Chapter 13 #2
“Around 03:00 on Sunday, we have CCTV images of Dr Patel’s SUV arriving in Sittingston from the western side of the town, which is unusual as Lilbury is to the south and Salisbury to the east. Dr Patel has no acquaintances in the village and, until this campaign, had reportedly no connections to it.
He travelled up White Ball Road to the corner of the High Street, where he was captured on the CCTV of a local bank.
He spent several minutes idling in the town centre before being captured on a separate camera at the entrance of the St Margaret’s Road Car Park, where he was later discovered by a member of the public at approximately 06:00.
“We urge any members of the public who saw his car travelling between the hours of 17:00 Saturday and 03:00 Sunday morning to contact Dorset Police immediately. No detail is too small.”
The chief constable took off his glasses and shuffled his papers. I held Kennedy a little closer. Behind me, I heard one of the cats jump up on the sofa and purr contentedly as they settled in for a nap. “I will now open the floor to questions from the media,” he added.
There was a clamour. He pointed to someone off-screen.
“Chief constable, do you think this was politically motivated?”
“We have no evidence of a motive yet.”
“Chief constable, do you think this was a hate crime?”
“We have no evidence of a motive yet.”
“Chief constable, what do you think of the rumour that Riz Patel was the one who leaked images of Guy Frobisher’s sex tape?”
My head snapped up, and I saw Simon’s do the same on screen. The chief constable huffed. “We have absolutely no evidence of that. We understand certain websites have been uploading theories around this scenario, but we have no basis on which these could be verified.”
“Mr Patel,” yelled a journalist. “Is it true that you and your wife hadn’t spoken to your son for several years? Is it because Riz was gay?”
Riz’s father hugged his wife a little tighter. “We loved our son,” he said.
“Simon! Simon!” yelled another reporter. “What do you say to the person who killed your fiancé?”
Simon remained silent. He stared at the camera, his eyes unblinking. Worst day of his life #2.
“That’s quite enough questions,” the chief constable said. With that, he led the Patels, Marina, and Simon from the room.
“That was the live scene from Dorset Police headquarters,” said the TV reporter as the feed was cut and the view returned to the studio. “No closer to discovering those responsible for the death of political candidate Riz Patel, now forty-eight hours after his body was found.”
My phone started buzzing, and I nearly broke an ankle scrambling for it when I saw Verity’s name on the screen. Kennedy was most put out as I splayed myself across the living room floor to grab it.
“Hello!” I said, jabbing the remote to mute the TV.
“Arden, morning,” she said stiffly.
“How’s the meeting? Surely you’ve barely started.”
“Listen,” she said, continuing with the stiff tone. “Arden, I know this is going to be difficult. Donal and Ffion are here with me. You’re on speaker. We’re all in agreement.”
She paused, presumably so Donal and Ffion could greet me, but there was nothing but silence down the line.
“Anyway,” she carried on. “Arden, we’re advising you that …
We … the agency, that is, would like to assess your contract.
The terms of which have now become untenable with current circumstances.
We’d like to approach this as amicably—”
“You’re cancelling my contract?”
“No, but we’re going to have to change it, Arden. We can’t continue to represent you with the current headlines swirling. We have no choice but to work with legal representation to seek out our options to protect the agency and our other clients.” Her voice was robotic.
My world was falling apart. I was going to lose my career. And Verity sounded like she didn’t even care.
“Do you understand, Arden?” came Donal’s voice.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“We advise you to get your own lawyer,” Verity said. “When our legal team have worked with us on options, we’ll send it to you, and we hope we can get this all worked out as soon as possible.”
“Great,” Donal’s voice came down the line again. “Good to speak to you as always, Arden. We’ll be in touch when our lawyers have worked up a new contract.”
Verity started to say something, but I cut her off. “Sounds good. Talk later.” I hung up.
I sat on the floor for some time with my brain reeling. I’d lost my career.
No, don’t be silly. How bad could they make it? What kind of caveats and retroactive stipulations could they put in my contract? A morality clause? Not to bring the agency into disrepute?
But … that really wasn’t the worst thing.
It was barely 10 a.m. The meeting would’ve just started before the call was made.
Donal and Ffion were in complete agreement and had railroaded Verity into whatever was done.
She hadn’t put up much of a fight by the sound of things.
Sounded like she didn’t care very much. Maybe she was glad to be rid of me, if that was to be the way things were.
Donal and Ffion would arrange a contract that would keep me at the agency but rewrite the terms to bleed me dry. Their cut could double or triple to keep up with any ‘reputational damages’ they incurred by keeping me on their books.
I should leave before I was pushed. I should reach out to other agents and try to staunch my losses before …
But no, I made millions for Verity’s agency. Literally, millions. It was my books that were keeping the lights on over there. Surely, they wouldn’t want to lose me, no matter how deranged my life seemed to them.
I’d been approached by several other agents since my books hit the big time. I had a swathe of business cards in a box somewhere and a good dozen emails from other agents in London and abroad who had deemed me an attractive option at one stage or another.
There was Bryce, the handsome Californian with a big agency out in LA, who had invited me for drinks when I was in New York last year. Just before I’d come back to England to find Ollie in bed with flexible Jamie.
He’d rolled out the welcome mat for me. Which was a polite way of saying he basically invited me to sit on his face in the middle of a Midtown Manhattan cocktail bar. He said his agency was very keen to sign me.
Then there was Camilla, who worked for a posh agency in London. We’d met at a launch or something before Christmas last year. She had shoved her mobile number into my pocket with a wink. “If you ever want to ditch Jones and her cute little, ah, start-up, give me a bell. I’d drop everything.”
But I’d vowed always to stay with Verity.
Yes, her agency was tiny and sometimes it limited what we could do, but dammit, ten years of friendship were more important than more bloody marketing opportunities or adding another zero to our bank balances.
She’d been with me through thick and thin – mostly thin and then very recently a huge chunk of sudden thickness.
It’d always been smooth sailing until now … Maybe it was the case that Verity had no real experience with my profile or the magnitude of coverage I seemed to garner.
Perhaps that was cruel to think, but Verity was acting like this was just business. No, this was my life.
I could rely on her … couldn’t I? She’d always have my back. Just like I’d always have hers.
It hadn’t felt like it over the past few days, but for God’s sake, Arden, she let you stay a week at her house and hasn’t said a word about leaving puddles of lube on her living room floor.
Through the wisdom of the universe, my phone started ringing again. I looked down at it, hoping it was Verity ringing back to tell me she’d solved everything, or that, Jesus, what twats were Donal and Ffion, right? Anyway, never mind about that, what was going on with your life?
Instead, Ollie’s name flashed up on my phone. Did I want to answer it? No. Did I? Yes. I’d felt bad for not returning any of his messages for days.
“Hi,” I offered.
“Bloody hell, he lives.” There was a pause.
“Sorry, poor choice of words considering what’s been going on.
” He stopped talking and waited for me to say more but I had nothing to add.
I could hear the sounds of the city down the line.
He’d be walking between his chambers and the High Court or to some meeting.
He always made his calls on these walks.
The number of times we arranged what we wanted for dinner with him cutting me off halfway through with a “Sounds lovely, babe, gotta go, bye” were too numerous to count.
“You alright?” he asked softly.
“Sorry I haven’t rung or anything,” I said. My voice sounded faint. I’d suddenly become very tired.
“No, no, I understand. How awful for that bloke you know. It all sounds unreal. Can’t imagine what it was like for the poor guy who found him. Imagine stumbling on that when you were coming home from a night at the pub.”
Oh, you have no idea.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I need your help,” I said, changing the subject. “You remember when you read over my contract with the agency when I started?” I gave him a rundown of the situation. As quick as possible, actually, because I found out when I started speaking that it was quite painful to talk about.
“I can do that for you. I’ll take a look, or I can find you someone who works in that field. I know a couple of entertainment lawyers.”
“Thank you.”
“Babe, are you okay? Really? Don’t give me the pat answer.”