Exposé

by Paul Ilett

  Oonagh’s friendly expression immediately changed. Her smile disappeared and a deep, concerned frown replaced it. “Trojan Horse?” she asked. “Trojan Horse is producing this programme?”

  “Yes,” Audrey replied, slightly disconcerted by Oonagh’s sudden change of demeanour. “Is there a problem?”

  The tone of Oonagh’s concerned question had attracted even Estelle’s attention. She, Sam, Howard and Felicity all turned to listen to the conversation.

  “Audrey,” Oonagh replied, desperately trying to look in complete control in case any of the other thousand people in the room were looking at her, “Trojan Horse is owned by Adam Jaymes’ husband.”

  It was too late to change anything. The commercial break was over. The audience was told to applaud and the host, in her fifth dress of the evening, trotted back to centre stage and found her camera. “Welcome back to this year’s Amazing People Awards,” she said, beaming. “And I have someone truly amazing for you all to meet right now.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Oh come on #ProjectEar – last victim please!

  Welcome to Twitter, @RealValeriePierce sweetheart. Now fuck off back to the 1980s where you belong

  “security means none of the guests, including the Harveys, have been able to take their mobile phones into the awards. It looks like Adam Jaymes is going to be sorely disappointed”

  @RealAdamJaymes Hurry up. I can’t watch anymore of this rubbish

  @RealAdamJaymes All those brave kids and courageous soldiers. This is THEIR night not yours. Don’t be a prick and ruin it!

  8.47pm BST

  I bet she has another dress change during the commercial break. Clever distraction from the inevitable realisation that she’s a bit shit at this.

  8.49pm BST

  Several texts from friends asking if I know what the big surprise is. I’ve suggested Leonard Twigg’s hairpiece has been encased in plastic resin and is being handed out as the final award of the evening. Probably to a small child suffering from alopecia.

  8.51pm BST

  Oh thank God, my Chinese is here. I can finally pop open the Prosecco without feeling like an alky.

  8.52pm BST

  “And welcome back. During the commercial break I changed my dress and had a poop.” Silly cow.

  #AmazingPeopleAwards Some truly inspiring stories. Well done. Now hurry up and get to the #ProjectEar bit.

  I guess it makes sense that @RealValeriePierce would end up presenting on Sky News. Who the hell else would have her?

  “truly has become event telly. We’ve got Project Ear, Adam Jaymes, Valerie Pierce and Amazing People Awards all trending on Twitter right now, and not just here but in other parts the globe. This is a defining moment for British broadcasting and the British media more broadly. And in just a few moments time we are likely to have an answer to the question that is on everyone’s lips: who will be the final victim of Project Ear?”

  CHAPTER 27

  “I have someone truly amazing for you all to meet right now. He’s an actor, a singer and an amazing dancer too. He’s won countless awards for his work in television and on the stage but tonight he’s here not to collect an award, he’s here to give one.”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” Audrey cried. “Oh please, dear God, they wouldn’t!”

  “More recently you’ll know him from Glee or True Blood, but for millions of us he’ll always be Doctor Who’s companion Joe!”

  There was a gasp from the audience, followed by several squeals of excitement and a premature ripple of applause.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding,” Howard hissed.

  “Oh dear Lord,” Oonagh whispered, before burying her face in her hands.

  Sam, who’d allowed himself to think he’d found shelter at the awards and its strictly enforced phone ban, felt his blood run cold as all his fear and anxiety rushed back and the walls of his safe haven collapsed around him. “Oh shit!” he gasped.

  “He’s been in the news quite a bit himself recently, but he’s here tonight to set the record straight.”

  “That silly bitch hasn’t a clue what she’s saying,” Howard snarled. “She could be reading out the instructions for haemorrhoid cream and she wouldn’t know.”

  “Please will you give a fantastic welcome for the amazing - Adam! Jaymes!”

  And there it was. His name said out loud for all to hear. There was no going back. The Harveys – each and every one of them – realised they had been duped. Far from cleverly eluding his final phone call, they had delivered themselves to his grand finale in front of a thousand delighted audience members and millions of viewers watching live at home. Before Adam Jaymes had even appeared on stage the audience were on their feet screaming and applauding, almost hysterical with the intoxicating anticipation of what was about to happen. The Harveys, conspicuous by being the only table to remain seated, could only hope that the cameras were not on them. Sam’s heart was beating so hard he thought it was going to burst. He tried to detect some small sound amid the roar to suggest the audience was not applauding as one, that there was some discord and some disapproval of the actor’s involvement in the evening. But there was nothing, not a single boo or shouted insult. Adam Jaymes was returning to the public stage triumphant, a hero in fact. Everyone was on his side. No one was backing the Harveys.

  He appeared with a dazzling smile, and the roar from the audience grew even louder. He was dressed in a neatly tailored navy suit with his thick, glistening hair brushed back from his face. The host greeted him with a delicate embrace and then quietly disappeared into the wings. This was no longer her show. Adam approached the centre of the stage and, in a perfectly choreographed motion, a metal lectern rose from the floor to meet him. He leaned onto it and said “Good evening” into the microphone, but the audience got a second wind and the cheering and applauding grew louder. And then there was a chorus of foot stamping too.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Howard said, just loud enough for Audrey to hear. “That’s the man who put Leonard Twigg in the ground and they’re treating him like he’s a fucking hero.”

  Estelle leaned back, and turned her face ever so slightly towards her husband. “Haven’t you realised yet, you old fool? They blame you lot for what happened to Leonard. You don’t have a single friend in this entire hall.” And then, with a smile, she turned her back on the whole family and looked to the stage.

  “Can I just say ... ” Adam Jaymes started, his calm voice gradually bringing the audience back to their seats, “can I just say, to begin with, what an honour it is to be here this evening.”

  “We love you!” a woman screamed from the audience, and there was a roar of laughter followed by a small round of applause.

  “Thank you,” Adam replied, with a friendly chuckle. “But this really is an honour. I’ve spent the past few hours backstage, listening to your amazing stories, so many tales of courage and bravery from the battlefield or at home. From the soldier who risked her life to protect a fallen comrade, to the teenage boy who became a full-time carer when his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Listening to these astonishing stories, I'm sure we’re all humbled.”

  The audience clapped to show they were agreeing with everything Adam said.

  Sam sat quietly, enthralled by the way Adam Jaymes had so effortlessly won the support of the entire audience and had them eating from the palm of his hand. He could sense the excitement in the air around him, the way everyone was watching the stage but keeping half an eye on the Harvey table. Without their phones and cameras, the guests would all have to rely on their memories for once and were clearly keen to capture every detail of the Harvey family’s public humiliation. Estelle was right, 100% right. They did not have a single friend in the entire venue.

  “What we have seen here this evening, so very clearly, is that courage comes in many different forms,” Adam continued. “I was particularly taken by Danny’s story, the young boy who stood up to a gang of bullies at his school.”

 
The audience applauded and a camera zoomed in on Danny and his parents, sitting proudly in the audience with his award on the table in front of them.

  “Oh, this bullying bullshit again,” Howard groaned. “I might have known.”

  “What Danny showed us all, I hope, is that sometimes it can take just one person to say ‘enough’ and things really can change for the better.” Adam paused, a silent segue into the rest of his speech. For a moment, there was complete silence in the auditorium. The actor was about to move onto a different topic and the audience was ready and waiting to go with him, for him to deliver the final shock of the evening.

  “Many of you will remember a friend of mine, Pearl Martin.” At the mention of Pearl’s name, the audience applauded respectfully. Some of the younger guests did not know who she was, but everyone else did. Even though she had died so many years earlier, her name could still evoke a powerful, collective sense of an injustice that had never been redressed. “Sadly, many people see Pearl as a tragic figure. They remember how she died, that awful morning she was found at the foot of Beachy Head. But I was lucky enough to know Pearl very well and I like to remember her for how she lived.”

  Her face appeared on the enormous screen behind Adam, but not the ghostly pale image so often used. This was a new image, one of her in a summer garden, surrounded by colourful flowers and laughing at the camera. It was an image no one had seen before, a picture from Adam’s personal album. It showed a young woman radiating happiness, who had her whole life ahead of her. But for the Harveys it simply reinforced the knowledge that they had been set up by the production company. Sam glanced across the table at his father and gestured with his hand that perhaps they should leave. But Howard shook his head and placed his hands firmly on the table top. The Harveys were not going to run and hide. They would sit proudly and see this through to the end.

  “She played my big sister on Eastenders and that was a relationship we continued off screen too. We were very close and gradually, over the years, I became painfully aware that she was struggling with depression. You all know her story, of course. How she had to leave Eastenders and the role she loved so much. How her young child was taken into foster care. And how she eventually found life just too much, and so ended it all. And throughout all of her troubles and her darkest days, she was pursued ruthlessly and relentlessly by the media and by the staff at one newspaper in particular.”

  Without even hearing the name ‘Daily Ear’ there was a grumble from the audience and heads turned towards the Harvey table. But then there was laughter too. As sad as they doubtlessly found Pearl’s story, and although they were clearly disapproving of the Daily Ear, the thousand people in the audience were mostly just excited about the inevitability of Adam Jaymes’ final exposé. The Harveys’ private lives, their reputations and careers were now little more than fodder for the masses. Adam Jaymes was closing in for his final kill, and everyone seemed to think it was hilarious.

  “Many of us thought that Pearl’s tragic death would change things, that those in the media would appreciate the magnitude of what had happened and acknowledge the depth of the public’s anger and disgust. I think we all believed things would change for the better. Certainly, we were promised change. We were promised stricter self-regulation and a tightening of rules governing press intrusion into a person’s private life. But let me ask you, is this what we got?”

  There was a pause, and then a few people in the audience started shouting back at the stage. “No”, “Disgrace”, “Liars”.

  “If anything, things have gotten worse. Indeed, I would suggest they have spiralled out of control. And this is why I made the decision to take a stand. On this occasion, I was Danny, the one person who was willing to say ‘enough’. I launched Project Ear a few weeks ago and my aim was very simply to show the staff at the Daily Ear what it was like to be on the receiving end of an intrusive press. I wanted them to know how it felt to be ridiculed in public, or to have an embarrassing secret exposed for all to see. Certainly, where I uncovered illegal activity or unethical practices, those were exposed as well. It was never a vengeful campaign but a deliberate attempt to force a fundamental change in the working practices of the UK’s newspaper industry. A change that neither the industry itself nor the government was willing to implement. I certainly did not set out to hurt anyone and whilst I do not accept any responsibility for Leonard Twigg’s death I would like to express, publicly, my condolences to his friends and colleagues.”

  Howard’s anger began to swell as he heard Adam Jaymes so casually brush over the death of Leonard Twigg, as though it was an annoying footnote the actor felt he needed to acknowledge, albeit briefly. And then the audience applauded and Howard could tell it wasn’t out of respect for Twigg but to show their support for Adam Jaymes, to let him know they did not find him in any way culpable. “That’s our headline,” he said, leaning towards Oonagh and Sam. “‘I’m Not Sorry’. That’s our headline.”

  “Let’s see how this plays out, Howard”, Oonagh replied and then turned back to the stage.

  Howard wasn’t used to being dismissed and was so furious with how the evening was playing out he almost exploded at Oonagh, right then and there. But then Audrey took his hand to reassure him. “Oonagh’s right, dear. Let’s wait and see,” she said. And Howard’s fury waned just enough for him to return his attention to the stage as well.

  “Over the past few weeks, through Project Ear, I’ve published five exposés. These were the sort of stories the Daily Ear publishes every day. The only difference is that these stories were about the Daily Ear’s own staff. This has been everything from the Kiss-and-Tell King who was cheating on his own wife” – there was a chorus of boos and laughter from the audience – “to the photographer whose seedy paparazzi pictures masked an even seedier photographic agenda in his private life.” There were more boos and more heads turned to the Harvey table. “I was even invited in to discuss an early end to Project Ear. But those talks broke down almost immediately, because the team at the Harvey News Group simply wanted to protect their own privacy. They had no intention of showing any measure of respect for anyone else’s. And throughout the past few weeks there has not been any sign from that company that made me think they were getting the message. Instead they have continued in the same despicable manner. They have attacked me and my husband, printed revolting stories about the private lives of actors and sports stars and made it quite clear that they’re happy to continue making money by exploiting anyone and everyone. And let me make it clear to you all here today, every single one of you sat in this audience or at home.” Adam Jaymes pointed into the audience directly at the Harvey table and a spotlight lit up from above and exposed them clearly for all to see. “The Harvey family would happily ruin the lives of any single person here tonight.” He lowered his hand and looked out across the audience, somehow making each and every person feel he was talking directly at them. “You think you’re safe because you’re not famous or in the public eye, that what happened to Pearl Martin and a thousand other people could not possibly happen to you. Think again. You don’t have to be a celebrity, you just need to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps you tweeted something years ago, before you were old enough to understand the impact your words can have on other people. Or you sent a disparaging email to a future in-law, not realising it would be shared with their friends. Perhaps you dared to ask your local authority for a bigger council house. Or maybe, just maybe, you become the Daily Ear’s prime suspect in a murder case, simply because you lived next door to the victim and a reporter decided you were a little eccentric. From the most routine to the most unfortunate of situations, any one of you could end up splashed all over the Daily Ear and its website, portrayed as a villain for the whole nation to despise. Your life and reputation would be ruined. But, hey, at least you know your misery had benefitted someone. Howard Harvey would have the down-payment on another yacht.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Howard gr
umbled. “I don’t have a fucking yacht.”

  “I’m very proud of Project Ear because it has, at least, created a discussion. It has exposed those in government who are too weak to take action and those in the newspaper industry too greedy to change their ways. It has allowed journalists in other parts of the media to reflect upon their own behaviour and shone a light into the darkest corners of our own society. Because we should never forget that the only reason the Daily Ear has been able to continue down this sordid path is because four million people buy it every day. However, Project Ear has run its course and it is time to draw a line under it and move on.”

  Adam removed a mobile phone from his top pocket and dramatically flipped it open. “I just have one final phone call to make.” There were squeals of delight from across the venue, as well as laughter and some applause.

  “They think it’s a fucking pantomime,” Howard whispered to Audrey, who then gently clutched his arm.

  “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it,” she said and offered him a reassuring smile.

  Oonagh held Sam’s hand and squeezed it tightly, but he was lost to his panic again and could barely notice. Adam pressed a single button on his phone and without a hint of expression on his face to suggest his mood, he lifted it to his ear. Almost immediately, down in the audience, a ringtone started to play: The Police, Every Breath You Take. It was slightly muffled, coming from inside a handbag or a jacket pocket, but it was immediately recognisable and without a doubt coming from the Harveys’ table. There were shrieks of excitement, and gasps, and people began to stand up to get a better look. Some stood on their chairs, peering over the heads of the hundreds of other guests, determined to see which of the Harveys would get the call. But then the screen behind Adam Jaymes shimmered and changed and the still image of Pearl Martin was replaced with a camera shot from inside the venue, a live feed of Audrey, Howard, Estelle, Sam and Oonagh. For a moment no one at the table moved, but then Howard uttered an exasperated, “Oh for fuck’s sake!” and started patting his jacket pockets, his comment somehow picked up by a microphone and fed back through the speakers for all to hear.