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“Where were we?” Derek said as the waiter left them.

“Do you know?” Davina smiled widely. “I just realised that I know very little about you. How did you get into the business? Where did you study? What did you work on before Brighton Buzz?”

Derek gave her an indulgent smile that barely covered his real delight at being the centre of attention.

“Well, if you must know,” he started.

Davina congratulated herself on a game well played. They were on Derek’s favourite topic – himself. This should kill at least an hour. She settled in to nod and smile at appropriate intervals.

“Where is she?” Jack demanded.

He pulled himself up to his full height and glowered in Marianne’s direction. Usually he was intimidating. Usually. It didn’t help that she wouldn’t open the door and he had to call up to her as she hung out of the first floor window.

“Out,” she said stubbornly.

“I know she’s out,” Jack said with forced patience. “I need to know where.”

“Why? I thought your days of stalking her were over?”

Jack counted to ten. Then twenty. Then gave the whole counting thing up. It was a load of crap anyway.

“In about five seconds I’m going to rip the door open, come up there and squeeze the information out of you. So, if you don’t want to hang out that window by your ankles, tell me where Davy is.”

Marianne wasn’t the only one who could be scary. She seemed paler when she opened her mouth to speak.

“She’s at the Oaks.”

That was more like it.

“Now, was that so hard?” he demanded, before storming off.

“She’s on a date,” Marianne shouted after him. “Kind of. It’s a private dinner anyway, you should wait until tomorrow.”

“Hell no.” Jack’s voice was a low growl that only he heard.

He slammed the door on Marianne’s voice. With a glance at the clock, he figured he was at least twenty minutes from the restaurant. Less if he broke the speed limit. And he was definitely breaking the speed limit. Ken Doll was bad news. Jack’s gut told him that he had to stop the evening before Davy left the public space of the dining room. And as he now knew with absolute certainty – his instincts were never wrong.

He put the car in gear, ignored the seventy limit and drove like his tail was on fire.

“And then,” Derek said in that sing-song manner people use when they think they’re entertaining you. The emphasis being on think. “I worked on Good Morning for two years. If I hadn’t been wooed away by the producers of Brighton Buzz, I probably would have stayed at Good Morning, I was the best cameraman they had.” He leaned towards Davina as though sharing a confidence. Davina got an overwhelming whiff of his aftershave. He’d obviously just emptied the bottle over his head. “That’s why Brighton was so eager to get me. They knew the show didn’t have a hope of getting the ratings without the best on board.”

Davina smiled encouragingly. As long as Derek was blowing his own trumpet, he wasn’t bothering her. She flicked a quick look at her wristwatch. Another twenty minutes and she could make her excuses to leave, without appearing rude. Only twenty more minutes. Twenty. Long. Long. Minutes. Derek seemed to be waiting for something more than a smile.

“So,” Davina said casting around for a topic as she spoke, “give me some inside scoop. What makes a great cameraman? What is it that sets you apart from the rest?”

He gave her a pitying look, which clearly conveyed that he thought her ignorance amusing. And then, to Davina’s delight, he launched into another long-winded monologue. Davina speared her chocolate tart. As it melted in her mouth she wondered if the chef would be open to sharing the recipe.

Jack screeched to a halt outside the Georgian exterior of the Oaks restaurant.

“You can’t park there,” called the maitre d’ as he stalked past him.

“Police,” Jack snapped.

Well, he once was and probably would be again. The maitre d’ went white. The restaurant took over the front two rooms of the building, which used to be the entertaining rooms when the building was a grand old house. Jack scanned the main room, looking for Davy’s trademark auburn wave. Nothing. They didn’t appear to be in the second room either.

“I’m looking for a woman,” he told the maitre d’.

“Most men are,” the smart mouth said.