Kitabı oku: «The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp», sayfa 5

NEW BALLS PLEASE!

Big Brother Becky Caught In Clinch With Protein-Ball Millionaire!

Friends say he wants to put a ring on it!

She might have only come second in this year’s Big Brother, but beautiful Becky Sharp, 20, looked like a winner last night as she was caught canoodling with Jos Sedley, 33, brother of Amelia Sedley, who snatched the title from her best friend.

Jos, the brains behind a health-and-fitness lifestyle brand which makes a successful range of protein balls, divides his time between London and LA. But judging by the way he locked lips with Becky, to the delight of the crowd, he’s thinking of making London his permanent base.

‘It’s been a whirlwind romance,’ a close friend of the couple reports. ‘They might only have known each other a few weeks but they’re already talking about marriage.’

Three people who would be delighted to hear wedding bells are Big Brother winner Amelia, 22, who regards Becky as a sister, and her parents Charles and Caroline Sedley, who invited Becky to live with them in their Chelsea townhouse worth £15 million, and have apparently given the young couple their blessing.

‘They adore Becky as if she was their own daughter,’ said a source close to the Sedleys. ‘Caroline is already planning the engagement party.’

It will be quite the rags-to-riches story for Becky. She entered the Big Brother house a penniless orphan who’d been working as a care assistant and may now be walking down the aisle with Jos, who is a millionaire in his own right and also inherited millions from his maternal grandfather.

Who said fairy tales never come true?

Chapter 8

‘This is bad. This is very, very bad.’ Jos Sedley groaned the next morning from his horizontal position on the sofa in Dobbin’s Ladbroke Grove flat. ‘It’s the worst.’

Dobbin and George didn’t know if he was talking about his hangover (he’d spent most of the night throwing up and now his face was the colour and texture of elephant hide) or the front page of the Sun. Though the front pages of the Daily Mirror, the Daily Star, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express had all gone with similar stories.

‘It’s not so bad, Jos,’ Dobbin said stoutly, because while his patience was infinite he couldn’t stand malingerers. Especially when the malingering was self-inflicted. ‘You’ll feel much better with a pot of tea and some toast inside you.’

‘No caffeine. No carbs!’

‘It’s a pity you didn’t stick to no alcohol last night,’ George said cheerfully. He threw a copy of the Daily Mirror at Jos’s head. ‘What a gigantic idiot you are! I have absolutely no sympathy for you.’

‘Steady on,’ Dobbin murmured, but George was not to be swayed.

‘I saw you last night,’ he reminded Jos, tapping the other man’s pounding head with the now rolled-up newspaper. ‘Even caught some of the tender things you were murmuring at each other. No wonder she went to the papers and told them that your intentions were honourable!’

‘Rebecca would never go to the papers,’ Dobbin said because surely no friend of dear, sweet Emmy would act in such an underhand way. It simply wasn’t how things were done.

‘I’d bet money on it,’ George insisted. ‘Girls like that, you don’t need to promise them marriage to get their knickers off, Sedley. You just buy them a bottle of something bubbly, shag them, then put them in an Uber and send them on their way.’

Later, as George and Dobbin strolled through Holland Park on their way to Kensington, Dobbin wondered aloud if George hadn’t been too harsh on their friend.

‘Not harsh enough,’ George said without a shred of pity. ‘I did him a huge favour. He spends far too much time pumping iron and guzzling protein shakes, not that it’s made him any more attractive to the opposite sex. If it had, then he might have a bit more experience, might know when he’s being taken for a ride by some jumped-up little tart with ideas far above her station.’

Dobbin didn’t reply at first and they walked through the sun-dappled paths of the park in silence. It was a glorious September morning, the sky impossibly blue, the leaves fluttering in a slight breeze as dogs chased each other round and round in circles, barking joyfully. Mothers, but mostly nannies, clutched hold of toddlers intent on feeding the ducks and not waiting their turn for the swings. On the lush, green grass couples lounged and a group of taut young men and women contorted themselves on yoga mats.

Surely, if Becky Sharp had gone to the papers in order to force a shy young millionaire’s hand, she’d have asked them to photograph she and Jos as they exercised together? When they’d both looked their best in flattering black workout clothes, the photos playful and flirty. Not when they were falling out of a nightclub, Becky in a torn dress, Jos lumbering and drunk.

It was almost as if the photos of last night were the work of someone who’d disappeared at a crucial point during the night. Someone well versed in the art of spin, working, as they did, in politics. But why would someone be so invested in tearing apart two young souls who each believed they’d found their match?

Captain Dobbin certainly wouldn’t have ever imagined that George Wylie, his friend since they were tiny boys starting prep school together in knee-length shorts, red blazers and adorable little caps, might act in such an underhand, cavalier fashion.

True, George had been a member of the infamous Rakehell drinking club at Oxford, which Dobbin had never been invited to join, but George had always kept his hands and nose clean. He was more likely to be trouble-adjacent than in the thick of it.

‘But why should you care?’ Dobbin asked, then cursed under his breath as two small dogs came barrelling through his legs and almost upended him. ‘If she makes Jos happy, then that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

‘You know why I care, you fool. I’m going to marry Amelia,’ George stated calmly. The shock was so great that Dobbin stumbled over his own size-fourteen feet and had to grab hold of a lamppost to stop himself falling to his knees.

‘I didn’t actually,’ Dobbin managed to say, gasping out the words though his throat had closed up, his heart had stopped beating, his world suddenly turned ashen and grey. ‘I thought you were seeing that little blonde researcher, Polly Somebody.’

‘Well, obviously, I’m not going to marry Amelia any time soon,’ George said with an impatient edge. ‘At the moment, she bursts into tears if you even look at her funny. And she’s twenty-two – no one gets married that young, it’s unspeakably common.’

‘I hadn’t thought about it like that,’ Dobbin choked out, because all he had thought about was how Amelia Sedley – beautiful, sweet, kind little Emmy – was perfect in every way. Far too perfect for the likes of him and, for as long as Dobbin had known Amelia, she’d fancied herself in love with George … ‘So, you’re not seeing that Polly Somebody, then?’

‘I haven’t taken a vow of chastity until Amelia acquires some backbone and a little sophistication,’ George snapped.

Being friends with George wasn’t always easy and at this particular moment, it was especially hard because Dobbin wished that he was in uniform and fully kitted out so he could Taser the living daylights out of his dear friend.

‘These girls,’ continued George, ‘the junior researchers and the likes, the Pollies and Bellas, they’re all gagging for it but they’re fabulously discreet so as not to jeopardise their own careers, so it’s win/win really.’

Dobbin glanced over at George. The dark curls framing that exquisitely patrician face, the beautifully cut grey suit, which clung to his lean frame. On this sunny day, there was something of the night about him.

‘I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Jos Sedley and Amelia’s friend,’ he said and George came to a halt, all the better to roll his eyes.

‘Must I spell it out? I’m going to marry Amelia, I’m really quite fond of her and she should shape up quite nicely, but the family’s not exactly top drawer.’

‘Then again, they’re not exactly bottom of the ladder,’ Dobbin pointed out, because he liked to think that he was egalitarian in his outlook. Though he himself came from a distinguished military family, his father was only the third son of an earl, so he’d pretty much had to make his own way in life.

‘Dobbin, I’m the heir to a baronetcy,’ George said, even though everyone knew that the Wylies had bought the baronetcy. ‘The Sedleys might be rich but they come from very humble stock and there is absolutely no way that I can have a sister-in-law who’s a nothing. A nobody. The sooner she scuttles back to whatever hole she crawled out of, the better. Like I said to Sedley, it’s just as well she was holding out for marriage because otherwise, she’s the sort to either make an incriminating sex tape or get knocked up – either way, she’d have had his balls in a vice and his millions in her bank account.’

‘I suppose you know best,’ Dobbin said dubiously. ‘Though do you always have to see the worst in people?’

George grinned, though Dobbin hadn’t meant it as a compliment. ‘I’m sure Miss Sharp will need some consoling. She might even let you go where Jos didn’t manage to break ground. Why don’t you come with me as I give her the bad news?’

Dobbin declined: the bad news that George was about to deliver so gleefully was sure to make Amelia cry, and to see Amelia cry would break his heart. Though it wasn’t true that she cried all the time. Whenever he saw Amelia, she always looked delighted; a smile on her face that had to be the reason that the sun came up and flowers grew and birds tweeted.

Chapter 9

The Sedley house was in an uproar that morning. Mrs Sedley had cast one look at the Daily Mail and her heart had started to beat so furiously that she thought she might be having a stroke. She wasn’t but she’d had to take to her bed with one of her heads, hissing to Amelia as she went, ‘I want that girl out of the house by the end of the day, Emmy.’

Becky was already packing or, rather, she’d told Amelia that she was packing. ‘I can’t stay here,’ she said to Amelia after Mrs Sedley had been tucked up with two Valium and a hot-water bottle. ‘What must your poor parents think of me? What must Jos think of me? You do know that it wasn’t me who went to the papers?’

‘Of course I do,’ Amelia gasped, because her sweet young mind wasn’t capable of such a calculated thought. ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad. You’ll feel much better after you’ve had some breakfast.’

‘I can’t eat. Food would choke me,’ Becky declared, a trembling hand to her throat as if she was already finding it hard to breathe. She stood at her bedroom door, her body barring Amelia from the room, not just for full dramatic effect but because there were a few items that had found their way into Becky’s possession that she hadn’t had a chance to squirrel away yet. ‘I’m going to pack. I’ll be gone in a few hours.’

But Becky wasn’t packing at all. She was leaning out of the window of the second-floor guest room as she waited for the first sight of Jos lumbering into the square. He’d have a terrible hangover, which was his own fault, as nobody had forced him to drink all that champagne, and he’d be sweating profusely. Becky would let him stammer and stutter his way through a series of abject apologies for humiliating her.

After a tense two minutes – no, make it three – she’d forgive Jos, which would make him feel even worse, even more ashamed. Then with some gentle nudging, and that thing she did with her eyes, he’d admit that he’d wanted to kiss her ever since he first saw her. He’d then go on to confess that the kiss in front of the paparazzi, despite its sordid circumstances, had been the happiest moment of his life.

‘We could have more happy moments like that, Jos,’ she’d say, her voice catching, then she’d look away. Though sometimes, actually all the time, it was hard work trying to tunnel through Jos’s thick skull, so perhaps she’d have to be a lot less subtle. ‘Our whole life would be a series of happy moments. Of kisses …’

Of course, Jos would ask her to come back to LA with him. Once they were in LA, away from the annoying presence of his mother and father, and the bad influence of George Wylie, then Becky wouldn’t let Jos do anything more than kiss her and paw her over her clothes, and a proposal would be inevitable.

So, all was not lost. Far from it. Though Becky hadn’t gone to the papers (and no one could prove it either way), there was no reason why this had to end in tragedy.

Becky leaned out a little further, just in time to see George Wylie come striding around the corner. She beat a frantic retreat, banging her head so hard on the sash window that it brought tears to her eyes, especially as it had all been in vain because that smug little fucker waved cheerfully up at her.

‘Ha! Caught you!’ he cried.

Still, Becky’s tears were no match for the flood of eye-water and snot that Amelia had been producing ever since Becky had shut the bedroom door in her face. She cried even harder as George described, with particular relish, what a sorry state he’d left Jos in.

‘Been chundering for six hours straight. I left him prostrate on Dobbin’s sofa. And it’s just as well we did take him to Dobbin’s last night, as he’s the only man in London whose dressing gown would fit round your brother. Pity that he puked down it,’ George finished with an appreciative chuckle. The whole episode reminded him of similar japes at Oxford.

Also, the fact that they’d taken Sedley to Dobbin’s and not to George’s own flat in Victoria, had made him quite light-headed with relief.

‘I never thought you could be so mean,’ Amelia sobbed.

‘Then you haven’t been paying attention,’ Becky said from the doorway, because staying upstairs and sulking would achieve absolutely nothing. Not when there was no sign of a suitably contrite Jos and in his place was George Wylie, who might just explode from sheer malicious delight. Here’s hoping. ‘Where’s Jos?’

George turned around, eyes gleaming, his delight magnified now that Becky had joined them. ‘I’m afraid Jos sends his regrets but he’s otherwise engaged. Oh! Sorry! Bad choice of words. Otherwise detained, shall we say?’

Becky’s innate distrust and dislike of George Wylie, in that moment, crystallised and hardened into anger; a stinging, corrosive fury that this arrogant, odious prick had the nerve to mock her, laugh at her. It was only through a sheer accident of birth that the whole world was his for the taking and that she had nothing – not even the clothes she stood up in, because they were borrowed from Amelia.

There was an edge to George Wylie this morning, a febrile glitter in his eyes, high on his own triumph. He must have said something to Jos about her which had frightened Jos off, and Becky knew then that Jos wasn’t going to turn up and beg for her forgiveness. It wasn’t all going to come good in the end.

Oh, but she would make George Wylie pay. She would ruin him, destroy everything that he’d worked so hard for.

Not that she was going to tell him that, like some second-rate Scarlett O’Hara.

‘You’re always joking,’ she noted with a quiet dignity that made George falter. ‘It’s not nice to be the punchline of a joke, especially when there’s no one here to defend me.’

Then she walked away and George was left with Amelia, who had stopped crying and was now looking at him with a furrowed brow and jutting bottom lip. It was almost as if … as if she, silly little Amelia Sedley, was disappointed in him. ‘That wasn’t very kind of you,’ she said quietly and George immediately felt the need to squirm, even though kindness wasn’t a quality that he thought much of.

‘Amelia, you are too good for me.’ It was the most sincere thing he’d ever said. ‘Look, I know you’ve hugged orphans in the Third World and spent a few weeks with a bunch of chavs, but you don’t understand the world the way that I do. That Sharp girl overplayed her hand and Jos has had a lucky escape.’

Amelia’s heart gave a sad little flutter. ‘So, he’s really not coming, then?’

‘He’s not,’ George confirmed. ‘Believe me, it’s for the best. I volunteered to fetch his things because, actually, I can be kind, Emmy. This whole business with that Sharp girl – I was only looking out for Jos because he’s your brother and well, I do rather care about you, you know.’

The sad little flutter transformed into a rapturous symphony when George took Amelia in his arms.

He smelt delicious – a heady mix of citrus and spices from the cologne that he favoured. But though Amelia raised her face to his, her lips slightly pursed, he kissed her forehead.

‘I’m … well, I rather care about you too, George,’ she dared to say and the smile he gave her then was kindness personified.

‘I know.’

After George left, it took quite a bit of time and some dawdling, before Amelia felt brave enough to face her friend.

Becky was perched on the window seat on the first-floor landing, her gaze fixed morosely on the square outside, the Daily Mail a crumpled, torn heap of paper at her feet.

‘You never know, he might still come,’ Amelia said consolingly.

‘Really? Have you spoken to him?’ Becky asked and even though it was hopeless, she couldn’t help the eager note in her voice.

‘I could speak to him,’ Amelia offered just as her phone chimed. She pulled it out of the pocket of her jeans. ‘I don’t need to! He’s just texted me. Let’s see … oh …’

Ems 2 ill 2 say gdbye. Hv 2 go back 2 LA due 2 protein-ball emergency. Will b gon v.long time. Pls send bst wishes 2 Becky. I was v.drunk lst nite & she shld 4get everything I said. Luv Jos xxx

Chapter 10

Of course, Amelia made it all about her. Crying over and on top of Becky so Becky could hardly think straight.

‘I can’t believe he didn’t say goodbye,’ Amelia wailed at such length, and there was no time to process, recover, regroup.

In fact, Becky was still reeling when there was an imperious peal on the doorbell, and who should be standing on the other side of the door but Babs Pinkerton, summoned by Mrs Sedley, who hadn’t been zonked out on Valium in the master bedroom suite but actually plotting Becky’s immediate departure.

‘Pack your bags, sweetie, you’re being thrown out,’ Babs said by way of greeting when a fuming Mrs Blenkinsop showed her into the drawing room where Becky was still being wept on by Amelia.

Amelia protested, tearfully, to her mother who pointed out that Amelia would be leaving for Durham at the end of the week.

‘So, you see, she had to leave sooner or later, and it was only ever meant to be a temporary arrangement,’ Mrs Sedley explained as she stroked her daughter’s hair and wished that she hadn’t just taken her Valium, because she really didn’t have the energy to deal with this. ‘I understand that Barbara, who says she’s always been like a mother to Rebecca, has found her a lovely little job as a nanny with a charming family. In the country. Deep in the country. Miles and miles away from here. She’ll be fine.’

Becky had been with the Sedleys for almost a month but it would take no more than twenty minutes to remove all traces of her from their house. It wasn’t as if she had any choice when Sam, Mrs Sedley’s driver, was pointedly lingering in the hall with ‘strict instructions to take you to the station’.

He didn’t come into Becky’s room – no, not her room, not any more, it was the guest room – while she packed, which was just as well. Becky tucked away several of Amelia’s dresses, which looked much better on her, a few pieces of jewellery that Amelia wouldn’t even miss, an iPad that Amelia had thought she’d lost and had already replaced, and several other items that technically didn’t belong to Becky. All the while Babs Pinkerton, in her trademark cerise which did absolutely nothing for her gin-raddled complexion, lounged on the bed enjoying Becky’s impending banishment far too much.

‘A nanny?’ Becky spat in disbelief when Babs told her where she was going. ‘In some place in the back of beyond? I went to the country once and it stunk of cow shit.’

‘You should feel right at home then,’ Babs said with a delighted smile. ‘Actually, it’s a country estate. Beautiful big house, set in acres of land, horses, duck pond, and all that jazz. And you’ll be looking after the children of Sir Pitt Crawley,’ she added like she was presenting Becky with a winning scratchcard.

‘Pitt who? Never heard of him,’ Becky muttered savagely as she stuffed a Rolex watch, which had been a silver anniversary present from Mr Sedley to his wife, into one of her trainers.

‘The Crawleys! One of Britain’s premier acting dynasties, you little imbecile,’ Babs drawled. ‘Sir Pitt was quite the sex symbol back in the day.’

‘When was back in the day?’ Becky asked, pausing her suitcase-stuffing. Working for some famous actor might not be so bad.

‘Before you were born. In the seventies,’ Babs said, which might just as well have been the Dark Ages. Yet he was still famous and he had a house, a very big house, in the country. He was bound to have his celebrity friends constantly dropping by and if he was very famous, then he was very rich too. There’d obviously be an indoor swimming pool, one of those fancy screening rooms and the children would be at school for most of the day, so it wasn’t as if Becky would have to do much nannying.

It might be the perfect opportunity to reassess things. Maybe even catch the eye of one of those celebrity friends that dropped by … but still the country wasn’t London, and London was the most likely place where a girl with no prospects but a hell of a lot of ambition could find fame, fortune and fools ready to give them to her.

‘No. It’s not happening, Babs. I came second in Big Brother …’

‘What you mean is that you didn’t win Big Brother …’

‘Whatever! Come on! You could find me some other job. Something more exciting, better paid.’ Becky zipped up her tatty holdall. ‘You know, I could do a kiss-and-tell on how Jos Sedley did me wrong.’ No, that wasn’t enough. ‘How he turned out to be a complete love rat after I’d given him …’

‘Boring!’ Babs yawned exaggeratedly. ‘The photos of him tumbling out of that club with his hand down your dress were one thing, but you wouldn’t get more than a couple of hundred quid for a follow-up.’ She examined her neon-pink talons. ‘The problem, my darling, is that you missed your window. I hate to be the one to say I told you so, but I told you so. Couldn’t even get you a thousand if you dropped your knickers for the Sunday Sport. Are you done packing, ’cause you do have a train to catch?’

Mrs Sedley had gone back to bed so it was left to Amelia to say a fitting goodbye. She clung on to Becky and Becky clung back, in the vain hope that if she attached herself barnacle-like to Amelia, then she might never have to leave.

‘We have to go now,’ Sam said implacably and firmly from behind them, and Babs sighed impatiently and Amelia was persuaded to release Becky from her Vulcan clutches.

‘This is from Mummy,’ she murmured brokenly, tucking an envelope, which at least felt like it contained a wad of banknotes, into Becky’s hand. ‘And you’re still my sister from another mister. I’m going to text you before you’ve even got in the car, and I get really long holidays so I’ll see you soon.’

‘I probably won’t be allowed the time off,’ Becky said with a pathetic little sniff that tore at Amelia’s soul, though Becky wouldn’t be taken for a fool twice and she was going to get time off and sick pay and whatever the going rate was for nannying the children of a famous actor. ‘You know how people exploit their domestic staff. I bet I won’t even get minimum wage with the hours they’ll expect me to work.’

‘Oh, Becky, I wish there was something I could do,’ Amelia cried imploringly.

‘It’s all right,’ Becky said as Babs took her arm in an uncompromising grip and began walking her towards the door. ‘I don’t blame you.’

No, Amelia was the one person that she didn’t blame. She blamed George Wylie, above all others. Next came Barbara Pinkerton, who could easily have found something exciting and well paid for Becky to do, and also Becky was pretty sure that Jemima’s bungalow had already been sold and that Babs would make sure she’d never see a penny of the £250,000 it was worth when Becky had had a valuation done before Jemima had died. She also blamed Jos Sedley for being weak and foolish and easily influenced but alas, not easily influenced by her. And though Mrs Sedley had sent her on her way with £500, Becky added her name to the list of people who’d done her wrong: one day she’d be in a position to pay them all back.

But right now, as she sat in a second-class carriage on her way to Southampton where she had to change on to a branch line, Becky wasn’t in any position but to take the job that Barbara Pinkerton had grudgingly found for her.

She was twenty, without any family. It wasn’t just a line she spun for sympathy; those were the facts. There wasn’t a parent or a grandparent, not even a stray aunt or uncle who’d take her in. Apart from the few trinkets she’d acquired from the Sedleys to go with the trinkets that Jemima Pinkerton would have wanted her to have, Becky had no assets. She didn’t even have a bank account.

If she threw herself on the mercy of the state, she might be found a bed in a hostel and if she was really, really lucky she’d be given a zero-hours contract on minimum wage stacking shelves or working in a call centre. Which was fine. The world needed people to stack shelves and work in call centres, but Becky wasn’t one of those people. Just as George Wylie and Amelia and the five M’s had been born into wealth and privilege, Becky had been born with beauty and a native cunning. She was meant for more than a bed in a hostel and a zero-hours contract. Maybe she was meant for gracious country living. Wafting about a huge mansion, being spoiled by a very famous actor in his dotage. As soon as she could get a decent WiFi signal, Becky would google the hell out of Sir Pitt Crawley, she decided, and she straightened her posture and put her shoulders back. Down but not out. If she didn’t make the most of this opportunity that fate had thrown at her, then she deserved to be stacking shelves.

*

It was raining when Becky finally reached her destination: Mudbury. The light was fading and everything was grey as she came out of the station to find herself in a dismal little backwater, rather than a charming and bucolic village. It boasted a convenience store, which was closed, a pub, which was less of a charming country inn and more like a glorified Portakabin, and a bus-shelter covered in graffiti.

Only one other person had got off the train and they had already got into a car that had been waiting outside the station and driven off.

Babs had told her that someone would pick her up at the station but there were no signs of life. She squinted left, then right for the welcoming glow of a pair of headlights coming towards her, but all she could see was sheeting rain in all directions.

Becky hurried over to the bus shelter but there was no timetable and from the barrenness of her surroundings, it was clear that Mudbury was the type of place where the bus only came once on market days and market days only happened every other week. She shivered inside her jacket. When she had left London, it had been late summer, the sun still shining, the weather warm enough that most days she didn’t even need a jacket. But in the course of four hours and two trains, winter had come.

She debated waiting inside the pub. It might be quite cosy once she was inside – or she could be raped and murdered by a bunch of inbred villagers. Just when Becky had decided that at least she’d be dry even if she did have to fight them off with a pool cue, she heard the rumbling of an engine over the persistent drumming of the rain on the roof of the bus shelter. When she peered out, there were the headlights she was longing to see. She didn’t even care if it was her lift. She ran into the road to wave whoever it was down and beg them to take her back to civilisation. Or to the nearest mainline station, at least.

The battered, ancient Land Rover came to a juddering halt and Becky scrabbled at the door handle, which swung open with help from inside.

‘You be the young lady coming up t’ Big House?’

There was no light inside the vehicle, just two shadowy figures, one of which had just spoken to her in such a rough, local dialect that Becky had trouble understanding him.

‘I’m Becky Sharp and you’re late!’ she snapped. ‘Does Sir Crawley know that you’ve kept me waiting in the pouring rain?’

There was a diffident grunt. Then, ‘Just light drizzle, lassie. Jump in. Don’t mind old Hodson. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

It turned out that the shadowy figure closest to her was a dog; a big, hairy, foul-smelling beast that growled at Becky as she hefted her bags and herself into the Land Rover. The back of the Sedleys’ chauffeur-driven, air-conditioned Bentley already seemed as if it belonged to another world, another life, as the man sped off with a crunching of gears. The suspension was shot and the vehicle, and Becky, shook every time they hit a bump or a hole in the road.

It was pitch black outside, but there didn’t seem to be anything to look at out of the windows, which were streaming with condensation. It was just country. Fields and hedges, and when they turned off on to a smaller road, more of a rugged track really, the branches from the overhanging trees skittered across the roof of the car and Becky stole a glance at the man driving.