Maximum Exposure (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Daisy had never spent a night in a hotel with anyone other than Jack. If she was honest, she’d never slept with anyone but Jack. Of course, she’d been very young when she’d fallen in love with him. Reflecting on it, she began to realise just how young she’d been. A schoolgirl. She’d thought she was so grown up, but she’d known nothing. Jack had enfolded her in his arms and in his care and for ten glorious years she hadn’t had to worry about anything. She walked nervously across to the bathroom and looked in. It was large, solid, and had a lock on the door.

‘Is it really all right, Daisy? If you’re at all worried –’

‘It’s all my fault, Jay. You being here at all, I mean. If I hadn’t gone into that ditch you wouldn’t have had to bail me out. There’s no reason why you should have to sleep on a sofa.’ She flashed a brave grin. ‘So long as you don’t snore.’

He laughed and slumped down in an armchair. ‘Can’t promise but I’ve never had any complaints. Look, freshen up a bit and we’ll go find some food.’

She picked up one of the toothbrushes and her handbag and closed the bathroom door behind her. Out in the bedroom, she heard him turn on the television and was grateful for the noise.

The dining room was busy. Daisy recognised quite a few faces from the conference earlier in the day. No wonder they’d had so much trouble finding accommodation. It was also warm. Fortunately, she was a dab hand at layered dressing and that morning she’d pulled on a grey T-shirt under her woollen sweater. At least it looked presentable and, worn with Lizzie’s pretty velvet scarf, she felt half respectable. Her jeans were still sodden, but the shower and hair wash had transformed her into a different person from the Daisy who’d shivered in the car wondering if Jay would ever find her.

‘What do you fancy? I think I’ll have the beef.’

She studied the menu. ‘The fish for me. Thanks.’ A whole evening with Jay Bond. Jeez. And a night. She still didn’t want to think about that bit. She’d have to slip into bed while he was in the bathroom. And despite all his promises, she’d be leaving her underwear and T-shirt on. ‘Thanks for coming for me, Jay.’

He smiled at her and again she understood the force of the charm he could exert. The lines of his face were sculpted and sharp, his mouth shapely, his face perfectly symmetrical, his hair thick and beautifully cut. In the flickering flame of the candle on their table, he looked very attractive indeed. Funny that. How you could be dining with the most handsome guy north of the Border and still not fancy him one bit?

‘That’s a nice scarf.’

Daisy had looped Lizzie’s red creation round her neck. Its folds fell softly below her chin and the ends draped in long tendrils down her back. ‘It’s not really my colour.’

‘It suits you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What do you think of the paper now?’

‘What? Sorry …’ The question took her by surprise.

‘Do you think it’s improved?’

Daisy gulped. What could she say? She thought of Sharon.
‘Do something, Daisy.’
She thought of Jack.
‘Talk to him. Be honest.’
When would she ever get another opportunity like this? And Christ knows, her job was on the line. What did she have to lose? On the other hand, she didn’t want to make things difficult for herself if they
did
manage to save the paper. Again, she felt paralysed by indecision.

‘You can be honest,’ said Jay, clearly catching her mood.

‘Well,’ she began cautiously, ‘yes and no.’

He put down the large menu and stared at her. What on earth was she doing? Criticising him would be sheer foolhardiness. He was her
boss
. She backtracked hastily. ‘I think Ben’s done a great job on the layout. And the headlines.’

As her courage slipped, an image of Angus MacMorrow rose up in front of her. Angus, falling like a tree, shocked to death by the threat of closure. Angus, who’d taught her so much and been so passionate about the
Herald
. She owed it to him, she owed it to all of them at the paper. To Ruby, who’d obviously loved the old reprobate. To dear Sir Cosmo, who relied on the horoscopes to allow him to come in and drool over Sharon. To Murdoch, who deserved better than to be made redundant just before the end of his career. To young Dave, who wasn’t experienced enough to find another job easily. To herself, damn it. And to all the people of Hailesbank, who were missing the news of the clubs and societies that made up the beating heart of the town.

‘But on the other hand …’ she started. And by the time the wine came, a few minutes later, she felt as though she’d written her own dismissal.

The waiter splashed the rich ruby liquid into Jay’s glass. He swirled it around, inhaled, and nodded. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Which is more than my editorship is, it appears,’ he added to Daisy.

‘There’ve been lots of good ideas, Jay,’ she said, belatedly trying to sugar the pill, ‘and we appreciate you’re trying to bring up the standards. I know we’d all got a bit lazy in the last year or two while Angus was ill.’ She sighed. ‘That’s something none of us is proud of. It’s just that it isn’t really the best time to be experimenting with new ideas. With the threat of closure hanging over us and all.’ She took a big swig from her glass. There. She’d said her piece, just as she’d promised Sharon and as Jack had suggested. For better or … ‘What’s wrong?’

Jay’s jaw had slackened and his eyes had grown round. ‘What did you say?’

‘Which bit? The club news? The horoscopes?’

‘About closure.’

‘That’s what killed Angus. I think so anyway. He was reading the letter from the Chairman when he had his heart attack.’

‘Letter?’

‘About the proposed closure.’ She remembered what Jack had said – ‘
Does he know?’
But it was unbelievable that he would not know. ‘Surely you were told?’

‘Are you telling me that
The Hailesbank Herald
is being threatened with closure?’

So he really hadn’t known. That seemed unfair. Surely someone coming into a new job should be told about something as critical as that?

‘I don’t believe it. Just wait till I see Uncle Oliver.’

Uncle Oliver?
At last she made the connections. Sir Oliver Wyndham, Chairman of the Board of the Havering Group of Newspapers. Uncle Oliver. It explained how Jay had arrived so speedily in the post after Angus’s death. It explained the smart car – a small sop, no doubt, for what was likely to be a very short-term job. And it explained how Jay had managed to land the post despite leaving Channel 69 under a cloud.

‘What did the letter say, Daisy? Tell me. Tell me exactly.’

The fish was delicious. She hadn’t realised just how hungry she was. The wine was the best she’d ever tasted. And Jay Bond, once they’d let down the defences between them, turned out to be far more approachable than she’d ever imagined he could be.

‘About Sharon,’ she ventured, dipping her spoon in the delicious pudding and sucking a small mouthful off the end of it. To hell with the healthy diet. She’d earned this treat.

His face stilled. ‘What about Sharon?’

‘She … she really likes you, you know.’

Jay laid down his spoon on his plate. His chocolate crepe was only half eaten.

‘You know I’m married,’ he said.

Daisy blushed. They had known, of course. He saw it at once. ‘And I guess you also know about my ignominious departure from Channel 69.’ Her blush deepened. ‘I guess I’d be rather disappointed if you hadn’t done your research. You are journalists, after all.’ He finished his crepe quickly, set his spoon down again, and went on, ‘I’d like to put the record straight. The newspaper reports were overblown, as you might expect from the redtops concerned. I’m not an addict, Daisy. I was mad to take drugs in the studio before going on air. But everyone did it, you know. A couple of snorts sets you up, focuses the mind, gives you an edge, sparkle, confidence. At least, that’s what it feels like.’

He glanced at Daisy. She tried to look non-judgemental.

‘That was all it was,’ he went on, ‘Unfortunately, I got caught. The channel didn’t like it. My wife didn’t like the subsequent publicity and I found myself out of my lovely home on my ear, no job, amazingly few friends, and a marriage on the rocks. I tried everything, but I was getting nowhere, fast. In the end, I had to resort to calling Uncle Oliver and he sent me up here. He gave me a chance – or so I thought.’

He paused and held Daisy’s gaze.

‘By the way, for the record, I’m still in love with my wife.’

That was plain enough. Sharon wouldn’t be happy, but she couldn’t accuse Daisy of not trying on her behalf. The fate of
The Herald,
though, was another matter. Maybe she could do something about that.

‘Jay,’ she began slowly.

‘Daisy?’

‘Could we all try together? To save
The Herald
I mean? I’m sure if we all put our heads together, we could turn things around.’

Jay picked up his glass. ‘There’s nothing I would like better. Let’s drink to success.’

‘To success.’

Chapter Sixteen

By morning, the temperature had risen, the blizzard had turned into rain, and most of the snow had disappeared. It was hard to believe that the day before had been so wintry. Back in Hailesbank, Daisy had to go straight to her first assignment. She parked her rescued car near the office and met Sharon at a bleak-looking warehouse across the river.

‘Could you squat down here,’ she indicated a spot on the floor of the warehouse to the young man she was trying to photograph, ‘and look through the spokes of the bicycle, like this.’ She demonstrated. It was hard work. She’d tried a few different poses, but the guy was one of the shy ones.

‘So how many bikes are you sending out to Africa?’ Sharon asked from somewhere behind her.

‘Three hundred, first off,’ said the man, Bob Sampson, curtly. He might be charitable but no one had schooled him in media relations.

‘Three
hundred
?’ Sharon was incredulous. Pedal People was a charity set up to provide unwanted bikes so that poverty-stricken Africans could make the long commute, see family, get into the towns more easily, but Sharon had been pretty bored by the story – until she heard the figure. ‘Where’re you going to get them all from?’

Bob shrugged. ‘Round and about. The church has put out an appeal. We go out in the van and collect ’em. Do ’em up a bit. Check the brakes ’n that.’

Daisy leant forward and moved the bicycle a fraction so that the wheel spokes, rather than the frame, were in front of Bob’s face.

Click. Click click. She snapped away as Sharon talked to him, eliciting the facts she needed for the story. It didn’t take long and within half an hour they were on their way back to the office. The warehouse where they’d been interviewing Bob Sampson was a short walk across the river, in one of the unlet units the charity had managed to secure for the project. They were strolling back into Hailesbank across the picturesque old sixteenth-century pedestrian bridge when Sharon raised the question of the paper again.

‘Ma Ruby was telling me there’ve been more complaints. Some guys wanting to set up a fiddle band tried to get a piece in and were told they’d have to place an advertisement.’

Daisy, not thinking, said, ‘Don’t worry, Shar, it’ll be all right now. I had a really good chat with Jay over dinner last night and he …’

‘Over dinner?’

‘Yeah, he came to fetch me from Kelso ’cos I got stuck in the snow and we got stranded.’ She giggled. ‘We ended up sharing a room, it was so funny …’

Sharon stopped dead. ‘You shared a room with Jay Bond?’

Daisy, still giggling at the memory of pulling her jeans on under the bedclothes in case Jay came out the bathroom before she’d got them on, looked at Sharon, saw her face, and came to an abrupt halt.

‘It wasn’t anything, Sharon. Honestly. It –’

‘Fucking hell, Daisy Irvine, you know how I feel about Jay. I
told
you. And yet just a few days later you go and try to steal him from me. “Wasn’t anything”? Christ! The oldest excuse in the book. “It didn’t mean anything”. Do you think I came up the Clyde in a banana boat? Dinner for two, sharing a
room
for God’s sake! What a bitch you are, Daisy.’

‘I didn’t … we didn’t … It wasn’t like that.’

‘No? So what was it like? You shared as room with Jay Bond and you just
looked the other way
? Christ Almighty, Daisy, you expect me to believe that?’

Daisy frowned. ‘Just because you wouldn’t, Sharon, you’ve no right to think everyone else is the same as you.’

‘Fucking
preaching
now are you? What a sodding hypocrite you are.’

Sharon’s face was contorted with anger, the clear green eyes were blazing, her usual prettiness turned ugly by seething emotion.

‘Listen, Sharon, nothing happened. Honestly. Anyway, he’s still in love with his wife. He told me so.’

Designed to take the edge off Sharon’s anger, her words had exactly the opposite effect. Sharon started towards Daisy as if she was going to attack her, then she stopped short, opened her bag, rummaged inside, and pulled something out.

‘Well fuck you, Daisy Irvine. I
trusted
you. I fucking
trusted
you!’

She was holding the object high in the air, her fist tight round it, she was shaking it around. Daisy, looking upwards to see what she had in her hand, caught a glimpse of it a second before she threw it into the river.

‘Noooo!’ The scream wrenched out of her in a long, high-pitched wail that sounded unlike her own voice.

The object was Tiny Ted. Her beloved bear. Her comfort bear from the days of her childhood. The bear she kept in her pocket, whose presence soothed her and calmed her. The bear that had protected her from her father’s wrath for as long as she could remember. Her amulet, her talisman, her good luck charm. Carelessly, she’d left him in the office – and Sharon had obviously spotted an opportunity to wreak revenge. So now all she could do was watch helplessly as he arced high into the air and fell with barely a splash into the fast-flowing waters of the Hailes far below them.

Daisy stared at Sharon, too shocked to speak. Even through the reporter’s fury, the horror on Daisy’s face seemed to register.

‘Well,’ she muttered defiantly, snapping her handbag shut and slinging it back across her shoulder, ‘you can’t fucking blame me.’

There was no time for recriminations, no time for tears. Daisy simply turned and sped off the bridge and down to the path by the river bank. Tiny Ted. She had to find him. She simply
had
to. Running along the path, she scanned the waters for signs of her precious bear. He was nowhere to be seen. A mile. Over the stile that marked the end of the tarmac, where the path turned onto the edge of the fields. Nothing. Stopping every few yards to scan the water, Daisy stumbled on. Tears were coming now, streaming down her face, blurring her vision. She dashed them away with the back of her hand, ran on.

After twenty minutes, she had to admit defeat. Tiny Ted was gone. It was crazy, but her heart ached for her little bear. There had never been a time in her life when she couldn’t remember having Tiny Ted near her. She could almost feel his little nose under her finger now, sense the softness of his fur. Except that her pocket was empty. An essential part of her life had gone. Simply vanished – and all over nothing.

When she finally got back to the office a couple of hours later, still trembling, a paper bag lay on her desk. Dumping her camera bleakly on the table, she twisted it open. A small golden bear nestled inside. She glanced over to Sharon’s desk, but the chief reporter was obviously out on another story. Daisy shoved the bag into a drawer in her desk and closed it. The bear was worthless. Nothing could make up for the loss of TT. Except Jack perhaps. More than anything, she longed to feel Jack’s arms around her. He’d understand. He knew how she felt about Tiny Ted. Only Jack could help to make up for this loss. Mechanically, she downloaded the images from yesterday and from this morning’s shoot. Ben, passing behind her desk as she brought the snow pictures up on screen, stopped.

‘That’s good.’

She glanced round, her eyes red and the lids heavy. ‘Thanks.’

Was it? Yesterday she’d felt perhaps she was capturing something special, but now she wasn’t sure she could make a clear judgement. Nothing seemed to matter to her any more. Maybe they were good. She hadn’t taken pictures like this in a long time.

‘No, I mean really good, Daisy. Fabulous.’

She brought up another image. Looking back the way she’d struggled up the hill. In the distance, behind the wall she’d stumbled over, she could see her car, its back end in the air, half smothered by snow. It was a scene of utter desolation.

‘Perfect,’ Ben said approvingly. ‘I’ll put it on the front page.’

‘Really?’ His praise distracted her momentarily.

‘And Dais – ’

‘Yeah?’ She swivelled round to look at him.

‘You should have an exhibition sometime you know. Show these.’ He waved at the screen. ‘Work on some others. You’ve got real talent.’

‘Do you think so? Thanks, Ben.’ His unexpected words brought a small feeling of warmth into one corner of a very chilled heart.

Daisy’s mobile trilled. She picked it up and Sharon’s voice hissed in her ear. ‘Dais?’

‘What?’

‘I’m in the car park. Can you come out?’

‘Why?’ She was suspicious. What else could Sharon do to her now? She’d hurt her to the core already.

‘Please?’ Sharon sounded agitated.

‘You destroy the one thing that really mattered to me and now you …’

‘Please, Dais. I need to talk.’

Reluctantly, Daisy pulled on her jacket. Sharon was standing out of the chill wind in the far corner of the car park, next to the recycling bins. She was drawing heavily at a cigarette. Daisy saw the smoke first, Sharon’s blonde head a second later, and finally, the bright pink of her jacket.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’ She stared at Sharon curiously. Her face was streaked with tears and her hands were trembling. ‘You OK?’

‘You didn’t sleep with Jay, did you, Daisy?’

Daisy shook her head. ‘No. I told you.’

‘Fuck. Listen, I’m sorry. Honest. I should’ve believed you. I was just
mad.
You know, that you’d spent all that time with him when I’ve been fantasising about it for ages.’ The cigarette glowed red again. ‘I lied about him, Daisy. He never was all over me. I just wanted him to be. And when you told me … I thought. Shit.’ She tossed the stub away and fumbled for the packet in her bag so that she could find another cigarette. ‘I’m pissed off, Daisy, that’s the truth of it. His wife you say? He’s still in love with his wife?’

Daisy nodded. ‘Amelia. Yes. That’s what he said.’

‘Shit. I can’t believe it. The first guy worth making a play for in Hailesbank for years and he’s still fucking hung up on his wife.’

‘Sorry.’

She looked up at Daisy and flashed an apologetic smile. ‘No I’m the one who’s sorry. I know how much you loved that fucking bear, Daisy. I shouldn’t have thrown it in the river.’

This time she stamped the cigarette out under her heel, grinding it to and fro on the tarmac.

‘I am sorry. Really.’

She buried her face briefly in her hands then rubbed it roughly with her sleeves. A smudged streak of mascara betrayed her earlier tears, but Daisy didn’t have the heart to tell her about it.

Tiny Ted. Gone. She still couldn’t believe it. This must be how people felt when a favourite dog died. She remembered Cosmo last year when one of his labs had pegged it. He’d been inconsolable, wandering around town with a face so long you could trip over it. She should still be furious with Sharon. Throwing TT in the river had been an act of pure malice – but looking at Sharon’s face, still twisted with emotion, Daisy couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. In all the years she’d known her, Sharon Eddy had never managed to settle into the kind of loving relationship she’d had with Jack. Despite her sexiness, she’d always flitted from one man to another. Daisy had always thought she was simply sexually voracious, but another explanation occurred to her. Was Sharon Eddy just lonely, hungry for love?

Impulsively, she reached forward and hugged her. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. She could feel Sharon’s body trembling and for the first time in all the years she had known her, she felt as if she were the stronger person.

In the afternoon Jay called a staff meeting. They were all present, clustered round the water cooler, notepads and pens at the ready.

‘Right.’ Jay began, his voice very firm, his arms crossed defensively.

What was coming? Nervously, they looked at each other, each surreptitiously trying to gauge the feelings of the others.

‘I have three things to say. First, I have only ever had the interests of the
Herald
at heart. Second, I knew nothing about the threat of closure that I believe has been made. And third …’ He glanced around them all, engaging each with his glance before moving on to the next. Then he reached his arms out in front of him, spread his hands wide in broad appeal and said, ‘third, I’d like to ask if we could start again. As a team this time. If you’re willing.’

‘Christ,’ Murdoch muttered.

‘Holy shit,’ Dave hissed.

Sharon gave a small moan.

Ben, sitting passively at the back, lifted one reddish-brown eyebrow and Ma Ruby, in a cloud of Givenchy and hair spray, burst into tears.

The plan they agreed on was simple. The clubs and societies would be reinstated immediately. Sir Cosmo would not only keep supplying the horoscopes, they would add a photograph of him, and Sharon would write a full feature of the local toff with a gift for astrology. To get more local faces in, they would do a ‘personality of the week’ – any age, any gender, any walk of life – and they’d talk to all the schools in the area about sponsoring a special social responsibility prize. ‘Maybe something for the team who come up with the best ideas for reducing their carbon footprint?’ suggested Sharon. ‘Or recycling?’ came from Murdoch. ‘Or charity venture?’ – Ma Ruby. The competition could run for a few weeks so that they could up the interest, week on week.

They discussed the work Sharon had been doing on the investigative side. Clearly, they didn’t have enough resource for proper investigative journalism, but Sharon had news. ‘I might be on to something with Provost Porter.’

‘Really? What?’ Murdoch was agog.

‘Can’t say yet. But let’s say Fat Doris won’t be too pleased if I’m right.’

‘No!’

‘Christ! He’s not screwing around?’

‘Who’d have him? Yeugh.’

Sharon looked important and pursed her lips. ‘I’m saying nothing. But if I’m right, we might have a great story sometime soon.’

‘That’ll sell papers,’ said Murdoch, rubbing his hands at the thought of it. Provost Porter, for all he had been re-elected, had his party sewn up, but was not generally popular in Hailesbank. No one quite understood the hold he had on his people, but Daisy suspected that even some of his own might rejoice in his downfall.

‘So we’re all agreed? Chantelle –’ Jay turned to the head of the advertising team ‘– will you be able to get the advertising back up, do you think?’