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CHAPTER 5

It was pouring with rain. Ceaseless, monotonous, Armageddon-type rain. The sky was like concrete, the horizon a mesh of cranes, half-built tower blocks and jagged scaffolding. Rory was standing in the middle of an industrial estate in East London, on the set of his current documentary project, filming the life of a mute swan and a Canada goose who had set up home in an abandoned Tesco trolley next to a small, dank excuse for a pond. The birds found fame when one of the office workers set up an Instagram and Twitter account for them – #SwanLovesGoose – and across the globe people fell for the hopelessly devoted mismatched duo.

Almost overnight the birds became a symbol of love, peace and acceptance. National treasures, they were mentioned on X Factor and the fun bit at the end of the BBC news. The horrible pond became a conservation area. And Rory snapped up all the rights immediately. As well as the documentary, there was a book written from the point of view of the female swan scheduled for release at Christmas.

‘God, why can’t they just mate? Why can’t they do something?’ Rory was dressed in his blue waterproof, the rain dripping from the peak of the hood on to his nose and into his cold Styrofoam coffee cup.

He could see the money racking up every time he glanced from his camera crew to the two overfed birds sitting on the depressingly grey water doing absolutely nothing. The old shopping trolley sat empty.

Rory used to have a lot of patience when it came to nature. He’d built his living on his ability to wait it out. After critical acclaim for his degree show film about the Michelin-starred beach café next to his grandmother’s house in Spain, he’d followed up with a documentary about the Fête de l’Escargot in France and the traditions around snail-hunting season, which shot him to prominence as one of the youngest BAFTA documentary nominees. He hadn’t won, but his name had been on people’s lips and he’d dined at No. 10, chortling with the PM over canapés. At just twenty-one his star was on the rise, but that same year his son Max had been born. Plagued by reflux, the baby hadn’t slept, the cries echoing round the flat twenty-four-seven. His wife Claire struggling and Rory exhausted, at his worst when he hadn’t had any sleep, his brain frazzled as he tried to work, money painfully tight. It was a ten-month black hole in his life. And when things started to get back to normal the wave of success seemed to have rolled on without him. No longer riding out front, he was paddling to keep up at the back, always a step out of sync. He spent ten months driving across America in search of the quintessential diner, only to find a bigger budget version of the same idea scheduled for release two months before his quiet little film. He worked harder and harder. Obsessively. And yet never bettered the French snail success. More recently, in the relentless quest for the BAFTA, he had taken on more commercial projects which he hated. He’d spent last spring on tour with a controversial young indie rock band, filming a supposed warts-and-all behind-the-scenes exposé that, while highly praised, had been a frustrating six months watching lazy teenagers sleeping, playing videogames and refusing to rehearse. To make matters worse, the BAFTA that year was nabbed by a quirky little film by a virtually unknown director who’d sprung to fame via YouTube, setting off to record the 300 different types of snow that the Eskimos were reputed to have words for.

All Rory’s hopes were now pinned on this swan and goose, which he counted on having just the right amount of commercial whimsy to bag the gong. But not only were the birds doing absolutely nothing, Rory was stressed and tired. The plane home from Spain had been delayed for hours on the runway and he still didn’t feel like he’d caught up on sleep.

He huffed back to his Portakabin, past the catering van. Larry, the chef, nodded towards the fat birds and said, ‘Not much going on, is there?’

‘No,’ Rory replied. ‘Absolutely bugger all.’

‘I’ll go home and get my rifle if you want, shoot one of them!’ Larry laughed. ‘That’d boost the ratings.’

Rory paused. That wasn’t actually a bad idea. He didn’t want to shoot one, of course, but maybe they could do something to chivvy it up a bit. He called to his assistant, ‘Petra, meeting in my office, five minutes. Get the team.’

The Portakabin was cold but dry, except for the trail of muddy footprints and the dripping of six wet jackets on the backs of a hastily assembled group of chairs. Two of the team were perched on the side of Rory’s desk. A packet of custard creams was doing the rounds.

‘Do you think this is what it’s going to be like the whole summer?’ Petra stared out the window at the rain.

George, the assistant producer, shook his head. ‘We don’t have summer in Britain any more. Global warming. We’re just going to be grey and bland forever.’

Petra made a face.

‘OK, listen,’ Rory clapped his hands together then rubbed them to warm up. ‘We need these birds to do something, pronto. And they aren’t doing it themselves. I don’t want to put them in danger, as such, I just want to spice things up. Ideas?’

The only noise was the crinkle of the custard cream packet.

‘Come on, you lot!’ Rory sat back in his swivel chair, hands behind his head. ‘This is what I pay you for. Think. What can we do with them?’

George shrugged, mouth full of biscuit. ‘We could kidnap one. Goose could handle it, I reckon.’

Petra made a sad face. ‘That would be really mean, though.’

‘Petra,’ Rory glared at her, ‘it’s not real. If we kidnap him he’ll be in this bloody Portakabin, probably eating all my biscuits, if you lot leave me any.’

Rupert, a foppish researcher, nudged the one remaining custard cream still in the packet on to the edge of Rory’s desk.

‘I used to live near a farm, actually, one of those ones open to the public that kids go to,’ said George. ‘Just before Christmas some people broke in and stole all the rabbits and ducks and chickens. They think it was for Christmas dinner.’

Rory smacked the table with his hand. ‘I like it. Now we’re talking.’

‘Really?’ said Petra to George. ‘They ate them?’

George nodded.

‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘Some people.’

Rory ignored her. ‘So, OK, this is good. We kidnap Goose. Petra, I want you to look into logistics. Get the police in – and what? We spin it that he’s been taken for Sunday lunch? It’s a real shame it’s summer not Christmas. George, can we get someone from that farm on camera? Just having that as a story will get the idea into people’s minds. I like it.’

Foppish Rupert added, ‘My parents have a farm in Hampshire. Goose could stay there for a while.’

Petra looked out the window again at the dank, rainy industrial estate. ‘Probably never want to come back.’

Rory nodded. ‘Well that would be even better. A post-kidnapping lovers’ tiff.’

George laughed.

Petra looked back at them all, expression pained. ‘This is really mean.’

Rory sighed. ‘Yes, we know it’s mean, Petra. But if we don’t do it then nothing happens, the film’s a flop, everyone forgets about the bloody birds and some fox’ll probably eat them or the council will evict them. We’re actually doing them a favour – in a roundabout sort of way. Right,’ Rory stood up, grabbed the biscuit packet, and popping out the last custard cream said, ‘Action that, people. Let’s get back to work.’