‘A job that involves sleeping with and betraying the local women?’
‘Look, if you don’t want to come …’
‘I’ll come. Give me a minute.’
‘Thank heavens for that,’ said Julia, rolling her eyes. ‘Right then, I’m off. Good luck. Hope
you get your exclusive, Trev.’
‘Yeah, cheers,’ he drawled, waving vaguely before turning back to Adam. ‘You ready?’
Adam looked pointedly at the camera slung around his neck. ‘Just as well you’ve still got that,’ he said.
‘Yeah, yeah, thanks, Monseigneur. Let’s go, shall we?’
Adam followed him along the path.
‘Reverend,’ he said. ‘Not Monseigneur. I’m not Catholic.’
‘You’re all the same to me,’ he said.
‘What do you think Evie will think when she finds out you’ve plastered her naked body all over the celebrity magazines?’
Trevelyan stopped and stared at Adam. ‘Are you serious? She’ll fucking love it. Pardon my French. I’d put money on her having her own low-rent reality show by this time next year. Girl’s got star quality.’
Adam thought about Evie, carried off to London, the new sex symbol for the nation. Nausea gripped him.
They were careful to avoid being seen as they crossed the road and slipped into the woodland that surrounded the manor’s walls.
‘So,’ said Adam, trying out a bluff man-to-man tone that didn’t quite come off, ‘what’s your angle going to be?’
‘My angle?’
‘This story. Are you in Julia’s pocket or do you have a different story to tell?’
Trevelyan exhaled deeply.
‘Well, I don’t know, to be honest with you. It depends who wants to pay me the most money for the story. I can make it shock horror or I can make it a lighter piece about saucy goings-on in the village, you know? I know Julia wants the full-on Daily Mail hands-in-the-air, what’s-to-become-of-us? But I don’t have a personal agenda. What about you? I guess you disapprove?’
‘I don’t approve of pornography, no. But I think Julia is seizing a moral high ground she doesn’t really occupy for her own ends. She wants the house back, by hook or by crook.’
Trevelyan stopped dead.
‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered.
Adam heard nothing but crackling twigs and chirping birdsong.
‘No.’
‘Listen.’
Adam heard singing, a sweet, almost ethereal voice. The softness of it led him to believe it must be close by, in the trees. They were close to the break in the wall now, but was it safe to go through?
‘Is this it?’ Trevelyan whispered, squeezing himself through, shaking the hedge as he tried to elude its stiff twigs.
‘There’s someone nearby. Perhaps we should wait.’
‘No, come on. It’ll be fine.’