Where There's Smoke

The coffee filter gave a hiss as Clive poured water into it. “Don’t worry,” he told her, setting the jug to catch the drips. “It’ll probably never get into print.”

The story appeared two days later. Kate was sitting on the tube, on one of the long seats that face each other across the aisle. A man on the other side was reading a tabloid newspaper, folding its pages back on themselves, and she looked at it for a while without comprehending what she was seeing. Then, all at once, the words stopped being abstract shapes and formed into a sentence, and Kate felt the carriage spin round her. As though he had been waiting for that moment, the man turned the page, and immediately all she could retain of what she had seen was the single word, POSTER.

Suddenly, the train was full of rustling newspapers. It slowed to a halt, and Kate stood up and got off. She was half-way up the escalators before she realised that it wasn’t her stop.

She went back down to the platform and caught the next train. Outside the station at King’s Cross was a newspaper stand. Kate went to it and stared down at the assembled piles of newsprint.

“What can I do you for, darlin’?” the vendor asked.

Kate couldn’t remember what paper the man on the train had been reading. She knew it was a tabloid, but that was all. She shook her head and began to walk away, then abruptly went back and picked up a copy of every newspaper on the stand.

“You setting up in competition, or what?” the vendor grinned as she paid.

Kate didn’t answer. She was dimly aware of his muttered, “Yeah, and a nice fucking day to you too,” when she walked away, but her mind was already on the thick stack of paper under her arm.

Clive had already arrived at the office. His smile of greeting faded as he looked from her face to what she was carrying.

Kate went straight upstairs. The newspapers made a heavy thud as she dropped them onto her desk. Separating the tabloids first, she began to go through them. She found it in the Mirror. The article took up most of one page, topped by the headline she had seen on the train.

PSYCHOLOGIST’S KILLER WREAKS POSTER REVENGE ON LOVER.

The story was billed as an exclusive. It referred to Ellis as a schizophrenic wanted in connection with the “frenzied killing” of psychologist Alex Turner. It explained how, while still on the run from the police, he was carrying out an “obscene poster campaign against attractive PR boss Kate Powell.”

The posters were described with relish, especially the first one, and the story dwelt on her refusal to comment on either her “affair” with Ellis, or if she’d had his “love-child” aborted. There was no mention of donor insemination. It ended with a quote from an unnamed source, speculating that Ellis could have murdered the psychologist because he was “maddened with grief”.

Inset in the article was the police photograph of Ellis, and also one of the second poster, less lurid in black and white. Beneath it was a photo of Kate herself. It had obviously been taken outside the agency. She was caught mid-step, and had a harried expression on her face as she walked obliquely towards the camera. I look old, she thought, with detachment.

There was a crack. Kate looked with surprise at the broken pencil in her hand. She couldn’t remember picking it up. She dropped the two halves into the bin, then went to the window. A little further down the street, on the opposite side of the road, was an alleyway. The photograph could have been taken from there. Or from one of the deep doorways.

She turned away as Clive knocked and entered.

“It’s in, then?”

Kate nodded, waving him to the newspaper still lying open on her desk. He read the article, then closed and folded the paper.

“Well. He can’t write for shit, anyway.”

She had to smile. But not for very long.

The story wasn’t in any of the other newspapers, but now it had appeared in one, the rest picked up on it.

The telephone rang repeatedly with requests for interviews, information. Kate didn’t take any of them. Caroline, Josefina or Clive would politely say that no, she had no comment to make. Several journalists actually called at the office, where they were told the same thing. When she went to her window she could see a group of photographers idling on the other side of the road, looking cold but patient. Kate moved away before they saw her.

Collins was phlegmatic when she phoned him. He had already seen the article. “It was bound to come out, the longer all this went on,” he said. “We’ve been lucky to keep it quiet as long as we did.”

“What should I do?”

She heard him sigh. “That’s up to you. You could always go public. Tell them you’re still pregnant, and hope that Ellis sees it and believes you.”

Kate thought about the mocking grin of the journalist who had started all this. “I don’t think I can.”