Live from Seacombe

On Monday, Tessa found Walt alone in the small kitchen. She put the cassette on the table. “It’s your story, isn’t it?” she said. Walt looked at it for a long time. He said that he had written it in 1987 for his wife, Maggie, who loved the radio. “She used to say that a town needs stories as much as it needs bread,” he added. Then he stood up. “That’s enough questions.”

That evening, Tessa made a decision. She did not tell Walt, but she told her listeners. “Tonight at twenty to midnight, I’m going to leave the line open,” she said on air. “If you are the man with the story, please call. All of Seacombe wants to know how it ends.” Within an hour, forty people had sent messages. A baker called Ruth wrote that her mother had cried when Walt read the story.

At twenty to midnight, Tessa’s hands were shaking. The phone rang. “Third page,” said the rough voice. “The girl reached the top of the pier. The lamp was cold and the glass was broken, but she did not go home. She knelt down, and she began to repair it with her bare hands.” Tessa leaned towards the microphone. “Please don’t go,” she said. “Tell us why you are doing this.”

There was a very long silence. “Because some stories cannot be told in daylight,” the man answered at last. “Tomorrow, the fourth page.” The line clicked. Tessa kept talking for ten more minutes, because the red light was still on and hundreds of people were listening.

Callum came running from the technical room. “I’ve been checking the phone system,” he said, out of breath. “Normally every call shows a number. This one doesn’t, and now I know why. The call isn’t coming from outside. It’s coming from an old internal line, number nine.” “Where does number nine go?” Tessa asked. “To Studio B,” said Callum. “The one we never use.”

Tessa had never been inside Studio B. The door was at the end of the corridor, behind a pile of broken chairs, and only Walt had the key. It was ten past midnight, and Walt’s car was still parked outside.