The Honey Trap

‘Jesus, you don’t mean Steve watched it all!’

Angel bunched her fists into her eyes and moaned. As if anything was needed to make her humiliation more complete. Not only did she have one stonking bastard of a hangover. Not only was her bare backside splashed across the front page of a national newspaper for all to see. Not only had she, Angel Blackthorne, spent her Friday night having oral sex with a married stranger in a hotel room. But now it turned out her letchy old boss had watched the whole thing!

‘Oh God. I feel like I’m going to be sick.’

Emily patted her hair, putting on her best comforting tone. ‘Look, sweetie, it might seem like you want the earth to open right now, but give it a week and this’ll all be forgotten, I promise. Just tomorrow’s chip paper, right? And as for Steve, he’s sleazy, but he’s professionally sleazy. I’m sure it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, if that makes you feel any better.’

‘How the hell is that supposed to make me feel better?’ Angel gave another long, muffled groan, hiding her face in her hands. ‘Just leave me, Em, leave me to die…’

‘Oh come on. I didn’t spend my hard-earned wine drowning your sorrows just so you could have a relapse next day. Look, I’ll get some coffee on. That at least might help deal with the hangover part of your symptoms.’

Fighting the surge of nausea, Angel pulled the paper towards her and began to read with kamikaze resignation:

Film-making wunderkind Sebastian Wilchester – husband of top actress and former child star Carole Beaumont, best known for her role as little Caroline in ’90s sitcom Something About Sally – was last night caught on the other side of the cameras, romping with an unidentified redhead, possibly a vice girl, in a swanky London hotel suite.

The pair spent the evening glugging champagne and indulging in a marathon sex session in the hotel bath, while Beaumont was at home alone in the Wilchesters’ Kensington mansion.

Angel felt her cheeks blazing with anger and mortification. If she’d been in any doubt Steve had stayed for the whole show, it was now utterly squashed.

A red flash in the corner promised ‘MORE SAUCY PICS INSIDE! Continued on p26 and 27’.

She flicked in panic to the double-page spread and experienced a surge of relief when she saw that none of the photos showed her face or anything that could identify her. Steve may be a scumbag, but he had principles of sorts, and an absolute commitment to protecting his sources was foremost among them. Thank Christ she’d wimped out of getting that tattoo on her bum at uni, though.

Inset was a photo of Seb and his wife Carole on their wedding day, the bride glowing in a creamy silk and Seb beaming as he curled a protective arm around her. Angel felt a twinge of shame and guilt when she took in the couple’s bright, happy faces.

The article continued:

The Palme D’Or-winning screenwriter and director, pioneer of the East End Noir genre, has been dubbed the saviour of the British film industry and a modern-day Orson Welles since his breakthrough film, Unreal City, was released to critical acclaim when he was just 22.

Neither he nor his wife of six years, former childhood sweethearts, were available to comment when contacted by our reporter. However, their lawyer has issued a statement asking for the couple’s privacy to be respected at this difficult time.

Wilchester, 30, and Beaumont, 28, had just completed work on their forthcoming film, The Milkman Cometh – a rare foray into black comedy for the director and his wife/leading lady.

‘I didn’t realise who he was when he ordered a drink at the hotel bar,’ said our source, a hotel employee who witnessed the encounter between Wilchester and his flame-haired temptress. ‘But I saw him meet up with this girl and they couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. I don’t know but it looked like it had been arranged in advance, and I noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He bought her a drink and they were flirting for a bit, then he went upstairs to her suite. The maid said he left looking dishevelled the next morning.’

Et tu, Brad the barman?

Angel sank down against the arm of the sofa and moaned softly. What an almighty mess she’d managed to make of her life, her love life and her career, and all in the space of one weekend! God only knew what the next day at work would bring, but a massive bollocking piece of her mind was definitely on an unstoppable collision course with Steve’s face.

Chapter 5 (#ucffe615e-83a6-56bd-b0fd-a7b96be15c9d)

Angel flicked on the TV as she got ready for work the next morning. She’d spent the evening ranting to Emily about Steve, professional ethics and the male sex in general, all worms of the lowest order, until her friend had begged her to stop before she either signed up for the nearest convent or took out a contract on Angel’s life.

Okay, what delights did breakfast telly have in store for her today while she straightened her hair? Sex secrets of the over-nineties? How to make the perfect quiche using nothing but powdered custard? A dog that could bark the theme tune to The Great British Bake Off?

She switched to her favourite breakfast show. A heavily botoxed blonde presenter was delivering a piece to camera, her make-up-thick face full of one hundred per cent artificial concern.

‘Theirs was the fairytale romance that helped movie fans feel true love wasn’t something which only happened on the silver screen,’ the presenter began in a light, trilling tone. ‘Sebastian Wilchester and Carole Beaumont were childhood sweethearts from the time their parents, all four showbiz royalty, became neighbours when the children were four and six years old. Wilchester’s mother was the Oscar-winning actress Abigail Carruthers, while his father was her second husband, film-score composer Hugo Wilchester. Rick and Sally Beaumont are still well known from their hit sitcom of the 1990s, Something About Sally. Their daughter appeared as a regular character from the age of six, and in roles such as Little Nell in an acclaimed film version of The Old Curiosity Shop, but retired as a child star at the age of fourteen.’

Angel stared with car-crash fascination at the TV, her straighteners immobile in her hand, as the presenter continued.

‘Wilchester and Beaumont married in a quiet ceremony while filming in Paris six years ago, two years after the success of Wilchester’s breakthrough film, Unreal City, in which Beaumont played the lead, made them household names. But on Sunday their happily-ever-after began to disintegrate when photographs of Wilchester appeared in a tabloid newspaper, apparently showing him enjoying a sleazy romp with a vice girl in an upmarket hotel.’

Angel felt a sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach as the camera cut away to the front page of Sunday’s Investigator and she saw her own naked body once again, the picture zooming in ever closer on Seb’s lust-contorted face over her shoulder.

‘The couple have so far refused to comment on the allegations,’ the presenter continued, “but we go live now to their home in Kensington as they prepare to deliver a statement.’

The camera cut to a shot of Seb, his arm around Carole’s shoulders at the door of their mansion. Both looked tired and drawn. Carole’s eyes were red-rimmed, her white face sort of sunken in on itself like a deflated balloon. A rolling banner at the bottom of the screen announced ‘LIVE: joint statement from Sebastian Wilchester and Carole Beaumont – hotel sex-romp director and actress will not split’.

It felt strange to see someone with whom she’d shared something as intimate as lovemaking, felt to be a living, breathing force while she’d coiled herself around him, trapped in miniature within the impersonal pixels of a TV set. As if he’d somehow ceased to be a human being and become something cold and unreal, a tiny character in a drama Angel had to keep reminding herself involved her too.

‘My wife and I are very much still together,’ she heard Seb say in that deep, brushed-velvet voice of his. ‘I am as much in love with Carole as I ever was, and I am grateful and humbled that she has found it in her heart to forgive my moment of weakness and give me another chance.’

It was Carole’s turn to speak now. She seemed to have forgotten what to say, and was staring with glazed eyes and fixed smile straight ahead. Angel saw Seb give her shoulder a barely perceptible squeeze.

‘I am very proud of the personal and professional relationship Seb and I have built up in the six years we’ve been married – or perhaps I might say in the twenty-four years we’ve been close friends,’ Carole blurted out, gabbling her words as if reciting from a script. She gazed at her husband with a sad but loving look that really did seem genuine. Then again, she wasn’t one of Britain’s most celebrated actresses for nothing…

‘I wouldn’t be such a fool as to throw that away on my husband’s single indiscretion,’ Carole continued in that tinkling voice of hers, now oddly weak and emotionless as she read the words off from inside her head. ‘However, this incident has shown us we need to spend more time together. We have both been working too hard on our careers; now it’s time to do some work on our marriage. We would like to announce that after the launch of The Milkman Cometh in October, we will be taking a partial break from public life as we spend some time looking at the issues in our relationship. I would like to thank the press and public for respecting our privacy while we do so.’

Poor cow. There but for the grace of God…

Angel flicked the switch to turn off the TV. God, she could wish Seb Wilchester had never come into her life, or Carole Beaumont’s either, for that matter.

***

‘Alright, heartbreaker?’ Leo was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, a big grin on his boyish face, when she arrived at work. ‘Flame-haired and tempting as ever. Boss wants to see you when you’ve got a minute.’

Angel groaned, furnishing him with an exasperated eyeroll. ‘Don’t you start. Emily’s been jumping between comfort and tease mode all weekend. This flame-haired temptress thing isn’t going anywhere, is it?’

‘Newp. Never till the day you die. Nice pics, by the way. Just how I remember you.’

She punched him on the arm, though not without the hint of a smile.

It was always hard for good friends who became a couple who became an ex-couple to ever go back to being just good friends again. Angel was proud she and Leo had managed it spectacularly and in style, with no lingering embarrassment or jealousy. They were the same friends they had been in that first year at uni, before they got together. In fact it was Leo, the Investigator’sbest photographer, who had recommended her for the internship in the first place.

‘Morning. Do anything nice at the weekend?’ Savannah said, watching Angel dump her handbag under her desk. ‘As if I didn’t know.’

Even she knew! Bloody hell! Had Steve sold tickets or what?

‘Erm…’

‘Blackthorne! My office, now!’

Urghh. Steve. Well, she had to get it over with sooner or later. At least he’d saved her from Savannah’s knowing smirk.

‘You’ve got some brass balls, Clifton!’ she hissed once the door had swung shut behind her. ‘What the hell did you think you were playing at, splashing those photos across your cheap little rag? You knew I tried to block that camera, and if you had any respect at all for me, any sense of human decency, you’d have turned it off yourself. Christ! I can’t believe I put my arse on the line for you!’

Steve smirked. ‘No pun intended, eh love? Look, don’t get your thong in a twist. I didn’t watch the whole show, tempting though it was. Just skimmed through the vid on Saturday and took a few stills for the story. At the end of the day, I am a family man. We had the grandkiddies in the next room. Your jiggling bum cheeks are not something I fancy them walking in on, still more explaining to their nan, thanks all the same.’