After years of working in hotels and as a domestic maid, Magda Pawlik had mastered the art of opening doors silently.

She now applied this professionalism to the door to Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s bedchamber. Inside, it was dark and stuffy – it was two o’clock in the afternoon but the blind was still drawn. Either Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was still asleep, or she hadn’t come home after the party last night.

Magda blazed a trail through the empty bottles of Appletiser, used Nicorette patches and unwashed clothes. When she reached the window she gave the toggle on the blind a stout pull. The maid knew that her mistress had a three o’clock appointment that afternoon. It was with the team of medical experts that Tara Palmer-Tomkinson now consulted every day.

The room appeared to be empty. But the Polish polisher knew better than to trust appearances.

‘Tara?’ she called out, tentatively.
‘‘                    ’ Tara Palmer-Tomkinson replied sleepily.
‘Taradarleen? Are you here, sweetie?’

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson yawned.

‘Tara?’
‘                    ’ Tara Palmer-Tomkinson repeated, more loudly.

Magda closed her eyes and stood perfectly still, as poised as a doe in a forest clearing. She focussed all of her energy into hearing any Tara Palmer-Tomkinsons that might be in the room.

‘‘                    !’

Magda could hear the chonking of the toggle by the window. She could hear the noise from the oven downstairs. She could hear the television in a house two doors away. But she couldn’t hear Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.

Magda’s nostrils dilated a fraction.

She could smell Clinique moisturiser. She could smell the bread in the oven downstairs. She could smell Appletiser. But she couldn’t smell Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.

The maid opened her eyes and sighed.

‘She must be out again, fucking thee lazy bastard son of some rich bastard. Kurwa mac, what a slut!’
‘    !             ?!     !’

She set to work throwing Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s unwashed clothes into the empty linen basket, swearing all the time in Polish and English.

‘Govno! Look at all thees fucking sheet… why can’t she never put nothing in thee fucking basket?’

After a minute of this she stopped abruptly and held something up at arm’s length. It was a bustier intricately laced with little pearls – a really beautiful garment. Magda didn’t throw this into the linen basket, but folded it carefully and put it under her arm. She had a niece in Szczecin who was the same size as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.

The good woman straightened wearily, one strong arm embracing the heavy wicker basket. Just as she was about to leave the room, something caught her eye. It was small and sparkly and was lying all by itself in the middle of the huge white dressing table.

It was a Tiffany diamond ring.

Of course, Magda put the ring in her pocket.

‘                !!           !!!’

With the care and expertise of a career maid, she closed the door silently after her.

Charles Palmer-Tomkinson took another puff on his cigar. His dear friend was still talking.

‘… this Pete chappie would seem to have some kind of mental illness. Almost as soon as the contest was over, he was seeing Nikki everyday, appearing together with her on television chat shows, saying he was going to marry her and whatnot. Charles, it was awful. Have you ever watched someone you admire go on and ruin their life while you just have to stand by and do nothing?’
‘Oh, many times…’
‘Anyway, the news is, he’s not with her anymore, he’s with another girl called Cherry Costin and they’re already engaged.’
‘They don’t hang about, do they?’
‘No well, they’re young.’ The Prince reflected. ‘It was very different for Camilla and me. We were older, there were children involved… I had responsibilities. She just had to wait her turn.’
‘Plus of course, the marriage vow is sacred.’
‘There is that as well, of course. Of course.’

Silence settled on the pair. Charles Palmer-Tomkinson sat back in his seat, watching the lights from the M3 flicker in the distance. He wondered whether his beloved deer had bedded down for the night or whether they were still busy with their hushed, measured movements. He liked the idea of sharing the night with a whole host of nighttime beings, watching and feeding and making new life.

The Prince of Wales sat forward on the edge of his seat. Talking about Pete and Nikki had roused him. He sat coiled and ready, as if waiting for his horse to be prepared for the hunt.

‘You can find out more if you want to’, he said. ‘There’s an interview with him in here.’

The Prince of Wales passed Charles a weathered copy of Heat magazine.

‘Who?’
‘Pete Bennett, the chap you’ve been asking me about. Have a read of it. I’ve got his autobiography too if you’re interested. It’s at Birkhall, but I can send for it easily enough.’

Puffing on his cigar, Charles Palmer-Tomkinson reached across and took the magazine. He hadn’t asked the Prince Charles a single question about Pete Bennett. The conversation about Pete and Nikki had been instigated by a chance remark from the Prince about a related topic. It had then been taken up by the Prince, who had gone on to ask an exploratory question about the couple. To this, the Prince responded knowledgably enough. While he talked, the Prince listened carefully, raising his eyebrows and making little cogitative noises. When his reflexive interlocutor had finished, the Prince proffered an anecdote of his own relating to the pair. It turned out that the Prince had heard the anecdote too and he chortled along with the Prince before the Prince had even finished the story.

Charles Palmer-Tomkinson was an old friend of the Prince Charles and was used to his ways. He knew that once the future-king got into a fad, he could talk for England – celebrity gossip was simply the newest obsession. Architecture! Organic farming! The peasantry! Charles Windsor was capable of a schizophrenic elucidation of all these topics and more.

‘There’s also a thing about Jordan in there’ said the Prince. ‘Not the country Jordan but the woman Jordan – Katie Price. She’s dreadful, but it’s probably worth reading nevertheless.’
‘Right.’
‘But, after you’ve read it, could you not throw it away? I need the full set to bind at the end of the year.’
‘Of course.’

Charles Palmer-Tomkinson supposed he only had himself to blame for giving the Prince his very first copy of Heat some months ago. In those days he had bought the magazine to keep abreast of his daughter’s exploits. Patricia had enjoyed reading it too, of course. But he hadn’t bought a copy since the day, already six weeks ago, that Tara Palmer-Tomkinson had disappeared for good.

In those six weeks, Charles Palmer-Tomkinson had lumbered around in near-silence. He’d kept all his regular appointments and diary commitments but he’d been unable to focus on anything, so that his new life was nothing more than a mockery of his old one. Inside, he raged against anyone and everyone – the media, the scientific community, the bloody government. Most of all, he was furious with Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, not for leaving without saying goodbye, but for going without leaving.

Impatiently, he turned the pages of the magazine. To Charles Palmer-Tomkinson, the mixture of high-street fashion, celebrity gossip and product placement seemed anything but light-hearted. His grief interpreted the impudent headlines and ‘circles of shame’ and little arrows telling one to turn the page as the colourful apparatus of a joke, a joke targeting him. He felt certain that in a vague but definite way the magazine was laughing at him.

The Prince watched his friend closely as he flicked through the treasured publication. ‘Oh’ he said, abruptly ‘I see that Tara’s got a new advert out.’
‘Tara? What – my Tara?’
‘Yes, yes – in that magazine, old boy. There’s a pullout supplement on Jade Goody – you’ll see the advert is on the back of that.’

Twisting round to catch the light from the window, Charles hurriedly found the page and looked down to see… a picture of a Vauxhall Astra. The drop head car was photographed moving over a country stream, seemingly without a driver to steer it. Underneath, the headline said ‘Disappear with the new Astra TwinTop’ and then in smaller writing, ‘The car of choice for Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’.

‘I had no idea she was still working’ said the Prince of Wales. ‘You never mentioned it.’
‘No, well, I…we…’ Charles hadn’t a clue what to say. He swallowed.
‘When did you last … that is, when was she last here? Or is she here all the time?’

Charles Palmer-Tomkinson looked at the Prince of Wales.

‘She was here last week – Patricia heard the piano playing upstairs. Or at least, she thought she heard it….when she reached Tara’s rooms it had gone quiet. But the lid was up! On the piano – the lid was up.’
‘Right, yes. Someone was playing it then.’
‘Yes. And the same day, Tara ate her food. We leave food for her, you see, a plate of food and a cup of Appletiser. And the food disappeared on the Wednesday which meant that she was here, you see…’
‘Or it could be that you’ve got mice -’
‘No! It’s not possible. We don’t have any mice here.’
‘Really, Charlie? You should see the mice at Highgrove…’
‘Well this isn’t bloody Highgrove, is it?!’

Something about Charles Palmer-Tomkinson’s tone when making this observation made the Prince pause and look at his friend carefully. He was pale, and seemed to be quivering oddly. He decided to drop the mice.

‘No. You’re right, Charlie, of course you’re right. This isn’t Highgrove at all.’
‘No.’

Charles sighed, and turned in his seat to face the black estate once again. He took a few more puffs on his cigar. The good tobacco and the motorway dirge had the effect of steadying him. He thought of all the countless millions of people who had ever driven past his estate on that awful road. On their way to their awful jobs or their awful relatives or going on awful holidays by the sea.

‘So she was here on Wednesday’ prompted the Prince, after a few minutes.
‘Yes’, said Charles Palmer-Tomkinson, ‘She was here on Wednesday but on Thursday the food was left uneaten. That means she must have gone down to London. Either that or she’s on a bloody diet again.’
‘What? That G.I. one, do you think?’
‘Most probably.’
‘Yes… Camilla tried that one.’

Charles Palmer-Tomkinson didn’t respond. Smoke from his cigar curled upwards in the crisp night air.

‘Anyway, good old Tara’ said the Prince at last. ‘I’m glad she’s still about. There’s no one quite like your girl.’

At this remark, Charles Palmer-Tomkinson couldn’t help but smile. He looked down at the picture of his daughter driving through the countryside in her new Vauxhall convertible. In a strange way, invisibility suited her very well. She seemed so happy, so free, zipping along with her beautiful hair blowing invisibly in the wind.

Of course, he would continue to miss his daughter with the desperation of a bodily pain - this picture of the new Astra TwinTop didn’t change that. But Charles Palmer-Tomkinson knew that his daughter had always been more than just the conduit for a father’s love. He should thank heavens that she was ‘still about’ somewhere, making an unseen fool of herself, touching all those around her with her own imperceptible sense of fun.

‘Good old Tara, there’s no one quite like your girl.’ Unquestionably, it was the old boy’s first true observation in months.

Welcome, newcomers, latecomers and beachcombers to our serial The Trouble with Tara. Imagine if you will that Britain’s feisty society flibbertigibbet, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, is slowly becoming invisible. What would be the repercussions for the world at large?

You can download all the parts so far in one handy, mobile fiction unit.

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