Read Dead in the Water for Free Online

driven for what seemed like years, and even so she was late for lunch. She should have called Marcus, but she was so pissed off she’d decided he could sweat it out and switched off her phone.
    The way Marcus talked, she’d thought this was something really special, and she’d even got some cool stuff to wear. She’d seen country-house weekends in films, and actually meeting Sylvia Lascelles – well, that was special in itself for a girl who’d grown up in social housing in Wishaw.
    Jaki was feeling quite nervous. The woman was a legend, after all. The whole team was excited about her being in this episode, but only Jaki would have the chance to get to know her properly before filming started.
    But this – this plain, boring house, no turrets or anything, out in the sticks with an overgrown garden and windows needing painted? What a let-down! She’d thought there’d be a town – well, not exactly a town, she wasn’t stupid, but a cute village with craft shops and a decent restaurant for eating out. Marcus had told her he hadn’t any proper help and she couldn’t see him cooking. But this Ardhill place was the ass-end of space. What did they do round here? Eat grass?
    Her pretty, glossy lips were dropping at the corners as she parked her bright red Ka. She was small and slight, with neat, pert features, big brown eyes and a creamy complexion; her dark hair, cut in a feathery gamine style, had a henna shine. The wind ruffled it and she shivered. The outfit that had looked great in Zara wasn’t suited to this climate and her stiletto-heeled ankle boots would be ruined by the time she’d crossed the weedy gravel to the front door.
    Where was Marcus, anyway? She scowled, dragging her cases from the boot. He should be looking out for her, worrying in case she was lying in a ditch somewhere.
    It wasn’t a good sign. Just lately she’d sensed a slight cooling-off, which gave her a little flutter of panic. She wasn’t absolutely sure she was still in love with him, but he was her security in the cut-throat game which was her profession.
    Jaki was remarkably realistic. She was talented, but so were plenty of other pretty girls, and she hadn’t yet won the viewers’ hearts to the point where she was fireproof. While she was Marcus’s squeeze, she could be pretty sure she wouldn’t be written out.
    That made her sound a hard, calculating bitch – well, perhaps she was, in a way, but she genuinely had fancied Marcus rotten. He was the dream answer to an internet WLTM ad: BHM, GSOH, NM – and who wouldn’t like to meet a not married, big handsome male with a good sense of humour, and a bit of fame chucked in for extras? And he didn’t fancy himself even more than you did and play the big star. He was a honey, and she’d had a crush on him right from the start, never thinking he’d look at her twice. But in the long intervals between takes they’d talked a lot, and she made him laugh, then one thing led to another.
    For someone over forty, he was pretty cool, but she had to admit they hadn’t much in common. His idea of a great night out was something heavy at the theatre, then a restaurant where the waiters winced if you clinked a glass accidentally, and the only time she’d taken him clubbing had been a disaster. ‘How can you stand the smell? ’ he’d demanded, wrinkling his nose. ‘All these sweaty bodies! And the noise . . .’
    So she hadn’t tried again. Jaki did her clubbing when he was otherwise engaged, but she was always careful. Marcus was showbiz news, in Scotland at least, and no rotten stringer was going to catch her draped around some other guy and write an item he’d see sooner or later. She’d no illusions about ‘for ever’ – and she knew he didn’t either – but she was in no hurry to move on.
    Though as she rang the bell and crossed the cavernous vestibule to open the front door, the thought crossed her mind that if spending much time in this dump was a condition of the