Blog Tour: Behind Her Back by Jane Lythell

I am delighted to be on the tour today for Behind Her Back by Jane Lythell with an exclusive extract. Don't forget to follow along the tour with the stops below.

extract

EARLY AUGUST

  Chalk Farm flat, Sunday, 2 p.m.

  As soon as we got in, Flo looked for Mr Crooks our cat and started to panic when he wasn’t in the flat or our garden. She was straight on her mobile to Janis who reassured her that he’d been fine when she’d been in to feed him this morning. He had probably gone for a wander.

  I stuffed dirty clothes into the washing machine, two weeks’ worth, some of which were still powdered with sand from the beach at Bordighera. For the first time in years, having Simon as my deputy had allowed me to have a complete break from StoryWorld and I had returned with a good tan and a hole in my finances.

  I was heading back to work on Monday and needed a briefing from Simon. I made a mug of tea, black because I’d forgotten to buy milk, and called him.

  ‘Welcome back. Was your flight OK? Heard there were delays at Heathrow,’ he said.

  ‘We didn’t fly. We were on the overnight train from Ventimiglia and it was brilliant, though I didn’t sleep much.’

  ‘Good holiday?’

  ‘Fantastic. Pasta and ice cream to die for and we swam in the sea most days. How have things been?’

  ‘Fine, really, no mishaps to report, and Ledley is going from strength to strength.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Fizzy is back next month, you know.’

  ‘So I heard. He’s taken to it so well. Maybe he’ll find it hard going back to a weekly slot,’ Simon said.

  Ledley, the StoryWorld chef, has been sitting in for our star presenter Fizzy Wentworth. She’s been on maternity leave and he’s been a hit with our viewers. Fizzy had her baby in late May and is only taking three and a half months off. She’s determined to be back on the sofa at the beginning of September. She’s worried that if she stays away longer Ledley will get too entrenched in the anchor role.

  ‘And Lori Kerwell arrived last week,’ Simon said, and there was something in his voice, the verbal equivalent of rolling his eyes.

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘She’s scary; really scary. All pent-up energy and dead eyes.’

  ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘She insisted on coming to the morning meetings and by the second day was commenting on the output.’

  ‘I hope that’s a short-term thing. It’s an editorial meeting,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, but she said it will help her understand where she can develop business tie-ins.’

  ‘And is Julius OK with that?’

  ‘Not sure. He put her in her place on Friday.’

  The gossip at the station was that Julius Jones, our director of programmes, was not overjoyed at the appointment of Lori Kerwell to develop sales and marketing. She had been appointed by the MD, Saul Relph. He is the money man at StoryWorld. Julius, who is the ideas man, was not involved in her selection and employment. There is often conflict between the editorial and the business sides in television.

  ‘Can you talk me through the running order for tomorrow?’ I said.

  ‘Loula is our celebrity interview of the day.’

  Loula was the latest winner in ITV’s blockbuster talent show.

  ‘That’s a good signing.’

  ‘Harry got her for us. And Molly’s story is on FGM.’

  Female genital mutilation was a challenging topic for my researcher Molly to have chosen.

  ‘How did she cover that?’

  ‘She found this young Somalian woman, Beydaan, very brave. She shopped her parents to social services because she doesn’t want her younger sister to go through what they did to her. Liz, she was seven years old when she was cut.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘I know. Molly had to shoot the interview so you can’t see her face. And we’ve changed her name, of course.’

  This was making me uneasy. Ours is a morning show and we have to be careful about the content we put out.

  ‘And who will Ledley talk to about it?’

  ‘We’ve booked the officer from the Foreign Office who runs the FGM Unit.’

  ‘That’s a good call. Are you sure Ledley is OK with this?’

  ‘Molly briefed him at length on Friday.’

  ‘Well, huge thanks, Simon, for all you’ve done. Let’s both sit in the gallery tomorrow and we can go to the morning meeting together.’

  ‘It’s good to have you back.’