‘You! Why you?’
‘Because the press is my area. He thinks I can control it. He’ll say I should have known you’d talked to her, that I should have impressed upon you not to do so, that I should have got wind of it and stopped it …’
‘Sam, that’s just not fair. Of course you – ’
‘Whether it’s fair, Kirsten, is irrelevant. As you very well know. He’ll say it. Look, I think the best thing we can do is talk to him together. What are you doing today?’
‘Well – supposed to be going to see my mother.’
‘Call it off. Oh I don’t know. She won’t be feeling too good if she sees it, will she?’
‘No,’ said Kirsten. ‘Oh God, why am I so dumb? If only, if only I hadn’t talked to her – ’
‘Kirsten, if you knew how many times that’s been said over stories in the Sunday papers. Or any papers, come to that – ’
‘Look, I’d better see Mum. I’ll try and make sure she’s OK. Maybe get her boyfriend round – ’
‘Her boyfriend! You’re lucky they didn’t get that one in.’
‘Oh, he’s not really. Just a friend. And then maybe we should go down to Stylings this afternoon. They’re there. I think you’re right. No point running away from it.’
‘Kirsten,’ said Sam, ‘you’re a brave girl.’
Graydon Townsend was grazing swiftly through all the papers, as he liked to do before he even got out of bed on Sunday; he read the article about the Channings with horror and a growing incredulity that someone as intelligent and sharp as Kirsten should have poured her heart out to a third-rate journalist like Judy Wyatt. He also felt very sorry for them all: for Kirsten – why on earth hadn’t someone warned the silly bitch, he was surprised at Sam Illingworth – for Sam herself, who would no doubt take an enormous amount of flak, for Francesca, who really didn’t deserve it, all that crap about how she’d never visited the first wife in her little house, of course she hadn’t visited her, what second – no, third – wife would? He felt very sorry for Pattie, having her alcoholism described so vividly, and he even felt faintly sorry for Bard Channing; was rash enough to say so to Briony after reading selected items from the Wyatt garbage aloud to her.
‘You’re nuts,’ she said briefly. ‘Why should anyone feel sorry for him? The thing is, Gray, whatever you say, he’s done all these things. He did walk out on his wife, and he did therefore subject his children to all that misery, and Pattie was an alcoholic, he knew that. It’s her I feel sorriest for. Can’t say my heart bleeds too much for the daughter. She’s obviously a very tough nut.’
‘Yes and no,’ said Gray without thinking, and then spent the next ten minutes assuring Briony quite untruthfully that any knowledge he had of Kirsten Channing was based on a very brief encounter at a press lunch to announce the northern development.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘we’d better get up because we’re going to have lunch with Marianne and Tim.’
‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘not them. Please not them.’
She looked at him, her blue eyes very hard. ‘And why not them? Oh, just don’t bother answering, Gray, and you needn’t bother coming either. I’ll go on my own. You stay here and perfect some little sauce or dust down a few linen jackets.’
‘Briony, I – ’
‘Just piss off,’ she said, most unusually for her, the mildest of creatures: looking at her as she reached for her robe, he saw tears sparkling at the back of her eyes. He reached out for her hand, but she shook him off, and disappeared into the bathroom.
Marianne and Tim had a baby. This was not the only reason Gray didn’t want to go, although the constant unveiling of a huge veined breast, a dripping nipple and a distinctly grubby bra did not seem entirely charming to him, and nor did the enthusiastic accounts of how long after midnight the baby had slept the previous night, as opposed to the one before, or the earnest discussion on the state of the latest nappy. He also found their house (1930s) and garden (small rectangular lawn surrounded with equally geometric flowerbeds) depressing, the interminable tweeting of the two canaries which lived in the kitchen enraging, and Briony and Marianne’s reminiscences about their wild days at art school hugely tedious. But he knew, deep down, it was the baby, and Briony knew it too.
She came back half an hour later, looking heartbreakingly pretty in a long white skirt and clinging pink T-shirt, and said, ‘Gray, I think I’ll go and spend tonight with my sister. I want to talk to her and I don’t really want to talk to you.’
‘About the – the baby issue.’
‘Yes.’
‘Look, darling, I – ’
‘You think it would have to be like Marianne and Tim, I know you do, and it really wouldn’t. I’d never ever discuss nappy duty or – ’
‘Briony, I know that. But you would change. We’d both change. There’d be something wrong if we didn’t. And I just don’t see why we have to.’
‘Because I want to.’ She was shouting at him now. ‘I want it so much. And you won’t even think about it properly.’ And then she was gone. The slam of the door echoed in his ears all day.
Francesca found it rather hard to care about the article, as she found it rather hard to care about anything at the moment. She could not imagine how she had ever thought any of the things that had beset her throughout her life – exams, boyfriends, losing her virginity, the odd pregnancy scare, and so on to more serious ones, her first marriage, her dangerous relationship with Bard within it, and the discovery of that, the contemplation of what marriage to him was really going to mean, and then the realisation of what it did – mattered; none of these things could begin to compare with the heavy, ugly weight of this new fear, the fear about Kitty and her frail little heart. She fell asleep with it beside her on the pillow, woke with it snapping instantly onto her consciousness in the morning, carried it about with her all day. She replayed Mr Lauder’s words again and again to herself: the hole was small, the risk slight, most children with her condition were fine, and she found them, those words, seriously wanting; she still longed, more than anything in the world, to sit down and scream, very loudly and repeatedly, several times a day. She was focused entirely on the meeting with Mr Moreton-Smith on Tuesday; although she knew that would solve nothing immediately, she felt it was at least some kind of certainty, they would be further down the road, on this nightmare journey, there would be new areas shaded in on the map, new signposts to follow. And until then, nothing, nothing at all, seemed to have any reality. Certainly not an absurd article in a tacky Sunday paper, not even an article that cast herself in a bad light, that had further estranged her from Kirsten, and Kirsten from Bard, that had driven Bard into a rage and horror so violent that she had sent Nanny out for a long walk with both the children until he had calmed and quietened down. It just didn’t seem to matter. It wasn’t important. It wasn’t life and death.
Kirsten was in the shower when her father rang: a subdued Toby came to tell her. ‘He sounds none too pleased,’ he said.
She wrapped herself in her thick robe, hugging it tightly round her for comfort, picked up the phone. ‘Dad?’
‘Unfortunately yes. I can tell you I would much rather someone else was your father. For God’s sake, Kirsten, have you no brains at all? How could you do it? To me? To your mother? To Francesca? To yourself, for that matter? Talk to this – God almighty, Kirsten, I cannot believe it. Even of you.’
‘Dad, can I come and see you? With Sam? Maybe explain.’
‘Come and see me? You certainly can not. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you anywhere near me. Just stay away. Well away. Apart from anything else, I don’t want Francesca subjected to any more of this than she has to be. She has enough to cope with at the moment. And tell Sam to stay away as well. I don’t want either of you here, do you understand?’
Kirsten was silent.
‘What’s Sam got to do with it, anyway? Did she have some part in this?’
‘No,’ said Kirsten quickly, ‘absolutely no pa
rt at all. I just thought – ’
‘I didn’t know you could think. You’ve shown very little sign of it so far. On second thoughts, get Sam to ring me, would you?’
‘Yes. Yes, all right. Dad, I’m sorry, really sorry – ’
‘I daresay you are,’ he said, and put the phone down.
Kirsten walked back into the kitchen; she felt exhausted, sore all over. ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said to Toby. ‘I really need to be on my own.’
‘Well, if you’re sure – ’ he said. He was obviously relieved. He didn’t like dramas, Toby didn’t. He liked his life comfortable.
She heard his car driving away, with considerable relief; and then had to rush into the bathroom where she was violently and repeatedly sick.
Chapter Eight
Gray rang Channings first thing on Monday morning and asked to speak to Kirsten. A carefully polite voice told him she wasn’t there at the moment. ‘We’re not sure when she will be in.’
I bet you’re not, Gray thought. ‘Well, could I speak to Sam, please? It’s Graydon Townsend.’
Sam came on the phone: she sounded subdued. ‘Hi, Gray.’
‘Morning, Sam. I just phoned to say I was sorry. About the piece in the Graphic. Ghastly woman she is, Judy Wyatt. Should have been put down at birth.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ said Sam wearily. ‘Kirsten was very silly.’
‘Kirsten is very silly. But she’s also very young and inexperienced.’
‘I know. I feel very responsible.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t. I don’t suppose Big Daddy is too pleased, though.’
‘He’s beside himself. Blames me, of course. Says he can’t understand why it can’t all be retracted. The usual.’
‘Yes … Bloody shame, the whole thing. Poor old you. Well, if there’s anything I can do …’
‘Gray, you’re very sweet.’
‘That’s OK. I don’t suppose it’ll help my cause though, will it? Getting my interview, I mean?’
Sam almost laughed. ‘I’m afraid not. Sorry, Gray.’
‘Well, look, tell Kirsten I called, will you? Just to say I was sorry?’
‘Yes of course. I gather you and she had a drink the other night.’
‘We did, and I don’t want any scurrilous rumours about that one. I’m in enough trouble at home as it is.’
‘Of course not. Bye, Gray.’
‘Bye, Sam.’
Gray liked Mondays. Most Sunday-paper people didn’t work on Mondays, but he often did. It was a good time to think, to digest all the other papers, to review everything he had been doing the week before. It was all part of his methodical way of working, his need to be in control, to have things in order. He spent most of the day rehashing a rather heavy piece on the Labour leadership struggle, and then at four o’clock was unable to ignore the tugging inside his head on the subject of Bard Channing any longer, and called him up on his profile database. It still vaguely surprised him, having been a trainee journalist fifteen years earlier, that looking people up no longer entailed going through huge, tattered files in the newspaper library, that it was all there at the press of a button. He wasn’t even sure he preferred it; there was an impersonality about the information that skated across the screen, that gave everyone a monochrome uniformity. The old cuttings, with their yellowing pages and fading photographs, were vivid, brought subjects – even financial institutions – to life. Nevertheless the new way was very much more efficient.
He started with a survey of the Channing press coverage in the past year. The references, even in the UK press, were legion; the man certainly had a genius for publicity. There was a lot about the Newcastle development, quite a bit about Docklands and the continuing failure of the place to come alive economically, some suprisingly good year-end figures, some stuff about Francesca and the new baby, even the appointment of Kirsten to the firm. Nothing remotely interesting there.
He decided to go back to basics, called up Channing Holdings; it was capitalised at £100m, the share price hovering at about the £3 mark. Perfectly pukka. He looked at its list of directors. Nothing very unexpected here: he knew most of them by name, had met a couple personally. Dear old Douglas Booth, known to the entire world as Duggie, whose boardroom was the golf course, such an apparent old duffer, but with a nose for a contact like a sniffer dog. Peter Barbour, Finance Director, boring old Pete; caricature of an accountant, with his pompous manner and his Savile Row suits; it was hard to imagine Pete even having sex without his waistcoat on. And then the three non-executives, Henry Withington – nice chap, Henry, good front man for Bard, legal background – Brigadier Gen. Sir Charles Forsyth (retd), also inevitable, he thought with a grin, funny how these sharp guys all loved titles and medals and all that sort of thing, and Michael Samuels, an estate surveyor. A long list of shareholders, individuals and companies: some familiar, some not.
None of which was going to make a story.
They were all directors of the various subsidiary companies, of course: Channing North, Channing European, Channing Leisure. That was one he hadn’t been too aware of: leisure centres, he supposed, in some of the big shopping developments. Might be worth investigating.
Gray went slightly thoughtfully through to the news room, tapped into the Jordans database, with its wealth of information on companies, their directors, their shareholdings – and the other companies they were directors of.
Channing held a huge proportion of the shares: 20%. With Douglas Booth’s 10% and Barbour’s 5%, they had an indubitable controlling interest. Which meant they could do what they liked. Interestingly, Booth had several other directorships: not surprising, he was hardly full-time at Channings. A golfwear company; a chain of health food shops; a timeshare company. Called Travelfax, trading as Home Time. Travelfax. Damn silly name. What was it? He called up Travelfax. Registered company. Address in Birmingham. Sounded innocuous. Two other directors, Teresa Didcot and Angela Phelps. Obviously two bimbos who’d wanted a man’s help. And if the timeshares were in Portugal or somewhere like that, a golfing man would be very useful. Amazing, the far-reaching benefits of golf. The picture of business life in Britain would be quite different without it. Even today. He called up the two ladies on his screen: Teresa Didcot was the MD, Angela Phelps the marketing manager. They both had addresses in Birmingham. Nothing else there.
He went back to the other directors: Pete Barbour earned £150,000; now where did he live, oh God, how predictable, Burwood Park, Weybridge, Surrey. Gray could imagine the house, large and lush, probably with a swimming pool, but nothing absurdly expensive. If ever a man was going to live carefully within his means it was Pete. Henry Withington, Brigadier Forsyth and Samuels, all absolutely predictable too, all taking standard non-executive salaries, all with quite modest shareholdings. But nice little earners, all of them – providing Channings held up.
Gray went back to his desk feeling frustrated. Nothing to get his teeth into at all. Maybe his instinct had failed him. Maybe he was getting old, losing his touch. The thought depressed him disproportionately. He supposed it was partly because of Briony. Briony and his non-existent paternal instinct.
He sighed, looked at his watch. It was five-thirty, time to go home. Home to Briony, home to problems. To hormones. Bloody hormones. She’d even gone off sex. He really couldn’t face it yet. He’d stay here a bit longer.
He switched his machine on again, looked at it with a mixture of affection and irritation. It always got to him when things weren’t going well. It sat there, doing what he told it, telling him things, showing him things, reminding him to save things, pointing out he’d not switched it off, or had called two files the same thing, but it was no bloody use at all, really. Not when your brain had done its best and had been found wanting. He suddenly remembered sharply a piece of advice his first boss had given him, a shrewd old journalist on the Daily Mail. ‘What you have to rely on, in this game, is your ability to persuade people to tell you things they shouldn’t tell you.
’ Judy Wyatt had been pretty damn good at that, persuading Kirsten Channing to tell her things she shouldn’t have. Who could he get to work on? Who was likely to tell him anything? Who knew something they shouldn’t pass on? About Channings? About Channing himself? He sat there, drawing circles on a piece of paper with a pencil, forcing his brain to yield things by sheer force of will. It was a trick he had learnt as a student; it was all in there somewhere, you just had to find it and force it out. Kirsten might: just might. Once her wounds had begun to heal a bit. She would be angrier with her father than ever now. Sam was much too wary, much too loyal. Francesca Channing, now she would be interesting to talk to. Wives always were. They tended to know more than they thought they did. He would like to talk to Francesca. He had found her very attractive. Of course Francesca would be extremely wary of the press at the moment. But the News was a hugely responsible paper, and he was the financial editor. A chance meeting, a sympathetic chat, a few damning words about the gutter press. You never knew. Duggie might; but Duggie was very good at telling you very little. Gray was never sure if it was deliberate, but anyway, he was masterly at it. Pete Barbour? Surely not Pete. Pete was about as communicative as the Oracle at Delphi. Still, you never knew. It was the quiet ones who just occasionally told you the most. Simply by default. Worth a try at least. Marica Grainger of course, the old dragon, she would have a few stories to tell. Old-style secretaries like her, fiercely defensive, self-important, always did. But getting anything out of her would make the task of squeezing blood from a stone look like very light work. Apart from anything else she was probably half in love with Bard, would go to the stake for him. Booth was probably a better bet. He was worth a try.
Booth. Booth. That meant something, touched at something. Patiently he pursued it, pursued the thread through his brain, pressing on the paper harder and harder, drawing ever darker circles. Booth, Duggie Booth. What was it, where was it, how could he find it? And then he got it: Briony’s voice on the day she had first broached the subject of the baby, answering the phone in the conservatory, passing it to him, saying ‘It’s for you. A woman called Teresa Booth.’ Teresa Booth. Was she related to Duggie? It seemed possible. Booth was not exactly a rare name, but still. Bit of a coincidence. And then there was another Teresa, he thought setting his machine to work again, swearing at it as it ground into action, fought its way through the lists, the entries. There it was: Teresa Didcot of Travelfax. There was no phone number for Teresa Didcot, and when he tried to get one he found she was ex-directory. Well, that could be got round, perfectly easily; meanwhile he could call Travelfax. There was no reply to that: there wouldn’t be now of course, it was well after six, merely a recorded message, telling him to leave his name and number and that he would be got back to. He decided to try again next day, rather than give himself away too soon. And tomorrow he would find out if Teresa Booth was indeed Mrs Douglas Booth. Of Deepdene, Lord’s Crescent, near Abingdon. And what it was she had decided at one point she would like to tell him, and why it was that she had so swiftly changed her mind.
The Dilemma Page 19