by the sound of his wife laughing in her sleep at some secret joke. But just now, even with her autumn-brown hair falling over most of her face, he spotted what he feared was a worry line in her forehead, as if she was concentrating hard. He imagined smoothing it away, with just a touch of his hand. Perhaps he should go back in and do just that. No, he thought. What if she woke up and their row reopened? Better to leave it be.
Might as well pull an all-nighter instead, write up the Macrae story and deliver it first thing. At least that would impress Harden. And it would be an excuse not to go into the bedroom.
At the keyboard, his mind kept wandering away from Letitia, Howard and the streets of Brownsville. He knew what Beth wanted and biology, or something, was standing in their way. He had been encouraged by the hospital’s attitude: give it time. But Beth was not used to being a patient. She liked to sit in the other chair. And she wanted clarity: a diagnosis, a course of action.
Besides, he knew, getting pregnant was only part of the story. Beth had become irritated by his professional single-mindedness, his determination to make his mark. When they first met, she would say how much she liked his drive; she found it sexy. She admired his refusal to coast along, to trade on his father’s prestige. He had made things difficult for himself – he could have gone back to America when he turned eighteen and used the family name to breeze into Yale – and she admired that. Now, though, she wanted the ambition to cool down. There were other priorities.
He finally crashed out just after four am. He dreamed he was on a boating lake, pushing a punt like some cheesy gondolier. Facing him, twirling a parasol, was a woman. It was probably Beth but he could not quite see. He tried squinting, determined to make out the face. But the sun was in his eyes.
Monday, 10.47am, Manhattan
The good sinner: the story of a New York life – and death.
Will stared at it, not on B6 or B11 or even B3 but A1: the front page of the New York Times. He had stared at it on the subway into work, looked at it some more as he walked to the office and had spent most of the time at his desk pretending not to look at it.
He had arrived to a bombardment of congratulatory email, from colleagues sitting three feet away and old friends living in different continents, who had learned of his feat via the paper’s online edition. He was receiving a plaudit by phone when he felt a surge move through his little desk-pod, a silent movement of energy like the magnetic force that passes through iron filings. It was Townsend McDougal, making a rare descent from Mount Olympus to walk among the troops. Suddenly backs were stiffened; rictus smiles adopted. Will noticed Amy Woodstein reflexively reaching round to the back of her head to plump up her hair. The veteran City Life columnist sought to tidy his desk with a single back-sweep of his arm, thereby despatching a couple of crumpled Marlboro packets into his pencil drawer.
The high command at the New York Times was still getting used to McDougal: appointed as executive editor only a few months earlier, he was an unlikely choice. His immediate predecessors had been drawn from that segment of New York society that had produced so many of the city’s best known names and given it so much of its humour and language: liberal Jews. Previous New York Times editors looked and sounded like Woody Allen or Philip Roth.
Townsend McDougal was a rather different proposition. A New England aristocrat with Mayflower roots and Wasp manners, he wore a panama hat in summertime and tasselled loafers in winter. But that was not what had made Times veterans anxious when his appointment was announced. No, what made the editor and the New York Times an unlikely fit was the simple fact that Townsend McDougal was a born-again Christian.
He had not yet made Bible study classes compulsory, nor did he ask reporters to link hands in prayer before each night’s print run. But it was a culture shock for a temple of secularism like the New York Times. Columnists and critics on the paper were used to a tone that was not quite mocking but certainly distant. Evangelical Christianity was something that existed out there, in flyover country – in the vast mid-west or the deep south between the coasts. None of them would ever say so explicitly, still less write it, but the undeclared assumption was that born-again faith was the preserve of the simple folk. ‘Trust in Jesus’ was for the women in polyester trousers watching Pat Robertson on the 700 Club, or for recovering alcoholics who needed to ‘turn around’ their lives and declare their salvation in a bumper sticker. It was not for Ivy League sophisticates like themselves.
Townsend McDougal unsettled every one of those presumptions. Now Times journalists had to check the default arithmetic that stated that secular equalled smart. From now on, religion would no longer be cast as a matter of poor taste, like big hair or TV dinners. It was to be treated with respect. The change, in articles from the fashion pages to the sports section, became apparent within weeks of McDougal’s arrival. The new executive editor had not sent out a memo. He did not have to.
Now he was walking among the Metro staff, with his gaze aimed in only one direction.
‘Look, I better go,’ Will said into the phone in what he hoped was a low whisper. As Will replaced the receiver, McDougal began.
‘Welcome to the Holy of Holies, William. The front page of the greatest newspaper in the world.’ Will felt himself blush. It was not embarrassment at the compliment, nor even McDougal’s klaxon of a voice, bellowing his praise all around the office in an accent that was so Brahmin as to be almost English, though that was embarrassing enough. It was the ‘William’ that did it. Will thought his father had reached an understanding with McDougal: that there was to be no public acknowledgement of the friendship between them. Will knew he would be resented as it was – the hotshot young journo on the fast track – without his colleagues assuming he was the beneficiary of that old-fashioned career-enhancing drug, nepotism.
Now it was out there; McDougal’s decibels had seen to that. The internal emails would be flying: Guess who’s on first-name terms with the boss? As it happened, Will had applied for this job the same way as everyone else: sending in a letter and turning up for an interview. But no one would believe that now. He could feel his neck becoming hot.
‘You’ve made a good start, William. Taking some unpromising raw material and turning it into something worthy of page one. I sometimes wish some of your more mature colleagues would show similar degrees of industry and verve.’
Will wondered if McDougal was deliberately setting out to make his life hell. Was this some kind of initiation rite practised by the Skull and Bones set at Yale, where he and his father had first become such pals? The editor might as well have painted a target on Will’s back and handed crossbows to each of his colleagues.
‘Thank you.’
‘I shall be expecting more from you, William. And I shall be following this story with interest.’
With that, and a swish of his finely tailored grey suit, Townsend McDougal was gone. The collective posture of the reporters who had previously been sitting to attention now slumped. The City Life columnist opened up his top drawer, reached for his cigarettes and headed for the fire escape.
Will had an equally instant urge. Without thinking, he dialled Beth’s number. After the second ring, he abandoned it. A call about a triumph at work would confirm everything she had said about him. No, he still had to do penance.
‘Now, William.’ It was Walton, his chair swivelled round to face the common space that linked them with Woodstein and Schwarz. He was looking upward, the lower half of his face covered with a supercilious smile. He looked like a malevolent schoolboy.
Despite being nearly fifty years old, there was something infantile about Terence Walton. He had the unnerving habit of playing hi-tech computer games while he worked, rattling the keys as he zapped various alien life forms to ‘proceed to the next level’. His fingers seemed to be in constant search of distraction; the moment he had finished one phone call, he would be onto the next. He was always fixing up extra-curricular activities: a radio appearance here, a