‘Who knows what she’s like? She should pick her friends a bit more carefully. I’ll say that about her.’

An hour later Becky’s phone pings.

Matthew has given an interview at the request of a journalist looking at the story for a major entertainment news outlet.

Becky sits and reads it carefully.

Matthew tells the journalist that nobody has formally approached him about these allegations. The police certainly haven’t been in touch. He knows as much as everyone else, which is to say very little indeed. But he’s heard from enough concerned friends now to decide that he has to speak out: before baseless rumours become baseless facts and real damage is done.

He mentions how he is hesitant about talking freely when several sensitive subjects are raised by the allegations and moreover when Amber herself hasn’t said anything about them.

The journalist asks him if he’d like to comment on Amber’s reputation for being difficult on the set of her last film, possibly due to mental health issues?

Matthew chides his interviewer. It’s not really fair to discuss someone’s private life, and besides, mental illness is heavily stigmatized already. It shouldn’t be raised to tar someone as a liar.

Anyway … When Matthew last saw Amber it was for a work thing. He felt she seemed a little altered and rather aggressive with him. He now wishes he’d done more to reach out and help but; as ever, work swamped me.

Becky pictures sedation needles and strait-jackets and a mask over Amber’s face with metal rods that look like teeth.

I could have done more to help. I regret that I didn’t act to help her.

He concludes by saying that he has tried to reach out to Amber to talk to her, but hasn’t succeeded. He wants to wish her well, and to urge people involved in spreading malicious rumours, both at his expense and at Amber’s, to reflect before they join the feeding frenzy. We all gossip. That’s human nature, says Matthew. He’s been telling stories for decades now. He knows how quickly a good one travels. But there’s a crucial difference between fact and fiction. Or at least, there ought to be.

There is a picture, lifted from a professional photographers’ online portfolio, of Matthew looking tanned and at ease with his family in the living room of their house. Piano in the corner. Black and white.

The journalist quotes some anonymous sources:

One says she’s vengeful.

The other, a film producer, name withheld, mentions that Amber made a pass at him for a part.

The journalist finishes with ruminative remarks about stories and storytellers that echo Matthew’s points.

The article is written by Alex Simms.

Becky Googles his picture and, as she suspected, this is the same Alex she met in Cannes. Matthew’s old mucker. His passport to the best parties.