Death Trap by Patricia Hall Page B

rest of night.’

SEVEN
    K ate sat opposite Ken Fellows in his tiny cluttered office, watching him intently while he thought about her proposal to take a series of photographs in Notting Hill.
    â€˜I suppose this murder will put it in the news again,’ he said. ‘People haven’t forgotten the riots down there in fifty-eight, was it? If it looks like kicking off again we’d be ahead of the pack if we had your pics in the bank. Have they charged this man they’ve arrested?’
    â€˜No, I don’t think so,’ Kate said. ‘Though they will pretty soon. He has to be taken before a magistrate within a certain length of time, or let go.’ The formalities of court procedure were indelibly seared on her mind from the time earlier in the year when her brother Tom had found himself in the dock. That case had ended happily for Tom and he was now back in Liverpool taking some time to recover from his ordeal with friends who had stood by him in the dark days. She hoped Nelson would be so lucky.
    â€˜I heard that some people were trying to organise some sort of West Indian carnival down there. That would make a good picture story. It’ll wind a lot of people in Kensington up. They’d much rather the West Indians went back home.’
    â€˜Yes, I heard something about that. I’ll check it out,’ Kate agreed quickly, seeing Fellows’s scepticism beginning to crack. Now she was permanently on his team, she began to see that she could come up with ideas that her mainly middle-aged male colleagues could not. There was a sea change in society that she was in tune with and Fellows needed to tap into and she guessed that he was beginning to recognise that. She was beginning to see that he needed her just as much as she needed him.
    â€˜This news magazine Tom Vallens says he’s launching might be interested,’ Fellows said. ‘I’ll give him a bell. And there’s the new
Sunday Times
magazine. I guess if they think it’s worth doing, the other Sunday papers will follow on behind, for the advertising if nothing else. We could be looking at new opportunities for photo journalism.’
    â€˜So I can go ahead in Notting Hill then?’ Kate asked.
    â€˜Yes, I don’t see why not,’ Fellows agreed. ‘But keep me up to date with these Liverpool bands of yours as well. It looks as though you were right. They’re going to be really big. Can you get me some exclusive pictures of the Beatles?’
    â€˜I can try,’ Kate said. ‘But they’ve signed up with Brian Epstein as a manager, and I think he’s keeping a pretty tight grip on their publicity. I might try to contact Cynthia Lennon again though. Now she’s got the baby I guess she’s even more out on a limb than she was before. And there’s always the kids in the street, and at the concerts. It’s getting as bad down here as it was at home now, hysterical girls screaming their heads off.’
    â€˜I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Fellows said. ‘If I had a daughter I’d tan her backside. Some parents don’t seem to care.’ Kate grinned. The massed parents of Liverpool had failed miserably to control their teenagers from going wild for John Lennon and his mates, and she did not expect that the parents of London would fare any better.
    â€˜I’ll keep an eye on what’s going on,’ she said. ‘Gerry and the Pacemakers are doing well but I don’t know any of them personally. But Dave Donovan doesn’t seem to be making any headway. I heard he’s thinking about going back home. I’ll talk to him. He’ll have all the latest crack.’
    â€˜Crack?’
    â€˜Gossip,’ Kate said, laughing. ‘There’s a pub in Liverpool called Ye Cracke. You used to see some of the lads from the bands in there.’
    â€˜It sounds like a foreign country,’ Fellows said sourly.
    â€˜Oh, it’s