Exposé

by Paul Ilett

  “I’m Oonagh Boyle, editor of the website,” Oonagh said, a warm smile on her face. “And can I just say that, even under these difficult circumstances, it’s still very much a pleasure to meet you at last.”

  Adam took her hand, but had a frown on his face. “I think we have met before,” he said. “Surely?”

  It was an unexpected comment which alarmed Sam and Twigg. They exchanged concerned looks and wondered if Oonagh was about to fall victim to a Project Ear revelation, right there in front of them. But her smile didn’t fade, and she broke the tension with a cheerful laugh. “You cannot possibly remember that!” she exclaimed.

  “I never forget a face,” Adam replied. “Stratford-Upon-Avon. Hamlet. Am I right?”

  Oonagh nodded. “That’s astonishing,” she said, almost giggling at the thought that he remembered her. “We met for about 20 seconds. I cannot believe you remember that.”

  Twigg’s patience had been stretched enough that day. He had remained towards the back of his office so he would not be expected to shake the actor’s hand. Having his place of work soiled by the presence of Adam Jaymes was bad enough, but having to watch Oonagh Boyle flirt girlishly with him was beyond the pale. “Much as I hate to interrupt this happy trip down memory lane, we are here for an important reason,” he snarled, immediately undoing the efforts of Sam and Oonagh to create a welcoming atmosphere.

  Adam did not respond to Twigg’s angry interruption. In fact, he seemed to make a point of not acknowledging Twigg in any way and so Sam quickly intervened in the hope of getting the meeting back on track. “Yes,” he said, “we should get on.”

  “Time is of the essence,” Adam said, and then smiled at Sam as he took his seat.

  “What do you think they’re saying?” Valerie asked, sounding very cross and squinting as hard as she could to try to lip read the conversation underway in Twigg’s office. “This is so frustrating.”

  Colin had reclined into his seat and was sipping from his wine glass. “At least the heat’s off us, Val, we’ve done our bit,” he said, trying to stop her temper from flaring.

  Valerie sat back and sighed. “I suppose,” she said. “We’ve each taken a bullet for the Daily Ear. It’s time our generals try to negotiate a peace treaty. And if they can’t, well, I guess one of them will be in the firing line this time. Although it does beg the question why didn’t they call him in for talks straight after Newsnight or after the story about me?”

  Colin could hear the anger beginning to swell in Valerie’s tone again. “I think this was Sam’s suggestion. Twigg was set against it.”

  “I don’t care whose idea it was, I just care about the timing,” Valerie snapped. “The truth is, they didn’t really care when Adam Jaymes was humiliating me and you. But the story about Derek changed all that. With three down, Sam, Howard and Oonagh have suddenly realised they’re shuffling towards the front of the queue. This meeting isn’t about a peace treaty. It’s about trying to stop Jaymes before he does to them what he’s already done to us.”

  Colin gently shook his head and discreetly gestured with his hand towards Felicity. “Not in front of the girl,” he whispered. He had no reason to distrust Felicity but he didn’t think it was the sort of conversation an outsider should be privy to. Valerie realised Colin was right, especially since her book was going to present the staff as having had a united front during Project Ear. It wouldn’t suit the narrative if there were witnesses to suggest there had actually been conflict and infighting. And so Valerie released a deep, irritated sigh and nodded. “Quite right,” she said.

  In truth, Colin was equally frustrated and knew a big part of that was the unfamiliar sense of helplessness. For all these years, the Daily Ear had empowered its staff and protected them from the repercussions of their behaviour, only now Colin had been publicly humiliated and Valerie’s career and reputation could still go either way. He had seen his editor, the invincible Leonard Twigg, unable to navigate a clear path through the troubles and at every turn they had been reminded how little support they could expect from pretty much anyone else. But at the heart of his despair was the image of Fiona he had seen in one of the other newspapers, a sad figure alone with her thoughts. Her attempts to go into hiding had been foiled by another tabloid and whilst he didn’t think for a moment that she would choose to speak to a reporter, he knew how to pressure even the most resolute character into an exclusive interview. Added to that was the loss of his best friend and even his own parents, so often proudly bragging of their successful son, had left the country to stay in their apartment in Cyprus. In fact, outside of the Ear, Colin didn’t have any friends left.

  But perhaps worst of all for Colin was the impact of Project Ear on his work. The Olympic star and the prostitute should have been a straightforward kiss-and-tell. But as he had sifted through the rumours and tip-offs, and interviewed numerous people along the way, he had found himself being ridiculed and challenged. One prostitute had even disputed his moral right to investigate the story; it had been something of a shock for Colin to have a hooker question his integrity. He also had to deal with a member of the Olympic committee laughing at him down the phone, and asking if he saw any irony in his situation. But the truth was that, no, Colin didn’t see any irony. All he felt was a deep, burning sense of injustice that his private life had been thrown into the public arena, as if he was some kind of cheap celebrity. On his return to work, he had set up a Google alert under his own name so he could keep abreast of what was being written about him. But within a matter of hours his inbox had swelled to unmanageable proportions, and so he had switched the alert off again. No one, it seemed, had any sympathy for him. Even his gay fans appeared to have abandoned him, although a few had emailed to offer him a shoulder to cry on.

  He finished his wine and Valerie refilled his glass. “I’ve two more bottles in there, just in case it turns into a long one,” she said. They then settled back into their seats and silently watched the newsroom, waiting for the meeting to conclude and for Adam Jaymes to leave. “You know, Leonard absolutely despises Adam Jaymes,” Valerie said. “He struggles to keep his temper at the best of times. Goodness only knows how he’s going to keep it bottled for a whole meeting.”

  And then, as though watching a car crash gently unfold in front of their very eyes, they noticed Jason Spade walking across the other side of the newsroom, marching keenly towards Twigg’s office. “Shit!” Valerie shrieked and leapt to her feet. “It’s Jason. Does he know Adam Jaymes is in Twigg’s office?” She turned and looked at Felicity. “Was Jason told?”

  Felicity shrugged. “I don’t know if he was told personally, but he would have received the same email as ... ”

  “Colin, for God’s sake stop him!” Valerie howled, with such a sense of urgency that it sent her colleague rushing out of the door and across the newsroom. Colin sprinted around the expanse of desks and floor cables in an attempt to head off Jason before he reached Twigg’s office. Even with Valerie’s voice still ringing in his ears, he knew he couldn’t shout over to Jason. He couldn’t do anything that would draw Adam Jaymes’ attention. But as he reached the far side of the newsroom his foot caught on the edge of an open drawer and he took to the air like he a rugby player tackling a giant prop forward. He crashed into Jason’s legs and the two vanished with a loud thud behind a cluster of desks.

  “Oh God!” Valerie squealed as a group of reporters jumped up and rushed over to help. “Oh my God!”

  Jason was an enormous man, tall and obese. Colin was short and slim and Valerie feared he would not have fared well if Jason had landed on top of him. But, much to her relief, Colin quickly sprang back up onto his feet and reappeared amid the bustle around the incident.

  “I’m a first aider,” Felicity said. “I’ll go and help.”

  “Oh, yes, of course you are,” Valerie said and rolled her eyes.

  Felicity hurried over to see if she could offer any assistance. She arrived to find three journalists struggling to heave Ja
son from the floor and onto a chair whilst Colin was explaining to him, quietly but sternly, why Twigg’s office was currently out of bounds.

  “Is something going on outside?” Adam enquired. Everyone in Twigg’s office had heard the commotion from the newsroom and felt the vibrations when Jason hit the floor. But whilst Twigg, Oonagh and Sam could see – to varying degrees – what had happened, Adam was sitting with his back to the newsroom and so had missed the entire incident.

  “I think someone dropped something,” Sam replied, trying to sound nonchalant so as to discourage Adam from asking any further questions about it. “So, thank you again for coming,” he continued, afresh. “I did just want to start this discussion by saying that I don’t think anyone in this room is going to challenge that you may feel you have reason to take issue with the Daily Ear. But we’ve never actually sat down together, like this, before. And I felt that perhaps, going forward, a direct conversation was a more positive and constructive approach.” Sam was using the agreed rhetoric that acknowledged Adam’s grievance without admitting liability. He knew it sounded stilted, but hoped it would be enough to put Adam at ease and keep him open-minded.

  Sitting just feet away from the actor, Sam suddenly realised a quick resolution was genuinely within his grasp. As aloof and unreadable as Sam found him, Adam Jaymes was still just a man who could be reasoned with and hopefully won over. If he handled the next few minutes correctly, Project Ear could be done and dusted by 9pm. “So,” he continued, “I thought a good way to begin would be to open the floor and really just give you the opportunity to tell us why you’ve started this ... erm ... project, and what you think would be the best outcome from this meeting.”

  There was a pause in the conversation and Adam didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t do anything at all. He just continued to stare with his dark brown eyes and Sam’s sudden optimism immediately drained away. There was something about Adam that was unnerving, something in his demeanour, a quiet confidence and cleverness that left little room for superficial pleasantries or public relations. Sam realised the actor could see the rotten truth at the heart of the matter and that truth, Sam knew, was that Adam Jaymes had the Daily Ear over a barrel and they had called the meeting so they could essentially beg him to stop. Sam swallowed hard, and glanced at Twigg and Oonagh for support. But Oonagh had been instructed not to intervene at this stage of the meeting and Twigg was clearly happy to leave the ball in Sam’s court. It was, after all, Sam’s meeting.

  “Can I get you a refreshment?” Sam eventually asked, playing for time. “A bottle of water or a tea or a coffee?”

  “If you want to talk to me about Project Ear then please do,” Adam said, his crystal-clear diction drained of any of the friendliness he had initially brought to the meeting. “But be direct and honest. Just tell me what you want and save the corporate bullshit for someone else.”

  Sam recoiled slightly into his chair and, for a moment, was at a loss for words. He, Twigg and Oonagh had spent the previous hour rehearsing what they could and could not say. Robbed of the agreed language so early in the conversation, Sam found himself completely adrift. Oh, how he missed the security of his team in Los Angeles.

  “Why don’t you cut the bullshit and tell us what you want?” Twigg interrupted suddenly, his voice stern and angry. He despised Adam Jaymes but was even more furious that, since entering his office, the actor had completely blanked him. He had not looked at him or spoken to him since the start of the meeting and had behaved as though there were only three people in the room. It was as if Adam Jaymes considered Twigg unimportant, beneath his eye-line, but the editor of the Daily Ear was not about to be ignored. “Are you trying to make a point? Influence the Inquiry? Or is it simple revenge? It would help, Adam, if you stopped wasting our time and got to the point.” He had made no attempt to conceal the loathing in his words and his sudden outburst crushed any remnants of hope Sam had that the meeting might have a positive outcome. Sam knew Twigg was angry that he had been overruled, but had expected him to keep a civil tongue and certainly hadn’t expected him to sabotage the meeting.

  Adam turned ever so slightly and looked in Twigg’s general direction but didn’t actually make eye contact. He had the tiniest hint of a smile on his face, which made both Sam and Oonagh feel uneasy. “I’m grateful for your honesty,” he said, smoothly. “We wouldn’t want to pretend this is a friendly get together, would we? Your revolting story today about one of this country’s Olympic heroes shows you haven’t learnt your lesson yet.”

  “You’re defending a man who used his fame to exploit a vulnerable woman for sex?” Twigg asked, his face curled up with disgust.

  “I would certainly question whether he exploited her or if you did,” Adam replied. “You really can’t take the higher ground when you’ve spent your entire life in the gutter. Your rag does nothing but exploit women. I’m sure you’d print pictures of your own mother in a bikini if it would shift an extra thousand copies.”

  For a moment Sam and Oonagh both feared Twigg would lunge from his chair and attempt to grapple Adam to the floor. Attacking the paper was one thing, but they both knew defiling the good name of his beloved mother was something else entirely.

  “Clearly we have some differences of opinion in terms of the nature of investigative journalism,” Oonagh said, automatically raising both hands as if trying to separate two men who were about to brawl in a pub. “But it’s those very differences that we hoped we could explore here this evening.”

  “Adam, this really is an open discussion,” Sam added, making one last attempt to steer the meeting to a positive outcome. “We are very open to your concerns and any suggestions you might have about how we, as an organisation, can move on from this.”

  Adam glanced down to the floor and for a moment it seemed as though he was considering their comments. But then he quietly responded in such a way as to make it clear that the conversation was over. “You can’t move on,” he said sadly, and then lifted his face to look at Sam again. “We’ve been here before, too many times. We’ve had countless police inquiries, independent reviews, high court challenges and debates in Parliament. And each and every time you have promised new guidelines, better self-regulation and some kind of culture change. But the truth is that once the dust has settled, the Daily Ear just carries on as it did before. You carry on and you carry on, as if nothing ever happened. There is no change to be had here, because you simply don’t believe you should have to change. You destroy people. You destroy their families, their careers and reputations. Let’s be honest, Pearl Martin would still be alive today if it wasn’t for this newspaper. And she isn’t the only person the Daily Ear has driven to suicide.”

  “And how is that any different to Project Ear?” Twigg demanded, refusing to give up any moral ground to his opponent. “You’re a little too quick to cast aspersions on the staff at this newspaper when you’ve spent the past week enjoying your little PR blitz.”

  But Adam couldn’t be lured into a shouting match by Twigg. After a moment of reflection, he stood and turned his back on them to look out across the newsroom. “I should thank you all,” he said. “This has certainly been a worthwhile discussion.” His words and the cool way he delivered them left Sam with no doubt that the meeting was a failure. Far from helping to solve the problem, he feared Twigg’s behaviour had actually offered further proof that Project Ear was a justified endeavour.

  Adam slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out his phone and Sam assumed the actor was about to call for his car. But there, just yards away on the other side of the glass office wall, was the distinctive form of Jason Spade. He was sitting on a chair and was rubbing his knee, a strained expression on his face as though he was in pain. Colin was immediately next to him, bent down and speaking directly into his face in a firm manner. With a smile, Adam pressed a single key on his phone and then held it to his ear. After a moment, he spoke. “Hello Jason Spade, this is Adam Jaymes.”

  Sam, O
onagh and Twigg all shot to their feet. There in front of them, in the newsroom, was Jason. He was still on the chair but he had answered his mobile phone and the look of pain on his face and been replaced with one of confusion.

  “I just called to let you know it’s your turn.”

  “Wait!” Sam bellowed. “What was that? What did you just do? We’re in the middle of talks. Whatever you have planned, please just delay so we can continue this conversation.”

  But the meeting was over. Adam slipped his phone back into his jeans, turned and for the first time looked Twigg directly in the eyes. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, and without uttering another word he walked from Twigg’s office. Sam followed him through the doorway, fully expecting the actor to acknowledge Jason or perhaps even approach him. But he didn’t. With dignity and composure Adam Jaymes simply walked past the dozens of stunned, statue-like journalists and back to the lift. The strange hush which had fallen over the newsroom lasted only until the lift doors closed behind him, and then there was a roar of questions and conversations. Twigg, Sam and Oonagh hurried over to Jason, who was sitting with his phone in his hand looking perplexed.

  “What the fuck was that all about?” Colin asked, trying to be heard above the noise from his colleagues across the newsroom. “He was only in there a couple of minutes. What the hell did you do?”

  “It’s Jason,” Oonagh said, clearly distressed at the way the meeting had concluded. “He stood there, bold as brass, and phoned Jason right in front of us.”

  They all looked down at the injured photographer, who shrugged as if he didn’t care. “Fuck him, the stupid tosser,” he said. “He’s got jack-shit on me. What’s he going to say about me that’s hasn’t already been said?”

  “That you secretly took nude pictures of female swimmers during the London Olympics.”

  They all turned at the sound of Felicity’s nervous voice. She and Valerie were standing just behind Oonagh, gazing up in dismay at Adam Jaymes’ website. Jason was unable to see the giant screens from his seat, and could only watch as an entire newsroom of journalists fell into an appalled silence as they absorbed the information that was now hanging right above them.