year. In an accident.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
Melanie didn’t say anything and after a moment, Fizz said, ‘Shall we go through to the sound studio so that you can meet the cast of “Holiday Bay”? They’ll be having coffee and a run through of the script before recording.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘We’ll have to give some thought about how you’re going to fit in. An unexpected arrival at the end of an episode, I should think, like a bolt from the blue. The listeners will love it.’
She introduced her to the cast who instantly absorbed Melanie into their group, keen to quiz her about working in television and life in Oz. She might be a celebrity, but she was still an actress, one of them. Fizz excused herself. No one noticed her leave.
She picked up the telephone and began to work. Twenty minutes later she leaned back in her chair, well satisfied. She had drummed up an extra five minutes of advertising time for the phone-in and rescheduled one or two others in order to earn a few brownie points at a time when agencies were spreading their budgets ever thinner.
*****
Luke Devlin flipped the intercom on his desk. ‘Get hold of Melanie for me, will you, Liz? And book a table for two at the Angel up at Broomhill Gate.’
‘Of course, Mr Devlin. I didn’t know you were back in your office.’ There was the hint of reproach in her voice.
As a secretary, Liz Meynell was top of the tree. As a mother figure, she could be a man’s worst nightmare. Most of the time he was happy to put up with the one for the sheer efficiency of the other. But not today.
The meeting at the council offices had not been a barrel of laughs. They hadn’t much liked what he’d had to say and he didn’t blame them. Without Harries the town would have a serious unemployment problem.
It wasn’t his fault. It probably wasn’t anyone’s fault. Harries was a company running out of markets. It hadn’t diversified, kept up, retooled. But the residents of Broomhill who relied on the factory for a wage every week wouldn’t see it like that.
They would never be convinced of the inevitability of what had happened. They would only see the effect, not the cause. Michael Harries was apparently considered something of a saint in Broomhill while he had found himself cast in the part of devil.
It wasn’t a comfortable role to play and he knew things could get a lot worse before they got better. So he needed a quiet place to think and as the choice was between his office and the ministrations of Liz Meynell, and the Metropole, where there were hoards of teenage girls camped on the doorstep, he’d let himself quietly into his office and had been sitting there for the last hour trying to sort things out in his mind.
When he had gone after Harries it had just been a means to an end. He had seen his objective in black and white, two dimensions. Now it had been made very clear to him that he was responsible for the fate of nearly a thousand families. Good people. It was a complication he hadn’t anticipated caring about.
‘Did you say something, Mr Devlin?’
‘What? Oh, no.’
‘I’ll get Melanie straight away. Oh, and Miss Beaumont called earlier. I told her you weren’t available for the rest of the day. Do you want me to get her back?’
Luke Devlin frowned. Felicity Beaumont. She was another problem. Ever since he had found the woman berating Phillip her presence had seemed to cling to him. It was her eyes that bothered him. One moment looking as him as if she would devour him whole, the next almost as if she were afraid of him. Not of what he could do to her father’s precious radio station, although that clearly worried her, but of him, personally.
Try as he might he couldn’t get to the bottom of her. She was a mass of contradictions. One moment convincing him with her grasp of figures that she was a totally efficient businesswoman, the next behaving like a schoolgirl who had to ask her father’s permission to grab the
‘I’m so sorry.’
Melanie didn’t say anything and after a moment, Fizz said, ‘Shall we go through to the sound studio so that you can meet the cast of “Holiday Bay”? They’ll be having coffee and a run through of the script before recording.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘We’ll have to give some thought about how you’re going to fit in. An unexpected arrival at the end of an episode, I should think, like a bolt from the blue. The listeners will love it.’
She introduced her to the cast who instantly absorbed Melanie into their group, keen to quiz her about working in television and life in Oz. She might be a celebrity, but she was still an actress, one of them. Fizz excused herself. No one noticed her leave.
She picked up the telephone and began to work. Twenty minutes later she leaned back in her chair, well satisfied. She had drummed up an extra five minutes of advertising time for the phone-in and rescheduled one or two others in order to earn a few brownie points at a time when agencies were spreading their budgets ever thinner.
*****
Luke Devlin flipped the intercom on his desk. ‘Get hold of Melanie for me, will you, Liz? And book a table for two at the Angel up at Broomhill Gate.’
‘Of course, Mr Devlin. I didn’t know you were back in your office.’ There was the hint of reproach in her voice.
As a secretary, Liz Meynell was top of the tree. As a mother figure, she could be a man’s worst nightmare. Most of the time he was happy to put up with the one for the sheer efficiency of the other. But not today.
The meeting at the council offices had not been a barrel of laughs. They hadn’t much liked what he’d had to say and he didn’t blame them. Without Harries the town would have a serious unemployment problem.
It wasn’t his fault. It probably wasn’t anyone’s fault. Harries was a company running out of markets. It hadn’t diversified, kept up, retooled. But the residents of Broomhill who relied on the factory for a wage every week wouldn’t see it like that.
They would never be convinced of the inevitability of what had happened. They would only see the effect, not the cause. Michael Harries was apparently considered something of a saint in Broomhill while he had found himself cast in the part of devil.
It wasn’t a comfortable role to play and he knew things could get a lot worse before they got better. So he needed a quiet place to think and as the choice was between his office and the ministrations of Liz Meynell, and the Metropole, where there were hoards of teenage girls camped on the doorstep, he’d let himself quietly into his office and had been sitting there for the last hour trying to sort things out in his mind.
When he had gone after Harries it had just been a means to an end. He had seen his objective in black and white, two dimensions. Now it had been made very clear to him that he was responsible for the fate of nearly a thousand families. Good people. It was a complication he hadn’t anticipated caring about.
‘Did you say something, Mr Devlin?’
‘What? Oh, no.’
‘I’ll get Melanie straight away. Oh, and Miss Beaumont called earlier. I told her you weren’t available for the rest of the day. Do you want me to get her back?’
Luke Devlin frowned. Felicity Beaumont. She was another problem. Ever since he had found the woman berating Phillip her presence had seemed to cling to him. It was her eyes that bothered him. One moment looking as him as if she would devour him whole, the next almost as if she were afraid of him. Not of what he could do to her father’s precious radio station, although that clearly worried her, but of him, personally.
Try as he might he couldn’t get to the bottom of her. She was a mass of contradictions. One moment convincing him with her grasp of figures that she was a totally efficient businesswoman, the next behaving like a schoolgirl who had to ask her father’s permission to grab the
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