Steph looked up. To her relief, Harry was standing in the hallway. He closed the space between them in four strides. ‘All right, mate?’ he asked, putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

Owen turned to face his brother. ‘Yeah. I was talking to …’ He waved his hand as if he could pluck the name from the air.

Harry looked at Steph. ‘You OK?’

She smiled. ‘Fine. I was just going back inside.’

Harry studied her for a moment and then moved his brother aside. ‘Let our guest through,’ he said.

Owen stepped back and shrugged Harry’s hand away. Steph heard him say something in response to Harry, but she hurried off through to the dining hall before he could catch up with her. The last thing she wanted was to be confronted by Owen Sinclair again.

A short time later, Harry joined her at the table. ‘Are you really OK?’

Steph was touched by his concern. ‘Yeah. But, and this is off the record, I think your brother is high. You need to speak to him or get him out of here because other reporters might not be so generous with keeping such information to themselves.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was just fixing my make-up around the corner and heard him and some other bloke do a drug deal.’

‘Idiot.’ Harry pushed a hand through his hair. ‘I’m sorry. Really sorry.’

‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on here with Owen but drugs are not my scene and I don’t want to be anywhere near them,’ she said. ‘I think it will be best if I just meet you tomorrow during the day some time and bring my pictures to you.’

He looked genuinely hurt at what she was saying, which made her feel even worse than she already did, but there was no way she was getting involved with someone who had anything to do with drugs. She might be doing Harry a disservice but she’d had too much to drink to think it through properly, let alone get into any discussion about it. Much as she liked Harry, and God knows she really did like him, she wasn’t prepared to become involved with the drug scene. She’d seen too many people in her line of work use drugs socially on a regular basis and she’d seen the devastating effect of the use turning to abuse and the dependency just to function on a day-to-day basis that followed.

‘Can we at least talk? Will you let me explain?’ asked Harry. ‘I promise you, it’s no reflection on me.’

‘I don’t know, Harry,’ said Steph, fully aware she could so easily be swayed if Harry said the things she wanted to hear. ‘Not tonight anyway.’