My dad was a newsagent, I grew up with ink on my fingers. And print still has authority. People believe what they read in papers, they trust us to tell them the truth. There’s power in that.’
David nodded, sipping his wine.
‘Very true. But is truth enough? You asked me earlier why I chose this project over the others I’ve been offered? I liked this one because it’s focused on what the reader actually wants. You’d be amazed how rare that is. There was one other media start-up I was tempted by: LiveNews – have you heard of it? I think the guy pitched it as TED Talks meets The Economist.’
Alex laughed. ‘Actually that does sound pretty good.’
‘Yeah, but it was so worthy,’ said Becker. ‘So serious. Why can’t anything have a personality anymore?’
Alex nodded. It was something he had to fight against all the time. Corporate entities valued data and spreadsheets and they resisted anything which couldn’t be quantified like ‘fun’.
‘I think you nailed it earlier,’ said Alex. ‘It’s all about the people running things. New media launches are often run by City guys and entrepreneurs. They don’t have anyone on board who really understands how to connect with the news.’
David put his cup down.
‘Actually this one did. He’s a senior editor at that Dutch paper, De Telegraaf, the one that keeps winning awards? He was impressive but… who wants to be lectured to all the time?’
Alex was intrigued. It was always interesting to know who in their little world was making moves.
‘I worked in Europe for a little while. Who was this guy?’
Becker hesitated.
‘Come on,’ said Alex, topping up his glass. ‘I won’t tell.’
‘Stefan Melberg? Do you know him?’
Stefan? Lara’s Stefan?
He missed David’s wine glass and Claret dribbled onto the tablecloth.
‘We’ve got mutual friends,’ said Alex, as casually as he could. ‘Actually Stefan’s involved with Le Caché, the journalism collective. Was this LiveNews an extension of the collective?’
‘No, this was something new.’
Alex wanted to ask more, but just then the waitress brought the bill and someone suggested pushing on to a private members’ club. Alex wasn’t in the mood to party and besides, he needed a clear head.
He said goodbye to David, looked across at Dominic and tapped a finger on his watch. ‘Got to go,’ he mouthed and before his friend could object, he slipped out the door, thinking of Lara and thinking of Stefan Melberg. Right now he had his own due diligence to do.
Chapter 25
Inverness looked grim, or perhaps it was just their mood. Driving into the city, the cloud seemed to be sitting oppressively low, the windscreen speckled with drizzle, their hatchback pushed sideways on the exposed brown hilltops. Stella had booked the return journey home from Inverness rather than Edinburgh because it cut out three hours of driving time – and they wanted to board the train home as soon as they could.
They dropped off the hire car, and with an hour to kill in Inverness, they walked up to the castle, which to Lara it looked more like a prison. She was sure that it was usually lovely, but clearly Rebecca’s paranoia had been infectious. Lara knew they should be excited and energised – Becky’s revelations were a big breakthrough in the story – but it had come with a huge side-order of reality. This wasn’t a game. Rebecca had been terrified.
Finally on the sleeper train, the scene of such giddiness the previous night, Stella lay back on the top bunk of their cabin staring at the ceiling. It was almost ten o’clock, and the long nights this far north meant that there was still some watery light in the sky outside. Lara closed the window blind to shut it out.
‘Do you ever get scared?’ said Stella.
‘Scared of what?’ said Lara under the duvet of her own berth.
‘The job. Did you see Rebecca’s face? She was terrified because of what she knew, because she knew that information made her vulnerable.’
‘Sometimes, sure,’ said Lara honestly.
‘When you have a picture byline printed next to the story, you’re putting your head above the parapet. But generally you don’t get anything more threatening than a snotty legal letter,’ she said deciding not to mention the odd death threat and crank letter that occasionally appeared in her in-tray. ‘I certainly don’t get as scared as the people getting trafficked in Haiti.’
Stella muttered a vague noise of approval. On the drive from Ullapool they’d speculated what had happened to Helen’s friend Esther. None of the options had happy endings. Most likely, she’d been smuggled over the border into the Dominican Republic where Esther and everyone else tricked into that pick-up would end up in forced prostitution. Lara had recounted how in India, she’d heard of children deliberately crippled and blinded in order to make them more effective beggars, and even in Eastern Europe, young men had their organs trafficked: a kidney could raise $20,000 on the black market.