FIFTY-FOUR

Kate

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012

Toni practically shrieked with excitement when she rang Kate to say her big reunion was on.

“I’ve found all sorts of people online. They all love the idea and we’re having a party next week at the Boys’ Brigade hall. It’s going to be brilliant. We’ve got an eighties DJ and everything. Say you’ll come.”

Try and stop me, Kate thought. “Sounds unmissable, Toni. Who’s on the guest list?”

Toni reeled off a string of names.

“Oh, well done for finding all of them,” Kate said. “Must have been quite a task after all this time.”

“Yes, some of them were hard to find, but I tracked them down. Even Harry Harrison. The girl we all thought would get herself mixed up in drugs. Actually, she’s done well for herself. Who’d have thought . . .”

Toni almost sounded disappointed.

“Where’s she living now?” Kate asked.

“All very posh in Kensington. Mrs. Thornton now. She wasn’t sure about coming at first but I laid it on thick. You know: ‘Remember where you come from, Harry.’ The girls won’t believe it when they see her.”

Kate noted it all down.

“Ah, but will Malcolm be at the disco?” she asked, laughing.

“Oh yes. And the Sarahs. Should be a hoot,” Toni said, breathless with the excitement. “I’d better go, got loads to do. It starts at eight. See you there in your glad rags.”

Kate put down the phone and sat back in her chair.

“Who was that?” Joe asked, ever alert. “You look really happy.”

“For a change,” Terry said as he walked by. “Moody baggage, your boss.”

Kate was too pleased with herself to rise to the bait.

“I’ve been invited to a party,” she said and laughed. “Now I need an outfit.”

The two men looked at each other, mystified.

“I thought it was a story,” Joe said.

“Of course it’s a bloody story,” Kate replied.

She stood up and pulled her jacket off the back of the chair. Enjoying her moment.

“Come on, tell us,” Terry teased.

“Not in the mood,” she said and swung her bag over her shoulder, ready to flounce out. “Got to go and see someone. See you later.”

•   •   •

Outside, she rang Joe and told him to meet her by the main doors.

“We’re going to talk to Harry Harrison,” she told him. “No driving this time. We can walk from here.”

•   •   •

The door was opened by a middle-aged woman with a cigarette in her hand.

“Hello, Mrs. Thornton? I’m Kate Waters from the Daily Post.”

“Really? The press? What do you want?” the woman said, her tone instantly dismissive. “Look, I’m on my way out.”

She’s lying, Kate thought. She’s only just lit that cigarette and she’s got her slippers on.

“It won’t take a minute, I promise,” Kate said. “I’m hoping you can help me. I’m trying to contact Suzanne Harrison from Woolwich.”

The woman on the doorstep narrowed her eyes and hesitated.

Gotcha, Kate thought automatically.

“Who wants to know about her?” Harry said, a little flustered.

“Look, I’m sorry just to turn up, but could you give me five minutes of your time so I can explain?”

“You’d better come in, then,” Harry said and then spotted Joe. “And who are you? You don’t look old enough to be a reporter.”

Joe grinned shyly. “I’m a trainee. I’ll sit quietly, I promise.”

She wafted them in with her free hand, crashing the front door closed, and herded them into her designer kitchen where it appeared she had, moments earlier, been reading a paper. Kate noticed it was the Post’s main competitor and put her handbag down on it.

“Well, you obviously know I’m Suzanne Harrison,” Mrs. Thornton said, stubbing her cigarette out in a bowl of long-abandoned granola. “Harrison was my maiden name—and I was Harry to everyone who knew me.”

“So many names—what shall I call you?” Kate said, laughing.

“Call me Harry. Short and sweet.”

Unlike you, Kate thought. The woman at the table was tall and chic. Harry might speak in the bored drawl that moneyed people use, but the tattoo on her breastbone, peeping above the neckline of her expensive blouse, told a different story.

“Actually, you’re lucky to catch me in. I’m normally at the office by now, but I’m lunching out of town today.”

“Great,” Kate said. “Where do you work? In the city?”

“No, at Thornton and Coran—the publishing house.”

“Oh, they do a lot of the celebrity memoirs, don’t they?” Kate said. “Actually, we serialized one of your books last year—the actress who survived cancer.”

Harry smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. I remember,” she said. “You gave it great coverage—the books were flying off the shelves. Do you want a coffee?”

Harry poured coffee from the percolator into exquisite hand-painted cups, chatting about current projects and dropping in bits of celebrity gossip as she found the matching milk jug and sugar bowl.

“So,” she said as she sat back down. “What’s all this about then?”

“Well, I’m writing about something that happened in the area where you grew up.”

Harry stirred her coffee. “Christ, it’s been a long time since I was living in Woolwich—decades. Nothing to go back for now . . .”

“No family there?” Kate asked, reaching for a biscuit.

“A mother.”

Harry’s eyes slid over to Joe, who was writing in his notebook. “What are you scribbling about? This isn’t an interview.”

Kate had forgotten about her work experience child and she hadn’t noticed him get out his notebook. Fatal bloody schoolboy error.

“Sorry, Harry. He’s just making notes on how I do my job. Aren’t you, Joe?”

The edge to her voice worked and he quickly put down his pen and beamed at Harry.

“Homework!” he said.

But the connection had been broken. Harry started clearing the cups, balancing the expensive china like a waitress in a beachfront café. Kate got up to help her, sliding saucers into the dishwasher as she worked out how to rebuild trust. They were running out of time.

“Look, we haven’t talked about why I’ve come. I’m hoping you can help me,” Kate said. “I’m doing a story about the discovery of Alice Irving’s body in Howard Street. I expect you’ve seen my stories about it?”

The shutters fell. Harry’s eyes went blank. “No, I hadn’t heard anything about it,” she said stiffly. “In Howard Street? Well, I didn’t live there. Not sure I remember it.”

“It’s where your friend lived.”

“Don’t think so,” she snapped.

“Toni at the Royal Oak,” Kate prompted.

“Toni? Toni Baker. God, she rang me the other day. Did she tell you where to find me? Look, I don’t know. It was all so long ago. I can’t really help. Must get ready. You’ll have to go,” she said, picking up her handbag.

“Can you see yourselves out? Thanks.”

Kate bundled Joe out into the hall. “I’ll leave my card here on the table, Harry. In case you want to contact me,” she called back and quietly closed the door behind her.

“There we are, then,” she said as she and Joe walked back to the office.

Joe looked at her, mystified. “Where are we? Wasn’t that a disaster? She asked us to leave.”

“But what did she tell us before she asked us to leave?”

“Nothing. She said she didn’t know anything.”

“Joe, for Christ’s sake, don’t you know anything about reading people? As soon as I mentioned the baby, she closed down. Telling a silly lie about Howard Street.”

“Oh,” he said.

“She knows something,” Kate said. “We’ll have another chance to talk to her at the disco. And Joe. Don’t take notes when you are trying to persuade someone to trust you. Golden rule of interviewing.”

“But you said the golden rule was to take notes every time,” he said.

Kate sighed. Baby steps.