Killer Affair Read online

  Caroline hadn’t thought this journey would be so crowded, but the previous train had apparently been cancelled, and this one was a carriage short, so the result was a series of overstuffed sardine cans packed with a lot of extremely unhappy sardines.

  The man opposite her pushed his knees further forward, pretending that he didn’t realize he was butting against her, his head buried pointedly in his copy of the Guardian. One of those types who was all sharing and caring in public – above the table, with his lefty newspaper – but was quite happy to shove her underneath where no one could see. Another observation for the blog! Doing her best to squash her thighs to one side, Caroline opened another document and noted it down before switching back to the Lexy draft, praying that, unlike her, the man wasn’t travelling all the way to Bournemouth . . .

  Bubblier than a magnum of Cristal, bouncier than a tennis ball smashed by Rafael Nadal, Lexy flirted her way into the nation’s heart the moment she appeared on ITV’s Who’s My Date?. With her big blue eyes, tumbling dark ringlets and swift-witted banter with the suitors vying to take her out, Lexy was an instant sensation. Offers from men’s magazines to pose for them flooded in, and a producer from the show pitched a special to ITV: Love Me Lexy!, in which members of Lexy’s army of admirers would go through a series of challenges for the chance to spend a weekend away with her in Marbella.

  The viewers watched agog – bookies even gave odds on who Lexy would choose. But though the public’s hearts were on fire, Lexy’s was not. No matter how many hoops they jumped through, Lexy was never going to settle down with a plumber from Portsmouth or a brickie from Bognor. She was on her way up, and she wouldn’t stop till she reached the heights.

  As soon as Love Me Lexy! aired, Lexy dumped the winner of the show, selling a tell-all story to the Sun about that weekend in Marbella, spilling saucy gossip about his lack of endowment. But that was only Part One of her publicity coup. Outrageously, just days afterwards, she stepped out on the arm of Darrell Rose, the presenter of Love Me Lexy! himself – with Darrell’s long-term girlfriend nowhere to be seen.

  It was a genius move, cementing Lexy’s position as a C-list celebrity. The scandal of Darrell dumping his girlfriend for her, plus the fact that he’d presented the very show on which Lexy was supposed to find love, meant that Lexy was no longer the nation’s sweetheart. She’d become something even better, even more attractive to the media: controversial. People could project what they wanted onto her. For some, Lexy was the sex bomb they fantasized about being, wild and fun and uninhibited. For others, she was a slut, a homewrecker, just like the younger woman who had run off with their husband, and they could conveniently offload all the hate for that man-stealer onto her.

  Lexy and Darrell were splashed over the tabloids and gossip sites, Lexy dazzling in a series of very revealing outfits, Darrell apparently dazed by the entire turn of events. After Lexy left him for a more famous rugby player, Darrell described her bitterly as a tornado who had whirled him up in the air, spun him around and jettisoned him when she had no more use for him.

  The rugby player was merely the second celebrity boyfriend in a long male beauty parade. Even when Lexy dated a ‘civilian’ – a sexy barman, a stripper she’d met at a friend’s hen night – she transformed him into a celebrity, polished him up and got the maximum value from him that she could.

  In short, for almost twenty years, ever since she exploded into the spotlight, Lexy’s been a publicist’s dream client. Her life has been non-stop drama, keeping her fans on tenterhooks to see what’s coming next.

  But now . . .

  Caroline’s fingers, which had been flying over her laptop keys, finally paused. She wasn’t quite sure what she was writing: a pitch for Lexy to read? An attempt to prove to herself that she could pull off the sort of fun, breathless style that would work in a book? Or should she be trying to tell the story as Lexy would, capture Lexy’s distinctive voice?

  Over the last two days, Caroline had spent all her spare time researching her potential subject, but had been too nervous to start writing anything. As soon as the train had pulled out of Waterloo, however, she had learned something that many established authors already knew: travel was very stimulating to the creative impulses. Typing busily away, she did not even notice when the Guardian reader opposite alighted from the train at Basingstoke, barely registering the fact that she could lean over the keyboard without getting knobbly-kneed pushbacks under the table.

  Finally, the words were flowing! She would have something to show Lexy at today’s meeting, something to demonstrate that she was actually capable of the job for which she was pitching: ghostwriting a memoir for Lexy. Caroline had not realized initially why the agent had got in touch with her. The email had simply been one curt line, mentioning Caroline’s blog and asking her to get in touch. It hadn’t even come from the agent herself, who was far too important to contact Caroline directly, but her assistant, a very posh-sounding girl called, implausibly, Campaspe Norton-Brown.

  Heart pounding, thinking that she was being offered an opportunity to discuss the novel she had always dreamed of writing, Caroline had completely failed to play it cool. She had rung the agency as soon as the email pinged onto her screen, and only when someone answered, his accent impeccably upper-class, had she realized that she had absolutely no idea how to pronounce the name of the person she was calling.

  But she had stumbled through the syllables and been connected to the ineffably bored-sounding Campaspe. To Caroline’s great disappointment, however, the assistant did not even bother to begin by telling her how much she loved her blog, let alone ask if she’d ever thought about expanding some of her short stories and blog entries into a novel. Instead, she had asked Caroline if she knew who Lexy O’Brien was, and, having received a positive response, proceeded to sound her out as to whether she would ‘care’, as Campaspe put it, ‘to consider’ ghostwriting for Lexy.

  ‘It’s a fixed fee, no royalties,’ Campaspe had drawled. ‘Standard drill. Full confidentiality agreement, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Caroline had said, so taken aback that she could only parrot what Campaspe was saying.

  ‘Ideally, we want someone who can write a blend of autobiography and fiction,’ Campaspe said, her tone, Caroline thought, slightly quizzical. ‘That’s Lexy’s concept, anyway. She wants her story told as a novel. Don’t worry if you don’t have the faintest idea what that means – she’ll tell you exactly what she has in mind. We need someone who’ll get her voice, obviously, but also someone who’ll sort of embed herself in the family, to an extent. I don’t know how much you know about ghosting, but it’s standard practice to spend a good deal of time with the subject, at least at the start, so Lexy has to get on with whoever it is.’

  Unable to repeat ‘whoever it is’, Caroline fell back on ‘Of course’ again.

  ‘Having said that, she’s seeing this collaboration as a source of future book ideas too,’ Campaspe continued. ‘I’ll let her explain what she means, but basically she’s suggesting that a fiction writer will be able to help her come up with real-life stories that’ll feed into projected books and be fodder for the tabloids at the same time . . .’

  And that was the central issue. Even before embarking on her frantic two-day Lexy research binge, Caroline had read the Mail Online as much as the next woman. Caroline was aware of the way Lexy and her publicists contrived to get herself, Frank and her children into the press on a very regular basis. Look at that puddle story – in its way, it was a triumph of the genre, a much-ado-about-nothing that still kept Lexy’s face in the press.

  Clearly, however, Lexy was wary of being reduced to that kind of wisp-thin newspaper filler. The familiar faces who regularly appeared in the tabloids generated constant lurid stories – broken engagements, torrid affairs, betrayal by close friends, lawsuits over libel, weight loss and gain, threesomes, drug use, even husbands who turned out to be transgender – that kept their fans perpetually enthralled by their real-lif
e soap operas.

  Lexy’s problem, Caroline assumed, was that she was now, by all accounts, happily settled down with Frank and the kids. The older one, Laylah, was from a previous marriage of Lexy’s; Frank had adopted her, and they were bringing her up together with London, the little boy fathered by Frank. Now that Lexy was in a long-term, solid marriage, the titillating stories would dry up. Was Campaspe hinting that Lexy wanted a writer to help her concoct fake news items so that she could stay in the news forever?

  There had been no point asking Campaspe that question: she had made it clear that Lexy would be briefing Caroline.

  ‘But now . . .’

  Caroline looked at the last words she had written as the train pulled into Bournemouth station.

  Nothing follows a happy ever after, she thought. The prince and princess get married and have some babies and that’s it. End of the line. Just like the train announcement, we terminate here and start reading about a new princess instead. If Lexy wants to keep herself in the papers for the next ten years, she’ll have to come up with a whole new storyline, and how’s she going to manage that?

  She packed away her laptop in her shoulder bag, unwedged herself from under the table and shuffled off the train with the rest of the passengers, hoping the bus stop would be easy to find. Campaspe had told her that Sandbanks, where Lexy lived, was equidistant to Bournemouth and Poole stations, but that the former was preferable as it had a taxi rank. Caroline had waited eagerly on hearing this piece of information, but no offer of compensation for train ticket or cab ride had followed, and she couldn’t possibly afford to pay for a cab herself.

  Caroline was quite aware that if she had been an established writer, not just a nobody blogger, expenses would have been offered. Ironic, of course, because a proper writer would surely need the money much less than she did. Caroline had had to buy an open return, having no idea how long the interview would take. At least she’d been able to get an off-peak ticket, but it had cost over fifty pounds, and she had had to take the day off from her job. Her boss had sounded thoroughly pissed off when she rang in that morning, pleading flu: half the department had recently been sacked and the survivors were working double time to catch up.

  It was too far to walk to Sandbanks; Google had told her that Bournemouth was also a better choice for the bus service. But the bus was running late, and then she got off at the wrong stop because she was so stressed about the delay. When she realized her error, she launched into an awkward half-run to get there faster. Caroline never ran, was totally unfit, and by the time she arrived at the big security gates of Lexy’s mansion she was not only clammy with sweat and out of breath, but her hair and coat were damp because a light rain was falling and she hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella.

  Caroline felt disgusting. And as she gave her name to the tinny voice answering the intercom, the access door in the gate buzzing open, the sight of The Gables, Lexy’s multimillion pound mansion, was so intimidating that she almost turned on the scuffed plastic heels of her cheap boots and ran away.

  Chapter Two

  Sandbanks, the peninsula on which Caroline was standing, was known as the British Palm Beach. Unbelievably, it had the fourth highest property values in the world. The forty or so houses that ran around the outside of the sand spur, having direct access to the sea, were worth seven- to eight-figure sums. It was a millionaire’s playground, and a tiny one; it measured just half a square mile.

  Looking at the house – no, the mansion – awestruck and daunted, Caroline could quite believe that it had cost a fortune. It was colonial-style, pale blue wood siding with white trim, its roof gabled, its matching white balconies and terraces delicately carved, composed of one long central building with wings on either side reaching away from the entrance gate towards Poole Harbour beyond. What she was looking at was clearly the rear of the house, despite the imposing marble staircase that led up to the large front door; and that was even more intimidating, because the back of this house was more impressive than the front of any other she had visited in her life.

  The most elegant of backs, Caroline thought. A supermodel walking away down a catwalk. A ballet dancer gliding offstage. Having been writing for two hours straight, her brain was creatively fired up, primed to find metaphors. Then, as she walked up the marble steps, the big front door swung open, and the vista in front of her made her gasp in appreciation, her brain racing even faster to think of how she would describe it. The mansion, like so many other Sandbanks houses, had been designed to face the sea, making the most of the superb panorama over Poole Harbour and the marina. Its wings opened like arms to frame the view.

  A double staircase curved up either side of the huge entrance hall, encircling the vista. Glass walls beyond gave an open perspective all the way through the house to a rich green lawn sloping down to a jetty that reached out into the grey, wind-flecked English Channel. The sky beyond was equally grey, rain falling with increasing strength, creating a veil of water between clouds and sea.

  It had a bleak, hypnotic beauty. Caroline imagined herself owning this house, curled up in an oversized armchair, watching the rain beat gently against the windowpanes as classical music played. It was such a compelling picture that for a moment she lost herself inside it, and jumped when the young woman who had let her in said briskly:

  ‘You leave your coat. Outside is wet.’

  The young woman had a light foreign accent, an impressive head of thick black curly hair contained in a heavy plait, and a no-nonsense attitude. As Caroline took off her thin, cheap wool coat, she flinched in horror: someone had started screaming upstairs, the screeches at a near eardrum-piercing level. The young woman, who was opening the hallway closet, paid not the slightest attention. Footsteps sounded above, and a small child dressed from head to toe in pink dashed along the landing, screeching ‘I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!’ so loudly that a recording of her could have been used at riots to disperse crowds. All Caroline’s instincts were to clap her hands over her ears and duck for cover.

  The little girl skidded to a halt, pressed a button and stepped into a glass box against one side of the hall at landing level, a lift that Caroline had not previously noticed. As the lift began to descend, the little girl kept screaming, hands clenched into fists, cheeks as fuchsia as her stripy tights, her blue eyes round and bulging. The lift was demonstrably not sound-proof: the screeching was muffled but still audible.

  It was an extraordinary sight. Caroline goggled at the child as she sank to ground level, her eyes sliding over Caroline and her companion without a flicker of interest, dismissing them as utterly unimportant. She was screaming all the while, barely taking a breath, the noise persisting even after she had disappeared from sight into the depths of the house.

  ‘I don’t like children,’ the young woman said flatly, nodding at Caroline to hang her coat up in the closet. ‘There are two here. The boy is not as bad as the girl. But I only like cats.’

  No response seemed to be required, which was lucky, as Caroline had no idea what to say. A dispirited-looking, dowdy, drooping young woman came along the upper hallway, glancing at the steel and glass lift shaft as she started to head down one wing of the staircase.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, Carmen,’ she said wearily. ‘Kittens are better than children.’

  ‘Kittens are so fluffy!’ Carmen said, coming fully to life. ‘And they don’t talk! I keep saying to you, you should get a job looking after kittens!’

  ‘Please don’t make me cry,’ said the young woman, reaching the ground floor. ‘I just hope she hasn’t thrown herself into the swimming pool by now.’

  Carmen shrugged with superb nonchalance.

  ‘She will float,’ she said. ‘In my country we say that. Witches float.’

  The nanny snorted out through her nose and went through a side door which presumably led to a staircase to the basement and the swimming pool in which the small child would be floating.

  ‘Are you the housekeeper
?’ Caroline asked her politely, closing the cupboard door.

  ‘I am the cleaning lady,’ Carmen corrected her. ‘That was the nanny. But she won’t be here long. She’s weak. Her hair is thin. It’s because she is vegetarian. I tell her many times what to do about her hair, but she won’t listen.’

  ‘What should she do?’ Caroline asked, fascinated. ‘Eat meat?’

  ‘Of course,’ Carmen said, looking at her with mingled contempt and pity. ‘But also, when you brush your hair, you must always leave the hair outside for the birds, to make their nests. Then your hair will grow long and thick like mine.’

  She tossed her plait back over her shoulder complacently and pointed ahead, towards the view.

  ‘You go there,’ she said. ‘Lexy is in there.’

  Tentatively, her nerves on edge, not knowing how to react to the scene she had just witnessed or whether she should mention to Lexy that her daughter might be floating – or sinking – in the swimming pool, Caroline crossed the hallway. It was a long walk, and she was acutely aware of Carmen’s eyes on her back as she went, judging everything about her. God knew what comments Carmen would be making about her to the nanny in due course, but she already guessed that they wouldn’t be positive.

  Caroline had seen multiple photographs of the huge sitting room online. It had featured in spreads for weekly magazines for which Lexy, Frank, London and Laylah had posed, modelling clothes from Lexy’s fashion line. Running the entire length of the main part of the house, it was even more spectacular than it had appeared in pictures, partly because it was visually extended by the stone terrace beyond, which also ran the length of the house and was fully visible through the glass back wall.