Fallen Angels

by Tara Hyland

  After she’d received the letter from Max, Cara had begun tracking everything on him, too. There were fewer articles in the last decade; he’d become something of a recluse after her mother’s death. But she had seen a small piece reporting that he’d been taken into hospital. Cancer. It didn’t sound as if he had long left.

  Cara still had no idea yet if she was going to respond to his letter – but she knew that, whatever her decision, she needed to make it soon.

  The doorbell rang, the unfamiliar sound making her jump. No one ever came round – correction, she never invited anyone round. She went to open the door, unsure who to expect, and found Jake standing outside.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Cara couldn’t hide her surprise. ‘Do you need me at the Chronicle?’

  His mouth twitched, clearly amused that her first thought on seeing him would be work. ‘That’s not much of a welcome,’ he chided gently.

  ‘Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting you.’ She noticed then that he was in jeans and a sweater, his out-of-the-office uniform. ‘So, if it’s not work, then why are you here?’

  He shrugged. ‘I always feel rotten after a funeral. I guessed you would, too.’ He held up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. ‘Thought this might help ease the pain.’

  Cara looked from him to the bottle and then back again. Finally, she smiled. ‘Well, it certainly can’t hurt.’

  Jake stepped inside and followed her through to the little sitting room. He took a pointed look around at the sterile décor: the absence of photographs and knick-knacks. ‘I really like what you’ve done with the place,’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘Oh, don’t start,’ Cara groaned, getting some tumblers from the cabinet. ‘You know I’m too busy to play house.’

  As she poured the drinks, Jake got the fire going. With the only seating option being plastic chairs, they opted instead for sitting on the floor, by the hearth. Cara was surprised to find how grateful she was for his company. Jake knew a little about Annie, and how the Irishwoman had taken Cara in, but now, with the day’s events on her mind, she found herself opening up about her romance with Danny, and how after he’d left, she’d fallen out with his mother.

  ‘That wasn’t fair of me,’ Cara admitted. ‘She was the closest thing I had to a mother, and when Danny rejected me, I took it out on her. I shouldn’t have. I let her down.’

  ‘You saw her before she died,’ Jake pointed out reasonably. ‘You made your peace with her.’

  ‘Yeah, but that couldn’t make up for all those years I ignored her. I can’t take that back.’

  ‘She understood that you were hurt. Deep down, I bet she knew that it was Danny you were angry with, not her.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Cara shook her head. ‘I don’t even know if that was the reason any more. Maybe it was just an excuse not to see her. Maybe I just don’t want anyone around.’ She snorted in disgust at herself. She was feeling a lot of self-loathing tonight. She downed the hot amber liquid, wincing as it hit the back of her throat before starting to speak again. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. No wonder I’ve got no one, when I keep pushing everyone away.’

  Cara reached for the bottle of whiskey to pour herself another measure, but Jake put out a hand to stop her.

  ‘Wait. Look at me.’ When she didn’t, he said more forcefully, ‘Cara, look at me.’

  Slowly, she raised her gaze to meet his. He saw the old wariness in her eyes and felt disappointed that even now, at a time like this, she was acting as if she didn’t need anyone. He knew that, underneath it all, she was vulnerable – she just didn’t like to show it. Instead, she put up a defensive front and wouldn’t let anyone in. He hated that Danny bastard for hurting her so badly that she behaved like this.

  ‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ he told her now. ‘You’re not to blame for what happened.’ He put his hand on her right cheek. ‘You’ve got nothing to feel bad about.’

  Up until then, Cara hadn’t been able to cry. But something about his words set her off. Hot tears began to fall. Jake’s grip tightened on her wet cheek, and her hand reached up to cover his. Swivelling her head, she buried her mouth in his palm. It could have stayed like that, nothing more than a comforting gesture between two colleagues, two friends. But, after a second’s hesitation, she slowly ran her tongue across his warm skin.

  Jake let out a slow breath. Over the past few years, they’d grown so close in many ways, but she’d always kept a distance between them. Since that night he had taken her for dinner, she’d made sure never to let anything remotely romantic develop between them. Was that all about to change?

  ‘Cara?’ He murmured her name, a question about what was happening between them.

  In answer, she raised her eyes so that she was looking up at him. ‘Kiss me,’ she said softly, almost a plea.

  It was all the invitation he needed. With a low growl, his mouth came down on hers, his arms reaching round her waist, pulling her to him. And she was kissing him too, falling back onto the rough carpet, dragging him down on top of her. And all the while, she was thinking how good it felt, being held by him, feeling the weight and warmth of his body, having the physical closeness of another human being.

  But even as she thought that, a little voice nagged at her that she was being naïve. This could never be for one night. Not when it was with Jake. They’d go out, fall in love, maybe end up living together. Then one day, just when she was happy, he’d start to lose interest, or perhaps he’d find someone else. And she’d be left alone again, miserable and broken.

  She tried to put the dark thoughts from her mind, and to concentrate instead on Jake’s lips on her neck, his fingers working at the buttons of her shirt. But now, for her, the moment was ruined. She broke away.

  ‘Stop!’ she panted. ‘Wait a moment—’

  Jake’s eyes flew open. Cara saw confusion there and wished she could think of something else to say.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  He was still lying on top of her, oblivious to what had been going on in her head. Cara hesitated for a moment, knowing that he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. Pushing him off, she sat up.

  ‘God, I’m sorry,’ she said, unable to look at him. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. I’m upset, I’ve had too much drink.’ She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t help it. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. The funeral must have got to me more than I realised.’

  Jake reached out and put his hand on her arm, as though to stop her jabbering on.

  ‘Cara—’

  ‘Don’t.’ The tone of her voice was so firm that it brought him to a halt. ‘I told you before. This can’t happen.’

  ‘But why not?’

  Cara could feel Jake’s frustration coming off him in waves. She ventured a look at him, knowing it was the only way he could see how determined she was about this.

  ‘Because I don’t want it to,’ she said quietly.

  There was a silence. Jake stared at her for a long moment. It seemed to Cara as if he might be about to say something, but then he appeared to change his mind.

  ‘Fine,’ he said eventually.

  He put on his shoes and coat as quickly as he could, clearly eager to get away now. It was only once he was at the door that he turned back to look at Cara again, his eyes serious.

  ‘You know, I’m not going to wait around for ever,’ he said, and then he was gone.

  After he’d left, Cara poured herself another glass of whiskey and roamed the silent flat, feeling aimless. Somehow, she ended up back in her room, drawn to the letter that Max had sent her. A wave of bitterness passed through her. This was all Franny’s fault. If she hadn’t left, Cara knew her life would have been so different. She might have actually been able to trust someone, to love someone.

  It was a moment of clarity for her. She needed to find out what had happened to her mother. Because how was she ever going to move on until she put the past to rest? It sounded as though Max didn’t have long left – an
d once he went, so would her chance to discover the truth.

  Feeling surprisingly clear-headed, the drama of the evening having sobered her up, Cara sat down at her desk and began composing a letter to Maximilian Stanhope.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Once Cara had made the decision to accept Max’s invitation, the need to uncover the truth about her mother consumed her. For years, she’d tried to forget the woman who had abandoned her. Now, it occupied her every waking hour.

  After writing to Max telling him that she would fly out to see him the following month, she spent the next few weeks planning her trip to LA. She went back through all the articles that she’d collected, painstakingly piecing together a timeline that began with Franny’s arrival in Hollywood in 1954. Then she started to make calls to everyone who had ever been associated with her mother, arranging to meet with them. Her journalism background provided the ideal cover for her investigations. She was deliberately vague about her intentions, saying that she was writing a series of articles on the Golden Age of Hollywood, which might end up being turned into a book. Most were more than happy to agree to speak with her: having fallen out of favour with the press years before, they were eager to get their name back in the media any way that they could.

  With her trip all arranged, Cara went to Neil to ask for a three-month sabbatical. The Chronicle’s Editor wasn’t happy about it, especially as she wouldn’t give him a straight answer about where she was going or what she was doing, but seeing that she wouldn’t be dissuaded, he finally gave in to her wishes.

  She considered telling Jake the real reason for her trip. He was the one person she could usually confide in. But since their aborted kiss, things had been a little awkward between them. Still, he came to her leaving drinks, hugged her goodbye.

  ‘Keep in touch, Healey,’ he said at the end of the night. ‘If you need anything, I’m only a phone call away.’

  She watched him walk away, feeling sad about how things had turned out between them. She just hoped that by the time she’d finished her trip, she might be able to think more clearly about what she wanted.

  Most people stepped off the thirteen-hour flight to LAX feeling bleary-eyed and dazed. But Cara, used to long working hours and nights of insomnia, was alert and ready to go. She’d decided to spend a few days in LA before heading up to Stanhope Castle, wanting to get a feel for what Franny’s life had been like. So she checked into the Sunset Lodge, the roach motel where her mother had first stayed, the name forever imprinted on Cara’s mind from all the envelopes that she’d addressed. As Cara ate dinner in the adjacent diner, she looked at the washed-up waitress who took her order and couldn’t help wondering if it was the same one who’d served Franny all those years ago.

  The next morning, Cara set about exploring. Hollywood had changed a lot since her mother had been there. The Golden Age had passed, and the places that Franny had frequented were all closed or past their heyday: Ciro’s had shut in 1959, as had Mocambo. The Sunset Strip was sleazy now, rather than ritzy. In the afternoon, Cara took a tour of Juniper Studios with the other wide-eyed, gawping tourists. Her mother even got a mention by the guide, as they made their way through the backlots: her career might not have been as illustrious as Elizabeth Taylor’s or Lana Turner’s, but her tragic death had guaranteed her a spot in Hollywood’s history.

  ‘And yet another young talent was stolen from us,’ the guide concluded with fake solemnity, after a graphic account of Frances Fitzgerald’s death.

  Another sleepless night on a hard bed, and then came the interviews. There was the producer who’d discovered Franny in London, Clifford Walker, now retired and needing at least two vodkas before he could get up in the morning; Juniper’s ex-Studio Head, Lloyd Cramer, who spent his days on the golf course; leading man, Hunter Holden, whose career had miraculously survived and was going through another revival. They all said much the same: that Franny had been beautiful and vibrant; the life and soul of any party. But other than the usual platitudes extolling Franny’s virtues, there were no new leads. Cara had tried to track down another of Franny’s former beaux, Duke Carter, but he’d faded into obscurity long ago. Like Clifford, he’d become rather too fond of the bottle and had died of liver disease a few years earlier.

  The most interesting interview was with Franny’s old friend, Lily Powell. Now in her early forties, she had retired from movies a decade before, but had made a nice life for herself since then. Always careful with her money, she’d opened up a chain of beauty parlours across the West Coast, and business was thriving. She still lived in her Hollywood Hills villa, which she currently shared with a muscular hunk named Rod, who didn’t even look old enough to drink yet.

  Lily greeted Cara wearing hot-pink lounge pyjamas, with a matching scarf wrapped turban-style around her head. She insisted on fixing margaritas, and brought the jug outside so that she and Cara could sit by the pool, drinking cocktails and talking, while her man-boy swam laps in a leopard-print thong.

  Lily spoke fondly of her old friend, reminiscing about the wild times they’d shared together.

  ‘And then everything changed,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s the old story, isn’t it? Two girls getting along fabulously, until a man comes into the mix. Well, Maximilian Stanhope was that man.’

  ‘Oh?’ Cara prompted.

  Lily shook her head. ‘I never understood the two of them together. She was such a social butterfly, and while Max might have been attracted to that initially, it wasn’t a quality he wanted in a wife. He hated her going out, hated her flirting – it humiliated him. And Frances just couldn’t stop, bless her. Flirting came as naturally to her as breathing.’ She smiled indulgently at the memory.

  ‘Of course he tried to clip her wings,’ Lily went on. ‘She stopped coming out with us because she knew it would just cause grief. It killed her, being out there at the house all alone. I guess maybe that’s why she decided to get pregnant: to give her something to do.’

  ‘I suppose that explains why she was depressed after she lost the baby,’ Cara probed. ‘That’s what they say, isn’t it? That depression made her take her own life.’

  Lily snorted. ‘Oh, please.’

  ‘You don’t think that’s what happened?’ Cara could feel her heart speeding up, feeling as if she was finally getting somewhere.

  ‘No way did Frances take her life because of the stillbirth. Don’t get me wrong, she was sad about it an’ all, but there was more going on than that. Frances hadn’t been right for months. She’d lost her sparkle, and become so sad, so forgetful; like her head was always somewhere else. And,’ she lowered her voice meaningfully, ‘she had these bruises all over her body.’

  This was a new development. Cara seized on it. ‘You think Max gave them to her?’

  Lily shrugged. ‘She never said for definite.’ The tone was supposed to leave Cara in no doubt as to what she thought had gone on.

  ‘But none of this was in the papers.’

  Another snort. ‘Little wonder. Back in those days, Max had everyone in his pockets.’

  ‘You think there was a cover-up? You think she didn’t kill herself?’

  Lily looked her straight in the eye. ‘I can’t say for certain what went on up in that house in her last months. But there’s no doubt in my mind that Maximilian Stanhope was at least in part responsible for her death.’

  Despite the heat of the day, Cara felt herself shiver.

  Lily was a great source of information. She seemed to know everything about the Stanhope family.

  ‘I’ve heard Max’s son hasn’t spoken to him for years. Gabriel – that’s what his name is, isn’t it? – well, Gabriel went away right after Frances’s death. To Europe, I believe. Or was it Africa? I really can’t remember now. But what I do remember is that he didn’t even stay for the funeral. I know he was never a great fan of Frances’s, but still . . . He should have paid his respects. But for whatever reason, he left the country, and I’ve heard he never came back. And that he’s neve
r spoken to Max again. Or perhaps Max never spoke to him – no one’s ever quite sure who cut whom off. All I know is that they haven’t exchanged a word for years. You have to wonder about that, don’t you? What could possibly have happened to drive such a wedge between them?’

  Cara nodded along, taking down every detail carefully.

  ‘And then there’s Max’s daughter, poor Olivia,’ Lily went on. ‘She was always such a fragile little thing. From what I remember, she spent some time in an institution back then. Whatever that was about, she never seemed to fully recover. Since then she’s always had to be specially cared for – by that housekeeper of Max’s, the one who’d been there for years. Oh, yes, Hilda, that’s it . . .’ Lily paused. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? And by that I mean strange funny. Frances always hated Hilda. And yet she’s the one still there at Stanhope Castle, living with Max, while poor Frances has been dead and buried for years now.’

  Cara set off for Stanhope Castle the following morning in the Ford Thunderbird she’d rented. It was a five-hour drive from LA, and as she drove, Lily’s words echoed in her mind. If Max had killed her mother, then it stood to reason that he would do anything to stop her finding out about what he’d done. The knowledge weighed heavily on Cara. But her dark thoughts were distracted as she got further along the route and reached Highway 1, the ninety-mile stretch of road that led through the Big Sur. She’d heard that it was a scenic drive, but nothing could prepare her for the rugged magnificence of the views: on one side, the Santa Lucia Mountains soared up into the azure sky, while on the other, the Pacific Ocean crashed against the cliffs below. As she passed VW Campervans crammed with hippies, Cara wished for a moment that she was here with no other purpose than to enjoy the place.