Exposé

by Paul Ilett

  And when the act became law, she had been sorely tempted to mail a copy of her column to Ray and Pete, with the phrase “pretended family relationship” highlighted in marker pen. She dearly wanted to tell them they would never have what she and Jeremy were enjoying, a normal and legal marriage. But she hadn’t, because she needed them both to keep quiet. And whilst she knew the content of her columns would likely antagonise the pair of them, she also knew they would keep their heads down unless she antagonised them personally. Her journey ended at a dark and quiet row of large Victorian houses, elevated on a hillside and overlooking the estuary with a rail line crossing the land in between. There were no reporters or camera crews waiting for her, and she smirked as she imagined them all standing outside her house in London, not realising their wait was futile. She collected her bag from the boot of her car, and then made her way to her flat on the second floor of the largest house in the road. It had been her mother-in-law’s home, and had passed to Valerie when Jeremy had died. She’d always intended to have the place redecorated, but had never gotten round to it, so it still looked like an old lady’s house, with large orange-print floral wallpaper from the seventies and clashing brown patterned carpets throughout.

  But the view from the balcony was good and the furniture, at least, was relatively new. She turned on the lamps in the sitting room, dropped her bag to the floor and slumped down onto the couch. She was already missing Jasper, her Labrador. He would have been on the couch with her by now, licking her face with joy and whining with the excitement of seeing her again. She hated that he was in a kennel, and blamed Adam Jaymes for that too. Her gaze drifted across the room and settled on a bookshelf above the television. There, wedged between a pile of women’s magazines and her 1989 Press Award, was a copy of her book Reclaimed Womanhood. She’d written it 15 years earlier and it had been released with a blaze of publicity, positioned by her publisher as a “modern, intelligent response to The Female Eunuch”. Valerie had wanted to be the anti-Germaine Greer, helping women to rediscover their femininity and traditional roles, and to celebrate the importance of simply being a man’s wife. She’d expected the book to become a number one best seller around the world, and that she would have been elevated above her peers in the newspaper industry to the must-have guest for chat shows and radio discussion programmes. But despite a massive boost in publicity from the Daily Ear, the book had been a mortifying flop. In fact, it was laughed off the shelves of bookshops up and down the country and so damaged her reputation that, for many years, she was barred from pretty much every chat show in the land. So public was her failure that, for a time, Valerie allowed herself to be defined by it. She ran back to her day job as a newspaper columnist and hid there. It became her sole enterprise, her everything, and her dreams of touring the world as an international bestselling author faded into obscurity. If truth be told, the evening’s events had left her feeling as vulnerable as they had angry. If Adam Jaymes’ exposé had robbed her of her column, Valerie knew she was finished.

  A few moments passed, and she wondered if she could simply fall asleep where she was, fully clothed on the couch. But her anxiety was beginning to stir and she could feel a tension in the pit of her stomach that wasn’t about to go away. With a sigh, she sat up and pulled her mobile phone from her handbag. She had switched it off hours ago, and knew she would be inundated with voice mail and text messages the moment it was switched back on again. “Come on then, you bastards; let’s be having you,” she whispered to herself as her phone lit up in her hand. Moments later, 43 text messages had plopped into her inbox (20 of them from Twigg) and she had 16 voice messages waiting for her too. She couldn’t quite face the voice messages, not straight away, and so scrolled through the texts first of all. Leonard; Leonard; Leonard; Colin (oh, bless him); Leonard; Don’t Know; Audrey; Fat Irish Whore; Leonard; Don’t Know; Leonard; Leonard; Fat Irish Whore; Sam; Leonard; Don’t Know; Don’t Know; Alice; Leonard ...

  Alice? Alice!

  After years of silence, of angry non-communication, her daughter had finally taken that first step to get back in touch. Here, in her darkest, loneliest moment was a message from her little girl. Valerie felt a wave of happiness, of relief, that perhaps this awful exposé could bring the two of them back together again. She clicked on the envelope and read the short message her daughter had sent, three simple words: “What. The. Fuck?”

  CHAPTER 9

  Ding dong, the witch is dead #ValeriePierce - let’s just hope someone follows it up with a bucket of water

  “and true to his word, his second exposé was published last night at 9 o’clock on the dot. As had been widely anticipated, controversial Daily Ear columnist”

  three decades of obsessive, uncompromising anti-gay rhetoric has been exposed as little more than the spiteful cries of a vengeful ex-wife

  @RealAdamJaymes Brilliant! Some justice for Pearl Martin at last #WellDoneAdamjaymes

  “had the unenviable task of being sat next to Valerie Pierce for an entire evening at last year’s ‘Woman of the Year’ awards. How strange, I thought, that a woman who sees so little value in her own gender should attend an event which celebrates the fairer sex. Indeed it must represent the antithesis of all her beliefs. And yet I’m certain she sat there throughout the entire ceremony fully expecting to be the surprise recipient of the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award”

  @RealAdamJaymes defeated an entire Sontaran army single-handed on #DoctorWho. The Daily Ear? No problem!

  but I bet Valerie isn’t wearing her signature purple suit today. Instead she’ll be covered in shame from head to foot

  “And on that point, Janet, if I can come to you. Stonewall says this revelation will forever undermine Valerie’s credibility as a columnist, particularly on the issue of gay rights. Do you agree?”

  #ValeriePierce – the picture at the top of her column turned me gay. I didn’t even have to marry her

  “known Adam for many years, and I have to be very honest here, and say that I am increasingly worried for his mental health. To have spoken so passionately and coherently about privacy issues in the past, and then to resort to this despicable and hypocritical course of action”

  fell victim, at a vulnerable age, to a selfish and duplicitous gay man. This exposé does nothing but show that the best writers draw on their own personal experiences to guide their view of the world and Valerie Pierce remains one of the best, if not the best, in the newspaper industry

  I notice @TheDailyEar is the only paper – yet again – not to cover this story. Cowards! #WellDoneAdamjaymes

  “hard to feel any compassion for a woman who so publicly and gleefully danced on the grave of an actress who, some have claimed, was driven to suicide by Valerie herself”

  However, as often happens with newspaper columnists, Valerie has talked herself into believing that she is an academic; if she announces her opinions with enough vigour it somehow gives them gravitas. But she is most certainly not an academic. Indeed, she often reveals herself to be a person of limited intellect

  @RealAdamJaymes I’m such a fan of yours, Adam. PLEASE stop this horrible project. You’re making yourself no better than them.

  “has retaliated with a surprisingly robust statement which says, ‘It is regrettable that this personal matter should now be the subject of an orchestrated Twitterstorm, fanned by individuals – including members of the Labour party – with agendas to pursue’.”

  and the entire country is now hooked on this bizarre Whodunit. The only difference is that we know Whodunit. It was Adam Jaymes. We’re just waiting to see who his next victim is.

  @RealAdamJaymes I’m really excited about your appearance in #Glee.

  “Thank you for joining us, Brenda. It was great to talk to you. Some really interesting points there. And next on the line is Robert from Aldershot. Good morning Robert. So, you take a completely different view on this from Brenda and think Adam Jaymes is in the wrong. Why’s that then?”

  @RealAdamJaymes Get s
ome help, you evil twisted pervert.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Toxic”, announced Twigg, and the room fell silent. No one in the morning meeting seemed quite sure where their editor was taking the discussion, and none of the assembled group of senior journalists was keen to question him. Nobody, that is, apart from Oonagh who repeated what Twigg had said and then shrugged. “In what way ‘toxic’?” she queried.

  “We have become too much the focus of this story,” Twigg replied. “But I’ve noticed a small sea-change, a few more people speaking out against Jaymes and in support of us. So we need to start rowing in that direction, turn the spotlight on Adam Jaymes, look at the repercussions on his career and his reputation. The public is beginning to realise he is not a hero but a bully. He’s becoming unpopular. Unlikeable. Unemployable. His brand has become toxic.”

  “And do you have one of your funny little graphs to prove this, Leonard?” Oonagh asked with a slight rasp to her voice as she attempted to contain a laugh. The atmosphere in the meeting shifted immediately. No one uttered a word, not a gasp and definitely not a chuckle. Ever so slightly, the rest of the staff drew back in their seats as though waiting for Twigg to explode. They’d never seen him mocked before, certainly not to his face. In fact, so unpredictable was his temper that none of the Daily Ear staff even tried to engage him in light-hearted banter.

  Twigg could see a change in Oonagh, and it was a change he didn’t like. Gone was the façade of mutual respect, of not speaking out of turn in front of the staff. It appeared their unhappy exchange the previous day had altered their relationship. Or, he wondered, perhaps it was her brunch with Sam that had left her with the impression she was in a strong enough position to take him on. Whatever it was, Twigg took this to be a public announcement of her intention to challenge him. “Better men than you have tried,” he thought to himself. “We’ve got a team with Valerie now, so we’ll also have her exclusive story. I want it up on the website by this afternoon and we’ll run a longer piece in our print edition tomorrow.”

  Oonagh went to ask another question, but Twigg got in first with, “That’s it, back to work!” and the senior staff quickly mumbled and whispered to their feet and left the office. Twigg was pleased to see Oonagh stand and leave with the rest of them. He was usually happy to spar with her, with anyone in fact. But it had been a long, challenging night and Twigg had managed little more than a power nap. He wasn’t on top form and could feel a sluggishness in his mind that he didn’t like because it felt like a weakness. He needed to freshen up. His office had a private en suite, a small bathroom he’d had installed many years ago during the multi-million pound refit of the Ear offices. Gayesh had been in charge at that time, and Twigg’s keen eye quickly spotted that a disproportionate amount of the refurbishment budget had been siphoned off for the top floor. Once Gayesh was aware that Twigg had noticed this irregularity, he quickly decided the Ear’s editor worked such long hours that a private bathroom was a necessity. It had been a perfect pay-off for Twigg. He didn’t like using the same lavatory as other people, and his obsession with hygiene and personal grooming made his en suite a good personal investment. Now he could always look and feel perfect. Not a hair out of place, not a crease in his shirts and minty-fresh breath 24 hours a day. He had also been told by Valerie that the en suite made him a less unpleasant manager, something she had put down to a reduction in his stress levels as a result of having his own bathroom. He went inside and locked the door behind him. It was a well-designed space for a room that wasn’t particularly large. It had clean white tiles from floor to ceiling and a toilet, sink, shower and chair with enough floor space to hang clothes and get changed and dried. It was also a place where, every now and again, Twigg could withdraw, sit and be quiet without the constant eyes of a horde of journalists watching him. And it was during those quiet moments that he often had some of his best ideas. Fifteen minutes later, Twigg returned to his desk and buzzed through to his PA. “Get me Chris Lackie on the phone,” he ordered.

  Felicity had spent most of the journey to Leigh-on-Sea trying not to stare at Jason Spade, but she had never been so close to someone so extremely overweight before, and found herself looking at him with a morbid fascination. Her mum and dad would not approve, she thought. They’d raised her to be respectful and to treat everyone the same. But every part of his body, from his plump fingers to the back of his neck, seemed bloated and rounded, and he even had to reach around his own belly to control the steering wheel. She knew he was relatively young (in his late thirties or early forties) but the weight distorted his face and he made a wheezing, rasping noise as he breathed which made him seem at least twenty years older. But he still appeared to be highly charged when it came to the opposite sex. From the moment she had climbed into the passenger seat, he had started to make jokey comments about her pert bottom and fresh face. But she knew the jokiness was a façade and that he was using humour to check her out, to see if he could entice her into a conversation that would quickly deteriorate into a bombardment of personal questions and smutty requests. There was no way Felicity Snow was going to allow herself to end up in Jason Spade’s wank-bank and so she had talked about her parents and her school and her fondness for cooking and as many other dull, every day topics as she could think of. Each time Jason made an innuendo she took it at face value and started to talk about something unexciting.

  “So, this cookery course, did they teach you how to make a sausage hot pot?”

  “No, we didn’t really do British cuisine. It was mainly Italian. I learnt how to make an amazing risotto, though. White wine, garlic ... ”

  “So, you like a bit of Italian, eh?”

  “Well, mum and dad wanted me to go into catering originally. I think they were hoping I’d be the new Delia Smith.”

  “Nah, I see you more as a Nigella Lawson.”

  “I’m probably more of a Mary Berry to be honest.”

  Having spent months in the bowels of the Daily Ear, Felicity had become hardened to the casual swearing, rude stories, sexism and veiled racism that seemed to run through the veins of a large, busy newspaper. But Jason was a different beast entirely. She knew there was more to him than the ambling, simple, lonely underdog he pretended to be. Beneath it all was a very clever man who knew exactly what he wanted and who wasn’t about to let ethics, the law or a conscience get in his way. Felicity knew his reputation, of course. Jason was the creator of the ‘panty-less up-skirt’, a particularly unpleasant practice of some paparazzi, who would throw themselves into the gutter to snap pictures of female stars as they climbed out of limos and taxis. It was a method of exposing those ladies who avoided a VPL by going commando. The Ear would often run censored versions of the pictures and be highly critical of any woman who was caught without her knickers on. Those pictures deemed unsuitable by the picture desk would end up on less salubrious websites (Jason wasn’t picky who his customers were).

  Pearl Martin had been a regular victim of Jason’s, but not just of his up-skirt photographs. For years, he had pursued her from home to work to celebrity event and back again. Jason had fed the Ear’s entire Pearl Martin obsession with dozens of photographs every week, and every picture telling an increasingly negative story. If she was drinking coffee outside a Starbucks it was because she was suffering another hangover. If she was shopping for clothes, it was because the drink had made her bloat and she needed larger outfits. If she was holding a glass of champagne at a gala event, it was (at least) her 12th glass. And if she was crying in the street, it was because she was having a drink- or drug-induced break down. Although, in truth, any photographs of Pearl crying were typically the result of Jason hurling abuse directly into her face. It was a little trick he used to make sure female celebrities would cry when he needed them to. Pearl’s friends, and in particular Adam Jaymes, had singled out Jason for criticism at her inquest. As far as they were concerned, Jason had provided the ammunition and Valerie had fired the gun. But although in his summing up the coroner
made references to the “unhelpful and often irresponsible behaviour of some members of the press”, he still recorded a verdict of suicide which is not what Pearl’s family had wanted. But Felicity had found the most contradictory aspect of Jason’s character was that, in truth, he was an extremely talented photographer who could easily have made a decent living in a far more legitimate way. However, he thrived, perversely, on pursuing and preferably destroying the rich and famous, and he had a very lucrative deal with the Harvey News Group that kept him happy.

  By the time they arrived, Felicity felt grubby and couldn’t get out of the car quickly enough. Valerie was waiting on the pavement for them, looking far more relaxed than Felicity had been expecting. She was in black trousers and a mauve, cowl neck sweater, and had her arms folded across her chest with a cigarette in her hand. Behind her, the horizon was a dramatic view of the estuary beneath a dark, bleak sky. It conjured up the memory of an old Joan Crawford movie that Felicity had watched as a girl with her uncle. It certainly wasn’t the panicked or humiliated Valerie she had been expecting. Whatever Valerie had done overnight, it appeared to have cleared her anxieties. Forgetting herself for a moment, and perhaps simply out of the relief at seeing someone else, Felicity walked up to Valerie and greeted her with a kiss on either cheek. It was an act of familiarity she would never have performed in the office, and she took herself by surprise. But Valerie simply grasped her arm and smiled. “You survived a whole car journey with Jason Spade. I’m impressed,” she said. “Most young women would have jumped out onto the motorway after five minutes. Tuck and roll, dear, tuck and roll.”