AIDAN. I’m sorry to. But we have good lawyers. Expensive lawyers, we have to. You’re not special, I’m afraid. This sort of thing happens all the time. I’ve run this by our legal team, they’re very clear on this, the legality of this, we are not liable. They laughed, actually – but I said to them, hold on, guys, come on, let’s just have some human bloody compassion here, let’s think about this man, this innocent man who’s had to deal with the fact that his fourteen-year-old daughter has got herself in a situation whereby her body has been put on show for all to see I mean come on. Let’s be sensitive to that. So we put our heads together, we crunched the numbers and what we want to do for you, for the worry, for the inconvenience, for the shock, is we want to offer you twenty-five thousand pounds.

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BRADSHAW. I don’t want any money.

AIDAN. I’m offering you twenty-five thousand pounds. You can take that now, we have the cheque already – show him the cheque, Charlotte.

CHARLOTTE shows him the cheque.

That’s yours, that’s signed off, you can bank it today.

BRADSHAW. I want it to be recognised that your magazine broke the law.

AIDAN. Tax-free.

BRADSHAW. It’s not the money.

AIDAN. This is done. The magazine is in the shops, it’s being bought as we speak, we can’t change that. What we can change is the life of that girl, your daughter. We can give you enough money to see her through university. Enough money to get her on the property ladder. What we’re talking about here is her future.

BRADSHAW. Her future is fine, thank you, she doesn’t need you to finance her future.

AIDAN. Then what do you want? Because this won’t even make it to trial. This is an open-and-shut case of forgery, a forgery perpetrated against us. You have no recourse here.

BRADSHAW. Yes but he said you’d say that.

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AIDAN. I’m sorry, who?

BRADSHAW. Your employee, the black chappy.

AIDAN. I beg your pardon?

BRADSHAW. No, I’m not like that. It was just to distinguish, because I spoke to him, on the phone.

AIDAN. There’s no one of that description working here.

BRADSHAW. He was West Indian or, Jamaican, he had a funny accent, I’m not an expert.

AIDAN and CHARLOTTE look at each other.

He rang me back, last night. He said if it didn’t stand up in court I should go to the press. He said I could sell the story, that the papers would print this –

AIDAN. I’m afraid you’ve been the victim of a disgruntled employee.