Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

And he had surprised himself by the growing realisation that he would like to get to know her much better again. But he was afraid he had effectively scuttled his own chances. He hadn’t planned to make a move on Jo. Certainly not in the way he had. He couldn’t believe he had made such a damn stupid, clumsy pass at her. Throughout his life he had almost always got those things right. He had invariably been able to sense the moment. Know when to do and say what. And Joanna had been right up to a point — most of those women had never been anything other than cheap lays to him. But not her. Not Jo. She was wrong about that. Joanna remained the one woman ever really to have got under his skin. It was only now he had seen her again that he realised how little that had changed.

He had been speaking the absolute truth when he told her he wished he had left home for her. But he’d had the opportunity and he’d baulked at it. He’d messed up Jo’s life then, he knew that, and it seemed pretty reasonable that she wouldn’t want to give him the opportunity to do so again. In any case, she was the woman with everything. Jesus, it was amazing she had any time for him at all any more. What was he, after all? Just a broken-down middle-aged cop working out his time for his pension.

And then he’d made that dumb pass at her.

Around five in the afternoon he decided to send her an e-mail apologising. He couldn’t bring himself to phone and doubted she’d take his call. But he was desperate to have some contact with her. He had never quite got used to the way e-mails disappeared into cyberspace — but it was better than nothing.

He really did want to see her again. Even if it could never be anything more than just lunch or a drink.

Joanna was at her desk trying to write her column, which should have been completed at least two hours earlier. This wasn’t like her, or she would never have lasted as long as she had at the top, even with a husband as editor.

Her mind, too, had been wandering that day and even though she was over her deadline she found it hard to concentrate on her writing. She was, as Fielding had thought she would be, preoccupied with landing a really big exclusive on the Shifter Brown case, but she was also thinking about him.

When her anger had subsided she had found herself dreadfully disappointed that the lunch had ended so badly. It had been his fault but, even though she knew it was silly, she was nevertheless upset by his crass behaviour. Trouble was, Fielding could still get to her. No doubt about that.

And when an e-mail arrived from him she couldn’t help being pleased.

Hi, Jo. This is just a note apologising for my stupid behaviour in the restaurant. I must have been drunker than I thought. I can’t believe what I did and I hope you’ll forgive me.

I’d love the chance to make it up to you. Would another meeting be totally out of the question? Have lunch with me just one more time and I promise to keep my hands strictly to myself and not to do or say anything daft.

She had to smile. There was something schoolboyish about the message. She sat at her desk thinking for a moment or two when Tim Jones came over to tell her he had a call for her from someone who wouldn’t give his name saying he had information on the Shifter Brown case. ‘Deep throat will only speak to the “Sword of Justice” lady, he insists, and I’m afraid to transfer because I’ve lost two calls that way already today — I think the system’s playing up again,’ Tim went on.

She agreed to take the call on his line, got up from her chair and hurried across the editorial floor to Tim’s desk, with the young crime reporter ambling along just behind her. ‘More than likely a nutter but you never know,’ she muttered.

Shortly after Jo left her desk Paul came looking for her.

It had not taken her long to deal with the call. Within four or five minutes she was quite certain that the caller was indeed a nutter with nothing constructive to tell her or anyone else. The majority of such calls were. But she’d learned early on that a journalist with any sense always took time to listen. The one you ignored was certain to be the big one. News desk assistants spent half their day listening to calls from readers, ninety-nine per cent of which were a complete waste of time. But a result once in a hundred times made it imperative that they all got heard.

When she returned to her desk Paul was standing behind her computer screen, staring at it, his face grim.

The Fielding e-mail was still on the screen.

This, she thought, is all I need. She opened her mouth to explain. A mistake in more ways than one.

Paul raised a hand to silence her. He would never have any kind of personal conversation with her in the public arena of the newsroom. ‘I need to talk to you about this week’s column. Would you come into my office when you have a minute, please, Jo?’ he requested mildly enough.

She nodded silently and, as he walked away, sat down at her desk, read the offending e-mail one more time and deleted it — as she should, of course, have done in the first place. Then, resigned to a difficult exchange, she made her way to Paul’s office at the other end of the newsroom.

By the time she got there Paul was already sitting in the big antique leather armchair behind his desk and he did not get up when she walked in. Neither did he ask her to sit down. She did so anyway. She was damned if she was going to stand before him like a schoolgirl being given a telling-off by the headmaster.

‘I want you to explain to me exactly what that e-mail meant, Joanna,’ Paul demanded. His tone was chilly and precise.

She was suddenly very irritated by him. She decided to go on the attack. ‘And I want to know what you were doing reading my bloody private e-mail?’ she countered.

He sighed. ‘I came to see you to ask you where your column was; it is, as you know, very late and I looked at your screen in the vain hope that you might be working on it.’ He spoke with exaggerated patience. ‘Silly of me,’ he finished.

She relented a little. She didn’t feel guilty about Fielding, but old habits died hard and she always felt guilty when she was late for a deadline. Deadlines were sacrosanct. On a daily newspaper it didn’t matter how brilliant your copy was if it was too damned late. ‘Look, Paul, it was nothing,’ she began. ‘We had lunch, he had too much to drink, he made a silly pass. Mike was apologising. For God’s sake, you read the damned thing.’

Paul stared at her steadily. ‘You didn’t tell me you were having lunch with him,’ he said flatly.

‘Do I usually tell you everyone I’m having lunch with?’ she responded, trying not to react.

‘Mike Fielding is not everyone, not as far as you are concerned, Joanna,’ he said.

‘Paul, you’re making something out of nothing...’

‘Am I?’ he interrupted her. ‘When Private Eye ran their piece I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Absolutely. You know I did. Embarrassing though it was, I dismissed it out of hand. But now we have this...’

She interrupted him then. ‘You gave me the benefit of the doubt? Honestly, Paul, I sometimes wonder who the hell you think you are.’

‘I think I am your husband, Joanna,’ he said. His voice was louder than normal and he didn’t sound quite as cool and controlled as usual. ‘And I think you’ve been forgetting that lately...’

‘I turned him down, Paul. I said no. No! OK?’ She spat the words at him. They had never indulged in anything remotely resembling a personal row anywhere in the Comet building before. She wondered vaguely if his secretary or anybody else could hear what was going on.

‘Yes, and why did you have to turn him down? That’s what I want to know,’ he stormed at her. ‘How exactly did you find yourself in that situation?’