The Dark Horizon, page 17
Nigel reached out a hand, but Dan shrugged it off. ‘Calm down,’ the cameraman soothed. ‘I’m on your side, remember?’
‘Yeah, and I’m really feeling the friendship.’
‘All I’m saying is maybe it’s time you concentrated on your proper job.’
Another rocket of a reply was well in preparation and being readied for launch, when Dan yelled, ‘Stop the car!’
‘What?’
‘Just do it!’
Nigel did, slewing into a bus bay. And if there was any doubt about what was to unfold, that swinging manoeuvre settled it. Dan piled out of the car, grabbed at a bin and threw up. He held on hard to the cold certainty of the metal rim as the world dipped and span.
‘Are you ok?’ Nigel asked, as the wretched creature returned.
‘Yeah, I’m tip top and dandy. Well, no actually as you might have noticed. Ah, bollocks. Sorry if I was – well...’
‘Forget it. We’re under enough pressure without us falling out as well.’
‘You got it absolutely right,’ Dan confessed. ‘I’m trying to do two jobs at once. They can both be buggers and sometimes it’s too much. Not to mention – well, the domestic stuff.’
‘Maybe you could just stick to one job, then – for the next few hours, anyway?’ And in words of pure kindness, sufficient to reach even an entrenched cynic like the one brooding in the passenger seat, Nigel added, ‘I was hoping to work with you for a bit longer.’
Dan patted his friend on the shoulder and glugged some water. He checked his reflection in the mirror. It was far from the sort of vision which would appeal to an artist, except perhaps one who specialised in the covers of horror novels.
‘There’s just one more thing, to help us on our merry way,’ Nigel ventured. ‘You should know that Lizzie’s in a manic mood.’
They were on the Barbican, rumbling slowly through the narrow streets, almost at Resurgam. The day was still gloomy and the sky a lank, disinterested grey, the great monolith a black block towering above the seaward horizon.
Lights were on in most floors. Tiny silhouettes scuttled across the Sky Garden, disappearing and reappearing between the outlines of foliage. The express lifts were zipping up and down, bullets of light in the semi-darkness of the December day. Cops were on the streets, patrolling or parked up in cars and on motorbikes, polite and smiling, but ever watchful.
They passed the Homeless Mission, a couple of men enjoying the pageant unfolding around them. One was holding a tin of super strength lager, the sort of stuff which can clear drains. He waved it happily at anyone who passed by, but never spilling a drop.
Nigel turned the car along the access road, into a line of security officers. Dan groaned at the inevitability of a hefty delay. They had no time to mess about. He fished out his press pass and wound down a window.
‘Hello again, sir,’ one of the women was saying to Nigel. ‘Please carry on.’
He thanked her, put the car back into gear and they drove into the compound.
‘How’d you do that?’ Dan asked.
The few remains of the Gatehouse were gone, a couple of benches and plants brought in to mask any memories burnished in the concrete. Workers strode around, some carrying brooms, brushing away miscreant specks of dust.
The silvery statues were tolerating a final polish, but looked no less anguished for the attention. The gloom of the day coloured as spotlights began illuminating Resurgam’s facade in slowly changing shades.
Nigel parked by the outside broadcast truck. The satellite dish was already up, the camera set upon its tripod, microphone laid along its top. The door was open, Loud sitting with his feet on the edit desk, reading a paper.
‘How’d you do all this, too?’ Dan added.
‘I got in early. I thought you might be a little distracted. I’ve also got a plan for how to do the lunchtime live, if you’re interested?’
Dan reached out a hand to shake Nigel’s. He found his voice curiously hoarse. ‘Thank you.’
‘It’s ok. We are trying to look after you.’
There was something in the sentence which made Dan frown. A peculiar inflexion, the hint of a hidden meaning.
‘We? Meaning what?’
‘Never mind for now. You’d better ring in.’
Many a song or poem has been written to the wonder of friends. This morning, had he not been so preoccupied, Dan could have added another to their number.
Lizzie was as agitated as a tap dancer on hot coals. But she was at least passably mollified by the reassurances Dan offered.
‘What about the exclusive on the cops and Ellen Dance?’
‘The meeting’s later. We should have it for tonight.’
‘Should?!’
‘Almost definitely.’
‘Almost?!’
‘Got to go, got an interview to do,’ Dan lied.
Inside the compound, but contained in a penned off area away from the main building, a group of demonstrators had been allowed to gather. The pitch was as prominent as the cupboard under the stairs.
Jackie Denyer was patrolling the area like a human frigate, gliding back and forth. With a cosmetic smile, she explained the magnanimity of Ellen Dance extended to encouraging the democratic right of protest, even after the dreadful events of Tuesday night.
‘I suspect it’s more a case of Lyndon Johnson and his tent, isn’t it?’ Dan asked, mildly.
‘The media will assemble at 11.50 at the main doors,’ she replied in a haughty voice, with a wave of the clipboard. ‘The President will give an address, then at noon precisely you will be allowed inside to film. And before you ask; no. Ms Dance will not be answering any questions.’
The protest group was a dozen strong, the maximum allowed by the grace of the authorities, made up of the students and local people who had been at Resurgam from the start. The faces had grown only a little older in that year, but far wiser. The main placard they carried now said simply Why?, although there was also a large one dedicated to the memory of Alice.
With an irony that was probably unintended, the group had been corralled next to The Wall. No way, never to stay. Not here, not today, the chant began. Some started banging fists on the bricks to emphasise their point.
All eyed Dan carefully as he walked a tentative approach, June producing a guarded smile, the faces of the students as cold as the day.
Dan checked his watch. It said eleven, so the time was probably around ten past.
There might just be the time to attend to the intriguing shades of that other business after all.
They watched him approach, every single step, as wary, as ever. They’d been through plenty enough to make them that way, this little group.
‘Morning,’ Dan offered.
‘Morning,’ June replied, cordial but cool. The rest of the set were silent. Fists gripped hard at the placards and banners, the loyal standards of their battle.
‘I need to have a chat.’
‘About that?’ she replied, with a disparaging look towards Resurgam.
‘In a minute, of course. But… there’s something else.’
‘Yes?’
‘You won’t like it.’
‘Try us.’
‘Really, you won’t.’
‘I don’t think much is going to shock us now. Not after…’
‘This might.’
‘Go on.’
The pleasantries, as sparse as they were, had already been exhausted. No charm, no humour, no diplomacy was going to crack this ice. Years of experience of softening tearful or angry interviewees were feathers upon granite here. Sometimes the direct way was the only way, no matter how it might be received.
‘It’s about Esther,’ Dan ventured.
The frigid cold of the icicle air chilled further. There were a couple of intakes of breath at the taboo of the name. Words were being mouthed, and far from the kind which would be welcome at the church fete.
‘We’ve got nothing to say,’ June stated, in a voice which only the bravest would challenge.
‘Not to you,’ Mac added forcefully.
‘Which means?’
‘You’re one of them.’
Dan kept his voice as level as possible, given the provocation. ‘Them? Them who?’
‘Them bastards.’
‘Them, all of them,’ Seb joined in. ‘Just… them. The lot of them.’
The group were clustering around Dan, tightening the space, shading out the grey winter light. The infection of the mob was running free. They had been wounded too many times to be unthreatening any longer. But Dan held his ground, filling with a resentment of his own, the challenge to a standard he had carried proudly all his adult years.
‘Them?’ he said again, and with meaning.
‘Yeah,’ Mac grunted. ‘The politicians, the cops, the bankers, the business wankers, the fucking lot.’
Dan felt his blood abuzz. Of all the many goads he faced in life, this was an electric wire to the core of his brain.
‘Miss something, did you?’ he replied, with a hard-won calm.
‘Like what?’ came the replies from the group. ‘Arsehole. What you talking about?’
‘I was one of those people who exposed the MPs’ expenses scandal. Remember that? And kept banging on at the bankers about their bonuses. And got some action there, too. Miss that too, did you… arseholes?’
‘So what about…’
But Dan was tolerating no interruptions. However outnumbered, no matter how unwise, his mind kept firing and feeding the passion of his all-too-willing mouth.
‘And let me guess - I live in a luxury house, not a flat, right? With top-of-the-range cars and so much money I use it as bog roll? With servants running around at my every whim? Or maybe I do this job because I believe in it?’
There was no reply, but the passion had made them listen. They’d ripped to the heart of a rebel. In days long gone it would have been a young Dan standing here on the protest line, thinking and feeling the way they did. And maybe - just perhaps - little had changed, despite the passing of the decades.
‘And I still believe in this job,’ he ranted onwards, ‘Even if some of my old college mates earn more in a day than I manage in a year. And take the piss out of me for doing what I think is right. And others run the country and ask what the hell I’m doing here? Understand that, can you?’
Still no response from the group. But on some of the faces there was a hint of surprise and recalculation.
‘Yeah, but…’ Mac ventured, but even he, this densest of a barrier, was overridden by the momentum of Dan’s anger.
‘And do you know what I’m most proud of? It’s the youngsters who’ve found jobs they love because of the careers work I do. Who would never have managed that, otherwise. And every Christmas, when I get a load of cards from them, thanking me – that’s one of the best moments of my year.’
Seb pushed his way to the front. He was so thin now it was pitiful. But today his suffering was invisible, hidden by the force of rage.
‘You work with the pigs. Everyone knows it.’
‘Yeah,’ came a couple of mutters from the group.
‘After what they did to Alice you should be ashamed. Go on, fuck off back to your pig mates.’
Dan stepped over, so they were eye to eye. ‘Yep, you’re right, I do work with the pigs. And do you know what? I’m damn proud of that, too. Do you want to know how many murderers and rapists and other criminals I’ve helped catch?’
And now a silence. Two armies of anger, two sides so certain in their beliefs had fought and been becalmed.
People passed, more arrived. Cars trundled up to Resurgam, dropped off passengers. But here, in the far corner of the compound, in the shadow of the skyscraper, there was quiet. And the group stared at Dan, and he stared right back. Today, for once, courage had found him.
‘Let me guess,’ he said slowly, to taunt and to hurt, but also with the calculation of a thinking mind. ‘You’re still feeling sore about what happened to Tommy?’
‘Fuck off,’ Mac snorted. ‘Because you’ve realised the truth, haven’t you?’
‘What truth?’
Seb joined in with his friend, shoulder to shoulder. ‘Yeah, what truth?’
The words found echoes in the crowd. ‘What truth? What fucking truth?’
More feet were edging towards Dan, bodies starting to press harder against the pen. But still he held his ground.
‘What – fucking – truth?’ Seb spat.
‘You were set up. By Esther. Used... to cover the lorry attack. You were little patsies.’
The words struck like a silent missile. There was no reply. No response. Nothing.
Now Seb raised an arm and Dan tensed, ready to parry the blow. It was the one he had been waiting for as he set off on this perilous path. But there was no swinging fist, no impact, no pain.
Esme had taken hold of Seb’s wrist. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, in a voice husky with remorse. ‘You’re right.’
‘I think we have realised,’ June agreed, moving to stand next to Esme. ‘We were used.’
Dan nodded. ‘And I’m trying to find out why Tommy was attacked. And finally getting the answer to some big questions about Esther could help.’
One by one, the little group looked to June. In her thick coat, rainbow hat and gloves, she was perhaps one of the most incongruous leaders ever ushered forth by history.
She let those wise old eyes run over Dan, up and down and right through, and asked, ‘What is it you want to know?’
CHAPTER 19
It had taken a week to put together the profile on Esther’s life, to match the one on Ellen Dance, and it was a fascinating assignment. Few people were happy to speak openly. It required all the dark arts in a hack’s armoury; a mix of charm, guarantees of anonymity, and more than a little manipulation.
As he sat in the front of the satellite truck, Dan leafed through his file of notes, mind adrift in what June and the others had just told him. There were only minutes left before Dance’s speech, but perhaps enough time to finally fill in the missing pages of an unfinished story.
The quest began in Berkshire at Esther’s childhood home. Longstaff was a village in the way only those in the London commuter belt can have the front to so describe themselves. Five pubs, several restaurants, a butcher, greengrocer, delicatessen, hardware store, hair salon and plenty more other shops besides. The moment Dan and Nigel parked and set up the camera, the gossip was running faster than a white water river in spate.
Nigel started filming while Dan began asking questions. The answers he found were consistent. Yes, people knew Esther. But they did so in that nodding, knowing manner. No, they would rather not talk about her, thank you. The refusals were as polite as any finishing school could wish for, but steadfast. Something was awry.
Progress came at last in the place it so often does. The Red Roe was the current inn of choice for the village drunkards, scandalmongers and bores, and there Dan and Nigel settled under the cover of lunch. To bait the hook all the better, they took the camera along and laid it obviously upon a bench.
The pub was a little tatty and the multitude of horse brasses certainly made a statement, but it was comfortable enough. Within five minutes they were fielding questions about their work. Within a quarter of an hour, Dan had bought a round for their newfound friends. By the end of lunch they had secured plenty of information, plus a surprisingly passable Chicken and Mushroom Pie.
Esther had been adopted and was the only child of a city banker and a public relations executive. They were wealthy enough to afford a lofty Victorian house on the edge of Longstaff. Both parents were renowned for disappearing for days into the metropolis, the young Esther being looked after by a nanny.
As soon as she was of age, Esther was sent to a boarding school. From then onwards she was rarely seen around the village. At that stage there was nothing to feed the hunger of the gossips, for every time they were spotted the family wore a veil of contentment.
That was, until the fire.
The archives documented it with the stark facts of a reporter’s eye. But as so often it was the unspoken subtext which was far more interesting.
The fire was intense and took several hours to bring under control. The house was badly damaged and required many months of painstaking renovations.
It was April, just before Easter. The fire broke out in the middle of the night. It was Esther who discovered the blaze, roused her parents and made sure they escaped. For weeks, she was feted as a hero.
The paper contained a couple of follow up stories, short paragraphs about progress in restoring the house. Only a month later did it become a lead story once more, a reporter writing of a police visit to the home to investigate the possibility of arson.
The gossips filled in the rest. No one was charged. But the whispers were as sharp as razors in the dark, and all angled towards Esther. As for a motive, even the cluster of drinkers who gleefully passed on their views in the Red Roe admitted they couldn’t say for sure.
But one theory had grown to become accepted currency. It was a cry for attention from a young girl who felt she was far from the centrepiece of her parents’ lives.
Despite the traditions of her school, Esther didn’t go on to university. In that way the world has, fate, luck and chance intervened.
Her closest school friend was a girl called Mollie. June and the students had the most to say on her, because Esther talked about her friend on several occasions. Blonde haired, gentle, intelligent, principled and charming, Mollie sounded like a perfect companion through the teenage years. And it was Mollie, and what happened to her, which left Dan with a new understanding.
Esther’s alma mater was a castle of a place, with a reputation for sending students to a career on the stage. She was remembered as someone who delighted in performance; an impressive actor, perhaps good enough to become a professional. But before that familiar dream could become reality, a different stage beckoned.
The school was set in the idyllic countryside of Herefordshire. But the never dormant beast of development would sometimes visit even that fair county. A new road was planned, a dual carriageway designed to beckon investment to a nascent science and business park.
