Page 137 of Private Lives

The heels clicked back out. Anna shook her head in disbelief. Could it really have been Sid who had leaked the Sam Charles story to the press? And if so, then who the hell was she just talking to? The person who had paid her to do it?

She left the bathroom in time to see Sid disappear into the kitchen to make a coffee. Returning quickly to her office, she busied herself behind her desk as if she had never left.

A few minutes later, Sid appeared at the door with two drinks.

‘Coffee?’ she said, holding up a mug.

‘Thanks,’ said Anna, as breezily as she could.

Sid stepped into the office and placed the coffee on the desk.

‘Listen, Anna, I need a big favour.’

Anna raised her eyebrows.

‘Go on.’

‘I have to go in twenty minutes. Is that a problem?’

‘Well it’s not great, Sid,’ she said looking at her watch. ‘It’s not even three thirty. You know how busy we are with the trial. What is it?’

The trainee dropped her head. ‘It’s important.’

In normal circumstances Anna would have given her a hard time about it, perhaps even refused to let her go unless she had a very good excuse, but today wasn’t normal. If there was any chance of finding out who was behind the leak, she’d have to let her leave. Still, she had to m

ake it convincing.

‘Fine, go if you must,’ she said. ‘You can make the hours up tomorrow night. That’s if nothing “important” is going to happen then.’ She felt a bitch, but she was angry.

‘No,’ said Sid gratefully. ‘Thanks, Anna.’

Anna watched Sid pick up her bag and quickly leave the office. Whoever had called her was obviously in a hurry. As soon as she was out of the door, Anna grabbed her own bag and followed. As she came out of the revolving doors on to the street, she could already see Sid leaving Broadwick Street, heading into Soho.

Where was she going? Anna gave chase, keeping a decent gap between them in case Sid should turn around and see her. The Friday-afternoon commuter rush was building as they crossed Shaftesbury Avenue into Chinatown, but Sid’s russet hair made her easy to spot in a crowd. Finally she disappeared into Leicester Square tube station. Anna walked cautiously down the stairs – she didn’t want to run into her in the ticket hall – but Sid was already through the barriers, heading for the Northern Line. Anna prided herself on her intuition, and she had always known there was something wrong with Sid. Her work was good, excellent at times, but she didn’t seem to have the dedication of the other trainees, lacked their willingness to work through the night on a case if necessary and never socialised or schmoozed. Which probably explained why she had been told they wouldn’t be renewing her contract. Donovan Pierce was a firm made in the image of Helen and Larry and if you weren’t prepared to match their twenty-four-hour commitment to the job, you were never going to climb the ladder there.

A train was just pulling in to the platform with a rush of air, and Anna saw Sid jump into a carriage towards the front. Anna took a seat at the end of the next carriage, just far enough to be out of sight, but close enough that she would see when Sid got off. She had to wait several stops. At Clapham South, she followed Sid up the escalator and out on to the busy crossroads. She had to trot to keep up – she couldn’t lose her now. Crossing into a maze of residential streets, Sid turned on to a quiet road made up of Victorian terraces with tiny front gardens. To Anna’s surprise, she turned and walked up to an ordinary front door and disappeared inside. Who the hell was she meeting in there?

Anna watched the house from the other side of the road. This is ridiculous, she told herself. Go and confront her.

Hesitantly she walked up to the door, but before she could knock, she heard raised voices inside. They were muffled, but she could hear the words ‘selfish’ and ‘money’: tempers were frayed. Suddenly the door flew open and a middle-aged woman came out, pulling on a cardigan. Seeing Anna, she stopped in her tracks.

‘Is Sid there?’ asked Anna quickly.

The woman looked over her shoulder.

‘Sid. Here.’ Her voice was slow, cautious.

Sid appeared in the corridor. Anna could barely see her, her eyes finding it hard to adjust from the outside light, but as she focused, she could see that her trainee was holding a small child.

‘I have to go,’ said the middle-aged woman, hurrying off.

Anna and Sid just looked at each other.

‘Want another coffee?’ said Sid finally. ‘I don’t suppose you drank much of the last one I made you.’

Anna closed the door and the child, a boy she noted, started crying. She followed Sid into the kitchen. Sid put the child down on a colourful mat strewn with toys, where he began to play happily.

‘So now you know I have a son,’ she said crisply.