The Girl in the Letter

Chapter One

Saturday 4 February 2017

‘Have you cracked it yet?’

Sam pulled on the handbrake of her battered Vauxhall Nova, wishing it was a noose around her news editor’s neck.

‘No, not yet. I’ve only just arrived. I had to drive all the way from Kent, remember?’

‘Who else is there?’ barked Murray down the phone.

Sam craned her neck to see the usual suspects standing in the drizzling rain outside a row of pretty terraced cottages set back from the road in perfectly manicured gardens. ‘Um, Jonesey, King . . . and Jim’s at the door now. Why am I even here if Jim’s already on the case?’ She watched one of Southern News Agency’s most experienced hacks trying to get his foot through the door. ‘Won’t he think I’m treading on his toes?’

‘I thought this one might need a woman’s touch,’ said Murray.

Sam glanced at her watch. It was 4 p.m. – close to cut-off time for the national press going to print – and she could picture the scene in the office now. Murray on his mobile, shouting orders at everyone whilst admiring his reflection in the glass of the framed covers of Southern News scoops. Koop would be typing, pulling anxiously at his unkempt hair, surrounded by cold cups of coffee and wilted sandwiches, while Jen chewed on her Nicorette gum and frantically made calls to contacts trying to fill in gaps in her copy. After he’d hung up on her, Murray would be straight on the phone to the Mirror or the Sun, lying through his teeth and telling them Sam was already on the case and to hold the press for her.

‘I’m really not sure I’m the right person for this,’ she said, studying her reflection in the rear-view mirror and catching sight of her grandmother’s birthday flowers wilting on the back seat. She was supposed to have been at Nana’s flat an hour ago to take over with Emma and cook Nana her birthday dinner.

‘Well, the cream of the bunch will have already left for the Press Awards tonight. You’ll have to do it.’

‘Great. Good to know I’m considered the dregs of this agency,’ mumbled Sam.

‘Call me when you’ve got something.’ Murray hung up.

‘Wanker.’ Sam threw her battered phone onto the seat next to her. She was pretty sure that the hours she’d worked that day on her tiny salary amounted to slave labour, and now she was expected to pull off a death knock.

She pressed her fingers into her eyes, massaging the sockets. She’d thought she knew what tiredness was before she became a mother. People lied to new parents, telling you to hang in there, that babies slept at six weeks, which was patently a lie. Then it became once they were weaned, then when they were a year old. Emma was four now, and it was still a miracle if she slept through. Before, Sam would complain of tiredness after getting six hours’ sleep instead of eight, dragging herself into work in a haze of hangover after a night out clubbing. Now, at the grand age of twenty-five, she felt like an elderly lady; the four years of accumulated sleep deprivation had infected every muscle in her body, altering her brain and dragging her down so that some days she could barely form a sentence. On Ben’s days with Emma, she could at least sleep until seven. But now that he had whittled that down to two days a week, on the pretext of needing more time to job-hunt, she had to be up at six most days to get herself and her daughter up and out of the door in time for nursery drop-off.

She sighed as she watched a dejected Jim walk back down the uneven stone pathway to join the other reporters under a golf umbrella. She knew the game, knew door-stepping was a necessary evil of her trade, but it was the worst part of being a reporter. Though she liked every one of the hapless gaggle standing at the end of this poor woman’s pathway, they always looked to her like vultures circling their stricken prey.

She adjusted the mirror, pulled out her make-up bag and assessed how much of her face was salvageable. She would need a trowel of foundation to fill in the scowl-induced dent in the middle of her brow. As she dabbed at it, she closed her eyes and images of the fight she’d had with Ben the night before rushed back. It was always tense when she collected Emma from Ben’s flat, the two of them trying not to snipe at each other in front of their daughter, but yesterday hadn’t gone well. The fight had been a bad one, she knew that much, but as usual the exchange of insults had become a blur that had ended with them shouting so loudly they’d made Emma cry. Sam hated herself for dragging Emma into their arguments, and hated Ben for not trying harder to hide his disdain for her.

Recoiling at the sight of her frizzy hair, she reached for the portable tongs in her bag. In between getting Emma dressed and pouring breakfast down them both, she had little time for pampering in the mornings. Her red corkscrew curls were usually scraped back from her face, and the five minutes she had spare were given to blow-drying her heavy fringe. Heels were her uniform, and on her wages, eBay was her best friend. Days never went right without Louboutin or Dior to prop her up in a man’s world, and she often found the pack sniggering at her as she made her way across muddy fields or flooded car parks in killer heels.

‘Hey, Sam!’ called Fred as he turned and spotted her, breaking free from the pack and tripping on the edge of a paving stone in his rush to get to her. He laughed in embarrassment, pushing his floppy fringe back and adopting the lovesick gaze he usually reserved for her.

‘Hey, yourself. How long have you been here?’ Sam pulled the passenger seat forward to grab her coat, bag and Nana’s flowers from the back seat.

‘Not long. It’s my day off and I was rock-climbing in Tunbridge Wells so I’ve only just got here.’ Fred’s waterproof waxed jacket made him look like he’d just come from a pheasant shoot, Sam thought, pulling her black mac tightly around her.

‘Why has Murray called you in on your day off? That’s not fair,’ she said, checking her phone as she walked.

‘I know, I was a bit gutted. The friction was sick,’ said Fred, smiling.

‘You were sick? Oh dear.’ Sam moved away slightly.

‘No, it was good; sick is good,’ said Fred, embarrassed.

‘Sick is never good when you’ve got a four-year-old. How long have the others been here?’ Sam asked as they approached the pack, huddled in a group.

‘Hours. She’s a tough one; we’ve all tried. The Guardian and Independent have been and gone too. Don’t think even you can crack this one, Samantha,’ said Fred in the public-school accent that earned him merciless teasing from the troops at Southern News.

Sam smiled back at him. At twenty-three, Fred was only two years younger than her, but as a commitment-free, fresh-faced graduate full of heroic ideals, he seemed part of another generation. It was obvious to most at Southern News that he had a huge crush on Sam. Despite the fact that he was tall, good-looking and accidentally amusing, with an endless supply of blue suede shoes and rainbow-coloured glasses, she found it hard to take him seriously. He was obsessed with climbing, and as far as she could gather spent every weekend scaling mountains and then getting drunk with his friends. She had no idea why he was interested in her. She was an exhausted, joyless grump whose greatest fantasy in the bedroom was eight hours’ uninterrupted sleep.

They reached the back of the press pack. ‘I’m not sure why Murray’s sent you,’ Jim called over his shoulder at Sam. Sam smiled politely at the Southern News old-timer, who found it hard to hide the fact that he thought she should be back at the office making tea.

‘Me neither, Jim! Am I passable?’ she said, turning to Fred.

Fred flushed slightly. ‘Yes, definitely. Look out for the old witch next door,’ he added hurriedly, keen to change the subject. ‘She looks like she’s going to attack us all with her Zimmer frame.’

All eyes were on Sam as she walked past the pack and down the path, clutching the bouquet to her chest like a terrified bride. As she reached the front door, she caught sight of an elderly lady at the window of the house next door. She had her net curtains pulled back and was staring intently. Fred was right, she did look like a witch. She was wild-eyed, her long grey hair loose around her shoulders and her bony fingers white from gripping the curtain so hard. Sam took a deep breath and pressed the bell.

It was a good two minutes before Jane Connors opened the door, ashen-faced.

‘I’m so sorry to bother you at this difficult time.’ Sam looked directly into the woman’s reddened eyes. ‘My name is Samantha, I represent Southern News. We wanted to offer our sincere condolences—’

‘Can’t you just leave us alone?’ the woman snapped. ‘As if this isn’t hard enough. Why won’t you all just go away?’

‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs Connors.’

‘You’re not sorry! If you were sorry, you wouldn’t do this . . . at the worst time in our lives.’ Her voice trembled. ‘We just want to be left in peace. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.’ Sam waited for the right words to come, then hung her head. The woman was right. She should be ashamed, and she was.

‘Mrs Connors, I hate this part of my job. I wish I didn’t have to do it. But I’ve learnt from experience that sometimes people wish to pay tribute to their loved ones. They want to talk to someone who can tell the world their story. In your case, you could talk about how brave your father was trying to save your son.’

Tears sprang into the woman’s eyes as she moved to close the door. ‘Don’t talk about them like you knew them. You don’t know anything about them.’

‘No, I don’t, but unfortunately it’s my job to find out. All these reporters out here, myself included, have very tough bosses who won’t let us go home to our families until you speak to one of us.’

‘And if I refuse?’ Mrs Connors peered round the half-closed door.

‘They’ll talk to other members of your family, or local shopkeepers, or write features based on potentially inaccurate information from well-meaning neighbours.’ Sam paused. ‘That would be a lasting memory for readers that you might find even more upsetting than all this in years to come.’

The woman was looking at the ground now, her shoulders sagging. She was broken. Sam hated herself.

‘These are for you.’ She laid the flowers on the doorstep. ‘Well, they were actually for my grandmother – it’s her birthday today – but she’d want you to have them. Please accept my sincere apologies again for intruding. That white Nova is my car, and this is my card. I’ll wait for half an hour and then I’ll go. I won’t bother you again.’ She started to make her way back down the cobbled pathway, hoping she wouldn’t trip in her heels in front of the bored pack.

‘Would I get to check what you wrote first?’ Mrs Connors’ voice was faint.

Sam turned round. ‘Absolutely. You can read every word before I send it off.’ She smiled gently at the woman, who examined the sodden handkerchief squashed into her palm.

Sam had noticed that the elderly woman in the house next door was standing at her open door now, still staring. She must be in her nineties. What must it be like to be so old, to have lived through so much? The woman was almost bent double over her Zimmer frame, an age spot like a large bruise on her hand. Her heart-shaped face was pale apart from the dark red lipstick she wore.

‘Well, I suppose you’d better come in then,’ said Mrs Connors, pulling her door open wide.

Sam glanced back at the pack, then at the old lady, who had fixed her with her pale blue eyes. It wasn’t uncommon for neighbours to become involved when the press were out in force, but their presence was usually accompanied by a great deal of swearing. She offered the woman a smile that wasn’t returned, but as she turned to close the door behind her, she looked up and their eyes met.