The Talk Show: the gripping thriller everyone is talking about

by Harry Verity

  ‘Do you know where we might find your sister and her boyfriend?’

  The front door, which Edward had made sure to close behind him, burst open to loud voices.

  ‘Speak of the devil,’ Tiffany said.

  In walked a girl almost identical to her. Almost, that was, apart from the colour of her top and her face, which was substantially less made up than her sister’s. Beside her, a gruff-looking man of about thirty. He was tall but by no means handsome: he had a large belly on him and ugly crossbow tattoos on his arms that had long since faded.

  Tiffany rose to her feet as soon as he walked into the room.

  ‘What do you want?’ she spat.

  The man smirked. ‘Who are they?’

  Edward wanted to go. He didn’t like to pre-judge people, but this man could be dangerous. Weren’t they best to let the police deal with him? They could just leave a card. What did it matter anyway? They could forget the whole story…

  ‘Hello, we’re from The Michael O’Shea Show.’

  The situation could not get any worse. How could they have been so foolish to come here alone?

  But the man seemed to cool off. In fact, it was Tiffany who really seemed to lose it.

  ‘GET HIM OUT OF MY FLAT!’ she screamed. ‘GET OUT.’

  Edward could see the man’s cheekbones retracting as if he was about to smirk, but he managed to restrain himself and it was the other twin, Annabel, who responded to her sister.

  ‘Oh shut up, will you,’ she spat, ‘we’ve come to collect our stuff.’

  ‘Our stuff?’ Tiffany questioned. ‘But… but sis. Why can’t you see he’s an idiot? Why can’t you just…’

  ‘The only reason you want me to stay is for the sake of your stupid career. I ain’t staying a moment longer. Here.’ She threw her key into the air and Tiffany didn’t quite know what to do.

  Violet, thinking tactically, interrupted.

  ‘Would you be able to leave me your new address and a phone number? We’re sorry about what’s happened but we would like to ask you a few questions, for the show.’

  ‘You mean we’re going to be on telly?’ Annabel exclaimed.

  The man’s expression, however, soured. Violet saw it too and Edward knew she would already be making a mental note to research just what was making the man reluctant to appear on television.

  ‘And what if I don’t think all this is a good idea? ’Ey?’

  ‘I can assure you it’s worth it. I will send you pictures of the aftershow resort where we send all our guests and you will get to meet Michael himself of course and the new co-host who is also a big star.’

  Edward could tell that Annabel was convinced by what Violet was saying but her boyfriend was most certainly not. So here layeth the problem. For, if the boyfriend really was as controlling of his sister as Tiffany had indicated, and his behaviour, even in these few short seconds, was certainly evidence of that, then the key to getting the show to go ahead was smooth talking him.

  ‘Here’s my phone number.’ Violet had already written it down. The man placed it into his pocket. ‘I think now is a bad time. I’ll ring you to arrange a more convenient date for us to come down or maybe we can pay for you to come to us, buy you dinner, a drink.’ She slipped it in, coyly, like it was the most casual thing in all the world and Annabel’s eyes lit up. ‘Because it really would be great to feature you in one of our shows.’

  Edward and Violet made their way back out of the red door. Edward half expected to hear the shouting begin again but Violet clearly had more confidence in the bombshell she had dropped.

  ‘That should get them on board. A meal out at a fancy restaurant usually works. If they’re still itching, we’ll put them up in a hotel and make sure it’s five-star.’

  ‘But isn’t all this… bribery?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well… it’s just–’

  ‘Just, what?’

  ‘That man doesn’t seem like he wants to go on the show, even with everything you promised him. He probably has a criminal record, something he wants to hide. He’s not going to come on if he knows we’re going to use that against him.’

  ‘We’re not going to use anything against him. We’re going to get to the bottom of whatever he’s been up to. We’ll give him whatever protection he wants, blur his face or use a voice actor if he’s on the run from something.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Not everything is designed to screw people over. Here,’ she handed Edward a brochure as they waited for the lift, ‘every single guest and their families get a two-week stay at our clinic in Florida after the show. Free tickets to Disney World, one-to-one therapy sessions, group counselling and then, when they are back home, a dedicated therapist and a twenty-four-hour phone line for as long as they need it.’

  The lift arrived and Edward scanned the brochure: residential clinic was the wrong word. It was a mansion, high up on the hills, surrounded by palm trees and complete with roof terraces, jacuzzis and rooms to rival The Ritz.

  ‘It must cost a fortune.’

  Violet nodded, taking back the brochure and returning it into her bag.

  ‘It’s what most of the show’s budget goes on and why I constantly feel overworked. In an ideal world, there would be a team of junior researchers beneath me.’

  Edward scoffed at the thought; even the mere suggestion of not only having to navigate Violet, Mags and Michael but also to compete with some hungry TV type for the most head-grabbing stories filled him with dread.

  As they headed away from the twins’ apartment, Edward hoped their next stop would at least be a bit more cheerful.

  7

  The estate that greeted Edward and Violet next was certainly slightly more affluent than Graysmead but not by a wide margin. Rather than rows of council towers, there was street after street of terraced houses. But there were still no shops or supermarkets in sight and the factories and the industrial estate they saw in the distance had all long been closed, left to vandals and thieves.

  It took Edward and Violet a while to find Thurlow Road and when they did someone had spray-painted over the sign. ‘Neverleave Street’ said the blackened graffiti. Edward shuddered slightly. Whether the words were a dark reference to the notoriety of the street or mere cynicism about the lack of prospects in the area, Edward could only speculate but he knew he did not want to hang around here for too long.

  The story of the woman and the daughter they were on their way to meet was tragic. The daughter: Millicent or Minnie, a rather cruel nickname for any fifteen-year-old girl Edward felt, had already run away from home at least ten times. After a little investigative work, they’d realised that Minnie’s stepfather Stan was addicted to crack cocaine and had, allegedly – a word that would no doubt pepper that day’s show – been violent to his wife and probably Minnie too. But that wasn’t why Jo, the mother, had called the show. All she was bothered about was whether this vile man had cheated on her. Her plan for the show, if she got her own way, was to mount an extensive undercover investigation, stalking her husband’s every move until they had photographic evidence that he was playing away. Minnie would barely come into it.

  Violet had taken the lead with Jo’s story the previous days so he only knew a little about it but he was sure she wasn’t going to let it run as Jo wanted.

  Violet knocked on the door of number 33.

  A wrinkled woman with a cigarette in her hand opened the door, almost immediately.

  ‘You must be Jo. Hello, we’re from the Michael O’–’

  ‘I know who you are.’

  As Edward and Violet headed inside, past the half-empty paint cans, the black and uneven skirting boards, the stained carpets and the broken camp beds, they soon realised that the woman was not alone. But the half a dozen or so men occupying the room did not seem like the sort of people about to hold out their hand and say hello. All of them were tall and well-built, sporting ripped leather jackets and thunderous expressions.

  ‘Is the
re somewhere quiet we can go to?’ Violet asked tactfully, hoping Jo would ask the men to leave. But there was no such luck.

  ‘Up here,’ she said, leading them up a narrow staircase. As they crossed the room, the men scowled them up and down. Violet clearly knew better than to ask Jo who they were or what they were doing in the house within earshot.

  It was only as they reached the top of the stairs and entered a bare bedroom with little furniture to cover up the mouldy carpet or the damp that had crept up the walls, that Edward realised how dark the house was. Downstairs he’d put it down to the closed curtains but it was only up here that he realised it had more to do with how many buildings had been cramped onto each plot of land; they were just metres from next door’s bathroom.

  ‘Have you started the surveillance yet? Caught ’im in the act? ’Ey? Is that what this is all about?’ Jo asked.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Before we can start planning for the show we need to ask you a few questions and we’ll also need to speak to Minnie and your husband.’

  ‘Soon to be ex-husband if I find out he’s been playing away. You can’t speak to Minnie…’

  ‘Oh really, how come?’

  ‘Because the little bitch has run away again.’

  Edward could do little to disguise how repulsed he was at her use of such language to describe her daughter. Violet, on the other hand, remained unfazed. She had no doubt become accustomed to such vulgarity, hearing it on a daily basis.

  ‘Right. Well, Jo,’ Violet said, ‘we’d like to ask you some questions, to help us with the show.’

  ‘And it’s definitely going ahead?’

  Again, Edward observed Violet’s reaction with interest. Would she tell Jo an outright lie to pacify her? No, it seemed, she was quite blunt.

  ‘Only if your daughter and your husband will agree to come on the show too.’

  Jo looked horrified. ‘Maybe I don’t want to answer any QUESTIONS!’

  Violet reached inside her bag and pulled out the aftercare brochure. It would be naïve of Jo to expect to come away unscathed from a show featuring her husband and her daughter, even if it was proven without a doubt that her husband had been cheating. Jo was banking on the fact that her daughter would be missing, and her husband would be too high to know what day of the week it was, let alone agree to come on the show. But Violet had just killed that idea dead in the water. She needed a new bargaining tool.

  ‘You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to but if you and your family were to come on the show there are a lot of perks…’ Violet sped through the details of the hotel, barely needing to exaggerate the details, and Edward could see Jo struggling to keep a neutral expression. She was weighing up whether airing her own dirty laundry to millions of people was a price worth paying for the promise of a week in paradise.

  ‘I guess I can answer some questions…’ she conceded, finally.

  ‘Great. Perhaps you could start by telling me about Minnie’s father.’

  Edward listened intently as Jo told Violet her entire life story, albeit a heavily editorialised version. How she’d entered into a relationship with Minnie’s ‘scumbag’ of a father when she was working at the checkouts at a local shop, long since closed, her heartbreak when he abandoned her shortly after Minnie’s birth for a better job and a prettier girl, then her re-marriage to her current partner Stan, her outrage at being ‘unfairly’ dismissed from her job and finally her despair at her daughter’s disappearance; all of it so tragic, yet so obviously exaggerated.

  Jo was so volatile that confronting her with almost anything would ensure she fizzed up like a shaken can of cola. Edward could see Violet building up to her next question, the one which may well result in them both being lynched by the men sat downstairs.

  ‘Can we arrange a better time to come back and speak to your husband and your daughter?’

  Edward supposed what she said could rather be construed as blackmail; for if Jo did not get her husband and daughter on board and let them tell their side of the story, there would be no show, no exposé into her husband’s cheating and, therefore, definitely no trip to Florida. ‘Thank you for all your help,’ Violet said, heading to the door. The woman did not show them out and Edward worried about walking through the living room unaccompanied, but the men appeared to have decamped to the overgrown garden.

  Back on the street, Violet seemed content.

  ‘Do you think Minnie and Stan can be persuaded to come on the show?’ Edward asked.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  After a quick break for lunch at an over-priced café on Fleet Street when they had returned to central London, Edward helped Violet go over the notes she’d made and strengthened her case against her stories. By four in the afternoon they were ready for their meeting with Braithwaite.

  ‘Right, what have you got for me then, guys?’ he said, clutching an espresso and a thick red book as he crossed the gallery to the makeshift desk.

  Violet flicked through her notebook and put forward her cases. Braithwaite wobbled slightly over the twins’ story, given it potentially involved violence on the part of Annabel’s boyfriend, but he eventually conceded, indicating that if worst came to worst they could simply interview them both separately. Braithwaite reluctantly agreed to a show involving Jo, Minnie and ‘cheating’ Stan but Edward didn’t like the idea of putting surveillance on Stan. Braithwaite threw a wobbly about a few of the cases they’d found in the courts and took particular umbrage about a case involving an elderly single man who’d fallen into depression since his dog had died and now spent his days eating nothing but dog food.

  ‘We could overrule him if we really wanted,’ Violet admitted as they packed up their things.

  ‘Have you done that a lot?’ Edward asked.

  ‘A few times.’

  ‘But it’s best to keep him sweet?’

  ‘No, it’s just protocol,’ she sneered.

  It was approaching six. Edward was exhausted, all he wanted was his bed, but Violet had one more task for him as she prepared to switch off the lights and leave the building. She wanted him to oversee a television interview that Liv was doing.

  ‘Jim Cartwright is a good guy. There shouldn’t be any trouble.’

  Edward had seen his show a few times, on the odd occasion he watched television on a Saturday night. Cartwright was an American who’d come to Britain to make it and his show usually involved twenty minutes of his stand-up routine followed by a fifteen-minute interview before he got his guests to do something slightly embarrassing, related to whatever they were trying to plug.

  ‘Under no circumstances do you let him mention Phillip, the trial, Michael’s alcoholism or Liv’s ex-husband. I’ve already emailed a list of no-go topics, so they know the deal. They don’t want you sitting in the gallery and having access to her earpiece so if anything comes up, you need to walk onto the set and physically drag Liv off. It’s more important that we get her off than saving face with the show. But that won’t happen.’

  It was agreed that the embarrassing act that Liv would partake in was a simulated version of The O’Shea Show. Cartwright was going to don a wig and pick on a member of the audience. They’d throw insults at each other and Liv had to sit in judgement and tell them how to sort it out.

  When she arrived, Liv was not in a good mood at all.

  ‘I’ll be looking after you,’ Edward had said, thinking he should introduce himself to the woman who was effectively his boss.

  ‘Let’s get a few things straight, little man. You won’t be looking after anyone today. I look after myself.’

  Nevertheless as soon as the cameras began to roll the sourness faded. But by the time the producer called the show a wrap, Edward wanted to cry he was so exhausted. It was late into the evening and he still had over an hour on the Tube to get himself home.

  8

  How easily a trap can be set, how predictable the world can be. You can be famous, they say, the world’s your oyster, a c
ar, a holiday, your greed and vanity need know no bounds. And higher and higher they jump, like a lamb to the slaughter, a turkey at Christmas, a junkie on crack.

  But today the game would play out differently. As the sun set over the estate and the car made its way around the roads, the first victim was in sight. The real show was about to begin.

  9

  ‘Here,’ Violet said, handing Edward a copy of Spice magazine. It was already open on a double page spread with Michael O’Shea’s face and stills from the show. Beside it was a low angle shot of Liv leaning against a lamppost on a rundown industrial estate.

  EXCLUSIVE LOOK ON SET OF NEW REBOOTED SHOW. HAS O’SHEA MET HIS MATCH?

  It’s not often that one of our most talked about reality TV stars takes up the mantle of such a well-loved institution but last week the new co-host of The Michael O’Shea Show was finally revealed. Yes, very shortly Liv Dessington-Brown, best known for her crushing put-downs to contestants on Help, I Need to be Famous, will be serving up plates of wisdom and drawing on her remarkable life story to solve the nation’s problems alongside reformed alcoholic O’Shea…

  A week had passed since Edward and Violet had started putting together the first set of shows of the new season. Edward put down the magazine.

  ‘I don’t know what’s worse, when they really go to town trying to rubbish us or when they indulge in this ridiculous hyperbole.’

  Violet gave a rare smirk.

  At last, they were recording the first couple of shows to go out later in the week. Over the weekend the set designers had been working flat out to transform the studio. The old tiered seating had been thrown out and replaced by rows of permanent leather chairs and the stage itself had been decked out in green. There was also a host of new technology which had been installed: projectors soon to be lit up with the show’s logo and a giant screen which, with the flick of a button, became a see-through sheet of glass into a pod where guests waited to come onto the stage.