Oz screeched into the car park and stopped across two bays.

"So, what do you think of my new car?" he asked, patting the steering wheel.

"New? This was probably the first model they made that didn't have wooden wheels." Ess gradually relaxed her grip on the door.

"Well, she's new to me. And hush, you'll upset her. There was a time when age was revered. She got us here, didn't she? You should be grateful I'm on my Easter break. Well, close enough. No one attends the last lecture of the term. I didn't hear you refusing a ride."

Ess looked out at the park that spread before them. "Only because the tube doesn't come out this far. Respecting age is one thing, digging them out of their grave is another. Come on."

They exited the car. It was better suited to Oz's frame, Ess had to admit. The way Oz fitted into his old mini had been a conjuring trick. The magic with this car was not how it managed to accommodate Oz, but how it stayed together at all. At one time it might have been red, but the sun had faded it to rose, and the rain had mottled it brown. A pothole at speed, one felt, would reduce it to a cloud of rust, dust and paint flecks.

"Why don't you get a decent car?" she asked.

"Why don't you get one at all? Do you know how much value a new car drops merely by you purchasing it? No, this one will do fine until her time comes, and then, like a merry widower, I shall move on. That looks like the fellah. On, MacDuff."

A few hundred metres beyond the car park a stream ran the length of the park. An old brick footbridge crossed it, and arrayed around the bridge were figures, parasols, lights and trestle tables. A small group of onlookers formed an informal horseshoe around the bridge.

"I'll do the talking, okay, Oz?" she said as she hurried to catch up to him.

"Of course, though have no fear. Despite my contempt for the injustice of aristocracy, at least chummy here earns a living. Not work, exactly, but then I'm an academic. People in glass houses shouldn't drop their trousers and all that. I'm quite happy to stand back and watch."

"Really?" She frowned. That didn't sound like Oz.

"Really. Who's he shooting, by the way? Do you think there will be gratuitous nudity? I for one am always grateful for gratuitousness. And it's a bit parky. I could always warm the poor girls up. You know, doing my bit for the community."

That, on the other hand, sounded just like him. He was right, though. Despite the sun, spring was still struggling to free itself from the grip of winter. The onlookers and crew all wore thick coats. As they pushed through a large man stepped across the path and held up his hand.

"If you could either walk around or wait here for a while, sir, madam," he said, with the exaggerated politeness of a man that had both the authority and muscle to get away with being impolite.

"Hi," said Ess, smiling. "I phoned Lord Hever this morning. He's expecting us."

"Well, he's busy at the moment. You want to wait over there?"

'Over there' was a catering van behind a trestle table littered with polystyrene cups and bottles of expensive mineral water. A couple of porcelain women sat together in garden chairs, wreathed in cigarette smoke. Their exquisite party dresses were covered in puffer anoraks. They eyed Ess and Oz as they approached. "Afternoon, Ladies," greeted Oz, all smiles and bonhomie. They turned their impossibly beautiful faces back to the shoot without replying. Ess grabbed Oz's arm before he could make more of a fool of himself and marched him to the van.

"Coffee?" asked the woman in the van.

"Oh, we're not part of this," said Ess, waving at the shoot. "We're just waiting to speak to Lord Hever."

"Don't worry. I get paid a flat rate whether you drink it or not. So, you might as well, eh?"

"In that case, Madam, could I trouble you for a cup of tea?" said Oz.

"How'd you like it?"

"Hot and sweet, and strong enough to last all afternoon." He winked at her and she laughed.

"Gawd, he's a saucy one, ain't he. You need to keep your dad on a leash, you do."

Ess spun, hiding from Oz's outraged face.

A consumptive woman stood on the bridge wearing clothing too sparse and thin for the weather. Various youths stood around her holding white cloth stretch over frames. On a stepladder another young man balanced precariously, holding a white umbrella above the model. Lord Hever stood behind a camera on a tripod, a small plunger in his hand. He was in his fifties, salt and pepper hair still thick, immaculately dressed in a style that defined smart casual.

"Candice, darling," he said. "I asked you to look wistful. You're looking constipated. Are you? Are you getting enough fibre in your diet? Only constipation will add an inch to your belly, dear, and we can't have that."

The model's expression changed an iota. It was true, Ess thought. She did look constipated, but now she looked as though something smelled bad as well.

"You do know what wistful means, don't you? Remember before you were a model? Remember eating jam rolly-polly, going up for seconds? Try and remember what that was like." Click. "No, that's still the same look, love. Seriously, I can see your belly in the lens, and that constipation is rampant. Or are you pregnant?" Click. "Who are you going out with this week? Look out over the river, no this way a tad, that's it, now look into the distance and pretend your beau is about to walk round the corner." Click. "Really? Only now it looks like you're waiting to beat him up. Why's that? Are you angry he's got you up the duff?" Click.

"Piss off, Nick." She gave the peer a dirty look. Click, click, click.

"What's the matter? Don't you love me anymore? Wait. It wasn't me who got you up the duff, was it?" Click.

Candice managed to look both sulky and sexy as she looked over the river for her beau, whilst holding up her middle finger to the photographer. Click, click, click, click, click, click.

"Who's the finger for, Candice? Tom? But he's such a darling lad."

"Nick, you are such an arsehole." The clicks ran into each other as she rammed her fists onto her hips and glared at him.

"Yes, yes I am. Is that the first time you've told me that?" He raised a finger. "The second?" He gave her a two finger salute, which she returned with gusto. Click, click, click, click, click, click. "Sorry. But I'm the arsehole that's going to get you into Glad Rag Mag." He looked down at the camera screen. "Maybe even the cover. And then you can tell your accountant what an arsehole I am too. Okay, let's take fifteen. Get yourself warmed up, sweetness. You've earned a coffee. Me too."

Ess felt conflicted as Candice stomped towards the trestle, to be comforted by her colleagues with hugs and cigarettes. There was something about a highly paid model, stick thin, perfect bones, exploiting her looks for ridiculous amounts of money so that someone could use sex to sell their product that raised her hackles. On the other hand, no one, not even her, should have to be humiliated by a middle-aged man in the way she'd just witnessed.

Hever pulled a flask from his jacket, unscrewed the lid and took a swig. Ess would lay money it didn't contain coffee. The security man approached him and muttered in his ear. Hever looked over at Ess and nodded. The security man beckoned her over.

"You take it from here," said Oz. "I want to finish this heavenly brew. Besides, you know me and authority figures don't mix."

Ess looked at the trio of models huddled together like a scene from a chic Macbeth. "Don't do anything they'll call the police for," she said, and approached Hever. It was probably best. Oz hated authority, though he expected his own to be beyond dispute.

"Lord Hever," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm Vanessa. Thanks for seeing me."

"No," he said, shaking her hand. "It's not 'Lord Hever', it's either 'Your Grace' or Nick. Nick for preference."

"Okay. Then I'm Ess."

"Sorry, don't mean to be rude, but I'm on the clock. Martin warned me. Something about Daisy being in trouble?"

"What?" She hadn't intended the interview to be this brusque. She'd planned a gentle, subtle ease into the subject. "Yes. Well, no. Maybe. She's gone missing, and so we're trying to locate her. As far as we know, you were the last person to see her."

"Gawd, that makes me sound like a murder suspect."

"Oh no, not at all. What I mean to say is, you're the last point of contact, so we need to establish a timeline." That was better. She was getting her rehearsed dialogue back on track.

"Okay. So she turned up at my studio about two weeks ago. Three, next Tuesday. Sometime about lunchtime, maybe a bit before. I was doing some portraits. Then I shot her, of course, nothing formal. We sat around and chatted. Then she left. The sun was low, so maybe about six?"

"Did she say where she was going?"

"No, but then, no one ever knew where she was going, least of all her."

"Did she seem stressed or upset at all?"

"Daisy? God, no. If anything, the opposite. Something had happened, I think. Something good, I mean. Last time I saw her she was, well, she was Daisy. That was a couple of months ago. This time, she was even more so. She was just so full of fun. Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes?"

"How do you know she's missing?"

"Sorry?"

"Look, Daisy is a gorgeous girl. I mean, in every sense, and I love her to bits, but she's not exactly reliable, you know? She never turns up on time, if she turns up at all. Sometimes she'll be a couple of hours late, sometimes a couple of weeks. Anyone else and she'd be unemployable. So how do you know she's gone missing? How can you tell?"

Ess hesitated. How could she answer that without betraying a confidence? "I'm afraid I can't answer that, but there's a party who is convinced enough to employ me to find her."

"I knew it. A man. Well, good luck to her. She deserves it, and maybe he'll help her turn up on time."

"What time was she meant to arrive at your studio?"

Nick shrugged. "She wasn't. I mean, she wasn't booked at all. She just turned up, and I'm not going to turn her away. She has an agent."

"Terri Gibson?"

"That's her. I expect at some point she'll chase me for a commission, but whatever it is, it's worth it."

"Why? I mean, how can she get away with it? Being unreliable, I mean."

"Because she's Daisy. See Candice there?" He nodded at the table. As Ess turned the trio of models shot sullen looks in their direction. Nick waved and they turned back to their huddle. "Gorgeous, isn't she? Every red blooded man's dream. No disrespect, but there are a hundred just like her, and the agency could have swapped her out for someone else and I wouldn't have noticed. I'm a portrait artist. My best pictures are Joe Public who have faces that tell you a lifetime of stories. Commissions raise my reputation and give me access. Actors, singers, politicians. Faces people want to read. This." He waved his hand at the bridge. "This is the bread and butter. Magazine specials to sell a couple of more copies to the great unwashed. If they didn't pay so well I'd have nothing to do with it. You know this Real Women campaign? No more size zero? No more airbrushing? There's a technical term for it. It's called, um, what's the word? Oh yes. Bullshit. That's what it's called. The agencies still turn out the same product. I swear to God they can all wear each other's clothes. Same shoe size, same bra size and the same faces. Here, what do you think of this?"

He showed her the camera screen. On it a miniature Candice looked beautiful but sad, staring out across the splendour of the park.

"Very nice," said Ess, unsure what else to say.

"It's a number four."

"Sorry?"

"The agencies turn out clones, same bodies, same sizes, same set of stock expressions. That's a number four, the sexy sulk. They have five expressions, six on a good day. They never have real ones, because that creases up your face. Better to sulk than to have laughter lines. Not their fault. You don't need brains or talent or a personality to be a model, you just need to have this year's body and a good makeup artist. Oh, there are some bright models in the industry, I'm not saying there aren't, but it's not a prerequisite. And you have to be pretty, um confident to enter the game in the first place, and then everyone, your agency, your photographer, the tabloids, they all tell you you're gorgeous, and that's all they ever tell you. So that's all you are, a body that's confident in front of a camera."

"You mean vain."

"You said that, not me."

"That's still no reason to speak to them like you did."

"The big thing this year is going to be anarchy, apparently." He seemed to have not heard the accusation. Instead he turned to the camera again. "All the pretty young things are going to rebel by buying the same anarchic fashions from the big four fashion houses. Does Candice look like anarchy to you? Here." He flicked through the pictures. "Here, this one. What does this one say?"

On the screen Candice was transformed, her face contorted, her canines showing, sticking two fingers up to the world, in stark contrast to her dress and the peaceful scene behind her.

"That's the cover shot. That's why the magazines hire me. That's why Candice hates me but will bite my hand off for another shoot after the rag goes on sale. Anyone can point a camera and click. Getting that from an airhead who doesn't know what wistful means is the art." He smiled. "No offence to her, of course."

"So that's why Daisy came to you?"

"Daisy? My God no. Jesus, she's the freshest person in the industry. She turns up and all you have to do is keep the shutter moving. She's natural. You asked me if she seemed troubled. She never seems anything. She is always exactly what she is. Trust me, if she was troubled, it would be written in six inch letters all across the lens. My job today is to make the girls look great. Daisy made the photographer look great. That's the difference, and that's why she can get away with being Daisy."

"You like her."

He chuckled. "I love her to bits. Everyone does, even the girls. But not like that. Oh, I'd jump at the chance, but she's always so unattainable, too interested in you and what you do to mess around with that sort of thing. I was shooting a politician when she turned up. Won't say who, but you'd know him. He stayed behind for an hour, just to be near her, his phone going ballistic until his gopher physically dragged him away." He sighed. "Personally, I think she's sitting on a yacht somewhere, chatting to some industrialist who can't believe his luck, completely unaware three weeks have gone by. But if she is in trouble, let me know how I can help. Now, you'll have to excuse me, the sun is on the move and I have to earn my keep."

"Of course." Ess turned. Oz was looming over the models, Candice's hand in his. Ostensibly he was shaking her hand, but she'd seen him pull this trick before. He'd hold the grip, occasionally shaking as he spoke, using it as an excuse to hold hands with a pretty woman who was too polite to draw it away.

"I'll just drag my colleague off your models and let you wipe his slobber off them. Oz!" She strode towards the table. Oz looked up in innocent enquiry.

"Time to go already? What a shame. We were having such a lovely chat. Well, ladies, I must bid you adieu. Here's our card. Call me, any time." He dished cards out to the women, then held one out to Lord Hever. "Here you go, sonny. You can have one too, just in case you mislay a grouse moor or a castle or something." He turned back to Candice, held an imaginary phone to his ear and mouthed, "Call me." Her expression, as ever, was unreadable.