They opened the door of Studio 5 on the top floor. Dance music was blaring out and the whole room was full of stylists fussing around rails of clothes, make-up artists laying out their wares and a whole crew of technical staff setting up lights, reflectors and camera triggers.

One end of the room had been decked out in red drapes, at the centre of which was a huge circular bed covered in black satin sheets. Nice, thought Anna. Cla.s.sy. Wayne's voice boomed across the studio.

'Mandy, my darling. You have a visitor!'

A platinum blonde in lacy white lingerie stepped out from behind a screen and tottered towards them on stacked heels, pulling a short robe around herself.

'Hi, baby,' she said to Wayne, stooping down to his level to give him a kiss on the cheek. Wayne whispered something to her and she giggled, glancing in Anna's direction.

'Mands, we need you to jump on the bed in five, all right?' shouted a man in a waistcoat.

'Of course, babes,' cooed the girl. 'Just talking with the boss.'

'I'm your boss today,' said the man. your boss today,' said the man.

'Course you are, sweetie,' she pouted. 'But Wayne's special.'

Wayne slapped Mandy on the b.u.m and sent her over towards Anna.

'All right?' she said, looking Anna up and down warily. 'Wayne said you're a lawyer. What's this about then?'

Anna led her over to a quieter corner of the room, where three sofas were positioned round a coffee table laden with sandwiches.

'Something about a date, was it?' said Mandy, sitting down. She had perfectly even white teeth and a slender Barbie physique with a hand-span waist and cantaloupe-melon-sized b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

'No, not exactly a date,' said Anna. 'Although I do have a lot of high-profile clients. I actually wanted to talk to you about Amy. Amy Hart.'

'Amy? G.o.d, that poor cow,' said Mandy, glancing over towards where Wayne was laughing with two other blondes. 'Awful, isn't it?' she said sadly. 'I mean, it could of been any of us, couldn't it? Slipping on her heels like that.'

'Were you good friends?' asked Anna.

'Not especially,' said Mandy. 'We used to hang about at parties and that, but we weren't really close. I was sad to hear about it, though. She was pretty and clever, and she was a good girl.' She glanced over at Wayne and the models again. 'A lot of them girls can be right b.i.t.c.hes, but Amy was always nice.'

'You didn't get called to give evidence at her inquest?'

She shrugged. 'I didn't know nothing about an inquest. Why did she have one of those?'

'They have inquests to work out exactly how someone died. Sometimes they call witnesses.'

'But I thought it was an accident, wasn't it? She fell down the stairs.'

'Probably,' nodded Anna.

Mandy pulled the tiny white robe tighter around her waist and frowned.

'Don't you believe them?'

'I'm just looking into it for someone.'

'Who, the police?' Mandy said with wide eyes.

'No,' smiled Anna. 'Amy's sister Ruby, actually.'

'Oh, her,' giggled Mandy. 'Amy brought her down one of the clubs once. I think she wanted to meet a footballer or something. But she was sweet. How can she afford a fancy lawyer like you?'

Anna smiled. 'She can't. I just want to see if there's anything in what she says.'

'And what's that?'

Anna paused for a moment before she spoke. She had no idea whether she could trust Mandy, or where a conversation like this might lead.

'Ruby thinks Ryan Jones killed her sister.'

Mandy gave a low, slow laugh.

'Ryan Jones?' she chuckled. 'Ryan's an a.r.s.ehole, there's no doubt about that. But a killer? He hasn't got the b.a.l.l.s.'

Anna smiled. Mandy had given a pretty accurate a.s.sessment of Ryan's personality, in her opinion.

'I spoke to Ryan at the weekend and he thought that Amy might have had another boyfriend. He was saying that he thought Amy used him to get back at someone. Do you know what he meant by that?'

Mandy pulled a face.

'Like I said, we weren't close, but I do think she was unhappy about some guy. That night we met Ryan, Amy had had a few drinks she wasn't usually a drinker but I think she was upset. I remember she asked me: "Do you think I'd get in the papers if I s.h.a.gged Ryan?" At the time I thought it was weird, because she was never one to go boasting about her boyfriends.'

'Why do you think she was discreet?'

Mandy shrugged.

'There's different reasons why we do this job,' she said quietly. 'People think we're tarts, slags. And yes, some girls like showing off, they like the attention and all the parties. When you're living in the back a.r.s.e of nowhere, with no hope of getting out, it looks pretty nice dating people off the telly and that. But Amy wasn't like that; she was smart, savvier than most. She wouldn't do glamour or topless like this, only swimsuit stuff, because I think she had plans to get out.'

'What plans?'

'Sorry,' said Mandy. 'We never really had many heart-to-hearts, and like I say, she was a private sort of person. Don't get me wrong, though, she did like the modelling and the partying, because of the people it could introduce her to.'

'The men it could introduce her to?' prompted Anna.

'Yeah, sure. Amy just wanted a better life for herself. We're all looking for a meal ticket,' said Mandy, glancing at Wayne again. 'And I actually think Amy had found hers.'

'So who was it?'

Mandy looked down at her long, squared-off nails.

'About twelve months ago we were driving past the Houses of Parliament. We were in a taxi going from one party to another one in Chelsea. Amy was drunk. She told me that she'd had s.e.x there.'

'In the Houses of Parliament?'

Mandy nodded. 'Saucy, hey? Of course I asked who. She said it was that MP Gilbert Bryce. Always on telly. Bit of a w.a.n.ker.'

'And you think that's who she was seeing just before she got together with Ryan?'

'After she told me about it, I only saw her maybe twice a month. When I asked her about it, she totally clammed up. The only thing she said was that she was seeing someone but she couldn't talk about it because if she did he might finish with her.'

'And you think it was Gilbert.'

'He's a t.w.a.t but he's ambitious. If it came out about a relationship with Amy, the press would have spun it as "Bryce Dates a Glamour Girl". He'd definitely want her to keep quiet about it.'

'Oi, Mands!' shouted the man in the waistcoat. 'We're ready for you.'

'Okay, lover!' she called, then rolled her eyes at Anna. 'It's a living,' she said.

She stood up and Anna shook her hand.

'Sorry I couldn't help more,' said Mandy.

Anna smiled at her.

'Oh, I think you've helped a great deal.'

27

Sam looked at the phone, willing himself to pick it up. He hadn't felt this way since he was a teenager, trying to pluck up the courage to call some girl, but even then he hadn't felt this anxious. Then, as ever, girls always said yes to his invitations. 'Come on,' he said to himself. 'You're Sam Charles. Everyone wants to talk to you.' Yet somehow it was hard to convince himself. Just six weeks ago, he was one of the world's biggest stars, engaged to one of the world's most desirable women. He'd never tried, but Sam suspected that if he'd called the White House, they'd have taken his call.

And now? Now he was standing in the living room at his Chelsea Harbour apartment, c.r.a.pping himself about calling an Edinburgh comedy venue and speaking to the manager about the possibility of hiring out the s.p.a.ce.

'Stop being such a k.n.o.b,' he said out loud, striding over to the phone and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the receiver. Unused to making his own professional phone calls, he quickly tapped in the number and waited, wondering what he should say.

h.e.l.lo, it's Sam Charles. No. That didn't cut it. That phrase used to open doors, get him reservations in the best restaurants; now it sounded grubby and embarra.s.sing. 'Sam Charles' used to be synonymous with 'top actor' and 'British heart-throb'; now it was synonymous with 'love rat' and 'thug'. He couldn't have b.u.g.g.e.red it all up more if he'd actually tried.

He jumped as the front door opened and Mike McKenzie almost fell in, carrying two straining carrier bags of shopping. 'Hey there, bro,' grinned Mike. 'Thought you'd gone out. I'm doing fish pie for lunch, that okay?'

Sam put the phone back in its cradle and watched Mike thump the bags down on the kitchen counter and start unloading: celery, a bunch of basil, some fancy olive oil, free-range eggs. Sam winced. It was only a bag of shopping, but it seemed to be loaded with criticisms of his life. His empty kitchen, his single status, his inability to cook. In fact, if he was honest, he wouldn't have had a clue where to find the nearest supermarket it had been years since he'd bought a pint of milk. And now his friend the famous burn-out and mental case, no less was here looking after him, making him a pie because he couldn't be trusted to do things for himself.

But that was why he had come back. To change. To make a fresh start, to begin a new way of living. Back in his London flat, everything felt more real. From his wrap-around penthouse window he could glimpse the King's Road, Battersea Park and Stamford Bridge, home of his beloved Chelsea Football Club. And while he couldn't exactly go shopping, watch a match or go for a run he'd been besieged by paparazzi when he had popped out for a packet of cigarettes it still felt more like home than LA had ever done.

He felt a pang of regret at how he had neglected his birth city in the pursuit of fame. When he had moved to LA seven years ago to star in a short-lived pilot for ABC, he had promised himself he would return to London every three months. But as time slipped by, and he got bigger, more successful, there seemed increasingly little reason to do so. His parents had both died a decade earlier, which had severed his greatest tie with the country, whilst he had less and less in common with his old friends from the capital's acting circuit, most of whom had disappeared into non-acting jobs whilst they were 'resting' from their sporadic theatre and soap-opera gigs.

'I'll just get this in the oven and then we can get back to work,' said Mike breezily. 'How have you got on this morning?' he went on as he busied himself at the stove. 'Any blinding inspiration?'

'A few ideas,' said Sam, smiling.

'Ah-ha!' said Mike, pointing at him with his spatula. 'I knew it. You've come up with something good, haven't you? I can see it on your face.'

It was true. The one good thing to come out of all this mess was the two-man show that Mike and Sam had decided to do for the Edinburgh Festival. The two men had arrived back in London within hours of each other, and had got to work on the script immediately. Predictably, Mike had come up with a dozen brilliant gags and situations. But slowly Sam had found that he was having his own ideas ideas that were actually making Mike laugh. So far they had written dozens of gags and set pieces, many of them Sam's, send-ups of their status as fallen stars.

The project had distracted Sam from the savage reviews for Robotics Robotics, which had taken three million bucks in its opening weekend; great box office for a small indie movie but a disaster for a major studio summer release. Jim Parker was being bullish out in LA, but Sam could tell that the scripts and offers had stopped coming, and Eli was talking about making a shift over to TV. 'Look at Glenn Close, and Forest Whitaker in The Shield The Shield,' he said. 'They had Emmys coming out the wazoo. We get you something like that, we can write our own ticket when you go back to the studios.' When you go back When you go back. Was it really all over already?

But if Hollywood was closing its door to him, why shouldn't he go back to doing the thing that, looking back, had made him most excited? The early days of his career. The buzz from the stage after a live performance. Okay, so Mike's comic genius had overshadowed him back in uni days, but things were different now actually, he and Mike were on level pegging: the world saw them both as ma.s.sive f.u.c.k-ups.

Scripting the Edinburgh show was hard work, but he was enjoying it more than anything he'd done in years, and best of all, he wasn't doing it as a career move; he was doing it for fun, for the h.e.l.l of it, to help Mike out whatever. But still, there was a nagging thought ...

'So did you make the call to the Hummingbird Club?' asked Mike, chopping an onion.

'Not yet,' Sam replied vaguely.

'Why not? The festival's already b.l.o.o.d.y started. We'll have to pitch up at the bottom of Arthur's Seat and perform there at this rate.'

'You should do it.'

'Why? Your name opens doors.'

'I think we should keep my involvement under wraps. Until the gig starts anyway.'

'What for?'

'Because it could get hairy. Hecklers, press.'

'I see your point.'

'But what if no one comes?' he asked suddenly. 'What if they come and walk out?'

'Thanks, mate. I know I'm not a big draw any more, but still ...'

'This isn't about you. It's about me. Trouble is following me around at the moment. Jess believes in karma, and maybe there's something in it. I've been a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. The way I treated Jessica. Firing that lawyer, who, to be fair, probably hadn't done anything wrong. I didn't even treat you properly. When you had your breakdown I should have flown over, brought you back to LA. But no, I was filming in Queensland. If no one comes to the show, it's what I deserve.'

Mike put his knife down.

'So what?' he said. 'So what if no one comes to the show so long as we enjoy it? You've got enough money to last ten lifetimes. For me, this is just a holiday from Eigan.'

'But it will be embarra.s.sing,' said Sam uncomfortably.

'No it won't. You're just missing the thought of an adoring crowd, people laughing hysterically at every word you say.'

'No I'm not.'

'You are,' laughed Mike. 'You've been seduced. And right now is a chance to stop this silly life you've been sucked into.'

'What silly life?' Sam replied, affronted.

'Look at you, mate. Your three-hundred-dollar haircuts. Your waxed chest. Your concierge on speed-dial. Where does it stop, Sam? A facelift at forty, a Pekinese dog on the pa.s.senger seat of your Aston? A circle of friends, an entourage, that you pay for?' Mike shook his head. 'Don't get me wrong. I know being a celebrity can be a really great gig sometimes. The free stuff. I especially liked the free stuff. But it turns your head, mate. Turns it away from all the important stuff. You should be hanging out with people you have a connection with. Not people who are connected. Doing work that you feel pa.s.sionate about, not stuff that pays the biggest cheque.'

'You're right,' said Sam, thinking about the string of bad, soul-destroying rom-coms he'd made, compared to the thrill of appearing at the National Theatre for the first time.

'Mate, this is the best thing that could have happened to you. Sometimes when you hit rock bottom and in this penthouse flat I'd say you're hardly there when you come up for air, it's in calmer, less shallow water.'