Chapter Seventeen

Lancashire felt like another country as I rode the underground to Canary Wharf, squashed into the carriage and making snake-shapes with my body to find a space between the suits. This had once been my life, working at the London Star, my first break in the city before I went freelance. I had travelled to London with my head filled with tales of long lunches in Fleet Street, deadlines met through the fog of flat beer; Tony Davies was to blame for all these stories. When I had arrived there, it was the glass and steel of Canary Wharf that had been my playground instead, most of my journalism done on the telephone. That’s why I went freelance, just so I could feel the big city more, to try and find its heartbeat. And it had worked for a while, the fun of getting to drug raids first, and cultivating police sources. Laura had been one of those sources, before the move to the North.

The good times in London had waned eventually. I struggled to get to the underbelly because I didn’t really know the city. I knew the landmarks, the geography, but the people constantly surprised me. They had a confidence, almost an arrogance, and I realised that I had never stopped being the northern boy, a long way from home.

Canary Wharf looked just as I remembered it when I emerged from the cavernous underground station—flash and fast and all about the money. But the real London was not far away, the ethnic mix of Poplar, from the window boxes of the London pubs to the takeaways and noise of the East India Dock Road. In the Wharf I brushed past dark suits and good skin, the strong jaws of the successful who I guessed would know nothing of the real Docklands, the hard work replaced by flipcharts and bullshit.

But I wasn’t there for a tourist trip or to wallow in the memories. I was there to meet my old editor, Harry English, still head of the news desk at the London Star. I’d given him a wake-up call before I left Lancashire, promised him the first feel of the story, just to get an idea of its value. He was waiting for me on the marble seats opposite the tube station exit. To reach him I had to weave through the crowds of young professionals enjoying their lunch break and a group of salesgirls trying to persuade people to test-drive a Volvo. Times must be hard. It had been a Porsche the last time I had been down there.

Harry grinned when he saw me and then coughed as he clambered to his feet.

‘Jack Garrett,’ he said. ‘Good to see you again.’ He grabbed my hand warmly to give it a firm pump. ‘What have you been up to?’

I patted my stomach. ‘Enjoying more of the high life than you. You look well, Harry,’ I said, and I meant it. He was tall, six feet and more, but he used to be fat, his chest straining his shirts and his face a permanent purple as he cursed his way around the newsroom. He’d shed some of that fat and settled for stocky, and it suited him.

‘I had a heart attack last year,’ he said, his smile waning.

‘I didn’t know,’ I said, shocked. ‘I would have come down.’

‘It’s not the sort of thing that you send postcards about,’ he replied, and then he looked around and curled his lip in disdain. ‘And so I have to eat out here now, box salads, sometimes that sushi stuff, but that’s just rice as far as I can tell.’

‘Beats dying, Harry.’

He grimaced. ‘Just about,’ he said, and then straightened himself. ‘So what hot story have you got? If it’s about a footballer, forget it. They can get injunctions quicker than I can type the story. Sell their weddings for thousands and then bleat about privacy when they break the vows.’

‘No, it’s not about footballers,’ I said. ‘It’s about Claude Gilbert.’

Harry looked surprised for a moment, and then he chuckled. ‘Not that old has-been,’ he said. ‘The internet ruined that story. We could run a hoax sighting for a couple of days a few years ago, but now some distant relative on the other side of the world can wreck the story before lunchtime on the first day, and it gets splashed all over the rival websites. Unless you can dig him up, no one will bite any more.’

My expression didn’t change, but he must have seen the amusement in my eyes.

‘What have you got on him?’ he asked, his face more serious now.

‘Someone’s told me that she’s involved with him, romantically, and that he wants to come forward.’

He laughed. ‘Do you believe her?’

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure.

‘But you’ve come all the way to London to check it out,’ Harry said, his laughter fading. He watched people going past for a few seconds, and then he asked, ‘Why now? It’s not another Ronnie Biggs, is it, going to jail to die—because I don’t think Claude will get out again like Ronnie did?’

I shook my head. ‘He wants to tell his story before the police come for him. The press decided he was guilty twenty years ago, and so he wants to give his version before he goes before a jury, just to give himself a fighting chance.’

Harry wasn’t laughing any more. ‘And what if you decide not to go along with his plan?’ he said. ‘You could just expose him and be the man who caught Claude Gilbert.’

‘I’ll see how good his story is first,’ I said. ‘I’m still not sure it’s really him.’

‘And if it isn’t?’

‘The story runs as another hoax,’ I said, ‘and you get a bit of northern brass for your city readers to snigger at. She’s an ex-lover of Gilbert who was seeing him a few months before his wife was buried alive, and she says they’ve rekindled the romance.’

I could see Harry’s mind race through the sales figures, the syndication rights.

‘I can see that there’s an angle, but the hoax is page eight at best, not the front,’ he said. ‘You might just get your train fare back. We need Gilbert himself for the banner headline.’

I smiled. Harry hadn’t yet said anything I hadn’t expected.

‘So, where are you meeting him?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘She hasn’t told me yet,’ I said, and I patted Harry on the arm. ‘I’ll keep my movements quiet for now.’

‘What, you don’t trust me?’ he said, feigning a hurt look.

‘You’re an editor,’ I said. ‘You would shit in your grandmother’s shoes if you thought it would get you good circulation figures, and Claude isn’t going to come forward if there’s someone with a big lens hiding behind a tree.’

‘Okay,’ he said, chuckling again, holding his hands up in submission. ‘What do you want?’

‘An expression of interest,’ I replied. ‘Six-figure sum if it’s true. Exclusive rights.’

‘And picture rights?’

‘That depends on the big number.’

Harry nodded. ‘If you get Claude Gilbert, I’m sure we can sort something out.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a deal.’

‘So what next?’ Harry asked, and he looked pleased with himself.

‘I find Claude Gilbert,’ I replied, and started walking back to the arched entrance of the underground station, the excitement of a guaranteed front page putting a smile on my face.