“Goodness you’ve been busy. Has the website been going long?”
“Not really—but I have.” Kiki sighed. “I’ve been a reporter for years but this is my first online job and it’s incredibly stressful. I’ve got a twelve-year-old news editor and he wants me to upload content. Content! That’s what they call news now. Sorry. I’m venting,” she said with a laugh.
And Elise let her in.
Journalists were known by some of her lot as an unnecessary evil. Elise had never seen it that way, though; her view was that they could help one another and she never said no to help. Most of them were fine, especially the crime reporters she met over and over again. They were mainly blokes—young ones who bounced around a story like Tigger, and old boys—the Eeyores who’d seen and done everything. But she kept boundaries: She didn’t go out and get drunk with them like some or go to their houses for Sunday barbecues. It was a working relationship.
“I assume you’re talking to the press office?” she said. “They’re the official source.”
“Yes, but they’ve been giving out the same line since the body was found. That’s no good for rolling news or the rumor mill. And I can’t get near DI Ward.”
“He’ll hold a press conference, I’m sure.”
Elise would. Would’ve already done it. To get the word out, get people remembering where they had last seen Charlie. What they had seen. Instead, they were letting the hate chat and lurid rumors ramp up. And if she didn’t say anything, Ms. Nunn would probably knock next door and get Ronnie. . . .
“All right, tell me what you know and I’ll try to guide you in the right direction,” she said, and pointed to the other chair.
Kiki smiled again and sat. “Thanks.”
“Okay. And on the condition that everything is off the record. You can’t quote me.”
“？’Course not.”
“So you can turn off the recorder on your phone.”
Elise watched as Kiki did so and let Kiki tell the story she was writing. Elise interrupted occasionally to put her straight on small details but she seemed to have most of it.
“So Charlie Perry was seen on Friday at the festival? And then near the static caravans where the laborers are living,” Kiki added.
“Really? Who said that?”
“A bloke in the Neptune.” The reporter consulted her notebook. “He didn’t want to give me his name.”
“It’s the first time I’ve heard that,” Elise said. “Just an observation but the statics are on the Brighton road and Charlie’s body was found at his home—in the opposite direction.”
“Okay, I’ll check it. I’ve heard a dog led the police to the body.”
Elise laughed. “It was me, actually. I was near the footpath at the back of his property and—”
“And?”
“I smelled something.”
“God! How awful for you.”
“It’s not my first time—”
“No, ’course not. Sorry. I was just thinking what I’d feel like if it’d been me. Finding someone I knew.”
“Well, I hadn’t known him long, really,” Elise said. “I’m sure there will be others who knew him much better. I’d met him a couple of times and chatted in the shops. Nice man.”
“That’s what everyone says. No one has a bad word about him. They’ve been telling me about all his charity work—and his great stories.”
Elise wondered how quickly the press would dig out Charlie’s real past.
“It’s a funny place, Ebbing, isn’t it?” Kiki said as she put her notebook away. “Seems quite quiet at first glance. A bit down-at- heel, really. But it’s all going on, isn’t it? Drugs, arson, and now the unexplained death. It’s like Midsomer Murders. . . .”
* * *
—
Elise rang Caro as soon as Kiki left. “I know I’m seeing you later but I’ve had a reporter here.”
“Poor you. Hope you shut the door in his face.” Caro belonged to the other school of thought on the media.
“It was a her, actually. Kiki Nunn—do you know her? And no, I let her in because I thought it would be useful to hear what the locals are saying about Charlie.”
“Okay. Go on, then?”
“Murdered by Eastern European laborers, apparently . . .”
“Good grief. I’ll make a note. Look, I’ve got to get on, Elise—we’re still reviewing all the mobile phone footage from the festival to try to spot Charlie and anyone he spoke to there. There’s hours of it. Mostly people off their faces and bashing into one another.”