Traces of Red, page 8
Janet. Janet Beardsley was the new up-and-coming wonder. Petite, pretty, blonde with a toothy and gratuitous smile. Barely out of journalism school. Treacherously ambitious. I gripped the edges of my chair and hung onto my smile.
My contract ends in February. If I don’t do what I’m told I’ll be out.
‘Sounds interesting.’ I attempted to make my voice sound upbeat and cheery. ‘Uh, Paul, I wondered if Harry had mentioned the idea I’d like to use for one of the programmes.’
Paul looked at Harry. ‘I’m not sure what you’re referring to.’
Harry cut in, ‘With everything that’s been going on, I’ve shelved it, Rebecca. You can see the problem. If Saturday Night’s not continuing …’
‘What was the idea?’ Paul said.
‘I’ve been reading up on the Connor Bligh case,’ I said, ‘and thinking about the possibilities now there may be a retrial.’
Paul looked sceptical. ‘The indications are he’s there for the duration. Anyway, that type of serious story is what we’ve already decided has to go.’
‘I’ve got an excellent source,’ I said, ‘who tells me a retrial is almost a certainty.’
‘I’m not sure who or what your sources are,’ Harry said, ‘but what’ll happen is the retrial will get turned down and the whole thing will fizzle out. If we go ahead with this we’ll waste a heap of time and money.’
‘My source tells me the defence has come up with new evidence and it’s the sort which could result in a totally different perspective on this case.’
I looked directly at Paul as I spoke. My heart was thumping but I kept my voice steady.
Harry was glaring at me. ‘Yeah, but where does this come from?’
‘I have a reliable source.’
‘Who is it?’
‘You know better than to ask me that.’
‘Does anyone else know about this?’ Paul said.
‘I doubt it. Not in the media, anyway.’ My hands were hot and clammy.
Paul was watching us. His eyes narrowed as they did when he was thinking and he was tapping his fingers gently on the table.
A good sign. A good sign.
But then he sighed. ‘Even so, as soon as they go to the Court of Appeal, news about the defence having new evidence will be right out there. Rebecca, if things were different, if Blake was still here and the ratings were good I’d take the chance and go with it. As it is, it’s all a bit wishy-washy. This new evidence, well, without knowing anything about it I’m not prepared to take the risk. I’m going to have to listen to Harry this time. We could spend money and time and end up with nothing for it.’
That’s when I said it. ‘I know what the new evidence is. The defence has come up with another suspect.’
16.
We’ll run with it.
We’ll run with it.
Joe didn’t phone until the following Friday. He’d just got back, he said. Michelle had become ill with food poisoning while they were on Waiheke and they’d had to get her to a doctor and then stay longer than planned since she was too unwell to travel. He’d somehow lost his phone charger, his mobile had run out and he didn’t feel comfortable about phoning me from their friends’ landline.
‘It’s fine. Really, I’m fine. I’ve been so busy at work I hardly noticed.’
‘So you didn’t miss me?’
‘Oh. Maybe just a teeny scrap.’
My voice sounded breezy, flirty and I felt such guilt. I shouldn’t have told.
But nobody will ever know it came from him and, anyway, it’ll all come out eventually so why shouldn’t we be the first to have it?
This story was important. It had to be made. I’d had no choice – if I hadn’t said what I did it’d be more Beagles and cat shows for the next four weeks and then nothing. Nothing except Courageous Leaps.
Courageous Leaps and Janet Beardsley.
It had been my only chance and I’d taken it. And dammit, Joe owed me.
Joe owed me for all those days he didn’t phone, for all the secrecy and the protection I’d given him. For those unspoken, yet unmistakable, rules which governed our relationship. He owed me for all those nights I’d stayed in alone, for all those times I wanted so much to talk to him and touch him and couldn’t. And for the feeling of helplessness; as much as I knew this was so wrong for me I couldn’t extricate myself. I couldn’t move on.
He owed me for loving him. He had everything else. So I’d taken my story.
And that story was what I had to focus all of my attention on. Once the decision had been made Harry was right behind it. We had meeting after meeting over information we should use, what should be followed up on, who should be interviewed. We had Sarah Devanney working full-time on research.
Wonderfully, everything began to work. Connor Bligh was again in the news. After months of delays and postponements there was at last a date to be made for a hearing of the Court of Appeal to ascertain whether a retrial was warranted. The case was again in the public psyche. The old questions were being talked over – was Connor Bligh one of those over-bright characters who veer dangerously close to madness? Was he an unrepentant psychopath? Or was he an introverted and socially inadequate young guy who was wrongfully in prison?
Now that I had the go-ahead, I wrote to him explaining who I was and what we were planning to do. I asked if he’d see me. As a journalist I couldn’t get permission to visit him but I could get in if he had me added to his list of approved visitors. I had no reply. I wrote another letter. I said I knew he’d always refused to speak to journalists but I hoped I could persuade him. I thought my letter might make him curious, that he’d see me on Saturday Night and figure out I could help him develop a sympathetic public persona. I willed him to agree, imagining the coup it would be. Rebecca Thorne, the only journalist Connor Bligh has ever agreed to be interviewed by.
At the same time, the ratings on Saturday Night wavered then plummeted. I should have cared but I didn’t. I was going with my gut feeling that the Bligh story was the biggie I’d been waiting for that would turn all that around. We scheduled interviews. A cop, now retired, who’d been called to the Dickson house was prepared to describe the crime scene. The Struthers were all set up to talk.
Then Harry and I had our altercation. I was working at my desk, glanced over at Harry and noticed he was looking at archives from the Bligh case. I went over and stood behind him and watched as well.
Our reporter Mary Richards was outside the Struthers’ house, her expression suitably grave, as she asked her questions.
I was in the kitchen and Bob was watching the news and we heard all this banging on the door and someone calling out. That poor wee girl was beside herself, wasn’t she love? I’ll never forget it.
Had they met Connor Bligh, had they observed him coming and going at the Dicksons?
I’d say hello to him over the fence, trying to be friendly, but he never answered, did he, Bob? I always said he was a strange one, didn’t I?
And Bob nods sagely. There was something about him. The kind of bloke you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, know what I mean?
Harry turned to me, ‘That’s it. We’ll start off with that.’
I stared at him. ‘You’re joking.’
‘It’s good. It’ll get people watching. We’ll use it in the trailers as well.’
‘But what he said is totally biased.’
‘What do you want to do here? Make Bligh look squeaky-clean?’
‘That interview was done just after he was found guilty. They’re looking at Bligh in retrospect, looking for strangeness because they think he did it. The viewers are going to latch onto that clip and decide he’s guilty before they even see the rest.’
‘There’s a heap of other info to balance that out and that’s what we’re aiming for, eh? Balance, Rebecca? That shot pulls you right in.’
I’d had to learn to let this sort of thing go and nine times out of ten Harry’s judgements were absolutely correct. But this time he had it wrong.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I agree we need balance. But starting off with a statement like that will skew the whole programme and rather than drawing people in, anyone with any kind of intelligence would be put right off by it. You can see what kind of people the Struthers are, they’re totally bloody prejudiced against anyone different to them.’
I could feel my face heating up, hear my voice begin to shake. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. Calm down. You have to calm down.
Harry’s face had adopted the painfully tolerant expression I’d always found particularly irritating. He spoke quietly and very slowly. ‘This statement will be balanced later in the programme with the more flattering remarks from Bligh’s colleagues and friends. The clip is an excellent lead-in.’
‘Placed where it is, viewers will have already decided Bligh’s a dangerous weirdo before they get anywhere near anything positive.’
‘It works.’
‘Fuck it, Harry. This is my story.’
I’d lost it. I knew it as the room put its head in its hands and held its breath and the words reverberated around and around and around. It was a Friday afternoon. Everyone was at their desk.
‘We’ll stay with it.’
He turned back to the screen and to the next clips. I felt my face blaze up, watched sightlessly for a moment, then scuttled to my desk where I sat it out until I could slip away.
I’d seriously pissed Harry off. Harry did not take kindly to people who pissed him off. Especially in a room filled with other people. I needed to remove myself.
I went home, pulled on trackies, a sweater and trainers and climbed over the rocks down onto the beach. I started to run. The sharpness of the wind, the sand whipping up, the green-black ocean, the taste of salt on my tongue.
Body relaxed. Lift your head. Right leg. Left leg. Breathe. Breathe. Land on the balls of your feet and roll forward.
Work your arms.
Fuck it, Harry. This is my story.
Shit. Oh shit. In the past, I’d been occasionally prickly, even difficult. I’d executed the odd prima-donna performance in those early, blissful days when I was young, new, important and fresh. But I’d never behaved so badly as this.
Hands lightly closed. Knees bent. Head for the soft sand so you have to work. Get your arms going. Harder. Harder now get up speed. Right leg. Left leg. Feel that faint jar to your hips, to your spine as your foot hits the sand. Hear the muffled thud.
But fuck it. It is my story.
I ran for around thirty minutes then stopped and sat down on the sea wall near the playground. Despite the coolness of the day it was filled with kids. All wrapped up against the wind, little red-blue-green tartan coats, scarves, woolly hats, mittens. The mothers stood together watching, talking. Two of them were pregnant, their jackets unzipped over massive bellies.
Ruby walked early. She was so high-maintenance. This one’s taking his time.
I tried Milly out on avocado the other day. Really loved it.
My due date’s not till September but I’m sure it’ll be before that. Hope so anyway.
How would it feel to have your belly growing huge and spreading out like that, to feel something moving about inside you? How would it feel to have a due date?
I could do that. I’d be happy to do that, to feel my body swelling and growing heavier, to take my kid to the park, mash up avocados and wonder about when it was going to start walking.
Maybe they envied me, these mothers with their so high-maintenance babies. I saw them glance towards me. They knew who I was and I saw them checking me out. One of them caught my eye and looked away. I knew how they saw me – removed and definitely unapproachable despite my red face and track pants.
Right then I would have swapped places with any one of them.
What did high-maintenance babies do? Did they refuse the avocado which you had so lovingly mashed? Did they bellow and crash about causing such mayhem you couldn’t wait till they were asleep? Would high-maintenance babies actually sleep?
I longed to find out. Joe and I both have blue eyes so the gene would be dominant. Our baby would be certain to have blue eyes. But instead I had a job. A job and my story.
It was important. This story was important. I ran on.
I slunk into the office early Monday morning and apologised profusely to Harry. He watched me, scowling, then gave me a lecture on acceptable conduct in the workplace alongside the importance of presenting programmes that people will actually watch.
‘Totally fucking inappropriate,’ he said. ‘You’ve been here long enough to know that and just to remind you, Rebecca, there’s a lot of competition out there. A heap of competition, more coming into the industry all the time. It’s all very well you getting on your high horse about what we should or shouldn’t do but if we ain’t got viewers we ain’t got jobs.’
I’d heard it before but not so vehemently. I kept my eyes on him, nodding, murmuring agreeing sounds, said again I was sorry, so sorry, there were no excuses but I’d just got myself a bit worked up about this one. In the end he softened, muttered about me at least caring about what I was doing, not like these other young fly-by-nights creating a song and dance about fuck-all.
‘Anyway,’ he said slapping his hand on the desk, ‘we’ve got Bligh’s science teacher from when he was in secondary school to talk. He was a character witness, remember?’
I tried to look and sound positive and to remind myself that any pleasant evidence about Bligh was helpful. But I remembered that particular teacher from photographs taken outside the court. He’d looked slightly deranged, his face swaddled in a bristling beard the exact colour and texture of a mangy fox-fur collar I’d once hired for a twenties dress-up party. As well as that he was so obviously gay. I needed people who’d be considered ordinary by other ordinary people to present Connor Bligh as also ordinary.
‘What about Katy Dickson?’
I knew I could do a great interview with Katy Dickson. I’m good with teenage girls. They think I’m cool; they like it that I’m not so much older than them. I’d meet her a few times, buy her coffees, chat to her, get her alongside.
Leaning in close, smiling encouragingly and Katy I wonder if you could tell us about the good memories you have of your uncle? He and your mum were really close, weren’t they?
If I could do that then maybe I could chase away that image, now irrevocably stored in the public psyche, of Katy bitterly weeping in the witness box. I know what I heard. It was the last thing I ever heard Mum say.
‘Not a chance. I’ve had Sarah Devanney onto it. She’s talked to Frances Jennings, rung her a couple of times and gone round there, but there’s no way she’ll agree to Katy being interviewed.’
‘But, shit, we need to talk to Katy. Has anyone got hold of Katy herself? What if I—?’
He shot me a warning look at me. Don’t push it Rebecca, you’re already on shaky ground.
‘I’m telling you she won’t have a bar of it.’
‘What about Frances or Len Jennings? Would they agree to an interview?’
‘They’ve said they want nothing to do with it. All they want now is to move on.’
‘I’m sure Bligh’d like to move on as well,’ I said tartly.
‘Come on, Rebecca. As far as they’re concerned Bligh’s guilty. They’re not going to go out of their way to do him any favours. You’ve got to stop looking at it only from Bligh’s side. These people have had three members of their family murdered.’
‘If they put their emotions aside for a moment and looked at the facts they might see there’s not one piece of substantial evidence proving he did it.’
‘You seem to have forgotten what Katy heard. That puts Bligh right there at the crime scene.’
‘Her mother could have been saying anything. She was hanging up the phone, for god’s sake.’
He looked at me for a moment as if he was itching to say something and then he shook his head slightly. ‘We need to move on with this. Okay, we’re coming in with a shot of the Dicksons’ house then moving on to Bob Struthers. What’s next?’
I wrote yet another letter to Connor Bligh telling him again how a programme on his story was likely provoke a great deal of public sympathy. I told him again how much I wanted to meet and speak with him.
No answer. I wrote again. I’d keep on trying. I phoned Sarah Devanney. If I could tell Bligh that Katy had agreed to an interview maybe he’d be consider giving his own version of the story. Sarah said she’d done her best but there was no moving Frances or Len Jennings and she hadn’t been able to make direct contact with Katy Dickson. I told her to try again and try harder.
I knew there was an increasing edge to my voice as I spoke to her. I knew she thought what I was asking her to do was unreasonable. I knew I’d upset her. But shit, she’d get over it. We were running out of time.
17.
I got into work on Monday morning, opened up my email and the ratings were right there. In bold print and sent directly from Paul.
Lowest ever.
The phone rang. Paul’s PA. A meeting in Paul’s office. Now. Again Harry was there and again he looked unhappy. Even more unhappy, I thought as I sat down.
Paul said it. Gave it to me right between the eyes. ‘As from next week we’re pulling Saturday Night. It’s simply not working. You’re not to blame yourself, Rebecca. This is not only because Blake has left. There were already indications that the programme had run its course.’
Harry joined in. ‘It’s been going too long. It was a great series when it was doing well but it’s time to cut our losses, move on to something new.’
‘And there’s good news,’ Paul said. ‘We’ve made the decision we do want to use you for Courageous Leaps. It’s been to the board and got the definite go-ahead. We know it’ll be popular and that you’ll be an asset to the programme.’
It was like a pre-learned patter between them. Give her the bad news but hold out a carrot at the end of it. I looked at their faces. No negotiation.
I’d seen the ratings. I had nothing to negotiate with. I felt my throat tighten, felt tears welling up in my eyes and I knew what they’d be thinking. This is why it’s always so bloody hard to work with women, they get all het up about what they’re doing and then when it doesn’t work out they start bawling.
