I’ve always been good at getting people to talk to me. My methods are very simple, but they work:
Rule Number One: Everyone likes to feel flattered.
Two: Establish trust. Always be friendly, regardless of how you really feel.
Three: Start a conversation that suggests you have plenty in common with the subject.
Four: Get them to say what you want fast, before they have time to overthink it, or you.
Works every time.
Finally, we recorded a piece to camera in the woods where Rachel died, as close as the cordon would allow, with the police tape fluttering in the background. It was very atmospheric. After popping in a brief clip of Jack speaking at the press conference earlier, we had a two-minute package for me to talk around. Not too shabby for a morning’s work.
The sat truck arrived just in time, and now I’m standing at the closest and best position we could find at the edge of the woods. We need a clear view of the sky in order to see one of the satellites and broadcast live. Trees and tall buildings can be problematic in this business. So can ex-husbands.
I’m wired up and ready to go when I see Jack’s 4x4 pull into the car park. He’s too late. I stare down the barrel of the camera when I hear the director in my ear, then Cat Jones – sitting in the presenter chair that used to be mine – reads the intro for the story.
‘The body of a young woman has been discovered in woods owned by the National Trust in Surrey this morning. Police have now named the victim as Rachel Hopkins, founder of the homeless charity…’
Jack steps into my eyeline. If looks could kill, I’d have flatlined.
‘… Our correspondent, Anna Andrews, joins us now with the latest.’
I top and tail my package with twenty seconds of memorised words, doing my best to ignore Jack’s persistent glares and arm waving. By the time I throw back to the studio, he is standing so close to the camera that he could easily have turned it off or knocked it over. Luckily Richard was in the way. I wait for the all-clear, then remove my earpiece.
‘Is this thing off?’ Jack asks.
‘It is now,’ Richard replies, lifting the camera off the tripod and joining the engineers in the truck.
He didn’t need to be asked to leave us alone.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Jack says.
‘My job.’
‘What if we hadn’t already informed the next of kin?’
‘You told me the name of the victim, I reported it.’
‘You’re fully aware that isn’t why I told you.’
‘Why did you tell me?’ I ask, but he doesn’t answer.
He looks over his shoulder at the sat truck, then leans in a little closer, his voice barely more than a whisper.
‘Why were you here yesterday?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The car park ticket with yesterday’s date on. You still haven’t explained—’
‘Wow, that again. You think I had something to do with this?’
‘Did you?’
Jack accused me of a few bad things when we were married, and a few more when we weren’t, but never murder. It makes me wonder whether he always had a negative view of me, even when we were together. Perhaps he was just better at hiding it then.
‘I was presenting a network bulletin to millions of people yesterday, so I have a few alibis who can confirm I wasn’t here, if you need to check.’
‘Then how do you explain it?’
‘I don’t know, maybe the machine is broken?’
‘Sure. Why not. That’s a plausible explanation.’
Jack marches over to the pay-and-display machine, then reaches inside his pocket for a coin. I don’t realise I’m holding my breath until his hand comes out empty. He looks over his shoulder at me, as though I might offer to give him some spare change. When I don’t, he turns his attention back to the meter. I watch the familiar way he strokes the stubble on his chin, a habit that never bothered me when we first got together, but caused unfathomable irritation by the time we parted.
I’m expecting him to walk away without another word, but he stands perfectly still, staring at the ground as though in deep thought. All of a sudden he bends down, brushes some dead leaves away, then picks up a silver-coloured coin from the forest floor. He holds it in my direction before putting it in the slot. I can feel my heart thudding in my chest as he stabs the green button with his finger. I have a crazy urge to run but stay exactly where I am.
He snatches the ticket the machine spits out, and stares at it.
Time seems to slow down as I wait for him to turn around or say something, but he doesn’t. I don’t know what this means.
‘Well?’ I ask eventually.
‘It’s yesterday’s date; the machine is broken.’
‘Is that your idea of an apology?’
He turns to face me.
‘No. Unlike you, I don’t have anything to apologise for. You shouldn’t be here. I realised a long time ago that your career means more to you than people do. More than your mother, more than me, more than—’
‘Fuck you.’
The tears come fast, bursting over the banks of my eyelids. I feel ridiculous for thinking it, given how much I hate him right now, but I want him to hold me. I just wish that someone would hold me and tell me that everything is going to be OK. It doesn’t have to be true. I’d just like to remember what that feels like.
‘You’re too close to this. I’m not sure it’s right for you to be reporting on this murder.’
‘I’m not sure it’s right for you to be trying to solve it,’ I reply, wiping my tears away with the back of my hand.
‘Why don’t you just do us both a favour, and go back to London? Sit in that studio, like you always dreamed of?’
‘I lost my job presenting the programme.’
I don’t know why I tell him; I didn’t plan to. Perhaps I just needed to tell one person the truth about what has happened, but I regret it immediately. The brave face I have been wearing slips, and I hate the way he is looking at me now. I prefer wonder to pity. People who get to know the real me are the ones I need to learn to hide from the most.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I know how much the job meant to you,’ he says, and his words sound genuine.
‘How’s Zoe?’ I ask, unable to hide my resentment.
His face resets itself. The woman my ex-husband now lives with was also an old school friend of mine, just like Rachel Hopkins. I’ve seen pictures of Zoe and Jack playing happy families on social media, although I wish I hadn’t. She posts them, not him. The little girl posing between them a constant reminder of who we used to be, and who we could have been if life had unfolded differently.
‘I hope you’re all very happy together.’
My words sound insincere, even though I meant them.
‘Why do you always do that? You talk about Zoe as though she’s some woman I left you for. She’s my sister, Anna.’
‘She’s a selfish, lazy, manipulative bitch, who caused nothing but problems before, during, and after our marriage.’
I’m as surprised by my outburst as he looks.
‘You haven’t changed at all, despite everything, have you?’ he says. ‘You can’t keep blaming everyone else for what happened to us. Maybe if you’d ever worried about us, as much as you worry about what other people think, your work and all this, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did—’