Authors: Iain Banks
Phil was silent for a while, so I looked at him; he was sitting side-on, looking at me.
‘What?’
‘Maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.’
‘Yeah.’ I grinned. ‘Good, eh?’
‘If he does press charges, though, you could be in serious trouble.’
‘First offence? No weapon involved? I don’t think I’ll be going to prison. I did have a doomsday scenario going on in my head about getting carried away once I got my hands on the fuck and beating him to a pulp, leaving him paralysed or dead or something or with a Telefunken UB47 rammed up his arse, but in the end it played out pretty well. I can stand a fine and being bound over to keep the peace, or whatever.’
‘I was thinking more about your job.’
I glanced at him. ‘Yeah. In theory.’
‘Not just in theory.’
‘I thought I was pretty safe there. We haven’t had a dressing down for, shit, weeks.’
‘Ken, for goodness’ sake; we exist on a knife-edge all the time whether or not we get a formal warning or even just a quiet word. I’ve had the ads department on to me about cancellations from American Airlines, the Israeli Tourist Board … and one or two others I’ve managed to repress, obviously. They’re hurting. There are few enough big campaigns going as it is at the moment; losing those that are on offer is giving them sleepless nights, and I’m pretty sure news of the pain is being passed up the corporate structure.’
I frowned. ‘Well, maybe the Israeli Tourist Board will come back now I’ve beaten up a horrible Holocaust denier.’ I glanced at Phil.
He wore a suitably sceptical expression. ‘Or maybe,’ he said, ‘this could be the bale of hay that breaks the camel’s back. I’d check your contract. Never mind vague stuff about bringing the station into disrepute, I’ll bet any criminal proceedings, even pending, threatened ones, means they can pull you off air without pay.’
‘Shit.’ I had a horrible feeling he was right. ‘I’d better phone my agent.’
‘So, Mr McNutt. Would you like to describe what happened in the studio of Winsome Productions, in Clerkenwell, London, on the afternoon of Monday the fourteenth of January, 2002, in your own words?’
Oh shit, it was the same DS who’d interviewed me about the East End trip, when I’d broken the taxi’s windscreen and punched ‘Raine’ in the face. I’d had the choice of coming to my local nick to give a statement, and I’d stupidly taken it. The DS was a young white guy, sharp-faced but a little jowly, with brown hair starting to recede at the temples. He smiled. ‘In your own time, Mr McNutt.’ He patted the big, clunky wooden cassette recorder sitting on the desk in the interview room.
I didn’t like the relish with which he pronounced my name. For about the five hundredth time in my life to date, I cursed my parents for not having changed their name by deed poll before I was born.
‘It never happened,’ I said.
A pause. ‘What, the entire afternoon?’
‘No, whatever I’m being accused of,’ I said.
‘Assault, Mr McNutt.’
‘Yes; that. It didn’t happen. They made it all up.’ I was starting to sweat. This had seemed like such a great plan right up until I had to start following through with it.
‘They made it all up.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, what did happen, sir?’
‘I went along to do an interview, and it was cancelled.’
‘I see.’ The Detective Sergeant thought for a moment. He looked at his notes. ‘At what point was it cancelled?’
‘I never left the Green Room,’ I said, feeling suddenly inspired.
‘The what, sir?’
‘The Green Room, the hospitality suite; it’s where they put you before they need you in the studio.’
‘I see.’
‘I never left it. They came and told me the interview, the discussion, was being cancelled.’
The DS looked at me through narrowed eyes. ‘You are aware, sir, that you will be asked to repeat what you’re saying, under oath, in court?’
Oh shit. Perjury. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I’d been too busy congratulating myself on my own cleverness and blithely assuming that everybody would just play along once they saw what I was up to. I had thought this through a hundred times but somehow it always ended with me modestly accepting Man Of The Year awards, not being sent down for perjury.
I gulped. ‘I may well choose to say nothing under oath.’
Now the DS was looking at me as though I was simply mad.
I cleared my throat. ‘I think I should talk to my lawyer before I say anything else.’
‘So I definitely get to be tried by a jury?’
‘If you insist, Mr Nott, yes. However I’d strongly advise that you take the option of going before a magistrates’ court instead.’ The lawyer was called Maggie Sefton. She worked for the criminal department of my own lawyer’s firm. She had deep brown skin and beautiful eyes behind the tiniest, most low-profile glasses I’d ever seen.
‘But I need to plead Not Guilty!’ I protested. ‘I’m trying to make a political point here! This could make the news, dammit. Won’t that mean it
has
to go to a higher court?’
‘Not really, no. And it is usually best to avoid going before a judge.’
‘But why?’
‘Because magistrates can’t impose custodial sentences.’
I frowned. Ms Sefton smiled the sympathetic, worldly-wise smile adults lay on children sometimes when the poor darlings just totally fail to understand the way things actually happen in the big bad world. ‘They can’t send you to jail, Kenneth. Whereas a High Court judge can.’
‘Shit,’ I said.
I’d sent Amy some flowers at her office, but she sent them back. After our rather unsatisfactory bout of going through the motions on the Sunday night she’d said she’d call me, but she hadn’t, so after two days I’d headed for the nearest florist. I’d thought a dozen red roses would be just the right gesture for the sort of retro good-time semi-posh girl I’d had her characterised as - it certainly wasn’t something I’d normally do - but obviously I’d got it completely wrong.
The dozen roses arrived back before I set off for work on the Thursday, three days after the
Breaking News
fracas. The note accompanying them said, ‘Ken; interesting but hardly worth commemorating. See you sometime. A.’
‘Bitch,’ I said to myself, even though I had to admit she was right. I took the wrapping off the flowers and threw them into the river. It was a flood tide, so as they drifted slowly upstream, sped on their way by a stiff north-easterly, I reflected ruefully that if I came back at the right/wrong time this afternoon, I could watch them all come sailing back down again. Come to think of it, a timely combination of tides and winds could conceivably keep their bedraggled, distributed sorriness within sight of the
Temple Belle
for days; even weeks.
I shrugged, stuffed the wrapping paper into the bin and headed for the car park and the car Capital Live! had sent for me. The Landy was still in the garage; it had been fitted with its two new tyres - three, in fact, as the spare on the back door had been stabbed as well - but they hadn’t replaced its headlights yet.
My phone went as soon as I turned it on, walking up the pontoon towards the car park.
‘Debbie; you’re up and running very early. How are you?’
‘Come straight to my office when you get in, all right?’
I took a couple of steps. ‘I’m fine too, Debs. Thanks for asking.’
‘Just be there, okay?’
‘Ah, okay,’ I said. Oh-oh, I thought. ‘Why? What’s happening? ’
‘See you soon.’ She hung up.
The Motorola vibrated again as I got to the Lexus waiting at the kerb. A Lexus; it had been a Mondeo yesterday. Good job something was looking up. I waved to the driver, who was reading the
Telegraph
. ‘Nott?’ I asked, unfolding the buzzing phone as he folded the paper. I thought it was best to ask; I’d once jumped into another houseboat dweller’s limo waiting to take them to Heathrow. ‘For Capital Live!’
‘That’s me, boss,’ the driver said.
I got in, belted up and into the phone said, ‘Yes, Phil?’
‘The papers have got it.’
‘What?’ I asked as the car pulled smoothly away.
‘Lawson Brierley’s Institute for Fascist Studies, or whatever it’s called, released a press statement this morning. Basically saying they can see what you’re trying to do here, but … blah blah blah … the full majesty of English law, and common Anglo-Saxon justice, must take precedence over arrogant and theatrical pseudo-intellectual cosmopolitan political machinations. ’
‘You’re not paraphrasing there, I hope.’
‘No. We’ve just had the
Mail
on the phone. Followed by the
Sun
, followed by the
Standard
and then ITN, the
Eye
and the
Guardian
. I’m expecting to collect the rest of the set before the hour is out. Why is your land-line down?’
‘I pulled it out last night; some fucker rang about one in the morning and kept ringing but not leaving a message on the machine, plus their identity was withheld, so I got annoyed and wheeched it.’
‘Probably a journo favoured by Mr Brierley getting wind of it early. You weren’t door-stepped this morning, were you?’
‘No.’
‘You were lucky. You in the car?’
‘Yup.’
‘Well, if you want to avoid questions at this end, have the driver take you down into the car park here and take the lift, okay?’
‘Yeah. Shit. Okay,’ I sighed. ‘Oh, fuck, here we go …’
‘Courage, mon brave.’
‘Yeah. Right.’
‘See you soon.’
‘Yeah, in Debbie’s office.’
‘Damn, she’s heard, has she?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘That’ll be who’s jamming my internal line here. Better talk to you when you get here; meet you down in the car park?’
‘See you there.’ I put the phone away.
The driver looked at me in the mirror, but didn’t say anything.
I sat and watched the traffic go past. Shit. What if they were going to fire me? I’d taken heart, bizarrely, from the profoundly noxious Nina’s remarks about publicity. I’d thought that no matter how messy everything got with the assault in the studio, at least it would be great publicity for me and the show and the station and that because of that everybody would be happy. Good grief, had I actually been insufficiently cynical? Maybe Amy was right. Maybe I was naïve. I thought back to the night in Soho during the summer with Ed and Craig, and me not dipping far enough down into the cess of human motivation with my imagination, being so innocent as to think that the worst reaction towards somebody who was helpless and vulnerable was indifference, not something worse.
How personally and professionally embarrassing.
I got lost in the traffic for a while, submerged in memories. A dispatch rider swept past on his panniered Bandit. Oh well, I thought, if I did get fired and I couldn’t get in anywhere else, I could always get a job being a bike courier again. Or maybe Ed would take me seriously if I said I finally really really wanted to be a proper club-type DJ. Fuck, yeah; the money was good, and just because I’d been dismissive about it in the past and gone along for the fun, drugs and women didn’t mean I couldn’t try to make a go of it as a career now. Boy George could do it; why couldn’t I?
We were drawing to a stop in the Mall, pulling in to the side near the ICA.
‘What’s the problem?’ I asked.
The driver glanced in the mirror, pressed the hazard warning lights, killed the engine and turned round, handing the keys to me. I looked at them lying in my hand, wondering what the hell was going on. ‘I’d like a word, Mr Nott,’ he said (this was itself enough to have me tense up and check that the door-lock buttons were in the unlocked position), ‘but I don’t want to alarm you.’ He nodded at the keys in my hand. ‘That’s why I’ve given you them. If you want to get out, you can.’
He was about fifty; a balding, slightly overweight guy with the sort of large-framed glasses last fashionable in the early nineties and a pinched, concerned-looking face; sad-looking eyes. Otherwise fairly nondescript. His accent sounded vaguely Midlands, like a Brummie born and raised who’d lived in London most of his life. He was neatly dressed in a light-grey suit that only now was starting to look a little too well cut to be that of your standard limo driver.
‘Uh-huh?’ I said. ‘I’ll just test the door, right?’
‘Be my guest.’
The door opened easily enough and the sound of traffic and the chatter of a passing gaggle of Japanese tourists entered the cabin. I closed it again. ‘I’ll just keep my phone open here, too,’ I said warily. The driver nodded.
He offered his hand. ‘Chris. Chris Glatz.’ We shook hands.
‘So what’s going on, Chris?’ I asked him.
‘Like I say, Mr Nott, I’d like a word.’
‘About what?’
‘A matter that has, umm, fallen to me to try to resolve.’
I screwed up my eyes. ‘I’m kind of looking for specifics, here.’
He looked around. On the broad pavement under trees in front of the colonnaded white splendour of the ICA, a couple of cops were walking slowly along, eyeing us. ‘Here isn’t perfect, frankly,’ he said apologetically. ‘You suggest somewhere.’
I looked at my watch. An hour and ten before the last possible time I could get to the studio for the start of the show. ‘Tell you what,’ I said. ‘I’ll drive.’
If he’d taken too long, or said no, I’d have walked, but he just looked a little surprised, nodded and opened his door. I made sure the two cops got a really good look at us, waving at them and saying, ‘Morning, officers!’ They nodded, professionally.
I rang the office en route but the lines were busy. Instead I left a message with Debbie’s secretary to say I’d be late.
I parked the Lexus behind the Imperial War Museum. We got some coffees from a mobile stall and walked round to the front, under the barrels of two colossal Naval guns. Mr Glatz pulled some gloves from his coat pocket and put them on. The air had an easterly tang to it and the clouds were grey as the paint on the giant artillery pieces above us.
‘Nice car,’ I said. ‘Yours?’
‘Yes, it is. Thanks.’
‘Should have known I wouldn’t rate a Lexus from the radio station.’