Iain Banks - Dead Air

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.

I shrugged, stuffed the wrapping paper into the bin and headed for the car park and the car Capital Live! had sent for me. The Landy was still in the garage; it had been fitted with its two new tyres – three, in fact, as the spare on the back door had been stabbed as well – but they hadn’t replaced its headlights yet.

My phone went as soon as I turned it on, walking up the pontoon towards the car park.

‘Debbie; you’re up and running very early. How are you?’

‘Come straight to my office when you get in, all right?’

I took a couple of steps. ‘I’m fine too, Debs. Thanks for asking.’

‘Just be there, okay?’

‘Ah, okay,’ I said. Oh-oh, I thought. ‘Why? What’s happening? ’

‘See you soon.’ She hung up.

The Motorola vibrated again as I got to the Lexus waiting at the kerb. A Lexus; it had been a Mondeo yesterday. Good job something was looking up. I waved to the driver, who was reading the Telegraph. ‘Nott?’ I asked, unfolding the buzzing phone as he folded the paper. I thought it was best to ask; I’d once jumped into another houseboat dweller’s limo waiting to take them to Heathrow. ‘For Capital Live!’

‘That’s me, boss,’ the driver said.

I got in, belted up and into the phone said, ‘Yes, Phil?’

‘The papers have got it.’

‘What?’ I asked as the car pulled smoothly away.

‘Lawson Brierley’s Institute for Fascist Studies, or whatever it’s called, released a press statement this morning. Basically saying they can see what you’re trying to do here, but… blah blah blah… the full majesty of English law, and common Anglo-Saxon justice, must take precedence over arrogant and theatrical pseudo-intellectual cosmopolitan political machinations. ’

‘You’re not paraphrasing there, I hope.’

‘No. We’ve just had the Mail on the phone. Followed by the Sun, followed by the Standard and then ITN, the Eye and the Guardian. I’m expecting to collect the rest of the set before the hour is out. Why is your land-line down?’

‘I pulled it out last night; some fucker rang about one in the morning and kept ringing but not leaving a message on the machine, plus their identity was withheld, so I got annoyed and wheeched it.’

‘Probably a journo favoured by Mr Brierley getting wind of it early. You weren’t door-stepped this morning, were you?’

‘No.’

‘You were lucky. You in the car?’

‘Yup.’

‘Well, if you want to avoid questions at this end, have the driver take you down into the car park here and take the lift, okay?’

‘Yeah. Shit. Okay,’ I sighed. ‘Oh, fuck, here we go…’

‘Courage, mon brave.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

‘See you soon.’

‘Yeah, in Debbie’s office.’

‘Damn, she’s heard, has she?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘That’ll be who’s jamming my internal line here. Better talk to you when you get here; meet you down in the car park?’

‘See you there.’ I put the phone away.

The driver looked at me in the mirror, but didn’t say anything.

I sat and watched the traffic go past. Shit. What if they were going to fire me? I’d taken heart, bizarrely, from the profoundly noxious Nina’s remarks about publicity. I’d thought that no matter how messy everything got with the assault in the studio, at least it would be great publicity for me and the show and the station and that because of that everybody would be happy. Good grief, had I actually been insufficiently cynical? Maybe Amy was right. Maybe I was naïve. I thought back to the night in Soho during the summer with Ed and Craig, and me not dipping far enough down into the cess of human motivation with my imagination, being so innocent as to think that the worst reaction towards somebody who was helpless and vulnerable was indifference, not something worse.