Page 101 of Private Lives

‘That well-known rural idyl.’

He laughed. ‘They’re shooting in the most rustic central London location house they could find. Poured concrete floors, Aga, imported Provençal knick-knacks, you know the sort of thing.’

‘Which will of course be passed off as your own?’

‘Well I wasn’t having a bloody camera crew round at our place.’

Our place. Andrew and Anna had never had their own place. He had his bachelor pad in trendy Wapping. Sterile and manly, all black leather and chrome with damp towels left on the bathroom floor. Anna had tried to make her mark, but she was swimming against the tide, and with their long work hours, it was so much easier to go back to their respective homes. Another sign she had missed.

He sipped his wine.

‘So what’s this favour you need?’

‘It’s for a case I’m working on.’

‘The Balon case? Did he get funded by those mobsters like they’re saying?’

‘As if I’d tell you, even if I did know.’

‘You always were so secretive.’

‘Secretive? Andy, this is my

job. I get paid to keep secrets. And you’re a journalist.’

‘I was your partner, wasn’t that more important?’

‘You tell me,’ she said, meeting his gaze.

It was no surprise to Anna that Andrew was now associate editor at The Chronicle, effectively number three, within striking distance of the top job. He’d risen effortlessly from news reporter to business editor to his current position. Not bad for someone not yet thirty-five. They’d met at the Islington home of a senior BBC news executive. It had been his daughter’s party, a law school friend of Anna’s, while Andrew was a family friend. Anna had felt so grown up talking to a serious journalist in this high-ceilinged room, full of books and pictures, the sort of place she wanted for herself. They’d talked for hours, getting drunker and drunker on the fruit punch, until suddenly he’d taken her hand and pulled her outside, kissing her in the doorway of that tall white Georgian house. Their jobs had provided common ground; both workaholics and obsessed with current affairs. But the nature of her work, her clients’ indiscretions to have to keep quiet, her battles against the papers, built a Chinese wall between them that had often made Andrew feel resentful.

‘This isn’t about Balon. It’s about Gilbert Bryce, the MP. I need to talk to him.’

‘What do you want to meet Gilbert for?’ His expression clouded. Gilbert Bryce was a well-known womaniser but Anna didn’t flatter herself it was jealousy.

‘It’s something I’m working on for a client. I can’t tell you.’ She had no idea how interested The Chronicle would be in the story of a lingerie model’s death. Probably not very. They didn’t usually go for stories about the Chinawhite set at the broadsheets.

‘Of course not,’ he said, not hiding his exasperation.

‘Please, Andy, this could be important.’

‘I’m not asking for any gory details, I just want to know what you want to speak to him about.’

‘I can’t tell you,’ she said firmly.

‘Then I can’t introduce you. Gilbert is a contact; I have a relationship with these people. I can’t just fix you two up without knowing what it’s about.’

‘Can’t you? I’d have thought it was the least you could do.’

‘Oh Anna . . .’ he said, shaking his head just enough to register his disappointment.

‘Sophie told me how long you’d been having an affair. Before I caught you. Not quite the once or twice you claimed, was it?’

He looked down. She was sure she saw him colour with shame.

‘What point was there in telling you the truth?’

‘You made me look a fool by sleeping with Sophie. But you kept on making me look like a fool when you didn’t tell me the truth.’