‘So, so proud, darling.’ Sherry wrapped her arms around her daughter and squeezed her lightly in a hug. ‘And I do think the Lemons should play. I know your father isn’t quite there yet, but I think he will be, once some of the fog clears. So...I’ll talk to the boys, get them all on board. So we’re ready when your dad bursts out of that studio ready to take to the stage, yes?’
‘That would be great. Thanks, Mum.’ Violet hugged her back, thinking, not for the first time, that the whole family would have been doomed years ago if Sherry hadn’t been there to take them in hand.
‘Now, you get off and fetch that twin of yours and her husband. We need all the family here right now.’ She made a shooing motion with her hands. ‘Go on. I’ll tell Tom you couldn’t wait for him when he shows up. He’s probably on a call or something.’
Sherry was probably right, Violet decided as she pulled out of the garage and prepared to drive past the reporters still camped out on their doorstep. Tom wouldn’t have left her to do this alone unless something important had come up. And since he’d taken on the job of distracting and dealing with the media and their many, many questions about Uncle Jez and the family, the chances were he was probably yelling ‘no comment’ down the phone at someone he’d previously considered a friend and colleague right now.
‘Violet! Violet!’ The calls started the moment her car pulled around to the front of the house and headed for the driveway out to the main road. She checked her windows were completely shut, but it didn’t seem to do much for keeping the shouts out.
‘How’s your dad?’ someone called.
‘Any news on the car? How did Jez get hold of it?’ yelled a less concerned reporter.
‘Are Rose and Will coming home?’
‘Is it true that Daisy went into premature labour and is now on bed rest?’
Violet had to smile at that one. Daisy was only five months pregnant and, if she was in bed, Violet was pretty sure she was ‘seeking solace’ in the arms of her rather attractive husband. Really, did they not think if something had happened to the baby they’d have seen the ambulances and medical experts lined up by the dozen? Sherry Huntingdon was taking absolutely no chances with her first grandchild.
The questions followed her as she sped down the driveway and faded away as she hit the open road. It was strange to think that the last time she’d driven this way had been when she’d headed to the airport to collect Tom. So much had changed since then, she barely recognised the frustrated, lonely woman who’d let loose on him in the coffee shop.
* * *
In the end, it turned out that Rose and Will’s last leg flight had been delayed. Sighing as she checked the arrivals board for updates, Violet spotted a familiar-looking coffee shop and decided that was as good a place as any to try and avoid attention. Picking up a paper on her way, she grabbed a coffee, settled herself into a corner where she could still see the screens with flight information and prepared to wait.
She heard a few murmurs as people spotted her, probably exacerbated by the fact that the front page of the newspaper had a splashy sidebar about Jez’s autopsy, but no one approached her directly, which Violet appreciated. In fact, it was possibly the most peace and quiet she’d had in days.
She should have known it wouldn’t last.
Violet was halfway through reading an editorial piece about the price of fame, idly making her own comments in the margins with a pencil, when her phone rang. She didn’t recognise the number, but that wasn’t exactly unusual these days. She had all the main contacts for the Benefit Concert programmed in, but every time someone rang from a different office line or their home phone instead of their mobile, it threw her off.
‘Violet Huntingdon-Cross,’ she answered, trying to sound both welcoming—in case it was someone from the Benefit—and dismissive—in case it was another reporter who’d got hold of her number—at the same time.
‘Hello, sweetpea.’ The voice on the other end made her muscles freeze up, her whole body tense. For eight years she’d avoided that voice, and the man it belonged to. Eight years she’d spent trying to pretend he didn’t exist—which was almost true. The man she’d thought she loved didn’t exist at all. Only this man, who could betray her in a moment for a good story.
‘Nick.’ She should hang up, switch her phone off and pretend this never happened. Go back to hiding away from him and everything he represented.
Except she wasn’t that Violet any more, was she?
‘What do you want?’ she asked, her tone clipped. She was so far past him now. One little conversation wouldn’t kill her.
‘The same thing everything wants from you right now,’ Nick said. ‘An official comment on the recent untimely death of your father’s lead guitarist.’
Violet laughed, loud enough to draw attention from the people sitting at the next table. ‘Why on earth would you imagine I’d give you that?’ Or anything else he wanted, for that matter.
‘Maybe for old times’ sake?’ Nick said. ‘But I suppose I should have known better.’
‘Too right you should.’
‘I mean, you’ve got another journo on the line these days, haven’t you? Stringing you along, just waiting for the story of a lifetime. I bet old Tom couldn’t believe his luck.’
‘You know Tom?’ It wasn’t really a question; Nick had always known everyone. Tom might be from the other side of the pond, but that wouldn’t mean much. They ran in the same circles. But Nick was wrong if he thought Tom was anything like him.
‘Doesn’t everybody?’ Nick said lightly. ‘But I suppose the real question is how well you know Tom. I mean, have you ever read through his stories? Not the recent ones, but the early stories. The story that gave him his first big break, for example.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to.’ Violet swallowed down the fear that rose up her throat as she remembered Tom talking about the first paper he’d worked for. The one that had caused such a rift between him and his mother. He’d never talked about the stories he wrote for that paper...a fact she’d wilfully ignored in the face of their romance. ‘Tom’s not like you. And what the hell does it matter to you anyway?’
‘Maybe I just couldn’t bear to see you taken in so completely all over again.’ There was a pause, then Nick laughed. ‘Okay, take this call as your reminder. When you figure out what he’s really like and you realise that we’re all the same, us journos, perhaps you might think better the devil you know, yeah? You’ve got to talk some time. Might as well talk to me as the next man.’
‘It will never be you,’ Violet bit out. How could he even think that? And what did he think he knew about Tom that would make Nick seem like the better option? She couldn’t even think about it. ‘Goodbye, Nick.’
She ended the call, her heart still racing. He was probably just winding her up. Taking a chance on having an in on the story of the century, or whatever. His editor had probably put him up to it. He couldn’t have ever imagined she’d actually talk to him, right?
Which meant he was probably making it up about Tom, too. What the hell did Nick know, anyway? All Tom’s stories were music based—even his early ones for that cursed paper were probably album reviews. What could possibly be contentious in that? Maybe he gave the Lemons two stars once or something, but that wasn’t enough to drive a wedge between them. The past was the past; it didn’t matter now.
Except...Nick had said they were all the same. A
nd Violet knew some of the stories Nick had written. Had starred in a few.
Tom wouldn’t write anything like that. Would he?
Violet glanced up at the arrivals screen. Still no word. So she had time to kill. It didn’t mean anything.
At least that was what she told herself as she pulled her tablet out of her bag and began a search on Tom’s name.
It took less time than she’d imagined. She wasn’t exactly an internet geek, but even she could find basic information on a person—and the articles they’d written. And it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out which one Nick had been referring to.
There, in amongst all the album reviews, band interviews and concert coverage, dated ten years earlier, was the story that had started Tom Buckley’s career. And it made Violet’s stomach turn just to read it.
Teenage starlet in nude photo scandal.
The photos had clearly been taken up close and in person, rather than by telephoto lens. Whoever had taken them had got close. Very close. And had been invited there.
Violet remembered the story breaking, remembered how these very photos had been splashed across the news, the papers and the internet within a matter of hours. And the text, the background info...he’d gone out looking for this, Violet could tell. Maybe he’d had a tip-off, maybe he’d played a hunch—whatever. Tom had deliberately and wilfully pursued and exposed this story. And maybe even seduced the actress to do it.
Kristy Callahan had been barely eighteen at the time, Violet remembered. She’d been famous for starring in a wholesome family sitcom. And Tom’s story had destroyed her career.
Violet didn’t want to know this. But now that she did...she couldn’t pretend the story didn’t exist. That she didn’t know what Tom had done. He hadn’t fallen out with his mother over the paper he worked for—it was because of this story. It had to be. He’d been lying to her after all, just at the moment she’d thought she had the truth. That she could trust him.