What She Left: Enhanced Edition

by T. R. Richmond

  This latest explosive revelation is set to raise further questions about the death of journalist Salmon, whose body was discovered in a city-centre river, leaving the authorities baffled as to the exact events surrounding the incident.

  Parker said: ‘Alice confided in me about how she’d come home one night to find a bouquet of dead flowers, with a note pinned to them saying “You next” .’

  One suggestion is that the threat could have been connected with Salmon’s work as an anti-crime journalist, which helped to bring high-profile prosecutions against more than one south-coast criminal.

  ‘She’d been getting threats for ages,’ added Cheltenham-based Parker. ‘She used to go out on these crazy long walks on Clapham Common – I was constantly warning her how dangerous it was doing that at night – but she’d even stopped that because she was convinced she was being followed.

  ‘I only wish she’d gone to the police, but she made me promise to keep it a secret. She reckoned even sharing it with me could have put me in danger. She was the bravest woman I’ve ever met.’

  Parker, who’s considering closing her social-media accounts for fear of recriminations over her connections with the crime-buster, said she was speaking out now as a mark of respect for her friend.

  She said the tragic death had ‘knocked her for six’, but played down rumours of a spat among Salmon’s friends. ‘In our own separate ways, we all feel some accountability. I was well aware she hadn’t been happy for the last couple of months and stood by and watched her spiralling downhill. I’ll never forgive myself for that.

  ‘There are a lot of crazy allegations being bandied around, but ultimately this may have simply been a terrible accident. She’d made a lot of enemies, but it would be conjecture to assume that they had any bearing on all this. We may have to accept that we’ll never piece together the chain of events that led to Alice’s death.’

  In an article for leading women’s magazine Azure as recently as last October, Salmon herself disclosed a feeling of ‘watching life through a pane of thick glass’ and detailed how she ‘simply wasn’t designed for it’.

  Hampshire Police confirmed this morning that they were keeping an ‘open mind’ on the case. ‘It’s a live investigation with multiple lines of enquiry,’ a spokesman said. ‘Meanwhile, we have assigned the Salmons a family liaison officer and once again extend our sympathies to the family and friends of Miss Salmon.’

  The case continues to grip the public’s imagination and these latest revelations, following feverish media coverage, will inevitably put it back in the spotlight.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if some scumbag she’d banged up went after her,’ one Star reader commented on our Facebook page. ‘Crime is rife in all our cities … Salmon took a few big scalps and villains can’t be seen to let journalists take liberties.’

  The photograph on this article was replaced on March 16. The original showed Megan Parker, Alice Salmon and a third woman identified in the caption as ‘ill-fated Salmon’s friend Kirsty Blake’. Ms Blake has asked us to make clear she was not the person in the picture and asked us to remove it, which we were pleased to do.

  Email received by Alice Salmon from editor of Azure magazine, 2 November 2010

  Hi Alice,

  Thank you for your idea, which I read with interest. It was swirling around my head on the train on this morning’s commute and that’s typically a good barometer of a piece’s potential strength! We’d need you to major on the personal element in terms of how diary-keeping helped you address some of your teenage issues, but use the proposed national diary archive as a nice topical hook. Let’s grab a few minutes on the phone to nail a detailed brief.

  Call me.

  Olivia x

  PS: ‘An antidote to life’ – I adore that line. Is that yours or a quote from somewhere?

  Blog post by Megan Parker,

  27 March 2012, 19.13 p.m.

  ‘Megan Parker, best friend.’

  At least they introduced me correctly, Alice, although it went rapidly downhill. Maybe I was naive, like those idiots who go on Big Brother convinced they’ll be portrayed flatteringly.

  ‘Best friends have such a special bond,’ the journalist had said, when she contacted me via LinkedIn. ‘Doing an interview would be a chance to explain why she was so important to you.’

  To avoid any curveballs, I enquired what her first question would be before the cameras rolled.

  ‘That’s easy. It’ll be: Describe Alice.’

  She was true to her word on that one.

  ‘Kind,’ I said. ‘Beautiful. Talented.’

  The journalist, Arabella, nodded encouragingly and the camera twitched in the corner of my eye. She’d insisted we did this by the river. ‘It’ll help put your comments in context,’ she told me. ‘It’ll help make it feel more real to viewers.’

  ‘Can you give me an example of those things, Megan?’

  She’d used my name a lot, to reassure me we were friends, on the same side, team Alice. I’m fully au fait with all the devices and tricks journos use; that’s what working in PR does for you.

  I recounted the tale of you travelling halfway across Southampton on a mercy mission once when I was laid up with flu, then said there’d never been a dull moment when you were around: you were a total live wire. Cue enthusiastic nodding: I was delivering.

  ‘Megan, how did you feel when you heard your best friend had died?’

  You would have chuckled at that one. Clichéd, you’d have said.

  ‘Shattered,’ I said. ‘Numb. I still am. I’ve never been without her before. We were besties, even when we were small.’

  We were standing at the spot where – depending on who you listen to – you entered the water.

  ‘Tell us about that, about when you were small.’

  I bumbled that one a bit, managing to claim we’d met when we were five and then six. Stupidly, I hadn’t done any planning, preferring to speak from the heart.

  ‘Any particular memories from when you were that age you’d like to share with viewers?’

  I gave her lots, but none made the final edit. They were cut – probably by an intern or media studies graduate, a whizz with Final Cut Pro, desperate to produce a hard-hitting piece of work for their portfolio. There was no room for that sort of colour; they had a very specific angle in mind.

  The journalist smiled, a practised well-worn manoeuvre. ‘What’s your take on what might have occurred that night?’

  What I should have said was it wasn’t my place to speculate and that we’d be better placed to respond once the facts had come to light, but for now, out of respect for your family, we should hold off conjecture. But what I said – and it was stupid, I’m not unaware of that, but being by the river had upset me and this woman had thrown me off kilter – was: ‘I wished she hadn’t drunk as much.’

  ‘Was she very drunk?’

  ‘I wasn’t there.’

  ‘Is there a lesson in this for other young women drinking on nights out? For us all perhaps?’

  I broke down and felt the forensic heat of the camera. They left that in, of course they left that in. Nothing like a few tears to serve up with the microwave meals and cups of tea, as long as they’re someone else’s.

  ‘Was Alice popular?’

  ‘Massively,’ I said. ‘Everyone loved her. But me most.’

  ‘You’ve spoken of her receiving threats.’

  ‘I loved her so much.’

  ‘This must be devastating for her friends. Her boyfriend, especially – did she have a boyfriend?’

  I hesitated, praying she’d throw me a lifeline. She could have said, ‘I gather she was a fan of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ or ‘She was planning a sponsored half marathon, I believe?’, but she’d picked up a scent. ‘She did have a boyfriend?’

  As if she wasn’t perfectly well aware of that fact. She’d have done her research, watched other clips, read up on today’s subject: Alice Salmon.

&
nbsp; ‘Yes, sort of.’ What I should have done was sworn – I’d been taught on a course that if a media interview’s going badly wrong, swear, because then they’ll then be forced to cut it.

  ‘I heard she was about to get married.’

  ‘Was she?’ I asked, dumbfounded.

  I should have done this interview in the days following your death rather than seven weeks afterwards. They’d have been more respectful then. It was a tragedy then, nothing more. Now, the ‘isn’t it awful she’s dead’ angle had been done. They were after a new hook; in editorial meetings they’d have discussed how they could ‘take the story on’ and some bright spark would have mentioned there was a lot of chatter on the Internet about threats, about how drunk she was, about a rift with her boyfriend. What is it they say? If it bleeds, it leads. This wasn’t the sort of journo you were. ‘We haven’t heard much from her friends – she must have had a best friend, get her best friend,’ the news editor would have said.

  So they got me.

  ‘I hear she was quite a complicated individual,’ the interviewer said.

  I was a breath away from shouting, ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ But I was desperate to make it right, to leave everyone with the right impression of you, to make you proud of me for having put myself in front of a camera when I hated the limelight. So I said yes, a woman of many sides, hidden depths, not without contradictions, and with every answer you slipped a fraction further from me.

  ‘I’m interested in what her boyfriend Luke is like,’ she said.

  ‘He’s a good actor,’ I said and immediately regretted it.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No comment,’ I said.

  The cameras switched off, they un-miked me. ‘Thanks, sweetie,’ Arabella said. ‘You were perfect.’

  ‘Is that it? There’s other stuff I’d like to share.’

  ‘Another time, sweetie.’

  I knew how it worked. They’d pack up their kit, grab lunch on the hoof and head back to the studio. She’d make a diary note to revisit the topic when they were next covering binge drinking or if there’s a heatwave this summer and they’re doing a slot on the dangers of swimming. Possibly a year on; yes, that’s always an easy story: the anniversary angle.

  ‘Are you proud of what you do?’ I asked and any sympathy she might have had over how I was edited dissipated.

  Her colleague informed me the segment would ‘probably’ make the six o’clock show, but that depended on whether something ‘bigger’ happened between now and then. ‘With a bit of luck, it’ll air at nine as well,’ she said.

  I rang your parents, explained there’d be more on the news tonight, and apologized.

  Predictably, the report ended with the shot of me looking wistfully across the water. In the end it went out at six and nine and then again at ten. I’d obviously cried enough.

  Extract from Alice Salmon’s diary,

  20 May 2010, age 23

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Is that the best you can do? Nice. You’re a journalist, woman!’

  ‘OK, extremely nice.’

  Meg was in town for a meeting so we were grabbing a pizza. Chief subject of conversation: Luke.

  We’d had exchanges like this since we first got interested in boys. Sometimes her asking the questions, sometimes me. I showed her his Facebook avatar. ‘Looks a bit like David Tennant, wouldn’t you say? Without the Tardis, obviously.’

  ‘Is he keen? How often does he text? Once a day or more than once a day?’

  ‘More. Five, six times … sometimes more.’

  ‘Oh my God, he’s a psychopath!’

  As if on cue, a text landed. We both laughed. I explained he works in software – not the geeky end, project management, people management – and how he comes across as a bit of a lad on first impressions: he’d turned up for our second date with a black eye from rugby, but that was all show. ‘He’s a fantastic listener, too.’

  ‘Remind me, how many times exactly have you seen him?’ Meg asked. ‘You sound as if you’ve known him forever.’

  ‘Twice. Three times if you count when we met.’

  Luke reckons it was me who started chatting to him in the Porterhouse, but it was definitely the other way round. ‘I’m hoping you’ll give me your number,’ he’d said, and I’d had to call it out three times because it was so noisy. He’d dialled it on his phone, pressed ring and I saw my phone light up briefly in my handbag. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Got you now.’

  For our first date we went for drinks in Clapham Junction and Balham, then last weekend we went to the cinema because that’s second-date law. At one point he referred to a skiing holiday and said ‘we’, but that needn’t necessarily have meant a woman, that could have been friends. Then he just out and said he’d been seeing someone, Amy, last year and asked when I last dated.

  ‘I’m practically a nun,’ I told him.

  ‘My last relationship didn’t exactly end brilliantly,’ he said.

  ‘They never do,’ I replied, recalling how I’d dumped Ben with a flush of shame. But everything before now is irrelevant; it’s history. Yes, it had got pretty bad last year – I’d ended up going to the doctor and, because I’ve been prescribed antidepressants before, he asked the mandatory ‘How do you feel?’ question, but it’s a nothing question; journalists and TV presenters use it all the time. It’s lazy. Then when I said ‘fine mostly’ he suggested I made another appointment. And when I walked back out through the waiting room I saw young mums, and figured maybe that wouldn’t ever be me, and geriatric grannies, and figured that also probably wouldn’t ever be me, and there was a screen explaining how they’re giving out fewer antibiotics because they’ve handed them out so liberally we’re all going to die through lack of resistance, and I half considered going back and telling the doctor that that’s what it was like, that sometimes it felt as if I had a lack of resistance to the entire world. But erasing the past, it’s as easy as rolling your finger over the wheel on the mouse, block-highlighting emails and hitting delete. Gone. Sitting in the cinema with Luke – we ended up opting for Robin Hood – I’d realized this could be a fresh start. I’m seeing him tomorrow, too. The theatre, daaaarhhhling. It’s lovely, this sense of anticipation, optimism. I’m happy. And please note: No artificial substances were used in the making of this diary entry!

  Going home from the Porterhouse, I’d looked at his number and wondered how long it would stay in my phone: whether it would merely be a ‘recent’, moving down until it dropped off the bottom, or if I’d save it into contacts. Contemplated if it would become one I’d eventually know off by heart. Stop it, Alice, I’d told myself. Don’t get carried away. You’re building yourself up for a fall.

  Because pretty much the only thing I’ve been certain of up to now is that being me isn’t enough. Like, I’ve always wanted to run a marathon, but the other week standing outside Balham Bowls Club, I thought: This is the me I want to be, the one who’d just been passed her third glass of wine and was puffing on a Marlboro Light. Sod training for a marathon, I’d thought, you’re only young once, life’s like Scrabble, you shouldn’t save your good letters, you’ve got to use them as soon as you get them. But on the train heading home from Covent Garden, it felt enough.

  Maybe you’ve come along just in time, Luke.

  Everything’s changing. I’m getting a promotion at work. I’ll be a senior reporter, no less. I like my job. I like the person I am there and, yes, I might have to interview crazies and listen to psychos protest their innocence, but I get to meet incredible kids who’ve got cerebral palsy but are still determined to go to uni, or lovely old ladies reunited with long-lost relatives after half a century. I’ve got the hang of this career business, just as I got the hang of being a student, the niceties and nuances of my profession: the intros and paras and bylines, the NIBs and briefs and DPSs. Our language.

  Everyone’s changing. Meg’s determined to quit PR and considering return
ing to full-time education, Alex has got a new girlfriend, Soph’s got a new boyfriend, Robbie’s landed himself a partnership. Even Rusty has disappeared. I kid myself he’s moved on, but he’s probably dead. He had fun while it lasted. He gathered his rosebuds. Where have I heard that expression before? That’ll niggle at me now, like a word on the tip of my tongue.

  I finish my camomile tea. That girl Luke mentioned he was seeing last year, I wonder if he meant he was seeing her during last year – or had been seeing her for longer and it only ended last year. The former, I hope.

  Dating, that can be my word for this diary entry. Yes, that sounds good. Dating.

  There is some truth in what Meg said. I do feel as if I’ve known Luke forever.