Fashion Victim - Hardcover

Sam Baker

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0752865919 ISBN 13: 9780752865911

Publisher: Orion Books, 2005

Synopsis

Annie Anderson, feature writer with one of Britain's leading broadsheets, decides to take a break from the tougher end of journalism. After years working undercover befriending prostitutes and drug addicts, the strain is beginning to tell. At 29, Annie has enough baggage to sink a battleship, a strict all-caffeine-no-food diet and a total inability to maintain relationships with men. Where does a girl go from here? she asks. Fashion, that's where. Annie takes a job on the new flagship magazine Handbag, and prepares herself to be whisked into a world of glamour, beauty and power. But she has a sixth sense for trouble - and it doesn't take her long to find it. When Mark Mailer, New York's hottest young designer, is gunned down in what appears to be a random killing, Annie decides to do a little digging. What Annie discovers is more bizarre - and a whole lot more frightening - than anything seen at London Fashion Week. She has entered a world where beauty hides a multitude of sins, including fraud, corruption and murder. It doesn't take Annie long to see that she may well become fashion's next victim...

About this title

About the Author

Born in Hampshire, Sam Baker studied politics at Birmingham University. She went on to work as a writer and editor on numerous women's magazine's including Red, New Woman, Chat and Take A Break. Sam relaunched the seminal teenage magazine Just Seventeen as J-17, before spending five years as editor of Company. In 2004 she became editor of Cosmopolitan. Sam lives in Winchester, Hampshire, and London, W1.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

“What I don’t understand is why?”

Annie Anderson took a deep breath and began to reply. “Well, the thing is, Mum—”

“You get bored too easily, that’s your trouble.”

Same conversation, same chance of coming out on top.

“Mum! I’m not bored—”

“Why can’t you just stay put? You’ve hardly been there for five minutes and now you’re chucking it all in to work on one of those magazines that make women anorexic.”

The horror with which her mother said this made Annie wince.

“And what about money?” her mother continued, barely pausing for breath. “You always said magazines paid less than newspapers.”

“They’re paying me the same. Not a penny difference.” It was Annie’s first truthful comment since her mother called. Staring at the scruffy woman who stared back from the rain-spattered office window, Annie scowled; her short dark curls looked like she’d just gotten out of bed, and not in a good way.

“So why are you leaving, if they’re not even paying you more?”

Too late Annie realized that a bigger salary might have given her mother a reason for accepting the change. Damn it, why hadn’t that occurred to her ten seconds earlier? Holding the phone away from her ear, Annie began to count slowly: one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . .

“Annie,” came the voice. “Are you there?”

Annie forced a smile onto her face in the hope it would carry through to her voice. “Mum,” she said patiently. “This is a great opportunity. And you know I always wanted to work on a glossy. Handbag is really well respected and I’ll get to travel all over the world. New York, Paris, Milan . . . Just think, I’ll see all those amazing cities and it won’t cost me a penny. Anyway, you’re always saying how much you worry about me being lonely since Nick left, now you won’t have to. Maybe I’ll find a good-looking Italian . . .”

It wasn’t hard to interpret the silence swirling down the telephone line. Annie had played the wrong card and she knew it. She could almost see her mother’s face, tight-lipped with disapproval as she sat at the kitchen table, six o’clock news playing in the background, one eye on Dad’s tea bubbling on the cooker, the other focused inward on the mess her younger daughter was making of her life.

Disturbed only by the distant murmur of Trevor McDonald, Annie decided to quit while she wasn’t ahead and took advantage of the lull.

“Got to go,” she said hurriedly. “Can’t be late for my own leaving do. Call you Sunday.”

Annie pressed the button to kill the call before her mother could object and slumped back in her swivel chair, tossing the mobile onto her now empty desk. Without the usual wad of newspapers, Post-it notes, and random cuttings to block its fall, her Nokia bounced away, landing on the industrial gray carpet in the middle of the five desks that made up the Post’s investigations department.

Everyone knew the end of January was a lousy time to change jobs, the worst. Right up there in the Top Ten things everybody knows. It’s inevitably borne out of the post-Christmas blues, and Annie’s festive season had been enough to give anyone those.

Oh, there were countless reasons why she was doing the wrong thing. And Annie had heard them all over the past month. Heaving herself out of her chair, Annie trawled around to the other side of the desk to retrieve her mobile. Everything ached, from her brain downward, with the exhaustion of having to listen to other people’s opinions—about her life in general, about resigning from the Post in particular. Except everyone was wrong, because Annie wasn’t leaving; Ken had talked her out of that. She was taking the easy option, going undercover on a soft job.

Ken’s idea, their secret.

Crouched by her phone in the half darkness, Annie was randomly punching buttons in an attempt to resurrect its ominously blank screen when a voice from behind almost made her drop the thing again.

“What the hell are you doing here, Anderson? Everybody’s waiting for you down at The Swan.”

Her boss, news editor Ken Greenhouse, leaned against a filing cabinet, shirtsleeves rolled up, tie half undone, his heavy eyes troubled. “Sure you want to go through with this Handbag thing?”

As she checked that her mobile was working, Annie nodded. “Yes,” she said, glancing up. “You know why.”

The Yorkshireman shrugged. “You couldn’t have saved Irina, you know.”

“Then I shouldn’t have started,” said Annie, pushing away the memory of a teenage girl, large eyes dark and haunted, devoid of trust. “Saving her was the whole point, surely?” They were talking about Annie’s last story, and not for the first time.

Ken allowed himself a small sigh, deciding not to go there. Instead he summoned a half smile. “Get a move on, love,” he said.

“Five minutes,” said Annie. “Let me put my face on.”

“Five minutes.” Collecting his jacket from the back of his chair, Ken Greenhouse strode across the office, stopping off briefly at the night editor’s desk as he passed. At the lift he turned and glanced back to where Annie stood.

“Anderson!” he yelled, showing her the spread fingers of one hand. “The Swan. In five.”

Annie nodded and watched him thin to nothing as the lift doors closed.

Her face would have to wait, she decided. That glimpse of her reflection in the office window had already confirmed that her pale skin and eyes rimmed gray from lack of sleep needed more than a simple touch-of-mascara-and-dash-of-lippy repair job. And she could always do it in the pub loo, use it as an opportunity to escape.

Not that it would make a blind bit of difference. Annie without makeup looked much the same as Annie with, except for the bright red lips; a shortish woman in her late twenties, not bad looking but for the scowl and a mouth she’d learned the hard way to keep in check.

Annie’s PC blinked reproachfully as she clicked on shut down. Its dark screen and her desk, empty save for several years of coffee rings, brought home the enormity of her decision.

She’d always had a desk at the Post, always known she wanted to come back. But this time was different, and besides, she had to be seen to resign. She could hardly expect to be welcomed with open arms at Handbag if there was any suggestion she was still working for the Post.

Aware that she’d undoubtedly exceeded her five minutes, Annie grabbed her coat from the stand behind her desk and made herself turn slowly, taking in the entire floor. It was half empty at that time of night. Sky News was playing in the background and Derek, the Post’s night editor, was giving some junior hack hell for whatever he had or hadn’t done. No change there then.
Rain was sheeting against plate glass as Annie stepped into the foyer. Was it worth bothering with an umbrella? She decided against—her coat already bore the signs of a hard winter, and her reflection in the window upstairs had reminded her there was little about today’s very bad hair worth protecting.

“ ’Bye, Joe,” she called, as she walked past the security man on night shift.

He beamed. Joe was her favorite, a vocal old Irishman with strong opinions on everything and a willingness to share them with anyone who’d listen. His all-time favorite was that the Westbourne Grove end of Notting Hill, Annie’s stomping ground, was an overpriced hellhole and no amount of money could induce him to live there. Apparently the council had tried to move him there once, about thirty years earlier, but Joe was having none of it. He was right, of course, Notting Hill was a hellhole, just not for the reasons he thought.

Be nice to Joe, Annie had long ago discovered, and you had an ally for life. Consequently, there were many times he’d helped her “borrow” her colleagues’ prebooked taxis when she had been running late. She owed him. Big time.

“Ah, ’bye Annie. You’ll be back, surely.”

“Maybe, who knows?” said Annie, and bundled herself through the revolving door.

Turning left, Annie headed down Old Street, clinging as closely as possible to the walls in the hope of gaining shelter from any overhang. She could have run there in seconds, but Annie wasn’t ready to face her workmates yet. Walking slowly from one doorway to the next, Annie watched the windows of The Swan grow closer. It was one of those renovation jobs that fancied itself more wine bar than pub and as a result almost everyone on the paper professed to hate it. But everyone still went there, convenience getting the better of stylistic preferences.

Ken had hired the upstairs bar, a Victorian room that retained traces of the nineteenth-century pub The Swan had once been. Doubtless the brewery would get around to ruining the second floor, too, but they hadn’t yet.

From where she stood in the rain, Annie could see enough shadows reflected against the upper windows to make her feel sick. Parties were okay and she liked free alcohol as much as the next person—that was practically a prerequisite for the job. At least it was if you worked for Ken Greenhouse. Birthdays, engagements, promotions, and leaving dos . . . All were fine with Annie as long as one crucial box was ticked: They belonged to someone else.

By now she was standing in the door of a twenty-four-hour newsagent, scarcely ten feet from the pub, rain dripping onto her head ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0752865919
• ISBN 13: 9780752865911
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 265