‘Let’s hear what the people have to say, shall we?’
‘Let’s,’ I agreed. ‘But, listeners, be warned; any more calls consisting primarily of a buzzing noise and the sounds of human passion will be dealt with ruthlessly.’
‘Or recorded and used later on a premium-rate line,’ Phil added, up close.
‘Jimmy,’ I said. ‘First-time caller from Lambeth. Wants to make a point about the show. What would that be, James?’
I clicked the line open. A quiet, even, male voice with no real accent said, ‘They’re going to need a new presenter for it, dead man.’ Then the line went dead.
Phil could see the expression on my face. He bleeped the lot. I made a cut-off gesture and said, ‘Woh! Serious bleep-work there. Mother, I’ve told you not to call me at work. Hopefully we’ll find somebody with a civil tongue in their head on line five. Marissa, that’s you. What have you got for us?’
‘Ullo, Ken! Yeah! I’d like to place an order for one of them phones! But not too little a one!’
I clicked her off. ‘Now that is more like the calibre of call we need and want on this show! More, after – hey; some good music! How did that get in? – the Spooks.’
I hit Play and sat back, shaking.
Phil looked at me. ‘You all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, though I didn’t feel it.
‘Want to take a break? We can go back-to-back with the next few tunes.’
I took a deep breath. ‘No. Fuck them. Proceed as normal.’ ‘Well, okay. But think we should maybe zoo it up a little?’ Phil suggested. ‘Get Kayla and Andi in too?’ I knew what he was thinking of; have all four of us chattering on air, just one big squabbling family, and no more risky phone calls.
I glanced into the control room, where both our assistants were sitting looking serious and nodding through the glass at us. ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘why not?’
‘I thought we weren’t taking any more anonymous calls,’ Debbie the Station Manager said. We were in a small meeting room in the middle of the building; her office was being redecorated. Phil and I were there, also Kayla and Andi, and Trish Eaton, station Human Resources manager (I was still trying to work out what Personnel had done to fall out of favour).
‘We never!’ Kayla protested. Andi, who’d also been taking caller details over the phones, nodded supportively.
‘The number came up on the auto 1471 screen as normal,’ Phil told Debbie. ‘It was a mobile. I’ve passed the number on to the police, but they think it’s almost certainly stolen. Or maybe a pay-as-you-go with no record of who bought it.’
Kayla sat back looking justified.
‘Well, then, maybe you just shouldn’t take any more phone calls at all, what do we think?’ Trish suggested. She was a plumpish, matronly type with youthfully smooth facial skin and finely drawn eyebrows.
‘Well, it’s not our unique selling point, certainly,’ I said. ‘But it’s an important part of the show. I’m loathe to lose it.’ I looked round them all. ‘So far these people haven’t repeated trying to kidnap me, so maybe they won’t repeat this, either. And we do still have the three-second delay.’
‘This is even assuming the two things are linked,’ Phil said, looking from me to Debbie. ‘The thing in the taxi and the call this morning.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Let’s look on the bright side; maybe this is just a normal death threat!’ I looked round them, trying to appear reassuring and reassured. They were all looking at me. ‘What?’
‘Do you need to take some leave?’ Debbie asked. Trish was nodding.
Oh shit, I’d misjudged it. ‘No!’ I said. I lowered my voice, both in volume and tone. ‘And I don’t believe in giving in to what is basically personal terrorism, either,’ I said firmly. ‘I say we carry on as normal. Otherwise the bad guys win. I don’t think any of us -’ I glanced meaningfully up at the portrait of the Dear Owner looking down at us from the wall. ‘- want to be a party to that, especially in the current climate. There is a war on, after all.’ I looked at Trish and Debbie. Now they were both nodding, and I knew I’d won. That was the sort of bullshit they understood.
‘Oh-kay,’ Debbie said slowly. ‘But any more calls like that and we pull the phone lines. Agreed?’
We all looked around, nodding.
‘Maybe you should get another job,’ Jo suggested.
‘Why? I love my job!’ I protested.
‘Do you?’ Jo stopped and turned to me. We were walking down Bond Street on the second Sunday in December. ‘Ken, you hate most of what you do and what you’re involved in.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Think about it. Would you listen to Capital Live! if you didn’t have to?’
‘Are you mad? Of course not!’
‘The music you play; like that?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! It’s almost all shite during the day. Fucking Westlife and Hear’say. Things have come to a pretty grisly pass when you play Jamiroquai and they sound like a breath of fresh air.’
‘What about the people who phone in?’
‘With a few honourable exceptions, they’re dullards, dead-beats, opinionated dingbats and bigoted fuckwits.’
‘The adverts?’
‘Don’t even get me started on the fucking ads.’
‘Fellow DJs?’
‘Vapid cretins. Offer them a straight choice between opening another supermarket for a fat fee and sucking Sir Jamie’s cock for nothing and their single brain cell would fuse.’
‘The Tories? New Labour? American Republicans? The CIA? The IMF? The WTO? Rupert Murdoch? Conrad Black? The Barclay Brothers? What-d’you-call-him Berlusconi? George Dubya Bush? Ariel Sharon? Saddam Hussein? Thingy Farrakhan? Osama Bin Laden? The entire Saudi royal family? Muslim fundamentalists? The Christian Right? Zionist settlers? The UVF? Continuity IRA? Exxon? Enron? Microsoft? Tobacco companies? Private Finance Initiatives? The War Against Drugs? The Cult of the Shareholder?’
She only stopped, I assumed, because she ran out of breath. I stared at her for a moment, then shook my head. ‘How could you leave out Thatcher?’
She spread her arms. ‘There is just so much you hate, Ken. Your life, your working life; it’s, like, full of stuff and people and things and organisations you just can’t stand.’
‘You’re trying to make some sort of point here, aren’t you?’
‘In fact, forget your working life; your leisure life, too. Can we go to the States on holiday?’
‘I’ve told you; not until-’
‘Democracy is restored. Okay. Venice? Rome?’
‘With that corrupt fuck in charge, surrounded by his fascist-’
‘Australia?’
‘With their racist immigration policy? No fucking-’
‘China?’
‘Not while the butchers of Tiananmen Square are still-’
‘I rest my case. Is there anywhere-?’
‘Iceland.’
‘Iceland?’
‘I’d love to go to Iceland, so long as they don’t start whaling, obviously. Plus we have been to Egypt, and then there’s France. I feel cool about going to France. I’ve finally more or less forgiven them for sinking the Rainbow Warrior. I’ve even started buying French wine again.’
‘You’ve always bought French wine.’
‘No, I haven’t. It was embargoed; I had personal sanctions against it until about six months ago.’
‘So what the hell is champagne?’
‘Ah. Champagne is different. Though admittedly I ought to despise it on principle as a sort of geographical closed-shop. I look forward to the day when a workers’ cooperative in New Zealand can produce the equivalent of a ’75 Krug.’
‘Jesus. Is there anything you really like, without qualification? ’
‘There’s loads of things I like!’
‘Like what?’
‘Apart from the usual suspects?’
‘I’m not talking about films.’
I laughed. ‘Me neither. I mean apart from friends and family and world peace and little babies and Nelson bleedin Mandela.’