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Excerpts

Chapter Two: Broadcasting It

Matt didn't tell the children that night. For some reason they were off on a tangent about getting another animal "as company for Beckham," though since they had never even considered the possibility of a second dog, Matt regarded that as a bit of a smoke screen for acquiring something new, interesting, and different. As the various possibilities -- cat, rabbit, hamster, parrot -- were canvassed he kept out of the discussion, rather as he would in an exciting radio talk-in, expressing himself forcefully only when someone proposed a snake. "It's your mother who'll have the final say," he said, "so nothing will be done until she's back. Imagine her coming home and finding a cobra curled up in front of the fire." It was a topic, though, that he did not feel inclined to shatter by breaking the news of the skeleton. He postponed that without regret until they were in a more receptive mood.

He was scheduled to do the local news bulletins on television during the morning and afternoon of the next day. As he went through from the Woodhouse Lane entrance to his studio, he paused to listen to his current bête noire talking on the phone in her office.

"Well, get your fucking finger out," she was rasping. "I told you what I want, Terry. I want that fucking program broadcast. It's bloody brilliant, and it's going to be shown. What the fucking hell are you, a man or a mouse?"

Liza Pomfret belonged to one of the BBC dynasties. Not one of the visible ones, like the Magnussens or the Michelmores, but traceably a Corporation dynasty. Her grandmother had been one of the high-ups in charge of early-evening magazine programs on television in the early sixties, and her father had been one of John Birt's faceless apparatchiks in the nineties. As part of her grooming process Liza had been shunted up north into local broadcasting after a spell on one of the various holiday programs. One of the latter had been held up or canceled because a young reporter investigating an adventure holiday had been decapitated while emerging incautiously from a helicopter. Since she had arrived in Leeds, Liza had spent a great deal of her time on the phone pressuring her old colleagues to get it shown, behaving as if it were a combination of Hiroshima, Mon Amour, and Apocalypse Now and its loss would be a cultural tragedy.

"Approach the family again," she was yelling, her face an ugly puce shade. "Put more pressure on them. Tell them it's what Simon would have wanted."

Oh, yeah? thought Matt cynically. And the next thing we know, by a slip in the editing process, Simon's beheading will be on TV for the nation to gawp at, earning itself a "First on terrestrial television" tag and splashed all over the tabloids.

As he turned to continue his walk to the news studio, Vic Talbot, his producer, padded up behind him.

"Keeping your eye on the opposition?" he asked softly.

"Opposition?"

"The center forward of the other team."

"I don't get you."

"You're playing for the local-chap-makes-good team, and she's playing for the national highflyers team. With a bit of luck she'll either shove her foot in her mouth or be swiftly translated to greater things in the great wen. Leaving you with your foot firmly on the ladder going up."

Vic said it encouragingly, even admiringly. It was the first time Matt had realized he was regarded as a man with a bright future at BBC North.

Not long after the eleven o'clock news bulletin he was phoned by Sergeant Peace.

"I've got one piece of positive information," he said, "and the rest is very interim. The positive part -- "

"Is that the bones are human," said Matt with a heavy heart. "You wouldn't bother with anything further if they weren't."

"True enough. Right, beyond that: presumably a child, around eighteen months or two years old, but they're still cagey on the sex. And been there quite a time, though they won't be naming any figure for a while yet."

"I could have guessed they weren't put there yesterday," said Matt ungratefully.

"We don't much like guesses in this business," said Charlie. "I've been doing a bit of rummaging myself. Elderholm was bought in 1977 by Mr. Farson -- the elder one, that is -- from Hannah Beeston, who was moving to a bungalow in Armley Ridge Road. She died of cancer in 1985."

"I see. So the date the bones came there is going to be very important."

"It's likely to be. But it's worth noticing that both the owners were elderly. Mrs. Beeston was born with the century -- 1900. Farson was born in 1913. It sort of adds to the oddity, doesn't it?"

It certainly seemed to Matt, on thinking it over afterward, that it did.

He was abstracted for the rest of the morning, and in the twelve o'clock bulletin stumbled on the pronunciation of "Harewood." When they went down to the staff canteen for coffee and a sandwich at twelve-fifteen, Vic Talbot said, "Got something on your mind, Matt? Was that the police who rang you earlier?"

"Yes..." He thought for a moment, then said: "Funny thing happened to me yesterday. Rather nasty too. I went to see the new house in Bramley with the decorator I've got lined up."

"And?"

"We went up into the attic and found a little skeleton. The police phoned me today to say that it was definitely human."

Vic was unusually slow taking it in.

"A child's, you mean?"

"Yes. Just laid out, covered with dust, in a place where no one would see it unless they were really inspecting the place. It was sort of touching as well as eerie."

Vic Talbot thought.

"So someone, at some time, has had a dead child on his or her hands -- maybe he's killed it -- and he just put the body up there and left it."

"Something like that," said Matt slowly. "Unless...but I don't want to think of other possibilities."

"But, Matt -- that's a marvelous story!" came a voice from behind the table. "And one of our people involved!"

Matt raised his head, looked first at Vic, then turned to confront Liza Pomfret with the sort of expression he might have put on for a circling vulture. "Our people" indeed! Liza was as much one of "us," he thought, as a fox in a chicken run.

"No-go, Liza. Not for the moment."

"Yes! This moment! Someone else might get onto it. They're pretty sure to if you're not making a secret of it. I've got a vacant slot in my program this afternoon."

"Play a Spice Girls record. Anything but me."

"Matt, I know you're not a newsperson by training -- "

Matthew breathed a "Thank God" and said: "There will be no media coverage of this by us or by anyone else until I've told the children. That is not negotiable."

"When are you telling them?"

"Tonight, if the circumstances are right."

"There you are, then," said Liza, putting her inadequately skirted leg on one of the chairs at their table and reassuming an air of good nature. "Let's do the interview now: you can tell the story quite simply, and I'll put it in tomorrow's show if you give me the go-ahead. Don't you want to find out who this poor kid was? You're not going to do that without publicity, I'd be willing to bet."

She nearly ruined her case by using the word "kid." Matt distrusted educated people who did that -- people like both the main political leaders in the country. They would never use it except to sound like men of the people. But her final remarks went home. They were surely not going to get anywhere without publicity.

"Look, Liza, I'm busy at the moment. When I've got a spare minute I'll get in touch with the police, see what their reaction is. If Sergeant Peace gives it the OK, I'll ring you -- say about half past three."

Liza Pomfret removed her leg from the chair, put her hands splayed downward on the table, and fixed Matt with her world-hardened teenage eyes.

"Matt, I want it done now, while it's hot."

"Sorry, Liza, I'm busy," said Matt, getting up. He fixed her with his equally determined eyes. "No way are you going to talk to me about it before three o'clock."

Liza's chat show on Radio Leeds ran from two to three. She got his point immediately, turned, and marched out of the canteen. Matt turned to his producer.

"Defeat of the infant commissar," he said. He was rather liking the idea of a war of attrition between him and Liza.

When he rang Charlie Peace soon after three, Charlie took a few moments to think it over, then said, "On the whole I think it's a good idea. This isn't any ordinary case. We're going to need all the assistance from the public we can get. If we take it that it was twenty, thirty years ago the body got there, then most or all of the people living in those houses then will be scattered around West Yorkshire now, or very likely out of the area entirely. People don't stay put the way they used to. This could be a way of getting in touch with them."

Very reluctantly Matthew rang Liza Pomfret and told her he'd be along to record an interview at quarter to four. Then he turned to Vic Talbot.

"If she tries to get any part of the interview on to one of the TV or radio news programs tonight, send her away with a flea in her ear. If you stand firm, I'll do an interview for the 'Look North' program tomorrow. If you cave in, that's the end of the subject as far as I'm concerned."

When he took himself along to the "Liza Pomfret Talk-In" studio at a quarter to four, she was very cool and businesslike, and said she'd just ask a wide-open question and let him tell the story in his own way. Wanna bet? Matt said to himself. He sat down while she fiddled and made Führer-like gestures to the technician on the other side of the glass panel.

"I've got Matthew Harper here," Liza began in her bright, hard voice. "Most of our listeners, and viewers too, will know him from our sports and news broadcasts. You played football for -- where was it?"

"Bradford City. For seven years."

"Right. Now, Matt, you had an experience yesterday that was way outside your football experience, didn't you? More Jane Eyre than..." But here she stopped. The idea of the attic had triggered Jane Eyre, but the football field didn't trigger the name of any work of fiction. "Well, just tell the listeners, will you, Matt?"

Matt shifted in his chair, still not entirely comfortable with what he was doing.

"Of course," he began. "Yesterday I went to look over a house I'd just bought in Bramley -- going over it with the decorator to see what needed to be done before we moved in. Eventually we went up to the attic to see what potential it had to be used, maybe as a games room, and while we were up there, in a far dark corner, we found, neatly laid out and hidden by a low wall, a small skeleton."

"But, Matt! How absolutely thrilling! I've never heard anything so spooky!"

"It is a dead child we're talking about, Liza."

"Yes, but I mean...!"

She faded into silence. Matt felt a bit sanctimonious, reminding himself of a nonconformist cleric he had once interviewed on the subject of Sunday shopping. But the whole rebuke had got home to her, and the fact that her reaction was a delayed one was attributable either to her insensitivity or to her stupidity, Matt was not greatly concerned which.

"The skeleton was not just a collection of bones, but a complete one and laid out -- as if a dead child had been put there. It was very dusty, like everything else, and we certainly got the impression that it had been there a long time, not just put there in the last few weeks while the house had been empty."

He had kept his voice even and unemotional, and Liza's reaction was now distinctly more subdued too.

"So what did you do?"

"I don't think there's much option in matters like this. You have to call the police. They've been to the house, sealed it off, and I've just had it confirmed that what we found is the skeleton of a child, maybe eighteen months or two years old."

"And how long do they think the skeleton has been there?"

"I think it will be a while before they are willing to give an opinion on that. It's a complicated matter."

"Of course. I see. So what do you want to say to our listeners?"

Matt considered a moment before replying.

"The houses are stone houses, fronting onto Houghton Avenue, in Bramley, with a dirt lane leading round to the back doors. The house is called Elderholm. The police would be interested to hear about any disappearance of a child, boy or girl, twenty, thirty years ago -- in fact, I'd say anything over ten years. Particularly any disappearance that for one reason or another didn't get reported to the police."

"Could you suggest some reason for that?"

"Perhaps a surprise move away from the district, with nothing being heard of the child later? Maybe a family of travelers? But I agree it's not easy to account for the disappearance of a child this young that doesn't get reported to someone."

"Well, Matt," said Liza, having regained something of her chirpy radio tone, "you really have frozen our blood today. If anyone out there thinks they may know something that's relevant, however small, they can call the police, or why not call us -- "

But Matt had pulled out his earphones and left the studio.

On thinking it over he wondered if he had been wise, recording the appeal so early on. If he could have put a more definite date for the death of the child, he could have pinpointed the people who were living in the Houghton Avenue houses at the time. As it was, the catchment period was too wide.

Then he remembered Charlie Peace's remark about people not staying put in the same houses the way they once did. True enough. But twenty or thirty years ago they did, so that, whenever the child was put there, many of the same people would have been around for quite a while before and after. Except, of course, for the children, who would have grown up and mostly set up home elsewhere.

Having recorded the piece for Liza, he had reduced his options, and he had no choice but to tell the children before it went out on air and people started talking about it. If Aileen were there she could probably have told him how they would take it, but he himself could only guess. That night he cooked supermarket pizza with lots of favorite toppings added. It was a way of ensuring that all the children would eat together. He let them go at their favorite food for a fair while, and it was when they were picking at the remains of the pastry edges that he broached the subject.

"I've got something I want to tell you all," he said. They all looked at him, including Beckham, who was waiting by the table for leftovers and gazed at him through the fronds of his Old English sheepdog mop. "I don't think we want to make a big deal of it, because it's something that happened a long time ago."

"What happened a long time ago?" asked Isabella, thinking rightly he was putting the cart before the horse.

"The death of a child," said Matt simply.

"It's the new house, isn't it?" asked Lewis. Matt nodded. They thought for some time, then two spoke at once.

"How old was the child?" asked Stephen, who was seven.

"Most houses would have had deaths in them, wouldn't they?" asked Isabella.

"The child was about two or under," said Matt. "And, yes, most old houses would have had deaths in them, including the deaths of children. A lot of children died in the past, when doctors didn't know as much as they do today."

"So why is this special?" asked Lewis.

"It's special because yesterday, when I was at Elderholm with the man who's going to do the place up, we found the child's skeleton in the attic."

"Oooh!" The children shivered exaggeratedly. Matt waited to let it sink in.

"Had it just died there all alone?" asked Isabella. "Got shut in or something, and nobody knew it was there?"

"We don't think so. We think it was probably taken there, laid out there, when it was already dead."

"Why didn't they bury it?" asked Lewis, age eleven. "Everybody gets buried or cre -- cre...don't they?"

"It's because it was murdered, isn't it?" asked Isabella. She was the brightest, as well as the most sensible, of the brood.

"It's possible," said Matt, unwilling to go down the hopeless slope of trying to deceive her. Even Aileen couldn't tell Isabella what to think. "But we shouldn't jump to conclusions. There may be some other reason we haven't even thought about."

"We don't have to go up into the attic, do we?" asked Stephen, which also struck Matt as sensible.

"No, of course we don't. We can just put boxes and cases and things up there, and shut them away."

"Still, you'd sort of look up and think, wouldn't you?" said Lewis. Matt could have hit him.

"Can we go round?" asked Isabella. Matt regretfully shook his head.

"No, we can't. I wish we could. You could have seen that there's nothing to be afraid of. But the police have sealed the place off till they're finished with their work."

"Who's afraid, anyway?" said Lewis, offended. "I just meant it was sort of...yucky." An idea occurred to Matt.

"We can't go into the house, but we could take Beckham for his evening walk there."

"First tiddle-tour in Bramley," said Lewis. "Yes!"

Beckham was notoriously unreliable at night if he didn't get a properly accompanied evening walk. By now it was eight, and the late-April sky was darkening. They piled into the car, Beckham taking his place between the two boys in the backseat, looking intelligently round him. It was a journey of three miles or so, and Matt noticed that the subject of the dead child was not mentioned the whole way. Were they avoiding it, or did it not mean so much to them as he had imagined it would?

Matt drew up on his parking space on the other side of the lane, and Beckham jumped out, barking. He had been there before, but just into the house and not often enough to dull the novelty. They put him on the long lead, because they would have been at a loss to look for him if he went off exploring as he liked to do. They all went over to the gate of Elderholm, which was wreathed in police tape, and looked over it to the back door, properly sealed up.

"Do they do that every time there's a murder?" asked Isabella.

"I don't know. Whenever there's an unexplained death, I suppose, or something involving a mystery. When that happens the forensics people need to go over the house carefully to get clues."

He kept his tone matter-of-fact, and the children nodded.

"Who are forensics people?" asked Lewis.

"People with a scientific training in solving crimes," answered Matt, thinking that was near enough.

"Thank you for telling us like this," said Stephen, and put his hand into Matt's.

And that seemed to be it. Isabella soon turned away, and they all began to walk. Matt drew up the rear, wondering if this really was all, or if they were still mulling over the death, and they would quite soon come to a decision about it and the house. They went along the lane, then turned down toward the road. Beckham was in an ecstasy of sniffing and leg raising, the two things intimately connected. Once down into Houghton Avenue proper, the messages came thicker and faster, and he was visibly committing every odor to memory when suddenly he froze. After a second or two he turned his head cautiously back. All four of them turned too.

Caught in the light of a streetlamp as it crossed from one of the gardens to the lawns of the church opposite a long, skinny creature with a bushy tail. It was part reddish gray, part dirty cream, and it looked toward them with alert, calculating eyes without a trace of fear.

"Is it a dog?" whispered Stephen.

"No, it's a fox," said Matt. "What they call an urban fox."

"What's that?"

"One that lives in a town instead of the country. They scavenge from dustbins, live on anything they can get."

Beckham was transfixed. Something told him to run at it, but prudence held him back. The fox, having sized them up, thought for a minute, then proceeded, brisk but unhurried, on its way, hopping through the church gates and disappearing from sight.

The children seemed to have been holding their breath for minutes.

"That was wonderful!" said Isabella.

"I wish Mummy could have seen it," said Stephen.

"She will," said Matthew heartily. "There's probably a family of them."

Beckham now charged forward, hectically sniffing at the places the fox had been, whining operatically and implying that he would have chased it if only they had let him off. The magic moment was over. But Matt had a feeling that, whatever doubts there might have been about the new house in the children's minds, they had now been wiped away.

Copyright © 2001 by Robert Barnard