by Simon Hall
The future was purring happily.
But as so often with rumours, they were on the hopelessly wrong side of utterly misguided.
Bray bought the home, gave the staff and their beloved felines notice to quit, and with that brought down upon himself all the vitriol and venom of this cat-loving nation. It was only a quadrupling of the three-month period of notice which finally eased the protests at his doors.
Dan got up and wandered down to the canteen to get himself a coffee. He noticed he was starting to like Edward Bray. If not personally pleasant, then the man was a journalist’s dream. He had as much regard for public opinion as a merchant banker, sailing away from a grinding recession on his luxury yacht, heading for sunnier climes and sipping idly at an expensive gin and tonic funded by the vast pension he had never worked at all hard to deserve in any way.
The fast beat of stilettos in the car park outside brought Dan back to the canteen. Lizzie: wearing stalactite heels early in the day. A danger sign if ever there was one. He quickly wrapped himself in a handy curtain and waited for her to pass.
The first stage of his great plan required that he had to sell her the idea. But, before that, he needed to weigh the odds in his favour, and that meant finding out more about Edward Bray. Dan peered furtively out of the door. There was no sign of his insane editor. He walked quickly back up to the library and closed the door.
Now came the surprise.
Dan had a few more Bray reports to work throughand was ready to find further tales of evictions and protests. But instead he uncovered a hitherto unsuspected heart.
The man had saved a hospice.
St Jude’s was in trouble. Tempestuous economic times meant donations had dried up, and the institution was in danger of going under. Wessex Tonight carried a couple of stories warning the end was, if not exactly nigh, then perhaps only months away. Some of the interviews with patients were powerfully moving, one old man talking about how he would have died alone in his cold flat were it not for St Jude’s. A young woman spoke about the wonderful care it gave her mother, and the precious gift of dignity it bestowed in the woman’s dying days.
The hospice had a proud history of more than a hundred and twenty years of such work, thousands of grateful supporters, and the finest of reputations.
Imagine then, the shock when Edward Bray was spotted meeting its trustees at a local hotel.
St Jude’s was another place over which any property developer would salivate. It was a detached and elegant Victorian building, in beautiful grounds on the cliffs overlooking the great natural harbour of Plymouth Sound and the east Cornwall coast. The views were stunning, which surely gave real comfort to the patients. But they would also give delight to the potential owners of the scores of flats into which the grand old building could be converted, and help to persuade them to part with impressively large sums of money.
The story had been covered in all the local media. Dan clicked at his computer, checking the online archives. The newspaper headlines made the simple point. “The Bastard Poised to do for the Hospice” read one, ‘Angel of Death for the Hospice” said another.
There were interviews aplenty with fearful residents and their relatives, some even pleading with Bray not to close the place they had come to so depend upon.
‘Fat chance,’ Dan muttered to himself. ‘The milkman of human kindness has hardly been a regular caller at his door.’
But then came the surprise. Or perhaps shock might have been a better word. To put it mildly.
Edward Bray had saved St Jude’s.
Even the tone of the Wessex Tonight report was incredulous. The hospice had released a statement saying that a “very sizeable” donation from Bray meant its future was secured for many long years to come. There were no ifs and buts, no caveats, no provisos or conditions. It was a simple gift, an act of pure generosity and humanity.
Dan choked and nearly spat out his coffee. He had to rewind the tape to check what he’d just seen.
By request of Mr Bray, no one from the hospice would be giving interviews, and nor would the man himself. And there the story more or less rested. Many had made attempts to find out what was behind the donation, but with little success. The nearest any of the journalists came was an unsubstantiated suspicion that Bray’s mother had been a patient at St Jude’s before her death eight years ago.
Dan scribbled a couple of notes on his pad, sat back and stared at the screen, the fleeting image of Bray getting into a taxi captured on it. A chunky man, with short, fair hair and a ruddy complexion. In his early thirties in that image, he would have been pushing forty when he was killed by a shotgun blast in a dark and lonely lay-by.
‘Who the hell are you then?’ Dan muttered. ‘Come on, make up your mind. Is it philanthropist, or just a bastard businessman? And who, of that very respectable list of enemies you managed to make, wanted you dead so badly as to go ahead and do it?’
He picked up his satcheland headed for the newsroom.
It was time for the next phase of the plan to get underway.
Lizzie was sitting at her desk, a whimsical smile on her face. She was one of those rare people whom smiling just didn’t suit. Her lips were too thin for the expression to work, made it look more like a warrior’s satisfaction at the death of a bitter foe than any form of human pleasure. It was as effective as painting a little grinning face on a hand grenade.
A Lizzie smile could also indicate trouble in exactly the same way as did the height of her shoes.
Dan approached with due caution.
‘Ah,’ she said, spotting him instantly. ‘Just the person I was looking for. Our new crime correspondent. And with a corker of a maiden story to launch his new career. Good to see that you’re in early to work on it.’
‘Extra early in fact.’
‘Oh?’
Dan explained about his hour in the libraryand what he had found. Before she could interject, he added, ‘I think we have to get into the case in depth. We need to find out who Bray really was and why he did the things he did.’
‘And how do you propose to do that? We haven’t managed to crack it before. And he’s not exactly likely to talk now, is he?’
Dan put on a good-natured smile for his editor’s idea of wit. ‘No, but the police are going to have to go into his life in detail to try to find out who it was that killed him.’
‘Granted. And?’
‘And getting into all the minutiae of their investigation is what we need to make stories for us.’
She looked more interested. ‘So how do you plan to go about that?’
‘You sit on those police liaison meetings, don’t you? You’re friendly with the senior officers.’
‘Yeah, dull but necessary. Come on, get to the point. What’re you thinking?’
‘How about getting me in to shadow the Bray investigation? It could be good for us and the cops. They get to put out a positive message about the progress they’re making. I get the inside track on the inquiry, and more importantly I get a crash course in detective work. I’m going to need it for the new job.’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Not a bad idea. There’s something else we could use too.’
‘What?’
‘There’s an election due soon and we’ve got some key marginal seats in the region. The Home Office would love a bit of good news on the law and order front. If I have a word with a couple of local MPs too they could help pave the way. Right, I’ll do it later. But first …’
There was always a but with Lizzie, and usually more than one. Her mind was a fruitful breeding ground for caveats.
‘Yes?’ Dan said, trying not to sound wary.
‘One of the researchers knows Bray’s dad. He wants to speak out about his son being killed. Get to it. I want a report for the lunchtime news. I want poignancy and emotion. I want – “He may have been a bastard, but he didn’t deserve to die.” I want a live broadcast too. I want the works and I want it good. Go on then, what are you waiting for?�
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Dan wasn’t waiting. He was heading for the door. As he was about to leave, she called, ‘Do I get the feeling you’re starting to get into this new job?’
‘I’m reserving judgement,’ he replied.
Chapter Four
IT’S KNOWN IN THE trade as the Death Knock and is widely dreaded. A journalist calling to talk to a bereaved relative about the loss of a loved one. Of all the range of possible outcomes, one thing alone was certain. You never left feeling better about life.
The most common reaction was anger and abuse and a straightforward and often creatively obscene request that you should leave. In a way, that was the easiest to take. You could accept it, understand the hurt and upset and know you were merely a target for the venting of emotion. It was fair enough.
Surprisingly often though, the mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter or husband or wife would be happy to talk, perhaps even keen to do so. They wanted to pay tribute to the wonderful person they had lost, needed the world to know what a fine and special individual had been taken, and explain the cold void which would be left behindin so many lives.
They were the hardest of all. They were unfailingly tearful, upsetting and moving, and lived long in the memory.
Dan had done them before, in his days as a general news reporter, years ago before he became the environment correspondent, largely insulated from such distress. And each he could recall and in exact detail, the soft, crumpled faces, blurred with misery, and the endless tears.
Well, he’d better start getting used to them once more. The demons of his new job demanded it.
Nigel drove them, north, out of the city and into the great natural wilderness of Dartmoor. The rain of last night had at least blown through,to be replaced by a grey and glowering sky. The last time Dan had been on the moor was the week before, covering a story about the endless intrusion of bracken into the sacred landscape and the increasingly desperate efforts to stop it.
His previous life. Safe from shotgun murders and death knocks.
Dan noticed he’d begun thinking about the plastic bottle of tablets hidden in the bathroom cabinet again.
‘You OK?’ Nigel asked. ‘You’ve gone quiet.’
‘Just thinking.’
‘About the interview?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Know what you mean. I dread them too. They’re like having your soul slowly put through a mangle.’
The cameraman found a CD of 70’s music, all chirpy disco beats. Dan managed to tolerate almost a whole song before he reached out and turned down the volume. Nigel didn’t protest. It was hardly a fitting symphony for what they were about to go through.
Arthur Bray lived in Yelverton, a village on the edge of Dartmoor, only twenty minutes drive from Plymouth city centre. It was popular with commuters, had a shop, a couple of pubs, even a petrol station and a butcher’s. His house was on the fringes of the village, detached and large, a long gravel drive leading to the door.
Nigel parked beside a black jeepand turned to Dan. ‘How do we play it?’
‘What?’ he replied, distractedly.
‘Come on, get with it. You’ll need to be sharp for this. I said – how do we play it?’
‘Good question. Well, you set up the kit and I’ll try to get him talking, do my best to break the ice.’
They got out of the car. Dan suffered a vision of himself at the north pole, kneeling down and trying to chip away at the polar cap with a small hammer. Such was the task of breaking the ice in a death knock.
He hesitated, then rang the bell.
Arthur Bray clearly hadn’t read the script.
He was supposed to move slowly, laboured with the burden of grief in all that he did. His eyes should have been red, inflamed with the countless tears, his posture hunched with the weight of sorrow and his words stumbling and stuttered as he tried to force them to form through his suffering.
To none of this did he conform.
He opened the door briskly, shook their hands with a firm grip and ushered them into a large and light living room. He was a small man, with thinning white hair, wearing a navy cardigan and open-necked shirt, but he had a certain strength, as though the years were yet to do their insidious work.
‘Best we get on with this, eh?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Dan replied, taken aback.
‘I’m sure we’ve all got better things to do. I want to get some shopping in this morning, then perhaps play a round of golf later, if the bloody weather permits. No doubt you want to make it all into some sort of broadcast, like you people do.’
‘Err, Mr Bray …’
‘Arthur, please.’
‘Arthur, we are talking about your son here. Edward. And …’ Dan struggled to find the words, before ending lamely, ‘what happened to him.’
‘Yes. Dreadful business. But hardly unexpected, eh?’
Dan realised he was floundering badly. He’d been caught so far off balance it was a wonder he didn’t fall over. Arthur Bray’s reaction felt as surreal as going to a funeral service, when a stripper suddenly arrives and begins her act.
‘Hardly unexpected? Your son being murdered?’
‘It was bound to happen sooner or later, given the way he conducted himself. I tell you what, I’ll make some tea, then I’ll explain.’
Arthur Bray disappeared into the kitchen. Dan looked at Nigel, who just shrugged.
‘Well, we’re going to get quite a story,’ the cameraman said. ‘But I don’t think it’s exactly the one we were expecting.’
They sat on the sofa in silenceand accepted the mugs Bray handed them.
‘I’ve got all the fine tea-set stuff,’ he said. ‘But I only get it out when the vicar comes round. You strike me as more the mug type.’
‘I think that might just about sum up my life,’ Dan replied, with feeling.
Arthur offered them sugar, which they both refused. He sat back, crossing his legs.
‘Look, I think I’d better make one thing clear here. I’m doing this interview because the police asked me to. They think it might help bring some witnesses forward. I’m not doing it for Edward, or anything like that. My son and I no longer have – had, sorry – a relationship. We effectively agreed on a divorce several years ago, and since then have had nothing to do with each other.’
Dan set down his mug, couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice. ‘A divorce?’
‘I can think of no other way to describe it. We reached a financial settlement, and said we would not contact each other again. We both preferred it that way. Look, perhaps it’s easier if I tell you the story. Then we can do this interview thing, and we can all get on with our lives.’
Arthur Bray fumbled in his pocket, lit up a large cigar, puffed out a cloud of blue-grey smoke, and began.
He was a self-made man, who had built up the business from a standing start. Going back thirty years or more he had been left a substantial legacy by a relative, which he’d invested in property. It was just before prices started their breathless rise. The company’s income grew, more houses and flats were purchased, and soon Arthur Bray was very well-off, bordering on simply rich.
‘I was a good businessman though,’ he told them, through puffs on the cigar. ‘Not like this modern lot who just take the money and run. I looked after my tenants. I made sure their homes were smart and comfortable. I never ripped them off. And I helped with social housing too, and community projects. I’d done well, and I thought it was right that others should share my fortune.’
Time rolled on, Edward had grown up and decided to follow his dad into the family business.
‘I was delighted,’ Bray explained. ‘I was planning to take early retirement. I could hand it all on to Edward. He would be looked after, as would my tenants, and the business could continue to flourish and carry out its charitable work. It all seemed ideal. But it didn’t quite work out that way.’
Now, for the first time, his voice changed. It grew quieter, more reflectiv
e and rueful. Bray got up from his chairand pointed to a picture of a woman on the windowsill. She was standing by a river, smiling, a little self-conscious in the way many have when faced with a camera, but nonetheless she looked kind and attractive.
‘My wife, Elizabeth. This is my favourite picture of her. It’s from just after we were married. I won’t go into the details, but she developed lung cancer. It was quick, mercifully. After her death, the relationship between Edward and me … well, it – changed.’
In that one word was a world of repressed emotion. It was buried deep, long hidden, but so obviously still there, in the tone of the man’s voice, the way he winced as he spoke.
‘We stopped getting on. Well, that’s an understatement, in fact. He was very close to his mother, and seemed to take her death out on me. As if losing her wasn’t enough.’
The man’s voice faltered again, and he sat back in his chair.
‘Edward didn’t just take it out on me. He wanted vengeance against anything to do with me. He started persecuting the company’s tenants, pushing up their rents, evicting them when they couldn’t pay. He stopped all the charitable work. He retreated into himself, just cut the world off. All he was interested in was making money. I tried to talk to him, but we only ended up having dreadful rows.’
Another hesitation, longer this time, then, ‘In one … well, I think we both said some things we shouldn’t have. That was where it ended. He’d already taken over the business by that point. I still had a minority holding, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. He paid me off and we agreed we wouldn’t speak again. It was as simple as that. And then he just got worse and worse. You’ve probably seen some of the stories. Evicting tenants, just because they’d have rights to ask for their homes to be redecorated. It’s sad to say, but from then on I felt rather glad I didn’t have to speak to him again. He did nothing but ill for the world.’