I had to change the conversation fast from Premilla-who-bought-drugs-on-the-street to Premilla-the-respectable-woman-who’d-been-badly-served-by-the-medical-community. An interview with a journalist I trusted? A slot on This Morning?
Both my phones were ringing. I answered one at random. ‘Amy O’Connell.’
‘It’s Josh Rowan.’
I said nothing. I was silent. Furious.
‘Are you there?’
‘What do you want?’ No publicist could afford an enemy in the press but I was very sore about this.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘About Marie Vann.’ That lovely Geordie accent. ‘Most trusted accent,’ some survey had said. ‘I did my best. She went over my head. But I can offer something else. A damage-limitation interview with Chrissy Heathers. Big spread. Two pages on Friday. Sympathetic.’
Silently I considered this. Chrissy Heathers was a different proposition from Marie Vann. Chrissy’s pieces were probing but they were generally balanced and fair. And now that Premilla’s dirty laundry was being washed in public, the only option left was a mop-up operation. But even if I decided to trust the Herald, there was no knowing if Premilla would talk to the paper that had shafted her.
‘Copy approval?’ I asked.
He sighed. ‘No.’
It had been a long shot. Journalists almost never ceded it because it meant anything negative could – and would – be removed by the interviewee until nothing remained but a sanitized fluff-job.
‘Look, I’ll see what I can do.’
‘But you can’t promise anything,’ I echoed.
Sounding a little weary he said, ‘Aye.’
My first call was to Hugh to tell him I wouldn’t be home. Then as soon as we were let off the plane I went straight upstairs to Departures and bought a flight back to London, the last of the evening.
Running through the airport, I rang Premilla and promised her that wheels were in motion, then called her sister to tell her to take care of her. Then I rang Josh Rowan back.
‘Why should I trust you?’ I asked.
‘Because you can.’
‘You’ve just demonstrated that I can’t.’
‘I didn’t promise anything. I couldn’t. Marie wasn’t my hire, I’ve no sway with her, but everyone else in Features is mine.’
I was thinking fast, fast, fast. True, Marie Vann had been hired by the remote-as-Beyoncé editor in a wrong-headed attempt to halt declining sales. Speedily, I flicked through a mental index card of all my fluffier journalists – plenty who’d do me a tame piece but because they wrote for weekend supplements we’d be looking at a lead time of two weeks. This story needed turning around immediately, before the public perception of Premilla the street junkie crystallized.
‘Friday?’ I asked. ‘This Friday? The day after tomorrow? Two pages?’
‘This Friday. Two pages. Sympathetic. I’ll try for copy approval and either way I’ll personally oversee the subs.’
An important factor. A sympathetic piece could be rendered worthless if the sub-editors shoved in a trashy tabloid headline, like ‘My Druggie Shame’.
My indecision was agonizing; there was a lot to lose here with the wrong call.
‘Or you can go to another outlet,’ he said. ‘Who could blame you?’
Paradoxically, that was what decided it. A defence of Premilla in the Guardian or The Times could look like one newspaper point-scoring against another. But if it was in the Herald, it might almost neutralize the original story.
‘Okay. Chrissy Heathers interviews Premilla tomorrow in a hotel.’ No journalist was getting anywhere near Premilla’s home to go through her bathroom cabinet and report on the contents.
‘And it’s an exclusive. Wait. Are you running?’ he asked.
‘Yep. Catching the last flight back to London.’
‘In the shoes you were wearing earlier?’
‘When you’re as short as I am, you get used to doing everything in high – Oh, my God!’ My wrist was suddenly vibrating.
‘What is it?’
‘Oh. I see.’ I didn’t break pace. ‘It’s my Fitbit. I must have hit my ten thousand steps for today. It happens so rarely I didn’t know what was happening.’
‘Yet the perky encouragement never stops. Apparently I’ve walked the length of Britain but it’s taken me about three years. Right. So we’re clear that this is an exclusive?’
‘Clear.’
More than clear. It was vital that Premilla didn’t speak to any other media outlet. Deafening silence was the only sensible response, until we had a game-changing piece on Friday.
My stomach was burning up with acid. I didn’t know how far to trust Josh Rowan.
He’d already shafted me once.
It was close to midnight when I arrived at Premilla’s flat in Ladbroke Grove to spend the night. A clamouring scrum of media waited outside, the lenses of the photographers trained on her first-floor windows.
The crowd was even bigger the following morning when two big Lithuanian security men and I shepherded Premilla to the waiting car. ‘Ignore them.’ I spoke softly into her ear as the journos yelled insults and accusations, anything to trigger a response from her. Premilla’s nails were bitten so far down that blood was visible, and her beautiful face was flaky and red from stress-psoriasis.
A hotel suite in central London was booked for the interview. Standing outside its door, Premilla was trembling.
‘It’ll be okay,’ I said fiercely. ‘It will.’ Well, I’d do everything in my power to make it so. I led her in by the hand.
Chrissy Heathers was there, her plump face and curly, messy hair giving the false impression of someone perfectly benign. Also milling about were a photographer, a stylist, a make-up artist and – leaning against a wall, watching them – Josh Rowan. My heart thumped hard at the sight of him and a messy mix of feelings flooded through me: mistrust, rancour and some variant of shame.
His arms were folded across his chest and he was perfectly still in the midst of all the activity. We locked eyes for a moment longer than necessary and my skin flamed with heat. Why was he even here? Editors didn’t usually show up at interviews, no matter how big a splash.
A choking noise from Premilla distracted me – she was so distressed by the scale of this operation that she was crying. ‘Sssh,’ I said softly. ‘It’s okay.’
Chrissy had noticed our arrival so I plastered on a big smile for her – but she shut me down. ‘You’ve full copy appro.’
I had? This was great news. ‘Thank you.’
‘Not my call.’ God, she was pissed off. ‘Thank him.’ She jerked her head in Josh Rowan’s direction – he had suddenly appeared at my side.
‘Premilla? Josh Rowan, I edit the section you’ll run in. I’m sorry you have to go through this. But we’ll do all we can to make today bearable.’ There he went, with his ‘most trusted’ accent, trying to charm her.
Premilla swallowed and nodded.
‘We just want to make you look good,’ Josh Rowan said. ‘And you and Amy have full copy approval. That means –’
‘Premilla knows what that means,’ I said. Patronizing arse.
‘Let’s get going, shall we?’ Chrissy really wasn’t happy.
‘Just a moment.’ This didn’t start until Premilla was comfortable. I guided her to an armchair. ‘What would you like to drink, lovely? Water? Camomile tea?’
‘Tea.’
‘I’ll make it,’ Josh Rowan said.
Was that why he was here? As a tea-boy? Like, hardly.
While he was gone to whatever part of the suite the camomile tea happened in, Chrissy started firing questions – clearly the interview was under way without any of the soft-soaping that usually precedes them.
Shaky and scared, Premilla stumbled over her first answer, and fury filled me.
‘Just a moment.’ My face was smiley but my voice was sharp. ‘Chrissy, a quick word? In private?’ I was on my feet, walking away with purpose.
In the corridor that connected the living room and the bedroom, I said, ‘I get that giving copy appro is a bummer. But Premilla is genuinely fragile. Can’t you be kind?’
She gave me the death-glare, then her expression wavered. ‘Okay.’ She sighed. ‘Okay.’
She turned and went back in, me behind her, just as Josh Rowan appeared in the corridor and blocked my path. ‘Everything okay?’