Free This Little Piggy by Bea Davenport Page A

get that job was turn up on the day of the interview. But we never got to the bottom of what happened, did we?”
    “I told you.” Clare kept her eyes fixed on the beaten-up old Olivetti that sat on the desk. “I wasn’t well. Some sort of a bug.”
    “You said that. But you’re never ill. And I know you, you’d have done the interview anyway, even if you were at death’s door. And ever since you seem to have… I don’t know. Lost some of your spark.”
    “That’s probably because you gave that idiot Barber the job and then you sent me out to the news equivalent of the salt mines. Anyone would lose their spark after that.”
    “You’re taking it way too hard.”
    The office door burst open and Chris Barber strode in, red-faced and panting, making his way straight towards Dave Bell. “That’s it. I’m never going to a picket line again. Have you got any idea what they’re like, those bloody strikers?”
    Dave Bell glanced at Clare. She noticed a small glint in his eyes. “Clare knows. She’s done picket duty a few times, haven’t you?”
    Clare nodded. “Weren’t they nice to you, Chris?”
    “They spat at me. Animals. And you should see the state of my car. It’s been kicked so hard there are dents in it and the paintwork’s ruined. I’m billing the paper for the repairs, Dave.”
    “You took your own car?” Clare asked. “What, that red sporty thing? What were you thinking?”
    “I can’t drive the company car,” Chris said, wiping sweat from his face. “It’s too small. I’d get a back injury. And I was sitting in my car when a whole mob of them came up and started rocking it back and forward. It was bloody terrifying.”
    Clare laughed. “They do that almost every time, Chris. They’ve never actually turned one over. Yet.”
    Bell got up and walked away, with Chris Barber following him. “I think I should write about the way the miners behave towards the press. It was a disgrace.”
    “I don’t think so,” Bell replied. “No one cares about reporters. They just want us to do our job and report the news. Doesn’t matter if we get beaten up a bit along the way. And it definitely doesn’t matter if a journalist’s flashy sports car gets a scratch or two.”
    Clare decided she wouldn’t stay to hear any more of the row. “I’m going to talk baby clothes with the lovely people at Sweetmeadows,” she told Bell.
    “I should come with you,” said Barber.
    “Because?”
    “To get my face known round there. This story’s getting bigger. It was one thing when it looked like a stressed-out mother battering her baby. It’s more important now that there’s a killer on the loose.”
    Clare looked at Dave Bell for support.
    “It’s something the chief reporter should be covering, and you know it,” Barber added, looking at Bell.
    “A chief reporter,” said Clare, swallowing down her anger, “should be bringing in their own exclusive stories. Not piggybacking onto stories that other reporters have been covering, perfectly well.”
    Dave Bell rubbed his eyes. “Maybe it would be a good idea if the two of you went out there together anyway. Safer.” He gave Clare an apologetic look. “I’d feel happier.”
    “Joe’s usually with me,” Clare argued. “I haven’t had any bother at all, anyway.”
    “Not yet. And technically, Joe’s part of a different paper. Even though you two go round in a pair like Cagney and bloody Lacey.”
    Clare chewed the inside of her lip, trying to come up with a way to get out of this. “Tomorrow, maybe. But don’t you need to get your car fixed, Chris?”
    Barber glanced at his watch. “I suppose I’d better sort that out. We’ll go there tomorrow, right? You can introduce me to some of your contacts.”
    “Yeah,” Clare said, turning to go. “Like hell,” she added, under her breath, as she strode out of the office.
    She was pleased to spot Joe’s car parked at the edge of the Sweetmeadows estate. He was talking to some young mums