Exposure (2 page)

If it still existed. Local papers were closing like old curtains these days.

Helene sighed and shifted wearily on her hard-packed seat. This journey never got any shorter.

She sighed again, the headache worsening with each rattle of the sleepers. Passing for 45, but on the slippery road past fifty, she was scarily close to retirement, with a dwindling pension pot, decimated by a falling pound and anxious stock market: it was terrifying. Bad luck and thirteen years of a bollocks Labour government had seen to that. Only work kept the dragons at bay. And now the work didn’t want her.

The train pulled into another rural station and there was a muted shuffling as people rearranged and re-seated themselves. A mother with two attractive teenage daughters got in at the rear of the carriage. They were loud in the way of people who had been talking outside and suddenly come inside. West Country accents. Rather charmless.

But the man behind didn’t think so. Or maybe now his phone conversation had finished he was looking for another audience.

“Where are you from?” he asked the mother conversationally. “You sound like you’re from around here – or maybe Somerset?”

“Zommerzet!” laughed the older girl. “No, we’re proper Cornish!”

“Ah,” he said, “I knew there was an accent. So you’re really local?”

“Yes,” said the mother. “Not from here though. From near here.”

Wherever ‘here’ was it was clearly, in her mind, inferior to where she came from. Camborne, perhaps?

“Where are you from?” said the older girl, in a mildly polite but honestly uninterested voice.

Well, at least Helene still knew the difference between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’. The thought was reassuring.

“I’ve come from Nottingham,” he said. “I’ve got a place there. Well, an apartment in London, too. But, I was born on the Equator. In Zambia.”

“Cool!” said the girl, her interest piqued very slightly.

Helene wondered if the girl had ever heard of Zambia before.

“Are you down here on holiday?” said the mother who apparently didn’t care for Zambia or any country beginning with the letter Z.

“Yah, sort of,” he said. “Actually I’m helping out my girlfriend. Her parents have got a cottage here. Somewhere near Newquay...”

Helene strained to hear the next bit: it sounded like ‘Tianamen Bay’, which was unlikely, but you never knew with the Cornish.

“How long are you staying?” said the mother.

“Er... six or seven weeks. I’ve been ill, so I’m down here for a break. Meningitis. It’s more dangerous than people know.”

There was a deep silence.

“Oh, I
do
know,” said the mother. “My son had it... Streptococcus, pneumococcus, everything, he...”

“Yah,” said the man. “I flat-lined six times. I was here but not here, you know?”

Helene was impressed. No matter what the topic of conversation he was able to turn it around to himself... She’d known others like him – men mostly, but not exclusively – and had been bored at many a dinner party until freed from restraint by wine or a change of topic.

The man chatted amiably about his remarkable recovery until the train drew into Bodmin Parkway.

“This is my stop,” he said. “It’s been great to meet you... you’re lovely!”

“Luvverly!” echoed the girls and giggled.

He tugged the suitcase from the overhead rack and hefted it easily. He joined the queue to exit the train and disappeared into the crowd.

Helene put on her distance glasses, hoping to see more, curious to catch a glimpse of the girlfriend he was on his way to meet. She spotted her instantly: dyed blonde hair, cherry red pea-coat. Older than she’d have guessed. From money. The woman stood out from the ranks of holidaymakers dressed in their Bank Holiday kagouls and dog-walking clothes.

Pushing her face against the glass, and shading her eyes from the sun, Helene watched them from a distance. She saw him scoop the woman into a long and passionate kiss. When the woman came up for air, her face was pink with pleasure and embarrassment. Then she leaned her head against his chest coquettishly as they walked out of the station together. It was like watching a scene from a film. Pure Hollywood. The happy ending we all want. Pure schmaltz.

That was it. He was an actor starring in the film of his own life. Fascinating. An A-grade lesson in self-actualisation.

The train pulled gently out of the station and Helene lost sight of them. Pity. She’d have liked to have seen the car the woman drove. She imagined something flashy but not too expensive: a BMW Z4 perhaps.

Attention to detail had made her a good journalist. She checked her laptop had a signal, and googled Zambia. She was right. It wasn’t on the Equator. Not quite. Had he done a little rounding up to add to the drama, or was it a mistake? A not very clever give-away? Perhaps he had just been spicing the moment for the benefit of the teenage girls. And their mother.

Unwanted, the idea squirmed into her brain, insinuating, tantalising – reckless. It was dangerous – having nothing to lose.

She called up Frank’s number before she had time to think or to talk herself out of it and listened for the single dial tone of his NY office.

“Helene?”

He sounded surprised. “Didn’t think I’d hear from you so soon.”

“Look, I’ve got something you might be interested in,” she said briskly. “It’s something I’ve been working on for a while. I wasn’t going to say anything until I’d got clarification on a few points, but... in the light of our last conversation... I’ve been working on this article about mercenaries and the double lives they lead with their friends and families. Drama, tears, love and death, borderline psychos in the public… Unstable security for celebrities. What do you think?”

“Tell me more,” he said.

She played for time.

“I can’t say too much; this line isn’t secure so I’ll have to keep it general, you understand. There’s a guy I’ve been talking to – ex-SAS. Into some heavy scenes in Somalia and Sierra Leone...”

“Goddam, Helene! Not blood diamonds again, I told you...”

“No, no, no! Listen Frank. This guy’s into something here in Britain, too, and there’s something going on with Langley. He hasn’t given it all up yet. He needs... persuasion. I’ve got to show him he can trust me... that takes time, it takes...”

“Aw come on! He’ll never go for that! You’re a reporter for crissakes, remember?”

“Yes, but Frank, this guy is growing a conscience. I’m telling you, he’s going to spill the beans and it’s going to be big. But you’ve got to give me time. And I’m going to need some goodwill from you; you know what I’m saying?”

“Huh. How much is this ‘goodwill’ gonna cost me? You ain’t given me nuthin’ yet. You could be blowin’ smoke out your ass for all I know.”

Charming.

She lowered her voice theatrically.

“I’m talking DC, Frank. High up. I
can’t
say more.”

Which was true.

Frank was silent. That was unusual. He must be thinking. He was one of those men who couldn’t think and do any other activity at the same time – except maybe scratch his...

“How much you want, Helene?”

“This is going to be big, Frank. I’m talking ‘Spycatcher’ big. I’m talking... White House.”

She heard him take a breath and imagined him sitting in his office – a small, hairy Jabba the Hut.

“How come you didn’t mention any of this before? You’d better not be yanking my chain, cos if you are...”

“Frank! Come on! How long have you known me? I won a Pulitzer for pete’s sake! Look, if you don’t want it, that’s fine: I’ll take it to Hawkins.”

“Oh don’t get your panties in a bunch: you know you can’t work for that jerk. Not since...”

She didn’t want to be reminded.

“Yes, whatever. But I’m serious, Frank. Make the right choice and you won’t regret it: this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“Aw shit, you’re making me nervous.”

That was both of them then.

“If it was anyone else but you, Helene, I’d tell them to go screw themselves.”

Such a delightful chap, charm school notwithstanding.

“Okay, I’ll take it to Mac,” he said at last, “but you gotta give me a bit more. Who is this guy? You gotta name names.”

“You think I’m going to feed you that?! What am I, some cub reporter still wet behind the ears?”

“Okay, okay. Pedal off the metal, Ms High-and-mighty. I’ll talk to Mac. I’ll see if I can get you five now and another five when you turn in the piece. I’ll need at least twenty thousand words. And photos. Good stuff.”

“Frank, please don’t insult me. I want sixty up front and another forty when you get the story. Sterling. Plus I want serial rights, syndication, expenses and the usual per diem. Non-negotiable.”

“Oh, come on! Nobody gets a deal like that – not even Syd Harris.”

“True, but that’s because he’s dead. Once in a lifetime, Frankie.”

“You’re busting my balls, Helene!”

“Yes, well, you’ll grow another pair eventually. S’long, Frank.”

“Wait, wait! Look, I gotta okay it with Mac. Just gimme an hour, okay?”

“You’ve got 30 minutes, Frank, or I’ll take it to Hawkins.”

“You’re a bitch, Helene.”

“You can sweet talk me all you like, Frank. Thirty minutes.”

She snapped the phone shut, her heart hammering a deranged Ginger Baker solo. One hundred thousand pounds plus serial and syndication. This was going to make a nice bit of padding for her frail pension pot.

Of course, she had bugger-all to go on, having just made the whole thing up.

Chapter 2

The cottage was cool and shady, even in the heat of summer. It was really two fisherman’s cottages knocked into one. The limewash rendering was smooth on one half and attractively textured on the other, where it had been combed over granite. Wisteria grew around the deep windows, unusual in this part of the world where the salt-laden south westerlies regularly decimated the softer varieties of plants that occasionally recklessly mistook themselves to grow in the mild climate.

Before she had turned her key in the door, her phone beeped. A text. From Frank. Just three words: ‘You got it’.

Helene stood staring at the text for a second longer than necessary, then closed the phone slowly.

When she pushed open the heavy front door, divided stable-wise into two sections, a depressingly small pile of post lay on the doormat.

The inevitable statements because all her utilities and credit cards were on standing order, a flyer for a new Chinese restaurant in Penzance and a handbill about an afternoon tea party at the local church hall, now long since passed. The oldest mail had been stacked neatly onto the kitchen table.

More mailers. Nothing personal. She missed letters, proper handwritten letters, full of news and the personality of the writer. Emails had obvious advantages, but still...

Helene stared around her tiredly. Familiar yet unfamiliar. It always took her a while to get used to being home again.

Home. A word that resonated with so many suppressed feelings. Home ought to be the answer to the question people of a certain age – her age – too often asked: Is this all it is?

In her teens, home had been somewhere she longed to leave: the neat ex-authority terrace with the tidy garden and suffocating cul-de-sac. In her twenties it was a pit-stop of unwashed clothes and half eaten meals, dozens of messages and dates scrawled on notes and stuffed in a diary; half-remembered names sketched on paper napkins, useful contacts, full of possibility. In her thirties, home had been a smart, salary-sapping future nest, with a husband and dinner parties, long days at work, air travel, foreign hotels, smart, clever people, political discussions in a dozen accents, half a dozen languages. But somehow the nest had never been feathered and the husband had disappeared along with the detritus of a faintly happy marriage. And so, in her late forties, she had landed at last in this remote corner, a place that was not England and not quite foreign either. Her neighbours were kind: welcoming but not effusive, thoughtful but not intrusive, and at last Helene felt she could breathe again. And yet when she looked in the mirror, the face looking back was barely her, barely recognisable. The beauty of youth had long since faded, the spirit squashed, the soul dented and bruised.

Helene kicked her bag into a corner, unzipped her city boots and tossed them into a basket of discarded footwear, swapping them for a pair of salt-encrusted trainers.

Stuffing her door key in her back pocket she headed back out.

The breeze was sharp and cool, whipping her hair into her eyes with sudden flurries as she left the protection of her miniature front garden. She stretched, her aching back appreciating the gesture. Then she walked briskly up the steep lane that led to the church; a slim, dark figure against the bright, summer flowers.

Many of these Cornish churches were built on rising ground, the churchyard’s oval, an echo of a much older, pre-Christian site of prayer. The spirit of thousands of years’ worship hung blanket-like, a cocoon of peace, of sanctuary. It was soothing.

Helene followed a familiar route through the graveyard, softly crushing the long grass full of daisies, buttercups and cow parsley. The steep hedges were engulfed with a tide of sea thrift growing through the piled granite. She imagined maidens of an earlier time weaving flowers in their hair as they danced through the...

“Oh, for crissakes!”

She snapped out loud. Even her daydreams had become tired stereotypes. What the hell had happened to her? How had the glittering It-girl of Fleet Street become this burnt-out, prosaic, provincial shell? It wasn’t even the usual story of booze and drugs. One of the reasons that Helene had been so successful was that she’d stayed clean, kept sharp, not been distracted by the crude rewards of eighties’ decadence. It was time that had caught her, that was all.

From a distance she was what you’d call ‘a fine looking woman’. Certainly men and women of a similar age admired her wiry body, thick, spiky hair, carefully dyed, and casually certain wardrobe. Even younger women recognised that she still had power, and instinctively steered their menfolk away from her. The men, regretfully steered, silently agreed that they’d still do her, given the chance. Which they wouldn’t be given: not by Helene and not by their watchful women.