The drawback of her job was that when strangers were making polite conversation they invariably started talking about their favourite books and authors. She now knew that the ancient deaf lady was a fan of Daphne du Maurier, that the gardening fan liked books about .. . um, gardening, and that Malcolm’s ruddy-faced friend Miles was immensely proud of the fact that he was capable of quoting great swathes of P. G. Wodehouse he’d learned by heart. Even when nobody was remotely interested in hearing him do it.

It almost came as a relief when Miles’s boisterous son – ‘Can you ask J.K. Rowling to put me in her next book?’ – accidentally knocked a slice of pepperoni pizza down the front of Lola’s cream shirt. Resisting the urge to reply, ‘You mean squashed between the pages like a beetle?’ she excused herself and escaped to sponge off the stain.

In the kitchen she found Annie, Malcolm’s plump daughter-in-law, busy taking trays of quiche and stuffed peppers out of the oven.

Annie chatted away as Lola sponged the front of her shirt.

‘It’s so lovely to meet you at last. Malcolm’s told us so much about you.’ Her bosom jiggling as she carved up the quiches, she added jovially, ‘That’s when he isn’t telling us about your mum!’

‘Poor you.’ Lola pulled a sympathetic face.

‘Oh we love it, it’s so sweet! They get on so well together, don’t they? Just like a couple of teenagers!’

OK, they definitely weren’t like a couple of teenagers. ‘Mm.’ Lola kept her voice neutral. Talk about getting carried away.

‘It’s wonderful for both of them. Malcolm’s such a lovely person,’ Annie prattled on. ‘And of course your mum is too! And now it’s just so perfect that they’ve found each other. I’m a sucker for a good old romance, aren’t you?’

Lola said cheerfully, ‘Old being the operative word!’ Yuk, please let Annie be wrong.

‘Oh dear, that mark isn’t coming out.’ Annie eyed the orange pizza stain Lola had been scrubbing at on the front of her shirt. ‘And now you’re all wet!’

‘Don’t worry, I’m fine. And definitely don’t offer to lend me one of Malcolm’s jumpers to wear instead.’ Flippantly Lola added, ‘Or one of his lumberjack shirts!’

‘Oh but—’

‘Honestly, I’d rather stay wet. I’m sure Malcolm’s lovely, but the geography teacher look isn’t quite me.’ Lola pulled a complicit face because Annie was herself wearing a stunning navy silk dress and jewelled Karen Millen shoes, so would understand.

Annie paused and gave her an odd sideways look. ‘Malcolm’s just Malcolm. Clothes aren’t his number one priority.’ Tippingfrozen rosti onto a baking tray she, went on, ‘Why, does that bother you?’

Damn, she didn’t understand. Hastily, Lola said, ‘No, it was just a joke.’

‘He might not dress like Prince Charles,’ Annie said stiffly, ‘but he’s still a nice person.’

Oh God, now she’d offended Annie. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—’

‘And it’s not as if your mum’s a great style queen anyway.’ Now it was Lola’s turn to be offended. She might be allowed to criticise Blythe’s dress sense but no one else was.

‘See?’ Evidently reading her mind, Annie raised an eyebrow.

‘Not very nice, is it?’

‘I just want my mum to be happy.’ Lola dabbed furiously at her wet shirt with a fresh wodge of kitchen roll.

‘And you don’t think Malcolm’s up to the job? You don’t think he’s good enough for her, is that it?’

Honestly, all this kerfuffle because she’d said Malcolm dressed like a geography teacher.

‘Not at all,’ Lola ventured carefully. ‘I just wonder if they’re as compatible as you think they are.

They might enjoy each other’s company, but how much do they really have in common?’

‘They don’t have to have anything in common! People are different! You love books,’ Annie retorted. ‘I think books are boring! But that’s just me and it doesn’t matter. My husband’s a motorbike fanatic and I love slushy movies. I like listening to Barry Manilow, he’s crazy about Meatloaf. But we’re still happily married. It doesn’t mean we don’t love each other.’

‘You might go off him if he made you play endless games of Monopoly’ Lola couldn’t help herself; the words popped out.

But Annie didn’t take offence. Instead she handed Lola a tray of hot mini-samosas and said drily,

‘OK, you may have a point with the Monopoly. Could you be an angel and take these through?’

At least at a film premiere you could safely assume that anyone turning up wouldn’t object to being snapped. Gabe, who had high hopes for this evening, marvelled at the fact that the air temperature was minus several degrees and he was freezing his nuts off in his leather jacket, yet the endless parade of starlets doing their beam-and-pose bit on the red carpet were wearing dresses the size of your average J-cloth.

Maybe the layers of fake tan kept them warm.

‘Tana, over here!’ bellowed a gaggle of paparazzi as a slinky brunette in a shimmering purple scrap of nothing emerged from the next limo in the queue. Gabe wasn’t entirely sure who she was — one of the Coronation Street girls possibly — but he A clicked and snapped along with the rest of them and wondered briefly what it must be like to wear six-inch strappy stilettos. Oh well, with a bit of luck he’d never find out. Poor old Tania was developing a fine pair of bunions; soon all she’d be able to 1 fit those feet of hers into would be flip-flops. a

‘Matt, Matt, give us a smile,’ yelled the paps as the next celebrity sauntered up the carpet. OK, Gabe was pretty sure he knew this one, he was a Channel 4 TV presenter ... or maybe a member of that boy band with the reputation for unzipping their trousers and flashing their- Eurgh, right second time. What these boys didn’t seem to i realise was that where the sight of their backsides was concerned,familiarity bred contempt. Once you’d seen one spotty adolescent bottom, you’d seen them all.

‘What a tosser,’ murmured the photographer next to Gabe. ‘Their last single only just scraped into the top forty. They’re getting desperate now, terrified their record company’s about to dump them. By this time next month they could be back working in Burger King.’

‘Me too.’ Gabe spoke with feeling. Let’s face it, he hadn’t exactly set the paparazzi world alight since his fluke photo back in Sydney. As the next limo drew up he polished the lens of his Leica Digilux, ready for whoever might be about to

‘Hey, Savannah, this way!’The paparazzi lurched into a frenzy of action, galvanised by the unexpectedness of her appearance. With a jolt, Gabe saw her emerge from the car behind a huge security guy in a too-tight dark suit with the look of a debt collector about him.

This was the public face of Savannah Hudson. Tonight she was in full-on film-star mode. Her blond hair was carefully styled, her make-up perfect. Around her narrow shoulders she wore a silvery velvet wrap; the rest of her body was draped in bias-cut white satin. She looked like an infinitely fragile, stunningly beautiful goddess. Not a plastic carrier bag, not a pair of Wellington boots in sight.

No bald heads either, unless you counted the shaven one belonging to the security gorilla.

Savannah posed for the photographers, showcased her outfit and dutifully smiled while turning this way and that. Having taken a few pictures, Gabe stopped and put his camera down in order to watch her. Maybe it was his stillness amongst the frenzied screaming horde that attracted her attention but moments later she spotted him. Their eyes met for a second. Gabe nodded, acknowledging her with a brief smile, but there was no flicker of acknowledgement in return.

Savannah’s gaze slid past him., the smooth professional smile moved on to dazzle the next gaggle of photographers and after a few more poses she was off up the red carpet to cheers of delight from the assembled fans.

Well, what had he expected? For her to wave and yell out, ‘Hey, everyone, there’s the guy over there who papped me when my wig came off!’

Gabe got on with the business of snapping the next wave of celebs, standing his ground as the other paparazzi pushed and shoved around him. Several minutes later, just as he’d bagged a telling shot of a husband and wife giving each other the kind of look that hinted their marriage might be on the rocks, he felt a hand grasp his shoulder.

It was a firm hand and — bloody hell — an enormous one. Looking round, Gabe saw that it belonged to the security guy in the too-tight suit.

‘What’s wrong?’ Gabe took in the grim expression on the man’s face, the interest of the photographers around him. Shit, was he about to be beaten to a pulp on the pavement?

‘You’ve been pestering Miss Hudson: The words were accompanied by a menacingly jabbed finger. ‘My advice to you, sonny, is to leave her alone. Got that?’

For a split second Gabe thought he was being targeted by a pickpocket. Then he realised his wallet wasn’t being stolen, something was being pushed into his jacket pocket.

He murmured, ‘Got it,’ and — out of sight of the other paps — felt the huge man give his pocket a meaningful pat. ‘Glad to hear it.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said one of the paps when the incredible hulk had stalked off. ‘I thought he was going to hammer you into the ground.’

‘Me too.’ With a grimace Gabe raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Close call. In fact I’m going to get myself a drink to celebrate still having a neck.’

Chapter 37

Around the corner, away from the crowds and the noise, Gabe pulled a folded cinema flyer from his pocket. In the semidarkness he had to turn it over twice before spotting the mobile number scribbled diagonally across one corner.