Kerry Barrett - The Hidden Women

‘No,’ I said. She was right. I’d not worked on Where Did You Come From? as long as Elly had, but I’d researched the family trees of lots of celebrities and not been so much as introduced to anyone.

‘And it’s Jack Jones?’ Elly went on. ‘Jack. Jones.’

I nodded. ‘It’s an interesting one, actually. His great-grandfather was at the Somme …’

I trailed off as Elly waved her hand to shush me.

‘He’s gorgeous,’ she said. ‘Properly handsome. And I’ve heard he’s going to be in that new superhero film soon so he’ll be a massive Hollywood star.’

I nodded again. I knew who Jack Jones was of course – star of the latest Sunday night detective drama that was wowing audiences, and tipped for superstardom – and Elly was right, he was gorgeous. In any other circumstances I’d love to meet him. But I had a certain way of working, and a system, and a process, and I didn’t appreciate interference or anyone checking up on me, however handsome they were.

‘Will you come with me?’ I asked Elly. ‘To the meeting?’

She gaped at me. ‘Seriously?’ she said. ‘The meeting with Jack Jones?’

I couldn’t help laughing at her face. ‘Yes, the meeting with Jack Jones,’ I said. ‘I could do with the help.’

Elly was getting up from her chair. She pulled on her coat and picked up her bag as I looked on in confusion.

‘Is that a no?’ I said.

‘It’s a yes,’ she threw back over her shoulder as she headed for the lift. ‘I’m going to buy a new top and get my hair blow-dried.’

Chuckling to myself I turned back to my screen. We worked on more than one celebrity story at a time and I was currently tracking the maternal line of a breakfast TV presenter. I’d got right back to the early 1800s and I thought I might be able to go further if I was clever about it.

I clicked on to the census web page I used, intending to get back to work, though I couldn’t concentrate on Sarah Sanderson properly with the news that Jack Jones was coming into the office weighing on my mind. I absolutely loved my job and I considered myself to be really lucky that I’d landed this role on Where Did You Come From? Social history may have been my passion but it wasn’t exactly well paid – so making the jump into television was brilliant for me – and I enjoyed the research as well as seeing the process of the show being made. My colleagues were lovely, and Fliss was very understanding when it came to having to rush off on time each evening to collect Dora from nursery, or working from home when she was ill.

Spinning round in my chair, I surveyed my shelves of neat brown folders, each with the name of the celebrity written along the spine and arranged in alphabetical order. I ran my finger along them until I found J and pulled out the Jack Jones file. I’d found out quite a lot about his family already so I had things to tell him. But today I was supposed to be working on Sarah Sanderson’s family history. Giving up an afternoon to Jack Jones was going to throw everything out.

I opened the folder and looked at the picture of him clipped to the front cover. I liked to have a photo of each person so I knew whose family I was researching – especially for those celebs I didn’t really know much about. It helped them become real for me, and then their families became real, too.

Elly was right, Jack Jones was really handsome. He had glossy brown hair that was longish and curlyish and flopped over his forehead, and a smile with a hint of mischief. I felt a brief flicker of excitement. Though I wasn’t a massive fan of the whole celeb thing – I couldn’t name the Kardashians or the members of One Direction – I had really enjoyed the detective series that Jack had starred in. I wondered if it would be weird to discuss the cryptic ending with him and decided it would be a bit fangirl. Mind you, I thought, not as fangirl as Elly getting her hair done.

I picked up my phone, smiling at the picture of Dora wearing my sunglasses on my home screen, and took a photo of Jack’s picture, then added it to my siblings’ group chat.

‘Guess who I’m meeting this afternoon …’ I typed.

Almost straight away, my baby sister Imogen replied. ‘OMG!’ she wrote. ‘Is that Jack Jones? I love him!’

I grinned. Before I could reply, a message arrived from my other sister, Miranda. ‘I have no idea who that is,’ she wrote. ‘But he’s easy on the eye.’

I smiled again. My sisters were nothing if not predictable.

‘Has anyone heard from Andy?’ Another message pinged through from Miranda. ‘I can’t see if he’s getting these. Immy manages to reply all the way from Africa and he can’t be bothered to keep in touch from Scotland.’

I made a face at my phone. I adored my big sister Miranda but she could be a bit of a mother hen. Not surprising, I supposed, when you thought about what she’d had to take on when we were kids, and I’d never forget how she’d been there when I needed her when Dora was born.

‘He’s probably not on Wi-Fi,’ I typed. Andy was on an archaeological dig somewhere on a windswept island in the North Sea – hardly hanging out in a coffee bar in Glasgow as Miranda obviously thought. ‘He’ll check in when he can.’

I threw my phone into my bag and pulled out my make-up. If Elly was dolling up to meet Jack Jones, then perhaps I should do the same.

Jack Jones was nothing like I’d expected. For a start he arrived by himself. No entourage, no publicist, not even a driver. He just got off the tube and sauntered into the office, scruffy bag thrown over his shoulder and hair unwashed. Elly was not impressed by his distinctly un-starry appearance. She went down to reception to meet him, giddy with excitement, while I went into the meeting room, laid out some biscuits on a plate and made sure the coffee machine was working.

I put my folders of research on to the table and waited for them to arrive, nervously tapping my fingers on my knee. What if he messed up my notes? What if he questioned my methods? I wasn’t comfortable about this at all.

‘This is your researcher, Helena Miles,’ Elly said, standing at the door of the room and ushering Jack Jones inside. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

I stood up.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ I lied, holding out my hand for Jack Jones to shake. Wait. Elly was leaving us to it? What? I caught her eye over Jack Jones’s shoulder. She wrinkled her nose up at his back and flicked her newly blow-dried hair in a disdainful shrug. Jack Jones obviously didn’t live up to her expectations. Horrified at the idea of entertaining a bona-fide celebrity by myself, I widened my eyes pleading with her to stay, but she spun round and headed back to her desk.

‘Is everything okay?’

I dragged my eyes from Elly’s retreating back and looked at Jack Jones, who was still holding my outstretched hand.

‘Oh,’ I said, awkwardly, dropping his hand like it was hot. ‘Sorry, Mr Jones. Sorry.’

Jack Jones smiled at me. ‘Call me Jack,’ he said. ‘Is it okay if I call you Helena?’

I liked the way he said my name in his clipped, period-drama accent.

‘Of course,’ I said.

He smiled at me again, a sort of wonky, half-smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He looked straight at me and I looked back and my stomach flipped over. He was gorgeous. At least his face was. For the first time I took in what he was wearing – scruffy jeans, battered trainers and a scuffed leather jacket. His brown canvas bag was slung across his body and his hair was a mop of dirty curls, very different from the hair that artfully fell across his forehead in the picture at the front of his file.

Unable to help myself, I glanced down at the photo on the folder. Jack saw me looking and grinned again.