Newsdeath Read online

  He looked towards Huckle for agreement, but Huckle hadn’t even noticed. Instead he was staring with a sudden sickness at the picture of a young girl in school uniform on the front page of the paper. She wasn’t a particularly pretty girl, but in blazer and school dress she looked so young, younger than she had seemed last night lying in the ambulance covered in blood and blankets. He quickly read the caption under the picture: she was Sheila Fairclough, aged fifteen, and would shortly have been taking her ‘O’ levels, but was out with her sister, on her way home from a discotheque. She had to be home by 11.30 her mother was quoted as saying. Huckle looked again at the picture. The girl was quite unrecognizable from the victim he had seen. It was surprising what grown-up clothes could do for a schoolgirl. He stared at the picture for a few moments, and then, becoming aware that he was staring at it, wondered what he ought to be feeling, and whether it really was anger against the people who had so pointlessly stolen this girl’s life and this mother’s daughter, or whether he was not, in fact, wondering why it had been her and not him. Engrossed in his own thoughts he didn’t hear Donald Mitford, the news editor, approach him from behind.

  ‘Everything all right, Huckle? We didn’t expect you in today. Good piece this morning.’ Mitford was a large, kind man with big, congratulatory hands that automatically pummelled the back of your shoulders as he spoke.

  Huckle nodded: ‘Yes. I’m okay. Young, wasn’t she?’ He looked again at the picture, the joking now kicked right out of him.

  It was a question that needed no answer; and without even considering one Mitford came out with’ the real purpose of his visit. ‘Switchboard have a call from the Bomb Squad for you. Some chap called Kinney. He’s holding. Do you want to talk to him?’

  Huckle thought for a minute. Obviously Mitford wanted him to take the call. Anything which tied Huckle further into the events of the previous night might prove valuable. Huckle stared at the picture of Sheila Fairclough again and noticed that she was wearing a monitor’s badge on her blazer. Then he thought about the fair-haired girl, and remembered something else about her. She was fashionable: almost arrogantly so. True she had been in jeans, but she walked with an intelligent self-confidence and a knowledge of her own attractiveness that compelled attention. For a split second he saw her again in his mind’s eye; he knew nothing about her, but he was certain that she was familiar with privilege. She had an opinion of herself, an opinion reinforced by looks, education and probably a comfortable way of life. None of that could be said of Sheila Fairclough.

  ‘Can you tell them I’ll call back, Donald,’ he told Mitford. He wanted time to think before he faced young Detective-Superintendent Kinney again. And he wanted to talk to Winston. Whoever the fair-haired girl was she seemed an unlikely bomber.

  ‘Certainly, old boy.’ Mitford knew when to co-operate with his staff. He was about to walk away when he added, almost slyly: ‘Let us know if you can get anything out of them.’

  Huckle smiled wanly at Winston, who had been listening to the conversation while pretending to consult his address book. The Bomb Squad wanted to see Huckle because they felt he might be able to help them: but thirty years as a newsman had taught Mitford that a certain degree of symbiosis never hurt anyone. If his man was going to be helpful to the police, it was only fair that the police should offer a little tit-bit in return.

  Winston regarded Huckle contemplatively: ‘Do you know what they want?’

  Huckle nodded. ‘They questioned me last night, but I was too shell-shocked to remember anything. Now I suppose, having spent half the night pulling every poor Irishman out of his bed, they’re wondering if PUMA means anything to me.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it doesn’t. At least I don’t think so. But, you know, lying there in bed at about five o’clock this morning I was almost sure I remembered a face. This blonde girl, almost like a model really, thin and tall, I think … she looked like Susan …’

  ‘You sure you didn’t imagine it?’

  ‘I’m sure now. I wasn’t sure last night.’

  ‘So what are you trying to say?’

  ‘Nothing. Just that.’

  ‘You’ll tell the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Before you write it?’ Winston’s professionalism showed with the surprise in his voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  Winston didn’t reply but looked again at the pictures of the girl, and the wrecked shops and house fronts: ‘Just supposing that this group PUMA does exist, and it did blow up that Ford Cortina last night, what do you think their motive might have been?’

  ‘God only knows.’ Since Huckle had never understood the workings of the minds of the IRA terrorists it had hardly occurred to him that any other group of terrorists might have more cogent motivation for blowing people up.

  Winston marked the newspaper with a felt-tipped pen: ‘The telephonist at PA said a well-spoken woman called …’ he said. Then he began to read from the newspaper:’ “This is PUMA’s first communiqué. Tonight PUMA struck its first bloodless blow against the manipulators of the oppressed. There will be other attacks.”’

  ‘Bloodless?’ Huckle broke in contemptuously. ‘That’s not what Sheila Fairclough’s mum thinks.”

  Winston stuck his pen into his hair : ‘They apparently started boasting about what they’d done before they knew that anyone had been killed. The first radio reports got it wrong. They said there were no serious casualties.’

  Huckle grunted cynically: “That’s the trouble with the proletariat. Always getting in the way of the revolution that is going to eliminate their oppressors.’ He drank the rest of his coffee, and picked up his telephone. ‘Ah well, better see what the bobbies are after me for.’

  ‘Are you all right today, Mr Huckleston?’ He recognized the voice of one of the older operators. She’d been there on the day he had joined the paper ten years ago, and had guaranteed her place in heaven by being motherly and nice to him ever since.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Iris …’ He listened courteously while she went on about how shocking it all was and that hanging was too good for them.

  ‘Anyway, what number was that you wanted, Mr Huckleston? … right … no I’ll get it for you.’ Huckle smiled inwardly. Iris wanted to do something for him to tell him that she was glad that he was alive; but all she could do was dial a number rather than allow him to do it himself.

  As Huckle expected Kinney wanted to talk with him further, and suggested that if he weren’t too busy he might like to pop down to Scotland Yard for a little chat. ‘Yes,’ said Huckle, ‘I think that would be a good idea,’ and went to look for the chief crime reporter to find out from which entrance he should approach Scotland Yard. Despite all his years in Fleet Street he had never had occasion to visit the place, and couldn’t even be sure where it was.

  It turned out to be in Broadway. Paying off his taxi he somewhat shyly entered through the revolving doors of what he had been told was known as the Back Hall, and found himself facing a couple of middle-aged uniformed policemen in a large mausoleum of a place, a room of concrete walls, much glass and shiny black desks. Across the foyer was a burning flame on a pedestal, which he recognized as the eternal tribute to all the members of the Metropolitan Police who had been killed on duty.

  Almost as soon as he was through the doors he was being addressed: ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  He explained his mission. After a few moments a plain clothes policeman joined him, he was issued with a pass, and taken to a lift, along several austere corridors and finally into Kinney’s office. The whole place, he thought, looked like something out of a film set, or worse, like a cheap television studio imitation of Scotland Yard, even down to the view of Victoria Street several storeys below. Fact seemed to ape the banality of fiction.

  As Huckle entered the office, an older man, presumably Kinney’s superior, was making his exit through another door into an adjacent office. Presumably they don’t want to intimidate their eye-witness, thought H
uckle, noting at the same time that the police actually did stick coloured pins into wall maps of London.

  Kinney smiled as Huckle sat down. ‘I read your article, Mr Huckleston. Very effective it was.’

  ‘Effective?’ Huckle was unsure of what Kinney was trying to say.

  ‘I mean you managed to convey very well the feeling of what it’s like to be involved in one of these affairs. We’ve sometimes thought that the public has become immune to the fear of what might happen to them. Lists of injuries might be accurate, but it’s the colour stuff that really makes the punters think.’

  Huckle didn’t quite know what to make of this smart-arse young man. Was he saying he liked his piece, or was he being sarcastic? It occurred to Huckle that quite possibly Kinney didn’t know himself. ‘I’m sure you didn’t invite me down here to compliment me,’ he cliched at last.

  ‘Of course not. But you are a prime witness … and I know that memory can play funny tricks after a shock. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me now?’

  Huckle didn’t like the way Kinney was phrasing things; it almost seemed as though he might suspect that Huckle had withheld something last night. But he hadn’t. And he told him he hadn’t. And then he told him about the girl with the fair hair, describing her as best he could, without the reference to Susan, and was generally as helpful and co-operative as he might be. Kinney listened through everything, taking notes as Huckle talked, and then to be absolutely sure brought in a secretary with a shorthand book, and went over the same points again. He didn’t seem too shocked that Huckle had forgotten to tell him all this the night before. Nor was he concerned that Huckle didn’t remember exactly whether or not the girl got out of the car. Whatever Huckle could remember, no matter how seemingly unimportant, was worth making notes about.

  After nearly half an hour of this Kinney excused himself and disappeared into the adjacent office, while a policewoman brought Huckle tea and wholemeal biscuits. When Kinney returned he had his boss with him. As Huckle had guessed it was the man he had earlier seen scurrying out of the room.

  ‘Commander Howlett.’ A plump man in his mid-fifties, hair cut militarily short and with bright eyes like a startled otter, strode into the room and staring straight at him, pushed a hand out in efficient politeness. Everything about him suggested power, cleanliness and alertness. ‘They call you Huckle, don’t they?’ Huckle grinned inwardly: he’d even done his homework. No wonder he was a commander. He nodded back a greeting towards the man before him, and then remembering Mitford’s advice, thought that now might be as good a moment as any to air his reporter’s curiosity. It wasn’t every day that the head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad would want to talk to him.

  ‘What’s PUMA?’ he asked point-blank. ‘Or, should I say, who are PUMA?’

  For a moment no one answered. Howlett looked out of the window. Whatever he had come in to say had been driven out of his mind. Kinney looked at Howlett.

  After a few seconds, during which Howlett seemed to be counting the passing cars in the street below and Kinney looked through the notes of his earlier conversation with Huckle, Howlett eventually began to shake his head. ‘To be honest we don’t really know yet. We don’t know who they are; we don’t know what they are; and we don’t know what they want …’ He paused, and then added, ‘And do me a favour. That’s between you and me and …’ He paused and gestured casually towards his colleague, ‘… and Superintendent Kinney, of course.’

  Surprised at such a frank response, Huckle decided to try his luck further. ‘But you’re sure it wasn’t a hoax … and that it wasn’t the IRA or some Palestinian sympathizers?’

  ‘Well, the bomb wasn’t a hoax, was it? We’ve no reason to suspect the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and we know that it wasn’t the IRA,’ said Howlett. ‘We know when it’s the IRA without them even telling us.’

  Huckle sat and considered this revelation. He wasn’t really surprised. It was well known that the IRA was riddled with police informers. ‘So what about my blonde?’ asked Huckle.

  Howlett again went into a semi-trance by the window: ‘I don’t know. Look, I know you’re busy but if you’ll be our guest for the rest of the day we’d like to show you some pictures. It’s an outside chance, but it’s one we have to take.’

  ‘Of course.’

  For the first time Howlett smiled: ‘Superintendent Kinney will look after you. And after you’ve finished, perhaps you could pop up here to see me again.’

  ‘That’s fine with me,’ said Huckle.

  Howlett beamed: ‘Good, I’ll see you later then.’

  He turned and walked briskly back towards his office. Kinney opened the other door for Huckle and together they walked down the corridor: ‘You know,’ said Kinney, as they entered the lift, ‘I always wanted to be a reporter.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Huckle, with an undisguisedly feigned interest at what he assumed to be a polite lie from Kinney.

  ‘Yes, you must meet such interesting people.’

  Huckle almost had to suppress a laugh. Was he, he wondered, referring to himself and Howlett. Politely he didn’t show the mirth he was feeling: ‘Yes,’ he said seriously. ‘Lots of interesting people … and they’re all other journalists.’

  To his surprise Kinney virtually guffawed, his little skull head shaking on his shoulders like the bouncy toys in the back windows of fussy, family saloon cars. Weil, if Kinney thinks that’s funny, thought Huckle, who am I to tell him it’s the oldest gag in Fleet Street?

  The rest of the day was spent going through hundreds of photographs in the Scotland Yard criminal records picture library looking for a face to match with his mystery girl. The effort led nowhere. At length a photofit expert was called in, and by showing him an old holiday photograph of Susan (taken with the children four summers before in Yugoslavia) which habit had left in his wallet, and by trying to describe the fall of the girl’s hair, an impression was created from a series of overlaying cards. It was certainly no more than an impression, but he didn’t know how it might be improved. He doubted if it would be of any value.

  At five o’clock he and the photofit artist, a short, stout man with thin red hair that he combed over his bald spots who had earlier confided that his schoolboy ambition was to have worked for Walt Disney, returned to see Howlett. The artist presented the impression.

  ‘How close is this?’ Howlett asked.

  Huckle felt embarrassed for himself and the artist. ‘Not very, but we won’t get any closer.’

  Howlett nodded. ‘So far no one else has confirmed seeing the lady get out of the car.’

  ‘You think I imagined her?’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  Huckle ignored the question.

  After another long stare at the impression Howlett spoke again: ‘We’ll circulate this to all our departments tonight and see if the face jogs a memory anywhere. In the meantime if it’s possible for you not to write this immediately it might help. We don’t want to frighten her off just yet.’ Huckle didn’t bother to argue, but Howlett must have known what he was thinking. ‘If we don’t get anything out of our lads we’ll be releasing this to the Press and television very shortly … probably in a couple of days.’ He paused, then added: ‘We’ll give it a lunchtime embargo if we do release it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Huckle. Lunchtime was perfect for an evening paper.

  ‘Very good then, Mr Huckleston.’ Howlett shifted back his chair, assuming an air of dismissal. Huckle sat his ground. After all he had been working all afternoon for the police, the least they could do was to give him a couple of minutes help. He tried to be casually chatty: ‘Anything new turned up?’

  Howlett beamed an otter’s smile at him. ‘Nothing that your colleagues haven’t picked up. The car was traced to the wife of a Thames Television producer who lives in Beckenham. It was stolen from outside their home on Saturday night, and you were the next person to see it …’ He paused, almost like a story teller. ‘When the bomb went off it
had been left near the home of another television producer.’ If exclamation marks could be spoken, Howlett would have then expressed some.

  ‘Would you say that was coincidental?’ Huckle was fishing.

  Howlett shrugged: ‘Would you?’ he said, and stood up. There was nothing more he wanted to say.

  Huckle went towards the door. ‘So TV marks the spot?’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Howlett, glumly. And sat down again.

  Chapter Three

  Outside in Westminster it was the rush hour, and great blobs of wet snow were swarming out of the yellow, fluorescent sky. Huckle turned his head up to admire the sweeping patterns that the falling snow made above him and as he did a flurry blew into his face, wetting his eyes and cheeks and lips. He licked away a melting flake and thought how he had once caught Charles in the garden in Fulham walking about with his mouth open so that he might swallow the rain. And then he remembered that he had grown accustomed to not missing his children. As usual there were no taxis available, and so, cursing to himself, more from habit than from annoyance, he made his way to the Underground station, where he bought late copies of the evening papers.

  On the packed platform he studied his newspapers. His own article had by now been taken off the front page and moved to an inside spot where it accompanied a picture of the burnt-out car, the front page now being largely filled with the picture of the dead girl and a thorough and informative account of the PUMA story under the headline ‘Police Manhunt For London Terrorists’. Across the top of the headline ran a strap-line to add to the intrigue: ‘TV link with PUMA bombers?’ Huckle looked around the packed station. The story had the attention of everyone who had bought a paper, and of half those who hadn’t but were trying to read their neighbour’s. It was a change from the disastrous state of the economy anyway, he thought.

  He ran quickly through the lead story, noting that Winston was sharing the by-line with Carol McGough and the two crime reporters John Stebbings and Alexander Conran. It didn’t tell him anything that he didn’t already know, but it did contain a mystified statement from the television producer whose car had been stolen. The other TV man involved was reported to be working on a film story in Canada, and had not yet heard the news.