The Fixer

by Claudia Carroll

  ‘Are you even listening to me?’ says whatshisname, but I’m already busy on my phone, tap, tap, tapping away, barely even looking up at him. Checking, double-checking everything. Who exactly is on Callaghan’s team, from his campaign manager (easy to find; she has a Twitter handle and is almost overactive on Instagram too), to his election advisor; an older man, dishevelled and exhausted-looking in a crumpled suit, seventies at a guess and annoyingly with absolutely no social media presence. I don’t let that deter me though, and a few quick Google searches tell me exactly who the guy is and more to the point, what he’s doing at the back of the TV studio, arms folded and with his eyes glued to his candidate, like an expert trainer watching a racehorse out on a field. I work super-speedily, fingers flying, just as Katherine takes her turn to talk to camera.

  ‘I said, I see Katherine is crashing and burning up there,’ whatshisname says drily. ‘Not that it’s any reason for you to look up from your phone. I mean, God forbid we should have your undivided attention, or anything.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I mutter, wishing he’d kindly just bugger off and leave me alone. Bingo. I discover via an online news article that the older man I’ve been googling is actually Callaghan’s brother, who’s been steering his career for decades. Interesting.

  ‘You don’t even know my name, do you?’ whatshisname persists, puncturing my concentration.

  At that, I look sharply up from my phone, locking eyes with him.

  ‘No,’ he shrugs back at me, ‘I thought not. It’s Billy, by the way. Not that you remember, I don’t expect you to. I mean, why would you bother?’

  So this time, I look at him properly. Normally, I’m pretty good at assessing people; and sometimes so accurate, it would frighten you. I scrutinise them up and down and down and up again and, purely based on what I see, I can get the full measure of a person in a matter of seconds. At school, it became almost like my signature party piece, and at the law firm where I worked as a legal secretary, people used to joke that I should do it on a TV show like Britain’s Got Talent.

  I pause, take a breath and do my thing.

  ‘Your full name is Billy Kingston,’ I say, observing him keenly this time. ‘And your car is clearly giving you trouble. You’ve recently moved house, but it’s a hell of a commute in and out to work every day. And you came back from holiday about two to three weeks ago, but where you went, I can’t tell. Although it was somewhere south of the Equator, that’s for certain.’

  Now I really have his attention, as he gapes back, stunned.

  ‘Wow,’ he says, shaking his head in shock. ‘I mean . . . wow. How did you do that? How can you have known? You’re not hacking into my emails or anything, are you?’

  ‘That would be telling,’ I shrug, going back to my phone.

  ‘Meg?’ Billy says, his mouth hanging open and still looking mystified. ‘Meg Monroe? Who the hell are you, anyway?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Harriet

  Harriet has just opened the hall door at Meg’s apartment, and there he is. Just standing in front of her. Unchanged. A few more lines around the eyes and an awful lot more freckles than she remembers, but otherwise, the very same Freddie. His strawberry-blond hair is cut shorter now; it looks tighter and neater than when they first met, like the corporate world is finally beginning to suck him up.

  But some old Freddie touches persist; like the fact he’s obviously just cycled here; he is dressed in chinos and a light blue shirt, but he’s perspiring a bit and has his bike helmet tucked under his arm.

  ‘Hi,’ he smiles, a little self-consciously. And there it is, that wide-open, wonky, freckly grin that makes him look so adorable.

  ‘Hello again,’ Harriet says, completely flustered.

  ‘Good to see you, Harriet,’ he adds, ‘I really do mean it. Honestly.’

  ‘Come in,’ she smiles, holding the door open for him. ‘Meg isn’t here just now . . . but I’m sure she’d have no problem with you being here. Something to drink?’

  ‘So your friend actually lives here?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Harriet nervously. ‘At least, I’m pretty sure she does.’

  ‘On her own?’

  ‘I think so. Something else, isn’t it?’

  ‘It most certainly is,’ Freddie says, dumping his bike helmet and walking around the open-plan living area, with the sunken coffee table and snow-white cushy sofas neatly dotted in front of a cinema-sized plasma screen TV. There’s a little pause as he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks around, whistling as he surveys the place up and down.

  ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘I mean . . . wow.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Harriet teases. ‘Yes, it’s a huge apartment, but I’m sure it would comfortably fit into your granny’s broom cupboard.’

  ‘Yeah . . . but still,’ Freddie says, by the balcony now, peering out over the edge. ‘Would you look at that? I can almost see cruise ships on the harbour from here. Isn’t it breathtaking?’

  Harriet can’t help smiling. That has always been one of the most endearing things about Freddie. His childlike enthusiasm for absolutely everything.

  ‘I actually know this building,’ he smiles.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘My grandparents own the construction company that built this whole development. Isn’t that funny? Wow, wish I lived here myself!’

  ‘Me and all,’ Harriet says.

  ‘And your chum Meg has all this to herself?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘The same Meg who used to go into bars and order a tonic water, then top it up with plastic bottles of gin she’d have hidden in her handbag? That Meg?’ he asks, his bright blue eyes totally focused on her.

  ‘That’s her all right.’

  ‘Golly. There’s people out there making six-figure salaries who couldn’t afford this place. I mean . . . who is she, anyway?’

  Harriet has no answer for that. So, she changes the subject instead.

  ‘You met her a few times,’ she says helpfully. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, yes, absolutely,’ Freddie says, running his fingers through his thick red hair, in a gesture that Harriet once used to find so adorably dotey. ‘We first met . . . outside that place where you used to work, wasn’t it? That shop, with the most dreadfully unfortunate acronym.’

  ‘CRAP,’ she offers helpfully. ‘Stands for Charitable Resales And Purchasing.’

  ‘Quite right, absolutely,’ Freddie nods politely. ‘Yes, it’s all coming back to me now. Where you and I first met too, do you remember?’

  Did Harriet remember? Did she what?

  Two years ago

  It had been a blisteringly hot summer’s day, and Harriet was pretty new to working at this branch of the charity shop. Doris, an elderly lady who lived locally, had just dropped in, more for a cuppa tea and a chat than to actually buy anything. Instantly realising that this lovely old lady really just wanted a bit of company more than anything else, Harriet dropped everything and sat Doris down on a knackered old brown sofa with the foam spilling out at the corners.

  ‘Pension day,’ Doris was saying. ‘So I thought I’d treat myself to something nice. A few paperback novels, or something like that maybe. Nothing with any smut in it, mind you. The last book I bought here had a funny title and it was all about tying people up and smacking them on the arse. BDSM, I think it was called, or some funny load of initials like that. My Jacko read a bit of it and he got so excited, he had to take a double dose of blood pressure tablets and have a little lie-down. I was terrified it might start giving him ideas.’

  ‘No problem,’ Harriet had smiled. ‘In fact, the nuns from that convent close by dropped off a shedload of stuff earlier. You enjoy your cuppa tea, Doris, and let me sift through it all and see what you might like.’

  ‘Nothing religious either, mind you,’ Doris said warningly. ‘I’d nearly rather all the M&S stuff than some aul book about the Vatican, or something.’

  Freddie had slipped into
the shop without Harriet even noticing. As it happened, she was trying to haul down a heavy box piled on top of yet another cardboard box, which in turn was piled high to the ceiling; all part of the stash the elderly nuns had dropped off earlier that day. She had no stepladder and was balanced precariously on top of a broken microwave, half afraid that the whole pyramid might come crashing down on top of her, when a voice came from directly beneath her.

  ‘Golly, that’s high. Perhaps I can assist?’

  She looked down and there he was. Freddie, dressed in cycling shorts with the red hair standing up on end and a heavy-looking backpack strapped to him, smiling up at her and instantly reaching to help.

  Harriet didn’t know what she was more surprised at. That this guy was under the age of eighty, unlike ninety-five per cent of her clientele, or that he actually came out with things like ‘golly’ and ‘can I assist?’

  ‘He’s nice, isn’t he?’ Doris had said, talking exactly as if he wasn’t there. ‘Go on, Harriet, offer him a Jaffa Cake.’

  ‘Thanks so much,’ Harriet flushed at him, as Freddie lifted down a stuffed cardboard box full of books. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’

  ‘More supplies for you,’ he’d grinned back, pulling at his backpack and showing her what was inside.

  Harriet peered in, and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  ‘Mother of God, a posh coffee maker that uses those capsule pod yokes?’ she’d said, looking back down at him in shock. ‘Sure that’s worth a fortune! And it’s all brand-new-looking.’

  ‘There’s more,’ he’d said, rummaging further down into the backpack and whipping out a perfectly good iPad, a mobile phone and a NutriBullet. ‘All right to leave it here? If it’s of any use to you, that is?’

  ‘Are you joking me?’ Harriet replied. ‘Sure you could sell this stuff on eBay and make a nice few quid for yourself! The NutriBullet looks like it’s hardly even been used.’

  ‘Oh, that’s quite all right,’ he grinned delightedly. ‘Happy to drop stuff off here, if it’s no trouble. Hate to be a bother, but my girlfriend wants to get rid of it all, and I wasn’t quite sure what else to do with it.’

  ‘Girlfriend?’ Doris piped up from the sofa she was plonked down on.

  ‘Oops! Sorry. Meant to say sort of girlfriend. Bit of women trouble, you know how it is. Anyway, she insists on dividing up all our things, and I have no need for it, so there’s going to be an awful lot more where this came from.’

  ‘Well, you’re very polite, I’ll give you that,’ said Doris, eyeing him beadily up and down. ‘Come back any time, always happy to see young ones with more money than sense dropping off perfectly good stuff in here. More bargains for me.’

  ‘Rightio,’ said Freddie, as Harriet looked at him, dumbfounded. ‘Well, I’d best be on my way. Nice to meet you . . . emm . . .’

  ‘Harriet,’ she said, amazed that there was someone on the planet outside of Hugh Grant who actually said ‘rightio’.

  ‘Delighted,’ he’d said, shaking her hand politely. ‘And I’m Freddie, by the way. Freddie Miller.’

  ‘Freddie,’ Harriet nodded, noticing how silky-smooth his hand felt. Like this guy actually used moisturiser. Or that he’d never done a day’s work in his life.

  ‘Well, best be off,’ Freddie grinned, ‘but don’t worry, I’ll be back soon with lots more supplies for you. And next time, I’ll bring the Jaffa Cakes,’ he added, with a respectful little nod to Doris before he left, clanging the shop door behind him.

  ‘Well, he seemed nice, didn’t he?’ Harriet had said, trying to sound casual as she scooped up everything he’d dumped off and hauled it over to the shop counter.

  ‘Very nice,’ Doris said, greedily taking another biscuit out of the box and stuffing it into her mouth. ‘Out of his fucking mind, but still.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Meg

  ‘Meg? I’d like a word. In my dressing room. Now, please.’

  Katherine has just come off air as the PrimeNews TV show wraps, and is in absolutely no mood to be trifled with.

  Not good. This is not good at all.

  ‘Well, that was certainly a strong, solid interview,’ Billy is saying to her, walking and talking directly behind her as we all troop down the tiny corridor that leads out of the studio, with the other candidates trailing after us, engrossed in frantic post-mortems with their teams of advisors. ‘You were hit with a lot of curveballs and I thought you dealt with them pretty smoothly. You made absolute mincemeat of Senator Callaghan – you rang rings around him. You should be well pleased here, Katherine – I know I am.’

  ‘Hmm,’ is the only distracted response he gets.

  ‘Katherine,’ Billy persists, in a lighter vein. ‘I want you to stop walking and take a good look at me. Because I’m smiling. And I never smile, ever. Certainly not slap bang in the middle of a campaign. We could be looking at as much as a three per cent lead in the polls from tomorrow.’

  Jess is in tow too, of course, banging on about social media and how dominant the debate has been across pretty much every platform.

  ‘You’re trending on Twitter,’ she’s saying, barely glancing up from her phone. ‘Actually, you’re trending twice over. There’s even a hashtag #katherineforpresident. Early print media is all on your side too, which is beyond price for us—’

  Katherine gets as far as her dressing room door, then stops dead in her tracks and turns to face us all. ‘I know you need to talk to me,’ she says, sounding tense and tight and not at all like a woman who’s just nailed a major national debate with a bulldog of an interrogator. ‘And we will, believe me. But just for now, I need a quick private word with Meg. If you’ll excuse us, please.’

  ‘Well, that’s her for the chop,’ Jess mutters under her breath, although I catch it loud and clear. I don’t respond though, just stay cool, do as I’m told, and step into the cramped little dressing room that barely holds a single chair in front of a dressing table, surrounded by garish fluorescent light bulbs.

  Katherine bangs the door tightly behind her and rounds in on me. ‘You saw what happened out there tonight? Live on camera?’ she says, in a low voice so there’s no danger of this being overheard. ‘You’re the only one who knows what’s really going on in my private life, so you’re the only one I can trust to tell me the truth.’

  ‘Yes, of course I did, I saw everything,’ I say. ‘But Senator, it went well for you. Exceptionally well. I’ve got the live stream on my phone, if you don’t believe me. I thought you’d at least be pleased with the reaction you got. You stormed. You were fabulous. Callaghan floundered out there, but you really owned it tonight.’

  ‘For a smart woman,’ Katherine says tightly, folding her arms and pointing at my phone, ‘you’re entirely missing the point. Don’t you get it? Don’t you see the bigger picture here?’

  I don’t want to inflame her by saying, ‘Get what, exactly? What is your problem?’ Instead, I bring up the interview on the screen of my phone, hold it out in front of her and fast forward to the final third of it, when Daniel Rourke, acting more like a ringmaster at a circus than a seasoned heavyweight TV presenter, gets onto the subject of ‘the future – if elected’.

  ‘That’s it,’ Katherine nods, looking down at my screen. ‘Let it play out. I want to gauge exactly how bad it is.’

  ‘Turning first to you,’ Daniel Rourke says smoothly on the recording, addressing Senator Callaghan, a burly, portly man in his late sixties. ‘If elected, there would naturally be an understandable interest in your private life. It’s reasonable to expect a degree of press scrutiny – it’s unavoidable for anyone in the public eye. So would you care to elaborate for us now on your own personal situation, please?’

  ‘No, I most certainly would not,’ Callaghan booms back at him. ‘As I have previously stated on numerous occasions, my private life is entirely out of bounds. The public are far too sensible to be interested in any such nonsense. Next question, please.’

&n
bsp; But Daniel doesn’t give up so easily. ‘Could that possibly have anything to do with the fact that you’re twice divorced, you won’t even admit to the wider media how many children you have, and you’re currently in a relationship with your press secretary?’

  Callaghan huffs and puffs as the camera instantly cuts to Katherine, who appears cool and composed in stark comparison.

  ‘Same question to you, Senator Sisk,’ Daniel Rourke says.

  There’s a tiny, telling pause before she answers.

  ‘Well, nothing to see here,’ she manages to smile back at the host. ‘I’m a happily married woman, and my husband and I will be celebrating twenty-two years of marriage later this year. We have two wonderful daughters, both teenagers now, and I’m proud to say I’ve been a working mum for all of their lives.’

  ‘So would you say your family’s support is essential to you, in the work you do?’ Daniel needles at her. ‘Your entire platform, after all, is one of family values, is it not?’

  ‘Family first,’ she replies clearly. Then, as if trying to ram the point home, she adds, ‘Family, all the way. That’s what it’s all about, really, isn’t it? My own family are everything to me, and they always will be. I understand how tough it is for working mothers out there, because, hey, I’m one too. It’s not easy, is it? So I want voters to know that I’m here to do everything I can to support them—’

  ‘You can stop the video right there,’ Katherine says over my shoulder. ‘I’ve seen all I need to.’

  ‘Never mind about voting you into power,’ I tell her, ‘after that performance, they really should give you an Oscar.’

  Katherine slumps down into the tiny seat and looks exhausted enough to cry.

  ‘You gave a great answer,’ I say, reassuringly.

  ‘You may well know all about how to get rid of people,’ she says wearily, ‘but you know sweet damn all about politics. Don’t you get it? Don’t you see how I’ve just set myself up for the most spectacular fall? I painted my home life as being perfectly normal and happy. I basically said my whole campaign and strategy is based on good, old-fashioned family values. How do you imagine the press will respond if and when they discover that’s far from the truth? And that my own husband is shagging one of my team behind my back?’