Perfect Strangers

by Tasmina Perry

  ‘Could you do Thursday?’

  ‘Thursday?’ Sophie looked at her, expecting her to start laughing, but the woman’s expression was serious.

  ‘I know it’s short notice, but I’m heading to the South of France and I need to get in shape for my bikini. Are you available?’

  The woman’s startling green eyes challenged her to say no. This was clearly someone not used to being turned down. Sophie hesitated. After all, she wasn’t strictly speaking a personal trainer, but it was the one thing she did know an awful lot about. And two hundred pounds an hour! A few sessions at that rate and she’d definitely be able to stay in the little Battersea flat, maybe even think about upgrading back to Chelsea.

  ‘Okay. Thursday it is.’ The words came out of Sophie’s mouth before she could stop them.

  ‘Excellent,’ said the woman. ‘Let me take your details.’

  Her Chanel quilt bag was hanging off the treadmill behind them. She reached inside and took out her diary.

  ‘I don’t even know your name,’ she said without looking up.

  ‘My name’s Sophie Ellis.’

  ‘I’m Lana,’ said the woman, scribbling in her book with a silver pencil. ‘Sophie, you’re a lifesaver. An absolute lifesaver.’

  And here I am thinking exactly the same thing, thought Sophie.

  4

  With a pencil wedged between her teeth, Ruth scrolled through the news stories on her computer screen. She had five pages open, all from different news outlets reporting on the same event.

  Nodding to herself, she took the pencil and annotated the spidery flow chart in front of her with more circles and arrows, and when she had finished she tapped her knuckles against the desktop with satisfaction. She had been working on something all morning, trying to draw together a seemingly disconnected collection of names and events – and it all seemed to be coming together. Well, possibly. Of course, now she had to back up her theory: she needed documents, photographs, maybe even get an interview, someone on the record. But there was a story there. She could feel it.

  She sat back and took a sip of her now tepid coffee, thinking of her father. Art Boden had been a newspaperman too. Not a hotshot editor at the New York Times or the Washington Post – no Woodward and Bernstein fame for him – no, Art Boden had been the news editor on the fly-speck Greenville Chronicle, ‘a small-town paper for a small town’, as he had always put it. But despite his small circulation, he was passionate about what he did. He loved the chase, the story, the joy of conjuring something from thin air, and as far as he was concerned, there was only one way to find the biggest scoops: instinct. It was a word he drummed into Ruth summer after summer when she had interned at his paper during college. ‘Instinct, Ruthie,’ he’d say. ‘You either got it or you ain’t and it’s something all the fancy journalism schools in the world can’t teach you.’ Well, right now, Ruth’s instinct was telling her she had something. She hoped it wouldn’t let her down, because she desperately needed something right now.

  ‘Ruth, meeting room!’ Chuck Dean, the Trib’s junior reporter, called as he walked past. ‘Jim wants a catch-up.’

  Ruth rolled her eyes. I bet he does, she thought as she gathered up her notes. Jim had been putting more and more pressure on them to produce ‘significant’ stories, but only Ruth knew why. The problem was, however, that Jim’s sudden enthusiasm for scoops had coincided with a sudden dearth of decent stories. Nothing had appeared on the wire services, nothing much in the national inkies. The July and August holiday months were notorious for being a slow news period, but the past few weeks had seen a particularly dry patch.

  Ruth closed the door behind her and sat in the last chair around the cramped meeting table. If it hadn’t been so pathetic, she would have laughed. When she was growing up, Ruth had always assumed the life of a foreign correspondent would be terribly glamorous – she had imagined herself riding in the back of bullet-scarred jeeps or exchanging war stories with grizzled old hacks by the pool of some hotel in Singapore or Guam – but here she was, crammed into a tiny rented room, sitting on a rented office chair with the foam leaking out the side. Not much of a bureau to close down, she thought grimly, looking around at her colleagues. The Washington Tribune London office consisted of Chuck, an eager but mousy Yale graduate; Karl, a forty-ish veteran of British local newspapers; and English rose Rebecca, who acted as Jim’s PA and occasionally filed a story on travel or fashion. And then there was Jim Keane himself. If you met Jim at a party, you’d guess he was a banker or a corporate lawyer. In his neat suits and club tie, he had all the polish – and sense of entitlement – of the preppy Ivy League classes. He was a fixture on the Hampstead intelligentsia circuit, and had written a rather pompous and self-regarding book called Sarajevo: City Under Siege, despite having been stationed in Bosnia for all of a week, just as the war was dragging to an end. Ruth had taken a great deal of pleasure seeing it in the window of one of Soho’s remainder bookstores a few months later, but Jim still seemed to believe he was Hemingway reborn.

  ‘All right, people, before we start, let me say I know all the excuses,’ said Jim. ‘You’re going to say that it’s summer and that nothing ever happens in summer. You’re going to complain that there’re no stories out there, or that there’s nothing to grab them Stateside. But’ – he tapped his signet ring on the desk – ‘we need to work, guys. You’ll all know that Isaac Grey has been over to London, and I want to show him just what we can do.’ He looked around the room. ‘So what have you got?’

  As Ruth had guessed, it was pretty slim pickings. The announcement of a new Cy Twombly show at the Tate Modern, a rumoured meeting between the Secretary of State and the Foreign Secretary about the situation in Iran, some royal tittle-tattle. If this was all they had, then perhaps Isaac was right to consider closing the London bureau.

  ‘Ruth?’

  She looked down at her notes and pulled a face. She had wanted to keep this new story under wraps until she had researched it some more, nailed down something more concrete, but they clearly needed something right now. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Well I guess everyone has read the latest on the Watson story?’ she began, looking around the table. Sebastian Watson was a senior City banking executive who had been caught out with an escort girl. It had been the splash of one of the Sunday tabloids a few days earlier, and, it being a slow news week, the other papers had waded in, generating enough bad publicity to force Watson’s resignation from his two-million-a-year job.

  ‘There was more on the wire this morning,’ nodded Chuck. ‘Apparently his wife has left him.’

  Jim steepled his fingers together and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think there is a bigger story here,’ said Ruth, noting Jim’s patronising smile. Even before Isaac had effectively put them in competition, Ruth and Jim had had an uneasy relationship, with the bureau chief never missing an opportunity to subtly undermine her in front of the staff. She told herself that it was because he was threatened by her, and while it no longer upset her – you couldn’t be in this business without a thick skin – she never felt entirely comfortable in his presence.

  ‘How big, exactly?’ said Jim. ‘Sebastian Watson’s story has no resonance Stateside at all; he’s British, barely a celebrity. It’s business gossip at best.’

  ‘Agreed, but Watson himself isn’t the story – it’s the escort girl. She’s twenty-five and from Chesterfield, a town about twenty miles south of Sheffield.’

  ‘I don’t see how—’

  ‘Hear me out,’ said Ruth quickly, opening a file and spreading out copies of various newspaper cuttings.

  ‘Look at this one. Three years ago, the German finance minister was caught entering a west London hotel with another escort girl. There was little coverage about it in the UK, but the German press got hold of the story and it forced his resignation from the Bundeskabinett.’

  She tapped another cutting.

  ‘Bill Danson. Gubernatorial
hopeful. Five years ago he’s in London on a business trip and he gets caught with some racy blonde in Chelsea. He pulls out of the governorship race. Are you noticing a pattern?’

  She could feel the eyes of her colleagues on her; she knew they were intrigued, but it was Jim who counted. Everything had to go through Jim, and right now her superior didn’t look impressed.

  ‘So some high-profile men got caught with their pants down.’ He shrugged. ‘It happens. I could add dozens more mug shots to your collection if I had enough time.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s the background of the girls that I’m interested in. The Danson scandal was one of the first stories I covered when I came to London, so I pulled out my notes and looked.’

  She flipped her notebook open and pushed it into the middle of the table.

  ‘The girl involved in that story was also from Chesterfield. In fact, all three girls, Seb Watson’s hooker, the German guy’s and Danson’s, all came from Chesterfield, and they are all roughly the same age.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’ asked Rebecca.

  ‘It means I’m off to Chesterfield if that’s where all the racy birds are from,’ chuckled Karl.

  Ruth ignored him.

  ‘It means that these girls know each other. I bet you a hundred bucks they are old friends. Maybe went to school together. I haven’t had time to look into it just yet, but—’

  ‘And the story with interest and significance to a US audience is . . .?’ asked Jim.

  ‘We have a US candidate for governor who’s had his career destroyed, Jim. If I can just have a little time to join the dots . . .’

  Jim pulled a face and shook his head.

  ‘It’s too thin, Ruth,’ he said briskly. ‘We can’t waste time on maybes at this point.’ He stood up, putting his desk diary under his arm. ‘And that goes for the rest of you too. I want more than this; bigger stories, stronger leads. We need to do better, much better, yes?’

  The team mumbled assent without much enthusiasm and Ruth watched him walk out of the meeting room, her stomach knotted in anger. She couldn’t believe he would turn down a story with such potential just because he wanted to undermine her chances of getting the bureau job. She quickly gathered her cuttings and followed him to his office.

  ‘Can I have a word?’ she said, knocking on the door frame.

  ‘What?’ he asked impatiently.

  Ruth closed the door.

  ‘What’s really wrong with the escort story?’

  Jim shrugged. ‘Nothing. I just think it’s too spurious to waste a week on. Need I remind you that this bureau may not exist in September? We need to generate something pretty good and pretty damn fast to even have a chance of stopping that from happening.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ruth. ‘This is the sort of story the mother ship wants. Exclusives, scoops, not rehashed press conferences or interviews that any stringer could bring in.’

  ‘And what scoop are you picturing here, Ruth? A picture of three trophy blondes in their school uniforms?’

  She took a breath. Don’t rise to it, Ruth, she told herself.

  ‘Look, I think these girls were honeytraps. I always felt that about Danson’s girl. Say they all knew each other, say they were recruited by some Mr Big – some go-to man for help setting honeytraps for influential men – that’s dynamite. It’s a global news story, especially as one of the players was a potential governor.’

  ‘Danson? He’s old news, years old. He’s not even in public life any more.’

  ‘He would have been a good governor, Jim,’ she said feeling the words come out of her mouth too quickly. ‘If he was the victim of a sting, that is still going to cause one hell of a fuss.’

  Jim levelled his gaze.

  ‘It’s a no, Ruth. I want you to work on an Angela Ahrendts profile in time for London Fashion Week.’

  ‘Oh come on, Jim!’ said Ruth, throwing her hands up. ‘Let Rebecca do that. She loves fashion. I don’t know a Burberry tote from a Walmart carrier bag.’

  ‘I’m not sending a twenty-seven-year-old to interview the hottest American CEO in London. This is a good story for you.’

  Ruth glared at him. ‘A good story for you, more like.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Ruth knew she should hold her tongue, but she couldn’t stop herself. ‘You know Isaac wants the best person for the job in this role. You are sacrificing the good of the newspaper for your own personal ambition.’

  Jim’s eyes opened wide.

  ‘And how am I doing that, exactly?’

  ‘By sabotaging my story ideas. I am the only one who generates exclusives on this team.’

  His face reddened with anger. He looked as if he was about to scream at her, but then his eyes closed, and when they opened, his expression had softened.

  ‘Do you know what I think, Ruth? I think Shanghai is a good opportunity for you. You’re a field reporter, you thrive on chasing down a big story.’

  ‘Exactly, and that’s why—’

  Jim cut her off.

  ‘London doesn’t need a hotshot reporter, Ruth, it needs an editor. Someone who can liaise with the stringers, co-ordinate the bloggers. Someone with an eye on what Washington needs in the twenty-first century.’

  Someone to go for long lunches with pretty PR girls and your broadsheet cronies, thought Ruth.

  ‘Is this how it’s going to be, Jim?’ she asked. ‘Are you really going to make it a competition?’

  Jim smiled, a lopsided, nasty smile.

  ‘It’s always been a competition, Ruth. And frankly, you don’t have what it takes to win.’

  5

  Sophie turned off the engine of her moped and glanced down at the address written in her diary. This can’t be the place, can it? she thought, looking up at the virgin white stucco building across the road. She had been to some very impressive homes in her time, town houses in Chelsea, estates in the country, villas abroad, but none had been quite as grand and as exquisitely elegant as the one before her now. Egerton Row was one of the most exclusive streets in south-west London, tucked away in a quiet enclave off Brompton Road. Lana’s detached house looked freshly painted, with slate steps, manicured window boxes on the Juliet balcony and miniature privet hedges standing like sentry guards either side of the shiny black door. Recession, what recession? thought Sophie, as she locked her helmet into her scooter’s storage box.

  Then again, she had to admit she was benefiting from all this surplus cash too. In the three weeks since she had met Lana, Sophie had made over fifteen hundred pounds from the woman and her wealthy friends for yoga and fitness sessions. She had quickly got over her embarrassment at being their ‘hired help’, as one client had ungraciously called her, and instead had felt empowered at bringing so much money in so swiftly. It had been enough to get her moped taxed and back on the road, to pay off the interest on her credit card bill, and to pay for a plane ticket for her mum to go and visit a friend in Denmark, which had been the first time she had seen Julia smile since the funeral.

  To be honest, Sophie didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of becoming a personal trainer before. She’d spent years keeping her body in tip-top condition and had the figure and athleticism to show for it. It made total sense to turn her prime asset into a career.

  Lana opened the door dressed in black cycling shorts, her long chocolate hair tumbling over the straps of a hot-pink cropped Lycra vest top.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she purred. ‘Sorry I had to ask you to come to the house, but I’m mad, mad busy.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Sophie as she followed Lana inside. ‘This place is amazing.’

  If the exterior of Lana’s house was stunning, the interior was something else. The entrance hall was double height, with a white marble staircase curling off to the right, a grand piano standing centre stage and a stunning collection of art on the walls. Sophie still hadn’t worked out what Lana did for a living, but assumed that the money came from her husband Simon, who apparentl
y did something in the money markets.

  ‘I suppose,’ shrugged Lana. ‘We only bought it recently, and there’s so much I want to do. I wanted to get the renovation work done while we were away, but I think this is maybe a six-, twelve-month job. Don’t you think it’s looking tired?’

  Sophie didn’t think anything of the sort. It seemed perfect to her eyes, all sparkling white paintwork, varnished wood floors and artfully arranged furniture; her idea of a dream house. It was a shame how Lana’s wealth and the ease with which she could spend her husband’s money had anesthetised her to its beauty.

  ‘So where do you want to do this?’ she asked.

  ‘There is a studio downstairs,’ said Lana, ‘but it’s a lovely day. Would it work to go for a run?’

  Sophie nodded. Much as she would have liked to see the studio, she knew she was here to work. Improving Lana’s cardiovascular fitness was a good idea, and her client was right: the sun was out and the morning air not too warm yet.

  They took the back streets towards Hyde Park, crossing Brompton Road, then snaked down Ennismore Gardens towards South Carriage Drive. They didn’t talk much, but when Sophie did say something, it was to praise Lana’s work rate. She knew from personal experience how women with rich partners, no matter how beautiful, tended to be insecure, and needed constant compliments and reassurance. But in Lana’s case, no false flattery was required. She was long-legged, fit and light-footed, and had no problem keeping up with Sophie’s pace. They were inside the park now, running down the shaded path between two lines of sycamores.

  ‘So how long are you away for?’ Sophie said it lightly, but she had been dreading the answer. She was just getting used to the income from Lana’s daily sessions, and despite getting some response from a notice for ‘Ellis Training’ she had pinned on various café notice boards around South Kensington, she knew she wouldn’t be able to charge them a quarter the rate she was getting from Lana and her friends.

  ‘We’ll be away all of August. The French way,’ replied Lana. ‘We can start again in September, though? I don’t want you getting so booked up you can’t fit me into your schedule.’