Pop Goes the Weasel

77

It was getting dark now, but that would only add atmosphere to the composition. The low light, the grainy image would help capture the feel Emilia was going for. By rights she should have asked for one of their regular snappers to come with her, but she knew how to operate a digital SLR as well as the next man and there was no way she was letting anybody else in on this story until she had the whole package.

Adrian Fielding had been remarkably helpful, once he’d realized Emilia would happily destroy his career if she didn’t get what she wanted. The file on Robert Stonehill began in undramatic fashion, a pitiful list of his recent minor misdemeanours, but got much more interesting once Emilia discovered he’d been adopted. There were scant details of his biological mother in the main file, but it was obvious enough that he’d been born in a prison hospital. As soon as she’d discovered this Emilia knew who he was – Helen Grace had only truly cared for one person – but being a good journalist she’d cross-referenced Robert’s age with the date of Marianne’s arrest. After that it was a short step to Marianne’s arrest sheet and the jigsaw was complete.

Emilia could barely keep her hand still as she raised the camera. The boy had been sent out to buy milk and was waiting impatiently in the queue. Snap, snap, snap. The detail wasn’t brilliant, but they looked snatched and dangerous. Emilia waited some more, watching as Robert paid. Now he was leaving the shop. Emilia raised the camera again. As if choreographed, he paused as he exited, casting his eyes up to the heavens as rain began to spit. The sodium glare from the street lamp caught his face, rendering him ghostly and unnatural. Snap, snap, snap. Then he pulled his hoody up and looked almost straight at her. He couldn’t see her hidden in the gloom but she could see him. Snap, snap, snap. The young man born of violence caught on the darkened streets wearing a hoody – the uniform of violent and disillusioned thugs the country over. Perfect.

Now that she had what she needed, Emilia was going to act. She should of course ring the editor of the Evening News, but there was no way she was going to do that. There was a contact she’d been cultivating at the Mail for just such an occasion. She had all she needed – if she was quick she could get it on the front page of tomorrow’s edition.

This was her ticket out. She had the price. She had the package. And she had her headline.

‘Son of a Monster.’