Page 197 of Private Lives

‘Cold,’ he muttered. Maybe it was time to go home. The Donovan Pierce offices were in darkness except for the sharp spotlight of his desk lamp and the blue-grey glow of his computer screen. For the first time ever, he was t

he last one in the office. Shame no one’s around to see it, he grinned.

Work had started to roll in for Matt since word had got around the wealthier pockets of London that he was handling the Rob Beaumont–Kim Collier divorce; just this week he had been instructed by a merchant banker and the wife of an England rugby star.

It can wait until tomorrow, he decided, shutting his case file with a thud. He stood up, stretching. He’d been working with the office door closed and just his desk lamp on, which made the room so cosy, he felt as if he could curl up on the sofa and fall asleep.

As he entered the corridor, he noticed the glow coming from beneath Helen’s door – a light he was sure had not been on half an hour earlier when he had gone to make his coffee. For one gleeful moment he imagined the look of surprise on Helen’s face as she saw him leaving the office last, a responsible and diligent partner who was bringing in prestigious clients and fees.

But if it was Helen, she was being awfully quiet: usually she would be on the phone to the States or barking orders into her mobile or dictaphone. The thought occurred to him that it could be an intruder. He gripped the handle, tensing himself, then whipped the door open.

‘Jesus, Matt,’ gasped Anna, holding a hand to her chest. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘Oh God, sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you were an intruder.’

Now that he thought about it, she did look like an intruder, standing behind Helen’s desk, bent over her computer keyboard. Although it was dark, Matt was certain her face had that guilty blush that suggested she was doing something she shouldn’t.

‘What are you doing here, Anna?’ he asked, glancing around the room.

‘Helen asked me to check something out for one of her cases,’ she said, looking vulnerable and unsure. It was a side of Anna Kennedy he had never seen before, and that made him deeply suspicious. He hadn’t had any personal brushes with corporate espionage, but he knew it existed in every major business around the globe. Just because he liked the girl didn’t mean she should be allowed to cause trouble for Donovan Pierce.

‘At 10 p.m. on a bank holiday? And I thought Helen was in Devon . . .’ He hadn’t meant to sound accusatory, but Anna was looking so shifty.

‘I needed to check something . . .’ replied Anna, her top lip trembling. She’s going to cry, thought Matt with alarm. He hadn’t imagined Anna Kennedy capable of such a thing.

‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, taking a step towards her.

‘Everything’s fine,’ she said, darting her gaze away.

Everything was obviously not fine.

‘You know you can talk to me, don’t you?’

She flinched, her head down.

‘Anna, what’s wrong?’

She sank down on the leather sofa.

‘Can I tell you a story?’ she said, looking so ill at ease it reminded him of the time Jonas had come to him wanting to confess to having broken a lamp, but scared of being shouted at.

He nodded and touched her shoulder.

‘Do you want to grab a coffee and come into my office?’

He sat in semi-darkness behind his desk, just listening. They had been there over forty minutes, their coffee undrunk and cold. With typical thoroughness, Anna had left nothing out, telling Matt the entire story of Amy Hart, from the first phone call with her sister Ruby, right through her meetings with a soap star and a lingerie model, a politician and a man who built oil rigs and tankers. He could see that she had been badly frightened by what she had discovered, and by the attack on that dark road in Buckinghamshire. As she spoke, he couldn’t help but admire her. Most people would have been scared off, but it only seemed to have made her more determined to get to the bottom of it.

‘And after all this, you think that Helen sabotaged Sam’s injunction because she wanted to help her boyfriend cover up the story of Amy’s inquest?’ he asked when she had finished her tale.

‘I’m sure of it. I just can’t prove it.’

‘Prove what?’ exclaimed Matt. ‘That Helen’s a murderer?’

‘I didn’t say that. Doing a favour for a friend doesn’t make her a killer. But it shows she’s involved.’

‘Can you prove any of it? I assume you’ve tried finding out from Scandalhound and the News who leaked the story.’

‘I couldn’t get anything from them. That was the first thing I did. Remember I was trying to prove that Blake and Katie were in contempt of court? I thought maybe I could find out from Helen’s end. That’s why I was snooping around here looking for something, anything. But I can’t get into her email system. Not that she’d have sent an email from a Donovan Pierce address . . .’