He gathered his stuff and bundled into his boss’s office.
“Well done, Fletcher.” Rose ripped off her glasses and smiled. An actual, genuine, smile. “You won the Internet this morning.”
“I did?”
Rose’s eyes sparkled, or more reflected pound signs within them, as she twisted her laptop screen his way. There was Fletcher’s article up on the London Lights online site. Among old photos of Jackson from his arrest, to his awards picture, to his rise to fame, were the words that Fletcher had poured onto a page in the hurry to keep his job. After a few clicks, Rose indicated the stats page. Over a million click-throughs and counting. With subscriber comments piling up.
The world was reading and engaging in his words.
He should’ve been ecstatic. Except, how could he be?
“The Cracks Within the Jax.” Rose chuckled. “It’s quite genius.”
Should he be grateful?
“Whilst not outright incriminating the man, you certainly gave the readers food for thought. And the quote from Kris? That was damn good journalism. He’s not spoken to anyone about all this before. How did you manage that?”
“It pays to have friends in low places.” Fletcher scrubbed a hand down his face. This was bad. This was more than bad. His article had been edited. And not in a good way. If—no, when—Jackson read this, he’d lose all his trust. And last night he’d gained it and then some.
Last night. Shite.
“I think we need to do a retraction,” he mumbled to his hands.
Rose burst out a laugh. “I don’t think so. This is going to pay for your bonus and then some.” Ripping off her specs, she leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “Charlie will literally arse fuck me with a wooden broom and leave in the splinters if we retract this story.”
“Charlie?” Tallulah’s father.
“My boss. Your boss.”
Fletcher squirmed “Why does he think it’s Jackson?”
Rose shrugged. With flippancy. As if it didn’t matter. “Who else is there?”
Good question. Jackson had obviously been trying to figure out the same thing last night when he’d gone to confront Kris. Then had proceeded to get beaten to a pulp by his heavies. There was more to this.
Fletcher’s fingers itched to write it.
“I’m giving you features status.” Rose slipped back on her glasses and turned back to her PC, tapping the keyboard. “I’ve just put a thousand pounds into your account. Well done. Your first bonus. You’ll get another on completion of the next article on Jackson Young.”
What the—
“Why the fuck are you still sitting there?” she spat.
Snapping to, Fletcher launched off the chair and back to his desk, head reeling through a dozen things at once. Where the feck did he even start with this? It was meant to be a one-off. It was meant to have got Rose off his back, so he could start writing Jackson’s book. That was where he was meant to be making his money. But now he’d just been promoted. With a bonus. To basically write the same thing. Different angle, maybe, but the same subject.
He could afford a deposit on a flat…
“Weren’t the worms enough for you?” Scarlett leaned back in her chair, tapping her pen against baby-pink lips.
“What?” Fletcher rustled through his desk, searching for a note pad, pen—all the things a journalist was meant to have in their arsenal.
Scarlett pointed her pen at him. “Your mouth’s hung open. You’re either catching flies, or Brad Pitt just walked in with his cock out and commanded you to get on your knees.”
Fletcher shot her the finger. “Where would you go to find out all the evidence in a murder case?”
“Er, the lead detective.”
Blowing her a kiss, Fletcher rushed out of the office trying to piece together which dream he was now chasing.
Chapter Eighteen
Nitty Gritty
The detective in charge of the Tallulah Payne homicide was a Detective Inspector Paul Grimsby. He’d been called to the scene of the crime—Jackson’s home, the one he’d shared with Tallulah—and had been in charge of gathering the evidence that had ultimately led to Jackson’s arrest.
The case was still open, considering there had been no trial for Jackson, or any other suspects in custody, so Fletcher had been surprised that on rolling up at Chiswick police station and asking for an interview with the detective in charge that DI Grimsby had welcomed the approach. He’d been expecting to be shooed off the premises and told that the details of the case couldn’t be discussed with the press. But it seemed the police were as accommodating as any of Fletcher’s kiss-and-tell sources.
DI Grimsby was either after his own fifteen minutes of fame or he was hoping the media would make a significant contribution in helping solve the crime.
Fletcher hoped it was the latter.
For Jackson’s sake at least.
Shite. Had he just lost his impartiality?
Then the mid-thirties gent, plain-clothed in a cheap M&S suit with an affable grin that said he didn’t get too much attention during his time in the Met, stepped into the interview room with all the jittery movements of someone who was buzzing, confirming Fletcher’s hypothesis.
“Nice to meet you, Fletcher…” DI Grimsby squinted at the lanyard hung around Fletcher’s neck. “Doherty.” He shook his hand. “Not had you in here before.”
Fletcher could sniff out a wannabe within a million paces. He might’ve been limited in terms of investigative journalism, but his extensive aptitude for headline-hunters was second to none. And this fella was one of those. He’d probably been the one to grab the mic during all those press conferences at the scene of the crime rather than send Scotland Yard PR.
Grimsby stroked down his cotton tie and took a seat one side of an interrogation table. He held out his hand to offer the other one.
As Fletcher took it, he wondered if this was similar to where Jackson had been holed up. If his research had been correct—which he couldn’t guarantee as it had only been from the national newspapers—Jackson had been arrested on sight, then taken to Chiswick Police station where the detectives had berated him for a solid eight hours before slinging him into Flaymore to await the trial that hadn’t made it past the first hurdle. All in the name of his protection, they’d said. As a high-profile suspect, Jackson needed to be safe from vigilantes.
Except that they’d used the time to pin the crime on him as much as they could.
Or so Fletcher’s obvious bias had him suspecting.
“Used to write gossip,” Fletcher said. “Promoted to features. The Payne case kinda merges the two, I guess. According to my editor.”
“That it does. Congratulations. You don’t get many cases like this. It’s career-defining.” DI Grimsby smiled.
That look of triumph was rather grotesque considering he was recounting how a young woman meeting her untimely and gruesome demise at the hands of a callous killer could be considered an opportunity to step up the career ladder.
No wonder he was happy to give interviews. He wanted his name out there. In big, bold, black typeface.
“As lead detective for the Payne murder, it’s your job to gather the evidence, right?” Fletcher asked not for clarification but more to get them on the same page.