As the air ambulance came in to land over the tropical waters of Maui, Olivia’s mobile rang. She released her hand from Scott’s for a second and pressed the button.
“Olivia?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Barry Wilkinson here. Listen. Can you do us a piece? You were there, weren’t you? The Oscars and the Sudan. We want a full I-was-there exclusive—front of the main section, whole of the News Review—and a piece for the daily, if you can run something off by eight o’clock. Just a few hundred words and some quotes. Olivia?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. Because if there was one thing she knew, it was that she didn’t want her face on the front of any newspaper. She was probably going to have to live in disguise for the rest of her life as it was.
“Listen, lovey, I know. I know about MI6. I know you went to the Sudan, because Elan told me. I know you were at the Oscars because I saw you on camera in a red wig. And—”
She held the phone away from her ear, glanced out of the window at where the plane was coming in to land over a curve of sparkling sea, palm trees and white sand, grinned gleefully at Scott Rich, put the phone squawking with Barry’s irate voice back to her ear and said, “Oh don’t be silly, lovey. It’s just a figment of your overactive imagination.”