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SIX

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 well-paid lecture there. His work from Delhi had been highly praised and he was in fairly regular demand as an expert. His book, Terence Walton’s India, was credited with introducing the American public to a country they barely knew.

Inside the building, Walton was held in slightly lower esteem. That much, Will had picked up. The seating arrangements alone confirmed it: a returned foreign correspondent placed alongside the Metro staff’s newest recruit. It was hardly star treatment. Quite what Walton had done to deserve this slight Will did not yet know.

‘We were just discussing your front-page triumph. Good job. Of course, there will be doubters, sceptics, who wonder what greater light this tale shed, but I am not one of them. No, William, not me.’

‘Will. It’s Will.’

‘The executive editor seems to think it’s William. You might need to have a word with him. Anyway, my question is this: why, I wonder, should this little story be on the front page? What larger social phenomenon did it expose? I fear our new editor does not yet fully understand the sacred bottom left slot. It’s not just for amusing or interesting vignettes. It should serve as a window onto a new world.’

‘I think it was doing that. It was correcting a stereotype about urban life in this city. This man seemed like a sleazeball but he was, you know, better than that.’

‘Yes, that’s great. And well done! Tremendous job. But remember what they say about beginner’s luck: very hard to pull off that trick twice. I doubt even you could find too many “tales of ordinary people”—’ he was putting on a cutesy, Pollyanna-ish voice ‘—that would interest the New York Times. At least not the New York Times I used to work for. Once counts as an achievement, William; twice would be a miracle.’

Will turned back to his computer, to his email inbox. Woodstein, Amy. In the subject field: Coffee?

Five minutes later Will was in the vast Times canteen, all but deserted at this morning hour. He paced up and down by the glass cases which housed Times merchandise: sweatshirts, baseball caps, toy models of the old Times delivery trucks. Amy materialized beside him, clutching a cup of herbal tea.

‘I just wanted to say sorry about all that just now. That’s the downside of working here: lot of testosterone, if you know what I mean.’

‘It was fine—’

‘People are very competitive. And Terry Walton especially.’

‘I got that impression.’

‘Do you know the story with him?’

‘I know he used to be in Delhi and that he was forced to come back.’

‘They accused him of expenses fraud. They couldn’t prove it, which is why he’s still here. But there’s certainly some trust issues.’

‘About money, you mean?’

‘Oh no, not just about money.’ She gave a bitter chuckle.

‘What else then?’

‘Well, look, you didn’t hear this from me, OK? But my advice is to lock up your notebooks when Terry’s around. And talk quietly when you’re on the phone.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘Terry Walton steals stories. He’s famous for it. When he was in the Middle East they called him The Thief of Baghdad.’

Will was smiling.

‘It’s actually not that funny. There are journalists around the world who could talk all night about the crimes of Terence Walton. Will, I’m serious: lock away your notebooks, your documents, everything. He will read them.’

‘So that’s why he writes like that.’

‘What?’

‘Walton has this very tiny handwriting, completely indecipherable. That’s deliberate, isn’t it? To make sure no one reads his notes.’

‘I’m just saying, be careful.’

When he arrived back in the newsroom he found Glenn Harden sticking a Post-it to his screen. ‘Come up and see me some time.’

‘Ah, here you are. I have a message from National. Go west, young man.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘To Seattle. Bates’s wife is in labour and National need us to cover. Apparently they don’t have any reporters of their own, so they’ve put out the begging bowl.’ Harden raised his voice. ‘I scraped the bottom of the barrel and offered them Walton, but he’s come up with some lame-assed excuse and suggested you.’ Walton was on the phone, not listening. ‘Talk to Jennifer, she’ll fix you a flight.’

‘Thank you,’ Will stammered, a smile beginning to break on his face. He knew this was a major break, a serious vote of confidence. Sure, it was only cover, only temporary. But Harden would not want Metro disgraced in the eyes of what he regarded as the Ivy League snobs over at National: he would want to show Metro’s best face. Will gulped at the thought: that was him.

‘Oh and pack your galoshes.’