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Two hours later Krajewski arrived clutching a large box of hot pizza. He had telephoned but got no answer. He was concerned, and was attempting to hide his concern beneath the pepperoni and extra cheese. He found Mattie sitting on the floor in the dark, huddled in the comer with her knees drawn up under her chin, clenching her arms around her tightly. She had been crying.
He said nothing but knelt beside her, and this time she allowed him to hug the tears away. It was some time before she could say anything.
'Johnnie, you told me that if I couldn't offer commitment I could never make it as a journalist, that I would be no better than a butterfly. I realise now that you were right. Until today I was simply chasing a story - oh, a big one, for sure, but what really mattered was ending up with my name at the top of the page one lead. Like a film - rooting out the wrongdoers from their hiding places, never giving a damn about the cost. I've been acting a role, the intrepid journalist struggling to unravel the lies in the face of overwhelming odds. But it's no longer a game, Johnnie...'
She looked into his eyes, and he saw that her tears were not tears of fear or pain, but tears of release, as if she had at last struggled from the clutches of the bog onto solid ground.
'All I wanted was a story, a great one. I threw away my job and I even trampled over your feelings just in case you got in the way. Now I would give anything for the whole story to disappear, but it's too late.'
She gripped his hand, needing someone now. 'You see, Johnnie, none of it was coincidence. Woolton was deliberately blackmailed out of the leadership race. Somebody got rid of him, just as they got rid of Collingridge, of McKenzie, of Earle. And of O'Neill.'
'Do you realise what you're saying?'
'O'Neill's death was suicide or murder. And how many people have you ever heard of committing suicide in a public lavatory!'
'Mattie, this isn't the KGB we are dealing with.'
'As far as O'Neill is concerned, it may just as well have been.'
'Jesus!'
'Johnnie, there is someone out there who will stop at nothing to fix the election of the man who in a few hours' time will become the most powerful individual in the country.'
That's terrifying. But who... ?'
She pounded the floor in anger.
That's the bloody trouble. I don't know! I've been sitting here in the dark knowing that there is a man, a name, some clue which will reveal it all, but I just can't find it. Everything leads back to O'Neill, and now he's gone...'
You are certain that it couldn't have been O'Neill, perhaps, who got so deeply involved ... got scared. Lost control and killed himself ?'
'No! Of course it wasn't O'Neill. It couldn't have been...'
The flame spluttered once more, warming her, its heat dispelling a little more of the mists of confusion which clung to her mind.
'Johnnie, while O'Neill played his part with most and possibly all of the leaks, he couldn't have done it by himself. Some of those leaks were from Government, not from the Party. Highly confidential information which would not have been available to all members of the Cabinet, let alone a party official'
She took a deep breath, as deep as if it were the first breath of fresh air she had taken in days.
'Do you see what that means, Johnnie. There must be a common link. There must be, if only we could find it.. '
'Mattie, we can't give up now. There has to be a way. Look, have you got a list of Cabinet Ministers?'
'In the drawer of my work table.'
He leapt to his feet and scrabbled about in the drawer before coming up with the list. With a broad sweep of his arm he cleared all the papers, books and assorted debris off the top of her large work table, exposing its smooth, laminated white work surface. The whiteness of the desk was like an open page waiting to be filled. He grabbed an artist's pen and began scrawling down on the laminate all the twenty-two names from the sheet.
'OK. Who could have been responsible for the leaks? Come on, Mattie. Think!' The fire had caught inside him now.
Mattie did not move. She was frozen in the corner, all her last reserves of energy concentrated on sorting out the jumble in her mind.
There were at least three leaks which had to come from inside the Cabinet,' she said at last. There were the Territorial Army cuts, the cancellation of the hospital expansion scheme, and the Renox drug approval. O'Neill would never have known about those first-hand. But who in Government would have?'
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