Sisteria (28 page)

At that moment Sergeant Capstick's voice began to crack up.

‘Hello? Sergeant Capstick, speak to me.'

Nothing.

Beverley looked at the mobile, which was showing the ‘no service' message.

‘Shit,' she muttered, throwing it down on to the passenger seat.

***

Beverley had never felt so emotionally torn in her life. On the one hand, there was Melvin, missing and suicidal; on the other was her mother, who any moment could slip and fall off the day centre roof.

She drove through the gates of Richmond Park and decided she would go twice round the park and then, assuming she hadn't found Melvin - or, God forbid, his corpse - head back to north London. She couldn't bear not knowing what was happening to her mother. It also occurred to her that Melvin might have had some money on him after all and could be on his way home.

***

Just her luck. The eastbound traffic along the North Circular was the heaviest she'd ever seen it. In the two hours it took her to reach Temple Fortune, she kept trying to call the Friary and Sergeant Capstick, until her phone battery gave out.

Beverley pulled into the day centre car park. It was packed. She assumed most of the cars belonged to the old people's relatives. There were also two ambulances.

She climbed out of the car and looked up at the roof. Queenie was standing close to the edge, holding one side of a giant white banner which was billowing in the breeze. Lenny was holding the other end. Emblazoned across it in huge black felt-tipped letters were the words: ‘Greys Embrace Violence and Unrest in search of Legality and Truth'.

‘GEVULT,' she exclaimed, looking at the even huge first letters of each word. It was clearly the name of the old people's action committee.

Their friend Millie was holding half of another sheet, which read in untidy upper-and lower-case letters: ‘Posner must fry - in bacon fat.'

Behind them, another twenty or thirty elderly men and women, many stooped over walking frames, were waving smaller ‘Grey Pride' banners or standing chatting in groups. It was only when she looked closely that she realized there wasn't a woolly hat, a pair of polyester slacks or a long cardigan in sight. Each person was wearing a bright red track suit and a baseball cap. She could just about make out ‘GEVULT' written in gold across their sweatshirts.

‘Mum,' Beverley screamed, having seen her mother take another step closer to the roof's edge, ‘for Chrissake come down.'

At that point Beverley heard a man's voice behind her. She turned round to see a uniformed policeman.

‘I don't think she can hear you from this far away,' he said. ‘You're Mrs Littlestone, I take it.'

She nodded.

‘Sergeant Capstick,' he said. He was about fifty, she supposed, with a kindly community copper air about him.

‘Perhaps you'd like to come with me and I can explain exactly what's been going on.'

***

Once they were sitting down in Lorraine's office, Sergeant Capstick told her that a couple of hours ago one of the old boys had come down from the roof and handed him a letter signed by all the protesters.

‘To cut a long story short, it seems the old folk managed to remove several packets of out-of-date meat from the day centre deep freeze which they handed over to the public health people. They also managed to uncover a large quantity of stolen watches and items of jewellery. These items are now down at the station. Most of them were wrapped in plastic and hidden in sacks of flour or tins of instant coffee. It must have taken hours of painstaking searching to find this lot. How they pulled it off - right under Lorraine's nose - I've no idea. I tell you, Mrs Littlestone, if I didn't know better, I'd swear they broke in.'

He chuckled.

‘There's an image to conjure with.' She leaned back in her chair and laughed far too loudly. ‘OAPs in stocking masks and balaclavas. I don't think so.' She would bloody kill her mother if and when she got hold of her.

‘I have to say,' Sergeant Capstick continued, failing to notice that Beverley's face had suddenly turned scarlet, ‘their initiative has been quite remarkable. They also hid a tape recorder in this office, in the hope that the pair would incriminate themselves. And they did. Their recording equipment was pretty sophisticated, I have to admit, but bearing in mind this was only a ninety-minute tape, their luck was beyond extraordinary.' He waved the cassette in the air.

‘What I have here is these Lorraine and Posner characters on tape, laughing and joking with each other about serving up rotten food and the fact that they were stealing money and jewellery.'

‘But I don't understand,' Beverley broke in. ‘If they handed you the letter, the booty and the tape, why are they still demonstrating?'

‘I spoke to the chap who gave me the letter and asked him the same thing. It seems they don't trust the police to act quickly. They say we won't take them seriously because they're old and that by the time the DPP decides whether or not to prosecute, Lorraine and Posner will be long gone, and most of them will be pushing up daisies.'

‘So you haven't found the pair of them, then?'

‘'Fraid not. I can only assume they smelled a rat. Neither of them turned up for work this morning. But I'm sure we'll find them. The CID boys did some checking on the Police National Computer and it turns out they're actually known to us. Seems they've spent the last ten years working with the elderly in various parts of the country. Several complaints have been made against them - usually accusing them of theft - but we've never been able to pin anything on them until now.'

‘So what do you want me to do?' Beverley said. ‘Why have you brought me in here and not taken me to the canteen with the other relatives?'

‘Well, you see, your mum is one of the ringleaders. If she decides to come down, the others will follow. We think you can persuade her. They've already said they'll talk to you - or to your sister. Apparently she's a journalist?'

Beverley nodded.

‘OK,' she said, ‘I'll give you my sister's number. Perhaps you could phone her. It's a bit complicated, but we're not actually on speaking terms at the moment. You know what families are like.'

‘Fine... Look, what we want you or her to do is convince them we will take their complaint seriously and that we will act. I hope you don't mind heights, Mrs Littlestone.'

***

While Beverley was being briefed by Sergeant Capstick, Naomi was being given her marching orders by Eric Rowe. In the last ten minutes, his voice had assumed the tone of a rather benevolent hanging judge.

‘So you see,' he continued gravely, ‘my senior colleagues and I have decided that
Naomi!
is in dire need of an image change. Presenter-wise, we see somebody a little more fresh-faced.'

‘I can do fresh-faced,' she leapt in, her enthusiasm nothing short of desperate. ‘I'll book a laser treatment tomorrow. Add some khaki combats and a cropped T-shirt, in forty-eight hours, I can look eighteen.'

‘No, Naomi, you misunderstand me,' Eric said, drawing gently on his pipe. ‘When we say “fresh-faced” we don't necessarily mean youthful, we mean more, er... wholesome. The general consensus of opinion is that we would like an earth-mother type to present this show. I myself, personally - along with my wife Audrey and her Wl pals - see this person as a placid, heavily pregnant lady, her ample, milk-engorged breasts swaying under her floral smock. It's Channel 6's view that it would be quite mould-breaking to have the first pregnant daytime show presenter.'

‘Bollocks,' she retorted.

He winced.

‘This has nothing to do with you wanting a change of image,' she said furiously, standing up and leaning over his desk so that she was only inches from his face. ‘This is just a ploy to get rid of me.'

He drew on his pipe again.

‘I'll be honest, Naomi,' he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘We were heading for an image change anyway, but I admit that your flagrant disregard of our commitment to decent family entertainment made it happen sooner rather than later. What finally put the tin lid on it was your constant refusal to produce this battling grannies story.'

‘But I've been working on it,' she said, her tone pleading now. ‘You know I have. I've got this stonking old bats' story that's almost ready to go. It's just that
Wicca's World
has been taking up so much of my time.'

Of course this was a lie. Although her enthusiasm for the
Wicca's World
series was considerable, the only thing which had been taking up all her time over the last few months was her love affair with Fallopia.

‘I'm afraid it's too late for excuses, my dear. You have been given numerous chances to make a fresh start here at Channel 6. But you have simply refused to knuckle down and toe the line. Now you've finally shot your bolt and it's time for a parting of the ways. I'm afraid we shall not be renewing your contract in May. As a gesture of goodwill, however, we are prepared to let you finish making
Wicca's World
.'

She slumped into her chair. Not only had she failed to pull off the million-pound cook-in sauce deal, but there wasn't even the remotest chance of her finding a new job while the media continued to be gripped by the Real People Initiative frenzy. Eric Rowe wasn't simply ending her contract, he was putting an end to her entire career. It was over, finished, kaput. The sudden realization cut through her as surely as any knife.

‘Please, Eric. Please don't do this to me,' she sobbed. ‘I'll do anything you want. If it's sponsored London-to-Brighton supermarket trolley races, you shall have them. Stories about petrol prices and noise from ghetto-blasters: I'll get Plum on the case right now. From now on I'll hand in all my cherry Genoa chitties, I promise. But please, please don't sack me. I'm begging you, Eric. I need this job. All my life all I've ever wanted is to be rich and successful. You can't simply destroy me like this. You just can't.'

‘As I said, Naomi, you had your chances, but you blew them. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have another meeting to get to.' He stood up to go.

Before Naomi could stop herself she had ingested her pride in one go, leapt out of her chair and was sitting on the floor, gripping Eric Rowe by his leg.

‘Please, Eric,' she begged, hysterical now. ‘Just give me one more chance. I promise I won't let you down.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said. He did his best to pull her off his leg, but she refused to budge. Even as he dragged himself to his office door she was still holding on for grim death.

‘Please, Eric. Please. I think I'm going to be sick.'

They continued like this, her pleading and pretending to retch, him struggling to get her off him, for several yards down the corridor. It was only when two Channel 6 security guards happened to pass by and see the commotion that she was finally dragged off.

***

‘Plum, Bacon Bastard. Now,' she yelled as she stormed into her office. Having sat in the Ladies' for twenty minutes, her panic and desperation had subsided. In their place had come wild fury with Eric, her sister, Tom, Tony Blair and the RPI, the cook-in sauce people - everybody except herself.

It was a moment before she realized that Plum was sitting with his feet up on her desk, coughing his heart out as he tried to smoke a huge Cuban cigar.

‘What the fuck is going on?' she roared. ‘Get your bloody feet off my desk. Put that thing out and go to the canteen.'

‘Sorry, Nay-ohmi,' he spluttered, spraying her with gobbets of cigar-infused spittle. ‘No can do.'

She stopped in her tracks.

‘Oh, I get it,' she snapped. ‘You've heard about me being fired, haven't you, and this is some kind of celebration. No doubt the moment I'm out of the door, the corridors will be one long conga line.'

‘Well, it is a celebration, Nay-ohmi, but it's not about you getting the sack... it's more that I've been promoted, really. Eric says that because you've worked me so hard over the years - you know, getting me to find all those groped virgins and whatnot - that I deserve a reward. When they find a new presenter to replace you, I'm going to be her producer. He also said I could take over your office with immediate effect. I think that means now, doesn't it, Nay-ohmi?'

She let out a high-pitched squawk, picked up a container full of biros from the desk and threw them at the door.

Plum didn't move. His feet still on the desk, he said, ‘Tell you what, Nay-ohmi, I could really murder a Bacon Bastard too.'

‘Oh, really?' she said sarcastically.

‘Yeah, but don't put any mustard on mine. I prefer brown sauce. Preferably HP. Now then, I like it spread on the bread, not the bacon. Goes nice and soggy that way. Oh, and with it I'd like a large English Breakfast tea. Bring me lemon and milk and then I can choose how I want it. And perhaps I'll have a packet of prawn cocktail Monster Munch and a couple of mint Wagon Wheels for later.'

At that moment the phone rang.

‘Take that, would you, Nay-ohmi, there's a dear?' he said imperiously, waving his cigar in the air.

Naomi stormed over to the phone and snatched the receiver.

‘Naomi Gold,' she barked. There was silence for a second while the caller identified and explained himself.

‘Sorry, Sergeant Catsick... oh, all right then, Capstick... You'll have to run that by me again: My mother's where?'

***

Beverley had spent an hour trying to persuade her mother and her cronies to come off the roof, but they made it clear that they would only come down when the media - preferably in the shape of Naomi and a film crew - turned up. In the end Beverley realized there was nothing for it but to stand there and prepare for a long wait. It could take hours, Beverley thought, for Naomi to gather up a crew and fight through the traffic.