No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) (46 page)

The place was quiet and Colin was going round the room, collecting glasses.

‘Now Tom,’ he said, ‘have you heard about that bloody Tory?’

‘Which
one?’

‘That Grady fellah you wrote about.’

‘Oh, him,’ answered Tom without enthusiasm, ‘what’s he done now.’

‘It’s been all over the news. I thought you were supposed to be the journalist.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve been a bit busy today.’

‘Where’ve you been like?’

‘Andrew’s house,’ he replied mechanically, not wanting to go into it all just then.

‘Oh right,’ said Colin. ‘Expect he’ll be in later,’ he added absentmindedly.

‘Doubt it,’ said Tom and he took a long, deep drink.

‘Looks like you needed that,’ said Colin

‘I did,’ agreed Tom then he remembered what Colin had said. ‘So the right honourable Timothy Grady. What’s he been up to then?’

‘So you really haven’t heard what’s happened?’

‘I said, didn’t I?’ snapped Tom.

‘Right,’ Colin nodded, ‘well I’m about to make your day then.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s been arrested.’

‘Arrested?’

‘Aye.’

Tom regarded the landlord doubtfully. Colin was a good man but not the world’s most reliable narrator and he really didn’t want to get his hopes up, only to have them dashed later when he discovered Colin had been wildly misinformed.

‘Are you sure we are talking about the same guy?’

‘Yeah,’

‘Timothy
Grady?’

The landlord nodded.

‘The former government minister; the man trying to sue me and my newspaper?’

Colin nodded again.

‘Has been arrested?’ Tom didn’t understand how he could have been.

‘That’s what they’re saying, like.’

‘Arrested for what?’

Colin did make his day then. ‘Kerb crawling.’

CHAPTER SIXTY

Colin turned on the TV in the bar and they waited for the early-evening news. There was no doubting the lead story. Former Defence Secretary Timothy Grady had been arrested by police in the early hours of that morning, on a side street close to King’s Cross station, in a notorious red light district. The story hadn’t leaked till mid-morning but it had quickly gained legs and now everyone was running with it.

The TV report wasn’t holding back, which meant Grady had to have been caught bang-to-rights. There was even a mention of a second person arrested at the same time in connection with the incident; a seventeen-year-old girl who, for legal reasons regarding her age, could not be named.

There was footage of a very rattled-looking Grady leaving Paddington Green police station that afternoon with photographers all around him.

‘What was he thinking?’ asked Colin. ‘I mean, how daft can you be?’

‘He wasn’t thinking,’ explained Tom. ‘Men like that think laws don’t apply to them.’

‘But he could have gone to a hotel. Why drive down to King’s Cross and pick up a teenage hooker?’

‘Because of the risk,’ said Tom, who immediately understood. ‘Cheating on your missus and putting two
fingers up to the Prime Minister, while shagging escort girls in discreet hotel rooms isn’t exciting enough for men like Timothy Grady. No, he needs a hurried blowjob in his car down a side street filled with used condoms and syringes. The excitement of getting caught is probably the only way he can get off.’

‘Well he was caught all right, stupid bastard.’

‘Yes he was,’ smiled Tom, ‘and you know what that means?’

‘What?’ asked the landlord.

‘I am back.’

Tom phoned the office of Alex ‘the Doc’ Docherty and Jennifer answered. He asked to speak to the Doc and, for once, was put straight through, which didn’t entirely surprise him.

‘Tom!’ exclaimed Docherty cheerfully. ‘What a bloody result! Eh? My giddy aunt! Who could have predicted that?’ The Doc could not have been in a better mood. ‘The man’s about to destroy us all then he ruins everything because he can’t keep it in his trousers for another few weeks. I don’t know what this country’s coming to, I really don’t,’ he said gleefully.

‘I always said he was dodgy.’

‘You did, son, and so did I. But that’s not what counts, remember?’

‘It’s proving it that counts, right?’

‘You’re learning,’ the Doc told him, ‘which is one of the reasons why I am delighted to welcome you back. Thanks to our contacts, I’ve already got the inside story.
Grady was caught by two police officers with a seventeen-year-old prozzy. He had his flies undone and she had his cock out,’ the Doc laughed. ‘Even he couldn’t talk his way out of that one. I hope he enjoyed it, because this is likely to be the most expensive hand job in human history.’

‘It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,’

‘The claim for libel has already been dropped, leaving Grady with a colossal legal bill, a furious missus and a very disgruntled Prime Minister, who’s getting it in the neck for publicly backing the man. The police are going to charge him with perverting the course of justice and the Crown Prosecution Service are looking into some serious, long-standing fraud allegations against him and his bitch of a missus, now that all of their powerful friends are running for cover. Grady has managed to lose his marriage, his career and a large chunk of his personal fortune in a single day. That’s some achievement.’

‘Single mums all over the country will be dancing in the aisles at Asda,’ said Tom. ‘So, am I off the hook?’

‘You? Of course! It’s over, my son. In fact I want you back down here ASAP. I’m going to do a big follow-up piece on exactly how our crack investigative team brought down the sleazy government minister with his hypocritical family values.’

‘There is still the small matter of my contract?’

‘Consider it renewed. There, I said it. Now, how’s that for a weight off your shoulders? Feel better? I only wish I could have told you sooner, Tom, but you know what it’s been like here. Where are you anyway?’

‘I’m
still in the north east. I’ve been following up the disappearance of Michelle Summers.’

‘The Kiddy-Catcher case?’

‘Yes, well, no. That’s what everyone thought but it turned out she wasn’t Girl Number Five after all. She’d just run off with her old school teacher.’

‘No?’

‘Yep,’ and Tom explained it all to the Doc.

‘That’s amazing! What a bloody story. I hope Jake’s all over it.’

Tom knew The Paper’s Northern correspondent was not all over it. ‘Want to hear something that’s even more amazing?’

‘What?’

‘I found out about it before the police and got their side of the story,’ Tom informed the editor, ‘the girl and the teacher.’

‘You’re kidding me?’

‘Nope and I’m the only one who’s got it. They arrested the teacher afterwards. They’ll be questioning him for the next couple of days while they piece it all together but they haven’t formulated the charges yet, so this could all be published in tomorrow’s paper without prejudicing a court case. “Our story”, by the teacher and the teenage runaway who hid while her mother thought she’d been murdered.’

‘Oh my God! I don’t believe it, son. That’s incredible. You are one in a million! Get yourself down here pronto, next train, you hear, no, forget that. I’ll arrange for a car to pick you up. We’ll get you to Newcastle airport and fly you down. Write your notes up on the plane and Jennifer can type them up for you when you get here.’

‘You
think it’s a good story then?’

‘A good story? This is bloody dynamite!’

‘So it’s worth a few bob?’

There was a silence on the line for a moment. ‘Oh, I get it. It’s like that is it? Listen son, I know you’re a bit narked at me right now but … I’ll see if I can’t bump your salary up when you get back here,’ Tom stayed silent, ‘and we’ll get you two or three grand extra in readies as well. You know, a nice brown envelope to welcome you back. How does that sound?’

‘Two or three grand for this story? You know the other red tops would all pay ten times that and don’t try and tell me you haven’t got the authority to match them, because I know you have.’

‘Match them? Are you kidding me? You work for me, son or have you forgotten that, so don’t come over all lippy just ’cos you fell on a story while you were on gardening leave, ’cos it won’t wash.’

Tom stayed silent again until the Doc calmed down. ‘Okay, he added finally, ‘I’ll up your pay by ten grand a year and I’ll slip you ten grand in readies from the kiss-and-tell fund.’ Tom could tell the Doc was excited, champing at the bit for this story. The doc chuckled, ‘We won’t tell the tax man if you don’t. How does that sound?’

‘Not good enough, I’m afraid, Doc.’

‘What?’

‘I think I’ll be taking my story elsewhere, if it’s all the same to you.
The Mirror
has already offered me forty grand.’

‘Elsewhere? Have you gone stark raving bonkers? You work for me, you ungrateful little shit, which means that
everything you write belongs to me! It’s called intellectual property and we’ll bloody sue you if you try to give it to anybody else. Now get your arse back down here! You can kiss that ten grand goodbye for starters, which will teach you never to piss me off again! Have you finally got it, you stupid bastard?’

‘I have, Doc,’ answered Tom. ‘I fully understand about the intellectual property argument. I got it in one, in fact. There’s just one little problem.’

‘What’s that?’ snarled the doc.

‘My contract with you expired two days ago,’ Tom said and there was another lengthy silence on the line while Tom allowed the Doc to digest that piece of information, ‘which means I’m officially freelance, so I can sell my stories to anyone I want and right now I want to sell this one to the
Daily Mirror
. I believe you once sacked their current editor? They’re actually gonna pay me extra because they know how pissed off it’ll make you to see my story plastered all over his front page. Enjoy reading that over your cornflakes.’

The Doc went mad then. Tom had never heard anybody lose it to quite such a degree. Nobody had, in fact. The entire newsroom stopped what it was doing and collectively turned to listen as Alex ‘The Doc’ Docherty unleashed an absolutely unparalleled deluge of four-letter filth down the phone at Tom Carney. The tirade went on for a good two minutes.

Tom listened calmly until the Doc was finally spent. When the editor had at last run out of breath and invective Tom could finally get a word in edgeways. ‘You
finished, Doc? Calmed down have you? Good,’ said Tom. ‘Now do me a favour and go fuck yourself.’

Tom had the last word, but only because he managed to hang up before another foul-mouthed blast began.

Tom Carney became a legend in the newsroom that day, chiefly for being the cause of the Doc’s most violent meltdown, even though he didn’t get to hear the culmination of it. As soon as the Doc realised he had been entirely shafted by his former junior reporter and that Tom was no longer on the line, Alex Docherty ripped his phone out of the wall by its socket and hurled it as far away from him as possible.

Jennifer was still sitting outside the great man’s office, trying to make herself look very small indeed until her boss’s fury finally died down. She had seen the Doc lose it before, but never quite like this. Even she jumped at the almighty crash as the Doc’s phone came flying through his office window, shattering it in the process, showering glass all over the carpet and her desk while her boss let out a cry like a wounded bull, which had everybody wondering how they could vacate the building discreetly. Jennifer went and hid in the ladies.

Tom dialled Paul Hill at the
Mirror
. ‘You can have everything,’ Tom told him. ‘I’ve enough on the teacher and his runaway pupil for a front-page splash and a double-page spread inside.’

‘Nice one,’ said Hill, ‘our editor is well happy with you right now.’

‘Thought he might be and I’ve got another story he’s
going to like. My inside angle on the Timothy Grady takedown. How we got the story, how we trapped the Lion and I’ve a nice angle on how he used British libel laws to stifle freedom of speech. As a bonus, I’ll even add a few hundred words on why Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper bowed to pressure from his lawyers and threw me to the wolves.’

‘Ooh,’ said the voice on the end of the line, ‘I like that last bit.’

‘I thought you might,’ said Tom. ‘There’s just one small thing.’

‘Name it,’ said Hill.

‘I want to write the headline.’

The next morning Tom rose early and drove to the Rosewood café. On the way there he bought the newspapers and placed them on the table so he could read them while he ate his breakfast. Tom ordered a fry-up with coffee then turned his attention to that day’s front pages, all of which were running with follow-up stories on the wreckage of Timothy Grady’s career and marriage. The front page of the
Mirror
was particularly striking, with a banner headline promising the inside story of a Romeo teacher and his gymslip runaway pupil, while underneath there was a lead story about the Defence Secretary that this time proudly carried Tom’s by-line. This was followed by a detailed analysis of Timothy Grady’s career implosion, including his wife’s conniving, malevolent influence and the strong whiff of corruption that surrounded them both.