Chapter 16

TWO DAYS HAD gone by since they’d returned to London, and still Allyson didn’t seem able to shake herself out of this trance-like state. But life was easier to deal with that way, just going through the motions, hardly thinking, or responding, only editing or dubbing, making plans for the next programme then getting into her car and going home. Sometimes, during odd moments in the day, she felt an anger that was so intense it would burn her up like a fire, but she quickly detached herself from it, because she was afraid of what she might do if she didn’t.

Mark was still in New York. He’d rung several times, but if she was in the office she cut him short by saying she’d call back, and if she was at home she listened to his voice on the machine without picking up. She didn’t want to talk to him, because she didn’t even want to form the thoughts that were needed to ask if anything Shelley had said was true. She just wanted to put it out of her mind, as though none of it, not him, not Tessa, not the break-up of her marriage, nothing, had ever happened. Besides, even when she was ready to talk, she wouldn’t do it on the phone. She’d make herself face him, which shouldn’t be hard because she hadn’t known him long, so it couldn’t be as devastating as when Bob had betrayed her. But it felt that way, and the hatred she’d known for Tessa since Bob had left was magnified now to a degree that consumed her. She couldn’t look at the girl without thinking monstrous and violent thoughts, couldn’t hear her voice without wishing her dead. Yet she still had to work with her, still had to see her every day and know there was nothing she could do to get rid of her. Her popularity was exploding.

Yet Tessa too seemed different, strangely cowed, as though she was afraid of something only she could see. But Allyson wasn’t interested to know anything about her, except to understand whatever insanity it was that was making her want everything that was Allyson’s.

It was only just after nine in the morning, but Allyson had already been at her desk for over two hours. There were always a thousand things to do, so she was never in any danger of having to face the torture of empty time. Even so, she knew that by ignoring the wound she was leaving it open to fear and paranoia, as well as to hatred and fury. But maybe that was what she wanted, to nurture it and let it grow so out of proportion that the whole savage energy of it could destroy the horror of being betrayed again …

The phone snapped off her thoughts, and reaching for it she said, ‘Allyson Jaymes.’

‘Allyson. I was wondering …’

Allyson went very still.

‘I was wondering if we could talk.’

Allyson looked out into the office to where Tessa was sitting, a phone to her ear as she stared at Allyson with a pathetic, beseeching look in her eyes, like a dog that had been whipped and was trying to skulk back to its master.

‘Is it about the programme?’ Allyson asked coldly.

‘No. It’s …’

‘Then there’s nothing to talk about,’ and she slammed down the phone.

Tessa rang off too, and Allyson watched her as she sat there looking lost and forlorn and so miserably self-pitying that it made Allyson despise her all the more.

Another week went by. Mark was due back in a couple of days, but he’d stopped calling now. His last message had told Allyson that he suspected Bob was tampering with her machine again, and as she never had time in the office he’d see her when he got back. He’d sounded curt and confused, and Allyson had wanted to scream at him that even if there hadn’t been anything sexual in that disgusting scene with Tessa, then what the hell was he doing in her room at that hour anyway? For one wildly insane moment she’d considered asking Tessa. The girl wanted to talk, so let her! But what good would it do? She couldn’t be relied on to tell the truth, and even if she could Allyson didn’t want to hear it from her.

Nor did she want to hear from Bob. She just wanted him out of her life, expunged from existence, rather than have to deal with his pathetic pleas to come home. But she couldn’t put off seeing him any longer, he had to be faced, though even after she arranged it she picked up the phone a hundred times to cancel. In the end, though, she took the afternoon off work to psych herself up for the ordeal, so that by the time he arrived she might be in a frame of mind that would more easily allow her to cope with him.

It was an early spring evening, awash with a glowing red sunset. Which symbol should she choose, she wondered, as she opened the door to let him in, spring for new beginnings, or sunset for happy endings? But neither were going to be had here, tonight, she knew that already.

It was evident right away that he’d made an effort, for he was wearing the cologne she liked best, a shirt she had bought him and the jeans she’d always said he looked sexy in. He looked haggard though, and was so apprehensive that ordinarily she’d have wanted to hug him. Tonight, she simply stood aside and tried not to wish that he would turn around and go away.

‘Would you like a drink?’ she offered as he walked into the sitting room ahead of her.

‘Maybe some wine,’ he said.

She went to get it and came back to find him sitting on the edge of a chair he’d once slouched in. His elbows were resting on his knees, his hands were clamped together. She could see how hard this was for him, so hard it would be easy to pity him.

‘Did your lawyer tell you …?’ His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat and started again. ‘You know why I’m here?’

She nodded, then seeing his eyes fill with tears she put down the wine and went to him.

He clung to her as he wept, bitterly and so full of shame that it was hard to make sense of his words. ‘I’ll do anything,’ he sobbed in the end. ‘I’ll get counselling, anything, just please say it isn’t too late.’

She looked at his tormented face. She knew this man so well. He was so much a part of her life that he almost was her life. Yet she felt so remote from him.

He grabbed her wrists. ‘I know how much I hurt you,’ he cried. ‘I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but look at me, look at what I am without you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice seeming to come from a long way inside her.

‘Oh God, Allyson,’ he implored, pulling her to him. ‘Please don’t turn me away. I can’t go on living without you.’

‘Don’t say that. I can’t be responsible for your life. You chose this, Bob. You made it happen and nothing I do can change it.’

‘But we can put it behind us. I’m starting to get some work again now, so we can move forward and be together the way we should.’

‘Until when? The next Tessa?’

‘No! I don’t want any other woman. Leaving you has made me understand that in a way I never did before …’

‘But what about all the other women, Bob? And Shelley, my best friend.’

He looked shocked and hurt. ‘Are you saying you’d rather give me up than her?’

‘She didn’t betray me.’

Disbelief widened his eyes, and as she looked back at him she could feel something horrible rising up inside her, something she’d always known was there but she’d never wanted to face. ‘She slept with me all those years, but the betrayal was only mine?’ he said incredulously. And there it was. The suspicion she’d never allowed a voice, that Shelley had lied, that Shelley, her best friend, had been sleeping with her husband all along, that Shelley had betrayed her too.

Her head was spinning. ‘What years? What are you talking about?’ she said, as if she could bury it all again. ‘She said you tried …’ But she couldn’t go any further. She had to accept it, and he wouldn’t lie to her about that, not now.

Realizing what had happened, he dropped his head in his hands. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ he groaned.

Allyson got to her feet. ‘You should go now,’ she said.

‘No. Allyson, please.’

She pushed his hands away and walked to the door. ‘There’s no-one I can trust,’ she said unsteadily. ‘No-one.’

He wasn’t listening. ‘Just tell me there’s a chance,’ he begged. ‘Tell me you’ll think it over.’

‘Just leave me alone,’ she said. ‘All of you. Just leave me alone.’

Bob was standing in Shelley’s sitting room, facing the unflinching anger in her eyes, as he told her what had happened with Allyson. He felt foolish, unmanned, yet so desperate that even now he was still clinging to the hope that Shelley would know how to repair the damage he’d done.

But when he’d finished Shelley looked as though she might strike him in disgust. ‘You fool,’ she spat. ‘You bloody fool!’

‘But I thought she knew,’ he cried. ‘She made it sound like you’d told her.’

Contempt twisted her face. ‘Are you out of your mind? Why the hell would I do that? She’s my best friend, for God’s sake!’ Again she looked as though she might hit him. ‘God, you’re pathetic!’ she seethed. ‘Look at you! How the hell do you think you’re ever going to get her back now?’

He looked away, misery and hopelessness engulfing him.

‘It’s as good as over with Mark Reiner!’ she raged. ‘You actually stood a chance and you blew it. You moron! You stupid, stupid moron.’

‘All right!’ he yelled. ‘I should never have left her in the first place. Don’t you think I already know that? And I wouldn’t have if Tessa hadn’t been pregnant. It’s all her damned fault. Everything was all right before she came into our lives …’

‘You low-down, self-pitying piece of scum!’ Shelley spat. ‘You were always a cheating bastard and you know it. And to try blaming Tessa when we both know you were happy to screw anyone who’d lie down for you …’

‘Including you, you stuck-up, self-righteous bitch! You lay down often enough, didn’t you? That’s how fucking good a friend you are. And I’ll tell you this, if it was you who’d been pregnant, I still wouldn’t have left, because Allyson’s worth ten thousand of you Shelley …’

‘But she couldn’t give you a baby, could she?’ Shelley spat viciously. ‘You couldn’t make her pregnant, like you made Tessa. Made you feel like a man, that, did it? I suppose you know she had an abortion? That given the choice between fame and your baby, your baby didn’t even get a look-in. So that’s who you gave Allyson up for, a silly little tart who didn’t give that for you, or your kid … What are you doing? Get away from me!’ She was backing across the room, but he kept on coming.

‘I said get away!’ she shouted.

His fist knocked her flying back across the sofa, then picking up a photograph of her and Allyson he flung it violently into the fireplace before snatching up her purse, helping himself to the money and storming out of the door.

Shelley lay breathlessly where she was, her hand covering the throbbing in her face as his footsteps thundered down the stairs. It was all getting out of hand. Nothing was happening the way she had expected and she didn’t know how to turn it around. But maybe she didn’t need to. Maybe she should wait a while longer, see what happened in the next few days, for though it didn’t seem likely that Allyson would take Bob back now, there was nothing to say she’d take Mark back either. So yes, she should wait, let events unfold a little further, until she had a clearer idea of what she should do.

The following morning Shelley was already at her desk when Allyson arrived. The strain in Allyson’s face as she walked into her own office was plain to see, and everyone noticed. Shelley watched them as they looked at each other, hoping someone might have the answer, for clearly something had happened, and this time the newspapers weren’t telling them what.

Shelley considered going to talk to her, but this definitely wasn’t the place to have the kind of showdown they were heading for, nor was it the time. How must she be feeling, Shelley wondered, with Tessa sitting out there, Shelley in here … The world must seem a very strange place for Allyson right now, with no-one to trust and no-one to turn to. So maybe Shelley should go and talk to her, if only to help her connect to something as superficial, yet stabilizing, as the day’s needs.

But as Shelley reached her door Allyson was already calling across the room to Tessa.

‘Have you edited the piece about the dolls yet?’ Allyson was asking her.

‘No, not yet,’ Tessa replied. There was such a hunger in the girl’s eyes as she looked at Allyson, such an appeal, that Shelley was reminded again of the night Mark had been in the girl’s room. Tessa had seemed the same then as she did now, kind of frightened, eager to make amends, and … Well, it was hard to put into words …

‘If you’re in a hurry I can do it tonight,’ Tessa was saying.

Shelley knew there was no hurry, for Allyson wasn’t due to shoot that programme for another three weeks, so it surprised her when Allyson snapped, ‘Yes, do it tonight.’

As she turned back into her office her eyes met Shelley’s, and Shelley could see how deeply her pain was cutting. Then she disappeared, and after glancing over at Tessa again, Shelley returned to her desk and picked up her keys.

‘I’ve got to take my car in for a service,’ she told Marvin, ‘then I’ll be popping home for a few minutes. I’ll be back before lunch.’

It was early in the afternoon when Allyson answered the phone in her dressing room to find Mark at the other end.

‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why you’re refusing to speak to me, but I’m outside, and if you’re not here in the next five minutes I’ll come in and get you.’

Allyson replaced the receiver, stared at it for a moment, then picking up her coat she walked upstairs to Shelley’s office.

‘Is she back yet?’ she asked Marvin.

‘Yes, she’s in the screening room,’ he answered.

Allyson found her alone in the dimly lit room, speaking to someone on the phone. An image from the Italian programme, which was due for transmission the following day, was paused on the screen.

Allyson said, ‘Did you really see Mark and Tessa together in Italy? Or were you lying about that too?’

Shelley finished the call. ‘Allyson, listen …’ she said.

Allyson was already turning away.

‘I wasn’t lying,’ Shelley cried. ‘I swear I saw them.’

Allyson’s back was still turned. ‘Do you have any idea what all this feels like?’ she said. ‘Knowing there’s no-one you can trust?’

‘Yes. I know what that feels like,’ Shelley answered.

Allyson turned round. ‘You could trust me,’ she said, anger twisting her mouth.

‘Listen, we have to talk,’ Shelley said. ‘Not now. Later. Will you let me at least try to explain?’

Allyson didn’t answer, and suddenly Shelley was afraid. Everything seemed to be slipping away, moving out of focus, beyond her reach, and she wanted desperately to bring it back. Then she had a sudden, horrible premonition that this was going to be her only chance to say this, so she must say it now.

‘Think of loneliness, rejection, never feeling as though you matter,’ she cried. ‘You know now how some of that feels. That’s how it’s been for me. All my life. I never learned to value people the way you do. I never understood what it was like to be loved so much by a man that he’d never leave me. You had that and I wanted it. I resented you for all you had and at the same time … I loved you.’ Her voice was choking with emotion. ‘I’ll book a table in Dolphin Square for eight thirty. Please say you’ll come.’

‘I’m looking after Daddy until then.’

‘Then I’ll book it for nine. If you’re not there, I’ll wait.’

Allyson sat in the passenger seat of Mark’s car, almost numb with exhaustion. So many betrayals, so many lies, could there ever be any trust again? She wanted to sleep now, to curl up in a ball and wait for everything to be over.

She’d already asked him about Tessa and he’d explained, but the words didn’t seem to have reached her.

He said them again. ‘She was very drunk. I don’t think anyone realized how drunk until she passed out and I carried her up to bed. When I left her she was still out cold. Then later, when I was in my room, I heard her crying. Not just crying, she sounded hysterical, out of control. So I went in. Maybe she’d taken some drugs, I don’t know, because it was like she was hallucinating. She seemed to think I was her father and that I was going to hurt her. She offered to have sex with me if I promised not to beat her. I couldn’t get her to understand who I was. Then she started talking in a childish voice and calling me Daddy. I didn’t know what was happening, I’m not even sure I do now. Then she was talking about you. At first I didn’t realize it was you, because she kept referring to Mummy. Then she called you by name and …’ He was shaking his head. ‘It was like she had you confused with her mother. God, I don’t know what was going through her head. What I do know is it wasn’t coherent and it wasn’t particularly sane. But she seemed worried about hurting you and kept saying she was afraid of what you might do. Then she threw up all over us both, so I called someone from downstairs to come and take care of her, and went back to my room.’

Allyson was staring straight ahead. She was hearing the words now, but hardly knew what they meant.

‘Allyson, you’ve got to know how much you mean to me,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to push you, I know you’ve been through a lot, but for God’s sake, I love you …’

She turned to look at him. So Shelley hadn’t lied. He had been in Tessa’s room.

Tessa. Tessa. It always came back to Tessa. Just this morning she’d opened a magazine and there was Tessa looming large on the page. And there was she, a small inset at the bottom, a footnote, a last word before the end.

She was still looking at him, searching his eyes and wanting desperately to believe him. Her thoughts were so jumbled she seemed unable to make any sense of them.

‘I have to go now,’ she said, and before he could stop her she opened the door and got out of the car.

The day’s recording was over, the lights in the offices were mainly extinguished, just a few scattered lamps burned that people had forgotten to turn off. There was nobody in the building now except Tessa and Will, who were editing the film about dolls, and Shelley, who was almost ready to leave.

It had been the strangest day, with no sense of reality attached even to the normal routine. It was as though something pivotal was happening in a bizarre, otherworldly kind of way, something that was going to move with a silent and mighty force to change their lives completely.

Shelley knew Allyson had seen Mark earlier, but had no idea yet of the outcome, whether Allyson had accepted his story, or even if there had been a story that could be accepted. She kept wondering what she would do if Allyson told her later that everything was all right, that she and Mark were staying together and that they didn’t want her in their lives any more. It could happen, because Mark would know Shelley had twisted what she’d seen in an effort to try and break them up; he knew too, that using Tessa would be the most effective, as well as the cruellest way to hurt Allyson. And what about how Shelley had tried to seduce him at the party? He wouldn’t want that to happen again.

She felt suddenly breathless, and there was such unease in her heart that each thud felt like a blunted blow. Maybe it was tiredness and emotional exhaustion that was lending the macabre sense of detachment to what she was doing, or maybe it was fear of the slow, silent explosion that seemed to be erupting all around them.

She should leave now, go home and change. She’d just check on Will and Tessa first, find out what time they’d be finished.

The edit room door was closed, but Shelley could hear the squealing whir of the videotape rewinding. Then she heard Tessa laugh. All day the girl had looked like an injured bird, but now she was laughing.

The door suddenly opened and Will almost walked into her.

‘Oh, Shelley!’ he said, his small, squashed face showing surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were there.’

‘Just coming to check how you’re getting on,’ she said, looking past him to where Tessa was sitting at the control desk.

‘It’s great,’ Tessa told her. ‘Really scary.’

Shelley smiled. ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ she said.

Allyson was standing next to her mother’s car in the garage, waiting for Peggy to start the engine.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Peggy asked, peering up at her anxiously. ‘You seem … I don’t know… Distracted?’

Allyson forced a smile. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind. But I’m OK. You have a good time with Aunt Mary. It’ll do you good to get out.’

‘I won’t be long,’ Peggy assured her. ‘We’ll just get a quick bite. I should be back by eight thirty.’

Allyson looked at her mother’s ageing, kindly face and felt a lump rise in her throat. The one person in the world she would never doubt, would always be able to trust.

As she watched her drive away she was thinking of Shelley and what Shelley had said in the office today, about loneliness and rejection, and mattering to someone so much they would never leave. All the pain she was suffering now Shelley had been suffering for years, which made her want to hold Shelley in her arms to comfort her – then cut her out of her life to punish her. If Shelley knew what it was like, how could she have inflicted it on someone she cared for?

Dear God, there were so many complex and conflicting emotions that made up a woman like Shelley – or any woman, come to that. Except maybe Tessa. Tessa was different, and Allyson knew she wasn’t even close to understanding the complexities and conflicts that made up someone like her.

Going back into the house, she went to check on her father and found him sleeping on a sofa in his den. She stared down at his peaceful, jowly face and found herself wondering what happened to the lucidity when the confusion took over. Was it still there somewhere, operating on another level like a sound that existed but couldn’t be heard? Or was it tangled so deep in the subconscious that it could never be found? Who ever knew what really went on in someone else’s mind? Whether they were sane or mad, evil or righteous, tormented or even dead. Did the mind carry on working after death? No-one knew, because there wasn’t a way for anyone to know. But if it did then she hoped, for her father’s sake, that mental tangles came straight again so that he wouldn’t have to be afraid any more.

Kissing him on the forehead, she closed the door quietly behind her, then returned to the kitchen. The clock said six thirty. That should give her plenty of time to do everything she had to do – she’d just sit down for a few minutes first though and try not to think any more.

The lights in the edit suite were off. All eight monitors glowed in the darkness, each projecting an identical image. Tessa was alone for the moment. Will, the editor, had received a call from the parking attendant, reminding him that the barrier went down at eight so he should move his car out to the street.

Tessa was seated at the console, watching, enthralled by the house that was filling up the screens in front of her. It was tall, gothic, with stained-glass windows and a forbidding air. The effect on the sound track whistled the same eerie cry as the wind that was sweeping through the streets of Fulham outside. Naked tree limbs swayed across the face of the moon, fallen leaves gusted over the brittle, frosted lawn. The camera tracked in, angling from side to side as it approached the front door. Footsteps crunched on the dark, gravelled path.

The front door was opening, the dubbed effect of a creak stretched with the ominously slow swing. The hall beyond was in pitch darkness, just two narrow strips of blue light shining through the cracks in a far off door. The camera inched tentatively towards the light, a thin, high-pitched strain of music began to move with it.

This sequence was a cheat. It wasn’t the author’s North London home, it was footage imported from Hammer. But the next mix, as a hand pushed open the door and the screen filled with blue light, took them into a huge, brightly lit room full of every imaginable type of doll. This was the writer’s home.

Later would come the interviews; with the writer, and with her neighbours who swore the dolls screamed and flew in the night. But first the camera was going to show the sublime horror of the collection.

They lived on every shelf, every chair, every surface of the high-ceilinged room. A thousand staring eyes, unseeing, unspeaking, yet all-knowing. Bisque-headed, shiny-faced and smiling infinitely winsome smiles. Dressed in delicate, hand-sewn clothes; small, malignant spirits locked in wax, china and porcelain forms. Girls, boys, babies; haughty women, evil old men. Mouths were open; eyes were slanted. Teeth were bared, fury was a solid, unmoving mass. The music dipped and swayed. Cute little dancers and regal skaters poised to come alive. Heavy chords blasted the entry of malformed puppets, and trumpeted angrily at scowling sailors. The camera panned sharply, then settled in benign observation of inscrutable Orientals and halted songsters. A sudden screech emanated from the frame of a spiteful Turk. Insolence and supremacy blazed from the frame.

Tessa didn’t move. Her concentration was total as the thrill of fear stole through her senses.

Behind her the door opened, then quietly closed.

‘This is brilliant,’ she murmured to Will, eyes still riveted to the screen.

A piano was playing, surging through the discord of frantic violins.

Faces flashed across the screen. Ugly, old, tormented, sad. Human emotions trapped in tiny torsos of plastic and clay. She felt Will standing behind her. Her heart was thudding.

A drumbeat exploded. The first blow knocked her unconscious.

The grating, staccato squeals from Psycho knifed through the room. A frenzied cutting of crazed, laughing mouths, and fiendish eyes. A shadow bulged on the wall, a nefarious enactment of the final four blows that took her life.

Allyson was running. The wind rushed in her ears, winter’s trees were reflected in the moonlit puddles her feet splashed through. When she reached her car she took out her phone. She dialled quickly as she got in and started the engine.

‘Shelley?’

‘Ally? Where are you? You sound upset.’

‘No. I fell asleep and Mummy was late back. I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t coming.’

‘It’s OK.’ Shelley’s voice sounded strained too. ‘I’m stuck in traffic. I should be there just after nine.’

Allyson rang off, fastened her seat belt and pulled away from the kerb.

Will, the editor, returned from the car park to find the editing room in silence and darkness. He’d thought Tessa would wait, but it seemed she hadn’t. Disappointed, he switched on the light and looked at a schedule on the wall. Later, when he talked to police, he couldn’t remember which came first, noticing the droplets of blood on the chart, or the terrible, gut-wrenching smell. All he knew was that when he turned round the sight of Tessa’s mutilated skull, the pooling blood and crudely spattered brains loosened his bladder and caused him to sink trembling to his knees. A moment later he was vomiting as he staggered like a drunk to the door.

‘Shelley!’ he attempted to shout. ‘Shelley!’

Allyson was already at the restaurant by the time Shelley arrived. Both women looked pale – the strain of this meeting was harsh.

‘There’s a bomb scare somewhere in Chelsea,’ Shelley said. ‘They’ve closed off half the roads.’

‘I heard it on the news,’ Allyson said. She felt strangely groggy, as though she’d been asleep for days.

Shelley ordered a drink while Allyson toyed with her own.

‘About Bob,’ Shelley said.

Allyson closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hear it.

‘I’m not stupid enough to think you can forgive me,’ Shelley said, emotion acting like a burr on her voice. ‘I just want you to know that your friendship has been more precious to me than anything else in my life. I wish I’d known how to value it. I wish I wasn’t realizing all this when it’s already too late.’

Allyson’s eyes were shining with tears, but none fell.

‘Jealousy is a powerful monster,’ Shelley said, ‘and I’ve always been jealous of you. But I’ve loved you too.’ As she spoke she was reaching inside the large carrier bag on the floor beside her.

Allyson watched her take out a box, then returned her eyes to Shelley’s face as she said, ‘This is for you. A token of our friendship.’

As she pushed it across the table Allyson suddenly laughed. She stifled it quickly, but suddenly laughed again.

Shelley looked at her curiously.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just been … Oh God, I don’t know how much more of today I can take. Thank you. What is it?’ But as she started to unwrap it Shelley covered her hands.

‘Maybe you’d better wait until you get home,’ she said. ‘It might make us both cry.’

Allyson looked into her lovely face and felt her heart filling up with emotion. It was all going to change, everything that had been so familiar and cherished, so central and necessary to them and who they were, was moving on to another plane and there was nothing they could do to stop it. ‘I don’t want to lose you,’ she whispered.

Shelley swallowed the lump in her throat, then looked up as her drink arrived. She was about to make a toast when her phone started to ring. It was ringing for a long time as she tried to locate it in her bag.

‘Shelley Bronson,’ she said.

Allyson watched her face as its expression turned from surprise, to confusion, to horror and shock. ‘What is it?’ Allyson said, feeling her blood run cold. ‘What’s happened?’

Shelley was ending the call. ‘Of course,’ she was saying. ‘I’ll come right away.’ She clicked off the phone and stared at Allyson, her face bloodless and stricken. ‘It was the police,’ she said. ‘Apparently Tessa’s been murdered.’

Allyson’s head started to spin. She thought she might faint.

‘They want me to go back to the office,’ Shelley said. Her eyes drew focus on Allyson. ‘Maybe you should come too.’

Allyson couldn’t move. Her limbs were weighted with fear. ‘Yes,’ she managed to say.

Shelley stood up and started to put on her coat. Allyson watched her, then forced herself to her feet and reached for her coat too.

‘I had to park miles away,’ Shelley said. ‘Where are you?’

‘Just down the road.’

‘Then let’s take your car. Don’t forget your parcel,’ she added, then turned to lead the way out.

By the time they got to the office the place had been cordoned off and the press was starting to gather. Flashbulbs popped through the rotating police lights as Allyson and Shelley got out of Allyson’s car. A couple of policemen spotted them and ushered them through. Neither of them answered the shouted questions and demands to know what had happened.

Inside there seemed to be policemen everywhere, some in uniform, some in plain clothes and others in overalls. They saw Will sitting at a desk with a detective. He looked deathly white and as though he’d been crying. A short man with cropped red hair and a stern face approached them.

‘Mrs Jaymes,’ he said, recognizing Allyson. ‘Detective Inspector Hollander.’

Allyson shook his hand. ‘This is Shelley Bronson,’ she said.

Hollander shook hands with Shelley.

‘Where did it happen?’ Shelley asked.

‘Through there,’ he answered, pointing towards the editing room.

Suddenly Allyson started to cry and stuffed a hand into her mouth to try to make herself stop. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

Shelley slipped an arm round her. ‘Is she … still there?’ she asked.

Hollander nodded, then looked round as they were joined by another man and a woman.

‘Detective Constable Maine,’ Hollander said, introducing the man. Then, indicating the woman, ‘Detective Constable Lister.’

Both officers looked grave. Neither Allyson nor Shelley knew what to say.

‘We’re going to need you to answer some questions,’ Hollander told them. ‘Mrs Jaymes, perhaps you can take Detective Lister somewhere quiet. Miss Bronson, Detective Maine will take a statement from you.’

Allyson took Detective Lister to her office. It all seemed so unreal. It was like an invasion, the forensic scientists, the ambulancemen, so many police swarming all over the place. And the phones were ringing off the hook. For God’s sake someone make the phones stop ringing!

She answered the detective’s questions as succinctly and helpfully as she could, knowing that by now everyone must be thinking she did it. She had the biggest motive, all she needed was opportunity. But it was all right, there was no need to panic. They would find out who did it, then everyone would forget they’d suspected her. But her alibi for the past three hours was so weak that it drove white-hot fear into her chest, and blinded her to where she was and why she was there. This was no longer a place she recognized, it wasn’t her office, and the person who was with her had mistaken her for somebody else.

But at the end of it, after hours and hours of questions and black coffee and watching her colleagues come in and out, they told her to go home.

She looked round for Shelley, but someone said Shelley had already gone, so she walked outside into the cold, garishly lit night and followed a policeman as he struggled to open a path through to her car. As she got in she heard a TV reporter telling the world that she’d just come out of the building and as far as they knew no arrests had been made yet.

Allyson drove in a trance back to the flat. She was afraid of being alone, but didn’t know who to call. She’d have to speak to her mother and make sure she was OK. She thought of Mark and felt a sudden longing cut through the numbness. But then she thought of Bob, and the numbness returned. After that all she could see in her mind’s eye was the image of them carrying Tessa’s body away in a bag. It was an image she would never forget.

When she got home the message light was blinking wildly on her machine. Ignoring it she went to pour herself a drink. Her hands were shaking badly. She had to do something to calm herself down.

She sat in a chair, her coat still on. Everyone thought she had done it. They all believed she had finally flipped and smashed Tessa’s brains in. She started to cry, so afraid she didn’t know what to do. The phone rang. The machine picked up the call and she listened to a reporter’s voice telling her which paper he was from and asking her to call back.

After a while she went into the hall and stood over the bags she’d carried in from the car. Two of them were from Waitrose. The other contained Shelley’s gift. She stared at it for a long time, bizarre and frightening thoughts whirling round in her head. Her skull felt so tight it might be crushing her brain. Finally she knelt down on the floor and knocked over the other two bags as she took the gift out.

Minutes later the wrapping on Shelley’s gift was open, the lid of the box was cast aside. Allyson’s hands moved slowly, clumsily over the contents of all three bags. Her mind was barely registering her movements. Finally she was holding a wad of rolled up fabric. She looked at the ugly brown marks. Then carefully she unwrapped it, not wanting to drop the heavy object inside.

When it came free she looked at it, expressionlessly, breathlessly. It was the fan-dancer Allyson had given Shelley at Christmas, beautiful and bronze, and sculpted with such sublime expertise that the light seemed to bring it to life. It was the figurine Allyson had given Shelley at Christmas. It was the elegant Marcel Bouraine Allyson had given Shelley at Christmas … It was the figurine … The fan-dancer … Her chest was heaving, her hands were shaking …

Then suddenly the monstrous reality of what had happened erupted like a bomb in her head and as the figurine fell to the floor, she slumped back against the wall, quivering with terror and starting to gasp uncontrollably.