The Hero's Fall (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 14) by Phillip Strang (best classic romance novels txt) 📗

‘Your response?’

‘We used to get the occasional guy in, the grey overcoat brigade, twenty quid for a photo, thirty if you show your underwear. You can’t avoid them where I come from, but this man, he looks different, and outside I can see he’s got a fancy car.’

‘You got in?’

‘No way. I asked the manager to phone my dad. We didn’t live far away, and he’s there within five minutes, grabbed hold of the man, threatened to punch him. My dad, he’s not violent, and the man is head and shoulders above him.’

‘What happened?’

‘As I said, it was quiet. The manager intervened. Separated the two of them, and then the man opens his wallet, shows my father his business card, told us he was a photographer. He says he’s on the up and up, and I’ve got a look about me, tall and skinny. He gives my dad the card, another one to me, gave us both a lift home. A couple of weeks later, I’m in London. It’s my first photo shoot, a magazine for a department store, a dozen changes of clothes, standing in front of green cloth, a bikini under palm trees, a sunny beach, or else a heavy coat with a hood, me on skis, although how you can ski with a coat on is beyond me. He said not to worry. He’d shoot a couple of hundred photos, and they would choose.’

‘Your career’s on the way?’

‘Five hundred pounds for an afternoon’s work. After that, another department store, then prancing up and down catwalks, trying not to fall or make a total cock-up, somehow succeeding and getting noticed. Soon I’m on a tropical beach, no green background, the real thing.’

‘Men?’

‘Photographers, those that weren’t gay, fancied their chances. I slept with one or two, but never any pressure. We were valuable commodities, not to be mishandled.’

‘Angus?’

‘I’ll come to that. After eighteen months, I’m not as fresh as I was, and they’re looking for the next new girl, the quirky nose, the gangly walk, the skinny legs, or in my case, they wanted waifs, so skinny they were all bone, their ribs showing. I was slim, but I can’t starve myself. There’s a demand for centrefolds, bosoms and curves wanted. I wasn’t too keen at first; it made me think of the lechers with no film in the camera, just getting off behind a screen while you posed for them.’

‘You had experienced it?’

‘Not me. Some of the other girls had though; upset some, didn’t worry others.’

‘You started posing for the magazines?’ Larry said.

‘At first, a couple of vodkas before the shoot made me relax, but nowadays, I don’t bother. Just ensure there’s some privacy, don’t want the locals getting an eyeful, do I?’

‘You don’t?’

‘Some of the places we take the photos are sensitive about female flesh, although the men make sure they get a good look before they start throwing the stones.’

‘We’re digressing,’ Wendy said. Maddox’s verbosity was either the result of a natural high or artificial, neither of which concerned Wendy and Larry.

‘My career was waning, and I’m getting bad media, the photos becoming more risqué.’

‘They always wanted a bit more?’

‘Not that I always said no; it depended on the photographer and how much they paid. At first, topless, crossed legs. But they’re insistent, and the more you relax, the easier it becomes, and then, soon enough, it’s the full-on frontal, no holds barred.’

‘It doesn’t explain Angus.’

‘It does, in a way. I was at a celebrity event, not sure which one it was, strutting my stuff, on the arm of someone or other.’

‘You don’t remember?’

‘I do, but it’s unimportant. The cameras are flashing, the Page 3 girl and her movie star boyfriend. It was a setup to get the clicks from the paparazzi. I get paid for my time, play along with it, sidle up to him, make him look good.’

‘He wasn’t that good without you?’

‘A big name, you’d know it. He’s a total loser, and his people know it, but in front of a camera, delivering his lines, he’s magic. I’m known for my wild ways, not that there were too many, and for getting my gear off; he’s there to promote himself, to make out that he’s a regular guy with a knockout girlfriend, the sort of woman men lust after. It enhances his reputation as a lady killer, not that he was; barely work up a sweat, let alone kill one.’

‘You didn’t like him?’

‘No one did, not those that knew him. As I said, put him in front of a camera, give him a few lines to deliver, and he was the stuff of legend. Sit him down next to you, try to engage him in conversation, and he was tongue-tied, disinterested, and a waste of space.’

‘Whereas you are smart but known as a bit of a tart?’

‘It was my manager’s idea, improve my reputation, make me go upmarket.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Skinny waifs were on the way out. They’d had a couple of years, but then one or two died of heart failure or another ailment. Bulimia, starvation, exercising themselves to physical exhaustion, whatever.’

‘And taking drugs,’ Larry said.

‘Him that left, he’s more into it than me, not that I haven’t tried, but it’s not my nature. I know it looks bad, him up here with me.’

‘It does,’ Wendy said.

‘You can’t blame a girl, her man dead, feeling lonely.’

‘I can, but carry on.’

‘As I was saying, the market’s changing, demand is back for the fuller figure, but I’ve been getting my gear off too often, posing more provocatively than I should. My manager arranges for me to attend a sports award, Angus’s date. Similar to when I had been with the movie star.’

‘You liked Angus?’

‘He didn’t play