Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

The second she got out of the cab, she was hit by a scent that reminded her of a combination of Africa and Washington in August: the sub-tropical tang of damp and decay, with a hint of sweetness. She looked around, instantly hit by the lushness that seemed to tumble off every Paris-style balcony, vivid purple bougainvillea or trailing plants of dense green. The place seemed to ooze with fertility, drunken and heady.

It was still early, but Nick had told her to head for the bar all the same: thanks to the time difference, the European hacks would all be off deadline by now. Even their ‘damned bloody websites’ would be asleep. ‘They’re better anyway,’ Nick had said. ‘Much more forthcoming than our tight-lipped American colleagues, most of whom stay on the bloody mineral water all night.’

The Carousel Bar was the kind of place that would normally make Maggie recoil: it had, God help us, a theme – the circus, complete with a spinning merry-go-round, elaborately decorated, in the centre of the room. But there were also black-and-white portraits of past guests, among them Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and William Faulkner, which made her feel rather more forgiving.

She spied a group of half a dozen – five men, one woman – at a corner table. Past experience told her this was the foreign press corps; and she was right. There, sipping at a vile-looking concoction, was a man who perfectly matched Nick’s description of his Telegraph pal – sandy-haired, gawky, eager.

‘Tim?’ she asked, prompting the man to his feet, simultaneously putting down his drink and offering a handshake. His face bore the expression Maggie had seen ever since she turned eighteen, a look that even the most sophisticated men were not fully able to conceal, one that contained both a split-second act of assessment and the passing of a positive verdict. She felt rumpled after the flight and she was exhausted after the last two days. But the gaze of Tim from the Telegraph , probably ten years her junior, told her that whatever it was she had had at eighteen had not completely vanished.

‘Hurricane?’ he said, raising his glass with a smile. ‘The post-Katrina cocktail of choice, apparently.’

Remembering Lesson One in Nick du Caines’s journalism for beginners course, Maggie insisted she would get this round – taking orders for more Hurricanes from the rest of the table. As she did, she noticed a man at a corner table, alone. Dark-haired, thin-faced and older than the others, he had a laptop open and was speaking softly into a cellphone. Was he a journalist too?

By the time she came back to the table, Tim had already filled everyone in: she was Liz from the Irish Times , a pal of Nick’s and therefore to be welcomed.

‘Where we got up to, Miss Costello,’ explained Francesco from Corriere della Serra – a bald man in his late forties, who nevertheless gave off a whiff of foreign correspondent glamour, starting with his battered photographer’s jacket and its countless pockets – ‘was the police statement today that they are “looking for no one else” in connection with Forbes’s death.’

‘Means they are treating it as suicide,’ added Tim keenly.

‘And what do we think of that?’ said Maggie, taking a sip of her cocktail. Sickly sweet, it made her gag: how anyone would want to drink this over a glass of Jameson’s was beyond her.

‘I don’t see how they could do anything else,’ said Francesco. ‘There was no sign of a break-in at the apartment,’ he said, counting the fingers off his hand for emphasis. ‘There were no fingerprints except his own. And this is a known form of sexual – how do you say – fetish .’

‘The Louisiana coroner might call it death by misadventure.’ It was the woman, whose voice sounded Home Counties English to Maggie but who was, apparently, the New York correspondent for Der Spiegel . Like the others, she had got on a plane the moment Forbes’s death was announced: since they’d been in New Orleans since lunchtime, they were now officially experts. ‘It’s not a suicide if Forbes didn’t want to take his own life.’

‘It seems,’ said Tim, turning to face Maggie, his voice lowering as if he was hoping to turn the group conversation into a more intimate exchange between the two of them, ‘as if our Mr Forbes was so thrilled at his success in wounding the President, that he wanted to celebrate, as it were.’

‘And we think Forbes was into the whole autoasphyxiation thing?’

‘Oh, yes. He was a gasper, all right.’ Tim smiled, pleased with himself.

‘A gasper?’

‘That’s the word for it, I’m told: those who get their kicks being choked.’ Seeing Francesco straining to join their conversation, Tim decided to say more, to keep Maggie to himself. ‘We have a piece from our medical correspondent which says Forbes fits the profile completely. Middle-aged man; risk-taker; thrill-seeker; loner.’

‘We know all that, do we?’

‘And don’t forget the New Orleans factor.’

‘What’s that?’

‘N’Awlins!’ He attempted a Southern drawl, without success. ‘The Big Easy, the Big Sleazy. He lived just off Bourbon Street, for God’s sake. This is sin city, and he was right in the middle of it. He fits the bill perfectly.’

‘Is that what the Telegraph is saying tomorrow?’

‘That’s what I’m saying. Can’t speak for the bloody comment pages. The editor loathes Baker, thinks he’s some crazed socialist. He asked the foreign desk to get me to write “The ten clues that say Forbes was murdered”. Been reading too many blogs.’

‘That would be a cracking story, though, wouldn’t it?’ Maggie said, before noticing that the woman from Der Spiegel was staring at her. Was she jealous? Had Maggie got between her and young Tim?

‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

‘I don’t think so. Not unless you spend time clubbing by the Liffey.’ Maggie could hear her own accent change, dialling up the Irish.

‘No, you definitely look familiar.’ Still the cut-glass English accent, with impeccable idiom, but now the German undercurrent had become audible. ‘Were you in a magazine?’

‘I’m not a model, if that’s what you mean.’ Maggie saw Francesco and Tim break into appreciative smiles. She didn’t like where this was going. ‘Actually, I get this a lot. I have one of those faces. People say I look like a lot of people.’

‘Must be that then.’

Maggie smiled in what she hoped was a sisterly fashion, but elicited only a cool response. She glanced down at the pile of BlackBerrys and phones on the table: it would only take a couple of searches of the name Costello and this woman would soon have her rumbled.

A phone call came for Francesco and, thankfully, the moment was broken. Seizing his chance, Tim turned to her and suggested the two of them go out for a bite of dinner. ‘We could compare notes on the story if you like – though, obviously, only if you think that’s useful.’

Maggie remembered another of Nick’s rules: better to hunt in packs, at least if you’re a novice. She needed to tag along with someone, so it might as well be someone eager.

She got to her feet, accepting the table’s collective gratitude for getting the round in – including a mouthed thank you from Francesco – and followed Tim out. As she left she looked back at the thin-faced man, to see that he was staring straight at her.

They headed down Iberville Street, hearing the jazz riffs that curled like cigarette smoke from each doorway. Eventually they reached the Acme Oyster House: she had a plate of chargrilled oysters, so fresh they made her tingle, while he gobbled up a pound of spicy boiled crawfish.