Either Side of Midnight : A Novel (2020)

by Stevenson, Benjamin

  Jack had been assuming the child pornography was a cover-up, an artificial motive for suicide to draw attention away from the potential murder, but he hadn’t yet considered that Sam’s death may have happened first, and someone, knowing the station would be under scrutiny, had acted on the opportunity to draw attention away from something else. He could see now why Celia had invited him in so amiably. She believed there were some unanswered questions too. And while she wasn’t yet with Harry in believing that Sam’s death was criminal, she still suspected someone was tampering with his legacy.

  ‘Was he having trouble at work?’ Jack asked. Whether it was fake evidence for murder or corporate back-stabbing, it also didn’t mean it couldn’t be both at once. Harry had summed it up best. Throw a dart. ‘I used to work at Channel 14 too. I know how cutthroat television can be.’

  ‘I don’t really know. But everyone liked him.’ She eyed Jack. ‘Where’d you grow up?’

  ‘Blue Mountains.’

  ‘Thought so. You’ve got a similar small-town vibe to him. Practical. No bullshit. Sam was always helping out his friends. Writers, directors and, later, producers. Lots of Sam’s mates cut their teeth on his show. He was known as a bit of a career starter. If an old school chum had a kid who wanted an internship, Sam would whack them on a camera for a week. Someone makes the big city move and can’t find work, Sam’d have a job for them. You ever notice how most actors and actresses come from money, but the talk-show guys don’t? Hosts work their way up from the bottom. Because they have to be genial, endearing, chat to their guests and make them feel at home. The glitz and the glam is for the A-listers, but the host’s job is to make their guests shine. That’s why they’re all country boys. Hell, Dwyer started out flipping burgers in a shitty seaside town. Same as Mr Midnight. That’s how you know someone grew up small. Sam made it to the top, but he took his friends with him.’

  ‘Not his brother.’

  ‘Harry quit.’

  ‘So he says. Was the show stressing Sam at all?’

  ‘No more than usual. By that I mean plenty was usually stressing him. A nightly talk show is always subject to the same pressures. The ratings dip for one week and suddenly the word “rebrand” is on every memo. New hosts get thrown around in the media, which is really just the station itself leaking a list of candidates to see if one clicks with the public. It’s how they chose the last Bachelor. Such a scam.’

  ‘How were the ratings?’

  ‘Fine. Genuinely. I know they did the “rumoured host” thing about six months ago, but that was just prior to the series renewal in October for the new year. They were never serious – just trying to scare him into signing a contract on the same money. But the series had been ordered for the whole year. Ratings were fine. No reason to play games.’

  Jack googled the hosting rumours Celia was talking about on his phone. It was anchors from other networks. Men in ties and suits with different gradients of silver in their hair. They all looked very similar. A carousel. Sam was by far the youngest. Tom Dwyer, whom Gareth Bowman had mentioned hating, was mentioned on one site. All had their own shows on competing stations anyway, so Celia was right: it was artificial pressure.

  ‘None of these guys would be caught dead negotiating with Channel 14,’ said Jack, scrolling through the article. Celia nodded in agreement. ‘They’d have to sign an agreement before they announced they were leaving, let alone put it in the media. Otherwise they’d risk both contracts going up in smoke.’

  Something caught Jack’s attention in one of the additional links. A similar list from Channel 12’s show The Round Table, which listed Sam Midford as a potential host. Could Sam Midford replace Tom Dwyer as Round Table host?

  The Round Table was a guided discussion of the week’s news, less scripted than Midnight Tonight. Channel 12 promised a ‘lively weekly discussion with the nation’s best, brightest and funniest minds’, where rotating guests debated hot-topic issues. Again, the list was a homogenous blend of white men in monochromatic ties, with one exception. Beth Walters was on there – ‘the livewire producer of Midnight Tonight could also be a wild card at the end of the season’. While Sam’s show had a more satirical bent, not direct competition, threatening to replace him with a rival network’s flagship host and producer was sure to put the wind up Tom Dwyer, and Channel 12 as a whole.

  ‘Did Sam have an offer from Channel 12?’ Jack turned the screen to show her what he was talking about. ‘That’d piss Gareth off.’

  ‘Nope. Like I said, it’s a scare campaign. Gareth always liked to keep Sam on his toes. “It’s my show.” That’s Gareth’s message. Like when Harry quit. Refill?’

  Jack put a palm over his bottle. No thanks. ‘Tell me about that.’

  ‘Harry’s told you? Well, they were head-hunted in Montreal, but when they shot the pilot Gareth thought having two hosts was dragging it down. What he didn’t say was that twice the talent costs twice the money. Even though they would have happily split the fee. But Gareth is a long-term guy, and he knew if the show did well it would be a pain to renegotiate. Sam was going to walk – he really wasn’t coping with the stress of having Harry dropped, until Harry quit on his own. Left it to him.’

  ‘You were together then?’

  ‘We got together soon after. I’m a doctor. We met at the Prince Alfred. I know what you’re thinking, and she’s his. She’s four. It was a whirlwind. I don’t regret it, but we skipped the marrying part.’

  ‘Everyone keeps telling me Harry quit on his own, but he hasn’t even met his niece. I’m supposed to believe that’s an amicable split?’

  ‘Harry quit soon after I met Sam for the first time, as a patient, not as a romantic partner. I know that much. Sam would have told me more if he was ready, but he wasn’t. It’s not my place to say otherwise – that’s between brothers.’

  CHAPTER 14

  Jack took another sip of his beer, because he felt he’d started to lose her when he’d declined a second drink, and he wanted to keep up the casual nature of their conversation. She didn’t seem to know much about Harry, but she was surprisingly open talking about Sam.

  ‘Beth Walters told me the police returned Sam’s clothing to you directly?’ he said.

  Celia nodded. ‘We got everything except his laptop – they kept that. I don’t know what use they think I’ll have for a bloodstained shirt, but they gave it back anyway. Honestly I thought there’d be some biohazard restrictions. I haven’t opened it. I couldn’t bear to think of a piece of his brain falling out.’ She took a breath. Thought. Plucked the words again. ‘Oh, and the gun. Of course, we didn’t get the gun.’

  ‘Was it Sam’s gun? Did he own one?’

  ‘Didn’t think he did.’ She shrugged. ‘I never saw one, anyway. Learning a lot about him these days though.’

  ‘May I see the clothing?’

  She set her beer down. ‘Follow me. You right, hun?’ Heather, still fixed on the television, looked up as they walked past. She had curly hair. A big mouth, gums primed for her dad’s teeth. Didn’t seem too interested by the strange man in her house. Celia pointed at Jack. ‘This is Jack. He’s a friend of Daddy’s.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Jack warmly. ‘But that’s okay.’ Celia gifted him a genuine laugh.

  Sam’s personal items were in a large clear zip-lock bag that Celia kept in the top space of the master bedroom’s wardrobe. The bed was made. A pair of children’s pyjamas were folded on one pillow. The two of them had been curling up together, Jack surmised. Celia, for all her resolve, couldn’t face the empty bed. As she reached up and slid the bag out, Jack noticed the cupboards behind her were bare. Bad memories gone? It seemed too quick. But if she was trying to rid the house of him, why keep his photos up in the hall?

  Celia handed him the bag. ‘Use the bathroom. It’s all dry, but I still don’t want it on my covers.’

  ‘You off-loaded all his clothes already?’ Jack asked, nodding at the empty cupboard.

  Celia shook her head. Loo
ked like a memory had hit her. ‘Oh. I forgot about that. Believe it or not, they all disappeared. Honestly, if he hadn’t have done what he did, I would have thought he was running away.’

  ‘They were just gone? When?’

  ‘Gotta be honest, I wasn’t really focusing on his cupboards that night. You could have stolen my car while I was sitting in it and I wouldn’t have noticed.’

  ‘Sorry, of course. You think he was planning on going somewhere then? With all his stuff?’

  ‘Not everything, just the good suits and shirts and jackets. Everything hanging. Like I said, in any other circumstance you’d think he took off. Now, maybe if he planned the whole thing, the only reason I’ve come up with is if he donated them to Salvos. Get some goodwill before heading upstairs.’ She put her hands in the air, sat on the bed with a thump. ‘Beats me.’

  Jack put that behind another door of unanswered questions. Evidence that Sam was not prepared to die. Why would Sam pack a bag before he killed himself?

  Jack took the zip-lock bag into the bathroom and knelt. His stomach rumbled in recognition of the position. False alarm, he chastised, stand down. He upended the bag in the bathtub. He didn’t have gloves so he inverted the bag into makeshift protection over his left hand and started to sift through it. There, the pink boardshorts with green pineapples. There, the blood-spattered white shirt, now crinkled and yellowed on the edges. The neatly tailored blazer. Cufflinks rattled in the tub. The coiled cord and earpiece, the radio mic battery pack, which would have sat in Sam’s back pocket, were among the items.

  Who was in your ear? Jack thought, looking at the earpiece. Beth said it wouldn’t have been too difficult to jump on the frequency. And Jack was still of the belief that, maybe, Sam hadn’t hidden the gun at all. Even so, what could you possibly say to someone to get them to . . . What else had Beth said? If anyone was on it, we’d all have heard it. There was a strange smell of chemicals soaked into each item. Forensic. Jack checked the pockets. A pen. A few dollars in change.

  ‘No ring?’ Jack called, as he got to the bottom of the pile.

  ‘Ring?’ Celia’s footsteps came up behind him. She seemed surprised, then figured out the implication and scoffed, as if another coat of paint had flaked off her memory of Sam. ‘Never seen one. If he was proposing, it wasn’t to me.’

  ‘His phone?’

  ‘They returned that separately.’ Then, ahead of what he was about to ask, ‘I checked it too. Only a few numbers I didn’t know, telemarketers. He wasn’t planning as much as a long weekend, let alone a mistress, or buying a gun on the black market.’

  Jack started to rifle through individual items again. He picked up the blazer. The fabric was deep blue, pinstriped, but the collar was black. Like a broken pen had stained it with ink. The ‘ink’ cracked as he unfolded it. He winced. Celia was standing in the doorway watching. Jack turned the blazer inside out. Sanitary pads were stuck to the armpits. That was a TV trick, to put pads under your armpits to absorb sweating. Again, a man not dressed to die. Half-suited with women’s hygiene products under his arms. Jack shook it. Two small white pills clattered into the tub. Jack picked them up. They weren’t stamped with any of the main painkiller brands. He held them up. ‘He’s on meds?’ he asked.

  ‘You didn’t know that? I thought that was why you’re here.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘The stuff that doesn’t work, obviously.’ She crossed to the medicine cabinet and pulled out a transparent plastic bottle. Then a white one. And another. She held up all three. Tossed him one. ‘Antidepressants. Take your pick.’

  Jack turned the bottle over in his hand. Why wouldn’t Harry have mentioned this? He had Jack playing pretend detective when their supposed victim was on medication to help with suicidal intent. Jack wasn’t so naive to think that everyone on antidepressants was suicidal, but in that bathroom, the association was pounding him over the head. Besides, Jack had really only started to believe Harry based on his assumption that Sam was a happy-go-lucky flying-high television star. His only even half-decent summation so far had come from the assumption that it was out of character. And now these pills.

  Then again, they hadn’t spoken in five years. Maybe Harry didn’t even know?

  Jack’s enthusiastic line of questioning slowed. He’d asked one question several times, and the answers he’d gotten had satisfied him that there may be a story here. But he’d only been asking work colleagues and estranged brothers. Maybe he didn’t have a conspiracy after all. He should have asked the girlfriend sooner. ‘Was he suicidal?’ Jack asked.

  ‘He was doing better. I mean, it takes management, a good plan, support.’ Celia pointed at the bottle in Jack’s hand. ‘Those. You take it day by day.’

  ‘So . . .’ Jack stared at the bottle. Ran out of words. Tried to find new ones.

  ‘I’d rather you just asked me.’ She tapped a foot.

  ‘My brother’s sick,’ Jack said. ‘Well, not sick, but he’s dying. Well, he’s already . . . Look, it doesn’t matter. But if he dies, one day’ – Jack clicked the fingers on his bagless hand – ‘like that, it would be awful. But it wouldn’t be . . . unexpected.’

  Celia put a hand to her mouth. Not in shock, but just to touch her own lips. A tic. Jack’s honesty had warmed her up again. Her words cracked out of her. ‘If I’d come home and he’d been in here . . .’ She lowered her hand from her lips to gesture to the bathroom, then started nodding. Blinking. Maybe imagining him on the floor, those bottles empty. Maybe in the bath, water overflowed, tiles stained. ‘Maybe. Maybe I would have walked in, and, sure, I would have screamed and cried and done the same things I did, but I’d be lying if a part of me wouldn’t have thought: so here it is.’

  ‘And on that night?’

  ‘Didn’t feel like that.’ Now her head was shaking, that same minute repetitious movement, over and over. ‘No. He wouldn’t have done it like that. I mean, in front of us? It was so different to what I expected. No. It’s hard to find the word. I didn’t ever expect it, but if it happened. Like you said, if . . .’ She clicked her fingers in mimicry. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. Like maybe I already did my grieving, while he was still alive. When it was bad, and when I steeled myself on the days when I did expect it. Maybe I got it out of the way. My mum had cancer, same thing. We have to mourn the living sometimes. But not what he did. Not how he did it. God, he was doing so much better.’

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Than the first time.’

  ‘The first time?’

  ‘Five years ago. Sam’s first suicide attempt.’

  Before Jack could ask any more questions, a young girl’s desperate yells – which could only be Heather’s – echoed in from the hall. Celia’s head snapped up at the sound.

  ‘Mum! Mum!’ The voice was desperate, but after the initial rattle of surprise, not terrified. It was the desperate excitement of a child, where the fact they need to show you something – a handstand, a cartwheel – causes them physical agony. She was yelling at the top of her lungs. ‘Mum! Mummy! Come quick!’

  ‘What is it, honey?’

  ‘Dad’s outside.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Harry—’

  ‘Quick! Quick!’ A pause. ‘They’re fighting!’

  CHAPTER 15

  The fight on the lawn was an all-out scrap. No clean punches, no neat strikes. Harry and another man were in an indiscriminate scruff, rolling over one another while grappling with pieces of clothing or hair. Men like to think when they fight it’s impressive, but more often it’s just two men spun in a washing machine. Jack personally avoided fights; his calcium deficiency meant his brittle bones broke easily. ‘Do you wanna go?’ someone had asked him in prison. ‘Sure,’ Jack had said, ‘I’ll go,’ and left.

  As Jack and Celia caught their first glimpse of the spin cycle through the front windows – where Heather was bouncing excitedly on the couch – Harry got on top. His shirt was ripped. A pearl of blood on his lip. His size was work
ing against him: the man underneath was smaller and flailed more. Harry copped a knee in the chest and dropped off briefly before the hurricane of grass stains and ego continued. Jack and Celia rushed out the front, Celia stopping to tell Heather that she needed to stay inside or she would lose iPad privileges.

  ‘Harry!’ Jack yelled, rushing over and trying to get his hands on Harry’s shoulders.

  Harry swatted him away. He almost had the guy pinned, still writhing and kicking. Spit was hanging from his bloodied mouth.

  Jack tried again. ‘Harry, stop!’

  A freezing jet of water doused all three of them. Harry and his combatant scrambled backwards, blinking off their surprise. Jack turned. Celia stood at the corner of a house with a garden hose. Shrugged an apology for hitting Jack. Heather stood in the doorway, technically inside the house but right on the doorline, stopped by the invisible forcefield of fierce parenting.

  Harry stood up slowly, panting, wiping his face. He flicked droplets off his left arm. His sleeve, torn at the shoulder, hung low as if dislocated. The other guy was on his knees, facing away, legs shaking like a newborn foal, gearing himself up to stand.

  ‘He was skulking around the porch. He tried the door, but it was locked, so he started going through your bins,’ Harry spat, pointing. ‘Looking for something!’

  ‘Settle down,’ Jack said. Then, ‘Who are you?’

  Celia stepped forward with the hose as if it were a weapon. An interrogation threat. Don’t give it to Harry, Jack thought, not confident Harry would be above waterboarding.

  ‘And why were you going through my bins?’ Celia asked.