The driver of the 4x4 was standing on the road, dazed and motionless as he looked at the car.
Amy punched another number into her mobile.
‘David. Get back here. There’s been an accident. Juliet . . . driving too fast. The car’s trashed.’
Other cars were stopping at the scene. A cyclist rode onto the pavement and dismounted. A runner in a fluorescent bib slowed and pulled his headphones out of his ears.
At first, she was too frightened to look. Holding her breath, she crept forward and peered into the driver’s seat. Red hair straggled across the dashboard. In the distance, she could hear the sound of sirens. The moon disappeared behind a cloud, and Amy felt her shoulders slump in sadness.
Epilogue
Juliet’s appointment as editor-in-chief of Mode magazine was not announced during the Paris shows as had been Douglas Proctor’s plan for his on-off girlfriend. At first, it seemed wholly inappropriate given that she was in an induced coma at the Royal Free Hospital. But even when her condition improved, Genesis Media held off from confirming that she had got the job, and the matter was left in the hands of the HR department and lawyers.
The rumours that Juliet might never walk again worried Douglas, even though he acknowledged that some diversity among the Genesis Media editors might be good for PR. But he was particularly bothered about how things would look for him, given that the police were sniffing around the events of the Fashion 500 party. He had no idea what an abandoned banger on the train tracks had to do with him, but they had been asking some very uncomfortable questions about how well he knew Juliet James, and he realised that he should keep his distance from her as much as possible.
Once Amy had given various statements to the police, she, David and Tilly took off to Lyme Regis, where they spent a long weekend combing the beach for fossils and going for bracing walks along the coast with flasks of tea. It felt indulgent taking a holiday so soon after Provence, but she needed to be out of London to get some head space, to think about the direction her life was now going to take.
Marv Schultz had been in touch within days of Juliet’s accident about going back to her old job back at Verve. It was hers if she wanted it, he said, via a transatlantic phone call, acknowledging that there had been some crossed wires that were being investigated. He also made noises about exciting opportunities at Genesis Media in New York, which Amy politely deflected, much as she acknowledged the need for a fresh start. She had no idea why Marv had contacted her; she had never whispered a word about his affair with Suzanne Black, for which perhaps he was grateful. Nor had she gone public about her unfair dismissal, which she just wanted to put behind her.
With lines of communication open with Marv, Amy had been tempted to tell him about her toxic relationship with Juliet. How Juliet had sabotaged the Fashion 500 party, spread rumours about her drug addiction and seduced Douglas Proctor as destructive revenge for unrequited love. But however much she wanted to clear her own name, however much she knew the CEO deserved to hear about the backstage drama at Genesis, she also knew that she had no proof for the allegations, and that therefore the elegant response, the right response for her sanity, was simply to walk away and let the police deal with it.
Louisa Bourne, on the other hand, was more difficult to turn down.
Amy and Claire looked up at Amy’s mood board, which she had pinned along one wall of her new office at Exmoor in Ladbroke Grove. ‘I know I probably should have moved into the modern age and done a Pinterest board,’ she smiled, touching one of the glossy pages cut out of a coffee-table book. ‘But I’m still an old-fashioned print girl at heart, and I thought this would be the best way to show people what sort of feel I want for the site.’
‘Louisa loves you because you are an old-fashioned print girl,’ said Claire, sipping her coffee. ‘I’ve seen the average age in the office out there. They might understand SEO and user interface, but no one knows how to build desirable lifestyle worlds from words and pictures like you, honey.’
‘What are you saying?’ said Amy, tapping her friend playfully on the shoulder. ‘That Amy Shepherd the old-timer might be able to bring value to the table after all?’
They both laughed, but it was how Amy had felt when she had first said yes to the offer of the role of chief creative officer at Exmoor. three months earlier. Seventy-six-year-old Louisa Bourne had been as convincing as a thirty-year-old tech titan as she explained why Amy should jump ship from magazines into e-retailing, but Amy still felt way out of her comfort zone.
Under the stewardship of Michel Gagner, Exmoor’s impressive French CEO, brought in from Net-a-Porter two years earlier, profits had jumped over 200 per cent. But still Louisa felt that the site lacked great content. She bombarded Amy with statistics proving that the longer customers stayed on the site, the more they would buy, and told her that she felt sure she was the person to conjure up that editorial stardust, but Amy still wasn’t sure whether she could pull it off, feeling like the girl from Westmead who had turned up at Genesis Media all those years ago.
‘I know you only came in to talk about doing this one shoot, but there’s as much work as you want on the new editorial team,’ she said now, turning to Claire. ‘A contributing fashion editor position is yours if you’d like it.’
Claire looked at her wide-eyed. ‘Contributing fashion editor?
Me?’
Amy nodded.
‘But I haven’t worked for ten years . . .’
‘You are a great stylist, Claire. I’m not doing you a favour just because you’re my friend.’
Claire gave a little squeal of glee, and for a moment, Amy remembered Juliet pulling strings with William Bentley to get her a job as a junior writer at Genesis. Claire was a fantastic stylist, but deep down, Amy was aware that she had ulterior motives for offering her a job. She knew Claire was fed up being simply Max Quinn’s wife, and she wanted to help her get back into the professional marketplace without having to go to her husband for help. For her own part, Amy wanted people around her at Exmoor that she trusted. Was that why Juliet had smoothed her way into Genesis all those years ago? Had she wanted to help Amy out? Was it to have an ally at the company? Or to keep her friends close and her enemies closer? Amy would never know.
‘Max saw Peter yesterday,’ said Claire, as if she had read Amy’s thoughts. ‘Apparently the police investigation seems to have cooled off.’
Amy pressed her lips together.
‘Without CCTV evidence, they can’t prove who abandoned the car on the railway line. They know whose it is, but they can’t join the dots.’
Amy nodded. For a long time, she had wanted Juliet to get her just deserts for trying to ruin her life, for putting people in danger. But deep down she knew that she had been punished enough. A punishment harsher than any jail sentence. David had cut off all communication with his former friend, sending back the reams of letters that had arrived at the house apologising for everything she had done, ignoring every call and text. He hated Juliet now, and his icy silence was the most effective way of showing it.
‘We should go,’ said Amy, looking at her watch. It was past four o’clock. David had left work early and picked Tilly up, and she was meeting them back at the house, just fifteen minutes’ walk away from the Exmoor offices.
The weather was crisp and cold as they stepped out onto the street. Amy flipped up the collar of her coat and said goodbye to Claire. In a week’s time it would be Christmas. The blue skies of summer and those balmy August evenings seemed so long ago now. At least they had a trip planned over Easter: a three-week safari in Botswana. Tilly in particular couldn’t wait and was spending hours poring over brochures and books. She could already spot the difference between a waterbuck, an impala and an eland antelope. It was safe to say they were all looking forward to it.