“You think he bombed Billy thinking he was you?”
“Billy looks like a woman from the back,” she explained. “He’s got a curly perm. The guy crept up from behind and threw the bomb at the window. He might even think he got me. When he hears from the police that it was someone else he’ll come to my house.”
Ramage smiled and widened his eyes at the mention of the police. “You think the police are giving him information?”
“They’re the only people who know I’m not saying the same thing as the coppers on the call.”
Ramage nodded at his desk. “So,” he said to himself, “a young lady on the brink of a big story.” He licked his thumb and reached forward, moving a sheet of paper from the middle stack to the next one. He stopped to tidy the edges of the pile. She could almost see the captions on each one: layoff, potential layoff, keep. She hoped she was being moved to keep.
“Okay, then. Three hundred words and then fuck off home.”
“Look, I can’t go back to my house. The police haven’t caught the guy and as far as I know he already knows where I live. I keep catching the same car watching my house. I need a hotel room.”
Ramage smirked at her audacity, put the pen down, and sat up straight to look at her. “Good for you, Patricia.”
“My name’s Paddy,” she corrected curtly.
He tensed his brow at her. “Yeah, don’t act the uppity twat with me.” Staring at her, he licked his thumb again and moved the sheet back to the original pile.
“Boss,” she said, though it nearly choked her, “I’m going to get you a great story. Sell shitloads of papers. Shitloads.”
His smile was reptilian. “We’ll see. I’ll shell out for a bed and breakfast, and that’s only for three days-”
“No, it has to be a hotel. Bed and breakfasts make you leave during the day and I need to sleep.”
He didn’t like being interrupted. He raised his hand and licked the thumb again but stopped and smiled, dropping his hand without moving a sheet. “Three hundred words, and make it good. You’ll need a driver. Know anyone?”
She remembered Sean. She didn’t know if he’d passed his test but the image of his face soothed her. “I do, but he hasn’t got his own car.”
Ramage shrugged. “Get one out of the pool. Tell them to get a new radio and fit it.” He looked her up and down. “You’re young, Meehan. Was Farquarson the first editor you’ve worked under?”
She nodded dumbly.
“You probably miss him and think I’m a dick.”
She wanted to nod but guessed that it wouldn’t be well received. “Dunno.”
Ramage’s smile was almost genuine this time. He lifted a gold fountain pen and tapped the soft green leather blotter in front of him in a slow, rhythmic thud. They should have been up on editorial, in a noisy room surrounded by bustle where the dull thunk of a stupid ostentatious gold pen would be lost.
He shifted in his seat. “As you go on in this business you’ll learn that loyalty to dead men is a waste of time. Grieve, get over it, and then move on to arse-licking the next man in charge. That’s the business we’re in.” He smiled faintly, as if his brutal creed was a source of pride. “You can come with me or you can give me that uppity cow crap and end up selling advertising space. Understand?”
Paddy nodded and Ramage dismissed her with a flick of his hand.
Paddy backed out of the room and shut the door quietly. The windows along the corridor let the weak light of the day into the corridor. She slowed to a stop, leaning on the windowsill and looking out over the roofs of the Scottish Daily News vans parked outside. In the future the printworks wouldn’t be under the paper. They’d move to the new site and the building would be nothing more than an office. They could be selling insurance.
She looked out over the gray day and knew Billy’s family would be in the hospital, waiting for her to turn up and commiserate on behalf of the Daily News. She should go and phone Sean and tell him he had a good-paying job if he wanted it. She had three hundred words to write and just six hours before she was expected at the inquiry into the police call to Burnett’s house, but still she lingered in the lemon-scented corridor, looking out of the window at the windy street, feeling one era slip into the past and another begin.
IV
Bernie knew it was Kate at the door. The whisper of a knock at ten in the morning, the tentative pause between the raps-he didn’t know anyone else who would do that. He stood behind the door, sensing her on the other side, wanting to open it to her but never wanting to see her again.
“Bernie?” Her voice was as familiar as his own and he could read volumes into the timbre. She was frightened and worried that he might be angry with her. She was ill too, didn’t sound strong. Her normal voice was breathy but there was no air behind the voice. “Bernie? Let me in?”
He imagined what she’d say to him if he did open the door: there were bits of engines and old newspapers stacked all over the floor of the pokey wee hall. He had pale blue striped pajama trousers and an undershirt on, hardly appropriate for receiving such a grand guest. But Kate had deigned to come to his council house, she’d never been before, she might not be just as snooty as she usually was.
“Darling? I’m cold.”
Bernie didn’t even make a decision to open the door. The reflex to save Kate from any and all discomfort was so ingrained that he leaned forward and pulled the heavy toolbox away from the bottom of the door while he snapped the lock and pulled it open.
He gasped when he saw her. As soon as the breath left him and his hand was across his mouth he knew he had broken her heart.
“You’re so thin,” he said, lying to spare her.
She knew why he had gasped. He could see by the way she hung her head and looked at his feet. Her hand rose to her face, covering her nose. It had collapsed. The tip drooped over her top lip like the nose of a witch in a children’s book.
The last time they met, at the old man’s funeral, she’d looked just as stunning as ever. She’d had the sort of looks that caught the eye and kept it, that made a man feel that his hands were designed to fit around her perfect face, cinch her tiny waist. She knew what she looked like then, had the sense of absolute entitlement that truly beautiful girls have. And she knew what she looked like now.
“When did you last eat?”
She raised her eyes and looked so defenseless she could have been twelve again. “I’m cold, Bernie.”
She had barely spoken to him for years, had been the cause of Vhari’s murder, had stolen a car from him and planted a parcel in his garage that could have had him killed, but Bernie reached out and took her hand, pulled her into his modest flat, and shut the door to the world behind her.
V
The floor was incredibly dirty. Paddy had been asleep in Farquarson’s darkened office for three hours, lying on the dusty floor, starting awake every twenty minutes or so at noises from the newsroom.
She lay awake now, knowing she should get up and phone her mum again, just to check. Her hot eyes looked along the length of filthy carpet, past the indents from the conference table, to the door. Through the half-opened venetian blinds she could see shadows moving past and the still, squat figures of the copyboys perched on their bench, waiting to be called for a chore. She should get up and phone her mum, ask if she’d seen a red Ford outside. She should apologize to JT for not getting his Mandela clippings out for him. She’d been expecting him to burst into the office all morning to give her a bollocking for not having done it already.
A perfunctory rap on the door was followed by the door opening, and a shard of bright light made her eyes smart.
“Ramage has booked you a hotel room.”