by Jo Bannister
In the silence and the dark, she heard the frantic thud of her own heart. The doctor in her kicked in: adrenalin pumping into her blood in response to the imminent threat, readying her for fight or for flight. But she wasn’t built for flight. She rounded the corner of the house shoulder first, like a Green Beret entering a Vietnamese village.
The back door was indeed standing open. Rosie frowned: less damage than she’d expected. OK, that was good, that meant Robbie’d got in without having to work himself into a frenzy. Maybe his mother had exaggerated. Maybe he didn’t have his knife at her throat either, merely in his hand; or even in his pocket. Maybe it wasn’t even a knife. Was it too much to hope that it was a potato peeler from the kitchen drawer?
The time had come to find out. Pushing the fear down through her with a determination almost as solid as hands, she stepped inside. She drew a deep breath, flicked the paling torch around the kitchen …
And then somehow, unaccountably, the whole back of the house was filled with light and sound and people. Bright lights dazzling her, laughter and instructions she didn’t understand, people she didn’t recognise except that none of them was a middle-aged woman or her eighteen-year-old son.
Out of the chaos two men came into focus, one squatting in front of Rosie with a camera on his shoulder, the other cosying up to her with a microphone and that smirk that television personalities confuse with charm.
“Primrose Holland,” he beamed at the camera, “women’s page editor at the Skipley Chronicle and celebrated Agony Aunt – You’ve Been Had!”
Then she understood. She watched a lot of television in a desultory sort of way, had the deplorable habit of turning on as soon as she came home and letting it run like background music until she went to bed. She saw a lot of bits of programmes that way, most of them rubbish. Dick Chauncey’s You’ve Been Had was typical.
She’d never have admitted to being a viewer, but in fact she’d seen him do this before – to a fireman conned into rescuing his own toddler from a supposedly unsafe building, to a dog breeder delivering her pedigree bitch of indisputably mongrel puppies, to a conductor whose orchestra was playing from a different score.
So she knew what the form was. Victims were supposed to look horrified, then see the funny side, then give the smirking Chauncey either a quick kiss or a slap on the back depending on their sex and/ or inclination.
Marjorie Miller and her son Robbie? –figments of the imagination. Chauncey must have written the letters, chuckling over Rosie’s growing involvement, finally paid an actress to phone her in the middle of the night and bring the thing to a climax. He’d borrowed the house, installed his film crew and waited for her to follow the bait to the back door. He may have wondered if she would chicken out, but he wouldn’t let that spoil the programme. He may have wondered how she’d react. He’d given her every reason to be afraid. She’d come here expecting to confront a dangerous young man, and if the anti-climax was enough to provoke a stream of obscene invective – Rosie Holland was not known for either self-restraint or delicacy of expression – that could only add to the entertainment.
All these thoughts raced through Rosie’s mind in the seconds that followed the dénouement. She saw Chauncey waiting, that smug smile on his face, the microphone in his hand, waiting cheerfully for her to respond to the jape he’d played on her.
She met his gaze. She smiled wryly and shook her head. She chuckled. He chuckled.
Then all that adrenalin washing round her system somehow gathered in her right fist and she fetched him such a clout that he’d have measured his length on the linoleum had he not landed on the sound recordist first.
Chapter Two
They held the inquest on Monday morning, in Matt Gosling’s office up in the eaves of the Chronicle building.
“And there never was a Marjorie Miller?” said Alex incredulously. “The letters were forged?”
Rosie grimaced. “Every word – except the address, which is Chauncey’s producer’s house. Everything else was a lie. And I never suspected.”
“Don’t blame yourself for that,” said Matt staunchly. He was a big man, when he stretched his legs into the room they became a hazard to navigation. This mattered less than it might have done because one of them didn’t hurt if it got kicked. “It never occurred to me we’d have to be wary of people inventing problems. What kind of a sick mind thought that up?”
Sale sniffed. “The same one that thinks up all his stunts. You’ve seen the programme: humiliation disguised as humour is what it’s about. If it’s any comfort, Rosie, this wasn’t personal. You could consider it a compliment – Chauncey wouldn’t have bothered if The Primrose Path wasn’t so popular.”
“I’d rather have had an appreciative note and a bunch of flowers,” Rosie said ruefully.
Matt grinned. He thought the world of Rosie, loved her warmth, her fallibility and her sheer enthusiasm for life. A similar sense of humour, verging on the juvenile, a common sense of adventure, a shared enjoyment in the world and all its wonders made them natural allies. If Rosie had turned out to be the world’s worst women’s page editor – and there had been moments when that seemed a distinct possibility – Matt would never have regretted hiring her.
But the grin faded, leaving him worried. Rosie Holland was the best thing about the Skipley Chronicle – its heart, its soul, its conscience; and the revitalised Chronicle was one of the best things about Skipley. Without it the place would have been just another Black Country township in constant danger of being absorbed into the Birmingham conurbation. Its own weekly newspaper made it a community, and The Primrose Path was the main buffer between the Chronicle and insolvency. Anything that threatened the Path threatened the paper.
Alex was frankly appalled. She’d known Rosie for years, was the chief administrator’s secretary at the West Country hospital where Rosie practised pathology until she took up journalism. Now her PA, Alex knew better than anyone that Rosie could exasperate for England. She’d undoubtedly made enemies in the short time they’d been here, any of whom might have sought redress. A smack in the eye was an occupational hazard. But this was an act of deliberate cruelty, a snare baited to trap only someone who took the job seriously and tried to do it well. To Alex, who put a high value on courage, it seemed inexcusable to use a person’s virtues against them. And for what? For television entertainment.
Matt said, “What do we do about it?”
Sale was the only career journalist among them, it gave him a sense of perspective. He’d seen it all before. He knew survival was the best revenge: that if you stood long enough on the bridge, the bodies of all your enemies floated underneath. “If we complain they’ll just say we’ve no sense of humour and Rosie’s better at dishing it out than taking it. I think we have to chalk it up to experience. Just be glad that, however scared we both were, she was never in danger.”
Alex said diffidently, “We could ask them not to screen it.”
Rosie looked up sharply. “We’re not asking them any favours. If Chauncey wants to make me look stupid, fine – he’s not the first to try, or even to succeed. I can take criticism, I can take mockery, but I’m not going to apologise because I did nothing wrong and in the same circumstances I’d do the same again. Including decking the creepzoid.” She glared around, daring them to contradict.
“I’m with Rosie,” Sale said calmly. “We’ve nothing to explain. Someone with an odd sense of humour abused a service we offer and got a black eye for his trouble. I’m going to do a story for the front page. By the time the broadcast goes out it’ll be old news and the only thing viewers’ll want to see is Dick Chauncey getting his just deserts.”
Alex raised a dubious eyebrow. “It’s a gamble.”
“Life’s a gamble,” snorted Rosie. “Dan’s right, we’ve nothing to be embarrassed about. Let’s go for it. I’ll pose for a photo.” She gave a sudden, evil leer. “Tell you what – let’s ask Chauncey if we can do an action replay.”
The gamble p
aid off. The Chronicle switchboard was juggling calls of support from when the paper went on sale on Thursday morning until the offices closed for the weekend. The people of Skipley who’d adopted the fat woman as mentor and champion had no doubt where their sympathies lay. They were like small-town people everywhere: not very imaginative but with a strong sense of fair play. Asked to choose between a woman who did what she believed was necessary though it scared her witless and a man who thought that was funny, they voted with their fingers. The phone at PVF TV, home of Dick Chauncey’s You’ve Been Had, was busy too but the messages were less supportive.
Dan Sale had been in this industry a lot of years and had made a lot of contacts. He learned all kinds of things by roundabout ways. He learned that a crisis meeting similar to the one at the Chronicle had taken place at the television studios. He learned that, even if the newspaper was prepared to draw a line under the episode, PVF were not.
He called to tell Matt he was on his way upstairs.
Matt wasn’t sure what to expect. He enjoyed a good relationship with his editor, each taking care not to trespass on the other’s territory. What went into the Chronicle was Sale’s responsibility: getting it on to the street was Matt’s. It wasn’t often that the editor felt the need to consult his proprietor.
“I’ve heard a rumour,” said Sale, “that we might not have seen the last of Dick Chauncey, and I don’t know whether to warn Rosie or not.”
Matt’s eyebrows rocketed. “Of course you have to warn her.” Then, more cautiously, “Don’t you?”
“I don’t want to make her twitchy. She can’t do the job with one eye over her shoulder.”
“Rosie?” said Matt doubtfully. “Our Rosie?”
“You think she’s immune to criticism? No one is. Some people cope with it better than others, but everyone feels a knock pretty much the same way. I don’t want her handling every query she gets from now on with kid gloves. The Path works as well as it does because she fires from the hip. Yes, most of the time she’s right, but she’s always entertaining. If she loses her nerve The Primrose Path’ll be just another advice column.”
Dan Sale had changed his tune in the last nine months. When he sent Matt to see Rosie all he wanted was a weekly column on health matters. He was stunned when Matt admitted sheepishly that he’d promised her a full page and a largely free hand as to what to do with it. When Rosie arrived at the Chronicle Sale was deeply uneasy; when he saw the first week’s Path he was ready to fall on a specially sharpened blue pencil.
But he was wrong, and he was generous enough to admit it even before sales started to climb. Now he was almost as big a fan as Matt, and his support was even more valuable because he knew this business inside out.
Matt knew that the Chronicle’s fortunes were tied up with The Primrose Path, that anything which threatened it also threatened the paper’s survival and with it his family’s investment. Matt’s mother was one of six sisters whose response to the culvert bomb that invalided him out of the Army was to finance his new career.
But the old one had taught him not to be scared into making bad decisions. “I think you’re wrong, Dan. I think she can cope with the uncertainty as long as she trusts us. I don’t think Chauncey can do a fraction as much damage as we will if we start keeping secrets from one another.”
Sale was persuaded. “All right. If you want to tell her, tell her.” Matt’s eyes flared in alarm. “We’ll both tell her.”
Arthur Prufrock had spent his professional life among boys aged between seven and thirteen years. It had left him uniquely well qualified to understand the mentality of those working in television.
“Oh yes,” he said with conviction, “they’ll try again. As it stands, you beat Chauncey at his own game in front of his gang. The only way he can save face is by giving you a bloody nose in return.”
“That’s what I thought,” nodded Rosie. She didn’t seem too troubled; not enough to spoil her appetite anyway. She helped herself to another hot buttered crumpet. “I just hope he’ll take his best shot and get it over with. I have more to worry about than whether a TV personality in the throes of the male menopause is lurking behind every tree.”
Prufrock eyed her over his cup with that mixture of affection and irritation Rosie inspired in all her friends. He was a small, round man with a puff of cotton-wool hair fringing his bald pink pate and a little white moustache. He looked just what he was – a retired housemaster from a minor public school – until you met his eyes, which were sharper and brighter and much more intelligent than anything else about him suggested. He was Rosie’s senior by twenty years.
There were those among Prufrock’s neighbours who entertained ideas about him and Rosie. She thought the talk was hilarious and refused to deny it. Prufrock was inclined to a certain umbrage. He had never married so this wasn’t the first time he’d heard his name romantically linked with that of another. But always previously he’d been able to send the rumour-monger to bed without his supper.
He smiled under his moustache. “Such as what?”
“Such as …” She failed to come up with a single pressing concern. “Such as whether I should get my bellybutton pierced. Such as whether I should have Shad plant me a knot garden.” Shad Lucas was Prufrock’s gardener when they first met; recently he’d accepted responsibility for taming the jungle behind Rosie’s house, “I don’t know. Anything has to be more important than Dick Chauncey’s punctured ego and what he might do next. I don’t care, Arthur. I’m not wasting another minute thinking about it.”
His diamond gaze was mildly disapproving. “That may be a mistake.”
Rosie shrugged. “He’s a pathetic little man who makes a living embarrassing people. Let him do his worst. He can’t hurt me.”
“Perhaps he can’t. If he takes you on again and you beat him again he’s finished; if he bests you he looks like a bad loser. As far as walking into another ambush goes, I imagine you are safe …”
He left a little row of dots hanging in the air to indicate there was more. Dutifully, Rosie cocked her head at him. “But …?”
“But there are other ways. What if he targets someone close to you instead? Hurts them, makes a fool of them? Not everyone’s as resilient as you, Rosie. Most people would be mortified at being held up to public ridicule.”
“Most people who are close to me are used to ridicule.” But her hollow tone betrayed concern. She’d thought she could handle anything Chauncey could throw at her. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might find a softer target more rewarding.
Prufrock smiled fondly. “So we are. Still, it’s something to bear in mind. Alex, for instance. She’s younger than us, Rosie, and she’s nicer – she cares what people think of her. She might be wise to watch her step for a while.”
Impotent anger was not a sensation Rosie was familiar with. Mostly she dealt with anything that made her angry. Sometimes she made things better, not infrequently she made them worse, but she never sat by and let them happen around her. This time there was nothing she could do. If she tried to have it out with Chauncey, he’d feign innocence and quietly note that this was something that bothered her.
And maybe Prufrock was wrong. Maybe Chauncey hadn’t thought of any such thing. But he would if she marched round to his office and told him to leave her friends alone.
“There’s you, too,” she said, only half in jest.
Prufrock chuckled. “What can he do to me? I’m sixty-eight years old, for all Chauncey knows there’s only the battery in a pacemaker standing between me and the Grim Reaper. If he leaps out from behind a rhododendron and says ‘Boo’he could have a corpse on his hands. No, I’m safe enough. Look after Alex. If he wants to get at you, he’ll do it through her.”
Across Skipley, in the researchers’room at PVF TV, Jackie Pickering returned the phone gently, quietly, to its cradle and hoped no one would speak to her for the next minute or so. If they did she would be unable to disguise the massive, burgeoning satisfaction that she fe
lt, and then they’d know she had it. The big one, the story that would make her name and her fortune. They’d know it was the big one because all her colleagues were looking for a big one of their own, and they wouldn’t rest until they found out what she had.
Soon she’d be happy to share it with them. Hell, she wanted to share it with the whole damn country, and for that she’d need her producer’s help. She’d get it; she knew she’d get it. Maybe tomorrow, certainly before the weekend, she’d talk to Ms Frank, put her cards on the table, set out her stall and start selling. Once it was safe; once it was real; once there was no danger of it slipping away.
And after she’d talked to Debbie. More than anyone, Debbie would understand what it meant to her. People here would see it as a bold career move, admire her dedication and skill and envy the success it would bring her. But Debbie would recognise it as a personal triumph as well. For that reason, and others, Debbie should hear it – had the right to hear it – first. She’d call her tonight,
So Jackie kept her head down and waited for her heart to stop pounding; and to avoid her colleagues’gaze and the casual questions that would undo her, she pretended to be updating her notes in the light of the conversation she’d just had. In fact she hadn’t taken any notes. She didn’t need to: she’d remember every word both of them had said until she died. It was that important. The moment she agreed to a meeting, and heard the trap she’d set so carefully, so patiently, snap shut, ranked among the chief moments of her life.
Things don’t often work out just how you’ve planned, just how you need them to. Today they had. Her heart thumped, and her breath wouldn’t come, and pretending to update the notes she hadn’t kept her shaking fingers scrawled on the telephone pad the same words that hammered in her head.
“Got you, you bastard!”
Chapter Three
The phone went in the middle of the night. The first thing Rosie thought of, after regret at being roused from a particularly tasty dream, was Dick Chauncey. If this was another client of The Primrose Path whose life had taken a sudden turn for the worst, he or she was going to get an earful. A week wasn’t long enough for Rosie to have forgotten or forgiven.
