The meeting room was private, with no floor-to-ceiling glass panel which would allow anyone passing to see inside, as Lexy could not possibly be spotted at a table reading a thick contract. But Caroline could hear a murmur of voices inside, and besides, there was nowhere else they could be. The doors of the other rooms down that corridor – a second bedroom, a kitchen, a staff room with ironing and laundry facilities – were all ajar.
The bedroom adjoined the meeting room; Caroline darted inside. As she had hoped, the rooms were connected by an internal door, but Caroline did not dare to try to edge it open, even fractionally. Instead, using a technique she had seen on an old daytime TV show, she snatched a water glass from the shelf over the minibar and placed the rim of it to the door, pressing her ear against the base.
To her great surprise, it worked.
‘This is longer than the contract for my TV show!’ Lexy was saying.
Caroline could just make out the sound of tightly bound pages flicking heavily as Lexy leafed through them. Caroline was absolutely agog. It didn’t take her long to grasp what was happening. She scrambled to her unfashionable little satchel for her phone, silencing it, turning it on to record and pressing it to a chink between the door and the jamb, just in case; it was very disappointing to find out later that all it had captured was the fuzziest murmur of voices, sounding as if they were twenty feet down a well. But Caroline had heard everything.
When the meeting ended, she quickly transcribed the conversation she had overheard, then slipped back into the living room as unobtrusively as she had left it. Lexy and Silantra were standing together, the mobile phones of everyone present trained on them: clearly, the announcement that Silantra would be filming with Lexy the next day for Lexy’s show had just been made.
Silantra, her arm wrapped round Lexy’s sequinned waist, was smiling like the cat that had got the cream. Exactly the same smile Caroline saw her give later, when the manager and PA started to bustle the other guests out, saying that Lexy and Silantra needed to discuss their filming schedule for the next day . . .
The camomile tea had cooled down. As Caroline sipped it, she found herself picturing Silantra and Lexy’s naked bodies entwined around each other. It didn’t take much imagination. Both women had posed naked or barely clothed so often that some of their fans must know the voluptuous curves of their bodies better than their own.
I can’t believe this is the first time Lexy’s cheated on Frank, Caroline thought. She agreed so easily! She barely paused for a moment before she went right into negotiating what she could get from it! She’s a total whore. She’s married to the most wonderful, kind, thoughtful man, a man who’s far too good for her, and instead of going home to him she’s spreading her legs for another whore who sold a video of herself having sex to kickstart her career.
She’s disgusting. And she doesn’t deserve Frank, not for a moment. I can’t believe he doesn’t know what’s going on. I can’t believe he doesn’t see what she’s really like.
Someone should tell him.
Someone should be there to love him and look after him and his kids the way they deserve.
Caroline looked up and met her own eyes in the wall-mounted full-length mirror that hung beside the bed. Setting down her half-drunk mug of tea, she stood up and, very deliberately, peeled off the loose nightdress she was wearing. Standing naked in front of a mirror was something she never did; she had included herself in the observation that many of Lexy and Silantra’s fans knew their idols’ bodies better than their own.
The excess weight wasn’t pleasant for her to look at, but she had a reasonably good shape underneath it. She wasn’t pear-shaped; she knew from women’s magazine articles that the only solution for that was liposuction for the saddlebags. Her breasts were big and firm, her hair was thick and her skin had been very much improved by the vitamins and omega-plus supplements, the products and treatments Lexy had bought her. After a month of slogging Tuesday to Friday over the damp sands of Studland beach, then limping back to the gym to do a series of situps and press-ups recommended to her by Frank, while sticking to the calorie-counted meals from Lexy’s cook, Caroline had quite clearly toned up and lost weight.
Until now, Caroline had been maintaining the exercise and diet regime on the weekdays, letting herself off a morning run on Monday because that was when she travelled down to Bournemouth, giving herself licence to eat and drink what she wanted at the weekends. But now, she realized, the game had changed. The slow, gradual weight loss she had been achieving was no longer enough.
I need to work out and watch what I eat every day, she resolved. I’ll live off slices of chicken and salad, no dressing. I’ll cut out booze completely – Frank’s always telling Lexy that even if you drink vodka and soda, which has no calories, it breaks down your inhibitions so when you get pissed you either raid the fridge or go for the fags, like Lexy does.
I need to lose a lot of weight. I need to get a spray tan. I need to wear more make-up, get eyelash extensions, hair extensions, tighter clothes.
I need to look as like Lexy as I possibly can, as fast as I can.
Because I want to take her husband away from her.
Lexy’s nickname for Caroline had been biting into her like caustic acid for weeks now. But, making her resolution, seeing her jaw tighten as she pressed her lips together in determination, she realized that she could use the rage it provoked and turn it to her benefit.
Because Lexy would never see Ghost Mouse coming.
Six years previously
The woman was running as if she were being chased by the hounds of hell. She had wrenched off her sandals with such force that she had torn a nail on one of the straps, and she didn’t even realize; the only thing of any importance was to move as fast as possible. She tore through the crowded restaurant, dodging waiters, skirting tables; she caught a tray being carried by a waiter with her elbow and it went flying, glass crashing to the tiled floor, and she didn’t even break stride.
Heads turned, restaurant patrons exclaimed in surprise, speculation, disapproval. Practically no one had seen the ’cause of the woman’s frantic dash, the emergency to which she was responding.
She was turning into the corridor now, swivelling so fast she nearly hit a wall and had to slap her palm against it to right herself. There were hotel guests coming towards her, dressed in bright, flowing clothes suitable for the sultry tropical weather, clearly heading for the restaurant; she yelled ‘MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!’ at them without slowing down. They stumbled into each other, their expressions shocked and angry; they burst into loud complaints as she sped past, her bare feet pounding the mosaic floor, her long muscled legs moving like a sprinter’s, her arms pumping the air. In one hand she was gripping a key card, grabbed from the dinner table as she jumped to her feet.
She was counting rooms frantically, making sure she didn’t overshoot. She had to get to her suite, grab what she needed, turn round and run right back again, and she needed to do all that in under a couple of minutes. How long had it been? How long had it taken her to drag off those sandals, stand up, start running?
Her breath was coming in quick, sharp huffs. A door started to open in her face, someone coming out of their suite, and she reached out and shoved it back so she could shoot past, hearing a shriek of surprise from the person behind it.
It didn’t matter. Even if she’d bumped them, even if they’d tripped, it was nothing in comparison to the emergency to which she was responding. She had spotted it almost immediately; she knew exactly how life-threatening it could be. As she skidded to a halt in front of her door, fumbling the key card into the slot with hands that shook despite her best efforts to keep herself controlled and focused, she was counting the seconds in her head, feeling time ticking inexorably away, beating down the panic that was rising in her chest.
Because this was quite literally a matter of life or death. If she couldn’t find what she needed and get it back to that restaurant in the next sixty seconds, a child was
almost certainly going to die.
PART TWO
Chapter Seventeen
Two months later
Baby London was glued to my right boob, feeding away, greedy little sod. He just wouldn’t wait till the photoshoot was over. I know it’s not exactly usual to have wedding photos with one boob hoicked out of your dress, but you could barely see it and who cares anyway! I mean, you see more of my tits in any of my calendars! Wow! magazine put it on its cover – bit controversial, and we got loads of publicity, which was excellent. They asked me on This Morning and Loose Women to talk about breastfeeding mums’ rights and all that stuff.
I really love that photo, actually. Laylah’s even looking like she’s happy to see her baby brother, which is funny as she pretty much tried to kill him loads of times when he was little. God, she was a jealous little mare. Frank had to bribe her with sweeties to get her to smile at me and the baby for the camera.
Oh well, at least she was doing her job for a change, being a good girl, and she really did look lovely in her flower girl dress. As London fed, I took a deep breath and thought about how much I’d achieved, all the boxes I’d ticked. Handsome, loving, minted husband: check. Two gorgeous kids: check. Lavish home: check. The top-rated reality show on UK TV: check. My own column in Lovely! magazine: check. Endorsements, supermarket clothing lines, my own-brand hair products and extensions, accessories, fake nails, with more rolling out every year: check, check, check, check.
It’d been a non-stop ride since I went on Who’s My Date?, and trust me, it wasn’t just in the upward direction! More like a roller coaster – big ups, big downs. But I always held on tight, kept a smile on my face, no matter what was happening, and my fans loved me for that, bless them.
I glanced down at the ring Frank had slid onto my finger just an hour ago, nestled next to the humongous diamond that had made me burst into tears of happiness when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.
Caroline paused. She had no idea whether Lexy had cried when Frank proposed, but she had swiftly learned that Lexy didn’t care about strict accuracy. After the first few times Caroline had pestered Lexy with follow-up questions after a recorded session, Lexy had told her ghostwriter not to bother her with this kind of thing, to just go ahead and make it up.
‘You’ll do a better job like that anyway,’ she had said nonchalantly. ‘I mean, we’re selling what readers want to buy, right? Tell ’em what they want to hear!’
So Caroline simply sent each chapter to Lexy for her approval as soon as it was written. Lexy changed very little, limiting herself to tweaking her own dialogue. As long as Caroline made Lexy seem sympathetic and relatable, Lexy didn’t care; and since writing went much faster if Caroline didn’t keep checking with Lexy, ‘Ghost Mouse’ had no complaints either.
After all those years of unreliable men, ones who’d cheated on me, lied to me, tried to control me – fuck, the one who was into wearing my knickers and stretching them out, which was bloody annoying considering how much they cost – the dickhead and arsehole parade was over. I felt incredibly lucky to have my lovely loyal Frank.
Caroline stared at the last line. Typing it had made her feel queasy. There was no question that it described Frank correctly. But a loyal man would never leave his wife for her ghostwriter . . .
Ah, she told herself swiftly, but he would when he found out that she had cheated on him! He would have to, for the sake of the children, who couldn’t be brought up in an atmosphere of betrayal and deceit! When Frank had taken his wedding vows, he had thought he was making promises to a woman who was as sincere as he was, who had the same qualities that he did.
While actually, Lexy was a liar and a cheat, who had no right to be in a relationship with a man like Frank at all, let alone be married to him.
Caroline took a deep breath and typed:
Today was the first day of the rest of my life. There’d be more ups and downs, no doubt about that, new worlds to conquer.
And I’m still on that roller coaster! You lot have been with me from the beginning! I hope you’ll stick with me for the rest of the ride. I promise, there’ll be plenty of thrills and spills!
Watch this space!
Was this a good enough ending? It sounded catchy. And Caroline wanted to suggest that there might well be further memoirs from Lexy, or maybe even novels written under her name – by Caroline, of course. But ‘watch this space’ – didn’t that also sound a bit cheesy? More appropriate for a column in a magazine than a proper book?
The answers, she had the gloomy feeling, were ‘no’ and ‘yes’ respectively. But Caroline was totally burnt out. For the last eight weeks, all she had been doing was writing, sleeping, exercising and starving herself, and she could barely muster energy enough to type ‘The End’ and haul herself from her desk to her bed.
Flopping down, kicking off her slippers, she lay on the coverlet, staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t sleepy, but she was incredibly tired – no, she corrected herself. Not tired. The experience of writing a book in such a tearing hurry had trained her to seek at great speed the exact word for what she was describing. She had made her brain into a highly efficient machine, and she couldn’t simply press a switch to turn it off. The word, it told her, was drained, completely and utterly drained.
Unbelievably, she had had to finish it even faster than originally agreed. On finishing the first five chapters, Caroline had sent them, as promised, to Gareth and Miranda. Gareth had promptly organized a conference call to tell Caroline how delighted he was with them; so delighted, in fact, that he wanted to get the book finished and into proof as soon as humanly possible so that they could send it out to press and bloggers to get a real buzz building for publication.
This meant, he said blithely, trying to get a first draft done even faster, ideally, than the contract specified. If Caroline could deliver the manuscript in eight weeks, Gareth offered temptingly, Bailey and Hart would authorize another grand to be paid to her on delivery – subject, of course, to the same conditions as her contractual payment, i.e. she couldn’t rush so much that the draft was unreadable.
Even though she was Lexy’s agent, not Caroline’s, Miranda, stepping in, had nudged the ‘speed bonus’ up to fifteen hundred. And then Miranda had dropped a side email to Caroline, saying that she’d love to have a meeting with her after the book was finished to discuss possible future projects. It was exactly what Caroline had hoped for, and it made her more determined than ever to complete the book to the new deadline.
In order to achieve it, Caroline had initiated a new schedule. She had suggested to Lexy that she travel down to Sandbanks on Sunday night and stay until Saturday morning, as she unquestionably got more writing done in the cocooned surroundings of the guest suite. She didn’t even have a desk to work at in her cramped London bedroom; she had to sit on her bed with her laptop on her thighs, a padded computer rest beneath it to stop it burning her up.
Lexy and Frank had been more than happy with Caroline’s suggestion. Lexy had joked that she’d slice a bit off Caroline’s advance for room and board, to which Frank had retorted that with the amount of childcare Caroline seemed to be doing, they should probably pay her for it. Lina had given notice several weeks ago, London having bitten her one too many times, and in the interim period before the agency could find a nanny who was long-suffering, physically unattractive and willing to be repeatedly bitten, Caroline had stepped up to help.
Caroline wasn’t a natural with children. She’d never been one of those people who could instinctively talk to kids on their level, mesmerizing them like the Pied Piper so that the kids would follow them round for hours afterwards, wide-eyed and tugging on their sleeves. But she remembered very well how her mother had kept her large brood in order with a judicious blend of discipline and promises of treats to come.
And she had an advantage that none of the previous nannies had possessed: hardcore motivation to charm Laylah and London, as the children were an essential part of her
strategy to win over Frank. A less intelligent woman might have targeted him directly, but to Caroline it was obvious that his family was the key to his heart. Caroline was very aware by now of his wish to have more children, a wish his wife was refusing to grant. Caroline, twenty-seven to Lexy’s thirty-seven, was statistically able to have more children than a woman ten years older than her, and her goal was to position herself as the person who was able to give him what Lexy would or could not.
Getting the kids to like her had been surprisingly easy. It had quickly become clear that their rotating corps of nannies had never really spent time getting to know them. Laylah and London had so many toys, so many games, so many gadgets, plus of course their swimming pool and lavish gardens, that all the nannies had needed to do was to supervise them as they ran from one activity to another, make sure they didn’t injure themselves, tidy up after them, make sure they ate and went to bed on time, before retreating to their own very cosy room with its high-definition television.
But no one supervised the nannies in their turn. Lexy didn’t care what went on as long as the children didn’t bother her, and Frank assumed, with typical male naivete, that the nannies knew their jobs already. Much as he loved his children, he had the traditional male attitude that raising children was women’s work; when they squabbled and fought, his first instinct was generally to yell for the nanny to come and sort them out.
So the children had had very little quality time with adults, which explained their near-feral behaviour. Caroline started by simply sitting down with them on the floor of their playroom and asking them what they wanted to do. London begged her to set up the £500 Scalextric track that was still sitting in its box, and organize endless car races; Laylah chose to model outfits she had styled from her capacious wardrobe, with Caroline as her audience.
Killer Affair Page 16
