‘Ah, that’s not what it looks like from here. I don’t think it will look like that to the readers either.’
She held her breath and the hack filled the silence.
‘Do you want me to send you the footage? One of our reporters went along last night . . . Hang on, I’m sending it now . . .’
Amy closed her eyes and silently swore. How many times had she spoken to the event’s security team about keeping the press away? Obviously her concern had been for different reasons: keeping their own shots of the party exclusive and protecting the privacy of the VIPs, allowing them to let their hair down without worrying about embarrassing drunken antics appearing in the Chronicle the next day. But the principle was the same, and she made a mental note to speak to the man in charge of manning the cordon.
Her phone beeped and she thumbed open the email, clicking on the attachment, an MPG movie. Oh crap, she thought as it rolled. It was obvious the angle the piece was going to take. The reporter had clearly just walked straight into the party, his camera recording everything. The grand entrance of the palace, the flaming torches either side of the doors, the vast flower arrangements, the trays and trays of untouched champagne and expensive canapés, the brightly lit stage crammed with instruments and nothing else. The camera panned around. It wasn’t just the stage that was empty; it was the whole party. It looked like the first reel of a zombie movie where the hero wakes to find everyone dead. The biggest party that never was: that was exactly what it looked like. A five-million-pound folly. It didn’t matter that after sponsorship, the party had cost Genesis almost nothing; recent experience told Amy that the truth never got in the way of a good headline.
‘Any comment?’ said Derek.
The newspapers all went big on the empty party story. Amy couldn’t really blame them. She was shuffling through the papers strewn across the kitchen table as David came downstairs, looking bleary-eyed. As he headed for the coffee machine, he caught sight of the headlines over her shoulder.
‘Oh shit,’ he said. He picked up the Daily News and scanned the story. ‘At least the News have run the human interest angle on Louisa,’ he said. ‘“Glamorous Verve editor Amy Shepherd, 43, personally took the fashion legend to the hospital”,’ he read out.
‘They’ve got my age wrong, but it’s something,’ she said.
‘Let’s hope Douglas Proctor is a News reader, hey?’
Amy gave a soft snort. Even if the party had actually cost the magazine – and the company – less than William Bentley’s leaving party, the headlines were going to stick, she knew. In an economic downturn, people liked a bit of escapism; they loved to see pictures of celebrities in fancy dresses, but they certainly didn’t like to hear about money being poured down the drain, money they could have used for food or rent or a holiday to Spain. No one liked to hear about overprivileged idiots making fools of themselves.
‘It doesn’t matter, you know,’ said David, sitting down opposite her. ‘I know you’re panicking that this is going to lose you the Mode job, but if they judge you on this, if they mark you down because you did the decent thing and stayed with Louisa, then they’re not worth it.’
She mulled over her husband’s words on the way into the office. There were certainly some people who would be happy to hear about her misfortune: any of the other candidates for the Mode job, for starters. Because Amy knew that the chances of her landing the post were now somewhere between ‘bugger all’ and ‘none’. The fact that Marv Schultz was due to fly into London any day was little consolation. Once he’d had Douglas whispering in his ear, her off-piste meeting with him was as good as dead.
As she approached the front of the Genesis building, Amy half expected to see reporters waiting there, barking questions, looking for a follow-up from the woman who’d single-handedly screwed up the party of the decade, but there was no one, just a girl she recognised from Verve’s fashion department puffing on a cigarette. Seeing Amy climb out of the car, she looked panicked and quickly threw her butt away.
‘Sorry, Amy,’ she said. ‘Been trying to quit, I’m down to one in the morning and one at night, honestly.’
Amy gave a weak smile. ‘Good for you . . .’ she tilted her head to the side, ‘Jo, isn’t it? Sorry, terrible with names.’
‘Oh no, that’s fine,’ said the girl, falling into step with Amy as they pushed through the doors and across the foyer to the lifts. ‘I’ve only been here six weeks. Janice brought me in straight from college, pretty much. I’m loving it.’
They stepped into the lift and Amy pressed the button.
‘Were you at the venue last night?’ she asked. The most senior members of the team had been on the train to look after the VIP guests, but the rest of the staff had gone straight to Blenheim.
Jo nodded sympathetically. ‘I was supposed to be on hand for any fashion emergencies: you know, ripped gowns, pinching shoes, false-eyelash slip . . . Wish I’d been on the train, though. It looked like brilliant fun. People are going to be talking about it for years.’
Amy frowned. ‘I think the sooner we all forget about it, the better, don’t you?’
‘Really?’ said Jo, puzzled. ‘It looked a right laugh.’
Amy shook her head, utterly confused now. ‘Look, Jo, I have to confess I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean about the train?’
‘You mean you haven’t seen it?’ Jo scrabbled in her shoulder bag and brought out her phone, thumbing through the apps with a speed only a digital native could achieve before holding it out to Amy. ‘Look, it’s all over the net.’
Baffled, Amy clicked the play button on the phone’s screen, expecting to see more tumbleweed footage of the empty corridors in Blenheim. Instead she was greeted with the interior of a train carriage. Warm orange light shone out from the wall lamps as a group of beautiful people in shimmering gowns leaned over a table covered in crisp white linen. ‘Now put the card face down on the table,’ said a male voice, strangely familiar, off camera. There was a hushed pause as a tattooed hand slid forward and flipped a playing card over: the ace of diamonds. Amy flinched as a roar came from the phone, delighted laughter and hoots of ‘No way!’ and ‘How did you do that?’ The camera pulled back to reveal that the conjuror was none other than Evan Ridley, the drop-dead-gorgeous American actor currently breaking box office records as the star of the latest superhero franchise.
Amy looked up at Jo and the girl nodded happily. ‘There’s loads of them on there,’ she said. ‘I
think there must have been a camera crew on the train.’
Amy nodded dumbly as Jo cued up another clip, this time of two soap actors in fits of hysterics as Ginny Hough, the famously dour BBC arts presenter, took her turn at charades, eventually giving up in frustration and protesting to further hilarity that she had been doing Jay-Z’s ‘99 Problems’.
The lift had arrived at the office floor, but Amy held the door as Jo showed her another clip, of Cody Cole leading the entire carriage in a chorus of ‘Live Forever’: actors, singers, models, everyone singing their hearts out. It did indeed look like it had been the party of the year after all.
‘And this is all over the net?’ asked Amy, stepping out of the lift and handing the phone back.