‘I gotta tell ya, Mr Timmins,’ Emerson fell into the sofa opposite, ‘I gotta lotta stuff on my mind. I got some asshole rock manager tellin’ lies about my future wife… terrible lies.’ He pointed at the newspaper on the coffee table. Timmins lifted it. ‘And now poor Miss Palatine is out there somewhere,’ he swept his arm at the world all around, ‘out there with some other asshole, a crazy Scottish sonofabitch called Ben Proctor. Miss Palatine has, ahhh, been under a bitta pressure lately, but I need her to finish my movie; I need her fast. There are many issues here, Mr Timmins – financial issues, publicity issues, professional issues, personal issues. But they have two things in common: they all involve Miss Palatine and they are all hugely important to me.’
‘I see.’
‘So I guess what I need to know is can you find her and can you stop the lies?’
Timmins peered at the newspaper. ‘The police are already involved…’
‘I gotta find Palatine before they do and get her the hell outta here, back to our location in France. I gotta studio threatenin’ to pull the plug on me, and I can’t allow that to happen. We’ll shoot our London stuff after the heat dies down and I can sort this damn mess out.’
‘What is the nature of Miss Palatine’s relationship with this Proctor fellow?’
‘None that I know of. They only met for the first time a coupla days ago.’
Timmins held up Driscoll’s front-page photograph. ‘What about this other man, the one alleging the assault?’
Emerson looked uncomfortable. ‘Uhh, I think Miss Frost might be able to shed some light on that, although maybe,’ he glanced at Rupert, ‘in private. Right, Judy?’
Frost looked subdued. ‘Yes, H.E.’
‘Very well.’ The little man set down the newspaper. ‘Rupert, can you notify Cedric to be on standby for this Mr Driscoll; he’ll have the details shortly?’ Rupert lifted a duffel bag from the floor, dropped his games console into it and extracted a battered laptop. This, he opened, beeped it into life and tapped rapidly at the keys. Timmins, in contrast, issued his instructions slowly and gently, like a kindly uncle helping a child with its homework; Emerson and Frost both found themselves strangely lulled by his voice. ‘Now, is there anything to be had about this Mr Ben Proctor, believed to be Scottish, employed as a stuntman?’ No one spoke as Rupert typed furiously away. Eventually, he looked up.
‘Nothing with any of the main UK agencies, but I’ll run checks in the US and mainland Europe. There’s several B. Proctors living in Edinburgh, a few more in Glasgow… Stirling… Inverness… Aberdeen… If he lives in London, it could take a while, because there’s nearly a hundred.’
‘It may not even be his real name, so let’s leave him for now. Miss Palatine should be easier; can we see who she’s been talking to recently? Start with her mobile telephone, assuming that it’s registered to her.’ Again, no one spoke as Rupert attacked his machine.
‘The last call on her mobile was… six days ago, inward from another mobile phone belonging to… yup, a Mr J. Lockhart, 13 St Augustine’s Road, Camden, NW1. Nothing since.’
‘Mr Lockhart, eh?’ Timmins indicated the newspaper again. ‘I presume that would be the same Mr Lockhart as is mentioned here?’
Emerson coughed and glanced at Frost. ‘Like I say, my assistant needs to, uhh, fill you in about a few things.’
‘He’s her boyfriend,’ Rupert grinned. ‘Everyone knows that. He’s in that band, they’re sorta Coldplay only even more shit.’
Timmins kept his eyes on Emerson. ‘Perhaps Mr Lockhart might know where Miss Palatine is?’
‘Doubtful,’ Frost answered. She had turned quite pale. ‘But I can explain that, ah, aspect in a bit more depth…’
‘I see. Rupert, try Miss Palatine’s home number, please.’
‘Got them already: she has two,’ he announced, ‘one’s ex-directory.’
‘Yes, I think perhaps that first.’
‘Last call outward was at four-twenty-seven p.m. two days ago, to a number belonging to…’ he tapped again, ‘a Dr C.S. Passmore, 31 Devonshire Place, Marylebone, W1.’
‘See what you can find out about this Dr Passmore, please. As much personal detail as possible. I shall take a stroll with Miss Frost, then make a few telephone calls. Devonshire Place, eh? I do believe that’s quite close to here, isn’t it?’ The street had changed little in eight years. Sitting in the camper van, Annalise felt like a ghost from her own future. What if she could have seen herself, she wondered, as she was now? Her teenage self, she knew, would have walked straight past the odd-looking couple in the van, her attention the sole property of the glamorous Lucy, as they headed out of Kensington on yet another mad adventure. Back then, all she had cared about were her clothes, her hair and her second-hand opinions; not for attracting boys, but for winning something much more precious – Lucy’s approval.
‘I’ll go alone,’ she told Proctor.
‘What – you’re leaving your alter ego here with me?’
Froggy croaked, ‘You should be so lucky, fallguy.’
‘I bet whoever’s in there cannae wait to meet you.’
‘Oh, stoppit the both of you,’ she admonished.
‘He started it!’
‘Froggy, please. Ben’s right, I’ll need you to stay quiet while I talk to Monica. That’s if she even still lives here. If she doesn’t, I don’t know what we’re going to do.’ She stuck him in her belt, covered him with her cloak, fastened its clasps and stepped from the van.
‘It’s interesting,’ Proctor remarked, ‘how you can control that thing when you need to.’ But she ignored him and crossed the street. He shook his head and slipped a mobile phone from his jacket pocket.
The front door was still yellow, which Annalise took to be a good sign – new owners, she thought, might have changed the colour – although as she climbed the steps she saw that the paint was chipped, the downstairs windows were dirty and the curtains all closed. Compared to its neighbours, the house seemed rather sad, especially for South Kensington. She took a deep breath and tapped the brass knocker. She waited for a minute. There was no answer, so she tried again. This time, she waited for longer and was just about to turn away when she heard a noise from within. Sure enough, there was a rattle then the door squeaked open.
The woman peering out at her had Monica Goddard’s face, but she was much too heavy and wore a cheap pink tracksuit. Her hair was still styled like Liza Minelli’s but was streaked with grey. She leaned on a metal crutch, like a patient in a hospital, and seemed smaller than Annalise remembered.
‘Oh my God!’ the woman exclaimed. The voice was still Monica’s. ‘Come in, come in!’ The hallway stank of medicine and cat pee. Sure enough, two feline shapes bolted up the staircase as she entered. One stopped and stared back at her, an orange thing with evil eyes. ‘Lucy!’ Monica called out. ‘You’ll never guess who’s here!’
Annalise felt thrown – somehow, she had expected to find Monica and Geoffrey Goddard pretty much as she’d left them, in stylish bohemian comfort, only with Lucy long gone, married to a Russian oligarch or some billionaire in the Bahamas. Instead, it seemed as if darkness had descended on the household; the furniture looked old and scuffed, the art nouveau ornaments were gone from the hallway, the carpets stained and threadbare; a home turned sour was something Annalise could instantly relate to. Hobbling and grunting, Monica showed her into the downstairs living room, the place where she’d learned of her father’s death, but she had braced herself to see that. However, no amount of bracing could have prepared her for what she saw next.
The curtains were indeed closed, making the room – like Monica – seem shabbier and smaller. A television flickered in the corner. There was a click and a whirring noise, and a large lump of furniture swivelled around to greet her.
‘Allo Angalishe. Sh’been a while.’
The shape in the motorised wheelchair was piteously twisted. Some features were still Lucy’s: the cheekbones, the china-white skin. But she
had a tube hanging out of her mouth, her right arm was like a flayed stick of driftwood and one of her eyes had slipped halfway down her face.
‘Shurprished?’ the figure asked her. ‘F-fuck knowsh I was.’
Annalise felt sick. ‘What… what happened?’
‘Shtroke.’
‘A massive stroke,’ Monica echoed, settling herself into a high, metal-framed chair that also looked like something from a hospital. She gestured Annalise towards the sofa. ‘Two years ago now – lucky to be alive, aren’t you, my dear?’
‘No.’ Lucy sucked on her tube, which was connected a metal cylinder underneath her seat.
‘Outside a nightclub in Notting Hill,’ Monica continued, ‘she just happened to be walking by, didn’t you Lucy? She was on her way home from a quiet evening in the pub, she thinks someone must have spiked her drink, but we never found out what with, did we?’
‘No,’ gurgled Lucy, ‘we didn’tsh.’ Of course, Annalise knew that was far from the full story.
‘As for me, I’m bad with my hips: I’m due to have the left one done quite soon. I do hope they hurry, so I can look after poor Lucy better…’
‘I’ve sheen all your filmsh,’ Lucy drooled. Since walking into that awful room, Annalise had forgotten that she’d ever made any films. ‘Musht sheem funny to you now,’ she gestured at herself with her good hand, ‘the way thingsh have turned outsh.’ She slapped at the side of her chair, came up with a tissue and used it to dab around her mouth.
‘It’s really lovely to see you,’ Monica smiled and Annalise could feel that she meant it.
‘No it ishn’t.’ She could feel that Lucy meant it, too.
‘I see from the papers that you’re doing extremely well. As you can tell, things are a bit quieter here…’
‘How’s Geoffrey?’ The instant she asked, she knew she shouldn’t have.
‘I’m afraid that Geoffrey left us around the time of Lucy’s stroke. He took up with his publisher’s wife… He lives in Devon now and we don’t see as much of him as we would like–’
‘We don’t shee him at all!’ Lucy interjected.
Monica faltered but then made herself brighten. ‘You really must share some of your juicy gossip. Tell us, what’s Harry Emerson like? Is it true you’re getting married?’
‘That’s partly why I’m here.’
‘Oh?’
‘Monica, I’m sorry for being so rude, but I really need to ask you something.’ There was no easy way, so she just came out with it. ‘Did you have an affair with my father?’
Monica’s cheeks reddened and a wretched rasping from the wheelchair was Lucy having a fit of the giggles.
‘Well, I…’
‘Yesh!’ Lucy spluttered. ‘Yesh she didsh! On and off for twenny yearsh! You’re only working thash out now?’ The rasping redoubled in volume and vehemence.
‘Sometimes,’ Monica Goddard visibly slumped, ‘Lucy uses her condition to say the most hurtful things…’
Lucy convulsed on her obscene throne. The tube fell from her mouth and she flailed to reinsert it, sucking painful gasps of air. Annalise felt like vomiting but concentrated on Monica and saw that her eyes had filled. From her small, penitent voice, she knew that it was true.
‘May I ask… may I ask why you need to know?’
‘Because of something someone once said.’
Sylvia in the rented rehearsal room, telling her that her father would have chased anything in a skirt and how that woman from Kensington was a familiar face from those days. To think that, for years, Monica and Lucy had known things about her father that she herself had not. But look at them now, Darling Sweetheart; look at these objects of your affection. You put your hands on both these women, mother and daughter, and now here they are, another pair of broken afterthoughts to add to your sprawling pile.
‘L-Lucy… she’s not by any chance…?’
‘No.’ Monica shook her head. ‘Definitely Geoffrey’s.’
‘Did Geoffrey know?’
‘I’ll never forget that awful night,’ Monica’s voice lowered, ‘the police came, and I had to fetch you from the school. I just wanted to curl up and die, but Geoffrey made me do it – that was my punishment. He said that anything connected with David was my responsibility.’
‘Oh Angalishe,’ Lucy slavered, ‘thish ish prisheleshh! I haven’sh had thish mush fun in agesh! I know you’re rish and famoush, bush you really should come by more often!’
‘You have a bad mouth, Lucy Goddard!’ her mother admonished.
‘One of the few bitsh thash shtill worksh, unforshunately for you!’
‘Annalise, I’m sorry,’ Monica whispered, ‘but we were part of the same set, your father and I. We ran around together. The seventies were like that, you know…’ and she glanced at her daughter. ‘Every vice they discover, young people think they’re the first to try it. They never imagine that it’s all been done before, often by their boring fart parents.’
‘What was my father really like?’
‘A compleshe an’ utter bashtardsh!’ Lucy roared. ‘I’ve told her many timesh how he even tried to shcrew me, but she doeshn’t believe me! On the yachtsh!’ She gargled at the perveted hilarity of it all. ‘Thatsh why she ran away!’ Lucy pointed at Annalise with her bony hand. ‘She knew! Go on, Angalishe, tell her! She thinksh I’m lying to her out of badnessh! But you shaw him grope me up, didn’t shyou? You shaw him touch me!’
‘You say such awful things just to upset me!’ Monica protested. ‘The David Palatine that I knew was kind, and… and full of fun; a lovely person to be with.’
‘Bush in the end,’ Lucy sneered, ‘he preferredsh me.’
‘She treats me like a punchbag.’ Monica put a shaking hand on Annalise’s arm. ‘But you have to believe me, that’s why I took you in, because I loved him. So many times I would look at you, and pretend…’ and now Annalise felt her eyes fill, but she didn’t want to cry in front of Lucy Goddard. ‘I’m sorry,’ Monica too was on the verge of tears, ‘but… does that answer your question?’
‘Everyone knew my father better than I did.’
‘If that’s what this is about,’ Monica sniffled, ‘then you should talk to the woman who knew him the best.’
‘My mother died six years ago.’
Monica nodded. ‘I heard, but I wasn’t thinking of Gabriela. I meant his first wife, from before he was famous.’
‘He… he was… married before…?’
‘You didn’t know?’ Monica’s eyes widened. ‘I’m sorry, I just assumed–’
‘I never knew,’ Annalise practically shouted, ‘because no one ever told me!’
‘When he was still quite young, to a lovely girl called Evelyn Davie. She was an artist…’
‘Did he shcrew you behindsh her back, too?’
‘Don’t be foul!’ Monica snapped, but Lucy just gargled.
‘I didn’t know!’
‘Maybe your parents had their reasons for not telling you… and the press never picked up on it, you know, because it was before he started making those funny films.’
‘Were there any… I mean, did they have–’
‘No, there were no children. They were only together for a few years and when he left Evelyn for your mother, she didn’t make a fuss – she just quietly slipped away. Remarried, eventually, way up north, some fishing village in Scotland. Pit… Pit something?’
‘Thash usheful! Pitsh shomethingsh!’
‘Oh, do be quiet! Annalise, I’m sorry, she’s taking terrible advantage of your being here and I think I know why – it must be hard for her, seeing you so beautiful and doing so well…’
‘No it ishn’t!’ Lucy snarled. ‘I don’t give a shitsh! And her fashion shenshe shtill fucking shucksh! What’sh wish the cloak, Angalishe? You preggersh?’
‘No. I kept it from a film where I played a painter’s mistress.’
‘Ash opposhed to a movie-shtar’sh whore?’
‘Lucy!’ Monica shrieked. ‘That’s
enough! She doesn’t mean these awful things!’
‘Yesh I do!’
‘I’m going to have to give her her medication. She’s not supposed to get excited…’
‘Fucksh you! Fucksh everybody!’
Annalise stood, walked over to Lucy’s wheelchair, knelt before it and took her good hand. Lucy stared at her with feral suspicion.
‘I’m sorry, I haven’t been much of a friend. You both took care of me at a time of my life when no one else wanted me.’
‘Hey!’ Froggy protested from beneath her cloak. ‘You had me!’ Annalise jumped up and slapped herself in the stomach.
‘You be quiet!’ Monica and Lucy watched her in puzzlement. She knew she had to leave immediately. ‘Look, it’s been lovely seeing you both – don’t get up, Monica – but there’s something I need to do. I promise I won’t forget you.’
‘Who do you shink you are – Florenshe fucking Nightingale?’
‘Goodbye, Lucy – Monica, thanks.’
‘Well, I’m sure I haven’t…’
But Annalise fled into the hallway and let herself through the yellow door. She stopped on the outside steps to dab her eyes with her sleeve. She looked over at the van; Proctor was talking to a traffic warden, an older man with a toothbrush moustache. As she approached, he snapped his notebook shut and sauntered off.
‘What did he want?’
‘Uhh… some crap about one-hour parking zones. So did you get what you came for?’
Without answering, she climbed into the van, slammed the door, opened her cloak and pulled Froggy from her belt.
‘You’re a bad frog!’ She held him by one ear and wagged her finger in his face. ‘A very bad frog!’
‘And you’re a very bad human!’ he snarled. ‘You left me for them, remember? The first time you went away! And even now, you’re still ashamed of me! All this bullshit about being abandoned by your father – you’re as bad as he was!’
‘Don’t you say that!’ she roared.
‘It’s true!’ Froggy roared back. ‘You’re just like him! Your head is so far up your arse that you don’t give a shit about anyone else!’
Darling Sweetheart Page 27