Oh shit, she thought, reaching the door to the office. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
She stopped and tapped out a text:
Missing you! Totally adore you! Feeling dangerously horny! XXXX
She unlocked the door and was halfway up the narrow staircase when there were two sharp beeps on her phone. She stopped and looked at the incoming text.
To her disappointment it was from her best friend, Holly:
RU free 4 party 2morrow nite?
No, she thought. I don’t want to go to a party tomorrow night. Nor any night. I just want—
What the hell do I want?
On the door in front of her was a logo: a symbol of lightning made in the image of celluloid. Beneath it the words, in shadowed letters, Blinding Light Productions.
Then she entered the small, hip office suite. It was all Perspex furniture – Ghost chairs and tables, aquamarine carpets, and posters on the walls of movies the partners in the company had at some time been involved with. The Merchant of Venice, with the faces of Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons. An early Charlize Theron movie that had gone straight to video. A vampire movie with Dougray Scott and Saffron Burrows.
There was a small reception area with her desk and an orange sofa, leading through to an open-plan office where sat Adam, Head of Business and Legal Affairs, shaven-headed, freckled, hunched in front of his computer, dressed in one of the most horrible shirts she had ever seen – at least since the one he wore yesterday – and Cristian, the Finance Director, staring at a coloured graph on his screen in deep concentration. He was dressed in one of his seemingly bottomless collection of fabulously expensive-looking silk shirts, this one in cream, and rather snazzy suede loafers. The black frame of his collapsed fold-up bike sat next to him.
‘Morning, guys!’ she said.
For a response, she received a brief wave of the hand from each.
Sophie was the company’s Head of Development. She was also the secretary, the tea-maker and, because the Polish cleaning lady was away having a baby, the office cleaner. And receptionist. And everything else.
‘I’ve just read a really crap script,’ she said. ‘Hand of Death. It’s dross.’
Neither of them took any notice.
‘Coffee, anyone? Tea?’
Now that did elicit an instant response. The usual for both of them. She went into the kitchenette, filled the kettle and plugged it in, checked the biscuit tin – which contained just a few crumbs, as usual. No matter how many times a day she filled it, the gannets emptied it. Tearing open a packet of chocolate digestives, she looked at her phone. No response.
She dialled his mobile.
Moments later he answered and her heart did a back-flip. It was so great just to hear his voice!
‘Hi, it’s me,’ she said.
‘Can’t talk. Call you back.’ Colder than stone.
The phone went dead.
It was as if she had just spoken to a total stranger. Not the man she had shared a bed with, and a whole lot more, just a few hours ago. She stared at her phone in shock, feeling a deep, undefined sense of dread.
Across the street from Sophie’s office was a Starbucks. The shell-suited jerk in the hoodie and dark glasses who had been sitting at the far end of the tube train carriage was standing at the counter, the freebie newspaper rolled up under his arm, ordering a skinny latte. A large one. He was in no hurry. He put his right hand to his mouth and sucked on it to try to relieve the mild, tingling pain like a nettle sting.
As if on cue, a Louis Armstrong song began to play. Maybe it was playing inside his head, maybe inside this café. He wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter, he heard it, Louis was playing it just for him. His own private, favourite tune. His mantra. ‘We Have All the Time in the World’.
He hummed it as he collected his latte, picked up two biscotti, paid for them in cash and carried them over to a window seat. We have all the time in the world, he hummed again, to himself. And he did. Hell, the man who was near on a time billionaire had the whole damn day to kill, praise the Lord!
And he had a perfect view of the entrance to her office from here.
A black Ferrari drove along the road. A recent model, an F430 Spider. He stared at it unexcitedly as it halted in front of him, its path blocked by a taxi disgorging a passenger. Modern cars had never done it for him. Not in that way they did for so many people. Not in that must-have way. But he knew his way around them, all right. He knew all the models of just about every make of car on the planet, and carried most of their specifications and prices in his head. Another advantage of having plenty of time. Staring through the wheel spokes, he noticed this car had the Brembo brake upgrade, with 380mm ceramic discs with eight-pot callipers in front and four-pots at the rear. The weight saving was 20.5kg over steel.
The Ferrari passed from his line of vision. Sophie was up on the second floor, but he wasn’t sure which window. Didn’t matter; she was only ever going to go in and come out of this one door here, which he could see.
The song was still playing.
He hummed to himself happily.
9
The club secretary’s office at the North Brighton Golf Club had a military feel which reflected the secretary’s own background, as a retired army major who had managed to survive active service in the Falklands and Bosnia with his important bits – and most important of all, his golf handicap – intact.
There was a polished mahogany desk, piled with several orderly stacks of papers, as well as two small flags, one a Union Jack, the other sporting the green, blue and white logo of the club. On the walls were a number of framed photographs, some in sepia, of golfers and golf holes, and a collection of antique putters, crossed like duelling swords.
Bishop sat alone on a large leather sofa, staring up at Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson and Detective Constable Nick Nicholl in chairs facing him. Bishop, still wearing his golfing clothes and studded shoes, was sweating profusely, from the heat and from what he was hearing.
‘Mr Bishop,’ the tall, black Detective Sergeant said, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your cleaning lady –’ he flipped back a couple of pages in his notepad – ‘Mrs Ayala, arrived at your house in Dyke Road Avenue, Hove, at eight thirty this morning to discover that your wife, Mrs Katherine Bishop –’ He paused expectantly, as if for confirmation that this was indeed her name.
Bishop stared blankly.
‘Um – Mrs Bishop did not appear to be breathing. An ambulance attended at eight fifty-two and the paramedics reported there were no responses to any of their checks for signs of life. A police surgeon attended at nine thirty and certified your wife dead, I’m afraid to say, sir.’
Bishop opened his mouth, his face quivering; his eyes seemed momentarily to have become disconnected and rolled around, as if not seeing anything, not locking on anything. A faint croak escaped from his throat: ‘No. Please tell me this isn’t true. Please.’ Then he slumped forward, cradling his face in his hands. ‘No. No. I don’t believe this! Please tell me it’s not true!’
There was a long silence, punctuated only by his sobs.
‘Please!’ he said. ‘It’s not true, is it? Not Katie? Not my darling – my darling Katie . . .’