Chapter Nine

 

Sam tried to figure it out as he cycled down Whitehall and along the Strand back to the Chronicle, having to take his hand from the handlebars from time to time to rub his sore chest. Instead of focusing on Davenport, he realized now he should have tried a new angle, the criminal himself.

Had Simon Oliver approved any other loans, took backhanders for them, or done anything else untoward at Allied Alliance? He’d ask him in person, if he could find him, but a clandestine search back at Sam’s office showed him that the bastard had seemingly fallen off the face of the earth.

He’d been fired, of course, and a call to the bank confirmed he no longer worked there, and could his successor help? I wish. Oliver’s social media had gone dark. Not that it had been very active, anyway. Sam made check-ins of the few friends Oliver had tagged in things, but there was no mention of him. People were possibly steering clear of him.

Oliver’s mobile number, gleaned from his business card, was unavailable. Of course, that could have been a work phone, and so had been taken back again when Oliver got shitcanned. Annoyingly, no phone number or address were listed in the Contact section of Oliver’s About page on Facebook. Sam decided to tackle the other prong of the fork. He put in a request to the CPS, under the Freedom of Information Act, for details of the Oliver case. The CPS was famously tight-lipped about which Crown Prosecutor worked each cases, so Sam emailed their communications team, asking for an interview with anyone who had information on Oliver’s situation. He emailed a senior press officer too.

“You have to throw a stone to get the pond to ripple,” he said, half under his breath. It was the unofficial motto of the Chronicle’s investigative team, and a creed by which they lived. One Sam had hoped to live by. Still hoped.

He sat back with a thump, rubbing his chest again. It wasn’t the poke he’d received that was causing the pain, he suddenly understood. It was that same heartache pain he’d— Heartache? It was as literal as that? I had no clue.

Damn it. Life was too short to be an idiot. He rummaged around his desk, flicking aside papers and files, and just as he found his phone, it rang. Keirnan. Wow.

“Sam Howard of the Daily Chronicle.”

“And the Sunday Chronicle.” Keir completed the joke, but his voice was strained. “How are you?”

“I’ve been better.”

“You and your honesty.” Keir attempted a laugh. “I know it’s important to you. And here’s some from me—I miss you like crazy.”

“Are you going to start singing? Because that sounds like the chorus of a ballad.”

“Sam. Please.”

“Sorry. I use sass as a deflection. I miss you too.”

“When you said you didn’t know it this was goodbye, do you know now?”

“I…don’t want it to be.” Sam rubbed his chest. The ache had lessened.

“I don’t either.” Silence fell. “Will you need much more time, to know?” Keir asked.

“Why?” Suspicion descended like a mist. “Where are you?”

“Look out of the window.”

“Keirnan.” Sam sighed, holding a hand over his eyes. “I have a shared, three-person back office, thankfully empty at this moment, that overlooks the side alley, a place filled with dustbins and people from the tax and consultancy company next door having a crafty smoke and a secret chocolate bar, the latter being Meghan. It’s how she copes with stress. I very much doubt you’re standing in a filthy back lane.”

“I was on Fleet Street. Now, I’m in reception. Almost.” Sam heard the familiar whine of the Chronicle buzzer. “Now I am. May I come up?”

Sam didn’t answer. He was too busy sprinting for the gents’ to check his appearance. When he came out, Keir was there, waiting in the main reception area for the floor, holding a bunch of roses and several other bags and boxes. Sam gulped. He’d almost forgotten Keir’s sheer presence, his size and breadth and looks, that unruly curly brown hair in need of a cut and those sleepy leaf-green eyes, and the tangible power emanating from every pore. Sam just feasted, and Keir stared back.

Sam became aware of the eyes peeping from several offices. “Come this way,” he muttered, dashing off and trusting Keir followed. He did, right to Sam’s office, where he shut the door and pressed Sam into it, leaning into him, his face in Sam’s neck. He inhaled for what seemed like a minute. “God, I missed that,” came in a rough rumble.

“The chlorine? The Christmas present aftershave?”

“All of it.” Keir pulled back and looked into Sam’s eyes, searching, demanding.

“Me too. All of it.” It was nothing less than the truth.

Keir moved back a little, and Sam realized it was because he was getting hard. Well, he was too. “This…isn’t the place,” he mumbled, indicating the glass walls. He pointed at the heap of stuff Keir had brought with him. “What’s all that?”

“Flowers.” Keir retrieved them from where he’d dropped them. “Self-explanatory. And this is a custom coffee mug with a humorous message.” The square box held a white mug saying WARNING: JOURNALIST WITH AN ATTITUDE.

Sam laughed and set it on his desk. “Thank you. I like it. And that bag?”

“Something for a swimmer.”

Sam took the package. “Fingers crossed for gold lamé Speedos,” he breathed.

“No, it’s an engraved piece of jewellery.”

It was— a fitness tracker for swimming, Sam’s name etched on the back.

“Keir…why do I feel each present goes up a notch?” Sam took the remaining giftbox. “And this would be…”

“A special accessory.”

“An MP3 player and headphones?” Sam tore it open.

“Also suitable for a swimmer. Waterproof.” Keir shrugged.

Despite everything, Sam doubled over with laughter. “Did you google ‘best apology gifts’? And there’s a scale? Like, if roses fail…”

‘“A custom coffee mug with a humorous message may lighten the occasion’.” Keir gave a sheepish nod. ‘“If the situation is more serious…’” He indicated the boxes and bags.

“Keir…” Sam eventually stopped wheezing and spluttering. “You’ve not been in many relationships, I take it?” He took Keir’s downcast head as a yes. “And that’s very sweet of you. I love them all. I wish I had something for you in return. Oh. Wait—” He rummaged on his desk. “Red vines?”

“Thank you.” Keir, to his credit took one, and attempted to eat it. Sam narrowed his eyes at Keir sucking the candy in through his lips, and Keir caught him and did it again, then almost choked when he started laughing. His agonised face and streaming eyes had Sam laughing too. They took a long time to calm down.

“I haven’t been in a relationship, not like this, no,” Keir confessed. “So I don’t know what to do. I’m sure I’ll screw up, make mistakes…”

“We all do,” Sam assured him. “That’s the nature of it.” He shivered, thinking of Richard. So many things he—they—could have done differently. Or not done at all. “I know because—”

“Mr Thane!”

Sam had to check it was really Ted—he’d never heard the editor sound so, well, not shouty and angry. Happy, was that the word? So it was possible. Wasn’t there some sort of bet riding on it? Sam caught sight of plenty of co-workers trying to pretend they weren’t eavesdropping. Funny how they all needed to be in the corridor outside his door, though. He’d missed a bit, but caught Keir saying, yes, he was pleased with the small piece the Chronicle had run after the press junket—Keir indicated the roses—and he’d loved the photos and yes, he would be happy for them to schedule a profile interview, the first he’d ever consented to, and…

“Did you mean that or was it just expedient?” Sam asked as they walked out into the bustle of late afternoon Fleet Street. “No, don’t bother to answer. Where are we going?”

“Well, if you’d like to come, to the London television studios, on the South Bank?” Keir turned to him. “I’m being interviewed. Again. I’ll be glad when the premiere’s over.”

“Oh, how very Hollywood of you. And, yes, I would like to come.”

“I thought it might be boring for you. You must have been there a lot before? Being an entertainment journalist?” Keir asked.

“I haven’t been a film journalist for very long.” He made up his mind to tell Keir all about it, his passion for investigative work, the first project he’d worked on, okay, mostly doing grunt on, with the CIRT people, an exposé of the minister for defence procurement’s readiness to accept bribes, mainly from Saudi princes—and how that first case had been his last. Thanks to his bee in his bonnet, his obsessive interest and whatever else people had dubbed it. “I—”

“I told them not to send a car for me.” Keir guided Sam around the corner to a small street and his parked Land Rover. He grinned. “I knew you’d protest any kind of chauffeured vehicle, so…”

“Yes, I’m such a champagne socialist.”

They got underway, and several times, Sam opened his mouth to explain things to Keirnan, only to close it again. The short, stop-start, traffic-dodging journey didn’t seem the right place.

Neither was the studio, that white square building on the riverside, looking like a pile of sugar cubes heaped together, its tall tower the highest stack of all. And there wasn’t any time, even if Sam had felt like pouring his heart out in the midst of makeup and hair people and studio personnel. The interviewer and Keir’s publicist buzzing around didn’t make for privacy, either. Sam hadn’t known Keir had a publicist, although he realized he’d seen the tall, slim guy at the nightclub event, he remembered. Could hardly forget—he was pretty, tanned, and designer-stubbled, with sweeping waves of black hair and huge thick-lashed brown eyes.

“Raffa Ortega. Personal publicist and barely designated adult,” he introduced himself.

“Yes, you’re with Jo at 24/7 PR.” Sam felt proud of himself for retaining that from his bollocking by Ted.

Raffa widened his eyes. “Give that blond a cigar. Well, a non-alcoholic beer. In the hospitality room. Come on.”

There were snacks, too, in the comfortable enough room where guests and their guests waited to either go before the cameras or for people to finish being on camera. “Please excuse me,” Sam instructed Raffa and the other inhabitants of the room, making himself a mini version of the fresh vegetable platter by grabbing two of each bits of cut veg, from snap peas to carrot sticks, slinging them onto a smaller plate and dumping a dollop of dip in the centre. “I haven’t had lunch yet,” he excused himself, scooping up the yoghurt and chives with a section of hollowed-out celery.

“Go ahead.” Raffa waved an expansive hand, holding up a choice of no-alcohol beer for Sam’s approval. “And make that cheapskate take you for dinner after. Kidding. He isn’t. Unlike some I could mention…”

Sam, chomping away and mentally selecting which fruit he’d go for after, didn’t take the bait. Raffa’s eyelash flutter was in vain. Raffa flicked a few slices of deli meat onto a plate.

“I’ve gone paleo,” he announced. “Oooh, cupcakes! So I’m paleo with a sweet tooth. Sue me,” he amended, taking one. “Hey, starting!” He indicated the huge screen, showing the action in the studio. “We were here for the run-through earlier, so it’s all-systems-go now. Do you like Daffyd Clarke?”

Sam shrugged. The Welsh comedian was an entertainer, his chat show designed to please the live studio audience and those watching at home. Sam closed his eyes and imagined the piece he’d write on the show, or chat shows in general. Probably something like, Modern interviewers ask a variety of questions of their celebrity guests, ranging from moderately stupid to excruciatingly stupid. The idea is that the audience responds best, like Pavlov’s dogs, to shallow inanity and pretend inebriated indiscretion.

He wondered how far Keir would agree with him. And just how big a snob Sam Howard was. Or had been. He hated to admit it, but maybe him having been dragged kicking and screaming from his ivory tower had been good for him. No—that would have been when he fell from his high horse.

“Amy always looks good.” Raffa pointed. “We have the same eyebrow girl, you know.” He blew a kiss over at a small group on a sofa. Amy’s coterie, Sam guessed. Raffa eyed him. “Don’t get too hot and bothered by stuff.” He indicated the screen. “Okay, it’s shitty, but…”

“What…” Sam decided to just shut up and watch. At least Daffyd paid attention to his guests, his body language really engaged. A trained journalist, Sam amused himself by cataloguing the question types the man asked. His sequence ran, open, direct, then suggestive, the latter being when he camped it up, taking something he’d heard or read, or that Keirnan or Amy had mentioned, and running with it. Olympic sprinting with it.

“The other guy’s the director?”

Raffa nodded.

“Now, Amy, your fans are called the Red Brigade, are they not?” Daffyd asked, head tilted to one side. “And, Keirnan, there’s an interesting story behind your fan club’s name, isn’t it so?”

Keir nodded, looking big and at ease on the couch next to the much smaller Amy. He told of how his fan following had begun when he’d appeared in his break-out role, in the serial police drama Serve and Protect— He stopped and looked almost surprised at the hoots and hollers from the audience, which made them whoop more. Yes, his unexpected popularity had led to him becoming a regular cast member, his storyline gaining in importance, his character’s arc leading the season’s plot, and his fans called themselves Lovatts after Detective Lovatt, the hot-tempered maverick he’d played.

“Turning quickly from the behaviour of some of your more…obsessed fan…atics—and I bet you wish you could have!—the name Lovatt has a meaning, no?”

“It actually means wolf cub.” Keir nodded, then smiled at the cheers this got.

“Which brings us to the, if not the elephant in the room, then the wolf in the kennel.” Daffyd looked out into the audience for a reaction. He got one. Cheers and howls.

Oh. Is that what it was like? Sam set down his beer. Perhaps elephant was the right word to use, because it seemed people treated Keir like a circus animal. And Sam didn’t like it, not one bit. The outburst he’d witnessed on first meeting Keir made sense now. Sam narrowed his eyes at one rumour Daffyd recounted, that an assistant director had walked in on Keirnan in his trailer, changing costumes, and run out squealing, thinking Keirnan was ripping his clothes off because he’d started shifting.

What had Keir said? That people couldn’t catch it, like a virus, through contact with a shifter or his bodily fluids. Just as well. Sam wriggled at the memory of coming into contact with Keir and his fluids up close and personal. Oh, Amy was trying to run interference, turning the conversation away from ‘weres’. That was nice of her.

It didn’t seem so, moments later, when that act of kindness got the focus on her, or rather on her and Keir.