It was funny how much more difficult it was to act when you weren’t facing cameras, lights and a crowd of about fifty people, when the lines hadn’t been written for you, when you had effectively to be yourself. Melissa was trying to look relaxed, to pretend that everything was all right. But her co-performer wasn’t playing the game. In fact he was looking at her with deep suspicion.

She had met Francis on the set of the last film she had made in England, the reason she had come back to her country of birth. Hostage to Fortune had been a disappointing thriller based on a novel by John Buchan in which Melissa had played a young mother searching for her kidnapped daughter. Some of the scenes had been shot in Devon, on Saunton Sands, and Francis had been assigned to her as a personal assistant. Although he was ten years younger than her, there had been an immediate chemistry between them that had warned her exactly where things might lead. Not that a romance during filming was anything new. In fact, Melissa couldn’t remember a film she had made where she hadn’t found herself romantically involved with either another actor or a member of the crew. But this time it had been different. Somehow, when the final scene had wrapped and everyone had gone their separate ways, Francis had still been there and she had realised that he had come to the conclusion that their relationship should be a permanent one.

And why not? Francis was good-looking, with his curly hair, his tanned skin and his excellent physique, the latter two gained on their sailing boat, the Sundowner. He was intelligent and, most important of all, utterly devoted to her. Nor was the match as unbalanced as it might seem. His parents were wealthy, his father a viscount with a twenty-thousand-acre estate in Cornwall. He was actually the Honourable Francis Pendleton and although he would inherit neither the land nor the title and had chosen never to use the honorific, he was still highly eligible. When the engagement had been announced, they had appeared in every single gossip column in the London newspapers and it had occurred to Melissa that when she did finally return to Hollywood and walked into the Polo Lounge or the Chateau Marmont with an extremely handsome, sophisticated British aristocrat on her arm, she would be sending exactly the right message about herself.

Francis had been the only person to support Melissa in the purchase of Clarence Keep. More than that, he had encouraged her and now she understood why. First of all, it was close to his home territory. The family estate was in the next county and although his parents no longer spoke to him – they had been unimpressed by what they had read in the gossip columns – this was exactly the lifestyle he had always wanted. He didn’t help with the hotel or the horses or anything, really. He didn’t even get out of bed before ten. He had become the lord of his own manor with his tropaeum uxor, or trophy wife.

She looked at him now, standing at the foot of the stairs wearing a blue blazer and white trousers, as if he was about to go out sailing on the yacht they could no longer afford, clenching and unclenching his fists as he struggled to find the right words to say. It seemed to her that he had become more and more ineffectual. Sometimes, quite often in fact, she blamed him for the decisions she had made as if it had always been his plan to fold her into his world.

‘I think we need to talk,’ he said.

‘Not now, Francis. The ghastly Gardners are waiting for me.’

‘Well, when you get back, then … ’

‘I thought you were going out tonight.’

He frowned. ‘We both are.’

‘No.’ She pouted. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I’ve got a headache. You will forgive me, won’t you? I’m going to take an early night.’

‘Well, if you’re not coming, I won’t go either.’

Melissa sighed. This was the last thing she wanted. She’d already worked out what she was going to do with an evening on her own. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘You’ve been looking forward to the opera for weeks and you know you enjoy it more on your own. You always say I fall asleep in the second act.’

‘That’s because you do.’

‘I don’t like it. I don’t understand the stories. They never make any sense.’ This wasn’t going to work if it became a confrontation. She went over to him and laid a hand on his arm. ‘You enjoy yourself, Francis. I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment with the hotel and the new script and everything else. We can talk tomorrow or the day after.’ She tried to make light of it. ‘I’m not going anywhere!’

But Francis took her last words quite seriously. Before she could move her hand he took hold of it, pressing it tightly against his arm. ‘You are going to stay with me, Melissa. You know I still love you. I’d do anything for you.’

‘I know. You don’t need to tell me that.’

‘I’d die if you left me. I couldn’t live without you.’

‘Stop being silly, Francis.’ She tried to break free but he was still holding her. ‘I can’t talk now,’ she insisted. ‘Anyway … ’ she lowered her voice ‘ … Eric and his mother are in the kitchen.’

‘They can’t hear us.’

‘They might come out.’

That did the trick, as she had known it would. He let her go and at once she stepped back, out of his reach.

‘Don’t wait for me,’ she said. ‘You might get stuck behind a tractor and you don’t want to miss the first act.’

‘I thought you said you were only going to be half an hour.’

‘I don’t know how long I’m going to be. I’ve got to talk to the Gardners about the accounts. Actually, I’ve got an idea that might just put them on the spot.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll tell you after I’ve seen them. We can talk tomorrow.’

She really was about to leave. But then there came a huffing and a scratching of claws against the wooden floor and a little dog appeared, running across the hall towards its mistress. The dog was a chow, a solid block of reddish fur with a squat face, pointed, triangular ears and a dark purple tongue. Melissa couldn’t help herself. She squealed with pleasure and knelt down, running her fingers through the dog’s fur where it was thickest, around its neck.

‘Little Kimba!’ she crooned. ‘How’s my baby?’ She was holding her face close to the dog’s and didn’t pull back when he licked her nose and lips. ‘How’s my beautiful boy? Mummy’s just going into town. But I’ll be back soon. Are you going to be on the bed? Are you going to be waiting for me?’

Francis pulled a face. He didn’t like having the dog on the bed, but he said nothing.

‘Go on then! Good boy! Mummy will see you soon.’

Melissa straightened up. She glanced at Francis. ‘Enjoy the opera. I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said. And then she really was gone, hurrying outside, closing the front door behind her, leaving Francis with the bleak awareness that she had been much more affectionate to the chow than she had been to him.

TWO

ALGERNON MARSH

Melissa loved her Bentley in much the same way as she loved her pet chow. It was a beautiful car. It was an indulgence. And it belonged, entirely, to her. It was the belonging that mattered most, the sense of empowerment. Sitting on the silvery leather upholstery, listening to the low growl of the engine, knowing that the car would be recognised a mile away, she felt the unease that had resulted from her meeting with Francis slipping away in the jet stream behind her. The car was pale blue, a Mark VI with a power-operated hood, which, unfortunately, would have to stay up as the rain had indeed returned, this time falling as a miserable, grey drizzle. Why did the weather have to be so cold and miserable at the end of April? According to her agent, Alfred Hitchcock was planning to shoot his new film at the Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California, and that couldn’t have suited her more. It would be nice to be back in the sun.

Clarence Keep was less than half a mile outside Tawleigh-on-the-Water, a seaside village whose name hardly did it justice. Tawleigh was surrounded by no fewer than four different stretches of water: the Bristol Channel to the right, the Irish Sea to the left and the estuaries of two rivers, the Taw and the Torridge, swelling up behind. Sometimes it seemed as if the little harbour was battling for its very existence, particularly when the wind blew and the waves came crashing down in relentless grey spumes. Then the fishing boats would tear at their moorings and the lighthouse would blink helplessly, illuminating only the swirling clouds that engulfed it.