‘Well, yes. But no one would know where you are.’

I had thought that about the Lake District in general, but someone had found me all the same. I wondered if, assuming I got out of this, I’d ever feel safe again.

Casey

Casey

OCTOBER 2000

‘This isn’t costing me, is it?’ I could hear Jenna lighting a fag all the way across the Atlantic, where it was four in the afternoon. Ever since David had given me that one on the terrace, I’d smoked the odd fag myself, even buying a packet in the grocery store, where I had been IDed and felt thoroughly guilty. I sneaked them between errands, or outside the house when Abby was gone. I’d never do it in front of the kids, but it seemed to help my anxiety, plus maybe it would get off some of my American weight.

‘No. I called you, didn’t I?’

‘All right. So, any progress? After he took you to the office?’

‘Well . . . I don’t know. He’ll keep me in mind for roles, he said.’ Had David actually said that? ‘He’s got this big new film series under option and there’s a part I could be right for.’ I didn’t know how to describe the eerie silence of his office, the receptionist who’d looked so shocked to see us, the rows of empty cubicles. It didn’t seem like a busy working office, but then what did I know?

‘Make sure you make the most of it. Smile, show some leg. If the wife’s a right bitch, like you said, he’ll like to have a pretty young girl about the place.’

That was what I was afraid of. The way he looked at me sometimes, my breasts, my thighs. That I might have given him the wrong idea about what I wanted. ‘That’s not why I rang.’

‘Oh? You shouldn’t be wasting your money on calls, Casey. You need headshots, and LA’s all about the glamour. You need to have your nails and hair done, and maybe your teeth, you’ll have to save up for that.’

I looked down at my hands, red from scrubbing sheets and raggedy where I’d picked at the cuticles. I was ashamed to tell her how far away I was from any kind of Hollywood glamour.

‘I’m worried about the kids, Mum.’ She didn’t like me calling her Mum, thinking it aged her to have an adult daughter.

‘What?’

‘The little girl, Madison. She’s . . . she has bruises.’