by Carmen Reid
Bella and Don’s marriage continued to surprise everyone in newspapers by remaining rock solid.
How did she manage that? Jo asked, yet again, in a slightly different way.
‘Don is the best I’m going to get,’ was one of Bella’s answers.
‘But how do you know?’
‘I’ve tried out everyone else,’ Bella had shot straight back, making them both laugh.
‘No, seriously,’ Bella had gone on, ‘I’ve tried out every single type. Believe me! And I finally found someone who loves our children, worships me and at least tries to have sex with me almost every single day. He’s good-looking, he holds down a proper job, he’s socially skilled, his mother is lovely. It does not come better than this. I’m truly grateful. And you know,’ she went on, ‘there may be a few things I don’t like, but I honestly try not to notice them because the rest of the product is so top quality.’
During another interrogation Bella had mentioned ‘sense of humour’ almost as often as a dating ad: ‘Someone can only continue to be your romantic hero, once you’ve found their used cotton buds, if they can make you laugh . . . and if they lurve you.’
‘So he would never cheat?’ Jo wanted to know, tying to batten down the feeling of envy welling up inside her.
With an arch of the eyebrow Jo had almost considered slightly sinister, Bella had replied: ‘He would never cheat. Never. If he cheats, I will show no mercy. He will suffer slow, lingering torture.’
‘You’re a little bit scary,’ Jo had told her.
‘No. Not a little bit scary,’ had come the reply. ‘I’m full-on Blair Witch Fright Night terrifying. So there we have it girls, secret to a happy marriage, same as a Hollywood blockbuster: sex and terror.’ But then, dead serious, she’d added: ‘Jo, there’s no big mystery, a marriage will last if both the people in it want it to last. It’s an act of faith, as well as love.’
‘So, that went well,’ was Gwen’s little joke to Simon, once he’d finally calmed Nettie and settled both of his daughters down to bed.
He flung himself onto the sofa, swivelling so that his long legs hooked over the armrest and his head rested in Gwen’s lap.
‘Oh boy, what a disaster,’ was his verdict. ‘I don’t think Mel noticed too much of what was going on, though.’
‘Mel is a bright girl and I bet she noticed everything,’ Gwen told him.
‘Oh God,’ Simon groaned.
‘I didn’t realize you hadn’t OKed Nettie’s injection with Jo. Maybe that wasn’t one of your more brilliant ideas,’ she said and smiled at him.
Simon ruffled his hair with his hand. Yes, he’d known perfectly well it would upset Jo. But he’d had his reasons and surely Gwen – a medical lecturer, after all – could understand that.
‘Jo’s in a very difficult position with vaccinations,’ he tried to explain. ‘She’s spent a lot of time investigating the very few cases where it goes wrong. She’s publicly criticized these injections, so I don’t think she feels she can privately back down. I was never going to get her agreement to a vaccination. I’m not sure she would even have let Nettie have a single injection . . . she’d have spent all this time worrying about whether or not she’d done the right thing, whether or not Nettie was going to get whooping cough. So I’ve taken the decision out of her hands. I think once she gets over being furious, she’ll be relieved.’
‘Relieved? I think you’re being a bit optimistic,’ Gwen replied. ‘Jo told me she was just starting her research into the one you’ve had pumped into your daughter’s arm.’
‘Well yes there is that. . . but give me some credit, I was married to her for ten years, I should have some idea what she’s thinking.’
‘Did you really care what she was thinking?’ Gwen wanted to know, winding her fingers into Simon’s hair.
‘No . . . Well. . . OK, I thought it should be done, I was acting in Nettie’s interests. And I’m fed up arguing with Jo,’ he admitted.
‘Simon, I understand that it’s hard. It’s hard to divorce. It’s hard to move on from her and it’s hard to work out how you should be dealing with her now. But at some point soon, you are going to have to stop being so angry with her,’ Gwen said.
This made him raise his head from her lap. He turned to sit up and face her on the sofa. ‘I’m not angry with her—’ he began.
‘Oh yes you are. You’re furious. You’ve been angry with her for the past three years, as far as I can tell.’
Simon looked as if he was struggling to decide what to say to this, so Gwen added: ‘It’s OK. You can get over it now. You can just let go of her and stop stressing out at all the things about her that are still driving you mad. Move on.’
Simon seemed to deflate slightly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry you have to deal with all this. I shouldn’t have got you involved.’
‘You mean got involved with me?’
When he nodded, she was quick to add: ‘Well, you can forget about that. I’m involved, I’m here, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.’
She moved her head a little closer towards his and he put an arm around her, pulling her in.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I. . . ’ Simon began.
‘No, no, it’s OK . . .’ Gwen said, smoothing over his forehead with her hand, unable to stop thinking about how ruggedly Viking-like he looked with his gold hair and new beard, ‘I’m here for you. But I don’t really want to meddle with you and your ex-wife and children. That’s your thing. Keep me as far out of it as you can.’
‘Gwen,’ Simon smiled at her, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t need to say sorry to me . . . But maybe you should apologize to Jo.’
Simon let out an exasperated sigh at this but said: ‘OK, OK . . . OK?’
Gwen returned the smile now and Simon put his hands on the sides of her face: ‘Did I just hear you say you weren’t going to meddle with me?’ When Gwen nodded, Simon pulled her face towards his for a kiss: ‘That would be very bad,’ he said. ‘Please, please meddle with me. As much as you like.’
Chapter Twelve
The galloping pace of technology is making industrial espionage, such as electronic eavesdropping or theft, even more of a potential problem for companies today.
[email protected]
Thursday: 8:45 p.m.
Jo had just walked through the door of her home when the mobile in her bag began to trill.
‘Declan,’ she greeted the voice on the other end of the line, almost pleased to hear from him, he was becoming as much of an evening ritual as brushing her teeth.
‘Thought you should know, one of the whooping cough children is reportedly in a coma and on life support. Just wondered if this is going to affect the copy I’m supposed to be getting from you tonight.’
‘A child is in a coma?’ she repeated, ‘Jesus . . . Yes, I’d say that pretty well affects everything.’
‘I’ll get Jeff to call you, shall I?’ Declan offered. ‘He’s phoning me back in five anyway.’
‘Right, OK, I’ll talk it through with him. How old is this child?’
‘Eight.’
‘Eight and . . . he? She?’
‘She.’
‘She’s just got whooping cough, no other complications?’ Jo asked.
‘It’s only just coming in on the Press Association newswire. No further information at the moment.’
‘Which hospital is she in?’
‘Northampton, I think. We’re sending someone there tonight to keep us up to speed, try to speak to the family and all that.’
‘OK.’ Good grief! A child could die of whooping cough! Had that happened outside of Victorian England?
Writing a piece about the dangers of Quintet when someone’s child was possibly going to die of a disease that the vaccination supposedly prevented was going to be very tricky.
‘The techies are at your desk again,’ Declan added. ‘Two of them this time, been there all evening. Occasionally I go over and ask how they’re getting
on, but they’re saying they’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Really?’
‘Has your computer broken down?’ Declan asked.
‘No, it’s just running really slowly. This is the first time I’ve asked them to come up and look at it, though.’
‘But I’ve seen the tech department at your desk before. They’ve been in quite a few times over the last couple of months.’
‘No, Declan, this is the first time I’ve asked them to look at it. . . ’ Jo suddenly thought of the unfinished bag of peanuts in her desk drawer that had attracted the rat. What if someone had been there – at her desk, tampering with her computer?
‘Jo, are you sure?’ Declan asked. ‘Because if no one’s been asked to check out your computer, then who was—?’
‘That’s just what I’m thinking,’ Jo broke in. ‘Why don’t you let me speak to the people who are there now?’
‘OK.’ There was the click of one receiver going down and a silent pause before a new voice picked up.
‘Ms Randall,’ came the voice at the other end. ‘Hello, I’m Manzour Khan, we’re running through some checks, but the feeling is that your computer’s been set up to spy on you.’ He waited a moment to let the implication of this settle on her. More like unsettle her.
‘My colleague and I,’ which sounded too formal coming in broadest Asian-tinged Essex, ‘think a program has been installed that forwards copies of your email and possibly other files on to another address.’
‘Where?!’
‘Well, we don’t know that yet. It’s all passworded up, very clever. Quite interesting, really.’ He sounded caught up in the technicalities. It didn’t seem to have registered with him yet what this really meant: that either a member of his department was happy to take on extra-curricular spying activity or someone was coming in and out of the newsroom to her computer on a faked ID. And her emails were being forwarded! Someone badly wanted to know what she was up to. Whatever explanation emerged, whichever way you looked at it, it couldn’t be good.
Manzour added: ‘You’ll have to come to our department tomorrow and help us make a full report about it. Have you got a computer at home?’
‘Yes, a laptop,’ she answered.
‘Well, we’ll have to check that out too, mate. It’s quite possible that whatever this is on your work computer, it’s got copied onto your home one.’
‘Good grief,’ Jo replied.
‘How long do you think it’s been going on for?’ Manzour asked.
‘The computer’s been slow for . . . months.’ Now when she thought about it, how stupid she’d been. ‘And Declan says someone’s been coming down from your department to look at it, although this is the first time I’ve put in a request.’
‘We’ll look into that, see what’s on the logs,’ Manzour replied.
‘Good, because I really need to know what’s going on.’
Her house phone began to ring. She told Manzour that she had to go, but gave him her mobile number so he could keep in touch.
‘Jo Randall,’ she answered her other phone.
It was Jeff.
‘We can’t run your piece this week,’ he began. ‘This girl might be dead by Sunday. We can’t be critical of the vaccination now, we’d be accused of reckless irresponsibility. We’d be child-killers.’
He wasn’t wasting any time putting his side of the argument.
‘Look, Jeff, it’s Thursday night,’ Jo reminded him. ‘No need to rush the decision. I don’t think we should just do like the government wants and ignore the issue. Obviously they’re hoping, in the long run, that the injection does much more good than harm. But what if it doesn’t? What if lots of children are braindamaged by it and we knew about the risk and we didn’t tell anyone? Does that make it any better?’
‘Well, we might just have to sit on this for a week or so. As you know, timing is everything.’
‘It’s always a mistake to sit on anything!’ she said, realizing how petulant she sounded.
‘Oh, come on. It’s not. Reporters can never bear to wait for stories to come out. But the Mail won’t run the story about the twins they pinched from you tomorrow. I’m willing to bet my pension on that.’
‘Don’t talk about pensions,’ Jo sighed. ‘I think I just kissed my share of a juicy one away tonight.’
‘So all did not go well with the doctor?’
‘No, not really. Tonight I surpassed myself . . . I smacked the doctor,’ she confessed.
When this met with a stunned pause, Jo quickly jumped in to justify herself: ‘He had Nettie vaccinated with Quintet without even asking my permission.’
‘Bloody hell, Jo. Quintet? Does he know you’re investigating Quintet?’
‘Does he care?’
‘That’s not on,’ Jeff sympathized. ‘Is Nettie OK?’
‘She seems to be fine . . . there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be fine, but we’ll just have to wait and see. But I’m so furious with Simon, I’m tempted to speak to my lawyer in the morning to see what drastic punishment we can come up with.’
‘Is that a good idea?’
It was Jo’s turn to fall silent.
‘Look, you’ve got two very busy days ahead, maybe you should keep your head down, wait until next week,’ Jeff advised. ‘Then if you still feel as strongly about it, talk to the lawyer then.’
‘Hmm,’ was all she could say to this. ‘Did Declan tell you about my computer?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, I’m pretty concerned about that. I’ll talk to Spikey in the morning and make sure it’s investigated as a top priority.’
‘Yup.’
‘We have to keep your work secure and you safe,’ he added.
‘Oh thanks,’ she answered. ‘Very reassuring. So, should I get bulletproof glass for my car like Vincey, then?’
‘Bulletproof glass!’ Jeff laughed. ‘I don’t think they do that for family hatchbacks.’
‘So what are we going to do about the vaccination story?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure yet.’
‘Can’t wait too long,’ Jo reminded him. ‘It’s Friday tomorrow.’
‘No, I know that. But don’t bother writing up the Canadian stuff yet. Get to bed early, sleep on it, we’ll brainstorm in the morning . . . see how this girl on life support is getting on, see what line the other papers are taking.’
‘Fine, see you tomorrow.’
‘Likewise. Goodnight, Jo.’
‘Goodnight.’
She stayed on the line to hear the click of Jeff hanging up, appreciating how much calmer she felt about Nettie’s injection now that she’d spoken to Jeff about it, and then she dialled the number of the friend who knew a lot more than she did about computers, viruses, internet espionage and the like.
‘Hello?’ Bella said on picking up.
‘Hello you, it’s Jo. Are you still up?’
‘Of course I’m still up, it’s not even 9.30 yet, what kind of a wuss do you think I am?’
‘That’s my girl. How’s work and everything?’
‘Everything’s fine. And you?’
‘Well, I’ve had better days: my exclusive for the week has gone tits up, I slapped Simon, he’s had Nettie vaccinated without my permission, oh, and my work computer is being bugged.’
‘He had Nettie vaccinated? Your work computer’s bugged?’
Jo loved her friend for immediately homing in on the most important complaints.
‘Get Hugo to threaten Simon with an injunction,’ Bella recommended. ‘Or restricted access. That should at least make sure he doesn’t do this again.’
‘Yeah,’ Jo agreed, ‘that’s what I was thinking.’
‘What a tosser,’ Bella added. ‘Now tell me about the computer.’
‘It’s been slow for weeks, so finally I get the tech department in to take a look at it and they say my email’s being forwarded on somewhere else and basically I’m being spied on.’ Jo was surprised to feel a lump press up in her throat as she sa
id this.
‘Bloody hell,’ was Bella’s reply. ‘But look, don’t feel too paranoid. It happens a lot. For a cheap day rate, you can hire out a technical assistant to do the work and if you’ve got access to someone’s computer, bingo. Try not to get too freaked out, there’s some poor noddy sitting in an office somewhere in Bombay, probably, who has a mountain of your spam to sort through for whatever it is he’s after. He’s only getting paid a few quid, so he probably won’t look properly and may never find it anyway . . . But you know what?’ Bella asked.
‘What?’
‘I’m quite impressed. You must have rattled somebody’s cage then. For a change,’ she couldn’t help adding. ‘Am I allowed to tell Don? Or shall I get it leaked to Media Guardian?’
‘Tell me what?’ Jo could hear Bella’s husband asking in the background.
‘Oh thanks, I’m so reassured,’ Jo said huffily.
‘No honestly, keep me up to speed with what your techies are going to do and if I can think of anything better, I’ll let you know . . . Any chance it’s anything to do with the company I was working for, you know the one?’
It struck Jo as slightly strange that Bella didn’t say the name out loud on the phone.
‘Why aren’t you saying who?’ she asked.
‘Well. . . just being ultra-cautious. You know, if your computer’s being bugged. . .’ she didn’t end the sentence, but the implication was there. Her phone . . . why shouldn’t they bug her phone as well?
‘Quite a lot of chance, I’d say,’ was Jo’s answer.
‘Well, well. . .’ There was a pause while Bella took this on board. ‘Do you really think it’s them?’
‘I’ve done a lot of reporting on this kind of injection, you know, so obviously, I’d be the person with a very big interest in a new one. Maybe they’ve been keeping an eye on me ever since it was launched, who knows?’
‘That’s not on, is it?’ Bella replied. ‘Maybe we will have to look into this. I’ll call your mobile, Jo, is that OK?’
