‘Looks as if you owe me that coffee, Dawn…’ Drew couldn’t help but look out of the window, in response to the voice behind him. ‘She’s here already.’
‘Yeah, she’s not going to be ready for a while. Look, she’s on her way to her trailer. What’s the betting she’ll stay in there for another four hours?’
Drew saw Carly walking towards a group of trailers with another woman. Small and blonde, almost swamped in the large mackintosh she was wearing against the morning’s chill air. They disappeared in between two of the vehicles and he craned his neck to see where they’d gone but he couldn’t.
The set began to come alive for the day, and Drew maintained his watching brief. Before long, a concentrated buzz of movement centred around the main street of the village, which was a meticulous re-creation of wartime England. Further out, people in period costume mingled with the crew, almost as if the scene was dissolving, melting back into the present day.
From his vantage point, sitting in a fold-up chair at the edge of the activity, Drew suddenly saw a blonde head at the centre of it all, around which the whole shebang seemed suddenly to revolve. He looked at his watch. Eight-thirty. It looked as if Dawn was going to be paying for coffee today.
At lunchtime, the privileged few made for the group of trailers, and everyone else made a rush for the catering truck. Drew decided to wait until the scrum had died down a bit and flipped open the pages of his book.
‘Hello.’ Someone interrupted his reading, and Drew turned into the gaze of the greenest pair of eyes he’d ever seen. Shiny blonde hair, pinned in a wavy arrangement that was reminiscent of his grandmother’s, but to quite a different effect. A dark skirt and a white blouse, under a lacy hand-knitted sweater.
‘Sophie Warner.’ She was looking at him as if he was a mere diversion, in the absence of anyone more interesting to talk to. ‘You’re the new medical consultant.’
Now that she wasn’t half-obscured by distance and the milling entourage of people, he recognised her face from somewhere. Probably the TV, when he’d thought he’d only been half watching it. But he couldn’t have been watching at all because it hadn’t registered that she was gorgeous.
Drew smiled at her. Despite her obvious indifference to him, it was surprisingly easy to do. ‘That’s right. Drew Taylor.’
She nodded, as if there wasn’t much more to say. Drew stood, and pulled an empty chair across the grass for her and she looked at it uncertainly and then sat down.
‘Nice to meet you… um…’
‘Drew.’
She gave a little nod. ‘I’m not very good with names.’
Clearly that was an excuse. But whether it covered a lapse in memory or profound disinterest in him, it was impossible to tell.
‘Have you been watching this morning?’
‘Yes.’ Drew gestured to the copy of the script that Carly had supplied him with. ‘You’re not filming this in the same order that it’s on the page, are you?’
‘No, we’re not. We go to one location, shoot all the scenes we need to do there, and then move on to the next.’ She gave a little shrug.
‘That sounds pretty confusing.’
Her mouth hardened suddenly. ‘I’m a professional. It’s part of the job.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ Drew had known that it would be difficult to get through to Sophie Warner. What he hadn’t expected was that he’d want to, so very much.
‘So have you worked out what the story’s about yet?’ The canvas chair creaked slightly as she settled back into her seat. Her face took on a look of composed interest, which gave Drew the distinct impression that she was doing exactly the same as he was, and prolonging the conversation in order to fish for information.
‘Your character is Dr Jean Wilson, and you work at a hospital in a seaside town. Major Alan Richards is an engineer, working on a top-secret project, building and testing a new submarine. Dr Wilson meets Major Richards when she gets involved with treating some of the men who are injured during testing.’
‘That’s right. Only it’s called a submersible. A submarine’s usually bigger and can work on its own, but a submersible needs to have an outside supply of power and air.’
‘Right. I’ll remember that.’
‘I suppose you must specialise in accident and emergency medicine.’ She hardly even acknowledged his querying look. ‘Since that’s the kind of thing we’re portraying in the film.’
A yes would have been enough. But if Drew wanted her to trust him, then it wasn’t the way forward. ‘I’m actually a neurologist, but I was a member of the hospital’s trauma team. I have plenty of experience of all kinds of injuries, so I’m well qualified to advise here.’
‘Neurology.’ It was interesting that she picked on that one word. For a moment her composure faltered and then she shot him a smile, soft enough to break the strongest man, and clearly calculated to make Drew forget what she’d just let slip. ‘It sounds important.’
‘Yeah. I’m taking a break from important at the moment.’
Her face hardened suddenly and Drew regretted the words. He hadn’t been thinking, and he’d let his prejudices show. That wasn’t going to encourage any confidence on Sophie’s part.
‘Why?’ She almost snapped the word at him.
‘The hospital where I worked closed last month. I’m taking some time to look at my options for the future.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been a painful time for you.’ Suddenly the ice cracked and the look of concern on her face seemed meltingly genuine. Drew reminded himself that Sophie was an actress. However beautiful she was, however much she made him long to make her smile, it was all an illusion.
He searched for something else to say. He didn’t want to talk about the hospital or the closure, or how much it had hurt. They were real things, and they had no place here. ‘Your English accent is very good.’
‘I should hope so. I am English.’ She waved away his apology. ‘It’s okay. A lot of people who saw me in MacAdam assume that I’m American.’
‘The TV cop show? I saw the trailers.’
She gave him an amused look. ‘Have you seen anything I’ve been in?’
‘I…’ Drew gave up the unequal struggle, remembering that his first task was to gain her trust, not impress her. ‘I haven’t had much time for TV recently, I’ve been pretty busy. Are you going to be making another series?’
‘What?’ Her sudden glassy-eyed look turned quickly into a frown.
‘Another series.’ Drew deliberately didn’t proffer any more information. If she’d lost the thread of the conversation, he wanted to see if she could pick it up again, without prompting.
‘How would I know?’ She made it sound as if this was a detail that didn’t warrant her attention.
‘I just thought you might.’
‘Well, you thought wrong.’ She’d scanned his face, as if looking for clues, and then the frown gave way to a don’t-mess-with-me glare. Sophie got abruptly to her feet and stalked away from him.
Drew watched her go. As soon as she’d put thirty yards between them her pace slowed a little, almost as if she’d calculated that she was now at a safe distance. Her angry movements gave way to a more graceful rhythm and Drew forced himself to forget the way her waist moved, and consider dispassionately whether she showed any signs of impaired co-ordination.
Nothing. She carried her beauty in a different way from Gina. Gina had known she was beautiful