“Oh, that’s a terrible shame. It seems that love is in the air everywhere, but not for Sunny and Ludo.”
“Can we get back to the business you brought me here for?” I said, frustration getting the better of me. Vladimir looked hurt.
“Of course,” he said. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a tablet, fiddled with it for a bit, and then handed it to me. “Watch this and tell me what you think.”
It was grainy CCTV footage, but the figure in it was immediately recognisable as Bob Wynn-Jones. A few seconds later, he was in a clinch with a woman with long dark tresses—a woman I knew not to be his wife. They kissed passionately. The footage went on for about twenty seconds. It was a short clip, but it was explosive. Half the editors on Fleet Street would cream their knickers if they thought they had this story exclusively. Those editors all worked up the trashy end of the street, obviously, but that wasmyend of Fleet Street. JT would definitely want this footage. For me, though, the footage alone wasn’t enough.
“There’s more. Much more,” Vladimir said, eyes twinkling with relish.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because you’re a journalist, and we have a deal.”
“When we made our deal, I said no sex scandals. Things that matter, I said. Things that make a difference. I don’t want to be known for writing this kind of trash.”
“You do still write for theBulletin, don’t you?”
“As a political reporter. I’m not theToo Hot to Handlecorrespondent.”
“I love that show, actually.”
“It’s generally accepted that affairs are private matters. I need more before we can print this. What’s the public interest angle on this?”
“Sunny, this isn’t just an affair, this is a matter of national security,” VladPop said. He pointed at the figure on the tablet. “Yes, he’s a cabinet minister. But she”—he pointed at the woman—“is a Belarusian spy. Everyone seems to have known about it except poor Bob.”
I gasped.
“Does MI5 know you’ve got this?” I asked.
Vladimir laughed.
“Where do you think I got it?”
I stared at the frozen image on the screen.
“Are we OK to run it?” I asked. “I can do without being the reason theBulletinoffices get raided.”
“Sunny, you have a choice. I can either give you the story and you get all the credit, or I can give it straight to JT. Either way, that story will be on the front page of tomorrow’sBulletin. How would you like it to get there?”
This didn’t need much thinking about.
“Fine,” I said. “Spill the tea.”
Chapter28
Ludo
To wake, suddenly and unexpectedly, to Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ la Vida Loca” booming out of every Bluetooth speaker in your bedroom is to understand the desire to stab a knitting needle through your own head, from ear to ear, without fear of the consequences.
“Bastard!” I shouted at the top of my lungs—though from my hideaway in the summer house, there was little hope of Jonty hearing me. When had he managed to arrange this? I reached for my glasses on the bedside table, my fingers finding the fat wodge of sticking plasters that was still holding them together. Sunny’s DIY. The bruise on my face throbbed as I slipped my glasses on. I turned off the not-my-alarm alarm. It was six o’clock. By the time I had showered, got into my ballet teaching gear, and made it into the house for a spot of breakfast, Mother and Father were up. Father was boiling the kettle and smearing something fattening on toast, while Mummy was sitting at the kitchen table working her way through the Saturday papers. In the background, the BBC’sTodayprogramme—radio for the terminally depressed. Father offered to make me a cup of tea, and I readily accepted, because, English.
“Morning, Mummy,” I said, kissing her on the top of her head. I plucked theSentinelfrom the pile, did a pirouette because I could, and sat in the chair on the other side of the table. “Did we miss anything?”
“If you’ve been scooped, it’s not by this lot,” she said, pointing at theTelegraph.
Father turned up the radio. The lilting sounds of Mum’s old chum and predatory wannabeSentinelcolumnist, Lucy Veeraswamy, filled the room.
“A look at the papers now, and the big story of the day, theBulletinhas obtained exclusive images of Energy Secretary Bob Wynn-Jones in what the paper claims is a romantic embrace with a woman MI5 has identified as a Belarusian spy.”
