Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please ignore the crazed young woman in the aisle, kicking the crap out of a South City protection officer. Thank you, and have a pleasant flight.

  A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Two minutes,’ she said brightly. No doubt it was Eli. He probably had some kind of Jedi ESP and realised she was coming for him, so he was trying to get in there first. The important thing was that despite every instinct telling her to go out there, guns of indignation and fury blazing, she couldn’t and shouldn’t react until she’d worked out a plan for the best way to handle this.

  Sighing, she was just about to switch her phone off when she remembered… She clicked into the text function. Seventeen new messages. What? She didn’t even know seventeen people in LA.

  Scanning the list, she realised every single one was from Davie.

  Just in case you see the news… Don’t worry – I’m OK.

  The news? Why would he be on the news? And why was he saying he was OK?

  Next text:

  Been a fire at house. Not sure how bad.

  Next text:

  Heading there now.

  Fuck, I’m here.

  Smoke everywhere.

  Can see flames.

  Fire service here.

  Kitchen gone.

  Christ, it’s a mess.

  Can’t find Alina.

  Where are you, Sarah?

  They won’t let me go in.

  Can’t stand here doing nothing.

  This is a nightmare.

  Fuck it, I’m going in.

  Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.

  Love you.

  41

  It’s almost time. Almost.

  The watching and the waiting have been intolerable, but I did it because I had to make sure I got this right.

  There will only be one shot. One chance. Because once people know about me, then they’ll come for me.

  You think I don’t know that?

  You think I’ve spent all this time planning and watching and making it right and that I’m so deluded I believe I’ll just walk away when I’m done?

  I know that won’t happen. But I don’t care.

  That’s the thing about having all that matters taken away from you.

  Once it’s gone, you have nothing to lose. And the gain?

  That’s easy. There’s only ever been one upside on this. I’ll take away from you what you took from me.

  And I’ll look you in the eyes and I’ll make sure you know.

  You’ll know it was me who did this to you.

  42

  DAVIE

  ‘Burn’ – Ellie Goulding

  Karma. Was that what this was? Was this retribution for every fucked-up asshole thing he’d ever done in his life?

  Sitting on the terrace, in an all-weather lounger, Davie pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and scanned the chaos that surrounded him. The fire crews were mostly gone now, just a couple of guys with clipboards, still walking around the premises. Mark Bock and a dozen security guys were here too. Mark was in the security room, running through CCTV footage from around the property. The rest of the team were patrolling and securing the grounds. Horse bolted. Stable door shut.

  ‘I bring you tea. You should not try to go to fire. You crazy ass.’

  Alina pointed out the obvious as she handed him a mug. It was the only one he used. His mum, Ena, had brought it for him on her last visit, from the Starbucks shop at Glasgow airport. He had no idea why it meant something to him, but somehow it did.

  It had only been saved from the carnage because he’d had a coffee out on the terrace before he’d headed off to see Zander, and he’d left the mug outside on the table. Alina had switched her operation HQ to the fully stocked kitchen in the pool house. ‘Pool house’ was perhaps an understatement. It was a three bedroom guest house, larger than the entire row of homes he, Zander and Mirren had grown up in, that sat on the opposite side of the pool terrace to the main house.

  All he could think when Alina gave him the mug was Thank God Ena hadn’t been here when this happened. Look how he’d reacted when he thought Alina was inside. Dozens of LAFD’s finest and he decides to play hero and run into a burning building to look for a housekeeper who spent her whole life conveying the impression that she thought he was a knob.

  Meanwhile, he, it would seem, thought he was Bruce Willis in Die Hard, charging in, trying to be the hero. Although, he didn’t remember a scene in Die Hard in which two firefighters blocked Bruce at the door, pushed him back, at which point he tripped over a sprinkler that protruded from the grass, twisted his ankle and ended up sprawled on the ground, with the sprinkler rain soaking him.

  Pathetic.

  Utterly pathetic.

  Especially when Alina had turned up half an hour later after her daily trip to Whole Foods.

  He’d almost risked his life for an empty house. Karma.

  ‘Hey, Davie. Can you come take a look at this?’ Mark Bock shouted to him from the security office. Located in the back of the pool house, it was an impenetrable room that monitored everything that happened in the grounds and around the perimeter of the property.

  Groaning, he pushed himself up and headed over, getting a better look at the house as he passed. The main body of the property looked OK, but the kitchen was destroyed. One exterior wall of the room had completely crumbled; the others were black with smoke, water still running out of the open doors.

  The damage didn’t faze him. That’s what insurance was for. But it was the potential devastation this could have caused that was twisting his gut right now. His kids could have been here. Sarah. His ex-wife. Although, if Jenny and Darcy were inside, he wasn’t sure he’d have been quite so gung-ho in charging to the rescue. He may have toddled real slow.

  In the security room, Mark was sitting at a bank of monitors. ‘Come look at this, Davie.’

  Shuffling under the weight of his wet clothes and blanket, Davie did as he was instructed. Mark pressed ‘play’ on an aerial shot of the house, taken from the top of the roof and programmed to capture everything within 200 yards, 360 degrees. That just about covered the grounds and drive.

  Davie stared at the screen, saw nothing. Stared some more. Still nothing. Then he saw it. A black dot in the distance, increasing in size as it got closer, hovering above the house, static, then swooping down to a spot right outside the French doors that led to the kitchen.

  ‘What the fuck…?’

  ‘It’s a drone. Remote-controlled. Battery-operated. We’re seeing them all over the place at the moment, flying low over celebrity houses to capture images for the paps or unscrupulous investigators using them to gather evidence in divorce cases. Almost impossible to track. The person who sent that here could be sitting ten miles away.’

  ‘Christ…’ Davie whistled in disbelief, his eyes going back to the screen.

  There was no sound on the footage, which made it even more surprising when the machine, or gizmo, or whatever the fuck it was called, exploded into flames. It was strangely hypnotic. The flames went high, blue at the tips…

  Mark noticed that too. ‘Some kind of accelerant was on there. That’s the reason for the blue flames.’

  Davie nodded, back to watching as the flames appeared to diminish. Then he noticed a new flicker. The flame from the drone was now encompassing a tiny area of the door to the kitchen. Then a bigger area. Then bigger.

  Mark pressed ‘fast forward’, and in less than a minute, the flames had enveloped the whole door.

  ‘That’s how it started and you can clearly see it was deliberate. It’s time we had that conversation, Davie. You need to face up to the fact that this isn’t some harmless weirdo. Someone has a serious wish to cause you harm. And until we find out who it is, you need to get clear of here and go somewhere you can be protected.’

  ‘Fuck that. I’m not leaving my home. We can stay in the pool house until the main house is habitable again.’

  ‘Then I can’t guarantee your safety.’

  ‘Davie! Davie!’ The edge of desperation in Sarah’s voice made him drop the blanket and dash outside, sore ankle forgotten. As soon as she saw him, she ran to him, like a scene in an action movie in which the heroine runs to thank the hero who just saved her life.

  Only Sarah wasn’t that heroine.

  As soon as she was in front of him, her expression of pure relief turned to something else altogether.

  ‘What the fuck did you think you were doing? “I’m going in”?’ she quoted his text to him. ‘“I’m going in”? Are you crazy?’ She was yelling now, top of her voice.

  ‘I’ve been worried out of my mind! It’s all over the news – the images of the smoke, and the fire, and they didn’t know if you were OK…’ She was babbling, crying, ranting, furious, relieved, and Davie smiled because he didn’t think he could love her more.

  ‘Don’t bloody smile at me. You’re an arsehole!’

  ‘I think that may already have been mentioned today,’ he informed her.

  ‘That’s because you are!’ Still shouting, mascara tears streaming down her face. ‘Why didn’t you text me back? Why? Why would you do that?’

  Davie shrugged sheepishly. ‘Sprinkler soaked my phone.’

  Sarah looked stunned.

  Incredulous.

  Then suddenly burst into a weird, surreal laugh. ‘Are you telling me you live in a $40-million house…?’

  He knew what was coming, but he couldn’t help pointing out the obvious. ‘Might be less now. Fire damage.’

  She ignored him. ‘And you only have one phone – one phone – with my number in it?’

  ‘I’m a crap boyfriend.’

  She slumped down onto the wet grass. ‘And I’m a crap girlfriend.’

  Davie sat down beside her, put his arm around her, pulled her head onto his shoulder, melting at the sight of her crushed, disconsolate face. ‘Honey, you’re not. I’m glad you weren’t here. I really am.’

  She popped her head back up. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a crap girlfriend for leaving me here,’ he explained.

  The lines between her eyebrows puckered into a frown. ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘Oh.’ This was one of those situations when he felt like he should know what she was talking about but really didn’t. ‘Then why are you a crap girlfriend?’

  He watched her inhale deeply. Oh shit, she’d cheated on him. She’d shagged someone on tour. Fucked someone on the tour bus. She was leaving him for a boy-band member. Ouch, even that thought hurt. How could he have lost her in such a short space of time? He should have called more. Paid her more attention. Showed her that—

  ‘Marilyn McLean is in LA.’

  The words were like a mallet to the mind. Total knockout, possible concussion. ‘What?’

  A tear ran down her face and she wiped it away with the grubby palm of one hand.

  ‘Marilyn McLean. She’s in LA.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘We?’

  She sighed wearily. ‘Mirren and me.’

  He didn’t know what to say to that. Even after twenty years, the name ‘Marilyn McLean’ still took him back there, still made him want to vomit.

  ‘Sarah, I’m not getting this, so you’re going to have to explain it to me.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘A few weeks ago, Ed at the Daily Scot called me, said some crook in Liverpool had been arrested and everything he owned confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act. There was a rumour going round that his wife claimed to be Mirren McLean’s mother. Basically, she lost her man and her access to money – then she disappeared.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell me this?’

  ‘Davie, you were busy. It was at the same time as you were launching the show and Jizzo died. I went to Mirren. Told her. She hired a PI, asked me not to worry you until we had proof that she was here. We found out this week that she definitely is.’

  Unconsciously, Davie ran both hands through his hair, his standard reaction in times of pressure and stress. ‘What the fuck would Marilyn be doing here? She hated all of us.’

  Sarah gestured to the chaos around her. ‘I think she might already be doing it.’

  Davie turned his head away from her and threw up on the grass.

  When he turned back, she reached for his hand. ‘I think we need to get out of here. Go somewhere safe until they find her.’

  Mark Bock had just come within earshot. ‘I was just telling him the same thing.’

  ‘Mark, there’s some additional information you should know. Mirren McLean has a PI called Brad Bernson,’ Sarah told him.

  ‘I know Brad. He’s a good guy. Ex-FBI.’

  ‘That’s him. Can you give him a call? He’ll fill you in. But this goes no further. No LAPD. It’s about as confidential as it gets.’

  Mark didn’t ask questions. Davie knew he wouldn’t. He’d once told him that he’d spent his life working for people with secrets and when police became involved, the chance of a leak multiplied. It was why Davie felt safe with Mark Bock looking after him. Present situation excluded.

  Sarah turned back to Davie. ‘But, Davie, you have to listen to me. We can’t stay here. If you stay, I stay, and that puts us both in danger.’

  ‘That’s the worst emotional blackmail ever.’

  ‘Indeed it is.’

  He thought about the angles for a few moments. The fire would be all over the news, so there would be sympathy out there for him right now. The story naturally spun out in his head. If he had to take a week off after inhaling smoke when he ran into the burning building to save his housekeeper, a poor, frail woman who lived to cook and loved nothing more than country music, America and her boss, Davie Johnston, then the nation would understand and support him.

  Genius. Actually genius.

  He was getting carried away with the prospect of TV appearances, press interviews and maybe a campaign for the fire service when he realised he had another priority, a task that had to be carried out before he could move on.

  He had to fix his karma.

  ‘Look, I’ll come with you – we can go wherever you want – but there’s something else I have to do first.’

  43

  MIRREN

  ‘I Would Die 4 U’ – Prince

  Mirren hung up the phone feeling exhausted after another call from Brad Bernson. They’d discovered that Marilyn had been staying in a motel in Santa Monica, but she’d checked out the day before. No location on her now, but they were working on it. Wearily, she slid out of the cream leather booth in the corner of her kitchen and made a cup of tea. As she drank it, she stood looking out of the window at the ocean, too anxious to sit.

  The calendar on her wall had a thick red circle around a date that was creeping up fast. The Oscars. She was pretty sure that none of the other nominees were currently sitting in their kitchen, dreading the event, too wrapped in anxiety and fear to even feel a shred of joy that they were about to be part of Academy Award history. This was Mirren’s second nomination. She’d won the last one twenty years ago. She had no expectations of winning another, but still she had to be part of the circus.

  She was so deep in thought that she didn’t realise Logan was behind her until he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. ‘Morning, Ma.’

  Just two words but so, so good for the soul. Having her boy back was bitter-sweet, though. She wanted him there, needed to be able to see for her own eyes that he was OK, but was this putting him in danger? At least on the road he was surrounded by security and there was virtually no chance that anyone could get to him. Here at home was different. He liked to try to live a normal life. He’d stick on a baseball cap and head to a restaurant. Stop in at a store.

  How could she stop him?

  She had to let him know that there was a risk, but how did she do that without confessing that she’d lied to him for years? How could she suddenly introduce a grandmother to him, with a ‘By the way, I think she might be a psychotic maniac’?

  Yet she had to keep him safe.

  There was a buzz at the front door and she checked the monitor in the corner of the room to see her friend waving at the screen. Despite her woes, she smiled. If there was one person she wanted to see today, it was Lou.

  Logan let her in and returned to the kitchen with his arm slung around her shoulder. ‘Aunt Lou pined for me every moment I was gone,’ Logan told Mirren, with Lou grinning beside him.

  ‘It’s true,’ Lou agreed.

  ‘Says life hasn’t been worth living without me.’

  ‘Also true,’ Lou confirmed breezily, before coming over to hug Mirren. ‘Figured the boy needed an ego boost. Must be hard being him,’ she said in a stage whisper. Logan was still laughing when he grabbed a soda from the fridge and headed out to the back yard. Mirren looked out of the window and saw that he’d lain down on a lounger, headphones on, eyes closed.

  He was always like this for the first couple of days when he came off tour. Needed to recharge the batteries.

  She made Lou a cup of coffee and they slid into the semi-circular dining booth. How many days and nights had they sat here over the last twenty years, discussing every issue, solving problems, making plans, and especially over the last year, crying into their coffee cups over the shit-storm life had served up for them.