Warhol's Prophecy

34

HAILEY WAS BEGINNING to wonder if she’d lost her touch.

Either that or it was going to take her longer to ease back into this job than she’d originally thought.

Or maybe it was just the people she was dealing with.

Yes, that was it. It was the people she was dealing with.

She looked at the computer screen before her, then at the phone. Only seconds before she had been speaking to one of the girls

(well, be fair, she didn’t sound much older than about twenty)

in Waterhole’s press office. Her name had been Catrina

(with a ‘C’, she’d stressed, not a ‘K’)

and she’d informed Hailey that she really needed to speak to someone called Trudi

(without the ‘e’)

who was out of the office for the time being. So, Hailey thanked Catrina with a ‘C’, and asked her to get Trudi, without an ‘e’, to call her as soon as she came back into the office.

The screen showed the names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone relevant, ranging from Waterhole and their record company, press office and management office, to the local MP and his offices, both at Westminster and locally. There were also the names of numerous other local dignitaries that Marsh wanted present at the after-gig party.

Also listed were the promoters, limo firms for transporting VIPs, hotels, helicopter transport firms . . .

It was never-ending.

Hailey smiled. She had missed this job more than she realized.

The organization involved, the hectically ringing phone – it was like a circus where all the acts were insane and the trainers were on drugs. You never knew what was going to happen, from one minute to the next. And she loved it. She felt energized. For the first time in months, she felt as if she was in control. Despite the organized chaos before her, she revelled in the situation.

She decided to call the local office of Nicholas Barber, the MP Marsh had persuaded to attend. She wanted to know what time he would be arriving, and there had also been a fax from his secretary requesting further details of the gig itself – more particularly, how many backstage passes Barber was entitled to. His twin daughters, the fax informed her, were huge fans of Waterhole, so Mr Barber would appreciate it if his daughters could meet the band.

‘You and twenty thousand others,’ murmured Hailey.

She was about to pick up the phone, when it rang.

At last: Trudi without the ‘e’?

‘Hello,’ she began. ‘SuperSounds. Hailey Gibson speaking.’

‘How’s it going?’

She recognized the voice instantly.

‘Adam?’

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ said Walker.

She sat back in her chair.

‘I know you must be busy,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to know how your first day back at work was going.’

Why couldn’t Rob have done that?

‘It’s great,’ she told him. ‘As if I’ve never been away. The music business is still as crazy as always.’

‘The whole world’s crazy, isn’t it?’ Walker chuckled.

‘Are you working today?’ she asked him.

‘Always working, Hailey. If I don’t work, I don’t eat. It’s a great motivator.’

‘How did you get my number?’

‘I looked up the number for SuperSounds, then just called their switchboard. The receptionist put me through straight away.’

‘Listen, Adam, I’m glad you rang. I wanted to say sorry for last night – when you called round.’

‘Sorry for what?’

‘Oh, come on, you don’t have to be so tactful. You must have noticed the atmosphere.’

‘Just a bit.’ He laughed.

‘Rob can be so bloody rude sometimes. I do apologize for his attitude. And he and I’d just had a few cross words. So you sort of walked into the middle of it.’

Why tell him about their argument? Looking for his sympathy?

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘No harm done.’

‘Well, I’m sorry anyway.’

‘Prove it,’ he said flatly.

‘How?’

‘Have lunch with me tomorrow. And this time I’m paying. What do you say?’

She smiled.

‘I’d love to. Thank you.’

Ask him about that phone call late last night. Ask him if it was him who phoned.

‘What time, and where?’ she wanted to know.

Surely it wasn’t him who called? Why should he?

He gave her the name of a pub about five miles out from the city centre. She wrote it down on a piece of paper.

She knew it: the Happy Brig.

‘How does one o’clock suit you?’ he asked.

‘It suits me fine. See you there tomorrow.’

‘I hope the rest of your day goes well,’ he said. ‘Take care.’

Such a nice thought.

She put down the receiver.

One o’clock tomorrow.

Hailey folded the piece of paper and slid it into her purse.