Still You Sleep by Kate Vane

Author:Kate Vane [Vane, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kate Vane
Published: 2020-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

35

Freddie

As soon as he saw the news Freddie downed his pint and dashed out of the pub. Picked up a taxi straight away, that was a first. Driver was moaning about some demo down by the Headrow which was snarling up traffic and stopping people coming into town. He barely heard a word.

Then he was at her door. She opened it before he knocked. Almost as if this was what she had been waiting for. Stupid of course. She would have heard the diesel rumble of the taxi, looked out the window for the source of the noise. Still, as she waved him into the living room with weary tolerance, he felt absurd for a moment. He still had the fury but not the words.

Diane was sober, it seemed. She had a cup of tea in front of her, the TV droning in the background. He started to speak but the words wouldn’t come and he felt the beer move in his belly, the sweat ooze from his pores.

‘Is it money?’ He heard himself slur.

She looked at him with disgust which annoyed him even more. As if it were Freddie who had gone to the tabloids. Betrayed someone who was, if not exactly a friend, at least a colleague. Not Davy of course. He could understand her selling out Davy, given their history. Might even have sympathised. But what about Margaret?

It wasn’t usually money. It was anger or resentment, or a sense of self-righteousness. They told themselves it was the money so that they could live with themselves. The people who really believed they were doing the right thing, the whistleblower, the survivor of abuse, you didn’t offer them money, and they didn’t ask.

Booze, he supposed. He shook his head sadly. Booze. How could she have let herself get like this? And why did she look so sure of herself, just because she was sober for once and he was not? With her bloodshot eyes and hair so brittle you’d think it would shatter if you touched it.

He found himself wanting to hurt her, to puncture that self-assurance, to get her to pull herself together.

‘How can you be so naïve? You know they probably won’t even pay you what they’ve promised. Have you got a written contract?’

Diane didn’t answer. She didn’t look at him. She reminded him of a child who didn’t want to hear what was said. She didn’t quite have her fingers in her ears, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she were humming a tune in her head.

‘This is the tabloids. They’re infamous for it. They’ll do all they can to avoid paying. You can call them, they’ll ignore you. You can invoice them, and they’ll claim they’ve never received it, or it’s being processed. Then what are you going to do? Take them to court?’

Diane looked around the room, as if to say, how did I get here? Once she might have been the person who would take them to court, but that was before she was the person who would have needed to.

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