(2012) Evie Undercover (28 page)

She felt
her cheeks beg
i
n to redden and she started
to
cry again.

‘This is all your fault.’ Her words ended in a hiccup. ‘You being so nice has started me off again.
Don’t be nice to me.
Be mean and nasty. I order you.
’

‘Please tell me what’s wrong, Evie,’ Gabriela said gently. She
went round the table and sat on the sofa next to Evie
.
‘Seeing you so unhappy is making me unhappy, too
.
Please let me help you. In this next year, I may need help from you. But how can I ask you for help if you will not let me help you now?’

‘
I
t’s just such a silly thing really.’ Evie shook her head
from side to side,
dismissively.
‘
I’m probably
fussing about it and I shouldn’t be. I can fuss for England. Rachel and Jess will tell you
.
’

‘
You said it’s something to do with Tom. What did he do?
’ Gabriela’s voice was
warm and
sympathetic.

‘
He didn’t do anything. It’s what I did to him. Or was supposed to do to him.
But I won’t.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘
Oh, if
you really
, really
want to know, a magazine sent me to work for Tom
, not an agency
.
I wish it had been an agency. The magazine
–
well,
it’s a fi
l
thy rag, really -
wanted me to find out if something they suspected about him was
true.’ She cocked her head to one side and stared at Gabriela. ‘Does that make sense? Maybe it does, I don’t know.
’ She looked back at her knees. ‘Anyway,
I’d only just joined the
m
, but I was given the job because
I could speak
Italian
. Not many people speak Italian as it’s not taught in schools
, you know?
Don’t know why ’cos l
ots of English people go
there.’

‘I’m guessing that
Tom was about to go to Italy and
needed
an interpreter
.’

‘
Brownie point!
You’re a good guesser, Gabriela. There
was I, on the staff,
able to speak the lingo
. The editor couldn’t believe his luck.’

‘And Tom didn’t know anything about
the magazine
?’

‘Good God, no!
He
thought
I was an agency temp.’

‘
I take it
this magazine
–
this
fi
lth
y rag, as you call it – is
one of those celebrity magazines that are so popular here?’

‘Celebrity gossip
,
muckraking
,
whatever. Yup, one of those. I’d only taken the
bloody
job because I was d
esperate to work for a magazine
and
that
was all I could get
. I’d been trying for
over a year
.
It’s a
mazing
how
you can
kid
your
self that working for a rag like that
will help
you to get
a job
on
a top magazine.
It’s a
mazing, but
I did
just that
.
E
ven more
amazing
,
I thought I’d be able to do the job without writing anything nasty about any
one
. I
must have been mad
.
Mad and stupid.
’

‘But you now know that this is not for you, so you can leave … what did you say the magazine’s name was?’

‘
Pure Dirt
.’

‘…
so
you can leave
Pure Dirt
and keep on trying to find work on a better magazine. I don’t understand why you are crying.’

Evie leaned forward, put her elbows on
her knees
and covered her face with her hands. Tears
fell down her cheeks
. ‘It’s not that simple,’ she said at last, her voice wobbling. ‘I want to be the person who tells Tom why I
really
went to Italy with him
. It must be me …
’ Her voice trailed off and she paused.

‘Which is the right thing to do,’ Gabriela prompted.

‘So when I spoke to the
shitty
editor last Tuesday, I told him I’d send in the story at the end of next week, on Friday
.
Friday’s
the day we originally
agreed
.
But r
eally I was going to
pack in
the job on Friday
, and
tell Tom the truth on Friday evening or
on
Saturday.
Not tomorrow night.
I absolutely
don’t
want to tell
Tom tomorrow
.
I mustn’t. But now I must.’ She looked at Gabriela. ‘
Does that
make sense
? It doesn’t,
does it?’

‘
I think
something has happened to alter
your
plan.
Something to do with the phone call. Am I right
?’

‘Spot on.
It was the
editor
on the phone. He
wants – no,
he
insists on
having the story on Wednesday morning at the very latest.
They
need to plan the layout with the text,
he said,
putting in
photos and all that.
At least that’s
what he says
.
He
’s
going to
publish the story a week on Monday
. That’s
the day that Tom starts his
next
big libel case
, you know
. He said
anything I find out after Tuesday can go into a follow-up article in the next edition.
It means
I’m stuffed, Gabriela.
’

Gabriela picked up
Evie’s
glass of wine and handed it to
her
. Evie took a sip. ‘
Really stuffed,
’
she repeated into the glass.

‘But it is only
Friday
today. There are still
four
more days
before you must send a story
.
Is it necessary to
speak to Tom to
morrow
night?
Can you not leave it in case you have an idea?
’

She shook her head.
‘
Tomorrow, it must be
.
He’s so busy that
I won’t be able to see him
again
before next weekend
.’

‘But
anyway,
you haven’t anything to give the editor, have you? Whatever they suspected about Tom will have been wrong, will it not? There cannot be anything in Tom’s life that is worth publishing
. H
e’s an upright man.
A
nd a
s there is
nothing to publish
,
there will
be no need to
say anything to
Tom tomorrow. Is that not so
?
’

Evie
turned away and
looked
down
at the table
.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Gabriela open the second bottle of wine
, lean across
and refill her glass. She must have spilled more
of her wine
than she
’d
thought.

Gabriela
sat back and
delicate
ly sipped
from her glass
. ‘This is a pleasant wine,’ she said. ‘Quite pleasant.’

‘Good or bad, it’s helping.
It’s just what the doctor ordered.
Here’s to you,
Dr
Gabriela.’ She raised her glass. ‘You
knew exactly
what I needed tonight. Down the hatch.
D’
y
ou know that English expression? It means
down the hatch.’

‘Tom’s life will
have
be
en
blameless, I’m sure. Yo
u will have found nothing that c
ould be of interest to your editor.’

Evie gave a dismissive shrug. ‘
’Smazing what rags like
Pure Dirt
can do with teensy
weensy
innocent little things.
So h
e and Zizi
went out to dinner a few times. That’
s all it was. No affair
,
just dinner with a friend. But that slob of an editor
w
ould say they’d been sleeping together du
r
ing the trial.
Think h
ow it
would
look,
Tom telling the court that Zizi had a stainless reputation
and hadn’
t
been having
an affair outside her marriage
, while
all the time sleeping with her
.
Pur
e
Dirt
would love th
e irony in that
!
It
would all
be
lies, but he couldn’
t prove i
t. Not good.
’

‘Firstly, what Tom does is no one’s business. And secondly, Tom could bring a case against the editor for lying, could he not?’

‘It would be very difficult to prove. I’ve seen enough
TV
shows
about lawyers
to know that a barrister would ask him in court if he’d ever
had a candlelight dinner alone with
Zizi, and he’d have to say yes.
Even if they didn’t have the photo proof, h
e wouldn’t lie – not Tom.
The man would
then point out Tom’s history of dishonest behaviour as a young barrister
and
everyone would
believe that
he
had
slept with
Zizi
during the trial
. Tom would look bad and
Zizi would probably
have to return the money she
’d won from
Pure Dirt
.
After all, t
hey’d shown
she wasn’t
such
an angel
after all.
’

‘What do you mean
, dishonest behaviour
? Did Tom do something he shouldn’t have done when he was young?’

‘
S
omething that would only seem important to other lawyers, but
that wouldn’t stop
my scumbag of an editor
from making it sound like
the crime of the century.’
Evie
put her glass heavily on the table, and filled it again. ‘I must go to bed after this. Thanks to you,
Gabriela, I shall sleep
like a baby
tonight
.’ She
leaned
back,
clutching her
glass.

‘What did Tom do?’

‘
Something about w
hen he was getting ready for his first solo libel case,
and
he read something he shouldn’t have read. It had been sent to him by mistake. He should have sent it back without reading it
,
but he was so keen to do well that he broke the Bar rules.’

‘And what happened?’

‘Nothing happened. No one found out. He won his case and his career got off to a brilliant start.’

‘What Tom did
with Zizi
is not so serious.
He has behaved as many men behave.
Nor is the fax so very bad.
This is so awful what these papers do.
’