Chapter 54
54
Amber tilted the desktop screen to face Bel.
‘Even with the Ancoats info, I still didn’t suspect you at all. Not my nice new friends. My very new nice friends. Told Rick it must be a mistake. But because a valuable had gone missing, I watched the CCTV. And then I think, that’s weird, why is Bella walking less drunk when she’s out of the bar? I mean, it could be the fresh air sobering you up but it pings something in my brain …’
Bel saw the hours-old fuzzy black-and-white image of herself and Connor and didn’t take it in.
Why was the door locked? Was there still a way to spin this? Had Connor messaged yet? Bel felt every inch of her arrogance and sloppiness and stupidity, yet there was no time for that right now. Think, think.
‘… A lot of things are out of the ordinary, I realise. How we met, your having a fight on your phone in the bar. Your interest in the iPad last night, right before it goes astray. I’d looked for you on Instagram in the past but you told me you weren’t on there. Because of a “stalker ex” was it? Yeah, I’m sure he exists. And Connor’s page is locked down, he never accepted my follow request. So I finally got round to Googling you both, and guess what?’
Bel adjusted the bag on her shoulder and fought the urge to pump the door handle while screaming, ‘ What would Tamara do?’
‘I assume your name’s made up because I can’t find you, but here’s Connor, at a press awards, and he’s a journalist. If he’s a journalist, then you are too. I can see which newspaper you work for. This has all been about getting to my mother, using me? Fucking amateur hour, Bella-Not Bella.’
‘No!’ Bel said.
‘What did you want on my iPad, then?’
Bel hard-swallowed. Fuck, fuck.
‘I’m trying to gather evidence on the Mayor. Glenn Bailey. He’s sexually abusing young women who work for him.’
‘Oh, right. What would that have to do with us?’
‘He stays at the Airbnb.’
‘Nope. Where’s your proof of that?’
‘The Ring doorbell. You record everyone who visits.’
‘Riiiiight,’ Amber said. ‘Rick, you remember the “Mayor of Manchester” visiting our Airbnb? Booked in right after the Prime Minister and Ryan Giggs?’
Rick shook his head. Bel wondered if she had been given bad information. From the meeting in the cemetery, she’d taken Ian’s word as gospel. Maybe Tamara would be telling her that her Act Three problem was in fact an Act One problem.
‘That’s what you wanted from the iPad? The doorbell camera?’ Rick said.
He and Amber had obviously spent a lot of time pulling this apart but their analysis hadn’t got that far.
Amber folded her arms.
‘How’s that gone for you? The Mayor on there?’
Bel could see absolutely no advantage or point in lying.
‘No. He’s been deleted, I assume.’
‘Oh, you assume?’ Amber said, volume increasing. ‘You’ve assumed a lot, all told.’
‘Can I tell you why I’m going after the Mayor?’ Bel said. Here it was, the ‘backup plan,’ which was barely a plan or any sort of backup. Also known as: shit or bust. ‘You might understand whyI’ve done what I’ve done if I tell you.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you, Rick?’
Rick gave Bel his assassin’s mute stare.
‘He’s not only manipulating women who work for him into bed. He blackmails them to stay quiet by taking nudes when they’re sleeping and only showing them afterwards. Saying he’ll release them if they make his behaviour public.’
Bel paused. Amber and Rick were both silent.
‘ … He’s the full Me Too monster and he’s doing it in your house. If you help me, not only have you done a net good to women and society, you’re not complicit and you can’t be blamed.’
‘Woah, you’re threatening us now?’
‘No!’ Oh God, THINK, Bel.
No atheists in foxholes and it didn’t pay to be slow-witted in them, either. ‘I’m saying I’ve fucked this up and I don’t blame you for hating me, but Glenn Bailey is going to be outed one day, by someone. I’m proof of that. One of his victims will go public, others will come forward. He’s got a lengthy past in the city’s nightlife, so probably a flood. And when they’ve finished asking how could he behave like that and get away with it for so long, they’ll start on Who Knew What.’
Amber regarded her, blinking. ‘So you are threatening us.’
‘I’m being realistic. You don’t want to be mixed up with him.’
Given Amber was already mixed up with her parents, this might be the wrong approach.
‘You know, it’s pretty incredible to lie and wheedle your way into someone’s trust using a false identity, get invited into their lives, steal their possessions to trawl their private information. Then turn round and say hey, if you don’t want everyone to think you’re a cunt, lend a hand in digging me the dirt I failed to find. You must think we’re stupid. The stupid couple who run a bar and only know how to free-pour Tanqueray.’
‘That’s not what I’m saying, at all!’
‘And I bet you also think we’re stupid enough to let you walk out of here having had a bit of a rant at you?’
‘I don’t think you’re stu—’
Amber’s menacing control broke.
‘Shut up, Miss Alias. Tomorrow morning first thing I’m going to call your editor and tell them we’re making an official complaint against you and them for what you’ve done. Invasion of privacy, taking our property, false identity, whatever the fuck– I don’t know what the official terms are. Then I’ll find some press standards-type watchdog and tell them, too.’
‘Please, Amber. We’re not enemies here.’
‘Yes we fucking are. I don’t know your name but I have Connor’s and that’ll do. Becky Something and Connor Adams.’
‘Connor’s only my boyfriend, go for me, not him.’
‘Even though he’s a reporter?’
‘That’s how we met. He didn’t want to do this story and begged me not to. It was, I swear on my life, a mistake that he walked past that first day we met. I’d have said I was single otherwise. It’s nothing to do with him, please. Report me. I’m Bel Macauley. Investigations Editor. Look me up.’
‘You really are mad about him, aren’t you? A criminal couple, like Bonnie and Clyde. Fred and Rose. But no, sorry. He was by your side every step of the way. Get out of my bar and out of our lives and don’t come back, you conniving bitch. Enjoy your P45 and if I ever see you in Didsbury again, I will make your life hell.’
Amber unlocked the door and threw it open.
‘I’m really sorry,’ Bel said to the still-impassive Rick, and Amber said: ‘Yeah, yeah. Bye, now.’
‘Bye, Bella!’ Ted called innocently as she swept past, and she managed a tight smile.
Bel was marching down the street, grim-faced, when she saw Connor emerging from a minicab, a few yards away. She wanted to run to him, except when she told him what they were facing, he would have every right never to speak to her again.
He was jacketless and had clearly raced over. He frowned at Bel, ducking his head down to tell the driver to wait.
‘You’re all right?’ he said. ‘That wasn’t a nice few minutes.’
She could see he had been deeply worried and some part of her would feel gratitude if there were any non-terrified part of her left available to feel that.
‘Kind of. Thank you for coming to rescue me.’
‘It went all right? When you didn’t reply I thought …’
‘Not really, no. They know who we are.’
‘ What? Are they going to the police?’
‘Nope. Worse. The editor and IPSO.’
‘What?! Fuck!’
‘Yep. Shall we?’ Bel gestured at the taxi. ‘I think we’re best off doing this elsewhere.’
‘Should’ve enjoyed my not nice few minutes more,’ Connor said, opening the car door.