Chapter 19
19
For all the cloak-and-dagger and ‘having to find Bel in Platt Fields Park of a Saturday afternoon, so the Russians couldn’t hack their telecoms,’ or whatever reason she was claiming meant they couldn’t use their mobile phones, Connor had a premonition that this was going to turn out to be very little.
And moreover, he foretold he was going to be begged to withhold it from their employers. In their Didsbury encounter, Bel had seemed off duty as fuck. While Aaron teased her about Investigations being a racket, Connor hadn’t thought it might be until he saw her looking super tarted-up and swilling champagne.
My cover. Hmmmm. It was a very convincing one, yes.
To add to the cynicism, Aaron told him Bel was from wealth. He’d not anticipated this with all the careless scruffiness, but of course that’s precisely what should’ve alerted him.
‘ Oh aye. Bohemian left-wing types where they don’t put their heating on and have paintings worth as much as a car.’ ‘She told you this?’ ‘Got a pal at the Yorkshire Post .’
Of course Aaron was doing background checks on Bel, Connor thought. His unreciprocated crush on Bel was so poorly concealed, it was like Slimer in Ghostbusters pinging off the walls in excitement and leaving the office furniture coated in phantasmagorical goo. He sensed, on Bel’s side, her alliance with Aaron was pure pragmatism.
‘ Why would she work here?’ Connor scanned their dungeon in disbelief.
Aaron shrugged. ‘Maybe she felt a calling? I’d be feeling a calling to a poolside cabana in the Dominican Republic.’
The awkward concept of ‘successful podcaster’ made more sense to Connor in light of this.
He checked Google Maps and Bel’s Share My Location, and as he raised his eyes to the horizon, he saw her waving at him from under a tree.
He noticed on approach that she’d brought a checked waterproof picnic blanket and rucksack, the sight of which made Connor uncomfortable. Exactly how long was she anticipating they were going to talk for?
If this was to launch some convoluted manipulation that no one could know she skived on occasion, complete with beseeching doe eyes to make him feel too bad to refuse her to her face, get it over with. Let’s not pretend either of us want to split a Thermos of Pimms.
‘Afternoon,’ Connor said, deciding he’d not take his shades off. Bel was in bug-like ones herself, and navy dungashorts that seemed better suited to people of an age to attend after-school clubs.
Her legs were outstretched and, as he sat down next to her, Connor’s eyes were drawn by her small, pale feet, lost in clunky Doc Martens sandals. Her toenails were decorated with squares of sky-blue polish that had obviously been applied long enough ago that they were now floating oblongs, like a Rothko painting.
Jen insisted any colour other than a caramel-pink she called ‘nude’ on nails was irredeemably vulgar. I don’t know why grown, professional women think it’s a good look to be at the Barry M neons. They’re for shoplifting while playing truant.
He felt sure Jen wouldn’t like Bel, and wondered what Bel would think of her.
‘I’m sorry to drag you out here on your weekend. This is a story where, if it leaks out that we’re poking around, it vanishes,’ Bel said.
It belatedly occurred to Connor that it wasn’t WhatsApp she mistrusted, it was him.
‘I will keep this as brief as I can, I know I’m eating into your free time,’ she continued.
To his surprise, Bel went on to describe a pretty intriguing sting on the Manchester Mayor, who was apparently a secret sleaze, consorting with crooks. He recalled Bel’s campaigning wins and considered he should have given her a bit more credit before leaping to the most jaundiced conclusion. It was possibly somewhat dismissive and even sexist that he’d so readily thought she might be a frivolous lass on the sesh.
‘It’s a … sort of grey zone Me Too with added conflict of interest?’ Connor said.
‘Exactly,’ Bel said, looking impressed he’d got it in one.
‘Toby knows about this?’
‘I’d not risk undercover without sign-off.’
‘What does the Airbnb listing look like?’
‘As Ian said, smart Victorian four-bed, supposedly sleeps ten if you’re gullible or want a bargain. Welcomes parties. I noticed it has very little availability which means either it’s mad popular, or they aren’t renting it to the public for some of the time.’
Connor turned it over in his mind.
‘What’s the daughter called again? So Amber is in Didsbury, running this bar. That’s what, four, five miles from here? What are you going to do if she bumps into you in your other life? Like I did?’
‘I don’t know many people here yet. If Amber catches me on a coffee run on a journalist day, I’ll still be Bella. Aaron lives in Bury with his parents and goes straight home from work most of the time. Platzki’s won’t happen again until the next intern arrives.’ She paused. ‘This isn’t going to work because I’ve eliminated all risk. It’s taking a risk and hoping it pays off.’
‘And now I’m involved,’ Connor said, a statement and a question.
‘Afraid so.’
Pennies that should’ve dropped earlier for Connor, dropped now.
‘This is a request to join you in the make-believe?’
‘Erm, if you want to. Amber’s invite to her birthday party in a fortnight is for both of us. I think she took a shine.’
‘I’m only an intern reporter, I can’t spend weekday afternoons getting shitfaced without Aaron getting me sacked.’
‘You don’t need to be present during working hours. To be honest, now I’ve made the connection with Amber, I don’t think I even do. It’s about socialising. Which I appreciate is a pain in the arse given you’re not being paid for it. I could pay you …’ Bel swallowed and Connor could see her suppressing the grimace, ‘in a joint byline, if it all comes good? Very beneficial for the resumé?’
‘I’m not doing anything much else with my free time up here, to be fair. Is this not ethically grubby? She thinks she’s got a pal, and you’re plotting to steal her property and destroy the family name?’
‘Yes, it is. She’s been so friendly that the guilt is already giving me cold sweats. But I think if she’s knowingly covering for a powerful, abusive man that’s worse, and this is the only way to find out. Also, I’m hoping it lands on her mother, not her.’
Connor watched kids nearby kicking a ball through jumper goalposts and arguing bitterly over the rule breaking.
‘If I’m going to be involved, can I offer constructive input?’
‘Sure.’
‘Getting footage from an iPad that you don’t know for sure is there– either the iPad, or the footage– and that you don’t have the passcode for, then hoping to get enough time with it to access and copy the files … Do you mind me saying this isn’t so much a long shot as a deranged moon shot? How bad was Plan B if this is A?’
He smiled, and Bel smiled back.
‘I’m thinking take it one stage at a time. If I can get her to check something on the iPad when she’s with me, I bet I can see the passcode. Everyone shields their pin from strangers, not their passcodes from their friends. She says she has lots of lock-ins. That could be the opportunity, everyone half-cut.’
‘Let’s say you do get into it. Months of recordings will take hours to download. You can’t bung a memory stick in it and see a little red bar go to one hundred per cent in three minutes flat, like in a spy show.’
‘Fuck! Yes. I need a tech guy like Bond has. Q?’
‘You need a miracle …’ Connor paused. ‘You could take the cover with the rainbows off and stick it on a second identical iPad you’ve got on factory settings. Lift the information from hers overnight, then swap them back. Preferably before she goes to the Apple store demanding to know why it’s bricked.’
‘That could work!’
‘About five impossible things need to happen first.’
Nevertheless, Connor wasn’t going to flatter her by saying so, but he was quite impressed at the FaceTime hen do spat, and the flirtatious chameleon he’d seen skulling Laurent Perrier. That made him think she might just pull this off.
The northern leg of his internship had otherwise been pure grind. ‘Learn all you can from her ,’ Toby had said. What did he actually have to lose by saying yes? Except his kneecaps, if these Kendricks turned out to be gangsters.
‘Does this input mean … you’re in?’ Bel said, pulling her legs up. Those shoes looked like they could keep her anchored to the ocean floor.
‘What am I agreeing to, exactly?’
‘Six weeks of attending functions as Bella Niven’s boyfriend.’
‘I have a real girlfriend. What do I do when Jennifer is up next weekend? Keep her indoors the whole time with blackout curtains drawn? Hostage hood?’
‘Oh, are you not still in the honeymoon phase?’ Bel said evenly, and Connor caught it a second too late to laugh. She was too quick for him sometimes.
‘Could Jennifer be your sister? Tell her due to an ultra-secret assignment, it’s temporarily necessary. Please don’t share the details, though.’
‘I tell Jen she has to say she’s my sister because I’ve got another person up here saying she’s my girlfriend instead, and I can’t explain why. That’s not going to go down brilliantly, I don’t think?’
‘I don’t know what else to suggest. Thursday was an unforeseen calamity. The only way I can think of dealing with it is trying to turn it into a win, and making us the M20 postcode’s new It Couple. If you don’t want any part of it, I’ll have to ghost Amber. I think a phony break-up is too much plot, this early on. I would trigger “this doesn’t feel right” sensations.’
‘Hang on,’ Connor said, ‘you’d have to tell Toby I’m the reason the story’s sunk?’
Bel shrugged her shoulders. ‘I hadn’t thought, but I suppose so?’
Connor blew air out.
‘If it’s going to make me look like an obdurate, unhelpful cock to say no to the northern Investigations Editor before I’veeven left probation, then I’ve not got much of a choice, have I?’
‘We would not want you mislabelled as an obdurate, unhelpful cock,’ Bel said, grinning, and Connor knew he should grin back instead of glowering, but this woman would not stop getting the better of him.
At least he knew how to locate the adult clothing section.