Alternative outcome

by Peter Rowlands

  “I’m supposed to fix a meeting with them next week. I’ll probably know if it’s going to lead anywhere after that.”

  “Well, if it does lead somewhere, just be thankful. We’ll certainly be keeping our fingers crossed.”

  The meal arrived, and I was spared the third degree for a while. Joanna suddenly said, “Mike, you’re looking much more cheerful these days. Should we be presuming your love life is looking up?”

  Was I more cheerful? If so, presumably I had Ashley to thank, but we hadn’t been in touch since the day I went to Bristol, and I had no clear idea what was supposed to happen next. How long should I wait before contacting her again?

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it my love life.”

  “We’re talking about your girl in Truro, are we?”

  “Yes, her. But she’s not really my girl.”

  “Well, it’s obvious you want her in your life. What’s she like?”

  I hesitated. The urge to start talking about Ashley was almost irresistible, but I knew I would probably sound like a love-struck teenager. Cautiously I said, “She’s very pretty.”

  “Of course she’s pretty.” Joanna gave me an admonishing frown.

  I raised my eyebrows. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Well, she’s slim and dark-haired …” I was floundering. “Small-chested.”

  She groaned. “Too much information. Tell us something actually useful.”

  I took a deep breath. “OK, well she’s very wry. Great sense of humour. And there’s a quiet confidence about her. She seems good at her job, and she knows her own mind.” I paused. “Except in affairs of the heart, I suppose. She doesn’t seem to know what to do about her engagement – whether she’s really committed to it.”

  “No wonder, if she’s thinking of ditching her fiancé for you.” Joanna’s eyes twinkled. “What on earth does she see in you, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “You’d have to ask her that.” I thought for a moment about Jack. “The fiancé seems a solid, reliable sort.”

  Joanna gave a short laugh, and John also looked amused. “So you think you offer her a bit of the wild side?”

  I didn’t see that in myself, but I merely scowled. “No comment.”

  “So what next?”

  “Well she says she wants time to get her head together.”

  “No she doesn’t.” Joanna gave me a brisk smile and tore her chapati decisively in half. “Is that what she told you?”

  “In so many words.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t take what she says at face value. What she means is that it’s your turn to make the running. She’s fed up with having to push things forward herself.”

  I smiled at her, admiring her splendidly positive and pragmatic take on the world. Her advice was to do exactly the opposite of what Ashley had said. Where was the logic in that?

  “I appreciate the support, but please let me deal with this in my own way.”

  She frowned at me. “Well all right – but don’t leave it too long. She’ll think you’ve lost interest.”

  Chapter 38

  When I logged on to my email system next morning, the first thing I found was a message from tpowell9775.

  Hi Mike

  Thank you for your email. It’s good of you to explain why you have been trying to make contact with me.

  I remember the Fairmile Hotel well. It was in a very pretty location, and made a good base for heading out to see the other wonders of Cornwall with my parents.

  I got to know a few of the other children there, but not many of them were the same age as me. I think I have a faint memory of you, but please don’t hold me to it! I haven’t kept in touch with any of the others.

  I’m a very private person, and to be honest I’m not really into the idea of connecting with past acquaintances over the internet like this. I felt I should contact you because I could tell that you must have gone to a lot of trouble to find me, but I would prefer not to get into an extended correspondence with you, if you don’t mind. I hope you won’t be upset by this request. I bear you no ill will, and would be saying the same to anyone else in the same circumstances.

  Trina

  PS If you can remove some of the Facebook trails and other stuff about me, that would be great.

  Well, that was telling me. I’d wondered for months what kind of reception I would get if I ever made contact with Trina. Now I knew, and the answer was extraordinarily disappointing: a curt, emotionless brush-off with no facts in it whatever, rounded off by what sounded like a mild rebuke.

  There was no sense here of Trina’s feelings at the time, no detail of her subsequent life, no clue about how she’d manage to slip completely off everyone’s radar for twenty-five years. There was no explanation, even, of how exactly she knew I was looking for her – just a strong hint that any attempt to follow up would be unwelcome.

  I stood up and walked over to the window, and stared out into the street. What on earth was I to make of this? I’d been prepared for some suggestion that the sender wasn’t really Trina, but the negative tone of this message seemed strangely convincing. A hoaxer would surely have tried to extend the exchange, not shut it down when it had scarcely even begun? A hoaxer wouldn’t have sounded so downbeat.

  Yet if this was really her, wouldn’t there have been just a little more of a spark of interest, of surprise? Somehow the tone of this message conjured up someone who was already in the habit of waving away unwelcome interest – who was primed to do it almost by rote, whatever the circumstances.

  As for removing the Facebook mentions, that seemed like a lost cause. I could contact some of the people who had picked up on my original pleas for information about Trina and ask them to delete their posts on this subject, but it seemed to me that my requests would be likely to arouse more curiosity than just letting things be. Besides, the basics of my search for Trina could have been copied and reported elsewhere by now. Once you put things out there on the internet, there was really no taking them back.

  * * *

  I sat down again. I was finding it hard to believe that all my research, all my efforts could have been swiped away with this single, dismissive message. Was this really the end of it?

  It struck me now that I seemed to have forgotten my earlier decision to let this whole thing drop. Trina’s message had raised more questions than it answered, and it had made me realise I’d only ever put my search on the back burner, not truly abandoned it.

  Well, too bad. I started thinking through other strategies I could adopt. Could I find out more about tpowell9775? Idly I opened the properties tab of the email and scanned through the technical details. To my untutored eye it looked just like other messages that I’d examined over the years, usually when checking for spam. There was no obvious indication of relay servers or fake return paths – just a message from tpowell9775 directly to me.

  But this was hardly what you’d call a forensic examination. What else could I do? I reached over to a shelf and pulled down my Writers’ resource goodies pamphlet. It had various suggestions, such as checking the IP address in the email for the country of origin. I did this as best I could, and concluded that it was probably in the UK.

  I then lopped off the “9775” and tried just searching for “tpowell”. In some social media sites this produced no finds at all; in others there were too many to contemplate. A straight web search on the name ran to hundreds of thousands of finds.

  The pamphlet listed various web sites specialising in tracking down email addresses, but I wasn’t sure if they would work, and I was reluctant to pay good money to find out. In any case I wasn’t prepared to go that far. I wasn’t a detective agency, and I didn’t have any justification for trying to act like one.

  At the back of my mind I still had the thought that Trina’s family might have had to disappear into witness protection. Who was I to compromise something like that? Then again, would she have been rash enough to contact me under her real name if that was the case? The answer was
that I simply didn’t know.

  No, if I really wanted to follow this up, the first port of call should be simply to send her another email. She could ignore it if she wanted to, but she might just volunteer a little more information.

  But not now. I needed to think more carefully about this first. I closed her message and tried to focus on work.

  It wasn’t easy.

  2011

  Stepping off the train at St Pancras was always inspiring: that massive arched roof, the restored redbrick neo-gothic hotel, the bustling shopping mall. Such a contrast to the down-at-heel station of twenty years before.

  I was in no hurry. I was early for an appointment. I ambled along the concourse. Then as I neared the Eurostar departure gates my eye was drawn to a woman standing on her own, rummaging through a handful of papers – perhaps searching for her ticket. Some of them slipped from her grasp and fluttered to the ground, and she crouched briefly, gathering them up.

  She had straight shoulder-length dark hair and wore a light-coloured jacket and skirt. She was striking but not exceptional.

  But I knew her. Against all logic, and after a gap of well over twenty years, I felt sure it was her. She’d been a young teenager when I last saw her. How could I possibly remember her now? But there was something in the way she was standing, the way she held her head – it was hard to pin it down, but the combined effect was unmistakable.

  “Sasha?”

  She immediately looked up, then just as quickly down again. She continued to leaf through her papers.

  “Sasha?” What was the matter with me? If she didn’t want to acknowledge me, what was the point? But I couldn’t help myself.

  This time she half-looked up. “Sorry, were you speaking to me?” Australian: those few words were enough to confirm it.

  “I thought you were someone I knew from long ago.”

  Humourless smile. “I don’t think so.”

  I was embarrassed. “Sorry. I must have got it wrong.”

  “No problem.” She finally found the item she was looking for, and stood up straighter, obviously relieved. Our eyes met then, but she quickly looked away. “I’ve got to go. I’m late for my train.” She grabbed the handle of her suitcase, and without another look at me she walked off briskly towards the check-in area, trundling the case behind her.

  As she disappeared into the crowd I noticed a scrap of paper on the ground where she’d been standing – an item she must have missed. I scooped it up and glanced briefly at it. It was a ticket counterfoil for an earlier journey, but the name on it wasn’t Sasha’s. Confirmation, then. I cast around for the nearest litter bin.

  Chapter 39

  Hertford was a pleasant county town twenty-five miles north of London, with a ring road running so close to the centre that it almost seemed to slice through it. Yet this didn’t altogether detract from the prosperous period feel of the place. Genuine Victorian office blocks sat cheek by jowl with modern equivalents, yet there was an underlying consistency in the result. It worked. I couldn’t remember ever coming here before; Hertford sat between the north-south A1 and A10, and wasn’t really on anyone’s route to anywhere.

  Hunt Topham, the publisher Rick Ashton had referred me to, was based in a large redbrick block that was built to resemble its Victorian counterparts, and the department I wanted occupied part of the second floor.

  Zoe Sanders welcomed me when I arrived and led me through an open plan office to a glass-walled meeting room, where she introduced me to a woman of about twenty-five. “Melanie will be your liaison on this project,” she told me. It seemed I was gradually being passed further and further down the food chain.

  It intrigued me to find that a publishing house’s head office was so similar to the logistics company offices I was familiar with. Apart from a few wall posters featuring the front covers of well-known best sellers, there was little here to indicate any literary or academic bent. This was a business like any other. I felt unnerved. I was potential product. Did I measure up?

  The two women were friendly and positive, but altogether noncommittal. I was initially surprised that they both appeared to have read my book; they chatted comfortably about the plot and characters, and indeed showed more insight into it than anyone else I’d ever discussed it with. But they weren’t entirely happy with it.

  “There are one or two inconsistencies,” Zoe said, tapping her pen on a chart. “Some bits need tightening up.”

  By the time Melanie went off to top up the coffee jug I was sweating – partly because of the sun beaming in through the picture window, but more because I felt matters were racing away from me. When I’d published my book online I’d been the sole author, editor and arbiter of every scrap of material in it. Here, I felt I was being judged and found wanting. We’d progressed no further so far than to talk general principles, but already I felt out of control.

  It turned out that the whole meeting was really nothing more than a “getting to know you” exercise. As we broke up, Zoe said, “When Annette is back we’ll get you to come in again, and assuming we can talk terms, we’ll start looking at the contract aspect.”

  I stepped out into the Hertford sunshine with something like relief. These people might possibly change my life, but it wasn’t going to be any walk in the park.

  * * *

  Back in my own office, I decided I’d better nudge Rick Ashton. Days had passed since I first contacted him about the late payments to Noble, and he hadn’t come back to me so far with any new information. Did he know I’d made contact with Hunt Topham? Did he assume that because of this he no longer had any obligation to me?

  If so, he was wrong. I’d spent half the previous Friday morning ringing around truck makers and other suppliers whom I knew to be working with Vantage, trying to discover whether they too were dealing with late payments. It was a delicate task, since I had to avoid stirring up rumours by the mere act of asking questions. I limited my calls to people I felt I could trust. I could only hope my judgement was sound.

  The story I was getting was that others were in a similar position to Janni Noble, though possibly not facing quite such blatant delaying tactics. A picture was emerging, but it wasn’t altogether clear.

  I wondered why the largest shareholder, Hunt Leinster, wasn’t prepared to support the company through this crisis, but perhaps the answer was obvious. From what I read, it was currently embroiled in a battle for media dominance in Canada, and had no spare resources for an ailing UK subsidiary. If Vantage was failing, it would be just as likely to cut the company loose as to supply any aid.

  I opened a new email window. “Rick – I wondered if you had any comment yet on our conversation last week? I hate to hassle you, but I don’t want to go to press without being able to quote your side of the story.”

  This was merely bluff, since I hadn’t in fact placed the story anywhere yet, though I had little doubt that I’d be able to if necessary.

  He surprised me once again by calling me back less than an hour later.

  “Michael, what’s this? I thought we were on the same side here.”

  “I think we are, but I can’t let this run on indefinitely. I need to be able to say something.”

  “All I can say is I hope you and your publishers have good libel insurance.” There was unmistakable anger in his voice. “If you come up with anything prejudicial to our company’s good standing without proper evidence, we’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

  I said nothing for a moment. This was a hard-edge Rick Ashton I’d never encountered before, though I knew of course that he had to be tough to have reached his current status.

  I said, “You know that’s not my way, Rick. I don’t want to make waves unnecessarily.”

  “Don’t then.” He almost spat this out.

  I waited another moment. I wondered briefly if he was about to disconnect, but he didn’t. Finally I said, “Maybe we should start this conversation again.”

  “Maybe we should. Hello Mich
ael. How are you today?” It was sarcastic, but at least it was propitiating.

  “I’m good. I’m hoping we can iron out this issue of late payments.”

  “Fine. Let’s do that. I’m looking into it. I told you that. I’ll get back to you when I have something to report.”

  “Thank you.”

  He paused again, then asked, “How did you get on with Annette?”

  “Well, nothing is agreed yet, but as it happens I’ve just been up to their offices in Hertford this morning for a preliminary discussion.”

  “Promising, I hope?”

  “Reasonably.”

  “You can never be sure how these things will pan out.”

  * * *

  We disconnected, and I sighed. If I’d wondered in passing whether Ashton’s referral to Hunt Topham was meant to be linked to the late payment story, I need wonder no more. He’d just made the connection plain enough.

  What I didn’t know was whether he really had the influence he implied to dictate policy at Hunt Topham, which was theoretically a completely separate and independently-run company. It could just be bluster.

  I couldn’t rule it out. Rick no doubt reported to Tony McGann, the head of Hunt Leinster Holdings, the parent company, and McGann would presumably prefer not to see one of his part-owned subsidiaries collapse with debts it couldn’t pay. No doubt he could exert his influence at Hunt Topham if he chose, and this might well be an instance where he did choose.

  Yet as I sat at my desk working through this logic, I couldn’t resist smiling ironically to myself. What was I doing, worrying that Rick Ashton would block publication of my book? From my session with the publishers this morning, it seemed clear that if anything was going to stop it from being published it was much more likely to be their spontaneous conclusion that it simply wasn’t good enough.