Private Lives (31 page)

‘Sure thing,’ he said, taking his cell phone out of his pocket and barking some orders into it. Seconds later, two men came through the back door, each holding a large cardboard box.

‘It’s all in the den, straight ahead as you go down the stairs,’ Jessica said to them, then turned to Jim. ‘How long do you think this is going to take?’

‘Depends how much has been done.’

Jess clenched her jaw. When Jim had called to say he was sending a removal team to clear the detritus of Sam’s stuff, he’d had the royal cheek to tell her to pack it up. She had thought of making a bonfire on the beach, then telling him to pack that, but she had wanted the job done, so she had taken both her personal assistants off their existing duties the day before.

‘It’s all ready,’ she said with a cold smile. ‘You want to wait outside?’

As if by magic, Mai appeared with a tray bearing fresh papaya juice, and Jessica and Jim moved on to the terrace.

‘So I hear you’ve moved your mother in,’ said Jim, leaning on the balcony as if he owned the place.

‘Doesn’t every girl need her mom at a time like this?’

‘I’d say you’ve been holding up pretty well. I mean, if the press is anything to go by.’

‘Press?’ she said innocently, hoping he wouldn’t see the folder of cuttings still lying on the table.

‘The
Enquirer
last week?’ Jim prompted. ‘Those shots of you looking sad and sexy by that spa pool in Los Cabos. I noticed Jeff Benton at Pacific did the photos.’

‘Really? I didn’t see it.’

Jim raised his eyebrows.

‘I use him sometimes for set-up pap shots,’ he said knowingly. ‘It’s worked for you, hasn’t it? Every wronged woman in America is rooting for you.’

Jess took a deep breath, hiding her anger. She knew that Jim was on to her. After all, he was one of the smartest, sharpest, most convincing agents in the business. Sometimes she envied Sam for having Jim on his team.

‘What are you saying, Jim? That I set those shots up?’

‘Of course I wasn’t saying that, honey,’ he said, holding a hand up. ‘I was just pointing out that you looked beautiful. A beautiful wounded little bird. That’s all. But I wouldn’t overplay it, if you know what I mean.’

Jim was right, of course. Jeff Benton was the top paparazzo in Hollywood and he had done a fantastic job on the long-lens shots. It had taken two hours of careful choreography and three bikini changes, complete with hair and make-up people fussing around her between shots. They didn’t take that much care on her publicity shoots for her hit TV show,
All Woman
.

Jim was also right that it had worked beautifully. To every disappointed housewife and lovelorn teenager in America, Jessica Carr was not some pampered distant superstar, she was one of them, a real woman who suffered heartache just like them. And the fact that she looked so good while she was doing it too had got every red-blooded male panting.

‘I hope you’re not planning on ten per cent for this advice.’

‘I could do if you wanted me to,’ he said playfully. ‘You know I’m the best agent in town, Jessy.’

‘I have the best agent in town, Jim. No offence.’

‘Old Harry. She’s the greatest,’ he said with a touch of sarcasm.

‘Hi, honey, you okay?’ Barbara Carr walked on to the terrace, her pink sweatsuit now clinging to her with perspiration.

‘Hey, Barb,’ said Jim, waving his juice glass at her. Barbara looked at him suspiciously.

‘Everything all right, hon?’ she said, not taking her eyes off him. ‘It’s gonna be tough, but you’ll feel better when that bastard’s completely out of your life.’

‘All right, Mom,’ said Jessica with irritation. ‘Go have a shower. I’ll be fine.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Hey,’ said Jim. ‘Do you two ladies want to go out, grab a coffee, while I supervise the workers?’

‘He’s right, honey. This can’t be easy for you.’

Jess rolled her eyes.

‘Okay, okay. Let’s drive over to the Plaza.’

Twenty minutes later, Jessica and her mother slid into her dove-grey Aston Martin and swung out of the underground garage, carefully avoiding the furniture truck standing at the rear entrance, its door open, stacked with boxes. Jess felt a single traitorous teardrop swell in her eye duct, and she blinked it away fiercely.

‘Don’t look,’ said Barbara. ‘Never look back.’

Jessica nodded as she turned the car and slipped into traffic. For once, it was good advice. She gunned the engine and drove away, that part of her life shrinking in the rear-view mirror.

29

Anna came out of the Royal Courts of Justice and leaned on the wall of the ancient building, breathing in the fresh air. The courtroom inside had been stuffy and crowded, crammed with barristers, their pupils, staff and rubberneckers, all breathing the same stale, dry air. They had been in there for five long hours with only a short break for lunch; after that, the sunshine on the court steps was like being released from a cell. Not that it had been entirely a chore. Part of her was excited to be involved in the Balon case; after all, there were only a handful of libel jury trials a year, and that alone brought its own glamour and energy. But did it have to be so damn slow?

Perhaps she’d been spoiled; her area of media law was one of the few where things moved fast. A client came to you at 4 p.m. having ‘misplaced’ some dirty pictures, and by 9 a.m. the following morning you had served your injunction and sent out your bill. On the other hand, very few trials were as drawn out and pedantic as a libel trial; it was too expensive. Only the very rich could afford the full letter of the law.

‘Whoo! They go on, don’t they?’

Anna looked up to see Sid, her trainee, joining her. She laughed.

‘It is a bit long-winded, yes. The sort of thing that gives lawyers a bad name.’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Sid, ‘but the QCs seem to be loving every minute of it. I’ve never seen someone get so worked up about the implied meaning of the word “businessman” within a certain context.’

‘Ah, that’s because they’re getting paid for every minute they’re in there. The longer they can stretch it out, the higher the fees.’

‘All this to keep them in golf shoes, eh?’ replied Sid honestly.

Anna laughed. She would be sad to see Sid leave. She hadn’t been at Donovan Pierce long enough to really bond with the girl, but she was one of the few employees who seemed human. Maybe that was why they were letting her go.

‘I’m going in to get a drink. You want anything?’

Sid shook her head.

‘I think I’ll stay out here in the sun for a while. Make the most of it.’

Anna walked back inside, her heels tapping on the marble floor. She put a few coins into the vending machine and sat down on a bench in the atrium, gazing up at the sculptures and paintings, enjoying the calm.

‘Anna Kennedy? Not working? Never thought I’d see the day.’

She looked up and frowned when she saw Blake Stanhope.

‘Back in court, Blake? Who have you stitched up this time?’

Blake pulled a look of mock hurt. ‘Don’t take that tone with me. I thought we were friends.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘Come on, Anna,’ he said, more evenly. ‘We’re in the same game, aren’t we?’

‘Blake, you belong in jail.’

His shoulders slumped.

‘I know you think I’m some sort of unprincipled rat, and maybe I have my moments, but believe me when I say I didn’t leak that story. And I don’t appreciate you quizzing every editor in town asking them if I shared the Sam Charles story with them.’

‘You heard about that?’ Maybe her discreet enquiries weren’t so discreet.

He nodded.

Anna looked at him, trying to read his face.

‘Well, someone did, and we only have two in the line-up: you and that girl Katie Grey. Or maybe someone in your office.’

Blake paused, looking up at the dark portrait of a rather forbidding-looking judge in ceremonial dress.

‘It was no one in my office,’ he said defensively. ‘I was the only one who knew about it. As for Katie . . . She’s not a bad girl. Just a frustrated one. It’s often the way with kiss-and-tell girls. It’s not just about the money. Someone they slept with makes a heap of promises to them and then doesn’t deliver. Speaking out is their way of lashing out. Katie felt rejected, hurt. But she understood the injunction had gagged her, and she wasn’t going to break the law.’

‘You all sound so moral.’

He took a seat beside her.

‘Have you considered phone hacking?’

She had.

‘We take every precaution. Our phones are swept regularly. We avoid leaving voicemail messages. Don’t you?’

‘Never been stung yet.’

‘To your knowledge.’

‘I’m careful. Besides, do you think the papers are going to take the risk of phone tapping after the last scandal?’

She downed her drink, deep in thought.

Silence rattled between them.

‘Have you ever considered that the leak might have come from your end?’ he said finally.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘You don’t think it’s possible? One of Sam’s staff, a driver, a PA? Or someone at your office. A temp. A cleaner.’

‘Don’t make ridiculous accusations just to get yourself off the hook.’

‘For a smart girl, you’re very trusting,’ he said casually.

For a second Anna thought about Sid. Struggling for cash, with a job about to end. Or Josh, Sam’s PA. Sam was convinced his young assistant didn’t know the details of his indiscretions, but Josh had that smart competence that suggested he knew everything.

‘I trust everyone on our team one hundred per cent,’ she said defensively. ‘We run a tight ship.’

‘Just a little food for thought, some free advice between old friends,’ said Blake playfully. ‘You lawyers do rather think in straight lines, don’t you? Maybe it’s time to take off the blinkers. Who would benefit from leaking the Sam and Katie sex story, if it wasn’t Katie and it wasn’t me?’

30

He was already there when Anna arrived, sitting alone at a table facing the street. The front windows of the bistro had been folded back to the evening air and she paused at the corner watching him, a glass of red wine in front of him, making a big show of tapping away at his BlackBerry; he was always so concerned about appearances, desperate to show he was busy and in demand. They had been here together once before – she wondered if he remembered. Probably not; he would never have agreed to the meeting here, it would have been too loaded and intimate.

She looked at his face, so familiar yet so distant. He was tanned, his blond hair lighter than she remembered, his eyes more blue. It was strange how people could be such a big part of your life, how you could become accustomed to their habits and tics, their every crease and wrinkle like your own. And then, just like that, they could slip away completely.

‘Anna,’ he said, standing up as she walked over.

‘How are you, Andy?’ she said, sitting down, allowing him to push her chair in. In the early days, she had been charmed by his little old-world customs. She’d met plenty of people from Andrew’s background at law school – wealthy parents, public school, Oxbridge – but none with his effortless polish. And yet he had been so normal in many ways: he liked football, Britpop, wore his shirts untucked. But every now and then there was a little reminder of the privileged upbringing a world away from the Cumbrian pub she had been brought up in.

The waiter brought her a glass and Andy poured her some wine from the open bottle. She noticed the menu face down on the table.

‘You’re not eating?’

He shook his head.

‘Not hungry. Are you?’

‘Not really,’ she lied. She was actually starving, having been stuck in court all day, but Andy was clearly telling her he had no intention of staying longer than he had to.

‘So how’s things?’ he said, carefully rearranging his two forks on the tablecloth.

‘Don’t you read the papers?’ she said. It was meant to be a joke, but came out wrong.

He glanced at her.

‘Of course. Always nice to see my fiancée half drowned. Honestly, Anna, what was all that crap at the spa about?’

‘If you ask me, she got off pretty lightly,’ she said, standing her ground. ‘I’m amazed the media haven’t found out that we haven’t spoken for two years. “Cosy cake-maker is home-wrecker” type thing.’

She’d had this conversation with Andy in her head a hundred times since they had split up – their first proper sit-down discussion – and she’d always been witty and cutting and amazingly beautiful, not bitter and sarcastic like this.

‘Look, Anna, if you’ve just asked me here to rake over all that again, I’ve got better things to do with my time.’

‘I don’t want that either.’

She was being honest. She’d seen him a handful of times since That Night; she’d tried hard to avoid him, but it was difficult to do so in the worlds in which they moved. It was always awkward, but sitting opposite him today she felt strangely unmoved.

‘Does she know we’re meeting?’ she asked.

He looked away.

‘No.’

Anna felt a surge of triumph. Childish, pathetic even, but it made her feel better.

‘I didn’t know whether I should tell her,’ said Andy. ‘Although I’ve hardly seen her all week. She’s been filming.’

‘At the nurseries?’

‘No, she was finding all that travelling too difficult. It’s filmed in Notting Hill now.’

‘That well-known rural idyl.’

He laughed. ‘They’re shooting in the most rustic central London location house they could find. Poured concrete floors, Aga, imported Provençal knick-knacks, you know the sort of thing.’

‘Which will of course be passed off as your own?’

‘Well I wasn’t having a bloody camera crew round at our place.’

Our place
. Andrew and Anna had never had their own place. He had his bachelor pad in trendy Wapping. Sterile and manly, all black leather and chrome with damp towels left on the bathroom floor. Anna had tried to make her mark, but she was swimming against the tide, and with their long work hours, it was so much easier to go back to their respective homes. Another sign she had missed.