The Judgement Book (2 page)

Chapter One

‘K
EEP BIDDING
,’ D
AN
G
ROVES
hissed forcefully to the man in the ill-fitting black jacket by his side.

‘For my best camera’s sake, we’re up to twenty grand,’ he moaned back, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘I can’t afford to get lumbered with that kind of bill. I’ll be bankrupted. I’ve only got a few quid in the bank.’

‘Keep going,’ whispered Dan again, checking quickly around him.

There were a couple of hundred people packed into the room and it was getting hot, a hovering fug of sticky atmosphere feeding the anticipation in the crowd. He’d stationed them in the dimly lit corner farthest from the auctioneer and was trying to look as if he wasn’t with the man next to him. He couldn’t risk being recognised as the source of the bids.

‘You’ll be OK,’ whispered Dan, trying to sound reassuring. ‘Just keep going until I say stop.’

The auctioneer looked over expectantly, and Dirty El raised a reluctant hand.

‘Twenty-two thousand pounds. Thank you, sir.’

Dan tried to glance nonchalantly at the other side of the room. He screwed up his eyes to peer through the throng of people jammed in under the low ceiling. He couldn’t see the auctioneer’s assistant making a bid. Dan felt his body tense.

He had got it right, hadn’t he? If not, he and El had some explaining to do. They’d be twenty-two thousand pounds worse off, a sum Dan couldn’t imagine raising. He had only a few hundred in savings. They’d probably be under police investigation too. It was effectively fraud, what they were doing. Forcing someone to part with a very large sum of money, albeit for a good cause.

Dan checked his memory of earlier in the day. Half the newsroom’s staff were away on a teambuilding course. He prided himself on avoiding such worthy initiatives, always said he was quite content working in a team consisting of himself. But that meant a temporary demotion from Crime Correspondent for Wessex Tonight to reporter on anything Lizzie, his editor, fancied being covered for that night’s news. And that meant the annual charity paintings auction.

Well-known local artists each donated a work. They were then sold off for a variety of local charities. Earlier, Dan had trooped dutifully down to the Plymouth Auction House with Nigel, his cameraman, they’d filmed the paintings displayed around the walls and interviewed Peter, the owner.

They’d been about to leave, to cut the story for the lunchtime news when Peter had taken an important call from a man who couldn’t make the auction but wanted to bid for a rare Richard Bass work. The artist was one of the region’s most celebrated, famous for his colourfully naïve depictions of Devon and Cornwall life. Dan lingered outside Peter’s office and pretended to take down a couple of extra notes on the paintings while he eavesdropped shamelessly.

‘Yes, Mr Parkinson, we’d be delighted to help. The Bass? Yes, it is a rare and beautiful picture. Yes, I think it would look wonderful in one of your pubs. I think it’ll probably fetch up to about eight or nine thousand pounds. Yes, I think if you say you’ll go up to a maximum of thirty thousand you’ll definitely get the picture. I doubt it’ll cost you more than about ten, but it’s as well to be sure.’

Peter had returned, they’d said goodbye, Nigel drove them back to the studios and Dan had cut the report. That afternoon, he’d had an idea. It was another of those he knew he shouldn’t allow to tempt himself, but as ever that just made it more irresistible.

Christopher Parkinson was a notorious loudmouth local businessman. He’d made his fortune from the pub trade. He promoted happy hours, drinking games and all the binging incitements that made his pubs rowdy, unpleasant, and more like a boxing ring than a relaxing inn.

Wessex Tonight often reported on the mass brawls outside. But what marked him in Dan’s mind was the outside broadcast he’d presented from one of Parkinson’s pubs, when parliament had finally finished its tortuous procrastinations and decided smoking in public would be banned.

Parkinson had set himself up as a champion of freedom and choice, and promised he would provide smoking shelters outside for his customers. Dan’s idea of choice was not having to suffer other people’s foul smoke, and freedom meant being able to breathe unpolluted air.

As they were about to go on air, Dan had repeated to himself his duty to remain impartial and balanced. His personal feelings had to be discarded, however strong they might be. Looking back on his less than subtle opening question, he wasn’t quite sure he had succeeded.

‘Mr Parkinson, isn’t it irresponsible to encourage smoking when parliament is trying to stop it?’

‘I think it’s irresponsible of parliament to interfere with people’s liberty,’ Parkinson retorted. ‘Many people died to preserve this country’s freedoms.’

‘You’re suggesting some parallel between fighting to defend the country from a foreign invader who wants to impose a dictatorship, and protecting the right of people to pollute their own bodies, and perhaps more importantly, other people’s?’

‘Do you smoke?’

‘What’s that to do with this discussion?’

‘I think it’s important to know where you’re coming from in your questioning.’

‘Do you smoke?’ retaliated Dan.

‘What’s that to do with your questioning?’

‘I think it’s important for the viewers to know where you’re coming from in your answers.’

‘All I want to say here is that I’m standing up for freedom. The sort of freedom that allows you to do your job as a reporter.’

‘What has being a journalist got to do with a ban on smoking? The stuff I put out doesn’t harm anyone’s health, unlike second-hand cigarette smoke.’

‘Some of it’s pretty unpleasant though, the lies and nonsense you people peddle …’

And so the squabble continued. When Dan got back to the newsroom after the broadcast, Lizzie was grinding a three-inch stiletto heel into the long-suffering carpet.

‘You didn’t get very far with that interview, did you?’ she snapped. ‘It didn’t exactly illuminate the issue.’

‘I thought I exposed him as not being able to answer the questions.’

‘I thought you had a row.’

That night, at home, lying on his great blue sofa, his faithful Alsatian Rutherford at his feet, when he’d finally calmed down, Dan had to admit Lizzie had a point. If you stripped away the irritant of the perfectly manicured jabbing fingernail and idiosyncrasy of the stabbing high heels, she usually did. It might have been entertaining television, but it was hardly informative, and that was supposed to be the point of his job.

Dan prided himself on lovingly nurturing grudges and he’d never forgotten that interview with Parkinson. So, it was revenge day.

‘Twenty-three thousand pounds on the telephone bid,’ the auctioneer called triumphantly. He looked over at El. ‘Any advance, sir?’

Gasps rose from the crowd. A host of expectant eyes turned back to them. El cut a comical figure. To accompany the black suit jacket which Dan had leant him, he wore his own tatty jeans and black shades. The idea was to make El look like an eccentric millionaire, but Dan wasn’t sure the photographer came close to carrying it off. He looked more like an out-of-work undertaker.

Dan had planned to pull out at about twenty thousand pounds, just to be safe, but the memory of the broadcast spurred him on. ‘Keep going,’ he hissed from the edge of his mouth.

‘Hell,’ moaned El, lifting an unsteady hand again.

‘Twenty-four thousand. Thank you, sir,’ called the auctioneer. ‘Do I have an advance on that? It’s all for charity remember.’

Dan stared over at the auctioneer’s assistant, standing still, phone clamped to his ear, willing him to raise his hand. Everyone was staring at the man. It was getting hotter.

‘Hell,’ moaned El again. He was sweating hard. ‘What have you got me into? I’m going to be bankrupt. I’ll have to flog a kidney.’

‘Any advance on twenty-four thousand pounds?’ called the auctioneer again. ‘No? Are we all done then? Going once – going twice.’

Dan felt a spreading sweat. What if he’d misheard? Or Parkinson could have called back later to lower his bid.

‘Last call for the Bass,’ yelled the auctioneer. ‘Any advance on twenty-four thousand pounds?’

‘Hell,’ moaned El, his chubby face quivering. ‘We’re screwed. I’ll have to sell a lung too. And maybe a slice of me heart, if I can find it.’

The auctioneer’s assistant raised a hand. Dan felt his legs buckle with wonderful relief.

‘Twenty-five thousand on the telephone bid!’ called the auctioneer. ‘Any advance on that?’

‘No bloody way,’ grumbled El under his breath, shaking his head so vigorously that there was no chance whatsoever of any misunderstanding.

‘Agreed,’ whispered Dan. ‘Let’s get out of here. We’ve done our bit and raised an extra fifteen grand for charity. And we’ve screwed Parkinson. Mission accomplished. Come on. I really need a beer.’

Suicide was the only way out. There was no other choice.

It was such a shame. It had been a productive day. What a sad way to end it.

He’d finally secured the funding for the new kids’ playgroup, after a marathon wrangle with the city council. And they’d even agreed to new swings and more street lighting for one of the parks. He’d left the office as one of the researchers was typing up a press release, proclaiming yet another triumph for his constituents.

“Freedman wins through for the children!”

It was a good headline. But he couldn’t help wondering how tomorrow’s release announcing his death would run.

All day long he’d debated whether there was any possible escape. By the afternoon he’d just allowed himself to begin to hope the blackmailer didn’t really mean it, that it was all a game, to teach him a lesson. Now that his invisible tormenter had made his point, Will Freedman would live a better life and his sordid secret would be buried and forgotten, an unspoken agreement reached.

Then came the story on the local radio. The evacuation of Plymouth city centre. A bomb hoax. The suspicion that it was the work of someone who was seriously unbalanced, a note found inside the rucksack, some bizarre threat about a Judgement Book opening.

That was the moment he understood his life had only hours left to run.

The goodbye note was written, neatly folded, and placed in the bedroom under the bottle of Yvonne’s favourite perfume. His will was checked and up to date. His family would be fine without him, perhaps even better off.

He tried not to think about that.

The bottle of whisky stood beside the hot bath. He caught a hint of its sweet, heady fragrance in the swirling steam rising from the gushing water. The smell brought so many memories of the life he was leaving, of university balls, party conferences, family holidays. The white capsules of the painkillers formed a pretty pyramid next to the sink, the syringe of insulin beside them.

Slip into the foamy water. Swill down the tablets, then sip away at the whisky. Be careful not to make yourself sick by overdoing it. When the warm waves of drowsiness come lapping, don’t fight. Just relax, inject the insulin, and let it take you, to the release of a better place.

And that will be that.

He turned off the taps and reached for the tablets. He’d given up hating the person who was blackmailing him. In a strange way, he had to admit it. They were right. The only person to hate was himself. He stared at the spider plant in the corner of the bathroom. He’d always disliked it, but Yvonne had bought it at one of their trips to the local church fete and had insisted they kept it.

It was all part of the image. Now to be splintered, smashed and shattered.

Well, at least he wouldn’t witness it.

He saw no reason to spare himself any punishment. The memory of the schoolgirl prostitute would be the last to linger in his dying mind.

Nineteen, she was. It was so exciting at the time, so shameful now. Just five years older than Alex. He knew what the papers would make of that. He recalled the details of the uniform the girl had worn. A tight grey blazer, navy skirt, grey knee-length socks.

He heard himself whimper.

Will Freedman felt the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. The loneliness was making him tremble. He hoped his family would forgive him, his party would try to understand and the obituary writers would find something kind to say. But he could see the headlines, as if written in the steam on the bathroom window.

SCHOOLGIRL SEX SCANDAL MP
IN BLACKMAIL SUICIDE

He lowered himself into the bath and closed his eyes. It was a little too hot, but that hardly mattered now.

He eased back into the welcoming water and wondered whether his fellows in the Judgement Book would come to the same end. He’d never believed in an afterlife, despite all those hypocritical mornings in church, but if it existed he imagined them all meeting up, an exclusive little club. He wondered who they could be and what they had done. They were faceless in his mind, surrounded only by the writhing serpents of their sins.

Will Freedman MP wished them luck as he lay back and counted away the last seconds of what had been such a promising life.

They walked to the Heather Park Tavern, five minutes down the road from the Auction House. Seagulls wheeled in the calm of the spring evening air, calling gleefully to each other, delighting in the freedom of their flight. Dan bought them a couple of pints of ale, a dark and foreboding brew. It was stronger than he’d usually go for, but after the stress of the auction he thought they needed it.

‘Cheers,’ said El, taking off his shades and wiping his brow. He sipped at the head on his beer and his chubby, freckled faced warmed into its trademark grin. ‘Well, we got away with that.’

‘Yep. That’s another dance with the devil successfully negotiated,’ replied Dan, looking around the pub and waving to a newspaper reporter he recognised. ‘And all for a good cause. Anyway, let’s forget it now. I’ve had enough stress. What else have you been up to lately?’

‘Just the usual,’ replied El, slurping his beer. ‘A couple of thugs in Crown Court who I’ve got to snap without getting thumped.’ He rubbed tenderly at a cheek coloured with the purple hint of a dying bruise. Being attacked was an occupational hazard for a paparazzo like El.