by K. L. Slater
‘The answer is no. I’d bet my bottom dollar Michelle is behind this idea.’ His amicable approach suddenly gone, he folded his arms and leaned back on the cupboard doors behind him.
‘She’s not! I’m quite capable of making my own—’
‘I don’t want a divorce and I don’t think you do, deep down,’ he interjected, eyes blazing. ‘It’s not up for discussion. Not at this point in time.’
My throat squeezed as I turned to glare at him. ‘Well, it’s not just your decision, it’s—’
We both whipped round as the door opened. Michelle appeared in a dressing gown with a towel wrapped around her head. ‘Have you ordered the pizzas yet, Esme? Oh! You still here, Owen?’
Pointedly, Owen held out his arms and looked down at his body. ‘Yep, looks that way, Michelle. Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘I haven’t ordered the food yet,’ I said in a certain tone, willing Michelle to get the hint this wasn’t a good time. ‘There’s no rush is there?’
‘Pizza, pizza, pizza!’ I heard Zachary chant from the living room.
My chest tightened. The last thing I wanted was Zachary witnessing the three people he loved the most at loggerheads. Since the accident, he easily became overwhelmed and anxious.
Silently, Owen turned and walked out of the room. I rushed after him, passing Michelle without comment when her hands flew up in a baffled ‘what did I say?’ gesture.
I hovered outside the living room door as Owen kissed Zach on the top of his head. I hated tension in the air like this. ‘See you tomorrow, son. Be a good lad for Mum and enjoy your pizza and movie night.’
‘Wish you could stay, Dad.’ Forlornly, Zachary paused his game.
‘Maybe next time, eh?’
I saw the sadness in Owen’s eyes but what could I do? I walked to the front door with him.
‘You forgot your tools,’ I remembered.
‘I’ll pick them up next time,’ he said curtly. ‘It won’t be more than a couple of days before I’m back over here.’
Referring to his next visit felt like a dig designed to cancel out what I’d just tried to flag up. Drawing a line. The divorce.
‘Just let me know what nights you want Zach this week,’ I said. We usually agreed the weekly split of time on a Sunday evening. ‘We can arrange a day to continue our conversation, too.’
Owen stepped outside. ‘There won’t be a good time for that,’ he said. ‘I’ll decide when I’m ready and I’ll let you know.’
‘It’s not just your decision though, is it?’ I responded tersely.
‘See you soon, champ,’ he called over my shoulder before flashing a sarcastic smile my way.
‘Oh, and can you make sure you park your car on the road next time?’ Michelle called loudly from the kitchen door.
I saw a bolt of fury darken Owen’s face.
‘If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll learn to keep her big mouth shut,’ he muttered before he turned to walk away.
Michelle had always known exactly how to press his buttons.
Eight
TWO DAYS EARLIER
The next morning, I dressed smarter than I usually did for the office, in a navy shift dress and court shoes. It was cloudy out, but according to my weather app it was going to be a warm day. I slipped on a smart cream jacket anyway. The right impression was going to be important, and I could always take it off after the initial introductions.
I was the first one into the office, but that wasn’t unusual. We had a relaxed attitude to timekeeping at The Speaking Fox. There were five permanent staff, not counting the freelancers we worked with. All staff worked over and above their contracted hours without complaint, particularly when we had an important project on the go. They’d all broken their backs to ensure the first episode of The Fischer Files was as good as it could be and we’d also had the celebrations the night before, so I wasn’t surprised that it was nearly nine when Mo walked in.
‘My head hurts,’ he groaned, taking a deep draft from the Costa Coffee reusable cup in his hand. ‘I should never have gone on to the opening of that new bar in town with the others.’
He looked a bit dishevelled, as if he hadn’t changed since last night. But I couldn’t remember what he was wearing and he was hardly my responsibility. I was disappointed that he hadn’t taken better control when we left the party last night though.
‘All set for today?’ I said, shuffling my papers.
‘Yeah, but… I’m at the recording studio this morning to get things ready for episode two, remember? Is that still OK? I could change the—’
‘No, no, that’s fine,’ I said quickly, suddenly remembering our conversation about getting one of our preferred narrators in to do some voiceover work for the next episode’s trailer. We’d pre-recorded the first few episodes to give us a head start and I would continue to interview Simone for the later ones to be aired in a few weeks’ time. ‘You’re not involved in the actual meeting and Michelle will be in soon to go through the notes with me.’
‘I should be back about midday. My phone will be off while I’m at the studio but Justine and Toby will be around if you need anything.’
‘Cheers, we’re all organised though,’ I said, feeling anything but.
Mo glanced at his watch, the stubble on his chin seeming darker than ever. ‘I might get off now, if you don’t mind. Get a head start on the scripts. Good luck with TrueLife, Esme. I know you’re going to kill this.’
‘Thanks.’ I grinned, sounding way more confident than I felt.
When Mo left, I pulled the meeting notes from Michelle’s desk to look through before she got in the office. But just as I started, my phone began chirping – courtesy of the Angry Birds theme tune Zachary had insisted on loading onto it. I was intending to ignore the call until I glanced at the screen and saw Michelle’s name on there.
‘Everything OK?’ My stomach churned, already anticipating problems.
‘Everything is fine. I’ve just dropped Zachary off at school and I’m in Sainsbury’s now, getting stuff for our barbie later. I just need to know if you’d prefer sweet potato or regular wedges?’
Michelle’s voice was bright and animated. I resisted scolding her for calling me with daft decisions when I was trying to keep focused this morning.
‘Either is fine by me,’ I said, holding back the panic instead of telling her to get to the office on the double. ‘Thanks for sorting the barbecue food out for later, Zach’s going to love it.’
‘No worries,’ she said. ‘I’ve got the stuff in my trolley now so as soon as I get out of here, I’ll head straight over to the office so we can go through the paperwork before the meeting.’
‘You’re a star,’ I said, feeling instantly calmer. I pushed away the meeting notes. They could wait until she arrived.
I took a few deep breaths, relieved my chest didn’t feel quite as tight. I used to say, as a throwaway comment, ‘I’m so stressed.’ But the truth is, I didn’t really know what stress was until after Zachary’s accident, when I’d lie awake in the early hours, wracking my brains over how they could possibly catch a hit-and-run driver who was gone in seconds – so fast even the lollipop lady didn’t see him coming – until I woke up in a sweat, worrying Zachary’s head injury might cause a stroke in his sleep… the torture went on.
I looked around the small office, trying to see it with the eyes of the TrueLife executives who would be in here in a couple of hours. They were keen to see our offices in Nottingham, they said, and Mo thought the fact they didn’t just summon us to London was a good sign. We looked on Google Earth and saw that their office building was sandwiched between the Gherkin and the Shard. I’d never met Damon Yorke, the CEO, in person before. We’d spoken on the phone, of course, and had a Zoom meeting with the whole team, but there was something about being face to face that just felt more urgent. More concrete.
Our office accommodation was certainly compact here – we had the top floor in a small two-storey office bloc
k. But Michelle, who had an eye for interiors, had worked her magic on a shoestring. She’d furnished it economically but stylishly with ex-demo blonde wood furniture and leafy plants in blue glazed ceramic pots that softened the empty corners of the white rooms. Sheer silver blinds from a local closing-down sale blurred an unimpressive view of parked cars and refuse bins out back, and the mock Peytil line art, that she’d bought online and hung in cheap IKEA clip frames, broke up the bare walls and added a certain Scandinavian charm.
When we’d viewed the premises, I’d envisaged the separate room as my own office but soon discovered I much preferred to sit out in the open-plan area with everyone else, enjoying the camaraderie that flourished there between the five of us. So we ended up grandly labelling this room ‘the meeting room’.
There was a tentative tap on the door and when I looked up, Justine popped her head in. ‘Got a minute, Esme?’
I nodded and beckoned her in.
Justine was the researcher at The Speaking Fox – I’d known her since my Sheffield University days, when we both studied for degrees in journalism. She glided into the room, her slender frame clad in the trademark floaty layers she wore in all seasons, rain or shine.
She styled her long, shiny brown hair the same every day, too. Loose with a centre parting and narrow plaited braids either side of her heart-shaped face.
Her bohemian style had remained completely unchanged since university. I’d been a bit of a rock chick back then, but in the world of work I’d felt I had to curtail my image to ‘get on’ when I’d landed my first job as a trainee journalist with the Nottingham Post.
Justine and I had kept in touch throughout our careers and our jobs had intersected on more than one occasion, when we’d both attended big local stories. There had been the major local drugs ring that was busted by Nottinghamshire Police four years ago, and also the time a convict was sprung free from a prisoner transport vehicle by an armed gang close to Junction 26 of the M1 two years earlier.
Justine was an excellent journalist and had won several awards for her news coverage. But I happened to know she was an even better researcher. That was also where her passion lay, and it was the reason her news stories stood up against the work of far more experienced journalists. She’d always been able to unearth some juicy background details her colleagues missed, or hadn’t researched deep and long enough to find.
So, when I set up The Speaking Fox, the name Justine Campbell was at the top of my recruitment list, together with Mo’s.
Now, Justine sat down in a cloud of patchouli fragrance and slid an A4 sheet over the desk to me. ‘I thought you might like to cast your eye over this. It’s my research plan outline for the Fischer Files docuseries. Maybe you could present it to TrueLife this morning as a tempting taster for the project.’
She’d jumped the gun a bit doing this. Managing my own team had proved a problematic climb in leadership for me. I wanted everything super-friendly and relaxed in the office – I’d known Mo and Justine a long time – but then it was sometimes tricky to pull things back if someone skipped ahead with stuff. I reached for the paper anyway. If today’s meeting went well, Mo and I would have to meet with the executives a couple of times to thrash out the finer details of their planned television programme. Only then could I approach Simone with the idea.
Still, I was impressed with Justine’s initiative and I picked up the sheet.
‘This looks super, Justine.’ I began, trying to strike the right note. ‘You’ve lots of detail about the original police team and the early processes that we now suspect they skimmed over.’
‘But?’
I paused before replying. ‘It’s great you’ve managed to get some ideas down at such an early stage, but I should flag up that the content could – and probably will – change after the meeting today.’
‘Oh.’ Justine looked deflated.
‘Before the research outline can be approved, we’ll need to iron out exactly what format TrueLife’s television programme will take, specifically what areas of the Fischer case they want to focus on. I suspect they’ll want the initial outline to come from their end.’
Justine moved her hands across the conference table as if she were smoothing out the wood. ‘I didn’t realise you were going to let a third party dictate the details of what we do. You’ve always said you wouldn’t tolerate that after Sky.’
I’d shared with Justine just how I’d become disillusioned with my job at Sky News. The shift to online, instant news had robbed journalists like me of the sense of the pursuit of a story. We were told exactly what to report on and when to move on to the next lead.
I lay the paperwork down. ‘Nobody is going to be dictating our content but obviously, if we accept this collaboration, TrueLife will have a say in what we finally produce. I wouldn’t expect anything else.’
Justine raised an eyebrow and pulled a loose thread from her flouncy embroidered cuff. ‘It’s just… it doesn’t matter.’
‘Please… say what you were thinking. It does matter.’
‘It’s just that I hate the thought we’re just going for the big payday and giving up artistic control in the process, that’s all. It’s really important you keep in touch with the company ethos on a number of fronts.’
A flare of impatience caught my breath and I waited for it to pass. Justine was my friend. She was also employed as a researcher of The Speaking Fox. But she wasn’t a director and she was getting herself involved in decisions that weren’t hers to make. I couldn’t help wondering if I was to blame for her attitude. The way I’d encouraged an open-plan office environment that was so informal… it made it difficult to maintain professional boundaries with people you’d known a long time.
‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ Justine offered, registering the implication of my silence. ‘I’m just flagging up what you’ve always said. The Speaking Fox is different to other companies. We make our own rules.’
I managed a smile. ‘And that still stands, but at the end of the day there has to be a happy medium in being open to beneficial collaborations while retaining our autonomy.’ I softened my tone. ‘It’s a bit early to worry about research ideas for the docuseries, that’s all I’m saying. I haven’t even broached the idea with Simone yet; she might hate it.’
‘It’s not just up to Simone though, is it?’
‘No, but we’d need her input. Otherwise the programme would just be another third-party take on the case. It has to have Simone in it because that’s what will set it apart. Like the podcast.’
Justine stood up and reached over the desk to take back her outline. ‘Sounds like you’ve got everything under control, Esme. It’s your story after all. I’m sure you know exactly what you want.’
That much was true. The stories that interested me were the ones about people. Their lives, their families, the emotional toll various events and incidents took on them. My hope was that the TrueLife proposal would take that one step further into the medium of television.
I answered Justine as warmly as I could manage. ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you more time right now, Justine, but Michelle is on her way in. As you can imagine, my mind’s full of nothing else but this meeting at the moment.’
‘Sure. I’ll leave you to it, then.’
When Justine had left the room, I rubbed the taut muscles in the back of my neck and glanced at the clock. The executives from TrueLife would be arriving very soon… where the heck was Michelle?
Nine
JUSTINE
Justine took her bag, packed it with research notes and popped out of the office. It was early, but Esme would be holed up in the meeting for a while. Why did she have to be so controlling? Esme didn’t seem to realise it, but she could destroy your enthusiasm within minutes.
She never remembered Esme being like that at college, or in the years that followed, when their work coincided on various stories. She’d always been optimistic and open to new ideas – that was why Justine had jumped at the chance
of working with her when Esme offered her the position of researcher at The Speaking Fox.
But it soon became apparent Esme had changed somewhat from her early days in the industry. The optimism had been replaced by a new, more suspicious nature. Not exactly expecting the worst, but watching out for it just in case. It had made Esme cautious, which was not necessarily a good trait to have as a journalist, when you had to rely on your instincts and often go out on a limb.
Esme was adept at trying to cover up her newfound personality flaws, Justine would give her that. On the surface, she seemed pretty much the perfect boss, appearing to encourage her staff to listen to their gut feelings and to use creative thinking. But her secret drive to control every last detail – thus narrowing down the chances of something going wrong – lurked like a predator’s shadow.
It was certainly not what Justine had expected when she’d joined the new business. Esme had wooed her with promises of full creative license in the workplace. It hadn’t quite turned out that way. According to Michelle, Esme had been slowly getting worse since her son’s accident. She was so much more on edge than she used to be, like now when Justine had put forth an idea that she’d hoped might help secure the TrueLife deal.
The gradual disintegration of their close relationship meant that Justine felt she couldn’t air her concerns with Esme. She felt vindicated in taking her current course of action. She would keep quiet about it all, and when reality hit Esme between the eyes… well, then she’d only have herself to blame.
She walked across the small car park at the back of the offices and drove home, stopping only to pick up milk at a small Tesco Express down the road. Inside her flat, she made a cup of tea and, as she didn’t want to arrive too early, waited for another twenty minutes before driving to the nature reserve.
She parked over the far side, behind the big sweeping willow at the side of the lake where two cars could wedge in and be invisible from the main parking area.
