‘You attacked him?’ Kayla had said, sitting back in her chair in her winter camos and chewing on a pen. I’d nodded, and she’d got up and kissed me. ‘Brilliant, Ken.’
Phil and his assistant Andi had looked aghast at each other. Andi had said, ‘Pub, now, I’d suggest.’
‘But they didn’t call the police.’
‘Not so far. They spent most of their time trying to persuade me to stay and continue with the debate. I don’t know what put them off eventually, me stonewalling or the make-up girls running out of foundation to cover up Lawson’s black eye. Eventually I just walked out and got a taxi.’
‘Do you think Brierley will press charges?’
‘No idea.’ I drank my London Pride and smiled widely at Phil. ‘Don’t fucking care.’
‘You’ve been planning this for weeks, haven’t you?’
‘Months, actually. Since it was first brought up in Debbie’s office, back in September. I had that classic dilemma thing going where you don’t want to give these people a platform, but on the other hand you want to get them in public and grind the grisly fuckers into the dust – and I actually really thought I could do it, because I’m a fucking militant liberal, not the wishy-washy sort that would try to understand the bastard or just be appalled – but then I thought, na, just give the piece of shit a taste of his own medicine.’
Phil was silent for a while, so I looked at him; he was sitting side-on, looking at me.
‘What?’
‘Maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.’
‘Yeah.’ I grinned. ‘Good, eh?’
‘If he does press charges, though, you could be in serious trouble.’
‘First offence? No weapon involved? I don’t think I’ll be going to prison. I did have a doomsday scenario going on in my head about getting carried away once I got my hands on the fuck and beating him to a pulp, leaving him paralysed or dead or something or with a Telefunken UB47 rammed up his arse, but in the end it played out pretty well. I can stand a fine and being bound over to keep the peace, or whatever.’
‘I was thinking more about your job.’
I glanced at him. ‘Yeah. In theory.’
‘Not just in theory.’
‘I thought I was pretty safe there. We haven’t had a dressing down for, shit, weeks.’
‘Ken, for goodness’ sake; we exist on a knife-edge all the time whether or not we get a formal warning or even just a quiet word. I’ve had the ads department on to me about cancellations from American Airlines, the Israeli Tourist Board… and one or two others I’ve managed to repress, obviously. They’re hurting. There are few enough big campaigns going as it is at the moment; losing those that are on offer is giving them sleepless nights, and I’m pretty sure news of the pain is being passed up the corporate structure.’
I frowned. ‘Well, maybe the Israeli Tourist Board will come back now I’ve beaten up a horrible Holocaust denier.’ I glanced at Phil.
He wore a suitably sceptical expression. ‘Or maybe,’ he said, ‘this could be the bale of hay that breaks the camel’s back. I’d check your contract. Never mind vague stuff about bringing the station into disrepute, I’ll bet any criminal proceedings, even pending, threatened ones, means they can pull you off air without pay.’
‘Shit.’ I had a horrible feeling he was right. ‘I’d better phone my agent.’
‘So, Mr McNutt. Would you like to describe what happened in the studio of Winsome Productions, in Clerkenwell, London, on the afternoon of Monday the fourteenth of January, 2002, in your own words?’
Oh shit, it was the same DS who’d interviewed me about the East End trip, when I’d broken the taxi’s windscreen and punched ‘Raine’ in the face. I’d had the choice of coming to my local nick to give a statement, and I’d stupidly taken it. The DS was a young white guy, sharp-faced but a little jowly, with brown hair starting to recede at the temples. He smiled. ‘In your own time, Mr McNutt.’ He patted the big, clunky wooden cassette recorder sitting on the desk in the interview room.
I didn’t like the relish with which he pronounced my name. For about the five hundredth time in my life to date, I cursed my parents for not having changed their name by deed poll before I was born.
‘It never happened,’ I said.
A pause. ‘What, the entire afternoon?’
‘No, whatever I’m being accused of,’ I said.
‘Assault, Mr McNutt.’
‘Yes; that. It didn’t happen. They made it all up.’ I was starting to sweat. This had seemed like such a great plan right up until I had to start following through with it.
‘They made it all up.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, what did happen, sir?’
‘I went along to do an interview, and it was cancelled.’
‘I see.’ The Detective Sergeant thought for a moment. He looked at his notes. ‘At what point was it cancelled?’
‘I never left the Green Room,’ I said, feeling suddenly inspired.
‘The what, sir?’
‘The Green Room, the hospitality suite; it’s where they put you before they need you in the studio.’
‘I see.’
‘I never left it. They came and told me the interview, the discussion, was being cancelled.’
The DS looked at me through narrowed eyes. ‘You are aware, sir, that you will be asked to repeat what you’re saying, under oath, in court?’
Oh shit. Perjury. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I’d been too busy congratulating myself on my own cleverness and blithely assuming that everybody would just play along once they saw what I was up to. I had thought this through a hundred times but somehow it always ended with me modestly accepting Man Of The Year awards, not being sent down for perjury.
I gulped. ‘I may well choose to say nothing under oath.’
Now the DS was looking at me as though I was simply mad.
I cleared my throat. ‘I think I should talk to my lawyer before I say anything else.’
‘So I definitely get to be tried by a jury?’
‘If you insist, Mr Nott, yes. However I’d strongly advise that you take the option of going before a magistrates’ court instead.’ The lawyer was called Maggie Sefton. She worked for the criminal department of my own lawyer’s firm. She had deep brown skin and beautiful eyes behind the tiniest, most low-profile glasses I’d ever seen.
‘But I need to plead Not Guilty!’ I protested. ‘I’m trying to make a political point here! This could make the news, dammit. Won’t that mean it has to go to a higher court?’
‘Not really, no. And it is usually best to avoid going before a judge.’
‘But why?’
‘Because magistrates can’t impose custodial sentences.’
I frowned. Ms Sefton smiled the sympathetic, worldly-wise smile adults lay on children sometimes when the poor darlings just totally fail to understand the way things actually happen in the big bad world. ‘They can’t send you to jail, Kenneth. Whereas a High Court judge can.’
‘Shit,’ I said.
I’d sent Amy some flowers at her office, but she sent them back. After our rather unsatisfactory bout of going through the motions on the Sunday night she’d said she’d call me, but she hadn’t, so after two days I’d headed for the nearest florist. I’d thought a dozen red roses would be just the right gesture for the sort of retro good-time semi-posh girl I’d had her characterised as – it certainly wasn’t something I’d normally do – but obviously I’d got it completely wrong.
The dozen roses arrived back before I set off for work on the Thursday, three days after the Breaking News fracas. The note accompanying them said, ‘Ken; interesting but hardly worth commemorating. See you sometime. A.’
‘Bitch,’ I said to myself, even though I had to admit she was right. I took the wrapping off the flowers and threw them into the river. It was a flood tide, so as they drifted slowly upstream, sped on their way by a stiff north-easterly, I reflected ruefully that if I came back at the right/wrong time this afternoon, I could watch them all come sailing back down again. Come to think of it, a timely combination of tides and winds could conceivably keep their bedraggled, distributed sorriness within sight of the Temple Belle for days; even weeks.