'Hello, hello,' said Howard, his breathing a little laboured. 'Alison, is it? Howard Mollison. Have you come all this way to tell me I can't write for toffee?'
She beamed, and shook the hand he proffered.
'Oh, no, we like the article,' she assured him. 'I thought, as things are getting so interesting, I'd come and sit in on the meeting. You don't mind? Press are allowed, I think. I've looked up all the regulations.'
She was moving towards the door as she spoke.
'Yes, yes, press are allowed,' said Howard, following her and pausing courteously at the entrance to let her through first. 'Unless we have to deal with anything in camera, that is.'
She glanced back at him, and he could make out her teeth, even in the fading light.
'Like all those anonymous accusations on your message board? From the Ghost of Barry Fairbrother?'
'Oh dear,' wheezed Howard, smiling back at her. 'They're not news, surely? A couple of silly comments on the internet?'
'Has it only been a couple? Somebody told me the bulk of them had been taken off the site.'
'No, no, somebody's got that wrong,' said Howard. 'There have only been two or three, to my knowledge. Nasty nonsense. Personally,' he said, improvising on the spot, 'I think it's some kid.'
'A kid?'
'You know. Teenager having fun.'
'Would teenagers target Parish councillors?' she asked, still smiling. 'I heard, actually, that one of the victims has lost his job. Possibly as a result of the allegations made against him on your site.'
'News to me,' said Howard untruthfully. Shirley had seen Ruth at the hospital the previous day and reported back to him.
'I see on the agenda,' said Alison, as the pair of them entered the brightly lit hall, 'that you'll be discussing Bellchapel. You and Mr Fairbrother made good points on both sides of the argument in your articles ... we had quite a few letters to the paper after we printed Mr Fairbrother's piece. My editor liked that. Anything that makes people write letters ...'
'Yes, I saw those,' said Howard. 'Nobody seemed to have much good to say about the clinic, did they?'
The councillors at the table were watching the pair of them. Alison Jenkins returned their gaze, still smiling imperturbably.
'Let me get you a chair,' said Howard, puffing slightly as he lifted one down from a nearby stack and settling Alison some twelve feet from the table.
'Thank you.' She pulled it six feet forward.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' called Howard, 'we've got a press gallery here tonight. Miss Alison Jenkins of the Yarvil and District Gazette.'
A few of them seemed interested and gratified by Alison's appearance, but most looked suspicious. Howard stumped back to the head of the table, where Aubrey and Shirley were questioning him with their eyes.
'Barry Fairbrother's Ghost,' he told them in an undertone, as he lowered himself gingerly into the plastic chair (one of them had collapsed under him two meetings ago). 'And Bellchapel. And there's Tony!' he shouted, making Aubrey jump. 'Come on in, Tony ... we'll give Henry and Sheila another couple of minutes, shall we?'
The murmur of talk around the table was slightly more subdued than usual. Alison Jenkins was already writing in her notebook. Howard thought angrily, This is all bloody Fairbrother's fault. He was the one who had invited the press in. For a split second, Howard thought of Barry and the Ghost as one and the same, a troublemaker alive and dead.
Like Shirley, Parminder had brought a stack of papers with her to the meeting, and these were piled up underneath the agenda she was pretending to read so that she did not have to speak to anybody. In reality, she was thinking about the woman sitting almost directly behind her. The Yarvil and District Gazette had written about Catherine Weedon's collapse, and the family's complaints against their GP. Parminder had not been named, but doubtless the journalist knew who she was. Perhaps Alison had got wind of the anonymous post about Parminder on the Parish Council website too.
Calm down. You're getting like Colin.
Howard was already taking apologies and asking for revisions to the last set of minutes, but Parminder could barely hear over the sound of her own blood thudding in her ears.
'Now, unless anybody's got any objections,' said Howard, 'we're going to deal with items eight and nine first, because District Councillor Fawley's got news on both, and he can't stay long - '
'Got until eight thirty,' said Aubrey, checking his watch.
' - yes, so unless there are objections - no? - floor's