“Wow! Cool!”

“Better than Shepherd’s Bush,” Lindsay said drily. “You should give it a whirl if you’re that keen.”

Lauren’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I ain’t got the skills, have I? Bit of word processing and GCSE Spanish.”

“You never know. Being bilingual in English and Spanish isn’t a bad start in southern California. Don’t put yourself down.” Lindsay gave Lauren an encouraging grin. “And they love Brits.”

“Yeah, well. Fantasy Island, that is. Anyway, daydreaming about California’s not what I came here for. What’s it worth to you, the dirt on Baz and Penny?”

Lindsay shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s worth until I know what it is, do I? Look, why don’t you tell me what you know and I’ll see you right?”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Lauren demanded, scowling.

“You don’t. But right now I’m the only show in town, so you might as well skin me for what you can get while you can get it.” Lauren looked unconvinced, so Lindsay tried another tack. “Look, Lauren, I was Penny Varnavides’ friend. Her and Meredith used to come round our house at least once a month. We played beach volleyball together, we climbed mountains together, we saw the New Year in together. This isn’t just a job for me, it’s personal.”

“Yeah, okay, you talked me into it,” Lauren said, trying and failing to sound tough and worldly wise. “I’ve been working at Monarch for two years, right, so I’d met Penny a few times. I got talking to her one afternoon when she’d come in to see Baz and Baz was late getting back from lunch. I told her how I’d read all the Darkliners books when I was a teenager, and how much I’d loved them. She was great. She laughed her head off and said she didn’t think publishers employed anybody that actually liked the books they produced. And after that, every time she came into the office, she always brought me some book or other that she’d seen in America and thought I’d like. She’s the only author I’ve ever met who remembered my name without having to read the plaque, never mind what I liked to read. So I always paid attention when she was around.”

So like Penny, Lindsay thought with a pang. She’d always been a woman who paid attention to the seemingly insignificant people. It was why she always got the best table in her regular hang-outs, why her newspaper was never dumped on the step to become a soggy mess, why the local second-hand bookstore always remembered which titles were on her want list. Little touches of consideration that made her life run smoothly. Not that that was why she’d done it, Lindsay reminded herself. Just that she was the kind of person who noticed details. “Was she like that with other people in the office?” she asked at last, forcing herself back into the present.

“She didn’t really have much to do with anybody except Baz and her assistant, Susan. If she had, they might not have got so pissed off with her.”