Clean Break. Val McDermid

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      I walked briskly down the newsroom, no one paying any attention. I could probably walk off with the entire computer network before anyone would notice or try to stop me. Mind you, if I’d laid a finger on the newsdesk TV, I’d have been lynched before I’d got five yards.

      I knew Alexis was at her desk. I couldn’t actually see her through the wall of luxuriant foliage that surrounds her corner of the office. But the spiral of smoke climbing towards the air-conditioning vent was a clear indicator that she was there. When they installed the computer terminals at the Chronicle, the management tried to make the newsroom a no-smoking zone. The policy lasted about five minutes. Separating journalists from nicotine is about as easy as separating a philandering government minister from his job.

      I stuck my head round the screen of variegated green stuff. Alexis was leaning back in her seat, feet propped up on the rim of her wastepaper bin, dabbing her cigarette vaguely at her mouth as she frowned at her terminal. I checked out her anarchic black hair. Its degree of chaos is a fairly accurate barometer of her stress levels. The more uptight she gets, the more she runs her hands through it. Today, it looked like I could risk interrupting her without getting a rich gobful of Scouse abuse.

      ‘I thought they paid you to work,’ I said, moving through the gap in the leaves into her jungle cubbyhole.

      She swung round and grinned. ‘All right, KB?’ she rasped in her whisky-and-cigarettes voice.

      ‘I think I’m in love, but apart from that, I’m fine.’ I pulled up the other chair.

      Alexis snorted and went into Marlene Dietrich growl. ‘Falling in love again, never wanted to,’ she groaned. ‘Though I’m ninety-two, I can’t help it. I’ve told you before, it’s about time you got shut of the wimp.’ She and Richard maintain this pretence of hostility. He’s always giving her a bad time for being a siren chaser, and she pretends to despise him for devoting his life to the trivia of rock journalism. But underneath, I know there’s a lot of affection and respect.

      ‘Who said anything about Richard?’ I asked innocently.

      ‘And there’s me thinking you two were getting things sorted out between you,’ she sighed. ‘So who’s the lucky man? I mean, I’m assuming that you haven’t seen the light, and it is a fella.’

      ‘His name’s Michael Haroun. But don’t worry, it’s only lust. It’ll pass as soon as I have a cold shower.’

      ‘So what does he do, this sex object?’

      I pulled a face. ‘You’re going to laugh,’ I said.

      ‘Probably,’ Alexis agreed. ‘So you might as well get it over with.’

      ‘He’s in insurance.’

      I’d been right. She did laugh, a deep, throaty guffaw that shook the leaves. I half expected an Amazonian parrot to fly out from among the undergrowth and join in. ‘You really know how to pick them, don’t you?’ Alexis wheezed.

      ‘You don’t pick sex objects, they just happen,’ I said frostily. ‘Anyway, nothing’s going to happen, so it’s all academic anyway. Things between me and Richard might have seen better days, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.’

      ‘So you don’t want me to call Chris and get her to build a brick wall across the conservatory?’

      Alexis’s girlfriend Chris is the architect who designed the conservatory that runs along the back of the two houses Richard and I live in, linking them yet allowing us our own space. It had been the perfect solution for two people who want to be together but whose lifestyles are about as compatible as Burton and Taylor. ‘Restrain yourself, Alexis. I’m not about to let my hormones club my brain into submission.’

      ‘Is that it, then? You come in here, interrupting the creative process, just to tell me nothing’s happening?’

      ‘No, I only gave you the gossip so you wouldn’t complain that I was only here to exploit you,’ I said.

      Alexis blew out a cloud of smoke and a sigh. ‘All right, what do you want to know?’

      ‘Is that any way to speak to a valued contact who’s brought you a story?’ I asked innocently.

      Alexis tipped forward in her seat and crushed out her cigarette in an already brimming ashtray. ‘Why do I have the feeling that this is the kind of gift that takes more assembling than an Airfix kit?’

       3

      I left Alexis to hassle the police of six counties in search of the story we both knew was lurking somewhere and headed back to Mortensen and Brannigan. Shelley was busy on the phone, so I went straight through to my office. I stopped in my tracks on the threshold. I heard Shelley finish her call and swung round to glare at her. ‘What exactly is that?’ I demanded.

      She didn’t look up from the note she was writing. ‘What does it look like? It’s a weeping fig.’

      ‘It’s fake,’ I said through gritted teeth.

      ‘Silk,’ she corrected me absently.

      ‘And that makes it OK?’

      Shelley finally looked up. ‘Every six weeks you buy a healthy, thriving, living plant. Five weeks later, it looks like locust heaven. The weeping fig will have paid for itself within six months, and even you can’t kill a silk plant,’ she said in matter-of-fact tones that made my fingers itch to get round her throat.

       ‘If I wanted a schneid plant, I’d have bought one,’ I said.

      ‘You sound …’

      ‘“Like one of my kids”,’ I finished, mimicking her calm voice. ‘You don’t understand, do you? It’s the challenge. One day, I’m going to find a plant that runs riot for me.’

      ‘By which time the planet will be a desert,’ Shelley said, tossing her head so that the beads she had plaited into her hair jangled like a bag of marbles.

      I didn’t dignify that with a reply. I simply marched into my office, picked up the weeping fig and dropped it next to her desk. ‘You like it so much, you live with it,’ I said, stomping back to my office. If she was going to treat me like one of her teenage kids, I might as well enjoy the tantrum. I pulled the brownish remains of the asparagus fern out of the bin and defiantly dumped it on the windowsill.

      Before I could do anything more, my phone rang. ‘What now?’ I barked at Shelley.

      ‘Call for you. A gentleman who refuses to give his name.’

      ‘Did you tell him we don’t do matrimonials?’

      ‘Of course I did. I’m not the one who’s premenstrual.’

      I bit back a snarl as Shelley put the call through. ‘Kate Brannigan,’ I said. ‘How can I help you?’

      ‘I need your help, Ms Brannigan. It’s an extremely confidential matter. Brian Chalmers from PharmAce recommended you.’

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