Dialogues of the Dead (9 page)

69 he's at the front of the queue for the job. But a trumpet sounds upstage left. Enter Ambrose Bird, the Last of the ActorManagers.' 'Who?' 'Where do you live? Ambrose Bird, who ran the old municipal theatre till it was closed last month, mainly as a result of Council lor Steel's opposition to the large grant needed to refurbish it up to health and safety standards. This has left the Last of the ActorManagers (that's his own preferred title) with nothing to act in or manage but the Centre's much smaller studio theatre. That was definitely a yawn!' 'No, it was the beginning of an interjection. I was going to guess that this Bird guy has decided he'd like to put in for the Centre Director's job too.' 'Have you ever thought of becoming a detective?' asked Rye. 'Spot on. So Bird and Follows are locked in deadly combat. It's quite fan to watch them, actually. They don't try very hard to conceal the way they feel about each other. Anything in the Centre they can lay claim to, the pair of them are there, like dogs after a bone. The Roman Experience is drama, says Ambrose, so he takes responsibility for sound effects and training the people play ing the market stallholders. Poor old Perce is left with language and smells.' 'Smells?' 'Oh yes. The authentic smells of Roman Britain. Cross between a rugby changing room and an abattoir, as far as I can make out. Look, I'm beginning to yawn myself. The upshot of this is that Percy has countered by grabbing the lion's share of the preview arrangements and, with typical sexist insensitivity, has volunteered all his female staff to run around with the chardonnay and nibbles. End of story. You did pretty well, unless like a horse you can sleep with your eyes open.' 'So why is a bright, lively, independent, modern woman like yourself putting up with this crap?' said Hat with what he hoped was convincing indignation. She said defensively, 'It's no big deal. I'd have gone anyway. Dick will have a couple of paintings in. He's a bit of an artist.' She saw him toy with a crack, but was glad to see he was bright enough to drop the idea. 'In that case,' he said, 'and as I too am on the public payroll, why not? Dress casual, is it?' 'Dress artistically,' she murmured. 'Which brings me to a very important question. What does the well-dressed twitcher wear in Stangdale, Hat?' He studied her seriously to hide his delight at having guessed rightly that he was being offered a trade-off, then said, 'Well, starting from the inside out, have you got any thermal underwear?'

71 Chapter Eight

Jax Ripley's colleagues had noticed that she was in vacant or pensive mood all that Friday afternoon. Normally as she put together the items for her early evening show, she was incisive and openly impatient with anyone who wasn't moving at her speed. But today she didn't seem to be able to make up her mind about things. Out and About was usually made up of several pre-recorded pieces linked by Jax, concluding with a live studio piece on some topic of particular local interest. All that she had pencilled in for this today was short story comp trail? 'Who'are the guests?' asked John Wingate, the station manager. He was a middling aged plump man with a lean and hungry face, as if his chronic anxiety about everything had done a deal with his body and drawn a demarcation line around his neck. Below this, the soft folds of pink flesh glowed with health, and, warmed by sun or sex, gave off an odour which reminded Jax of her childhood bed beneath which her provident mother laid out rows of apples to see them through the North Yorkshire winter. Screwing Wingate had been a pleasure as well as a career move. 'No guests ... Just me.' 'So, couple of minutes,' he said doubtfully. 'That leaves us well short, Jax.' 'No, I need the time.' 'Why? How the hell can you spin something as boring as a short story competition trail out beyond ninety seconds?' 'Trust me,' she said. 'You up to something, Jax?' he said suspiciously. 'I hate it when you say "trust me".' She finally made up her mind, reached out a hand to rest on his thigh and smiled. 'It'll be all right, John,' she said. In a life of bad career moves, John Wingate wasn't certain where he placed screwing Jax Ripley. She'd been a journalist on the Gazette when they first met and the chance of a one-night stand after a media party which Moira, his wife, hadn't attended because she was over in Belfast visiting her sick mother had seemed too good to pass by. And it had been good. He grew warm now just recalling it and the other encounters that followed, one in particular which had taken place in his office a couple of weeks later when she presented herself for interview. 'I've come about the position,' she said, climbing on to his desk and spreading herself before him. 'How about this one for starters?' And under the doubtless approving gaze of the members of Unthank College old boys rugby fifteen whose photo, holding the Mid-Yorkshire Cup which they'd won some years ago under his captaincy, hung on the wall behind his chair, he accepted the invitation, after which she accepted the job. She'd learned quick and her rapid advancement was easily justifiable in terms of sheer talent, or so he reassured himself whenever, as now, he gave way to her wishes. There'd never been any hint of menace from Jax and she'd always behaved with the utmost discretion, but this didn't stop him from feeling that he had less control over his life, both professional and personal, than before her arrival. At least, thank God, he knew he didn't have to worry she was after his job. She had set her sights over the hills and faraway, in the greener pastures of Wood Lane, and if golden opinions from himself could speed her on her way, all the better. Maybe that was the explanation of her distraction today. He said, 'Big day next Monday, then. Getting nervous? No need. You'll piss it.' She said, 'What? Oh, the interview. No, I'll wait till I'm on the train before I get nervous.' He believed her. She was, he reckoned, that controlled. She might let herself get nervous as she drew near to her interview for the job with the national news service because taut nerves made you sharper, pitched you higher. But she'd know exactly how far to go. Yet, though Wingate didn't know it, he'd hit pretty close to the mark.

13 Jax Ripley had a decision to make. Wingate's assurances that with her record and his recommendation she'd walk into the job were very comforting and she had no false modesty about her abilities. Sex she might use as a shortcut but only to get where she felt she deserved to be. Yet though she rated her talents high, she was not so arrogant as to rate them unique. It hadn't been difficult to come to the fore in the small show ring of MidYorkshire, but the provinces are full of thrusting talents and it would take something extra to stand out among the ranks of competing clones nationwide, all desperate to march on the Big Time. And now she felt she might have the something extra. But there were risks. It would be burning boats, that's for sure. She was sworn to secrecy. Her revelations would this time be tracked unrelentingly to their source, and such a public act of betrayal would ensure that no one in Mid-Yorkshire would ever again open their mouths to her, not even with the promise that she would open her legs to them. Plus, if it all went wrong and just came out as a bit of journalistic scaremongering, then she could even end up being dumped by BBC MY. On the other hand, it was a good story. A couple of phone calls would alert some friends in London. National air coverage over the weekend plus the Sunday tabloids descending on MidYorkshire to dig up - or make up - something really sensational could raise a news tsunami to sweep her into her interview on Monday. Once she got that job, it didn't matter what happened back here in Sleepy Hollow. In the real world down there, no one minded if today's scoop was tomorrow's poop. It happened all the time. It wasn't the apologies and retractions that stayed in people's minds, it was the banner headlines. So why was she pussy-footing around? In this life you were either a player or a stayer. And I'm a player! she told herself as she headed into her office to make the necessary wake-up calls. No point jumping off a skyscraper unless you had the audience you wanted. It was, viewers opined later, by Jax Ripley's usual standards a rather slow show. In her intro and her link passages she seemed somewhat muted, a little lacking in her usual sparkle. Usually she almost came out of the screen at you. But not tonight. Tonight she clearly had something on her mind. The last of the filmed items was an interview with Charley Penn about the new Harry Hacker series starting on television the following week. It was a good interview, with Jax at her seductive and Penn at his saturnine best. It ended with her asking him about the doppelganger effect which he often used in his books, with Hacker finding himself being warned or otherwise aided by glimpses of a mysterious shadowy figure which seemed to bear a close resemblance to himself. 'Charley, tell me, do you really think it's possible for a person to be in two places at the same time, or are you going to surprise us one day by revealing that Harry's got a twin?' Penn smiled at her, then looked straight into the camera. 'I don't know about being in two places at the same time, but I have no problem with a character being in two times at the same place.' She'd laughed at that. She was one of those few people whose mouth wide open in close-up was an on-turning rather than an off-putting experience. 'Too deep for me, Charley. But I love the new book. And though I say it as shouldn't, reading it's much better than watching the telly.' End of film. Cut to Jax live in the studio, no longer relaxing, bare legs folded beneath her, on the white leatherette sofa she shared with her interview guests, but sitting on a hard upright chair, knees locked tight together, fingers closely clasped, face set and serious, looking like a young schoolteacher about to administer a stern rebuke. 'Doppelgangers apart,' she said, 'it's usually agreed that truth is stranger than fiction, but I did not realize just how much stranger it could be until a little earlier this week. 'The fiction in the case is contained in most of the entries submitted to the Gazette's short story competition. Entries close tonight, so those of you still scribbling had better get your skates on. I hope to announce the short list and perhaps

75 interview some of the hopefiil authors on the show next week. 'But there is one person submitting material who probably won't be rushing forward to be interviewed, the person the police are calling the Wordman ...' As she went on, around the county most listeners carried on with what they were doing, only gradually increasing their focus on what she was saying as its import struck home. But some there were who at the first mention of the short story competition had raised their heads, or reached forward to turn up the volume, or risen out of their seats, and a couple there were who as she went on began to swear violently, and there was one who sat back and laughed aloud and gave thanks.

After she'd finished and the brass band had played the show out, Jax sat still for a moment. Then John Wingate came bursting in. 'Jesus, Jax! What the hell was that all about? Is it true? It can't be true! Where'd it come from? What evidence have you got? You should have cleared this with me first, you know that. Shit! What's going to happen now?' 'Let's wait and see,' she said, smiling, back to her old self now that the die was cast. They didn't have long to wait. Even Jax was taken aback by the sheer weight of the reaction. It came in a confusion of telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and personal visits, but it was divisible into four clear categories. First came her employers, at levels stretching up from Wingate himself to top management in London and their legal oracles. As soon as these had pronounced, with all the usual caveats and qualifications, that there did not on the face of it seem to be anything actionable in what she had said, she passed rapidly from potential liability to embryonic star. This was a hot news scoop in the old style, something rarely seen on national let alone provincial television. Hence the interest from category two, the rest of the media. Once she'd made up her mind to go ahead, Jax had seeded word of her intention in several potentially fruitful areas. Long hardened against hype, no one had fallen over with excitement, but now the smell of blood was in the air and jackals everywhere were raising their snouts and sniffing. If this turned out to be a story that ran, then it was crazy not to be in at the beginning and by the end of the evening Jax had signed up for a national radio spot, a TV chat show and a Sunday tabloid article, while a broadsheet had opened negotiations for a profile. Mary Agnew of the Gazette had rung too. A pragmatist, she didn't waste time reproaching her former employee for scooping the story out of her lap. 'Well done, dearie,' she said. 'You got a head start, but you're going to need my help now.' 'Why's that, Mary?' 'Because now you've done the dirty, your police source is going to dry up like a mummy's crotch,' said Mary. 'And because it's the Gazette that this nut - if there is a nut which I'm not yet convinced - is sending his material to. So when the next one comes . . .' 'What makes you think there'll be a next one, seeing you're such a sceptic?' interrupted Jax. 'You do, dearie. You've practically guaranteed it. Even if it was a joke before, you've made sure every nut in the county will want to get in on the act, and God knows how far some of them will be willing to go. I'll keep in touch. Sleep well.' Bitch, thought Jax. Sick as a parrot and trying to get her own back by getting inside my skull. Do I need her? Probably not. On the other hand, pointless telling her to piss off till I'm sure. But category three, calls from the public, made her think that maybe Agnew had called it right after all. Some were concerned, some abusive, some plain dotty, a couple positively threatening, but none obviously useful. All were recorded and copies of the tapes made ready for the police. One tape definitely wasn't for the police, however. This was the call she had from Councillor Cyril Steel eager for any further ammunition she could supply him to aid his anti-cop crusade. Like Agnew, he was insignificant nationally but locally a big-hitter in his crusade against inefficiency and corruption. He'd given her a lot of good leads and what was more his omnivorous gut was the only appetite she was expected to satisfy in return. Now he was delighted at what he saw as a win-win situation. Either the police had failed in their duty by not telling the council about a possible serial killer in the town,