The Dead Dog Day

by Jackie Kabler

  He flipped open his laptop and began composing an email to Cora Baxter.

  20

  Tuesday 9th January

  ‘I need a can of beans, a tin of drinking chocolate, a packet of digestive biscuits, and a Noodle Pot. And I’m in a huge hurry – so, quick as you can, please.’

  Cora looked at her watch, feeling increasingly stressed. She’d still heard nothing from Justin and the whole thing was making her feel ill. Plus, it was 3 a.m., she had a two and a half hour drive ahead of her and she was trying to buy props for this morning’s broadcast from a garage shop assistant who seemed to be somewhat less active than a sloth.

  ‘Can of beans. What were the other things again?’ he said slowly, squinty eyes peering at her from a blubbery face.

  ‘Drinking chocolate, digestives, Noodle Pot,’ Cora snapped, finding it hard to conceal her irritation. She hated the security measures that meant you couldn’t actually go into most urban garage shops during the night, but had to ask the staff to get your shopping for you and pass it through a hatch. Especially when she was tired and grumpy.

  ‘Drinking chocolate, digestives, Noodle Pot,’ repeated the cashier, and lumbered off again.

  Cora sighed and tapped out a quick text to Nathan to tell him she’d probably be a little late on location this morning. They were broadcasting from a restaurant kitchen in Liverpool, along with a nutritionist who’d be talking about ‘high salt food’. Apparently half a tin of beans had as much salt as five bags of crisps, and the other items on her list were equally surprisingly salty.

  The assistant was back. ‘Got your biscuits and your drinking chocolate. Wot flavour Noodle Pot?’

  ‘I don’t care. Anything,’ said Cora, who’d never eaten a Noodle Pot in her life.

  ‘But there’s loads to choose from,’ the boy said, frowning. He started counting on his fat and not entirely clean fingers. ‘There’s beef and red pepper, chilli chicken, tikka masala, sweet and sour …’

  ‘I DON’T CARE.’

  Cora spoke rather more loudly than she’d intended, then paused as the cashier pouted sulkily. ‘I’m sorry – it’s just that I really am in a hurry. I honestly don’t care what flavour, I’m not going to eat it. Just get the nearest one. Thanks.’ She smiled, mentally urging the boy to get a bloody move on.

  He looked at her wide-eyed, seemingly bemused that somebody was urgently buying food at three in the morning but was not going to eat it, then shrugged and shuffled off to the grocery shelf again, coming back moments later with the packet.

  Gratefully Cora paid, ran back to her car, threw the bag onto the passenger seat and hit the road. Once she was on the motorway and doing a steady eighty miles an hour northbound, she was able to breathe again. This sort of stress really wasn’t good for you.

  She flicked the radio on and relaxed a bit, smiling a little as the eighties music show brought back school-day memories. Positive thoughts, that’s what she needed. Otherwise she was going to go mad, which wouldn’t help anybody. Positive thoughts. Paint on a smile. She forced her lips into a wider grin, which suddenly became a natural beam as she remembered what she would be doing on the coming Friday night. Because, amazingly, on Friday night she, Cora Baxter, would be going on a date. And only with Benjamin bloody Boland!

  The email she’d received from him yesterday had actually been very sweet, once she’d got over the shock. No mention of diarrhoea. Simply a nice message, saying he’d been thinking about her since they’d met in the bar, and that he would really like to see her again, and if by any chance she was free on Friday night he would be honoured if she’d let him take her out for dinner.

  ‘Honoured? Honoured?’ Nicole had snorted down the phone when an excited Cora had rung to fill her in.

  ‘What’s happened to him – has he acquired a time machine and gone back to the 1950s on that travel show of his or something? Who says honoured nowadays?’

  But she was genuinely pleased for Cora, as were Rosie, Wendy, and Sam who’d all received similar phone calls in quick succession. Cora – their friend, Cora – was going out with Benjamin Boland, the hottest man on television.

  ‘I cannot WAIT till Saturday to hear all the gossip. Seriously, Cora – do NOT get too drunk,’ Sam had warned her. ‘You need to be able to remember every minute of that date.’

  Now, as she drove in the dark on the M5, Cora started planning what to wear on Friday, a little flutter of excitement building inside her. It had been so long since she’d had a date with somebody new.

  ‘Just don’t make a prat of yourself with him again,’ she said to herself sternly.

  And, Justin and mysterious murders temporarily forgotten, she turned the music up and sang along loudly and happily all the way to Liverpool.

  21

  Friday 12th January

  Fridays were pretty much the same as any other day of the week for a police murder investigation team. Especially for a police murder investigation team which was rapidly running out of suspects, and ideas. But as lunchtime came, and the rustle of sandwich bags and crunching of crisps temporarily replaced the tense buzz in the incident room, things suddenly stepped up a gear.

  ‘Look at this, boss.’

  Adam looked up from his bacon and egg, all-day breakfast roll and wiped a smear of brown sauce from his top lip. He swallowed.

  ‘What is it, Karen?’

  ‘OK – so Scott Edson, the angry engineer who’d been in to see Jeanette Kendrick for a 7 a.m. disciplinary, went down in the lift and left the building around 7.40, right?’

  ‘Right.’ Adam took another nibble of his roll.

  ‘And when we brought him in, he told us he drove straight home. So he should have headed out west, this way – look – along the Victoria Embankment, and then onto the A4 and M4.’ Her index finger with its bitten nail traced the route on a map on the wall.

  ‘OK. So – problem?’

  ‘Yes, problem. Well, problem for him anyway. We’ve tracked his van, and he certainly didn’t go straight home. For a start, we have CCTV footage showing the vehicle at a Shell garage here’ – she pointed again – ‘at 8.20. That’s about forty minutes after he left TV Centre. He should have been miles away by that time.’

  Adam stared at the map. The garage Karen was indicating was on Southwark Bridge Road. Not only was that, at a guess, less than five minutes’ drive from TV Centre, but it was in completely the wrong direction for Edson’s drive home.

  ‘So he lied. He didn’t go straight home.’

  ‘Looks like it. TV Centre to that garage is about a four-minute drive if the roads are quiet. Even if it took, say, ten or fifteen minutes maximum to get there in rush hour traffic, that still leaves a lot of time unaccounted for. So what was he doing between 7.40 when he left, and 8.20 when he’s still only a few minutes’ drive away? And most importantly, did he come back into the building during that time and chuck somebody out of a window?’

  Adam nodded slowly. ‘Let’s talk to him again. Lean on him a bit. Actually, lean on him a lot. And find out exactly where he went after he pulled out of the TV Centre car park. Good work, Karen.’

  Adam took a long slug of coffee, screwed his brown paper sandwich wrapper in a ball, and aimed it at the bin opposite his desk. Bull’s-eye.

  For breakfast TV staff, Friday was always the best day of the week. As soon as the Morning Live closing credits rolled at 9.30, the weekend officially began, with no more work until Sunday afternoon when the dreaded call from the newsroom would come, telling the show’s crews and reporters where in the country they were needed to be for Monday’s programme.

  For Cora, this particular Friday was an extra good one. After her morning broadcasts in Reading she’d driven to London and checked into her usual hotel. Now she opened her wardrobe door and surveyed the six outfits she’d brought with her.

  ‘So, Benjamin – which one is it to be?’ she said out loud. Pulling each garment out in turn, she held them in front of her and studied herself critically in the mirror.
Not the orange dress – why had she brought that? Too clingy, although she looked great in it on a thin day. But, no. She didn’t want to look as though she was trying to emulate one of her date’s usual model types.

  The black shift? Possibly. Simple, classy. But a bit too plain, maybe, for a Friday night out in London? She threw the two dresses on a chair and grabbed a black pencil skirt with a full-length zip down the back, and a sleeveless print shirt. With her black killer heels, definitely a sexy look. But – maybe too ‘secretary’?

  ‘Aaagh, I just don’t know!’ Cora groaned, wishing one of her girlfriends was around. She sat on the bed and looked at the black dress. Justin had always loved her in that.

  Justin. She thought about him for a minute, her continuing anxiety about the situation suddenly turning into a flash of irritation. He’d said in that last message that he’d be in touch – why on earth was he taking so long, and ignoring her repeated messages? She was still determined to somehow get an explanation for his weird behaviour outside TV Centre, and for his disappearing act, no matter how long it took. But there were limits to her patience, and she was definitely reaching them. She was about to go on a date with someone else, and she needed closure with Justin. So if messages begging him to contact her weren’t working, what else could she do? An idea struck her and, impulsively, she picked up her phone and tapped out a Twitter direct message.

  @CoraBaxterMLive @a-friend Justin – get in touch. I haven’t said anything to the police about you in the CCTV. But I might. IF YOU DON’T CALL ME.

  Would that do it? It wasn’t exactly a threat, but it might spur him into action. Satisfied, she put the phone down and reached for the wardrobe again. The final three outfits were a pretty, purple, one-shouldered dress, with one full-length sleeve – another possibility, thought Cora – a white knitted maxi-dress (quickly dismissed for being too ‘Snow Queen’), and a grey silk shift with a low-cut back.

  Cora picked up the black, purple and grey dresses for a second time, laid them all out on the bed and gazed at them for a full minute. Then, still undecided, she sighed and went to run a deep, bubbly bath. A minute later, she returned to the bedroom, opened the mini-bar and grabbed a quarter-bottle of champagne. She looked at the dresses once more and made a snap decision.

  ‘I choose – you,’ she said dramatically, pointing at the grey shift. Then she and her champagne headed off for a delicious soak.

  An hour and a half later, she brushed on a final coat of mascara and checked her reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the hotel room door. The soft grey silk skimmed her curves, the scooped back showing off her lightly bronzed skin (courtesy of a subtle spray tan expertly applied by Rosie two nights earlier). Her favourite, diamond cuff bracelet, grey skyscraper-high Vivienne Westwood heels, and a studded clutch bag completed the look. Satisfied, but feeling more than a little nervous despite the champagne, Cora grabbed her coat and headed off for her date with Benjamin Boland.

  22

  ‘A traffic exhibition? Seriously? You’re winding me up!’

  Benjamin laughed, perfect teeth flashing, and Cora grinned back at him.

  ‘Seriously. There’s loads of them. Road traffic technology. I had to do a live broadcast from the NEC with traffic cones and make them sound interesting, I kid you not. I get all the glamorous jobs, you know.’

  Benjamin shook his head in amazement and held out his glass. ‘Well, cheers to you then, Miss Baxter. You’re even more brilliant than I thought you were!’

  They clinked glasses, and Benjamin gestured to a passing waiter for another bottle of champagne. Cora leaned back in her seat, relaxed and more cheerful than she’d felt in ages. Who would have thought it? Her date was actually incredibly good company – charming, funny, and intelligent, and a lot less arrogant than his TV persona suggested. Obviously a little vain, but she was starting to suspect he wasn’t quite as outrageously confident as he seemed. He was quite sweet actually. Delighted that she’d agreed to go out with him, Cora sipped her drink happily as Benjamin told her about the antics of his crew on a recent filming trip to Lapland. Justin – Justin who?

  They’d been swapping television tales for nearly two hours now, ensconced in a cosy booth with purple velvet sofas in the VIP area of a trendy hotel. It was actually the after-party of the latest Guy Ritchie film premiere, although they hadn’t gone to the film itself. Instead, Benjamin had taken her for a delicious meal at Claridges, before suggesting they pop in at the party on the way home.

  Cora had been amused and slightly horrified when they were papped on the red carpet on the way in – photographers didn’t normally bother her when she was alone, but as Benjamin Boland’s date she was suddenly, it seemed, fair game. Thankful she was wearing a nice dress, she’d pulled her stomach in and posed like a pro, Benjamin’s arm protectively round her shoulder.

  Once inside, he’d whizzed her round the room at breakneck speed, exchanging hearty handshakes and air kisses with supermodels, soap stars, and Premiership footballers, before whisking her into the VIP area. And there they’d sat, sipping Dom Pérignon and nibbling on arty finger food, oblivious to the wall-to-wall celebrities around them.

  To his credit, Benjamin had waited until the date had been at least two hours old before he’d mentioned diarrhoea. Eyes sparkling mischievously, he’d leaned across the restaurant table and hissed: ‘So – any joy with that cleaning job then?’

  Cora had stared at him, bemused.

  ‘Pardon? What cleaning job?’

  ‘You know – the one in the home. For the people with that awful incurable condition. The one you said you’d rather do than sleep with me.’

  He’d grinned widely as Cora blushed beetroot red.

  ‘OK, OK, I suppose I owe you an explanation,’ she’d muttered, mortified. And quickly, without going into too much gory detail, she’d explained about Justin and the baby thing.

  ‘It was just bad timing – and an unfortunate turn of phrase, you know, when you asked me to go and make babies. I didn’t mean I don’t want to sleep with you. Er, not that I’m suggesting I do, of course,’ she stuttered, blushing furiously again.

  ‘Of course not,’ he’d replied, raising an amused eyebrow.

  Then to Cora’s immense relief, he’d taken pity on her, stopped teasing, squeezed her hand and changed the subject.

  Now, her embarrassment forgotten, she tried not to think about how incredibly attractive he was as they chatted, knees gently touching under the table in a way that kept making her stomach do little somersaults.

  ‘So – how did you get the Morning Live job in the first place? You said you started in regional news, right?’

  Cora nodded. ‘Yep. Newspapers first, then local TV news. Then I saw a job ad for an overnight producer on the national breakfast show and got a six-month contract. I never really wanted to be a producer, but it seemed like a good way in. The night shifts were awful though – I hated them.’

  Benjamin nodded sympathetically and topped up their glasses. Cora watched him, trying to ignore the young East Enders star and her pop singer boyfriend frantically making out in the next booth. She dragged her attention back to the conversation as the girl vanished under the table. Good grief!

  ‘Anyway …’ she continued. ‘When a reporter job came up I applied and because Jeanette already knew me and – amazingly – sort of trusted me, she gave me the job. And here I am!’

  ‘You’re here – but she isn’t, eh? Weird, that murder thing, wasn’t it?’ Benjamin said. ‘Police got any ideas yet?’

  Cora shook her head. ‘If they have, they’re not telling us. I’m supposed to be doing regular updates for the programme, but there’s been practically nothing to report so far. She wasn’t exactly popular though – did you ever meet her?’

  ‘Several times.’ Benjamin grinned. ‘She was definitely a ballbreaker. I could see straight away why she had such a bad reputation in the industry – no interpersonal skills at all, really quite unpleasant. She tried to get m
e involved in Morning Live a while back, did you know that? Wanted me to do holiday cover for Jeremy what’s-his-name, said it would attract a younger female audience. Couldn’t pay me enough though. I don’t do getting up early, and I don’t do sitting on sofas. That show would bore the pants off me. No offence.’

  His eyes twinkled and Cora punched him gently on the arm. Wow, muscles, she thought, and then turned as there was a sudden commotion at the entrance to the VIP area. Tara Kilcoyne, the British acting sensation who’d just landed her first role in a Hollywood blockbuster, flounced in, her killer figure barely covered in a tiny sequinned minidress. She was flanked by three hugely tall men in black suits and, despite it being night time, indoors and dimly lit, dark sunglasses.

  Strutting towards the bar, she spotted Benjamin, pouted and waved a skinny hand bearing an enormous emerald ring, then wiggled past.

  ‘You know her, then?’ Cora looked down at her own modest dress, feeling a little inadequate.

  ‘Oh, not really. We had a snog once at some do. It was ages ago, before she hit the big time. She’s gorgeous, but thick as a … thick thing. Anyway – what were we talking about?’

  ‘Er … career paths, I think! So what about you? How did you get to be TV’s action hero?’

  Benjamin shrugged modestly and gave her a quick summary of his journey from personal fitness trainer to TV star.

  ‘Right place, right time. Used to train this TV producer, and when she heard about this new travel show that wanted an unknown she suggested I audition. And the rest is history.’

  Cora was right though. Benjamin Boland was, at thirty-five, becoming a bit of a British TV legend. Host for the past five years of the BBC’s flagship adventure travel show, Go!, he revelled in the exhilarating and often perilous activities the show demanded of him. The prime-time programme had been launched as an antidote to the tired old travel show format in which presenters did nothing more exciting than wander along beaches and sip cocktails in glamorous locations. Go! was entirely different, with its team of presenters, led by Benjamin, travelling to some of the most remote destinations in the world. Five years on, he was rarely out of the papers or off the ‘Sexiest Man on TV’ lists. Plus, with his fat fee – which he’d managed to re-negotiate again this year despite all the budget cuts in TV nowadays – as well as all the cash from guest appearances and celebrity magazine deals, he was making a small fortune. He was at the top of his game, and he was loving it.