Chapter 18
Jo had once explained it to someone like this: if you want to catch an interviewee at home, then these are the journalist rules: you must leave your house at daybreak, with an address and a map.
You must head out of London, passing a petrol station to fill the tank, jamming the fuel receipt into the bulging section of wallet dedicated to work receipts.
At the petrol station, you must buy a large coffee that tastes of almost entirely nothing and an apple pie which does not count as a nutritious breakfast and the filling is guaranteed to squish out and scald the roof of your mouth so badly that for the next three days, you’ll have a rough patch there.
You must then drive, paying close attention to the road map, road signs and motorway turn-offs while listening intently to the radio news because today is the day we go to press and everything that happens today is important.
You must also, because you’ve had no sleep the night before, try very hard to stay awake.
‘Have you beaten me to the office?’ were the words Jeff used instead of ‘hello’.
‘No, I’m in Bedfordshire.’
‘What the hell are you doing there? I need you to write up the Savannah piece and give me something fresh on whooping cough.’
‘I’m out here trying to get you something very fresh,’ was her slightly snappy reply. ‘I’ve been up all night on this, Jeff,’ she added. ‘I would love to be in my bed, I wouldn’t have driven out here if it wasn’t for a very good reason.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ he answered and there was something soothing to his voice, which for a moment made her close her eyes and think with longing about sleep.
‘I’m too old to stay up all night,’ she told him, ‘not without major pharmaceuticals.’
‘So why did you?’ he asked.
‘I’ve got this great lead on Wolff-Meyer.’
‘Well, that’s a major pharmaceutical.’
‘Oh, ha ha. I’m not going through it all on the phone, but there’s another reason for this whooping cough outbreak. I’m waiting to doorstep the person with the grudge who might like to tell me all about it.’
‘I see.’ He didn’t ask any more, and Jo knew this was because he trusted her. If she thought this was important enough to be doing on a Saturday morning, when there was so much other stuff still unwritten, then it almost certainly was important enough.
‘Keep in touch,’ he added. ‘You know you need to start filing soon. By the way, Dominique phoned in yesterday evening to say she’s quit. Gone to the Mail as a feature writer. Did you know about this?’
‘No!’ was Jo’s reaction, ‘the Mail? God—’ Something that had puzzled Jo for days was suddenly clear. ‘She probably put them onto the twins’ family. But they’ve still not run that story, have they? So we could potentially go back to the Townells if we wanted to.’
‘We can… if it fits with the fresh and convincing new line we’re still waiting to hear from you.’
‘Yup, yup, I know, I’m getting onto this as soon as I can. OK?’ She was distracted by the departure of Dominique. Ambitious, clever girl…
Aidan’s triumph in the Savannah story had probably been the final straw.
Dominique could never stand it when he got a better story than her.
Maybe she’d had an offer she was considering and she’d finally decided to jump.
Jo had been mentoring Dominique for almost a year and she hadn’t even called to tell her first.
‘We have to get her back,’ Jo told Jeff.
‘Who?’
‘Dominique! She won’t start till Monday, I’ll call her tomorrow.’
‘Are you serious? She’s sold your story from under your nose, been in secret talks to leave, is obviously far more ambitious than we even guessed—’
‘Exactly,’ Jo said. ‘We need her back. She and Aidan have to get a pay rise and work in my crack team. The Health and Environment SAS.’
There was a pause at the other end of the line.
‘Oh, go on,’ Jo urged, ‘I know you think of us all as family.’
‘Family?’ he sighed. ‘Some bloody, psychotic, dysfunctional bloody family,’ he answered. ‘How much of a pay rise are you expecting me to find them?’
When she told him, all he could say was: ‘Don’t hold your breath.’
‘I’ll call her later,’ Jo said.
‘OK, speak soon.’
‘Bye.’
As soon as she’d hung up, her phone rang again and she saw Simon’s number. She hoped this meant her children, rather than her ex-husband, were up early.
‘Hi, Mum,’ Mel’s voice came on the line.
‘Hello, darling! How are you?’
‘Fine, fine. Daddy’s going to make us pancakes when he gets up.’
‘How nice. You go and get him up, then.’
‘He said we can wake him at eight o’clock and not before, he’s busy kissing Gwen in there or something, eeeeugh… yuck.’
Jo would have liked to agree, but instead said: ‘Tell me a joke instead.’
‘Oh, I know, I know! If you’re American when you go into the toilet and you’re American when you come out of the toilet, what are you when you’re in the toilet?’
‘I have no idea. And I thought I told you I don’t like toilet jokes.’
‘This is not rude, I promise, Mum.’
‘OK, then, what are you?’
‘European. Geddit? You’re a peeing.’
‘Very good. How’s Netts? Is she with you?’
‘Yes, I’m reading her a story.’
‘That’s very nice of you. What are you doing today?’
‘I dunno yet. Bicycles in the park maybe.’
‘Good. Shall I say hello to Nettie?’
‘Yeah, speak to you later.’
‘Bye-bye, big kiss.’
A silly, smoochy kissing noise came back and then Nettie’s voice was on the line.
‘Hello, Mummy.’
‘Hello, big pumpkin. How are you?’
‘I got a joke too.’
‘Have you?’
‘What are you in the toilet?’
‘Ermm, I don’t know.’
‘A fish.’ This was followed by raucous laughter.
‘Very funny,’ Jo replied.
‘Bye-bye then,’ and with that Nettie hung up.
‘Bye,’ Jo was left to say into the receiver.
Some days she wondered if she would make it through another twenty-four hours without them.
She missed them even physically: the squishy soft weight of Nettie in her lap, the bony, angular cuddle of Mel.
Missed them, missed them, but realised that no solution was going to be perfect and at the moment, this was the best they could all do.
The dashboard clock was crawling towards 8 a.m. Her daughters would get Simon out of bed and she would go to the white house and knock on the door.
It was a bit early for a Saturday. She would probably find Joan in a dressing gown.
But too bad, this was going to be a very busy day, she had to get it started.
And then there was the bladder situation.
The early morning coffee would have to go somewhere, soon.
And this didn’t look like the kind of village to have a public toilet.
OK, 8 a.m. was now registered on the dashboard.
Time to gather herself together and go and knock on Joan Theroux’s door.
Jo switched off her mobile, no time for interruptions now, shoved her computer underneath the passenger seat, slipped her handbag over her shoulder and stepped out onto the pavement.
She wondered how many people were at their windows watching her go down the street.
In a little village like this, people noticed.
Through the white gate and up to the low red door, which she already knew was number 15, she went.
The front curtains were still drawn, but she put her finger on the brass bell and gave her practised ring – counting to five slowly – so that it was long, but not too long. A definite ring.
Jo waited for forty seconds or so, listening carefully for any sounds of movement, then rang again.
She was certain someone was home, because the upstairs curtains had been opened in the hour she’d sat in the car and she’d already driven right round the house, making sure there wasn’t a gate at the back.
She uncrossed her arms, took a step back from the doorstep and prepared to give her friendliest smile.
Now she could hear footsteps – maybe Joan had gone to get her dressing gown – then the door opened and sure enough, a dressing-gowned woman stood in front of her.
Gingerish hair, streaked with grey and up on end, a pale, early morning face without make-up. Jo put her at late forties, which was consistent with all that she knew about her so far.
‘Ms Theroux?’ Jo asked with the smile, but trying not to sound too door-to-door saleswomanish.
‘Yes,’ Ms Theroux replied, looking totally confused.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early on a Saturday. But it’s important. My name’s Jo Randall, I’m a journalist, I’m with the—’
But Ms Theroux had already let out a gasp which, Jo knew, was never a good sign. ‘You’re from the paper,’ she said, ‘I thought I recognised you.’
‘I know that you and Wolff-Meyer are involved in legal proceedings and I’m here because I was hoping to talk to you about that.’
‘No. No. I can’t say anything. Please go away.’
And then with an embarrassed fumble, Joan shut the door and Jo – not for the first time in her career, or indeed the last – found herself staring at a small brass bell.
Drat.
As a reporter, you always lived in the over-optimistic hope that someone, somewhere wasn’t going to make it this hard for you. That someone really did want to talk about something interesting.
She turned from the door and walked slowly down to the end of the street, turned left and took deep calming breaths as she carried on walking. Finally, she doubled back and was at the door again.
She pressed the buzzer firmly.
It didn’t take long for Joan to come back. She’d got dressed in the five minutes or so since Jo had left her and now stood in her doorway in jeans and a baggy grey top.
She looked taken aback to see Jo there again. Maybe she’d been expecting someone else.
‘This is really important, Ms Theroux,’ Jo got in straight away. ‘An eight-year-old girl is in a coma, someone might lose their child over this. We’ve got to know more about this strain of whooping cough.’
The woman’s face seemed to pale even further.
‘I can’t talk about it, I just can’t,’ she said, agitated now.