I snorted. “She certainly wouldn’t have got much change out of them. And even supposing the cast members were prepared to forgive and forget, John Turpin would never let her back on NPTV property again. Which reminds me …” I drifted off, remembering what Cassie had told me.
“I said,” Richard commented in the tones of a man repeating himself, “who is John Turpin?”
“He’s the Administration and Production Coordinator at NPTV,” I said absently. “One of those typical telly executives. You know the kind. About as creative as a sea slug. They’re great at counting beans and cutting expenses. You must have them in journalism.”
“Editorial managers,” he said glumly.
“And he’s obsessed with uncovering the mole who’s leaking the Northerners stories. He’s even threatening to end the location caterers’ contract because he suspects one of them of being guilty.”
“Nice guy. So what is it about this Turpin that sent you off the air just now?” Richard asked.
“I was just remembering a conversation I had yesterday with Cassie Cliff.”
“Maggie Grimshaw as was?”
“The same.”
Richard smiled reminiscently. “I loved Maggie Grimshaw. The woman who put the ‘her’ in Northerners. The sex goddess of soap.” His smile slipped. “Until the truth came slithering out. So what did Cassie have to say about John Turpin?”
I told him the tale about Turpin and Tina Marshall in the Normandie. “I can’t figure it out at all,” I said.
“He might have been wining and dining her on the off-chance that she’d let something slip about her mole.”
I pulled a face. “I don’t think he’s that stupid.”
“He might be that vain,” Richard pointed out. “Never underestimate a middle-aged executive’s opinion of himself.”
I sighed. “Well, if that’s what he was after, he obviously didn’t succeed, since he’s still making a huge performance out of flushing out the mole.”
“Has he got shares in NPTV?” Richard asked.
“I think so. Northerners is up for contract renegotiation. One of the actors was talking about how much money Turpin would make if NPTV got into a bidding war between the terrestrial and the pay channels over Northerners. So I guess he must have some financial stake.”
Richard leaned back in his seat, looking pleased with himself. “That’s the answer. That’s why Turpin was cozying up to Tina Marshall. John Turpin’s the Northerners mole.” He signalled to a passing waiter that we wanted the bill.
Sometimes I wonder how someone who never listens makes such a good living as a journalist. “Richard, pay attention. I already told you who the mole is. Freddie Littlewood was using Dorothea to dig the dirt then he was dishing it.”
“I was paying attention,” he said patiently. “Freddie was pulling skeletons out of cupboards, courtesy of Dorothea’s privileged information. What you didn’t tell me was who’s been selling out the storylines. From what you say, Turpin must have access to them.”
“But why? What does he gain by it?”
Richard shook his head in wonderment. “I can’t believe you’re being so slow about this, Brannigan,” he said. “You’re normally so quick off the mark where money’s concerned. It’s viewing figures, isn’t it? The more notorious Northerners becomes, the more people watch. The more people watch, the higher the value of the show when it comes to negotiating any satellite or cable deal because there are people who will shell out hundreds of pounds for Northerners.”
“I know that,” I protested. “But it’s different with storylines that get leaked before transmission. That makes people turn off.”
The waiter dumped the bill on the table between us. Automatically, we both reached for our wallets. “Says who?” Richard demanded as his plastic followed mine on to the plate.
“Says the actors. When the punters know what happens next, they don’t mind missing it. And they get hooked on something else so they drop out altogether.”
The waiter removed the bill and the credit cards. “Two receipts, please,” we chorused. He nodded. He’d served us enough times to know the routine of two self-employed people who liked to eat together. “That’s bollocks, you know,” Richard said. “That might be what Turpin’s telling them, but it’s bollocks. If you leak upcoming storylines, what happens is you get a buzz going. First one paper breaks the story, then all the rest follow it up, then the TV magazines pick it up and run with it and before you know it, everybody’s buzzing. Don’t you remember the whole ‘Who shot JR?’ thing back in the eighties? Or the furor over Deirdre Barlow and Mike Baldwin’s affair on Coronation Street? The whole nation was watching. I bet Turpin got the idea when Freddie’s exclusives started hitting the headlines and the viewing figures rose along with them.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” I breathed.
“Where’s the risk? He’s in charge of hunting for the source of the Northerners stories. Turpin knows there’s a real mole as well as himself, so if he does uncover anything, he can pin all the guilt on the other one. There’s no way Tina Marshall is going to expose him, because he’s the goose that lays the golden eggs. She’s probably not even paying him much.”
I leaned across the table and thrust my hand through his thick butterscotch hair, pulling his head towards mine. I parted my lips and planted a warm kiss on his mouth. I could still taste lemon and ginger and garlic as I ran my tongue lightly between his teeth. I drew back for breath and said softly, “Now I remember why I put up with you.”
The waiter cleared his throat. I released Richard’s head and we sheepishly signed our credit card slips. Richard reached across the table and covered my hand with his. “We’ve got some unfinished business from last night,” he said, his voice husky.
I ran my other thumbnail down the edge of his hand and reveled in the shiver that ran through him. “Your place or mine?”
Just before we slipped under my duvet, I made a quick call to Gizmo, asking him to arrange for some background checks into the exact extent of John Turpin’s financial involvement with NPTV. Then I switched the phone off.
Sometime afterwards, I was teetering on the edge of sleep, my face buried in the musky warmth of Richard’s chest, when his voice swirled through my mind like a drift of snow. “I’ll tell you one thing, Brannigan. If a few juicy stories can push up the ratings, just think what murder must have done.”
Suddenly, I was wide awake.
Sandra McGovern, née Satterthwaite, had inherited her mother’s flair for ostentation. The house where she lived with her husband Keith and their daughter Joanna had definite delusions of grandeur. Set just off Bury New Road in the smarter part of Prestwich, it looked like the one person at the party who’d been told it was fancy dress. The rest of the street consisted of plain but substantial redbrick detached houses built sometime in the 1960s. Chateau McGovern had gone for the Greek-temple makeover. The portico was supported by half a dozen ionic columns and topped with a few statues of goddesses in various stages of undress. Bas reliefs had been stuck on to the brick at regular intervals and a stucco frieze of Greek key design ran along the frontage just below the first-floor windows.
They might just have got away with it on a sunny summer day. But the McGoverns clearly took Christmas seriously. The whole house was festooned with fairy lights flashing on and off with migraine-inducing intensity. Among the Greek goddesses, Santa Claus sat in a sled behind four cavorting reindeer, all in life-size inflatable plastic. A Christmas tree had been sawn vertically in two, and each half fixed to the wall on either side of the front door, both