To the Lions

by Holly Watt

  They need to make their own rules, and stick to them.

  ‘Just don’t screw your friends over,’ said Dash early on. ‘You need your friends. There are six billion other sources out there.’

  So Casey had her own code, and she couldn’t let go.

  A few minutes later, she sat up straight and clicked the file back open.

  ‘What are you working on?’ Miranda asked, barely glancing up.

  ‘Wynford Mortimer,’ came the reply.

  A last check, in the mirror. For wires, and buttons that don’t look like buttons.

  They think it’s vanity, women gazing at mirrors.

  ‘Go for the jugular.’

  ‘No.’ She was twirling slowly, might have been dancing. ‘Go for the ego.’

  The street outside the office was crowded, lunchtime rush. Faces, so many faces. She slipped down the street, alone.

  It wasn’t far. Quicker to walk, even in these shoes. She could think, as she walked. Away from the chaos, and into the role.

  She was never the arms dealer. Never the chief executive. Never the hero, nor the star.

  This time would be no different.

  She was the PA, the PR, the girl next door. Simpering and smiling, so he laughed without thinking. Sometimes she was the girlfriend, half-seen, then ignored. Brushed off but nicely, because she might report rudeness. She was there to be patronised. To have things explained, quite slowly.

  ‘I don’t exactly understand how it works . . .’ She had smiled again and again.

  So often, she didn’t quite understand first time. Not precisely.

  So very often.

  And he would explain, again, only half concentrating on her. Politely flirtatious, but eyes fixed on the star. That out-of-work actor she’d dressed as a tycoon, only a few hours earlier.

  She was the personal assistant, the executive assistant, the magician’s assistant. Because no one notices the figures in black. Those backstage mice, safe in the dark, shifting the set so quietly.

  Look like the innocent flower . . .

  ‘I know I am being hopeless,’ she would smile, ‘but what exactly is lobbying?’

  And he would tell all the secrets to the tycoon’s toy.

  And as she walked away from the restaurant, her step would change from teeter to prowl. From tethered goat to cheetah.

  She would cast off the pearls, eyes narrowed, head lifted.

  ‘Fuck the patriarchy,’ she would say, stripping off wires, and only half joking.

  5

  She roamed around the newsroom, irritating other journalists.

  ‘Bill.’ She washed up at the diarist’s desk. ‘You never ran that Felix Lincombe piece. Him in Gigi’s, not with his wife.’

  ‘Felix Lincombe.’ Bill’s face broke into a rueful smile. ‘Ah, Felix Lincombe. Mr Lincombe turns out to be the Editor’s brother.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ Casey got the giggles. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Lincombe, Salcombe.’ Bill rounded his vowels. ‘It’s a stage name. Just down the road on the same Devon estuary, don’t you know. Very upmarket. Family joke, apparently. Crap one, if you ask me.’

  ‘They kept that quiet,’ said Casey.

  ‘Suits them both, doesn’t it?’

  ‘So we’re not doing the story,’ said Casey.

  ‘We’ve decided to respect Mr Lincombe’s right to privacy on this one,’ Bill agreed. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Casey was still laughing.

  ‘Don’t worry, petal.’ Bill swished his notepad. ‘It wasn’t awkward at all.’

  She watched the editor for a few minutes, seeing the suddenly familiar jawline, the tilt of the head, then stalked on.

  *

  Casey was asleep when the call came through.

  ‘He’s here. He’s fucking here.’ The words were drowned in a blast of music.

  ‘Who is this?’ Casey looked blearily at her phone. 0033. A French number.

  ‘Sorry, babe. It’s me, Jasper. I’m in France. Down south. St-Tropez.’

  None of it was making sense to Casey.

  ‘Came down for the weekend.’ Jasper was clearly wide awake. ‘Gigi’s are hosting out on Pampelonne, off and on.’

  Some of the clubs did that in the summer, Casey knew. Licensing their name, working the brand, sending off their staff on a jolly, in the hot pink hotpants and bright red braces.

  ‘Nice,’ she said weakly.

  ‘Anyway,’ Jasper humoured her. ‘That Azarola guy is here. With a bunch of guys from Cyan. Might be a stag do or something. Don’t know. But they’ve got a table booked for Saturday too. They’re here for the weekend.’

  ‘Jazz, you angel.’

  ‘I don’t know what you wanted him for.’ He was pleased, she could hear it. ‘But I figured you would want to know.’

  ‘I do, Jasper. I really do.’

  The music in the background blared louder.

  ‘I gotta go.’

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow. First thing. Talk to my boss, then call.’

  ‘Not too early, sweetheart,’ he warned. ‘It’ll be messy here. It’s kicking off.’

  ‘Promise not.’

  The phone went dead.

  Casey slumped back on her pillows.

  ‘Call me as soon as you wake up,’ she tapped out to Miranda. ‘We need to pack.’

  6

  Fizzing, Casey bounded into the newsroom early the next morning.

  ‘Where’s Dash?’ she asked Ross.

  ‘Don’t fucking know.’ The news editor was glowering at the huge TV screens above his desk. He picked up the phone, tapping in the number for the Post’s reporter currently in the bunfight outside the Old Bailey.

  ‘Get stuck in, Eric. I can see you dicking around at the back . . . You’re not even holding a fucking biro, you useless clown . . . I can see you live on Sky. I’m fucking everywhere, OK? Get the fuck on with it.’

  He slammed the phone back into the cradle.

  ‘Could you ask Dash to drop into the investigations office when he gets in?’ Casey said.

  ‘Do I look like your fucking secretary?’

  Casey grinned at Ross, which annoyed him even more.

  When Casey was little, her aunt had owned a small black Scottish terrier. Endlessly combative, Tig would bite so hard on a stick that you could lift him up by it, very slowly, jaw locked. The dog would dangle in the air, eyes glinting, the growl a constant rumble.

  With his short dark hair and glittery eyes, Ross reminded Casey of Tig. ‘Remind me,’ Ross was bawling to his deputy now. ‘Who are we throwing to the lions today?’

  Casey headed to her office. Minutes after Miranda had got in, Dash joined them there. He raised an eyebrow at the suitcases.

  ‘I thought we’d dropped this.’

  ‘Of course she hadn’t,’ said Miranda. ‘You knew she wouldn’t.’

  ‘Miranda should approach him in the club.’ Casey ignored Dash. ‘Just get him talking and then float it in, very gently, at first. She can go harder later, if she needs to.’

  ‘We might have to burn Miranda on this one,’ Dash agreed.

  If a target saw Miranda in one environment, she couldn’t pop up anywhere else. If Miranda appeared in Pampelonne, she was branded. The human mind dislikes coincidence.

  Miranda nodded. ‘But Casey should be there too. In case.’

  ‘Course’, said Dash.

  ‘I haven’t told Salcombe’.

  It worried Miranda, Dash’s secrecy with the editor. She’d seen budgets slashed before.

  ‘We could say it was research for the Wynford Mortimer story,’ she suggested. Flexibility was still built into the investigations budget. ‘In fact, we could doorstep that LPG trader as we go through Cannes.’

  ‘Do it,’ said Dash.

  As soon as he had disappeared, Casey grabbed Cressida, the fashion editor.

  ‘We need costumes.’ Miranda batted her eyelashes.

  ‘St-Tropez, this time of year?’ Cressida s
aid thoughtfully. ‘Sure.’

  Cressida led them into the fashion cupboard, the magical grotto seemingly filled with exquisite fashion assistants and endless enchanting clothes. The clothes, the jewellery, the shoes were called in and photographed on elegant beanpoles, wrapped up and sent back. Occasionally, they were diverted. Briefly.

  The fashion team defended the cupboard like Custer’s last stand.

  ‘Drop, Miranda,’ Cressida said sweetly, as Miranda picked up a Balenciaga handbag. Miranda and Casey could just fit into the sample sizes.

  ‘Now . . .’ Cressida flicked through some racks. ‘Odabash cover-ups . . . Yes, to some Christopher Kane dresses . . . Ooh, and some Anjuna would be nice. If I had some more time, I could have called in some Erdem. And if you lose any of this, I swear to god I’ll set all their PRs on you.’

  There had been an unfortunate incident with Casey and a Victoria Beckham dress a few months before. The only rose-pink one in the sample size, it had turned out. Cressida’s mouth suggested this hadn’t entirely been forgiven.

  Waving their thanks, they headed for Holborn.

  ‘Cameras hidden in floaty white dresses?’ The camera wizard raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean, like, how?’

  ‘Oh, Sagah, I thought you worked miracles.’

  The technology got better every year. When Casey was starting, a battery had failed, strapped into its black harness. It overheated, and burned, so slowly. And when she moved, it slipped against her skin. She never wavered, not for a moment. There was a scar, now, on her hip.

  He sighed. ‘Could you use a bag one?’

  ‘That lot will see through a fake,’ Casey pointed out. ‘And Cressida will never let us chop up a Birkin.’

  ‘Birkin?’ asked the camera wizard, sweating through his nylon shirt.

  ‘Keep trying,’ said Miranda.

  They were late, in the end, running for their flight. They always had their passports with them, instinctive as phone, keys, wallet. Casey had two, so she could leave one at an embassy. Both were almost full.

  She never told anyone, of course, that she was scared. Not even Miranda.

  Sometimes it didn’t matter, the nerves. Most people would be nervous in front of the Business Secretary.

  It didn’t matter, that time when she choked over a few words. Balding and bespectacled, he thought that was normal. She learned, then, that she could mangle a few words.

  ‘My mind’s gone blank,’ she giggled.

  And that happens to everyone sometimes, doesn’t it?

  Even mistakes didn’t matter. People are oddly polite.

  That time, she was a mummy from Twickenham. With the gold ring – not a wedding ring – on her wedding-ring finger. Brown polo neck, and neat polished boots. A furry gilet, borrowed from somewhere. Fake fox fur, for suburban camouflage.

  He never even looked at her. Not really, with her diamond ring that caught the light. Because in her invisible armour, this woman could never be a threat. In her unseeable armour, that saw it all.

  Just a few wires, for Boadicea’s sword.

  Thou mayst be a queen, and check the world.

  Precious little honey in the honeytrap, he’d sneered afterwards, furious and humiliated, lashing out.

  And she’d smiled, when no one could see, and thought, I could bring you to your knees.

  If I cared.

  7

  They stepped off the plane at Nice into air warm as a bath and then whipped west down the coast road. The mountains to the north, jagged orange rocks and green scrub, always looked too wild for the Côte d’Azur.

  In Cannes, the oil trader was away, the Filipina maid said. She didn’t know when he would be back. He was probably on his yacht, she hazarded, dot-to-dotting from Paxos to Hydra, from Santorini to Cephalonia.

  Then they raced on, slowing only for the endless stop–start traffic into St- Tropez.

  The travel department, possibly on purpose, had booked them into the cheapest hotel.

  ‘Better than the cheapest hotel in Leicester,’ said Miranda.

  ‘Or Bratislava.’

  ‘Christ, yes.’

  Pampelonne stretches away to the south of St-Tropez, a long strip of bleached sand. Beach clubs, where the party starts at lunch and goes on all day, line the dunes. The billionaires’ boats glittered along the coast. Millions of pounds-worth of yacht looked like bathtub toys. A helicopter was landing gingerly on the back of the largest.

  ‘It must be so fucking irritating,’ Casey said. ‘You drop Germany’s GDP on a super-yacht, then some oligarch pulls alongside and you look like their jet ski.’

  They meandered down the beach, exploring.

  Elegant tenders ferried groups to and fro. Golden girls skipped down piers that stuck out like exclamation marks. These girls were Bardot beautiful, with cats’ eyes and witchy bitchy smiles.

  Gigi’s was halfway down Pampelonne beach, with furniture that looked like driftwood, but wasn’t. Blue beribboned palm trees guarded the entrance. Palest azure muslin tenting kept the sun off bored faces.

  ‘Girls!’ Jasper shouted. ‘My loves. You look ravishing.’

  He kissed them on both cheeks, as he would any of the little mermaids coming in on the tide.

  ‘How you doing, darling?’ Miranda hugged him.

  He waved them round the club. He didn’t introduce them to the club’s staff, to avoid friendly questions. Showing them around inserted them into the hierarchy. I’m giving them my time, it said. They’re important. Keep them sweet.

  ‘Want a table tomorrow night?’ he asked. ‘It’s no bother.’

  ‘That’s lovely of you. But actually, it would be better if we could operate as free agents . . .’ said Miranda. ‘We don’t want them to see us together, necessarily.’

  ‘Although if Miranda can’t get into their table any other way, a fallback of a table close by would be good,’ added Casey. ‘But only if we get desperate.’

  ‘You two would never get desperate,’ said Jasper. He was looking round the club, positioning the Cyan party.

  The Cyan team would expect a table at the heart of it all, close to the dance floor. The placement at Gigi’s was as careful as in any Tudor court.

  ‘There isn’t really a quieter area, is there?’ Miranda asked. ‘It’ll murder the recordings.’

  Jasper grimaced. ‘The DJ would lose his shit if I turned down the music. And I am not letting myself think about how much we are paying him for tomorrow night. I could kill one of the speakers near their table. Although if they complain . . .’

  ‘Of course,’ said Miranda. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I need to top up my tan,’ Casey laughed, looking at her arms.

  ‘Take a sunlounger,’ offered Jasper. ‘I’ll send over a bottle.’

  He hadn’t asked what they were chasing, Casey noticed. She wondered about his world, a world where it was easier not to know, and wiser not to ask.

  They lay on the sunloungers. The Cyan crowd would only come in the evening.

  ‘This is precisely what Ross worries we get up to the moment his back is turned,’ said Casey, rubbing in sunscreen.

  ‘The tan is camouflage.’ Miranda flicked her hair. ‘I’ll get a manicure when we get back into St-Trop.’

  ‘Do you reckon we should hire a boat for our arrival?’ Casey was watching two glistening girls teeter down the rickety pier towards Gigi’s.

  ‘Ross would send out the business desk to assassinate us,’ said Miranda. ‘Nicky with a poisoned umbrella. And we’d probably sink it.’

  ‘The Screws used to hire yachts and everything,’ remembered Casey.

  The News of the World – News of the Screws – had created whole worlds as their stage, much to Miranda’s envy.

  ‘One day, baby. One day.’

  A smiling boy brought them glasses of cherries and strawberries and champagne. Miranda angled the parasol and lay back, watching, learning.

  When they arrived the next night, the music was blasting down the beach. Flaming
torches lit up the sand. A spotlight strobed miles into the sky. Miranda tagged in behind a large group. A few minutes later, Casey sauntered in.

  Girls were already dancing on the tables, picking their way through bottles and kicking over glasses.

  Miranda was wearing a floaty blue dress – slashed to indecency at the front – and a gold necklace.

  A statement piece, Vogue would call that necklace. It glinted in the torchlight, intricate and beautiful, a breastplate for a battle. Right in the centre, a tiny camera was buried in the busy glitz. It filmed everything, tilted up to capture faces. Taped to the necklace, the wires ran round Miranda’s neck and down her back, covered by a curtain of newly blow-dried hair. Underneath the silky blue dress, a battery pack clipped into a belt.

  ‘I am a fucking genius,’ the man in Holborn had announced, before sending them racing to Heathrow.

  Now Miranda strutted into the club.

  From across Gigi’s, Casey could listen in to Miranda’s conversation with a tiny transmitter. Directional microphones wouldn’t pick up a thing through the wall of noise, so they had to use radios.

  In a normal operation, Casey could listen in through headphones, because they were common enough to be invisible anywhere, but headphones would look odd in Gigi’s pounding music, so instead Casey was running the recording through her phone. No one would ever notice a pretty girl chatting on a phone.

  Now Miranda was sashaying through the club towards the Cyan table. Casey picked up her phone and held it, with a smile, to her ear.

  ‘Oh, hey.’ Miranda stopped next to the table. ‘Sebastian Azarola, isn’t it?’

  Azarola looked up, and softened as he took in the gazelle-like legs.

  ‘Hi, there . . .’

  ‘Didn’t we meet at Ascot?’ It was a guess, but a good one. The hedge-fund managers had stormed that citadel many years before. ‘I was there with Tyler Walton.’

  Tyler Walton’s name was the secret handshake. The private-equity tycoon had dominated US boardrooms for years, building up a fortune measured in billions. Azarola would never deny a visit to Ascot with Walton.

  ‘Oh, sure, Tyler,’ said Azarola. ‘How’s he doing at the moment?’

  ‘He’s good,’ said Miranda, who kept a close eye on the oblivious billionaire’s activities, mainly through the Post’s business pages. ‘Things got pretty tough over Canada Gold, but he seems happy with it now.’