The Hack Page 6

  Doug finished checking in and observed the desk clerk as the lift doors closed between them. Not a twinge of suspicion from the man.

  The concierge had not recognised him.

  Doug was hiding in the last place the police would think to look.

  ***

  The orphanage was in an idyllic position, tucked among palm trees, just a hundred yards from the beach. The mansion had been built some thirty years before for a wealthy property magnate, and later donated to become the children’s home. The estate had been well away from the tourist traps, but over the years the relentless march of resort hotels had surrounded it.

  These days the sprawling colonial style mansion and its grounds represented a huge opportunity. Real estate developers had offered mind-boggling amounts to turn it into yet another tourist playground, but on every occasion they had been told politely, but firmly, ‘No.’

  The man responsible for the orphanage was known as Pop, and he had been running it since the generous property magnate died eighteen years before. Control of the estate was in the hands of the board of directors. At least that was the theory. The actuality was that Pop – an interesting name since he had never fathered a child of his own – controlled everything with an iron fist.

  It was Pop who kept the developers at bay, ensuring the future of the orphanage.

  He currently had ninety-three charges, boys and girls from all over the region. They ranged in age from three or four to sixteen years, and in Pop’s eyes the children had the best possible life they could expect in this very harsh land. Yes, he had done much for the many hundreds of children who had been through his hands over the years.

  But right now he was worried. One of his youngsters, a little boy named Lek, had turned up that morning, naked and in a very bad way. The lad’s eyes were dilated and unresponsive to the light from Pop’s torch, and he either would not or could not speak.

  Pop was certain Lek had suffered some dreadful trauma, something shocking enough to put him in this catatonic state. It seemed the lad’s brain had shut down, refusing to face reality.

  Pop washed the dried blood off the small boy, and carefully examined him. He checked for all the usual signs, searching the lad’s body for cuts, bruising, teeth marks, cigarette or other burns, and then he checked the anus for tearing. He looked for anything that could explain the boy’s state. Yet he appeared fine, at least physically.

  Like Chief Lee, Pop was most anxious to speak with Fan.

  ***

  Doug Brown sat on the beach, no more than seventy yards from where Pop was ministering to Lek. He appeared to be a typical tourist, lazing on his beach towel, occasionally checking his surroundings with binoculars.

  Earlier Doug had walked round the grounds of the orphanage, casual in appearance, all the while his professional mind was assessing the property. There was just one entrance, one gateway through the ornate cast iron railings that skirted the perimeter of the lush gardens.

  From where Doug sat he had the optimal view of all the comings and goings. The rucksack beside him contained provisions and a nightscope. His newly hired motorbike was propped against the palm tree that provided Doug with some shade in the fierce heat. Although he did not expect things to take too long, assuming Fan had given him the correct address, he was prepared to wait.

  Nothing happened for much of the afternoon. There were occasional bursts of children’s voices following the bell for class that reached Doug as he ‘sunbathed.’ Not much laughter though, he noted.

  Each time a person arrived or departed, Doug’s binoculars allowed a closer inspection. None of the people had children with them. All looked clean, smart, educated, and all quite likely innocent staff or visitors.

  As the sun slipped towards the horizon Doug began to wonder if Fan had given accurate information. He lay down, chewing a stale sandwich, swigging warm water, the sweat dripping from his hair.

  In his life he had spent many hours like this, immobile, uncomfortable, observing. He knew from experience that it was easy to lose concentration, lose focus, to doubt the mission.

  He began to meditate, quietened his mind and opened up to the more patient animal within.

  The Hunter.

  ***

  Kate wanted to scream with joy as she left Tandy’s office, tablet under one arm, the other hand tucked in her pocket clutching the cheque. Her cab was waiting for her, ordered and paid for by the paper.

  Her paper. The Crusader.

  As the black cab moved off she hit the speed dial on her mobile, fingers trembling, a face-splitting grin creasing her features.

  ‘Johnny, you awake?’

  ‘Am now, Sis. I was just dozing.’ Kate could visualise him, head resting on his arms, the computer keyboard pushed to one side. He seemed to nap like that more often than sleep in his bed.

  ‘Can I come on over? I’m too high to sleep!’

  ‘Sure. How’d it go?’

  ‘Fantastic!’ She was too happy to let any little sliver of doubt spoil her moment. So what if she had told Tandy?

  She pulled the cheque from her pocket. ‘I’m looking at our payout right now. Fifty thousand pounds! And half of it’s yours!’

  A stunned silence, then, ‘Yee-hah! Let’s celebrate! How about a trip to Thailand for my birthday?’

  They both laughed and Kate thought to herself it wasn’t such a crazy idea...

  ***

  Lady Patricia Green was worried. Normally a cheerful woman, with never a bad word to say about anyone, her good humour was being tested to the limit.

  She flitted about the kitchen, making breakfast in the hope that her husband would resume some sort of communication.

  She had been in bed when he arrived home the night before. He had climbed the stairs and gone to his room without a word, not responding to her called ‘Goodnight!’

  Lady Green had accepted long ago that the physical side of their marriage was over, not that there had been that much to write home about anyway. They now had separate rooms, both with en suite, and could, if they chose, live totally separate lives. But that was not her way. No, Lady Green thought, sex had never been that important to either of them, but they still loved each other.

  She arranged the flowers on the tray, organised the eggs and toast and made her way to his room.

  Sir Jeremy had been up earlier, listening to the kitchen radio when she came down. She had given him a cheery ‘Good morning!’ Getting no response, she had inspected him then, thinking how easy it is to not notice when those you live with change.

  Her husband’s face was pallid, and he was clutching his left shoulder, as if in pain. She automatically assumed the worst.

  ‘Are you alright, dear? You look awfully pale.’ He ignored her, did not even look at her; it was as if she did not exist.

  She tried again. ‘Jeremy, darling. Do you feel alright?’ As she moved to him, reaching out to touch him, he had actually snarled at her, his face contorting in a way that made the hairs on the nape of her neck bristle.

  ‘Leave me alone, you stupid cow!’ And with that he had stomped off, puffing a little as he mounted the stairs to his room.

  Lady Green barely heard the door slam. She stood, frozen, one hand to her mouth, shock and horror reflected in her eyes.

  For a moment she remained like that, stunned by the vehemence, the sheer vitriol, as much as by the words. He had never in his life spoken to her like that. In fact, she had never heard him speak to anyone in that way.

  The poor man was obviously unwell.

  Please God, not Alzheimer’s. She could put up with pretty much anything, but not that again. Not after her father.

  She had busied herself, determined to talk to him, to present breakfast as her peace offering.

  She knocked on his bedroom door, tray in one hand. ‘Jeremy, I’ve brought you some breakfast. Can I come in?’

  ***

  The café on Balham High Road, just a short walk from Johnny’s bedsit, was cramped, with steamy wi
ndows and an atmosphere reeking of burnt fat. The radio burbled away in the background, a clutter of cutlery and conversation filling the room.

  Kate wiped the condensation from the window to peer out. This part of London was waking up, shops were preparing to open, people were hurrying to the tube station, queues were waiting for buses, and there was the inevitable traffic, too much of it even this early in the morning.

  Kate gazed out at the people going about their business, heads down in the drizzling rain. She could not help wondering how many were hiding dirty little secrets, how many apparently respectable office workers, businessmen and women, were living sordid private lives behind a veneer of normality. Like Simm.

  Johnny nursed his coffee while waiting for his traditional fried English breakfast, advertised in the little café as Heart Attack on a Plate. ‘Why is it the Brits can’t make coffee, Sis?’

  ‘They prefer tea. It’s a tradition that excludes the ability to make decent coffee.’

  ‘Oh, for a Starbucks right now!’

  ‘Ah, but you wouldn’t be getting the eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, beans and a side of toast.’

  Kate looked around at the early eaters, the little café full of men. Proper working class people she thought as she studied them. And maybe half of them reading or carrying copies of her newspaper, her story, with her name on the front page. It was quite a thrill but she chided herself not to be smug.

  Just then Kate heard Simm’s name on the news bulletin, the radio announcer’s voice breaking through the fuggy hubbub in the café. ‘...the CIA has refused to comment on the authenticity of the documents. Mr Simm, widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost internet businessmen, was found murdered in his hotel room in Thailand on Monday. Meanwhile, in Iraq...’

  Kate wanted to shout out, to tell the diners that it was her story, pride threatening to burst her heart.

  ‘Your food’s ready, luv.’

  Kate calmed herself as she made her way to the counter to grab the hot plates of food, eavesdropping as she passed a table crowded with building workers.

  ‘This bastard got wot he deserved, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, too right. Fuckin pervert.’

  ‘Do they really go on holiday to fiddle with little kids?’ Kate observed this voice was from the youngest member of the group, and heard the more senior, the voice of authority, reply.

  ‘Yeah mate, the sick bastards choose places where sex wiv girls and boys is legal. Places where the, you know, the consent thing, it’s like ten or twelve years or summat.’

  The men continued in this vein as Kate returned to a very hungry Johnny, some questions now forming in her own mind. Who killed Simm? And why? Was it because he was a pervert? She was confident there was more mileage to the story, though she was not sure what Tandy would think.

  She mulled that over as she watched her brother do an impression of a starving wolf gulping down its food. ‘Have you eaten anything other than popcorn this week?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’ He dropped his cutlery and counted off on his fingers. ‘Dime bars, Twix fingers, Maltesers, Cheerios, Quavers. Basically all the major food groups covered there!’ He grabbed his knife and fork and continued his wolf impression, canine grin included.

  Kate, fortified last night with doughnuts and coffee – Tandy must have shares in the suppliers, she thought – took a more leisurely bite of her food and looked at her copy of The Crusader, eyes magnetised, drawn by self-satisfaction.

  The front page consisted of less than fifty words at Tandy’s insistence. The headline took up much of the front page with the words ‘World Exclusive’ in relatively small print above ‘Child Molester?’ written in massive bold print. Below that was a picture of Simm hugging his own children, a boy and girl aged about six and eight.

  Kate had objected. ‘We can’t use this! The photo’s ancient, and you’re implying he’s molested these children, his own kids! They’re in their late teens now!’

  Tandy had just laughed at that and then straightened his face, doing his best to look concerned, she thought, as he said, ‘And where exactly do we say he molested his own kids?’

  She had objected again, but he was adamant. ‘Kate, we’re selling papers, darling. I’ve got an extra five hundred thousand running off tonight. We need to sell them to pay you!’

  He had laughed at that.

  Kate had been riding high but now, confronted with the reality of her actions, she fretted about the effect on the man’s family, the two adolescents and the wife. Last night Charles Tandy had bulldozed her conscience, and put forward his excuse for using the misleading photo.

  People must know. And the more people the better, so sell as many copies as possible. Simple. George Simm was a pillar of the establishment, a friend of the US President, a fabulously wealthy and successful entrepreneur, but he was also a fake.

  ‘Paedophile is the wrong word,’ he had declared, ‘it lacks emotional punch and it confuses our readers. Did you know people have attacked paediatricians, children’s doctors for chrissakes, thinking they were harming kids? So, child molester says it all. It’s all we need. Those two words. And a question mark, because, despite the CIA report, we can’t be certain. Got it?’

  Kate certainly had got it. Her first lesson in selling a story, tabloid style. No wonder she had never managed to get a staff job. She had begun to think that her facility with words could be the very reason she had been held back. Too many cleverly crafted articles, of interest to too few people.

  At least they were accurate, Kate decided. She felt a tremor of guilt and wondered if being part of The Crusader team was really what she wanted. Maybe she should just use the cash to do her own thing. But she had to admit, Tandy had taught her a thing or two last night.

  The rest of the copy was in screaming bullet points and short, one-sentence paragraphs. Tandy’s simple words and phrases slammed home the story, summarising the police report in emotive language, accompanied by the CIA seal and a more recent picture of Simm, much fatter now, looking a total slob. In his editorial Tandy even accused the CIA of letting the incident happen as their own report indicated they had information on Simm’s criminal proclivities before the murder, and speculated on whether Simm’s friendship with the President had been the reason they failed to act.

  Kate had to admit it was sensational.

  Charles had demolished all objections apart from those of Mark, his lawyer. By the time they were finished, Kate was exhilarated and exhausted in equal measure. Tandy was overjoyed and told her so, then surprised her by cracking open two magnum sized bottles of champagne.

  Kate’s head had spun, partly from the bubbly alcohol, partly from sheer joy, but mostly from the whirlwind that was Charles Tandy, the editor who had scooped his competitors yet again.

  So, this morning Kate had bought the pile of national daily papers and scanned them with Johnny the moment they arrived at the café. Not one of the competitors mentioned the scandal.

  The quality papers all had fawning obituaries on Simm. Even the other tabloids had short fillers in their meagre business sections, laudatory in every case: Simm the business guru, the internet genius, the man who had beaten the travel companies at their own game, the millionaire family man who had never lost sight of his roots.

  All of the articles were factual, truthful, but missing the one critical point – the man’s dreadful secret life.

  And she had got it.

  With Johnny’s help of course.

  She felt the singe of guilt in her soul again as she thought of how she had used him, but quenched it by justifying her actions with the thought that he too was happy.

  She watched him, mopping up the very last of the juices from his plate with a hunk of toast. ‘I can’t wait for the bank to open!’ Kate was looking forward to seeing the clerk’s eyes as she pushed the cheque across, obliterating her overdraft. ‘What are you going to do with your share? New computer? Popcorn maker, perhaps?’ She teased him, laughing. ‘Something for t
he perfect nerd-home?’

  He sat back, chomping his final mouthful, looking serious. ‘You keep it for me, Kate. Maybe we can buy somewhere together. You know, a flat or something?’

  Kate thought for a beat. ‘Er, you sure? You were the one who wanted to move out.

  ‘Yeah, I know. But I preferred it how we were, you know, close by. Together.’ He looked surprisingly solemn to her. Almost sad.

  ‘Don’t tell me you miss me, mothering you, looking after you, nagging you!’ Of course they could get back together – she had missed him too.

  Johnny brightened, Kate’s expression giving him the answer he wanted. Then he said, ‘No nagging this time though, okay. I’m eighteen this week, I’m not a kid.’ Then added with a shrug and a smile, ‘Well maybe sometimes!’

  ‘Okay Johnny, I’ll do my best, but I can’t help it. I’ve been like a mum to you for nearly ten years now. All mums nag but I’ll try!’ She crinkled her nose as she smiled. ‘And to celebrate our good fortune, let’s take that trip to Thailand for your birthday?’

  She made up her mind in that instant. She should do a follow up story but would go to the scene herself, regardless of what Tandy said. He could stuff his retainer if he objected. Johnny would keep her company and they would vacation at the same time.

  ‘Yo! Though I’ll need your iPad!’

  ‘We’ll buy you one, you nerd. The best we can find.’

  He deserved it she thought. And she still hadn’t told him she’d betrayed him to Tandy. But he didn’t need to know. He was happy.

  Why spoil it?

  ***

  ‘Jeremy. I’ve brought you some breakfast. Can I come in?’

  Sir Jeremy was sprawled on his bed, eyes closed, his heart throttled by angina, an elephant sitting on his ribcage.

  Lady Green pushed open the door, but her husband barely registered. The confidence he had felt the night before, sitting in the private gardens outside their grand home, had evaporated the moment he heard the radio broadcast.

  His nightmare, his fear that Simm would be exposed, was real and in the here and now. He had thought there would be time to cover up, to fudge things, to cut any trail that might lead to him.