‘At 10 p.m. on a bank holiday? And I thought Helen was in Devon . . .’ He hadn’t meant to sound accusatory, but Anna was looking so shifty.
‘I needed to check something . . .’ replied Anna, her top lip trembling. She’s going to cry, thought Matt with alarm. He hadn’t imagined Anna Kennedy capable of such a thing.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, taking a step towards her.
‘Everything’s fine,’ she said, darting her gaze away.
Everything was obviously not fine.
‘You know you can talk to me, don’t you?’
She flinched, her head down.
‘Anna, what’s wrong?’
She sank down on the leather sofa.
‘Can I tell you a story?’ she said, looking so ill at ease it reminded him of the time Jonas had come to him wanting to confess to having broken a lamp, but scared of being shouted at.
He nodded and touched her shoulder.
‘Do you want to grab a coffee and come into my office?’
He sat in semi-darkness behind his desk, just listening. They had been there over forty minutes, their coffee undrunk and cold. With typical thoroughness, Anna had left nothing out, telling Matt the entire story of Amy Hart, from the first phone call with her sister Ruby, right through her meetings with a soap star and a lingerie model, a politician and a man who built oil rigs and tankers. He could see that she had been badly frightened by what she had discovered, and by the attack on that dark road in Buckinghamshire. As she spoke, he couldn’t help but admire her. Most people would have been scared off, but it only seemed to have made her more determined to get to the bottom of it.
‘And after all this, you think that Helen sabotaged Sam’s injunction because she wanted to help her boyfriend cover up the story of Amy’s inquest?’ he asked when she had finished her tale.
‘I’m sure of it. I just can’t prove it.’
‘Prove what?’ exclaimed Matt. ‘That Helen’s a murderer?’
‘I didn’t say that. Doing a favour for a friend doesn’t make her a killer. But it shows she’s involved.’
‘Can you prove any of it? I assume you’ve tried finding out from Scandalhound and the News who leaked the story.’
‘I couldn’t get anything from them. That was the first thing I did. Remember I was trying to prove that Blake and Katie were in contempt of court? I thought maybe I could find out from Helen’s end. That’s why I was snooping around here looking for something, anything. But I can’t get into her email system. Not that she’d have sent an email from a Donovan Pierce address . . .’
Matt shook his head with concern.
‘Anna, you could get yourself fired for all this.’
‘I was rather hoping you’d help me, not fire me.’
As she looked at him in the semi-darkness, he felt something inside him stir.
Stop it, he scolded himself.
His palm rubbed the stubble on his chin as his thoughts turned to Helen Pierce. She was certainly capable of stitching up a client if it served her own ends in the long run. Perhaps her boyfriend – if indeed she was having an affair with the Auckland PR supremo – had simply asked her to leak the story as a smokescreen and she had done it as a favour. But why would they go to all that effort to bury Amy’s inquest . . . unless there was something that needed hiding.
He’d only known Helen a couple of months, but it was enough to realise that she was many things: arrogant, ruthless, self-promoting; no doubt she shared Larry’s ambiguous regard for professional ethics in general. But to think that she could be involved in a murderous cover-up? That was going too far. And yet he trusted Anna Kennedy’s judgement and shrewdness. There was no way she’d be risking her job like this if she didn’t think that Helen was somehow culpable.
‘What are you going to do now?’ he said quietly.
‘I don’t know. It’s like I’ve got all the parts of the jigsaw but can’t fit them together. Sam Charles is paying for an investigator to help out, but that’s gone a bit cold.’
‘What? The trail on Helen, or Sam Charles?’ He couldn’t help but ask. He’d heard the rumours around the office that Anna had become involved with their celebrity client. It seemed as good a time as any to ask.
‘So you’ve heard the gossip,’ she muttered.
‘Is it true?’
‘Sam’s not formally a client any more,’ she said quickly. ‘Besides, I’m not really sure if it’s still on.’
Matt held up a hand.
‘Look, I haven’t got a problem with it.’
He looked down, knowing it was untrue; that the thought of Anna and Sam did make him feel uncomfortable, but not for any reason to do with the solicitor’s code of conduct.
‘I should go,’ she said finally.
‘Anna, I think you should drop this.’
‘Because of Helen?’
‘Because you can’t prove anything,’ he said, exasperated. ‘Everything is pure supposition.’
Anna balled her fist and slammed it on her knee.
‘This is about finding the truth and getting it out there, Matt. I thought you believed that more than anyone at this firm.’
He thought back to their first lunch, to their fiery, awkward debate about whether people deserved to know the truth. It seemed so very long ago.
‘I just think you need to be careful. Accusing Helen on some hunch. Not to mention getting almost run off the road last night. Maybe it was coincidence, but if it wasn’t, you have to ask yourself if this is worth it.’
‘If it wasn’t coincidence, then it means I’m right,’ she replied vehemently.
He felt a protective shot of worry for her safety.
‘Let me give you a lift home.’
Anna laughed.
‘I’m not sure sitting on the back of your mid-life-crisis machine really constitutes being careful.’
He took a spare helmet from the hat rack by the door and handed it to her.
‘Put that on, too,’ he said, handing her a too-big leather jacket.
They locked up the office and walked around to Matt’s bike, which was parked on a side street behind the office. He got astride and fired it up, revving the engine, but Anna just stood there, rather forlorn in her huge jacket and helmet.
‘You getting on, then?’ shouted Matt over the noise.
‘I’ve never actually done this before.’
‘Just hop on the back and put your feet on those pegs.’ When she was on, Matt began to move off. ‘And grab on to me,’ he yelled above the engine noise. She wrapped both arms around his waist, and he felt the back of his neck tingle.
‘Don’t go too fast,’ she shouted above the breeze.
He nodded and eased off the throttle, letting Anna get used to the sensation of weaving in and out of the West End traffic and leaning into bends. He picked up speed as they passed the House of Commons, gloriously lit up against the inky London sky, and the wind whipped at them as they crossed the river. Her arms tightened around his waist and her head rested softly against his back, and Matt felt his heart beat faster.
Finally they drew up outside Anna’s cottage and she clambered off.
‘Do you want me to come in?’ said Matt. ‘Just to check everything’s okay?’ he added quickly.
‘I think I’ll be all right. If there was a hit man after me, my guess is he’d have gone home the minute he saw me get on a motorbike with you, thinking his job was done.’
‘I’m completely in control of this machine,’ said Matt, tapping the handlebars.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ laughed Anna.‘You take care of yourself Evel Knievel.’ Her eyes softened in the low moonlight, and he knew her concern was genuine.
‘Call me if you need anything. Even if it’s company.’
She smiled and went inside. Matt waited for a moment, then revved the engine and turned back on to the main road, which took him through the brightly lit centre of Richmond. Seeing all the couples strolling through the town he was suddenly remind
ed of something: he still hadn’t booked the restaurant for his meeting with Carla. But for some reason, that didn’t seem like such a big deal any more.
63
Sam lay on the sunlounger by the pool, staring down at the almost blank page in front of him.
‘Writer’s bloody block,’ he grumbled to himself, snatching up his cigarettes and lighting one. Why couldn’t he think of anything to write? He’d got the best Montblanc pen, bought an expensive notebook – the actual sort Hemingway used to use – and turned off his phone to avoid any distractions. He’d been sitting here in the cool shadow for an hour, and yet inspiration had failed to strike beyond the basic plot: a famous film star decides to give up the fame game and life in a goldfish bowl to return to his sleepy home town. He turned back to the first page in his notebook. He was quite pleased with the titles he had come up with: Unfamous had a nice ring to it, he thought, imagining his interview for Time magazine when Unfamous became a world-wide phenomenon. ‘How did you come up with such a zeitgeisty title for your brilliant comedy, Sam?’ the reporter would ask, to which Sam would tell him that it had spun off an argument with his agent after his Edinburgh comedy smash show with Mike McKenzie.
Sam blew his cheeks out. Of course, it was slightly presumptuous to be planning your Oscar acceptance speech when you hadn’t actually written more than three lines. He looked at what he had so far, imagining who he’d cast as his co-stars: Russell Brand, and Vince Vaughn if he could do a British accent, had been his first thoughts.
Interior: Pub in Margate. Two middle-aged men, TOM and DAVE, are sitting silently drinking at the bar. SAM walks in. He is incredibly handsome and a movie star.
SAM All right, lads?
TOM All right? It’s okay for you, you’ve got a helicopter outside.
SAM I sold the ’copter. It’s all about camels now.
TOM You came on a camel?
DAVE I think he’s being ironic.
A camel walks past the window.
SAM No, I came on a camel.
Under this Sam had written ‘BIG LAUGH’, followed by the scrawled note: ‘Why on earth does Sam have a bloody camel in Margate?’
It was hopeless. When he’d been sitting in his flat with Mike, the ideas had just poured out of them; funny, original, clever. Or had it all been Mike, after all? People were always going on about what a genius he was; maybe Sam had only thought he’d written those sketches. For a brief moment he thought about calling Mike, who had returned to Eigan earlier that week, to persuade him to return to London. But that would be defeatist, he decided quickly, stubbing out his cigarette.
No, the problem was that he was trying to write the scene longhand; perhaps he should be doing it on the computer. He tore out the page, screwed it up, then tried to toss it through the water polo hoop at the end of the pool. It flew about three feet, teetered on the edge, then sank slowly into the water. Sam watched the limp paper disintegrate, the ink blurring and becoming unreadable. He stood up and stalked back to the house. Maybe he needed to brainstorm with someone. Anna Kennedy would be his first choice – she always made the right noises about how good he was – but she hadn’t even called him back, despite his numerous messages. All he’d had was one lousy text from her: ‘Manic at work. Sorry for not calling. A lot on my mind at mo. Ax’
He’d read and reread that one, analysing it, looking for all the angles until it sent him crazy. Was it an apology? Did she want to forget about the argument and move on? Or was she saying ‘let’s cool it, I’m too busy’? Was it a woman’s version of the old ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ get-out? Still, she had put a kiss at the end. Or did she do that with everyone? No wonder he couldn’t write, with Anna playing such cryptic mind games. He’d sent her flowers, of course, but what with it being England and the bank holiday, he couldn’t be sure that she’d got them. He knew he could try a bigger, more serious gesture. Jewellery always went down well in LA. Not diamonds, and not a ring, obviously, but maybe a tasteful necklace? It certainly used to work with Jessica, but somehow it seemed too flamboyant a gesture for two people who had only been on a couple of dates.
Thinking about Jessica only made him feel worse. He should probably send something to her as well after the crash. Sunflowers? Lilies? Did Tiffany do safety pins, for her sling?
He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge. When all else fails, drink, he thought.
‘Hey, that’s not bad,’ he murmured, looking around for his notebook to write it down, before remembering he’d left it by the pool.
Sighing, he opened the fridge and pulled out the poached salmon salad his housekeeper Mrs Hudson had left for him. He sat at the granite worktop and picked at the food with his fork, then pushed it away. He wasn’t even hungry. He thought back to his visit to Anna’s cottage, and her cosy kitchen. He bet she could just whip up some scrambled eggs and bacon and lightly toasted muffins on her little four-burner gas stove . . .
He was shaken out of his thoughts by the sound of the buzzer. He frowned: who was at the gate at this time? Mrs Hudson must have forgotten the code again. He pressed the button to activate the electric gates, then opened the front door. He needed to have words. But it wasn’t Mrs Hudson’s battered VW Golf turning into the drive; it was a large silver Mercedes with tinted windows.
‘Who the hell . . .?’ he muttered, wondering for a second if it was a particularly ambitious doorstepping reporter. The car pulled up and a uniformed chauffeur got out, nodded to Sam and walked around to open the passenger door.
First he saw a foot complete with red high heel, then a long tanned leg, then she stepped out.
‘Jessica!’ he gasped. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
His ex-fiancée gave him a full-watt Hollywood smile.
‘Is that the only greeting you’ve got for me after all this time?’ she laughed.
Her relaxed manner almost floored him.
‘Sorry,’ he said, striding over and kissing her awkwardly on both cheeks. ‘It’s just a bit of a shock.’
‘I can imagine,’ she smirked. ‘But you were so sweet on the phone, and you said we needed to talk, so . . .’ She held up her hands and gave her hips a little wiggle. ‘Here I am.’
Suddenly thinking of her accident, he took her arm. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Are you okay?’
‘Oh sure,’ said Jessica, leaning on him. ‘I’m much better, almost back to normal.’
She certainly looked good, fantastic in fact. She was wearing a short red dress with thin straps that showed off her curves to perfection, with a white Birkin bag hanging off her arm. There didn’t seem to be any evidence of her trauma, but then maybe that was clever make-up; Jessica was always quite the expert with that. In fact the bathroom here at Copley’s was still full of thousands of dollars’ worth of cosmetics.
‘Will that be all, madam?’ asked the chauffeur, stepping forward holding an overnight bag.
Jessica turned her green eyes towards Sam.
‘I think that’s up to the master of the house,’ she said, looking over his shoulder towards the front door. ‘I did try to call, but your phone was off. I didn’t know if I’d be interrupting anything . . .’
‘No, no,’ said Sam quickly, taking the bag from the driver and fumbling a tip into his hand. ‘You’re very welcome, come on in,’ he said, ushering Jessica inside. He led her to the kitchen. ‘So how are you?’ he said, sitting across from her.
‘I’m fine. A little shaken up, but these things happen.’
‘I have to say, you’re handling it brilliantly.’
‘You can’t let it get you down,’ she said with a smile that held for a moment, then collapsed, her eyes filling with tears.
‘Jess, don’t . . .’ he said, not knowing if he should come around to comfort her. Instead he reached across the table and touched her hand.
‘I’m sorry. I told myself I wouldn’t, it’s just that . . .’
‘What?’ said Sam softly.
‘I know you’
ve moved on, emotionally, professionally. I heard about the Edinburgh show and I’m so happy for you, I really am.’
Her approval somehow mattered to him.
‘But lying there in that hospital bed, it gave me time to think about everything, and, well, about us . . .’ Her lip quivered.
‘Jess, I’m sorry it had to end the way it did.’
‘I thought so too,’ said Jessica, the tears still dribbling. ‘Considering . . .’ she added softly.
Sam felt his instincts prickle.
‘Considering what?’
The silence seemed to go on for ever.
‘Sam, I’m pregnant.’
He stopped dead, unable to draw breath.
‘You’re . . .?’
‘Pregnant.’
He was in complete shock. His brain seemed to have shut down, his mouth could barely open.
‘How?’ he said finally.
‘I think you know how people make babies,’ she said with a small laugh.
‘But when did you find out?’
‘When they take you into ER, they need to check before they X-ray you because it can hurt the baby, so they did a test and, well, there it was.’
‘Is it mine?’
‘Is it mine?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘You’re unbelievable! Do I need to remind you that you were the one that went off and had an affair? I have always been one hundred and ten per cent faithful to you.’
His eyes were transfixed on her belly, wondering if you could see anything yet. He reached his hand out; his fingers were trembling.
‘But do you want to keep it?’ he asked carefully. ‘I mean, your career and everything? Is it the right time?’
‘Yes, I want to keep it,’ she said, her eyes beginning to glisten again. She took his hand and placed it on her completely flat stomach. ‘I want to have our baby,’ she said. ‘It’s always the right time for him.’
Sam looked up sharply.
‘Him?’
‘It’s twelve weeks old, Sam,’ she said proudly. ‘I’ve had a scan, and while they can’t tell the sex for sure yet, I think it’s a boy.’
Private Lives Page 48