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  ‘What do you mean?’

  Nicholas met her gaze.

  ‘We’re closing the investigations department down.’

  His bluntness was like a slap.

  ‘Closing it down? You can’t do that,’ she said, struggling to get the words out.

  ‘I can and I have. The decision was made weeks ago and now this gives it more urgency. The verdict is a major blow for the Chronicle and we need to go into sack-and-ashes mode.’

  ‘So I’m a sacrificial lamb? A way to keep the advertisers happy?’

  ‘Partly, yes. This is a business, Lara and it’s a business you are a part of. I need you to behave like it.’

  She glared at him. She fully understood the financial implications, but the Chronicle was more than just a balance sheet.

  ‘You’re just going to roll over and accept this? Let Felix Tait win the court case and dictate our editorial direction?’

  He gave a bitter laugh.

  ‘Don’t be so naïve. I don’t need to tell you that circulation and advertising have fallen off a cliff. We certainly can’t afford to lose the million pounds we’re going to have to pay in damages and then legal fees. Besides, the data doesn’t back up this sort of expensive reporting.’

  ‘The data?’

  Nicholas carefully re-folded his napkin.

  ‘Do you know how many people read the Tait exposé, compared to the latest online Kardashian item?’

  ‘That’s not news, it’s entertainment.’

  ‘It’s what sells newspapers, Lara.’

  ‘I get that. But newspapers aren’t just clickbait. We’re here to hold society to account. If we don’t then we’re just a bunch of children rehashing press releases, recycling other people’s copy or writing titbits about reality TV stars.’

  ‘Those children are generating thousands of stories in the time it takes your team to write one,’ said Nicholas impatiently. ‘Open your eyes Lara, seventy per cent of our revenue comes from the digital side of the business. We simply haven’t got the time or the money for investigations. We need to have compulsive, fast-turnaround news, we need eyeballs on the page…’

  ‘Now that’s bullshit,’ she spat.

  Nicholas looked at her for a long moment.

  ‘Then leave.’

  Lara froze. Nicholas was her father’s brother and sometimes it caught her by surprise how alike they were. Not in temperament, but the fierce blue eyes. And in their conviction that they were always right.

  ‘Seriously, Lara,’ he said. You really don’t need the job. My brother left you enough money and investments that you could spend your days lying on a beach. Why don’t you? At least for a few months.’

  ‘I don’t want a holiday, Nicholas. I want justice,’ she said.

  ‘Well good luck with that, darling,’ he replied. ‘Justice isn’t part of our business model anymore.’

  Chapter 2

  On any other day, Lara would have been enjoying herself. The Engineer was a chic bar with warm lighting, cold wine and a congregation of hipsters with great bone structure. It was the sort of place she’d meet a group of friends on a Friday night, a staging post for an expedition into the West End or to one of a revolving line-up of restaurants or underground art happenings. But tonight everything seemed so hollow and pointless. Even the presence of her best friend couldn’t lift her mood.

  ‘Come on, Lara,’ said Sandrine in her lilting accent. ‘I know it’s bad news about your job, but look around you. You’re right at the centre of it all, in London, the second greatest city in world, and that very cute guy over there is looking at you.’

  ‘Which guy?’ said Lara, reluctantly lifting her gaze.

  ‘The one in the dungarees.’

  ‘You mean the rich kid pretending to be a painter? Sandrine, he’s about ten years younger than me. Probably wondering what someone’s mum is doing lowering the tone of his favourite bar.’

  Sandrine gave a low laugh and Lara had to join in. Her best friend lived in Paris – hence second best city – but she was in London on business. Lara’s mood hadn’t lifted since the Tait verdict the day before, in fact after her meeting with Nicholas, she seemed to have slumped into a deeper hole. The Chronicle’s investigations team had literally been disbanded overnight – all four reporters were being made redundant along with Lara’s assistant Stella, who had the misfortune to be on a zero-hours contract. Lara felt the responsibility for their job losses keenly: hell, she was responsible. If she hadn’t begun the investigation into Felix Tait, there was a good chance her team would still be gainfully employed.

  Her friend reached over and squeezed Lara’s hand, the bangles on her slim wrist jangling like a wind chime.

  ‘Darling, there are plenty of fish in the sea, yes?’ said Sandrine quietly.

  ‘Him? I’m not interested in that idiot,’ she said, nodding at Mr Dungarees.

  ‘Not him, the job,’ she smiled, topping up her wine glass. ‘There will be other opportunities for someone as hot as you, Lara. We both know you could walk into a job in any media organisation tomorrow. The Chronicle is good, but it’s not the only game in town.’

  She was right, but there was another factor in play: Uncle Nicholas. A member of the Avery family working for News Corp, the Telegraph or The Daily Mail? He wouldn’t let it happen and so Lara felt trapped: unwanted at the Chronicle Group but unable to go elsewhere.

  ‘Thanks Drine,’ she said, still grateful for her friend’s reassurance. Sandrine had been Lara’s first friend at LSE and they had been as close as sisters, guiding each other through life’s highs and lows, ever since. Lara had chosen the London School of Economics mainly because of its location, sandwiched between the buzz of Covent Garden and the history of Fleet Street. Sandrine had done much the same thing, although her journey had been longer, from Ajaccio in Northern Corsica. As a wannabe reporter from a young age, Sandrine had considered London as the only choice for her studies, knowing that the world’s top media was English-speaking. Ironically, she had still ended up working at Le Figaro in Paris, so they only saw each other a handful of times a year.

  ‘Anyway, that’s enough about me,’ said Lara, tipping back her rosé. ‘What about you? Why are you in town? It can’t be just to see your favourite failure. Tell me everything: Paris, life, work. Men?’

  Sandrine scooped her dark hair up and fastened it into a bun. ‘When have we ever been the sort of women to obsess over men?’ she smiled mysteriously.

  ‘Obsess? You never tell me anything!’ grinned Lara. ‘Remember – you and Patric were living together by the time you even told me about him.’

  Sandrine took a long drink and looked away.

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ she said.

  Sandrine had met the handsome war reporter three months after she had started at Le Figaro. They were two fiercely independent people who fell deeply in love – and then Patric was killed in an explosion in Aleppo. Lara knew Sandrine hated to talk about him and she could sympathise, having struggled with loss herself, but Lara believed that remembering people when they had gone was the only way to keep them alive.

  ‘I see. Your love life is as barren as mine, then,’ said Lara, trying to keep the tone light.

  ‘I never said that,’ replied her friend, not quite looking her in the eye.

  ‘So there is someone!’

  ‘Don’t get too excited,’ said Sandrine, waving a casual hand, but Lara couldn’t miss the pink dots on her friend’s cheeks.

  ‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’ said Lara, teasing. ‘You said you were coming to London on Sunday but you’re in town early for a romantic tryst!’

  ‘I’m in London for the Le Caché conference,’ said Sandrine.

  Lara paused, more serious. The Collective or Le Caché – ‘The Hidden’ – as they liked to call themselves, had been one of the media buzz stories of the past year. Frustrated at the rise of global media control and fake news, a group of investigative journalists had got together to sha
re information, tips and sources with the intention of exposing stories which might otherwise go unreported. There had already been some major scoops such as the so-called “cash-for-clicks” scandal where the French government had authorised an internet giant to spy on its citizens.

  ‘The Le Caché conference?’ said Lara, leaning forwards and lowering her voice. ‘Are you involved with them?’

  Sandrine nodded slowly.

  ‘I am. And I think you should join us. Collectives are the future. You know better than anyone that proper investigations are being closed down and after Felix Tait, newspaper editors are going to be even more risk-averse. If we collaborate, we can put together every scrap of evidence and build a water-tight case. We take away the doubt.’

  Sandrine’s passion was infectious and Lara had to admit she was intrigued by the romance of it all, like a cold war spy flying back and forth between Moscow, Madrid and New York, but Lara also knew what journalists were like. They were competitive and cut-throat. When it came to ‘the truth’ it was dog eat dog out there.

  ‘Can I be honest?’ said Lara. ‘I’m not even sure I want to stay in journalism anymore.’

  Sandrine looked at her wide-eyed and Lara could hardly blame her, but now the words were out of her mouth, Lara immediately felt better.

  ‘I never thought I’d feel that way,’ she continued. ‘But the industry has changed, Sandrine. Everything is opinion not fact, so much is driven by personal agenda or the Twitter bullies. Those stories that we love breaking, the big, powerful, fact-driven exposés, where are they? How often do you see a Watergate or a Wikileaks on the front pages anymore? Could you even get something like that printed these days?’

  ‘But that’s exactly what we’re fighting for, ma chérie,’ said Sandrine. ‘Just come to the conference on Monday. Meet Eduardo. We might be able to change your mind.’

  ‘Eduardo?’

  ‘The founder.’

  Her friend flushed again and Lara’s mouth opened.

  ‘Wait a minute. That’s him, isn’t it?’ she said, pointing at Sandrine. ‘Eduardo is your mystery man!’

  Sandrine was laughing now.

  ‘Just come,’ she smiled. ‘You can meet him. He’s pretty incredible.’

  Lara had been telling the truth: the Felix Tait case had left her feeling battered and bruised, but she had to admit that she was intrigued how this collective, and Eduardo, had managed to win Sandrine’s heart.

  ‘So tempt me, what are you working on?’

  Sandrine gave a casual shrug, her way of avoiding the subject.

  ‘At least give me a clue,’ pressed Lara. Sandrine hesitated, as Lara watched her eyes dart left and right. The Engineer wasn’t a hack pub, but this was a well-connected part of London. For all she knew, the cute guy in the dungarees might be the son of a rival newspaper editor.

  ‘Jonathon Meyer,’ said Sandrine finally, her voice soft and low.

  Lara knew the name – of course she did, Meyer’s mysterious death had been the source of endless speculation a couple of weeks previously. A connected, multi-millionaire financier famous for throwing glamorous parties on his yacht in Monaco, Meyer had died after a violent mugging in the City. His death had triggered the usual conspiracy theories: claims he’d been mixed up with the mafia, the Russians, even the CIA. It was the sort of story that, in a slow news week, could have run and run, but it had coincided with a sex scandal connected to the England football team that had grabbed all the headlines, followed by a tell-all interview by the Queen’s butler. Overnight, Jonathon Meyer had been forgotten.

  ‘I didn’t think there was any real story there,’ said Lara. ‘Was there?’

  Sandrine raised a manicured brow.

  ‘Let’s just say I don’t think he was killed by a random thug.’

  It was Lara’s turn to look surprised.

  ‘You think he was murdered?’

  Sandrine played with the shiny bird pendant around her neck, a gift from Lara many years earlier.

  ‘He was not a good man, and he was not involved with good people,’ she said finally. ‘Anything is possible.’

  Conspiracy theories were journalism’s equivalent of explorers searching for El Dorado. The newsroom loved them, of course, but as Alex liked to say, ‘ghosts don’t print well,’ meaning rumours and speculation were too flimsy for a headline and trying to pin them down in the absence of hard evidence was always a waste of time. But still, Lara had a sixth sense when it came to a story and she could tell her friend had something – and despite herself, she wanted to know what. It was one of the reasons she got into journalism in the first place: to know things other people didn’t.

  ‘So what was Meyer involved in?’

  Sandrine hesitated.

  ‘Trafficking,’ she said in a whisper.

  ‘Trafficking?’

  Sandrine waved a hand, indicating that was all she was prepared to say.

  ‘You can’t tell me a highly connected financier was murdered because he was involved in trafficking and expect me to go to the bar to top up our olives. Come on, tell me. Is it drugs? Or people?’

  Her friend paused and looked at her over the rim of her glass.

  ‘Look, I’m due to share the details with a few of the collective guys at the conference on Monday. Join us and you can find out.’

  Lara shook her head smiling.

  ‘You’re a wily old bird, you know that?’

  ‘Less of the old…’

  ‘Okay, I’ll think about it,’ smiled Lara, deciding that it might be worth it if only to meet this Eduardo. Sandrine grinned and grasped Lara’s hand.

  ‘I do miss you, you know,’ she said.

  Lara nodded, the feeling mutual. Lara had plenty of friends in London, and in her twenties she had considered them to be like a surrogate family. But lately, many of them had got married or had children. They had real families of their own, and were forging new lives with them in the suburbs. This year, Lara could count the number of nights out on one hand, and even then, you couldn’t get into deep conversations about love and life without friends glancing at their watches, saying they had to get back for bedtime stories or the last train from Waterloo.

  ‘Maybe I’ll just give up on all this and move out to Paris,’ said Lara, sitting back.

  ‘I’d love you to come,’ sighed Sandrine. ‘I’m just not sure you’d ever leave London.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Alex,’ said Sandrine simply.

  ‘Alex?’ She laughed out loud at that one. Her first proper laugh since the whole Tait trial. Sandrine gave her a mischievous grin. Her friend had known Alex for almost at long as she had, and had always teased Lara about her relationship with Alex.

  ‘How is the gorgeous man?’

  ‘He’s been a good friend throughout the trial.’

  ‘Just good friends?’

  ‘Come on, Drine. I thought you’d have finally given that a rest after fifteen years.’

  ‘I’ll give up when you finally admit you are in love with him.’

  ‘I am not in love with Alex Ford and he’s not in love with me. In fact he has a girlfriend now. A serious one.’

  Sandrine shrugged as if that was a tiny detail. She was French, after all.

  ‘So come to Paris then.’

  Lara gave a soft sigh, imagined herself sipping a vin ordinaire at a pavement café, walking along the Seine or going to the cinema with some hot guy she’d met in the Shakespeare and Co book shop. Perhaps the Tait verdict had happened for a reason. Maybe Uncle Nicholas was right that she needed to recharge, regroup.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time I made a move,’ she said. ‘We spend so much time looking for leads and chasing stories that we don’t live a normal life like most people.’

  Sandrine pointed at her.

  ‘I’m not sure you want a normal life, Lara Stone.’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘No. You and I, we’re writers. We don’t live in the real world, we live in our stories
.’

  Sandrine lifted her glass and tapped it against Lara’s with a ‘ting’.

  ‘And that is the only place we feel alive.’

  Chapter 3

  Lara stood in the street, watching the brake lights of the cab flash then disappear around the corner. She looked down at the receipt in her hand and sighed. Getting home from the bar had been automatic: flag down a black cab, give the driver her Chelsea address, then say ‘keep the change – and can you give me a receipt?’

  But that was then, this was now. There were no expenses for the foreseeable future. Yesterday Lara had been a hot newspaper journalist who took cabs because she didn’t have time for anything else – she needed to get across town or to the office or to the airport right away. Today she was… what? An ex-award-winning writer, an ex-mover and shaker. She was a civilian.

  At least she’d had a great night out, she smiled to herself, shoving the receipt into her pocket. She’d loved seeing Sandrine, enjoyed their easy conversation, so much so that her idea to move Paris for a few months had been growing in her head ever since Sandrine had mentioned it.

  After all, if not now – when? She was single, solvent, and since the demise of the investigation department at the Chronicle, without responsibilities or commitments. Lara had always envied Alex’s early career in journalism, bouncing from Berlin to Washington to Peshawar; in fact, in all the years she had known him, Alex had been happiest as a foreign correspondent. He too had asked Lara on a number of occasions, why she didn’t come and work abroad, and the answer she had given was that she enjoyed living in London. Which had been true. The upheaval of her childhood – losing her parents, going to live with her uncle, shuttling between boarding school, the Averys’ country house and their West London home, meant that deep down, Lara needed a steady base. But sometimes it was tempting to live a different life. A time like now.

  She unlocked the gate to the marina, wincing as it creaked open and shut it with a clang behind her. She supposed now she’d actually have time to get it oiled.

  People were always surprised when they heard that Lara lived on a houseboat at Cadogan Pier. ‘Is it to avoid council tax?’ they ask, perplexed. So Lara had long since given up mentioning it. She said she lived ‘a stone’s throw from Cheyne Walk’ and left it at that, let peoples’ prejudices about posh rich girls and their chi-chi SW3 flats fill in the blanks.