From behind them all, Helen’s voice came, cold as the ice that clinked in the jug she carried. “She’s with me. She’s a friend. It’s a concept you won’t be familiar with, Guy.”

He flinched at her tone as much as her words. “Whoever she is, she’s got no business in here.”

“He’s right,” Stella butted in, finding outrage from somewhere. “She’s been going through my stuff. Look, there’s papers everywhere. And she’s been in my filing cabinet. Those tapes were locked in there. She’s broken in!”

“No, she hasn’t,” Helen said wearily. “Who do you think has the master keys to all the office furniture, dumbshit? You think I trust my staff not to lose the keys to their desks and storage cupboards? You’ve never had any idea, have you, Stella?” She managed to make the name sound like an obscenity.

“You’re out of order, Helen,” Stella said. “You’ve got no right to be doing this. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you trust your business partners?”

“I don’t trust pornographers,” Helen said. “You do something that exploitative on a routine basis and you forget where the lines get drawn in real life. I wouldn’t trust you if your hands were nailed to the wall. Which frankly would be too good for you and I’d resent spending the money on redecoration afterwards. How dare you do what you’ve been doing?”

Stella looked at Guy, who was hiding his discomfort in the business of lighting a cigarette. “So what’s the charge, Helen? Me and Guy like to watch porn? It’s a criminal offence to keep a few horny films for our personal pleasure? I didn’t realize you dykes were so puritanical.”

“This isn’t about watching blue movies. It’s about making them,” Helen said flatly.

Stella laughed. “What is she on?” she demanded. “Whatever it is, I don’t fucking want any. Helen, where do you get this strange idea that I’ve been making pornographic films?”

Helen looked as if she was on the point of realizing her ambition to kill Stella. “You were too tight, Stella. You were too keen on making a profit. You used the sets we built for Home Movies to make your scummy skin flicks. You didn’t even attempt to disguise them.”

Stella’s hands clenched into fists and Guy sucked in smoke like it was oxygen. Lindsay decided it was time she butted in to lower the temperature before Helen did something they’d both regret. “You film on site and do the editing in the suite here,” she said, her voice clinically matter of fact. “Then you take the edited film over to Media Masters and they make you video versions in US and UK formats. You take the samples to your outlet—It’s Personal in Robb Street in Soho—and they place their order.”