‘Yes, really.’
‘I’m a threat?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Hmm,’ said Sophie. ‘Anyway, I think we’re actually “sharing a bed” which is not technically the same as “in bed with”.’
‘I’ll let you explain the difference to Jo,’ Sam said. ‘Assuming she hasn’t walked out.’
The connecting door between 203 and 204 was shut, but it was made from the cheapest, thinnest plywood and in the silence they could occasionally hear Famie and Charlie’s muted conversation. Only Sam had his bedside light on, its bulb struggling to illuminate anything other than its own shade. Underneath the curtained window, two new burner phones were plugged in and charging, their flashing green lights distractingly bright in the near-darkness.
‘You don’t really think Jo’s gone, do you?’ said Sophie, quieter now.
‘She was pretty mad when I left,’ said Sam. ‘But I guess probably not. We should be OK.’
He switched the light off. The two phones blinked more brightly, in sequence like an aeroplane’s wing. Sophie watched them for a while, swallowed twice, then spoke into the darkness.
‘There’s something you should probably know,’ she said. ‘Before whatever is going to kick off, kicks off.’
Sam turned over, the sheets tightening between them. Sophie’s tone was serious, scared even. He waited.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she whispered. ‘And Seth is the father. Was the father.’
Sam sat up, snapped the light back on. Mouth open, eyes wide. Sophie didn’t move. She lay sarcophagus-style, hands folded above the sheet, eyes squeezed shut.
‘The dark was fine,’ she muttered.
Sam snapped the light off again. Lay back down. ‘I don’t know what to say, Sophie,’ he said. ‘Help me out here.’ He stared at the ceiling. Floundering.
‘You don’t need to say anything,’ she said. ‘I just wanted you to know.’
‘OK,’ said Sam. ‘Cos if the lights were on and there were other people here, I’d give you a hug. But under the circumstances …’
‘A sympathy hug or congratulatory hug?’
‘That’s what I need help with.’
A long silence. A muffled Famie next door. Traffic on the ring road. Sam reached out, took one of Sophie’s hands. She took it in both of hers. Three hands on her stomach. They were still there when Sophie fell asleep.
66
FAMIE HADN’T SHARED a bed with her daughter since Charlie was eight. A nearly empty bottle of supermarket Rioja sat on Famie’s bedside table, half a portion of cold pad thai on Charlie’s. A small plastic fan was perched on the windowsill, set to maximum. Propped up against the bedstead, Famie’s head was turned to face the ineffectual breeze. In her hands she had the recharged tablet, Charlie had their two new burner phones. One in each hand.
‘I’m putting our numbers in,’ she said. ‘It’s failsafe. Three numbers only. Even you can use it, Mum.’
Famie missed the jibe, her eyes shut, sleep closing in fast. She knew Charlie was talking, just had no idea what she was saying. Famie made some sounds which she hoped were reassuring. Then she caught something about ‘dad’ and was hauled back to consciousness in an instant.
‘What about him?’ she said, surfacing quickly.
‘I should add him to mine,’ said Charlie. ‘His phone number. To this.’
She waved the black flip phone in front of Famie, who sat up, wiped her face with her hands and returned her daughter’s gaze.
‘Yes, you should,’ she said. ‘You certainly should.’ She paused for a beat. ‘He won’t answer of course. Or call you back. But go for it. Why not.’
‘Seriously?’ said Charlie. ‘Even now? Even here?’ She was clearly exasperated. ‘It’s a security thing, for Christ’s sake, Mum. Someone tried to kill me, someone did kill Tommi, then they tried to break into your flat. In case it all goes tits up tomorrow and Hari Roy turns out to be a mafia hitman, I thought I should put my father’s number in my phone.’
‘And I’m agreeing.’
‘Sure you are.’
Famie closed her eyes again. Her husband had walked out two years ago, disappearing from her life for six months. When he had resurfaced, in New York, he had a publisher girlfriend and a son aged eighteen months. Famie was happiest either insulting him or forgetting him altogether. She knew she shouldn’t begrudge her daughter contacting her father but she did anyway, and it hurt like hell.
‘Just remember he’s a prick,’ she said. ‘Tell him I said hi.’
Charlie stored her father’s number, labelling it ‘Emergency Dad’.
67
11.45 p.m.
ANDREW LEWIS ALLOWED himself the smallest extra whisky he had ever poured. Barely an inch, with an ice cube. He swirled the contents, inhaled the peat and spices, relished the clinking of ice on glass.
He had a deadline. He had promised the relatives of the victims of the 22 May attack that IPS would honour their memory and sacrifice in an appropriate way. He was due to meet them in a week’s time and he needed a shortlist of suggestions. He also needed to go home. He checked his taxi app, watched a dozen or so tiny cars hovering nearby. They were all waiting for his custom. He gave himself five minutes.
He surveyed the ideas from staff, supporters, customers and the public. His PA had reduced them to one page of ‘deliverable and desirable’ outcomes. There was a plan for an annual award for investigative journalism – a cash prize for the most courageous reporting as judged by a panel of experts. Lewis gave it a tick. Swirled the whisky. There was a suggestion to build a peace garden in the square outside, an enclosed green space with a plaque to commemorate the dead. Lewis’s pencil hovered for a second, then put down a cross.
He swirled the whisky again. He checked the app. Still the cars circled.
Two more suggestions. A travelling exhibition devoted to the art and practice of modern journalism. Lewis snorted. Another cross of the pencil, another swirl of the glass. And finally a proposal for a bursary to fund a reporter. A fund devoted to
