“That was great. Thanks, Bob,” she said in his ear. “I’ll call you later when I’ve written it.” He nodded as she brushed past and out of the house to face her furious colleagues.
In the car, she sat for a moment, running through the quotes in her head and trying to assemble the story. The intensity of the encounter had left her drained and, if she was honest, a little shaky. She wished she still smoked but rang Steve’s number instead. It went straight to voice mail—he’d be on the wards, doing his surgical rounds—but she left a message. “It went really well,” she told him. “Poor, poor girl. She’ll never get over this. I’ve lifted a lasagna out of the freezer for tonight. Speak to you later.”
She could hear the catch in her voice as it recorded.
“For goodness’ sake, pull yourself together, Kate; it’s work,” she told herself as she started the engine and pulled away to find a quiet car park and start writing. “Must be getting old and feeble.”
? ? ?
Dawn Elliott began ringing Kate Waters the next day, the day the story appeared. She rang from her mobile, standing in the bathroom away from the ever-attentive Sue Blackman. She wasn’t sure why she was making it a secret, but she needed something just for herself. Her whole life was being unpicked by the police, and she wanted to have something normal. Just a chat.
Kate was thrilled—a direct line to the mother was the prize she’d allowed herself to hope for but didn’t take for granted, and she cultivated it carefully. There were to be no direct questions about the investigation, no prying, no pressing. No scaring her off. Instead, she talked to Dawn as if she were a friend, sharing details of her own life—her boys, traffic jams, new clothes, and celebrity gossip. And Dawn responded as Kate knew she would eventually, confiding her fears and the latest police leads.
“They’ve had a call from abroad. Near Malaga? Someone on holiday there has seen a little girl in a park they think is Bella,” she told Kate. “Do you think she could be there?”
Kate murmured reassurance while noting everything down and texting the crime correspondent, a hard-drinking hack who’d had a couple of bad misses lately. He was grateful to be included in Kate’s exclusive tips, putting in calls to a contact in the incident room and telling the news editor to book a flight to Spain, pronto.
Not Bella. But the paper got an emotional interview with holidaymakers and a perfect excuse for another spread of photographs.
“Well worth a go,” the editor had said to the news desk, adding as he passed Kate’s chair: “Well done, Kate. You’re doing a great job on this.”
She had the inside track on the investigation, but she had to be careful. If Bob Sparkes found out about the secret phone calls, it would not be pretty.
She liked Sparkes. They’d helped each other out on a couple of the cases he’d run—he’d given her the odd bit of information to make her story stand out from the rest of the pack’s, and she’d tipped him off when she got something new that might be interesting. It was a sort of friendship, she thought, useful for both of them. And they got on well. But there was nothing deeper. She almost blushed when she remembered she’d developed a bit of schoolgirl crush on him when they first met, in the nineties. She’d been drawn to his quietness and brown eyes and had been flattered when he’d singled her out for a drink a couple of times.
The crime man at her last paper had teased her about her cozy relationship with Sparkes, but they both knew the detective was not a womanizer like some of his colleagues. He was renowned for never straying, and Kate didn’t have the time or the inclination for extramaritals.
“He’s a straight up-and-down copper,” her colleague had said. “One of the last.”
Kate knew she risked burning Sparkes as a contact by carrying on with Dawn behind the detective’s back, but having the inside edge on the story was worth it. This could be her story of a lifetime.
She rehearsed her arguments as she drove in to work: “It’s a free country, and Dawn can talk to whoever she wants, Bob”; “I can’t stop her phoning me”; “I’m not phoning her”; “I don’t ask her any questions about the investigation. She just tells me stuff.”
She knew it wouldn’t wash with Sparkes. He’d got her in there in the first place
“Oh, well, all’s fair . . .” she told herself irritably, making a silent promise to tell Bob anything that might help the police. She crossed her fingers at the same time.
It didn’t take long for the phone call from Sparkes to come.
? ? ?
Her phone rang and she picked it up and headed for the privacy of the corridor.
“Hello, Bob. How are you?”
The detective was stressed and told her so. Dawn’s latest bathroom conversation with her favorite reporter had been overheard by the liaison officer and Sparkes was disappointed in Kate. Somehow, that was worse than if he’d been furious.
“Hold on, Bob. Dawn Elliott is a grown woman—she can talk to whoever she wants. She rang me.”
“I bet. Kate, this was not the deal. I got you in there for the first interview, and you’ve been sneaking around behind my back. It could affect the investigation—you do understand that?”
“Look, Bob. She rings me for a chat that isn’t about the investigation. She needs some time, even a couple of minutes, to escape.”
“And you need stories. Don’t play the social worker with me, Kate. I know you better than that.”
She felt ashamed. He did know her better than that.
“I’m sorry you’re upset, Bob. Why don’t I come down and meet you for a drink and we can talk things through?”
“Too busy at the moment, but maybe next week. And, Kate . . .”
“Yes, yes. No doubt you’ve told her not to call me, but I’m not ignoring her if she does.”
“I see. You’ll have to do what you have to do, Kate. I hope Dawn will see sense, then. Someone has to act like a responsible adult.”
“Bob, I’m doing my job and you’re doing yours. I’m not hurting the investigation. I’m keeping it alive in the paper.”
“I hope you are right, Kate. Got to go . . .”
Kate leaned on the wall, having a completely different argument with Bob Sparkes in her head. In this version, she ended up on the higher moral ground and Bob was groveling to her.
Bob would come around when he calmed down, she told herself, and she texted Dawn to apologize for any trouble caused.
She got a message back immediately that ended with, Speak later. They were still on. She grinned at the screen and decided to celebrate with a double espresso and a muffin.
“To life’s little triumphs,” she said as she raised the cardboard cup in the cafeteria. She’d drive down to Southampton tomorrow and meet Dawn for a sandwich in the shopping center.
NINE
The Widow
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 2010
Kate gets in Mick’s van a couple of miles farther on, in a supermarket car park. She laughs and says “the pack” had rushed up the path to see if I was in the house when she drove off alone.
“Idiots,” she says. “Fancy falling for that.” She has twisted around in the front seat so I can see her face. “Are you all right, Jean?” she says.
Her voice has changed back to caring and gentle. I’m not fooled. She doesn’t care about me. She just wants the story. I nod and keep quiet.
As we drive, she and Mick chat about the office. Seems her boss is a bit of a bully who shouts and swears at people.
“He uses the C word so often, they call the morning news conference the Vagina Monologue,” she tells me, and they both start laughing. I don’t know what a Vagina Monologue is, but I don’t let on.
It’s like she and Mick live in another world. Kate is telling him about how the news editor—the Terry she was talking to on the phone—is very happy. Happy that she has got the widow, I suppose.
“He’ll be in and out of the editor’s office all day, poor sod. Still, it’ll stop him bitching at the other reporters. He’s a funny bloke—get him in the pub and he’s the life and soul. But in the office, he sits at his desk twelve hours a day, staring at his computer screen. He only looks up to give someone a bollocking. He’s like one of the living dead.”