Black Noise

by Hiltunen, Pekka

  Dillon desperately wanted to do something more than technical background work, to participate in shoots himself, but after working with him even once, no one ever wanted him on their team. He had been too uncompromising, unable to accept anyone else’s decisions.

  ‘Actually, his technical skills in the editing room were good,’ the woman had said. ‘And his lighting. People would say that others knew how to use light, but he knew how to use the dark.’

  ‘Use the dark?’ Maggie had asked.

  Dillon had been an expert at using shadows and darkness.

  ‘Sometimes he said that there was always more going on in the dark than people knew,’ the woman had said. ‘That when there was darkness in an image, viewers started to think more, to use their imaginations. The others thought his dark shots were strange and creepy, but for him I imagine they were beautiful.’

  Maggie also had something to show them.

  A backlash to Philip Dillon’s videos had started online. His work was still spreading, still reaching new viewers. But a few days ago another kind of video had started appearing. Maggie showed one after another on the big display in Mari’s office.

  All of them also featured music from Queen. But all of the images were of people hugging.

  The first one had come from Denmark. A young man who liked Queen had been so disgusted by the kicking videos that he wanted to do something. Going to the main square in the city where he lived, he asked a complete stranger, an old woman, if he could hug her. Confused, the woman nevertheless agreed. They stood in the centre of the small city, a young man and an old woman, hugging each other for several minutes. The images showed how after her initial embarrassment, the woman relaxed in the young man’s arms. By the end, both had tears in their eyes.

  The man’s friend taped the hug, and then they dubbed the Queen song ‘Spread Your Wings’ in the background and uploaded it. Within two days it had gathered tens of thousands of views and nearly as many followers. Now similar video clips were coming in from all over the world, always with someone going and hugging a stranger to a Queen soundtrack.

  The BBC had done a story about the meme during their main evening broadcast the day before. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of videos had cropped up during the following day in Britain alone. The viral campaign even had a name: Someone Cares.

  ‘A self-correcting system,’ Mari said.

  Lia understood.

  Once people had enough of evil, once their normal fascination with it was satisfied and some emotional threshold was crossed, they wanted to do something to counterbalance it. They made gestures of good will, fixing what had been broken.

  How was Craig Cole doing? Mari asked.

  Quite well, Maggie said. Cole and his wife were moving to Bradford so he could start his new job at The Pulse. There had even been a story about him in the local paper.

  ‘I think he still has a long career ahead of him,’ Maggie said.

  But Cole still always wondered why Bryony Wade had chosen him in particular as her victim and whether she might try to blackmail him with information about his affairs, Maggie said.

  Mari looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything.

  Lia wandered the Studio. She called Level and left Martyn Taylor a message saying she would be back at work the next day.

  Despite her exhaustion, she had to keep finding things to do. The idea of just going home felt strange. When Mari asked Lia to go with her to see Bryony Wade, she didn’t hesitate for a second.

  Mari had found Bryony’s phone number somehow. The girl had agreed to a meeting near her home in Newham when Mari told her she was a reporter with a new entertainment magazine that was planning a big story about her.

  Bryony was waiting at a table at a café called the Grub Stop, focused on her phone. She didn’t shake their hands when they sat down, just glanced at them quickly.

  Bryony was a little too big for her clothes, Lia thought. Maybe she was trying to attract male attention. The straps of her bra pressed into her skin, and her tank top didn’t cover quite enough.

  Mari had looked into the girl’s background. She had no police record. Everything indicated a peaceful, middle-class life. Her mother worked in an estate agent’s, and her father was a manager in a transport company. The Elizabeth Simms School in Newham was a bit better than average, and Bryony had reasonably good marks.

  The stunt she had pulled on Craig Cole didn’t fit the picture at all, but meeting her face to face they saw more signs of a surprising natural callousness.

  ‘I’m not talking to any more reporters until we agree on a fee,’ Bryony announced.

  Her gaze didn’t waver at all as she demanded the money. She had practised this in dozens of conversations with other journalists.

  ‘And you have to pay more to go to the house,’ Bryony said. ‘But no pictures unless you pay for that too.’

  Nothing in the girl’s background pointed to this sort of vulgarity, but somewhere she had learned to be demanding.

  ‘I understand,’ Mari said kindly. ‘But we don’t intend to pay you anything.’

  The girl’s expression changed. She wasn’t prepared for this.

  ‘Then I’m not talking to you,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Mari said. ‘I don’t think you’ll want your parents present for this discussion. Although of course we can get them if necessary.’

  Bryony maintained her defiant silence as Mari said what she had come to say.

  ‘You’re lying,’ Mari said. ‘And that’s fine. That happens. When I was a kid, I had to make up all kinds of self-defence mechanisms so my parents wouldn’t walk all over me.’

  Mari said that nothing in her allegations against Craig Cole was true. The problem was that it was difficult to prove. It was difficult, almost impossible to determine what had happened in the dressing room at the Elizabeth Simms School.

  ‘What I know is that Cole didn’t touch you. He didn’t even see you,’ Mari said.

  ‘That’s a lie,’ Bryony snapped.

  Her powers of speech had returned.

  ‘You don’t know anything about anything,’ she said. ‘That man groped me through my shirt. And then under it.’

  She pointed to her neckline.

  ‘Here,’ Bryony said. ‘He shoved his hand down and fondled my breasts. He didn’t even take his ring off. I felt it.’

  Mari leaned in closer and looked at the girl carefully, especially her chest.

  ‘Do you like what you see?’ Bryony asked.

  Mari shook her head.

  ‘It isn’t about that,’ she said. ‘How did Cole put his hands on your breasts?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Show me how his hands were. What position they were in.’

  Bryony’s chin rose.

  ‘That isn’t anyone’s business. You’re a perv.’

  ‘I don’t think he was even near you. You went into the same room, into the dressing room, but Cole never got anywhere near you.’

  ‘He did,’ Bryony said. ‘I felt his ring when he touched me.’

  ‘You keep talking about that ring,’ Mari said. ‘You’ve repeated it in almost every interview you’ve given. It sounds convincing. And sensational – to have an under-age girl feeling the wedding band of a man who’s been married for decades against her skin. But you haven’t mentioned any other details. You haven’t known how to invent them.’

  Bryony’s face closed up. She was shutting them out, shutting out the world, Lia thought.

  ‘Before we came to meet you, I thought that you really might have experienced some sort of sexual abuse in your life,’ Mari said seriously.

  Lia hadn’t expected such directness, but Mari remained perfectly calm.

  ‘Now when I see you, that doesn’t seem as likely,’ Mari said. ‘You talk about it so coldly. You’re too distant. I’ve listened to your voice, now and when you rang the radio show. What you said on the radio sounded rehearsed. That was when I realised you’d worked it all out beforehand. Yo
ur real stroke of genius was that you attacked Cole so publicly. Real victims of harassment avoid confrontations, but you went looking for one. You’d seen all the old famous blokes in the tabloids who got caught meddling with young girls, and you realised how hard it is to prove anything like that. You succeeded because you took the whole thing to a new level. You turned it into a public fight.’

  The girl didn’t move. They could see how much she wanted to escape. Her eyes were looking for something to latch onto but avoiding Mari. Her gaze rested on Lia but then turned away.

  For a moment there was perfect silence. Then Mari snapped back to the moment.

  ‘You poor girl,’ she said. ‘You didn’t have any real reason for what you did. Unless you count boredom with the world and what you think life has in store for you.’

  Bryony took a breath. It didn’t make any sound – they could just see it on her worried face.

  ‘You wish something would happen,’ Mari continued. ‘You thought you could get some attention and some sympathy, and maybe a little money. You could stand out from the crowd.’

  ‘You don’t know anything, you fucking cow.’

  Bryony drew strength from swearing. She retook control of the situation by berating them. Lia and Mari watched as a stream of vicious slurs began flowing out of the girl’s mouth, and they saw how alive it made her feel. Surprised glances came from a nearby table and behind the café counter.

  In some ways there was something admirable in her strength, Lia thought. She brimmed with belligerent self-confidence.

  Where do they come from? Lia thought. Where do these young people come from who can be so indifferent? How does a teenager come to see other people as nothing more than either stepping stones or obstacles?

  Mari stared at Bryony, completely transfixed by her hard expression. Nothing could get at Bryony Wade. She might never feel weakness.

  ‘You don’t regret anything,’ Mari said. ‘You could even do it again, or something like it. It worked so well. That’s why you don’t regret it.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Bryony said.

  ‘Why Craig Cole?’ Mari asked. ‘Do you know him? Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘Only that he groped me,’ the girl snapped. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘But he didn’t grope you,’ Mari said. ‘Craig Cole never touched anyone.’

  Lia glanced at Mari. The tactic was straightforward: if the girl knew anything about Cole’s affairs, it would come out now.

  ‘I didn’t say he groped anyone else,’ Bryony said. ‘But we were in the same dressing room, and he touched me.’

  ‘No,’ Mari said. ‘You hoped he would touch you. You hoped that something like that would happen, that a famous man would want you and give you attention. But Cole didn’t even notice you. He doesn’t remember ever seeing you.’A grimace flashed across Bryony’s face. She was so agitated she couldn’t control her expression.

  ‘Is that what it was?’ Mari asked. ‘Cole didn’t even notice you. Is that why you did it? You had a brush with fame and it just ignored you?’

  Bryony stood, tipping over her chair. The sudden movement startled Lia and Mari. Bryony seemed as if she wanted to attack them. But instead she walked out of the café, without looking at anyone, her coat hanging open.

  ‘She isn’t going to tell her parents about this,’ Mari said.

  Her parents were the last people Bryony wanted to know, Mari guessed.

  Mari spent the long walk to the Tube station venting the surge of emotions she had felt in the café.

  ‘Poor girl,’ she said.

  Did Mari believe that Bryony had really made her accusations just for fun? Lia asked, astonished.

  ‘Of course,’ Mari said. ‘She’s fourteen and she’s realised what’s in store for her. She doesn’t want to be just anybody, so she decided to be a molested teenager. Tricky girl.’

  The most important thing for Bryony was feeling powerful. She wanted it so badly she was ready to make false accusations against anyone, even a universally beloved radio announcer.

  ‘Her parents may know on some level,’ Mari said. ‘But if they know, they don’t want to know. It’s too hard.’

  And what if Bryony really had been mistreated? Lia asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Mari said. ‘I could see how attracted she was to the feeling of having the upper hand. She doesn’t act like a teenager who’s been forced into anything. She was the one who wanted power. Sexual power over an adult man.’

  Kummajainen, Mari said.

  An oddity. Bryony was unique, but not incomprehensible by any means. Her behaviour had a logical basis. Lots of teenage girls enjoyed sexual dominance, just like anyone else, Mari suggested.

  ‘She doesn’t know anything about Craig Cole,’ Mari said. ‘She just used Cole because he happened to be there and she could use him. Bryony got lucky when Cole didn’t mount more of a defence.’

  They left the Tube at Warren Street. Lia knew where Mari wanted to go: the Fitzroy Art Museum, her favourite place in London. There was one piece of art in particular that Mari liked. She could sit for hours sometimes watching it just to calm down and let the world spin on its way.

  As they walked to the museum, Mari rang Craig Cole. He answered in Bradford.

  Bryony Wade didn’t know anything about him, Mari reported. She had targeted him because he had visited her school and she had decided to take advantage of the opportunity.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll ever hear from her again,’ Mari said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cole said.

  His first broadcast on The Pulse was scheduled for the next day.

  ‘Everything is just fine here,’ he assured Mari. ‘More so than in a long time, now that you’ve told me that about the girl.’

  How could he ever repay Mari and her colleagues for their trouble? Cole asked.

  ‘That isn’t necessary,’ Mari said. ‘But if I ever think of something, I’ll ask.’

  The rustling of the thin black tape was familiar to Lia. She had sat in front of this piece of art in the Fitzroy Museum many times with Mari, watching as the two loops of plastic tape thrown between two large fans gyrated in the air current they made.

  Double O, the work of a Lithuanian artist, always calmed Mari’s mind. Usually she wanted to think about anything apart from the Studio’s work when she was here, but now she couldn’t shut it out of her mind.

  ‘I think Craig Cole will do all right now,’ Mari said.

  Lia nodded.

  ‘Maggie can keep in contact with him,’ Mari said. ‘And the rest of us can listen to his broadcasts online sometimes. That will tell us how he’s doing. You can always tell from a person’s voice.’

  Lia guessed in what direction Mari’s thoughts were turning. Philip Dillon and the men he had tortured in Zanzibar. It was clear that Mari and the rest of them at the Studio were thinking about the trio’s future.

  ‘We aren’t touching Dillon,’ Mari said.

  She said it quietly so no one walking the corridors of the museum would hear, but Lia could hear the resolution in her voice.

  ‘Dillon belongs to the police and the justice system now,’ Lia said.

  ‘And the media,’ Mari said. ‘And everyone who is going to make him famous. His audience.’

  Lia closed her eyes and tried not to think about it, but heavy doubt loomed in the back of her mind.

  Did we make a mistake leaving Dillon alive? Should we have just let him bleed to death?

  ‘I’ve been thinking about forgiveness,’ Mari said as if in answer to Lia’s mental questions. ‘I haven’t forgiven him. And I won’t.’

  Only the norms of civilisation and rationality had prevented them from taking Dillon’s life in Zanzibar. They thought that was what they were supposed to do, so they did it.

  ‘People have a hard time believing extremes of greed and cruelty are real, as if they were some sort of illusion,’ Mari said. ‘Or just a form of mental illness. They aren’t. Dillon’s crimes we
re perfectly logical acts, just completely inhuman. His brutality makes him seem sick, but he is responsible for his deeds.’

  And it wasn’t up to them what kind of celebrity Dillon would achieve.

  Lia listened to the hum of the fans and the quick crackling of the rotating tapes and focused her thoughts elsewhere.

  Theo Durand and Aldo Zambrano. They are more important now.

  ‘I have to go back to Zanzibar,’ Mari said. ‘It was important to get you and Rico home, and we all just wanted out of there. But I should have stayed. I’m going back with Paddy.’

  She gave a brief sketch of her goals. Only two of them needed to return to the island. Each of them would focus on one of the victims – Mari on Theo Durand because she knew a little French. Both men were in intensive care, probably detached from the world by the strong drugs they would be on. But they had to return some day, and Mari and the others had to make sure that Durand and Zambrano received the best possible care. Once the men returned home, Mari and the others would have to consider how to support their families.

  ‘It’s going to be dreadful,’ Mari said.

  They had to prepare the families to deal with the post-traumatic stress reactions and their own shock, and do it all with as much secrecy as possible.

  ‘Isn’t there any other way?’ Lia asked. ‘Can’t we leave all that to the authorities?’

  No, Mari said. These men would need small miracles now. They would need treatment programmes that weren’t available anywhere. But they could be created, with enough money and work.

  ‘I am a psychologist,’ Mari said, and Lia understood that she was saying it out loud as much to assure herself as anything. ‘This is my duty. Paddy and I are leaving tomorrow morning.’

  Then Mari immersed herself in her thoughts again, watching the captivating randomness of the black loops of tape of Double O as they darted about in the air.

  Lia looked at her friend. Just now she was filled with admiration and sympathy for Mari, but all the while doubt gnawed at the back of her mind. Would she ever know Mari completely?