Gordon Stevens - Provo

‘How much is she asking?’

‘Five hundred.’

Go with it and she was right, and all he’d get was a pat on the back. Not go with it and somebody else had it, and his feet wouldn’t touch the ground.

‘Offer her one, the rest on results.’

‘She’ll take two-fifty.’

‘Done. Guaranteed exclusive. How’re you writing it?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Write it as a question. Expectations of major changes, speculation amongst close friends, etc. Pull in an astrologer, get him to confirm it in her stars. Last night’s celebration in the third paragraph.’

That way he and the paper were covered. If there was a story. A bomb up every other paper’s backside if there wasn’t. And the classic spoiler if there was and someone else had it. And royal stories still moved copies, he could imagine the panic when the second edition came out, the rumours that would start in the other newsrooms even before that.

He rolled up his sleeves and telephoned the lawyer and picture editor in that order.

The story – or the first hint of it – broke at twenty minutes to nine. An hour earlier Patrick Saunders had returned to the flat which he used during the week. Saunders was 44 years old, fit for his age and occupation, married with two teenage girls, a country house in Wiltshire and a town flat in Barnsbury. He had joined the Daily Mirror seventeen years before, and was now what the newspaper liked to call the king of the royal-watchers.

The Cellnet, he noted as the telephone rang; the office getting hold of him in a hurry, not knowing where he was or having the time to find out.

‘Yes.’

‘Pat.’ Only the news editor was allowed to call him Pat, and then only when he was in a hurry and the pressure was on. ‘Big one breaking. A cab will collect you in two minutes.’

‘What is it?’

‘The Sun ’s> carrying an exclusive on Di. We’ve just had the tip.’

Saunders’s first reaction was shock and his second was a combination of disbelief and anger. So what was it, why didn’t he know? Why hadn’t his source given him the story first? His third, which over-ruled the others, was of self-preservation.

‘You’re sure?’

‘We haven’t seen it yet, but they’re putting on extra copies.’

‘You don’t know what it is?’

‘No.’

‘On my way.’

He left the flat and ran down the stairs. The minicab was waiting. For Christ’s sake be there, he thought. He sat in the back seat, balanced his notebook on his lap and dialled the number on the Cellnet. The contact answered immediately.

‘Patrick here. Bit of a panic on.’ There was no time for pleasantries. ‘The Sun’s carrying a big story on Di.’

The contact began to laugh. ‘Red faces all round, eh?’

Bastard, thought Saunders.

‘Wrong Di, old man. One of the Princess’s buddies, sort of lady-in-waiting, if you like. Just announced she’s pregnant for the first time.’

‘What about the Princess of Wales?’

‘She’s agreed to be godmother.’

You’re sure? Saunders almost blurted. Head on the block time, he knew. Of course I’m sure, he knew the contact would reply. ‘Phone number?’

‘She’s ex-D.’

All of them were ex-directory, Saunders thought.

‘Doesn’t matter, though. She’s not there.’

Stop pissing me about, Saunders glanced up as the minicab passed the Angel.

‘She’s with her parents.’ The contact gave him the number. ‘Old man’s in Who’s Who, that’s where you got it, yah?’

‘Yah.’ Saunders clipped the cassette recorder on to the Cellnet and dialled the number the source had given him. The woman who answered sounded in her fifties, her voice pure Roedean.

‘Mrs Wickham. This is Patrick Saunders.’ He did not say he was from the Mirror. Some people would pay to get their names in the gossip columns of the Mail or Express ; the same people, however, might consider the Mirror slightly the wrong colour and class. ‘I wrote a small piece about Diana’s marriage and wanted to congratulate her on the good news.’

Hope to Christ she is married, he thought.

‘How nice. Would you like to speak to her?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

Saunders heard the scuffle as the daughter picked up the telephone.

‘Diana. Patrick Saunders from the Mirror. Sorry to trouble you, but you know what Fleet Street’s like when a pretty girl has a baby.’

She knew the score, he guessed. Especially if she was a member of Princess Di’s set. The woman laughed and he knew he’d won. For two minutes they talked about what she wanted, boy or girl, as well as details of her and her husband.

‘Just a word of warning.’ He slipped it in quietly, almost casually. ‘I know you’re a close friend of a certain other Di. Some people think it’s the Princess who’s got some big news coming.’

‘How silly.’ It was almost a laugh.

‘But she knows?’

‘Of course, we had a celebration last night.’

‘Champagne?’

‘Of course.’

‘Any chance of Di being godmother?’

The woman laughed again.

They talked until the minicab stopped outside the Mirror building. Saunders thanked her, made a note to send her a large bouquet of flowers in the morning, entered the telephone number into the computer notebook, ran inside and took the lift to the newsroom. Just in time for the second edition, he thought.

The editor, night editor, news editor and lawyer were looking at the television screen, the Nine O’Clock News just starting.

‘Photo of Diana Simpson, daughter of Brigadier and Mrs Wickham,’ he told the pictures editor. ‘Make it a happy one. Second picture of her with the Princess of Wales.’

He switched on the computer. The editor and news editor were behind him, the editor sweating slightly and the deputy fiddling with his braces. He ignored them and swore at the system to power up.

BBC running the story, the news editor shouted to him. The Palace are making no comment. Just what he wanted, he thought: everyone carrying the story and the silence from the Palace only fuelling the bonfire. His fingers were already on the keyboard.

The Princess of Wales is to become a godmother.

If it’s a boy he will be called Michael James. If it’s a girl she will be called Elizabeth Althea. And last night Kensington Palace was celebrating the good news.

Behind him Saunders felt the editor punch the air with a mixture of triumph and relief.

The evening was dark and cold, threatening rain. Walker told the cab driver to drop her by Chancery Lane, then walked briskly along Holborn. She was wearing what some might call her City clothes and carried a briefcase. The building which housed the Mirror Group of Newspapers was on the corner of Holborn Circus, the concrete and glass dominating the area, the main reception in front and the garage and works entrance in New Fetter Lane behind. In the daytime the lorries bringing the rolls of paper crowded the street, in the evenings the delivery vans lined the pavement waiting for the first edition.

There were two other features of New Fetter Lane which concerned Philipa Walker that evening. The first was the faded brick building, five hundred yards from the Mirror, which housed the headquarters of Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise. The second was the White Hart public house opposite the rear entrance to the Mirror and known to its journalists as the Stab (short for The Stab in the Back).

The White Hart was quiet, the slack period after the City stockbrokers and money men left and before the journalists arrived. She ordered a gin and tonic, settled in a corner with a copy of The Times, and waited. It was the third time she had been there; on the previous two occasions the intermediary she had chosen had not come in. A first group of reporters arrived, then a second, the woman among them. She was smartly dressed though older than her photograph. After fifteen minutes the woman rose, asked the men she was with what they wanted to drink, and went to the bar. Walker finished her gin and tonic and followed her.