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CHAPTER ONE

‘LEAVE the country?’

Rosalind Marlow stopped pacing up and down the hearth-rug in her parents’ elegant lounge and stared at her mother in consternation.

‘Just for a little while, darling,’ Constance Marlow murmured placidly, finishing her cup of tea and settling back on the couch, looking quite unruffled by her daughter’s outraged expression. ‘Until some of this dreadful fuss dies down.’

‘Are you suggesting I run away?’ Rosalind demanded incredulously, her slender body stiffening in rejection of the idea of such rank cowardice. She and her five siblings had been brought up on the credo that one must always face up to one’s responsibilities, no matter how painful or embarrassing. Surely her mother wasn’t now suggesting that she compromise her honour for the sake of simple expediency?

Rosalind looked to her father to share her outrage, but he merely gave an expressive shrug, as if to say he was but putty in her mother’s hands. Which, of course, he was...but only when it suited him. As a distinguished director with over thirty years’ stage experience Michael Marlow was gifted with an unerring ability to control the volatile personalities of the egocentric actors and actresses who cluttered his professional and personal life—his famous wife included.

‘Think of it as taking a timely holiday, darling,’ her mother murmured in her beautifully articulated drawl. ‘You must admit it’s absolutely ages since you had a proper one. And after what you went through on that last job you certainly deserve a relaxing break.’

Rosalind shuddered at the memory of her recent, depressing foray into film. The disaster-plagued production had merely served to confirm her inner conviction that, like her mother, she was born for the stage rather than the screen. She liked to think of herself as versatile enough to tackle anything but she had never really enjoyed the disjointed, repetitive nature of acting for the camera, where everything was done in short snatches and some nameless editor in a booth somewhere controlled your ultimate interpretation of a role.

She should never have allowed herself to be flattered into accepting the female lead in the art-house production but the director, an old drama-school friend, had caught her at a weak moment and persuaded her that it would be ‘fun’ to work together again.

Some fun. Rosalind had cracked a wrist doing her own stunts and had almost been eaten by sharks!

‘That’s not the point,’ she argued, raking her fingers through her short-cropped red hair, making it stand fierily on end, a vibrant contrast to her pale skin and black roll-necked sweater. ‘It’s the principle of the thing. Why should I let myself be driven into exile, for goodness’ sake? I haven’t done anything wrong!’

‘Of course you haven’t, darling,’ her mother soothed, looking hurt at the implication that she didn’t trust her own daughter.

Rosalind simmered with frustration. She knew that her mother was playing shamelessly on her sense of guilt but she had made a promise and not even for her family’s peace of mind was she prepared to break it. However, she couldn’t blame those she loved for trying to winkle out the truth.

‘Even if you had, you know you’d have our unqualified support,’ commented her father quietly, making her feel even worse.

‘I’d tell you if I could,’ she burst out. ‘You’ll just have to accept my word that I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of!’

Her eyes avoided the coffee-table, which was strewn with tabloids bearing lurid headlines that variously branded her as a promiscuous sex-kitten, a butch, feminist home-wrecker, a pathetic, mixed-up waif with an insatiable craving for the love denied her by her disapproving family, and a helpless tool of an alien conspiracy to topple the governments of earth!

‘I thought we’d already agreed on that,’ murmured her eldest brother from the window-seat, turning his broad back on the entertaining sight of his wife trying to keep up with their three aggressively active toddlers in the rambling back garden of the large town house. Hugh pinned Rosalind with his thoughtful gaze. ‘But unfortunately the Press aren’t quite so trusting. By refusing to answer questions, you’ve left them free to speculate without the hindrance of having to conform to the known facts.’

Rosalind scowled, her thick, dark-dyed eyebrows drawing sharply together. ‘I gave them a statement; that should have been enough. You’re a lawyer; can’t I take out an injunction or something, to stop them harassing me?’

She slouched with unconscious grace over to the front window and peeked through the curtains. Sure enough, the gaggle of reporters who had been tailing her relentlessly for the last week was still clustered around the gate. Her wide mouth firmed. She was damned if she was going to allow them to hound her into giving them what they wanted.

At least they were no longer knocking on the door and shouting questions through the keyhole, thanks to Hugh’s threats to have them arrested for trespass. His hefty size and cold grey stare had added to the deterrent and not for the first time Roz had blessed her parents for having the lucky foresight to adopt a child who had developed into such an impressive specimen of adult masculinity. The natural Marlow offspring were all tall and slender, more accustomed to using charm than muscle to extricate themselves from trouble.

Hugh shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Possibly, although even if successful all a court order would do would keep reporters at a certain physical distance; it wouldn’t stop them digging around for information or photographing you in public. In fact it would probably be counter-productive—make the Press even more tenacious. They could counter-claim that the public interest in this case transcends your need for personal privacy because of the political implications—’

‘But what happened had nothing to do with politics!’ Roz wailed, infuriated by the unfairness of it all.

‘A politician’s wife is involved; that makes it political,’ Hugh corrected her with his precise, pedantic logic. ‘With an important by-election coming up, all sides are going to be quick to try and use the publicity to their advantage, and while I don’t doubt that the Government is as keen as you are to see the story die a discreet death it certainly can’t be seen to be interfering with the freedom of the Press.’

‘Well, I don’t see how my running away is going to help,’ said Roz, her green eyes sparkling with ire. ‘People are sure to think it’s because I’m guilty of something.’

‘So what? They think that anyway,’ came another unwelcome brotherly opinion. Sprawled full-length on the floor beside the couch, Richard was genially fending off an assault by two miniature versions of himself.

‘Look, Roz, take it from one who knows—all this hide-and-seek is merely whetting the Press’s appetite and if you won’t oblige them with a scandal they’ll create their own. You’re God’s gift to the tabloid industry, you know: a well-known actress with a reputation for wild behaviour and a sexy body that photographs like a dream. All they have to do if the story threatens to lose impetus is to snap another shot of you in a skimpy dress getting in or out of a cab or threatening to deck another reporter and—presto—instant page three! They love chasing you around... you give such good press.’

‘Mind your tongue in front of the children, Richard,’ his mother chided, rapping him sharply on one up-raised knee.

He grinned irrepressibly, looking much younger than his thirty-one years. He dragged himself up to a sitting position, gently wrestling his sons off his chest. ‘Face it, Roz, they’re not going to just give up and go away, not while you’re dangling yourself tantalisingly under their noses. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better and the rest of us are bound to suffer along with you’

His sweeping gesture took in the various members of the Marlow clan who had arrived for what Rosalind had been led to believe was a quiet afternoon tea with her parents. Instead she had found the house bulging with her siblings and their partners and offspring. In fact, the only ones missing from the council of war were her rock-composer brother, Steve, who was currently in Hollywood working on a film score, and her youngest brother, Charlie, who was a mechanic with a race-team on the overseas rally circuit.

For the most part Rosalind was grateful that she came from a close-knit family with a strong interest in each other’s well-being, but sometimes their loving interference only complicated matters. Right now she didn’t need the extra pressure that they were bringing to bear on her battered self-confidence.

The trouble was that her family still saw her as the over-impulsive, fun-loving and, OK, outright reckless creature that she had been in her teens. Why couldn’t they accept her as the mature, capable, staunchly independent twenty-seven-year-old woman she had become? Granted, her basic personality hadn’t changed; she was still outgoing and gregarious, throwing herself wholeheartedly into everything she did, and some people might mistake her passionate enjoyment of life for recklessness, but her family should know better.

In the last five years the disciplines and rewards of her profession had become the major focus of her prodigious energies. Because her loyalty, once given, was rarely withdrawn she still had some wild and loose-living friends, but it had been years since she herself had had to be rescued from the consequences of her own folly.

She glanced over to the corner where Olivia sat with her husband, Jordan Pendragon.

Normally she could rely on having her twin firmly on her side, but today Olivia seemed oddly reserved. Like Richard and Steve, Rosalind and Olivia were only fraternal twins, but they had always been closely attuned to each other’s emotional wavelength. Olivia’s marriage the previous year hadn’t seemed to jeopardise their closeness and thus it was disconcerting for Rosalind suddenly to discover herself deprived of the psychic support she had always taken for granted.

Olivia’s dreamy, abstracted air was nothing new—as an artist she frequently went around with her head in the clouds—but Rosalind had the feeling that this time the mental aloofness was deliberate, and it hurt. Everything around her seemed to be shifting, changing, veering dangerously out of her control. It was no wonder her nerves were a riot.

‘I’m sorry, I had no idea that this was going to turn out to be such a mess,’ she sighed, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her skin-tight jeans, her slender shoulders hunching under the thin black sweater. ‘The whole thing’s been blown up way out of proportion... all because some greedy hotel employee took it into his head to sell his distorted version of events to the highest bidder!’ she said bitterly. ‘Why can’t people mind their own business?’

‘People figure that since you make your living in public you are their business,’ said Richard unsympathetically. ‘You’re not the only one under siege. My office phone line is tied up handling the constant press calls and I’m fed up with granting interviews that turn out to be a total waste of time... not to mention having to hire security guards to keep reporters away from my cast and crew.’

‘I thought you believed that all publicity is good publicity,’ said Roz, with a pointed look from Richard to his wife which reminded him of the way he had flagrantly used the gossip columns to manipulate Joanna into accepting his proposal.

‘When it’s about me, yes,’ Richard said deadpan, and with outrageous immodesty, making Joanna put a hand across her mouth to stifle her laughter. ‘But they’re only gatecrashing my set to ask about you...why haven’t I cast you in one of my films? Is it because I think you’re unstable? Do you have drug/alcohol/attitude problems...what kind of breakfast cereal did you eat as a kid? I tell you, it’s driving me nuts! I’m running behind on my shooting schedule as it is; the last thing I need is any more disruptions on the set.

‘Do you know we actually filmed five takes of a scene yesterday before I discovered that one of the dead bodies was a reporter from the Clarion who had bribed one of the extras to let him take his place? The idiot kept breathing and blinking. Apart from not being able to act, he wasn’t even a member of Equity. He could have got me in trouble with the union, for God’s sake!’

Of course, she might have known that Richard was more concerned about his precious movie being completed on time than her problems! Rosalind glared at him as he unsuccessfully tried to detach the two red-headed babies from his now woefully stretched woollen jumper.

‘Now, Sean, stop sucking Daddy’s sweater; you’ll get fur balls,’ he scolded. ‘You too, David; you don’t have to do everything your brother does...’

As usual his twin sons ignored his stern command and continued to gum the soggy wool, until their mother gently uttered a word and they began to crawl obediently in her direction. Richard watched them go with a rueful smile that acknowledged a higher domestic authority. He scrambled to his feet, wincing slightly at the pressure on his lame knee, and turned his attention back to Rosalind.

‘If you genuinely want to deflect press interest the simple solution is to remove yourself as a potential source of information. Disappear completely for a while...at least until the initial feeding frenzy is over. It’s not as if you have to worry about walking out on your job,’ he added with cheerful malice, ‘since you don’t happen to have one at the moment...’

‘I’m currently resting between engagements,’ Rosalind informed him loftily. It was a point of pride that she had hardly been out of steady work since she had left drama school. ‘I’m considering several offers—it’s just a matter of deciding which one to accept.’

‘But you said yourself that none of them start for a few weeks, darling.’ Her mother pounced. ‘So why not make the most of your free time until then? Your father and I know the perfect place for you to go—peaceful, warm, exotic and—best of all as far as you’re concerned—wonderfully remote.’

‘It’s not an island, is it?’ said Rosalind with deep suspicion. ‘I think I’ve had enough of remote islands for one lifetime.’

The film she had just completed was supposedly set in just such an idyllic-sounding location. However, the cast and crew had found themselves virtually camping out on an extremely rugged dot in the South Pacific, in wretchedly primitive conditions and beset by all manner of hardships, including erratic delivery of supplies, a subtropical cyclone and Rosalind’s terrifyingly close encounter with a shark while filming the underwater scenes.

Needless to say, the budget had been horrendously overrun, and Rosalind had been relieved to get back to New Zealand with body and soul intact, only to walk slap-bang into a situation of almost equal peril.

‘Oh, you’ll love this one,’ her mother assured her. ‘Your father and I had one of our honeymoons there a few years ago. We simply adored it. A jewel of a place. Gorgeous scenery, gorgeous weather. A perfect refuge from reality.’

‘And exactly where is this perfect jewel?’ asked Rosalind morosely, unwillingly tempted.

‘Tioman Island!’ announced her mother with a vocal flourish that invited applause.

She must have forgotten that geography had always been Rosalind’s worst subject at school.

‘Is it somewhere around the Great Barrier Reef?’ she guessed, thinking that if she had wanted to wimp out and hide from her avalanching problems Australia would hardly be far enough!

Joanna, the teacher, looked pained. ‘It’s in the South China Sea,’ she said helpfully.

‘Oh, right...’ Rosalind closed her eyes as she tried to visualise Asia in her head, but her overtaxed brain refused to co-operate. All she could see against the blackness were wretched images from Room 405 at the Harbour Point Hotel in Wellington... Peggy Staines’s anguished, pleading face, her body writhing in pain on the crumpled double bed, the frantic actions of the ambulance crew and the avid curiosity of the hotel staff and guests who had seen Rosalind in her bathrobe dazedly gathering up the scattered banknotes from the floor.

‘Off the east coast of Malaysia, north-east of Singapore.’ Her father gently reorientated her.

‘You must have heard of it, darling!’ her mother urged. ‘It’s quite famous. They shot parts of South Pacific there. Remember Bali Ha’i... remember the waterfall? That was filmed on Tioman. Just imagine being able to visit it for yourself...’

Rosalind’s eyes flew open. She loved vintage musical movies. She had a good singing voice and had appeared on stage in a number of musical productions, South Pacific included. She vividly remembered the waterfall scene from the movie and her interest quickened, much against her will.

‘If it’s famous then it’s probably packed to the gills with tourists,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I hate tourist traps.’

‘Funny how I couldn’t drag you away from Disneyland when you came and stayed with me in LA,’ murmured Richard, who had lived and worked in the film capital for several years before he’d turned from acting to directing.

Rosalind poked her tongue out at him. ‘Disneyland’s different.’

‘So is Tioman,’ her mother said hurriedly, before sibling raillery could subvert the conversation. ‘There are a few resorts but the island’s still pretty much uncommercialised, and the pace of life is very slow. There’s no stress, there’s no crime...it’s somewhere you can feel wonderfully safe and anonymous. Even a free spirit like you, Roz, wouldn’t feel hemmed in. You really need to see it to appreciate it. I think I just happen to have some brochures around here somewhere... Now where did I put them...? Michael, do you see them?’

She looked around vaguely, absently retucking a loose strand of red hair into her elegant French twist. Rosalind watched suspiciously as her father obediently took his cue and ‘discovered’ the large stack of travel folders conveniently on hand under one of the newspapers on the coffee-table.

Her suspicions were strengthened by the flagrant enthusiasm with which everyone fell on the glossy brochures. Alluring descriptions of virgin rainforest and white coral beaches were read aloud with typical Marlow panache, the delights of scuba-diving in limpid tropical waters and the merits of Malaysian cuisine discussed. Even the babies drooled in ecstasy over the bright, colourful pamphlets that Richard thrust into their pudgy fingers, although that was probably more to do with the fact that they were teething!

‘It says here that there are references to Tioman in Arabic literature that date back two thousand years...’ murmured Hugh, perusing a hard-back book that had a stamp on the cover indicating that it had come from the library. Something else her mother had just happened to have on hand? Rosalind didn’t think so!

‘You know, you don’t even need a visa to visit Malaysia,’ said Olivia, reading the fine print on the back of a brochure. ‘Your passport’s current, isn’t it, Roz?’

‘Of course it is. Roz is used to travelling light. She can take off at the drop of a hat, can’t you, darling?’ her mother encouraged.

Rosalind thought it was time to put her foot down and inject some reality into the situation.

‘Even if I was thinking about taking a trip, if this place is so wonderful there’s no way there’d be vacancies for spur-of-the-moment travellers,’ she said firmly. ‘And flights up to the East have wait-lists for their wait-lists. Anyway, I haven’t budgeted for any extravagances this month...’

Although Rosalind had inherited a considerable trust fund several years ago, she preferred to live mostly off her own earnings. Large amounts of money made her uneasy. She had no head for figures and small amounts slipped far too easily through her fingers for her to trust herself with serious sums.

Besides, the theatre had a strong historical tradition of poverty amongst its acolytes and it went against the grain to flaunt her unearned prosperity when most of her fellow actors were eking out their meagre pay cheques in a noble state of self-sacrifice for their art. So apart from the occasional rush of blood to the head Rosalind lived a life of cheerful self-sufficiency, content in the knowledge that when she was too old and decrepit to tread the boards she would be able to retire in dignity and comfort.

‘Credit me with a little forethought, darling,’ said her notoriously disorganised mother. ‘As soon as I realised you might need a quiet little bolt-hole I got Jordan to use some of his family’s muscle. He still has pull in the Pendragon Corporation and he’s made all the arrangements for you through their travel section. Of course the economy flights were overbooked but you’re going first class all the way, and don’t look like that—you don’t have to worry about the cost—I booked everything on your father’s credit card...even on Tioman you only have to sign for your accommodation and meals.

‘Look, here are all your tickets and documentation. All you have to do is turn up at the airport the day after tomorrow and you’ll be on your way to three weeks of carefree bliss.’

Rosalind accepted the proffered blue travel folder numbly, opening it as gingerly as if it were a potential bomb. ‘You’ve already booked for me to go?’ she said shakily, leafing through the evidence, her eyes widening at the sums involved. She didn’t know whether to feel pleased or insulted by her parents’ generosity. ‘What do you expect me to say?’

Her mother smiled warmly and jumped up to give her a hug. ‘No need for thanks, darling. We know how determined you are to stand on your own two feet, but at times like this the family should pull together...’

Rosalind struggled free of the fond maternal embrace. ‘Pull together?’ she snorted, waving the tickets under her mother’s elegant nose. ‘You’re bribing me to go thousands of miles away!’

‘We thought it would be a nice early birthday present,’ her father ventured.

‘My birthday isn’t for seven months!’ Rosalind pointed out sardonically.

‘A very early birthday present,’ Constance Marlow said, giving her husband a repressive look that told him not to deviate from the script.

She shrewdly studied her daughter’s sullen expression and abruptly changed her tactics. She threw up her hands in disgust and said crisply, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Roz. Talk about people blowing things out of proportion! Stop behaving as if you think we’re trying to sweep a blot on the family escutcheon under the carpet.’

She ignored the disrespectful snickers of her offspring at the atrociously mixed metaphor and continued with steely emphasis, ‘We’re very proud to have you as our daughter; we just don’t want to see you hurt unnecessarily. And it is so unnecessary, darling, what you’re putting yourself through. Unless you like playing the helpless martyr, of course—then I suppose there’s nothing more to be said. I might say that most children would be delighted if their parents offered to send them on an all-expenses-paid holiday...’

‘I know I would,’ said Richard with a languishing sigh.

‘I see the Met Office predicts a cold front this weekend,’ said Michael Marlow, apropos of nothing. ‘They say winter is going to arrive with a vengeance.’

‘Tioman does look wonderfully lush and Gauguin-ish,’ said Olivia traitorously, her soft, rain-washed green eyes wistful, her smile tinged with strain.

It struck Rosalind that it was her twin who looked as if she needed a holiday, and it was on the tip of her tongue to say so. She glanced at Jordan and found him watching his wife with a narrow-eyed concern that stilled the words in her throat. She felt a flutter of inexplicable panic and her fingers tightened on the tickets in her hand.

‘You know, you should make the most of your freedom while you can, Roz,’ advised Joanna, rescuing a soggy rusk from the carpet. ‘Once you have children, taking a holiday is like going on military manoeuvres.’

As if on command, Hugh’s three pre-schoolers came thundering into the room, their diminutive blonde mother breathless in their wake.

‘Oh, you are going to Tioman, then? Good on you!’ Julia panted, seeing the folder in Rosalind’s hand. ‘I told Hugh you’d do it, even if only to cock a snook at those sneaky reporters. You know, one of those gossip columnists followed us to the supermarket yesterday and tried to chat up Suzie when I left the trolley for a moment in the confectionery aisle. The idiot even offered her a lollipop.’ She ruffled the curly brown head leaning against her knee. ‘Luckily Suzie blitzed him with her favourite word.’

Suzie blinked up at Rosalind, her blue eyes huge in her doll-like face. ‘No!’ she bellowed proudly. ‘No! No! No! No!’

Julia chuckled. ‘She made such a racket that the guy had a hard time convincing everyone he wasn’t a child-molester. I bet that put a crimp in his column!’

‘He’s lucky I wasn’t there; I would have put a crimp in his face,’ growled Hugh, whose gentleness was known to be in direct proportion to his size.

Rosalind smiled weakly, stricken by the thought that her uncompromising stance might have put the trusting innocence of her nephews and nieces in jeopardy. Typically, she had been so swept up in her own problems that she had taken her family’s support for granted, without thinking how much it might cost them in terms of their own privacy.

Her certainty that she was doing the right thing by standing her ground dwindled further. Perhaps she should just abandon her principles and run for the hills...or rather the South China Sea.

It seemed such a callous thing to do while Peggy Staines still hovered between life and death in the intensive care unit at Wellington Hospital. But it wasn’t as if Rosalind could provide any positive help for her recovery. Quite the reverse—knowing that she was around might cause Peggy to have another heart attack.

A brief word of sympathy with a distracted Donald Staines in the hospital waiting room was all that Rosalind had permitted herself. He had asked what had happened but not why, and Rosalind had caught a plane back to Auckland before he or any of the other members of the Staines family had rallied sufficiently from their shock to ask for the details. Until Peggy had recovered enough to carry on a lucid conversation—if she recovered—Rosalind was bound by her conscience to remain silent.

Thank goodness the police hadn’t become involved, although Rosalind had the sinking feeling that if the publicity continued to escalate either they or someone involved in national security might feel obliged to come sniffing around with some serious questions, and then she might have no choice but to betray her conscience.

‘Well, what do you say, darling?’ her mother asked eagerly, visibly frustrated by Rosalind’s lack of enthusiasm. ‘I can’t believe you’re even hesitating...’

A disturbingly familiar tension began to crawl around the back of her skull as Rosalind looked into the expectant faces around her. A paralysing sense of her own vulnerability swept over her, but she knew she mustn’t allow it to dictate her actions. She couldn’t let the fear win.

Surprisingly it was Jordan who came to her rescue. Her brother-in-law rose to his feet, dominating the room with his muscled bulk, almost dwarfing Hugh.

‘I think we should back off and let Roz make up her own mind in her own time,’ he said with the ease of a man confident of his authority. ‘She’d probably like to go home and think things over without the rest of us breathing down her neck.’