Chapter 9 #4
‘Right.’ She wasn’t sure where this was going. What could she find out about it anyway? How microbes were manipulated… sounded like the kind of thing that required a chemistry degree to even begin to understand.
‘I went to a talk in Oxford recently,’ Dr Taylor went on.
‘Various doctors and experts who came from both sides of the vaccination fence. It was a lively evening. And that’s when the manipulating and mutating of diseases came up.
One of the speakers warned that in trying to fight old diseases, we might accidentally create new ones. ’
‘Do you have a note of who was talking there that evening?’ Jo asked, hoping that a whole new trail might be opening up before her.
‘When I get back to the surgery, I’ll have a look through my papers and find that information for you.’
‘Thanks for your help… and for putting your trust in me.’
‘Strictly anonymous, of course,’ he added. ‘And please, be careful.’
By the time Jo arrived at the Townells’ home in Canterbury, the crisis point was close.
As she pulled her car up in the road, she saw two cars parked ahead of her and Mick Townell at his garden gate, talking to a couple of reporters she recognised, while Aidan looked on helplessly from further up the garden path.
Jo got out of the car as quickly as she could and headed for the house. ‘Hello, Mick, sorry about all this!’ she called out to him, with a big, and she hoped reassuring, smile on her face.
She gave a little smile and a curt nod to the rival reporters. One of them was health editor, Meryl Payne – Jo already had experience of this woman’s persistence. Damn, damn, this would be a fight.
She opened the garden gate and didn’t allow Mick to think about whether or not he was going to let her in: ‘Let’s talk about this in private, inside, please,’ she said firmly and carried on towards the front door.
‘There’s no need to let her back in, Mr Townell,’ Meryl said immediately. ‘We’re more than happy to sign you up straight away. I can make the payment immediately.’
Jeeeeez.
‘Mick, please, can I just talk to you for five minutes in private?’ Jo urged him.
He followed her up the path, and with relief she saw that Meryl and her colleague were staying put at the gate – for the moment.
Mick showed her and Aidan into the sitting room. It wasn’t looking so tidy today. Samantha was there with the twins, who had emptied every single toy box and scattered Lego, bricks and other small plastic objects right across the floor.
‘Hello,’ Samantha greeted her. ‘I’m really sorry about this,’ she added, looking properly sorry as well. Jo guessed that if it had been up to Samantha, the Mail would never have been involved.
‘OK, well, here I am, let’s not beat about the bush.’ Jo tried to keep smiling and sounding friendly. ‘What would convince you to do the story with us and not the Mail?’
‘A proper amount of money,’ was Mick’s immediate reply.
‘Right. Well, have you got a figure in mind?’ She dared to take a seat on the sofa beside Samantha in the hope that this would get Mick and Aidan to sit down as well and make them all feel a bit calmer.
‘The girl out there is talking about five figures,’ Mick said.
Ouch, ouch. Yes, there was no denying newspapers did pay for big stories and this was a good story, but… but… she doubted very much that it was worth that much to Jeff or Spikey.
On the phone, on the way down, she had been carefully briefed by Jeff as to exactly how high she could go. And how low they were hoping her to stay.
‘We’re very committed to this story,’ she began.
‘We’ve done the interviews, the photos, you won’t have to do anything else.
I’ve been interviewing doctors, I’m planning a big report on this.
I’m going to do a proper job and take it very seriously.
I hope you’ll agree it’s not just about the money. ’
Samantha was nodding at her, holding Ben on her lap.
Mick puffed air into his cheeks and let it out slowly.
‘I am not going to be undersold here,’ he said finally. ‘We need the money… for the boys,’ he tacked on.
‘We can pay you ￡5,000.’ Jo decided to name a figure which wasn’t quite at her limit, giving herself a little to play with.
She looked over at Aidan; the expression of surprise on his face that had been there since she’d arrived widened. ‘That’s not enough,’ was Mick’s reply. ‘They’ve already told me at least ￡10,000.’
‘You won’t get that, Mick. They will promise one thing and deliver quite another.’
‘Same with you,’ he said.
‘I have a new contract in my bag.’ Jo took the file out. ‘We can sign it here and now.’
There was a loud rapping on the front door.
Before Mick was even up from his seat, Jo was at the door, which she held open for just the time it took to say, ‘Could you please let us finish?’ to Meryl and her colleague.
There was an uneasy silence in the sitting room when she got back.
‘I think Samantha and I need to talk about this,’ Mick said. ‘Could you wait in the hall?’
This wasn’t good, wasn’t good at all. But she backed out of the room and once Aidan was out as well, she shut the door on the Townells.
‘We’ll give them a couple of minutes,’ Jo told him. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Bit rattled,’ he admitted. She smiled at him: ‘At times like this, you can see why journalism and heavy drinking tend to go hand in hand. I really want this story, but the Mail probably has more money. And we all know money talks,’ she whispered.
He nodded at her and let out a nervous sigh.
They heard the letterbox lifting and a folded piece of white A4 paper slid onto the doormat.
‘I think we better take a look at that,’ Jo said, crouching down to pick the page up.
She gave a whistle at the contents: ‘￡10,000 is on the table from the Mail, and my top limit is ￡7,000.’
‘Oh dear,’ Aidan said.
‘Let’s just fold this up for now.’ She took the paper, folded it in half and put it back onto the floor.
‘This story appears to be very clear cut – so rare in medical stories,’ she added, more loudly now, hoping Mick and Samantha could hear as well as Aidan.
‘The vaccine company knew, the government knew children like Ben are at risk. And they didn’t act.
So I really want to do this one.’ The door to the sitting room opened.
Jo was in the middle of what she thought was a very persuasive speech about ‘the best paper for the story’ when she noticed that Mick and Samantha’s eyes had left her and moved to the window.
Jo turned to see Meryl holding up a large sheet of paper with the words:
￡14,000 – Let us in
written on it with marker pen. ‘Well, as you can see, they’re being ridiculous now,’ Jo said. She went over to the window and snapped down the blind. Meryl’s response to this was to move to the next window.
Jo went over and pulled that blind down, too, but this wasn’t good. It was already getting very undignified. She wondered what Meryl would do next, bring out a megaphone?
‘They’re just being childish. You can’t take your story to people like this,’ Jo told the Townells, with a lot more confidence than she felt.
‘You’re right,’ Mick said. ‘I need to put a stop to this.’ He stood up, obviously intending to head for the door.
‘No, no.’ Jo stood in front of him. ‘I don’t think you should go and speak to them. That will just make it worse,’ she said.
‘I’m not going to be made to feel like a prisoner in my own home,’ he said and squared up to her.
‘No— no one’s suggesting— of course not—’ she had a horrible feeling that Mick had never been on-side from the start and this was her last chance.
‘I can do ￡7,000,’ she told him ‘and guarantee you get every penny of it.’
Mick gave her a nod but then brushed past and went to the front door.
A conversation then went on there, which she couldn’t quite make out. She gave Aidan something of a resigned look.
Casting her eyes over the sitting room, Jo saw that Ellis had found her handbag.
While the adults had been distracted by the tense negotiations and signs at the window, Ellis had been busy round the side of the armchair investigating the contents of her bag.
Now pens, notepaper, tapes, tampons, lipstick and God knows what else were scattered in an arc around him.
‘Samantha!’ Jo warned, pointing to Ellis and his little trail of destruction.
‘Oh no!’ Samantha rushed over to the toddler and lifted him out of the mess. ‘Sorry,’ she said but it was drowned out by the screams now bursting from Ellis.
Just as Jo began to scramble her belongings back into her bag, Mick came into the room.
‘I think it’s time for you to leave now,’ he said briskly.
Behind Mick was Meryl, another reporter and a photographer.
‘Right, well.’ Jo took a final cast about the carpet; she seemed to have everything. She wouldn’t bother upsetting Ellis any more by wrestling the unwrapped super tampon from his hand.
‘Goodbye, Samantha,’ she managed, determined to leave with some shred of dignity intact. ‘Nice to meet you all. I am sorry it won’t be me helping you to get your boys the justice they deserve.’
The smug look on Meryl’s face wasn’t helping. ‘Right, Aidan, we’d better be off then.’
The walk across the living room, along the corridor and to the front door felt burningly long and painful. Jo stumbled over the raised threshold and almost fell down the steps into the garden, prompting a pithy ‘Bugger!’ to escape her lips.
Only when she was back at her car did she face Aidan, who looked flushed and slightly traumatised.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she reassured him, realising she had to be the grown-up here and make him realise that although this wasn’t great, it wasn’t the end of the world.
‘It happens once in a while. The desk call it snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. OK, what we have to do now is work as hard as we can on all the other elements of this story, so we can do a brilliant follow-up once the Mail has broken it.’
But really, Jo suspected, that wasn’t going to be the same. Did they know everything she knew? Or could she bring anything new to the party?
‘Bloody hell,’ Aidan said, ‘they were so persistent. I think Meryl would have written the figure on her bum and mooned it in the window if she’d thought it would help.’
Jo began to giggle, then found she couldn’t stop herself. It was stress relief. Aidan began to laugh too. ‘I’m going to have to phone Jeff,’ Jo said when the laughter had finally passed. ‘Better light an emergency cigarette first. D’you want one?’ she offered.
Aidan shook his head.
‘Jeff? Jo here.’ She’d got through to him on the first attempt. ‘Total cock-up central. We’re out, the Mail is in. What more can I say? Can’t argue with ￡14,000. Yup… Aha… OK.’
And she hung up, which puzzled Aidan. He’d obviously expected them both to have to go through a long-distance telling off.
‘Don’t we have to try again?’ he asked.
Jo just shook her head: ‘If you were on your own, you’d have to. But I’ve been working here for five years, I’ve earned the right to say when it’s over.’
Back at the office, the approaching end-of-the-week chaos was beginning to build.
As soon as Jo walked through the heavy swing doors Jeff beckoned her over although the phone was clamped firmly between his head and shoulder.
Once he’d hung up, he swivelled on his chair to face her.
Not for the first time in her working life, Jo was extremely glad that Jeff never got very angry.
He certainly never shouted, well not in his newsroom anyway.
Thank God. There were quite enough stories about violent and insane editors and news editors who would chew you up and spit you out for spelling mistakes, let alone losing scoops to rival newspapers.
‘So, we’re completely out on our arse over the twins, then?
’ was his appraisal of the Townell situation.
She could see Mike, his number two, as well as Rod and even news desk secretary, Binah, all suddenly attempting the ‘we’re extremely busy and not at all interested’ look as they stared at screens, flicked through notes, played with pencils but strained to listen to every word of this conversation.
‘Is this Aidan’s fault or yours?’
‘Mine. But I’m trying to see it as a blessing,’ Jo said, instigating damage limitation.
Jeff’s eyebrows went up. ‘Look at it this way, if the Mail runs the Townell twins tomorrow or Saturday, they’ll just be whetting the appetite for more cases and further information, which I’m planning to give our readers on Sunday.’
‘Have you got more cases?’
She mentally crossed her fingers behind her back as she replied: ‘I’m waiting for a contact to call back. I’m also hopeful of getting some Canadian cases – the injection’s been over there longer, so more cases have cropped up.’
‘Hmm,’ Jeff didn’t exactly sound ecstatic. ‘It’s not really setting the world on fire, is it? And Savannah? I’m only asking because it’s Thursday 3.20 p.m. and there’s nothing in any of my news queues that says “front page”.’
‘Savannah. I have no freaking idea,’ she admitted. ‘Short of going round to Green Party headquarters and offering them my body, I’m not sure what else I can do on this.’
‘Right, well,’ Jeff smiled. ‘As you know, it’s not usually news desk policy to ask reporters to exchange sex for stories… huh, Rod?’
‘No.’ And Rod, who had once brought in a cracking exclusive that had unfortunately involved betraying the confidence of the girl he was sleeping with at the time, had the decency to blush. But he was saved further humiliation when his phone burst into life.
Back in her corner of the office, Jo found Dominique and Aidan working industriously, Dominique on the phone, Aidan bashing at his computer in a concentrated way.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked him.
‘Not too bad.’ He looked up and attempted a smile that came off looking a little sorrowful.
She nodded. ‘Well, learn what you can from it, but sometimes you have to accept the fact that someone else is going to win – at least for today. We’ll get them back tomorrow.’