‘No. Perfect if you want to get back into the game.’ He met my eye coolly. ‘Rose, you have to accept things are not the same since you had the kids. You haven’t worked for over four years, not properly. You turned down Basra, you—’

‘I was five months pregnant with twins, Xav,’ I protested. ‘Even journalists have kids. I could never have been embedded then. It wasn’t fair on anyone.’

‘True. But male journalists don’t have to pop ‘em out,’ he said. ‘It’s just fact, darling. Brutal, perhaps, but fact. You made the choice, not me.’

‘You bastard.’

He raised a lazy eyebrow. ‘I’ve been called worse, angel.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ I muttered. ‘But you still haven’t explained why.’ I was increasingly frustrated. ‘I think Maya Kattan is seriously in danger. I think they’re doping her up to keep her prisoner.’

‘Well, call the police then.’ He stood up and walked to the window.

‘I did. But we don’t just call the police, do we? I mean, that’s not our job.’

‘This is dead in the water.’ His McQueen suit hung beautifully from his short slim frame as he stared down at the busy road. ‘Let’s just say it’s in the paper’s interest to drop it.’

‘Since when have you worried about the paper’s interest?’

He just kept staring out at the grey sky, and I noticed for the first time how gaunt his clever face was, and realised he was deadly serious.

‘Our job is to uncover the bloody truth,’ I said slowly, computing the information. ‘Which is in the public’s interest, isn’t it?’

‘I can’t go into more detail now, Rose. Just take no for an answer.’

‘Has Kattan warned you off? Has that bloody—’ I clenched and unclenched my fists. ‘Has Danny Callendar been here?’

‘Who?’ said Xav unconvincingly.

‘Danny Callendar. Tall, Scottish, taciturn. Works for Kattan. I think,’ I took a deep breath, ‘I think—’

‘What?’ For a second I had his attention.

I think he might have had a hand in the death up at Kattans house. I think he might be a murderer.

‘I think that anyone who employs a – a bodyguard is suspect, don’t you? Anyone who isn’t Britney.’

I know I can’t get him out of my head.

‘Do you really think I’d bow to the whim of some oik? Be careful not to see what you want to see, Rose.’ Xav snapped the Venetian blind shut. ‘Two plus two make five if you do the maths wrong.’

‘Really?’ I retorted. Something was most definitely not adding up here. ‘So why the hell hasn’t anyone covered the death at the manor? There’s not been a whisper outside bloody Oxfordshire.’

‘Like I said, Rose,’ Xavier turned back to me, ‘it’s not in our interest right now to investigate Kattan. Should there actually be anything to investigate.’