In the Still of the Night

God, she’s flirting with me! he thought, I don’t believe it.

‘No,’ he said, and wondered if he might finally be getting somewhere with her. He had never been sure how she felt about him. He was so much older than her, and God knew he was no oil-painting – he’d never dared risk an outright approach in case she turned him down. He hated rejection of any kind. Success was all Billy Grenaby was interested in.

Her lashes lifted and she gave him a teasing little smile. ‘Then don’t call me Harry. And stop talking about Annie in the past tense.’

‘I’m not, it’s just that all she ever seemed to care about was work. The PR people never had to take care of any little scandals for her. She rarely even went out to dinner with anyone, let alone screwed them. It doesn’t seem to add up, to me. Fenn and Annie. No. Have you asked her? What does she say?’

Harriet shook her head. ‘Denies it completely.’

‘Well, I’m inclined to believe her. Simply on character.’

Billy leaned back in his deep, leather armchair and lit a Havana cigar. The ritual of doing so took several minutes; he didn’t hurry, just waited patiently until the end of the cigar glowed red. He could be patient in other directions, too. He would wait for Harriet as long as he had to, but he felt a tingle of eagerness as he felt her watching him with a faint smile.

‘So we trust to luck, in other words, and go ahead with our schedule?’ she said.

‘Uh-huh.’ Billy smiled. The air was rich with the scent of the tobacco. Harriet had to admit it was a good smell and it always indicated that Billy had thought his way through a problem and was contented that he could handle it.

She smiled at him. ‘But you will brief a good lawyer for Annie?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll make sure our lawyers are ready for anything. Even if it isn’t Annie who killed him, it might be someone else connected with the series.’ He grinned teasingly. ‘Could be you, sweetheart.’

Harriet gave him a sweet smile. ‘If I murdered someone in the series, it wouldn’t be Derek Fenn.’

He looked intrigued. ‘Who, then?’

She shrugged lightly, thinking: you! You, Billy. You monster. Annie is in bad trouble and all you can think about is your series, your money-spinning, award-grabbing series. You don’t give a damn about Derek’s death, except as an embarrassment to you, and maybe a drop in viewing figures. As for Annie, well, if you think you need to, you’ll ditch her so fast her head will spin.

And even though you’re always watching me in that obvious way you would be just as ruthless with me if you decided I had to be ditched, and I’m not taking any risks with you until I am sure where I really stand.

But Billy was a good judge of character – it can’t be Annie who killed Derek. Billy’s right – it wouldn’t be in her nature. On the other hand, who on earth would have guessed that Annie with her innocent face and those big blue eyes had got pregnant when she was just a kid and had an abortion?

Annie woke up next day before Sean. She was bewildered for a few seconds, staring round the bedroom and not remembering where she was or how she had got there. Was it a hotel?

Sitting up, she looked down at what she was wearing – a blue and white striped cotton pyjama top? Huge, too. It wasn’t hers. A man’s? Panic leapt inside her. Whose? Then her memory clicked into gear; she remembered everything in a terrifying rush.

Derek had been murdered. Strangled.

The warm pink of sleep ran out of her face.

Sean and Harriet had brought her here. She remembered Harriet sitting by the bed murmuring soothingly to her. Then she must have fallen asleep. Her head felt strange. Heavy. They had given her pills, she remembered. God, they must have been strong.

Her eye fell on the small gold clock on the bedside table and she sat up hurriedly. Half-past six. She had to work today. She must get up.

She looked across the room to the open door of the en-suite bathroom. Five minutes to shower, then she might feel more human. Pity she hadn’t a change of clothes. She would have to put on what she was wearing last night, the clothes piled on a chair by the bed. She had been wearing them all yesterday.

Yesterday. Her eyes closed and she gave a long, rough sigh, remembering Johnny at the house, their house, their secret place. Her body ached with pleasure and memory. She had felt eighteen again; it wasn’t often that you got a chance to revisit your youth. It was so incredible, it was hard to believe it was true. But it was. Johnny was back with her again, and he still loved her.

She opened her eyes with a start, remembering that he had said he would ring her last night. She hadn’t been there – he must have wondered what was going on. I should have a

sked for his number. I should have asked him where he lived, got his address. Why am I so stupid?

She hadn’t thought of it. Hadn’t thought of anything but being with Johnny again at last. She had dreamt of that for so many years, obsessed with the memories of their brief time together, a happiness made impossible to forget by everything else that had happened at that time.

It had indelibly impressed itself on her mind – her fear of Roger Keats, the shame and misery of what he had done to her, the tension of dealing with him that day in his office, and then Johnny’s disappearance, without explanation, and the grief of being forced into killing their baby.

Why hadn’t she fought her mother harder? Why had she been so weak and spineless? She hadn’t wanted to give in, yet she had.

She lifted her hands, screwed into fists, to her face, as if to beat herself, hammered them on her forehead, groaning aloud.