‘Oh my God, I just thought of something else!’ I interrupt him, suddenly sitting bolt upright.

‘The runner who dropped all my stuff from the office around here? Her name is Amy and I called her to say thank you. But now I remember…She said something that struck me as really odd…’

‘Namely?’

‘That right after that awful last show…’ My voice is actually breaking now.

‘Come on, Jessie, deep breaths.’

I do what he tells me. In for two and out for four. In for two and out for four…‘After I was fired and everything,’ I go on, a bit calmer now, ‘Amy said she went to the production office and found Emma already there, shredding stuff. Which I thought was beyond weird. Why shred documents? It didn’t make sense.’

‘Well it does now. It’s classic,’ says Steve, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry to have to say this, but it seems to me that all along, Emma was nothing more than a smiling assassin.’

‘A smiling assassin,’ I repeat dully. Knowing deep down in my heart that he’s right. Other things start coming back to me too. The day she helped me clear out all my good clothes and I ended up bringing the wrong bags to the second-hand store. Joan said she’d distinctly told her that the labelled bags were hers, destined for Oxfam, but there was still a mix-up. I thought nothing of it when Joan told me this, figuring it was just one of those unfortunate things that was no one’s fault. And I know it’s nothing I can ever prove, but now I’m thinking, could it have been deliberate? Pure malice? To keep me down and out and broke and in my place?

Then something else hits me. ‘She didn’t want me to take the radio gig either.’

‘Now why does that not surprise me? Of course she didn’t. Last thing she’d want is you back in the public eye again. Hard to hear, Jessie, I know, but it’s true.’

There’s a silence while I try to digest this. But I can’t get away from the facts that are staring me in the face. And now there’s something else bothering me.

‘The guy from Mercedes Ireland, this Joe de Courcey fella,’ I say, thinking aloud. ‘Here’s what I don’t get. Given the momentous coverage my sacking got in all the papers, wouldn’t he have come forward to tell the truth about what happened? That he offered Emma the car first, but she turned him down and suggested me to him instead? Why would he stay as silent as the grave and watch me hang?’

‘I’m sorry to have to say this,’ says Steve gently, ‘but welcome to the world of big business, Jessie. The question is, why would he even need to come forward? What did he want out of all this anyway?’

‘Well…publicity.’

‘Yeah, now work from there. Not only did he get about two hundred times more press than Mercedes could ever have hoped for, but it didn’t even cost him the price of a new car either. That de Courcey guy is in a win-win situation and don’t you forget it. It’s in his interests to keep his mouth shut.’

I slump back on the bed, utterly stunned.

‘Are you OK?’ Steve asks, warm and concerned.

‘It’s just an awful lot to take in. I mean, look at me. I’ve just found out that I was betrayed by the one person from my old life who I actually thought was a decent, honourable human being.’

‘Caesar liked Brutus and look where that got him.’

Suddenly I’m up on my feet. Because I can’t just hang around here any more, I have to do something.

‘Steve, I need a favour.’

‘Name it.’

‘Will you give me a lift on your bike? There’s somewhere I need to be. And it can’t wait.’

‘Sure, but where do you want to go?’ ‘Channel Six. Right now.’

Chapter Seventeen

The conversation between myself and Steve on his bike goes a bit like this:

Him: ‘Jessie, are you absolutely sure that this is a good idea?’

Me: ‘Doesn’t this fecking yoke go any faster?’ ‘Seriously,’ he says, turning to me when we’re stopped at traffic lights. ‘Why not just call Emma?’

‘Because…because I want to show her the email printout, don’t I? I want her to know that these aren’t just false accusations, I have proof of what she did to me.’

‘You do have the printout safely on you, don’t you?’

‘Yup, shoved down my bra for extra protection.’

Then a fresh worry. ‘Steve, just tell me that there’s no room for misinterpretation here. We didn’t read it wrongly, did we? I mean, it’s not going to be something she can explain her way out of, is it?’

‘Hard one for her to wriggle her way out of. The facts are there, in black and white. All I’m asking you is, are you quite sure this is the right time and place to do this?’

‘Never been more certain of anything in my entire life. I want to wave the email in front of her, then watch her face turn funny colours. I want to hear what she has to say for herself.’

Although the truth is a bit more complex. As we zoom on, I’m rehearsing loads of great sentences to hurl at her in my head, but what I really want more than anything is to look Emma in the whites of her eyes and confront her directly, face to face. Where she can’t dodge me or try to brush me off. I want to point my finger at her and say ‘J’accuse.’ I want to say that, for months now I’ve had this one thought pressing on me: that I was the architect of my own downfall, when all along I was nothing more than a puppet on a string. Most of all though, I want this shagging motorbike to go faster.

‘Why do you want us to go to Channel Six anyway?’ Steve yells back at me, shouting to be heard over the wind. ‘What I mean is, how do you even know she’ll be there?’

‘She’ll be there, trust me!’ I shout back. Because I know the way the station works like the back of my hand. Emma’s new show is scheduled to go out live next week, so the Saturday night before the show gets aired is always what they call ‘dry run night’. Kind of like a dress rehearsal. With a studio audience, a full camera crew, the whole works. And that’s where I’ll nab her. Privately in her dressing room before she goes on, with any luck.

I’m going over and over the whole thing in my mind and the part that really stabs like a knife to the heart is that I honestly thought that Emma was my friend. That she was on my side. The one person who stood by me in the dark days. But Steve’s on the money; the only reason she even bothered doing that was to make herself feel better. To ease her own survivor guilt and nothing more.

After what feels like a bloody age we eventually whiz through the gates of the industrial estate where Channel Six is. Funny, but up until today, I would have been all maudlin and nostalgic coming back here, seeing the same building where I worked for so many happy years, seeing my old parking space, now most likely reallocated to Emma.

But not now. I’m not even trembling. There’s not a nerve in my body; I’m like ice. Nor will there be any emotional bungee jumping on my part this evening. No regrets, no wondering if I called this wrong and above all no letting Emma wangle her way out of it. I’ve been picking lumps of humiliation out of my teeth for far too long and now it’s payback time. Bring on the fight.

‘Do you want me to come in there with you?’ Steve asks when we pull up at the main reception door.

‘No need.’

‘I’m coming anyway.’

‘OK. Thanks.’

He squeezes my hand, we whip off our helmets and in we go.

First hurdle: getting past security. As we burst through the main reception doors, I’m silently praying that it’s some nice security guard who recognises me and who’ll let us through without a fuss. Trouble is that you need either a security tag or a visitor’s pass to get through and we have neither. There’s a TV monitor on the wall behind the security desk with a live feed coming directly from the studio floor, but the dry run hasn’t begun yet; all you can see are technicians fiddling with lights and the set decoration people busy doing their thing. So in other words, this couldn’t be a more perfect time for me to strike.