I opened the BBC Sounds app and put on theTodayprogramme.Todayis basically a taxpayer-funded babysitting service for baby boomers, but it’s also essential listening if you’re in the news business. The silky-smooth voice of presenter Lucy Veeraswamy filled my tiny bedroom. She was interviewing some woman about the cost of living crisis. While I waited, I watched out the window. The 260 bus was idling at the stop. Its rumble rattled the broken pane and made my floorboards shiver. Old Mrs Patel from number eighteen pulled herself up onto the bus with an effort. She was followed by a fit lad in his early twenties, wearing those sexy cargos the tradies all wear these days. I opened GayHoller, the LGBTQ+ dating app, to see if he happened to be on it. Some absolute hotties use that bus stop, and I’d scored from there before, so it paid to do a little investigative journalism.
“Let’s turn to what today’s papers are saying,” Lucy Veeraswamy trilled. I turned up the volume. My story getting a mention was about as likely as the BBC namechecking the page-three girl.And getting her boobs out in theBulletintoday, Candice from Carlisle.It’d never happen. There’d be riots. Rightly so.
“To the big story of the day,” Veeraswamy began. “TheSentinelleads with allegations that the government is secretly planning to build a new nuclear power plant at Newton Bardon in Leicestershire.”
My heart (metaphorically) stopped. I couldn’t even draw breath for fear of choking on it.
“Energy Minister Bob Wynn-Jones has denied any such plan exists, but in an exclusive, theSentinelsays it has seen documents that suggest negotiations between the UK government and Belarusian energy baron Yevgeny Safin are at an advanced stage.”
“Bastards!”
My heart was now racing. How did I not know about this? JT was going to rip my throat out via the far end of my alimentary canal.
“We’ll be speaking toSentinel’s political reporter, Ludo Boche, to get more on that story at a quarter past eight,” Veeraswamy said.
That just about finished me off. LudobloodyBoche. I punched the duvet. Then I launched myself onto the bed and punched it again. I hadn’t met Ludo Boche yet. He was new on theSentinel’spolitics team. He’d only been there for five minutes. I had no clue how this absolute knobber had broken a massive story in my own backyard, but I was willing to bet the fact his father was theSentinel’s editor hadn’t done him any harm. Journalism is all about contacts, and the Boche family had a rolled-gold address book. Either Ludo or his old man would have gone to school with whoever dropped them that story. You could bet your nanna’s last pair of knickers on it. I punched the duvet again.
The sound of air brakes pierced the morning air once more. Bus stop boy would be disappearing into the vast metropolis of London, never to be seen again. I grabbed my phone again to quickly scroll GayHoller in case the fittie had a profile I could save for later. Nothing. Just my own stupid freckled face beaming back at me from above the wordsGingerandSpice up your life. For the second time that day, I was being mocked by my own electronic image. I threw my phone on the bed and slammed my fists into the mattress. Then I roared into my pillow for good measure.
Chapter2
Ludo
Nothing keeps your ego in check quite like staring at yourself in a TV-studio mirror under harsh fluorescent lighting at eight o’clock in the morning, nursing a hangover that thumps like two honey badgers shagging inside your skull, while some incredibly patient make-up artist tries to breathe life into your corpse with a bucket of Max Factor. I was being interviewed on telly in half an hour but had to knock off a quick radio interview with the BBC’sTodayprogramme first—so my phone was clamped to my ear as I sat on hold, waiting for Lucy Veeraswamy to start asking me questions. My father always said journalism wasn’t a nine-to-five job, and I always rather planned to take him at his word. Unfortunately, on this particular morning, “not a nine-to-five job” didn’t mean rolling into the newsroom at half ten after a long, casual wank and my third macchiato of the day. It meant getting up at six, pouring myself into a taxi driven by a man whose halitosis had soaked into the upholstery, and making my way to South Bank to do a bit of national breakfast television.
I was in demand today, after my first big splash in theSentinel. Everyone wanted a piece of me. My story was set to roll on for days, and there was a good chance the minister at the centre of the scandal would have to resign. Two months into my career and I was about to claim my first political scalp. I should have been on cloud nine. Instead, I was staring at my reflection, trying to summon up the life force needed to sound professional for Lucy Veeraswamy.
She started her introduction, and the phone clicked in. I’d come off hold. As Lucy fired off her first question, I stared at the bags under my eyes. They were so heavy they’d be over the carry-on limit for even the most permissive of airlines—no matter what you promised the boy on the check-in counter you’d do for him on his break. I was feeling very, very sorry for myself. Five minutes later, the interview was winding up, and I still looked like death.
“We should say we have reached out to Energy Secretary Bob Wynn-Jones’s office for comment, but we haven’t received a reply as yet,” Veeraswamy said. That was the BBC’s obligatory three seconds of balance—designed to offset the on-air execution that had just occurred and ensure the government kept funding them for another year.
“Ludo Boche, from theSentinel, thank you for joining us.”
The audio clicked in my ear, indicating we’d come off air.
“Congratulations, Ludo!” Lucy said. “I bet your mum and dad are chuffed to bits.”
Here it comes, I thought.
“I worked with your mum at BBC Hampshire, back in the day.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Give them both my love, will you? Tell Beverley we must catch up soon. And give Hugo a nudge for me, will you? I sent him an email about a month ago. Not sure if it got through the keepers or not.”
There it was.
“Must dash,” Lucy said. She was gone before I could say goodbye.
A bookmaker could keep me hostage for a year and I still wouldn’t understand how to place a wager, but I was willing to bet Veeraswamy’s email wasnotan invitation to lunch. You show me a journalist who doesn’t already have a newspaper column in theSentinel, and I’ll show you a journalist whowantsa newspaper column in theSentinel. Lucy Veeraswamy did not, as yet, have a column in theSentinel.
I was just about to put my phone in my pocket when it buzzed. It was a message from my mother, the aforementioned Beverley Barker-Boche. Mummy no longer worked at BBC Hampshire but was now the somewhat institutionalised executive producer of the BBC’s equally institutionalised flagship investigative programme,Compass Point.
Mummy:You sounded asleep, darling. Did you do the vocal exercises I suggested?
Asleep? I wasn’t jolly well asleep. I might still have been drunk, but I was very much awake. I had the taxi receipt to prove it. I thought I’d performed remarkably well, considering I’d only had about three hours’ kip. After a night at the theatre, I had accidentally ended up at Maxime’s, the Soho club, with my little brother until well after two, and I hadn’t yet had a drop of caffeine for the day. My phone buzzed again.
Mummy:You’ll need to be a bit livelier on TV or they won’t invite you back! Maybe drink some coffee? Good luck darling. Very proud of you. x
