“All right, KB? Where are you?” It was Alexis, far brighter than she had any right to be on a Monday morning when she was the co-parent of a teething baby.
“Why?”
“I’m out and about making some calls and I thought we could link up. I’ve got a juicy bit of info for you, and you know how insecure the airwaves are these days. We’ve probably got half the world’s press listening in at your end and the bizzies at mine. Are you down at NPTV?” she asked, her voice all innocence.
“Security be buggered,” I said. “You just want to get alongside the Northerners cast to see how many exclusives you can dig up about Dorothea.”
A throaty chuckle turned into a cough. “You got me bang to rights. Call it the quid pro quo.”
I wiggled my fingers at Ross. He took the hint and shambled
“They’ll be laying out the red carpet for me, girl, just you wait and see. I won’t be long, I’m only down the road in Salford.”
I cut across the car park at an angle, plowing my feet through the dirty slush. It’s just as much fun at thirty-one as it is at five. I ended up over near the entrance, but still in a line of sight to Gloria. I was pretty certain by now that she was at no real risk, but being visible was what I was being paid for, so visible I’d be.
Alexis was as good as her word. Within ten minutes of our phone call, she drove authoritatively into the car park. The two elderly security men made a few futile gestures in a bid to get her to stop, but it’s hard to argue with something as big as the Range Rover she and Chris had bought to combat the wild weather on the Pennines. Nobody else was interested. I’d soon realized that in a TV production unit, everybody’s too busy with their own job to pay attention to anything else short of a significant thermonuclear explosion. That would make Cliff Jackson’s job a lot harder. I couldn’t resist a shiver of schadenfreude at the thought.
Alexis jumped down into the slush and took a few steps towards the security men. “I’m with her,” I heard as her arm waved in my general direction. There was nothing wrong with her eyesight. “Brannigan and Co,” she added, veering off towards me.
“You really are a lying get,” I said when she was close enough for them not to hear.
“Only technically,” she said. “I am, after all, here on a mission on your behalf.”
“No, you’re not, you’re here entirely on a fishing expedition to net you tomorrow’s front page. So what’s this momentous news you have to impart?” I glanced over my shoulder to make absolutely sure we couldn’t be overheard.
“Does F. Littlewood mean anything to you? F. Littlewood of fiftynine, Hartley Grove, Chorlton?”
I tried not to show that more bells were ringing and lights flashing inside my head than on the average pinball machine. The address was unfamiliar, but I had no trouble recognizing the name. Northerners scandals. Alexis had done me a favor, but in the process she’d given me a headache.
I found a pen and notepad in my bag and got Alexis to write down Freddie’s address. “You’re sure this is the mole?” I asked.
“This is the person who got paid for the story about you bodyguarding Gloria,” she said cautiously. “More likely than not, that’s your mole. I finally got my hands on the credits book this morning, and that didn’t take me a whole lot further forward. What it is, you see, sometimes we need to make irregular payments to regular sources who need to be protected. So then we use code names. The very fact that this Littlewood person has a code name means he or she has done this before.”
“So how did you get from the code name to the identity?” I asked. It wasn’t important, but I’m a sucker for other people’s methods. I’m not such an old dog that I can’t learn new tricks.
Alexis winked. “There’s this cute little baby dyke in accounts. She thinks being a reporter is seriously the business. She thinks my new haircut is really cool.”
I groaned. Forget the new tricks. “And does she also know you’re happily married?”
“Let the girl have her dreams. Besides, it made her day to tell me that The Mask is F. Littlewood. Whoever he or she is?”
I shook my head. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Oh, I will, believe me. This isn’t soft news any more. It’s crime, and that’s my business. If the newsdesk won’t share, I’ll just have to help myself.” Alexis cupped her hands round a cigarette and lit it. She breathed a smoky sigh of satisfaction. “God, I love the first cigarette of the day. If you need more leverage, by the way, we’ve paid F. Littlewood five times in the last year. I checked out the back numbers and they were all Northerners stories. I’d bet it’s the same mole selling the stories to the nationals, because all the ones we’ve
“Just be grateful I’ve not shopped you. Thanks, Alexis.”
“No problem.” She was already on the move. “Hang in there, KB. Jackson’s so busy getting his knickers in a twist about his missus that he’s not got a fucking clue who to arrest. So there’s plenty of room for glory.”
I watched her trudge through the snow, the ultimate bulldog when it came to stories. Which reminded me that I had to see a woman about a dog. I checked my watch. Chances were that Ruth would be in court. I decided to call her mobile and leave a message with the answering service. “Ruth, it’s Kate,” I said. “Can you check for me if Dennis shows any signs of having been in a ruck with Pit Bull’s pit bull? Or if the pit bull shows any signs of having been in a ruck with person or persons unknown? I’m ashamed to say it was Debbie’s idea rather than mine, but it’s worth pursuing.”
The second call was to Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice of the Regional Crime Squad’s fraud task force. She should have been Detective Superintendent by now, but a sting I’d set up with her had gone according to someone else’s script and Della was still scraping the egg off her face. I knew she didn’t blame me, but if anything, that made it worse. Sometimes I looked round the table on our girls’ nights out and wondered how Alexis, Ruth, Della and two or three of the others put up with the fact that one way or another I’d exploited each and every one of them and managed to drop most of them in the shit along the way. Must be my natural charm.
I tracked her down in a building society office in Blackpool. She sounded genuinely pleased to hear me, but then she was working her way through a balance sheet at the time. “I doubt you’re having a more pleasant time than I am,” she said. “I see from the papers that you and Cliff Jackson are too close for comfort again.”
“Being on the same land mass as Jackson is too close for comfort. Especially at the moment. Did you hear about his wife?”
“Even in Blackpool,” she said drily.
“You should rescue that Linda Shaw from his clutches. She’s got the makings of a good copper, but he gives her the shit work every time and sooner or later she’s going to get bored with that.”
“We’ll see. My sources tell me that my promotion’s likely to come through soon,” Della said. It sounded like a nonsequitur, but I figured she was trying to tell me that she was slated for a senior post in the Greater Manchester force. And that Linda might not be Jackson’s gofer much longer.
“I can’t tell you how relieved that makes me feel. I’m buying the champagne that night.”
“I know,” Della said without bitterness. “So what’s the favor?”
“Does there have to be a favor?” I asked, wounded.
“In working hours, yes. You never ring up for a gossip between nine and five.”
“You know about Dennis?”
“What about Dennis? I’ve been stuck in Blackpool since Thursday. I’m praying the snow keeps off so I can get home tonight. What’s Dennis done this time?”