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 putin my contract? A morality clause? Not to bring the agency into disrepute?
