We Are the Hanged Man (18 page)

She rose, feeling slightly uncomfortable about being caught sitting at his desk, but fully intent on covering that discomfort with ballsy arrogance and shouting.

'This isn't about you, you know. It's not all about you. It's about this show, and those people sitting downstairs, waiting for you, waiting to try and make a difference. They don't care about fame and celebrity, they don't care about the marketing contracts, they don't care about their fifteen minutes. All they want is to make a difference. Make. A. Difference. End of. That doesn't mean anything to you, does it? I know all about you and about your type. Desperate to get on TV, desperate to come along and get your money and your fame and your notoriety, get your face on the box, maybe pick up some contracts and other TV for yourself, but not prepared to put in the hours. Well, it's time you started showing up for work, bud.'

Gradually, as she'd spoken, she had been edging round his desk, and he had been edging round behind it. When it seemed she had completely shot her load for the moment, he sat down and smiled.

'Did you actually believe anything of what you just said?'

'Fuck you,' she retorted. 'I'm bringing Cher up here right now, and you better be ready to start doing whatever the fuck it is that you do, because this is television, Don Fucking Quixote, and we can fucking crush you.'

She walked out leaving the door open. Jericho's eyes followed her back as she stormed through the office. The faces that peered into Jericho's office were quickly averted when they saw that he was looking their way.

'Don Quixote?' said Haynes. 'Cool. Who does that make me?'

'Sancho Panza,' said Jericho.

'Nice.'

'Sancho Panza was an idiot,' said Jericho.

'Yeah, but a good idiot…'

Jericho reached into his pocket and brought out the four Tarot cards, held them towards Haynes.

'I'm not sure what, but get me something else on these. I don't want to say that we're missing something. I'm sure we know everything that this guy wants us to know and no more, but at some stage we're going to need to get one step ahead of him, or else we're fucked. Well, I'm fucked at any rate.'

Haynes took the cards and transferred them to his own pocket.

'What about giving Dylan the heads up?'

A tumult started from the far end of the open plan, as the door was barged open and Claudia returned, leading Cher, plus a researcher, the cameraman and the sound guy.

'No,' said Jericho, and Haynes nodded and left quickly, before he could get sucked into television's desperate search for cheap real-life drama.

*

'So what now?' asked Cher.

She was looking bright-eyed and excited. The camera was running, the sound guy was positioned discreetly at the back, Claudia was standing off to the side. The television people were more or less invisible; the two principals were playing out the drama in isolation. Real life television couldn't get any more real.

'Not much doing,' said Jericho, 'We could fill in some paperwork if you like.'

'But, like, hasn't there been any crime? Like, burglaries and stuff. Or a paedo, something like that?'

Jericho had one on-going paedophile investigation, but was not going to be the one to mention it. He was pretty sure that after the first day, when nothing had happened, Claudia would be straight into Dylan's office demanding that there be more crime committed in Wells, so that the show could be more interesting.

'Nothing like that,' said Jericho.

'What about an unsolved murder? There must be one of them. Or a disappearance?'

Jericho looked at her sharply, then let the look ease from his face. He wondered if Claudia or Washington would have put her up to raising the subject of Amanda. He had to be determined not to rise to it.

'No,' he said, 'no unsolved murders.'

'Well, like….' she began, then wasn't sure what to say, so finished the sentence with, 'like, duh…'

'Would you like for us to arrange for some crime to be committed?' asked Jericho dryly.

'Well, like, can you do that?' she said. 'But that seems kind of, like, pointless. Isn't there some real crime? You read about it in the papers all the fuckin' time. All sorts of shit.'

'I might be able to dredge up a small insurance fraud, if you like. But when I say small, I mean really small. I wouldn't usually handle it, but maybe under the circumstances…'

He looked at Claudia. She shook her head and rolled her eyes, as if it was Jericho's fault that there was nothing doing in the world of crime in the West Country.

'What about Lol?' said Cher, all innocence.

'What about her?'

'She's missing. Like, what the fuck? I thought you'd be all over that like an STD. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? Why aren't you doing that, man?'

'Because she went missing in London,' said Jericho. 'It's their crime. They have allocated officers to investigate. We're not throwing procedure out of the window because the television cameras are here.'

As he said it, he realised that for the first time they had stumbled across something that was actually liable to be included on the show.

'But like, they said in the papers, it's your thing. They showed you sitting around doing fuck all about it.'

'I was doing fuck all about it because I'm not the investigating officer. So I was doing fuck all about it, in the same way that I do fuck all about bank robberies in Inverness, drug crimes in Middlesbrough and sex crimes in Lincoln.'

'So what do you do?'

Claudia was expressionless, but inside she was squealing with excitement. The stupid bastard of a policeman was being put on the spot by a nineteen-year-old girl and she absolutely had him by the testicles. Not only that, she was squeezing them with both hands; and she was so fucking gormless she probably didn't even realise she was doing it.

'I deal with crime that happens in the city of Wells. That's my job.'

'There isn't any fucking crime!'

'Like I said, what do you want me to do? Make some?'

'Go and help some of the fuckers that need it. It's on the news every bleedin' day. Police this, police that, not enough manpower. And this is the real thing? You lot sitting around on your fat arses, wanking off.'

Jericho had nothing to say to that. She was annoying him beyond words. He wouldn't have said anything had the cameras not been present; he would just have shown her out. However, given the presence of television he knew he had been backed into a corner. She had the moral high ground.

'Let's look for Lol,' she said. 'I mean, I don't know where to start, do I? You're the policeman. So, come on, lets go. Phone up whoever the fuck you need to phone up and let's get going.'

Jericho held her gaze for a while and then looked at Claudia. He had wondered from the start if it might be a television set-up, and now the thought struck him even more forcefully. In front of the cameras, however, was not the time to say anything.

Claudia smiled. Jericho looked back at Cher, but still did not speak. Eventually someone would feel the need to address the awkward silence with inane chatter, but it wouldn't be him.

Dylan was flabbergasted, which was a state of mind that Jericho well recognised in her. It always manifested itself in open-mouthed stares and a high usage of the word fuck. On occasion he quite enjoyed the performance; usually, however, he just tried to switch off until he sensed he had an opportunity to leave.

'Really, what the fuck were you thinking? You couldn't just have shown her round the station, found some paedo to go and beat up, or waited outside the King's Head until some drunk arsehole got in his car to go home? It's not like we live in a fucking monastery. It's not like we live in fucking… I don't know… a fucking vacuum, a fucking crime vacuum. But you sit there looking like a fucking lemon, a fucking joke lemon. What the fuck are you…? You know, fuck you. I don't give a fuck about you. What the fuck is this station going to look like if they show that clip? You think there are going to be any jobs left down here? Fucking jobs? Police jobs? Do you? And, of course, we come to the fucking crux, don't we? They won't show it, if you get involved in looking for this stupid tart, a stupid tart that absolutely everyone knows is in hiding and entirely complicit with the producers. You…. You! have turned a harmless piece of crap, into this massive police own goal. It was a fucking honour for you to get picked to be on this show, and look what you've done, look what you go and do. And are you going to be the one who extricates us from it? Are you? Are. You. Fuck. Who's going to be doing that? Oh, let me think. Fucking me! That's who.'

Jericho held her gaze throughout. On one occasion a piece of spit landed on his cheek; a couple of times he felt it on his hands. He did not move.

'You're just going to sit there, aren't you?' she said. 'I seriously don't know why the fuck I'm waiting for you to say anything.'

She stared at him, her eyebrows raised in anticipation. Eventually, when Jericho's gaze remained unremittingly straight and dull, she bristled some more and then pointed a lazy hand at the door.

'Get out,' she said.

He rose quickly, turned and walked from the office.

'Just get fucking out,' she said, then looked up, and saw that he was already gone.

'Fuck,' she muttered.

*

They were in the City Arms again. A quiet corner round the side, next to the sofas, hardly anyone else in the bar. A slow evening, the drinkers having stocked up with cheap alcohol at the supermarket, choosing to sit at home instead, watching reality television and glossy BBC documentaries pitched at the discerning ten-year-old.

They had been sitting for ten minutes, slowly working their way through a pint each, a packet of crisps for Haynes, peanuts for Jericho. Either marshalling their thoughts before starting a conversation or, as was certainly the case with Jericho, nothing to say.

He was thinking about the Hanged Man cards. Knew there must be an angle that he hadn't visualised. Something was coming and it was aimed directly at him. He might not like the notion, but it was personal. Not just that, but it was cold, calculated and brutally set up. However it played itself out, it was being done in such a way that Jericho was going to be caught cold. They were teasing him, playing with him, letting him know that something was coming yet giving nothing away.

'You took a couple of bollockings today,' said Haynes, folding up his empty crisp packet. 'From women. A few of the lads are talking about it.'

Jericho acknowledged that he'd spoken with a slight movement of the head.

'You just going to take it?'

'What do you want me to do?' asked Jericho.

Haynes took a drink. Nearing the end of his pint. He nodded.

'Suppose.'

'These cards,' said Jericho, 'that's what's troubling. I don't give a shit about the women, or that they are women. The superintendent shouts… so what are you going to do? Nothing. You sit there, you wait for the noise to finish, then you leave. The TV woman… I don't know…'

'Tell her to fuck off?'

Jericho nodded.

'Nice. Sure, I could. But you know what? She's not fucking off. They're here for the duration. If and when they do fuck off, it won't be because I tell them to.'

Haynes wasn't convinced, didn't say anything, hid his face behind his pint glass.

'I'm dull, I don't cry, I never say anything funny and I never get hysterical. Eventually they'll realise that this dour bloke thing that I've got going on isn't an act, and then hopefully they ask that I be relieved of my duties and go and stick a camera in someone else's face. Maybe it'll be you.'