Wednesday 27th January 2016
Norfolk, England
Sunita Richards works freelance because it suits her circumstances. Her husband works as a telecommunications manager and is often abroad travelling, leaving her with their two small children. Sunita’s busy life therefore has only short bursts of time available where she feels able to juggle parenting duties sufficiently to allow her to continue her career as a part-time investigative journalist.
More often than not she will pick her own topics. Typically, she begins by conducting desk-based research, gathering the strands of a story that she considers will appeal to a features editor of a big Sunday newspaper. Only then does she hawk it around to see whether any of her contacts will commission her to write a completed article. Over the years she has established a good reputation for investigative scoops, rarely finding that a strong story is not snapped up. On occasions an editor may, out of the blue, contact her directly and give her a specific commission. Exactly as happened two days ago.
The Sunday Journal is a tabloid newspaper with an edgy reputation. Typically, its readership enjoys exposés that delve into the private lives of politicians and A-list celebrities. Thus when Sunita had received a call late on Monday asking her to trawl through the background and life of one Jeremy Seymour, she had been neither surprised nor fazed by the request. The paper was running a feature article at the weekend on those most likely to succeed Justin Ingleby. They had a lot of material on Seymour the MP but not so much dating back to his time as a farmer before that. In particular, as someone now stated to be strongly in favour of tougher government policy on immigration, had Seymour the farmer taken a stance on the use and abuse of migrant workers? Might there be any skeletons lurking in hitherto unopened cupboards? Perhaps Sunita could oblige?
As Sunita knows, any well-intentioned school leaver can sit in front of a computer and use a search engine to glean rudimentary background information. However, to get the real story requires a greater level of skill. It requires someone with the experience and aptitude to sift and to sort. It requires shoe leather and human interaction, getting out and talking to people, teasing and cajoling, eking out snippets that others rarely find. Even if, as on this occasion, it requires going back several years.
If only they but knew one another, she and Murphy would have made a great team: polar opposites in character and background; very similar in terms of getting results albeit using different approaches. Sunita’s modus operandi is typically gentle. She comes across as someone who is slightly timid and thus quite approachable. In contrast, Murphy is much more direct, driven and in a hurry. The irony of two parallel investigations taking place in the same week, centred around a similar part of Norfolk but in connection with two different Cabinet colleagues, would not have been lost on either of them.
The previous day, having dropped the children at school, Sunita had headed back home to begin work on the back-story of Jeremy Seymour the farmer. The Seymour family, she soon learned, had farmed in Norfolk for the last five generations. Jeremy inherited the three-thousand-acre farm from his father in the early nineteen-eighties; by that stage the business had been split between a cereal farm and a soft fruit and vegetable operation. A substantial business in its own right, it had employed a small contingent of dedicated local farm workers. In common with most farms, the workforce had been supplemented throughout the year by seasonal workers assisting mainly with fruit and vegetable picking. Ten years ago Jeremy had sold the fruit and vegetable farm to his brother, retaining the less workforce-intensive cereal farmlands, sub-contracting the day-to-day farming to another farmer at the time when Jeremy became a full-time Member of Parliament. Five years later Jeremy had ceased farming the land altogether, instead investing his money in creating of one of the biggest solar energy concerns in Norfolk. There was a story waiting to be told about the not insignificant taxpayer funded subsidies from which one Jeremy Seymour MP would have personally benefited, but that was not part of Sunita’s current brief. She would flag it, though, for the Sunday Journal’s politics editor to pick up on. In case it wasn’t yet on anyone’s radar.
The rest of Tuesday had been spent planning for a trip the following day to the Norfolk area. Mindful that a convincing cover story was going to be needed, she had decided to be an historian writing about the history of farming in East Anglia and the Norfolk Broads. After making a few more calls to prepare the ground, she was finally ready.
Sunita is sitting in seventy-three-year-old Mrs Nesbitt’s kitchen, drinking tea. It is late morning and Nancy has had a fresh brew stewing nicely. Nancy Nesbitt’s husband, Hubert, is out on the farm somewhere and there is little going on in the house at present, Thomas Seymour and his wife currently being away on holiday. When she answers the doorbell, it takes the elderly Mrs Nesbitt barely a second, and no encouragement at all, to take pity on the pretty young Indian woman whom she finds on her doorstep. She quickly invites her to step inside the house away from the brisk, cold January wind. In no time at all, the two of them are sitting down with strong cups of tea ‘for a bit of a natter’.
Nancy Nesbitt is happy to reminisce about the old Seymour farm, excited that someone might actually be interested enough in what had happened all those years ago to be considering writing a book about it all. Sunita asks a few questions to get the ball rolling. Before long, the history of the Seymours is being laid out for Sunita to record faithfully in a reporter’s notepad in her incredibly small, neat handwriting.
“What about the seasonal workers? Permanent farm workers presumably had farm cottages like this one, but where did the seasonals live?”
“Oh, that was simple. Mister Jeremy converted two of the large field shelters. The ones down by the ford at the back of the farmhouse. He made them into accommodation blocks. They were smart. They had dormitories, washrooms and a large living area. Very grand they were. Mister Thomas still uses them today during peak berry-picking season.”
“Are they mostly migrant workers?”
“Almost all of them. By the busload sometimes. Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians and a few others who miraculously appear out of nowhere looking for work. At first, Mister Jeremy thought they were very good news. They worked hard and he didn’t need to pay them much, either. Always in cash, mark you, that was why everyone kept coming. No questions asked, they just turned up for work and the Seymours would pay cash. It wasn’t popular with the village folk mind, there was a lot of resentment. Too many foreigners, many of the locals used to say, sometimes not that quietly either. It got ugly one hot, dry summer. Very ugly in fact. No one actually put it this way but I think it was what eventually tipped Mister Jeremy over the edge, with him wanting to sell out to his brother Thomas and go into politics.”
“What happened?”
“It was all very difficult. It began with my daughter Hilary. She’s a lovely girl. A bit simple, mind, but very kind and gentle in a loving way. She’d been brought up nice. A bit too trusting, I have to say, but she’d never say boo to a goose, certainly not to anyone who was nice back to her. Anyway, she obviously had a thing for one of the migrants, we never did find out which one. Hilary refused point blank to speak about it, not to her brother, Len, or to me. To this day it’s a sealed door, poor darling. She’d obviously had a bit of tumble in the hay with this lad and got herself pregnant. When her father found out, he got so cross. As for Mister Jeremy, none of us had seen him like it before ever: much angrier than my husband Hubert and that’s saying something. He went shouting and swearing at them all. Wanting the man in question to confess. When no one did, he sent them all packing. The villagers were delighted. The whole community rallied around to try and help. Even so, a lot of that year’s harvest simply never got picked. Mister Jeremy swore then and there that he wouldn’t have any more of them on the farm. Next thing he’s gone and sold the business to his brother Thomas and become an MP.”
“What happened to the baby?”
“She lost it, poor little lamb. About eighteen weeks pregnant, she must have been. Went off to see some specialist in London but they couldn’t do nothing to save the wretched thing. Mister Jeremy was marvellous. He paid all the bills, allowing Hilary to see this specialist privately and everything. In the end it was maybe for the best that she lost the child, given how she’d got herself pregnant and all that. It was still a trauma for her, poor love.”
“I can imagine. Tell me. The farm today – does Thomas still use migrant workers or have they now disappeared for good?”
“Of course they haven’t disappeared. No one could run a farm like this without them. They are ever so polite and trust me, they do work hard. No, Mister Thomas soon realised that he needed them more than ever. He went out of his way to encourage them all to come back, to make them feel valued and appreciated once again. Today, everyone’s happy once again. It’s all by the book these days, though. None of that cash in hand nonsense. Even the villagers are no longer grumpy. Don’t tell Mister Jeremy, though!”
Hilary Nesbitt works the morning shift as a shop assistant in the village bakery. By the time that Sunita tracks her down, it is just after one-thirty in the afternoon and Hilary is preparing to finish and head home for a late lunch. In her early forties with long silvery hair tied up at the back, she has a happy face and a welcoming smile.
“Sunita. That’s a lovely name,” she says once they have shaken hands. “Are you Indian?”
“My parents were. I was born in the UK. I was actually wondering, Hilary, whether you had a little time that you could spare me?”
She explains about the history she is researching, also mentioning that she had spent the morning sharing a pot of tea with her mother.
“Of course I can. Tell you what: why don’t we sit over there?”
Hilary points to a small area reserved for customers buying teas, coffees, cakes and sandwiches to eat in rather than take away.
“If you’ve been with Mum, you’ll be awash with tea. I bet she didn’t feed you? I can get you a sandwich if you’ve not had any lunch? Some fizzy water, perhaps?”
“That would be lovely, thank you. Here, let me give you some money for all of that.”
A short while later and they are chattering away happily like old friends. Whilst picking over a small plastic tray of mixed sandwiches, they revisit substantially the same ground that Sunita had covered with Hilary’s mother earlier that morning.
“Your mother was telling me about Jeremy selling the farm to his brother.”
Hilary smiles a wistful smile. “Oh, that Mister Jeremy. What a lovely man. I miss him, now that he’s in London most of the time. Such a warm and kind-hearted soul. His brother Thomas. He’s nice too, but I always keep a candle burning for Jeremy.”
She sees Sunita looking at her and she giggles, blushing suddenly.
“Oops! That’s got to be our little secret, not for the book you’re writing, please? No, I’ve always had a soft spot for Jeremy. I’ve had this crush on him ever since I was a little girl. He’s been ever so kind to me over the years.”
“Your mother mentioned that he was very supportive at the time of your pregnancy.”
Hilary puts her sandwich down and looks angry, her face now bright red.
“What right did she have to go blabbering about all that? She had no reason to bring any of that stuff up, she really didn’t. I’ll have to have words. What did she say exactly?”
“That you had found yourself unexpectedly pregnant courtesy of one of the farm workers. Both your father and Jeremy had been furious. Jeremy had apparently kicked all the migrant workers out and had then helped you see a private obstetrician, but she told me that sadly you’d lost the baby at about eighteen weeks. That was the sum total of all she said, honestly, Hilary.”
“Well,” she says, the reddening in her cheeks diminishing, “that’s all right then.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, least of all with me, Hilary. It sounds as if you had a horrid time.”
“It’s my private business. I just don’t like anyone knowing about it. You are not going to put that in your book either, are you, Sunita?”
“Not if you don’t want me to, no. Why all the secrecy?”
“I just don’t want to talk about it. Mister Jeremy and I came to an agreement. He’s kept his side of the bargain and I don’t need it raked up again, thank you very much. Perhaps if that is all, we should end this conversation if you don’t mind, Sunita?”
“Certainly,” she says, wiping her mouth with a small paper napkin and draining the water in her glass. “Though – what agreement, Hilary?”
“Never you mind! It was our little secret. Just between him and me. If I ever spoke about any of it, then he would stop the money.”
She looks up, alarmed.
“Oh my Lord! Forget I said that. Please don’t ask me any more questions.” She is standing up, hastily clearing the plates away. Sunita is no hurry, however.
“What money, Hilary?”
“I never said nothing. We never had this conversation,” she says, her hands laden with empty plates and glasses, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’d be most grateful if you never came around here ever again, do I make myself clear? I have nothing else to say. Good day to you.”
With that she turns and hurriedly heads out towards the back of the bakery.