NEGOTIATIONS HADN’T quite finished there. Drew had insisted that a week was quite enough for them both to see whether or not the arrangement would work. For her part, Carly had vetoed his intention of returning to London the following day to pack for the week and suggested he let Charlie throw some things into a bag for him, for the set runners to collect. When he’d acquiesced, Carly had produced a contract, written in the dates by hand, and given it to Drew.
Armed with four hours’ sleep, and the knowledge that he might well have signed away his sanity for the next week, Drew was on the bus with a sleepy film crew at six the following morning. Carly had told him to consider today as an orientation exercise, and Drew was more than content to maintain a watching brief.
‘Five dollars on ten o’clock.’ An American accent sounded from the seat behind him.
‘I’m not taking dollars. I’ll give you three quid that it’s closer to eleven.’ A woman’s voice this time, speaking in a laughing, London drawl.
‘You’re on.’ Silence for a moment and then a chuckle. ‘C’mon, Madame Sophie. If you get outta that bed now, Dawn’ll have to buy me coffee.’
‘In your dreams. She’ll have to disentangle herself from last night’s waiter and wait for the uppers to kick in.’ Dawn yawned loudly. ‘It’s not fair…’
‘You had your eye on a night of passion with one of the waiters, did you?’
‘No.’ Dawn scoffed at the idea. ‘If we turned up four hours late we’d get the sack. She does it, and Joel’s all over her, grateful that she’s made it at all.’
‘She’s the star. We can be replaced, she can’t.’
‘True enough. Though we’ve still careers when this job is finished. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when she tries for her next part.’
Drew stared straight in front of him. If this was true, then Sophie Warner was more of a nightmare than he’d reckoned. If not… The remote chance that Carly was right suddenly seemed worth taking. If Sophie was sick, and she continued to keep quiet about it, then things were only going to get worse.
The bus drew into a cluster of vehicles parked at the end of what looked like the main street of a small village.
‘Looks as if you owe me that coffee, Dawn…’ Drew couldn’t help but look out of the window, in response to the voice behind him. ‘She’s here already.’
‘Yeah, she’s not going to be ready for a while. Look, she’s on her way to her trailer. What’s the betting she’ll stay in there for another four hours?’
Drew saw Carly walking towards a group of trailers with another woman. Small and blonde, almost swamped in the large mackintosh she was wearing against the morning’s chill air. They disappeared in between two of the vehicles and he craned his neck to see where they’d gone but he couldn’t.
The set began to come alive for the day, and Drew maintained his watching brief. Before long, a concentrated buzz of movement centred around the main street of the village, which was a meticulous re-creation of wartime England. Further out, people in period costume mingled with the crew, almost as if the scene was dissolving, melting back into the present day.
From his vantage point, sitting in a fold-up chair at the edge of the activity, Drew suddenly saw a blonde head at the centre of it all, around which the whole shebang seemed suddenly to revolve. He looked at his watch. Eight-thirty. It looked as if Dawn was going to be paying for coffee today.
At lunchtime, the privileged few made for the group of trailers, and everyone else made a rush for the catering truck. Drew decided to wait until the scrum had died down a bit and flipped open the pages of his book.
‘Hello.’ Someone interrupted his reading, and Drew turned into the gaze of the greenest pair of eyes he’d ever seen. Shiny blonde hair, pinned in a wavy arrangement that was reminiscent of his grandmother’s, but to quite a different effect. A dark skirt and a white blouse, under a lacy hand-knitted sweater.
‘Sophie Warner.’ She was looking at him as if he was a mere diversion, in the absence of anyone more interesting to talk to. ‘You’re the new medical consultant.’
Now that she wasn’t half-obscured by distance and the milling entourage of people, he recognised her face from somewhere. Probably the TV, when he’d thought he’d only been half watching it. But he couldn’t have been watching at all because it hadn’t registered that she was gorgeous.
Drew smiled at her. Despite her obvious indifference to him, it was surprisingly easy to do. ‘That’s right. Drew Taylor.’
She nodded, as if there wasn’t much more to say. Drew stood, and pulled an empty chair across the grass for her and she looked at it uncertainly and then sat down.
‘Nice to meet you… um…’
‘Drew.’
She gave a little nod. ‘I’m not very good with names.’
Clearly that was an excuse. But whether it covered a lapse in memory or profound disinterest in him, it was impossible to tell.
‘Have you been watching this morning?’
‘Yes.’ Drew gestured to the copy of the script that Carly had supplied him with. ‘You’re not filming this in the same order that it’s on the page, are you?’
‘No, we’re not. We go to one location, shoot all the scenes we need to do there, and then move on to the next.’ She gave a little shrug.
‘That sounds pretty confusing.’
Her mouth hardened suddenly. ‘I’m a professional. It’s part of the job.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ Drew had known that it would be difficult to get through to Sophie Warner. What he hadn’t expected was that he’d want to, so very much.
‘So have you worked out what the story’s about yet?’ The canvas chair creaked slightly as she settled back into her seat. Her face took on a look of composed interest, which gave Drew the distinct impression that she was doing exactly the same as he was, and prolonging the conversation in order to fish for information.
‘Your character is Dr Jean Wilson, and you work at a hospital in a seaside town. Major Alan Richards is an engineer, working on a top-secret project, building and testing a new submarine. Dr Wilson meets Major Richards when she gets involved with treating some of the men who are injured during testing.’
‘That’s right. Only it’s called a submersible. A submarine’s usually bigger and can work on its own, but a submersible needs to have an outside supply of power and air.’
‘Right. I’ll remember that.’
‘I suppose you must specialise in accident and emergency medicine.’ She hardly even acknowledged his querying look. ‘Since that’s the kind of thing we’re portraying in the film.’
A yes would have been enough. But if Drew wanted her to trust him, then it wasn’t the way forward. ‘I’m actually a neurologist, but I was a member of the hospital’s trauma team. I have plenty of experience of all kinds of injuries, so I’m well qualified to advise here.’
