“Darling, you shouldn’t be so hotheaded,” Roy reproached her.
“You’re the hotheaded one. One day you want to conquer the world and the next you don’t dare take a single step. Make up your mind, Roy, and don’t waste any more time, not theirs”—she nodded at me and Sullivan—“nor mine, nor my family’s.”
Roy was too macho to accept a public telling-off from Suzi.
“Leave us, Suzi, we’re working. We’ll talk later.”
I was surprised she left without a fight. It was clear she knew when to stop pushing things. They were a strange couple.
“Women meddle in everything, but they don’t know anything,” said Roy without hiding his disgust.
“So, what do you want to do?” I pressed him.
“Be prime minister.”
“Then you’ll have to start by getting your two beloved childhood friends out of the way,” I decreed.
“Then let’s do it. Tell me how.”
“Sullivan will give you the details. Obviously we can’t just call a press conference. We’ll have to leak the information. First online. From there it will spread to the papers. There’s a struggling local radio station, Radio East; they’re on their last legs. We hadn’t planned to place any advertisements for the Rural Party there—it’s too small and irrelevant—but we will. We need to earn their confidence. The head of the radio station desperately needs advertising revenue. We’ll ask him to follow our candidates’ campaigns and we’ll brief one of his reporters so that this information about Wilson and Doyle also spreads on the radio. There’s nothing better than a struggling businessman. He’ll be our best friend.”
“You’re going to buy journalists?” he asked, shocked.
“That would definitely be a serious error. But you and your friends will spend some time with the reporter from Radio East, while we work with the station owner to ensure he earns a decent sum from advertising. He’ll know who to support and what information his guys should spread.”
“And who cares what a little local station has to say?” asked Roy.
“We’ll make sure that everything said by this station is picked up by the London papers. The Times will end up publishing the story that Frank Wilson has a relationship with a prostitute. You’ll see. It’s a case of creating a climate of opinion, and we know how to do that. I’m going to buy a number of advertising slots and tomorrow we’ll have dinner with the head of the station. You’re going to be his salvation, Roy. You’ll see.”
“I wasn’t wrong about you, Thomas. You really are a dirtbag.”
I shrugged. Roy’s insults didn’t offend me. In truth, I thought he described me quite accurately.
Why did I agree to sink those two men? In reality it was Roy, not me, who made the decision, although I was the one who put it in front of him.
Could I have acted differently? Of course:
When Philip Sullivan came to me with the information he and Neil had dug up, I could have told him off and said, “Forget what you’ve found, Philip. We’re not going to use it. This is about helping Roy Parker win some elections, not making a couple of family men’s weaknesses public. We won’t do that. Find something else—I don’t know, political disagreements, electoral irregularities, the usual.”
Roy would never have found out his opponents’ secrets. I could even have hinted to Roy that there was some dirt under the rug, but at the merest suggestion of pulling the rug aside I could have said no: “Don’t expect me to destroy these two men. There are lines you just don’t cross.”
—
But I didn’t say any of that, because I was as keen as Roy to take down Wilson and Doyle. I didn’t have anything against them, and they didn’t strike me as bad guys; it’s just that we were playing with marked cards in order to win the game. Plus, why kid ourselves? There’s not a single politician who would resist striking a mortal blow against his opponents, especially if in doing so he would stand out as a paragon of moral virtue.
Philip Sullivan asked me whether we were really going to do it. Sullivan had a hacker’s heart, but it seemed he retained some scruples.
“It’s part of the game,” I said. “They’ll do the same if they find any skeletons in Roy’s closet. There are no innocent parties in the game of power.”
At that moment, what I said was just a line and nothing more: a line that struck me as suitable to dismiss Sullivan’s doubts. With time I learned that it was also correct. As far as Philip Sullivan was concerned, he accepted that the game required us to bathe in the same shit as our clients. I asked him to say nothing to either Cathy or Richard. I had come to know them well enough to know that they would refuse to take part in anything underhanded.
“It’ll be hard to stop them from finding out,” Philip protested.
“They’ve got their job and we’ve got ours. Decide whether you’re coming over to the dark side, Philip, because there’s no going back.”
—
Christopher Blake, the owner of Radio East, was a typical struggling businessman. He had too many debts and, aside from what we would present to him, no other option that would guarantee the radio station’s survival.
Blake had inherited the business from his father, who had had the foresight forty years earlier to set up a small media empire. The senior Blake started a local paper dedicated to community news and then acquired a license for a local radio concession. The business was healthy if modest, but his son had squandered his inheritance and was on the verge of going under. What made Christopher Blake Jr. lose sleep was the thought of telling his retired father that the paper and radio station no longer belonged to the family because he had borrowed against them and the bank was calling in his debts.
Christopher Blake received me in his office, impatient and curious about the urgent call I had made to arrange this meeting.
I was as honest as possible given that it was a first meeting. I surprised him by saying that Roy Parker had decided to promote his campaign and that of the Rural Party on Radio East. We wanted advertising slots at all hours, and I also hinted that we were considering buying a few pages of advertising space in his paper. No, we weren’t asking for a special price, I told him, we understood that we would have to pay the going rate, although we would be extremely grateful if his public affairs program covered our campaign.
“You can imagine what it’s costing the Rural Party to edge in between the Conservatives and Labour. The big media outlets barely pay us any attention.”
I invited him to dinner two days later with Roy and Suzi Parker.
“You’ll like him, you’ll see. Mr. Parker dreams of making this region’s voice heard in London. He’s a man of firm convictions.”
Roy protested at having to cajole Blake.
“I pay you so I don’t have to waste my time,” he responded when I told him that I’d booked a table for dinner and that he should bring Suzi with him. Cathy would be in charge of taking her to buy something suitable. We weren’t going to turn Suzi into something she wasn’t, but we also didn’t want her to turn up at dinner in rubber boots.
On the night of the dinner Suzi looked lovely. Cathy had chosen a simple outfit of black trousers and a white silk shirt. I was surprised that Cathy hadn’t suggested she wear high heels and that she was wearing a pair of pumps that barely gave her an extra inch.
Cathy explained to me that Suzi walked like a duck when wearing high heels and it was better that she stuck to heels below two inches and avoided stilettos.
I have to acknowledge that Suzi looked really good; even her untamable mane was firmly tied back.
The dinner was a success. A scoundrel and a survivor is what Parker and Blake were. As for me, I focused on guiding the conversation and preventing Roy from telling Christopher Blake too much.
Two days later I got a call from a reporter at Radio East.
“Mr. Spencer? Thomas Spencer? My name is Evelyn Robinson. Mr. Blake has put me in charge of following the Rural Party’s campaign and Roy Parker’s ca
mpaign in particular. Do you think you could arrange an interview with him? I’d also like you to send me a copy of the campaign schedule, where he’ll be making appearances, what public events he’ll take part in…I’ll cover the campaign on the radio but Mr. Blake has also asked me to cover it for the paper.”
I met her immediately, accompanied by Philip Sullivan. At the end of the day it was he who would have to guide her.
Evelyn was no older than twenty-four. Of average height, with straight brown hair and bulging, equally brown eyes, she would have seemed nondescript if it weren’t for her very long legs. There was nothing about her that grabbed one’s attention. But we didn’t take long to realize that she was ambitious and was not prepared to spend the rest of her life in that remote region. She would do whatever was necessary to escape her dead-end job.
She interviewed Roy and became his shadow. Those were Blake’s orders: she had to report exhaustively on the Rural Party’s campaign. I don’t know whether Blake had ordered that whatever she said or wrote should be favorable or whether she didn’t need to be told. The fact is that she became a propagandist and was almost sickeningly sweet. Suzi adored her. I was surprised that a woman as smart as Suzi ended up believing what Evelyn said about Roy, whom she described as a kind of knight errant, prepared to sacrifice himself to make the region’s voice heard in the halls of power in London. But time has taught me that we are all prepared to believe even our own lies when it suits us.
Philip Sullivan had built up solid relationships with the local journalists, and did a good job spreading suspicions about the Conservative and Labour candidates. Silken words, hints that were already bearing their first fruits. It was he who asked Evelyn what she thought about certain rumors about the Conservative candidate, Frank Wilson.
“I don’t normally waste time on rumors” was Evelyn’s response, “but if there’s something that’s caught your attention…”
“I don’t know…judge for yourself. I was surprised to hear someone say that Frank Wilson isn’t such a fond family man as he makes his voters believe. Perhaps it’s a pack of lies. You’d know…I’m not from around here and I wouldn’t know whether or not Wilson plays away from home from time to time. Anyway, if that were the case…I don’t know, but I can’t abide people with double standards, who make people think they are something other than what they really are.”
“And do you think I ought to just repeat all the crap that’s flying around here? That’s not journalism,” Evelyn replied mistrustfully.
“That’s not what I said. I only asked you if you think what they’re saying about Wilson might be true.”
We had to turn to Blake to dismiss his reporter’s doubts by ordering her not to ignore what was being said about Frank Wilson.
“I want us to prove that we’re a serious business. We should report on everything. We need to make noise so that people talk about us. Check out whether there’s proof that Wilson has a lover. If that’s the case, he doesn’t deserve to be elected mayor. Investigate. You said you wanted to become an investigative journalist.”
Evelyn saw Christopher Blake’s challenge for what it was: an order to spread all the shit at hand about Frank Wilson.
That night, when she got home, Evelyn found a piece of paper in her mailbox that listed an address and a day of the week. Thursday.
Thursday was the next day. It was clear that someone wanted her to prowl around that address, which was in a town not far away. She asked Blake for a photographer to come with her. He immediately agreed even though the paper had only one photographer.
“We can do without him for a few hours. Who knows what you might find?”
By that point Evelyn understood that whatever she might discover could be front-page news and get top billing on all the radio news updates.
Christopher Blake seemed to have recovered his good mood since the electoral campaign had begun, and from what was said in the editorial office, he had found a source of financing that was keeping the paper and Radio East afloat.
Evelyn didn’t know it, but some of Roy Parker’s friends had bought shares in the media company, injecting a considerable sum of money that was going to guarantee its survival. Roy had told Blake that while it wasn’t ethical for him to have shares in media firms, he thought the region couldn’t allow two local media outlets to die, and a group of his fellow businessmen wanted to buy shares in the business.
“We have to make our voice heard. No one will pay any attention to this damned region if we don’t make London listen to us. That’s why we need you, Christopher. I’m not asking you to only speak well of me, just that you keep the region’s interests in mind. That’s more important than anything else, including me.”
Money was no longer a problem. Blake was even talking about taking on some young journalists.
—
Evelyn and the photographer arrived at the address on the anonymous note at first light. The house formed part of a row of identical buildings, each with two floors and a small front yard.
Bob, the photographer, had brought a sandwich, a bottle of water, and a couple of pouches of tobacco.
“You’ve certainly come prepared.”
“That’s the way these things are, we might have to spend the whole day waiting.”
“Well, come midmorning we’ll call Blake and he can tell us what to do.”
“Look, when I worked for the Sunday Times and we were tailing celebrities I could spend whole days standing guard without anything happening. You have to be patient. Whoever sent you the anonymous message wants you to find something…and so does Blake.”
Evelyn liked Bob. He wasn’t far from retirement. He had returned to the area five years ago, having left when he was young and still had dreams of being a famous photographer.
He had worked in photojournalism for many years, traveling to conflict zones and then selling his photos and reports at bargain prices. The Middle East, the Horn of Africa, Southeast Asia…They were all places that had left numerous scars on his soul, but he had barely been able to scrape by on what he was earning. It didn’t matter to the papers that he had risked his life to report on a war, a coup d’état, or a famine. So one day he returned to London in search of a stable job. He didn’t imagine that the best he’d get was working for a tabloid photographing celebrities at compromising moments, with secret girlfriends and the like. His heart had hardened as he lost hope of fulfilling his dream. “A knicker-sniffer, that’s what you are.” That’s what his wife had told him before leaving him. Yes, that is what he was, but he was good at his job, and when somebody left an anonymous tip, it was so you could discover something dirty that might make the front page the next day.
If there was one thing that he’d learned it was that there were two kinds of bosses: those who believed that a journalist’s mission was to tell the truth no matter what it was, even if it was about those who paid their monthly salaries, and those who weren’t squeamish about publishing the dirt as long as it wasn’t about their friends or shareholders. It was obvious to Bob that Blake was the latter and was interested in finding a decent amount of shit somewhere nearby. They would find it. It didn’t really matter to him whom it was about. He worked for Blake because he had grown tired of knicker-sniffing in London and had spent his life savings on a house in his hometown, where he planned to retire in three years, as soon as his pension kicked in. The only thing he regretted was not having children with whom to spend his final years. His wife hadn’t wanted children, because, as she said, she would be embarrassed to have to tell them what their father did for a living. Ever since she’d left him a few years into their marriage, he hadn’t spent two nights running with the same woman. If Evelyn weren’t so young…But no, she wouldn’t want to share her life with a man on the verge of retirement whose best offers were long walks in the countryside and a trip to the cinema a couple of times a month.
It wasn’t until after three in the afternoon that Bob elbowed Evelyn and nodded at the taxi that
had just stopped in front of the house they had spent hours watching. She was absorbed in her notebook and grumbled.
“Well, now we know why we’re here. Look who just got out of the taxi,” Bob told her.
Frank Wilson looked along the street in both directions before ringing the bell. They managed to see a well-groomed woman open the door and invite him to come in.
“And who could she be?” Evelyn asked, as much muttering to herself as expecting an answer from Bob.
“That’s what you have to find out. I’ve been able to snap a couple of photos. They’re not that great, but you can see him going into the house and greeting the woman who opened the door.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Come on, Evelyn, this is basic journalism. Ask who lives in the house.”
“Now?”
“Now, or when Frank Wilson comes out. But if you start now you’ll have the job done. I’ll stay here. If he comes out I’ll snap him again.”
“Right.”
“I’d start by asking there,” Bob told her, pointing at a shop on the corner of the street where newspapers were sold.
“That’s what I was thinking of doing,” Evelyn agreed, with a confidence she lacked.
She crossed the street with a determined stride and headed for the shop, where she dawdled, flicking through the papers on display while the owner took payment from a woman with a dog in her arms who was telling the man funny stories about her pet. When she finally left, Evelyn cleared her throat before deciding to ask, “Excuse me, but could you tell me who lives in that house? The fifth one, counting from this corner.”
The man looked at her coldly and seemed to consider whether to answer.
“And why do you want to know? Why do you think I should tell you?”
“I…excuse me but…I’m a journalist. I’m carrying out an investigation and I know that that house…Well, it’s not just any house. I imagine you know the owners.”
“Sure, but I don’t know anything and there’s no reason I should tell you anything.”