Kim dropped him at the radio station and left to take Stevie back to the vicarage. Edward ran into the building, with its Sunday security, and found Aspinall waiting in reception. Edward remembered that moment before the meeting with the listeners, at Harpford Hall, when both their hands were wrapped around the same door handle and his boss was refusing to let him through to the stage. This was different.
‘I just want to avoid a fuck-up here. I need you to tell me your source.’
‘Actually I can. She was literally shouting information at us so it’s not a secret. It’s a professor who does forensic work. I went to see her to sound her out, and she turns out to be doing the job on Toppings.’
‘How did I miss the kid’s death? … No,’ continued Aspinall, talking to himself, ‘I can explain that. I was with family upcountry. I—’
‘It’s a Sunday,’ Edward cut in. ‘You’re allowed not to have signal.’
‘I’m not! Okay, I’m going to announce the news flash. I’ll go in to see Crispin.’
Crispin Desmith (pronounced: der-smith)was the old actor who presented ‘Sunday Delight’. The two-hour programme, an orgy of Fifties music and musical theatre, was a concession to listeners who were angry about the younger presenters. People joked that Crispin Desmith had been born Del Smith and adjusted his name to become more interesting. He wouldn’t like the intrusion.
‘Let me deal with it gently,’ Aspinall said. ‘I can’t tell Crispin it doesn’t matter what he thinks. He wears a cravat and drinks port on the weekend and he has contacts in Arts Council England who, whisper it, fund fifty per cent of DJ Satan because he’s diverse. Crispin needs to be tiptoed around. Leave it to me. We ask his permission.’
‘Really?’ Edward thought he was paying Crispin too much respect. For once, the out-of-controller was treading carefully.
‘If we ask, he says yes. If we tell, he says no. Now run me through what you’re going to say.’
‘The motorbike rider is Russian or certainly from the Russian-controlled area of Ukraine. He released a radioactive substance when he crashed. A child swallowed some of it. She is dead.’
‘God Almighty. I was with my grandchild.’
‘It all broke quite suddenly.’ This was wasting time. ‘The thing is, I don’t know if the police even know what I’ve found out yet.’
‘Can you call your source at the station and at least tell them?’
‘I think this is going to burn my source.’
‘Why?’
‘He won’t want me to know what I’ve been told. Let’s wait until five minutes before we broadcast. Then I call him – them.’
‘Five minutes is now. Call him, him or her,’ said Aspinall. ‘Tell him what you know and ask for his comment. Meanwhile I’m going to talk to Crispin.’
Aspinall went into the studio next door during a track fromCarousel, using his body to barge the door, stiffly, all the motion in the hip, as if he was a faulty clockwork toy. Edward surreptitiously pressed the reverse-talkback button – something he would normally never do, because it was snooping. It allowed him to hear the conversation.
‘Crispin, could you give way to a newsflash please?’
‘Who from?’
‘Read by Edward himself.’
‘Hmm,Edward,’ repeated Crispin, as if weighing up the value of his colleague’s contribution. Edward feared he was about to hear some awful side remark:That useless idiot.But it did not come. Crispin said he would make space in twenty minutes, after three o’clock.
‘No, Crispin, that’s too late,’ said Aspinall.
Crispin harrumphed. ‘Fine, I’ll do it after playing thePorgy and BessOverture.’
‘Well, how long is that?’ asked Aspinall as Edward listened.
‘Just under eleven minutes,’ said Crispin, leaning back in his chair and showing a square of hairy stomach where a button on his shirt had popped open. Plaid shirt, green paisley cravat.
‘Crispin,’ said Douglas Aspinall, voice trembling with anger that was barely suppressed, ‘we’ll do it straight after this, what is it?’
‘How can you not know? “If I Loved You” fromCarousel, containing the famous line—’
Edward clicked the talkback off, just as Douglas turned and beckoned him, evidently unaware he had been listening in. Edward said, ‘I need five minutes.’
