‘Arguably, he’s more famous for shagging his ghost writer,’ Morag said. ‘And these days, for being a social media liability. Old military links, I assume. Before the war – and this is well before your time – Britain was fairly chummy with the junta, back when we believed in the Red Menace and the threat of Communists taking over.’
‘You mentioned her family have a lot of money,’ Sergeant Okafor said.
‘Had, in the past tense,’ Morag said. ‘I didn’t keep up with them nor they with me. But you hear things. There was a deal that went wrong, a government contract they lost. The father killed himself. My aunt came back to Britain. She had to pull Heather out of boarding school.’ She leaned back in her chair. The old leather and wood creaked. ‘They weren’t skint exactly, but most of what was left was tied up elsewhere. A pity. But perhaps a lesson to all of us not to count your chickens before they hatch.’
‘So they had money and lost it,’ Sergeant Okafor said. ‘What was the business again?’
‘Why, it was oil, of course.’
: 31 :
‘Hey, lady!’ The security guard leapt up from his chair. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’
Erykah hurtled through the revolving glass doors and sprinted for the lifts. She stopped in her tracks and turned to face the guard whose burly arms were planted like tree trunks on the desk. His voice was familiar – it was the same man who’d answered the phone when she rang the station.
She glanced at her watch. The radio station had been trailing Heather’s interview on air for the last two hours; she was probably in the studio right now. And only metres away from Kerry who was entirely unaware of the danger.
‘Where’s Kerry Wilder?’ Erykah gasped.
Barrington remained exactly where he was. ‘I’m s’posed to ask if you got an appointment,’ he said.
She reached into her bag and pulled out the black and yellow scarf. ‘No, no appointment, she left this at a coffee shop earlier. I thought I would drop it by, you know, say hello. Were, uh, we’re friends.’
‘Friends. Uh-huh,’ Barrington said. ‘You can leave it here and I’ll make sure she gets it.’
She glanced over the security guard’s shoulder at the CCTV monitors and flinched. On one screen it looked like a woman was stabbed and bleeding while a man on the other side of a glass wall tried to save her. What the hell? ‘What’s that?’
Barrington looked over his shoulder. ‘Oh. Right,’ he said, and switched it back to a sedate scene at the top of a stairwell. ‘I was watching a film.’
‘Instead of the CCTV?’ Erykah raised her eyebrow. ‘Uh-huh. I’m sure it’s very edifying.’
‘Watch your mouth, that’s Bird With the Crystal Plumage,’ Barrington said. ‘It’s a classic.’ He looked at the scarf, then at her face, then at the scarf again. ‘A’ight, I’ll swipe you through. This time. Level four.’
‘Thank you,’ she breathed and hurried away.
The lift was old and seemed to be taking forever. Erykah tapped her foot on the floor. She should have come up the stairs. They had spent too much time at the house. Seminole Billy wouldn’t let her go inside, said she didn’t need to see that. Asked her what if the neighbours saw her, what if they talked to the police later? He was right, of course. Better to leave him and Buster to take care of Rab’s body, do what they needed to do.
It wasn’t only the gore. In the time while his death was still new, while she hadn’t seen anything, it still existed in a not-quite-real space, one where she didn’t have to think through what she was doing right now or admit that things would never be the same again. Maybe she had made the decision already, when she chose staying with him over leaving with Nicole. Or when she got more deeply involved with the Major. Or maybe she hadn’t made the decision at all, maybe the decision was and had only ever been Rab’s, and he chose for her.
And maybe, as with Grayson’s trial, the situation had nothing to do with her after all. The tide just turned and you dealt with it. People did whatever they were going to do, with little or no thought of the effect on others, and only she could pick up the pieces of her own life.
The lift pinged open on the fourth floor – LCC was in front of her. Erykah strode into the corridor, looking left and right for a sign of Kerry. She poked her head in the green room – no one there, just a tired sofa and a collection of unwashed mugs. A row of offices was empty. She spotted, through a glass wall, the production team hovering over mixing boards. They gave the thumbs up to Diana through a window to the main studio.
Diana and Heather were inside, fiddling with the equipment. Diana adjusted her microphone, which was attached with a hinged mount from the ceiling. The she showed Heather the right distance to sit to get the best sound on the small, heavily weighted guest mics on the desk. Erykah noticed for the first time how Heather’s eyes darted around the room, the way she ran her hand through her hair, which looked lank and unwashed. Her blouse was expensive but when she raised an arm to adjust the headphones, there was a tell-tale dark patch of sweat. The formerly confident young woman Erykah had met at the press conference was beginning to show the strain.
Erykah spun around on her heel before Heather could spot her and, in doing so, nearly knocked into Kerry, who was carrying two mugs of coffee.
‘Watch it!’ Kerry scowled and gripped the mugs. Her eyes met Erykah’s. ‘You! What are you doing here?’
‘I need to talk to you.’ She hauled Kerry into one of the empty offices and shut the door behind them. ‘Listen to me, something bad is about to go down.’
‘Yeah, like I’m gonna get a bollocking from my boss if I don’t get in there right now,’ Kerry said.
Diana’s honeyed voiced poured out of the station speakers. ‘Joining me live on air this afternoon is Heather Matthews, spokesperson for the Scotland Liberal Unionist Party. Heather, thank you for joining us. With the sudden death of Major Whitney Abbott, and post-referendum debates accusing both sides of misleading campaigns, is it fair to say your young party has had its worst week ever?’
‘You don’t understand,’ Erykah hissed to Kerry. ‘We got it wrong. It’s not Morag behind this. It’s her. It’s Heather.’
Kerry’s eyes widened. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ Erykah pulled the files out of her bag and laid the papers on top of the desk. ‘Here,’ she pointed at the notebook. ‘That’s the phone number of the last person to call Damian Schofield at his office before he disappeared. He had a meeting in his diary next to the initials LL. Lady Livia, I assumed – a contact of the Major’s. One of Schofield’s co-workers said she claimed to be a journalist here. But when I phoned the station no one had ever heard of her.’
‘Go on.’ Kerry set the mugs down and bent over the files, tucking her hair behind one ear.
‘I thought it was unusual, but there was a lot else going on and it didn’t seem important,’ Erykah said. ‘Then yesterday, I was going through Major Abbott’s phone—’
‘Wait!’ Kerry said. ‘You have the Major’s phone?’
‘Ah,’ Erykah said. It was probably not a good idea tell anyone else about her presence on the sleeper train that night. Especially not someone with the habit of tweeting out every piece of gossip she heard. ‘It’s a long story. Anyway, I plugged in the phone and the same number I got off Schofield’s office phone is in the Major’s phone as Livia. So we ring it, and it’s Heather’s voice on the answerphone.‘
‘It’s her pseudonym,’ Kerry half-smiled.
‘Sort of,’ Erykah said. ‘Heather Matthews isn’t Heather’s real name, or at least, not the one she was born with. I’ve done some checking and she was born in Argentina and her name is Castano-Perez. Olivia Heather Castano-Perez. She comes from an oil family. I did some digging on the way here – once you have the right name, guess whose family’s old company turns up all over the applications for new oil and gas explorat
ion sites in Scotland? Anyway, I believe she was trying to get close to Schofield and discover what he knew, and when she had her evidence—’
‘That’s when she decided to kill him,’ Kerry said. She bit her lip. ‘Do you think Schofield knew?’
‘Maybe,’ Erykah said. ‘Maybe he tried to confront her. No way to tell for sure. That’s why I’m here. She must know the leak is someone in this building.’ If Erykah had figured out the location of Media Mouse so quickly, it wasn’t hard to believe plenty of others would as well. ‘Or else why raise her head above the parapet? She’s here to take someone out – and that someone is you.’
Kerry started poking at the screen of her phone.
‘Are you ringing the police?’
Kerry flashed Erykah a wicked smile. ‘Are you fucking kidding? I’m tweeting this!’
Someone started pounding at the door. ‘Come on, Kelly, we’ve been waiting for that coffee for almost five minutes!’ Jonathan shouted. ‘I’m going back in the tank and if you’re not there in ten seconds you’re toast.’
‘It’s my boss.’ Kerry gave Erykah a see-what-I-have-to-deal-with look and put her phone back on the desk. ‘I have to go or they’ll know something’s wrong.’
‘Please,’ Erykah whispered, a hand on Kerry’s shoulder. ‘Whatever you do—’
‘I have to go.’ The girl shrugged her off. ‘It’ll be fine. Heather can’t do anything to me here, right? Not in front of all these people.’
Erykah slumped in the chair. Kerry still didn’t understand. She hadn’t heard that gunshot back at the house when Rab was killed. She hadn’t listened to what the people who did it had planned to do to her, or to anyone else who got in their way. She had no sense that with just one wrong choice her entire life could fall apart.
The station switched over to a weather and traffic update and Diana and Heather left the tank for a few moments. Kerry was busy fetching Jonathan his drink, so the women were left to get their own in the green room. Heather smiled and picked up both mugs while Diana jogged down the hall for a quick loo break.
Erykah watched from the crack in the door. What was Heather doing?
She picked up Kerry’s phone. Media Mouse was still logged on to Twitter. Erykah scrolled down the screen, flicking past mentions and messages, wheedling requests from students who wanted to interview her and journalists who wanted to trap her into revealing herself. But maybe . . .
If she did nothing, Heather could have Diana in her sights. But if she tweeted, Kerry would be at risk as well.
Jump before you’re pushed.
Maybe Kerry wasn’t entirely wrong. Twitter might not save her, but the phone lines could. Erykah’s thumbs hovered over the screen, shaking. What to type? ‘BREAKING Schofield murder. Last contact before disappearance Scotland Liberal Unionists sec Matthews, now on LCC.’ She followed it up with the station switchboard number, took a deep breath, and pressed send.
Then a follow-up message, in case the meaning wasn’t clear. ‘She is the killer. I know because I am in the station right now. I work here.’
Within seconds, it had been retweeted ten times. That seemed a lot. Then thirty. Almost as many replies popped up to warn her of libel suits if she was wrong. But who cares about self-appointed Internet legal experts? Even more people started responding to the second message, the one saying where she was.
Erykah peeked back out at the studio. Sure enough, the lights on the switchboard were already going mad, with producers pointing and gesturing through the glass. Diana and Heather, unaware of what was happening, settled into their seats and the last seconds of the advert break ticked away.
‘Welcome back. Today I’m talking to Heather Matthews, spokesperson for Scotland Liberal Unionists, the party that was until this week running Whitney Abbott as a candidate for European Parliament. With Major Abbott’s tragic death, can the party struggle on – and what does this tell us about the landscape of Scottish politics, and Britain in general, post-referendum? We’re taking your calls now at LCC. Our first caller, David in Putney, you’re on the air.’
‘Hey, hi,’ the man’s voice said. ‘Long-time listener, first-time caller. I love your show, Diana.’
‘Thank you, David. Do you have a question or comment for our guest?’
‘Sure. Yeah. I was wondering if Heather could comment on the online rumour that she was involved in Professor Damian Schofield’s death?’
Diana’s eyes went wide. She signalled to the producers through the glass with a finger across her neck with one hand while she pounded the hang-up button with the other. ‘Wow! That was unexpected. Ha ha. Huge apologies to our guest. I think,’ Diana shot daggers at the team on the other side of the glass. ‘It sounds like our call screening is not as sharp as it might be today. Next caller, you’re on the air.’
‘Hi, Jenny from Bedford. Same question. Also for Diana, did you know Media Mouse was someone who works at the station?’
Diana’s finger came down again and cut the call. ‘Ha ha, well as we all know just because something is online doesn’t mean it’s true,’ she said. She looked at Heather, whose face had gone white with rage. ‘I don’t expect you to answer any of this, of course.’ She gestured again to the producers. ‘Guys, can you possibly find us a caller who isn’t trying to accuse our guest of heinous crimes? You know I love the drama, but I can hear the legal department screeching from here.’
Jonathan made a spinning circular motion in the air with one finger. Fill the time, he was telling her. ‘While our producers get on that, let’s go over some of these headlines again.’ Diana pressed a hand to her headphones, and listened for a moment. ‘Wait, yes, I’m getting some confirmation from the producers. Apparently the Media Mouse account has been online today, making accusations about our guest and claiming she disguised herself as a journalist to get close to Schofield. Unconfirmed allegations, I have to emphasise. It also claims the account is run by someone who works right here at our LCC studio but, ah, we have no confirmation of the truth of any of these claims.’ Erykah saw Kerry turn her head in the direction of the office, then quickly look away, then at the floor. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll be giving your solicitors a call as soon as we’re off the air,’ Diana chuckled. ‘Moving swiftly on—’
‘No, by all means, let’s talk about this,’ Heather said. ‘I’ve been meaning to pick a bone with you, Diana Stuebner,’ she said.
Diana looked surprised, but spread her hands in invitation. ‘Pick away,’ she said.
‘Don’t you think it’s a little odd that your station seems to be on top of anything negative that happens with regards to the SLU?’
‘Bias, you mean? We are a news organisation,’ Diana chuckled. ‘Like most we have our ups and down when it comes to being the first to break stories. I mean, it’s not as if the Scottish Liberal Unionist Party is all we cover—’
‘And the fact that you specifically had a tip off from Media Mouse with photos of Morag Munro at the Cameron Bridge Mortuary is nothing to do with that.’
Diana smiled patiently. ‘I’m sorry, Heather, but I don’t see how that’s related? Let’s turn it back to our callers.’
‘What I’m saying is, Diana, you are clearly the source. You are.’ Heather pointed across the table. ‘The manhunt for the real identity is a set-up, because the whole thing is a set-up. You are Media Mouse, and you’re manipulating stories to make sure your station gets the best ratings,’ she said. ‘You’ve had it in for me – for the SLU – from the start. It’s a vendetta, and it’s time you were stopped.’
Diana’s mouth dropped open but, ever the professional, she recovered quickly. ‘Wow! I’ve been accused of many things over the years, but this has to be the first time anybody mistook someone else for me.’ Diana started to laugh.
‘It’s funny to you, is it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Diana said, waving her hands. ‘I don’t mean to make
light of this. You have to admit, it’s certainly an odd thing to be accused of. We’re just having, I don’t know, maybe silly season came early this year. Don’t worry about those callers, I’m sure they’ll be on to the next Twitter outrage in no time.’ She shuffled a few papers on the table in front of her nervously. ‘In the last few minutes you’ve been accused of a lot of frankly unbelievable things.’
‘Right.’ Heather nodded. ‘But for the sake of argument – and your audience loves an argument, don’t they? Let’s say it was true. What would you do, Diana Stuebner?’
Diana looked to the production room where Jonathan was grinning and holding two thumbs up. She bared her teeth slightly, but he ignored her subtle indication that maybe the ratings spike they were having right now was secondary to her misgivings about the way the interview was going. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘Ring the police, most likely.’
‘Sure.’ Heather nodded. ‘Ring the police. Meanwhile you’re locked in a room with someone you think very well could be a violent murderer.’
‘Well, I haven’t seen any evidence to indicate that, and so far . . .’
Heather waved her hand. ‘I haven’t seen, blah blah, blah whatever. So for the sake of argument you are Media Mouse.’
‘I’m not, but for the sake of argument, let’s say I am.’
‘And let’s say the supposed murderer in the room with you does . . . something rash.’ Heather’s steady voice hardly changed, but something in her face had. It looked more pointed, somehow. Feral. ‘What would you do?’
Diana swirled coffee around the bottom of her mug. ‘I suppose it would depend on what that something rash was.’ She tipped the mug up to her mouth and swallowed.
Heather smirked and watched Diana. ‘Let’s say she’d put something in your coffee during the break,’ she said. ‘Let’s say you were drinking it right now. For the sake of argument.’
Diana spat out the mouthful of coffee and stared at her mug. She brought her fingers to her mouth, to try to induce vomiting but Heather leaped over the oval table and grabbed her hand. Diana ripped off her headphones and backed into the corner of the studio, with Heather close behind, brandishing the heavy base of her guest microphone in one hand like a club.
The Turning Tide Page 33