Believing the Lie (9 page)

Following a story was not rocket science. Neither was chivvying it along. Following merely required three things: research, shoe leather, and doggedness. Chivvying required a willingness to see one’s fellow humans squirm and, if necessary, be squashed. If this latter requirement itself required a bit of slithering on the part of the reporter, what of it? The end product was the story and if the story
was big enough with an appropriate amount of sensation attached to it, big sales were the result. Big sales translated into increased advertising, which translated into increased revenue, which translated into orgasmic delight from
The Source
’s chairman, the cadaverous Peter Ogilvie. At all costs, Ogilvie needed to be kept well oiled with good news in the form of profits. As to whose head or reputation rolled in pursuit of these, it mattered not.

Granted, the story of Nicholas Fairclough’s putative redemption from the clutches of drugs had been a snore of monumental proportions. They could have used it in operating theatres in place of anaesthetic, such a soporific had it been. Now, however, things were looking up. Now, it seemed, Rodney might not have to defend the expenditure of Zed Benjamin’s initial trip to Cumbria to develop the story, no matter the incredible cost the reporter had incurred.

But that thought brought forward the whole issue of journalistic stupidity. Rodney could not see how idiot Benjamin could have failed yet a
second
time to nose his way into a story when the damn smell of it was right in front of him. Another five days tramping round Cumbria had resulted in nothing but an extension of the tedious panegyric he’d already created about Nicholas Fairclough, his doped-up past, his reformed present, and his doubtless sanctified future. Other than that, there was nada to interest the typical
Source
reader. There was zero, nought, and double nought with nuts.

Receiving the news from a head-hanging Benjamin that there was nothing more he could possibly add to what he’d written, Rodney knew he should kick the bloke out on his ear. He couldn’t explain to himself why he hadn’t done so, and he thought at first he might be getting soft. But then one of his snouts phoned in, passed along a delectable tip, and Rodney reckoned he might not have to sack Benjamin after all.

What the snout had to say constituted an instructive moment, and since Rodney Aronson loved instructive moments nearly as much as he loved anything containing cacao, he sent for the red-haired giant and enjoyed a Kit Kat that he washed down with an espresso from his personal machine, this latter a gift from Butterball
Betsy, a wife who knew many ways to please. That most of them were gustatory didn’t bother him.

Rodney had finished the Kit Kat and was making himself a second espresso when Zed Benjamin lumbered into the room. Damn if he still wasn’t wearing the beanie, Rodney thought with a sigh. He had little doubt that the dumbo had yarmulked his way round Cumbria a second time, successfully putting everyone off yet again. Rodney shook his head in resignation. The folly he had to endure as editor of
The Source
sometimes truly offset its delights. He decided not to mention the headgear again. He’d done so once, and if Benjamin wouldn’t take his advice, there was nothing for it but to let him sink under the weight of his own nonsensical inclinations. He’d learn or he wouldn’t, and Rodney knew which alternative was more likely. End of story.

“Shut the door,” he said to the reporter. “Take a seat. Give me a second here.” He admired the creamy nature of his concoction and turned off the machine. He carried his drink to the desk and sat. “Death is sex,” he said. “I reckoned you’d work that out for yourself, but it seems you can’t. Got to tell you, Zedekiah, this line of work might not be for you.”

Zed looked at him. He looked at the wall. He looked at the floor. He finally said, “Death is sex,” so slowly that Rodney wondered if the man’s brains had gone the way of his footwear because for some reason he was wearing not respectable shoes but instead very odd-looking sandals with tire treads for soles, along with striped socks that appeared to be handmade from remnants of yarn.

“I told you the story needed sex. You went up there a second time and tried to find it. That you failed to find it I can understand, more or less. But what I can’t understand is how you failed to see the moment of potential rescue when it came. You should’ve been in here like a flash yelling
eureka
or
cowabunga
or
praise Jesus, I’m saved
. Well, probably not that last, all things considered, but the point is you got handed a way into the story—and this would be a way to save it and to justify the expense the paper went to in sending you up there in the first place—and you missed it. Completely. The fact that I had to discover it myself concerns me, Zed. It really does.”

“She still wouldn’t talk to me, Rodney. I mean, she talked but she didn’t
talk
. She says she’s not what’s important. She’s his wife, they met, they fell in love, they married, they came back to England, and there’s an end to her part of the tale. From what I can tell, she’s entirely devoted to him. But everything he’s done, he’s done himself. She
did
tell me that it would benefit him—
encourage
was the word she used—if the story featured his recovery alone and not her part in it. She said something like, ‘You need to understand how important it is for Nicholas to be acknowledged as having achieved this on his own.’ She meant his recovery. I did get that the reason for her wanting the recognition to go to him has to do with his relationship with his dad, and I shaded the story that way, but there didn’t seem to be anything more—”

“I know you’re not completely stupid,” Rodney cut in, “but I’m beginning to think you’re deaf. ‘Death is sex,’ is what I said. You did hear that, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah. I did. And she’s sexy, the wife. You’d have to be blind not to—”

“Forget the wife. She’s not dead, is she?”

“Dead? Well, no. I mean, I reckoned you were using a metaphor, Rodney.”

Rodney gulped down the rest of his espresso. This gave him time not to strangle the young man, which was what he badly wanted to do. He finally said, “Believe me, when I use a fucking metaphor, you’re going to know it. Are you aware—remotely or otherwise—that the cousin of your hero is dead? Recently dead as a matter of fact? That he died in a boathouse where he fell into the water and drowned? That the boathouse I’m speaking of is on the property of your hero’s father?”

“Drowned while I was there? No way,” Zed declared. “You may think I’m blind, Rod—”

“You’ll get no argument from me.”

“—but I would have hardly missed that fact. When did he die and which cousin are we talking about?”

“Is there more than one?”

Zed shifted in his chair. “Well, not that I know of. Ian Cresswell drowned?”

“Yes indeedy doodah,” Rodney said.

“Murdered?”

“Accident according to the inquest. But that’s hardly the point because the death’s nicely suspicious and suspicion is our bread and butter. Metaphor, by the way, in case you’re thinking otherwise. Our purpose is to fan the fire—another metaphor, I think I’m on a roll here—and see what comes crawling out of the woodwork.”

“Mixed,” Zed muttered.

“What?”

“Never mind. Is that what you want me to do, then? I take it I’m to suggest there’s reason to believe foul play is involved, with Nicholas Fairclough the player. I can see how it fits: The former drug addict falls off the wagon of recovery and does in his cousin for some obscure reason and as of this writing, gentle readers, he apparently has walked away scot-free.” Zed slapped his hands against his thighs as if he was about to rise and do Rodney’s bidding directly. But instead of getting up to leave, he said, “They grew up as brothers, Rodney. The original story does indicate that. And they didn’t hate each other. But of course I could make it sound like Cain going after Abel if that suits you.”

“Do not,” Rodney said, “take that tone with me.”

“What tone?”

“You bloody well know what tone. I should kick your arse from here to down under, but I’m going to do you a favour instead. I’m going to say three little words that I hope to God will make your pointed ears prick up. Are you listening, Zed? I don’t want you to miss them. Here they come, now: New Scotland Yard.”

That, Rodney saw to his satisfaction, appeared to stop Zed Benjamin in his self-righteous tracks. The reporter frowned. He thought. He finally said, “What about New Scotland Yard?”

“They’re in.”

“Are you saying they’re investigating the drowning?”

“I’m saying something better than that. They’re sending a bloke up there wearing brothel-creepers, if you receive my meaning. And he’s not a bloke from the IPCC.”

“So it’s not an internal investigation? What is it, then?”

“A special assignment. Completely hush-hush, mum’s the word, and on the big QT. He’s apparently been given the job of making a list and checking it twice. And reporting back when he’s finished.”

“Why?”

“That’s the story, Zed. That’s the sex behind the death.” Rodney wanted to add that it was also what Zed himself would have learned had he put in the effort that Rodney himself would have put in had he been in the same position with his story shit-canned by his editor and, potentially, with his job on the line.

“So I’m not to make something up to add sex to the story,” Zed said, as if he needed clarification. “What you’re saying is that it’s already there.”

“At
The Source
,” Rodney intoned religiously, “we don’t need to make things up. We just need to find them in the first place.”

“And can I ask…How’d you know this? About the Met, I mean. How’d you find out if it’s all hush-hush?”

It was one of those moments when paternal superiority was called for, and Rodney loved those kinds of moments. He rose from behind his desk, went round to the front of it, and lifted a bulky thigh to rest it on the corner. It wasn’t the most comfortable position—considering the chafing of his skin against his trousers—but Rodney liked to think it communicated a degree of journalistic savoir faire that would underscore the importance of what he had to say next. “Zedekiah, I’ve been in this business since I was a kid. I’ve sat where you’re sitting and this is what I learned: We’re nothing without the snouts we cultivate, and I’ve cultivated them from Edinburgh to London and all points in between. Particularly in London, my friend. I’ve got snouts in places that other people don’t even recognise as being places. I scratch their backs with great regularity. They scratch mine whenever they can.”

Benjamin looked suitably impressed. Indeed, he looked humbled. He was in the presence of his journalistic better and it seemed that he finally knew it.

Rodney went on, enjoying his moment. “Nicholas Fairclough’s dad has a tie to the Met. He’s the one asking for an investigation. Can I reckon you know what that means, Zed?”

“He thinks it wasn’t an accident that Ian Cresswell drowned. And if it wasn’t an accident, we’ve got a story. Fact is, we’ve got a story either way because we’ve got the Met up there nosing round and that suggests something might have gone on and all we ever need for a story is a suggestion.”

“Amen to that,” Rodney said. “Get back to Cumbria, my good man. On the double.”

CHALK FARM
LONDON

Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers arrived home in an uneasy mood that she didn’t want to name. Having found a parking space not too far from Eton Villas, she should have been grateful, but she couldn’t summon up the appropriate feeling of joy attendant on not having to hike to her front door. As usual, the Mini coughed a few times after Barbara cut the ignition, but she barely took note. Through the windscreen a splattering of rain began to fall, but she hardly clocked that either. Instead, her thoughts remained where they’d been largely fixed—save for one brief distraction—during her long drive home from the Met. Those thoughts battled in her head with a voice that judged them childish, but that didn’t matter and it certainly wasn’t enough to quash them, although she would, at this point, have been grateful had that only been the case.

No one had noticed, Barbara thought. Not a single, sodding individual. Well, all right, Detective Superintendent Ardery had noticed, but she hardly counted as she’d given the initial order—although she’d claimed it was only a suggestion—and from Barbara’s nearly four months of experience with Isabelle Ardery, she knew the superintendent noticed everything. Ardery seemed to make noticing a habit. She seemed, in fact, to have raised it to a fine art. So whenever she took note of something, it mattered not, unless her taking note was connected intimately to one’s performance at work. If it was connected to anything else, one could say
that Isabelle Ardery was merely engaging in her irritating habit of sitting in judgement upon the superficial, with the number one superficial within the superintendent’s gaze being Barbara Havers’s personal appearance. As to the rest of the team, when Barbara had arrived back at the Yard from her final appointment with the dentist, they’d gone about their business without a word, a raised eyebrow, or anything else.

Barbara had told herself she didn’t care, and there was truth in this since she really didn’t care about the notice of most of her colleagues. But the notice of one of them she cared about deeply, and it was this caring that sat uneasily upon her, asking to be acknowledged or at least dealt with by the downing of something of a pastry orientation. French would be nice, but it was too late in the day to score a chocolate croissant, although not too late in the day to snag an entire torte, which of course would have been Austrian, but at this hour who was quibbling about such minor details as country of origin? Yet Barbara knew that that direction would lead her straight into the evils of an extended carb wallow from which she might not emerge for weeks, so instead of pausing at a bakery en route to her home, she’d decided to engage in retail therapy in Camden High Street. There she’d made the purchase of a scarf and a blouse, whereupon she’d celebrated the fact that she’d just behaved in a manner entirely different from her usual mode of reacting to disappointment, stress, frustration, or anxiety, but this celebration lasted only till she parked the Mini. At that point, her final encounter with Thomas Lynley forced its way into her consciousness.