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‘I like the sound of that,’ Isabelle admitted.

‘Of course you do. You’d bewinningthe split. And that’s what we want to do, right?’

Isabelle cracked a smile. ‘I’ll tell my manager to start saying yes to that stuff, I guess.’

‘That would be great. Tell her to liaise with my office about your schedule,’ Alex said, wondering in the back of her mind what Leigh was doing right now. She still needed to make that ‘No hard feelings, see you on the battlefield’ phone call to Leigh.

Maybe tomorrow.

Eight

Leigh was back in Erin’s tinpot flat, sitting on her dumpy sofa.

‘Gold digger,’ Erin was saying. ‘Gold digger?!’

‘No one said that word in the press.’

‘They didn’t have to. You hit the hashtag with my name, and it’s what people are using.’

‘It’s just a few tweets,’ Leigh assured her.

This was Ivy’s fault. She’d published a follow-up article with quotes from some mysterious source that Leigh thought didn’t exist, talking about ‘The disparity in incomes’ and how Erin had benefited from the press attention, bumping up her career considerably. It also heavily implied infidelity, though it didn’t say who. It wouldn’t take a genius to connect the dots.

Leigh was livid. She had spoken to a lot of journalists, and many of them had printed articles that were far more neutral. But Ivy’s article had hurt Erin, it had to be said. She couldn’t afford a further blow, so it was time to tackle ‘That Which They Did Not Speak Of.’

‘Look, I know you don’t want to talk about this,’ Leigh said. ‘But I want to get ahead of the next thing.’

Erin was confused. ‘What’s the next thing?’

‘The photo. First off, I need to see it.’

Erin sighed irritably. ‘I told you, I don’t have it.’

‘But can you get it?’ Leigh asked gently.

‘Probably not.’

‘Probably?’

‘Look, I know who took it, alright?’ Erin admitted. ‘But there’s no way she’d share it with me.’

‘Just give me the name. I can deal with that,’ Leigh told her.

‘You think so?’ Erin asked, deeply uncertain.

‘Who is it?’ Leigh pressed.

Erin took a deep breath. ‘It’s Helen Archer.’

Leigh’s jaw dropped. ‘What? Really?’ Helen Archer was an actress from a different era, huge in the seventies and eighties. Now, she was an eighty-year-old recluse, fully retired and as rarely seen as a snow leopard. ‘Shetook the picture?’

‘Yep. Good luck prising it out of her.’

‘What was she even doing at the club?’

‘It’s a media hang-out type of place. She was probably getting her arse kissed by someone who wanted to lure her out of retirement. Which they won’t do. But Helen still likes an ego boost.’

‘Of all the people…’ Leigh muttered. ‘So, they’re friends, her and Isabelle?’