Boot Camp Bride (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-two
Sex, Lies and Telephoto Lenses

Fifteen minutes later, Charlee was poked roughly in the shoulder.

‘Chief says you’re to go in,’ Sally spat at her. ‘He and Rafa want to talk to you.’

‘Thanks, Sal.’ Charlee used the diminutive of her name to reinforce the change in their positions at
What’cha!
She thought of asking Sally to be a bridesmaid at the wedding-that-was-never-going-to-happen, but decided that might be taking the joke too far. Instead, she gathered her notebook and pen and made her way down the corridor.

Standing outside Sam’s office, she remembered only too clearly the last time she’d been there. Then she’d thought she was about to be sacked. Now, here she was - less than two weeks later - ‘engaged’ to one of the most revered photographers in the business. It put a whole new spin on the concept of ‘speed dating’; from zero to hero during the course of the Christmas hols!

Man - it felt good!

Pulling back her shoulders, she raised her hand to knock at the door and then paused. It was slightly ajar and she didn’t want to barge in while Sam and Ffinch were deep in conversation. Her position wasn’t that certain - just yet. She pushed the door further ajar, listening in on their conversation and trying to gauge when she should enter. Last time she’d seen Sam Walker, he’d been wearing an Emma Bridgewater apron and she’d helped him with preparing dinner. Back in harness, ‘Chief’ was quite capable of flaying the flesh off her bones with a cutting remark if she got above herself.

Rafa was speaking. ‘Look, Sam, I’m not sure about this.’

‘Oh, come on, Rafa - it’s the best shot we’ve got. You land the story of the year, I run it and
What’cha!
gets all the glory. It’ll be my last hurrah and double the price I can ask for the magazine. There could be a knighthood in it - Lady Daphne - imagine how that’d go down with the horsey set.’

‘I know, but what about Montague? If anything happened to her, the Brothers Grimm would tear me apart, limb from limb.’

‘Look, she’s tough, smart and can carry it off. You’re getting close, don’t screw it up now, Raf,’ Sam said in a tone that brooked no refusal.

‘She’s no fool, she’s already beginning to suspect -’ Ffinch began but Sam swept his objections out of the way.

‘Last time I looked you’re a man and she’s a woman. Do I have to explain about the birds and the bees? Woo her, put so many stars in her eyes that she’ll be blind to what’s going on under her nose.’

‘That’s a tall order - I get the distinct impression that she thinks I’m a -’

The phone on Sam’s desk rang and Ffinch’s last words were lost. Judging this was an opportune moment to enter, Charlee knocked on the door and entered without waiting for Sam’s usual, headmasterly ‘co-ome’ - or terse ‘fuck off’.

‘Charlee.’ Ffinch frowned as she walked into the office, perhaps wondering how long she’d been standing there and what she might have overheard. ‘You’ve got your notebook, good. There are a few details to finalise and then we’re on.’

‘That’s great,’ she said, smiling artlessly to allay his suspicions. ‘What happens next?’ she asked as Sam put the phone back on its charger.

‘We’re going to put it about that you and Ffinch are going off on a … what d’you call them, Rafa?’

‘Minibreak,’ Ffinch put in straight-faced, although she suspected that his lips were twitching. ‘In a country house hotel, to cement our love, and to celebrate our engagement.’

‘Country house hotel? Isn’t that just a little bit too
Bridget Jones
?’

She recalled the conversation they’d had in this very office. ‘I have no intention of working late, missing the last train back to town and staying over in some country house hotel with you. Or being shown to a suite of rooms which - surprise, surprise - have conveniently interconnecting doors.’ And his mocking rejoinder: ‘Don’t think you’d be able to keep your hands off me, eh Chelsea? I quite understand.’

‘Why do we need to go anywhere?’ Charlee foresaw herself being relegated to joke-girlfriend/comical-fiancée - a pawn, pushed and pulled this way and that by Sam and Ffinch. And she wasn’t having any of it.

‘We’re not actually going any further than The Ship Inn, Thornham,’ Ffinch explained. ‘It’s just a story we’re concocting to explain why you and I have disappeared. In actual fact we’ll be going undercover, initially passing ourselves off as birdwatchers - to check out the salt marshes where the prospective brides go for their cross-country runs.’

Charlee was about to say that it all seemed a bit over the top just to get a few snaps of a dishevelled Russian model but she kept her counsel. Better they thought she actually was the lovestruck fiancée she’d been slated to play.

‘The Ship Inn, Thornham? Never heard of it,’ she said.

‘It’s close by Burnham Market or, to give it its nickname, Chelsea-by-the-Sea,’ Ffinch put in. ‘Lots of chichi shops and couples with black Labradors wearing Barbours.’

‘You can get Barbours for Labradors now?’ she asked, straight-faced. Ffinch looked about to explain that there should be an Oxford comma somewhere in the sentence, then he caught her eye.

‘Very funny, Montague. Remind me not to tangle with a linguist in future.’ Then he grinned and looked younger and momentarily free from the underlying strain that creased his forehead and had him pacing the living room floor during the night watches. His gaze rested on her for a few moments, consideringly, and Charlee flushed under his calm regard. Unbidden, her heart flipped over; but she put it down to excitement and anticipation of what lay ahead of them. ‘You’re getting a free holiday, a spa break,’ he reminded her.

‘A roll round in the mud more like it,’ Charlee put with her usual asperity.

‘So don’t push it.’

‘No, sir,’ she saluted him. ‘Or should that be sir - darling? I so want to get it right.’

‘Okay you two lovebirds,’ Sam said shortly. ‘Get out of my office, you’re putting me off my lunchtime pint. Go - make arrangements, work on your story, do whatever’s necessary for the success of this venture. Just don’t run up massive expenses or you’ll be paying for them yourselves. Go!’ he repeated as Charlee stood there clasping her reporter’s notebook to her breast and Ffinch seemed lost in thought. ‘Come back when you’ve got the spoiler - I want to run it as soon as possible.
Mirror! Mirror!
won’t know what’s hit it.’

He rubbed his hands together.

‘Okay, Chief.’ Charlee made for the door but then paused, expecting Ffinch to follow her. But obviously they had further business to discuss, business she wasn’t party to. ‘I’ll go and tidy up my desk and put it about the office that -’

‘Yes, yes, whatever.’ Sam had already lost interest and wanted her gone.

Charlee walked back to her desk, sat down heavily, put her notebook and pen by the mouse pad and covered her face with her hands. She let out a long breath - there was a lot to think about and she needed to marshal her thoughts into some kind of order. Downing the last of her champagne, she made her way to the staff kitchen and put her glass in the dishwasher. Vanessa went ape if the work surfaces weren’t kept clean and tidy. With everything else going on in her life right now, she didn’t need Vanessa on her case, too.

Charlee spent a large chunk of the morning researching the north Norfolk coast around Brancaster and Thornham. She made it known that she and Ffinch were taking a minibreak in a country house hotel in Cornwall and left the bush telegraph to do the rest. At lunch time her colleagues kept passing her desk, demanding another look at the ring and asking some very personal questions.

‘You’re looking fabulous, Charlee,’ one female intern said. ‘You have a certain glow.’

‘It’s called fresh air and exercise,’ she quipped. ‘Almost a week in the country does that to a girl.’

‘Surely you mean s-exercise?’ another commented and they all laughed. ‘You’re having great sex, aren’t you?’

‘Of course she’s having great sex. She’s engaged to Ffinch - the man’s sex on legs. Isn’t he?’

‘You might say so, but I couldn’t possibly comment,’ Charlee replied, concentrating on her typing with an air of mystery designed to keep them guessing.

‘God, I’m like, so jealous, you know?’ the first intern sighed.

‘If I was engaged to him, I’d never let him out of my bed …’ someone added. ‘We’d never get up, we’d order in food and champagne and …’

‘Those gorgeous grey eyes,’ the first intern said, romantically. ‘Or, are they blue?’

‘Come-to-bed-eyes,’ another female sighed. ‘Although I’d settle for five minutes in the stationery cupboard, if the chance arose. Oops, sorry Montague, just kidding,’ she said, realising she’d dropped a clanger.

‘And his family’s loaded,’ someone else added prosaically. ‘You’ve hit pay dirt, Montague. If you can hold onto him, that is.’

‘I happen to think he’s got a pretty good bargain, too,’ Charlee said sniffily.

‘Yeah, ri-ight,’ they opined, leaving the words ‘as if!’ hanging in the air.

‘Coming to Pret for a sandwich, Charlee?’

‘No, I’ve got an article to finish for Vanessa, then we - Ff - Rafa and me, we’re going home to pack and -’

‘- have afternoon sex,’ the girl at the next desk put in, comically popping her head over the top of her monitor, Muppet-like.

‘You lot are obsessed,’ Charlee laughed, thinking - ‘little do they know’. The closest they’d come to amorous was the ‘let’s get it out of the way’ kiss in her father’s study and her standing on Ffinch’s foot. ‘But it’s a possibility,’ she said with a suitably dreamy expression whilst thinking - No Way, José.

‘Lucky cow,’ they chorused, meaning it as an accolade.

Vanessa and Sally came down the corridor and Charlee’s co-workers scattered like ninepins, reaching for their coats and bags before Vanessa could invent some trumped up reason for them to work through their lunch break.

‘Montague - a word,’ she said imperiously and walked into the staff kitchen, clearly expecting Charlee to follow.

Sighing, Charlee pushed her chair away from her workstation. She would be furious if Sam had sent Vanessa to bring her up to speed on the assignment. That was Ffinch’s job, he owed her that at least. Hadn’t they said that the less people who knew about their plans, the greater chance the mission had of succeeding?

Entering the kitchen, she folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe, primed for a quick getaway.

‘Montague,’ Vanessa began, baring her teeth in what she obviously imagined to be a winning smile. ‘Charlotte … I’ve been a good mentor to you since you arrived at
What’cha!
have I not?’

There was only one answer to that question, Charlee thought, crossing her fingers behind her back. ‘Yes, Vanessa.’

‘And I’ve helped too, whenever I could,’ Sally smiled, reached out and straightened Charlee’s collar. It was only with the greatest of difficulty that Charlee stopped herself from flinching.

‘I guess,’ Charlee replied, wondering where this was going.

‘So -’ Vanessa brought her hands together and steepled her fingers, as if she was about to pray. ‘We feel we ought to warn you.’

‘Warn me?’ Charlee felt as if someone had poured a jug of ice-cold water down the back of her neck. ‘About?’

‘Ffinch. The rumours.’ Sally moved over to the sink and fired up the coffee machine.

‘What rumours?’ Charlee made an effort to pull herself together; repeating phrases like a simple-minded parrot would get her nowhere.

‘His drug taking. What he was really doing in Darien. I mean, come on - taking his team deep into the rainforest and losing two of them in the process? How many people get captured by the Contras, held to ransom and live to tell the tale?’ Charlee went quiet; these were the very questions keeping her from sleep.

‘Go on,’ she prompted, feeling strangely disloyal for talking about Ffinch behind his back - especially with two harpies like Sally and Vanessa. Then she remembered Sam’s mocking ‘put stars in her eyes’ and Ffinch’s economy with the truth and hardened her heart.

‘They say …’ Sally and Vanessa took a step closer to ensure they weren’t overheard. ‘They say that the charity he’s set up in Colombia …’ Sally’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper and racked up the tension.

‘The one raising money to provide a hospital boat for the people who fished him out of the Amazon and nursed him back to health?’ Charlee didn’t want either woman to think that she was completely ignorant of her fiancé’s backstory. ‘What about it?’

‘Just that it’s a front for his other activities.’ Vanessa paused meaningfully.

‘What activities might those be?’ Charlee asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. Vanessa and Sally had shown no interest in her welfare before now, so why were they acting like her fairy godmothers all of a sudden?

‘Gun running, drug smuggling, money laundering,’ Sally ventured. She gave Charlee a pitying look which suggested that someone high on l-u-r-v-e, and grateful for being singled out by a man like Ffinch wouldn’t see what was staring her in the face. That it was her duty as her superior - her friend - to point out these matters.

‘No-oh.’ The premise was so ridiculous that Charlee burst out laughing. Ffinch, a money launderer, a gun runner and a cokehead? ‘No-oh. Really, you’ve got it all wrong.’