Penny Smith - Coming Up Next

There was silence.

‘Incidentally, Mike’s been very supportive, according to my inside sources. He’s apparently been saying you’re a great presenter and he wants you to stay on the sofa. But The Boss – and the chairman – want you off it. Have you been out of the front door yet?’

‘No – there are reporters there. And, I assume, photographers. No idea how many are out there. How big do you think this story is?’

‘Sadly, no mass deaths anywhere at the moment, no politicians shagging their secretaries, no celebrity marriages on the rocks. It’s a slow Monday on a damp spring day. Could be page five. Could be front page, if nothing happens between now and ten o’clock tonight. Do you want me to come over?’

‘No. I’m going to have to deal with it at some stage.’

She phoned her mum and dad and left a message telling them that under no circumstances were they to talk to anyone they didn’t know, about anything. She phoned her brother, Ben, and told him the same thing.

‘Can I speak to my patients?’ he asked, faux -serious.

‘No. Anyway, no doctor speaks to his patients,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘So, you OK?’ he asked.

‘How would you feel if they told you you’d been replaced by a performing monkey because it looked good in a stethoscope?’

‘Keera’s hardly a performing monkey.’

‘Yeah, right. She’s got bags of presenting experience and is a bundle of laughs.’

‘Viewers don’t necessarily want funny women, Katie. I think it’s great. Wakes my brain up in the morning. I like the one you did about “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” I’ve been using it on some of my mates. But, you know, there are people out there who prefer Mike’s gentle humour. Easy, self-deprecating. He doesn’t talk about anything complicated or use long words.’

‘That’s because he doesn’t know any. And thanks for being so supportive.’

‘Well, I am. But I think you’re better than that bollocks anyway. I only watch it to check whether you’re still living.’

‘You should see me today. Barely breathing.’

‘Do you need me to come over and check your pulse?’

‘Thank you, Doctor, but I think I can manage that.’

Ben had made her feel slightly better. Maybe she should get out of the flat. She checked in the mirror.

No, she should most certainly not go out – or, at least, not looking like that.

The intercom buzzed again.

‘Yes,’ she answered, in the gruff voice she’d used earlier.

‘Is Katie Fisher there?’

‘No.’

‘Can you tell me when she’ll be back.’

‘No. I’m the house-sitter – sitting in the house until she gets back.’

‘Which is when?’

‘No idea.’

She hung up.

The intercom buzzed yet again. She ignored it, and decided she had been idiotic. How was she going to go out of the flat for photographs, now that she had said she wasn’t in?

‘Moron,’ she berated herself.

Did it matter? Yes. Some reporter would make a big thing of how she had ‘lain low, pretending to be out … dah-dah-dah.’

She searched through the fridge. No, still nothing but beer and vodka. She took the vodka and lay on the sofa to watch television, her mobile phone on vibrate. She might as well get some enjoyment out of this hideousness.

The home phone rang. Then again. And again.

She wondered how many messages the answerphone would take before it conked out.

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