into his chair. ‘You have to move on at some point, Leanne.’
‘And I will,’ she said, putting down her drink. ‘But I’ll be the one to decide when that should be.’
‘No,’ Mal said. ‘You’ve worked hard on this, but I was wrong to let you become so involved. You need to take some time out.’
‘I’m fine,’ she hissed.
‘No, you’re not, and this isn’t a request,’ Mal said softly. ‘You haven’t taken any leave for months. I want you to go home to your family, and let someone look after you for a while. I don’t want to see you back here until you’re able to see things rationally.’