were a lot less salubrious than this. Here, she had the physical comforts of coffee, biscuits and newspapers. And the room she’d been left in commanded the panoramic view that had graced a million shortbread tins. Running the length of Princes Street, it featured a clutch of keynote tourist sights - the castle, the Scott Monument, the National Gallery and Princes Street Gardens. Bel spotted other significant architectural eye candy but she didn’t know enough about the city to identify it. She’d only visited the Scottish capital a few times and conducting this meeting here hadn’t been her choice. She’d wanted it in London, but her reluctance to show her hand in advance had turfed her out of the driving seat and into the role of supplicant.
Unusually for a freelance journalist, she had a temporary research assistant. Jonathan was a journalism student at City University and he’d asked his tutor to assign him to Bel for his work experience assignment. Apparently he liked her style. She’d been mildly gratified by the compliment but delighted at the prospect of having eight weeks free from drudgery. And so it had been Jonathan who had made the first contact with Maclennan Grant Enterprises. The message he’d returned with had been simple. If Ms Richmond was not prepared to state her reason for wanting a meeting with Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, Sir Broderick was not prepared to meet her. Sir Broderick did not give interviews. Further arm’s-length negotiations had led to this compromise.
And now Bel was, she thought, being put in her place. Being forced to cool her heels in a hotel meeting room. Being made to understand that someone as important as the personal assistant to the chairman and principal shareholder of the country’s twelfth most valuable company had more pressing calls on her time than dancing attendance on some London hack.
She wanted to get up and pace, but she didn’t want to reveal any lack of composure. Giving up the high ground was not something that had ever come naturally to her. Instead she straightened her jacket, made sure her shirt was tucked in properly and picked a stray piece of grit from her emerald suede shoes.
At last, precisely fifteen minutes after the agreed time, the door opened. The women who entered in a flurry of tweed and cashmere resembled a school mistress of indeterminate age but one accustomed to exerting discipline over her pupils. For one crazy moment, Bel nearly jumped to her feet in a Pavlovian response to her own teenage memories of terrorist nuns. But she managed to restrain herself and stood up in a more leisurely manner.
‘Susan Charleson,’ the woman said, extending a hand. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. As Harold Macmillan once said, “Events, dear boy. Events.”’
Bel decided not to point out that Harold Macmillan had been referring to the job of Prime Minister, not wet nurse to a captain of industry. She took the warm dry fingers in her own. A moment’s sharp grip, then she was released. ‘Annabel Richmond.’
Susan Charleson ignored the armchair opposite Bel and headed instead for the table by the window. Wrong-footed, Bel scooped up her bag and the leather portfolio beside it and followed. The women sat down opposite each other and Susan smiled, her teeth like a line of chalky toothpaste between the dark pink lipstick. ‘You wanted to see Sir Broderick,’ she said. No preamble, no small talk about the view. Just straight to the chase. It was a technique Bel had used herself on occasion, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed the tables being turned.
‘That’s right.’
Susan shook her head. ‘Sir Broderick does not speak to the press. I fear you’ve had a wasted journey. I did explain all that to your assistant, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
It was Bel’s turn to produce a smile without warmth. ‘Good for him. I’ve obviously got him well trained. But there seems to be a misunderstanding. I’m not here to beg for an interview. I’m here because I think I have something Sir Broderick will be interested in.’ She lifted the portfolio on to the table and unzipped it. From inside, she took a single A3 sheet of heavyweight paper, face down. It was smeared with dirt and gave off a faint smell, a curious blend of dust, urine and lavender. Bel couldn’t resist a quick teasing look at Susan Charleson. ‘Would you like to see?’ she said, flipping the paper.
Susan took a leather case from the pocket of her skirt and extracted a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. She perched them on her nose, taking her time about it but her eyes never leaving the stark black-and-white images before her. The silence between the women seemed to expand, and Bel felt almost breathless as she waited for a response. ‘Where did you come by this?’ Susan said, her tone as prim as a Latin mistress.
Monday 18th June 2007; Campora, Tuscany, Italy.
At seven in the morning, it was almost possible to believe that the baking heat of the previous ten days might not show up for work. Pearly daylight shimmered through the canopy of oak and chestnut leaves, making visible the motes of dust that spiralled upwards from Bel’s feet. She was moving slowly enough to notice because the unmade track that wound down through the woods was rutted and pitted, the jagged stones scattered over it enough to make any jogger conscious of the fragility of ankles.
Only two more of these cherished early-morning runs before she’d have to head back to the suffocating streets of London. The thought provoked a tiny tug of regret. Bel loved slipping out of the villa while everyone else was still asleep. She could walk barefoot over cool marble floors, pretending she was chatelaine of the whole place, not just another holiday tenant carving off a slice of borrowed Tuscan elegance.
She’d been coming on holiday with the same group of five friends since they’d shared a house in their final year at Durham. That first time, they’d all been cramming for their finals. One set of parents had a cottage in Cornwall that they’d colonized for a week. They’d called it a study break, but in truth, it had been more of a holiday that had refreshed and relaxed them, leaving them better placed to sit exams than if they’d huddled over books and articles. And although they were modern young women not given to superstition, they’d all felt that their week together had somehow been responsible for their good degrees. Since then, they’d gathered together every June for a reunion, committed to pleasure.
Over the years, their drinking had grown more discerning, their eating more epicurean and their conversation more outrageous. The locations had become progressively more luxurious. Lovers were never invited to share the girls’ week. Occasionally, one of their number had a little wobble, claiming pressure of work or family obligations, but they were generally whipped back into line without too much effort.
For Bel, it was a significant component of her life. These women were all successful, all private sources she could count on to smooth her path from time to time. But still, that wasn’t the main reason this holiday was so important to her. Partners had come and gone, but these friends had been constant. In a world where you were measured by your last headline, it felt good to have a bolthole where none of that mattered. Where she was appreciated simply because the group enjoyed themselves more with her than without her. They’d all known each other long enough to forgive each other’s faults, to accept each other’s politics and to say what would be unsayable in any other company. This holiday formed part of the bulwark she constantly shored up against her own insecurities. Besides, it was the only holiday she took these days that was about what she wanted. For the past half dozen years, she’d been bound to her widowed sister Vivianne and her son Harry. The sudden death of Vivianne’s husband from a heart attack had left her stranded emotionally and struggling practically. Bel had barely hesitated before throwing her lot in with her sister and her nephew. On balance it had been a good decision, but even so she still treasured this annual work-free break from a family life she hadn’t expected to be living. Especially now that Harry was teetering on the edge of teenage existential angst. So this year, even more than in the past, the holiday had to be special, to outdo what had gone before.
It was hard to imagine how they could improve on this, she thought as she emerged from the trees and turned into a field
