DCI Aylesbury opened the conference, introducing himself and the other two officers and welcoming everyone present. Without naming names, he criticised “uninformed reporting” and said that any leaks should be properly checked with the station’s Press Office. After telling the assembled media off, he then effectively confirmed that every detail already reported by the Herald was true.
Each journalist had been given a pack with the photos and details the force was happy to release. It included the phone number members of the public should call if they had any information as well as the sketch based on the person the neighbour had seen walking past the victim’s house a few times the previous weekend. That had only arrived through moments before the briefing had begun but the assembled media had been assured they could download a better quality version from the force’s website. Jessica had seen the sketch itself and didn’t expect any useful leads. It looked so plain it could really be anyone. Whoever was manning the phone lines the following day would have a lot of useless information to wade through, she thought.
The media were told that Yvonne Christensen’s husband and son had helped their enquiries but were not suspects and the point was reinforced that the public should feel safe. DCI Aylesbury made a special instance of looking into the camera to emphasise his words and enforce that point as if he was making an Academy Award acceptance speech.
After that he opened the floor to questions. Most of what was asked was simply going over what was already known. The first question was asked by the obese man at the front, who immediately ruled himself out of Jessica’s list of suspects by saying, ‘Paul Davies, Bury Citizen,’ before asking some particularly bland questions.
One down, two to go.
After a few more questions, the DCI pointed at the hand from the back – suspect number three. The man ruffled his hand through his hair and said: ‘Garry Ashford, Manchester Morning Herald. I was just wondering why it took the force two days to respond to Stephanie Wilson’s concerns?’
Jessica narrowed her eyes and stared at him. “Got you,” she thought.
The last couple of days had seen a complete turnaround for Garry. After the call from his source about Yvonne Christensen’s murder, he had phoned the number he had been given for that Detective Sergeant but not really got anywhere. She seemed like a right moody so-and-so.
When she asked how he had found out her number, he made up something about a friend from a phone company but didn’t think she’d bought it. They would struggle to find his source even if they got into his own phone records. The person that contacted him had at least two sim cards and had called from the unregistered pre-pay one.
After getting a “no-comment” from her, he made the call he had been waiting eighteen months to make – to tell his Editor he actually had a story of note for him. It was both of their days off and he had never called his boss on his mobile before. He figured this was as good a time as any. Garry reckoned Tom Simpson would have been a good journalist at some point in the past but, being in the job for as long as he had while he worked his way up to Editor, he had lost something along the way. Garry had taken a year-and-a-half to become cynical about the industry but his boss had been in the job for over twenty years, so who knows what he thought of it all?
The Editor was in charge of managing the paper’s content and staff but recently there increasingly seemed to be some kind of savings that had been demanded. Everyone had seen the memos from management about cost-cutting and so on and, along with the length of time he had been doing the job, Tom Simpson had just seemed to lose any courtesy he might have once had.
As Editor, his one concern was getting a paper out on time and not getting fired. He frequently swore and bawled out other reporters in the newsroom, while warning them that costs had to be brought down and, if they didn’t get him better stories, perhaps
they
would be expendable. Some of the older production staff and journalists had told Garry it hadn’t always been like that. When Tom had first been promoted to editor eight or nine years ago, the atmosphere had been much better but declining sales, the rise of free content on the Internet, and rifts with management had taken their toll.
One of the older reporters, who was eagerly awaiting retirement in a year or two, had explained to Garry in the pub one evening just why he thought things had got so bad.
‘All those government departments and councils and police and fire and everyone else have these bloody Press Officers now,’ he said. ‘In the old days you could buy someone a pint and get the full story on everything. It was all cock-ups galore and you could really go to town on these idiots. Now you just get stuck rewriting these nonsense statements about “diversity” and “ethical-funding,” whatever the hell that means.’
Garry didn’t know whether that was right or not but it was clear the only time the Editor’s mood seemed to improve was when somebody brought in a story that raised sales.
The finance department and Editor received daily figures for how many copies of the paper had been returned by newsagents and street sellers. This allowed them to work out how many copies of the paper had actually been sold. Garry thought his luck had finally turned with his “bin fury” story. On the back of that, sales had gone up twenty per cent for three straight days. His Editor was delighted. He had praised Garry’s work ethic in a group email and hovered around his desk for those days asking about follow-up stories. Eventually it had to end – there were only so many articles you could churn out about rubbish before people stopped buying and moved on to something else. Sales dropped to where they were before and Garry had been forgotten about again. In many ways, that had made things worse. Before, he was just some anonymous reporter in the newsroom but after that, he had shown he could get stories that spiked sales, just not consistently.
Garry’s Editor answered his phone with a, “Who’s this?”. Not even a “hello” and definitely not a “hi”.
‘This is Garry, Garry Ashford.’
‘You do know it’s my day off?’
‘Yes... but I think I have something big for you.’
‘You “think” you have something big? I’m on my way to the football.’
Garry stumbled his way through telling his Editor about the phone call he had just received. He talked about the murder and how the body had been found locked in a house, while the police had taken two days to find it. His Editor asked for the source and Garry gave it.
‘You scruffy little genius! Why didn’t you use them before?’
It sounded good-natured but Garry wondered if the “genius” part outweighed the “scruffy” comment to actually make it a compliment. He told his boss that his source had never really come up with anything of note in the past.
His Editor didn’t sound as if he was really listening anyway. ‘Right, right,’ he continued. ‘Look, get hold of this witness. Just turn up at her door and find out what she told the police, then get into the office tomorrow. No point in wasting something like this for tomorrow’s edition – the city’s empty on a Sunday. We’ll get everyone with a blinding front page on Monday. Blow the nationals out of the water.’
Despite a few pangs of uncertainty about turning up at the front door of a potential witness, Garry did what he was told. He first did a few online searches through his phone to find the correct address. His source had given him Stephanie Wilson’s name and the road she lived on but not the exact house number. Luckily, there was a Ray and Stephanie Wilson on the electoral roll, so he knew where he had to go. He had also found them in the online version of the phone book too. Not many people seemed to be in the book now, given the widespread use of mobiles, but the Wilsons were obviously old-fashioned and had a landline number. Garry called it and spoke to the husband Ray, who seemed delighted the Press were involved. They arranged for the journalist to visit the house the following morning.
The interview with Stephanie herself was largely taken over by her husband who, from what he said, had been single-handedly responsible for uncovering the whole story. He kept saying how he had been a journalist in his youth and that it was his idea to call the police.
The way he had spoken, you would have been mistaken for thinking it was he who had uncovered the body and was in the process of cracking the case. Stephanie hadn’t said too much and was clearly highly affected by her friend’s passing. As Garry managed to coax the truth from her however, it became clear her husband had had pretty much nothing to do with any of it. That didn’t stop him asking if the paper wanted to send a photographer over to take photos of them both though. Garry thought he was a bit of a nuisance but seemed relatively harmless and thanked them both for their time. He had got what he needed.
The offices of the Morning Herald were spread across two floors midway up one of the taller buildings in the centre of Manchester. Editorial and advertising shared a floor, while production and finance used the one above it. Other businesses occupied various floors within the property but, on a Sunday, the whole place was like a ghost town. Garry used his security pass to get through the staff door at the back, then into the lift.
He had barely stepped out of the elevator when he heard his Editor’s voice from across the other side of the room: ‘Garry.’
While the few heads who happened to be working that day turned to look in his direction, no doubt confused why their boss was so pleased for once, Tom was bounding towards him. Garry started walking towards his desk but his Editor caught up and put a fatherly arm around his shoulders, ushering him into his own office. Even when he had been popular in the past, he had never been invited into the Editor’s office.
Garry had a good look around. The view was as good as it could be considering what Manchester had to offer. Garry’s usual desk offered various angles of the back of some girl’s head who worked in advertising. The Editor ushered him into a plush leather swivel chair. Garry noticed the mechanism to move the seat up and down actually worked, which was significantly more than you could expect from a chair on the main news floor, then offered to make him a cup of tea.
What on earth was going on?
Garry thought his boss making him a hot drink was perhaps pushing things too far, so declined.
He told his Editor how the morning interview had gone and repeated what he had said on the phone the day before. His boss nodded furiously throughout, making the odd note and just repeating, “good, good” over and over. Garry was aware that the magnitude of someone being brutally murdered seemed to be lost in the moment. He was told he could use the Editor’s own computer to type up the story so, still feeling as if he were in some bizarre alternate universe, he used his notes to do just that.
Garry thought of the victim as he wrote. He was excited about finally being in his Editor’s good books but didn’t want to let that detract from the empathy he felt. Ray Wilson and now his boss both seemingly wanted to use the murder almost as a springboard for their own aims. Ray’s were harmless and slightly pathetic, while he hoped his boss wouldn’t push things too far. Yes it was a big story and yes he was going to break it but he didn’t want the fact to be lost that someone had been murdered.
He finished typing and went to find the Editor back on the main floor. He received plenty of odd looks from his colleagues, unsure what he had done to receive such a warm welcome. Tom almost skipped across the newsroom towards him and they both went back into the office. Garry’s boss sat in front of the computer and read through what had been written. He nodded frequently and again repeated “good, good” numerous times. When he was done, he turned back to Garry. ‘Top, top work this young man. Top work. Need to spice it up a bit in a few places but this is really well done.’
Garry was nervous by what he meant by “spice it up” but said nothing.
‘I think you’re just about done for the day. Go get yourself a pint and enjoy the evening. You deserve it. We’ll get this on the website tonight, then tomorrow your name will be on the front page.’
He was being sent home
early
. Working unpaid overtime was something he had done many times but Garry had never been let go before his shift ended. This really was new ground.
‘Reckon there’ll be a Press Conference tomorrow and you’ll be right there,’ his Editor added. ‘Maybe give your little source a call when you get in? Y’know, see if anything else has happened?’
Garry had no intention of doing that but said he would, picked up his bag and made a beeline for the lift. He moved quickly as he didn’t want to risk his invitation to leave early being revoked but also because he didn’t want to see the accusing stares from his colleagues as he walked out, wondering why he was suddenly so popular.
They would find out when they saw the front page.
After checking in again with his delighted Editor on the Monday morning, Garry had been told he would be going to the Press Conference over at Longsight mid-afternoon. His Editor told him to “ramp up that two day cock-up angle”.
What he meant was to ask questions about why it had taken two days for the police to successfully find Yvonne’s body after Stephanie Wilson’s phone call. Personally, Garry thought it was a bit harsh. The police weren’t to know there was a dead body involved and, considering she could have just gone away for a few days, he thought they had done pretty well to act in that time.
Regardless of his own thoughts, he would ask the question. At least with all the other media present DS Daniel couldn’t shout at him in quite the way she had on the phone the night before. He found a clean pair of dark trousers and his favourite jacket. He had worn it out a few times after being assured by his friends it made him look interesting. He thought it gave him the air of some type of philosophical deep-thinker.
He made sure he was sitting at the back for the briefing, making notes as other people asked their questions and spotted DS Daniel on the end. She hadn’t said much, just sat there scowling out at the audience in front of her. As he sat waiting to pluck up the courage to put his hand up, he thought she had looked directly at him. Her long almost-blonde hair was swept back out of her face and he thought she looked kind of cute.