Either Side of Midnight : A Novel (2020)

by Stevenson, Benjamin

  When they called cut, Beth didn’t run. Instead, she walked over, flipped a chair beside Jack and sat down. The two crew members were rolling cables, which helped Jack feel safer. She wouldn’t try to kill him in front of them. Then again, she’d as good as killed Sam Midford in front of a million.

  ‘I didn’t want you to see me like this,’ she said.

  ‘Channel 12 buttered you up, didn’t they?’

  ‘They used me,’ she said, looking at her knees. Jack couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed, or if she was annoyed that her ambition was so obvious. She’d brushed away the question when Jack asked if Channel 12 had offered her a job previously. But there was bitterness there. So I’ll take the slops and smile, and say it’s delicious and still ask for more. ‘I don’t know why I thought it would be any different to here, but somehow I did. They said if I slipped them a few things – winners, plotlines – those kinds of things, that they’d sort me out over there.’ She looked mournfully at the empty set. One of the spotlights went off with an industrial clang. ‘You’ve gotta understand. I anchor Sam’s whole fucking show, I write the damn thing. Those are my words. My words getting laughs, applause breaks. Mine.’

  ‘That’s why Sam took you to Montreal.’ It wasn’t a question. Things Harry had told him sparked in his head. In his airport apartment: She popped up again . . . Sam insisted she was coming on tour with us. In the motel: He’d just whack a script down and it would be magic. ‘You were writing all their scripts. From the beginning.’

  Beth nodded. ‘That’s all TV is,’ she said, ‘women making men look good. I was a production assistant on the clip of them that went viral at the start. Sam was so nervous. I gave him a couple of witty lines to return fire on some questions I knew our host was going to ask – because I wrote that interview too – and when that went well, he wanted me to stick around. How fucking naive of me to think all I had to do was wait my turn. The only thing Gareth would give me was to be giggly and jiggly past midnight. Kept saying I needed more screen time. So I thought, fuck the lot of them. And Channel 12, yeah, they made me feel like it might actually happen. They ran that article.’ Jack recalled Beth’s name on the list of possible replacement hosts for The Round Table. ‘And that buttered me up, so when they started asking for things, I guess I wasn’t so hard to convince. I thought that if I just kept giving them the things they were asking for, my time would come. And when they started crushing us in the ratings . . . Gareth was fuming, upgrading the security on all our shows, locking down scripts. Guess it helps that he sees through me sometimes, hey?’ She blinked away tears. ‘And I fucking bought it. But when they could have offered me a contract, they didn’t.’

  ‘Was that when you decided you had to get rid of Sam yourself?’

  ‘Wait—’

  ‘Who helped you? Dennis Slater?’ That was an important question, because Beth’s alibi was sound. She was on camera not touching the autocue. Which meant she had an accomplice. Perhaps Sam was nothing more than a mutual enemy – that tie between the city and the sea – but what had brought them together?

  ‘No one helped me. It was over email. Hang on, I thought—’ She was interrupted by a wave from the crew. She waved back.

  Jack stood. ‘Let’s walk,’ he said. ‘You in front.’

  ‘You’re scared of me?’ She didn’t stand.

  ‘You killed Sam. We haven’t even got to Lily Connors.’

  ‘Wait.’ Beth sounded genuinely shocked. ‘I didn’t know anyone would kill him. How do you kill someone with a script? That’s all he asked for. God, you’re going to think I’m so fucking stupid. Until you told me about the prompter I hadn’t even thought about the correlation. I’ve been giving Tom our scripts for months.’

  ‘Tom Dwyer?’ Jack asked. ‘Host of The Round Table?’

  ‘He contacted me directly. I’d just seen that article come out, and Tom talks a really nice talk. And I thought I had a chance to get out of these stupid gameshow graveyard shifts. He said I had talent – he was the only one who said that. God, I believed him. He was smooth. And he’s a small-town guy, I told you, and he knows what it’s like to work your way up. And then he asked for a few things, a little insider gossip at first. And then it was reality TV winners. And then it was shooting scripts for Many Summers. I think I knew he was using me, near the end, but it’s like, I’ve given him enough that if I don’t keep giving him more, well, what was it all for? Chasing your sunk costs, you know? And then he asked for the Midnight Tonight scripts, and it seemed so small fry compared to the other stuff. And I thought it might be a writing test, or maybe they’d just make Sam look like a hack. Either way, I thought that meant I was finally going to leave him in the dust. Without me, Sam had no show. He was supposed to go down, sure, but he wasn’t supposed to die.’

  She made to stand. Jack put a hand out. Like he’d be able to stop her if she ran through him. But she stopped midway, sat back down.

  Jack stared at her. ‘You’re accusing Tom Dwyer of murder? He has no motive. He got the scripts he wanted. The murder’s on you.’

  ‘Legally?’ Beth scoffed. ‘Will that hold up?’

  ‘Manslaughter will,’ Jack spat, recalling the news he’d read. The young man who had gassed himself on his girlfriend’s instruction: that was ruled manslaughter. Involuntary, if Jack remembered the judgement correctly, but there was precedent. The laws were changing. Murder wasn’t off the cards, if the law progressed. Either way, there was a crime to be answered for.

  ‘No.’ She was either shaking her head or shivering, Jack couldn’t really tell. ‘No. No. Why do you think I’ve been trying so hard to help you? I told you about the prompter. I gave you all the footage. I interviewed our operator for you. All the truth. I’m on your side.’ She pleaded. She was crying in hitches, her chest bumping up and down. ‘It is my fault, I know that. I saw him, on the ground. And that’s why I wanted you to figure it out without seeing my involvement. Because I put that to air, and it’s like that 13 Reasons thing – I told you about it because I’ve been having nightmares about it, can’t stop reading about that shit because I want it not to be true. If even one person acted on seeing it, God. Fuck. That’s duty of care. The civil suits . . . My life is over.’

  Her breathing settled. She sucked in air through her nose and exhaled, for a full minute. Looked around the studio, barren and castless, camera dead. A room that used to be bustling with laughter and a sweaty warm-up guy and a smiling host. Now empty.

  ‘I’m scared,’ she choked out.

  ‘You should be,’ Jack said.

  CHAPTER 33

  If Gareth Bowman was surprised when he walked into the boardroom at nine-fifteen, he didn’t show it. He set his KeepCup down and scanned the room. Jack could see him trying to figure it out. Three people he knew, one he didn’t. He didn’t shake hands or introduce himself to the fourth. Instead he sat down, squeaked back in the chair. He still had a red ring around his eyes from his morning squash game.

  ‘Right,’ he said, very matter-of-factly. ‘Who’s suing who?’

  It had been a tense wait for Gareth to show. Jack had seated Harry and Beth on opposite sides of the table to stop them throttling each other. Jack had waited until dawn to explain to Harry over the phone what he’d learned from Beth, because he thought Harry would stomp into the studio straight after. And he had, but at least the sun was up. When Jack had convinced him that they would all wait for everyone to be in the boardroom, Harry had immobilised himself into his chair like a car on bricks. ‘I’m not letting the scheming bitch out of my sight,’ he’d said. Beth, for her part, had slept a little with her head on the table, comfortably warmed, assumedly, by Harry’s withering glare.

  Harry had brought a scrawled notepad of Sam’s Morse code messages, so Jack had busied himself reading them. It was a catalogue of Sam’s life, everything he was proud of and wanted to tell his brother about. Films, his daughter, footy scores, holidays. It felt like reading a Facebook page of status updates. But undern
eath, it was a sad transcript of a missed connection, a catalogue of things unsaid. In the last few weeks, there were four or five obscure references to Lily. SOMETIMES I THINK IT’S HER WHO CALLS. A snapshot into Sam’s delusions as they went further. I THINK SHE’S BEEN HERE. SHE GAVE IT BACK. Someone was taunting him. Jack had no idea what ‘it’ was. But there were no pointed fingers or accusations. Crucially, there were no names.

  The fourth invitee, Detective David Winter, had been convinced, at length, by Jack that he’d learn something new about the pornography on Sam’s computer. It wasn’t a huge lie – there was, after all, still a potentially high-profile distribution ring operating – but Jack still felt thick-tongued telling it. ‘There are people I get up early for, Jack,’ Winter had said on arrival, pulling up a seat at the end, sequestered from the others like an adjudicator. ‘You’re not one of them.’

  ‘Did you bring a gun?’ Jack had asked. Winter, fully suited as if he were an accountant, no sign of a weapon bulge in his coat, waved him away without comment.

  Completing the party was a three-pronged speaker phone in the centre of the table, with Hank Waldren dialled in. Jack pictured him chain-smoking. Beth must have had a link to the coast, an accomplice, and Jack needed Hank to be part of the conversation for Winter, but he hadn’t told Waldren any of that. They’d dialled him at nine, and he’d sat silently other than checking in every five minutes with ‘Still here.’ Jack would reply the same, and the room would keep on waiting.

  Everyone was already on edge, and Gareth’s attitude on arrival hadn’t helped. Harry was agitated. Beth was watching intently through tired, cried-raw eyes. Jack knew he had to choose his first words carefully. As if on cue, his phone rang. His father. Shit. It hadn’t even occurred to Jack he’d been gone all night. He knew he couldn’t take the call, in case he came back and someone had been thrown out the window. But he was equally disappointed because he’d felt they were finally getting somewhere. He didn’t want his dad to think he wasn’t trying.

  ‘No one’s suing anyone,’ said Jack. ‘But we need to talk about the night Sam died.’

  ‘You got a show for me?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Harry gruffly. ‘We’ve got a fucken show.’

  ‘No suit today?’ Gareth taunted Harry. ‘Realised you don’t live up to him after all? Just an imitation.’

  Harry went to stand. Jack put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Gareth,’ Jack said, ‘we know someone here was leaking information to Channel 12.’

  ‘I wish I was surprised,’ Gareth said. ‘Why do you think I was at the recording? Something stunk. Seemed like it was coming from Midnight.’

  At this invitation, Beth straightened, challenged Gareth with a stare. He clicked his jaw as he processed the implication. Winter shifted too. Minutely, but Jack noticed.

  ‘All I wanted—’ Beth started.

  ‘You deceitful little—’

  ‘There’s a lot we don’t yet know,’ Jack said.

  ‘Fraud. What more do you need to know? Fraud, that’s what this is. Fraud.’ He chewed his lip as he whisked himself madder with that word. ‘Was it Tom Dwyer? Were you fucking him? I will spin his jaw. Shit. Fraud!’

  ‘What about murder?’ Beth shot back. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Beth, I don’t think—’ Jack said.

  ‘I was worried that people might start to catch on to what I was doing. So I had a back-up plan,’ she said. Her voice was darker now, throaty. She looked up at Jack, then across to Gareth. ‘I knew if you found out what I was doing, you’d react just as you are now. So I needed a scapegoat. Just a few breadcrumbs that might get the rumour mill going. Make it look like Sam was doing it, not me. That’s why you were in Studio Three. My little breadcrumbs, they worked.’

  ‘What are you accusing me of?’ Gareth asked.

  ‘Jack.’ She turned to him, pleading. ‘You’ve got to believe I wouldn’t kill him. But we both know who would have been really pissed off. Someone who thought they’d just found out their prime-time star was leaking their biggest shows.’

  ‘What? Is that why I’m here?’ Gareth turned on Jack. ‘Are you fucking kidding me with this? I don’t have time for you, Jack. Fuck your story. You and Harry, in five minutes your presence here is trespassing. You.’ His finger cut a jagged heartbeat in the air, pointing unsteadily at Beth. ‘You too. I don’t even want to see you clear your desk. Don’t even bother explaining. Next time we talk, it’ll be in court. You signed an NDA, if I recall.’ He laughed. ‘You are so fucked.’ He stood, headed for the door.

  ‘No one’s leaving yet,’ said Winter from the back.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Gareth.

  ‘Police,’ Winter said.

  ‘Well, arrest one of these lunatics then.’

  ‘Lunatics will be arrested when I’m good and ready.’ Winter folded his arms.

  Jack grimaced as his phone buzzed again. Gareth took a seat like a petulant child. Muttered something about fraud under his breath.

  ‘Jack,’ said Winter, ‘I’m interested in the pornography. Not this horsing around.’

  ‘Pornography? I fuck actual women, if you must know,’ Gareth huffed. ‘I don’t need porn.’

  ‘I meant the stuff on Sam’s laptop.’

  ‘I’m still not sure if someone put it there or if Sam uncovered it in his own investigation,’ Jack said. ‘Gareth, I’m not accusing you of anything. Beth, once you decided to get rid of Sam, I think you found out about Lily Connors.’

  ‘If you had the photos, that’s possession.’ Harry sneered at Beth. ‘If we can’t prove manslaughter, we’ll get you on that.’

  ‘Waldren.’ Jack spoke up, redirecting the conversation to the speaker phone. ‘Dennis Slater had the same photos that were also found on Sam’s computer. Let’s assume he’s responsible for making them. If someone knew enough about Lily Connors to scare Sam into doing what they wanted, I figure they’d know a little about Wheeler’s Cove. We know how Sam died. Now I want you to help us find out how Lily did.’

  ‘Not this again,’ Waldren crackled through the phone for the first time.

  ‘You’re accusing me of two murders now?’ Gareth wasn’t mad anymore. He was nearly delirious. ‘Why would I give you access to the station if I was a serial killer? I don’t know who Lily Connors even is. Sam couldn’t live with himself, sick bastard, so he killed himself.’

  ‘That’s the narrative you want us to see,’ Beth replied.

  ‘What did I just say?’ Gareth made a beak with his hand and snapped it shut. His hand quivered as he did so. ‘Is this a courtroom?’

  ‘Jesus.’ The phone crackled again.

  ‘Are you accusing a police officer?’ Winter leaned forward on his elbows, spoke over Gareth to Jack.

  ‘Hank, the way I see it, it’s one of three people. There are two people in this station with motive, but I can’t pin either of them to Lily Connors. Beth, here, wanted Sam’s job. Gareth, the CEO, may have thought his hotshot anchor was leaking valuable scripts. Either way, that person found themselves working with Dennis Slater. Because Lily was the way to break Sam. And you approached his caravan, unannounced and with no probable cause. I don’t believe you were radioed by emergency. Maybe you knew enough already – you were Maurice Connors’ sounding board, after all, and Sam figured it out. Maybe you solved it too. Maybe when I walked in asking questions, you realised it would just keep going. Taking care of Dennis Slater was your way of putting an end to it.’

  Jack paused. There was nothing but silence from the speaker. Winter didn’t interrupt. ‘I’m not interested in you. He had a shotgun. Your story holds up, and that’s how I’ll tell it. But Sam is dead. And Winter would have cut me off by now if he wasn’t interested. Tell us if you knew who Slater was working with here. Tell us why you lied about the radio.’

  ‘Hank, mate,’ Winter finally spoke up. ‘I believe you. But I asked around. No officer said they asked you to flick your lights on and check out the caravans. Le
t’s put this to bed.’

  There was a long pause. Gareth rocked back in his chair, resigned to the farce. Beth was still crumpled across the desk. Jack was leaning in tightly to the phone so he didn’t miss a whisper. Then Waldren crackled through.

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you except the truth.’ There was a collective exhale as Waldren spoke. ‘I took the call just like I said I did.’

  Jack couldn’t say it was a lie without directly accusing the officer. He looked around for support, but everyone was waiting for his next move. Winter had lent his faith but now lost it. Harry was scratching circles in the table varnish.

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ Winter said.

  ‘Thank you!’ Gareth exclaimed, validated.

  ‘Hank.’ Jack leaned into the phone, ‘They’re clever enough to get an autocue. Maybe they could get on your frequency. Did Sam come to you for help? Did he solve this?’ He spoke deliberately. ‘Do you know what happened to Lily?’

  ‘I do know what happened to her,’ Hank crackled. ‘She killed herself. Her family learned to live with that. So should the rest of you.’ He clicked off.

  ‘Jack.’ Winter’s voice was gentle. It reminded Jack of how the doctors used to talk, back when he was a patient. ‘When was the last time you slept? Ate?’

  Jack’s mind was spinning. He was struggling to breathe. He had no answers. He felt weak. Light. Not in control. And his phone just kept on fucking buzzing. When had he eaten? This was supposed to all click together neatly. Instead his soldiers were stamping in time, egging on the fight that left Jack battered and bruised in the dirt in a circle of shields and spears, and chanting for someone to come in for the kill. Baying for blood.

  ‘Who the fuck is Lily? Is anyone going to tell me who I’m supposed to have murdered’ – Gareth aimed this cockily at Winter – ‘or can I go now?’