My heart sank. “Are you serious?”

“This was supposed to be a meeting to discuss your filming schedule. Nothing I said here was intended to be made public.”

I pleaded, “I’ll put it all in context: Janet Walsh went out of her way to insult you – and at the media conference you kept your cool, you were restrained – but afterward, you expressed your opinions in detail. What’s wrong with that? Or do you want Humble Science! to start censoring you? ”

Mosala closed her eyes for a moment, then said carefully, “Those are my opinions, yes, and I’m entitled to them. I’m also entitled to decide who hears them and who doesn’t. I don’t want to inflame this whole ugly mess any further. So would you please respect my wishes and tell me that you won’t use any of it?”

“We don’t have to sort this out immediately. I can send you a rough cut—”

Mosala gestured dismissively. “I signed an agreement with Sarah Knight, saying I could veto anything, on the spot, with no questions asked.”

“If you did, that was with her, personally, not with SeeNet. All SeeNet have from you is a standard clearance.”

Mosala did not look happy. “You know what I’ve been meaning to ask you? Sarah said you’d explain why you had to take over the project at such short notice. After all the work she put into it, all she left was a ten-second message saying: I’m off the profile, Andrew Worth is the new director, he’ll tell you the reason why.”

I said carefully, “Sarah may have given you the wrong impression. SeeNet had never officially chosen her to make the documentary. And it was SeeNet who approached you and set things up initially – not Sarah. It was never a freelance project she was developing independently, to offer to them. It was a SeeNet project which she wanted to direct, so she sank a lot of her own time into trying to make that happen.”

De Groot said, “But why didn’t it happen? All that research, all that preparation, all that enthusiasm … why didn’t it pay off?”

What could I say? That I’d stolen the project from the one person who truly deserved it … so I could have a fully-paid South Pacific holiday, away from the stresses of serious frankenscience?

I said, “Network executives are in a world of their own. If I could understand how they made their decisions, I’d probably be up there with them, myself.”

De Groot and Mosala regarded me with silent disbelief.

Chapter 12