1979

by Val McDermid

  The restaurant was busy and Allie paused on the threshold, trying to spot Rona in the bustle. First impressions of wood panelling, discreet prints and terracotta roof tiles on the walls, full tables and mouth-watering aromas. A waiter bounced up to her. ‘Buongiorno, signorina. Do you have a reservation?’

  ‘I’m meeting a colleague.’

  She’d barely got the words out when he beamed. ‘You are with Signorina Rona?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Allie asked as she followed him through the tight press of tables towards the rear.

  He glanced over his shoulder. ‘She said you looked like a reporter. With the raincoat like Robert Mitchum.’

  Allie flushed. She’d spent a slice of her first pay cheque on a classic Burberry mac because she thought it was what a reporter should wear. Another bum note to set alongside being female. Her Burberry was always the only one hanging up on the reporters’ coat rack.

  But before she could respond, he’d delivered her to the furthermost table from the door, a four-top that commanded a view of the whole room. Rona was already seated, cigarette lit, glass of red wine in front of her. ‘Park yourself, Allie,’ she greeted her. ‘You like red or white?’

  ‘It’s breakfast time for me,’ Allie protested.

  ‘Right enough. Sandro, bring Allie a Bloody Mary.’ Rona grinned. ‘Breakfast of champions, so it is.’

  Allie made an attempt at a protest but she was too late. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘That’ll make the afternoon go with a swing.’

  ‘Well, you need something to do that.’ Rona passed the menu over. ‘I already know what I’m having, I always have the same thing. Spaghetti carbonara and garlic bread. Best I’ve ever tasted. Trust me, it’s not Mother’s Pride.’

  ‘Just as well, given the bread shortages I was reporting last night.’ Allie glanced at the menu, but she already knew she’d go with Rona’s recommendation. She still didn’t know much about Italian food; Indian or Chinese had been her habitual takeaways at university, and she’d not ventured much beyond them since. ‘Same for me, then.’

  The waiter arrived with Allie’s drink, and Rona ordered the food with a wee joke about Allie falling under the spell of the menu. Then Rona turned the full beam of her attention on Allie. ‘So, how’s it going?’

  ‘It’s a bit different from where I was before. Because I was part of a training scheme, there were a lot more women in the newsroom, for a start.’

  ‘That’s the Clarion for you. Three women reporters, but you’re never on the same shift, right? Because we all know what would happen then: you’d all just sit around swapping knitting patterns and gossip.’

  Allie gave a wry smile. ‘As opposed to the guys, who only sit around swapping gossip.’

  ‘But they appreciate you being there because it saves them having to do the miracle baby stories, right?’

  ‘You’d noticed.’

  Rona laughed, a big, cheerful noise that turned heads at nearby tables. ‘I’ll tell you a beezer miracle baby story. There wasn’t a woman on duty, so they sent Big Kenny Stone out. The story went, forty-five-year-old woman thought she had an ovarian cyst, only they discovered she was seven months pregnant. Big Kenny came back and wrote up the tale of how they’d been trying for years to have a wean, and they’d given up hope. He even managed to make it a bit of a tear-jerker. So it goes in as the page 5 lead with a big photo. And what do you think happened next?’

  ‘Enlighten me.’ Allie took a swig of her Bloody Mary, which hit her straight between the eyes.

  ‘A guy phones up and tells the newsdesk that he’s the husband of the miracle mum. That she’s only living with her fancy man and she’s already got three kids from her marriage. Then the eldest grown-up daughter rings up and reads the riot act. Big Kenny has to eat shit and write a “no’ quite miraculous” retraction.’ Rona laughed, and this time Allie joined in.

  The lunch was the most fun Allie had had since she’d moved to Glasgow. Tales from behind the scenes at the women’s page, delicious food and a second spicy Bloody Mary kept them going till just before three. Then over coffee, Rona said, ‘But they do let you do some proper stories too. I’ve seen a couple of good ones with your byline.’

  Allie pulled a face. ‘Sometimes. Mostly on the night shift or the backshift when there’s not many reporters to choose from.’

  ‘You did the Pope dying rerun. That was pretty spectacular.’

  It had been a night Allie would never forget. She’d been alone in the office on the night shift. Gavin Todd had been in the pub with Big Kenny and the other duty reporter was out on a job. The copy taster had delivered a Press Association snap saying the Pope had died. ‘That was last month,’ Allie had said.

  ‘Naw, this is the new one that’s kicked the bucket. We need a splash and a spread, and we need to be off stone in forty-five minutes.’

  She’d felt her heart kick in her chest. She’d tried to summon Todd and Big Kenny from the pub, but they’d thought she was at the wind-up and Todd had slammed the phone down on her. So she’d called for cuttings from the library and persuaded one of the sports reporters to help. ‘You call Archbishop Winning for a quote and I’ll write the spread from the cuttings,’ she’d instructed him. Somehow, they’d cobbled together a front page and the two middle pages with minutes to spare. She’d actually had the legendary experience of the deputy editor grabbing the copy pads from her typewriter one paragraph at a time to distribute to the subeditors’ table.

  When the first edition dropped, the news that was barely an hour old was on the streets. ‘And when Gavin came back from the pub, did he thank me for saving his arse? Did he congratulate me on a job well done? No. He ripped me to shreds for not getting him back from the pub.’

  Rona scoffed ruefully. ‘Typical. I can see you’ve got what it takes, Allie. But you’re going to have to carve out your own niche. They’re not going to give you anything.’

  ‘I know. That triple murder in Dundee – I’m not going to get a sniff of that, even though the victims were women. The real problem is I don’t have the contacts I had in Newcastle. I’m competing with a room full of guys who have wee black books full of the men who matter.’

  ‘What you need is the women who matter. Stick with me, I’ll make sure you get the chance to make a different set of connections. I’m always coming across women who have a tale to tell that doesn’t fit the women’s page.’

  ‘Do you not want to follow them up yourself?’

  Rona shook her head. ‘I know what I’m good at and I love it. I totally admire what you do, dealing with people when their lives have fallen to bits, but I know I couldn’t handle it.’ She grinned. ‘I mean, I’m interviewing Lauren Bacall next month. That’s my idea of paradise. What you do? It scares me to death. I’ll stick to the fluff, thank you very much.’

  ‘It’s not just fluff, what you do. I saw that piece about the domestic violence refuge they’ve opened up in Dundee.’

  Rona patted her hand. ‘That’s kind of you, but we both know ninety per cent of what I get in the paper is pure candy floss. You can bring a different kind of story to the paper. Here’s a wee tip for starters. The devolution referendum’s not too far away now. The political boys will be all over it, backslapping with their pals, noses in the trough. But there are quite a few women in the mix now. One or two in Labour but quite a few in the SNP. They get as cheesed off as we do about being sidelined by the boys. You want my advice? Get in with the pro-Devo women and you’ll pick up stories nobody else will get.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s a good idea. But why are you being so helpful?’

  Rona grinned. ‘Because I’m a feminist, Allie. And I can spot a sister.’ She paused. ‘Just don’t for fuck’s sake tell anybody.’

  10

  It had still been dark when Danny set off for Southampton. He’d considered setting off straight after work the previous evening, but w
hen he’d checked the weather forecast and the road reports, he’d changed his mind. More snow was forecast and there were reports of the A74 being reduced to one lane in several places. The road improved dramatically once it reached Carlisle, across the border in England, but that was a hundred miles away. In weather like this, it could take as much as four hours to cover that distance.

  It wasn’t much better in the morning, but the lorry drivers’ strike meant the traffic was noticeably lighter than usual. Danny felt his sympathy for their cause rising in response. The gritters and snowploughs had been out, however. Although there were high banks of dirty slush on both sides of the carriageway, getting out of Scotland was easier than Danny had feared.

  He kept himself alert with his mix tapes of upbeat driving music, singing along with everything from Gloria Gaynor to Blondie, passing through David Bowie, Grace Jones and Elton John on the way. But even that couldn’t make the miles pass more swiftly. He fell into the trap of checking the odometer at the end of every track, growing more dispirited as they didn’t rack up fast enough. At this rate, he’d be driving well into the evening.

  The weather eased a little as he travelled further south. Somewhere in the Midlands, he pulled into a grim transport café. He imagined it was normally packed with lorry drivers stoking up their grease levels for the next stage of their journeys. But today, the combination of the strike and the weather had left the parking area almost empty. Danny parked near the entrance and walked into a fug of cigarette smoke, condensation, chip fat and bacon. It was blissfully warm. He ordered sausages, bacon, beans and chips and wondered why he was doing this. The story wasn’t going anywhere. Nobody else could be chasing it. Maybe he should have listened to Allie and waited for the worst of winter to pass.

  But he already knew the answer. From the very start, journalism had been like a virus in his brain. He couldn’t resist the pull of a story. And he couldn’t ignore the prick of ambition that spurred him on. The combination was impossible to fight. Tomorrow was never soon enough when a story could be pursued today. He’d expected everyone in the newsroom to be the same. Discovering that wasn’t the case had been a shock; for so many of them, it was the wages, the expenses, the approval of the drinking culture, the pure swagger of the job that kept them going.

  The reason he’d warmed to Allie Burns was the recognition that she was like him. She was frustrated by the limitations of what she was being assigned. The difference was that she hadn’t figured out where to find the stories that would let her carve out a niche, the way this story was going to do for him. But her talent for words could help him, and if that helped her in the long run, he had no problem with that.

  When his food arrived, he shovelled it in like a boilerman stoking a fire, barely tasting it, conscious only of his desire to be back on the road, back with the vision of the story to pull him forward through the gloomy afternoon and the cold, dark evening. Music blaring, he covered the miles, driven onward by the thought of what the morning would bring.

  Southampton looked dismal through the grimy bedroom window of the downtrodden hotel Danny had checked into fourteen hours after he’d left Glasgow. To be fair, he thought, pretty much anywhere would look dismal in the thin morning light, sleet falling on the dirty slush below. The bed had sagged, the pillows and the towels had been equally thin but he’d slept like the dead after the stress of his long drive.

  He was the only resident in the stuffy breakfast room. He forced himself to eat the rubbery egg and the gristly sausages that appeared in front of him, washing it down with annoyingly dainty china cups of tea. Then it was back to the car, his body complaining as he folded himself behind the wheel.

  He pulled in at a petrol station, where he had to queue to top up his tank behind anxious motorists desperate not to be caught out by the tanker drivers’ strike. While he waited, he went inside and bought a street map of the city. He plotted a route that would first take him to Burgess Road and Applewood Lane, to scout out the possible homes of the boatyard owners. Then onwards to the brokerage itself.

  Burgess Road comprised a wide mixture of properties. There were shops with flats above them, solid brick-built semis, undistinguished terraces and, opposite what looked like parkland, some bigger detached houses. James T Maclay’s address was a brightly lit newsagent’s shop with two storeys above street level. Danny decided it didn’t shout prosperity; not the Maclay he was looking for, he suspected.

  Applewood House was a different proposition. It stood on a narrow tree-lined lane, made narrower by the remains of the snow that was gradually melting. As he drove slowly along, Danny caught occasional glimpses of the river between the grand detached houses that dotted the east side of the road. Applewood House was the last one he came to. It was a four-square Georgian house in grey stone with a pillared portico, three tall windows on either side. On the floor above, another six windows mirroring them and a large circular window above the porch. A sweep of gravel drive led to the modern addition of a three-car garage. The severity of the building’s lines was emphasised by the garden; manicured lawns and groups of shrubs pruned to military neatness. There was no sign of life within. It was, he thought, the kind of house that confident money would buy. Clearly expensive but the opposite of ostentatious.

  All the showiness was reserved for the boat brokerage. It was a short drive from the house on Applewood Lane but light years away in every other respect. Two buildings, modern brutalist cubes painted sky blue, flanked the entrance, over which a splashy sign proclaimed, maclays – the high life on the ocean wave. Danny drove in and found a parking space outside the building marked, reception and sales. Beyond the car park, he could see an array of yachts on hard standing, covered by blue tarpaulins with the company logo. Further on, he glimpsed a wharf with more, bigger boats.

  Danny grabbed the neat black briefcase he used when he wanted to impress people with his seriousness and picked his way across the slippery tarmac. The reception area was small but they’d spent money on making it look good. Decent carpet, comfortable chairs, dramatic photographs of yachts under sail. Nothing scuffed or tired-looking, not even the middle-aged receptionist. Danny gave her his best smile. ‘Hello. I’ve come down from Aberdeen to talk to someone about the arrangement you have with Paragon Investment Insurance.’

  She looked profoundly unimpressed. ‘Have you got an appointment?’

  ‘I’m sorry, it was all a bit last minute. When my boss gets an idea in his head, he just goes for it.’ He tried for rueful and apologetic. ‘He was talking to someone about the system over the New Year and he came back full of it.’ Danny clapped his free hand to his chest. ‘So here I am, dispatched through the cold and snow.’

  The woman chuckled. ‘Poor bloody infantry, eh?’

  ‘Something like that. I don’t suppose . . . ?’

  ‘You want Billy. He handles all the Paragon business. You’re in luck. He’s in this morning. He was supposed to be meeting a client from London, but he’s called off because of the weather. Take a seat. What’s your name?’

  ‘Charlie Wishart,’ he said. He’d been at school with Charlie Wishart. A big lump of a lad who’d become a bus driver. ‘I’m in the oil business.’

  She perked up. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  *

  Bill Maclay was the perfect match for Danny’s notion of what a yachtsman should look like. Weathered jeans, a navy Guernsey and deck shoes. He was around six feet tall, broad in the shoulders and narrow in the hips, with a thatch of dark blond hair just starting to silver at the temples. When he smiled in greeting, his face became a map of wrinkles the wind and sun had scrawled there, blue eyes glittering beneath heavy brows. ‘From Aberdeen, Penny said?’ He held out a hand and Danny obediently shook it. Calloused and strong, it made Danny feel soft and insignificant.

  They were meeting in Maclay’s office on the first floor. It looked out over the brokerage yard to Southampton Water beyond,
steel flecked with slashes of white. ‘That’s right,’ Danny said. ‘I’m sorry to turn up out of the blue. But my boss doesn’t like to be kept waiting . . . ‘

  Maclay shrugged. ‘I don’t envy you that drive in this weather. Penny said you wanted to talk to someone about the work we do with Paragon Investment Insurance?’

  Danny nodded. ‘My boss is an oilman. We work for a major American company. North Sea oil is going very well for us and he earns large bonuses. Large cash bonuses. He heard that Paragon had come up with a scheme to protect men like my boss from the taxman.’ He smiled, almost apologetic. ‘My boss never takes anything on trust. So he sent me to talk to you, to get it from the horse’s mouth.’

  Maclay gave him a long measured stare. ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve got all the details right but what I’ve been told is that you sell yachts to Paragon customers. The yachts are sailed to Nassau, where they’re sold on, and the proceeds are paid into a bank over there. Out of reach of the taxman.’ The moment of truth. Either Maclay would spill or Danny would be out on his ear.

  Maclay cocked his head to one side. ‘Sounds like you’ve wasted your time, Mr Wishart.’

  Danny felt a cold weight in his stomach. How could he have ballsed this up? Did Maclay not trust him? ‘What do you mean? That’s what the Paragon people told us.’

  ‘Who did you speak to at Paragon?’

  He had one chance to recover this. In the moment, he realised the weakness of his plan. Naming one of the offenders would almost be an invitation to Maclay to call them up and confirm Danny’s story. Besides, the man with the cash, the man who made the mysterious visits on clients’ business, he must have been the man Maclay dealt with. And Joseph was travelling back to Edinburgh. He couldn’t be on the end of a phone, not today. Danny took a deep breath. It wasn’t like he was throwing his brother to the wolves. ‘Some guy called Sullivan,’ Danny said. ‘He explained it all to me.’