Loe raamatut: «Access All Areas: HarperImpulse Contemporary Fiction»

Chapter 1

Anna Clark tried for the third time to squeeze her fingernails under the stupid sash window of room 214 of London’s Lavington Hotel, and prise it open. With each failed attempt, panic had increased its attempt to throttle her and panic was the last thing you needed when you were two floors up and on the wrong side of the sodding window.

What she needed now was a cool head. And possibly nail extensions, not that she’d ever so much as crossed the threshold of a beauty salon. Long nails might be great for opening ridiculous sash windows that shut by themselves, but when you earned a living as a photographer, long nails were the last thing you needed. Not that it was earning her anywhere near a living at the moment, which was actually the whole point of her being here.

It had all sounded so easy two days ago back in the sunny little kitchen at home. Exclusively her home now since her father had died, nearly six months to the day after her mother. She’d only just emerged from the crushing grief and shock, taking comfort in holding on to what remnants of family life she had left, to find it wouldn’t be her home for much longer if she didn’t find a swift and sizeable cash injection.

Her old school friend Lucy had offered some straight talking, mainly because she couldn’t offer money.

‘I’d love to help,’ she said on the phone, ‘but they pay peanuts at the hotel and I’m still having no luck with auditions.’

Lucy liked to describe herself as a jobbing actress who filled in the gaps by working as a waitress at the Lavington. Lately it was more the other way round. Her last acting job had been seven months ago, an advert for crisps which had required her to say the line ‘Love That Crunch.’ Hollywood was an elusive animal.

‘It’s fine. I’ve got lots more people I can ask,’ Anna had lied. ‘I just need to find enough to buy me some extra time with the bank. Then maybe I can get a second job, get things back under control…’

Selling her soul was beginning to sound appealing. Her photography work had petered out somewhat these last months and it would take time to build her client base back up. Time she didn’t have. She’d been so preoccupied with her father’s failing health that all the day-to-day stuff, including work, had fallen by the wayside. Little had she known the mess she was already in.

The bank hovered over her like a large and very ugly vulture, ready to swoop in and whip away the only thing that she had left of her family, and all because her father had remortgaged the house to buoy them up through her mother’s illness two years earlier. Of course he’d expected to have years left in him to work and pay the loan off. He hadn’t even mentioned it to Anna until the very end and she only discovered the full extent of the mess when she finally steeled herself to sort through her father’s papers after he’d gone. By then the repayments had quietly lapsed for months. Brown envelopes had been stuffed away as he refused to accept that he wouldn’t beat the illness and turn things around. No one could have guessed that he’d follow his wife so quickly to the grave, leaving Anna alone.

Well, not alone exactly. She had the bank for company.

No way was she giving up her family home without a fight. It was all she had left of her old life. And that was exactly what she was doing now, teetering in the gap between the window and the curly black wrought iron railing that came up to her thighs, on a ledge that was designed to hold nothing more than a couple of plants or a window-box. This was her last resort at saving the last remnants of a happy family life which had meant the whole world to her. The loan arrears were gobsmacking, the bank was on the brink of repossessing and Anna had done her best to fend them all off. She’d already tapped friends, family, everyone she could think of for a loan and had sold everything she could bear to part with that wasn’t nailed down. And still it wasn’t enough.

And then Lucy had uttered those magic words.

‘I think I might know a way out of this. A way you could make some money, fast.’

Anna’s ears were instantly burning.

‘You remember that photo you sold a couple of years ago?’ Lucy said. ‘That soap actress on her honeymoon.’

Anna had happened to be in the right place at the right time. She’d been taking photos for a travel brochure in a lovely Cotswolds village at just the moment when a celebrity nipped to the local shop, following a wedding that had been protected by white screens because she’d sold the exclusive rights to a glossy magazine. Anna had inadvertently scooped the first post-wedding picture and it had sold for a cool five thousand pounds or so.

Lucy lowered her voice on the phone to a stage whisper.

‘Betsy Warrender is staying in the hotel with Kip Bevan.’

Anna choked on her coffee.

‘The Betsy Warrender?’

Betsy Warrender was a film-and-TV-star-behaving-badly who courted scandal and was the darling of the tabloid press. With her forty-fifth birthday and her third marriage long behind her the media had been mesmerised by her are-they-or-aren’t-they relationship with her most recent co-star, up and coming British actor Kip Bevan, utterly gorgeous and twenty-five years her junior.

‘Is there more than one?’ Lucy said. ‘Of course it’s the Betsy Warrender. They’re staying in a suite on the second floor ordering gourmet food and champagne. Barely anyone knows about it and I’m sworn to secrecy but I could do with some spare cash.’

Anna’s mind whirled.

‘What exactly are you suggesting?’

‘What do you think? The first photo of the two of them together will fetch a fortune and sooner or later some tabloid hack will get the scoop.’ Lucy said. ‘All I’m saying is, you’re a photographer, you’ve got all the kit, why can’t that person be you? Room 214 has a door directly opposite theirs and it’s empty because of maintenance work. No Joe Public guest is allowed there but I can get you in that room and the rest is up to you. We split the proceeds. What do you say?’

Anna momentarily lost the power of speech as she imagined just what a photo of Betsy Warrender and her rumoured toyboy lover could fetch. A million times more famous than a C-list soap actress. A-list all the way. Anna could sell a picture of them to an agency, save her family home and probably retire, all in one day.

Maybe. Possibly.

It hadn’t quite gone to plan so far.

Unfortunately an exclusive hot tip was only half the battle. Anna had headed to London quick smart and she’d been on the hotel premises since this morning. Betsy Warrender and Kip Bevan were holed up in the Purple Suite on the second floor, and nothing short of an earthquake looked like blasting them out of there.

Still they had to come out at some point – right? Lucy had been spot on, room 214’s fish-eye peephole had a full-on view of Betsy’s suite door. Any sign of the happy couple emerging and Anna would be the first to know.

Trouble was, staking out the peephole of a hotel room door was mind-numbingly and neck-achingly dull. After three hours of it, Anna found herself thinking around the opportunity, trying to find another – ideally quicker – way of getting the money shot. It occurred to her that the Purple Suite took up a large corner of the second floor. And therefore the window of room 214, if she leaned out far enough, could offer an excellent outdoor view of the Purple Suite’s windows and its luxury balcony. She might be able to take a long shot through a window, and you never knew, Betsy and Kip might just come out and wave. It was the middle of summer after all, and the perfect sunny day for lunch in the fresh air.

Her conscience griped in her stomach, not for the first time, and she squashed it and opened the window as wide as she could. She couldn’t afford principles. They were a luxury.

She repeated in her mind for her own benefit her standard ‘put-yourself-in-the-public-eye’ speech: If Betsy Warrender wanted the media to dance to her tune when it suited her, bumping up her millions with carefully manipulated photos and controlled column inches, she really was in no position to moan when the media played things a little on their terms. It didn’t really help. Anna still felt somehow cheap, like a loathsome privacy-invading hack. Her father had trained her in portrait photography not paparazzi snaps. But what choice did she have? The house was at stake.

The best she could do was try for a picture that was flattering. She’d do her best to snap them on the balcony and if they didn’t show then she’d get back to staking out the door. She silently promised Betsy that she’d do her best for a situation where she was looking good instead of one of those awful ‘Stars without Slap’ horror photos.

Then again, a picture of Betsy Warrender make-up free could also make a mint.

Her conscience continued to argue with itself.

The wrought iron railing that ran along the bottom half of the window made leaning out so much easier. The view of the Purple Suite balcony was tantalisingly, maddeningly, just out of view. She could see the corner of it, with covered hot tub and white voile curtains fluttering between the open French windows. If she just craned around a teeny bit more and held up her camera the view would be perfect. Maybe she’d get it by opening the sash all the way and standing on the window ledge – there was no real danger, the wrought iron railings stood between her and the drop.

She hadn’t counted on the window sliding neatly closed behind her.

Oh just bloody great.

Joe Marshall left the meeting room mid-afternoon after an attempt at briefing a team of disinterested hotel staff, some of them temps, the rest of them scrolling idly through their mobile phones because they didn’t earn enough to care, on how attention to detail is key when providing security services to the rich and famous.

He should know. He’d spent the last six years doing exactly that at the highest level before his return to England, and with every additional day in this new job he regretted that decision more and more. This lot needed a rocket lighting under them.

The walkie-talkie on his belt buzzed and crackled into life.

‘Joe, we’ve had a couple of reports from passers-by.’ The receptionist’s voice sounded vaguely nasal over the airwaves. ‘There’s someone hanging out of a window on the second floor. South side of the building, could you check it out?’

He changed direction and headed through the lobby. Six years of worldwide travel, staying in the best hotels and attending celebrity-packed events and this is where he was now. Persuading mad sightseers that craning out of windows is a bad idea. How the mighty had fallen. He groped in his mind for the reason – any reason – why he’d agreed to this job when it was offered out of the blue. Apart from the fact that putting down some roots and staying in one place was something he’d somehow never got around to doing, and the fact that he did experience the occasional pang for good old England with her Marmite and fish and chips, he couldn’t actually think of any. His mother didn’t count – he’d managed her situation perfectly well for months from a distance. What it boiled down to was a decision made on a whim because his contract providing security services to Stan Taylor had come to an end and Joe was at a bit of a loose end and fancied a change. At the age of sixty-five and reduced to playing father-type cameo roles, Stan had finally decided that security services weren’t really the thing for him these days. He rarely went out, his house was like a fortress and his A-list days were far behind him. Joe Marshall had looked around for alternative work and the Lavington Hotel job had landed in his lap via the grapevine.

An up and coming boutique hotel with an increasing celebrity guest list, they’d approached his friend’s London firm looking for someone to overhaul their hotel security. The person engaged to take the job had dropped out, and the post was Joe’s for the taking. He’d planned on storming in, updating the security protocols, training all the staff, and ending up with a security department that was the envy of top class London hospitality by the time he’d been in post for three months. By then he’d know if he liked being back in the UK with a mainstream job after all these rootless years. And while he was here he could check out the quality of his mother’s care home, organised months ago over the phone from Vegas when one of her friends tracked him down to fill him in on her ailing health. He’d fitted in a fleeting visit a month or so later and had gone right back to his old life within twenty-four hours.

He really should have stayed there.

This job had sounded so easy when he agreed to it. He hadn’t counted on the calibre of staff he’d be dealing with, their lack of pay and motivation. And now on top of the day job he had an A-lister with a top-secret reservation on the premises. The only bright point was that so far the press had no inkling of it because the details were restricted to half a dozen people here, of which he was one.

He stepped out onto the sunny street with its brisk London traffic, took a left and walked the perimeter of the hotel at speed. As he rounded the corner to the south side of the hotel he saw a crowd of rubbernecking pedestrians on the pavement. He shielded his eyes against the sun and craned his head back.

Hanging out of the window was a bit of an understatement. A slightly-built young woman with long dark hair was sandwiched between the railings and the window of a room on the second floor, and surely there could only be one reason why anyone would climb onto a window ledge two storeys off the ground and shut that window behind them.

‘Stay right where you are, Miss!’ he shouted up to the girl. ‘Don’t do anything until I get there. I’m on my way.’

Bellowing details of a possible suicide attempt into his walkie-talkie, he belted into the hotel’s side entrance and took the nearest flight of thickly-carpeted stairs three at a time. He was sprinting down the second floor corridor as the receptionist called out the room number, and he burst into room 214 with his master key to be presented with a shapely backside in skinny jeans through the window. The dark-haired girl caught sight of him and knocked on the glass.

For Pete’s sake.

Ready to take the softly-softly approach to talking down a manic depressive, not that he was remotely familiar with doing that, instead when he heaved the sash window open, the girl climbed back into the room without him needing to utter so much as a word, let alone an understanding one.

A spattering of cheers and applause could be heard from the pavement below.

‘Thanks so much,’ she said, straightening her white blouse. She didn’t meet his eyes. Instead she grabbed for the cloth tote bag on a side table and hoisted it over one shoulder.

‘What the hell were you doing out there?’ he said, incredulous. ‘Half the hotel is on suicide alert.’

She visibly paled. He took a deep and calming breath. All was well. A jumper on his first week in post would not have looked good on a reference.

‘Who are you?’ She leaned in to scrutinise the badge on his lapel. ‘Joe Marshall,’ she read out loud. ‘Head of Security.’

She took a step back and glanced at the door, biting the edge of her thumbnail.

‘The London Eye,’ she said vaguely. ‘I was trying for a picture. But the hotel was in the way. I thought if I leaned out of the window a bit…’ She held up the camera around her neck. ‘But then I got a bit carried away and the window shut behind me.’

There was a spray of freckles over her nose and she had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. Minxy green. He stared at the camera while alarm bells clanged in his head.

‘The London Eye?’

He narrowed sceptical eyes at her.

‘London Eye, London streets,’ she breezed, tugging her bag up higher on her shoulder. ‘Sightseeing weekend, you know how it is, didn’t want to miss anything.’

‘Nice piece of kit, that,’ he commented, nodding at the camera suspended from her neck.

‘Bit of a hobby, photography,’ she said, dismissively, tugging the strap over her head and tucking the camera into her tote bag. He followed her as she headed for the door.

‘Let me escort you downstairs, Miss…?’

She didn’t supply a name, setting off another alarm in his mind. Could you see through the windows of the Purple Suite if you hung out of the window of room 214? Was this some kind of security breach? He dismissed the thought carefully. Only a handful of people knew that the guest staying in the Purple Suite was Betsy Warrender. And in Joe’s experience, when one journalist turned up they were never alone. Paparazzi photographers travelled in packs. He hadn’t seen so much as a sniff of anyone looking remotely like a journo or wielding a camera except for Green Eyes, and she really didn’t cut it as a seasoned hack. He’d headlocked enough paps in his time to know one when he saw one and she wasn’t it.

The door of 214 clicked shut behind them. She was a good foot smaller than him as he kept pace with her down the corridor. Almost imperceptibly she increased her speed. By the time they reached the lift she was almost trotting.

‘Really, there’s no need for you to accompany me,’ she protested as he stepped into the lift beside her.

In the enclosed space they stood shoulder to shoulder and he could pick up the notes of her perfume, something clean and floral that perfectly suited the summer’s day outside.

‘No trouble at all. I’m heading to the lobby myself.’

She impatiently pressed the button marked G for a second time.

‘Where next then?’ he probed. ‘Natural History Museum? Buckingham Palace?’

She stared sideways at him.

‘Your sightseeing tour,’ he said.

She laughed a touch too loudly.

‘Actually I thought I’d have afternoon tea in the lounge,’ she said.

The lift opened onto the marble-floored opulence of the lobby and he braced himself for the possibility of a paparazzi onslaught. Nothing of the kind. A group of four guests stood near the velvet sofas in the corner. As he watched, one of the concierges joined them and collected their luggage. There were a couple of people at the reception desk talking through a map in low voices with one of the receptionists. People came and went. Not a single thing out of the ordinary. Nothing to indicate that the fact a global star was ensconced two floors above them had become common knowledge. He breathed easier as he crossed the lobby.

He attracted the attention of the waitress as Miss 214 pointedly took a seat in the lounge near the window and looked up at him.

‘Thank you for saving me,’ she said, smiling. ‘Not that I needed saving.’

He nodded politely at her as he retreated from the room to cover up the surge of heat that had seared down his spine under her green gaze. Damsels in distress were his particular weakness. Luckily for him she’d turned out to be the least distressed damsel he’d ever come across. He had enough on his plate without distraction of the female kind.