Requiem (5 page)

She struggled in through the flat door just as the phone rang. A social call. One lived in hope anyway.

It was Alan again.

‘Don’t want to hear from you.’

‘Didn’t you get my message?’ he asked. ‘Listen – your Mrs Knowles. Something’s come up.’

‘Oh?’

‘She’s planning a one-woman demo at some agricultural show in Berkshire.’

Daisy groaned softly and said, more to herself than to Alan: ‘What does she want to go and do that for?’

‘Don’t know, but it could spoil your coverage.’

Daisy didn’t need reminding. She’d been working on the Knowles story for two months and now it was within a week of being ready to tout round the quality press as a subject for a serious investigative piece. The last thing it needed was Mrs Knowles making scenes at some agricultural show, and having the tabloids make her look like some kind of agitator.

‘How did you hear?’ she asked.

‘Local pressman. Left a message on the office machine. Wanted some background. Apparently Mrs Knowles has talked to him and promised him the whole story. He says he’s going to try to string it to a national.’

Daisy sat down heavily on the bed. ‘Why, for God’s sake?’

She could almost see Alan shrugging at the other end of the line. ‘Finally got to her?’ he suggested. ‘Flipped her lid?’

‘Don’t even mention it.’ But the thought had already occurred to her. Alice Knowles was under intolerable pressure; many lesser people would have cracked before now. ‘When’s this meant to be happening?’ she asked.

‘At three this afternoon.’

End of quiet Saturday.

Daisy tried calling Alice Knowles, but there was no reply. Already left for the show, perhaps. Or lying low, avoiding the phone.

There was nothing for it then, not if all the work wasn’t going to go up the spout. Quite apart from anything else, she rather liked Mrs Knowles; it would be dreadful to see her disappointed, maybe even humiliated.

The case was typical of many that came Catch’s way. The Knowleses were a farming family with seven hundred acres of good arable land not far from Newbury. Nice hard-working people, reasonably prosperous, distinctly law-abiding. Like most farmers, they worked with large quantities of chemicals. But unlike most other families they had been unlucky or not careful enough, or both, and now things had gone wrong.

But was a demonstration going to help? Daisy tried to imagine what sort of protest Alice Knowles might be planning. Handing out leaflets, setting up a stall? Not so bad. Banner waving, shouting, speech making? Not so good. In the minds of much of the press any sort of jumping up and down was still firmly associated with weirdos and political agitators, and while they might print a two-line protest story, they were unlikely to give the item the space it deserved. Alice would be written off as an isolated old woman with a grievance, and Daisy’s chances of getting a serious investigative piece would be that much reduced.

But there might still be time to pre-empt things. Leafing through her address book, she found the number of Simon Calthrop, a
Sunday Times
journalist she’d just met. Simon was a committed environmental reporter, just as he’d been a committed consumer affairs correspondent two years before, and a dedicated investigative reporter the year before that.

He sounded grumpy when he answered the phone. ‘Can’t do anything this week,’ he began unpromisingly.

‘As a human interest story then,’ Daisy suggested. ‘You know, how ordinary people are driven to desperate acts. It could make a good photo feature.’

‘Mmm.’ He sounded unconvinced. ‘So tell me about it.’

Daisy told him about the family and how the medical tests had shown them to have high levels of pesticide residues in their bodies – the residue of several pesticides unfortunately, and not just one or two, so that it was impossible to know which particular chemical or cocktail of chemicals might have caused their troubles. But Daisy had her suspicions. For years the Knowleses had been using the pesticide Aldeb on their potato crop. She reminded Simon that Aldeb was under notice of withdrawal in the US because of fears that it was carcinogenic.

‘And in Britain?’ he asked.

‘Here?’ Daisy gave a derisive laugh. ‘You know how it is – everything takes a little longer. The ministry did their usual trick and rejected the US research on the grounds that it was inconclusive. Aldeb’s still heading the bestsellers’ list.’

‘Mmm.’ He wasn’t sounding enthralled by the story so far. ‘Aldeb’s who, remind me?’

‘Morton-Kreiger. They’ve just announced their results. Worldwide profits of three hundred million, give or take the odd million. Pounds, that is.’

‘And what’s their response been? You’ve contacted them, presumably.’

Daisy was beginning to realize that, for all his erudite environmental articles, Simon still didn’t know everything about the workings of agrochemical companies. ‘What response?’ she replied caustically. ‘You must be joking. I’m always referred to their legal department.’

He took the point, though she could sense that he didn’t appreciate it being made so forcefully. Tactlessness – and instant regret – were such a regular feature of her life that she automatically backtracked, adding quickly: ‘What I mean is, they’ve been less helpful than they could have been.’

‘Listen, this isn’t exactly straightforward,’ Simon said. ‘If there’s a story, it could take weeks to dig out. I really don’t think there’d be much point in covering this woman and her demonstration this afternoon, not at this stage – ’

‘Maybe not, but let me come over with the file,’ Daisy urged. ‘It’s impressive, I promise you. The story could be an important one. At least we think so. And if we’re right, then a lot of farmers could be at risk.’ He was silent, but Daisy could sense a flicker of interest. ‘Needless to say,’ she added, ‘you’d have full access to all our material.’

Another pause. She’d almost got him.

‘Where do you live?’ she asked.

He lived in Islington. After a detour to the office at King’s Cross to pick up the Knowles file and the draft press releases, she made it in forty minutes. His flat was on the third floor of a tall house in a rubbish-strewn street off the Pentonville Road. The main room was basic but comfortable, with a couple of deep sofas, a Habitat dining-table and an expensive-looking Scandinavian hi-fi system. There were a few good etchings on the walls, a dying fig tree in the window and on the floor several piles of magazines and newspapers. A functional if untidy kitchen was visible through a half-open door.

A typical bachelor flat – or was it? She found herself casting around for signs of female occupation, and was surprised at herself. Was she making room for a new man in her life? More to the point, was she considering the rather dry, unemotional Simon?

He emerged from the kitchen with two mugs of coffee. He was wearing the rumpled but carefully assembled uniform of the north London intellectual: well-worn jeans, open-necked safari-style shirt which, if it had encountered an iron at all, had met it only briefly, and old tennis shoes. He had a pale face, glasses with minimal gold frames, dark eyebrows that feathered over the bridge of his nose and heavy black hair which kept falling over his eyes.

She took him through the file, item by item. Eventually he said wearily: ‘It could make a small item, I suppose … Or a major investigative piece. But I can’t see anything in between.’

‘Okay then,’ Daisy said immediately. ‘Make it a major investigative piece.’

He gave a weighty sigh. ‘I’ve got two big features on the go at the moment … I couldn’t possibly start on anything yet. Not for some time, in fact.’

‘But soonish?’ She was pressing him, she knew it, but it was vital to screw some sort of commitment out of him, however tenuous. ‘We could get more data, I’m sure of it,’ she said more out of hope than certainty. ‘Other victims and that sort of thing.’

‘Oh? Where from?’

She had to think quickly. ‘Umm, the unions. The NFU, the Transport and General Workers.’ She had in fact already spent long hours with the health-and-safety officers of the two unions, combing their files. The National Farmers’ Union had produced a number of cases which might be traceable to Aldeb, but the evidence had been sketchy even by Daisy’s undemanding standards. There were hundreds of cases out there, Daisy was sure of it; the victims just didn’t know what had hit them.

‘Okay.’ Simon gave another, sharper sigh. ‘Find what you can and when I’ve got the time I’ll have a look at it.’

She had to settle for that. She took another coffee off him all the same, partly to satisfy her curiosity about him, partly to argue her case again should the chance arise, which it soon did. If she was being dogged, it was because in this line of work opportunites had to be grabbed as they arose and then shaken into life. It wasn’t enough to have right on your side; that never got anyone anywhere.

‘Of course it
has
been known for the Americans to get it wrong,’ Simon said. ‘They can over-react.’

‘What, on Aldeb?’ Daisy exclaimed. ‘Have you seen the evidence?’

He shrugged, as if nobody of any sense could seriously believe that anything, even scientific evidence, could be taken at face value. ‘To provide balance I’d have to interview Morton-Kreiger. Get their side of things.’

‘I wish you luck,’ she said drily. ‘I’d be interested to know what they have to say.’

Simon, making an obvious effort to be sociable, asked about her background. She told him about being brought up in Catford, famous for the greyhound stadium, how her father had encouraged her to get some A-levels and try for a law scholarship to Birmingham, which she didn’t get. Her parents had sent her all the same, though it was a strain financially. ‘They thought education set you apart. It did, in Catford at least. None of my school friends ever spoke to me again. I had a best friend called Samantha who thought I’d got totally above myself. The last I heard, she was earning a thousand quid a week as a nude model. My only consolation is that my assets are likely to hold up longer than hers.’

Simon’s forehead creased. ‘Assets?’

Daisy studied him carefully but he wasn’t having her on.

Comprehension finally slid over his face and his mouth cracked into a nominal grin. ‘I’m a bit slow this morning. Late night,’ he said with a hint of pride, and she wondered what – or who – had been keeping him up so late.

Letting it pass, she went on with the story, about her years at Birmingham and coming back to London and all the divorces she’d processed and how she’d despaired at married people’s general desire to tear each other apart, and how she’d wanted to bash their heads together when they fought over the children. ‘The only thing that kept me going was the light relief. After five years, what I didn’t know about sexual proclivities wasn’t worth stamping on a pinhead.’

Her life story had never been particularly exciting, even when she spiced it up a bit, but it was still disconcerting to find Simon staring past her towards the window, looking preoccupied. If there was potential in a relationship with Simon, then it was failing to reveal itself.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘a pity to cut this short, but I must be going.’

He looked mildly sorry, which was a surprise. ‘Ah.’

‘I’ve got to go and see Alice Knowles.’

‘I’ll give you a ring next week then, shall I?’ He shot her a quick glance. ‘There’s a good film on at the Screen.’

So it was to be social? Was he keen after all? If so, he’d done a brilliant job of concealing it. More to the point, how keen was she?

Perhaps he caught the doubt in her eyes, because he blinked at her through his spectacles and said: ‘Sorry if I’ve been less than … er …
compos
, you know. But I was up till four. Working.’

‘Till four? God, they push you hard.’

‘No, no. I was working on … well, my novel.’ He looked defensive, as if he’d just let her into a devastating secret and wasn’t sure how she’d take it.

‘Your novel?’

‘Yes. Nights are the only chance I get.’

This explained the preoccupied look, and in her mind his image underwent an instantaneous metamorphosis from harassed journalist to tortured novelist. She agreed to go the cinema with him later in the week.

Daisy’s W-registration Metro was perfectly adequate for London, but in recent months it had started to balk at motorways, and, reaching the M4, it began to grumble. A mechanic had told her the suspension was on its way out, a problem which hadn’t sounded too serious in Chelsea, but which here on the open road was definitely ominous. She stuck to the slow lane, ambling along with the family traffic and swaying caravans, and hoped there wouldn’t be too many jams getting into the show.

A few miles short of Newbury it began to rain, solid permeable stuff that seeped in through the bodywork, but it eased off a little as she took the slip-road and followed the signs towards the showground at Newbury racecourse. The traffic, though heavy, was still moving and she made it into the field-cum-car park by a few minutes before three. The rain, choosing its moment, fell heavily again. She did not have an umbrella. Getting out, her feet sank ominously into the sodden grass. She pulled her jacket over her head, mainly to protect the sheaf of press releases that she had under her arm.

Green wellies, dun-coloured waxed jackets, headscarves with chains and anchors; horsy women who talked in loud authoritative voices, farming types with jutting chins and grouchy expressions who looked as if they shot everything that moved, and probably did; also people, like Daisy, in unsuitable shoes, men in thin shirts and women in summer dresses sheltering from the rain. It was a big show and she had to ask the way to the agrochemical merchants’ stand a couple of times before finally locating it half-way down an aisle of large marquees, lodged between a bank and a brewery.

Nothing. No Mrs Knowles chained to the railings. No Mrs Knowles brandishing a large placard. But there was a young man dripping quietly under the porch, sheltering a camera under his jacket, wearing the watchful lugubrious expression of a pro.

Daisy retreated to the bank next door and waited beneath their tented porch on a boardwalk. Three fifteen. Still no sign of Mrs Knowles. Then Daisy spotted the small purposeful figure in brogues and a long raincoat marching up the avenue of stands with a flat parcel under one arm. She was flanked by four men, and Daisy recognised the long waterproof jackets and energetic strides of provincial pressmen.