Exposé

by Paul Ilett

  “Well, you did let me go,” she replied tersely. Her warmth and concern were suddenly gone and she quickly stood and made her way from the terrace. “I’ll see you and Estelle at the awards on Thursday,” she said. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and had a terrible urge to turn back, to rush to Howard and embrace him as if they were still married. But her mind was telling her to keep walking, to not let herself be fooled into thinking there was anything more to the exchange than an irritated husband moaning about his wife. And with that she was gone.

  Alone again with his brandy and his view, Howard Harvey polished off his Turkish Delight and wondered if anything was going to go right for him that week.

  Valerie returned to the newsroom and quietly made her way to her desk. No one attended to her or asked how she was. The rest of the news team gave her a wide berth at the best of times and it seemed, in grief, little had changed. From the side-lines, watching from the shadows of her dimly lit office, Valerie found it difficult to reconcile her own dark thoughts with the almost joyous atmosphere on the other side of her wall of glass. Colin was rushing around the newsroom with the look of a football star who’d just scored the winning goal in the FA cup, the other reporters virtually high-fiving him at the end of each conversation. He had always been Twigg’s heir apparent even though there had never been any succession planning. Twigg hadn’t allowed for it. But with Twigg out of the way, everyone gravitated to Colin as though it were a foregone conclusion that he would be the Ear’s new editor. He looked like an excited boy again, the young lad who’d come to the Ear for a couple of weeks of work experience and stayed.

  Valerie remembered the desperate 3am call from Colin. She remembered the shock and sadness in his words, the moment when he stopped to catch his breath and how his voice cracked, as though he were about to cry. He had described every horrific detail of Twigg’s death in the way that a reporter would need to over-share, and finished the call by saying, “God bless him, he’s handed us Jaymes on a plate.” Just six hours had passed since that awful call but it might as well have been six months. Valerie could see that no one was mourning Leonard Twigg because everyone knew that his death was the best thing to happen to the Daily Ear in a long time. Sky News and the BBC News channel were streaming across the giant screens. Adam Jaymes was the story of the day. Not Leonard Twigg, but Adam Jaymes. Had he gone too far? Was it his fault? Was his career over? Was he in hiding? Are the police looking for him? “We finally nailed him,” Valerie said quietly to herself. “And all it cost was dear Leonard’s life.”

  Just outside Twigg’s office were Sam and Oonagh. Not quite hand-in-hand, Valerie thought, but not far off it she suspected. They were managing, overseeing, and their smiles reflected the jubilant mood across the whole office. With them were a camera operator and reporter from Sky News, setting up to interview one of the senior team (Valerie assumed it would be Colin) with the bustling newsroom as a backdrop. Sitting alone with her door closed and her lights off, occasionally sipping from her coffee mug and drawing on yet another cigarette, Valerie knew she was expected to hammer out 500 angry words for the next edition. Colin had made it clear he didn’t want anything sad or reflective. It had to be ferocious, the most angry she had ever been, an Exocet missile aimed right at Adam Jaymes. When it came to the actor’s career, everyone was now waiting for Valerie to deliver the killing blow. As she fired up her laptop, she gently caressed the silver crucifix hanging from her neck as though trying to take some genuine comfort and inspiration from it. For so many years she had used the Christian faith as little more than a weapon, her first retort against the politically correct or the unrelenting march of equality. But for the first time since her husband had died, she found an emptiness within herself and yearned for a sign from above to show her what to do next.

  Her computer screen lit up and her inbox appeared filled with goodwill messages from the usual sycophants mixed with the same old toot she got every day. She scrolled past dozens of messages and then paused as she came across an email from Twigg. He’d sent it at 5.07pm the previous day, just a few short hours before he had taken his own life. There, tucked quietly between an invitation to a conference on Alzheimer’s and a spam message about a balance transfer, were the final thoughts of Leonard Twigg in an email titled ‘Handover’. As Valerie clicked it open she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She scanned the text hoping for something more than a simple handover note, perhaps a goodbye or best wishes for the future. She wanted something that felt a part of him, rather than something that was little more than part of a process. But the email was short and to the point, bullets listing her upcoming deadlines, features and speaking opportunities. There was little to glean from it other than Twigg’s remarkably organised nature. The only thing she felt was out of the ordinary was the salutation ‘Dear Valerie’, a greeting Twigg never used in an email. An email from Twigg would, at best, begin with ‘Valerie’ but usually there would be no salutation at all. Indeed he had reprimanded many staff at the Ear for lacking professionalism, simply because they had started an email with the word ‘Dear’. A little further down she found an email from Sam, a confidential note sent to senior staff only, in which he thanked Harvey News Group’s executive team for their years of service and then disclosed that they had all now left the company. He also revealed a change in the Daily Ear’s editorial management, with Oonagh taking the new role of executive editor for both the paper and the website.

  “Dear God, Leonard,” Valerie said, “No wonder you threw yourself under a train.” She chuckled to herself as though sharing a private joke with Twigg, but then her own words repeated in her mind and an awful idea presented itself to her. She remembered the unpleasant evening she had spent with Twigg at her club a couple of days earlier, where he had been so painfully agitated and distracted. And she began to appreciate how enormous those other events would have seemed to Twigg, the removal of his allies on the top floor and his own humiliating demotion at the hands of Sam and Oonagh. The Daily Ear had been Leonard Twigg’s everything. After the death of his beloved mother, it would have been the one and only thing that give him a sense of purpose, of significance. And Valerie began to weep as she realised her friend’s final days would have been spent watching powerlessly as it was all stolen away from him.

  “You OK?” a voice asked her softly, as the sound of the newsroom suddenly grew louder. She wiped her tears before she turned, and then looked across to find Colin leaning half into her office. “Sorry, Valerie,” he said. “I’ve been busy. I saw you come in and wanted to see how you are. Are you crying?”

  Valerie shrugged and, just for moment, realised she couldn’t say anything without bursting into tears again. And so she quickly placed her cigarette to her lips and waited for the moment to pass. Colin stepped inside and then leaned back against the door, clicking it shut. He looked scruffy and tired. He wasn’t wearing a tie and the top buttons of his white shirt were undone with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He had the drained look of a man who’d been running on empty all night. “I know how it looks, Valerie. I honestly do. But we just don’t have time to grieve. Not right now.”

  Valerie shrugged again, still unable to speak.

  “You’ve been talking about this as a war, haven’t you? A battle,” Colin continued, trying to win Valerie over with her own words. “Well, that’s exactly what this is today. We don’t have the luxury to mourn a fallen comrade. If we stop to catch our breath, we’ll lose this advantage and then the battle will be lost and everything Twigg fought for will have been for nothing.”

  Valerie took a deep breath. It felt OK now, she thought. It would be OK to speak. “If we don’t mourn him now, we never will,” she said, her usually sharp voice suddenly gentle and soft, controlled. “Have you sorted out the website?”

  “Yes, all done. No one seems to have noticed. We might have gotten away with it.”

  “Who wrote it?”

  Colin looked shifty, a schoolboy being a
sked why the sweet jar was empty. “There was a miscommunication,” he said.

  Valerie shrugged. “Just blame the subs. That’s what we normally do,” she replied. “Besides, you weren’t to know. No one was, it seems. You’re friends with a man for three decades. You’d expect him to tell you that his mother has died.”

  Colin perched on the edge of her desk. “Valerie, let’s be honest. Twigg didn’t have friends.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “No, he didn’t. Not really. Not in any way a normal person would have friends. He had contacts, colleagues and acquaintances. In that order. But not friends, not really.” He then leaned forward and kissed her firmly on the forehead, before returning to the door.

  Valerie picked up her phone and went to dial. “I think I should give Howard a call, see how he is” she said, with an everyday tone to her voice.

  “Why?” asked Colin.

  Valerie shrugged. “Just for a chat. He knew Leonard longer than any of us. I thought he might appreciate one of us showing some empathy.”

  “He won’t take your call,” Colin said.

  “Of course he will,” Valerie replied, and continued dialling.

  Colin returned to her side, gently removed the receiver from her hand and returned it to its base. “No, he won’t Valerie,” he said again. “He won’t take your call, or your texts or your emails. He’s cut himself off from the Ear. All communication with Howard Harvey is now done via Sam, and that’s without exception. Even Twigg was told the same.”

  The final piece of the jigsaw fell into place as Valerie realised Twigg’s humiliation had been complete. Deserted by the top floor, degraded by Sam and Oonagh and forsaken by Howard too. His fall from power had been absolute. And with that she realised the awful truth that Adam Jaymes was not to blame for her friend’s suicide because the Daily Ear had killed Leonard Twigg. “He sent me a handover note.” she said. “Leonard did, before he died.”

  Colin nodded. “Yes, he sent me one too. Actually, he sent quite a few. Oonagh and Sam both got one.”

  “A handover, Colin. Why on earth would he do that?”

  Colin shrugged, appearing uninterested and increasingly impatient.

  “Oh for God’s sake, stop being so obstructive,” Valerie snapped, and was so uptight she stubbed out her cigarette even though it was less than half gone. “This isn’t a handover note, it’s a suicide note. Or the closest we’d ever get to one from Leonard. And he sent it hours before Adam Jaymes’ ridiculous story about his bloody wig.”

  Colin raised his hand and stepped back towards Valerie. “Hey, hey, hey, none of that,” he said, firmly. “Not another word like that.”

  The door opened and Oonagh appeared, respectfully dressed in black from head to toe. “Colin, I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said with a solemn and sympathetic tone, “but the Sky News team is ready for you.”

  Colin nodded. “I’ll be straight there,” he said, and then he looked back at Valerie. “Not. Another. Word,” he repeated. With that, he and Oonagh left Valerie’s office and returned to the thunderous excitement of the newsroom.

  Valerie felt as though she had been chastised, or perhaps censored, but she understood why Colin was keen to keep her quiet. Clearly he had an angle for the story and would not tolerate any deviation from it. Adam Jaymes was entirely responsible for the tragic suicide of Leonard Twigg and that was all the public needed to know. Colin was Head Boy now, desperate to keep Sam and Oonagh happy. He wanted to be seen as the man who could do what Twigg couldn’t and turn the tide of public opinion against Adam Jaymes. It wouldn’t be hard to do either, Valerie thought. Across the board the media was already blaming the actor and she could tell there would be little sympathy at the Daily Ear for anyone who wanted to suggest anything else. But if the public had all the facts about Twigg’s desperate final days, Valerie knew they would think twice about blaming Adam Jaymes. They would realise a silly story about a toupee wouldn’t have been nearly enough to make Twigg throw himself under a train. His suicide was the final act of a grieving man whose years of loyal service to the Harvey family had just been spat back into his face.

  She watched as Colin and Oonagh joined Sam by the Sky team and with a cold curiosity studied Oonagh’s mannerisms. She noted how managerial she had become, fussing around the men like Queen Bee to the point that she had Sam remove his dark jacket and black tie and then used them to dress Colin for his interview. She looked like a bossy Irish mother getting her two boys ready for church. For a few more silent moments, Valerie watched the interactions of the reporters, editors and managers across the newsroom. It was a noisy, chaotic mess of shouting and rushing and back-slapping that would never have been allowed under Twigg. Even when the Twin Towers were falling, he had brought a sense of quiet order to the proceedings. The commotion playing out in front of her eyes was the clearest signal that things had already changed and that everyone had already moved on.

  And in that moment Valerie found her comfort and inspiration because, no matter what Colin said, she knew she had been Twigg’s friend and that he had tried his very best to be a good friend in return. And she would be damned before she conspired with the likes of Sam Harvey and Oonagh Boyle or suffered in obedient silence to conceal their appalling treatment of a man she had cherished. Colin would never forgive her, of course, but she could already see how they were set on two very different paths, with Colin heading for the new inner sanctum and Valerie left very much on the outside, glaring in. With sudden clarity, her mood immediately lifted and she knew what she was going to do. There would be no fond farewells or histrionics, no speech or bitter ‘all staff’ email. She would quietly leave on her own terms and never again return to the Daily Ear newsroom. She spent a few moments printing up emails and collecting the personal possessions she was keen to take with her. And then she slipped her black jacket on again, threw her handbag strap over her shoulder and reviewed her office one final time. It was neat and tidy, everything in its place. Leonard Twigg would have been proud.

  To her annoyance, her discreet exit was spoiled when Oonagh unexpectedly re-entered the room. “I thought you were looking after Colin,” Valerie said, attempting to make it clear she had no time for the likes of Oonagh Boyle that day.

  “We’ve been pushed back by a few minutes,” Oonagh replied, “and I just wanted to say how sorry I am. I know we’ve never seen eye-to-eye, Valerie, but Leonard’s death is a terrible tragedy and I know you were close. If you need any time off you only need to ask.”

  Valerie faked a smile and nodded with pretend appreciation. At that very moment, she couldn’t remember the last time she had hated anyone as much as she hated Oonagh Boyle. But she wanted to slip away quietly, without incident, and so tried her hardest to remain civil. “Thank you,” she said.

  “I really mean it, Valerie,” Oonagh said. “Take a few days off. And when you get back you and I can sit down and talk about how you’re feeling, and perhaps we could talk about what sort of role you will have at the Ear, once we’ve re-launched.”

  “Re-launched?” Valerie said, curiously. “Goodness. And to think poor Leonard’s only been dead a few hours.”

  “No, no, it’s not like that,” Oonagh replied. “Honestly, Valerie, please don’t think we are in any way taking advantage of this awful situation. Sam and I are very clear that we need to take the Ear in a new direction and were planning to have Leonard lead that process of change.”

  Try as she might, Valerie knew Oonagh was going to bring out the very worst in her. She had no doubt Oonagh’s sympathy was insincere, her visit little more than an opportunity to remind Valerie who was boss now. And her suggestion of a comforting conversation at some point in the future was a veiled threat, a signal that Valerie Pierce might not have a place in the new Daily Ear. But most unbearable of all, for Valerie, was the simple fact that while Leonard Twigg’s shredded corpse was being sown back together in some grotty NHS morgue, Oonagh was standing in front of her, happy and healthy and alive
. “It’s funny, Oonagh,” she said, with a clipped, pointed tone to her voice, “but the last time I checked, the Daily Ear was the biggest selling daily paper in the UK. And its sales are going up, not down. Strange, really, that you should look at that success and think we need a change of direction.”

  “Valerie, our success is unsustainable given the current climate,” Oonagh replied. “We have to respond to changing public attitudes and pressure from our own peers within the industry.”

  “Our ‘peers’,” Valerie replied, mocking. “Our peers?” she laughed. “Do you honestly think there is a single newspaper out there which could be considered our equal? Absolute poppycock.”

  Oonagh sighed as she realised it had clearly been an error of judgement, on her part, to attempt a few kind words with Valerie. “The world has changed, Valerie, but the Daily Ear hasn’t. It’s time to look at our practices and see how we can move forward.” Oonagh considered her solemn words to be a suitable way to end the conversation, but Valerie wasn’t done with her yet.

  “Under Leonard Twigg, this paper had no equals,” Valerie stated. “He took a tatty tabloid that was about to go bust and he made it the best-selling daily in the UK. The only reason you have a job – the only reason any of those morons out in that office have a job - is because Leonard Twigg turned this ship around and made it the success it is today. He was willing to do the things our ‘peers’ didn’t have the balls to do. Oh yes, I know all of the accusations that are made against us. All the criticisms and complaints. Half of them are aimed at me. But like it or not, Oonagh, our ‘peers’ need us to be the bad guy, to be the nasty newspaper. They need someone to pick on people and hound people, to defend traditional values and challenge the oppressive march of political correctness. We run a story, Oonagh, and the next day you’ll see it in all the other tabloids. They might pretend to be outraged by what we’ve done, but every week their pages are filled with second-hand stories from the Daily Ear. And the broadsheets are even more hypocritical. They snipe at us for our morals and our practices. They blame us for the public’s poor opinion of the press. But every time we have a big exclusive, they’re all over it like a rash. Oh, they pretend to report our stories in a different way. They think their coverage is academic rather than salacious. They claim it’s their job to comment and examine and dissect. They pretend to be looking at the broader issues or at the repercussions of what we’ve done. But when you get past the arty-farty rhetoric all they’re really doing is reprinting our stories. And you know why, Oonagh? It’s because we don’t report the news. We create it. Every day this country’s news agenda is set by the Daily Ear. That’s how great Leonard Twigg made this paper. When we shout, everyone listens. Even the Prime Minister listens. And Leonard Twigg did that.”