‘No sign of him.’
‘You’ve rung him?’
‘Well, what do you think?’ Harriet drily asked, and Sean grimaced.
‘OK, give me a quiet corner, a copy of today’s shooting script, and ten minutes.’ He had his laptop computer in one hand, his portable phone in the other, a battery of pens in the top pocket of his denim jacket.
He hadn’t shaved yet, Harriet noticed, his chin bristled with fair stubble. Under the blue jacket he wore a black shirt, open at the neck and tie-less; his jeans were well-worn and faded. He looked more like a villain than a cop.
‘Ah, here’s your bit of rough,’ Mike Waterford had said the other day, having somehow picked up on her feelings for Sean, and although Mike had meant it unpleasantly there was some truth in it. Harriet didn’t like her men to be too smooth, and Sean certainly wasn’t. He fitted in here, in the market – he could be one of the men busy setting up their stalls all around them. That tough, aggressive look was the last thing you expected from a writer.
‘You can use my dressing-room,’ Annie offered.
He gave her a brief glance, nodding. ‘OK, thanks.’
She opened her handbag to get out the key; the caravan was kept locked while Annie wasn’t inside it to guard against petty theft. When they were shooting on location things were always disappearing, which was why, even though she locked her caravan, she kept anything really valuable with her all day.
Annie held out the key to Sean. Behind them a motorbike engine revved noisily, but neither of them noticed.
As Sean took the key from her the bike roared past them. The rider leaned over and snatched Annie’s bag out of her hand, at the same time giving her a push sideways.
Annie fell, face down, almost knocking over the camera. For a minute she was too dazed to realise what had happened.
The motorbike swerved away, picking up speed, through the market, the gathering crowds of people scattering in front of it like the parting of the Red Sea as the children of Israel went through.
Harriet hurried to help Annie to her feet. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked anxiously.
Annie leaned on her, breathing raggedly for a minute. ‘I’ve got a couple of bruises and my knee’s grazed, that’s all,’ she said when she had got her breath back. ‘My tights are ruined! I’ll have to change them. And he got my bag!’
Sean had dropped all his equipment and was already running after the bike, shouting, ‘Stop him!’ to some of the crew, who were standing around a street-café van, eating hot dogs and drinking steaming mugs of tea.
The rider looked over his shoulder. Annie couldn’t see his face – he was wearing a black helmet, his face invisible behind the visor.
‘He’s got a nerve! With all these policemen around! Even if most of them aren’t real policemen,’ said Derek, joining them. He seemed almost admiring of the thief’s daring. Some of the cast in their uniforms were in hot pursuit, and some real policemen joined in the hunt, but the motorbike had disappeared up a narrow alley behind a tight collection of market stalls.
‘They’ve lost him!’ Annie groaned.
Sean and the others were a long way behind, but they all piled into the alley after him.
The crowd in the market had thickened; they stood there, faces oddly all the same, flushed with winter cold, eyes bright, staring at the chase, grinning and talking to each other – did they think it was part of the filming?
For heaven’s sake, can’t they tell it’s for real? thought Annie. Yet how should they know? Increasingly people weren’t sure what was real and what was acting.
How can they tell the difference between real blood and something out of a plastic bottle, when all they see is the image? Pictures, nothing but moving pictures. How can they distinguish between acting, and genuine naked terror? If the guy on the bike had killed me, would they have applauded? she wondered, shivering. Maybe they would. Christ, what sort of business are we in?
‘Did you have much in your bag?’ Derek asked her.
White and shaken, she muttered, ‘My wallet, with all my money and credit cards.’
‘Oh, Annie, how could you be so stupid?’ Harriet took off the thick jacket she wore and wrapped it round her shoulders. ‘You need some hot, sweet tea; you’re in shock.’ She looked at one of her trainees, who ran off at once like a well-trained dog to fetch what his mistress wanted.
‘A couple of handbags got stolen from the caravans last year – remember?’ said Annie. ‘That’s why I always keep anything valuable with me now.’
Harriet grimaced. ‘Well, you’d better ring and cancel your cards at once, before he gets a chance to use them.’ She held out her mobile phone. ‘You know the number to ring?’
‘It’s in my diary,’ Annie ruefully said.
Seeing her expression, ‘Don’t tell me!’ groaned Harriet. ‘The diary’s in your handbag! You idiot.’ Then she stopped, staring across the market. Sean was walking back towards them. ‘Well, I’m damned. What a guy. He’s got it back.’
Breathing audibly, his face flushed, Sean reached them and held out the bag. ‘We almost got him …’ He leaned against a wall, his chest heaving. ‘God, I must be out of condition. I thought we’d lost him, there was no sign of him in the alley, then suddenly he came back towards us – it was a dead end, he was trapped. I was out in front of the others. When he saw I might catch up he threw the bag at me, put his foot down, swerved and took off again like a bat out of hell.’
‘Is your wallet still in the bag?’ Harriet asked.
Annie was already looking through the contents – car keys, diary, house keys, wallet, chequebook, credit cards and money all intact. Nothing was missing. She gave a sigh of relief.
‘It’s all here.’ Looking up she smiled at Sean. ‘Thank heavens for that. I owe you one, Sean. You were marvellous. As for being out of condition … I don’t know anyone else who could run fast enough to catch up with a guy on a motorbike.’
‘Buy me a drink after work,’ he coolly said.
She sensed a leap of tension close to her, felt Harriet staring and looked quickly at her, but Harriet’s face was calm and blank.
‘Of course; thanks,’ Annie slowly said, wondering if Harriet would mind. Some of the crew believed she and Sean had got something going, but they were very discreet about it. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you, anyway,’ she added.
His brows lifted. ‘Complaints about my script?’
‘Not complaints, of course not. Your scripts are always brilliant.’
His mouth twisted; he had a sardonic cast of face which reflected his instinctive cynicism. ‘But …?’
Years in the fraud squad of the City of London police had taught Sean to distrust human beings and be wary of them. Annie had learnt to distrust people, too – all the same, she didn’t like the hardness in Sean Halifax, he was not an easy man to deal with. He didn’t suffer fools gladly; he made her feel uncomfortable, on edge.
‘I just wondered how far you’re going to go with the love story subplot,’ she said with a mixture of defensiveness and aggression. ‘I know the script committee decided to feed one in, but it’s taking up more time every week, eating into the real meat of the storylines, it’s changing the whole feel of my character.’
Sean looked at Harriet, his pale grey eyes ironic. ‘Don’t tell me, tell Harriet.’
‘Look, it works,’ Harriet said in a placatory tone. ‘The ratings are the only things the board of directors understands or cares about, and they keep going up. You may not be happy, either of you, but our chairman is! Billy is a simple soul.’
Annie snapped, ‘He doesn’t have to work with Mike Waterford! How would Billy like to have Mike pawing him and trying to get his hand up his skirt?’
Harriet burst out laughing. ‘What a picture! Billy doesn’t wear a skirt! But if he did, and it would put the ratings up, he’d let Mike Waterford put his hand anywhere he liked!’
Everyone within earshot was listening; they all knew Annie hated working
with Mike Waterford. She hadn’t hidden her dislike and contempt for the man, and whenever they worked together he set about getting his own back: sabotaging her work: the usual cheap tricks, moving behind her during her big scenes, reacting to lines in a way that threw her off balance. He couldn’t do that with Harriet’s eagle eye on him, of course – if she spotted any tricks like that, she’d take him apart, but when she wasn’t directing he took every chance he got to needle Annie.
He murmured jokes about her just out of earshot, mocked her slyly, gossiped about her, picked on any little mistake she made, made friends with anyone who didn’t like her, and on any production there were always people who were jealous or hostile to the star. If she had disliked the man once, she detested him now.
But she had to admit that Harriet had a genius for what made good TV and attracted media attention.
Mike’s performance had given a new bite to the series. He had an instinctive, arrogant masculinity with which Annie’s character clashed. They were natural opposites, the two ends of a magnetic compass.
‘Billy wants me to write in even more scenes of the two of you alone,’ Sean told her. ‘In fact, he wants me to go a lot further, and have some sex scenes, and I mean real sex, not just a kiss and a fade-out. He wants you both in bed!’
‘Over my dead body!’ Annie turned crimson with fury.
‘The viewers would eat it up,’ Harriet drily said.
‘I am not getting into a bed with Mike Waterford, especially if I’m expected to take my clothes off first!’
‘It’s only acting,’ Derek said gleefully, grinning ear to ear. ‘You know how to act, don’t you, darling?’
‘Annie’s a pro,’ said Harriet soothingly. ‘She’s only making a point. She’ll do whatever she has to do, when the time comes.’
Annie was torn between taking that as a compliment, and resenting it. She hoped she did her job professionally – but there were some things she was not prepared to do.
‘You’re wasting your time, Annie,’ Sean said curtly. ‘Give me that key. I’ll get to work on the new scene.’
She handed him the key and he walked away.
‘I’m sorry if you don’t like the new storylines,’ Harriet said. ‘But the public loves them. We’re selling the programme all over Europe and the States, Billy is happy, the whole board of the company are happy – their profits are up a fair bit because of the series, so the shareholders are happy, too. I’m afraid they wouldn’t listen to any complaints from any of us.’
‘You mean from me, don’t you, Harriet? You’re perfectly happy with Sean’s new storylines.’
‘Well, yes – they work, so I’m happy,’ Harriet shrugged. She changed the subject, staring after Sean. ‘He’s really quite something, isn’t he? Look at those long legs, and those shoulders. That’s what I call sexy.’
‘Yes,’ Annie said absently, still brooding over Mike Waterford.
Harriet shot her a look. ‘Been to bed with him, yet?’
Annie did a double-take, hardly believing her ears. ‘What? No, I have not! What on earth makes you think I’d want to?’
‘You’re a woman, aren’t you?’ Harriet teased, but her eyes were sharp.
Is she jealous? wondered Annie. Is she in love with Sean – has she slept with him? She felt a queer little prickle in her chest at the thought. What’s the matter with me? she thought. I’m not jealous over Sean; he annoys me. I hardly know the man outside work. Why should it bother me if he and Harriet have slept together?
‘Have you?’ she asked, and Harriet gave one of her Mona Lisa smiles.
‘That would be telling.’ She wasn’t admitting to Annie that she had never got that far with Sean.
Annie might not be sleeping with Sean, but there was something between them, a charge of electricity in the air when they were together that Harriet picked up every time. She had built her entire career on her instincts, she was rarely wrong about people or situations, and she was sure there was some sort of situation between Annie and Sean, even if Annie was blind to it.
‘I’ll go and try to raise Mike again,’ she added, changing the subject.
Annie noticed the deliberate evasion. ‘You might as well try to raise the Titanic!’ she crossly said.
Harriet walked away, laughing, and Derek Fenn growled, ‘They ought to sack the bastard. He’s past being a joke. Why should we all have to stand around freezing our balls off for him? Marty says he’s sleeping with that new kid, the girl with no tits – he’s welcome to her. I like a woman to look like a woman, not a boy with acne.’
Annie looked sharply at him. ‘Marty?’
‘Come off it, you know Marty.’ Derek gave her a funny, sly smile. ‘A redhead, working in wardrobe, I’ve known her for donkey’s years. I have a lot of time for Marty, she’s a fighter and she’s had a tough life, bringing up those kids on her own.’
Annie felt a shiver run down her spine. ‘I’ve never seen her before. What makes you think I know her?’
Derek’s cynical eyes mocked her. ‘She’s Roger’s wife, darling – don’t pretend you don’t remember him! They sacked him from drama school because of you, remember?’
Remember? How could she ever forget? She had never talked about him to Derek – how much did Derek know about what happened?
‘He couldn’t get another job with that sort of reputation hanging round his neck, so he walked out on his family,’ Derek told her. ‘He ran off to Australia with some barmaid and Marty was left with three kids and no money coming in. She’s pretty bitter about you.’
Angrily, Annie burst out, ‘I’m sorry for her, but it isn’t fair to blame me. It was Roger’s fault, not mine. I wasn’t the first girl he tried to blackmail into bed. If I hadn’t blown the whistle on him he’d still be there, doing it to every promising newcomer he fancied.’
Derek shrugged his narrow shoulders, coughing. ‘Oh, he was a bastard, you’re right, but Marty’s not very logical about the guy. She’s still hung up on him, I think, although she did divorce him because her lawyer persuaded her it was the wisest thing to do, to establish ownership of their house.’
‘And he didn’t contest it?’ Annie asked huskily, on edge to hear whether his wife was in touch with Roger Keats.
‘They couldn’t trace him. She had to wait years before she could divorce him in his absence – she only did it a couple of years ago. Funnily enough, a few weeks after the divorce came through she says she met someone who had seen him in Devon, working for a rep company touring the West Country.’
Annie was icy cold. She looked around the market – he could be here, now, watching them.
There were all these men working on the series – he could be one of them. Extras playing policemen, anonymous in their uniforms, wearing helmets which half-hid their faces; actors in one of the bit parts as market traders or criminals; the various craftsmen, electricians, sound men, carpenters who put together mock façades to change the look of shops and houses. There were a dozen different trades working on any programme and they were often switched around, apart from the top men who Harriet liked to have working with her.
Roger could have changed his appearance out of all recognition in eight years. She might be seeing him every day without knowing him.
Trudie Lang was lost; she had been walking for ages and she didn’t recognise any of the streets. She had a feeling she had lost something. Had she been alone, or had Annie been with her? Her heart skipped a beat. She turned to go back home and stopped, confused. Which was the way home?
‘I’ve lost my little girl,’ she said to a man walking just behind her. ‘Have you seen her? She’s so high …’ She held her hand knee high. ‘With long blonde hair and blue eyes.’
The man was wearing jeans and a thick denim jacket with a black sweater under it. I’ve seen him before somewhere, Trudie thought.
‘Do I know you?’ she asked uncertainly, and then remembered the car that had stopped, the face staring at her. That had been him, hadn’t it? He�
��d followed her!
‘Do you?’ he softly said.
Why had he followed her?
‘Who are you?’ Her voice quavered. She knew him, she was sure she knew him. A long time ago, she had done something terrible to him; she couldn’t remember what she had done but she was sure he didn’t like her, and she was frightened.
‘Let me take you home. Come along.’
He smiled, but she wasn’t taken in. She backed, staring. He was older than she remembered. What was his name? She tried to remember but it slipped away. That happened more and more often these days. She looked fixedly at his high forehead, the way his hair sprang back, thick and wiry, his eyes and mouth. Panic surged through her.
No, she knew now – she’d got it wrong. She hadn’t done anything terrible to him. It was the other way round. He had done something terrible to Annie. He had hurt her Annie.
Rage flared inside her. She ran at him, began hitting him with screwed up fists, punching him in the chest, the face.
‘You bastard … bastard … bastard … stay away from my Annie! Don’t you go near her, ever again.’
His face was livid. She saw rage, hatred, in his eyes, he reached towards her, she felt a blow in her chest, went flying backwards, off the pavement, just as a bus came towards them.
There was a grinding of brakes, the bus skidded sideways across the road, missing her by inches.
Trudie couldn’t remember what had happened for a moment. The bus had stopped; the driver got out and began shouting at her, passengers stared out of the windows, passers-by stood on the pavement staring, too. Trudie limped hurriedly across the road to the other side, ignoring them all, began shuffling along beside iron railings, a green hedge behind them.
She looked through gaps in the hedge and saw green turf, trees. A park, she thought – of course, that was where Annie must be!
Annie loved to play in the park, on the swings, chasing a ball across grass.
When she got through the gates, though, she couldn’t see Annie anywhere. Maybe she had gone home? There were children running about everywhere, but Annie wasn’t with them.
In the Still of the Night Page 8