The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9 Part 35

"Will it take long?"

"About an hour."

London, I thought, and this was confirmed when we headed along the A3. I was too interested in where we were going to look at the in-car TV or the magazines. But once we had left the main road I lost track. Before the hour was up, we were into parts of West London I didn't know at all. Finally we stopped in front of a gate that was raised electronically, the entrance to a private estate called The Cedars with some wonderful old trees to justify the name. Even inside the estate there was a ten-minute drive past some huge redbrick mansions. I was beginning to feel intimidated.

Our destination proved to be a mock-Tudor mansion with a tiled forecourt big enough to take the Trooping of the Colour.

"Will you be driving me home after this?" I asked the chauffeur.

"It's all arranged, ma'am," he said, touching his cap.

The front door opened before I started up the steps. A strikingly beautiful young woman greeted me by name, my pen-name, in full. She had a ma.s.s of red-gold hair in loose curls that looked almost natural. She was wearing a dark green top, low-cut, and white designer jeans. Her face seemed familiar, but I couldn't recall meeting her. She was younger than any of the women I'd met at the awards lunch.

"I'm so chuffed you decided to come," she said. "Ash was dead sure he'd reeled you in, but he thinks he's G.o.d's gift and not everyone sees it."

"Ash?" I said, not liking the idea that anyone had "reeled me in".

"My old man. The sweet-talking guy in the train."

"He made it sound like a business proposition," I said.

"Oh, it is, and we need you on board."

She showed me through a red-carpeted hallway into a sitting room with several huge white leather sofas. A real log fire was blazing under a copper hood in the centre. A large dog with silky white hair was lying asleep nearby.

"Coffee, Dolores?"

"That would be nice," I said to her. "But you have the advantage of me."

Her pretty face creased in mystification. "Come again."

"I don't know your name."

She laughed. "Most people do. I'm Raven. Excuse me." She spoke into a mobile phone. "It's coffee for three, and hot croissants."

Even I, with my tendency to ignore the popular press, had heard of Raven. Model, singer, actress, TV celebrity, she made headlines in whatever she'd tried. "I should have known," I said, feeling my cheeks grow hot. "I wasn't prepared. I was expecting someone from the publis.h.i.+ng industry."

"No problem," she said. "It's nice not to be recognized. People react to me in the dumbest ways. Did you tell anyone you were making this mystery trip?"

"No. I kept it to myself."

"Great. You live alone is that right?"

"Yes."

"And you've written all those amazing romances?"

I glowed inwardly and responded with a modest "Some people seem to like them."

"I've read every one, from Love Unspoken to Pa.s.sionata," Raven said with genuine admiration in her voice.

This came as a surprise. Her own life was high romance. She didn't need the sort of escapism my books offered. "I'm flattered."

"You're a star, a wonderful writer. You deserved that award. You ought to be a best seller by now."

I secretly agreed with her, but I'm not used to receiving praise and I found it difficult to take. "I don't think I could handle fame. I'm rather a coward, actually. I sometimes get asked to give talks and I always turn them down."

"Who looks after your PR?"

"No one."

"You must have an agent."

"I wouldn't want one. They take a slice of your income and I can't afford that."

"So you do all the business stuff yourself?"

I nodded.

Raven seemed to approve. "You're smart. If I could get shot of all my hangers-on, I would."

At this moment a woman arrived with the coffee on a trolley.

"I wasn't talking about you, Annie," Raven said. "You're a treasure. We'll pour it ourselves."

The woman gave a faint smile and left.

"How do you like your coffee, Dolores?"

"Black, please."

"Same as me. Same as Ash. He's Ashley really, like that footballer."

I don't follow football and I must have looked bemused, because Raven added, "Or that guy in Gone With The Wind, but no one calls him that. He'll be with us any sec. His timing is always spoton. Ash is smart, or he wouldn't own a pad like this."

Raven poured three coffees. The croissants were kept warm by a kind of cosy on the lower shelf of the trolley. Mine almost slipped off my plate at the sudden sound of husband Ashley's voice behind me.

"Sensible girl."

I'm not used to being called a girl, but I was junior to him by at least ten years, so I suppose it was excusable. I got a better look at him than I had when he was seated beside me in the train. He was seventy if he was a day, as wrinkled as a Medjool date. Today he was in a combat jacket and trousers and expensive trainers.

He held out his hand and I felt his coa.r.s.e skin against mine. The grip was strong. My hand felt numb after he'd squeezed it.

"Can't say I've read any of your stuff," he said. "I've never been much of a reader. She tells me you're the best at what you do."

"She's too generous," I said.

"How much do you make in an average year?"

This wasn't the kind of question I was used to answering. "Enough to live on," I said.

"Yeah, but how much?"

"A writer's income fluctuates," I said, determined not to give a figure. "I've earned a living at it for fifteen years."

"What sort of living?" he asked. "Don't get me wrong, Dolly, but a semi on the wrong side of Guildford ain't what I call living."

Raven clicked her tongue. "Ash, that isn't kind."

He ignored her. His brown eyes fixed on me. "You put in the hours. You do good work. You deserve better. I made my first million before I was twenty-three. It was dirty work n.o.body wanted, so I did it. Collecting sc.r.a.p from house to house. Waste management. Landfill. I've covered every angle. Now I have the biggest fleet of refuse lorries in the country. Ash the Trash, they call me. Doesn't bother me. I'm proud of it. I've got houses in London, Bilbao, New York and San Francisco. I did skiing every year until my knees went. And I'm married to the bird half the men in the world are l.u.s.ting over."

"That's crude," Raven said.

"It's a fact." Now his eyes s.h.i.+fted to his young wife. "And you're more than just a pretty face and a b.o.o.b job. I rate you, sweetheart. You've got ideas in your head. Tell Dolly your story." He turned to me again. "This'll get you going." He sat next to her on the sofa opposite mine. "Come on, my lovely. Spill it out."

"Well," she said, "I don't know what Dolores will think of it. She's a proper author."

"She has to get ideas," Ash said, "and that's where you come in."

"He never lets up," Raven said, fluttering her false lashes at me. "It needs a bit of work, but it goes like this. There's this little girl living in East Sheen."

"We'll change that," Ash said. "Make it Richmond."

"All right. Richmond. And when she gets to thirteen, she's already got a figure and her mum puts her in for a beauty contest and she wins, but then one of the other girls points out that she's underage. You had to be at least sixteen under the rules, so I was disqualified."

"She," Ash corrected her. "She was disqualified."

"She."

"We're calling her Falcon," Ash said.

"I was coming to that," Raven said.

Ash turned to me. "What do you think, Dolly? Is Falcon a good name?"

"Fine," I said, not wis.h.i.+ng to fuel the obvious tension between husband and wife.

"OK," Raven said. "So this girl Falcon has to wait until she's older, but she learns all she can about beauty and make-up and fas.h.i.+on and then she enters for another contest even though she's still only fifteen."

"And she won a modelling contract," Ash said.

"You're spoiling it," Raven said.

"That's what happened."

"Yes, but I'm telling it. I was building up to the modelling. You don't come straight out with the best bit of the story, do you, Dolores?"

"Suspense is a useful device, yes," I said.

"See?" she said to Ash. "Now shut it."

"Before you go on," I said to Raven. "I'm not entirely sure why you're telling me all this." In truth, I had a strong suspicion. "If it's your life story and you want to get it published, surely you should write it."

"It's not supposed to be about me. Well, it is really, but it's a romance. I'm leaving out the stuff I don't want people to know."

"And beefing up the good bits," Ash said.

"In that case it's autobiography dressed up as fiction. I still think you should write it yourself."

"She can't write," Ash said.

"He means I'm not a writer," Raven said. "I can spell and stuff."

"Which is where you come in," Ash said to me.

"We want you to do the writing," Raven said, "give it a makeover, if you know what I mean."

"We're not daft," Ash said. "Her fans will know it's her life story and buy a million copies."

"But if it isn't in Raven's own style, no one will believe she wrote it."

"So you rough it up a bit," Ash said to me. "Knock out the long words. Give it plenty of pa.s.sion. You're good at that, I was told. All the celebs hire someone to do the writing. It's called ghosting."

"I know what it's called," I said. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not a ghost writer. I write original fiction. I've never attempted anything like this. I wouldn't know how to start."

"It's all on tape," Ash said. "You write it down, juice it up a bit and with her name on the cover we've got a bestseller."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I can't do it."

"Hold on. You haven't heard the deal," Ash said. "You walk out of here today with ten grand in fifty-pound notes. Another ninety grand on delivery, all in cash. No tax. How does that strike you?"

The figure was huge, far more than I earned usually. But what would a ghosted book do to the reputation I'd built with my forty-six novels?

Ash gave me instant rea.s.surance. "You won't take any flak for writing it. We're keeping you out of it. As far as Joe Public is concerned, Raven wrote every word herself. That's why it will be a bestseller. She's got fans all over the world and she'll get more when the book hits the shelves. They want the inside story of the nude modelling, the catwalks, the reality shows, the pop concerts, all the stars she's met-"

"And how I met you," Raven said to him. "They want to know what I see in a man forty-two years older than me."

"True love, innit?" Ash said in all seriousness. "I'm nuts about you. That's why I'm funding this b.l.o.o.d.y book."

She kissed his cheek and ruffled his silver hair. "My hero."

All this was bizarre. I was actually thinking what I could do with a hundred thousand pounds. The task of writing Raven's life story might not be creatively fulfilling, but it was within my capability, especially if she had recorded it in her own words. "Just now you said it's on tape."

"G.o.d knows how many ca.s.settes," Ash said. "Hours and hours. She's left nothing out."

This disposed of one concern. Any writer prefers condensing a script to padding it.

"You take them home today, all of them," Ash said.