‘But they might get the Verve job if that became available.’
Amy refused to believe that Tracey or Janice would be so duplicitous. She forced herself to think hard. That day she came out of Dr Al Saraf’s with her syringes and vials.
‘Suzanne Black,’ she said, with sinking realisation.
‘The editor of Silk magazine?’ asked Claire.
Suzanne was certainly poisonous enough to do something this underhand, and it would make sense in a professional sense. She was in pole position for the Mode job; getting Amy fired from the parent company would have her doing backflips.
‘I bumped into her when I was coming out of the clinic.’
‘Then you should talk to her,’ said Claire.
Chapter 32
Amy was nervous and she didn’t know why. If Denton Scoles were to draw her paranoia on one of his graphs, her jumpiness would be a jagged red line shooting upwards like a rocket. She should have been excited; overjoyed, in fact. She hadn’t seen Pog for two years and this was one of his rare flying visits to the capital. But although she had been looking forward to their lunch for weeks, suddenly it did not feel like the day for a casual catch-up. She was hardly going to be good company. She hadn’t even told David yet what had happened. She wanted to do that face to face, but first she needed to calm down and try to wash Josie Price out of her thoughts before the conversation about her suspension from Genesis turned back to what had happened in Provence.
She settled down in the booth and tried deep breathing. The choice of venue didn’t help either. Simpkins was an establishment institution. It was perfect for Pog, with his old-school accent and stripy ties. The fact that he had spent his life as an explorer was even more fitting; she’d always felt he should have been born 150 years earlier. But what was perfect for Pog made Amy jittery. She felt like an impostor here; she was an impostor, just a girl from a council estate whose idea of fine dining for the first twenty years of her life was the all you can eat buffet at Pizza Hut.
She looked around, checking her watch. Typical of Pog to be late; he’d always marched to the beat of his own drum. Even back in Oxford, he’d always been late for work in the Bear. She supposed living most of your adult life in places where no one had even seen a clock would only make your timekeeping worse.
She was so deep in thought, she didn’t hear her name called until the second time. When she looked up, there he was: tall and suntanned, his lopsided smile the same and his hug still as big as a bear’s.
‘Oh gosh, Pog,’ she said into his shoulder, ‘it’s so good to see you.’
‘You too, old girl,’ he laughed. ‘Now if you’ll just let me go, maybe I can actually have a proper look . . . Yes – still in one piece,’ he said with a smile.
‘So Max told you.’
Pog nodded. ‘He wanted to come and join us, but I managed to hold him off.’
‘Actually he’s been a great help,’ said Amy, inspecting a bottle of red wine from the sommelier.
‘How things have changed,’ grinned Pog.
They each took a sip of claret and Amy felt her shoulders relax.
‘Do you want to talk about it,’ Pog said, ‘or do you want to hear about my time in Papua New Guinea?’
‘I want to hear all about life in the jungle, of course,’ she smiled.
Pog returned a knowing look. They’d been friends for too long for her to pull the wool over his eyes.
‘Why don’t you go first,’ he said, so Amy told him everything, from the plan to have a work-free holiday at Max’s villa to the ensuing and inevitable blow-up. ‘Hey, hey,’ said Pog, passing his napkin across. ‘It’s not that bad.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she snapped, feeling bad but unable to stop herself. She used the napkin to wipe at her face, then looked up, eyes sparkling.
‘You seem to have got things back on track with David. You take him on a hot date on the Orient Express and he ends up in A and E.’
‘I know how to show a guy a good time.’ She laughed despite her emotion.
He tried to top up her wine glass, but she shook her head. Claret was not the answer, no matter what the vintage.
‘Go on,’ smiled Pog. ‘It’s not like you’ve got work in the morning.’
Amy laughed. Pog always knew the right thing to say, even back when they had spent their evenings serving up cider and black to the students of Oxford. Whenever Amy had a problem with a truculent boyfriend, a rude customer at the Bear or an unbending tutor, Pog could always lift her spirits. And come to think of it, drinking had often been the medicine he’d prescribed back then too.
He took a thoughtful sip of his own drink. ‘You know, I find myself in the unusual situation of agreeing with Max for the first time in my life,’ he said just as the waiter brought their starters: potted shrimp for Pog, salad for Amy. ‘Get his Rottweiler lawyer friends onto them and twist a year’s salary out of them. But you’re talented, experienced, you’ll find something else. The most important thing is that your marriage is still intact.’