A Room Swept White (4 page)

‘The police don’t want the film to be made?’ Everything Laurie says makes me feel worse. Even more than usual.

‘They haven’t said that yet, but they will. They’ll trot out some guff about you compromising their—’

‘But I haven’t . . . Laurie, I don’t want your job! I don’t want to make your film.’ To clarify, I add, ‘I’m saying no.’ There, that’s better. Perfectly in control.

‘No?’ He stands back and examines me: a rebellious specimen. Previously compliant, though, he’ll be thinking, so what can have gone wrong? He laughs. ‘You’re turning down a salary that’s more than three times what you’re on now, and a career-launching promotion? Are you stupid?’

He can’t force me – it’s impossible. There are some things one can physically force a person to do. Making a documentary is not one of them. Focusing on this helps me to stay calm. ‘I’ve never exec-ed anything before,’ I say. ‘I’d be completely out of my depth. Don’t you want to cooperate with the police, help them find out what happened to Helen?’

‘Culver Valley CID couldn’t find tennis balls at fucking Wimbledon.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘If you’re going to Hammerhead, why isn’t the film going with you?’

‘The BBC commissioned Binary Star, not me personally.’ Laurie shrugs. ‘That’s the price I pay for leaving. I lose it.’ He
leans forward. ‘The only way I don’t lose it is if I give it to you, and work with you when I can behind the scenes. I need your help here, Fliss. You’d get all the credit, you’d get the salary . . .’

‘Why me? Tamsin’s the one who’s been working on it with you. The woman’s a walking miscarriage-of-justice encylopaedia – there’s not a detail she doesn’t know. Why aren’t you trying to force this promotion on her?’

It occurs to me that Laurie’s been patronising me.
How do you fancy being rich
? He’s always moaning that he can barely afford the mortgage on his four-storey townhouse in Kensington. Laurie comes from a seriously wealthy family. I’d bet everything I’ve got – which is considerably less than he’s got – that he regards his salary at Binary Star as acceptable, nothing more. The offer Hammerhead made him, the one he couldn’t refuse, obviously knocked a hundred and forty grand a year into a cocked hat. But of course a hundred and forty a year would be wealth beyond the wildest dreams of a peasant like me . . . I stop in my tracks and realise that, if that is what Laurie’s thinking, he’s entirely correct, so perhaps it’s unfair of me to quibble.

‘Tamsin’s a research assistant, not a producer,’ he says. ‘Look, you didn’t hear this from me, okay?’

At first I think he’s referring to what he’s already told me, about the promotion I don’t want. Then I realise he’s waiting for me to agree before telling me something else. I nod.

‘Tamsin’s being made redundant. Raffi’s talking to her now.’

‘What
? You’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.’

Laurie shakes his head.

‘They can’t get rid of her! They can’t just . . .’

‘It’s industry-wide. Everyone’s tightening their belts, making cuts where they can.’

‘Who made the decision? Was there a vote?’ I can’t believe Binary Star would keep me and lose Tamsin. She’s got loads more experience than I have, and unlike me, she isn’t constantly pestering Raffi for a dehumidifier for her office.

‘Sit down,’ says Laurie impatiently. ‘You’re making me nervous. Tamsin’s the obvious choice for redundancy. She’s earning too much to be value for money in the current economic climate. Raffi says we can get a new graduate researcher for half the price, and he’s right.’

‘This is so out of order,’ I blurt out.

‘How about you stop worrying about Tamsin and show me some gratitude?’

‘What?’ Was that the great crusader for justice who said that to me?

‘You think Maya wants to pay you what she’s paying me?’ Laurie chuckles. ‘I talked her through her options. I said, “If there’s a line in the budget for me, then there’s a line in the budget for Fliss.” She knows there’s no film without my cooperation, not for Binary Star. Ray Hines, Sarah and Glen Jaggard, Paul Yardley, all the solicitors and barristers, the MPs and doctors I’ve got eating out of the palm of my hand – one word from me and they walk. Whole project falls apart. All I need to do is bide my time, then sign a new contract with the BBC as MD of Hammerhead.’

‘You
blackmailed
Maya into agreeing to promote me?’ So that’s why she was less gushy than usual when I passed her in the corridor. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’m—’

‘I want this documentary made!’ Laurie raises his voice to a level some might describe as shouting. ‘I’m trying to do the
right thing here, for everyone! Binary Star gets to keep the film, you get a package that’s appealing enough to make you get off your arse and do the work . . .’

‘And what do you get?’ I feel unsteady on my feet. I’d like to sit down, but I won’t, not after Laurie ordered me to.
Not when he’s just made a snide remark about my arse
.

‘I get your full cooperation,’ he says, so quietly that I wonder if I imagined his outburst a few seconds earlier. ‘Unofficially I’ll still run the show, but my involvement will be strictly between you and me.’

‘I see,’ I say in a tight voice. ‘You’re not only blackmailing Maya, you’re blackmailing me, too.’

Laurie falls into his chair with a groan. ‘I’m bribing you. At least be accurate.’ He laughs. ‘Fuck, did I read you wrong! I thought you were rational.’

I bite my lip, struggling to take in this latest revelation: that Laurie has an idea of what sort of person I am. It means he’s spent time thinking about me, even if only a few seconds. It has to mean that.

‘You deserve a chance,’ he says in a bored voice, as if it’s tiresome having to convince me. ‘I decided to give you that chance.’

‘You want control of the film even after you leave. You chose me because you thought I’d be easier than anyone else to manipulate.’ I hope he’s impressed by how calm I am. On the surface, at least. Not in a million years did I ever imagine that I would stand in Laurie Nattrass’s office and accuse him of bad things. What the hell am I doing? How many innocent citizens has he sprung from their jail cells while I’ve been whiling away my spare time leafing through
heat
magazine on the sofa, or shouting abuse at
Strictly Come Dancing
?
What if I’ve completely misread the situation and I’m the one in the wrong?

Laurie leans back in his chair. Slowly, he shakes his head. ‘Fine. You don’t want to exec the documentary that’s going to win every prize going? You don’t want to be Creative Director? Then why don’t you make Maya’s day: tell her you want out of the deal, and watch her lose any respect for you that she ever had.’

‘The
deal
?’ I am bloody well not in the wrong here. ‘You mean the deal I wasn’t party to, the one that involves my life and career?’

‘You’ll never be offered anything again,’ Laurie sneers. ‘Not at Binary Star, not anywhere. How long do you think it’ll be before you’re standing behind Tamsin in the dole queue?’

Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto
.

‘I don’t feel comfortable getting a pay-rise of a hundred grand a year when my friend’s losing her job,’ I say as unemotionally as possible. ‘Of course I’d like more money, but I also like being able to sleep at night.’

‘You, lose sleep? Don’t make me laugh!’

I take a deep breath and say, ‘I don’t know what you imagine you know about me, but you’re wrong.’ Then I feel like a scumbag for implying that I might have an active social conscience, when in fact all the sleep I’ve lost has either been love-related, or . . .

Or nothing. I can’t let myself think about that now, or I’ll start crying and blurt out the whole story to Laurie. How hideously embarrassing would that be?

How much would he hate me if he knew
?

‘Jesus,’ he mutters. ‘Look, I apologise, okay? I thought I was doing you a favour.’

What happens if I say yes? I could say yes
. No, I couldn’t. What the hell’s wrong with me? I’m panicking, and upset about Tamsin, and it’s affected my brain. The state I’m in, it’s probably sensible to say as little as possible.

Laurie swings his chair round so that I can’t see him. ‘I told the board you were worth what I think you’re worth,’ he says flatly. ‘They nearly shat themselves, but I made a good case and I talked them round. Do you know what that means?’

A good case?
Do what I say or I’ll put the kibosh on the film
– that’s his idea of a good case? He can’t even be bothered to put a convincing gloss on it; that’s how little he values me.

Without waiting for my response, he says, ‘It means a hundred and forty a year is now officially what you’re worth. Think of yourself as a share on the stock market. Your value’s just gone up. If you tell Maya you don’t want it, if you say, “Yes, please, I’d like a pay-rise but not
that
much, because I’m not
that
good, so can we please negotiate downwards?” – do that and you plummet to rock-bottom.’ He spins round to face me. ‘You’re worthless,’ he says emphatically, as if I might have missed the point.

That’s it: my limit. I turn and walk out. Laurie doesn’t call after me or follow me. What does he think I’m going to do? Take the promotion and the money? Resign? Lock myself in a toilet cubicle for a good cry? Does he feel at all guilty about what he’s just done to me?

Why the hell do I care how he feels
?

I march back to my office, slam the door, grab the damp towel from the top of the radiator and wipe away condensation until my arm aches. A few minutes later, the window is still sopping wet and now so is my jumper. All I’ve succeeded in doing is flicking the water all over myself.
Why doesn’t someone think to put an end to world drought by collecting condensation? My window alone could irrigate most of Africa. Why doesn’t Bob Geldof sort it out? It must be Bob Geldof I’m angry with, since it can’t be Laurie. I’ve got a typed document buried somewhere in my desk, instructing me, among other things, never to allow myself to get angry with Laurie.

I used to look at it all the time when Tamsin first gave it to me. I thought it was hilarious, more hilarious still when she told me she gave a copy to every woman who came to work at Binary Star. About a year ago, it started to lose its appeal for me, and I stuffed it in my desk, underneath the flower-patterned lining paper that someone who worked here before me put in all the drawers.

No point trying to kid myself that I can’t remember which drawer it’s in; I know exactly where it is, even if I’ve spent much of the last twelve months pretending it isn’t there. I pull out the files and the drawer-liner, and there it is, face down. Steeling myself, I pick it up and turn it over.

It’s headed, in capitals, ‘
TAMSIN
’
S SEVEN COMMANDMENTS
’, with a subheading in italics,
‘To be borne in mind at all times in relation to Laurie Nattrass’
.

The list reads as follows:

1) It’s not you. It’s him.

2) Have no expectations, or, alternatively, expect absolutely anything.

3) Accept what you can’t change. Don’t waste time getting angry or upset.

4) Bear in mind that it’s only because he’s a man that he’s got a reputation for being ‘brilliant but difficult’. If
he were an equally talented woman who behaved in exactly the same way, he’d be ridiculed as a mental old bat instead of head-hunted for all the best jobs.

5) Beware of imagining that he has hidden depths. Assume his true self is the bit that you can see.

6) Don’t be attracted by his power. Some people are powerful in a good way, enhancing the confidence of others and making them believe anything is possible. Not him. Get close to him and you’ll find that, as his power seems to grow, yours rapidly diminishes. Look out for a feeling of helplessness and the growing conviction that you must be fairly rubbish.

7) Whatever you do,
DO NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM.

According to at least one of Tamsin’s criteria, I have failed spectacularly.

2

7/10/09

‘Unusual, yes,’ said DS Sam Kombothekra. ‘Suspicious, no. How could it be?’ If trying to be fair to everyone ever felt like too much effort, Sam hid it well.

He and DC Simon Waterhouse were on their way to today’s second briefing. It had probably started by now. Sam was walking a little too fast, trying to look as if being a few minutes late didn’t make him nervous.

Simon knew it did. Lateness belonged to that vast superset of things that displeased Detective Inspector Giles Proust, known unofficially as the Snowman because his regular avalanches of disapproval descended as tangibly as boulders of ice, and were as hard to shake off. After long years of trying, Simon had finally succeeded in insulating himself against Proust’s condemnation: the inspector’s opinions no longer mattered to him. Sam was a newer addition to Culver Valley CID and still had a long way to go.

The incident room was packed by the time they got there, with nowhere left to sit and hardly any space to stand. Simon and Sam had to make do with the doorway. Between the bodies and over the heads of dozens of detectives, most of whom had been drafted in from Silsden and Rawndesley, Simon could see Proust’s trim, immobile form at the front. He wasn’t looking in their direction, but Simon could see
the Snowman noticing his and Sam’s lateness. A tilt of an eyebrow, a twitch of the jaw – that was all it took. Wasn’t it supposed to be women who were passive aggressive? Proust was both: passive aggressive and aggressive aggressive. He boasted a full repertoire of noxious behaviours.

It was clear from the noise in the room that they’d missed nothing; the meeting hadn’t got going yet. ‘Why now?’ Simon addressed his question to Sam’s ear, raising his voice to be heard over the mix of murmured conversations and the irregular drumming of feet against table legs. He was still suspicious. More so, if anything, for being told there was no cause. ‘Two briefings a day? It’s not like this is the first murder we’ve ever worked. Even with the multiples we’ve had in the past, he’s barely stuck his nose out of his box apart from to carp at you or Charlie, whoever’s been skipper. Now he’s leading every—’