Joan shut the file. It was hard to believe that the pictures were of a girl of only twenty-four years of age, and even harder to believe that she had been a movie star and the envy of thousands of teenagers.
Anna parked her Mini in a large car park in Poland Street and made her way to Andrea Lesser’s agency. To her annoyance, the agent had left for an emergency appointment. She was due to return in the early afternoon.
A plump dark-haired girl appeared and introduced herself as Amy, Andrea Lesser’s secretary.
‘I’m sorry Andrea’s not here.’ Amy was apologetic. ‘She was expecting you but we had a big problem over at the BBC, as they’ve switched schedules and a client of ours is filming elsewhere. Can I make another appointment?’
‘When do you expect her back?’
‘She has a meeting here at one, but she should be free around two.’
‘I’ll come back this afternoon, but before I go, could I ask you something? Do you have any details regarding a possible publishing deal with Amanda Delany?’
Amy shrugged and shook her head. ‘No, sorry.’
Anna persisted. ‘Do you know if she was considering leaving the agency?’
‘No, and I would doubt it because Andrea took great care of her as she was such an important client. I know Amanda had been approached. They always are …’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘When you are as famous as Amanda Delany and with a big earning capacity, there’s always another agent sniffing around.’
‘Do you have any names of agents who might have tried to poach Amanda?’
The young girl hesitated.
‘Let me get you a copy of Spotlight. That’s where all the agents are listed.’ She disappeared through a frosted-glass partition behind the reception desk and came back with the book of contacts. ‘Here, you can take this away as it’s last year’s.’
‘Thank you very much. Please inform Miss Lesser that I will be back here at two. If it’s inconvenient, she has my mobile number.’
Anna was loath to move her car as she’d paid for three expensive hours of parking, so she put in a call to Dilys Summers to see if it was convenient for her to meet earlier than arranged. Miss Summers agreed so Anna took a taxi to Paddington.
Dilys Summers lived in a highrise council estate not far from the Ladbroke Grove flyover. It was neat and clean, just as Anna remembered it. The woman had a pot of tea and biscuits ready and waiting.
‘This is not to do with your relationship with Lord Halesbury,’ Anna said immediately, to put her at ease. ‘Do you mind me calling you Dilys?’
‘Not at all. It’s good to see you again. Please sit down and help yourself to tea.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You want to ask me about working at the Drury?’
‘Specifically about Amanda Delany. You were working there when she was admitted?’
‘Yes, I was. I left shortly afterwards to work for His Lordship, as I didn’t really enjoy my time there.’ Dilys paused. ‘I don’t need to go into what happened afterwards, as you know more than anyone about that.’
She looked across at Anna and said rather shakily, ‘I miss him dreadfully, but I’ve found part-time work at a local clinic for the elderly, so at least I’m working and keeping my mind off what might have been.’
Anna sipped her tea and ate two custard creams before taking out her notebook.
‘What can you tell me about Amanda Delany?’ she asked.
‘Well, I can tell you as much as I knew or was privy to whilst I was working there. It’s a very well-run clinic with high-profile clients and we do have to sign a confidentiality contract.’
‘I’m sure you do, but Miss Delany is dead.’
‘All those headlines in the papers, it’s shocking. She was such a beautiful girl, troubled but still so gorgeous and very sweet.’
Anna nodded, toying with the idea of taking another biscuit, then decided against it.
‘Take me through when you first met her.’
‘Amanda wasn’t assigned to me; she was obviously in a private room. We all knew who it was in there as there had been a lot of paparazzi outside. I think someone eventually called the police to move them on.’
‘I was on night duty, so she had maybe been resident for just twenty-four hours, I know it wasn’t long. Anyway, the buzzer was in the staff bay, which just had a small desk and chair; the private rooms were along a corridor. It was late, about one-fifteen in the morning …’ The other nurse on duty was tending to another patient, so Dilys had gone to see Amanda. She was looking like a child, sitting up in bed in a frilly nightdress and clutching a soft toy. When Anna asked if it was a rabbit, Dilys couldn’t recall.
‘Her hair was dishevelled and her face was pale, with deep dark circles around her eyes. I knew she had refused to eat any supper and I asked her what the problem was.’
Amanda had said she was hungry and wanted chicken noodle soup. Dilys made her a cup of tea. She noticed how dreadfully thin Amanda was, how shaky her skinny arms were, sticking out from the negligée. Dilys also noticed her badly bitten fingernails as she lifted the cup to her lips with both hands.
‘You know, it was hard for me to believe that the child was a film star. She looked sickly and was so nervous, saying she couldn’t sleep.’
The following night, Dilys had brought in two packets of chicken noodle soup.
‘She was so thankful, saying that she couldn’t eat anything. From her charts I saw that she had been given special meals, but there were notes beside them saying that she had refused them.’
So for the next couple of nights Dilys had taken in soup on a tray and added thin slices of toast. She also noticed that the nurse assigned to her care had administered sleeping tablets.
‘“They don’t work”, Amanda said to me.’
When it came to Dilys’s last night on duty, she told Amanda that she had brought in packets of soup for the other staff to continue to make up for her.
‘She was so grateful and asked me to sit beside her. I sat with her for quite a while and she held onto my hand. I watched her doze off and I eased my hand away. Then, just as I was walking out, she started to scream.’
‘Was she still asleep?’
‘Yes, that was what was odd. She screamed so loudly. It was a horrible wretched scream, like one long howl, but she was definitely asleep. I remained at the door, and just as I was about to leave, it happened again. This time though, Amanda had sat up and looked terrified. I talked to her and after a while she calmed down, but I wasn’t sure if she was awake or asleep, or if she was even hearing herself. She eventually lay back and hugged her soft toy to her chest, so I left. The next morning when my shift was over, I stopped in to see her.’
When Dilys had told her that she had screamed in her sleep, Amanda said nothing.
‘“You must have been having a bad dream,”’ I said to her, and she looked at me with those beautiful wide eyes. “You gave me quite a scare.”’
‘“It never goes away,” she told me. “That’s why I hate to go to sleep, because that’s what I used to do when I was a child, pretend it wasn’t happening, and I’d bite down on my blanket, but I wanted to scream then. Now it sometimes wakes me, but I didn’t realise everybody could hear. I thought it was still inside me …”’
‘Did she ever explain to you what happened to her as a child?’ Anna queried.
‘No, it’s not really my job to ask about those kinds of things, they have psychiatrists for that. I just felt very sorry for her, but I did mention it to one or other of the nurses and they said they’d heard her a few times. It was really a horrible sound, as if someone was in terrible pain.’
Dilys had no contact with Amanda for over two weeks as she was transferred to a different section. It was only when she went back onto night duty that she saw her again.
‘She was like a different girl, very bright and her skin had cleared up. She had acne when I’d first seen her and now she looked very fresh and
you could sort of understand why she was an actress. One of the other staff told me they’d weaned her off drugs and that was why she was looking so much better – and she’d also been eating.’
Anna accepted a second cup of tea. ‘Did you ever hear of any visitors?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I did. A few days later, I heard that Amanda had had a visitor that afternoon – a very famous actor.’
‘Do you recall his name?’
‘He was Irish.’
‘Was it Colin O’Dell?’
Dilys nodded hesitantly. She did remember another famous actor being mentioned – and this time she was sure of his name: Scott Myers. After he left, Amanda had been very troubled.
Dilys paused and started to stack the cups and saucers onto a tray.
‘I shouldn’t really be repeating this, you know,’ she said guiltily.
‘You’ve said nothing that could create any kind of a problem for you,’ Anna reassured her.
‘It was after that actor O’Dell came in that she went a bit crazy – very difficult to handle. She was rude to all the staff, and I have to say, I have never heard language like it before or since. She could swear like a trooper. They had to drag her back to her room as she had wanted to make phone calls; she was shouting that she wanted her mobile phone. One of the nurses asked me if I could go and talk to her, you know, seeing as how I’d got along with her.’
But Amanda had been very rude to Dilys too, and insisted that she was being held at the clinic against her will. When Dilys had offered her noodle soup, she had screamed at her to leave her alone.
‘I’d taken in a bowl of the soup and she threw it at the wall. I told her that she should be ashamed of herself. I had to get a bucket and mop to clean it up and she sat on the bed, cross-legged, looking like a little devil, and then she started laughing as if it was all one big joke.’
‘It must have been very unpleasant for you,’ Anna prompted.
‘Yes, it was. She kept on asking me if I knew who she was and I said to her that it didn’t matter who she was. I think these visitors had brought her in some champagne and God knows what else, but she behaved as if she was in a hotel and throwing a party, uncontrollable. Then I heard she had left, not that they could do anything to stop her going, she was there of her own free will and paying for it …’
‘By “these visitors” – do you mean Colin O’Dell and Scott Myers?’
‘I suppose so. Remember, I never actually saw who came to see her, but I know there was a third actor because one of the nurses had got his autograph. I’d never heard of him but she said he was famous.’
‘Rupert Mitchell?’
Dilys was unsure.
‘The paparazzi were outside like hornets, they’d be there for hours on end. I don’t think it was just for Amanda Delany – we had a few other celebrities there as well, but when she left us they apparently went crazy and chased her car down the road.’
‘Do you know if her parents ever visited?’
Dilys took a moment to think. Amanda’s father might have been with her when she was admitted, but she didn’t know for sure.
Anna left Dilys Summers and caught a taxi back into Soho. She went into Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street and did a big grocery shop, carrying the goods back to her car, by which time she hoped Andrea Lesser had returned to the agency. However, it was another fifteen minutes before Amy said her boss could see her.
Anna was taken aback by the size of the ultra-modern office, its windows overlooking Wardour Street. Andrea Lesser had numerous signed pictures of her clients on the walls but they were dominated by a photograph of Amanda Delany, wearing a white wig with a diamond tiara and a low-cut gown and large diamond necklace. The film title was in big bold red letters: The Heiress.
Andrea Lesser lifted her hand towards Anna as she entered.
‘Sit down, please. Sorry if I kept you waiting, but I’m afraid I can’t give you too long as I have another meeting.’
‘I just need to get a few things straightened out,’ Anna said quickly. ‘Basically, I need a timeframe from when Miss Delany first starred in Rock Baby, and her subsequent films.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘I am still attempting to get a complete picture of Miss Delany’s work and of the people she had worked with. It’s what we call “full victim profile”.’
‘Really?’ Andrea Lesser opened a drawer and sifted through several files before she opened one and took out a neatly typed sheet of paper. ‘This is her CV. We would send this to whoever wanted to know her experience; you’ll see we’ve attached names of her co-stars, directors and producers. There is also a website that you can access. This is used by companies, as well as her CV, to check up on whether or not, in Amanda’s case, she was fit and well. If necessary they could contact people direct to get a more personal background.’
‘Is this usual?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Do you do this with every actor you represent?’
‘Yes, when the casting directors like to know what work the actors have already done and if there is anything coming out that could clash with their project, it’s quite usual … we update it all the time. But we do not include any figures. That is always negotiable, especially the more popular an artist is.’
‘I would like to have details of Miss Delany’s salary.’
‘No, that is private. I’m sure you can gain access to her bank accounts, but we would not agree to giving you access to her fees from here. The fee for her last film I can tell you though, was over three million.’
‘Good heavens!’
‘Miss Delany was really one of the biggest up-and-coming British stars, with plenty of work on offer here and in the States.’
Anna asked if Amanda’s career had been jeopardised by the bad press about her drug-taking.
‘Not really. We were able to say she had a clean slate after her stay at the Drury.’
‘But that was a while back.’
‘I’m well aware of that, but since then Amanda, to my knowledge, was free of drugs. Sometimes she drank too much champagne, but she was really trying to get herself in shape for a meeting we were setting up in LA.’
‘That would be after Gaslight was completed?’
‘Exactly. The tragedy is, I’ve seen some of the rushes of that film and she’s exceptionally good.’
When Anna asked Andrea Lesser to explain how she had come to represent Amanda, she got a terse reply. All she would admit to was that one of the secretaries in the office had taken a phone call from a young actress, without representation, who had been offered a film test for the new independent film Rock Baby.
‘It’s quite rare that this happens, but I liked the look of her and the rest is history.’
‘She got the part?’
‘She got the part.’
‘Did you know that her flatmate was also up for the same role?’
‘No. Look, I’m finding this rather tedious and I don’t quite understand what on earth this has to do with the present day. It was all a very long time ago.’
‘We’re looking into every possible motive for her death.’
‘I don’t see how something that happened years ago could now surface as a motive!’
‘Did you know that Amanda had once been raped?’
Andrea Lesser pushed her chair back. ‘No.’
‘Were you aware how sick, both mentally and physically, Miss Delany was?’
‘Absolutely not. I don’t know where you got this information from, but for her to start shooting Gaslight we had to agree to a full medical test. If Amanda had not been given a clean slate, they wouldn’t have insured her for the role.’
‘Could you give me the name of the doctor who did that test?’
The woman stood up, saying, ‘You can obtain it from the production company; now, I really feel I have given you more than enough of my time.’
Anna wasn’t shifting an inch. She remained seated.
‘I’d
just like you to read something taken from a file we removed from Miss Delany’s laptop.’
She passed a sheet of paper over to Andrea Lesser, who sat down and picked up her reading glasses. She scanned the page slowly, then eventually looked up.
‘What is it I am supposed to find? This all reads rather like a teenager’s tacky memoir.’
‘That may be so, but if you look at the paragraph that I’ve highlighted – the one asking if she should use someone’s real name …’
‘What about it?’
‘Did you know she was writing her memoirs, tacky as they may be? It seems to me that she is asking someone to give her the legal go-ahead to put a name into that paragraph.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Andrea Lesser replied. ‘I had no notion she was writing anything. In fact, I couldn’t be more surprised.’ She passed the page back to Anna, then carefully removed her reading glasses, putting them back into their case.
‘You know, Detective Travis, you did bring this up on the telephone and I assured you then that I had never discussed this with Amanda, so I could not be privy to whether or not she had a publishing deal. All I can tell you is that I would be very surprised.’
‘And you’re as certain that she did not intend leaving you as her agent?’
‘Why on earth are we going over this again! I represented that poor girl since her first film. Any tension between us was only temporary – just one of those things.’
‘I suspect it would be very worrying if she had left you. Three million for her last film and probably substantially more for her next – that must be a very lucrative percentage for your agency.’
‘It is, although we have many more, far better paid stars, both here and in America.’
Andrea Lesser stood up again and this time Anna really had no option but to stand as well, collecting her briefcase and notebook. She thanked the agent for agreeing to give her the time and left.
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