The Diaries of a Fleet Street Fox Read online

  Fleet Street Fox has been a tabloid reporter for more than a decade, and started a blog three years ago revealing the inside story of her divorce and chronicling a trade in decline.

  More recently she has started a news comment blog at www.fleetstreetfox.com, which gets 100,000 hits a month (and growing) and has seen her invited on to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe.

  This book is the first instalment in her diaries, a blend of her own true story and internal scandals of Fleet Street, with much more to come . . .

  THE DIARIES OF

  A FLEET STREET

  FOX

  CONSTABLE • LONDON

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Constable,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2013

  Copyright © Fleet Street Fox 2013

  The right of Fleet Street Fox to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication

  Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78033-656-5 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-178033-813-2 (ebook)

  Printed and bound in the UK

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Cover design: Leo Nickolls

  DEDICATION

  THIS story is as close to the truth as I can get without being sued, served with an injunction, or never spoken to again by some of my friends.

  In places identities and chronology have been fudged to deny the bad guys an opportunity for revenge, and to prevent the good guys from getting big heads.

  Other parts are raw and unvarnished, and I reckon you’ll be able to spot when I’m writing from the heart.

  As a consequence this book is a blend of fact and fiction, and you’ll have to work out for yourself which bits are which.

  I owe thanks to too many people to list here, but mainly to my inspiring and brilliant Mum and Dad, the two best friends anyone could ever have.

  Finally, this book is dedicated to the feral beasts of Fleet Street – I’m proud to be one of you.

  To my friends – enjoy. And to my enemies – read it and weep.

  PS I am not a real fox.

  DAY ONE

  TODAY is the worst day of the rest of my life. I mean, it can’t get much worse.

  So far I have attempted double murder, been in police custody, had several of the all-time Worst Conversations of my Life, and suffered a nervous breakdown at the ‘Baskets Only’ checkout in Sainsbury’s.

  All that and it’s only just gone noon. I suppose something more awful could happen in the next twelve hours, but unless I’m the sole victim of a tiny but well-aimed nuclear strike it’s simply not going to register.

  When today began, at 12.01 a.m, I was in a prison cell contemplating the ruin of everything I know and uncomfortably aware that I had broken the first rule of journalism. As a trainee reporter you are always told to practise your shorthand, stay away from the TV cameras, and above all things ‘never become the story’. But now not only was I the story, it was one my Fleet Street colleagues would cheerfully kill each other to find out about, and one which I have written so many times about other people that I knew all too well where it would lead. I could almost hear the knives being sharpened for me.

  I was also experiencing the world’s worst cup of tea, which the nice custody sergeant had got me out of a machine, the first ominous twinges of stress-induced diarrhoea, and the realization that my cell possessed just one tiny square of toilet paper.

  On top of that my shoes, laces and belt had been taken away – ‘just to be sure’ – and the only foot-coverings available in the high-security nick, more often used to house suspected terrorists, were size fourteen plimsolls. Pacing up and down the urine-scented ten-foot cell under the unblinking eye of a CCTV camera, I resembled not so much a desperate criminal as a woman trying to walk in flippers.

  Slap, slap, slap. Turn. Slap, slap, slap.

  And all the time sipping the undrinkable tea, grimacing, and thinking to myself: ‘I do hope I’m not in front of that camera when the squits arrive.’

  It would have been bearable had I been drunk. Then I could have found the whole thing wildly funny, burbled to myself for a bit and lapsed into a deep, dreamless sleep, thinking I would have a great yarn for my mates when I sobered up. Unfortunately I was stone-cold sober and chillingly aware of my surroundings, the failings which had led me there, and all of the possible, uniformly grim and painful outcomes. As I stared at the tiled wall all I could think was: ‘I am twenty-nine years old, my heart is broken, and my life is over.’

  That was twelve hours ago, and then I was numb, if a little weepy. Now the sun is high in the sky and I’m feeling a pain so great it’s a physical agony. It’s as though my heart is being torn to pieces, like there’s a knife behind my ribcage, and my lungs are filled with burning rocks. Even my blood hurts, as if there’s ground glass in every vein and capillary, each corpuscle sharpened to a series of lethal points bowling crazily around my insides, cutting, slashing, tearing. I’ve cried so much my throat is raw, but the tears still pour out of my eyes. Hell could not hold the pain I feel.

  But journalists are never off-duty, and even today I’m a news reporter, which means I cannot help but question things that seem unusual. The amount of snot I am producing, for one. Where’s it all coming from? Why won’t it stop? Why haven’t my eyes fallen out? And now that I have failed at both murder and marriage, what’s left?

  Another nagging worry is that I’m trying to hide, but the car park at Sainsbury’s may not be the best place to do it. Everyone who walks past the car can see me sitting in it sobbing like a mad woman. But all hacks know it’s easy to hide in a crowd, comforting even, and anything is better than being at home. My husband’s there with my parents, and they want A Word with him. God knows how much of him will be left when I go back. If I go back.

  I did not expect to be here on a sunny day in June. I should be at work, gazing out of the newsroom window wishing something interesting would happen, emailing my mates, and spending the lunch hour gazing in the windows of Baby Gap while telling myself it’s far too early to be buying bootees.

  Instead my chest seems to have been ripped open by a rocket, and my best friend is a parking space. Why is the sun shining? Where are the glowering storm clouds you’re supposed to get at times like this? The torrential, end-of-the-world rain? Why does everything look the same, when everything’s changed? How can people still be walking around and smiling?

  I can never smile again. I feel powerless, adrift, buffeted about like a twig in a torrent, swept towards a sewer’s gaping mouth, where the best I can hope for is a different kind of shit. Or maybe it is more like being a clown who tripped over his stupid giant shoes in the hall of mirrors and is now sat, uncomprehending, amid the dying tinkly noises, thinking: ‘Whathafu . . . ?’

  But it’s spilt milk now. Everything I knew and loved has been torn up, thrown out, ripped away, and all that’s left is me. Somehow I have to work out what to do and press on, surrounded by 10,000 shards of glass, about a billion years of bad luck and frankly astonishing amounts of mucus.

  This is not a tas
k to undertake lightly or without some kind of specialist equipment. After an hour or so wandering the supermarket aisles, crying quietly, picking things up and putting them down again, I am back in the car post-breakdown with the most useful items I could find.

  One giant 1.5 litre bottle of screw-top white wine (normal-sized bottle will not be enough), one double pack custard creams, one triple pack Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate, a copy of Hair Ideas magazine and today’s edition of the Scum, front page screamer: ‘JEN AND ANGELINA – CONFRONTATION!!’

  ‘Oh God, I am absolutely buggered,’ I think, banging my forehead on the steering wheel as the memory of everything that happened the night before triggers a new wave of pain that fountains up through my chest and geysers out of my swollen eyes.

  Mum said she would ring when it was safe for me to go home but I am fed up of waiting. This day has been very long, not least because I have been awake for all of it. At 1 a.m. the sympathetic constables released me into my parents’ shocked custody; at 2 a.m. I was still trying to explain recent events to them (Third Worst Conversation of my Life); at 3 a.m. I went to bed, and at 3.07 a.m. I got back up again; at 4 a.m. I was logged on to the computer torturing myself with emails and waiting for daylight so I could talk to someone; at 5 a.m. I realized daylight had arrived but the only other creature awake was the cat from next door, who wages a malicious war with me over her perceived right to shit in my flowerbeds. I spotted her squatting, yelled ‘geddowdervityerdamncat’, watched the bloody animal bolt over the fence, and then realized I was on my own again.

  At 6 a.m. I emailed some things to work, and at 8 a.m. rang my boss, the news editor, Bill Bishop. He’s known to all as ‘Bish’ – an old school newspaperman, the last of a breed. He’s as northern as chips with gravy, and of indeterminate late-middle-age; there are unconfirmed rumours that he used to file his copy on tablets of stone and once bollocked Noah for missing a deadline.

  ‘What fookin’ time d’yer call this? Has the Queen died or summat?’ he said when I rang. I said: ‘Not that I know of. Um. I’m afraid I’ve had a spot of bother.’

  There was a pause of one beat, and Bish said: ‘What’d yer get arrested fer?’ I told him the story, explaining I was now a hardened but crap criminal. He listened quietly and sighed. ‘Well, tek the rest o’the week off, we’ll manage wi’out yer. Chin oop, lass.’

  At 9 a.m. I woke up Mum and Dad, who had stayed overnight, and we drank tea while staring silently at the walls. At 11 a.m. I went to see a solicitor, who said I could change the locks for my safety so long as I didn’t bar Twatface from the house. Then I wandered the supermarket, getting concerned looks from the shelf-stackers. They whispered to each other while looking at me, not bothering to hide their curiosity any more than I tried to hide my tears, until eventually I went back to the car where I could cry without upsetting anyone. Ah, the phone . . .

  Dad is at the front door putting a new lock in. Mum’s in the kitchen switching the kettle on. I don’t say anything to either of them, just unscrew the wine and walk into the garden to sit under my tree. It’s got huge twisty roots to sit on, and I lean against the trunk and take in the garden I’ve worked so hard to make nice. It’s one of my favourite spots in the world, a place where I always feel fulfilled and at peace. I don’t even notice it now – I just sit on my root, swig from the bottle, and cry. It’s like breathing, I can’t seem to stop doing it.

  Mum and Dad come out to sit with me. They speak quietly and with long pauses, like they’re in a library or a funeral home. Mum talks about my husband. She says he was sad, unshaven, unwashed, wearing yesterday’s suit. He told them he cared about me and was stricken by conscience. He promised to be honest. Then he packed a couple of bags and left. Dad said he wanted to thump him. Mum said she was optimistic. They want to take me back home for a few days. They pack a bag and steer me like a sleepwalker to their car.

  The clock radio in my old bedroom says it’s 23.37. When it said 20.30 I went to bed exhausted and just switched off, immediately unconscious. Now I am awake again. That means my total amount of sleep in the past forty hours has been three hours and seven minutes. It’s kind of interesting to know that is all my mind and body need to function at a basic level, but I’m now alert as a field mouse that has seen the shadow of a hawk – panicking, worrying, fretting over all this rubbish – and I am on my own for the nine hours it will take for the rest of the world to wake up and give me someone to talk to. I quietly pace the house for a few hours, trying not to wake my parents, and then return to bed to bury my face in the pillow and muffle the great, gasping sobs I heave up until dawn.

  Perhaps I will evolve to become completely nocturnal, terrified of daylight and noise, venturing out only in darkness. Long, fine hairs will grow all over my body, my eyes will bulge to enormous proportions and I will be targeted by documentary-makers . . . ‘and here, our infra-red cameras have captured for the first time this elusive creature as it comes out of its burrow to forage. It may once have shared a common ancestor with humans, but, after many years’ isolation, it is nervous of man and survives on a diet of stale Pringles, cold tea and custard creams . . .’

  One good thing happened today though – The Editor rang. Now, newspaper editors are a strange bunch: former reporters of one kind or another who spend years politicking to get to the top of a very greasy pole, and live in a rarefied world of power, chauffeur-driven cars and never having to carry cash. Some editors are nice and some are mean, and they are all a little bit bonkers. I’ve always thought mine was all right compared to others, pretty decent, but no more or less than that. Anyway The Editor rang, and as I answered the call and realized who it was my first thought was that I’d get a rollocking for not being at work.

  Instead I was asked: ‘How are you?’ I stumbled, surprised, through the story of the past twenty-four hours. The Editor mmmed and uh-huhed and said: ‘She didn’t? He what? Well no, I don’t blame you.’

  The Editor listened as I brought the tale up to date, said nothing when I wept a little at the end, and then told me: ‘Well, the phones have gone mad. Every hack in Fleet Street seems to know something happened, but not exactly what. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s how it’s going to stay. No one here will breathe a word about it and the gossip will soon die down. The good news is that I hear she’s REALLY fat.’

  That’s when I cracked a smile for the first time. ‘Ha,’ I said, snuffle-snorting through the snot.

  Then The Editor said: ‘He’s a wanker. You’re a great reporter, a gorgeous girl, brilliant and young. In six months this will look totally different. You’ll be fine. Don’t let this beat you.’

  The Editor rang off, telling me to take as much time as I liked and not to come back to work until I was ready to face everyone. I looked at my watch and realized the newsroom would be right on deadline for first edition, and The Editor had spent half an hour listening to me, even with a paper to get out. It made me feel that all was not lost. Even better, it had made me laugh. It was half-hysterical and painful and I was crying at the same time, but a laugh’s a laugh, and in the current circumstances something to be grateful for.

  Alone here in my childhood bed, I counted up the things I’d gained in a day. A £125 bill for seeing a solicitor I never thought I’d need, for one; entry into the national DNA database for another; and thousands of unanswered questions, most of which were a form of ‘is he with her?’

  But also, better, some knowledge too: that I am probably not capable of murder, having failed so miserably on my first attempt; The Editor’s not that bonkers; a lot of the Worst Conversations of my Life are now out of the way; and if I can laugh a bit today, then one day I’ll laugh a LOT. It might be when I’m locked away for the safety of myself and others, but a day will come when I will laugh at all of this.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  THE DAY BEFORE

  IT’S 4 a.m. and I can’t sleep. At times like this things play on your mind.

  Like how on earth I married s
uch a twat, for example. Or why I stayed. And what’s so wrong with me that he seriously thinks some big bird is more attractive?

  Maybe she has a lovely personality? Or maybe she is even more stupid than I am?

  My mobile’s been going mad and in normal circumstances I’d have a right ear that looked like it had been left on a radiator – journalists spread gossip quicker than butter. Instead I’ve left the phone to ring and beep to itself, unable to bear the kindly concern, the worried friends and the incorrigible gossips fishing for a good line. Now and again I’ve picked it up and flicked through the messages to delete them, and have managed to notice something of a theme developing.

  The Editor heard she was fat. The crime girl says, ‘She’s a porker.’ The sports reporters have been spluttering about needing, ‘Twelve pints and a packet of scratchings’ before they’d go near her. The showbiz columnist was told she resembled a kraken.

  Seeing as these people are friends – and spiteful bastards all – it’s to be expected and I would dismiss the remarks as normal bitching if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve seen the woman myself.

  Now, I’m no oil painting. Normal hair, normal face, normal height, reasonable legs I suppose. Normal levels of female insecurity too, which led me to assume my rival had to be a gorgeous little thing capable of drawing the attention of any red-blooded male.

  A few things raised my suspicions – a nonchalant mention of a name I didn’t recognize, a missed dinner, a sudden need to work late. The kind of thing that would be ignored by most people but in a hack gets your nose sniffing. The average person would be surprised at the amount of information a reporter can find about them through perfectly legal means – electoral roll, social networks, Google – like who lived where and at what time with whom. The most common thing people say when I knock on their doors is a shocked, ‘How did you get this address?’ As though it’s a state secret I could only have found out by torturing their granny. When I tell them they’re in the voters’ register, the phone book, or left their Faceache open, they deflate and say, ‘Oh, yeah.’