My Life in Black and White

by Kim Izzo

  “You look uncomfortable in the photo,” I said and rubbed my hair gently with the towel. “The suit must have been wool.”

  “And it was a hot July day, if I recall,” he added and put the photo back. He looked me up and down and I grew conscious of my appearance, which was as far from his stylish attire as one could get. “Had a bad day, have we?”

  “What gave you that idea?” I asked, feigning innocence. Then he pointed to my right, where a large oval mirror was hanging. I saw what he saw. My wet hair looked matted, and my complexion was sallow, which only exacerbated the redness in my eyes. The soaking wet clothing added to the picture of a downtrodden and lonely woman. I was the shining example of a very bad day.

  “I see what you mean,” I admitted.

  “Would you like to use the bathroom? There’s a hair dryer. Not that I use it much,” he said with a wink, and I followed him down the hallway and into a kitchen. It was large and white with gleaming ceramic tiles and a large glass door that opened to a luscious garden bursting with colour. But I also noticed several swords hanging on the wall, as well as a mannequin dressed, oddly enough, in an elaborate cape with a scarlet satin lining. I pointed to it. “You a vampire fan?”

  He chuckled. “I collect movie props,” he explained. “That was from a 1980s Dracula B movie, a very bad one. The swords came from a kung fu movie. I have an entire room devoted to such things. The plan is to open a museum one day.”

  I nodded and smiled but said nothing further. People who collected movie memorabilia tended to be geeky men who lived alone, and if you started up a conversation about their collection, it could take hours to shut it down. So I continued on to the bathroom and found the hair dryer and got to work blowing the water out. I wished I could blow the memory of the morning away as easily.

  When I came out of the bathroom the man was gone, so I quietly slunk down the hall towards the front door, lest he invite me to tour his room of props.

  “Leaving so soon?” he called out, and I saw him perched at the top of the staircase. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  I shook my head, and began to feel uncomfortable for the first time. Maybe he was some deranged interior designer.

  “On second thought, you look like you could use a real drink. Let me buy you one. Where do you live?”

  “I’m staying at a friend’s flat near Tufnell Park tube,” I told him.

  “Fine. We’ll go there and I’ll buy you a drink. There must be a pub nearby.”

  I took in the soft touches throughout the house. Maybe he was a decorator. “Are you an interior designer?”

  He smiled slightly but his tone was serious, “The feminine touches belonged to my wife.”

  “She’s not home?” I asked, knowing I was being nosy.

  “She’s never coming home,” he said darkly. Then, as if shaking a memory free, he looked at me again. “She passed away.”

  I felt awful having pushed the point. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s been a few years now. She drowned.”

  “Oh, how awful!” I said and felt selfish at being so caught up in my own trouble. “What happened?”

  “It was in a swimming pool. Our swimming pool. At our country estate in Gloucestershire.”

  “That must have been horrifying.”

  He nodded and walked towards the door. I followed him outside, back into the rain.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Frederick dropped me at the door of The White Stallion, then went to find a parking space. He had told me his first name but not much else. Our conversation had been routine, the stuff of weather and traffic congestion. But I didn’t care. Someone was taking care of me, and at that moment that’s all that mattered.

  Milly was behind the bar when she saw me. She tapped Trinity on the arm, who was sitting on a bar stool sipping tea with a worried look on her face.

  “What happened to you?” Trinity asked, clearly alarmed by my bedraggled appearance. “Did the umbrella break?”

  I looked down at the perfectly functional umbrella in my hand and nodded. “In a manner of speaking. I couldn’t get it to stay open. Must have been the wind.”

  She nodded in agreement, but I sensed she knew I was lying. “You just went out for a stroll, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the pouring rain?”

  “Yes.”

  “At dawn, just for fun?”

  “Yes.”

  “You went to see Dean, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Before she could say anything further, Frederick waltzed in and stood beside me protectively like I was a stray animal he’d rescued. Trinity’s concerned expression vanished once she got a closer look at the man who’d brought me. “Aren’t you Frederick Marshall?”

  I was taken aback. There was a well-known film producer by that name. It couldn’t be. Frederick smiled.

  “Yes, I believe we’ve met before,” he said and shook her hand.

  “I’m Trinity Mayberry. I’ve auditioned for you. I’m hoping to audition again for your new film.”

  “Well, I guess you two know each other, then,” I said, surprised by this turn of events, and turned to Milly. “Bourbon.”

  “You’re an impressive girl,” Frederick remarked. “Make that two.”

  “Because I like bourbon?”

  “Because you like bourbon and don’t know how to use an umbrella.” I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Mr. Marshall is a film producer, Clara,” she explained slowly, as if I were a child.

  “So I’ve heard,” I said. “You were holding out on me, Frederick.”

  He shrugged. “Secrets aren’t just for women.”

  “Here’s the bourbon,” Milly said as Trinity gave me a what-the-fuck look.

  “Here’s to bourbon,” I said and forced a smile. In truth I felt like hell. The confrontation with Dean and Amber was replaying in my mind over and over. And now I had Trinity falling over herself to impress Frederick, and I could tell he wasn’t loving it. If that weren’t enough intrigue for one day, the door opened and in walked Niall Adamson. His arrival would have been unremarkable if it wasn’t for the unmistakable look of loathing mirrored on Niall’s and Frederick’s faces when they caught sight of each other. Yet neither spoke. Niall sat down at a nearby table and, as usual, acted as though he’d never seen me before in his life.

  “Tell me something about yourself,” Frederick said loudly.

  “Me?” I asked with a tilt of my head. “You know enough already. I had a bad day. I cried, and you loaned me your bathroom to clean up my face.”

  “Oh, Clara, don’t play coy with Mr. Marshall,” Trinity said too eagerly. “Clara is a journalist.”

  For the first time, I wished she had said screenwriter, for the colour drained from Frederick’s face at the word “journalist.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not here to work,” I said quickly.

  He looked relieved. “What made you cry?” he asked, changing the subject as he studied my face like a map.

  The “I’m a celebrity journalist from Los Angeles whose husband just left her for a twenty-one-year-old actress/waitress” line was on the tip of my tongue, but he didn’t give me a chance to answer.

  “On second thought, don’t tell me anything. I like a mystery,” he said and downed his bourbon in one go.

  “Then you came to the right place,” I said and had the prickly feeling that Niall was listening to every word.

  “And I’ll come back. But for now,” Frederick said and jotted something down on a napkin, “this is how to reach me.” He handed me the napkin with his mobile number scribbled on it. “In case you find yourself crying in Primrose Hill again.”

  “Okay,” I said and smiled.

  “Till the next time, then,” he said and walked away.

  Trinity’s eyes widened in disbelief. “How did you manage to get from Shoreditch to Primrose Hill and wind up with one of the biggest film producers in England?”

&n
bsp; I smirked, but in truth Frederick Marshall was of little interest to me, not when I knew Amber was in London with my husband.

  “Wait here,” she continued. “I’m going to call my agent and make sure I’m auditioning for his next film and soon!”

  I shook my head. How swiftly my problems were taken care of when Trinity had a part to land. It was time to head back to the flat and get into some dry clothes. I bent down to pick up my knapsack, only it wasn’t there.

  “Where’s my knapsack?” I asked, worriedly.

  Milly started looking around. “I don’t see it. Did you bring it with you?”

  Trinity returned and we all gave the pub a thorough going-over. I was beginning to panic.

  “It has everything in it. My cell phone, wallet, passport, all my clothes, you name it.” Then I remembered. “I bet I left it at Frederick’s house.”

  Trinity raised an eyebrow and grinned like an evil queen. “That’s good.”

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’m just saying it’s good. Now you have an excuse to call him.”

  “And why is that good?”

  “Because I want to be in his new film, and you’re my ‘in.’”

  She marched out of the pub.

  “That wasn’t what I had in mind,” I said to no one in particular.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Back at the flat, I grabbed the napkin with Frederick’s mobile number and called him. Sure enough, the knapsack was in the hallway of his house. He said he’d drive it over, but not until tomorrow evening because of some big meetings he had, and would I manage without it for a night. I told him I would. Then he told me he wanted to take me to dinner in exchange for the knapsack. I told him I didn’t like the way he said it. So he said it differently.

  “I was teasing. I only want to have a pleasant evening with a lovely American girl, no strings attached. You will get the knapsack with or without my spending loads of money on wine and food.”

  I smiled, but I still didn’t like it. The last thing I wanted was a date. Trinity would be overjoyed. “Okay. But nothing too fancy. All my clothes are in that knapsack and I only brought jeans.”

  “Isn’t that what shopping is for?” Then he hung up before I got to remind him he had my wallet.

  “What did he say?” Trinity was practically bouncing off the ceiling. I told her.

  “Brilliant! Please do talk me up, won’t you?”

  “Give it a rest, Trinity. He’s kind of creepy, don’t you think?”

  She pouted. “If by creepy you mean a man able to single-handedly make my career.”

  I rolled my eyes, then told her how Niall and Frederick had glowered at each other. Her face went serious all of a sudden. “Oh, that.”

  “What’s ‘oh, that’?”

  She moved to the kitchen and began to make tea. “I don’t know much about Niall, but it could be that he recognized Frederick and …” she stopped talking as if someone might strike her dead if she fessed up.

  “Are you going to tell me or should I just Google him?”

  She sighed and out it came.

  There was the stuff everyone in the business knew about Frederick Marshall, such as he was a film producer who had made his fortune on low-budget horror movies (which explained his prop collection) and had gone on to produce and make his name on several mega-hit romantic comedies. Every British actor and actress from Hugh Grant to Kate Winslet had been in a Marshall picture. His work hadn’t really garnered him any accolades in America, but it had made him rich. None of this was particularly surprising or all that interesting.

  “I know all of that,” I said with a shrug. “He’s your run-of-the-mill big shot.”

  She opened up her laptop and went to Google. “Until you dig around into his private life.”

  The search engine went to work, and soon enough Frederick Marshall, like many filthy-rich megalomaniacs, had a story sordid enough to make for a chapter in Hollywood Babylon. It all had to do with his dead wife. Her name was Mica Glenn. She was stunning and much younger than he was, a girl known for couture gowns and a penchant for gold lamé. She was also known to enjoy the odd cocktail or ten and got a reputation for getting drunk and sounding off at parties, whining and complaining that her darling Freddie wouldn’t cast her in any of his movies. She was, of course, an actress, a starving one when they met, and then a very rich one, but never in either of those circumstances was Mica a very good one. That she had failed to sleep her way to a starring role apparently nagged at her and embarrassed Frederick. And it was his arrogance, coupled with his fear of being reduced to producing B movies once again, that made him refuse her this one gift. Rumour had it that she threatened him, with what no one seemed to know, but he finally agreed to have her star in one of his films. But she died before principal photography started. When she was found dead, drowned in the pool of their country property with no one but Frederick at home, her death was initially considered suspicious and he was brought in for questioning. The toxicology results found excessive blood alcohol levels in her system, and the coroner ruled it an accident.

  “He told me she drowned at home but not the rest of it,” I admitted to Trinity.

  “Can you blame him?” she asked. “He can’t very well announce it to every new woman he meets. Imagine, ‘Hi, my name is Frederick. I produce hit movies and was accused of murdering my wife. How about I buy you dinner?’ Hardly!”

  “You have a point.”

  “Did you know Mica?”

  “I met her once. Stunning girl. Bit of a cow, really. It was true about her obsession with gold. She was nearly always photographed in long flowing gold gowns; silk, satin, you name it. She believed it showed off her ivory skin.”

  I rolled my eyes and parsed the Internet for the gory details and images. Mica was a knockout but in that vacuous way that WAGs often have. And Trinity was right about the gold—countless photos showed her swathed in the hue. One site even claimed that she was buried in her favourite gown. But what got me was her hair.

  “You didn’t say she was a redhead,” I said.

  “What difference does that make?” she asked.

  “None really. Just not that common.” I shrugged. “There’s just something about this whole thing that gives me chills.”

  “It was all an accident. He’s not a serial killer. Except,” she hesitated. “There’s an except?” I asked uneasily.

  “An actress friend of mine told me she was invited to his country house a year or two ago. She happens to be a redhead too. Anyhow, she said he tried to get her to wear one of Mica’s gold gowns. It was all very weird. It turned her right off and she left straight away.”

  “No kidding,” I said sarcastically.

  “Trouble is some people still think he killed her.”

  “Because she was a bad actress?”

  “Because she was a bitch.”

  I looked once more at the headline, “Movie Producer Accused of Murdering Mica,” then I read the byline. Niall Adamson.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “It’s Niall.”

  I began to click through the many stories that dealt with Mica’s suspected murder-cum-accident and saw that he had covered the whole thing start to finish. He even had quotes from Frederick denying any involvement. But it was clear from the tone of the articles that Niall didn’t believe him, even though the final piece he wrote stated Frederick’s innocence, referring to him as “a wrongly accused grieving widower.”

  “Blimey,” Trinity remarked.

  “I wonder if that’s why Niall lost his job? Maybe Frederick got him fired?”

  I typed Niall’s name into the search engine, and within seconds there were loads of hits, and they weren’t stories written by him, they were about him. The headlines said it all, but I opened a few links and got the drift pretty quickly. It was all over the Internet. Niall Adamson was one of the reporters embroiled in the phone-hacking scandal. He had been accused of hacking into mobile phones, notably of a ca
binet minister who wound up in prison for fraud. Niall was raked over the coals. According to reports, the authorities had no real evidence against him, but when he refused to testify against his colleagues—people the prosecutors did have proof of guilt against—he was sentenced to jail for refusing to cooperate and spent almost six months behind bars. And not surprisingly, one of the people he allegedly hacked was Frederick Marshall.

  “Do you think he found evidence that proved Frederick killed Mica?” Trinity asked.

  “I have no idea. And if he had evidence, why not turn it in and have him arrested?”

  “Not if the evidence was gotten illegally.”

  I mulled it over. It wasn’t pretty. But I knew better than most how newspapers worked. There was little in the way of loyalty. If the editors and management needed a fall guy to save their skins, then a crack reporter would do nicely. The higher the profile, the more it deflected from them. From what I read, including between the lines, Niall was a disgraced journalist but an honourable one.

  “Poor guy. Not that he cares what I think. Niall Adamson doesn’t even remember meeting me,” I said.

  Police Station—Cirencester

  Sergeant Hooper was nodding at me, his lips pursed. “Good on you to get acquainted with Frederick Marshall. He is one of the top movie producers in all of England! That was a shame, him being suspected of killing his wife. Never believed it myself. You know he started his career with slasher films?”