A Cursed Place

by Peter Hanington

  ‘You absolutely should. Anyway Mr Carver, here’s the thing … there’s gonna be a letter published in all the main British newspapers tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It’ll welcome this whole BBC and Public Square partnership and it’s gonna to be signed by a bunch of very obvious people … me, your Director General, the Head of News. But I want for us to have the names of a few super respected journalists on that list too.’

  ‘And they’re all on holiday, so you thought you’d ask me?’

  She laughed.

  ‘That’ll be some of that famous ol’ English self-deprecation in action I’m guessing?’

  Carver shrugged.

  ‘I’m not really a letter-signing kind of person Mrs Curepipe.’

  She nodded slowly.

  ‘Any kind of letter?’

  ‘Well, this sort of letter in particular …’ He took another swig of his bitter. ‘… in fact, to be perfectly honest, this letter specifically, your letter, I would never, ever sign.’

  Her smile, which had been in place pretty much from the moment she’d walked into the pub, now slipped.

  ‘I see. So I’m guessing that you don’t think this partnership is a good idea?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, how about this … how about I have a go at persuading you otherwise?’

  Carver looked down at his pint. It was still three quarters full.

  ‘It’s a free country. More or less.’

  The case Elizabeth Curepipe made, sitting here in front of Carver in the corner of the Yorkshire Grey, was significantly different from the pitch she’d made to his bosses down the road at Broadcasting House.

  ‘I think that you and I are more alike than you might think Mr Carver. We’re both after the same thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘People’s attention.’

  ‘Right, but it’s not just about wanting the same thing. Why you want it matters too. I want people’s attention so we can tell them what’s going on in the world – things they should be interested in, things that they might want to think about, worry about.’ He looked at Curepipe. ‘You, or rather, your company … you want their attention so you can sell them stuff they don’t need.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, that’s where you’re wrong about us. There’s more to us than that. I want to run a profitable business, sure …’ Carver made a harrumphing sound. ‘… and I believe we should pay the proper amount of tax on that profit. But more important than that, I want people to read and see and listen to the good stuff – good journalism most of all.’ She took a sip of cider. Over the top of the glass, her eyes found Carver’s and she smiled another one of those movie star smiles. ‘You know, I’ve always thought there was a sort of poetry to good journalism.’

  ‘A poetry?’

  ‘Yes. Just like there’s a poetry in good prose … same with the best kind of journalism. You don’t agree?’

  Of course he agreed, he agreed completely. But he wasn’t about to tell her that.

  ‘Most of the time it’s just hard work, hack work. Shoe leather and good luck was how one of my first bosses put it. But yes, now and again something vaguely poetic might happen – if you’re lucky.’

  ‘Yes. And that’s the sort of thing we can help with. We have a billion people using Public Square. That’s a thousand million.’

  ‘I know what a billion is.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. But the point is that there are a billion people there – eager to read and learn and share. And the best stuff spreads.’

  Carver shrugged.

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely. Plus we can help identify the real niche groups who get ignored and give them something too.’ She was motoring now. ‘Foreign news junkies like you. Or birdwatchers, trainspotters …’

  ‘Holocaust deniers.’

  The smile slipped again.

  ‘We monitor that kind of thing. We’re getting better at filtering that crap out, we really are …’ She paused. ‘… and I’m not sure it’s fair to put all the blame for that kind of stuff on us. In Rwanda, the bad guys used radio to whip people up and encourage genocide … we don’t react to that by banning all radio.’

  Carver shook his head.

  ‘I was in Rwanda.’

  ‘I know you were. I’ve listened to your dispatches from there. That’s why I chose that particular example.’

  He stared at Curepipe; again she had surprised him. He took a gulp of beer.

  ‘I’m sure there are loads of people falling over themselves to sign your letter Mrs Curepipe …’

  ‘Please, Elizabeth. Or Lizzie?’

  ‘Elizabeth. You don’t need me to sign the letter.’

  ‘Don’t need you, no. But I’d really like it if you did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We want to turn nay …’ She stopped.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Nothing. My dad always thought that the best way to test a new idea was to find the toughest audience you could and run it by them.’

  ‘I can see why that would make sense.’

  ‘You’d have liked my dad and mom. When they got started – back in the seventies – it wasn’t about money, not at all. It was about connecting the whole world, bringing people together like never before, sharing the products you made. Peyote parties in the desert … all of that.’

  ‘Sounds like fun.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘How much of that do you remember?’

  She paused.

  ‘Not as much as I’d like. But a lot of us still hold to the same principles. It’s just that everything’s got faster, a lot faster. What’s happening in Silicon Valley right now, it’s a complete revolution and if you want to survive a revolution you have to move fast and break things.’

  William put his beer down with a clunk.

  ‘Spare me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That line … that’s not your line is it?’

  ‘No, that’s Zuck’s, but—’

  ‘But that’s what you believe.’ He picked his drink back up, swilling the last of his beer around in the base of the glass and swallowing it.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘And I don’t. I’m more of a “move slowly and try not to break anything” kind of guy. That’s why I can’t sign your letter.’

  Elizabeth smiled again. She finished her cider.

  ‘I understand. I’m disappointed but I understand.’

  They took their empty glasses back to the bar. Out on the street, Elizabeth’s entourage was waiting. A couple of shiny black Mercedes were parked at the kerb and half a dozen smart-suited men and women were striding up and down, impatiently texting other people and trying to look busy. Elizabeth gestured in their direction.

  ‘That’s one of the downsides of being me. I need this crowd of people.’

  ‘But you can’t face them day to day?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Carver stifled a laugh. Elizabeth shot him a look. ‘Did I say something funny?’

  ‘Not particularly. Those are lines from an old song. A song I used to listen to a lot, I haven’t heard it for a while.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

  Carver opened his mouth to tell her. Then changed his mind.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll tell you.’ Elizabeth gave him a puzzled look and reached for her phone. He put his hand out to stop her, briefly touching her arm, then quickly removing it. ‘Sorry, but don’t do that. Please.’

  ‘What? I’m just going to …’

  ‘I know what you’re going to do. I’m asking you not to, not now anyway.’ He paused. ‘Why don’t you try asking around? Ask some people if they know that line, if they remember the song?’

  ‘I just asked you.’

  ‘And I couldn’t help.’

  ‘Fine, fine. I get it …’ She put the phone back in her pocket. ‘… how about a clue?’

  Carver nodded.
>
  ‘Okay. It’s the kind of song that your father and mother might have liked. From what you tell me, it could’ve been their kind of thing.’

  ‘The Grateful Dead?’

  ‘Not a bad guess. But no.’

  ‘I feel I should tell you, Mr Carver, that this has been – by some margin – the least successful meeting I’ve had while I’ve been here in the UK.’

  ‘Right. Well, you win some, you lose some.’

  ‘Yeah …’ She smiled ‘… I’ve heard people say that.’ She held out her hand and William shook it. ‘It’s a shame, I’m a good person to have in your corner, Mr Carver, ask anyone.’

  ‘I’m sure. But my corner’s just fine.’

  47 Memory Sticks

  THE HEADLAND HOTEL, HONG KONG

  Patrick found an empty seat at the far end of the hotel lobby. He put his laptop and notebook down on the coffee table in front of him and stared at the wall. He needed to collect his thoughts. And quick.

  ‘Concentrate …’

  He’d written a note to McCluskey warning her that both her fax number and the Skype address she’d given him might’ve been seen by someone else. He told her that the same someone had broken into his bedroom, but that nothing had been taken – everything she’d sent him and all his interviews were safe. He didn’t want her to panic, although he had known as he was writing the hurried note that it was him who was doing the panicking. He turned in his seat and saw the red-faced Chinese cop who met his eye and smiled before disappearing back inside the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Patrick wondered whether it was this guy who’d searched his room? It seemed unlikely – the black-suited secret policeman never appeared to do much of anything. His function was ornamental, not operational. Who then? Patrick glanced over at the hotel gift shop and checked the time again. He’d planned to fax McCluskey straight away, but the horses were running up at the Happy Valley Racecourse today and so the fax machine was in use. Ada had been very apologetic, but she’d made it clear that he wasn’t allowed anywhere near the stockroom, much less the fax machine until there was a break in racing. They’d agreed that he should wait in the lobby and she’d come find him. So he waited. He had his laptop and the memory stick, although now he came to think about it, perhaps this would have been safer left in the lining of the curtains. Whoever had searched the room had searched it once and not found the stick; logic suggested that they were unlikely to search again. At least not right away. He considered running back up to the bedroom and putting it back in its original hiding place, then changed his mind. The priority had to be sending McCluskey the fax.

  ‘Hey there bud!’ A thick hand clapped him hard on the shoulder. ‘I thought I recognised those crappy old sneakers.’

  ‘Oh, hey Dan. How’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m good. Real good. What ya doing hiding away here in a corner of the lobby?’

  Patrick shrugged.

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual, editing.’ He pointed at the laptop. ‘I came down here for a change of scene, I was going a little stir crazy in my room.’

  Dan nodded.

  ‘I can understand that …’ He glanced across at the gift shop. ‘Perhaps you could use some company? I could go grab us both a beer …’

  Patrick was tempted, but he shook his head.

  ‘No, thanks Dan, but I should push on.’ He reached for the laptop. ‘Maybe later?’

  ‘Sure buddy. Hey, how about this … I promised Viv I’d fetch us some food from this cool takeaway place I found down in Admiralty. How’s about the three of us get together later and have a meal in one of the rooms? It’s better food than the restaurant here does and way cheaper. We could get us a pitcher of those dragon cocktails and some beers to wash it down with?’

  Patrick wanted to be left alone. It seemed like the quickest way of achieving that was to agree.

  ‘That sounds fine Dan.’

  ‘So you’re in?’

  ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Cool. Let’s make it … your room at eight p.m?’

  ‘My room?’

  ‘Yeah. We’ll come to you. Don’t worry bud, we’ll bring everything …’ He clapped Patrick on the shoulder. ‘See you at eight.’

  48 All Souls

  BROCHU, CHILE, SOUTH AMERICA

  Jags woke with a start and reached instinctively for the open glovebox. He had his hand on the pistol butt when he realised that the voice that had roused him was a recording, not a real person. A tannoy announcement he’d heard before. In a low voice, American-accented and slow, first in English, then Spanish, came the familiar alert:

  This is a test message. The Brochu dam warning system is operational. This message is being broadcast on all channels. We repeat, this is a test.

  He wound the window down and squinted, staring beyond the green metal Brochu sign, in the direction of the dam. It looked like it always looked. They played the recording a couple more times, then the basso voice announced that the test was over and there was silence. One day it would not be a test. Jags opened the door and climbed out of the Chevy. He walked around the car a couple of times to stretch his legs. Soledad’s mother had invited him to the family house for some food in half an hour. Then, later that evening, Soledad was on parade, albeit rather reluctantly, at the All Souls’ ceremony. The unburying. Jags lifted the front of his shirt and took a sniff; he had the smell of airports and travel on him but there wasn’t time to shower. He climbed back into the car on the passenger side and dug around in the glove compartment again. He pushed the gun to the back; it was the deodorant he was looking for – that and the brand-new phone that Fred had sent him. Jags sprayed a couple of blasts of the sandalwoody-smelling deodorant under each arm and billowed his shirt a little before having another sniff. It was an improvement. His thoughts turned to Elizabeth, to London and their night together. Or half a night anyway. He would like to call her, say hello. More than hello. But it was out of the question; Fred would know. One way or another, Fred always knew. He opened the plastic bag containing his assorted burner phones and took out the box containing the new mobile. Latest model, all the bells and whistles. Boxed up and cellophane wrapped, no way on earth of knowing that Fred and his geeks had been crawling all over it adding who knew what? He had to persuade Soledad to use this phone from now on.

  ‘Get her to swap her old mobile for this one and, more importantly. get her back on script. No more rabble-rousing speeches. Remind her who she’s working for. A forceful reminder if necessary.’

  Fred had offered to send one of the new guys down to help him out. The second time he’d made this offer. Jags told Fred that he’d handle it.

  He put the box in his jacket pocket, walked back around to the driver’s side, started the Chevy and drove down the hill, parking in front of Soledad’s family home. There was a nanny goat tethered to a metal pole in the front yard, a new addition. The animal was eyeing up a few heads of lettuce that were growing from a compost bag in front of the house, but the blue nylon rope she was tied to wouldn’t reach that far. Jags gave the goat a tentative pat and strode on up to the door. He knocked and heard voices from inside the house; Soledad’s mother Francesca answered, greeting him with a polite if rather nervous smile and some well-rehearsed English.

  ‘Hello, you are most welcome here today.’ She slipped back into Spanish in order to tell him that Soledad was getting ready and that he should sit at the table. The chicken stew she’d hoped to give him last time he visited was on the menu this time, and sure enough the small house was filled with the smell of garlic and seared chicken.

  Soledad soon appeared, wearing what looked like her father’s old tracksuit, but with her face fully made-up and her hair piled high on her head. He had never seen her with any kind of make-up before and it was quite a transformation. To Jags she looked like a teenage kid playing Liz Taylor playing Queen Cleopatra.

  ‘Well, that’s something different …’

  Soledad said nothing. She got her backpack from behind the front door
and sat across from him at the dinner table. He tried to engage her again. ‘You must be excited? It’s your big night. Star of the show …’

  She gave a non-committal nod of the head. Soledad had the backpack open in front of her and was looking for something.

  ‘So you know the one-page thing from Public Square that you gave me?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘We have written one too.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘The people of Brochu. I wrote it – but on their behalf. I have spoken to quite a few people now, it reflects the general opinion I think, but we can always alter it.’

  Jags nodded. Sure … either they could alter it, or alternatively how about burning it and never speaking of it again? She passed the piece of paper over and he skim read from the top. It was just as bad as he’d feared. Possibly worse. The one-pager called for a commitment to use local labour to build the museum, community centre and nursery. It wanted local people put in charge of repairs to the dam as well, plus regular safety inspections carried out, independent of the mining company, not commissioned by them. It called for an end to a number things, including something called veinicuatrear.

  ‘What’s veinicuatrear?’

  Soledad’s brow furrowed as she considered how best to translate the word.

  ‘It means … to twenty-four hour. To work twenty-four hours in a row.’

  ‘How often does that happen?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘All the time.’

  The paper called for statistics to be kept on the number of mining-related injuries, for compensation for these injuries etc, etc. A large part of the list related to safety, but down near the bottom it got round to pay. Jags read the first line and laughed

  ‘Am I reading this right? You want Public Square to pay the equivalent of the Californian minimum wage?’

  ‘In Chilean pesos, yes.’

  ‘Eight bucks an hour? You’re dreaming.’

  ‘It goes up to nine dollars soon.’

  Jags shook his head.

  ‘No kidding?’

  ‘Yes. So in fact you should take eight while it’s on the table.’