THIRTY-SIX

Kate

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2012

She was scrabbling in her bag—the bottomless pit, as it was known by Steve and every photographer she’d worked with—for a pen that worked when the phone rang a second time.

Bob Sparkes’s name flashed up and she threw her bag to the floor.

“Bob,” she said too loudly.

“Sorry, caught you at a bad time? Shall I call back?”

“No, no,” Kate said. “Sorry, all a bit frantic here. How are you?”

“Okay. I’ve just had a heads-up from DI Sinclair. It’s a match.”

For a split second, she wasn’t sure what she’d heard.

No preamble, no foreplay. Straight to it, she thought.

“Bloody brilliant,” she crowed. “Bloody buggering brilliant!”

“Yeah. That about sums it up,” Sparkes said, his voice quickening despite himself.

“Don’t come the world-weary copper with me, Bob Sparkes,” Kate said. “You are as pleased as I am. Oh my God, wait until I tell Angela. I’ll go down to Winchester and tell her. I’ll take Mick and tell her. Take Mick. We want a photo of the moment she finds out.”

“Hang on, Kate,” Sparkes tried, but she wasn’t listening.

“We can run it in tomorrow’s paper. ‘Alice Found After 40 Years.’ Or ‘The Moment a Mother Found Her Baby’ . . .”

“Kate!” Sparkes tried again.

“Sorry, Bob. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that you need to hang on. The DI is not going to tell Angela until tomorrow. He wants to wait for all the paperwork to arrive on his desk and then go in person down to Hampshire.”

“You said it was a match.”

“It is—the lab phoned him this morning to tell him—but he’s a bit of a jobsworth and wants all results in writing before he pronounces. That will be tomorrow.”

“How ridiculous!” Kate snapped. “What would happen if I rang him and said I’d heard the DNA samples matched . . .”

“He’d know we’d spoken and I would get an earful,” Sparkes said calmly. “I’m trusting you to keep this to yourself for another day.”

“But in twenty-four hours he’ll be telling everyone,” Kate said. “We’ll lose the exclusive, and it has been all our hard work to find the possible link with Angela.”

Sparkes didn’t respond. She was furious, but she knew she couldn’t burn Sparkes by revealing him as her source. He was one of her best contacts and she needed him. She’d think of another way to force the Met’s hand.

“Right,” she said, neither confirming nor denying her intentions.

“I’m so grateful for the call, Bob. I owe you big-time,” she added, hurrying him off the line. “I’ll keep you updated.”

•   •   •

Terry was in his goldfish bowl, the glass-walled cupboard where staff could watch him bollocking others with the mute button on.

Kate slipped in quietly and sat on the naughty chair opposite her boss.

“What do you want?” he said without looking up.

Bugger, he’s grumpy, she thought. Monday morning blues that are going to last all week . . .

“I’ve got a cracker of a story,” she said and he looked up.

“Okay, you’ve got my attention, Kate,” he said.

“It’s the baby buried on the building site.”

He sighed. “Oh, that,” he said.

“Don’t sigh, Terry. There’s been a breakthrough, but I’ve got a problem and I need your wise head,” she said.

Terry nodded his wise head and closed his laptop. “Go on, then.”

Kate paused. Make him wait, she told herself, counting to five like the host of a bad quiz show.

“The baby is Alice Irving. They’ve found her after forty-odd years. I’ve just had a tip-off.”

“Fuck!” Terry said. His highest compliment.

“Quite,” Kate said.

“We need to make some space in the paper. Where’s the mother?” Terry said, his eyes bulging with excitement as he got out of his chair to perch on the desk, practically knee to knee with Kate.

“Hang on, what’s the problem?” he added, suddenly remembering how the conversation had started.

“Well, we have to sit on it until tomorrow or I’ll lose my best contact.”

There was a beat of silence, then Terry breathed. “Christ all bloody mighty.”

He got off the desk and paced the tiny room while he digested the implications. “How many people know? Coppers and lab people will know. Must be a dozen at least. It’ll leak. Too good a story not to leak.”

Kate nodded. She knew it was what he’d say.

He stopped pacing, and when he got back on his perch, he looked businesslike.

“Right. How do we get it confirmed without your contact being fingered? Pity Gordon has gone—he’d have sorted this out. I can’t even ring him at home—he’s taken Maggie to the Costa del Sol with his redundancy money.”

“I’m working on it, Terry. I think Angela is the key. I’m going back down to Winchester to get her to talk to the copper who is holding the info.”

“Good. You can do it, Kate. My star reporter.”

Kate smiled, modestly she hoped, but inside she was fizzing with pleasure.

“Thanks, Terry. But let’s not tell the Editor yet.”

Terry’s happy face disappeared.

“What?” Kate said.

“I’d love to give him some good news this morning, that’s all.”

“He’ll do his nut if he thinks he’s got the story and then we have to pull it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Terry said. “Ring me every hour. And refile that backgrounder you and the Boy Wonder have been working on.”

She rose quickly, relieved it had gone so well, and Terry came round to hug her. Kate went scarlet at the unexpected grapple with her boss. He was not normally a demonstrative man—that had been beaten out of him by executive bullies years ago, she suspected—but he was clearly as excited as she was.

She hoped the Crime Man hadn’t seen the encounter. He’d make hay out of that. Then she remembered he and the hay had gone. She almost missed him. He’d have said: “Snogging the boss? Is it pay-rise time?”

“Yeah, worth at least an extra two percent. You should try it,” she told his empty chair.