My heart goes thump.
Then I have a stern word with myself, open it.
‘Hi! Did you have an OK time on Saturday? Sorry for Simon being … Simon. Ben.’
I reread this several times, then type:
‘Hello! It was very enjoyable, thanks for inviting me. How did you get my email address?’
A reply arrives inside a minute with ‘I hope you’re not an investigative reporter’ in the subject line. The message reads ‘… it’s under all your stories in the paper.’
I laugh out loud, and reply: ‘DOH. Simon’s amusing …!’
Ben responds: ‘We weren’t trying to set you up, I apologise if it looked that way. A few other people dropped out and we only realised it might be misinterpreted when it was too late.’
From the conversation I overheard, I feel sure that if this is true it applies only to Ben, not Olivia. It doesn’t sound like Simon’s told Ben that we’re going on a date. Not sure I quite believe it either.
‘It was fine,’ I type. ‘And in return I want to invite you and Olivia to my flat warming.’
Uh? I’m having a flat warming? Nice of my subconscious to tell me.
Ben replies ‘Love to! Just tell me when/where. Anyway, back to the grindstone. B.’
I type a cheery goodbye and reread the conversation. I’m interrupted by Gretton, the smell of cigarettes clinging to his clothes.
He hums to himself as he flicks through a stack of tabloids to see if his stories have been used. As he’s not a staffer, most papers put another employee’s name on it, or simply the paper’s title and ‘reporter’. He still gets paid if it’s used, which is all he cares about.
‘You’re chirpy,’ I say, suspicious.
‘Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep,’ Gretton says, tapping his nose. ‘Chickens coming home to roost.’
‘What grade have you been smoking, Pete?’
He produces the Sport from his pile of papers, shakes it out theatrically and disappears behind it.
An email arrives from Simon with the details of my interview with Natalie Shale. It has a ‘PS – let’s go out for that drink when this is done. Business before pleasure and all that.’
This makes me smile. Simon’s canny enough not to wine and dine me before I’ve closed the deal for him. Closed the deal … he won’t try to come home with me on a first date, will he? Doesn’t seem likely, yet I’ve been out of the dating arena for so long, all the rules could’ve changed. I’m not sure I should be going on a date with someone I can’t quite ever see myself wanting to take home, but Caroline says this is what I ought to be doing, and Caroline’s sensible.
Zoe walks in, plonking her clingfilm-wrapped butties and paperback down.
‘Zoe,’ I say, ‘will you be OK to take over this lipo case on Friday? I’ve pretty much done the backgrounder. If there’s a verdict, I’ll email it to you.’
‘No problem,’ she says. ‘I’ll mention it to news desk but I’m sure it’ll be fine. Is this to free you up for your interview?’
‘Yep.’
‘Nice one. Anyone want anything from the café?’
I shake my head and Gretton watches Zoe leave. ‘Do you have no pride, Woodford?’
‘Uh?’
‘She’s a story stealer if ever I saw one. Don’t expect a joint byline on all that work.’
‘Have you ever trusted someone and been repaid for it, Pete?’
He opens and smacks wet lips together, ruminatively. ‘I’d have to say no.’
‘That should tell you something.’
‘Given that I’m ten years older than you, that should tell you something.’
‘Ten? Fifteen if it’s a day!’
33
Natalie Shale’s house is a bay-fronted pre-war redbrick semi, the sort that Manchester suburbs specialise in. I press the doorbell and hear a tinny tune bouncing off the walls inside. I stamp my feet and wonder if neighbours are watching from behind their nets. Natalie opens the door and I’m struck again by how exquisite she is, even in her daytime-mum attire of vest top and jogging bottoms.
‘Rachel?’ she asks, warily, as if there has been a procession of fraudulent Rachel Woodfords at her door this morning. I get a vision of Gretton in a dark wig, hairy legs sticking out under a too tight pencil skirt. Urgh …
‘That’s me, Simon arranged this …? Thank you so much for offering us the interview.’
‘Yes, course, come on in.’
I follow her to the lounge, lower myself on to the sofa and get my notepad out, noticing Natalie already has a Dictaphone on the coffee table.
She notices me eyeing it and asks: ‘You don’t want to record it too?’
‘No, I prefer shorthand. I don’t trust tape recorders.’
‘Oh.’ She glances at the device in confusion, as if it might bite her. ‘Simon said I should record it, sorry.’
Why doesn’t that surprise me?
‘Sure,’ I say, and Natalie looks grateful there’s not going to be a confrontation.
‘The photographer’s coming at two,’ I remind her. ‘Is that OK?’
‘Yeah,’ she smiles. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll have changed by then. Tea?’
‘Thanks. White, no sugar.’
While the kettle boils windily, I look around Natalie’s living room and make some mental notes for ‘colour’ in the article. I could make actual notes, but it feels impolite to be jotting things down about her house while she’s dunking the Tetley’s. There are photographs of her daughters on almost every available surface. I might be tempted to show off if I’d pushed out children as attractive as her twins. The most recent pictures show them in hers‘n’hers OshKosh dungarees, their hair pulled into cloud-like afro bunches. In most of the photos they’re giggling, open-mouthed, revealing little goofy milk teeth pegs. A huge football pitch-sized frame over the mantelpiece shows Natalie with the girls, in a formation as if they’re sitting in an invisible canoe, hands on each other’s shoulders.
It’s the sort of barefoot everyone-in-Levi’s studio portrait that strives so hard to portray a happy family that it somehow only reminds me of dysfunctional American ones where the strange bumfluff-chinned twitchy son eventually herds everyone into the garage and picks them off with a shotgun.
The television is on at a low murmur, showing some kind of heavily studio-lit, imported US soap. The atmosphere is one of contentment and calm. You’d never guess the trauma the people living here have been through.
‘Hope it’s not too weak,’ Natalie says, returning with a cup. ‘Lucas always says I like mine like Horlicks – baby tea, he calls it.’
As she passes it to me I see it has ‘World’s Best Dad’ on it. I wonder if she noticed this, or if she was merely concentrating on making the tea.
‘It’s fine,’ I say, sipping it. I’ve had many dodgy cups of tea while out on jobs – cracked mug, the smell of stale milk, poorly washed-up vessel handed over