Woman of the Hour (19 page)

‘How truly vile.’

‘You know he comes from a modest background and he’s worked hard to reach the top. Why would he jeopardise everything he’s worked for?’

‘Maybe he’s become so used to wielding power that he feels nothing can touch him,’ Fenton said.

‘I guess so. And of course I didn’t report him. I’m feeling shitty about that.’

‘You’re too quick to take responsibility when things go wrong.’

‘But if I had reported him...’

‘You think this wouldn’t have happened?’

‘Yes.’

‘There you go again; shouldering the blame. You’ve done nothing wrong.’

*

Flo approved of Fenton’s choice of boots. They were knee-high burgundy leather, a close fit and less practical than the style Fenton usually buys.

‘Mum, I need a pair of boots too,’ Flo said.

‘Do you?’

‘I’d really like a pair of Doc Martens.’

Doc Martens were a change in style for Flo. She has always been a girlie girl. The image of Paige flashed into my mind. I had seen her last week when I came out of Chalk Farm Tube. It was her shock of white hair that caught my eye. She was standing outside the Roundhouse with two men; one of them could have been her father. She was wearing a short tartan skirt and black Doc Marten boots.

‘That will have to be a Christmas present. They cost over a hundred quid,’ I said.

Chalk Farm flat, Sunday

I roasted a chicken with all the trimmings: carrots, parsnips, runner beans, stuffing balls and roast potatoes. I opened one of the bottles of Malbec Fenton had brought. I love to cook a roast and lay the table to look nice. It makes me feel like I’m being a good mother. I refused to let Fenton help so she sat and watched me and told me about a case she had recently resolved successfully. Her work entails getting legal assistance for refugees and helping them to settle here. I poured Malbec into her glass.

‘You love your work.’

‘I do,’ she said.

‘I envy you that.’

‘You like yours too, most of the time. It’s just tough at the moment.’

‘What do I do? Fill the morning hours with chatter for tired mums and shift workers.’

‘It’s more than that.’

‘Is it? It’s a case of bread and circuses, isn’t it? Distract people from their problems,’ I said.

‘Come on. You’ve run health campaigns...’

‘That’s one of the few things I’m proud of.’

‘This is you feeling low, darling.’

‘Maybe; but I still think Mum despises what I do.’

‘You don’t know that for certain.’

We had talked about this before, how my mum would have preferred me to be a teacher or a social worker.

‘I’m not sure I’m fit for any other kind of work now,’ I said.

‘You stay there to give Flo a good home. That’s heroic in my book.’

‘Thank you.’

I don’t think Fenton realised how much it meant to me her saying I was heroic. It felt like a vote of confidence and I needed that very badly with everything that was going on.

*

The meal wasn’t ready until two-thirty and Fenton said she would need to leave by five to get back to Folkestone. She had spent the whole two days shoring me up and it was only in the last hour she was there, when Flo had retreated to her room, that she started to tell me about a man she has fallen for. Fenton sees at first-hand the terrible conditions of people arriving at Dover, often in container trucks, and this is how she met Bill. He’s a detective in a unit that investigates the trafficking of people and crimes associated with illegal migrants.

‘The real stumbling block is that we’ve got such different views on refugees. He thinks they’re on the make and that I’m a soft touch,’ she said.

‘Is he a hard man?’

‘He makes out he is but I’ve seen him with his son and there’s a tender side.’

She ran her finger round the top of her glass.

‘I don’t see how it could work really, but I am so attracted to him.’

‘And...?’

‘I think the feeling’s mutual.’

‘I love the early stages; when you feel terribly attracted to a man but you don’t know if anything is going to happen.’

We clinked our glasses.

‘Go for it and be happy, darling. You deserve it,’ I said.

It had been such a tonic having Fenton to stay and I didn’t want her to go. I walked with her to Chalk Farm Tube and we hugged each other and agreed we would do a short holiday together straight after Christmas while Flo was staying with Ben. As I walked back I thought about Fenton in love; ahh, that explained the sexy boots.

*

Later that evening Flo joined me in the kitchen and sat at the table to work on a school assignment on endangered species, a subject close to her heart. I pulled the remains of the chicken from the carcass and decanted the leftover vegetables into a big bowl. I would make bubble and squeak on Monday night. Maybe put a poached egg on top. I recalled how I once roasted a chicken for Ben in the early days of our relationship. I hadn’t realised the giblets were in a plastic bag deep inside the cavity of the chicken and had put it in the oven without taking them out. Once it was roasted Ben had started to carve the chicken, complimenting me on how good it looked. And then he discovered the giblet bag and fished it out on the carving fork. I was mortified and told him not to eat it; I’d poisoned it with cooked plastic! But Ben said the meat would be fine and he teased me about it for years.

I was thinking about what Fenton had said; that I didn’t have to feel so terrible about what had happened. As long as I did right by Harriet and impressed upon her the need to report the assault there was little more I could do. The doorbell rang and my heart sank.

‘Are you expecting someone, sweetheart?’ I said, praying that Paige hadn’t decided to drop by to shatter our Sunday evening cosiness, which was a rare enough event these days.

‘No, nobody.’

I went to the door and Harriet was standing there, several steps back from my entrance, outlined by the light thrown from the street lamp. I was shocked to see her. She was all buttoned up and belted in a trench coat with the collar up and she was shivering.

‘I hope you don’t mind me coming here.’

‘Of course not. Come in, come in.’

She followed me into our hall.

‘I best take my boots off; I’ve been walking on the Heath.’

‘It’s good to see you.’

She unzipped her boots and I couldn’t help noticing they were made of the most glorious soft black leather. She followed me into the living room. It could have been an awkward moment but Flo was pleased to see her and Harriet was friendly back. I took her coat. Underneath she was wearing a black polo neck and skinny black jeans and she stood in her stockinged feet looking around.

‘What a lovely room.’

Flo got up and showed her our little garden through the doors at the end. The outside lights were twinkling along the walls.

‘That’s so pretty.’

‘Can I get you a hot drink, or a glass of wine if you prefer?’

‘A small glass of wine would be nice, thanks.’

‘Is red OK?’

‘Thank you.’

She sat at our table and I poured us both a small glass of the remaining Malbec. We wouldn’t be able to talk in front of Flo but her turning up was highly significant. No member of my team has ever been to my flat. I wondered how she had found my address. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had sought me out and I hoped it meant that she trusted me. She asked Flo what she was working on. I watched Harriet’s face as Flo explained her assignment. She was writing up the case of the northern white rhino, she said. Flo pulled up photos on her tablet to show her. I have always found Harriet uncommunicative and as I am a person who is drawn to talkative outgoing people I think this makes me underestimate quieter more reserved people. She was listening to Flo and her face was calm and I couldn’t work out what she was thinking.

‘There’s only one male left in the whole world, in Kenya. He’s being guarded against poachers. So sad, isn’t it?’ Flo said.

‘Awful. There are some evil men in the world.’

Harriet flashed me a look as she said this and I made a small nod. She asked me how Simon, Molly and Ziggy were and we had a superficial conversation about work which skirted around the thing we needed to talk about. It started to rain and we heard the drops against the windows.

‘I better go. I’ll get a taxi home,’ Harriet said.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Islington, I’m still at home with the parents.’

That surprised me; at twenty-six, I assumed she would have her own place. She took out her phone.

‘Do you need a local number?’ I said.

‘No thanks, I’ve got an account.’

‘I’m glad you came round.’

It wasn’t until the two of us were standing on the pavement waiting for her taxi under my large StoryWorld umbrella that she told me what she had come to say.

‘I’ve been in therapy for a while, and my therapist told me I must stop running away from things.’

‘You told your therapist what happened?’

‘I tell her everything. I saw her on Friday.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘A bit stronger.’

The taxi drew up at the pavement. It was a glossy black Mercedes, no Uber cars for Harriet, I thought. She moved to go but I put my hand on her arm.

‘Does this mean you’re going to report Julius?’

‘No, I can’t go through with that. But, I’ve thought about it and I’d like to come back to work tomorrow.’

StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge

Julius wasn’t in this morning and Bob chaired our post-mortem meeting. As we came out of the room I saw how he watched Fizzy walking away down the stairs. She swings her hips as she walks and I often feel that although she is thirty-eight she has the demeanour and body language of a much younger woman. He is clearly smitten.

‘You had your budget meeting yet?’ he asked me, dragging his eyes away from Fizzy.

‘No, I’ve got that pleasure this afternoon.’

‘Be prepared. He’s determined to cut.’

‘By a lot?’

‘Five to ten per cent.’

‘Sod that!’

‘He said it’s time to thin out the teams.’

‘If my team got any thinner it would disappear. Where is he this morning anyway?’

‘Don’t know. He called last night and said he couldn’t get in till later.’

Bob’s intelligence was useful but it made me feel anxious. I would need to be ready to argue at my meeting with Julius. I was glad he wasn’t in as it gave me time to assess how Harriet would cope with being back at work. I was determined to watch him like a hawk at their first encounter. As I walked back to my team I saw Harriet standing by her desk. I raised my hand to wave at her and then thought that might be too revealing. From the team’s point of view she had been away because she was ill and now she was back, no great cause for a fuss. She was dressed in a navy blue dress with long sleeves with white cuffs and a white Peter Pan collar. She had put her hair up into a bun. Looking at her it occurred to me that Harriet expresses how she feels in the way she dresses. It may not be conscious but last night it was the belted trench coat with the collar up for our impromptu meeting and today it was this outfit. There was something self-dramatising about her demure mode of dress.

‘Good to see you back,’ I said.

Ziggy was being solicitous, offering to get her a drink from the Hub. Harriet smiled her thanks but said she was fine. I wondered why Ziggy was fluttering around Harriet in this way. Surely Harriet would not have confided in Ziggy? That didn’t make any sense. I asked the researchers to come into my office for a quick meeting as I had to do work on the budget. As soon as they were seated Simon said an idea had occurred to him that morning after seeing a poster at the Tube station.

‘I thought we could do a StoryWorld panto,’ he said.

There was a puzzled silence.

‘Not a real panto, of course, but in December we could construct a whole show around a panto theme. The presenters could act out certain roles. Fizzy could be Cinderella in her rags and Ledley could be Prince Charming and Betty the Fairy Godmother. They’d all be in costume and we could dress the set. I think it could be a lot of fun.’

We spent the next ten minutes throwing in ideas about how this could work. I said we’d have to think up a good role for Gerry because he was a born performer; he could be Buttons perhaps. Molly wondered if we should go so far as to write the script in rhyming couplets? I was pleased when Harriet made a suggestion saying Ledley could cook a dish that reflected the theme, pumpkin pie, for example. I was grateful to Simon for suggesting the panto idea. It had generated a cheerful discussion and had helped Harriet ease herself back in after her absence.

‘What a lovely creative lot you are. Here are your research briefs for the week. Off you go. I’ve got to do detailed budget work now.’

I pulled the figures up on my screen and scanned each budget line. No way was I going to agree to a 5 per cent cut or any reduction in my permanent team. I would have to agree to a smaller cut. I had not yet replaced Sal’s comedy slot. Buying in talent like Sal was expensive as she wrote original material for us each week. I could live without it and replace her with a sofa expert who would cost less. I wondered about returning to the idea of employing a fashion journalist. About three years ago there had been talk of employing Amber, who was then dating Julius, to present a segment on fashion. I had had one meeting with her and we had discussed some ideas, including how she could analyse trends and offer advice on creating designer looks for less. It was cheap-to-make TV as we could use promo stills for celebrity-style tips. I was keen on the idea although I had not warmed to Amber. Then, when I discussed it with Fizzy, she had resisted any notion of employing Amber as a presenter. Julius hadn’t been keen either. Maybe he thought it was too close to home. If I was to get the idea through now I would need to find a male fashion expert. I was sure Fizzy would have no objection to that.

Mid-morning, the phone rang. It was Connie Mears from St Eanswythe’s.

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that Naomi Jessup died in the early hours of this morning.’