TOYL

been keeping Dan?’
    ‘I’m really sorry, Emma. I didn’t. If I had, I would have gone straight to the police. I’m not that much of a mercenary.’
    ‘Anything?’ Emma tried. ‘It could be something that seemed innocuous at the time but might be really important. It could help us find Dan.’
    ‘I saw nothing suspicious,’ he reaffirmed. ‘I’d love to help, I really would. At least then I might start feeling a little better about myself. I didn’t want to get into this situation. I wish I’d never been asked to…’
    He stopped dead and the silence hung in the air.
    ‘You were asked to follow me and take those photos,’ Emma stated. ‘That’s what you were about to say, isn’t it?’
    He looked away.
    ‘Who asked you to do this?’ Emma pressed. ‘Please, tell me. It could be important.’
    ‘It isn’t. It won’t help you find your fiancé.’
    ‘You don’t know that,’ said Emma, trying to control her anger and frustration.
    ‘I can’t tell you. I think you’d better go.’
    ‘Tell me, or I’ll tell your wife exactly how you earn your money.’
    ‘It won’t help you, knowing the name,’ he insisted.
    ‘I’ll tell her,’ Emma said again.
    ‘She’ll understand.’ But he didn’t sound completely convinced. ‘She’ll understand why I do what I do.’
    ‘She probably will.’
    David pressed his hands around his nose, closing his eyes. ‘Okay. If I tell you, promise you won’t tell my wife.’
    ‘I promise.’
    He hunched forward, playing with his bottom lip. ‘Oh, sod it,’ he said, taking a breath. ‘I was commissioned to do this – to follow you and take pictures.’
    ‘Go on,’ Emma said.
    ‘You know him,’ he said. ‘It was Guy Roberts.’

61

    ‘Why did you do it?’ Emma said, as Guy had barely had a chance to open the front door.
    Guy looked at Emma and then at Will before walking back into the house, leaving the door ajar as an invitation. They followed him through into the lounge.
    ‘I can understand why you’re angry,’ said Guy, who had obviously been pre-warned by David Sherborn, ‘but just hear me out.’
    ‘You paid that man to follow me, take photographs and sell them to the newspapers,’ Emma said. ‘You exploited this whole situation, for money. How much did you get for those photographs?’
    ‘Nothing,’ Guy replied. ‘I didn’t receive a single penny for any of them.’
    ‘You expect me to believe that,’ Emma responded.
    ‘You can believe whatever you want to believe, Emma,’ Guy said, taking a more confrontational tone. ‘But the only money paid for those photographs went straight to David Sherborn – not to me.’
    ‘Then why? Why commission him to do it?’
    ‘You really don’t know much about the entertainment business, do you?’ Guy smiled wryly.
    ‘I don’t understand,’ Emma said.
    ‘The movie business, Emma, is a fickle industry. In my career I’ve been involved in countless films – some successes, some failures. Often the films you think will really do well just don’t. Sometimes it works like that.’
    ‘I still don’t see what this has got to do with everything.’
    ‘What I’m trying to say, is that making a movie is a risky business. As an actress or an actor, being involved in a commercial flop is, how should I say it? Undesirable. But they can just move on, put it down to a bad decision on their part. For the investors though, it’s more serious: a lot more serious. They have the financial risk.’
    ‘I understand all that, but…’
    ‘As an investor,’ Guy interrupted, ‘they want to see their movie generate interest. And I don’t just mean interest when it opens to hopefully rave reviews. Often it’s too late by that stage. The big Hollywood studios trail their films up to a year in advance. The stars do the chat shows all around the world, generating interest in the movie well before the release date. The studios know what they’re doing – they throw a lot of money at generating this interest. They can. But people like us, making a movie on a shoestring budget, can’t afford to do even a quarter as much as that. We have to be more creative in how we generate interest in our movie. Now are you beginning to understand?’
    ‘It was all to publicise the movie,’ Emma stated. ‘To generate interest in the film, even before we had started shooting.’
    ‘Yes,’ Guy said. ‘That’s exactly it. And I must say, the strategy was more effective than we hoped for.’
    ‘We?’