Anderson shook his head, still smiling. ‘You don’t miss too many tricks do you? All right, I left out the dodgy bits. And why, because the editor wanted it that way, and he said the public wanted it that way. You’ve seen her picture, no one wanted to believe that that innocent-looking slip of a kid was anything other than she seemed. The killing was big local news. It was also a circulation booster. So I didn’t bend the truth, I just left bits out. We call it editing.’
‘And that’s why you’re so keen for a result? Another circulation boost? Benson says you follow it up on a weekly basis.’
The reporter was again silent for a short time. ‘Between you and me, Frank,’ he said finally, ‘I see London as my next career move, working for one of the nationals. Sounds a bit of a cliché, I know. And whether Donna’s killer’s nailed or not, I’m aiming to write the big one, the in-depth feature about Donna’s life and times. The Willows is falling apart and we know why: unemployment, broken homes, drugs, teenage pregnancies, apathy. The situation with the inner cities has been written up endlessly. Well, I want my feature to be based on Donna’s short tragic life. Donna will symbolize the Willows’ decline and the Willows in the end destroying one of its rarest possessions. Even if it wasn’t Mahon who killed her, I’m certain her fate was dictated by her environment. I want this article to touch the spot, maybe even taken up and syndicated. It could do wonders for my CV.’
Crane nodded. That had to be the real reason he’d not wanted to write up Donna as a streetwise tramp, or even hint at it. He needed an apparently artless innocent to contrast with the slum the Willows was becoming. Journalists were an odd breed. He accepted that they had feelings like everyone else, yet people’s tragedies were their livelihood and their ambitions were based on them. Though Crane had to remind himself that he also was using Donna’s fate as his own livelihood, if not a welcome change from routine.
‘Did you have any dealings with Mahon?’ he asked.
‘I talked to him when they let him go. Asked him about their relationship and whether he suspected anyone himself. Tried to catch him out. Fat chance, if two bobbies hammering away couldn’t break his story. He just banged on about it not being him, he’d been at home, the same old bullshit. Near to tears at times.’
‘I’d heard he could get emotional.’
‘You aim to see him yourself?’
‘I’ll have to. If I can’t break that alibi of his I can forget it. He just might not be guilty, but there’s no point in looking any further until I know for certain. Where do I find him? The Goose and Guinea?’
‘I’ll go with you, if you like. He’s always there early doors, except when he’s sitting quietly at home the one night his girlfriend ends up at the bottom of a reservoir.’
Crane’s instinct was to turn him down. He worked alone and Anderson could be a distraction. On the other hand, it might help if the ice was broken with Mahon by someone who knew him. ‘You can find the time?’
‘No problem. Mahon might think he’s off the hook now. Could give him a nice little turn, me drifting back into his life with a PI.’
The sort of turn that might just get him to let something slip.
‘Free this evening?’
‘Unless something comes up between now and then. I’ll contact you.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ Crane gave him his card, gave a final glance at the VDU, then cleared the screen. ‘I’m finished here.’
They walked from the library and halted at the top of the steps, Crane to leave, Anderson to return to the big open-plan office he shared with the other journalists, from where the soft endless sound of phone bells could just be heard.
‘Look,’ Anderson said, ‘there’s not much I haven’t ferreted out about Donna and who she knew. I’ll do anything I can to help. And, like you, I don’t work nine to five.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Crane said evenly, still not keen to get too involved with a reporter who would very much have his own agenda. At the same time, he had to admit that Anderson was sitting on gold-plated information it would take him hours to put together himself.
They stood on the balcony overlooking the reception area. A sepia-tinted wall of glass encased the ultra modern complex and silent cars and buses seemed to float along the road below, their windows and brightwork flashing in the afternoon sun. ‘It’s not just the brownie points, Frank,’ Anderson said, as if he’d sensed what Crane had been thinking earlier. ‘I really did feel sorry about the kid. We all did. She wasn’t a very nice girl, but I honestly think she was a victim of her background. The Willows has a lot to answer for.’
Just then, three young women came out of the open-plan room, all prettyish and cheerful looking. ‘Geoff, you’re back?’ one of them said. ‘Now you see him, now you don’t. You are coming to the Tav, aren’t you?’
‘Darlings, how could I refuse?’ he said, giving them his peculiarly endearing smile. Apart from being good looking he was also fanciable, going by the way they clustered round him. Crane knew the two things didn’t always go together. One of the women, who had green eyes, rosy cheeks and black curly hair, was clearly mad about the bloke.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘see you there then, and if anything should pop up let’s hope it’s nothing to do with work.’
‘Saucy.…’
They went off giggling, the dark-haired one turning back for a last glance.
‘Tell you what,’ Anderson said, still grinning faintly, ‘it’s a custom here, meeting up at the Tavern, whoever’s around, about six. Your office is in the Old Quarter, why not drop in? I’ll know by then if I’m free and we can go on to the Goose.’
The Tavern occupied the ground floor of what had once been a wool warehouse. It had become known as the Glass-house. There was glass everywhere, along the walls and the bar facings. The tables were glass, the chandeliers dripped shards of it, partitions had frosted glass panels. It drew a young crowd.
Eight or nine people sat at one of the oblong central tables when Crane walked in, and he could hear the rapid gun fire of Anderson’s voice. ‘Some things just are,’ he was saying. ‘There’s no rational explanation, they just are. Why are women called Dawn always overweight and have badly bleached hair? Have you ever known a man called Bernard to be entirely right in the head? Have you ever been able to watch any film that had heart in the title? See what I mean?’
‘How about wind?’ Crane said from behind him. ‘I have the same trouble with films that have wind in the title. Gone with the being the exception that proves the rule.’
‘Frank!’ He jumped to his feet. ‘Let me get you a drink. This is Frank Crane, folks, and we’re helping each other on a piece of work. What are you drinking, pal?’
He went off to the bar and the others smiled and nodded. Crane recognized one or two of the faces from the little photos that went with their bylines at the top of articles on education and entertainment and community affairs.
‘Your face rings some kind of a bell.’ It was the woman with the black curly hair Crane had seen earlier. The seat he’d taken was next to hers.
‘I’m ex-police,’ he told her, ‘and now working as a PI. I’ve been involved in a recent high profile case that got my face in your paper, though I try very hard to keep it out.’
‘I see. I’m Carol. What are you two cooperating on?’
‘Donna Jackson, yes? Her people have hired me to see if I can turn up anything new on the killer. Geoff has a lot of useful information.’
She sighed, her eyes leaving Crane’s to rest on Anderson’s lean form where he stood at the bar. ‘I might have known.’ She looked back at him. ‘They’ve all got one, you know,’ she said ruefully. ‘Crime reporters. An outsize bee in the bonnet. There’s always one that’s insoluble and causes a hell of a stir that they’ll never let go. There are crime reporters with grey hair and paunches who are still hell-bent on tracing Lord Lucan, for God’s sake, and he’s been declared officially dead.’