The Talk Show: the gripping thriller everyone is talking about

by Harry Verity

  The rain was coming down hard, the skies grey… Edward hoped they could find somewhere fast – and comfortable – though he knew this was unlikely. After trying three hotels off The Mile they finally found a cheaper bed and breakfast further from the centre. The room they were offered was pleasant and clean but nothing out of the ordinary.

  ‘Here,’ Violet said, handing Edward a hip flask as she walked to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, regaining his composure.

  ‘Vodka. You need it to calm your nerves.’

  He took a couple of sips and returned it to her as she climbed into bed.

  He wondered why he was doing this but couldn’t be bothered to argue and before long he was fast asleep…

  Any prospect of a quiet morning soon evaporated with an urgency and panic unlike either of them had ever felt before when, as Edward always did first thing, he turned on the news.

  ‘My God,’ he said, shaking so violently he felt as if his entire body was going to crumple to the ground. ‘Oh my goodness.’

  Violet came running over from the bathroom when she heard the reporter speak, the toothpaste dripping from Violet’s open mouth. The strapline said it all.

  ‘O’SHEA DISAPPEARANCE: RESEARCHERS PRIME SUSPECTS?’

  The reporter was live outside the People studios where the sun was only just starting to rise.

  ‘Police this morning have issued a statement saying they want to talk to this man and this woman in connection to the disappearances on the Michael O’Shea Show.’ To Edward’s horror the screen flicked to a zoomed-out photo of him in sunglasses on holiday in Florida – his Facebook profile picture – and then briefly to a photo of Violet looking several years younger and with slightly shorter hair and a fringe. ‘The two people in these photographs are Violet Dearnley and Edward Lewis. Police have confirmed that they are researchers on the show and that they haven’t been seen since Tuesday when they failed to turn up for work. They are believed to be travelling together. It comes after Michael O’Shea gave a bare-all interview last night, in which he explicitly named the researchers…’

  ‘So what does this mean for the investigation?’ the presenter in the studio asked the reporter.

  ‘It seems highly likely that the police want to question Violet Dearnley and Edward Lewis because they may well be directly involved in the disappearance of the two girls. Police haven’t said whether they want to interview them as witnesses to what happened or suspects, but police believe that these kidnappings can only have been carried out by someone who either appeared on the show or had knowledge of how the show operated. It is also worth noting that they both failed to turn up today. Now I think the question many people will be asking is did they run off because they knew the heat would now be on them?’

  ‘And tell us, how do people get in touch if they see either of these people? Or what should they do?’

  ‘At this stage it seems that…’

  Violet grabbed the control from Edward’s hand and turned it off.

  Violet rummaged through some cheap clothing she’d picked up from a supermarket in London before they had headed for the coach station.

  ‘Here,’ she said, throwing him a thick blue hoodie, ‘put this on and keep your hood up at all times.’ Then Violet pulled out the pair of sunglasses that she always carried and a headband and placed the glasses firmly around her eyes and pushed her hair back with her band.

  ‘You really think this is going to work?’ Edward asked, though he couldn’t deny such small changes did make Violet look quite different.

  ‘Only if people don’t get a good look at us.’

  Edward was losing his cool. ‘What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?’

  Violet appeared calm. ‘We need to clear our names.’

  Edward gathered up the remainder of his clothes into the rucksack he’d bought and then the two of them were off, wanted for crimes that they had not committed.

  28

  ‘I said the only chance we’d have of persuading the police to investigate Michael was through Tiffany. Actually, I was forgetting about something.’ Edward had spent several hours working on his theory.

  ‘Oh?’ said Violet.

  They were passing through the tall back streets of Edinburgh Old Town, tall and discreet.

  ‘There’s another person who could implicate him,’ said Edward. ‘Michael’s brother, Phillip.’

  Violet chimed in. ‘I suppose it’s possible that Phillip’s penchant for young children stems from watching his older brother. But,’ she cautioned, ‘we don’t know that for sure and Michael will know we’re likely to go and visit his brother in Manchester if he can implicate him.’

  ‘So that’s where we are heading? Manchester?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘How are we going to get there without being arrested?’

  ‘By being discreet, by buying tickets in a different name. And by sitting at the back of the coach, in the corner. We keep our hoods up, curl up in a ball and fall asleep and no one will suspect a thing.’

  ‘You’ve really thought this through…’

  Violet nodded.

  Edward was uneasy as they boarded the coach this time. He tried to steady his chattering teeth, his shimmering body, knowing what would happen if he attracted unwanted attention.

  When they finally hopped off the coach in Manchester, fear of being recognised and accosted haunted Edward and Violet’s every movement. They hadn’t dared stay in a hotel in case the staff had recognised them. So they sat down in the corner of a relatively empty park.

  ‘How are we going to find Phillip?’ said Edward.

  ‘If we can wait for him after his trial, we can follow him and find out where he lives.’

  ‘And how will we know when he’s next up in court?’

  Violet handed Edward a local paper. They’d passed by a news stand on their way there, but Edward hadn’t seen Violet pay for anything.

  ‘I couldn’t exactly have walked up and paid for it when all his other papers have my face plastered on the front page,’ she explained. ‘I swiped it.’

  ‘But if you’d been caught,’ Edward protested.

  Violet shook her head and shrugged.

  ‘But I wasn’t, Edward. Here.’ She opened the paper on page eight where there was a half-page lead:

  TALK SHOW BROTHER IN COURT

  The sex abuse trial of Phillip O’Shea, the brother of the famed TV host Michael O’Shea, began today as the prosecution outlined their case against the 38-year-old at Manchester Crown Court. O’Shea from Manchester is charged with five counts of sexual assault and downloading indecent images of children. Jonathan Edwards QC, for the Crown, said that police had uncovered over five-thousand different indecent images of children on O’Shea’s laptop, downloaded from the internet. The trial will continue tomorrow.

  ‘So all we have to do is watch him go in, wait for him to come out and follow him home?’ Edward said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Without getting caught.’

  Violet feigned a smile.

  That night they didn’t sleep. Fearing that wandering around Manchester city late at night might not be the best idea when the police were on patrol, ready to break up the inevitable fights when closing time came at many of the bars, Edward and Violet took shelter in the only place they could: a toilet cubicle. No one came around to lock up and the stragglers from the pubs were no doubt far too drunk to think about using a urinal or a cubicle. So, Edward and Violet rubbed their hands together and tried to keep each other warm, far too on edge to fall asleep even if their surroundings had indeed been considerably more comfortable.

  When the sun started to rise, they sprayed some deodorant over each other and made a move. Edward was developing a beard which Violet approved of, claiming he would be recognised less easily as he’d always been clean shaven.

  At the courthouse, they at first took to loitering around the small side street at th
e back.

  At last, ten o’clock struck and from afar they caught sight of Phillip O’Shea.

  He was disabled and was using crutches. There were a few reporters following him. Just one photographer had shown up to get a snap of Phillip, who was moving so slowly and flanked by a solicitor trying to give him some last-minute advice, that it was hardly difficult for the photographer to run ahead of them both and get the shots he wanted.

  After a few minutes the photographer ran off, satisfied with his catch, and Phillip O’Shea had disappeared behind the double doors and into the courthouse. It seemed that in the eyes of the press he had been guilty from the moment he was accused, the story had ended weeks ago and there was little appetite to report confirmation of what was already true, especially since the press currently had a bigger, more scandalous story to follow…

  As four o’clock approached they made their way back to the courthouse and set about waiting for Phillip to emerge. This time there were no reporters to greet him or anyone for that matter, and he was left to stumble down the stairs on his crutches, alone.

  Edward and Violet followed him, discreetly and quietly, down the back streets of Manchester and towards the suburbs. When he thought no one was watching he stopped hobbling and picked up pace, placing both crutches into one hand.

  Phillip remained oblivious for the entire time until at last, he arrived at his home: a small terraced house, surrounded by moss and overgrown shrubbery. There was no one about apart from a couple, arguing in the front seat of a car. The windows were still single glazed and covered in grime and the door itself was rusty and needed replacing. A light went on in the living room: Edward and Violet made their approach.

  There was no doorbell so all Edward could do was knock heavily, hoping Phillip would hear.

  It took a good five minutes for him to get to the door and they were greeted, as expected, with suitable disdain.

  ‘What do you want?’ he hissed, having swiftly taken to his crutches once more.

  Edward opened his mouth to speak but, stupidly, had thought little about what he might say. It was only as he stood there in the doorway that he realised he may be face to face with a paedophile; the lowest of the low, the ‘scum of the Earth’, to quote the words of Phillip’s brother. But of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. It never was.

  Edward remembered being played an archived clip of a once-loved musician, as he took a reporter on a guided tour of his home, filmed a few months before his exposure as a serial child abuser; Edward didn’t know why he had expected to see seedy photos of children hanging from the walls, shut curtains, and secret rooms, but of course there was nothing remotely abnormal about where the now disgraced DJ had lived. Despite his dark secret, day-to-day he lived like any other man.

  Phillip’s house, although cluttered and messy, was much the same. It shed no light on the accusations levelled against him.

  ‘We want to ask you a few questions,’ Violet said.

  ‘I’m not talking to journalists!’ Phillip snapped.

  ‘We’re not,’ Violet said. ‘We want to talk to you about your brother, we worked with him.’

  ‘My brother? What’s he got to do with this?’

  ‘If you let us in we can explain,’ Violet said. Phillip did not look convinced. ‘Please,’ she added, ‘we won’t stay long.’ He contemplated his decision: curiosity clearly got the better of him.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, hobbling backward so that she and Edward could make their way in.

  The inside of Phillip O’Shea’s house was just as neglected as the outside. The white walls had faded to yellow and the carpeted hallway did not look as if it had been hoovered in quite some time. The living room was no different either. In fact, it looked as if it was stuck in the 1970s. The television was chunky and small, there were extravagant paintings on the wall, and the sofa was curved and pink. And all around were cabinets of rubbish: Elvis Presley records, unlabelled videotapes, piles of discarded bills and unopened junk mail, half broken mugs and dog-eared books.

  ‘Can we sit down?’ Violet asked.

  ‘Tell me about my brother,’ he said, without answering her.

  Violet and Edward took seats, regardless.

  ‘It’s really important you tell us the truth,’ Violet explained. ‘We believe your brother might be involved in some serious crimes.’

  ‘What sort of crimes?’ he asked.

  ‘Similar to the sort that you’ve been accused of,’ Violet said.

  His eyes widened.

  ‘You’ve seen the stories. Two girls from Michael’s show have gone missing,’ said Violet, ‘and a taxi driver has been murdered. We caught him with his hands around the neck of a third girl. We’re sorry.’ Violet was humble. ‘We need to know, have you ever seen your brother do… anything?’

  ‘Yes,’ Phillip said, after a slight hesitation. ‘Yes. I saw him.’ He took another break. ‘I saw him…’

  She was taken aback.

  ‘When?’ Violet probed but, before he could answer, everything stopped. Suddenly, the house was ablaze with blue lights and police officers of every rank were swarming into the house. Edward was pushed to the floor beside Violet and, before he could even catch his breath, he was being pulled up again, the caution he had heard so many times before on television washing over him like a particularly potent cocktail he knew would hit him soon enough.

  ‘Edward William Lewis, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Thomas Mallaky, the abduction of Jessica Butler and the abduction of Millicent Jenkins. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  He was in a dream, he was watching himself from a telescope afar and yet he could still feel his arms, the cold metal pressing against his wrists as he was led away into the police van.

  29

  Her lifeless body was easy to cut. Protection had to be taken, of course. Thick black gloves that could be easily burned, a knife sharp enough to hack it clean off without creating too much of a mess, a vial to collect the blood and a plastic sheet to stop the excess from seeping onto the floor. This could not turn into a hatchet job. Not now, not after so much preparation, not in the final stages…

  30

  The morning brought with it another police van. Taken from his cell and bundled into it before the sun had even fully risen, Edward was told little about where he was going or what had happened to Violet, only that he was heading in the direction of London.

  The press seemed to know more than he did. For, right on cue, as Edward was taken outside into the yard he caught a few snatched glances of the paparazzi, already camped outside the police station in droves. He tried not to look at them as he was handcuffed and bundled into an empty van. His isolation from Violet was deliberate, he’d been told, so that he couldn’t confer with her – though he and Violet would surely have had plenty of time to concoct a story during their escapade around Manchester, had that indeed been their plan.

  It took what seemed like an eternity to get to London. Through the bars on the windows and the cage in which he was imprisoned, Edward could barely see a thing, only glimpses of the motorway or the grey blocks of flats as they got closer to the city. Above the engines, Edward swore he heard a helicopter circling around. The paparazzi clearly hadn’t missed a trick, though why any unsuspecting viewer would be inclined to watch Edward’s complete journey from Manchester to London he didn’t know.

  He was thankful when he was finally led out of the van and into another police yard. Inside the station he searched once again for Violet, hoping to catch a brief sight of her so that he could be sure she was okay. But there was no such luck. Maybe she hadn’t been arrested at all? Maybe the police were only interested in him.

  ‘Follow me,’ the officer said. The custody suite at this station was a lot bigger and it was modern too. There was no hint of the Victorian architecture at all, just lots of plain white walls, plastic flooring, and thick metal doors.

  ‘Do you wish to see
a solicitor?’

  ‘No.’ Perhaps not the most sensible option, Edward thought, but he was confident, despite having spent several hours in a cell already, that, if he told the truth, justice would prevail.

  ‘You may be required to give another interview. For now, I’d like you to tell me where you were on the evening of Millicent Jenkins’ disappearance.’

  ‘I was…’ It took Edward a while to remember. ‘I was at home in my flat. We had done a show with Minnie and we had put her and her family onto a train. But that’s not the point…’ Edward protested, ‘I didn’t do this and neither did Violet. I saw Michael O’Shea put his…’

  The officer held up his hands.

  ‘Silence, son,’ he said, ‘you’re here to answer my questions.’

  ‘But I’ve just told you–’

  ‘Did you sexually assault Minnie Jenkins?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Did you murder her? After you assaulted her did you kill her? Where have you hidden her body?’

  Edward could see this was going nowhere. He refused to answer.

  ‘Did you falsify a voicemail message in order that her parents would think that Minnie was safe?’

  He shrugged. ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Where were you on the evening Jessica Butler disappeared?’

  This time Edward did have an alibi. He explained that it was the night he and Violet had gone back to his flat and that there would be CCTV showing him getting the Tube, that there must be a record of him leaving the studios. He couldn’t possibly have driven all the way down to Cornwall and caught up with Jessica Butler’s taxi. But his alibi didn’t appear to satisfy the officer.

  ‘Anyone who worked on the show could have found out where Jessica was going,’ Edward protested. ‘It wasn’t a secret. It was Michael who did this. You’re going after the wrong person. You need to interview Michael O’Shea.’