Coming Up Next. Penny Smith

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       CHAPTER FOUR

      That Monday morning, Hello Britain! was abuzz. Katie Fisher had been replaced by Keera Keethley. Nobody could quite believe it. There had been rumours, of course, but any newsroom with more than two journalists in it was awash with them.

      Most of the women were not fans of Keera. Katie might have got to the top through ‘hard grind’, as she was fond of saying, but she was also a good journalist. And they found her hilarious, even if the bosses didn’t.

      Keera wasn’t funny. She was desperately ambitious. She was ingratiating. She was political with a small p but had a large ego. She was very good with men. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her journalistic skills because it didn’t matter. You asked questions. Full stop. End of story. Not difficult. No, she wanted to be thought of as pretty and sexy. And famous.

      The men in charge, who had seen her lithe body, didn’t mind that her interviews were often tedious and that she was more interested in making sure her long, shiny black hair was in tiptop condition than whether she asked the right questions. Or that she overran virtually every live report she had ever done, which meant that the producers had to cancel interviewees who had spent a day, sometimes, travelling to London to have their three minutes in the sun. There were few producers who had not had to do The Grovel. ‘I’m so sorry, but unforeseen circumstances … Of course you’ll be recompensed for your time … Last-minute breaking story …’

      And Keera was always in the editor’s office. Bringing him little gifts.

      Katie had once quoted a line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Dee, the weather presenter. ‘Tempting him with knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats …’ Now she was the ass. Keera had planned this moment since her last year at school, had laid out her ten-year plan – had decided she wanted to be on the famous breakfast-time sofa.

      And here she was. Her first day when she wasn’t a stand-in. Her first day when she had the status she deserved.

      She surveyed the newsroom from her new position and found she liked it. It was quite small, considering the three and a half hours that had to be filled. There were the researchers and producers, the VT editors flitting through. A camera crew waiting to film a minister who would be coming into the building at seven a.m. One of the executive producers outputting the show looked up from typing to ask a younger man whether the SOT – sound on tape – was done, the VT (videotape) ready, and the graphics sorted on the story he was checking. The guy nodded and went back to his phone conversation with a reporter out in the field.

      Keera went to sit at the computer and look through the links and interviews she would be doing that morning. Her first morning. The first morning of the rest of her life. She was going to make this work. It was her right.

      She accepted the congratulations of Kent, a producer on her first show. ‘Nice to be working with you again,’ he said. Sincerely. Kent was one of the producers whose heart had not sunk when he heard the news. He thought Keera was one of the most stunning women he had ever met. She had been discreetly keeping him up to date with all of the offers she’d been getting.

      ‘God knows how they keep getting into the press,’ she had said to him one morning in the canteen. ‘This place is like a leaky boat.’

      ‘Well, it absolutely wasn’t me,’ he had said, horrified.

      ‘No, no. I’m sure it wasn’t, silly.’

      ‘You know you can depend on my discretion,’ he had said, handing over the money for two coffees.

      ‘I know I can,’ she had said, and given him the most delicious smile.

      He wasn’t to know that he was the man she had decided to blame if any of the stories she had planted resulted in fingers pointed at her.

      She had already commented on the veritable confetti trail of stories to the news editor. ‘Who on earth could it be, do you think?’ she had asked, a little crease between her beautifully arched eyebrows. ‘It’s quite dreadful, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not just that so many of the stories about me are wrong, but it’s not nice that they seem to involve not very kind things about others. I assume these people just think of the cash – they don’t care about the damage to the station …’

      Mike СКАЧАТЬ