“But you don’t seem very happy that we’re going to tell people about Frank Wilson’s little hobby.”
“Well, I’ve never been interested in who sleeps with who. Our society is very hypocritical in that respect. The worst that’ll happen to Frank Wilson is that he’ll go through the humiliation of asking his wife and voters for forgiveness. I’m not worried about him. I feel sorry for those women who have to put up with guys like him to keep their families going. They’re the ones who’ll have the worst of it. They’ll be singled out and their lives will become hell.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m still going to write the article.”
Bob shrugged and concentrated on driving. He didn’t want to keep thinking about the women.
—
I was having dinner in London with a young female publicist when they told me there was a call for me. I was tempted not to answer but the municipal election campaign was under way and we had too many clients who might call, either because of something stupid or because of something important. So I smiled at my bubbly colleague and answered.
It was Christopher Blake and he was euphoric. He hurriedly told me that his team’s investigations into Frank Wilson had unearthed a surprise that would be a real bombshell, and he summarized everything Evelyn had told him.
He ruined my dinner. I had to call Roy Parker immediately to tell him about the front page of the Eastern Daily and inform him that Evelyn was going to tell the “strange” story of the relationship between Frank Wilson and a certain Mrs. Hamilton live on the early morning news bulletin.
Philip was at home and came over to my place in twenty minutes. Nor did he complain about having to leave for Derbyshire that very night to be at Roy Parker’s side and prevent him from saying a single word on the subject.
At ten in the morning the next day, all the county could talk about was Mr. Wilson’s amorous adventures. The media agencies and other radio and television stations had been unable to do anything but repeat Evelyn’s exclusive. She had called the Conservative candidate and insisted that he explain his bimonthly visits to Mrs. Hamilton’s house.
In the middle of the afternoon Frank Wilson appeared at a press conference accompanied by his wife. He said that he was ashamed at the damage done to his family and his voters, and announced that he was withdrawing from the electoral race to spend time atoning for his mistake and taking care of his wife and children.
Roy called me that evening, delighted.
“One down! The Conservatives will have to field a substitute candidate now. You’re a genius, Thomas. I knew I could trust you. Your boy Philip made me memorize what I had to say to the journalists—you know, things like it came as a great surprise to me because until now I had considered Frank Wilson one of the pillars of the community. Then I said that we politicians ought to be entirely transparent or pick another trade. Philip made me say that I was sorry for the difficult time the Wilson family was having.”
“Good, Roy, that’s good. Don’t go off script. Don’t improvise.”
“Tomorrow Suzi’s going to come with me to visit the market and the small local businesses. Philip says that the voters need to see that we’re a happy family. They’ve also given Suzi a couple of crib sheets with what she should say if the journalists ask her questions. Don’t worry, we’ll do a good job.”
No, I wasn’t worried. I was sure that Roy and Suzi were more than capable of appearing upset by the Wilson case and bringing a few local voters on to their side at the same time. As for Evelyn Robinson, the girl was good and could be useful to us in the future.
—
A couple of days later I traveled to Derbyshire to meet first with Christopher Blake and then with Roy and Suzi.
Blake was bursting with enthusiasm. One of the heads of the Conservative Party had called him wanting to know how he had gotten the scoop. He also asked him why his paper and radio station seemed to be supporting those “novices” from the Rural Party. From what he told me, he too had done a good job playing his role of media impresario whose concern was only the prestige of his outlets and who just couldn’t ignore a scandal like that. The man from the Conservative Party seemed conciliatory: “I’m sure we can come to an understanding. We admire your business, Mr. Blake. We know the difficulties you’ve overcome and you must know you can rely on our support for anything you might need.” Blake seemed to have learned the words by heart because he recited them to me off the top of his head.
“Now they realize we exist! They’ve never invested in even one page of advertising in the paper or a single radio slot. Now they won’t be able to avoid thinking of us. And I suppose Mr. Parker is satisfied with…with how his campaign is going.”
“Yes, he is. I thank you on his behalf for the support of your station and paper. The Rural Party is a decent party that will know how to represent its citizens’ interests. Mr. Parker is an upright man. And my congratulations; I hear that an investment group has bought shares in your company. They’re betting on the future.”
I said this last part to remind him that if he was doing well now it was because we had thrown him a life belt to cling to. Blake was more than capable of coming to believe that Evelyn really had discovered Frank Wilson’s visits to Mrs. Hamilton’s house all by herself.
That night I had dinner with Roy and Suzi. Philip joined us. I was surprised to see that Suzi had lost a few pounds and that her hair was perfectly styled. Both things detracted from her charm. She was also wearing some Jimmy Choo shoes in which she was struggling to remain upright.
“Who told you to go to the hairdresser and lose weight?” I asked her grumpily.
“Well, I think it’s what’s expected of a candidate’s wife. I can’t go about with my hair in a mess. And, to be honest, I envy Cathy’s figure. Everything fits her as if she were a model.”
“Mrs. Parker, you can’t, nor should you, look like Cathy; she wouldn’t get a single vote in this county. As you can imagine, the Rural Party is for the people from around here, people distanced from traditional politicians, people who can milk a cow or help a sheep give birth.”
Roy fidgeted uncomfortably and looked at me with such anger I thought he was going to hit me.
“Don’t overdo it, Thomas. It’s not for you to decide how Suzi does her hair. It’s one thing for us to accept your advice and another for us not to make our own decisions.”
“You see, Roy, this is how things are: either you follow our advice to the letter, including how your wife wears her hair, or we pack our bags and leave. You decide.”
I wasn’t bluffing. I knew that either I made it clear who was in charge or it was better to go back to London that very night. Roy could throw out everything we had achieved as a result of his harebrained ideas, like letting Suzi appear as a caricature of the candidates’ wives from the traditional parties.
“So no hair salons and no high heels,” she intervened, aware that her husband’s political career could end right there.
“You are what you are, a plump housewife with rebellious hair that you struggled to control with those clips you were wearing before. And no, Jimmy Choos don’t suit you. Wear what Cathy advised you: low-heeled pumps, and only when you have to attend a serious event; the rest of the time, stick with the rubber boots. Be who you’ve always been, that’s your greatest charm.”
“All right. I’ll do it. I thought I was better like this…”
“No, you’re not. I promise you, like this you seem vulgar but you were attractive the way you were before.”
Roy hadn’t said a word while Suzi and I were talking. He seemed to be weighing what to do, whether to fire me or give in on this. He chose the latter option.
“Okay, when do we move on to the second part of the plan? There’s still the Labour guy, Jimmy Doyle. I told your guy”—he nodded to Philip—“that it would suit us if the stuff about Doyle’s economic problems was already leaking out. As soon as we get him out of the way I’ll be the only one left.”
“And
Philip will have explained to you that we won’t be doing anything before the final stages of the campaign. There will be no further scandals until that point. You will continue visiting little old ladies, going to see other landowners, meeting with unemployed workers…You will follow the plan that Philip has designed. Don’t veer even a millimeter off the script. The rest is up to us.”
“But that means giving Labour the advantage! Jimmy Doyle’s got good support in the county.”
“Yes, I already know that, and he will have up to the day I’ve told you. Roy, you have to know how to strike at the right moment. I’ll bet you were one of those kids who beat the others up without a second thought. It doesn’t work like that in politics. Anyway, the Frank Wilson case is already front-page news. Don’t be impatient. You can’t get rid of all your opponents at the same time, you’ll attract attention. The journalists from other outlets are asking themselves how a young, unknown reporter like Evelyn Robinson was able to uncover Frank Wilson’s amorous entanglements. They will think, they will speculate, and someone might tug on the thread and try and follow it back to you. I recommend you read The Art of War, it will do you good.”
“Did Churchill write it?”
“No, it was written by someone who lived several centuries ago. I think it was the fourth century BC. He was named Sun Tzu and his book is studied in all the military academies.”
“He was Chinese, right?”
“Yes, he was Chinese.”
Roy didn’t seem impressed by my recommendation, but Suzi made a note of the book’s title. I was sure that she would read it and then summarize it for her husband.
I decided that it was best for Philip to remain with Roy until the campaign was over. We had hired a couple of publicists to organize its day-to-day running but they weren’t able to make Roy do anything that he didn’t want to do or prevent him from carrying out his own ideas.
“I have to go back to London tomorrow. I’ve got a mountain of other candidates and I need to coordinate various campaigns at the same time. Philip will stay with you and don’t think I’m happy about that, but it’s the only way to stop you from putting your foot in it and taking yourself out of the running. But I should warn you, Roy, we won’t keep working with you unless you follow instructions from Philip or any other member of my team to the letter.”
“Even that insipid woman Janet McCarthy?” asked Roy with a smile.
“As far as I can tell, her lessons on how to behave in front of a camera and how to come off well in a debate have served you very well so far.”
“She’s like a schoolteacher,” Roy replied.
“She’s a professor at the University of London, and you’ve been privileged that she’s agreed to teach you some of the skills you need to succeed in becoming mayor.”
“You seem tense, Thomas,” Suzi intervened, trying to prevent us from getting embroiled in an argument.
“I’m tired. I’ve already told you that we’re running campaigns for more than forty candidates; men and women who aspire to be mayors of their towns.”
“Don’t get angry, I’ll be as obedient as can be,” Roy promised.
He was exhausting. He personified the word “mercurial.” He was as ready to turn sentimental as to act like a killer.
—
The Frank Wilson case didn’t disappear overnight. The husband of one of the women who worked for Mrs. Hamilton gave her such a beating that she was left in a coma. They arrested the man and he had no qualms admitting he had wanted to kill her.
The other women didn’t come out of it well either. Their husbands threw them out on the street after a few blows and the standard cries of “whore.” As for Mrs. Hamilton, she put the house up for sale and disappeared. The neighbors claimed she hadn’t even said goodbye to anyone.
“Isn’t your conscience prickling?” Bob asked Evelyn while they smoked a cigarette. They were in bed reading the Sunday papers and Evelyn’s editorial was in the Eastern Daily.
“I’m not responsible for what happened,” she replied.
She liked Bob, going to bed with him was fun, but she was irritated by these moral embers he would let flare up every so often.
Evelyn refused to accept that she had anything to do with the misfortune that had befallen those women, although from time to time she couldn’t help remembering the dignity of that woman on her doorstep, refusing to say a single word about Frank Wilson or Mrs. Hamilton, simply explaining to her that some things happen because there is no other option in life. If Bob went on about it too much she would get angry, because she didn’t want to remember that the woman’s son refused to have any more to do with her while his father took off his belt to make her pay for the public humiliation he’d been subjected to.
—
I agreed with Philip that we couldn’t leak the documents we had on Jimmy Doyle’s debts and late payments through Evelyn. Her colleagues on other papers would say that there was no way she could have so much luck in a single month. We even considered whether it might make sense to send them to a different media empire to avoid suspicions.
“How did your friend Neil get hold of those photocopies of extracts from Doyle’s bank statements?” I asked Philip.
“I don’t know, he never tells me how he gets the information. He hands it over and that’s that.”
“Yes, but are you sure the extracts are authentic?”
“I trust him. He’s the best.”
“Yes, he seems to have a particular talent for digging up shit. What do you think?”
“Let’s send them to various outlets, including the Eastern Daily and Radio East. No addressees, just to the editorial teams. Blake will publish them, and if the others don’t they won’t be able to say it’s because they didn’t have the papers; it’ll be because they didn’t want to take the plunge.”
“Blake won’t like the fact we’re depriving him of a scoop,” I reflected aloud.
“But it would be very risky for him if his paper and radio station were the ones who ruined the other candidates’ careers. People aren’t stupid. The Conservatives and Labour will join forces to track down whoever’s after them and the question they’ll ask themselves is who stands to benefit from these scandals. They’ll find the trail that leads back to him, back to us, and they’ll crucify us.”
“So let’s go a step further. First we’ll put it out online that Doyle has financial problems, that he wants to become mayor to put an end to these problems. That way there’ll already be a bit of a hubbub. Then we’ll send the papers to the media.”
—
We were going to destroy another man. I admit that it didn’t matter to me, nor did I hesitate for a minute. It was my job. They didn’t just pay me to do it; I enjoyed pushing the boundaries, knowing I was cleverer than the others.
I could have told Philip I didn’t have the stomach for it, that after the Frank Wilson thing I wasn’t able to repeat a similar infamy with Doyle. But that’s not how I felt. I wasn’t struck with remorse for a single moment.
When the papers showing Jimmy Doyle’s unpaid debts reached Radio East, Blake told Evelyn to follow up on the lead, even though I had subtly told him that if a case similar to Frank Wilson’s were to crop up he shouldn’t assign it to Evelyn. But Blake trusted her and was sure that if these papers were genuine his newspaper and radio station would have scored another bombshell.
The papers had been leaked several days earlier but they hadn’t had the repercussions we’d been expecting. Philip said that it didn’t matter, that sending the information in the mail anonymously acted as a firewall for us. We had to avoid anyone putting two and two together: everything that was happening was beneficial to Roy Parker.
“Blake wants me to publish all of Doyle’s debts.” Evelyn showed the papers to Bob, whom she was sleeping with every night.
“What are the odds?” Bob exclaimed.
“What are you trying to say?”
“That it’s a real coincidence that another scandal
should break just now involving the candidate with the greatest chance of winning, now that Frank Wilson’s out of the running.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Yes, you do follow me, Evelyn. Of course you do. It’s as clear as water. It’s like Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. They’ve already got the Conservative candidate out of the way. Now it’s the Labour candidate’s turn. There are two left—the one for the Lib Dems, good old Mr. Brown, and Roy Parker from the Rural Party. The Lib Dems have never won many votes in this town; their fielding a candidate is almost symbolic. That leaves us Roy Parker. He’ll be the next mayor.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Take it as given, Evelyn. I assume you’ve asked yourself about this period of prosperity our boss’s businesses are going through. We’ve got advertising revenue, a group of investors who’ve bought shares…what a coincidence! Furthermore, Blake told you to follow Parker’s campaign and suggested you give it favorable coverage. Do you want more proof?”
Evelyn got out of bed, feeling uneasy about what Bob had said. She knew he was right. She’d drawn the same conclusions, but didn’t dare speak them aloud, not even to Bob.
“Let me remind you that we’re not the first to hear of the Doyle case. The boss wants us to hold back. He told me to look and see if there’s anything more. Anyway, you always have a conspiracy theory.”
“You know I’m right. You ought to pay more attention to what I’m teaching you. A lot of stories reach newsrooms because someone wants to take revenge on someone or has a vested interest in something.”
“You’re saying that us journalists don’t do the legwork?”
“Listen, darling, investigative journalism is a very serious thing and some of our colleagues put their lives on the line. But there are times someone provides a lead and one has to ask themselves if their interests are aligned with the general public’s. It can be for revenge, money, politics…What’s important is knowing how to tell the difference. You found an anonymous note in your mailbox that gave you Mrs. Hamilton’s address. They put the fish on the line and we swallowed it.”