‘OK, honey, you’re going to have to get your Oscar’s glow going soon, because you can’t go looking like this,’ Lou said, typically blunt.

  Mirren gestured to her sweats. ‘I was considering a different outfit.’

  Everyone in Hollywood knew that the prep started months before the big day. Zero carbs. Nips and tucks. Punishing workout regimes. Laser peels. Chemical peels. Hair treatments. Liposuction. Fillers. Make-up rehearsals. The only thing she’d done so far was select her dress, and even that had been half-hearted.

  Lou wasn’t deterred by Mirren’s deflection. ‘Girl, you look awful. You OK?’

  ‘Just tired,’ Mirren told her. ‘Bit stressed.’

  ‘Did you agree terms with Pictor?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Pause. Lou eyed her curiously.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  Lou’s eyes twinkled as they narrowed. ‘Oh, you did.’

  ‘Did what?’

  A cackle from her friend now. ‘Oh, you so did,’ she repeated. ‘You had sex with Mike Feechan again.’

  Mirren had no idea why she was blushing. ‘Yeah, well. Moment of weakness,’ she confirmed.

  ‘And, sweet baby, you like him.’

  ‘Lou, I have no idea who or what I like right now. I really don’t.’

  ‘Why? Look, honey, I know Chloe has gone, but you still need to live some kind of life.’

  Lou’s misdirected sympathy made her groan inside. She so wanted to tell her about Marilyn. Keeping this huge weight of worry from Lou was only making it heavier.

  ‘I know, but it just seems like whenever I get on a steady footing with someone, the rug gets pulled from under me. I’m just not ready.’

  Lou was quiet for a moment, and Mirren couldn’t help thinking she was building up to something.

  ‘You talking about Zander?’ she eventually asked.

  Mirren shrugged. ‘He failed a drug test.’

  ‘I heard,’ Lou said softly.

  Of course Lou knew. She was the editor of the Hollywood Post. No one farted in this town without her knowing about it.

  ‘I can’t believe he’d do that. I trusted him. He promised…’ Her words tailed off as she felt a huge lump form in her throat.

  Lou sighed. ‘Honey, I wasn’t planning on saying this today, but it’s just gonna get worse.’

  Mirren put her mug down on the table. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The LA Headline is about to do a story on him. A flight attendant on a private jet back from London is saying he exposed himself to her, groped her, harassed her. They’re doing the whole sex-pest angle. It’s not going to be pretty, hon.’

  Mirren tried to speak but nothing would come out. Her chin dropped, her throat closed, and suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.

  Mirren was shaking her head, desperate to get the words out. Lou put her hands on hers. ‘Honey, I’m sorry, but it’s better I tell you than you hear it from someone else.’

  Mirren shook her head, gasping for breath until her oesophagus finally opened wide enough for her to speak. ‘He didn’t do that.’

  ‘Baby, I know he’s your friend, but the girl has signed an affidavit to say he did. It’s a pretty compelling case.’

  ‘He didn’t do it,’ Mirren repeated forcefully.

  Lou exhaled. ‘You can’t be sure.’

  ‘I can,’ Mirren blurted.

  Suddenly, it was enough. No more. Enough lying, enough secrets. Lou would never betray her, never breach her trust. It was time she knew.

  ‘I can, Lou. Because a long time ago, someone attacked me, violated me, and if Zander reached him first, he’d have killed him for it. It changed our lives. All of us. He would never, ever touch a woman that way.’

  Now it was Lou who responded with utter incredulity. ‘And you’ve never told me this? Mirren, I’m so sorry. But – oh my god, I can’t take this in – what happened?’

  Mirren sighed, every ounce of resistance leaving her. It was time.

  ‘The man who did it was Zander’s father, Jono Leith. He was a criminal, a piece of scum, the most evil man who ever walked the face of the earth.’ Self-preservation slowed down her heart, made her nerve endings numb and she slipped into an almost trance like state as she began to relive the past. ‘He beat Zander’s mum every chance he had. And Zander too.’

  ‘That explains a lot,’ Lou murmured, voice oozing sympathy as a new understanding of Zander’s infamous demons dawned.

  ‘He and my mother were lovers my whole life. She was obsessed with him. No matter what he did, how many other women he screwed, how many times he humiliated her, despite years of broken promises to leave his wife. She worshipped him. Was addicted to his arrogance, to the danger, to the life he promised her year after year, to the money he threw at her after he’d fucked her. She thought she was someone because she was the girlfriend of Jono Leith. It was all she had. Him and a whole twisted fantasy about their happy ever after. But that changed…’

  Lou didn’t interject, just listened intently to every word.

  ‘When I was seventeen, he raped me.’

  Mirren heard Lou’s gasp, but it was almost abstract, surreal. Tears were flowing down her face, but she felt strangely calm. Resolute. Like she had to exorcize the demon.

  ‘Zander and Davie were nearby. Davie was my boyfriend, Zander was like my brother. I told them. Zander ran fastest, wanted to get to his dad first, and he would have killed him, Lou. He really would have.’

  ‘But he didn’t?’

  Mirren shook her head. ‘No, because my mother had already stabbed him to death. Not to protect me.’ Mirren’s voice was quiet now, a whisper. ‘But because she couldn’t cope with the fact that Jono Leith, the love of her life, had wanted me instead of her. So she killed him.’

  ‘Oh, Mirren…’

  ‘Mom?’

  Mirren’s head snapped round and she saw instantly that Logan, standing in the doorway, face pale and trembling, had heard every word.

  Another piece of Mirren’s heart broke.

  ‘I’m sorry, Logan. I didn’t want you to ever know.’

  He was shaking his head, fists clenched, jaw tight with fury and pain and devastation for her. ‘Don’t dare say sorry, Mom. Don’t dare. This isn’t your fault.’

  ‘The Brutal Circle,’ Lou suddenly interjected, a realization astounding her. ‘This is the storyline of The Brutal Circle.’

  Mirren nodded. ‘All of it true. I wrote about what happened. The rest… Well, you know.’

  Lou sat back, flabbergasted, trying to take it all in. ‘No cops back then?’

  Mirren shook her head as she moved along the booth to let Logan sit. He took her hand in his as she continued, ‘I didn’t want them involved, didn’t want anyone to know what he’d done to me or what my mum had done to him. Zander and Davie buried him…’

  ‘They what?’ Lou’s eyes widened, no amount of Botox capable of disguising her incredulity.

  ‘They buried him,’ Mirren repeated, ‘And no-one missed him. Jono was a criminal who lived a pretty dangerous life. Everyone thought he’d done a runner. We came here. End of story.’

  ‘I can’t believe I don’t know this about you guys,’ Lou said, almost to herself. ‘How does anyone survive that? Hell, I feel even more sorry for them now.’

  Even through the trauma, Mirren realised that was an odd comment. ‘Feel sorry for them why?’

  Lou looked at her like it was obvious. ‘Haven’t you heard what’s been happening over the last couple of weeks?’

  Mirren shook her head. She’d heard nothing. Probably because she’d told both guys she was done with them. In a contest of crap timing, this one was a winner.

  ‘Zander’s house got ransacked last week. The drug-test fail. These accusations. And Davie. He had the weirdo stalker with the blood thing, then his car got trashed, and then the fire…’

  ‘What fire?’ Mirren’s voice had real urgency now.

  ‘There was a fire at his house yesterday. Don’t worry – he’s OK. But that had to be terrifying.’

  She’d known that a couple of odd things had happened to Davie, but not all this.

  Fire. Stalker. Housebreaking. Accusations. Why hadn’t she known all this? Why hadn’t she put all this together before?

  ‘Lou, this isn’t random.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  It all made perfect sense now. ‘Zander has lost everything. If the fire was worse, Davie could have too. And…’ She paused, unable to finish the sentence. ‘We need to get out of here. Logan, we need to go somewhere safe.’

  ‘But why? I don’t get it.’

  Tell them. Tell them now.

  ‘Because my mother is here in LA and I think she’s behind all of this. In her twisted mind, I took away the thing she loved more than anything, and then me, Davie, Zander, we made these incredible lives off the story of what happened.

  ‘She thinks we took everything from her back then. Now I think she’s trying to do the same to us.’

  44

  ZANDER

  ‘Ashes to Ashes’ – David Bowie

  The banging on the door of the hotel bungalow woke him with a start.

  If this was housekeeping, they clearly weren’t paying attention to the ‘Do not disturb’ sign.

  Zander always slept naked, so he grabbed a towel, wrapped it round his waist and padded over to the door, checking his watch on the way. Two p.m. Probably time he was up anyway.

  He opened the door, fully expecting to see the maid. Wrong. Mirren McLean, Lou Cole and Logan.

  Taking a step back, so the door was wide open, he let them enter, shaking Logan’s hand as he passed. ‘All right, bud?’

  Logan turned the handshake into a hug. So one out of three was prepared to be cool with him, Zander decided. Not bad odds.

  Lou Cole scoped him from head to toe and muttered something about her lucky day. Mirren barely made eye contact. OK, so it was a start.

  As soon as he’d closed the door, Mirren spoke.

  ‘Still in bed at two o’clock?’ She didn’t look annoyed, more concerned.

  Zander picked up a plain white cotton T-shirt from the pile that the laundry had delivered the day before and pulled it on, leaving him only semi-naked now.

  ‘I was out last night.’

  Her left eyebrow raised. It was one of her mannerisms he’d always thought was hilarious. It was impossible for her to hide irritation or cynicism because it was, quite literally, written all over her eyebrows.

  ‘He’s been doing overnight shifts at Chloe’s Care,’ Lou offered. ‘Two of my stringers reported it back last night. Don’t worry – I’ve killed the story.’

  Mirren switched from cynical to surprised, then went straight on to apology. ‘I’m so sorry, Zander. I didn’t know.’

  ‘I asked them not to tell you. Didn’t want you getting worried that I was up there trying to score.’

  Mirren looked embarrassed, and he registered the weirdness of this situation. Clearly he was missing a chapter here. The last time she spoke to him, she’d told him to fuck off; now she was standing in his hotel suite. Why?

  ‘Zander, I need you to come with us,’ she told him.

  His heart sank. An intervention. He supposed he should have seen it coming.

  ‘Mirren, I’m not perfect, God knows. But I’m not the fuck-up you think I am, and I’m not buying into any intervention. So thanks, but you can go.’

  He turned to head back into the bedroom, where at least he could pull on some jeans and lose the shower-scene chic.

  ‘Zander, this isn’t an intervention; it’s an apology. I should have believed you. I’m so sorry. I know you didn’t fail the drug test. I know it was a false result,’ Mirren blurted. ‘I think your house being ransacked, the accusations that woman is making, and maybe the whole nightclub fight that night we were together were set up too.’

  This caught Zander’s attention and it took him a moment to process the relief. ‘Thanks,’ was all he could manage for a moment, then, ‘I don’t understand. Why do you think it’s all a set up? Apart from the fact that I didn’t do coke and I didn’t do anything wrong to that woman.’

  He watched as a whole spectrum of emotions crossed Mirren’s face. Fear, fury, determination.

  ‘Because my mother is in LA. I think she’s doing this.’

  Zander froze. ‘What?’

  While his body was somehow suddenly incapable of movement, his brain was exploding.

  Marilyn McLean. Fuck.

  His eyes darted to Lou and Logan, and Mirren could tell exactly what he was thinking. ‘I’ve told them everything,’ she admitted.

  Just when Zander thought it was impossible to feel any worse, another layer of anxiety came to settle on top. No one should ever know everything unless they were there, unless they had as much to lose as the others who were involved. Mirren. Zander. Davie.

  But then, he trusted Logan. And Lou…

  ‘It will never be repeated, Zander. I swear,’ Lou assured him. He believed her.

  Sighing, he went into the bedroom, pulled on his jeans, more to buy time to think than out of modesty.

  ‘So what makes you think it’s Marilyn?’ he asked when he re-joined them.

  Mirren relayed the story yet again, every sentence twisting his gut just a little more. He hated Marilyn McLean with a passion that could never be underestimated. Jono was a bastard, and she was the woman who loved a bastard, who allowed him to control everything, who didn’t care that he was married and that Zander had to lie in bed night after night listening to his mother weeping because her husband was in the neighbour’s bed. Marilyn McLean was the reason his mother died a broken woman, thinking her husband had left her, when really he was in a shallow grave only feet away from her home.

  Zander listened, evaluated. Mirren was still relaying the details. ‘I think she was the one who set Davie’s house on fire too.’

  Another half-turn on the twisting gut. But come on, surely this was way out of Marilyn’s comfort zone and capabilities?

  ‘Mirr, how could your mother pull this off? Someone was shooting at Davie’s house. Managed to set it on fire. Persuaded some chick to lie about me. That’s a whole lot of crapola from one person.’ Even as he was saying it, he could hear Mirren’s answer, and he knew she was right.

  ‘Because Marilyn’s a manipulative, clever bitch. And for the last twenty years, she’s been shacked up with one of the biggest crooks in the UK and working alongside him. You think she hasn’t learned things? Made contacts? I don’t think there’s anything she isn’t capable of.’

  Reluctantly, Zander agreed. Mirren was right. Marilyn had always been on the dark side of evil. The way she’d treated Mirren, been obsessed with Jono, manipulated everyone to get what she wanted. She’d killed before. Zander could see why Mirren would absolutely believe she would kill again.

  ‘I think she’s out to destroy us, Zander. We can’t go to the police in case it leaks, and Davie and I have got a team of people on it, but in the meantime, we have to go somewhere safe. You have to come.’

  Zander thought about it, a cascade of mixed emotions pulling him in different directions, but there were two overriding arguments that made his mind up for him. If Marilyn was out there and coming for them, she no doubt had a psycho-bitch plan. And if he was with Mirren, then he could look after her, protect her.

  ‘And what about Davie?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re going over to meet him now. He’s not going to be thrilled at the prospect of coming with us, but it’s the only thing that will keep us safe.’

  He thought some more, then nodded. ‘I’ll come.’

  There was never any doubt, but the relief on Mirren’s face was palpable.

  He hadn’t protected her last time and his father had almost destroyed her. That wasn’t going to happen again. Not ever.

  If Marilyn was going to come after any one of them, she was going to have to get through Zander first.

  45

  SARAH

  ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’– Duran Duran

  How many times had she watched the footage? Maybe a dozen? And yet she was still strangely compelled to watch it again, hoping the outcome would be different, hoping that it told a different story. It never did.

  Right now, it was on freeze on the huge eighty-inch monitor in the lounge in Davie’s guest house. She’d linked her laptop up to it, because it was the only decent-size screen available now that the main house was out of bounds.

  Time to wrap it up. Move on.

  There were more important things to deal with today. Mirren had called to say she was on the way over, needed to talk to them. Sarah had already guessed what it was about.

  Marilyn.

  They needed a plan. A strategy. Or perhaps Mirren was calling to tell them she’d found her. Sarah sent up a silent prayer of hope. If they had, it would be game over. They could unpack the suitcases that were sitting in the hallway, ready to go to a house Davie had rented, and return to normal life. They’d spent last night here in the guest house, only because Brad had a whole protection team patrolling the estate. It was time to go somewhere more anonymous. She could finish the book and there would be a storming chapter about a close shave with a lethal stalker. No names mentioned.

  In the meantime, the chapter about the boy-band singer’s secret drug use was definitely off the table. She couldn’t use it, wouldn’t do that to Mirren, to Logan. Breaking a story like that would make her career, change her life, but it wasn’t worth it. Urgh, twice in two years! Last year, she’d been the first and only journalist to find out the truth about the past lives of Davie, Zander and Mirren, but she’d killed that story when she fell in love with one of the people it would hurt most. Now she was about to kill a second story because she couldn’t hurt Mirren. She was obviously getting way too soft for this game. Strangely, that didn’t feel like such a bad thing.