Private Lives

58



The hire car wound through the hills behind Nice airport, up, up until the blue Mediterranean shrank to a thin silver strip and the smell of the air changed from sea salt to the pine and lavender that characterised this part of Provence. Mougins was one of the most famous foodie destinations in Europe, a medieval village that clung to the hillside just a twenty-minute drive from its bigger, ritzier neighbour, Cannes.

‘Sam, this place is just gorgeous,’ gasped Anna as they drove towards the sandstone walls of the town. It was like something from a fairy-tale. Honey-coloured townhouses with bloom-filled window boxes and red-tiled roofs crowding into winding streets, a clock tower tolling the hour, cypress trees soaring into the blue sky. Anna listened with excitement as Sam told her stories about the town: how Picasso had lived here, shooting the breeze with Cocteau and Man Ray, how Churchill had holidayed here and Dior came to be inspired. ‘It’s magical,’ she sighed.

Driving past the town itself, they finally pulled up in front of an old watermill set in beautiful grounds.

‘Voilà,’ said Sam, taking Anna’s hand to lead her inside to the Michelin-starred Moulin de Mougins. It was chic yet casual, and Anna felt glad she had softened her smart aqua silk dress with bronze gladiator sandals.

‘Monsieur Shaarlz!’ cried the maître d’. ‘So good to see you again.’

He led them to a table on the terrace outside and brought them glasses of crisp white wine, ‘especially recommended for you by the sommelier’. Anna wondered if there was a more delightful place to have lunch – and to think she’d wanted to stay in Sam’s bed watching old movies. Plenty of time for that later, she smiled to herself. And not so much of the movies, either.

‘You like?’ said Sam, reaching across the table to touch her fingers.

‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘It’s wonderful.’

‘You know, we should do something like this every weekend,’ he said. ‘Where do you fancy next week?’

She searched his face, but he didn’t appear to be joking. As each day slipped by, she’d convinced herself that Sam would tire of her and that his phone calls would trail off to nothing. But he seemed to be getting more keen, not less. Since Andy, Anna had gone out of her way to protect herself, building up a hard shell that would make her impervious to pain. But now here she was, playing boyfriend-girlfriend with a man who was now as well known for his infidelity as he was for his acting. It was as if she was just begging to have her fragile heart dropped from a great – and very public – height.

‘Anywhere except Tuscany,’ she said, smiling.

‘Hey, Tuscany’s one of my favourite places,’ Sam protested. ‘What have you got against poor Italy?’

‘Oh, I love Tuscany too,’ she replied. ‘It’s just that my sister is getting married there next weekend. To Andy – my ex, the love-rat journalist you were jealous of, remember? So you can see why I want to give it a wide berth.’

‘But that’s silly – you should be there with bells on,’ he said seriously. ‘There’s no better way than showing them you’ve moved on.’

‘I know I should, but . . .’

‘But what? What’s stopping you? Pride? Well that’s a pretty negative emotion,’ he said, before stopping and smirking. ‘I got that from a shrink. About the only thing of value a psychologist has ever told me, actually.’

Anna took a drink of her wine. She hadn’t heard from any of her family since her father’s email about the hen party, and the guilt had been gnawing away ever since.

Sam leaned forward. ‘And if you need a date for it, I look good in a tux. Or at least, that’s what they said in People magazine’s Fifty Most Beautiful People last year.’

Anna gaped at him.

‘Are you serious? You’d really go with me to the wedding?’

‘Let’s think of it more like a free mini-break. Plus I assume since she’s a famous chef the food will be pretty good.’

‘But Sophie might think I’m trying to upstage the bride.’

‘We’ll skulk at the back. I’ll even grow a beard. I’m not exactly looking for attention at the moment.’

Anna couldn’t believe he was prepared to go to such a public event with her, especially as Sophie had probably sold the photos to OK! or Hello!.

‘Sam—’ she began, reaching out for his hand, but she was cut off before she could say anything more.

‘Anna Kennedy! I don’t believe it!’ squealed a familiar exotic voice.

‘Ilina!’ cried Anna, standing up to air-kiss her glamorous former client. The Russian was looking incredible in a thigh-skimming mini-dress and aviator shades. ‘It’s so great to see you,’ she said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘Oh, we’re staying on at the Costa Smeralda for a week or two,’ Ilina purred, turning to wave at some dark-haired male model type in an open-necked white shirt. ‘We popped over for a little light lunch for a change of scenery.’

Popped over from Sardinia. Anna smiled to herself. Ilina certainly hadn’t let the newspaper reports on her wanton spending cramp her style.

‘And what, pray tell, are you doing here?’ asked Ilina, peering at Sam over her sunglasses, a smirk on her lips.

‘Ilina, this is my friend Sam Charles.’

‘Charmed, darhling,’ said Ilina, proffering a hand.

‘Would you like to join us?’ asked Anna.

‘No, I won’t stay long. I can see you two want to be alone; besides, Juan doesn’t speak much English. But then I didn’t bring him for his conversation,’ laughed Ilina.

‘So how are you?’ asked Anna, sipping her wine nervously, trying to pretend that she lunched with movie stars and billionaires every day of the week.

‘Good, good. And yourself?’

‘Keeping busy,’ replied Anna. ‘Speaking of which, I have you to thank for my new job.’

‘Really?’

‘Remember that victory party you threw at the start of the summer? Well I met my new boss there, Helen Pierce. She heard the nice things you said about me and offered me a job.’

‘Helen Pierce?’ Ilina frowned, taking a moment to place her. ‘Ah, the blonde lawyer?’

‘Don’t you know her? She was one of your guests.’

Ilina shook her head. ‘Not really. She came with a guy who’s one of these corporate publicists. He wants to do work for my company.’

‘And who would that be?’ asked Anna as casually as she could. It was one of the running jokes in the Donovan Pierce coffee room: no one knew anything about Helen’s private life.

‘Simon Cooper.’

The name sounded familiar to Anna, but she couldn’t immediately place it.

‘Simon heads up Auckland Communications. Big city PR firm.’ Ilina lowered her voice. ‘Actually, someone at that party told me that he and Helen are having an affair, although I hate to repeat it. I don’t want to be the target of a slander suit.’

She touched Anna lightly on the arm and stood up.

‘Anyway, we must talk back in London. I need a lawyer to work on my team. Contracts, liaising with magazines, issuing a few letters, very easy, part-time really. I know the job is beneath you, but think of all the fun we’d have.’

For a second it sounded tempting. Anna had certainly got quite a taste for private aviation and luxury hotels. But she realised there was someone who would appreciate the job a lot more.

‘I think I have just the person for you. Sidney Travers, a very smart woman on my team. Just qualified, but very clever and enterprising.’

‘Super, fix me up a meeting with her.’ Ilina kissed Anna on both cheeks and disappeared back to her dark-eyed friend.

‘Sometimes I think you’ve got a more showbiz life than me,’ laughed Sam, brushing his bare foot up her leg towards her thigh.

‘As if.’

‘I think we should stay here till Monday,’ he announced suddenly. ‘They’ve got rooms at the restaurant. And I’m sure Ilina will invite us to her place in Sardinia if you ask nicely. I bet she’s got a big f*ck-off yacht.’

Anna shook her head.

‘I couldn’t anyway. I’m going to James Swann’s party tomorrow; I can’t miss that.’

‘Whose party?’

‘James Swann. Remember, the big secretive society thing where Gilbert Bryce met Amy?’

He still looked blank.

She lowered her voice. ‘Gilbert Bryce, the MP who had an affair with Amy Hart.’

‘Oh them,’ said Sam, the penny dropping. ‘Why are you going there?’

For a second she wondered if Sam had actually listened to anything she had told him over the past week. She found that a lot with celebrities. If something didn’t directly relate to them, some part of their brain just edited it out as useless information.

‘I need to find out who this Peter is. The only way I can think how is to go to the party and talk to people. I’ve swung an invite through Johnny Maxwell.’

Sam frowned at her. His disapproval was obvious.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Look, Anna,’ he said, sipping his wine. ‘It’s none of my business, but when are you going to give this up?’

‘Give what up?’

‘Playing Miss bloody Marple.’

She looked at him with astonishment.

‘But it is your business! This could be the reason your injunction failed. And anyway, you said you wanted to find out what had happened to Amy. After all, you’ve been paying for it for the last month.’

He sighed.

‘I wanted to spend time with you. I suppose it was just a good excuse.’

She forgot to breathe.

‘Hang on, you said you’d help me, just to get into my knickers?’

‘Stop being dramatic,’ he said, lowering his voice. He put his palm on the table. ‘Look, I am sorry that this girl is dead, and I feel for her family. But I don’t care about that injunction any more. In fact, I’m glad it failed, because if it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have done the Edinburgh show, I wouldn’t have split with Jessica. I wouldn’t be sitting here with you now,’ he said pointedly.

She couldn’t help feeling angry and disappointed. She had genuinely thought they were in this together, a team, but clearly Sam had tired of the mystery.

‘Sam, there’s more to life than your bloody injunction, you know. A girl died.’

‘My bloody injunction?’ he huffed. ‘Nice to know you thought so much of it. Maybe that’s why it all went tits-up.’

Anna jerked back. It felt as if he had slapped her across the face, and she could see that a French couple on the next table were looking over at them and whispering.

‘I’m sorry. Come on, Anna, this is stupid,’ said Sam, his voice softer. ‘We shouldn’t be fighting over this.’ He hesitated. ‘I just think you’ve got involved in the case because you want to distract yourself from your sister’s wedding. And to be honest, I can’t blame you. But you’ve got me to distract you now. Stop obsessing over Amy Hart. Let your mate at the newspaper sort it out. Let’s just get a room, go to bed and have some fun.’

Ruby and Liz Hart popped into Anna’s head, and she couldn’t shake them away. She was not going to give up on them.

‘No, I don’t want to go to bed,’ she said coldly.

Sam shook his head.

‘Shit, Anna. What is the matter with you? Get off your high bloody horse and let it go. It’s not as if you’ve been the most principled lawyer in the world before now, is it? Why is this crusade suddenly so important to you?’

‘Not principled? What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I mean the sort of work you do. You’re a media lawyer, Anna. You cover up for rich people. You’re a shark.’ He gave a small smile. ‘Although I admit, I kind of like that about you.’

She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears.

That was exactly why Amy Hart mattered so much to her. It wasn’t as simple as wanting to help Ruby find out the truth about her sister’s death, although she did want to do that, very much. It was also about trying to make up for all the other stories, all the other uncomfortable truths she had helped bury. Anna couldn’t deny that she loved her job and the sense of fulfilment she felt from being very good at it. It was fast-paced and exciting, even though she sometimes had to justify her professional actions. Whenever she won an injunction protecting an adulterous footballer or celebrity from the glare of the media, she convinced herself that by gagging the press they were protecting his wife and family. And yet deep down, she wondered if that argument rang hollow.

She looked at Sam Charles, and suddenly wanted to leave their little pocket of Paradise.

‘Amy matters to me,’ she said softly.

‘Whatever,’ he replied, looking unconvinced as he summoned the waiter to fetch the bill.