“Where are you getting this?” Carstairs said.
“Is there a reason you haven’t listed these shareholdings on your MP’s register of financial interests? Why were you trying to hide it from the British people?”
Carstairs looked flustered now. The photographers were swarming like flies on shit. I showed the documents I had with me to some of the other reporters, proving the information was good. They began chiming in with their own questions. Rebecca-Jo declared the press conference was over. She and the minister turned on their heels, and the press pack upped stumps and followed, squawking like seagulls. Ludo shouted his last couple of questions above the din.
“Have you lied to the British people, Minister?” and, finally, as car doors slammed and engines revved, he banged on the window and said, “Will you do the decent thing and resign, Minister?”
We’d make a tabloid reporter out of him yet.
The car sped away, and a few of the press pack chased after it, as did Leaf and Karma, who played up to the cameras in the spirit of people who loved a good protest.
“You’re a crook, Carstairs!” Leaf shouted, waving his fist.
“Lock her up! Lock her up!” Karma chanted.
Ludo watched the car disappear down the road, a vision of calmness among all the pantomime. The wind buffeted his hair. He was still clutching his notepad to his chest. He pushed his glasses up onto his nose. He looked… content. Satisfied at a job well done, perhaps. Like he’d proven something to himself. He seemed to have found a confidence I hadn’t seen in him before. In that moment, I forgot everything else he’d made me feel and just felt proud. I swept around low in front of him and scooped him up off the ground with my arms around his legs.
“Careful! Put me down. I’m too accident-prone for this kind of thing.”
I was laughing.
“You were bloody fantastic,” I said.
“I know; put me down.”
I loosened my grip and let Ludo slide down my body until his feet touched the ground and our eyes met. All around us was a chaos of media—of radio reporters doing live crosses, of journos calling their stories back into their newsrooms, of Leaf and Karma being interviewed for the TV cameras. But for all the anarchy around us, there was, just for a second, only the two of us.
“I’m sorry,” Ludo said. “Father found the article on my laptop in the summer house and?—”
I put a finger to his lips. They were soft and plump, and touching them sent lightning through my body.
“It’s OK,” I said. “I’m sorry I ignored your messages. I wassoangry. It’s something I’m working on. Summer’s teaching me?—”
“You lost your job because of me, and I’m so,sosorry.”
“I’m not.” And I meant it.
Everything we needed to say hung in the air between us, waiting to be said, but for the moment, we’d said enough. Our eyes spoke for our hearts. They sought forgiveness, expressed sorrow, asked for permission. I let my finger drift along Ludo’s cheek and down to his neck. My hand cupped his jaw, and he nuzzled into it, his eyes never leaving mine. My fingers combed their way around the back of Ludo’s neck and up into his hair. I pulled him into me, and we kissed. And we kissed and we kissed and we kissed until, finally, Ludo pulled away. He opened the flap of his shoulder bag.
“How did you get here so fast?” I asked.
“I’ll explain later,” he said, pulling out his laptop. “Right now, you need to write.”
Chapter72
Ludo
My father, upon seeing footage of me on a news bulletin, one hundred miles from where I should have been and hectoring a secretary of state, called and demanded I file the full story, with backgrounders and information for graphics, in time for the first edition.
“It’s not my story,” I said. “It’s Sunny’s.”
“Where’s he going to publish it?”
“I think he was talking about theBeano, but we weren’t sure if that was even still in publication. PerhapsMAD Magazine?”
“Look. Jesus. Ludo. Just put him on, will you?”
Two minutes later, Sunny had agreed to a handsome freelance fee, consented to send over all his research for legal checks, and knuckled down to write in Leaf and Karma’s office. Five minutes after that, Sunny’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID but didn’t pick it up. He stopped typing, closed his eyes, and took a series of slow, deep breaths.
