ALTERNATIVE 3: The 1978 Cult Sci-Fi Classic Republished with New Material by Leslie Watkins

Author:Leslie Watkins [Watkins, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graham Watkins
Published: 2015-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

'Why did you disappear that night?' asked Benson.

'That night of the interview...why did you run out like that?'

'Have another beer,' said Grodin. He pushed a fresh can across the low table and poured another for himself. 'The bastard was trying to screw me. Did I see more than I've been allowed to admit publicly! Jesus...what sort of fool question was that?'

Benson forced a grin, tried to relieve the tension. He felt like an angler playing a difficult fish. Gently...gently...that was the only way. He took a long drink, sighing with satisfaction, as he put down the empty glass. 'I needed that beer,' he said. 'Had myself a real thirst.'

'You planning on doing the same?' Grodin was glowering suspiciously. 'You aiming to screw me as well?'

He was frightened. That was quite obvious. And he was trying to hide his fears under aggressiveness. Benson felt a twinge of pity. The man seemed so pathetically vulnerable and Benson was reminded of what Harman had said in that memo: 'Grodin is unstable and probably unbalanced and it is no part of our function as a reputable television company to hound such a man.'

Maybe, after all, there'd been something in what Harman had said. Grodin clearly wasn't normal. It was all very well to be ruthlessly professional but would anything really be gained by pushing Grodin any further? Wouldn't it be fairer to drop the whole thing, to get back into the car and forget about Grodin? Benson hesitated. It would be so easy to tell Clements that Grodin had simply refused to talk, that there was no way for him to be persuaded. Clements wouldn't like it - in fact, he'd be bloody furious - but he'd have to accept it, particularly after the fiasco of that chopped-off interview.

Then he remembered the man called Harry. He remembered him at Lambeth - naked and terrified in that crumbling house. And he wondered how many more there were like him. And how many there would be in the future if the truth were not revealed.

'Camera, tape machines, witnesses - that's the kind of protection I need.' That's what Harry had said. And they had failed him. They had arrived too late.

Protection from what? That was still a mystery. But it tied in somehow with the disappearance of Ann Clark. And with those of at least twenty other people including Brian Pendlebury and Robert Patterson.

Grodin had the key to at least part of the answer and Benson knew there was no choice. He had to get answers. Somehow he had to squeeze every bit of information out of this man...

'Well?' persisted Grodin. 'You aiming to screw me as well?'

Benson shook his head, opened his next can of beer. 'I'm just hoping for a few answers,' he said.

They were in canvas chairs, just the two of them, on the green-slabbed patio behind the ranch-style bungalow which Grodin was renting in a lonely corner of New England. It was peaceful there. No neighbours. No town or community of any sort for fifteen miles.

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