The Accused by Jackie Kabler

Author:Jackie Kabler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2016-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

27

Friday 7th June

21 days until the deadline

‘Thanks, Betsy. I’m so sorry about this. I should be back in on Monday.’

‘Don’t worry, Cora. Take it easy over the weekend and give me a call on Sunday night to let me know if you’re feeling up to Monday’s show.’

‘I will. Bye, Betsy.’

‘Bye, Cora.’

Betsy Allan put the phone receiver down and stared at it for a moment. Cora Baxter calling in sick for the shoot she was supposed to be doing on Sunday was slightly inconvenient, and more so if she was still out on Monday, but that was the least of the programme editor’s current worries. She stood up, arched her back and sighed, then smoothed down her flower print chiffon shirt and wandered across to the window. She stood there for a moment, eyes fixed on the ground seven storeys below, then shuddered and turned away. That was the spot where her predecessor, Jeanette Kendrick, had been found dead. What a way to go, thought Betsy, and returned to her desk. She had so much work to do – it was June already, with the silly season approaching, and not nearly enough fillers planned for the show. “The silly season” was the term given by the media to the period of the summer from late July to early September, when schools were on holiday, the House of Commons took its summer recess, and the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court did not sit – in fact, it was actually into October when the courts returned. Finding enough stories and features to fill a three-hour news programme was always a challenge during this period, and Betsy was normally buzzing with ideas. But in the past few weeks she’d struggled to concentrate, anxiety whirling through her brain and dulling her creativity.

She reached out and pulled her desk calendar towards her. It was one of the old-fashioned, tent-shaped ones, the days of the month on the right-hand side of each tear-off page and a motivational or amusing quote on the left. June’s quote was: “Silence is powerful. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is say nothing at all.”

Betsy ran her finger across the dates on the right. Three weeks. Exactly three weeks today, Sam would appear in court and the wheels of justice would start rolling. She swallowed hard. Silence, Betsy, she told herself. Silence. Say nothing, and all this will soon be over. She took a deep breath, pushed the calendar back into its correct position, straightened her keyboard and started to type.

Cora, who had been home for an hour after a morning broadcasting from Cardiff, and who was now stretched out in a deckchair on the terrace of her Cheltenham flat, closed her eyes as Alice let out another cackle on the other end of the phone.

‘Cora, I nearly died laughing. I just couldn’t work out what on earth you were doing. I mean, I throw to you, and you pop up on the split screen, and you’re standing there with your head between your legs, muttering something incomprehensible about a hole .

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