Look to Your Wife

CHAPTER 11: All My Pretty Chickens (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 12: What’s Happening? (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 13: Sandflies (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 14: The Cabinet of Curiosities (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 15: Queenie (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 16: The End of the Affair (#litres_trial_promo)

PART THREE: Accusation (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 17: Belinda Bullrush (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 18: An Unexpected Letter (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 19: Flattered and Followed (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 20: The Albion (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 21: ‘I’m Not a Troll’ (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 22: Malicious Communications (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 23: @FreddieSwings (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 24: My Fabulous Life (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 25: #Lovelyme (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 26: Literary Ladies (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 27: Hacked Off (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 28: A Shed of One’s Own (#litres_trial_promo)

PART FOUR: Expiation (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 29: Honeytrap (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 30: The Mystery of the Missing Author (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 31: The Evening Shift (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 32: Hit and Run (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 33: Blaze (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 34: Suspicion (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 35: Christmas Market (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 36: ‘What You Know, You Know’ (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 37: Launch (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE: Ratby, Leicester (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Paula Byrne (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PRELUDE

The Letter (#ua9b6b022-3b8c-5b0b-a815-80f9b5de8ab3)

June 17th

Dear Headmaster,

Please, please, please do something about Lisa. When you first came to Blagsford School, we were all thrilled to have a man of your calibre and academic excellence. Edward Chamberlain is a name that inspires awe and reverence in the educational world. I, amongst many others, was full of admiration when you took on that academy ‘sink’ school in the north of England. How brave and clever of you. Everyone knew that you would turn it around. But you surpassed all expectations, raising it from ‘Unsatisfactory’ to ‘Outstanding’ in such a short time, before coming here.

Naturally, some whispered that you would use it to your advantage, only to gain the coveted knighthood for services to education. Congratulations, by the way. Well deserved (though we all know that you only got it because of your background). We know how lucky we are to have you. I have been one of your most loyal supporters since you came to the school a year ago. It pains me to have to write this: I can barely believe that I am doing so.

But please, Edward, silence your wife. She is a liability, and she is damaging your reputation. Blagsford is a small world. The community of public schools is even smaller. Social media is a very useful tool, but Lisa’s embarrassing and vulgar tweets are presenting a very bad image for the school. The woman is barely literate, for heaven’s sake. She has no idea how to use French accents. Her grammar is appalling. I winced when she tweeted about meeting the opera singer ‘Jesse Norman’.

To many of us, it beggars belief that Lisa Blaize has published a book. Still more that it got some very good reviews and was shortlisted for the Fashion History Book Prize. Did she flash her boobs at one of the judges? Many say you wrote it. At the very least, her copy-editor must be first rate. I’ll wager the poor thing dreads the day when Lisa’s next typescript comes in.

I was invited to your celebration party, but, like quite a few other people, couldn’t face being subjected to another episode of The Lisa Show. Like many others, I was dreading what becoming Lady C would do to Lisa’s already grossly inflated ego. I am pleased for you, Edward, and would have happily attended the party if all I had to do was talk to interesting, intelligent and perhaps even inspirational folk. But I simply don’t have the time, let alone the inclination, to seek out ‘glam’ clothes to feed Lisa’s attention-seeking fantasies.

It’s clear from Lisa’s Twitter account just how obsessed she is with designer clothes and shoes and skin potions, and how much time and money she devotes to her appearance, but it’s naïve of her to expect the rest of us to do the same when we are extremely busy people, and, I might add, far less vain than Lisa.

I don’t know how much attention you pay to Lisa’s Twitter account, but if you have a look at her tweets over the past five or six months you will get a sense of what people are concerned about and why Lisa has become an object of ridicule, not just at Blagsford, but across the public school network more widely. You will be able to see that she comes across as almost pathologically vain and egotistical …

* * *

‘Lisa, I’ve had a poisonous letter. It’s unbelievably cruel. And very funny. It claims to be from a member of staff. It’s a vicious attack on you. Of course, I don’t believe a word of it. These idiots know nothing about you.’

‘Why do you say “about you”, and not “about us”? Is the letter aiming to hurt you or me? Is it about who you are and where you’ve come from?’

‘Probably me. First there was Airfaregate and now this. You’re my Achilles’ heel. They know that.’

‘Does it mention Sean?’