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one to mine. It’s bigger than the one directly next door and it has it’s own bathroom. Would that do?”
    â€œThat’ll be fine and I’m sorry if you think I’m making a fuss but it really is necessary. Guess I’ve just made more work for you, Amanda.”
    Amanda shrugged. “Think nothing of it, making up rooms is what I do, and I happen to think you’re right. What good would Carrie screaming for help be if you couldn’t hear her over my snoring?”
    â€œYou snore?”
    â€œLike a foghorn.”Carrie cut in. “How else do you think we keep the shipping at bay?”
    Whilst Andrea cleaned up, leaving Amanda to finish the stuffing, Carrie rang a removal firm and arranged for Andrea’s belongings to be brought over the following day. A chore that Andrea, listening through the open kitchen door, was stunned to hear Carrie carrying out herself.
    She didn’t know many movie stars who would have done such a thing. Such a minimal task would have been beneath them. But not Carrie Shilling. She just got on with it. The woman was full of little surprises.
    Later, and back in the comfort of the lounge, they discussed a charity ball Carrie was due to attend in two days time.
    â€œWe’ll make it your first, official engagement.”Carrie said. “It won’t be too hard, mainly standing around chatting and then dinner. How does that sound?”
    â€œSounds fine.”Andrea smiled. “I’ve actually done a few of these before so you’ve no need to worry about me. I need a prior visit though, plus a guest list and the names of any additonal security you’re using. Can you arrange that?”
    Carrie said she could and then wondered how long it was likely to take her to get used to all this? She liked Andrea a lot and felt comfortable with her, but she was having trouble switching from the casual conversation side to the harder, more businesslike demure Andrea adopted whenever the topic of her role as bodyguard arose. Yet, what else did she really expect or want? No matter how friendly they became, ultimately Andrea was still there to protect her and if that meant keeping the professional side of things on a strictly impersonal level, then so be it, she’d just have to learn to cope.
CHAPTER FIVE
    Isobel Pearce lay on her unmade bed eating Chinese takeaway straight from the carton. Her only illumination coming from a portable television whose picture flickered wildly every time the lightning struck outside.
    Beside her and ever hopeful of a stray scrap, lay her scrawny, tabby cat, Scrumpy, a pet that Isobel didn’t treat particularly well and which, more often than not, was called anything but its real name. Still, for all that, it was the closest thing she had to a friend.
    Not that Isobel cared. Friends, she’d decided long ago, were too much effort, the same as life. A mantra she had scrawled on several, yellow post-it notes and stuck in various places around her flat, just to remind herself how pointless it all was. Because life truly did suck!
    Stuck in a job she hated, but too lazy to leave and look for another, she sullenly stomped her way through the business of the day before returning home to sit in front of the tele, stuff herself with junk, and wait for the dreary hours to pass before she could repeat the whole, remorseless rigmarole all over again.
    No one ever asked her out and she’d never had a proper relationship. Yet not once did it cross her mind that the reason why her social life was so pitiful was because she never went anywhere. Instead, she viewed her lack of companionship as just another facet of her miserable life and turned again to food, her only solace in an otherwise lonely existance but a consolation that did little for her appearance.
    At twenty nine years of age, she looked nearer forty, and thanks to a diet consisting of little else save takeaways and fry ups, her weight had ballooned to a hefty