'This is where I've been all the time.' I confessed. 'I didn't want you to see it.'

He laughed. 'I'm not surprised.' He looked around. 'Whoever broke in has certainly made a mess of the place.'

'Do you mind? I've tidied up since then. You should have seen it when I got back,' I told him.

'And you haven't notified the police?'

I shook my head. 'Nothing's been taken and I can do without the ha.s.sle.'

He sighed. 'Just as well we'll be out of here first thing Sunday morning. Are you packed?'

I pointed to the two suitcases standing by the door. 'You bet. I can't wait.'

Mark looked round. 'And you say they didn't get anything?'

I shook my head. 'There wasn't anything worth taking. Certainly no cash.' I looked at him. 'I can't help thinking I know who's behind this.'

'Really who?'

'Just before I went away, I had a phone call from a guy who said he's my half-brother. He wanted us to meet. I didn't like the sound of him so I said no.'

'That's a bit of a long shot, isn't it? Presumably he doesn't even know where you live.'

I vaguely remembered giving Mum the name of the road. It wouldn't have been that difficult for him to find me. 'He might have found out,' I said.

Mark looked doubtful. 'Why did he want to meet anyway?'

'Said he wanted us to get to know one another.'

'So is that bad?'

I shook my head. 'What would we have in common? I've never set eyes on the bloke. It seems my mother married again and had another child. His father was a violent man and she divorced him while he was in prison.' I looked at Mark. 'To tell you the truth, I'm beginning to wish I'd never set out to find her.'

He nodded. 'I got the feeling you were less than happy with the meeting.'

'That's not all. She borrowed money from me before we parted,' I told him.

'How much?'

'A couple of hundred.'

He whistled. 'Pheew! Maybe you told her too much about yourself. I have to agree that it doesn't augur well for re-forging your relationship with her.'

'Or him,' I reminded him. 'My so-called half-brother.'

He put his arms round me and gave me a hug 'Poor old sausage. Never mind, once we're out of here you'll have nothing to worry about.' He held me at arm's length and looked at me. 'Would you like to come back and spend the night at the flat?'

I shook my head. 'No. I'll be OK here. After all, it's only for one more night.'

'Well, let's go out for the day, then, spend our last day in London by celebrating.'

I laughed. 'Celebrating what my burglary?'

'No, the start of our record-breaking success, of course.'

'You hope.'

'I don't hope I know! I've got a really good feeling about Oh Elizabeth. We'll start with the London Eye, then lunch at a little place I know in Soho. How does that sound?'

We spent a lovely day in the West End and I felt much better when Mark dropped me off but for some unknown reason I had the nightmare again that night. I hadn't had it for ages but this time it was different; this time I was the mother and the one doing the walking out. I couldn't make head or tail of it when I woke but it gave me a dark, disturbed feeling that lasted for ages. It was only when I came to enough to remember that this was the day we were travelling down to Bournemouth, one step nearer to my success as an actress, that I was able to clear my mind and set about getting ready.

Mark picked me up at eight o'clock in the Ferrari. I'd asked him to come early because I didn't want to encounter my landlord again. I'd paid the rent and the man in the room upstairs had fixed the door for me (after a fashion) but I hadn't given him the formal month's notice, and I didn't want an argument on my hands over the extra rent he was bound to demand.

We stopped off for lunch at a nice restaurant in Farnborough and arrived in Bournemouth late that afternoon. Mark did a tour of the town to get our bearings, then parked the car in a multi-storey car park and turned to look at me.

'Right, shall we go and find ourselves somewhere to stay?'

I nodded. 'Got any ideas? I don't know Bournemouth.'

His eyes twinkled. 'How about booking a room at the Royal Bath for a couple of nights? My treat,' he added. 'We can look around for somewhere cheaper once we begin rehearsals and get our bearings.'

We'd pa.s.sed the Royal Bath on our tour and I'd been well impressed. My heart gave a leap. 'Oh, Mark, that sounds wonderful.'

We took our bags and checked in. A porter took our bags upstairs and ushered us into a wonderful room with a sea view. Once the man had gone, I turned to Mark.

'This is a real treat,' I said. 'I hope it's just a taste of things to come once we're famous.'

We went down to dinner and Mark ordered a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. He held his gla.s.s aloft.

'Here's to us,' he toasted. 'Us, the play, full houses and fame and fortune for my favourite leading lady.'

I sipped my champagne with relish. The future sparkled even more than the bubbles in my gla.s.s.

We hardly slept that night; partly because we were high on champagne and antic.i.p.ation of the day to come and partly because our enthusiastic lovemaking kept us busy. Mark was so skilful and practiced that I was swept away on a cloud of sensual pleasure again and again. As I lay in his arms, my head on his chest, I asked him how he came to know so much about how to please a woman. He looked down at me.

'There's no secret,' he said. 'When you're as much in love as I am with you, it comes naturally.'

I didn't really believe him. It was always difficult to know when to take Mark seriously, but I didn't really care. After all, we were staying in the kind of luxurious hotel I'd always seen myself staying in and the future couldn't look brighter. He deserved my appreciation at the very least.

'Do you think you could ever love me back?' he whispered. 'Just a little bit?'

I snuggled closer. 'You are a silly old romantic, Mark Naylor,' I said. 'Stop getting carried away.'

'You make love as though you mean it,' he said softly.

'Of course I mean it,' I told him. 'You're so d.a.m.ned good at it I'd have to be made of stone not to.' I glanced at the bedside clock. 'Have you any idea what the time is? It's actually getting light. If we don't get some sleep we'll be good for nothing in the morning.'

We were due at the Pavilion Theatre at 10.30 so after a wonderful full English breakfast, Mark and I strolled across the road to the Pavilion. I stood in the forecourt looking up at it.

'Wow! It's so big.'

Mark nodded. 'Restaurants and a ma.s.sive ballroom as well as a very large theatre. It's a wonderful place to be launching.'

I felt a thrill of excitement. At that moment, several other cast members joined us, led by Carla Dean. She looked at me with her usual disdain.

'Where did you two get to last night?' she asked. 'You weren't on the train.'

'We drove down in Mark's Ferrari,' I told her airily. 'And we're staying at the Royal Bath.'

To my great satisfaction her eyebrows shot up. 'Really? Get you! Living it up as the leading lady already! Well, we'd better find the stage door, I suppose. Unless you want to stand here boasting all morning.'

We located the stage door and went inside. Carla was first to inspect the dressing rooms.

'Mmm, not bad,' she announced. 'But someone has left their stuff in this one.'

On inspection, the other dressing rooms seemed to be full of other people's belongings as well. Phil shook his head.

'It's too bad,' he said. 'The previous lot should have packed up on Sat.u.r.day night. They should have moved out yesterday morning at the latest.'

At that moment, music could be heard coming from the direction of the stage above us. We stood speechlessly, staring at each other as a tenor could be heard singing 'The Music of the Night' from Phantom of the Opera. When the song came to an end, Carla made her opinion heard in no uncertain terms.

'What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l is going on?' Without another word, she stormed up the stairs to the stage, the rest of us straggling behind. I arrived just in time to see her striding onto the stage where a rehearsal was clearly in progress.

'Excuse me,' she said, her sonorous voice echoing round the stage. 'May I ask what is going on here?'

A man, presumably the director, stood up from his seat in the stalls and walked down to the stage. 'I might well ask the same question of you. Who are you, anyway?'

Carla swept her hand around in our direction. 'We are the cast of Oh, Elizabeth,' she said. 'We are supposed to be rehearsing here from this morning until our opening next week.'

The director looked puzzled. 'My company are opening here next week,' he announced. 'We are the number one tour of Phantom of the Opera. If you'd like to go up to the foyer, you'll see our posters and flyers. The forthcoming attractions posters are on display outside too. I'm surprised you didn't notice them.'

We stared at each other. I nudged Mark. 'Maybe we've got the wrong theatre,' I whispered. Mark cleared his throat and spoke up.

'Come along, Carla. We'll go and see the theatre management about it.' He nodded to the director. 'I apologize for the interruption. There's obviously some mistake.'

Appeased, the man nodded. 'That's quite all right. I hope you get it sorted out.'

Carla was furious and complained all the way back to the theatre foyer. 'What a c.o.c.keyed arrangement,' she complained. 'Just wait till Paul gets here. He's going to be hopping mad.'

The front-of-house manager knew nothing about us. We all crowded into his office and explained our predicament but he said he'd never heard of Paul Fortune or a show called Oh Elizabeth.

'There's another theatre across the road,' Phil pointed out. 'Do you think that's where we're supposed to be?'

We straggled across the road to the smaller Palace Court theatre, but there were billboards in the foyer advertising a thriller beginning next Monday. Defeated, we all repaired to a cafe further along the road to try to decide what to do.

'Well, I know what I'm going to do,' I said, getting out my phone. 'You go in. I'm going to ring my agent. I'll join you in a few minutes.' When they'd gone, I switched on my phone and clicked on Harry's number. His secretary answered.

'Sally, it's Louise Delmar,' I said. 'Can you put me through to Harry, please?'

'I'm sorry, Louise,' the girl said. 'But I'm afraid he's in a meeting with his solicitor at the moment. He's asked me not to put any calls through.'

'I can't help that. I must speak to him. He won't mind when you tell him it's me, calling from Bournemouth. Tell him it's really urgent, Sally.'

I waited, tapping my foot impatiently. When Harry came on he sounded upset. 'Louise. I think I know why you're ringing me.'

'It's not good enough, Harry,' I jumped straight in. 'We're all down here in Bournemouth and someone's made a hash of the bookings. There's another company rehearsing in the theatre.'

'I know I know. Listen, Lou. I'm afraid I've got some rather bad news. There was never going to be a show. It was all a highly elaborate con. The truth is, Paul b.l.o.o.d.y Fortune has disappeared. He's gone, and taken all our money with him.'

I stood as though rooted to the ground, speechless; poleaxed; the blood freezing in my veins. All the work we'd put in. All those weeks of rehearsal! All the money I'd invested! It had to be some kind of horrible nightmare. It couldn't be true.

'What what are you saying, Harry?' I said weakly. 'Paul's gone? Gone where?'

'Anyone's b.l.o.o.d.y guess! How much cash did you invest, Lou?'

When I told him he gasped. 'Christ! I invested too, but not as much as that. What about the others?'

'I don't know. Harry, look, we have to find him. Has anyone been to his flat?'

Harry laughed dryly at the other end of the line. 'Turned out it wasn't even his flat borrowed while the owner was abroad. He cleared out of there days ago and no one has seen or heard from him since. He's had a good head start on us.'

'The police?' I suggested. 'Surely you've contacted the police.'

'Of course we have. D'you think we haven't been down every possible avenue? They've had roadblocks in place and they've had men at all the airports and ports. He's gone, Lou. As I said, he's had a week's head start on us. I doubt whether Fortune was even his real name anyway appropriate though it was. He's probably counting his spoils in some luxury hotel in Monte Carlo as we speak.' He groaned. 'I can't believe I was taken in by him but he was so b.l.o.o.d.y plausible. I feel such a fool! And with all the years I've been in the business. This'll be the ruin of me when word gets around. G.o.d only knows what my other clients are going to say, not to mention the wife. I'm-'

'Harry!' I broke in sharply. 'Do you have any idea of the impossible position I'm in? Have you got any suggestions as to how I'm to break this news to the rest of the cast?' Stuff Harry's b.l.o.o.d.y wife! What about me? Here I was, trying to face the fact that all my dreams of fame were down the toilet, not to mention most of my inheritance, and all he was worried about was what his flaming wife would say.

'Look, Lou, I'm up to my neck in this as much as you are,' he said. 'I'm afraid you'll have to handle your end of it with your usual tact and diplomacy. I'm going to have to go now. I've got my solicitor here with me. I only hope he can come up with something that'll get us our money back but it doesn't look very hopeful at the moment.'

'I'll be in to see you when we get back, Harry,' I warned him. 'After this, I think you owe me, don't you?' Without waiting for his reply, I punched the red b.u.t.ton and stood for a moment, trying to process the unbelievable disaster that was taking place. I'd never felt more like running away but I knew I had to go inside and tell the others. Gathering all my courage, I took a deep breath and pushed open the door of the cafe.

Inside, the rest of the cast were cl.u.s.tered round two large tables. As I walked in, all their faces turned towards me. I swallowed hard. It all felt so surreal. This had to be the worst day of my life.

'I'm afraid I've got bad news,' I began, my knees shaking. 'It looks as if we've all been taken for a ride. Paul Fortune has skipped the country with all our cash. There is no play. No West End run, no nothing there never was. It was all a big scam.'

For a moment there was a shocked silence as they all looked helplessly at each other then, Carla sprang to her feet, incandescent with rage. 'Are you seriously telling me that b.a.s.t.a.r.d has f.u.c.ked off with everything?' she shouted. 'That all these weeks he's had us on a bit of string like a bunch of b.l.o.o.d.y puppets, letting us believe we were going into the West End with his fict.i.tious f.u.c.king play while stashing all the cash he'd conned us out of into some sodding Swiss bank?'

I nodded miserably. 'More than likely.'

'But what about those other guys the ch.o.r.eographer, that useless b.l.o.o.d.y director?'

I shrugged. 'Either in it with him or being taken for a ride like the rest of us, I suppose. It's irrelevant now anyway, isn't it?'

Carla looked round at the others. 'Well, come on, you dozy lot!' she shouted. 'Are you going to sit there with your mouths open like a lot of f.u.c.king goldfish? Are we going to just sit back and let this happen?'

'It's no good, Carla,' I put in. 'He's long gone. Why do you think he gave us a week off?' I related everything that Harry had told me on the phone. When I'd finished, Carla slumped back in her seat.

'So we're all well and truly f.u.c.ked!'