'Family stuff?' I laughed. 'So that's what you keep on those things. I thought you boys had 'em as some sort of good-luck charm. Fucking Dom walks round like he's immune to everything except green kryptonite.'
'Don't I know it, mate. It's a worry. Here you are . . .' He shifted the screen so I could share. 'Last year's birthday party. Six years old and bright as a button.'
A tall woman in a bikini with long wavy blonde hair was doing her best to keep control of half a dozen kids in armbands and goggles. The camera panned to take in more of the background.
I did a double-take. 'Fuck me, Brockwell Park lido! That takes me back a bit.'
'Done a few laps in your time, have you?'
'We used to go and mess about there as kids.' I watched his grin widen. 'We'd get out at Brixton and go to the market first, see what we could nick. We usually landed up with a couple of tomatoes or some green thing we didn't even know the name of, but it still made a nice picnic. Then we'd doss by the pool until we got thrown out for divebombing the grown-ups.'
Pete had been nodding along. He gave a burst of laughter louder than a 30mm. 'I got chucked out too! Wrongly accused of being the previous owner of a turd they found floating in the deep end. Wasn't you, was it? Too much exotic veg?'
I pointed at the screen. 'That Tallulah?'
'Yes.' He beamed. 'And that's the birthday girl.' His finger touched the screen and lingered as she blew out the candles on her cake. He was lost in his own world for a bit. 'I've missed every one of the last three . . .' He looked up suddenly. 'But do you know what, Nick? I'm not fucking missing her seventh, in three weeks' time. Or any of the others after that. I'm jacking it in, mate. Local news and quality family time, that's me from now on.'
I wasn't sure if he was serious. 'But you'd miss all this.' I waved my arm to embrace the chaos.
'Miss what? A reporter on a personal crusade he won't let me in on, crap tea – no offence – and an arse full of sand?' He tapped the screen again. 'No contest, mate.'
I understood the tea and sand bit. 'Crusade?'
He blew out his cheeks. 'He's always been hungry for it. Passionate, you know? I used to be up there with him, righting wrongs, changing the world. But I just don't have the appetite for it any more. It's partly the fact that all we're producing here is tomorrow's chip paper. Disposable news – nobody gives a fuck.' His eyes roamed back to the birthday party. 'Partly that other things, like spending time with Tallulah and watching Ruby grow up, are a whole lot more important to me now.' He shrugged. 'Don't get me wrong, the awards we got for the Kabul doc mean something because they were recognition for exposing the fucking nightmare out there, but I just . . . I just don't share Dom's passion any more.'
'And the new passion is drugs? That's the crusade?'
He leant forward to get his face closer to mine. 'He's so fixated he even had me secret-filming in Dublin a couple of weeks ago . . .' He slumped back and stared up at the ornate ceiling. 'But I'm checking out now. Maybe I'll do the odd wildlife documentary. Just as long as I can know what my schedule is far enough in advance not to risk missing another of Ruby's birthdays . . .' His eyes narrowed. 'You got family, Nick?'
'I did have, once.' I got a sudden rush of pins and needles in my legs, a sensation I hadn't experienced for a long, long time. 'A little girl who was a lot like your Ruby, as a matter of fact. Her parents were killed, I was her guardian.' I was vaguely aware that sweat was now leaking more heavily down my face and tried to wipe it away. 'I never really got the birthday thing right . . . In the end I had to ask someone more reliable to take over.'
My memory stick was set to locked, and that was the way I liked it. Somebody once told me I lived life with the lid on, and I guessed they were right. It