Acquired Tastes (34 page)

'Yes?' enquired a sleepy female voice.

Vanessa stiffened. 'I'm sorry, but I understood this was Dr Archibald's number.'

'It is,' the voice replied.

'Is he there?' Vanessa demanded.

There was a muffled exchange and then Fergus came on the line. His voice sounded sleepy too.

'Archibald,' he yawned.

'What the hell are you up to?' Vanessa’s voice rose threateningly.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

'Don't you
dare
hang up on me,' she fulminated. 'Where in hell's name have you been these last two days, and who is that woman? Answer me, damn you.'

'Are you trying to wake the dead, woman? There's no need to shout,' Fergus remonstrated mildly.

'Shout! I'm not shouting,' yelled Vanessa, 'If you're not back here by first thing tomorrow, the whole deal is off. And just in case you've forgotten, I have your signature on the bottom of a contract.'

'Without me that contract is worth nothing, so if you want me back, my price has just doubled,' retorted Fergus.

'You have the nerve to ask for more money after your performance the other day?' Vanessa's voice was incandescent with rage. 'You nearly killed that stylist. To stop him suing us and reporting you to the police for assault and battery, we've had to agree to pay for some extremely expensive reconstructive surgery on his nose, as well as a large amount in damages. A criminal record would just about destroy what little you have left of an academic career, wouldn't it?'

'It wouldn't do your company much good either, would it?' Fergus replied with merciless logic. 'If you want me to look like some ponce as well as emasculate my research because your boss is lily-livered about some committee of virgin vigilantes, then you're going to have to pay more for it.'

'I just love the way you left-wing academics rediscover your principles when you want more money,' sneered Vanessa.

'At least we have some left to rediscover,' snarled Fergus. 'Call me tomorrow with a better offer or say goodbye to your meal ticket.'

He slammed the telephone down and rolled over on to his back, where he lay gazing up at the ceiling. On the other side of the rumpled bed lay the naked, sleeping body of one of his research students, or rather, ex-students. She had been one of the few people to greet his arrival back at Heartlands with any enthusiasm. There weren't many university people about, as it was the summer vacation, but the few members of staff who had seen him had avoided meeting his eyes and walked hurriedly past. Mrs Peploe, his landlady, had been equally frosty. She had presented him with a bill for his rent arrears together with a letter of dismissal from the university for gross immoral conduct. It had taken all his charm to talk her into letting him stay for a couple of days.

Fergus fully intended to go back to London. He really had no choice. Academic posts were hard to find, and after what had happened at St Ethelreds, he doubted any academic institution in the country would hire him. But he wanted to give Vanessa a bit of a scare, and judging by her voice on the telephone, he'd succeeded. He stretched out a questing hand. It met pliant warm flesh. He grinned and rolled over. He still had until tomorrow.

Vanessa stared at the receiver. Everything in her rebelled against getting Fergus to come back to London, but she had no choice - nor could she wait until tomorrow. It was already two days since Fergus had punched Damien, time was fast running out and they soon had to go into the studio and record a pilot for the series.

In the confusion that followed his punch, she had not at first noticed that Fergus was missing. Hugo had been almost as hysterical as Damien, and insisted on rushing Damien to the emergency department of the nearest hospital, where he recovered his senses in time to refuse treatment from an NHS doctor. He insisted on yet another taxi dash to a private clinic where the plastic surgeon, who had only recently given him the profile denied him by Mother Nature, had pronounced a year's worth of expensive surgery ruined.

Despite Vanessa's protestations, Hugo had promptly agreed to Right Pryce Productions paying all Damien's medical bills, plus compensation for pain and distress. When an ashen-faced Philip learned of this, he swallowed nearly a whole box of his indigestion pills. In the ensuing argument, Philip yelled at Hugo and then they both turned on Vanessa, but when she turned to vent her spleen on the cause of the problem, she discovered that Fergus had gone.

Reasoning that he would turn up on her doorstep sooner or later, she had waited, carefully honing the words she intended to shout at him. But, after thirty-six hours, her confidence had begun to wane, and by that morning it had disappeared altogether.

Not knowing where else to begin, she called the university.

Given the manner of his departure, not many people would have dared to return, but Fergus was not most people, and he obviously still had at least one admirer there. The problem was, now she had found him, how was she going to get him to come back to London? There was no way that Philip would agree to paying him more money after the incident with Damien.

Just at that moment, Philip put his head round the door. 'Is everything under control again with Fergus?' he enquired, coming into the room and sitting down. 'I've just had lunch with Gabriella, and like the true professional she is, she immediately agreed with me that having Fergus as our resident expert was an excellent idea.'

'Everything is just fine, Philip darling,' Vanessa lied. 'Fergus has gone up to Heartlands to collect some of his background material from the university. He'll be back tomorrow or the day after.'

'So we're back on course after all that unpleasantness with Hugo's friend?' asked Philip.

'Absolutely. Between you and me, I think Hugo got a little hysterical. I would have demanded a second opinion. It was only a playful blow. I'm sure Fergus didn't mean to cause any damage.'

'Be that as it may, Vanessa, I want no more problems. I like to think I run a tight ship,' Philip said sternly.

'Philip sweetie, you can depend on me. Now if only Hugo and Vijay would get their skates on, we will be ready to go into studio on Sunday week.'

Philip got up but instead of leaving, he hovered uncertainly beside Vanessa's desk, fingering the papers piled in her in tray.

'Was there anything else, PP darling? I really am pushed for time.'

Philip shook his head. 'No. But you will make sure that there are no more loose cannons, won't you? Sir Norman and the Committee don't need much of an excuse to prevent us ever getting on air.'

Vanessa blew him a kiss and with a last anxious nod, he left the room.

Vanessa slotted one of the pile of home videos sent in response to her advertisement, into her VHS recorder, and began to spin through it on fast forward. She hadn't had much time to do anything else but chase Fergus for the last few days, however she still had a programme to produce.

With one eye on the screen, she pushed the button on her intercom.

'In here.
Now,'
she barked.

A couple of moments later there was a hesitant knock on her door and Vijay sidled in. He stood with his back to the wall.

'I thought I told you to have a list of all the possible programme participants on my desk first thing this morning,' snapped Vanessa. 'I seem to be the only person working round here.' She ostentatiously lifted up the remote control and turned the video off.

Vijay held some papers in front of him as though they would shield him from the evil eye.

'It's all here. I've put the original letters together with my notes and suggestions.' He hurriedly dropped them on Vanessa's desk before retreating out of reach.

Vanessa eyed them distastefully. 'All I asked for was a couple of brief sentences on each participant, not a dissertation. I don't have time to read all this. How was the woman who wanted to be a defrocked nun? I liked that one.'

Vijay reddened. 'Not much good. She was a bit too … too old.'

'I thought you wanted to fill our screens with the old and the lame and the underprivileged, Vijay. What's happened to all your good intentions?' mocked Vanessa.

Vijay reddened even more. 'She just wouldn't have worked, that's all,' he insisted stubbornly.

'Well find some more who will,' Vanessa yelled, sweeping his notes off her desk.

Vijay was out of the door before they hit the floor.

Heather looked up from the magazine she was reading. 'Is the old cow on the warpath again? Fancy a free drink? A group of us are planning to gatecrash the opening of that new bar in Frith Street, it should be a gas.'

Vijay ruefully shook his head. 'I'd better make a few more phone-calls, just to show willing.'

Heather nodded at a winking light on her small switchboard. 'You're not the only one hitting the phone. If that cow isn't out to lunch, she's on the phone. Does she ever do any work?'

'Not if she can help it, why should she? She's the boss and I'm the worker,' Vijay said bitterly, heading for his office.

The term 'office' was misleading. Vijay worked from a store room which he shared with some large filing cupboards, several thousand tapes and reels of film, and an old editing machine.

He sat down at his small desk and consulted his list of possible interviewees. Wedging the receiver between his chin and shoulder, and without looking, he pressed a button for an outside line. Instead of a dialling tone he heard a voice. They had an antiquated telephone system and he had pressed the line Vanessa was using by mistake.

Vanessa sounded unusually conciliatory.

'Fergus, can I put my cards on the table with you?'

There was a grunt on the other end of the line.

'I really can't ask Philip to put more money up front at the moment. Right Pryce Productions is not a large company and we will sink or swim depending on the success of
Forbidden Fruit.
But you and I know we have a mega success on our hands. Think of it: the newspapers will be queuing up to serialise your research, and publishers will be throwing money at you, and we mustn't forget the American market. Your kind of stuff tops the bestseller lists over there.'

There was silence on the other end of the line as Fergus appeared to be digesting this.

Vijay started to put the receiver down; it was morally wrong to eavesdrop on other people's conversations. He hesitated. Nobody ever told him anything around the office. He put the receiver back to his ear and listened, holding his breath.

'You might even be offered a post at an American university,' Vanessa continued, her voice now sounding positively honeyed. 'Imagine UCLA with all those long-legged, Californian blondes, or Harvard and those bright-eyed, bushy-tailed preppies? You could put two fingers up to Heartlands and all those repressed old biddies.'

Fergus cleared his throat. 'Just out of curiosity, what kind of money are we talking about for newspaper serialisation?'

Vanessa knew she had him hooked. All she had to do was play out the line a little more before giving it a final tug and reeling him in. 'I couldn't say for sure, but I think you could safely think in terms of a five-figure sum,' she said, and then tugged the line. 'Of course, I do have quite a few contacts in Wapping and some of them owe me big time. If you were really interested, I could float the idea with them.'

There was another silence as Fergus considered this. It was true, popular psychology was a growth area in publishing. All the book needed was either love or sex somewhere in the title.

Switching the phone on to loudspeaker, Vanessa walked round her desk and put another home video into the machine. They were really quite amusing, if a bit amateurish. She perched on the edge of her desk and watched. Unfortunately the best ones were too explicit to broadcast, although they looked like fun to make.

'And what do I have to do to have all these riches thrust at me?' asked Fergus noncommittally.

Vanessa suddenly smiled. The solution to her problem was in front of her. She leaned towards the telephone. 'Come back to London and appear on the show as agreed next week, and I might just be able to offer you a small personal incentive by way of making the deal even more attractive,' she said huskily.

Vijay thought he heard Fergus swallowing. 'And just what might that be?' he asked.

Vanessa gave a sudden bark of laughter. The sound made Vijay jump.

'I think it's about time you were familiarised with the workings of the studio. Hugo has had this delightful little set built ready for the first fantasies to be acted out. I think it's my job as producer to make sure all the equipment works, don't you? So I thought we might give it a little test run when no one is around,' Vanessa paused, 'we could even make our own little home video. You always said you could have earned a fortune making porn movies, now's your chance.'

Fergus made one last attempt to resist. 'I have some unfinished business here,' he parried. 'I don't think I can come down to London until after the weekend.'

'If that unfinished business is that little bitch I spoke to this morning, you can forget it,' snapped Vanessa.

'I didn't know you cared,' Fergus mocked.

'I'm warning you,' said Vanessa, her voice beginning to rise again, 'get back here today or the whole deal's off.'

'Okay, okay, don't go ruffling your feathers again. Today it is,' said Fergus looking at his watch. The next train was not for another hour, which gave him plenty of time for just one last quickie with his ex-student who had fallen asleep again. He did
so
enjoy taking women when they least expected it.

This time he left the phone dangling on its cord to prevent further interruptions.

Back in the Right Pryce offices, Vanessa allowed herself a tight satisfied smile, but a glance at her watch told her she was late. She picked up her bag and raced out of the door and down the stairs. Ten minutes later she was pushing her way through a crowded bar.

She had insisted on meeting in a dark little pub near the British Museum, as no one she knew ever went there. It was the haunt of university students and foreign tourists, although what tourists made of traditional British pub food like pizza and chicken curry, she failed to understand.