by Paul Ilett
Only, that’s not actually what happened. I know because Auntie Pat was your plus-one that night and the moment I mentioned it to her she clearly remembered the whole thing. You weren’t drunk, because you’d just started a new course of medication and you weren’t allowed alcohol. You’d spent the whole evening drinking fresh orange juice. And in the hustle and bustle at the end of the evening, you had simply stumbled to one side as a group of mums and kids pushed by to get to their coach. It was just an accident. But that’s not the story that Audrey ‘mentioned in passing’ to Valerie of course. And that’s where it all started, the stories about your drinking and then your drug use and then the ‘home alone’ accusations. None of it true, but it was all started by Audrey. Valerie, of course, thought it was all down to her and actually seemed quite proud of the idea that the Ear’s whole ‘Pearl Martin’ obsession stemmed from that first piece in her column. But at last I knew who the real culprit was. Audrey was going to get a phone call from Uncle Adam, I just needed to find her Achilles heel. And it’s true, taken individually, she really does appear to have led a good and virtuous life. All that charity work and self-sacrifice; the woman’s a virtual martyr. Or at least that’s how it seemed.
In the end, it all fell into place very nicely. The Project Ear team had made it clear, from the outset, that the only way we could really justify ourselves in public was to demonstrate we had used the Ear’s own tactics and methods. How could Twigg or Colin Merroney or any of the rest complain when all we had done was copy what they did for a living? So as part of this we had replicated the Ear’s notorious ‘Secret DNA’ series. I’d spent months secretly hoarding samples and sending them over to our lab (yes, we have a lab too!). I collected discarded cigarette butts, used paper cups and even saliva swabbed from the mouths of reporters who passed out in front of me at the pub (when no one else was around). It was pretty disgusting at times, to be honest, but in the end we had a DNA database of about 50 employees, trainees and contractors. They were aged 18 to 60, and so we hoped there would be plenty of scope to find some inconsistencies or unexpected connections. You know how incestuous these offices can be. We were somewhat handicapped by Uncle Adam’s decision not to pool samples from children. I was more than happy to hang around barber shops or fast-food restaurants and covertly gather hair samples or discarded straws. But Uncle Adam said no, I wasn’t allowed to bring children into the mix and so could only collect samples from the Daily Ear itself.
To be honest, we were just fishing. We didn’t know exactly what we were looking for. And as we started to draw a great big blank, one of the ex-journalists on the team even used an old police contact to have our database run against DNA from unsolved crimes. Surprisingly, that gave us nothing as well. The whole venture seemed to be going nowhere. But that all changed the day Sam Harvey returned to the UK. Uncle Adam was clear he wanted Sam in London. He didn’t want him cowering in LA, while the likes of Valerie and Twigg took all the heat. Because Sam, like his mother, had spent his entire life pretending not to be involved in all the nasty stuff and Uncle Adam wasn’t putting up with it. His husband knows a lot of people who have worked with Sam over the years and they all say the same thing: that the Harvey golden boy was actually a weak link, who surrounded himself with talent to hide the fact he had none. Sam had done very well for himself out of Harvey Media International and Uncle Adam thought it was time he learnt a few hard lessons.
But we weren’t sure Project Ear would be enough, in itself, for Howard to order Sam back to the UK. We had to create an opening for him. So during one of my days supporting the executive floor I ‘accidentally’ emailed Gayesh’s entire calendar to Howard. I think Howard probably had an idea of how Gayesh spent his time, but seeing his freeloading ways there in black and white proved the final straw. And just like that Gayesh was out and Sam was in. We had our boy! On Sam’s first day I turned up at his office ready and willing to help. Uncle Adam had told me I should get in early, as Sam would want to quickly build a new team around him to hide behind (that’s his MO). But I also needed to be close enough to get a sample of his DNA too. One of my greatest frustrations was that I’d not been able to get a sample from Howard, because I’d hung all my hopes on finding an illegitimate son or daughter that he’d kept secret all these years. But DNA from Sam would be just as invaluable if it revealed he had unidentified half-siblings wondering around the Daily Ear.
So I hired a barber and told Sam it was all part of Gayesh’s pampered lifestyle and it would be a terrible shame to waste it. And then I paid the barber an extra £50 to nick Sam’s neck. That tiny cut produced little more than a drop of blood but more than enough to blow the roof off this whole project. You see, I’d got it completely wrong. Howard didn’t have an illegitimate child. It turned out that his only son wasn’t his at all. We matched Sam’s DNA to another man at the Daily Ear who was already on our database. Who’d have thought Audrey’s deep, dark secret was a long forgotten encounter with Colin Merroney? It was such a find. What a fantastic exclusive for Project Ear! I actually felt quite disappointed that I wouldn’t get a by-line for it. I spoke to Uncle Adam and we agreed to save Audrey for last, that we would deliver the final exposé live on TV at the Amazing People Awards. After all, that’s where all of this started. Just by chance (and it really was simple good fortune) Audrey had inadvertently hired a production company owned by Uncle Adam’s husband to produce this year’s event. A few phone calls later and key staff were replaced with people from Project Ear. Uncle Adam was going to make a grand appearance at the end of the show and make his final phone call in front of millions of viewers. The Harvey family’s great humiliation would be absolute. I even managed to bag myself a ring-side seat and watched it all first-hand. I was sitting right next to them as the whole family fell to pieces. And I loved every shameful, devastating second of it. I destroyed them completely, publicly. And it was wonderful.
I know how this all must sound. You must be wondering what sort of woman your little girl has grown into. To take so much pleasure in the unhappiness of others, to be able to lie to people’s faces so convincingly or collect their secrets in such an underhand manner. But I’m not a bad person, Mum, I promise you. Everything I did was for you, the best mum in the world. The mum the Daily Ear stole from me.
And I want to tell you that I remember you. I remember everything about you. I remember your big blue eyes, and the warmth of your laugh. I remember cuddles at bedtime and the smell of your perfume. I wear it sometimes. It makes me feel like you’re right here with me. I remember eating beans on toast in front of the telly with you on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I remember my eighth birthday, the last one we shared. You gave me a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and when I opened the first page I saw that you’d had it signed by JK Rowling. I said I wanted you to sign it too and you laughed and said only the author can sign a book. So I got you to kiss the back page instead. I still have it, with JK Rowling’s signature at the front and your lipstick mark at the back. Auntie Pat explained to me about your illness and I’ve read up on it too, and I understand that’s why I was taken into foster care. But I don’t remember that, Mum. All my memories of you are happy memories. You always made me feel like a special little girl and I wish so much that you were here today. I wish I could have grown up with you, gotten to know you as an adult. It’s been great talking to Auntie Pat and Uncle Adam about you. They have so many memories, so many lovely photographs. If only the public had been able to get to know the real you. Perhaps they really would have stopped buying the Daily Ear.
So, that’s my confession. I hope you can find it in your heart to understand and forgive me. But you’ll be pleased to learn that I am still your great secret. To this day, no one knows I’m your daughter. Uncle Adam kept me safe and he still is. As I write this letter, I’m on a plane heading for New York. I’m going to stay with him and his husband for a few months. He’s fine, by the way. The public still loves him, despite the best efforts of the Dai
ly Ear. He’s just launched the new season of clothes for a major high street store and starred in an advert they showed during the commercial break of Monday night’s Coronation Street. Well, it wasn’t during the commercial break so much as it was the commercial break. It was three minutes long and Uncle Adam was singing ‘Don’t Rain on my Parade’ and doing a fantastic dance routine with hundreds of extras. They reckon about four million extra viewers tuned in just for the advert.
He’s asked me to move to America to live with him full time. He thinks I’ll be safer over there, because the American press don’t know your story and would have no interest looking for your daughter. And I know I’d have so many amazing opportunities if I accepted his offer.
But I’m going to say no. I would miss Mum and Dad too much, and it’s nice spending time with Auntie Pat too. And I’ve so many really good friends in London, many of them from school. There are just too many people I would miss. And it feels like I would be leaving you behind too, and I really couldn’t do that. Besides, Uncle Adam is always jetting back and forth so I know I’ll get to see him regularly. It’s nice, having a superstar Uncle who takes me out to secret locations for dinner when he visits. It makes me feel special.
And I’m not sure the British press has quite got the message yet. I’m still keeping an eye on the Daily Ear and there are quite a few other papers which might need a taste of their own medicine sooner or later too. And, who knows, perhaps Project Ear will be back in business one day.
Maybe one evening at just before 9pm, some unsuspecting journalists or newspaper executive will answer their phone and hear that famous, calm voice saying, “Hello, this is Adam Jaymes. I just called to let you know it’s your turn.”