Food Fight

by Anne Penketh

  She got up and picked up one of Meadow’s ecological wooden rattles and began shaking in front of the baby. Mimi followed her and snatched it away.

  Susan turned round. “But, Mimi, the main thing is that we loved each other – and he loved you too, remember? Love. Isn’t that the most important thing? It’s exactly what you were just saying about there being more to life than work.”

  She was breathing heavily. “In fact he loved us both so much that he was trying to get us back together again. He was upset about what happened between us the night before he died. Remember, when you started going on again about Big Food? Maybe that’s why he was driving on the wrong side of the road the next morning. ”

  Mimi stopped shaking the rattle abruptly. Susan sat down again. Meadow’s eyes were trained on the clicking yellow and red discs and she was oblivious to their conversation.

  “So why should I be the only one to feel guilty?” She could feel years of seething frustration exploding.

  “I’m afraid that you’re exaggerating this baby stuff out of all proportion. But then that’s what you do for a living, isn’t it? DeKripps is Krap! How many years did I have to put up with that? God knows I did my best with you, Mimi, I really did, and you never gave anything back. You always used to put up a protective shell, and I could never get through. In fact I still can’t!”

  Mimi picked up the phone, then Meadow, put her back in the pushchair, grabbed a grubby canvas bag marked with the Campaign For Disarmament logo, and walked out.

  “Mimi, I love you!” Susan called out to her back. She collected the tea cups and dropped them noisily in the sink. She switched the radio back on, but silenced it after a few seconds.

  She was staring across the sink into the back garden when her phone rang. It was Mark. What was he doing calling her on a Saturday?

  “I’ve got news,” he said. “They’ve got Stella.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Stellar, who’s gone, stellar?”

  “The DeKripps scientist. They’ve got the R and D guy. That Stella.”

  For a moment, she didn’t react.

  “Who’s got him?”

  “The cops. He’s been arrested in Seattle.” She might have known.

  “When?”

  “It must have just happened. I heard last night.” Mark promised to find out more and to give her a full briefing on her return to Washington.

  The next day, she returned to repainting the bedroom. Once all the furniture had been moved into the middle of the room, with the neighbours’ help, she found decorating therapeutic. She needed to take her mind off things. She was half-way up a step ladder, paintbrush dripping onto a square of newspaper, when the phone rang again. Half expecting to hear Mark’s voice, she instantly recognized her brother-in-law’s cough. She hadn’t expected to hear from her in-laws after their last meal in Rennes.

  Jean-Louis sounded cordial, but she detected an edge to his voice.

  “Suzanne,” he said. “We think you owe us an explanation. We have been contacted by a reporter from Paris Match investigating your activities in Washington.”

  That sounded ominous. Susan laid the paintbrush on the tin on the ladder’s top step and climbed down.

  “And what did you tell them?”

  “Nothing. How could we? We know nothing,” he said. There was a slight pause while Jean-Louis handed the phone to his wife, who took over the conversation.

  “Suzanne, what is this Peek-a-boo? You have shamed our family. You have dragged us all into the gutter!”

  “Well, all I can say is that if you know about Peek-a-boo, you already know everything. And I don’t see why I owe you any kind of an explanation, frankly. I suggest that we all calm down and wait to see what Paris Match publishes.”

  “Belle de jour!” shrieked Marie-Christine, “a prostitute in the family. A fallen woman. Poor Serge must be turning in his grave. Pff!” Susan could hear the stifled sounds of a struggle. Jean-Louis eventually wrested the phone back from his wife.

  “My wife is a little upset about this, I’m afraid,” he said. He was coughing aggressively now.

  “Listen, Jean-Louis, I don’t know what to say. I’ll wait to see the Paris Match article, and in the meantime, why don’t you take a pill? And maybe give Marie-Christine one as well.” And with that she rang off.

  Why was Paris Match was on the trail? It must be the ‘dead French husband’ connection. The French journalists must have gone through the official records and come up with their wedding in Dingé.

  The whole village had turned up that afternoon to ogle the ‘Anglaise’ their local boy was marrying. The ceremony at the village hall, in which the mayor proudly wore a tricolour strapped across his chest, was followed by a vin d’honneur offered by Serge’s family to the locals. The youngest were in their seventies. Susan told Serge afterwards that she’d felt like an animal in a zoo. And, of course, even at her own wedding, she’d felt inadequate compared to the impeccably groomed and manicured Marie-Christine.

  She put aside her painting to go online. Skimming through the headlines, she saw ‘From Brittany to the US. A double life’. The French journalists had essentially recycled the information from the original British tabloid stories.

  The article ran under the unflattering picture of her opening the curtains at her mother’s house. It painted a lurid portrait of the double life of Susan Perkins-Gautier. Her Breton husband, a French specialist on Camus who moved to London to be with his perfidious spouse, had his life cut short when tragedy struck only days before Christmas, it said. It was her turn to say “Pff.” There wasn’t a single line of original reporting in the entire piece.

  *

  The landing at Dulles was bumpier than usual. Susan had often wondered about the winds that swept towards Washington from the heights of the Shenandoah National Park. But this time she held on tightly to the arms of her economy class seat for fear of wind shear and a catastrophic drop in altitude, wishing she’d paid attention to the flight attendants’ patter about oxygen masks.

  The young woman sitting next to her reached for the sick bag and vomited silently, wiping her lips afterwards with the back of her hand. Susan was pretending to reach for the airline magazine in the seat pocket, while searching for the sick bag herself, when the plane banked for its final descent, and she heard the reassuring bang of the landing gear being released.

  She had to produce her return ticket at immigration, to prove that having worked previously in Washington, she didn’t intend to overstay her welcome without a visa. She resisted the temptation to crack a joke to the uniformed agent.

  She wasn’t expecting anyone to greet her, but experienced that twinge of disappointment as she finally emerged through the Arrivals doors and saw the waiting crowd. No one was holding up a sign, a bunch of flowers or balloons for her. It was little things like that which pinched her heart. Serge had always been there waiting, at railway stations or airports. She wheeled her suitcase to the Washington Flyer, which deposited her at the Metro. Within an hour she had arrived at the hotel in downtown Washington.

  She was due to meet Mark the next morning. She got up early after a sleep disrupted by jet lag and swirling questions. When she awoke at 3 a.m., she had no idea where she was. Then she remembered she was back in DC, the scene of the crime. What were the chances of running into someone from DeKripps, even Barney, in this city? She decided to give DeKripps as wide a berth as possible during her visit, but the Smithson and Hopkins offices were uncomfortably close to her former employers.

  She called room service for breakfast and dressed to please, aware that she was doing so. She wore a light grey woollen trouser suit, black bootees and a white blouse with a chunky necklace of emerald-coloured stones. She grabbed her navy raincoat as she left the hotel for the short walk to Mark’s office on 11th St.

  She had taken every precaution to be discreet about her arrival in DC, in line with his instructions. Mimi had even done her the favour of telephoning Mark on her
own phone to arrange the meeting. After their heart to heart, Mimi had been unusually circumspect and they appeared to have reached some sort of a truce, presumably thanks to Josh’s influence. But Mimi had wanted to know why she was going back to Washington so soon.

  “Why are you always on the move?” she’d said. “What are you escaping from?”

  In her own mind she wasn’t escaping from anything.

  She’d resolved to go back to college to study for a law degree. In the meantime, she had to return to DC to clear up the mess she’d created. And, although she would never admit as much to Mimi, she wanted to see Mark again. As Susan strode along to the lawyer’s, she fished out her phone to talk to her mother, who hadn’t realised she’d already returned to Washington to discuss battle plans with him.

  There was a crosswalk on 10th St, a block away from the Smithson and Hopkins building. Remembering that she was back in DC where jaywalking is forbidden, she waited impatiently on the corner of the street while the red signal was on, even though there was no traffic in sight.

  She barely looked to her right as she stepped off the curb, listening to her mother on the phone. Then she heard a faint revving from around the corner. A lone Segway came into view. She paid it no attention until she noticed the driver’s shiny black helmet with skull and crossbones. His face was masked and he was dressed entirely in black.

  The man, who was tall and muscular, was staring in her direction. She stopped walking halfway across the street to let him pass and was on the point of saying goodbye to her mother, when a gloved hand reached towards her. She darted sideways to avoid his grasp, then screamed as he grabbed her and began dragging her by her hair behind him. She broke into a run to keep up and began tugging frantically. Her handbag slipped from her shoulder and into the street. The rider was struggling to remain upright as they wrestled for control.

  As they passed the Ford’s theatre where Lincoln was assassinated, she was running parallel to him, a foot-long clump of her hair in his fist. The pain was bewildering.

  “You bastard, let me go!” she screamed. Could she pull off his helmet and unmask him? She was aware of people stopping to stare and point, some laughing. They must think she was part of a stunt. She felt the vehicle slowing as it rolled towards a red traffic light, her scalp yielding as his grip tightened. Had he really intended to hurt her? She saw her chance. With all her remaining strength, she yanked her hair to free herself, causing him to slightly lose his balance, while she went flying into the gutter.

  “Help!” she yelled. But before she had time to pick herself up and give chase, he’d turned left and was lost in the traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue, leaving her panting on the corner.

  “Miss, are you alright?” A couple saw her rubbing her head by the side of the road and helped her up. She noticed the man was wearing a Nationals baseball cap.

  “My bag,” she murmured. “Never mind. I’ll be okay, thanks. I’ve got to get my bag and my phone,” and started retracing her steps unsteadily.

  The bag with all its contents was still lying by the side of the road. Quickly she checked that her wallet was inside. But finding the phone took ten more anxious minutes. She worried it had been flattened by a passing car, but eventually she found it in the middle of the road just north of F St.

  It was still working. She rang her mother who answered immediately. “I’ve been so worried about you darling. I heard you screaming and then there was a whooshing noise and a crash and the phone went dead!”

  “A man just attacked me. I can’t believe it. I was on my way to see the lawyer when he grabbed me.” She was struggling to stay on her feet. “I’ll be okay. I’m just a bit shaken but nothing broken. I’ll call you later. I’m late for the appointment now.”

  She hurried to Smithson and Hopkins where she was shown straight into Mark’s office. He’d got up to greet her, then saw her distress. Her trousers were stained with grime where she’d fallen to the ground.

  “Has something happened?”

  “I’ve been attacked. It was a man on a Segway.”

  “A Segway?” The corners of his lips began to twitch. “Death by Segway! Only in DC, right?” He was trying not to laugh.

  “It’s not funny. This is deadly serious. A masked man grabbed me by the hair and if I hadn’t pulled myself away in time I could have been killed.” She was rubbing her scalp which was still tender.

  “Was he armed?”

  Of course, this was America. “How should I know? I don’t think so. Do you think he was going to shoot me?”

  “Sit down, be comfortable. I’ll get you something to drink. You look shaken.”

  “Tea please, if you can.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. But she managed to compose herself by the time he returned with a plastic cup filled with foaming tea from the beverage machine.

  “What I want to know is how he knew I’d be crossing the street at that very moment.”

  He sat down in front of his desk beside her. After a few moments he said, “The only thing I can think of is that they hacked Mimi’s phone.”

  “What? After all the precautions we took? That’s not possible.”

  “These people aren’t amateurs, Susie. Remember I told you to get a new phone when you left DC?

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Well maybe we missed something.”

  She was stunned. She didn’t believe him. How and why could anyone hack into Mimi’s phone?

  Then she let out a moan.

  “Of course, the hacking scandal. Journalists listening to celebrities’ messages. They got the passwords. Do you think that’s what DeKripps did?”

  “It seems to be easy enough. Most people keep the default password,” he said.

  “I should have warned Mimi, but how was I to know what they’d do? It was bad enough when they broke into her flat.”

  “Susie, it’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up. You did everything you could. But this is another warning from DeKripps. Who knows where they’ll stop.”

  “I refuse to be intimidated,” she said. “It’s going to take more than a man on a Segway to keep me down.”

  “We should probably think about getting you some police protection. Particularly if there’s a trial.”

  Police protection? “No, I’m okay,” she said. “Really. I’m not going to let DeKripps turn me into a victim.”

  He sat back while she took a sip of the flavourless tea. “Actually, I’ve got some good news for us,” he went on, breaking into a smile. He held up a finger to make sure he had her attention. “And I mean really good.”

  He had been contacted by a top firm of lawyers who had decided to launch a class action against DeKripps in federal court on behalf of several clients who believed that they had become addicted to Guilty Secrets.

  “What, bigger than Smithson and Hopkins?”

  “I know it’s hard to imagine, but bigger than Smithson and Hopkins.” He grinned again. “What DeKripps didn’t realise when they launched this product is that the greedy rich have greedy lawyers for when they get mad.”

  “I see. How many people?”

  “A dozen have come forward, the best cases, suing on behalf of others. There’ll be thousands of them.”

  Mark explained that in the case of Guilty Secrets, the customers would have to prove a direct link between cause and effect. “In other words, prove they were addicted. And prove that they bought the product, you know, credit card receipts from P and P, that sort of thing.”

  She rubbed her head slowly and crossed her legs. “But even if they have the receipts, it’s going to be incredibly hard to prove, isn’t it?”

  “We’ve got the nicotine cases as a precedent there. In the early cases against Big Tobacco, which tobacco won, they were accused of failing to warn smokers of the cancer risk. Like you say, it came down to whether they knew about the health risk or not. But in the later cases, it came down to whether they’d known nicotine is addictive. They could no longer claim they had no idea about that af
ter certain documents came out.”

  She nodded. “Just like DeKripps. And we’ve got the Project Candy file.”

  “Then, of course, for the class action, there’s a whole procedure to go through,” he said, tapping his pen on the coffee table. “There’ll be a discovery phase, just how many people feel they’ve been affected. But our plaintiffs are ready for that.”

  One of his friends who worked for Bradley, Steinfeld and Moore had told him that one woman had gained 60 pounds in six months, exactly the time that Guilty Secrets was on the market and before the FDA had slapped an injunction halting their sale.

  “Wow. The poor woman. I wonder how many boxes she bought.” That’s ten pounds a month, thought Susan. Thank God I left the country in time. The weight had been dropping off her since she’d left Washington and could no longer open a box of Guilty Secrets, despite the cravings.

  “You can imagine how she felt. Now she and the others want to wring DeKripps dry. Because, boy, are they mad.”

  He put down his pen.

  “I see,” she said slowly. “It comes down to proving that DeKripps was knowingly selling an addictive product, and these people having the receipts over that period of time to prove a direct link.”

  “That’s about it. And don’t forget that they never told the FDA either.” Mark looked at his fingernails before proceeding. “The thing is, Susie, they want you to be a witness for the prosecution. In fact the prosecution witness.”

  “Of course.” She didn’t hesitate. She’d been preparing mentally for this moment for months. “As long as DeKripps doesn’t kill me first.”

  “Atta’ girl.”

  He thought for another moment. “Do you think there might be anyone else you know at DeKripps who might help?”

  “What about Tony Stella? You told me he’d been arrested,” she said. “He should actually be the star witness.”

  “He’s not talking.”

  “But he’s got to talk!” She raised her voice. “Where was he, anyway?”