‘There’s two thousand pounds there,’ I say, dumping the cash on the bed. ‘Keep the change. You can count it if you like.’
‘I trust you, sister.’ He looks into my eyes and – uh-oh – I’m getting the vibe he may want to stay for a ‘drink’ and ‘keep me company’. I’ll have to let him down gently –either that or shoot him.
‘And that’s very generous of you.’ He raises his eyebrows as he looks at the cash on the bed, grinning manically. ‘How about I throw in a bit of scampi and chips for dinner, eh? I don’t usually mix business with pleasure, but I could make an exception for you, blondie.’
‘Yeah, sure. I’ll meet you downstairs in a bit,’ I say. ‘I’ll need to freshen up first and I’ve got a phone call to make – an important one.’
He seems pleased.
‘I’ll hold you to that, Molly, or should I say,Alexandra?’ His gold teeth twinkle as he grins.
‘Please,’ – I force a smile – ‘call me Alex.’
THIRTY-ONE
DAN
‘Ahh, Dan!’ Archer looks at the gift bag I’m holding, cocks her head. ‘You really shouldn’t have!’
‘I didn’t, ma’am,’ I say, placing it onto her fastidiously tidy desk.
Archer is a neat freak, obsessively so in my opinion. Even her pens are colour-coordinated and in a perfectly aligned row – black, blue, green and red. It’s the antithesis of my own ‘organised chaos’, which isn’t even that organised when I think about it. She stares at it before moving it a millimetre to the left, making it more symmetrical, in line with her staple gun.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s perfume.’
She raises her eyes.
‘Bit early for Christmas shopping, isn’t it?’
‘I bought it in a department store in Leeds, ma’am. Don’t worry, I put it on expenses.’
‘I’ll bet you did, Riley.’ She smirks.
‘It was a snip at £250.’
If she thinks I’m joking, I’m not. My heart almost stopped when the assistant had rung it up on the till: ‘She’s a lucky lady,whoever she is.’ She’d beamed at me with a set of dazzling white teeth as I’d handed over my credit card, palms sweating.
‘Erin Santos claims this is the perfume that Samantha Valentine wears, her “signature” scent.’ I wonder if Archer has a signature scent, and if so, what it might be. Something a little spicy that gets up your nose, I imagine.
She snatches the box from her desk, starts to unwrap the cellophane. ‘OK. What does that have to do with anything?’
‘We spoke to a woman named Zoe Brookes while we were in Leeds, ma’am. She’s the head receptionist at Austin Marz Productions, the film production company where Erin worked in the months leading up to her arrest. She remembers her well.’
I watch her as she struggles with the wrapping, reaches into her desk for a pair of scissors. I imagine the inside of her desk drawer is as precise as a brain surgeon’s knife tray.
‘She also claims to havemetSamantha Valentine.’
She looks up at me sharply then stops what she’s doing.
‘Erin was seen by this colleague with a woman who fits the description both Erin and Tilly Ward have given us of Samantha Valentine – a blonde, attractive woman, memorable, in her thirties, well-dressed, wearing red-soled designer shoes… wearingthatperfume…’
She takes the large, square red bottle from the box.
‘It’s Baccarat Rouge, ma’am. It’s a favourite with all the celebrities, apparently. The assistant in the store told me that Rihanna wears it.’
‘And this Zoe Brookes, this receptionist, she remembers all of this seven years on and hasn’t said a word until now?’
