Victoria stopped at the side of the road in a rough patch of gravel, a low line of scrubby bushes marking the beginning of the rocky slide down into the wooded valley.

‘Hang on a sec, babe.’ Leanne got out of the car, stretched her legs, looked at the drop and whistled.

‘Be careful!’

‘Don’t worry about me.’ She scampered ahead, devouring the landscape, shooting it with her camera, standing with her hands on her hips, lost in admiration.

I could drive away now . . . never see her again . . .

Then Leanne turned, her face pale, and started walking briskly back to the car, saying something, gesturing with her hands, breaking into a run.

Victoria heard the lorry before she saw it in the mirror, a horrible dead drone from its engine, a jittering squeal from its multiple wheels.

Leanne ran forward, froze and screamed.

The lorry struck the Renault at the back – she’d parked at an untidy angle, just as she did in London – and spun it around in a clockwise direction, sending the left front wheel over the edge first. The car teetered for a moment, and Victoria felt certain she was safe, that she could climb out of the passenger side without too much difficulty. She undid her safety belt, leaned across, and then the world tipped at an angle, and she saw the sky where the earth should be.

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

American Airlines departed LAX just after seven o’clock in the evening. Given the vagaries of time zones and flight duration, it would be lunchtime the next day when Isabelle arrived at Heathrow. This simple fact was too much for her to process. As soon as her luggage was checked, she placed herself in the hands of fate, or at least AA’s first-class service. First-class travel, especially over such a distance, was a necessity – but, thought Isabelle, an affordable one. Thank God for success.

The days of first class may soon be over, however, if she did not secure one of her actresses for the Academy Awards. She’d done everything right – she’d lunched the right people, kept her profile high, attended the parties and fundraisers for charities that she knew Tilly Ostergard and Mercy Williams supported. She’d shamelessly used Mike’s famous friends to drop a friendly word in the right ears. Short of rugby tackling the actresses outside the Kodak Theatre, ripping off their clothes and forcing them at gunpoint to model Cissé, there was little she could do. But for all that effort, nothing was happening. Apart from the vaguest expressions of interest, she might as well have saved her breath. As Los Angeles gave itself over to Oscar fever, Isabelle seemed further than ever from the red carpet.