The Honey Trap. Mary Baker Jayne

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       Chapter 5

      Angel flicked on the TV as she got ready for work the next morning. She’d spent the evening ranting to Emily about Steve, professional ethics and the male sex in general, all worms of the lowest order, until her friend had begged her to stop before she either signed up for the nearest convent or took out a contract on Angel’s life.

      Okay, what delights did breakfast telly have in store for her today while she straightened her hair? Sex secrets of the over-nineties? How to make the perfect quiche using nothing but powdered custard? A dog that could bark the theme tune to The Great British Bake Off?

      She switched to her favourite breakfast show. A heavily botoxed blonde presenter was delivering a piece to camera, her make-up-thick face full of one hundred per cent artificial concern.

      ‘Theirs was the fairytale romance that helped movie fans feel true love wasn’t something which only happened on the silver screen,’ the presenter began in a light, trilling tone. ‘Sebastian Wilchester and Carole Beaumont were childhood sweethearts from the time their parents, all four showbiz royalty, became neighbours when the children were four and six years old. Wilchester’s mother was the Oscar-winning actress Abigail Carruthers, while his father was her second husband, film-score composer Hugo Wilchester. Rick and Sally Beaumont are still well known from their hit sitcom of the 1990s, Something About Sally. Their daughter appeared as a regular character from the age of six, and in roles such as Little Nell in an acclaimed film version of The Old Curiosity Shop, but retired as a child star at the age of fourteen.’

      Angel stared with car-crash fascination at the TV, her straighteners immobile in her hand, as the presenter continued.

      ‘Wilchester and Beaumont married in a quiet ceremony while filming in Paris six years ago, two years after the success of Wilchester’s breakthrough film, Unreal City, in which Beaumont played the lead, made them household names. But on Sunday their happily-ever-after began to disintegrate when photographs of Wilchester appeared in a tabloid newspaper, apparently showing him enjoying a sleazy romp with a vice girl in an upmarket hotel.’

      Angel felt a sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach as the camera cut away to the front page of Sunday’s Investigator and she saw her own naked body once again, the picture zooming in ever closer on Seb’s lust-contorted face over her shoulder.

      ‘The couple have so far refused to comment on the allegations,’ the presenter continued, “but we go live now to their home in Kensington as they prepare to deliver a statement.’

      The camera cut to a shot of Seb, his arm around Carole’s shoulders at the door of their mansion. Both looked tired and drawn. Carole’s eyes were red-rimmed, her white face sort of sunken in on itself like a deflated balloon. A rolling banner at the bottom of the screen announced ‘LIVE: joint statement from Sebastian Wilchester and Carole Beaumont – hotel sex-romp director and actress will not split’.

      It felt strange to see someone with whom she’d shared something as intimate as lovemaking, felt to be a living, breathing force while she’d coiled herself around him, trapped in miniature within the impersonal pixels of a TV set. As if he’d somehow ceased to be a human being and become something cold and unreal, a tiny character in a drama Angel had to keep reminding herself involved her too.

      ‘My wife and I are very much still together,’ she heard Seb say in that deep, brushed-velvet voice of his. ‘I am as much in love with Carole as I ever was, and I am grateful and humbled that she has found it in her heart to forgive my moment of weakness and give me another chance.’

      It was Carole’s turn to speak now. She seemed to have forgotten what to say, and was staring with glazed eyes and fixed smile straight ahead. Angel saw Seb give her shoulder a barely perceptible squeeze.

      ‘I am very proud of the personal and professional relationship Seb and I have built up in the six years we’ve been married – or perhaps I might say in the twenty-four years we’ve been close friends,’ Carole blurted out, gabbling her words as if reciting from a script. She gazed at her husband with a sad but loving look that really did seem genuine. Then again, she wasn’t one of Britain’s most celebrated actresses for nothing…

      ‘I wouldn’t be such a fool as to throw that away on my husband’s single indiscretion,’ Carole continued in that tinkling voice of hers, now oddly weak and emotionless as she read the words off from inside her head. ‘However, this incident has shown us we need to spend more time together. We have both been working too hard on our careers; now it’s time to do some work on our marriage. We would like to announce that after the launch of The Milkman Cometh in October, we will be taking a partial break from public life as we spend some time looking at the issues in our relationship. I would like to thank the press and public for respecting our privacy while we do so.’

       Poor cow. There but for the grace of God…

      Angel flicked the switch to turn off the TV. God, she could wish Seb Wilchester had never come into her life, or Carole Beaumont’s either, for that matter.

      ***

      ‘Alright, heartbreaker?’ Leo was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, СКАЧАТЬ