Kill For Love

by Ray Connolly

  She was, she knew, an attractive woman. She couldn't not know it, or be unaware that her looks had contributed to her success in television. She looked good on screen and because she talked well, too, she was favoured by those she wished to interview. With an efficient bob of dark brown hair, a fresh air complexion, a small, neat nose and the sort of educated, classless English accent which suited broadcasting, she also carried a measure of gravitas, an air aided by her five feet nine inches. Straight backed, she wore clothes well, and on this day she selected a tailored linen jacket, blue button down shirt and newly washed jeans.

  Her telephone rang again as she was finishing dressing. She'd ignored a couple of routine earlier calls, listening to the messages and deciding to return them later, but this was a new voice. "Miss Merrimac?" a woman asked. "This is the Hammersmith and Fulham Youth Offending Service." There was a hesitation as though the caller was wondering if anyone was there.

  Kate picked up the telephone. "Yes?"

  "Miss Merrimac? I'm sorry to bother you. My name is Helen Walker. Your name has been given to us by a young man called Jeroboam da Silva who was arrested by the police this morning." There was a pause. "You know Jeroboam, I believe."

  Kate frowned. "Yes. I know Jeroboam."

  He was waiting for her on the last of a row of chairs outside a door bearing the probation officer's name, his head poking from behind an old copy of Q magazine.

  “Not one word, Jeroboam," she said immediately.

  The boy looked down quickly.

  Across the room one of a posse of shaven headed braggadocios recognised her, and, grinning from under his baseball cap, excitedly told his pals. Immediately another in the gang muttered something, probably dirty, and the rest cackled.

  The probation officer's door opened. "Miss Merrimac?" Helen Walker, a plump black woman with a Yorkshire accent, wore the worn smile of the infinitely understanding. "Thank you for coming in."

  Kate looked at Jeroboam. "Don't move!" she breathed and entered the office.

  "It wasn't anything very serious." Helen Walker was considering the top page of a thick file lying open on her desk. "I don't know whether the police will press charges. It depends on the shop."

  "What do they say he took?" Kate asked.

  That she appeared to be suggesting that there might be any doubt about the allegation brought the suggestion of a smile to the probation officer. "They say he took three CDs. They also have CCTV evidence, statements from two shop assistants and another from a customer. It would appear Jeroboam didn't try very hard to conceal what he was doing."

  No, thought Kate, he wouldn't. She looked around the walls. They were plastered with admonitions not to take drugs, to beware of AIDS, to take precautions against unwanted pregnancy and to keep out of bad company, in between advertisements for healthy outdoor sporting activities, jolly smiling youth clubs, volunteer work with the aged and cookery classes. She couldn’t imagine where Jeroboam would fit into any of them.

  Helen Walker was watching her. "Jeroboam says you'll vouch for his good character." She looked again at her file. "I'm new here, but I see you've been in before to see my predecessor."

  "Once or twice,” Kate smiled ruefully. “What's the worst that could happen to him?”

  "Well, if he carries on like this… it'll be detention. Could he cope with that?"

  Kate’s eyebrows knitted. "I don't think so. He isn't..." she hesitated. "He isn't very confident."

  "I've read the reports, Miss Merrimac."

  "Yes."

  Helen Walker closed the file. "He's very proud about knowing you. I mean, knowing someone on the television. He didn't want me to telephone you at first, but we had to contact someone and his mother was at work. He was afraid that this time you wouldn't understand… that you'd be angry."

  "I am angry. Did the shop get the CDs back?"

  "One was damaged when he threw it away as he tried to run."

  "I'll pay for it. But don't let him know that."

  The probation officer shook her head. "No." She paused. "I don’t really know Jeroboam, yet, but I don’t think he's a bad boy!"

  “No,” Kate repeated. “He’s not a bad boy.”

  "I'm sorry." His voice was scarcely above a whisper.

  Kate concentrated on the road as she drove.

  "I won't do it again."

  She still didn't speak. She was afraid he probably would do it again or something like it. What she didn’t know was how to stop him doing it again, and how to get him to go to school in the mornings instead of roaming around shopping malls and getting into trouble. So she stayed silent as they drove. She knew he hated her averted eyes, but she didn't know what to say to him. She couldn't go on reprimanding him for ever without some sort of punishment.

  Reaching Shepherds Bush she took the opportunity of pretending to look down a side road to steal a glance at him. He didn't notice. He was gazing out of the car window, blinking back tears. Sitting there, small and brown, his ugly little face almost hidden under his mess of treacle black hair, his jeans badly scuffed and wearing only a yellow T-shirt, he looked younger than fifteen. He was also shivering slightly. After the balmy, late summer evening of the previous night’s concert, the temperature had plunged overnight, and at that moment the first sharp splash of the predicted rain hit the windscreen.

  "I'm taking you back to school," she said at last. "You must stay there all day. The probation officer has already spoken to your head teacher and he'll be keeping his eye on you."

  There was no response, but she knew he was listening.

  "You and I were supposed to meet tonight. Right?"

  At last a slow nod.

  "Well, we're not. The lesson's cancelled."

  The nod stopped.

  "If you want me to help you, you're going to have to mend your ways. I'm not going to waste my time teaching a petty thief. Do you understand?”

  Alongside her his small body was stiff with hurt. She wished he would look at her and say something, perhaps even answer her back. But that wasn't Jeroboam’s way. They drove on.

  In the end it was Kate who broke first. She couldn't bear to think of him being miserable all day. "What CDs did you take, anyway?" she asked as they drew up outside the iron railings of St Michael's special needs school.

  He half cleared his throat. "Roots Manuva, Jay-Z and Twist-O and the Koolboys’ new one."

  "And are they all good?"

  "Yes." He began to open the car door.

  A thought struck her. "I didn't know you had a CD player." When almost every other boy he knew would have an iPod and a computer, Jeroboam was scarcely into the steam age of music.

  He didn't answer.

  "You haven't stolen one of those, too, have you? A CD player? Because that’s really serious?"

  "No."

  She waited.

  "Honest."

  She believed him. He was a terrible liar. "So?" She still wanted an explanation.

  None was offered.

  There was nothing she could do. "All right, suit yourself, don't tell me. But don't forget what I said."

  "When will we...?"

  "Phone me on Friday. Perhaps I can find some time for you at the weekend...provided there's no more trouble! Now go!"

  Quickly Jeroboam slipped from the car and, closing the door quietly, hurried into the schoolyard without looking back. Kate watched him until he was inside the building, and then waited an extra two minutes in case he decided to slip out again. Finally, satisfied that he was going to stay at school, at least for the rest of the morning, she put the car into gear and started back across London towards the WSN television studios.

  It was raining quite heavily, the first rain of September, as her journey took her past Kensington Gardens and along the north side of Hyde Park. At Marble Arch the lights were on red, and, while waiting for them to change, she glanced across the road into the park. It was now clean-up time after the concert, and hundreds of casual workers with plastic bags and r
akes were stretched across the grass, wet, windswept chains of people collecting the now muddy detritus of the previous evening. Further on the high temple that had been the stage was being dismantled, leaving the stark skeleton of the scaffolding with its arteries and veins of cables and wires. The strings behind the multi-million pound puppet show were being revealed.

  Then the lights changed, and, as she moved forward again, she pictured Jeroboam sitting in class, silent and invisible. She’d made him cry. She wished she hadn’t.

  Chapter Four

  She felt at home in the WSN building, Kate reflected, as she slipped her car down the ramp into the underground parking area and then took the lift up to the newsroom. If the Third World was where she wanted to be when she was working, it was here, the WSN-TV studios, not her house, she thought about when she was away.

  Occupying renovated warehouses on the south side of the Thames just east of Blackfriars Bridge, WSN, without the wealth and resources of Sky or CNN, was a minnow when it came to foreign news gathering. But, rather than apologise for its lack of reach, the station’s policy was to make it a virtue. What WSN offered, boasted its station ident, was a "closer-to-the-edge" look at the news. It was an attitude that suited Kate perfectly.

  Because of Jeroboam's disruption of her morning she was late getting to work, and it was nearly two when she reached her place on the foreign desk. Across from her Ned Swann, the bull-mouthed foreign editor, was making a telephone call. "Someone in our picture library says he doesn't think the body hanging there is that of Alibuzir," he was shouting down the line to Kandahar. "She thinks it looks too young. Are we absolutely positive it's him?" A battle in Afghanistan had brought a roadside execution. It was part of a foreign editor's job to make sure that the right name was given to the right corpse, especially when the corpse was well known enough to be recognised by viewers.

  Frowning her sympathies for the correspondent in Kandahar, Kate took her seat by the window. From here she could watch the traffic on the river below, though more usually she faced the electronic litter of the newsroom, with its computers, telephones, banks of monitors, and, over the foreign desk, a digital clock which told the time in different cities around the world.

  Alongside her Chloe Estevez was looking at a monitor where report of a tornado in Texas was giving way to a story about a father and three young daughters who’d been found dead in their home in Birmingham.

  "Pretty kids," Chloe observed as a photograph of three fair haired girls on the back of a Shetland pony appeared. “The word is it looks like a mass poisoning."

  Pressing a headset to one ear, Kate listened to the commentary for a few moments.

  “…after the three children failed to turn up for school this morning. West Midlands Police say that they wish to speak to Elizabeth McDonagh, the children's mother, a pharmacist, who has not been seen since yesterday…"

  A tall figure was hovering at her side. It was Beverly, the intern, smiling, wanting to talk.

  "Wasn't last night the most perfect evening of your entire life!"

  “The best?” Kate put down the headset. “Well, I think there may have been one or two more fun moments over the years. I had a good time camping on Exmoor with the Girl Guides when I was eleven, though it rained every day, and …”

  “I meant Jesse. I was in the middle of the crowd. He was incredible. Don’t tell me you weren’t impressed. I recorded your report and played it back when I got home. You were, admit it!”

  “Oh him! Yes. He was all right, I suppose. Until I met him, I mean…”

  "You met Jesse! Oh my God!" Beverly turned to Chloe. "Did you hear that? She actually met him!”

  Across the desk Chloe was smiling.

  "What was he like? What did he say? Did you speak to him? Is he as dreamy close up...? Yes! Don’t answer that. I know he is! Those eyes! Did you touch him? I mean, like, shake his hand, or…what did he say?” Beverly was almost giggling with excitement.

  Kate laughed. "I'll tell you about it later. Now what about getting me some coffee?"

  "Anything for someone who met Jesse..." And Beverly hurried off to the canteen.

  Shaking her head, Kate turned her attention to the pile of mail lying on her desk. Apart from a postcard from Hetty, the foreign desk’s secretary who was honeymooning in Barbados, it consisted mainly of Press releases from embassies, relief agencies and environmental movements. There was also a fan letter. Usually letters from the public were either complaints, questioning a detail in a report, or flattering, complimenting her on her appearance. Now and then, however, a more personal preoccupation emerged, such as today's invitation from a businessman with a tyre concession in Syria who wanted her to telephone him to talk "about sex and associated matters to our mutual pleasure and ultimate satisfaction".

  "Now that's friendly," she said, passing the letter to Ned Swann who'd lost his connection to Kandahar.

  Swann's wide nose sniffed at the perfumed notepaper as he read it. "The bastard could at least have suggested a collect call," he grumbled. "Syria isn't cheap. I'm not having you giving phone sex on my budget."

  Amused, Kate examined a photograph of the correspondent that had fallen from the envelope. In early middle age, the guy wasn't bad looking, if a little heavy. "I must look desperate, because he obviously thinks he'll be doing me a favour.”

  "Well, you never know. It could be a real live Road to Damascus experience for you!" And Ned punched another phone number.

  “I never will know.” And dropping the letter into a wastepaper basket, she turned on her computer. There were over twenty messages waiting. Some were old and routine, which she continued to ignore, along with an effusive one from Seb Browne thanking her for her work at the Gadden concert and suggesting lunch some time. Immediately she began to conjure up excuses. Browne chased girls. She didn't have time to waste dodging him.

  The most recent message was the most important. It was from the editor-in-chief's secretary, asking if she was free for a meeting with him that afternoon.

  "At last!" she breathed.

  Neil Fraser put down his teacup and smiled awkwardly over delicate half moon glasses, incongruous ornaments on such a powerfully built man. "The trouble is, Kate, at the moment people are nervous."

  "Nervous?" She was puzzled.

  Fraser nodded.

  "Why? I don't understand." Kate hadn't touched her cup. The very offer of tea had surprised her. Tea was never offered when good news was about to be imparted. Tea came with sympathy.

  "Well, I suppose, after what happened, the worry is that…sometimes you go further than is good for you or your team."

  This was not the conversation she'd anticipated. "I'm a reporter..." she began and then stopped in surprise at herself. It had come out sounding like an excuse.

  "And a very good one. But you take risks."

  Kate stared at Fraser across his wide desk. Once a celebrated rower, now, at 55, he looked as though his shirts were too flimsy to contain his muscle bulk which was melting into sponge flesh. "I don't get it. I thought WSN was supposed to be 'closer-to-the-edge'. If we step back we become like all the others."

  Fraser's embarrassment faded. He was a proud man and didn't enjoy having a marketing slogan thrown in his face. "No one's talking about stepping back. But there's a difference between taking acceptable risks to pursue a story, and being so…so over-eager you endanger…well, not only your own life but the safety of…”

  So finally it was in the open. After weeks of being fobbed off with petty excuses she was hearing it straight. "Over-eager? You think that’s what I am?”

  Fraser played with the spinning glass globe WSN symbol which sat on his desk, then looked up. “What I think, Kate, is that I’m not sure you're ready to go back yet. Owoso was..."

  "I'm absolutely ready."

  He didn’t give an inch. "I think you're still...a little..." He hesitated, seeking the appropriate word.

  "A little what? Emotional? Shell shocked? Unbalanced? Disturbed
? Over-eager!"

  "You witnessed a nightmare. You said it yourself in your reports. We saw the pictures. It was worse than that."

  She didn't need reminding.

  “Look, you've been ill. Recovery takes time. You're expecting too much of yourself…"

  She’d heard enough. "So I'm grounded? Is that what you're saying?"

  Fraser measured his words. "I think, at this moment you can be of more use to us working here in London, a special correspondent, perhaps...taking a few turns as anchorwoman. You're good at that."

  "Where you can keep an eye on me, too, right?"

  Fraser picked up his cup.

  She sat at her desk and watched as the speed of the afternoon accelerated. Asia had long since passed the news torch to Europe and now it was becoming America's turn in the eternal global relay of action, reaction, information and counter action. Reports were coming in from Kabul, New York, Moscow, Iceland, Brazil and Washington. She felt left out, shut out of the rest of the world. Fraser's words played in her mind. Was he right? Did she drag cameramen and producers into jeopardy? Then, as always, the question: had her presence and the presence of the camera made it happen?

  "You got the message about Jesse Gadden, did you, Kate?"

  She crawled out from her ruminations. "I'm sorry?"

  The temporary secretary pointed at her monitor. "I left it with your messages when you were in your meeting."

  She turned to her screen.

  “Someone called Petra Kerinova telephoned about your request for an interview with Jesse Gadden. She says nothing can be promised, but she's discussed it with him and would like to speak to you, if you could return her call,” the message ran, ending with a phone number.

  She frowned: Petra Kerinova, the Estonian gatekeeper. Was this is? Was she now reduced to pursuing rock stars? “Not today,” she said aloud.