apartment was on the fifth floor, and he guided her into a large room with a picture window giving a view of the Waitemata Harbour at night, all winking city lights reflected like shot satin in the dark water.
Shannon’s high heels sank into a slate-grey carpet, and Devin seated her on a deep couch covered in burgundy leather. Another couch and two matching burgundy chairs flanked a thick glass coffee table supported by hoops of burnished metal, and holding a striking bronze sculpture of an eagle with outspread wings.
‘I’ll get the coffee,’ Devin said, walking to a wide doorway through which she glimpsed pale grey tiles and a granite counter.
A functional kitchen, she guessed, designed for efficiency. There would be no hanging bunches of dried herbs, or potted fresh ones on the windowsill, no antique utensils decorating the walls, as there had been in the cramped cottage she’d fallen in love with when they’d been inspecting the brand-new, soulless new town house for sale next door.
After noticing her yearning across the fence at the colonial relic with the overgrown lawn and neglected shrubs, Devin had made the owners an offer they couldn’t refuse. An army of workers repaired the rusty guttering and worn boards, and modernised the kitchen and bathroom while Shannon had enlisted the help of an art director friend to bring the other rooms back to their quaint glory.
The place hadn’t been at all suitable for Devin’s lifestyle. Dinner parties had been necessarily small and intimate, and most of his business entertaining was conducted in restaurants, his office building or hired spaces.
After the break-up he’d lost no time, she guessed, in moving into this place.
Pale green walls showed off a couple of striking black-and-white photographs and a superrealist painting of a stream bed, every rounded rock and ripple in the water rendered with breathtaking precision, creating an irresistible urge to touch and check that it was only paint. Open glass doors led from the living room to a spacious formal dining room with a long table and high-backed chairs.
Everything looked elegant, expensive and impersonal.
Shannon ran her hand along a couple of rows of books on long shelves, finding biographies, history and true crime stories, a number of tomes dealing with economics and business practice, a pile of National Geographics and a few other magazines. She was back on the couch, leafing through the latest issue of Time, when Devin returned with two bulbous ceramic mugs and sank down beside her, handing her one.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Tell me what the film is about.’
She picked up her coffee, instinctively curving her palm about the warm, smooth shape of the mug. ‘Have you heard of the Duncan Hobbs trial,’ she asked, ‘here in Auckland in 1898?’
‘Should I have?’
‘It was briefly mentioned in a TV programme last year.’
He shook his head. ‘What did Duncan Hobbs do?’
‘He was supposed to have raped the sister of his best friend’s fiancée. The trial hinged on the evidence of his friend, the future brother-in-law of the victim.’
‘Was he an eye-witness?’
‘No, the evidence was mostly circumstantial. And not very consistent.’
‘So, is this a whodunit?’
‘A sort of did-he-do-it, anyway. But the point I’m more interested in is the personal dynamics—the change in the relationship between the engaged couple, the two sisters, and most of all the accused and his friend who was called on to testify…the choice he had to make as the key witness.’
Devin looked thoughtful. ‘Support his best friend, and maybe alienate his bride-to-be…?’
‘Exactly. It’s a fascinating, true mystery story, and great for film. But expensive—the historical costumes and props, and even finding and adapting the settings, all add to the costs.’
‘Couldn’t you update it?’
Shannon shook her head. ‘Attitudes have changed since then. They didn’t even have women on juries, and a rape victim was often blamed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or for leading a man on. There are all sorts of reasons why it wouldn’t work transferred to the twenty-first century.’
Devin leaned back a little. ‘You seem to be in a hurry. It’s not as though the story is topical.’
‘I have a draft script, most of my crew almost ready to go, and I thought I had backing in the bag, but at the last minute I missed out after all.’
‘How much do you need?’
When she told him, he didn’t blink or move, but it was a second or two before he spoke. ‘That’s a lot of money.’
It was an enormous amount to her, but he was accustomed to dealing with sums that sported mind-boggling numbers of noughts. ‘I don’t know where else I could find the finance at short notice. And it’s not actually a huge budget for a film.’ She rushed on in the face of his stony silence. ‘It isn’t a big story with a cast of thousands and lots of special effects, but it could be an award winner, and do well overseas. The thing is, if we don’t go into production soon the people I’ve lined up will have to take other work. Even Craig—’
‘Craig?’ A frown raked between his brows.
‘I want him to play the witness.’ And he wanted the part too. She was under no illusion that it was for her sake alone he’d pushed her into contacting Devin. She pulled several folded pages from her bag. ‘I know most of the names won’t mean much to you, but this is a short description of the project, with a list of potential cast and crew members and their credits. If you need me to explain anything…’
Devin nodded, and skimmed the pages while she watched, holding her breath.
Finally he looked up at her. ‘I take it you’ve explored every other avenue before coming to me.’
‘Everyone and anybody I could think of.’
‘You went to people who know about the film business and they all turned you down.’
Shannon said frankly, ‘I guess they weren’t willing to invest that kind of money in a director with only one feature credit to my name. But I’ve lots of experience with my own short films and several assistant director credits. If they’d give me the chance I can do this. Or if you would…’
‘A chance to the tune of millions of dollars.’
‘It’s a drop in the bucket to you!’
Devin laughed. ‘Quite a few drops, in fact.’ He stood up, strolled across the carpet and back, stopping within a few feet of her, regarding her with a disconcerting stare as if he wanted to see into her mind, her heart. ‘This really matters to you.’
‘I know you never thought much of my career, but it means a lot to me—’
‘That I do know,’ he said, ‘since it’s the reason you left me.’
‘Not the only reason.’ But she didn’t want to get into that argument. There were dangerous
