newsdesk wanted me in on my day off. Why else would the office call me at this hour on a Saturday morning? Had something happened? Was there a breaking news story they wanted me to get across?
There was only one way to find out, of course, and that was to get up and phone them back. But it was the last thing I wanted to do. My head was hurting and I felt more than a little nauseous. Plus I didn’t want to have to tell my daughter that I might not be taking her to the park after all.
As if on cue the bedroom door was flung open and there she was, the apple of my eye, looking absolutely gorgeous in a yellow dress, her long fair hair scraped back in a ponytail.
‘Mummy, Mummy,’ she yelled. ‘Nanny said you have to get up. You’re not allowed to go back to sleep because if you do you’ll be in trouble.’
People have told me that Rosie is the image of her mother. And it was true up to a point. We both have blue eyes and hair the colour of wheat. Our noses are small and pointed, and we each have a slight lisp.
But Rosie has her father’s facial bone structure and also his smile, which was one of the things I’d loved about him in the beginning. That was before I realised he used it as a distraction, a way to make me believe that he was a caring, faithful husband instead of a cheating scumbag.
‘Hurry up, Mummy,’ Rosie said excitedly. ‘It’s sunny and I want to go to the park.’
She stood next to the bed, pulling at the duvet, her big round eyes pleading with me to get up.
‘Slow down, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘It’s still really early and Mummy’s got a headache.’
‘I can kiss it better for you.’
The words out of my daughter’s mouth never failed to lift my spirits. I put the mug back on the bedside table and reached over so that she could peck me on the forehead.
‘I feel much better already,’ I said.
Then I pulled her close to me and gave her a cuddle. She felt soft and warm and smelled of shower gel.
‘Go and tell Nanny to make me some more coffee,’ I said. ‘I’ll be out as soon as I’ve been to the loo.’
She skipped out of the room, repeating my words to herself so that she wouldn’t forget them.
I then dragged myself out of bed, only to be confronted by my own reflection in the wardrobe mirror.
I usually wear silk pyjamas at night but I’d either forgotten to put them on or I just hadn’t bothered. I couldn’t remember which. Anyway, I was naked expect for my watch and a going-out necklace.
As always I cast a critical eye over my body. And as always I felt a pang of disappointment. Despite all the diets, gym sessions and yoga classes, I was still very much a work in progress. My breasts were not as firm as they used to be, my thighs were riddled with cellulite, and my tummy looked as though it was in the early stages of pregnancy.
But I did have my good points, thank God. My hair was full-bodied and shoulder-length and I never had to do much with it. I was just over five seven in bare feet and had a face that most people considered attractive. In fact my ex went so far as to tell me that I reminded him of the actress Jennifer Lawrence. It gave my ego a huge boost up until the day I discovered that he was incapable of being truthful.
I shook my head, annoyed that I’d allowed that deceitful sod to invade my thoughts this early in the morning. But then it wasn’t as though I could distance myself from him. For all his faults – and there were plenty of them – he adored Rosie and made a point of seeing her twice a week as part of the custody arrangement. It meant we remained in contact, and in all honesty it wasn’t as bad now as it had been at the start. I was over the shock and humiliation of his betrayal, and all the feelings I’d had for him had evaporated.
I was now civil to him whenever we met and that made life easier all round. There were never any arguments over maintenance payments and he was usually willing to help out when I needed certain favours.
Naturally my mother hated him with a vengeance, and when he called at the house she made a point of retreating to her bedroom to avoid seeing him.
It wouldn’t be an issue today because he’d taken Rosie out on Thursday and wasn’t due to see her again until Wednesday, when he’d pick her up from the nursery.
Today it was my turn to spoil her – if I didn’t have to go to work. And that was a bloody big if.
I turned away from the mirror, picked up my robe from the chair next to the bed and peered through the curtains. The bright sun made a change since we were in the middle of one of the wettest and coldest Novembers for years.
My bedroom was at the front of the house and the view was of a row of almost identical terraced houses opposite. All of them were worth in excess of half a million pounds, which seemed extraordinary to me given that Peckham used to be one of the grimiest and most dangerous parts of south London. But having undergone massive regeneration and steady gentrification, the area was now considered a trendy place to live, attracting families and city workers alike.
For me Peckham was both familiar and convenient. The house was a short walk from the railway station and from there it was just a ten-minute train ride to London Bridge and the offices of the The Post, the evening newspaper that served the capital. I’d worked there for the past five years.
Peckham Rye Common was also close by and that was where I’d planned to take Rosie today. I really didn’t want to disappoint her because Mum was right about me not spending enough quality time with her. I definitely needed to make more of an effort, put Rosie before everything else and stop jumping to the tune of the newsdesk.
I came to a decision suddenly. If the newsdesk asked me to go to work I’d tell them it wasn’t possible. I’d say I’d already made plans and they couldn’t be changed.
They’d no doubt be surprised because I loved the job and could usually be relied on to come in at short notice. But this time they’d just have to call up someone else, assuming they hadn’t done so already.
‘You took your time getting back to me,’ Grant Scott said. ‘I was about to get someone else to cover a story that we’ve just got wind of.’
‘I’m afraid that’s what you’ll have to do, boss,’ I said. ‘It’s my day off and I’ve made plans.’
‘Well, I suggest you change them or else you’re going to be sorely disappointed. This is huge.’
‘That’s what you always say when you’re short of people.’
‘I mean it this time, Beth. You’ve got first call on this because you’re the paper’s crime reporter. So I want you on it from the start. And trust me it’s right up your street.’
Grant was The Post’s senior news editor and an expert in the art of manipulation. He was an old-school newspaperman who knew there was one sure way to get a reporter – any reporter – to do his bidding, and that was to dangle the carrot of a cracking yarn.
‘So just out of curiosity what’s the story?’ I said.
I could imagine him smiling on the other end of the line, thinking he’d got me hooked and that all he had to do was reel me in. He’d been my mentor after all, helping nurture my career since I got the job at The Post. He was also the one who had nicknamed me The Ferret, because of my uncanny ability to ferret out stories.
Three years ago he appointed me to the position of the paper’s first-ever female crime reporter. And in the pub afterwards he told me: ‘You got the job because like me the news is embedded in your psyche, Beth. It’s part of your DNA. You can’t resist the excitement that comes from being the first to tell people what bad things are happening all around them. It’s like the rush you get from a sniff of the white stuff.’
He’d been right, of course. From an early age I’d been fascinated by the news and how it was covered and disseminated. Before I left school