Tell Tale by Sam Hayes

step towards the door.
    ‘So, what, do you go to bed at two in the afternoon?’ Mick glanced at his watch and laughed.
    ‘I have things to take care of.’ She couldn’t help but be wary of strangers. Even offering her hand for a shake and giving up a first name made her spine stiffen. It was what she’d been taught and the way things were.
    But she was becoming tired of living her life as if she were see-through; fed up of being on the periphery of commitment. Would it be such a disaster, she wondered, to move a little closer to someone?
    ‘You know what? Perhaps I will have that coffee.’ She perched on the edge of the messy seat, her hands clasped expectantly in her lap, and watched as Mick swilled out a couple of mugs. I wish, she thought as she glanced at each of his paintings – ghostly nudes, washed-out landscapes, unidentifiable slashes of colour – that I could apply a layer of paint to myself; colour in the paint-by-numbers that has become my life.
    Tess, Nina’s assistant, phoned almost hourly to check details for the Charterhouse job. She fussed over tiny things when there were more pressing problems to deal with, such as the contract itself. Nina was already late for a meeting with her solicitor to discuss the terms of the new commitment.
    ‘Did you contact the staff agency, Tess?’ Nina glanced ather watch. ‘Can you call them, please, unless you fancy learning how to make zombie children and fake wounds yourself?’ She was unnecessarily snappy. ‘It’s more important than anything right now. I need to hire someone reliable, someone who’s got experience in the industry.’ She hung up.
    Grabbing her bag, she glanced in the hall mirror before leaving the house. She looked awful. Lack of sleep had engraved dark circles beneath her eyes, and too much coffee made her hands shake as she tried to touch up the damage. She bowed her head and gripped the hall table. ‘Stop overreacting,’ she told herself.
    Nina drove quickly to the solicitor’s office. ‘There’s nothing to worry about in the contract. All seems straightforward to me.’ He was charging her several hundred pounds to tell her the fifteen-page document was watertight.
    She nodded, grateful that Charterhouse Productions was offering fair terms. It was one less thing to worry about. ‘So there’s nothing that could get me into hot water later?’ Nina wanted her money’s worth. Sitting in the dark office for six minutes hardly justified his fee. He’d not even offered tea.
    ‘Not unless you go and die,’ he said flippantly. ‘There’s no provision for your company’s release from duties if . . . if anything untoward should happen to you. Not a bad driver, are you? No terminal illness, I assume?’ The small man chuckled and leaned back in his squeaky office chair. ‘Because you pretty much
are
Chameleon FX. Quality of work depends largely on your skill. I understand that you’renot the only company Charterhouse has contracted for their productions, but if you were unable to fulfil your obligations for any reason . . . well, I assume you have insurance for those circumstances anyway.’
    ‘Yes, yes of course.’ Nina was thinking.
If anything untoward should happen to you.
‘What would it take to add in a clause to cover me? You know, in case that bus did come from nowhere?’ She tried to laugh but only a warped sigh left her lips.
    ‘Nothing too tricky. I can draft a clause and put it to your client, if you wish.’
    ‘Yes, please do that. Make it state that if anything happens to me, then Chameleon FX is released from any liability whatsoever to Charterhouse. Something like that.’ Mick was a director of her company. If the worst happened, she didn’t want to bequeath business liabilities as well as a legacy of lies.
    ‘I’m not so sure they wouldn’t want some kind of indemnity—’
    ‘Mr Wenlock, I assume you’ll be charging me for this short clause?’ Nina stood. The floor dropped away from her and her head