‘What do you mean?’ Maddox said.
‘Ratings, all-important as you know. Not everybody would have approved of Angus climbing that building.’
‘Once Angus had decided, there would be no changing his mind, not that I mean he would be reckless. A meticulous planner, that was Angus, and as for what happened to Baxter, it wouldn’t have happened to him.’
‘He was in a similar position in Patagonia, climbing with Hampton.’
‘It’s not the same. If he had known about the possibility of an avalanche, Allan Baxter could have chosen to take the risk. If it had been Angus and there was an adverse report, he wouldn’t have gone, and climbing buildings for ratings, knowing there was an inherent risk, would have been unconscionable to him.’
Wendy thought that Angus’s girlfriend was naïve. Simmons had enjoyed the limelight, the fame, the best seat in a restaurant, even the paparazzi snapping a shot of him and Maddox by the side of a swimming pool.
Even though he had complained about the incident, it hadn’t harmed his career, nor Maddox’s, a photo shoot of her on a Caribbean beach one week later.
‘Maddox, you’ve met Mike Hampton?’ Wendy asked.
‘The accident was before my time, but Angus used to speak about him.’
‘Fondly?’
‘Always. It upset Angus that Mike was that way, and I know that he tried to make friends with him, even went out to his house once, got as far as the front door.’
‘You were there?’
‘I went down with Angus. At the door, a woman, not Hampton’s wife; Angus knew her, someone else, unpleasant.’
‘Did she introduce herself?’
‘If you mean, did she announce who she was, extend a hand in friendship?’
‘That would be the usual approach.’
‘She was offensive, started shouting at Angus, blaming him for her brother’s accident.’
‘Describe her?’
‘Rough, tattoos up both arms, her hair shaved close to the scalp, butch.’
‘Did Angus know her?’
‘Upset him, the sister’s manner, but as he said on the drive back to London, the black sheep of the family, trouble with the law, in jail a couple of times.’
‘Then why was she there? We’ve found no record of her, not with her brother or with Angus.’
‘With Mike the way he is now, I would have thought that was fairly obvious,’ Maddox said. ‘The man’s found an ally, another blackened heart.’
‘Hampton’s wife never mentioned the sister,’ Wendy said. ‘How long ago since you went there?’
‘Three months, no more. You don’t think…’
‘I think nothing, not yet, but we’ll need to check out this woman, find out why we haven’t heard about her before.’
***
Isaac and Larry were at the television station at eight in the morning, security easing them through after a glance at their warrant cards. From outside, the building had looked austere, a style of post-war modernism, redbrick, metal-framed windows. Inside, the walls knocked out, the building transformed into modern and fresh-looking, contemporary art on the walls.
‘Chief Inspector Cook, Inspector Hill, pleased to meet you,’ a young woman said. ‘We’re expecting you. If you’d be so kind as to follow me. I’m Alison Glassop’.
The woman glided them through a maze of corridors and into an elevator. She was public relations excellence without a blemish or a hair out of place, pearly-white teeth, the perfect complexion and poise.
A boardroom at the top of the building, a view out over the city, a group of people standing, beaming smiles, hands extended. It was not what Isaac and Larry wanted. However, it showed the senior executives’ intent, their need to smother the negativity the station had attracted after Angus had died, the public relations disaster that had ensued after removing Tricia Warburton and the people she had worked with.
‘This is Bob Babbage,’ a gnome of a man, barely to Isaac’s shoulder, a pointed nose, downcast eyes, said. Isaac didn’t need to be told that the man making the introduction was Jerome Jaden, the chief executive officer and majority stockholder.
‘Bob’s our company lawyer,’ Jaden said. ‘He deals with any legal issues we have.’
Unsaid, but Isaac knew he was there to stop Homicide from asking embarrassing questions, to prevent any of those in the boardroom saying anything prejudicial. Alison Glassop was the personable front of the company, Babbage was the hard-nose, not there for popularity or corporate conscience.
Isaac shook Babbage’s hand, as did Larry. He was, Isaac knew, the main adversary in the room.
Jaden moved along the line. A woman in her forties, elegantly dressed in jacket and trousers, carrying more weight than she should, her hair cut short, her appearance perfect. ‘I’m Karen Majors, head of sales. It’s a tragedy, losing Angus like that,’ she said.
Babbage’s ears pricked as the woman spoke, ready to pounce if she digressed.
Isaac imagined that the group had been versed in what could be said, what couldn’t: contrition, sympathy for the deceased, keep to the reason that Warburton and Simmons’s people were removed, breezed over with corporate jargon, executive decision, financial necessity, failing ratings. Babbage would have trained them well, annoying some, pleasing others, but as with a political party, unity when in public, dissension when not.
‘We never met him, but we’ve met his co-host on a few occasions, as well as his girlfriend,’ Isaac said.
‘If we discuss these items formally in sequence at the table, it would be more constructive,’ Babbage, attempting to maintain a casual manner, but failing, said.
‘It’s murder, Mr Babbage. Our discussions here today will be of our choosing,’ Isaac said.
‘Last but not least, our head of programming, Tom Taylor,’ Jaden said, attempting to defuse the tension.
The man looked to be no older than thirty, the new broom brought in to sweep out the old. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said.
To Larry, Taylor
