The Ardmore Inheritance by Rob Wyllie (reading the story of the .txt) 📕

She noticed that Patel was carrying a large padded black bag which was slung over his shoulder on a robust strap. A bag that bore an instantly-recognisable logo. Canon. Curious that.

'Yeah, great to see you guys again too,' he said, bubbling with his customary enthusiasm. 'This is going to be an absolutely top story, don't you think? Wicked.'

Jimmy took a slurp of his pint and frowned. 'No idea mate. My brother's been a bit sparing with the info thus far.'

'Aye, well I'll bring you up to date now,' Frank said. 'Let's just say it's a wee undercover job for you two.'

'And it's dodgy,' Maggie said. 'You said that too.'

'Aye, a bit, but you'll not be in any danger or anything like that. Just a wee bit of subterfuge, that's all.'

'So come on then,' Jimmy said. 'Clue us in.'

'Aye, all right then,' Frank said. 'So I talked to Yash here about what's going on with the Ardmore murders and the screw-up with the forensics and everything. And obviously about Pollock's role in the whole thing.'

'This story's got absolutely everything,' Patel said, his eyes gleaming. 'The gory murders, the little girl victim, the wrong guy gets locked up then goes and kills himself, the screw-up by the senior investigating officer who now happens to be the Chief Constable. I mean, shit, my editor thinks he's died and gone to heaven, he really does.'

'And another wee award beckons for you Yash my boy?' Frank said.

'Yeah, I've already written the headline,' Patel laughed. 'How top cop crashed and burned - a Chronicle exclusive. Sounds sweet, don't you think?'

Maggie gave Frank a sharp look. 'I'm sorry, but how do we fit into all of this?'

Patel reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew what looked like several pages torn from a magazine, then unfolded them and spread them out on the table.

'This is the puff piece,' he said, pointing to the headline printed above a large photograph of Sir Brian Pollock in his Chief Constable's uniform. 'The rise of a policing superstar. Good, eh?'

'Puff piece?' Maggie said, looking puzzled. 'I've heard the expression but I'm not sure what it means.'

'Think of it as bait,' he said. 'When we request an interview, we send them this mock-up of what the final article might look like. It's all twaddle, puffing up their reputation and saying how wonderful they are. Hence the name. It's designed to hook them in, and it never fails, especially with someone with as high opinion of himself as Pollock.'

Maggie raised an eyebrow in Jimmy's direction and gave a discreet smile. She guessed he was thinking the same as her. Takes one to know one.

'And nobody ever looks at the small print,' Patel continued, 'which says we reserve the right to write anything we damn well like.'

'I get that I think,' Maggie said, 'but sorry to sound like a broken record. I still don't get what you want us to do.'

'You're going to interview him for the Chronicle,' Frank said, smirking. 'Yash has got it all arranged. Pollock will be down in London tomorrow for some Chief Constable's bash and you'll be seeing him at three o' clock. All you need to do is decide who's going to be the journalist and who's going to be the photographer.'

'Yeah, all arranged,' Patel nodded. 'I've squared it all away with my editor.' He fumbled in another pocket for a second or two. 'Here, we've got you a couple of fake press passes, and actually Maggie, you'll have to be the journo I'm afraid. You're going to be Caroline Watts, if you don't mind.'

'Who's she?' Maggie asked, 'or is she made up?'

'No she's real enough,' Patel said, 'but nobody's ever heard of her. She's a freelancer that we use occasionally. Nice girl, but not much of a writer.'

'Well that shouldn't be too difficult for me then,' Maggie said, smiling. She examined the pass he'd given her. 'No photograph on it?'

'Don't need it, not on the Chronicle's passes at least. Never have done. And Jimmy, you're going to be Robert Watts the photographer, no relation. And he's not very well known either.'

'Unlike you, Yash mate,' Frank laughed. 'Everybody's heard of you.'

'Yeah probably,' he said, making no attempt at modesty, 'and that's why we need you guys. I'm very well-known as a top investigative journalist you see, so if I turned up he would smell a rat. Whereas you two will just be a couple of freelance features guys with the Saturday magazine, doing a nice light piece for the weekend readers.'

Maggie allowed herself a wry smile. Clearly in the newspaper trade, the freelance features guy was bottom of the food chain.

'Well I suppose it shouldn't be that hard,' she said doubtfully, 'but I still don't get what we're supposed to say to him.'

'That's easy,' Frank said. 'You butter him up for ten minutes then you say that your editor would be looking for some balance in the article.'

'That's right,' Patel agreed. 'You ask him if he can think of an occasion in his career when things maybe didn't go quite so well.'

'Aye,' Frank said, 'and if he can't think of anything, and I would put money on the fact that he won't, then that's when you bring up the Ardmore murders.  Drop it in nice and casual.'

'You mean light the blue touch-paper,' Maggie said.

'Exactly.'

Jimmy grinned. 'Well, the mission's clear enough to me and it looks like all I have to do is carry that camera bag. Easy. And then maybe I might be able to fit in a couple of wedding before I hand it back. There's real money in them.'

◆◆◆

The conference venue was the London Hilton on Park Lane, a location that Maggie and Jimmy knew quite well from a previous case. She found it a rather surprising choice, imagining that such a high-profile gathering would take place in a secure government building somewhere surrounded by armed guards. Instead the atmosphere was relaxed, the double-doored