Original Sin. Tasmina Perry

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      ‘Do we have anything clearer of a bigger name?’ she asked hopefully. ‘What about a soap actress?’

      ‘How about this?’ said Jemma, enlarging an image with a triumphant look.

      The picture was grainy. The man in the shot was naked and bent over what appeared to be a line of cocaine. Tess frowned and squinted.

      ‘Don’t you recognize him?’

      Tess shook her head. ‘Who is it?’

      ‘Well, maybe you’ll see better in this one.’

      Jemma clicked onto an image of a black van. You could clearly make out that somebody was being carried into the back of it on a stretcher.

      ‘Shit,’ said Tess, her eyes widening. ‘What’s going on here?’

      ‘The same guy being stretchered into a private ambulance,’ said Jemma with a smile. ‘He’s at a private hospital in North London now.’

      ‘So who is it?’ asked Tess.

      ‘Sean Asgill.’

      It took Tess a second to recognize the name. Sean Asgill was a New York playboy. Heir to a cosmetics family fortune. Handsome and wealthy, he was a fixture in the society pages with a string of model and actress girlfriends. It was a headline all right: ‘Tragedy at A-list Sex Party.’

      ‘Christ,’ said Tess. ‘Did he … die?’

      Tess felt bad asking, but it was an occupational hazard for someone in her job, wishing the worst on people because it made a better headline.

      ‘I followed the ambulance on my scooter and I told the nurse I was family. She told me it was a suspected ketamine overdose. Asgill probably thought it was a line of coke. Apparently he’s in a coma. I hung around for a bit and, after half an hour, this guy of about fifty turned up. His dad maybe? I scarpered pretty quickly.’

      Jemma looked at Tess hopefully. ‘So what do you think? Is it the splash?’

      Tess shook her head. The irony was that, in the States, this would not only be front-page news, it would also lead the TV news and would probably even make waves in Washington. Sean Asgill’s sister had just become engaged to the son of one of America’s richest and most powerful men, which made her brother’s drugs overdose at a sex party very hot gossip indeed. But over here, Sean Asgill was virtually unknown outside society columns.

      ‘We’ll talk about this later,’ whispered Tess, snapping the laptop closed as Dom walked back into the room, naked except for a small towel wrapped around his waist, his tanned skin glistening with droplets of shower-water.

      ‘What are you two gossiping about?’ he smiled, clearly enjoying the two women’s eyes on him. ‘And where’s my tea?’

      The Sunday Globe was a newspaper whose glory days were long gone. Tess sat back in her chair and looked at the chipped paintwork and tired carpet: the state of the office reflected the paper’s decline. After twenty years as a Daily Mail wannabe with a dwindling circulation, it had been bought by ruthless media mogul Matthew Jenkins, who had turned it into a red-top tabloid, but the change of direction had failed to boost sales; Jenkins had drastically cut costs and jobs to keep afloat. He certainly hadn’t spent any money on improving the working conditions, thought Tess, shutting down her temperamental and near-obsolete computer. When the Globe’s much-loved editor, the jolly, corpulent, fifty-something Derek Bradford had had a heart attack and died, Tess had been considered a shoo-in for the top job. Even though she was only twenty-nine, she had paid her dues: three years in local papers doing hard news, women’s editor at the Mirror, features editor at the Sunday Globe, and finally deputy editor. Quite a CV for someone her age. She’d been disappointed but not entirely surprised when, six weeks ago, the vacant editorship had been given to Andy Davidson, number three on the daily paper and Wentworth golfing buddy of the proprietor. Jenkins had long been labelled a misogynist; she’d even heard that he’d once laughed that, as far as the editorship of one of his flagship titles was concerned, he ‘wanted to fuck Tess Garrett, not give her the top job’. Well, he could go and fuck himself, thought Tess angrily, taking a quick swig of coffee. It was why she was determined to use this week in the editor’s chair to prove her boss had made the wrong decision.

      Tess stood up, smoothed down her Armani skirt and slipped on her sharply tailored jacket; it was time to show them who was boss. Every morning at ten a.m. the Sunday Globe had a news conference for the editorial team and, as today was Friday, the urgent item on the agenda was the splash for the Sunday front page, the first edition of which was sent down to the printers at six p.m. on Saturday night. Friday was therefore the most hectic time of the week, with the staff often working right through the weekend until the early hours of Sunday morning, ready to change the splash if a better story came in. In newspapers, the front page was everything.

      ‘So. Nothing obvious for the splash yet,’ began news editor Ben Leith boldly, when the key editorial staff were gathered around the oval conference table. Tess narrowed her eyes. She knew Ben was after her job, but there was no need to blatantly undermine her at the first opportunity.

      ‘Well, what do you have?’ asked Tess pointedly. ‘Speaking as news editor.’

      Leith sighed. ‘There’s still the air hostess/prostitutes story hanging around. But the lawyers think the airline might sue.’

      Tess grimaced. That particular story had been filed three weeks earlier and so far Andy had passed it over, leaving it for a dire week when there was nothing to splash with. Tess certainly didn’t want to run the lame-duck story in her week as editor.

      ‘We have Serena Balcon’s hen-night shots,’ said Jon Green, the Globe’s photo director eagerly. ‘She’s in Miami topless.’

      Tess shook her head. ‘Great for inside, Jon, but we can’t run a nipple shot on the cover.’

      ‘Yes, the nips are out in every shot,’ replied Jon, looking a little deflated. ‘Although we could always put globes over her tits for the cover-shot. Readers might think it’s funny,’ he said, gaining a few sniggers from the younger members of staff.

      ‘I think people want to see Serena’s nips,’ said Ben Leith, seizing another opportunity to put pressure on Tess. She reminded herself that the news editor was best friends with the editor, Andy, and would no doubt be reporting everything back to their boss.

      ‘Maybe we can run something next to the logo,’ said Tess, firmly, ‘but it’s not the big story.’

      Leith looked sulky and muttered something about feminist bullshit under his breath, but Tess ignored him.

      ‘Let’s take a view at four o’clock conference. Ben, can we meet after lunch? I have a stringer working on a story which we might be able to turn into the splash.’

      She stalked back to her office, sat in her chair, and swivelled it to stare out of the window. Her reflection stared back at her. Dark green eyes, a strong brow, creamy skin with good bone structure; a face to be reckoned with. A glamorous newspaper editor’s face, she smiled grimly. That meeting was exactly the reason she was struggling to enjoy this week as editor. There had been none of the empowering buzz she always thought she would feel in the editor’s chair, and she had been tense and crotchety all week. It was not that she didn’t think she СКАЧАТЬ