‘So that’s what you told the editor,’ said Rachel, her lips tight. ‘What was the real story?’
‘I never heard any rumours about Julian,’ said Carl quietly.
‘I don’t understand. So how did you know about Susie? And how did you get photos of them together?’
‘The photos were sent to me,’ said Carl, his eyes full of regret. ‘Brown envelope, anonymously delivered to the office and addressed to me. There was a note that came with them that simply said “Julian Denver and a blonde who is not his wife.” Just in case I hadn’t grasped the point.’
‘Those photo weren’t yours?’ she said incredulously.
‘I didn’t lie about the whole thing, Rach,’ said Carl quickly. ‘The only thing I lied about was how I got to hear about it in the first place. Once I was tipped off, I got a pap to trail Julian and we took our own set of photos of them together.’
‘But why lie at all?’ said Rachel, trying to grasp the significance of the tip-off. ‘Why claim the first photos were yours?’
Carl snorted. ‘You remember what it was like. The Post was struggling, there were strong rumours of redundancies and a recruitment freeze. I was worried about my job – we all were. It was no secret that Alistair was under pressure to downsize the staff and make more use of stringers.’
He stared down at the table.
‘I had to make myself look good, and finding out about Julian through my supposed network of contacts looks a lot better than the story landing on my desk signed, sealed and delivered, doesn’t it?’
Rachel wanted to scream at him, to tell him he was just trying to justify his lies, but she knew that what he was saying was true. That old cliché about being only as good as your last story was right on the money, or at least it had been back then. That was why so many of them had been sucked into phone-hacking, eavesdropping on email conversations and listening to message services. You had to keep coming up with the goods or you were out; that was the culture, and it was one the editors and management were happy to perpetuate, because they weren’t taking any risks themselves and were reaping all the rewards as exclusive after exclusive splashed across their front pages.
She looked at her friend, the wealthy potato crisps entrepreneur, and tried to remember him as he was back in that newsroom. The truth was, Carl had needed a scoop more than the others. He’d always been an outsider on the Post. Posh, sexually ambiguous, bouncy and eager to please rather than jaded and cynical. She understood, of course she did. Hadn’t she been there herself, desperate to succeed as the new girl, as the only young woman on the team? And she had pulled just as many stunts, played all the cards she could. Still, it didn’t stop her feeling angry, betrayed.
‘You should have told me,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
Carl nodded. ‘It’s easier to lie to yourself, come up with excuses, isn’t it? Once I had my own set of photos, I convinced myself it didn’t matter how I’d found out. And it didn’t really matter where things came from, did it?’ he added, looking at her with a hint of accusation. ‘Not to us. But now he’s dead, and you think he had enemies – I just thought I had to tell you.’
Her head was a whirl of emotions: guilt, anger, disappointment and, above all, confusion. If they hadn’t come from Carl, then who had sent those photos, and why?
She voiced her question out loud.
‘You have to ask yourself, who had the most to gain from Julian’s infidelity, from his disgrace. If you ask me, the answer points straight back to the family, and whoever within it wanted the top job.’
46
Susie McCormack wasn’t pleased to see her, but then Rachel hadn’t really expected her to be. That was why she had sneaked in through the service entrance at the back of Susie’s office building and come up the stairs, walking past the receptionist with studied confidence. The bored-looking blonde girl at the desk barely gave her a glance. Clearly there were a lot of busy women in heels striding in and out of the headquarters of Leith and Brody Consultant Media Group.
Quite a mouthful for a PR company who put policy and mission statements into pithy little sound bites, Rachel had thought as she looked for Susie’s office.
She needn’t have bothered – she bumped into her target coming out of a meeting room, followed by a group of important-looking men in grey suits.
‘Rachel?’ said Susie, with a glance over at the man immediately to her left. ‘I, er, I didn’t know our meeting was so soon.’
‘Everything all right, Susan?’ said her companion, clearly having picked up on Susie’s distress, despite her laudable efforts to take Rachel’s intrusion in her stride.
‘Yes, yes, I must have forgotten to put it in the diary.’ She forced a smile and glanced at her watch. ‘Shall we go through to my office now?’
‘Yes,’ said Rachel. ‘Why don’t we do that?’
Susie led her to a glass-fronted room and closed the door.
‘I hope you’ve got a bloody good excuse for barging into my workplace like this. Was an appointment not good enough for you?’ Her face had drained of colour but her cheeks were bright red with anger. Rachel thought she looked like a lollipop – a big red and white head on a tall, skinny body.
‘Can I get you some coffee?’ said Rachel, walking to the machine in the corner of the room. Susie was rattled, unusually ratt
led, and in Rachel’s experience that was usually a sign of guilt.
There was a pointed silence as the two women’s eyes locked. Rachel silently counted the seconds: Susie looked away on the count of six.