‘… I can’t help thinking Ring video is going to furnish quite a few stories in the coming years. It’s already being cited in divorces. Maybe this is the first famous scandal we break via doorbell surveillance.’
At the end of a lot of talking on her part, Bel felt she should finish by holding her hands palms up and saying:and that’s our show.
Instead after a pause, she finished lamely: ‘Over to you.’
‘Hmm.’ Toby swivelled on his chair, as was his wont, in the rectangular frame of Bel’s laptop, which was set on her dining room table. The meeting the following day was deemed considerably too sensitive for the usual office-based Teams session.
‘You know, I never want to be “The No Guy” as far as you’re concerned, Bel. Very much not what I brought you in for, you know that. I asked for ambitious and you gave me “ambitious”, right off the bat …’
Bel smiled and thought she didn’t mind the ‘no’– this was always going to be a long shot– but a leisurely preamble to it might get on her tits. The same way defence lawyers felt it was a bad sign if juries returned quickly, Toby asking for a meetingwithin twenty-four hours of her proposing this project seemed to forecast a swift refusal.
One of the newspaper’s lawyers was sitting in on their session– that’s how you knew for sure it was a big ask. Albert Double Barrel (Bel had forgot the precise name) was the kind of posh you didn’t think really existed outside of British romantic comedies hoping to sell to the American market. He wore a brocade waistcoat and often had a Tupperware with him of apple slices, ‘from my orchard’. When Bel told Aaron this, he said: ‘Next time I’m in with him I’m going to tell him my Crème Eggs are from my chocolate hen.’
‘There’s a high bar here, and we are tantalisingly close, but we haven’t cleared it,’ Toby said. ‘If Bailey turns out to be a common or garden one-off cheating husband, and we went to these invasive lengths to prove it … Well, sex scandals ain’t what they used to be. You know, we live in the age of “negotiated ethical non-monogamy”. Boris moved into No 10 without answering questions about how many children he has, or having got round to marrying the next wife. The danger is that the Mayor putting it about is greeted with a massive So What? His wife says, “actually we’ve got an understanding”, and they become the first high-profile poster couple for polyamory. I can see the Twitter heat and backlash pieces now. Meanwhile, we’ve got IPSO up our arses demanding to know why our undercover reporter insinuated their way into innocent bystanders’ lives and hacked their tablets, all to show that a married couple are unconventional. We’re going after a rich family with the resources to sue, at that.’
‘But Glenn Bailey isn’t simply sleeping with other women,’ Bel said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. ‘He’sspecifically preying on younger women where there’s a power imbalance, lying, exploiting and discarding them along with the Durex. Women don’t feel they can say no to the boss, or they trust them in a way that makes grooming much easier. You don’t realise it’s all been manipulation until, as Erin described, you are dispensed with. It might not be illegal, but itisimmoral and abusive, and he’s the Mayor.’
‘I agree entirely,’ Toby pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes, ‘but we have the word of a twenty-four-year-old who none of us have even met, saying this, off the record. The only way we prove this isn’t one lapse of judgement by the Mayor is your stab at espionage. And if we can’t prove it, or find it’s not true, it’s a fuck of a risk. Undercover 101: you need to know you’re definitely going to find the thing you’re looking for. I feel like we’re far from sure.’
‘OK, so … I thought you might say this,’ Bel said, hoping her gamble of holding this back paid off. ‘I then took a different tack and thought, what if we treated theenablersas the target? I looked into Gloria Kendrick’s business interests. In 2023, she and her husband were arrested and questioned on suspicion of fraud. The Kendricks were involved in a scheme where would-be investors were approached to purchase apartments in Ibiza off-plan, with the promise of charging high rents. The projects were never completed, investors lost a fortune. British police running a fraud investigation called Operation Foxhole teamed up with the Spanish authorities to try to nail them for it. The Kendricks’ lawyers negotiated plea deals in return for suspended sentences. Sending you the links …’
She prodded her phone to ping Toby’s phone.
Bel could see she had Albert Double-Barrel’s full attention now too.
‘Glenn Bailey is legacy friends with her, and sure, none of us are responsible for what our old uni circle is up to, even politicians,’ Bel said. ‘But our Mayor using one of her properties for illicit sex and therefore being wide open to blackmail? That’s clear public interest. That’s Profumo not only sleeping with a showgirl, but the showgirl also sleeping with the Russian attaché. I’d argue that if we find Glenn’s staying there regularly we don’t even need the girls for it to be a story. Why’s he there, full stop? Then what happens when a Kendrick planning permission controversy crosses the Mayor’s desk?’
There was a lengthy pause. Toby pressed and depressed his ballpoint pen with rapid clicks.
‘What if we photograph him going in and out of this place? A lot easier.’
‘I thought about that, too. Firstly, you’d need someone there every night of the month to catch him; secondly, Google Street View tells me the door is well shielded from the street, so you’re going to get a grainy image ofman walks down public thoroughfare. Thirdly, he’s very jumpy, as you’d expect. If someone is snapping away taking his picture, twenty quid says he realises, and he never visits the place again. He made Erin follow him after a fifteen-minute wait– he knows what he’s doing.’
‘He’s the full twenty-four carat shit, isn’t he?’ Toby said.
‘He’s a real leading man love interest,’ Bel agreed.
Toby smiled and she felt it possible that he genuinely liked her, in a way he perhaps hadn’t taken to Aaron, and this might help her case.
‘What will you do if you befriend this Amber and getnowhere near her iPad? Trying to get eyes on a passcode is a tall order.’
‘I’ll give up,’ Bel said, ‘The most underrated tool in the investigator’s toolkit.’
‘Albert, what say you?’ Toby said.
Albert put his snack box down and cleared his throat.
‘I didn’t like our chances when it was the infidelity alone because, as you say, we’re not a tabloid, and playing away from home is covered under right to a private life. But if he’s taking undeclared favours from a convicted criminal, that’s indisputable corruption. As Miss Macauley says, that makes the exploitative intercourse a “nice to have”, not a necessity. Not nice tohave, you know what I mean. I’ve got a four o’ clock meeting, by the way, Toby, not to be a pain,’ he said.
‘To be clear, as our lawyer, you’re green lighting this?’
‘I am.’
The virtual air between London and Manchester hung heavy, yet Bel felt confident she’d turned this around.
Toby sucked in a breath, and chair-swung again.
‘All right. Six weeks maximum of being Amber Kendrick’s new gal pal, with this as a weekly check-in. No covert recording devices for now, let’s see if we can get hold of the Ring video and get Mr Bailey on the ropes. Stick anything you need on expenses, but don’t take the piss. If Amber wants to bond during a holiday in Capri, steer her towards Las Iguanas fishbowl cocktails instead.’
