And Miss Westley? I glance at the desk, covered in hate mail. She’ll be on her own.
* * *
I hear someone clatter downstairs at seven-fifteen. Adrienne hasn’t run away in the night, then. I’m already dressed and waiting by the front door and I listen to her in the kitchen. The fridge door opens and closes, a spoon rattles in a bowl. Then everything goes silent, and I picture her standing by the sink scrolling through social media on her phone while the cereal at her elbow goes soggy. I want to go through to the kitchen and knock the phone out of her hand. Nothing she’s reading can be doing her any good.
At seven-forty she comes to the front door carrying a backpack and large black portfolio. From the way she stops short when she sees me waiting for her I guess she thought she was going to get out of the house without me.
“Can I take that for you?” I ask, holding out my hand for the portfolio, but she just scowls at me. I nod at the front door. “Are you ready for the journalists? You can put a coat over your head while we get past them if you like.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, and I realize with a jolt how pretty she is. Heart-shaped face. Liquid brown eyes. She’s got on a gray sweater and a little skirt with socks pulled up over her knees again. It’s defiant in a cute sort of way. I suspect the pink hair and heavy eyeliner is meant to project an arty, I-don’t-care attitude.
“No. It’s fine.”
“How do you usually get to the Slade?”
“I walk. It’s only forty minutes.”
“Not today. We’ll take my car.”
She bristles, and I can see I’m about to have an argument on my hands. “We’ll take my car,” I say, a little slower and my voice hardening.
With a roll of her eyes she opens the front door and flounces outside. I watch the swish of her pleated skirt. Brat.
The streets of Belgravia are slick with rain and the wind has plastered yellow leaves onto all the cars. The journalists are clustered in small groups by the gate, chatting. Some are holding takeaway coffees. As soon as they see us they spring into action, eager for more surly soundbites from Adrienne. Recording devices are dug out of pockets; flashbulbs burst. Adrienne doesn’t wait for me, but strides on ahead.
“Miss Westley, are you aware that Connie Masters’s parents have commenced legal action against your father?”
“Do you have anything to add to your statement of last week?”
“Is it true that your mother’s in rehab?”
This last question seems to trip her up. I silently will her to keep walking, my eyes fixed on the journalists surrounding us as I follow her, looking for potential danger. Normally I would keep physically close to my principal when we’re pushing through a crowd by holding an arm up near her shoulder; not quite an embrace, but enough to protect her and keep the others off. But I can feel her hostility directed not only at the journalists but at me as well. She resents us all equally. I tap her arm and point her toward my black Land Rover two doors down and remotely unlock it. The journalists more or less shut up once she gets in and slams the door closed. The photographers look resigned. Adrienne hasn’t said anything so they know their photographs will probably go unpublished.
I get in and start the engine, and once we peel away from the house I allow myself one glance in the rearview mirror, enjoying their disappointment, and then focus on the road ahead.
We’ve been driving for two or three minutes on the narrow, residential streets of Mayfair when she says, “Let me down here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
When I don’t pull the car over she turns to me. “I said I’ll walk.” I still ignore her, and at the next traffic light she undoes her seat belt and tries the door. I’ve locked it internally and the handle flaps uselessly. She swears, then gives up, her arms folded.
“Put your seat belt on,” I say.
“Piss off.”
“Put your seat belt on or I’m going to turn this car around.”
The Slade is the only thing I have over her. She wants to go and I’ve got to make her think that I’m her only way of getting there. Obedience is a tricky thing: control is all about mental tethers, not physical ones.
After a minute the threat works and she reaches over her shoulder and clips the belt back on.
“This sucks,” she mutters.
“What sucks?” Everything, obviously, sucks for her right now, but I’m curious to know which part is sucking the hardest.
“You watching me. I hate being watched.”
“What, with hair like that?”
She holds a lock of her hair in front of her eyes as if she’s forgotten what color it is. “I don’t wear it like this to be noticed. I wear it like this because I like it.”