You Had Me at Hello (27 page)

‘We're going to put her in court full time …'

This isn't happening. I'm not about to find out that I'm going back to the office as a general reporter, with council meetings and death knocks and late shifts. No. I refuse. I'll leave. Oh yeah …
and then who'll pay for that stupid fancy flat that's overstretching you as it is?

‘… As your deputy. Free you up to spend more time on backgrounders like the Natalie Shale piece. We liked that a lot too. Good straight piece. Didn't ladle it on.'

I stutter: ‘Oh, right, thanks …'

‘Starting next week?' Ken asks.

‘No problem.'

He hangs up without saying goodbye, Ken Baggaley being the only person outside movies to actually do this.

The bus doors open with a hydraulic hiss and I step out, taking deep lungfuls of carbon monoxide-laden Manchester city centre air and letting the panicky despair of moments ago start to dissipate.

A deputy. I'd have the time to get my teeth into the bigger stories, possibly rediscover a passion for the job. I knew the Natalie Shale exclusive was a feather in my cap. I didn't anticipate getting an effective promotion out of it. I smile to myself as I start walking towards work.

Caroline implied getting friendly with Ben again could bring bad things to my door. So far, it's brought only good.

I'd like to go somewhere upmarket to celebrate our joint promotion, but my rent's really biting. Even with a pay hike, I doubt Zoe's high rolling, so we end up in The Castle, cursing our predictability. Zoe goes to get the drinks while I inspect a pun-laden leaflet about Thursday's Curry Club: ‘
Tikka The Night Off Cooking!
' She returns with two fishbowl-sized glasses of white wine and I propose a toast to collaborating in court.

‘To teamwork,' I say, raising my glass for Zoe to clink. ‘And to Pete Gretton, who gave us something in common from day one – an enemy.'

We slurp.

‘You know all this is thanks to you, Rachel.'

‘Don't be silly, it's thanks to you being shit hot at a tender age.'

‘Seriously, though. I remember that first day when I didn't know what I was doing. I appreciate you having the patience.'

We sink into gossipy shop talk and when we're on the second round, I decide I can afford to unburden myself a little bit.

‘Zoe, can you keep a secret?'

‘Ooh, I love secrets. Course.'

‘When I was interviewing Natalie, I read a text on her phone. I thought it might be about me. I went on a date with her solicitor. Not that it's an excuse.'

‘And?' Zoe's slate-grey eyes widen.

‘And it was from a … lover. I think.'

‘
Shiiiiit
. Her husband's in prison and she's getting up to stuff. Winnie Mandela badness.'

‘I wondered if it was the bloke I was seeing. It wasn't his number.'

‘You took down the number?'

I squirm. ‘Yeah. Only to check it against Simon's.'

‘Didn't you call it?'

‘Not like I'm going to learn much from a random voice.'

‘Got the number?'

‘Why, what're you going to do?'

‘Basically, call him without saying who I am.'

‘And ask what – “Are you the man who's having it off with Natalie?”'

‘Nope.'

‘A call where you don't tell him anything or ask him anything? Sounds like an exercise in futility.'

‘We'll see.'

‘You promise me this is no risk?'

‘No risk at all. Trust me.'

I fumble my notebook out of my bag, flip it open. A fairly loud internal voice tells me I'd be thinking better of this if I hadn't had the best part of a bottle of wine on an empty stomach. There's the number, scribbled on the inside of the cardboard cover, next to the words ‘GOOD PLUMBER', in case Gretton started copying anonymous numbers over my shoulder on the off-chance they were Natalie's.

‘Read it out,' Zoe says, biro poised above the back of her hand. I dictate the numbers and she scrawls them down, dragging her skin with smudgy blue ink.

‘Right, follow me.' Zoe slides off her stool, scanning the pub for a payphone. I drape my coat over my seat, shoulder my bag and follow her. She feeds in coins and dials the number while I act as lookout, though I'm not sure for what.

Zoe makes a ‘mad excitement' face while it rings through, as if she's desperate for the loo. The manageress casts a suspicious glance in our direction. I haven't felt like this since I was fifteen and playing truant in HMV.

‘Hello, is that Liz?' Zoe asks the receiver. ‘Oh, I'm sorry. Wrong number.'

She hangs up. ‘It's a man.'

‘I don't think this qualifies us for the Woodward and Bernstein investigative medal.'

‘Patience,' she chides, and I wonder when Zoe became my mentor.

She dials the number again.

‘What are you doing?' I mouth, and she puts her finger to her lips.

This time she doesn't speak, and hangs up. ‘Bingo.'

‘What?'

‘Not many people answer a wrong number a second time. I got his answerphone.'

‘And?'

‘And, Natalie Shale is bonking someone called Jonathan Grant, who can't get to his phone right now, the lying sod. All we have to do is find out who this Jonathan is,' Zoe chatters. ‘Electoral roll might help. I tell you what, he sounded posh, not like some gangland hardnut … you OK?'

‘Zoe, I think I know who he is,' I say.

‘
Fuck
. Who?'

‘He's Lucas Shale's last solicitor.'

We stare at each other, Zoe agape.

‘Fuckin' aye!' shouts a lad nearby, as a fruit machine spits out pound coins like gunfire.

‘I need to think clearly,' I say, reinforcing this statement by lifting a third full wine glass to my lips, and Zoe nods gravely.

‘On the one hand, this is clearly a story,' I announce, needlessly.

Zoe holds her inked skin up. ‘On this hand. It's a cracking story.' Her eyes sparkle, suddenly much brighter and clearer. ‘You are a flipping legend.'

Despite the sensation of having peered under a rock and found a creepy-crawly, I feel my head swell slightly. At least I'm showing Zoe a good time.

‘Not down to any journalistic nous. But thanks.'

‘On the other hand …?'

‘On the other hand, Natalie Shale will be hounded. Lucas's appeal could be jeopardised by all the publicity. Imagine being locked up for something you didn't do, and finding out something like this? Jonathan Grant will most likely lose his job. I don't know exactly how it works in law. I think once you've done something this unprofessional, you get struck off.'

‘True. She decided to start shagging her husband's brief, and vice versa. That's not your responsibility.'

‘I know, but I wouldn't have found out about it if I hadn't snooped while I was a guest in her house.'

‘Where was she when you were looking at her phone?'

‘Outside talking to a neighbour.'

‘But you've got to remember, this is massive,' Zoe says. ‘This is the story they'd talk about in your leaving speech. You could always call Natalie and see if she'll talk to you about it.'

‘Somehow I don't think that's even slightly likely, and I can't test the water without creating a big fuss. I'm friends with her husband's current solicitor.' More than friends, perhaps. ‘It'd end up with them freaking out and demanding I spike my interview, I guarantee it.'

Zoe gnaws her lip.

‘If I hadn't called that number, you wouldn't have to worry about this.'

‘S'alright,' I say, tipsily. ‘I'm gonna go to the loo, and by the time I come back, I'll know the answer.'

As I yank paper towels out of the dispenser with excessive force, a drunken thought worms its way into my mind, a worm in the rotten apple I have for a head. Leave Natalie to her affair, leave them all alone, because who am I to say how she's found happiness, anyway? Lucas could've been a tyrant of a husband, for all I know. Jonathan may have swept her off her size three feet. It could all be over by the time Lucas is released. It might've been a ‘moment of madness' she regrets, as politicians have it. What truly matters to me isn't the morality of what they're doing, or a front page splash. It's a man in south Manchester. I want to do whatever would make him proud, even if he'll never know a thing about it. Is there a way to break this story and not anger Simon or alienate Ben? Would I take it if there was, turn Natalie over and head off into the sunset? I ball the paper towels, aim a throw for the bin, and miss.

I rejoin an expectant Zoe at the table.

‘Well?' she says.

‘Well, there was no thunderbolt. Which is frustrating as I usually have all my epiphanies in the bogs at The Castle.'

Zoe laughs. I feel pissed.

It's time to stop pretending when I know what I'm going to do. ‘No, I'm going to leave it be, Zoe,' I say. ‘Not the boldest decision I ever made, but I'll be able to sleep at night.'

‘Really?' Zoe says.

‘Really. Nothing good can come of what I did. It was wrong. Every instinct I have is telling me to steer clear.'

‘I think you've probably made the right decision.'

‘Do you know what, I'm absolutely sure it's the right one. I can feel it.'

‘God, can you imagine what Gretton would do if he had this in his sticky mitts?' Zoe giggles. ‘He'd die and go to heaven.'

‘Gretton's not going to heaven, he's off to the hot place,' I say. ‘Speaking of hot, fancy soaking all of this up with a curry?'

I marked my twenty-first with an Indian meal at a restaurant in Rusholme. It was our favourite on the curry mile: the waiters recognised us, made a fuss of us and brought us free kulfi along with mints and the platter of plastic-sheathed tubes of hot, artificial lemon-scented flannels.

When I booked I explained the occasion, and on arrival we saw they'd kindly draped the table with streamers that ended up getting dragged through the mango chutney. It wasn't much of a celebration, as twenty-firsts go, but we were on the verge of our finals and everyone was a little weary, tense and spent up.

As Ben didn't know my friends all that well he brought his latest girlfriend, Pippa, who I'd been told had nursed a thing for him for a long time before they got together. I wondered if he was in love too. I'd heard a male friend of Ben's admiringly describe her as ‘the whole package'. He pinned down exactly what made me uncomfortable about petite Pippa. Ben had been with many honeys but never such a
nice
one. River of Caramac-coloured hair, proportions like a porn Thumbelina and worst of all, the inner to go with the outer.

‘You look beautiful,' she said to me earnestly, in her soft Dublin lilt, which made it sound even more earnest.

‘Thank you!'

I didn't. I'd spent an hour creating a Shirley Temple do with curling tongs. I imagined loose, glossy ringlets, the type which bounce like telephone wire in the adverts. Instead I looked slightly manic, like the mugshot of a disgraced American prom queen who'd got caught consorting with the king in the parking lot.

As Rhys took charge of dispensing the Cobras, Caroline wanted to know what he'd bought me for my birthday.

‘Typical girl things. Perfume, underwear. The grundies are for me, though.'

‘You're a cross-dresser?' Caroline asked, heaping a sliver of poppadom with pink onion.

‘I'll appreciate her in it. You should see the stuff she usually wears … like a St Trinian.'

‘Shut up,' I barked, covering my mouth to avoid spraying the table with shards of deep-fried appetiser.

‘Some men like that,' Caroline said.

‘Not sturdy stuff, like you're doing PE.'

‘Rhys!'

‘Ooh, I think you'll find they do,' Caroline said, drizzling with a zig-zag of mint sauce from a teaspoon.

‘One of my boyfriends made me do role play where I had to call him the Maharaja,' Mindy offered, and we all politely ignored her.

‘She's even got pants with pictures of cartoon characters on them,' Rhys continued. ‘What's that woolly thing from Sesame Street with a hat called?'

Face on fire, without the help of a vindaloo, I kicked Rhys hard under the table.

‘Ow, fuck! That hurt!'

I glanced at Ben to check if he'd heard any of this. He pretended to be engrossed in the menu for my sake, which made me even more embarrassed.

‘Oscar the Grouch,' Caroline offered.

‘Grouchy? She's chipped bone,' Rhys said.

‘No – the cartoon creature.'