Private Lives (30 page)

‘Don’t worry. The coast is clear,’ said a voice.

Sam looked up in alarm. Anna Kennedy was standing in her doorway, a wry grin on her face.

‘No paparazzi in Richmond,’ she said. ‘Too posh and refined for that.’

Smiling, Sam walked up the path, but Anna didn’t move aside to let him in.

‘I was surprised to get your call,’ she said slowly.

‘I wanted to come and apologise for the way I treated you after the injunction,’ said Sam in a rush.

‘Well I wasn’t fired. Not by Donovan Pierce, anyway.’

‘I was feeling emotional,’ he said to justify his sacking of the young lawyer.

‘I would have done the same.’

‘I bet you would. Feisty little thing like you takes no messing, I bet.’

They grinned at each other and his shoulders slumped in relief.

‘Want to come in? I’ve just got home. About to open a bottle of wine.’

‘If you’ve got beer, you’ve twisted my arm.’

Sam stepped into her living room. It was like a little box. He thought back to his spacious five-thousand-square-foot Hollywood home, and wondered how anyone could live in such a tiny space.

The kitchen led off the living room through foldback wooden doors. Anna poured them both a beer and handed him a glass, perching on a stool at her breakfast bar.

‘So how’s things?’

‘Career on the skids, a gay lover moving into my house . . .’

‘Really?’

‘Not really. About the lover, anyway. I have my mate staying with me and the press have found another angle.’

‘I heard about the arrest,’ said Anna.

‘Yeah. Me – the hard man of Hollywood.’

‘You should get off. Aren’t Stein and Kotter repping you in New York? They’re really good.’

‘Should we go outside?’ he said distractedly. ‘It looks like a little sun-trap out there.’

She led him out to her courtyard garden, where the early-evening sun warmed his face. He felt as if he was on a first date in some pretty country pub, an idea that somehow excited him.

They sat for a while, watching a pair of yellow butterflies spiral around a lavender plant.

‘So what are you doing back in London?’

‘Can I tell you a secret?’

‘That’s what I’m here for.’ She smiled.

‘I’m putting on a show. A comedy show, with my friend Mike McKenzie.’

He was surprised at himself for telling her, especially when he had kept his plans so under wraps from Helen Pierce.

‘Mike McKenzie the comedian?’ said Anna, her eyes wide. ‘I love him! I went to see his stand-up show at Wembley. I had all the videos and everything. Such a shame he gave it all up.’

‘Well he’s back.’ Sam puffed out his cheeks, feeling a rush of dread race through his body. It was the first time he had told anyone about his plan with Mike, and it was almost as if saying it out loud had made it real.

‘Amazing,’ she said, looking genuinely excited. ‘So what is it? A two-man show?’

‘Two men and their gags. It’s so far out of my comfort zone, it’s not even funny. To think I have entered into this arrangement willingly.’

‘I think it’s a great idea.’

‘I know you’re paid to be nice to me, but if you think it’s a crap idea, then I want to know.’

‘It’s a radical change in direction, but that’s why it’s so clever and exciting.’

Her words, spoken so bluntly, her expression, so sincere and open, fortified him.

‘What about you? I hope you didn’t get into too much trouble after what happened.’

She suddenly looked distracted. She sipped her beer, and when she looked at him again, it was with her usual can-do efficiency.

‘I’m glad you came,’ she said finally. ‘I want to talk to you about that. The injunction.’

Sam waved a hand. ‘It’s old news. Let’s just get pissed and pretend we’re back in Capri.’

‘I think you might have been set up,’ she replied flatly.

He pulled away from the table in disbelief.

‘What? Katie Grey was a set-up?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well what do you know?’ he said, leaning back in.

‘Wait there.’

He watched her disappear back into the cottage, returning with a bundle of documents, which she spread out over the table.

‘Newspaper cuttings?’ he said, puzzled. ‘But not about me.’

‘For a change.’ She smiled.

She had beautiful hands, he noticed, as she traced a long finger over the newsprint.

‘They’re about the death of a model called Amy Hart.’

‘Never heard of her.’

‘You won’t have.’

‘So she died falling down the stairs,’ Sam said, leaning closer to Anna to read the text.

‘Found six months ago at her apartment with her neck broken. It was an open verdict at her inquest. Her sister maintains lots of little things don’t add up.’

‘So what’s this got to do with my injunction?’ he asked, frowning.

‘The inquest was held on the same day as your story came out in the press. Consequently it went unreported. Convenient, don’t you think, considering Amy Hart’s love life?’

‘What love life?’

‘Before she died, she dated a soap actor called Ryan Jones.’

‘So?’

‘Ryan Jones was one of Blake Stanhope’s clients.’

Sam looked up with interest. ‘Now that is a coincidence.’

‘I thought it was odd. But I met Ryan and I think he barely knew Amy. I did some digging and he was filming in Wales the week she died. He didn’t have anything to do with her death, I’m sure of it. At first I thought Blake Stanhope was covering for him, but a job like that would be expensive. Too big, too expensive for Ryan Jones.’

She looked up at Sam, big limpid eyes searching his.

‘But Blake acts for more heavyweight people too. Politicians, billionaires, big, rich companies. Under-the-radar stuff. Big-money reputation-management jobs. He’s not just in the business of brokering stories. He hides them too.’

‘So what else was Amy up to?’ Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.

‘According to one of her friends, she was having an affair with a high-profile MP.’

‘Who you think got in touch with Stanhope to hush it up?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘But it’s possible. We both know that the truth isn’t always what we read in the newspapers. Sometimes, what we see in the media is what someone somewhere
wants
us to know.’

He viewed her carefully. The serious expression, the sober blue dress, the flash of red lipstick, which gave her – he found his mind wandering – a touch of the bad-girl look. From the getgo he’d found Anna Kennedy the sort of pretty, sensible bluestocking girl he hadn’t met since he’d joined the May Ball committee at university to score. But now she was beginning to sound like some conspiracy theorist. Still, who was he to spoil a nice evening in the sun? He looked at the red lips again and decided to run with it.

‘This MP. You don’t think he killed her, do you?’

‘Probably not. More likely he doesn’t want the embarrassment of having a dead glamour girl on his hands. It’s not exactly career gold, is it?’

‘So the MP needs a smokescreen. Stanhope leaks one story at the same time he covers another one up. Paid twice for the same job, eh? Even my agent couldn’t sort something like that.’

He was beginning to feel pulled in by her story.

‘Who is this MP?’

‘Gilbert Bryce.’

‘Who?’

‘I know. Not exactly the Prime Minister. But look . . .’ She handed him a sheet of paper. ‘Here’s a list of all the select committees he’s on.’

Sam looked at it, and suddenly Anna’s wild theory didn’t seem quite so crazy. Defence acquisition, energy resources, aerospace development, foreign tax policy – it was as if he had deliberately picked the committees that would give him influence over the wealthiest people in the country. Sam had no idea whether this man was corrupt or not, but he was certainly in a position where he could be involved with bribes and favours.

‘Even if this is all true, how are you going to catch Stanhope out?’ he asked, intrigued. ‘I know you’re after him for contempt of court, but how are you going to do that? I suppose the
News
online editor and Scandalhound haven’t fessed up.’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘We have some investigators we use, but they cost money we have to sign off to a client.’

He looked at her playfully. ‘So, you want me for my money. Wouldn’t be the first.’

‘And I want to speak to Gilbert.’

‘Can’t help you there, love. Brad Pitt I could introduce you to. MPs aren’t on my Rolodex, though.’

‘Well my ex is a broadsheet journalist. He owes me a few favours.’

Her face tightened at the mention of her lover. He suspected there was a story there as good as the yarn she’d just told him.

‘Don’t you want to know?’ she said, touching the top of his hand. ‘Don’t you want to know if you were stitched up to cover up for what someone did to Amy? Not just for you, but for her.’

He wasn’t sure he did. After all, the horse had bolted. Whatever Blake Stanhope had or had not done to cover up the wrongdoings of some MP didn’t matter any more, because the damage to his life – or blessing in disguise – had been done. And yet as he watched Anna’s face, her soft scarlet bottom lip trembling with anticipation, he felt an electric rush of panic that he might never see her again unless he helped her.

‘Okay, let’s do it,’ he said suddenly. ‘Let’s look into it a bit more. I can pay for the investigator. Whatever you want.’

She grinned at him and gathered up her papers, and for a moment Sam felt like Jack Bauer. He was already so far out of his comfort zone, what did it matter if he was off on another left-field adventure?

28

‘Mom!’ Jessica Carr walked into the cavernous living room of her Malibu beach house, a furious scowl on her face. ‘Mom! Where are you?’

She hadn’t had her blueberry pancakes that morning – gluten-, wheat-and dairy-free, obviously, which made them mainly blueberry – and it was making her grouchy in the extreme. Well, that and the ordeal she had to face in half an hour.

‘MOM!’

A small Vietnamese woman appeared from the bedroom holding a feather duster.

‘Mrs Carr goes jogging,’ she said with a grin. ‘You want me make pancakes?’

‘Yes, Mai, thank you,’ said Jessica hurriedly. The housekeeper was a godsend, but she still found it slightly unnerving how the woman seemed to be able to read her mind.

Jessica walked out on to the balcony, looking up and down the beach before she spotted Barbara Carr, power-walking in a pink Lycra sweatsuit.

‘Jesus Christ, she looks like a frankfurter,’ she muttered, sitting down at a glass table.

Her mother had moved into the house right after the Sam story had broken. They’d spent a couple of days at her friend’s place in Cape Cod, then come back to Malibu. Jessica might have been heartbroken, but she wasn’t going to let Sam Charles keep her away from the parties and restaurants of West Hollywood; that was where business was done. But it hadn’t been going so well cohabiting with Barbara. While she was supportive and gung-ho about everything Jessica did, her constant rants about Sam and how he’d destroyed her career, which Jessica had initially revelled in, were now starting to wear her down. Yes, he was a bastard, but he had been part of her life for four years and they’d shared . . . what, exactly? Their lives? Not really. It was rare for them to spend two nights in the same house together. Or maybe she was just feeling vulnerable today. In twenty minutes, Sam’s removal guys were coming to take away his personal possessions. Not that there were many of those: a few clothes, a hideous ceramic coffee table, a running machine. He’d barely left a shaving kit in the bathroom. Maybe he’d been right when he’d said they weren’t – hadn’t been – in love. But what the hell did that have to do with anything in this town?

Sinatra, her golden retriever, came and nuzzled his wet nose against her leg.

‘Come here, boy,’ she pouted, crouching down and wrapping her arms around the neck of her beloved dog. ‘We don’t need Sammy any more, do we?’

The dog licked her face, apparently in agreement, and feeling much better, Jessica went to sit down on the white suede sofa overlooking the ocean. Sighing, she grabbed a red folder from the table and flipped it open: a collection of this week’s Jess-related press cuttings assembled by her PR company. It was thick with news features and gossip pieces from every magazine and paper that counted: everyone from
People
to
US Weekly
in the States, and the big Euro titles like
Heat
,
Paris Match
and
Bunde
across the pond, all running different versions of the same story: ‘My Pain, by Jessica’. ‘Bowed but unbroken’, as
In Touch
put it, Jessica was being portrayed as a strong woman who was rising above her heartbreak. And it didn’t hurt that they all had shots of her looking sad but sexy in a white Eres bikini to show that she still had it.

‘Like there was any doubt,’ she said, tossing the file on to the table and walking back inside.

The Malibu house was one of the more impressive ones on the PCH strip, the road that snaked north from LA and hugged the coast behind some of the most expensive houses in America. She loved being on this private strip, with the glass foldback doors down the beach side of the house that let in the scent and sounds of the ocean, but it had been Sam who’d gone crazy for the stark John Lautner-designed aesthetic. She’d always preferred something more lived in.

Jessica cursed as she heard the intercom buzz. There was no point in shouting for her mother, and Mai was in the kitchen.

‘Do I have to do everything myself?’ she muttered, picking up the phone.

‘Hey, Jess, Jim Parker.’

Rolling her eyes, she pressed the button to let him in.

‘Jess! You’re looking fabulous as ever,’ cried the agent as he swaggered in, looking as much a movie star as the actors he represented: perfect white teeth, a tan Armani suit and a white T-shirt underneath. He looked hip, slick and powerful. ‘So how you doing?’ he asked, glancing around the house with greedy eyes.

‘I’m fine, Jim,’ said Jessica, crossing her arms across her chest, ‘and I don’t mean to be rude, but can we just get on with this?’