‘Go on,’ hissed Sue.
Anna resisted her mother’s forceful hand against her back, then put one foot in front of the other and moved slowly towards Sophie’s table.
‘Hello,’ she said awkwardly. ‘It’s been a while.’
For a second she remembered the same words that were spoken almost four years earlier. She could see quite clearly the night Sophie had turned up at her flat, suitcase in hand, looking for a place to stay, having just washed back up from three years of travelling, with a sprinkling of tattoos, an empty bank balance and a vague ambition to get into telly.
Anna had been glad to have her sister back. Glad to have someone to laugh with, cook with, go out drinking with. They’d shared their love dilemmas: Anna’s frustration with Andrew, Sophie’s complaints about the lack of decent men in London. And after three months of Sophie’s unsuccessful attempts to find work, Anna had pleaded with Andrew to give her a job at the newspaper, where he was on the fast track to editorship. He’d delivered: an assistant’s job in the features department, which had turned into a food column when Sophie had charmed the editor and regaled him with stories about the Dorset Nurseries.
The rest was a history Anna had tried hard to forget.
A waiter had begun fussing around them, offering bread, hummus dips and sparkling water.
‘Have you had any spa treatments yet?’ asked Sophie finally. ‘I believe they’re heavenly.’
The benefits of the relaxing floral facial Anna had had an hour earlier seemed difficult to recall.
‘It’s a lovely place,’ she replied coldly.
‘How was the journey over?’ asked Sue, trying to fill the silence.
‘A bit of a rush.’
‘Sophie’s been filming the new show,’ said Sue proudly. ‘We’ll never be able to cope with the demand when it’s on in the autumn.’
Anna watched her mother beam at Sophie. Sue Kennedy never stopped mentioning how grateful she and her husband were to their younger daughter for driving business to the Dorset Nurseries. Anna tried not to feel too resentful that no one ever mentioned that it was her idea in the first place to transform the disused conservatory into a restaurant, or that she had spent many hours compiling her parents’ business plan and helping them get the finance to do it. But it was hard not to feel slighted.
‘So have you looked at the menu?’ she asked.
‘What do you recommend, Sophie?’ asked Sue.
Anna almost smiled. Everyone in Sophie’s inner circle knew that the delicious recipes in the best-selling
Dorset Kitchen Cookbook
and on the show were Brian Kennedy’s creations rather than Sophie’s, but even her parents went along with the little white lie.
‘Oh, um, probably the field mushrooms,’ she said, picking up the stiff card. ‘Or the sea bass with fennel.’
‘I’ll have the risotto, then the sticky toffee pudding,’ said Anna.
‘Gosh, I wish I could eat all that,’ said Sophie. ‘If I so much look at a dessert, it jumps straight to my hips.’
‘Sophie’s already lost eight pounds in the last month,’ said Sue. ‘For the wedding.’
‘And she looks great,’ said Anna politely.
Her gaze met Sophie’s and they exchanged a look: rolling eyes, raised eyebrows, a look that said, ‘Mum’s put her foot in it again.’ It was a familiar look, a code from their childhood, just one of many secrets they’d shared growing up in the same room, and it made Anna suddenly terribly sad. Her anger had passed. But it was regret now that nearly took her breath away. Regret that every happy memory of childhood – singing along to cheesy pop on their bedroom stereo, birthday parties, trips to the movies – now seemed tainted. Regret that the whole sorry episode of Sophie and Andrew’s betrayal had changed her; she didn’t want to be a cold, bitter and lonely person, but she knew that it was the reason she hadn’t had a relationship since. She felt herself getting emotional. She didn’t want her mother or sister to see that.
The waiter was approaching again. Anna took a deep breath.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said, getting up. ‘I can’t do this right now. I need to get back.’
Sue Kennedy looked incredulous. ‘But we haven’t even ordered yet.’
‘I’m not that hungry,’ said Anna, pushing her chair in. ‘You two enjoy yourselves.’
She turned and walked out, squeezing her nails into her palm, desperate not to cry. She returned to the pool area as fast as her spa slippers would allow, needing to grab her book and trainers from where she’d left them. And then she could get the hell out of there.
She was just gathering her things when Sophie came up behind her, looking upset and concerned.
‘Anna, please wait. Can’t we just talk?’
‘About what?’ she said simply.
‘I know how hurt and angry you must have been . . .’
Anna closed her eyes and the whole horrific scene leapt towards her, as if she was seeing a slideshow of images. The key turning in the lock as she let herself into the flat. Glancing at the stereo on the sideboard, wondering why Coldplay was playing so loud. Walking through to the bedroom and bending to pick up Andy’s shirt that he had dropped in the corridor. And then opening the bedroom door. Legs entwined on the bed. Sophie’s face, her eyes wide. Andrew chasing Anna down the stairs on to the street. ‘It didn’t mean anything,’ that was what he had said. But it had. It had meant everything.
‘No you don’t,’ she said quietly. ‘These things don’t happen to you, Sophie. You can’t possibly know how it feels to have your heart stamped on, to feel so betrayed that you don’t know if you will ever really trust anyone again.’
Someone at the far side of the pool looked up from their daybed.
‘I’m sorry that we hurt you, Anna, but we fell in love,’ Sophie said, lowering her voice to avoid a scene. ‘And ask yourself this: did you really love Andy? I’m not sure, because if you did you wouldn’t have put your career above him.’
‘Don’t try and make out that this is my fault.’
‘I miss you, Anna.’ For a moment her words sounded heartfelt. ‘I miss you and I can understand why you don’t want to come to the wedding, but please, at least come to my hen party.’
‘To celebrate the happy occasion,’ Anna said bitterly.
‘Because you’re my sister.’
Sophie’s voice trembled, and Anna felt a wave of regret so strong she felt as if it could knock her down.
How bad could it be?
a little voice in her head reassured her.
It’s time to move on
.
‘Please,’ pleaded Sophie. ‘There are lots of people coming and they’re going to wonder why you’re not there . . .’
Anna snorted.
‘You almost had me there again, Soph.’ She shook her head ferociously. ‘You know, I don’t believe you’re a bad person. Just an extremely selfish one. You expect people to give, give, give. And you take, take, take, even things that aren’t or should never be yours, and you don’t care what depths you have to plumb to get what you want, because you
expect
them to be yours. The food column you lied to get your hands on – the editor told me all about your
years
of work in the Dorset Nurseries restaurant, which is funny, because I thought you were in Thailand while you were apparently sharpening knives in Dad’s kitchen. But then those came in handy, didn’t they, for when you stabbed me in the back and slept with my boyfriend. How many times did you tell me it happened? Once, twice? Funny, I don’t believe that any more.’
‘It was a handful of times,’ Sophie said sheepishly.
‘How long?’ Anna snapped, the details that she had never dared broach again suddenly seeming of urgent importance.
‘We were together for about two months before you found us.’
Anna inhaled sharply, and when she breathed out, she felt an enormous sense of relief.
‘I know all I need to know now. You can’t hurt me any more.’
‘Anna, please,’ said Sophie, grabbing her sister as she pushed past her at the side of the pool. Anna tried to shake her off, and as she did so Sophie slipped. In slow motion Anna saw her falling away from her, her arms waving, hands clutching at the air, her mouth in a perfect ‘O’, landing in the swimming pool with a huge splash.
‘Anna!’ shouted a voice. It was her mother, full of anger and disapproval and disappointment. ‘What have you done . . .?’
Anna ran so fast out of the spa, she didn’t hear another word of what her mother was about to say.
‘I assume you’ve seen page eleven of the
Sun
this morning?’
Helen watched with satisfaction as Anna Kennedy flinched. It was 7 a.m. and the Donovan Pierce boardroom already had half a dozen people sitting around the table; Helen’s team for the Jonathon Balon libel case. They were in court first thing and she wanted a counsel of war before they started.
Well, at least she has read the papers, thought Helen as she watched Anna sip her coffee, obviously trying to appear unruffled. Interesting. Perhaps there’s more to this than the story suggested.
Helen spread the newspaper out on the long walnut table.
‘“Celebrity Chef in the Drink”,’ she read aloud. The story was accompanied by a grainy photograph of Sophie Kennedy emerging from a swimming pool – bedraggled, but still sexy. ‘So what’s the real story?’ she asked, silently noting two trainees who craned their necks to read the piece. She expected her employees to be completely up to date with all media – TV, papers domestic and foreign, even reading the wires from AP and Reuters. These two would be made to pay for their slackness, even if it was early.
Anna put her coffee cup down and shrugged.
‘I was at the spa with my mum and my sister. My sister fell in the pool and someone must have taken the shot with a mobile phone. There’s nothing more to it than that.’
Isn’t there? thought Helen. She hadn’t got to her lofty position in the legal profession without being able to sniff out a lie. Usually she wasn’t interested in the private lives of her employees, unless they were doing something that might impact on the firm – and this could quite easily fall into that category. Anna Kennedy had been castigated over the Sam Charles debacle and Helen really hadn’t been pleased to see her name in the tabloids again: ‘sister of the bride-to-be and solicitor for shamed actor Sam Charles’. She knew it could have been worse, of course. Only last week she’d seen Donovan Pierce referred to as the lawyers behind ‘the bungled Charles injunction’. That had put her in a bad mood for days.
‘All right,’ she said, looking around the table expectantly, ‘any ideas what damages we could seek for Anna or her sister here?’
Trainee Sid Travers raised her voice nervously.
‘Breach of privacy? Her sister thought she was in a secure area.’
‘And the citation for that?’
Sid fell silent.
‘Sienna Miller versus Xposure Photo Agency,’ suggested Toby Meyer more confidently. ‘She’d been on the movie set and the paparazzi had taken nude photos of her with a long lens.’
‘Correct,’ said Helen, pleased that her trainees weren’t complete idiots, but careful not to show it. ‘Although privacy damages aren’t huge, so sometimes it’s not worth the client’s time.’
She stabbed her finger down on to the table.
‘But the case we are going to win is this one,’ she said, turning her gaze on each of the team one by one. ‘Jonathon Balon is relying on us. He employed us because he believed we could prove in court – and to the public – that these charges are groundless and malicious. We have a reputation to uphold, both ours’ – she looked directly at Anna as she said this – ‘and his. It’s not enough that we win this case; we need to destroy the opposition’s arguments and prove ours beyond a shadow of a doubt. This is war, people.’
She tapped her hand on the desk.
‘Okay, let’s go to work.’
Anna leaned over and handed a twenty-pound note to the cabby. What was this? Her sixth cab journey today? And it was only 3.30 p.m. She felt as if she was on a piece of elastic. In the course of the morning she’d shuttled back and forth between court and the offices twice, grabbing another stack of files or looking up some vital piece of case law. So far they’d only scratched the surface of the Balon case, but at least they were under way; after weeks of intensive preparation, the whole team was hyped up and full of energy, keen to win at all costs. The day had begun with Nicholas Collins QC delivering the claimant’s opening statement, and right now the barrister for the defence was putting his initial case. She’d drunk a gallon of coffee and had at least three blisters from speed-walking along the marble corridors of the High Court, but Anna was in her element. This was exactly the sort of work she’d joined Donovan Pierce to do. Meaningful, exacting work that required meticulous preparation, but which nevertheless was edge-of-the-seat stuff: most libel cases settled long before they got to court and if they didn’t, both sides must believe they had a decent chance of winning. The courts were buzzing, because you never knew exactly what the other guy was going to throw at you.
Anna walked across the road to the office, skirting around a flaming red Ferrari that was parked halfway onto the pavement, and took the stairs to the Donovan Pierce reception.
‘All right, gorgeous? Buried any good actors lately?’
Her heart sank as she saw Wayne Nicholls coming her way. Wayne was an East End wide boy who owned one of the most notorious picture agencies in town. He was rich, cocky and had the sort of unshakeable self-regard that allowed him to wear cowboy boots and sunglasses indoors. They had crossed swords more than once: the photographers contracted to Wayne’s agency seemed to take gleeful pleasure in flouting the privacy laws firms like Donovan Pierce were there to protect.
‘Pleasure to see you, Wayne,’ she said, knowing the sarcasm was wasted on him. He kissed her on the cheek, almost overpowering her with his aftershave.
‘Nice picture of your sister in the
Sun
this morning,’ he said with a wink. ‘I wish we’d had it, could have made a few quid on that. Hey, how about winging some exclusive little wedding snaps of her bash in Italy over to me? I’ll make it worth your while.’