Читать книгу You Had Me At Hello, How We Met: 2 Bestselling Romantic Comedies in 1 - Katy Regan - Страница 32

Pete Gretton and I share the press bench in the later half of the week for the opening of a medical negligence trial. It concerns the very untimely death of a twenty-nine-year-old woman in a liposuction procedure, and two NHS doctors and a nurse at a private practice being prosecuted for negligence and manslaughter. There are several stringers from the agencies – a more geographically mobile, less seedy strain of freelancer than Gretton. He’s here because we’ve heard there’ll be some fairly gory details of operative complications and dislodged fat particles. Gretton is a rogue collection of cells himself, travelling around the arteries of the building and causing dangerously high blood pressure whenever he comes to a halt.

‘They can’t all be to blame,’ he mutters, before the court’s in session. ‘How many people does it take to stick a drip in an arm? CPS are simply chucking a handful of mud and hoping something sticks. Chewit?’

I shake my head at the proffered packet. ‘No thanks.’

‘On a diet?’

‘Get lost.’

Gretton bares yellow incisors. ‘Not to worry, most men like some meat on the bones. Hey, mind you, sounds like this ’un was taking it too far. Pushing twenty stone, I heard. Spherical.’

He chews noisily, giving me a view of his half-masticated sweet.

‘Shut up,’ I hiss, glancing at the heavy-set family in the public gallery, and twist my body as far away from him as possible. I need an I’m Not With Stupid t-shirt.

Solicitors are in hushed conference with barristers, papers are shuffled, people in the public gallery cough and shift in their seats.

A couple of the wigged-and-gowned fraternity are having a quiet chuckle about something that’s probably hilarious if you’re familiar with the intricacies of malpractice, and I see the family peering at them in irritated disbelief. I sympathise. It’s hard to believe that your earth-shattering calamity is merely another day at the office for people who do this kind of thing for a living.

Most of the time, journalists are rubber-necking tourists who can grasp the basic concepts involved. Dog bites man, man bites dog, man bites man because his dog looked at him funny, and so on. With a case like this, you have to become a short-term expert in a specific area of a highly skilled profession. Whenever a judge tetchily instructs a barrister or witness to simplify the terminology for the sake of the jury, the press bench heaves a near-audible sigh of relief.

As I leave the courtroom at lunchtime, I see Zoe in conversation with a woman I recognise from the public gallery.

Gretton’s seconds behind me, as ever.

‘What the fuck is she up to?’

‘Talking,’ I say.

Zoe and the woman look over at us; Zoe bends her head conspiratorially.

‘You want to grow some fuzz on your balls,’ Gretton says. ‘She’s talking to someone involved in this case. Don’t you care?’

‘Not really. She might be asking the time, for all we know.’

‘You’re bloody naïve, you are.’

‘It’s called trust.’

‘Trust? That girl doesn’t lie straight in bed.’

‘You didn’t like Zoe from the start, did you?’

‘I’ve got her number.’

I smile. ‘Takes one to know one, perhaps.’

Gretton trousers his Chewits and marches off, nostrils flaring.

Zoe walks up to me. ‘Pub o’clock?’

I nod. Since I took Zoe to The Castle, she’s assumed it as a weekly routine, and I surprised myself by not only acquiescing but actually enjoying it. Normally my lunchtimes are spent in jealously guarded semi-seclusion in the press room. I didn’t expect to make a friend.

Outside, I say: ‘Gretton got all unwound about you speaking to that woman. Who was she?’

‘Guess!’

‘Sister of my lipo victim?’

‘Mum. I saw them milling around earlier and I could tell she was going to appoint herself the gobby spokesperson so I got in early. I told her what Gretton said about how her daughter would be still be alive if she’d had her spoon surgically removed from the Häagen-Dazs.’

I stop in my tracks. ‘You didn’t?’

‘I did, and I said if she wants to talk afterwards, she should talk to you.’

‘But … Gretton said that in the press room.’

‘So?’

‘I know that was Gretton at his worst but we all say off-colour things about the cases in there from time to time. You shouldn’t share them round.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s just not done.’

Zoe bites her lip. ‘I went too far, didn’t I?’

We start walking again, I shift the weight of my bag to the other shoulder. ‘It’s definitely playing dirty. If Gretton finds out, he’ll go ape.’

‘Sorry. He was so nasty about her I thought it served him right.’

‘I know. Bear in mind you could’ve messed it up for all of us. The public don’t tend to make much distinction between good journalists and Grettons. A lot of them don’t even understand about open court. They’re amazed they can’t have us thrown out.’

‘I’m really sorry.’

‘Ah well … sensitive “our pain” interviews aren’t his forte, I can’t see him cosying up to the mum, so it probably won’t become an issue anyway. And he’ll hack them off by doing lots of gratuitous exploding arse stories during the trial.’

Conversation’s interrupted while we negotiate road crossing. When we resume progress, Zoe says: ‘My mum’s large.’

‘Really?’ I glance doubtfully at her sapling limbs.

‘I got my dad’s metabolism,’ she says. ‘Yeah, she looked into gastric banding at one point. But she was too big.’

‘Why would they …’ I start again. ‘Isn’t that the point?’

Zoe mutters something about surgery and anaesthesia risk.

‘Then she finally lost the weight and got the band, and started drinking those chocolate-flavoured protein shakes for body builders.’

‘Right. Liquids are probably best, at first. What with the smaller space.’

‘Not if you chug them all day and end up the size you were when you were turned down for surgery.’

‘Ah,’ I say. Poor Zoe – her jet-propelled ambition is probably a result of wanting to get a long way from problems at home.

‘Gretton hit a nerve,’ she concludes.

I feel bad for telling her off. I squeeze her arm.

‘Gretton hits all our nerves. Don’t dwell on it.’

‘Should I take back what I said? Tell the mum I misheard or something?’

‘I doubt she’d forget the ice-cream gag. Nah, leave it. Thanks for pointing her my way, too,’ I add, not wanting to sound ungrateful.

‘Any time,’ Zoe says. ‘We’re a team. Lunch is on me today. I’m going to try a Piscine Ploughman.’

‘A pissing ploughman?’

‘Smoked salmon sandwich.’

‘Oh.’

‘I made that up.’

‘Thank goodness.’

‘They call it Fishy on a Dishy.’

‘You’re ordering,’ I say, opening the pub door and ushering Zoe through. ‘I suffer enough humiliation without going looking for more.’