she said firmly. ‘I want a change. You don’t need to come with me, Kat,’ she added. ‘It’s about time you took a break too, isn’t it? You’ve been working so hard. We’re all exhausted, as this morning proves.’
There was a silence. Kat was looking hurt; she hadn’t been taken in by Lizzie’s attempt to parcel her dismissal as concern. Bill was uncharacteristically quiet too, simmering, Lizzie thought, but for once keeping his temper.
‘Well,’ he said, after a strained moment, ‘if that’s what you want. Keep in touch, wherever you go, and good luck with the songwriting. Let me know if the police call and you need the lawyers again.’
Lizzie ignored the heavy sarcasm and gave him a polite smile. ‘Thanks, Bill.’
‘Call me, sweetie.’ Kat had evidently decided to forgive her too. Neither she nor Bill moved. It was as though they were daring her to walk out on them, Lizzie thought, as though they were certain she couldn’t do it. For one long, terrified moment she wasn’t sure she could. She’d relied on them for so long. The silence stretched and then she heard the sound of voices and the clatter of a door in the office outside and it broke the spell. She walked over to the door and went out, closing it softly behind her.
There was a taxi waiting outside; there was always a taxi waiting at Bill’s offices. The driver recognised her and greeted her with a smile which warmed Lizzie’s bruised heart a little.
‘You all right, Miss Kingdom?’ he asked, looking at her in the mirror as he pulled out into the traffic. ‘You look a bit pale.’
‘I’m good thanks, Gary,’ Lizzie lied. ‘How are you? Did you and your wife enjoy the long weekend in France?’
‘It rained all the time,’ Gary said without a hint of regret. ‘It was great to get away, though.’ He looked at her again. ‘You should try it. Looks like you could do with a holiday. I’m sorry about all the stuff they’re saying about you at the moment. They haven’t a clue.’
‘Thanks, Gary,’ Lizzie said again. She looked out of the window. London in October matched her mood, at least on this particular day. The pavements were wind-scoured and the trees looked bare and fading. The sky was pewter grey. Dull.
Depressing. She felt the dark shadow breathing down her neck like a stalker.
She wondered what Bill and Kat were saying about her. It was almost as though she could hear them: she would change her mind because she was so flighty, she wasn’t strong enough to go it alone, it would all come to nothing and tomorrow they could go back to how things had been and pretend this tantrum of hers had never happened…
Or perhaps they weren’t talking about her at all. Perhaps she had become so self-obsessed in her celebrity bubble that she assumed she was more important than she really was.
The taxi stopped at traffic lights and someone thrust a camera phone towards the window. The flash went off, making Lizzie blink, waking her from her absorption. A family was crossing the road ahead all wrapped up against the chill in woolly hats and padded jackets, the children’s gloved hands clutching those of their parents. They were laughing as the leaves tumbled about them and a fine drizzle of rain started to fall.
The taxi pulled up outside her flat and Lizzie paid it off with thanks and went inside, from one protected cocoon to another. There was no one in the foyer and no one in the lift. The quiet seemed deathly, the flat a tomb. With a sigh Lizzie went through to her bedroom and started to pull a suitcase out of her wardrobe. It was one of the heavy-duty ones that she used for overseas trips and it caught on the corner of her shoe rack and tumbled half a dozen pairs to the floor. The scent of her favourite perfume caught at her senses as the racks of clothes shifted and whispered together. There would be no need of those gala and premiere dresses for a while.
It was like sloughing off an identity. She picked up a random pile of T-shirts and jeans and threw them into the case. Then the enormity of what she was doing hit her like a blow and she crumpled to sit down rather heavily on the floor. Where the hell was she going to go? She knew loads of people and she was sure most of