11:59 Read online

  “I don’t have access to an agenda, sorry. We’ll see you at eleven fifteen.” With that, and as crisply as she does everything else, Kirsten terminates the call, leaving me anxiously ignorant about what might be going off.

  My immediate assumption is they’re going to give my slot to Simon. That’s what Meg Reece seemed to be hinting at when she called, and there was a smug, proprietorial air about Simon when he opened the show last night. Most likely they’ll do a straight swap for three months and make it permanent provided they don’t get too many complaints, or if they’ve died down in the meantime. Worse still, they might switch me to the zombie zone, the shift that starts directly after mine and sleep-walks through until six in the morning, playing to nobody. For the last couple of years it’s been hosted by a jumped-up hospital radio type called Alex Ray who’s all easy listening and strap lines like Take the easy way with Alex Ray and Relaxez Vous which I think is supposed to be a pun on his name. For me it would be a fate worse than death. Exit through the door marked Alan Partridge.

  I have less than two hours to get up, get myself sorted and down to the station for the meeting. Most importantly, two hours to marshal my arguments for hanging onto my show, with maybe fifteen minutes to make my pitch in front of Neville. I can do this.

  I fire up my laptop while I make a start on washing and dressing more neatly than I otherwise would at this time in the morning, or mostly any time we’re not due to have a royal visit. Luckily last night wasn’t a bender and I’ve had my first decent sleep in a while. I don’t think they can legally use my being ill to justify a move, but I want to convince them I’m one hundred percent, to use Meg’s phrase. I must remember to tell Neville I was ready to come back yesterday, only Meg insisted I stay away.

  Sitting at the screen to type out some bullet points for the defence, I decide to check my emails first in case somebody at work might have heard a rumour about changes and is offering any precious scraps of information. I log in as usual to the staff side of the station website.

  Access denied. You may have entered an invalid username or password (case sensitive). Please check and try again.

  I retype the details carefully.

  Access denied. You may have entered an invalid username or password (case sensitive). Please check and try again.

  That airhead Marni. First she changed the Call Log password, now she’s done the same with my flaming email account. Hang on, no, she can’t do that with emails, you need administrator rights… What the hell’s going on here?

  I try twice more to log in. Same result. I can’t have forgotten my codes; I use them three or four times most days. They’ve locked me out. This could be even more serious than a reshuffle. Surely they’re not intending to get rid of me altogether?

  I’ll ring and ask someone who’s clued in, someone close enough to upstairs to have a handle on what’s up without being part of the conspiracy. Somebody I can trust. That would be… Hmm, the truth is nobody springs to mind. That’s the problem with doing a late night show, you’re kind of cut off from those who are part of the daytime business. And I must admit I’ve not bothered much with the social side of things at work recently. Not since Sam left. I’m pretty much on my own.

  Sad as it is, the next person I think of ringing is Oliver Dunn. I’m wondering if he listened to Simon last night and heard him drop any hints about taking my seat on a permanent basis. Anyway, I should let Ollie know what I discovered on my stake-out, even though that wasn’t much. Of course I won’t mention deserting my post or borrowing Oliver’s name to help protect me from the attentions of a pimp. And I’m hoping Ollie won’t mention seeing me climb out of a taxi cab while he was still on the bus.

  If I’m brutally honest with myself the real reason I want to ring my loyal (only?) fan at this point is I badly need a boost to my deflated ego and to convince myself that somebody somewhere, inadequate or not, still loves me. It’s come to something when I have to rely on Oliver Dunn to be my motivational guru. But there’s no answer to his number when I call, so I guess he does have a life beyond anything that might revolve around Marc Niven. I’ll have to go into my meeting with Neville Crawcrook without so much as a crumb of comfort from my new friend Ollie.

  It turns out, however, that I’m not to meet with Neville at all. That is to say, I do meet him, but only by accident as I’m waiting for the lift in Reception and he comes out of it, apparently in a rush to get to the car park. He looks startled and irritated to see me, as if I’m trying to sell him a copy of The Big Issue. He’s about to brush straight by until I say, “Er, aren’t we…? Excuse me, Neville, aren’t we supposed to be having a chat this morning?”

  He turns reluctantly without really stopping and says, with a dismissive waggle of his fingers, “I’ve asked Meg to… Plane to catch. Group. Meg will see to you.” And he’s off through the glass doors.

  His flight from the scene confirms what I suspected. Neville always uses Meg as his rottweiler and hates to be around when staff changes are made in case he has to confront misery, deal with conflict or, god forbid, exercise leadership. Meg, on the other hand, thrives on all of these things as she continually tries out for the role of Lady Macbeth.

  Kirsten is on the phone in the outer office and she waves me through to the sanctum with the same slightly disgusted get-out-my-face flick of the fingers that her boss used downstairs. Even though I’m at least five minutes early for the meeting, it transpires as I poke my head through Neville’s door that I’m last to turn up. I don’t just mean Meg Reece, who is sitting like queen bee in Neville’s black leather chair. Also facing me from the far side of the polished table are Simon Barnes and Marni. Nearer to Meg is Alice Winter from HR (a worrying sign). More surprisingly, stuck on his own in a corner of the office, next to a small table with laptop and speakers laid out, is Jim the technician. Jim is the only one who greets me as I come in, with a wry grin and a wave that could just as easily be an appeal for me to pull him out of the place where he’s mired. Nobody else moves or utters a word until I say, standing in front of the big table, “What’s up?”

  “Sit down,” the queen bee commands. I ignore the seat she’s indicating directly opposite her, instead taking a chair at one corner of the table and angling it so I can see everybody in the room, persuading myself that I’ve shifted the balance of power. (I once interviewed a university professor on body language and have been an expert on the subject ever since.)

  “What’s up?” I say again.

  “After last night I would have thought that was obvious,” says Meg, not bothering to hide a sneer.

  My confidence drains. They know about the kerb-crawling. Somebody’s dobbed me in. Fuck. How can I explain? “I haven’t a clue what you’re on about,” I say, fishing.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t listen to Simon’s programme.”

  Now I really don’t know what she’s on about. Even while I’m trying to adjust my thinking there’s a part of me bridles against her calling it Simon’s programme. “It’s not… Er, I did listen to the first few minutes actually. But I fell asleep. No offence, Simon,” lifting my hand to him, point-scoring I suppose but genuinely trying to lighten things up; the mood is so brittle. They all stare back at me from the other side of the table, expressionless. “Yeah, I fell asleep. I’ve not being feeling the best, as you know.” I shouldn’t have said that, weakens my position. But I think I’m safe about the kerb-crawling thing; it’s something else. Christ, it wasn’t a listener rang in, was it, saw me in town maybe?

  Then Meg says, “Why didn’t you tell me about Hassan Malik?”

  “Hassan… Malik?”

  I’m floored by this. I really thought it had slipped off the radar as far as the station was concerned, had become a thing between just Ollie and me. A detective thing, our little mystery. Now Hassan’s back to haunt me.

  “Don’t come the innocent, Marc, it doesn’t suit,” Meg snaps. “You know exactly who I’m talking about. Jim?”

  Over in the
corner Jim jerks out of his slump as if he’s been electrified by his own equipment. I’ve been wondering since I came into the room where he fits into the scene. Now I’m about to find out.

  “Play the Hassan clip.” When Meg’s in boss mode she dispenses with pleases and thankyous.

  Jim consults a scrap of paper perched on top of his laptop. “Hassan, OK. 14 Feb.” He sneaks an apologetic glance across at me as he cues up the file and clicks to play. His speakers are small but more than adequate for this room. My recorded voice sounds louder and surer of itself than the one that has been responding to Meg’s questions.

  ‘Let’s talk to Hassan on line 2. Who do you want to give your heart to, Hassan?’

  Heard again, Hassan’s voice, though calm, seems to me now to have a hollow quality about it. A voice from the grave.

  ‘I should like to send all my love to Amina. Amina Begum Khan.’

  ‘Amina, is it? Nice name. Wife or girlfriend?’

  ‘Wife, yes. My widow. Mother of our darling child.’

  Meg’s eyes have been settled on the speakers. As Hassan says My widow they flick momentarily across to me.

  ‘Excellent, thanks for calling. Now we’ve just got time to squeeze in… Jed. Who’s the last lucky lady tonight?’

  Jim taps at the stop button and, in the silence that follows, massages his nose while he stares at the screen, ready to poke a finger up his nostril once we’ve turned our attention away.

  “What did you think when you heard that?” says Meg. Her question is directed at me. “I mean, hearing him describe his wife as his widow?”

  “I, well…” (How can I say this without sounding incompetent?) “To tell you the truth, I didn’t really hear it.”

  “You are a talk show presenter. It’s your job to listen to what people are saying to you when they call. Are you not capable of doing that job?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Pretty fundamental error.”

  “Not at all. You can’t always hear every word people say to you when they call. They’re not professionals, they haven’t got broadcasting voices. That guy was foreign. I mean, I’m not being racist…” this for Alice Winter, who’s suddenly picked up her pencil, “I’m just saying that English might not be his first language.”

  “He sounded clear enough to me,” says Meg.

  “Now he does, yes, when you’re listening out for what he’s saying. But did you hear it, sitting at home.”

  “I wasn’t listening to the broadcast.”

  I can’t resist the counter-attack. “Isn’t it your job to listen to the station’s output?”

  “Not twenty-four seven, no. I hear more than enough to know who’s doing well on the air and who isn’t. I heard your last show, for example, but we won’t dwell on that for the moment.”

  She turns slightly as she’s saying her piece, making it clear that we means her people, her side of the table. Simon, resting his elbow there, presses a knuckle lightly against his bottom lip, glancing down at the polished surface. He’ll have heard her saying last show (not latest) as plainly as I did. I’m not going to be done for this, though.

  “What about Marni? She was there with me.” I lean forward to address her directly. “You didn’t notice anything odd about what he said, did you?”

  “I didn’t hear it. You’d sent me out to make tea, remember?”

  She colours slightly as she says it and Alice Winter slides her hand along the table, grabbing Marni’s to comfort her as if she’s just been made to testify against a rapist.

  “I never sent you out anywhere, that’s not my style.” Fighting my corner. “And unless I’m mistaken you were still in the ops room while I was talking to Hassan. But, OK, maybe you didn’t have cans on just then. The point I’m making, though…” turning back to Meg, “It was just one of those remarks that slipped by. Nobody really took any notice of it at the time.”

  “But that’s not true, is it, Marni?” says Meg, prompting her.

  “No,” says Marni, looking at me but responding to Meg, like she’s her barrister and I’m the prisoner at the bar, “I told Marc that someone had called asking about Hassan’s… mental state, but he told me to ignore it. And somebody else whose name’s Oliver I think was desperate to speak to Marc. He even turned up at Reception, and I suppose it was to ask about Hassan, but Marc went out of the side door to avoid him, and he got me to do the same.”

  “Oh, come on…” I’m exasperated by the way Marni seems to be representing herself as some kind of victim, but before I can say anything more Meg cuts in.

  “And I understand also there were emails coming in which you more or less brushed off…”

  “Bollocks. On the subject of emails, why have I been blocked from accessing mine? Do you know about this, Alice? As a member of staff I’ve surely got a right…”

  “Don’t bleat to us about rights,” says Meg. “What you need to think about is responsibilities. It’s bad enough letting people down internally…”

  “What?”

  “When it comes to the public it’s unforgivable.”

  “Do you know who you’re talking to?” I’m getting irate now. “Just in case it’s slipped your mind, I believe I’m the only person in this place who has been publicly acknowledged for saving somebody’s life. If you want to talk responsibilities, just ask Mr…” Infuriatingly I’ve forgotten the guy’s name again. Meg wades into the gap.

  “Put another record on, Marc, we’ve heard that one. You can’t patch up a reputation by falling back on something that happened two years ago.”

  “What you mean, patch up a reputation?”

  “Exactly what I’m saying. I’ll be blunt, Marc. You’ve not been on form recently. I was going to have a word with you about your… general approach anyway, but this incident, on top of everything else, has forced my hand. It’s not about you alone any more, it’s about the station. Last night was an embarrassment for us, frankly.”

  “But I wasn’t working last night.”

  “Exactly. And it was poor Simon here who had to pick up the pieces, try and hold it together when it all kicked off. He did a very good job, in the circumstances.”

  Simon strokes his chin modestly and manages a smile for his boss. My confusion is evident even to Meg on her high horse, so she brings Jim into play again. “Cue Lee from last night,” she instructs him.

  Jim consults his scrap of paper. “Lee, Lee, Lee. 22:41.”

  Soon it’s Simon’s voice we can hear through the small speakers.

  ‘Thanks to Meredith for her ghost hitch-hiker story. I’ve heard variations of that one before, but not with the local twist you gave it, Meredith. It makes it that much more real when you know you’ve passed the very lay-by. How about your story, Lee, on line 5, is there a local angle?’

  ‘Mine? Well, it’s not a story, like, not as such, but you’ve been on about ghosts, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, what about the ghost that was on here Friday night?’

  ‘On TV?’

  ‘On the radio. On this show I’m on about.’

  Simon laughs. ‘You’re not referring to Marc Niven are, you, Lee?’ The here-and-now Simon darts a glance at me and raises a hand slightly off the table, minimal apology. The disembodied Simon continues.

  ‘Mind you, he was looking a little pale last time I saw him. What do you think, Marni? Did Marc look pale to you?’

  ‘He did a bit, yeah,’ from Marni, cheerful on open talk-back.

  ‘Was that your ghost, Lee, Marc Niven?’

  ‘No, but he talked to the real ghost, like. Seriously.’

  In the beat before Simon replies I can detect his shift into uncertainty. He doesn’t feel in control of this. I can imagine his finger poised over the dump button, just in case.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he says. Reluctant encouragement.

  ‘I tried to get on about this the same night but I never got a call back from yous. It was about this Hassan sending a Valentine message
to his widow.’

  ‘Hang on, Lee, you’ve lost me there. There’s a man sending a Valentine to his widow?’

  ‘Hassan. That was his name. He come on just before midnight saying he wanted to send all his love to his wife, which is fair enough. But then he called her his widow.’

  ‘His widow?’

  ‘Mmm. The funny thing was, Marc never said a thing about it, just thanks very much and that was it.’

  ‘And he definitely said widow? Because obviously if you have a widow you’ve got to be… dead.’

  ‘Exactly. So that’s what I’m saying, you’ve had a ghost on the show.’

  ‘Well, practical joker more like, Lee. We do get them unfortunately.’

  ‘Not much of a joke though, eh? Didn’t seem like the comedian type, like. As I say, the funniest thing was not a thing more was said about it. Either that night, or the next night. I just wondered if anybody knew who this bloke was, sort of thing. It’s had me puzzled, you know.’

  ‘That does seem a strange one. Obviously Marc’s not around just now. Marni, is this something you…? No, Marni’s shaking her head at me through the glass so she can’t shed any light on it. There you go, Lee. Thanks very much for your call. Little poser you’ve set for us. Hmm. Do we have a mystery ghost, right here on this programme? Told you we were in for a spooky night, didn’t I? I’ll be back right after this.’

  As the first commercial kicks in Jim reaches across to switch off the recording. We take a collective breath and look across the table at each other. Everybody seems to be waiting for me to speak, but for the moment I can’t because I’ve got this intense battle going on in my head. Do I tell them everything I know about Hassan (what good would that do? what do I really know?), or do I stay schtum, go for damage limitation, shrug it off as best as I can? I make the wrong choice.

  “So?” is what I say.