One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

pretending to die.
    Kitty covered her face in her hands, feeling it wrong to laugh.
    ‘Ah, finally we are rid of her,’ Bob teased gently. ‘So what is the answer, my love? I’m intrigued.’
    ‘Do you really not know this?’ Kitty asked Bob. He shook his head and they watched Constance thinking, which really was an amusing sight.
    ‘Ah,’ she said suddenly, eyes lighting up, ‘I’ve got it. It’s rather a recent idea, actually, something I thought of last year before … well, it was somewhat of an experiment but it has occupied my mind since I’ve been here.’
    Kitty moved in closer to listen.
    Constance enjoyed making Bob and Kitty wait.
    ‘Possibly one of my greatest.’
    Kitty groaned impatiently.
    ‘I’ll tell you what, the file is at home. In my office. Teresa will let you in if she’s not too busy watching Jeremy Kyle. It’s filed under N. Titled “Names”. You get it for me and bring it back and I’ll tell you about it.’
    ‘No!’ Kitty laughed. ‘You know how impatient I am. Please don’t make me wait.’
    ‘If I tell you now, you might never come back.’
    ‘I promise I will.’
    Constance smiled. ‘Okay, you get the file, and I’ll tell you the story.’
    ‘It’s a deal.’
    They shook on it.

CHAPTER TWO
    Choosing the quieter back roads, and feeling like a rat scuttling along in the gutter, Kitty cycled home feeling exhausted. Initially on a high after spending time with a friend, she was back to feeling hopeless again now the reality of what lay ahead for both of them had sunk in.
    Thirty Minutes
,
the television show Kitty had started working on the previous year, the show with which she had received her big break and which had then ironically broken her, had viewing figures of half a million, which was impressive for a country with a population of five million, but not enough for Kitty to become the next Katie Couric. Now, thanks to her disastrous story, she found herself suspended from reporting on the network and in court to face a charge of libel. The story had aired four months previously, in January, but it was the impending court case, merely a day away now, that had made headlines. Her face, her mistake, and her name were now known to many more than half a million people.
    She knew she would be quickly forgotten in the minds of the public, but that her professional name would suffer in the long run; it had already been destroyed. She knew she was lucky that
Etcetera
,
the magazine Constance had founded and edited, was continuing to employ her, though the only reason she had a job was because Constance was her biggest supporter. She didn’t have many of those right now, and though Bob was deputy editor and a good friend she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d keep her job without Constance there to throw her weight around. Kitty dreaded the day that her mentor wouldn’t be in her life, never mind her professional life. Constance had been there for her since the beginning, had guided her, had advised her and had also given her the freedom to find her own voice and make her own decisions, which meant that Kitty owned her successes, but also meant her name was stamped all over every single one of her mistakes, a fact that was glaringly evident now.
    Her phone vibrated again in her pocket and she ignored it as she had been doing all week. Journalists had been calling her since news of the case going to trial had broken, people she had considered friends were close to harassing her just to get a quote. They’d all chosen different tactics. Some came straight out with asking for a quote, others had gone for the sympathy vote: ‘You know how it is, Kitty, the stress we’re under here. The boss knows we’re friends, he expects me to have something.’ Others had randomly and spontaneously invited her out for dinner, for drinks, to their parents’ anniversary parties and their grandfathers’ eighty-fifth birthdays without mentioning the issue at all. She hadn’t met or spoken with any of them but she was learning a lot and slowly crossing them off her Christmas card list. There was only one person who hadn’t called her yet and that was her friend Steve. They had studied journalism together in college and had remained friends since then. His one desire had been to cover sport but the closest he’d got to that so far was covering footballers’ private lives in tabloid newspapers. It had been he who had suggested she go for the job at
Etcetera
. He’d picked