Page 127 of Deep Blue Sea

‘Adam.’

She inhaled, but no oxygen seemed to draw inside her.

‘What are you calling him for?’

Rachel was shaking her head as she stabbed the digits on her phone.

‘Julian wants to pull the most profitable drug the company has ever had, and weeks later he is found dead.’

‘But what do you expect Adam to do? Fly back to New York and accuse Simon Michaels of being a murderer?’

‘No,’ she said, her tone hard. ‘But having heard all that, we can’t just sit back and do nothing.’

45

Beach Blanket Babylon in Notting Hill was one of Rachel’s old haunts, and she was glad that it hadn’t changed a bit. It had been almost fifteen years since she had first come here as a bright-eyed student who was impressed with everything the capital had to offer, but even now she still found it delightfully atmospheric, with its little nooks and crannies and flamboyant baroque decor.

She had come here every Friday night with h

er friend and colleague Carl Kennedy, a journalist almost as flamboyant as the restaurant’s interiors, to gossip and bitch about their fellow workers, PRs, rival papers and each other’s often non-existent love life. Tonight it felt serendipitous that she had agreed to meet Carl for a social catch-up dinner at the exact time when her investigation into Julian’s death seemed to be getting somewhere. Back in the days when they had worked together, he had been her sounding board. Alistair, their old editor, used to say that Carl was in possession of a unique mind, which was certainly more polite than some of the other hacks in the office, who used to joke behind his back that he was ‘on the spectrum’.

‘Darling, I knew you’d be here first!’

Rachel almost didn’t recognise Carl when he walked in. His hair was shorter, neater, and he was wearing a tweed jacket, jeans and an enormous pair of trainers that looked as if they belonged on Justin Bieber.

‘You look fabulous,’ he said, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘Although I was rather hoping you’d turn up in that little black wetsuit of yours.’

‘How have you seen me in a wetsuit?’ she said, hitting him with the cocktail menu.

‘I have to say, the Giles-Miller website is a very well-put-together marketing tool. Sexy bloke, sexy girl teaching you how to scuba-dive. I pop in occasionally, see what you’re up to.’

‘I feel like I’m being stalked.’

‘Alleviating tedium I think is a more correct way of describing it. Opportunities for titillation in rural Norfolk are rather hard to come by.’

Rachel cracked up laughing. It was as if the years had fallen away and nothing had changed between them.

‘So what have you been doing? I can’t believe you left the paper.’ They had kept in sporadic email touch, through which she had found out that Carl had left London and joined the family business.

‘Cut loose,’ he said, surveying the wine list. ‘You know everyone had to reapply for their jobs. I was apparently deemed disposable.’

‘Sorry, I just can’t picture you sitting on top of a tractor, Carl. Wellies would ruin the line of your suit.’

‘Yes, that’s pretty much the attitude my father took when I had to go crawling back to him cap in hand. So I’ve been given an executive role.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re running the farm?’

‘God, no. My two brothers went to Cirencester. I leave all that to them.’

‘So what do you do – milk the cows?’

Carl pulled a sour face. ‘I see the warm climate of Thailand hasn’t taken the sharp edge off your humour, young lady.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny business card.

‘“Carl Kennedy”,’ she read. ‘“Innovations Director”. What’s that mean?’

‘Expanding the business. I thought some glamour needed to be injected into potatoes.’

‘So what have you done?’