“Help?”
“Well, not so much help. Let’s call it a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
I swallowed.
“I could be very useful to you. Professionally,” he said. “In my line of work, I come across a lot of… information. And sometimes it’s, shall we say, in the public interest for that information to find its way into a respected and august newspaper like theBulletin.”
He was taking the piss.
“You want to leak stories to me that could bring down your political opponents?”
“Leakis such a loaded word. You should be less judgemental in your line of work. How about we sayshare?”
“Fine. You want tosharestories to me that could bring down your political opponents?”
“Not necessarily bring down,” he said. He raised his eyebrows. “Not necessarily my opponents.”
This felt grubby but, I confess, it was tempting. If I wanted to get noticed by the respectable end of Fleet Street, an alliance with the chief whip might be just the thing to help me do it. It was probably an arrangement exactly like this that got Ludo Boche today’s big splash. If the rich end of town was doing it, why the hell shouldn’t I?
“Sure,” I said. “Only politics, though. Matters of genuine public interest. Corruption. Misappropriation. Tax evasion. Things of real political consequence. I’m not interested in sleaze just because I work for theBulletin.”
He smiled. “Then we have an understanding.” He picked up my phone and held it out towards me. But as I leant forward to grab it, he pulled it back. “Speaking of things with real political consequences,” he said. He leant back in his chair, tapping my phone against his chest. This was torture. “The government is making a series of big climate change announcements up in the Shetland Islands next week. It’s all about reaching net zero by 2050 and so on. It’s terribly important stuff. Saving transgender badgers and all that rubbish. Right up your alley. It’s not an exclusive, we’re giving it to everyone, but itisbig, and I’d like you to cover it.”
“I don’t get to decide what I cover,” I said. “JT decides?—”
“You leave JT to me. Just make sure you’re on that plane on Monday morning.”
Honestly, this sounded great. My deal with the devil was already paying off. I nodded my acceptance. This had gone much better than expected.
“Good,” VladPop said. But just as he leant forward to give me back my phone, the distinctive peal of a GayHoller notification rang out.
“Hello, what do we have here?” VladPop said. To my horror, the chief whip’s fingers began rifling through my phone’s messages once more. Then they stopped, and his eyes widened in a mixture of disbelief and delight, like a teenage boy surprised by naked breasts.
“You have a message from someone called Cabbage98,” he said. More dings rattled out of my phone. “Several, in fact.” He began reading.
Cabbage98:Dear Ginger. When you’ve finished meeting with Scary, can I buy you that coffee? I wanted to say sorry for the whole phone thing.
My heart raced.
“Scary,” Vladimir said. “I’m Scary. Because you’re Ginger. Oh, that’s clever.”
Cabbage98:This is Ludo, by the way.
Cabbage98:Ludo Boche.
Cabbage98:From the Sentinel.
“Gosh, isn’t he sweet?” VladPop continued his unwelcome narration.
Cabbage98:Dammit, I should have said this was Posh. Can we pretend I said this was Posh?
“Oh, he’s ruining it now,” VladPop said.
Cabbage98:Wait. This is Sunny Miller, right?
Cabbage98:God,I hope so. If you’re not Sunny Miller, please ignore this.
“I think someone is sweet on you!” Vladimir said, his voice sing-songing. He was beaming. I could feel my face go phone box red, my heart still thudding. A colleague was flirting with me on GayHoller, and I was sharing the moment with the government’s political spymaster. I didn’t know what to panic about first. VladPop began swiping enthusiastically through Ludo’s profile photos.
