Stitch-Up by Sophie Hamilton

Author:Sophie Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Templar Publishing

Media Circus

I KNEW the restaurant well. Anyone who was anyone did. High Table was a favourite with stars and politicians – a face place. Located in a narrow townhouse in Mayfair, it was the restaurant of choice for celebrities who wanted to get snapped. It was impossible to get a table unless you were someone and you never left without dropping five hundred pounds.

Latif was doing his stake-out thing; silent and secretive, frowning whenever I asked him what we were doing standing fifty metres away from the most exclusive restaurant in London, like a pair of freaky autograph hunters – watching and waiting, for what? I really had no idea. I looked at my watch. I couldn’t for the life of me work out how hanging around here could help us get to FuturePerfect, especially as this was my parents’ weekday restaurant of choice, which meant they were due to turn up at any minute. Brilliant. Genius. Perhaps we were going to hitch a lift with them.

“You know this is my parents’ favourite restaurant, don’t you, brainiac?” I couldn’t keep the panic from my voice. “They eat here most nights and it’s a dead cert they’ll come here if there’s a crisis. It’s the place to be seen. Show the world you’re coping. Put on a brave face.”

“For real?” This revelation seemed to genuinely surprise him.

“Take a wild guess why.” I nodded towards the thronging paparazzi. “Just the place for PR-hungry psychos.”

“Might work in our favour,” he replied, a little too breezily.

“Like how? Come on, talk to me, Latif. Why are we here?” I asked. “My parents are about to show, and guess what? I’d rather not be here, if that’s okay by you.”

He shrugged. “Tough. It’s the only way out.”

“That’s really reassuring. I know you have to keep your enemies close, but this is ridiculous…”

“Don’t get stabby, Dash. We’re safer here than anywhere else right now. It’s the last place on earth anyone would expect to see us. And we have the perfect cover.” He pointed to a ramshackle group of women who’d just arrived. They were holding homemade posters plastered with photos of yours truly cut from newspapers. Across the top, messages were spelled out in a jumble of capital letters and joined-up writing. The most popular read: For the LOVE of GOLD Give Dasha back and We feel Your PAIN. Studying this ragbag of women, I knew they felt everybody’s pain. They were attracted to grief like bloodsucking bugs. They gorged on others’ pain, especially celebrity pain, because somehow it gave their life meaning, and made them feel less sorry about their own existence. Kidnap gawpers. Pain hunters. Losers. I shrugged inwardly. But who was I to judge? At least they weren’t stalking one set of parents while looking for the other set. That had to put me right up there with the sobbing loons for Fruitcake of the Year award. That really was something else.

We pushed further into the crowds from where I watched hyped-up paparazzi jockeying for position.

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