I had a quick look round my flat. There were dishes to be washed on the drainer and too many magazines to pick up if she came to me.
‘Do you know The Pearlie Queen?’ It was a cockney theme pub, almost like satire, with a piano in the corner and a dark wooden snug. More importantly, it would be just behind the media lines. ‘I can meet you there. How soon?’
‘Ten minutes. I’m due for a break.’
I felt myself grin. ‘Okay, ten minutes. I look forward to seeing you.’
And then I hung up.
I was surprised she had agreed to meet me so quickly, but I found myself unable to say no. I felt that creeping flutter in my stomach whenever I thought of her.
I checked my hair. I needed to get there first.
I had been at the bar for nearly an hour before Laura walked in, tucked into an alcove, trying to write the story I hoped would squeeze in somewhere between the shock and the tributes.
I had been struggling, though. I hadn’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours, not recovered from the night shift, so the words just floated around in front of me, not getting onto the screen. I had to close my eyes for a few minutes and let the bar fade away. The breeze blowing in through the open door kept the scene drifting in, until all I could sense were the images and sounds from nearby Soho. Then I had remembered the young family, shaking with shock. I remembered something the mother had said. It was a good starting quote. I began to type.
‘“A daytrip to town isn’t supposed to happen like that.”
‘That was the voice of a frightened mother, her two young children resting against her leg.’
It was high-school prose, but it was a start. As I tapped away, the words began to tumble out, and by the time Laura arrived I had written a first draft.
I was the only person who looked up when Laura came in. I saw her look around. The smoking ban had taken away some of the atmosphere, but the flock wallpaper and etched windows kept it dark inside. It drew in the tourists, sold the spirit of the blitz back to German students, who didn’t realise that it used to be a disco bar before a renovation turned the clock back. Retro-style televisions were tuned to the news channel, the subtitles bringing the updates over the noise of the bar, the talk all about the shooting.
She looked fabulous, she always did. I felt myself take a breath. She was tall and slim, with deep green eyes that sparkled when she blinked and a smile that spread slowly, so that her face lit up like a slow yawn until dimples flickered in both cheeks. Her hair fell down over her face, a sunset brunette, that reddish darkness the Irish have.
As she came in, she said, ‘I don’t get to hear much country music in London.’
I looked over at the jukebox. It was Johnny Cash playing, Orange Blossom Special, that railroad rhythm.
‘It’s my dirty secret,’ I said. I looked around the bar. ‘Sorry about this place, but they’ve got music I understand. Is beer okay on duty?’
‘One won’t matter, in the circumstances,’ she said.
Once she had a drink, I nodded towards the speakers. ‘He always takes me home.’
‘Johnny Cash?’
‘My father spent nearly every spare minute he had listening to Johnny. I’m not sure I got it then, as a child, but now I just seem to have him playing all the time.’
‘Where is home? You’ve never said.’
‘Turners Fold, in Lancashire.’
‘That explains the accent,’ she said. ‘Don’t know it.’
‘Not many people do.’
‘Ever think about going back?’
‘Why do you think I live in Soho?’ I said. ‘It’s just about as far from home as I can get.’
‘That bad?’
I tugged at my lip.
I’d started as a journalist back home, but it had been all small-town news, lost-dog stories and job gloom. I’d come to London to get away from all that, taking a job as a staff writer with the London Star.
It had been fun at first, chasing around the city, my days filled with new sights and sounds, but it was hard work. The paper owned me. That was the deal, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If the paper wanted me to do something, I did it. And the paper wanted a lot, so I felt like I was always running, always trying to increase my by-lines, doing what I could to keep my stories elbowing themselves into the paper.
I lasted two years, but six months ago I’d given it up and turned freelance. The money was less certain, but it was my money, earned by my work, my sweat.
I shook my head. ‘No, it’s okay up there. But I like the city too much.’
‘A lonely place sometimes.’
‘Very lonely,’ I agreed. ‘You know, it seemed like when I stood still in Lancashire, people stopped to talk, asked me how I was. In London, they just push me out of the way.’
‘And steal your wallet at the same time.’
I laughed. ‘And what about you?’
‘Grew up in Pinner. So this is all I’ve known.’
‘You ever been up north?’
‘A week in the Lakes once, and a hen night in Blackpool.’
‘The best and the worst in two visits. You’ve done well.’
She laughed, her eyes twinkling. ‘How about you? You seem to have settled okay.’
‘No one settles in London. It moves too fast.’
‘So you started bugging off-duty police officers?’
I smiled at that, just about stopped a blush.
That’s how I had met Laura, trying to build up police sources, drinking in the pubs where the police hung out. I’d spotted Laura on the edge of a group of detectives. When it was her turn to buy the drinks, I got talking.
I’d tried the flirt at first, we were around the same age, but I got nowhere. She had a husband and a child, and she wasn’t going to risk any of that. So I gave it to her straight. If she wanted her cases to make the news, if she wanted to have some control over how they were told, she ought to use me.
And she did. I snapped her arrests, got the inside track on her cases. She told me that she used me to get her cases in the headlines. I told her that I was doing the same thing.
Laura looked around and I watched her eyes dance. I felt that spark of interest again. I watched her fingers wipe at the condensation on her glass, a gentle stroke. But then I felt a jolt when I looked down at her hand. Her wedding ring had gone.
When she looked back towards me, she pointed towards my laptop. ‘How’s the story?’
‘Slow. I might not file it,’ I said, but I was distracted, wondering what had happened to her marriage.
‘Can I read it?’
I shrugged. ‘Why not?’
Laura looked at the screen for a while and then turned back to me. ‘You write well. Why do you just work the crime stories?’
‘It’s a good life. No one owns me.’
‘Don’t you fancy the salary, nice and regular?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve been there.’ I lifted my