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‘How are you, lovey?’ It was hard to read her eyes through her impossibly thick spectacles to see if she knew what had happened to me. But then she gave me an extra tight squeeze before setting me free, and I realised that of courseshe knew. In truth, there was probably very little that escaped Marjorie’s gimlet eye, both withinThe Chronicleoffices and outside them. It was a loss to the world of investigative journalism that she’d been content being the custodian of the stationery cupboard keys instead of moving to the news desk.
‘Are you holding it together?’ she asked now, as succinct as ever.
‘As best I can,’ I replied, glancing around the open-plan office, where the dozen or so employees were all doing a poor job of pretending to work. Some smiled vaguely in my direction, and a few chanced a wave before drawing their hands back down as though questioning too late if that was appropriate.
I turned back to Marjorie. ‘Is Bill in? Is he free?’
She gave me a warm smile. ‘For you, he will be.’
*
Bill had been the editor ofThe Chroniclesince dinosaurs had walked the planet. He’d given me my first job, taking a chance on me when all I’d had to offer was some limited experience working on the university rag and far more enthusiasm than style. I’d leftThe Chroniclefor bigger and better things, in the manner of an ungrateful child. I only hoped that, like a forgiving parent, there was still enough affection banked in my account to ask Bill for a favour. A big one.
His hug was less all-consuming than Marjorie’s but no less heartfelt. ‘Well, I hope your father is hunting down that man of yours with a shotgun.’ His greeting was as non-PC as ever. I wondered how I could have forgotten Bill’s peculiar brand of irreverent humour. ‘Seriously, sweetheart, both Frannie and I were gutted to hear what that bastard put you through.’
I gave a sad smile and shook my head. ‘Come on, Bill, you know better than to believe everything you read in the papers.’
Fifteen minutes later and I still wasn’t certain I’d swung it. Bill was pulling the kind of faces that could have won him prizes in a gurning contest but which those atThe Chronicleknew only too well meant that he wasn’t sure about something.
‘It’s press day,’ he said, nodding meaningfully at the oversized clock on his office wall. ‘We’ve got less than forty-five minutes to get things sent over to the printers, and you’re asking me to change the splash.’
I smiled at the old familiar term for the front-page story.
‘Mine might sell more copies than the town hall debate you were planning on running,’ I said, trying very hard not to sound as desperate as I was beginning to feel. I glanced up at the second hand ticking inexorably from one notch to the next.
‘I don’t know if I’ve got anyone free on the news desk to write it up in just three-quarters of an hour.’
That objection, at least, was one I was prepared for. ‘I’llwrite it up. Just give me a desk and a computer and I’ll have it in your hands in thirty minutes.’
There were so many more arguments I wanted to put forward, but I knew Bill well enough to know when my best chance of success was to stay silent.
‘And you’ve got some decent photos we can use with it? Not just of Finn but also of that fancy Yankee car of his, and maybe one of his latest book, so we can capitalise on the author angle?’
I lifted up my phone. ‘All on here.’
It felt like my entire future was tied up in his sigh of resignation.
‘On my desk in thirty minutes,’ he barked, which was totally ruined by the breadth of his smile.
I was already on my feet and halfway out the door. ‘Got it.’
*
My fingers had flown over the keys. I hadn’t done this sort of journalism in years, but it was like riding a bike. The skills might have been rusty, but they were all still there. If I’d had four times as long to write up the story, I couldn’t have done it any better. I printed it out, because Bill was old-school like that, and to save valuable time I also emailed it to both the sub and news editors.
I left them perusing the piece as I scrolled through my phone looking for a photo of Finn’s car. The red-and-white Gran Torino was a head-turner of a vehicle, even in its country of origin. I could remember Finn saying there was only a handful of similar models in the UK. If someonehadseen it at any time in the last six days, surely they’d remember it.
‘Gemma,’ called Bill from his office doorway. For a moment I forgot this man was no longer my boss about to haul me over the coals for missing a deadline. I hurried to the office, where my piece sat on his desk. Amazingly, I could see no red ink upon it. Not a single correction.
‘You’ve got the splash,’ he said.
28
FINN
His phone was ringing, which was ridiculous because Finn knew perfectly well the mobile was irreparably broken, its shattered pieces scattered in the wreckage of the car.
‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ He jerked in his seat and turned to his right, where Gemma was sitting beside him. She was wearing a wedding dress, conjured up from the depths of his subconscious. He had no idea if it bore any resemblance to the one she’d been wearing as she stood at the church last week, waiting for him to show up.
