The Night Book (6 page)

‘The programme runs like this. Meriel Kidd is the acknowledged expert on modern marriage. Why? Because she’s got one. A modern marriage, that is. Meriel Kidd wouldn’t settle
for anything less. How many times have you said that, when you’re telling some snivelling loser how to put the skids under the tosser in her life?

‘Women look up to you, Meriel. You make them realise that they don’t have to take the crap any more. This is 1976. You empower them. You lead by sodding example, for Christ’s
sake.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Look. You even
hint
that you’ve been hiding the truth about your piss-poor marriage, and you’re finished. Your fans would never forgive you.
They might feel sorry for you; hell, some would probably even feel superior to you, but they’d never trust a word you said again. Meriel Kidd. Turns out she’s just like the rest of us.
Marriage fucked up to buggery and, what’s more, lying through her teeth to everyone about it . . . I mean,
Christ
, Meriel! It’s the kind of confession you might consider coming
out with twenty years or so down the line, if you were on your uppers and looking for a last big payout.’

There was a long silence. Meriel had turned very pale. When she eventually spoke, it was in a voice barely above a whisper.

‘Do you think I don’t know all that, David? I live with it every single day. And yes, I manage it. Somehow I manage the whole, horrible, sordid mess. But there are some things I
can’t do. Such as writing this book. It’s out of the question. I think it would send me mad, actually.’

David Weir always knew when to give ground and he did so now. In a gentler voice, he said, ‘Yes, obviously I see that, now you’ve explained how things are with Cameron. I’ll go
back to the drawing board with the book idea, come up with something else, don’t worry. But, Meriel, listen to me. Listen carefully now.’

He glanced around them, instinctively checking that no one was eavesdropping on their conversation.

‘You must never,
ever
confide in anyone else about this. I don’t want to see one of your so-called friends popping up in the News of the Screws with a tell-all exposé
on the devastating truth behind the Kidd–Bruton fairy tale. You want someone to unload on, you come to me, and only me. Understand?’

She nodded. ‘I think I only told you because I’ve had too much wine.’

‘Whatever. This is our secret and I want to keep it that way. You’re right on the edge of big things, Meriel, and it’d be a tragedy to see everything you’ve achieved so
far go to waste because of a prick like Cameron.’

Meriel managed a small smile.

‘I reckon you’ll have your own television show by this time next year. I wasn’t going to tell you this, I wanted to wait until I had something more solid to offer you, but
I’ve been in talks already with BBC1 and Granada. They both think the time’s right to move your radio phone-in format to TV. The Beeb’s even got a working title:
Meriel
Matters.
Your name on the tin, honey.’

She tried and failed to look enthusiastic. ‘I’m sorry, David, obviously that’s wonderful news, I’m just not in the mood to celebrate tonight.’

‘Sure, I get it.’ Her agent hesitated. ‘Can I ask you a personal question?’

‘Of course.’

‘What are you doing for sex, Meriel? You’re only thirty-one. It’s not healthy for a woman your age to be sleeping alone every night. You must be incredibly lonely.
Haven’t you been tempted to have a discreet affair? Not that I’m suggesting it. Kiss-and-tell, remember?’

Meriel sighed. ‘To be honest, David, I seem to have switched off as far as sex is concerned. I can’t remember the last time I fancied someone. It must have something to do with
living under the same roof as Cameron; he’s so unutterably dreary when he’s not busy being a bastard. He just sucks all the atmosphere out of a room.’

Weir gave a short laugh. ‘I suppose what I’m trying to say, Meriel, is be very careful. You’re only human. We all have our urges. If you do end up giving in to one, just be
damn sure not to get caught out. That would be a disaster, too.’

Meriel beckoned their sulking waiter over. ‘We’d like our coffees now, please . . . Don’t worry, David, it’s not going to happen. As I say, I’m simply not
interested. Anyway, I can’t think of a single candidate for an affair. There’s no one even remotely on the horizon.’

Her agent gave a tight smile.

‘Good. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?’

Seb’s live report from Kendal had been the turning point, no question about that.

The network sent a herogram to Lake District FM saying they’d prefer Sebastian Richmond to be their pointman on all future stories from the region, and his news editor received a
handwritten memo from the station manager, congratulating him on keeping faith with the new boy.

Everyone was happy.

Not least Seb and Jess. When they returned from their assignment, the reporter insisted on taking the engineer to the pub across the road, where they both ended up getting spectacularly drunk.
‘You’re a good lad, Seb,’ the older man slurred several hours later as he stumbled into a taxi. ‘You’ll be all right, now you’ve made your mark.’

Seb didn’t hear a word. He was too busy throwing up into a flower tub outside the pub’s front door.

Next morning he was on early shift, reading the headlines during the breakfast show, and staying on afterwards to help put the main lunchtime news show together. That included presenting
bulletins at the top of each hour, including the one at eleven that fed in to Meriel Kidd’s live phone-in programme.

Meriel, who had caught the first train from London and gone straight to the radio station, waved cheerfully at him through the soundproofed glass of her studio as he entered the little adjoining
news cubicle. Seb recognised her from newspaper and magazine photographs, but this was the first time he had seen her in the flesh. She was illuminated by the sunshine that streamed through the
huge window that looked out onto the distant mountains away to the south.

Seb swallowed, hard. This woman was beautiful.

He was so distracted he made at least three verbal slips in the short two-minute bulletin, pronouncing ‘Buttermere’ as ‘Battermere’, struggling with
‘unsubstantiated’ (eventually giving up, replacing it with ‘unproven’) and cocking up the time check, telling listeners it was just past midday when it was actually two
minutes past eleven.

‘What the bloody hell happened to you in there?’ his editor demanded when Seb returned, damply, to the newsroom. ‘Not still pissed from yesterday?’

Seb laughed sheepishly. ‘Course not. Sorry . . . it was . . . Meriel . . . I had no idea she looked quite like that. She’s a complete knockout. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
You should have warned me.’

The news editor grinned. ‘Ah, the comely Miss Kidd. Well, not Miss, actually – she’s a Mrs. Married to Cameron Bruton. Heard of him?’

‘Of course I have. The businessman. Major player. Isn’t he much older than her?’

‘Yes. He’s also probably the richest man in the Lake District.’

‘Oh well, no chance there then. Pity. She’s gorgeous. What’s someone like her doing stuck up here?’

His boss frowned. ‘Less of the
stuck up here
if you don’t mind. We were radio station of the year last year, I’ll have you know. And Meriel’s show doesn’t
just go out locally – it’s syndicated. I think everywhere except London takes it now. Anyway, you’ll just have to worship from afar, matey. Like I said, she’s taken –
and by a bloke with more money than you’ll earn in a hundred lifetimes.’

Seb shook his head. ‘Money isn’t everything. Poverty has its virtues. And I have youth on my side. Maybe I can persuade her to give someone closer to her own age a
look-in.’

‘Stroll on, sunshine.’

Meriel immediately understood why the girls in the office kept going on and on about Sebastian Richmond.

He was quite the package. Probably five or six inches taller than her – she was five-eight – and slim-hipped in black Levis and matching black trainers. He was wearing a
tight-fitting, off-white cheesecloth shirt, and dirty-blond hair hung in a ragged fringe above intelligent blue eyes.

He was making a complete idiot of himself reading the news, mispronouncing everything and getting the time check all wrong, and she was pretty sure that was because of her. She was perfectly
aware of the effect she could have on men, and the truth was that she’d made a special effort.

When she got into her car that morning and heard him on the breakfast show, she realised he’d be the newsreader for her segment later, so she’d found time to dash into the bathroom
on her way in.

This is ridiculous, she thought to herself. You’re behaving like a bloody schoolgirl with a crush, Meriel. You don’t even know what he looks like.

But that hadn’t stopped her from reapplying lipstick, adding some extra mascara, and spraying Yves St Laurent’s Rive Gauche behind her ears. Not that anyone outside her studio would
be able to tell she was wearing it.

Still . . .

Seb’s shift ended at one o’clock but he stayed on to listen to the lunchtime news. He’d written four or five of the stories and he wanted to hear them go
out.

When the early afternoon music and talk show began, he stuffed his things into his shoulder bag and headed for the lifts. The sliding doors were just closing as he got there and he thrust his
arm into the narrowing gap. ‘Hang on! Room for one more inside?’

The doors juddered before slowly reopening.

He found himself looking into the dark-brown eyes of Meriel Kidd.

Bob Merryman slammed the phone back down and swore out loud as he looked around the empty office. The lunchtime news team had gone to the pub and it would be almost an hour
before the next shift came in, working on the early-evening bulletin and the following day’s breakfast show. He was on his own.

Then, remembering that Seb had only just left, he ran to the window that looked out over the car park below. Yes, there he was, leaning against his sports car talking to Meriel Kidd. The crafty
bugger didn’t let the grass grow, did he?

Heaving the window up, the news editor stuck his head out.

‘Seb!
Seb!
Up here!’ he yelled as the startled reporter looked confusedly around him.

Seb squinted up against the sun.

‘Bob! What is it?’

‘There’s been another of these bloody drownings,’ his boss called down to him. ‘Two, in fact – it’s a double one this time. Mother and daughter. Get your arse
up here so I can brief you. I need you to get down to Windermere,
prontissimo
.’

Seb turned back to Meriel. He’d been working up to ask her to join him for a drink or even lunch at the radio station’s adopted pub in the city centre, but that would have to wait
now.

He smiled ruefully. ‘Duty calls. I was going to suggest we adjourn to the Prince of Wales for a post-programme bite of something, but . . . well . . .’

Meriel smiled back at him. ‘That would’ve been nice. Really. Maybe next week, after my show. I can give you the inside story on what goes on at Lake District FM. Your
newsroom’s so busy chasing down stories they don’t see what’s happening in their own back yard.’

Seb extended his hand. ‘I’d like that. It’s a date – lunch this time next week.’

His palm and fingers felt warm and dry, Meriel thought, and the ball of his thumb on the back of her hand was firm. A distinct tingle ran up her spine and she caught her breath.

For the first time in as long as she could remember, she was feeling the faint but unmistakable twitch and pull of desire.

Seb cursed under his breath as the lift rumbled its way back up to the top of the building. After the initial surprise of seeing Meriel Kidd up close and in such a confined
space he had rallied, making her laugh with self-deprecating references to his blooper-strewn bulletin earlier.

Outside in the sun-drenched car park she’d seemed happy to stand and chat with him, and Seb began to think she might be open to joining him at the pub. Then Merryman had put the kybosh on
everything.

Mind you, it sounded like a hell of a story. Two more drownings – and barely twenty-four hours after the appeal to swimmers to stay in the shallows. The papers had been full of it that
morning. He’d have to check with Bob, but he was pretty sure Windermere was the biggest of all the lakes, and it was definitely the busiest. And what if there were more deaths to come? This
was rapidly turning into the news sensation of the summer.

The lift doors opened and Seb walked, then jogged, down the corridor towards the newsroom.

The long drive down to Windermere had barely left him enough time to establish the basic facts of the story. There’d been a police press conference on the banks of the
lake at four o’clock, but all the eyewitnesses to the tragedy were holed up in the police station making statements, so there were no worthwhile interviews to be done yet.

Now it was almost five and Seb was about to go on air. It was far too late to script anything; he’d just have to busk it as a two-way ad-libbed conversation with the programme presenter up
in Carlisle. Once again the network had muscled in on the act and London was taking the interview, live.

With perfect timing the radio car was off the road having its annual service, so Seb had been forced to find a phone. He’d talked his way into a Bowness-on-Windermere hotel. The manager
had been most helpful, guiding him through to a little office behind reception.

‘Here you are, Mr Richmond, I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. This is quite becoming
your
story, isn’t it? I heard you on the wireless yesterday.’

Seb, receiver jammed to one ear, listened to the programme’s headlines being read out and then it was his cue.

‘But first, breaking news this afternoon: another drowning in Cumbria’s lakes, a double tragedy that takes the death toll this heatwave summer to six in as many weeks. Over to
our reporter Seb Richmond, live from Lake Windermere. Seb, what can you tell us?’