‘You showed him the note?’
Famie nodded. ‘Said he’d put it in the crazy file.’
Tommi read the number again. ‘There must be another message. I didn’t even know the Classifieds were still a thing.’
The front door burst open and a breathless Sam appeared, throwing a newspaper to Famie. ‘Their last one. I told them it was for research.’
Tommi laughed. ‘It’s not porn, you know, you don’t need an excuse to buy it.’
Famie was turning the pages rapidly. ‘Anyone know where the Classifieds actually are?’ She found them a few pages from the back. Four columns of small messages. She guessed about a hundred. She ran her finger down the first column. Nothing. The second column. Nothing. The third and fourth, nothing. ‘Huh,’ she said, and repeated the search. ‘Plenty of weirdos but not our weirdo.’
‘Did we get the wrong day?’ said Sam. ‘Maybe it’s tomorrow?’
‘Or never, because he’s just weird?’ said Tommi.
‘Why is this a “he” by the way?’ said Sam. ‘Plenty of weird women out there.’
Famie glanced again at the note with the number. ‘Unless …’ she said, then stopped. Her mind was racing.
‘Unless what?’ Sam and Tommi said together.
‘Unless we’re not supposed to be looking for an ad, we’re supposed to be placing one.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Tommi.
‘Maybe our weatherman wants to talk. He, or she, wants us to place an ad.’ She looked at three sceptical faces. Shrugged. ‘Just a theory.’
Jo was reading the even smaller print. ‘You have to place an ad by four p.m. We’ve got fifteen minutes if we’re doing this.’
‘We’re doing this,’ said Famie.
She retrieved her laptop from the carrier bag. She posted her ad with three minutes to spare.
20
5 p.m.
JANE HILTON SAT quietly in the corner of Andrew Lewis’s office. Legs crossed, hands held together on her lap. She watched the bureau chief leaf through her report. Four pages, closely typed. He read the first page slowly then sped up as he got to the last page.
‘Yeah yeah, got all that,’ he said as he skimmed the last paragraph. As much to himself as Hilton. ‘What’s your point, Jane?’ he added. ‘As brief as you like. As blunt as you like.’ He flipped his glasses to his forehead, sat back in his chair. His face twitched, then settled in neutral.
Hilton looked taken aback. She hooked a strand of hair behind each ear, brushed imaginary creases from her skirt. ‘Well I’d have thought that was obvious, Andrew.’ She leant in to make it more obvious, forearms resting on her knees, hands still together. ‘Famie and I crossed over in Pakistan by nine months. Your high opinion of her is valid. But during that time she seemed to make a point of working with, and reporting on, the most extreme Islamists she could find.’ She gestured at the sheets of A4 on his desk. ‘I’ve outlined five cases where maybe what was seen at the time as bravery was, in my judgement, borderline reckless. The first is the 2006 attack on the Mumbai local trains. Seven bombs in eleven minutes. Two hundred and nine dead. An outrage, condemned across the world.’
Lewis raised both his hands, palms out. ‘I remember, Jane,’ he said, ‘I remember. Please. You’re not on air. Talk to me like I’m normal. See how that goes.’
Hilton regrouped. Pursed her lips, glanced at the floor. More hair, more creases. ‘I think the right response would have been to have gone first to the mainstream parties. PTI, PAT, Pakistan Muslim League, for example. Ask them for comment. But Famie went straight to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the so-called “Army of the Righteous”—’
‘Who carried out the attack,’ interrupted Lewis. ‘Again, I remember. Go on.’
Hilton took a beat. ‘You incorporate the crazies in your reporting of course. You get to them. But if you ignore the mainstream then our audience get a skewed view of what’s happening. The point I’m making is Famie goes to the extremes. Always has. She distorts and twists. Why talk to the moderates when there’s a guy with a gun to talk to?’
Lewis flicked back to the report. ‘And then the Mumbai attacks in 2008? The Taj Palace and so on.’
‘Same again,’ said Hilton. ‘She was in Berlin by then but knew all the numbers to call. The quotes she got from Lashkar-e-Taiba were pretty inflammatory. They’re just not the first call you make. If there’s an outrage here, is the first person you call someone who’ll justify that outrage? Or maybe you’d call the victims’ families, the police and the ambulance service. I know how I would run it. I think I know how you would run it too, Andrew. When you were in Chechnya you knew who to speak to. You knew how to balance the horror without giving a justification for it.’ She sat back, case made. Point proven.
‘Fraternizing with the enemy?’ said Lewis. ‘Is that what you’re suggesting?’
Hilton tipped her head one way then the other. Sifting the words. Panning for gold. ‘Your choice of words, Andrew. But no, I wouldn’t say that. She was on a story. Always on a story. Working her leads. That’s what she does. Or did. It’s just that her leads were always thugs.’
Lewis considered the point. ‘You debated this with her? When you were both in Pakistan?’
Hilton nodded. ‘Many times. But she was my senior back then, so … she carried on doing it her way.’
Lewis lowered his glasses, picked at the pages in front of him. Reread a few paragraphs. ‘And did these … thugs, these extreme groups, ever contact her?’ he said. ‘As far as you know.’ He studied her carefully. Hilton’s face was impassive. Her camera face.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they did,’ she said. ‘That’s often how it goes. But I don’t know that for certain.’
‘I see.’ He let the silence run. Hilton shifted in her seat. ‘And when she started dating Seth Hussain,’ Lewis said, ‘what was your reaction?’
She shrugged.
