Martin Edwards - I Remember You

Harry had meant to tune in to Finbar’s appearance on Pop In , if only to pick up a few tips. But work had claimed priority, following an early morning police raid on a shopkeeper client whose stock of videos gave a new meaning to the concept of animal husbandry.

‘Missed it,’ he said. ‘I’m sure he was good.’

‘Flattery will get you everywhere, provided you don’t charge me for it on your next account,’ said the Irishman, returning with the drinks. ‘Evening, Penny, Baz. So we haven’t discovered another Ken Dodd or Cilla Black tonight? Ah, perhaps it’s as well.’

Penny Newland grimaced. Harry guessed that, like Kim Lawrence, she was one of those women who found Finbar’s chat easy to resist. Still irked by the redhead’s encouragement of his client’s ogling, Harry began to warm to her.

‘Don’t you think we ought to circulate, darling?’ she said quietly.

‘Sure,’ said Baz, wrapping his arm round her shoulder. ‘Nice meeting you, Harry. Till tomorrow. Ciao , Melissa.’

Finbar handed Harry his pint. ‘Here. Help you blot out the memory of the last couple of hours.’

Melissa turned to Harry. ‘Don’t let Nick-’

‘About to take my name in vain?’

Nick Folley’s voice was a brash boom. He placed his lips against Melissa’s cheek in the manner of a man exercising droit de seigneur . Harry saw a spasm of dislike distort her fine features and sensed the stiffening of her body in resistance. He recalled Finbar’s description of the man: ‘If he was a chocolate drop, he’d eat himself.’

‘The name’s Folley,’ said the newcomer to Harry. He was holding a glass of red wine and had in tow the girl whom Finbar had been eyeing up all evening. Like each of his employees here tonight, Nick Folley wore a Radio Liverpool name badge; yet his tone made it plain that he knew self-introduction was unnecessary.

‘This is Harry Devlin,’ said Melissa. Harry sensed she was trying to control a shiver and her reaction intrigued him. Was it mere distaste for her boss — or fear?’

‘Harry’s my solicitor,’ Finbar said.

Nick Folley cast a quick contemptuous glance at the Irishman, but when he spoke his voice was as smooth as ever and he wore his smile like a mask.

‘I imagine you keep him busy.’

‘Harry’s starring on Baz’s show tomorrow,’ said Melissa.

‘Great,’ said Nick Folley, his manner making Harry feel like a first-former in the presence of the Head of School. ‘In that case, er — Harry? — meet Sophie Wilkins. She produces Baz.’

‘Hi,’ said the redhead huskily.

She pecked Melissa on the cheek and Finbar wasted no time in kissing her hand with a flourish worthy of Errol Flynn. Sophie threw a glance of triumph at Melissa, as if to say: See, I have the boss and your boyfriend, both dangling on a string . As she shook Harry’s hand, her freckled breasts almost bobbed free of the confines of her black velvet dress.

‘It’s a delight to see more of you,’ said Finbar, unable to resist a double meaning.

Harry guessed now why the Irishman had been willing to spend an evening enduring a talent show in which he had no interest and it had nothing to do with lending Melissa his moral support. He must have met Sophie when appearing on Pop In and hoped, after the letdown of the Danger, to see her again tonight. In any case, she seemed determined to flaunt her interest in him; treating him to a ravenous smile.

‘You really were wonderful yesterday morning. Poor Harry has a lot to live up to.’

‘I’m sure you’ll be as kind to him, darling,’ said Finbar, ‘as you were to me.’

‘Whoops!’ said Nick Folley.

‘Oh God!’ cried Melissa simultaneously. Sophie squealed, as if with delight.

Folley had spilt the contents of his glass over Finbar’s white jacket. The stain was huge, spreading while they watched, as if the Irishman had been knifed in the heart.

‘ Mea culpa ’, said Nick Folley. ‘Incredibly clumsy of me.’

Malicious pleasure sweetened his voice, made a mockery of the frown of concern on his face. Harry didn’t believe it had been an accident.

‘That’s all right,’ said Finbar, breathing hard and choking back anger with a visible effort, ‘though you ought to get that nervous twitch under control.’

‘Of course, you’ll send your dry cleaning bill to me.’

‘Ah, think nothing of it. In any case, it’ll be a long time before I come to another do like this.’

Finbar’s expression was affable, but his words were as sharp as bits of glass. Nick Folley shrugged slightly before turning away; he’d made his point. Melissa glared after her boss and Sophie stifled a snigger before slipping a hand in Folley’s pocket, a deliberate gesture of intimacy intended to be seen.

The fires burning beneath the surface at Radio Liverpool, Harry thought, would take much longer to quench than the blaze at Williamson Lane.

‘Take this,’ said Sophie Wilkins the next morning, handing Harry a razor blade.

He drew the sharp metal edge across the palm of his hand and felt a tingling. A thin red thread appeared.

‘You expect me to be that bad?’

‘No, no,’ she laughed. ‘We ask you not to take the newspapers into the studio. The rustles would have all our listeners reaching for the telephone — or, even worse, the tuning dial. So when you see a piece you want to talk about, use the blade to cut it out. Simpler than scissors. Right then, I’ll see you in twenty minutes.’

She bustled out, leaving him alone in the Radio Liverpool hospitality lounge. Fish in a huge tank stared at him with a dull-eyed solemnity, in striking contrast to the ingratiating smirks of the local celebrities whose photographs lined the walls. He sank back in the voluptuous embrace of a brothel-pink leather chair and started to leaf through the morning’s papers.

Sophie’s welcoming manner had been effusive enough to suggest that he lent lustre to commercial radio by his very presence. The tee-shirt she wore was two sizes too small for her and no less provocative than the previous night’s cocktail dress. When she kissed him on the cheek in greeting, he felt her push against him with a groupie’s ardour. After she’d finally disengaged and he’d recovered his breath, he asked what he was expected to say on the show.

‘Just be your normal self,’ she said, with flattering faith.

‘That could cost you your franchise. Come on now, what’s the brief?’

‘Same as every morning. You know the programme — you must be familiar with what we want.’

Well, actually, no , thought Harry. He hadn’t the faintest idea what Baz Gilbert expected of him, because he seldom listened to Radio Liverpool. He’d grown up with the city’s two longer-established stations and he wasn’t a man who readily transferred his loyalties, but he dared not utter such blasphemy. He cast his mind back to Finbar’s trumpet-blowing account of his own experience of radio stardom.

‘So I pick two or three stories from the Press which catch my eye and then tell Baz about my favourite record?’

‘Right.’ She consulted a clipboard. ‘“There’s Always Something There To Remind Me”? An old one, isn’t it? Before my time. But no problem, we have it in the record library.’

She bustled out and he turned his attention to the papers. Flipping through the tabloids, he was rewarded with a story beginning: A randy reverend defrocked a teenage organist five times a night, a court was told yesterday . For slaking the Great British Public’s thirst for legal cases with a little spice, the Street of Shame beat the All England Law Reports hands down.

He was cutting out the last paragraph of a snippet in The Independent about an Australian bigamist who wanted to plead guilty but insane when Penny Newland walked through the door.