Death on Daytime: A Tess Darling Mystery (The Tess Darling Mysteries) (22 page)

Some re-positioning followed. The tiny dressing room was not made for one make-up lady, two Darlings and a policeman. DS Selleck promptly ushered himself to the door. He stammered something about having enjoyed Mr Darling’s investigation into airport security – and not wanting to interrupt a private family moment. Then the officer stepped out into the corridor, where a soundman marched him away to get mic’d up.

A quick nod from Darcus, and the make-up lady bobbed out after him. Only when they were alone, did father turn to daughter. “I’ve come to wave the white flag.”

“Oh, yeh?” Tess should’ve known he’d be brandishing something.

“I underestimated you,” he said. “It seems you
do
have some vestige of journalistic talent. A nose for a story, shall we call it?” He sniffed.

“It’s just a bit of chicken,” she harrumphed. But she picked up the bin, and leant to put it outside.

“You beat your old man, fair and square,” he continued. “Now, here you are, with a broadcast coup: the only interview with Jeenie Dempster’s killer.”

“Rubbish.” She opened the door, and put the bin out. “Alan didn’t kill anyone. You must have figured that, at least.” Pulling her head back in, however, she found Darcus looking strangely lost. Frowning into the middle distance, he patted the breast pocket of his suit. What was he looking for?

“My heart,” he declared. “Is full.”

Then her father did something he’d never done before – not without an audience, at least. He bent over his daughter’s head, and, stroking a wisp of hair from her cheek, kissed it.

Tess had never felt so crap. She’d done it, hadn’t she? Achieved the impossible, and made her father proud. Now all that remained was for her to fuck it up. She didn’t have any interview – she’d let it go – for some scruple towards a man she barely knew. Fat Alan could
well
have killed Jeenie. He was certainly jeopardizing a fair few jobs. Not just her
Pardon My Garden
team, but everyone working at
Live With
would take the flak when today’s travesty hit. Live on TV, Tess Darling was about to be exposed as a fraud to three million people.

But mostly her Dad.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “They’re coming for me – any second they’re coming for me and—”

“Your pulse is racing.” Darcus stroked his thumb from her cheek up to her temple. “Your stomach is in knots, and you’d kill for a drink – just to numb the panic.” He chucked her gently under the chin. “So what, we’ve had our differences? I call that the clash of like minds. We’re in the same trade now. Who cares if I worked my way up the BBC, you flew in on Twitter? We’re broadcast journalists. This is live TV.
No-one
can help you through it like me.” He brought his hand to his chest again, and patted the Savile Row suit pocket over his heart. “Talk to me, darling. Tell your Dad all about it.”

Fuckit, thought Tess. Who else was there?

Tess felt they’d never been so close. For ten minutes, she talked, told him everything. He listened. No judgement. “Just love,” he said. “Keep talking.”

So she admitted her big break on
Live With
was not as it appeared. Sandy Plimpton had only brought her on to the show to supply tits and gossip. When Darcus shook his head in disbelief, Tess listed the myriad cock-ups proving she couldn’t investigate her way out of a paper bag. Finally, forlornly, she confessed the worst of it: She was about to sabotage the jobs of her
Pardon My Garden
crew – and kill Miller’s last hope as a cameraman – to try and prove the innocence of some sad, lonely stranger who was…

“Yes? Go on.”

With a thrill close to pain, Tess saw she had her father gripped. At last.

“Alan Pattison isn’t who he seems, Dad. He’s—”

“Three minutes to air.” The AFM was back in the doorway, hustling. “Floor manager’s counting down, Tess.”

“Wait,” said Darcus. “He’s
what?”

“He’s fucked.”

“Let’s move it.” The AFM eased Tess out of the make-up chair. “Time to go.”

She craned round to her Dad, a dead woman talking. “When Alan’s real identity comes out, he won’t stand a chance – not unless I prove there was
someone else
after Jeenie.”

“Can you do that?”

“I don’t know.” She’d not heard from Miller, since he’d set off to find Aaron Peacock. After fourteen hours of radio silence, her faith in her lumbering pal was cracking. Fuckit. She had a
new
rescuer. “Help me, Dad. Help me prove—”

“Yes, darling.” He moved towards her. “Prove
what?
”

She stopped still.

“What now?” cursed the AFM. Turning back, he found Tess staring at her father’s chest. Not just staring. She was reaching out, with a sort of dazed affection, to touch her father’s tie.

Her father shot out a hand to stop her.

“YOU LEAKY SHIT-BAG!” she yelled.

The AFM watched in horror, as
Exciting New-Face Darling
grabbed
Veteran Campaigner Darling,
and wrestled him to the ground. They rolled across the dressing room floor – Tess apparently trying to strangle her father with his tie – until the police arrived to haul them to their feet.

“You – against the wall!” DS Selleck ordered Darcus. “You, Tess, put your hands where I can see them. On the dressing-table. Not, not
there!
” He saw her hands settle dangerously close to a curling iron. “Put them in the tissue box.”

While Tess posted her hands into a box of scented 3-ply, Darcus straightened his tie. Checking his stopwatch – and cursing louder than ever – the AFM stepped in. “Here, Mr Darling, let me help. You’ve got a… something.” The AFM followed a thin, black thread running down the side of Darcus’ tie.

Saw it wasn’t a thread.

“Is that a wire, Mr Darling? Shit, you’re not – is that a
camera
in your tie?”

“Too bloody right it is.” Picking up the box of tissues, Tess threw it at her Dad’s head. “One of those secret, pinhole things.”

“A wireless 1 to 4 x 2.4GHz pinhole bullet colour camera,” Darcus ducked. “To be precise.” Removing his tie, Darcus folded it carefully, and tucked it into his breast pocket – the one hiding his heart. “This camera goes with me everywhere,” he said. “I’m nothing without it. Doesn’t look much, I know. But this little fellow has helped me to expose apartheid in Cape Town – cyber-fraud in Silicon Valley – domestic slavery in Richmond-upon-Thames—”

“And your daughter throwing up in a bin?” said Tess. “All this time I’ve been talking – telling you everything – you were filming. For cock’s sake,
why
?”

“Our little bet, of course: Who could bag the biggest scoop?” He patted his pocket. “Never said what the scoop had to be
about.
”

“I don’t understand, Dad.”

“That’s doesn’t surprise me. Your actions have been typically erratic. It wasn’t
my
fault you set off on a wild goose chase after a murderer. Good God, girl, did you really think you could out-think the police?”

“I – you—” Words failed her. So she looked around for something else to hurl. DS Selleck got to the hot iron just in time. Darcus threw him a grateful look, (and then rather wished he hadn’t).

“Sensing the
rea
l story lay rather closer to home,” he went on hurriedly. “I talked to a friend of mine on
Panorama.
Took him out to dinner – BBC chaps are so starved, these days – expense accounts like a widow’s purse – you can get a show commissioned on the strength of a good Pinot Grigio and scallops to start. I fed my friend a particularly fine batch of Fois Gras, and then got him to swallow my idea for a prime-time polemic on the The Death of Journalism.”

“It’s dead?”

“Dying Tess, dying. Which makes
you
nothing but a grubby little grave-robber.” Tess felt a stinging behind her eyes. She’d have given anything to get that box of tissues back.

“Don’t worry,” he consoled her. “You’re not the only one at it. Can’t you see how the modern information deluge has made every second idiot a newsman with their blogs and chatrooms? Where we had grateful viewers, now we have
citizen journalists.
Self-styled reporters – Pay-As-You-Go ‘press’–who stick their beaks into stories they can’t understand, and snap away with their mobile phones as the bombs go off. Faced with that kind of competition,
real
journalists are being forced to shed all professional scruple – to abandon painstaking investigation and put furore over facts. Is it any surprise
Panorama
welcomed me as a last bastion of crusading reportage? Far above sensationalism and corrupt practices-”

Tess’ jaw dropped.

“I know, I know.” Graciously, he spoke for her. “It all seems such small-feed after Syria. But when Jeenie Dempster got herself killed, and
Live With
recruited
you
–a drunken secretary turned… drunken TV producer – to investigate, well!” He smiled euphorically. “I had my hook. Suddenly, I
cared.
”

“
You
? Cared?” She tried to laugh. “No-one else will.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. There’s some good stuff here.” He patted his pocket. “Executive Producer exploits murder to ramp up TV ratings? Star reporter in clinch with victim’s lover – at victim’s
memorial service
?” Darcus threw his daughter’s words back at her. “Don’t you see, darling, I’m trying to
save
you. The sooner you drop this
farce
of trying to investigate a capital crime – well, the less embarrassing for both of us.”

Noise came from the door. Production staff were gathering in the doorway of the dressing room. The AFM was making another grab for Tess. “Time to go,” said Darcus. But as he went to kiss the air by her cheek, he whispered. “You’re more like your mother than you know. With your big blue eyes, and melting smile, you both play the same con. It works… up to a point. It’s a pretty front, I grant you. But
you
know there’s nothing behind it. Don’t you, dear?

“Which leaves me no choice.” He raised his voice, as he straightened up. “While you try to push yourself on to our nation’s screens – to snatch shamelessly at the reputation I’ve worked forty years to build – I’m afraid I have a duty to expose it.”

He left. The production staff moved in. As the AFM briefed her on cues, a soundman started tugging at her jeans, clipping a battery pack to her waistband, and then fastening a clip mic to her shirt. The make-up lady gave her a last flick of the powder brush. None of them met her eye. She could see it, though, on their faces: horror, pity and the stock urgency of a live TV crew, worrying if they would make the return from break.

“You want telly!” she said. “I’ll
give
you cocking telly! Powered by a rage of loneliness, scattering crew before her, Tess strode out of Make-Up 2. Heading down the production corridor towards a bright green,
ON AIR
light, she pushed open the fire doors to studio.

“
T
ess Darling,” said the studio director. “You grace us at last!”

The studio was hot as hell. The director filled her ear like the Voice of God. It was an unbalancing combination. As Tess sank unsteadily on the
Live With
sofa, she tried to focus on the director’s instructions. His voice was feeding into her earpiece from the gallery above. Housed on a floor overlooking studio, this glass-fronted gallery was ‘mission control’. Tess peered up into the darkness, and hoped to find a friend.

“You’re in luck,” said the director. “I’ve got the wonderful, Welsh Di up here. She’s just cued up the VT inserts for your big report and, I have to say, for an interview with Alan Pattison,” he coughed drily. “There doesn’t seem to be an
awful
lot of Alan in it.”

Tess felt sick. Scared. And in need of the loo. She was aware of Sandy Plimpton and Fergal Flatts adjusting themselves on either side of her – Sandy smoothing her hair, Fergie undoing a button on the waistband on of his trousers.

“Cramps,” he muttered. “Bit gassy.”

“Thirty seconds till we’re back from break,” said the Floor Manager. Fergie winced, and undid another button. As the cameras were wheeled into position, DS Selleck was walked briskly into studio by a runner, and sat down on the sofa – on the far side of Sandy. Sandy, however, was concerned only with Tess. “Remember to speak clearly. And don’t scratch your breasts,” she said. “Try not to use ‘bollocks’ as an adjective.”

“Ach, Sandy, will yer leave her alone?” said Fergie. “You’re a witch, and yer know it. Stick with me, Tess.” He patted her hand. “If Sandy gets too mean, I’ll spill my coffee on her.”

His hand on hers was sticky, however, and his skin strangely flushed. Fergie traded on being the chuckling Irishman, but today his giddiness seemed… almost hectic. His eyes were glittering – and they weren’t looking at Tess. As his hand sweated on to hers, she followed his gaze to the dark, cavernous space behind the studio cameras. All Tess could see was the distinctly unexciting figure of Laura Pound: jaw stuck out, blouse tucked in, Mrs Pound stood statuesque in the shadows, her gaze fixed on Colin, like a wife turned to stone.

Colin ignored her. He was at work in his Country Kitchen, pinching the crust round the edges of a pie. Apple, guessed Tess, from the pile of Granny Smiths tumbled artfully across his work-top. Colin had flour dusted on his chef-whites, muted blusher on his cheeks. He was a TV cook at work, thought Tess.

He was TV cook for the the chop.

But she alone knew Rod Peacock’s plans to replace him. Correction – she looked back at the sofa – there was Sandy, wasn’t there? Sandy also knew her bovine boyfriend was being put out to pasture. She could make hay all she liked, but she’d have to keep chucking some of it to Colin – or he’d sell his rancour to the press. At least, that’s what she feared. Perhaps Sandy and Rod were doing Colin a disservice, however? Perhaps he was, underneath that bluff, grabbing exterior, a heart of gold?

Tess looked back at Country Kitchen. Colin was berating a runner for having brought him the wrong kind of fork. And sneezing into his pastry. Nope, thought Tess, he was shit. And his wife? What would become of her? Tess glanced back to the shadows behind camera – to see Laura Pound no longer alone. Someone was moving up behind her. A man – hulking, powerful, predatory – Tess had seen him before. With a lamb in his crotch.