The Last Letter from Your Lover

piece. Glorified advertising.’
    ‘He’s part based in Congo. You know about the country.’
    ‘I know about the kind of man who owns mines in Congo.’
    Don held out his hand for a cigarette. Anthony gave him one and lit it. ‘It’s not all bad.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘You get to interview this guy at his summer residence in the South of France. The Riviera. A few days in the sun, a lobster or two on expenses, maybe a glimpse of Bridget Bardot . . . You should be thanking me.’
    ‘Send Peterson. He loves all that stuff.’
    ‘Peterson’s covering the Norwich child-killer.’
    ‘Murfett. He’s a crawler.’
    ‘Murfett’s off to Ghana to cover the trouble in Ashanti.’
    ‘Him?’ Anthony was incredulous. ‘He couldn’t cover two schoolboys fighting in a telephone box. How the hell is he doing Ghana?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Send me back, Don.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I could be half insane, alcoholic and in a ruddy asylum but I’d still do a better job than Murfett and you know it.’
    ‘Your problem, O’Hare, is that you don’t know when you’re well off.’ Don leant forwards and dropped his voice. ‘Listen – just stop crabbing and listen. When you came back from Africa, there was a lot of talk upstairs’ – he motioned to the editor’s suite – ‘about whether you should be let go. The whole incident . . . They were worried about you, man. Anyway, God only knows how but you’ve made a lot of friends here, and some fairly important ones. They took everything you’ve been through into account and kept you on the payroll. Even while you were in . . .’ he gestured awkwardly behind him ‘. . .  you know.’
    Anthony’s gaze was level.
    ‘Anyhow. They don’t want you doing anything too . . . pressured. So get a grip on yourself, get over to France and be grateful that you’ve got the kind of job that occasionally involves dining in the foothills at ruddy Monte Carlo. Who knows? You might bag a starlet while you’re there.’
    A long silence followed.
    When Anthony failed to look suitably impressed, Don stubbed out his cigarette. ‘You really don’t want to do it.’
    ‘No, Don. You know I don’t. I start doing this stuff, it’s just a few small steps to births, marriages and deaths.’
    ‘Jesus. You’re a contrary bugger, O’Hare.’ He reached for a piece of typewritten paper that he ripped from the spike on his desk. ‘Okay, then, take this. Vivien Leigh is headed across the Atlantic. She’s going to be camping outside the theatre where Olivier’s playing. Apparently he won’t talk to her, and she’s telling the gossip columnists she doesn’t know why. How about you find out whether they’re going to divorce? Maybe get a nice description of what she’s wearing while you’re there.’
    There was another lengthy pause. Outside the room, Phipps ripped out another three pages, smacked his forehead and mouthed expletives.
    Anthony stubbed out his cigarette and shot his boss a black look. ‘I’ll go and pack,’ he said.
    There was something about seriously rich people, Anthony thought as he dressed for dinner, that always made him want to dig at them a little. Perhaps it was the inbuilt certainty of men who were rarely contradicted; the pomposity of those whose most prosaic views everyone took so damned seriously.
    At first he had found Laurence Stirling less offensive than he had expected; the man had been courteous, his answers considered, his views on his workers pretty enlightened. But as the day had worn on, Anthony saw he was the kind of man to whom control was paramount. He spoke at people, rather than soliciting information from them. He had little interest in anything outside his own circle. He was a bore, rich and successful enough not to try to be anything else.
    Anthony brushed down his jacket, wondering why he had agreed to go to the dinner. Stirling had invited him at the end of the interview and, caught off guard, he had been forced to admit that he didn’t know anyone in Antibes and had no plans, other than for a quick bite at the hotel. He suspected afterwards that Stirling had invited him to make it more likely that he would write something flattering. Even as he accepted reluctantly, Stirling was instructing his driver to pick him up from the Hôtel Cap at seven thirty. ‘You won’t find the house,’ he said. ‘It’s quite well hidden from the road.’
    I’ll bet, Anthony had thought. Stirling didn’t seem the kind of man who would