Silent Scream (32 page)

Anna waited, hoping there was more to it.

‘We all talked about it, you know after she’d left, and then . . .’ She started to giggle.

‘Then what?’

‘He shouldn’t have done it, but we were all a bit stoned and he called that stuck-up Miss Lesser, who wouldn’t take on Jeannie when she was doin’ a play at the Tricycle Theatre. She sent a letter asking her to come and see her in the play, but when she heard nothin’ back, she called her and she didn’t even come to the fucking phone.’

‘Go on. Dan called Andrea Lesser?’

‘Yeah. He said he needed to speak to her urgent, right – that he was an agent.’ She curled up, still giggling.

Anna was getting impatient.

‘He said that he was checking up about Miss Delany’s cash. She kept on asking him who he was . . . then cut him off. It was ever so funny.’

‘I bet it was.’ Anna sneaked a look at her watch, and Felicity sat with her eyes closed.

‘You said all Amanda’s mail came to this address?’

‘Yeah, fanmail. She used to pay Dan for answering some of them, but it was so boring and they would come in sackfuls. In the end he didn’t bother.’

‘Did Amanda take it with her?’

‘What?’

‘The fanmail.’

‘Oh no, she was bored shitless with all the weirdoes and crappy people. She was supposed to send back signed autographed photographs, but she couldn’t be bothered, ’cos I mean they hardly ever give a stamped addressed envelope.’

‘Do you still have any of the letters?’

‘Yeah, we got bags of them, used them when it got cold to light the fire, but it always smoked something awful, to be honest. You’re sittin’ on some as that sofa’s springs are broken.’

Anna stood up and removed one of the hideous orange foam-filled pads. Beneath them were black binliners tied with string. She opened one and found it full of letters and cards.

‘Would you mind if I took these with me?’

Felicity shrugged. Anna stacked the bags side by side and then replaced the foam cushion which sank down almost to the floor.

Before Anna could ask Felicity anything further, the front door slammed shut and Jeannie barged into the room, carrying a big leather bag.

‘I didn’t get it, I fucking didn’t get it.’

Jeannie was wearing cowboy boots and a long full black skirt with a top with mutton-chop sleeves. Her dyed blonde hair was caught up with two big bow slides at each side of her head. When she saw Anna, she apologised.

‘I didn’t know we had company. I’ve just come from an audition for this Victorian play on at the Bush. The bastards didn’t even ask me to fucking read.’ She delved into the bag and brought out a litre bottle of cider. ‘I’m gonna get smashed tonight. I’ve not worked for friggin’ months and this was
my part
!’

Jeannie was so upset and angry she didn’t appear to make any connection as to who Anna was and it wasn’t until she had lit a cigarette and drunk half a tumbler of cider that she seemed to realise.

‘What are you here for?’

Before Anna could reply, Felicity told her that she had needed to ask them some questions about Amanda. She pointed to the binliners saying that Anna wanted to take them away.

‘I’m sick to death of her,’ Jeannie complained. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be so close to stardom and lose out; you don’t know what it does to your head.’

‘Did you know she’d been pregnant?’

Anna caught the look between the two girls.

‘You did know, didn’t you? Tell me about it.’

Jeannie shrugged. ‘Don’t suppose it matters now she’s dead.’

‘Who was the father?’ Anna asked

‘She had an abortion,’ Felicity said. They had sworn never to talk about it, but Jeannie muttered that it didn’t matter now.

‘We were short of money so Amanda went to France to see her parents, you know they’re loaded, and she’d spent all the money she’d got from the film. It wasn’t that much, right, and we owed rent on this place and . . .’

The girls fell silent and Anna waited, but neither said a word.

‘Did something happen in France?’ she prompted.

‘She got raped, we never really got to the bottom of it all, but it was someone her father knew and she came back in a right state, and then a few weeks later she found out she was pregnant.’

‘She went back to France to try and get it all sorted out,’ Felicity interjected, ‘but her dad had gone ballistic and refused to believe her that any of his polo-playing friends would have touched his daughter.’

‘He was a right bastard,’ Jeannie said. Amanda had returned to London, she confirmed, by now four months’ pregnant, with a film in the offing and her agent pressing her to begin work.

‘So she had an abortion,’ Anna said softly.

‘Yeah, and that far gone it wasn’t easy for her to find someone who would do it. Some guy she had worked with on the movie helped her out, gave her a name.’

‘Do you know who that was?’

They both shook their heads. All they knew was, he had been on the movie with her and he drove her to the place wherever it was and then she had returned and gone to bed.

‘It was terrible ’cos she started screaming and then there was all this blood and we was in an awful state as we didn’t know what to do. In the end we called an ambulance and then we called her parents and they came to London.’

‘She nearly died,’ Jeannie said softly.

‘She was never really the same after she came out of hospital, was she?’ Felicity looked at Jeannie, then leaned towards her and whispered.

‘We don’t know that,’ Jeannie said.

‘Know what?’ Anna asked.

‘Well, if you ask me,’ Felicity said, ‘something was goin’ on with her father. She was scared of him and she hated him, but she once said to me that things had happened to her, even when she was a kid.’

‘She never admitted anything,’ Jeannie added. ‘We just suspected stuff and they did a botched job on her, left something in her stomach that had festered or poisoned her, and she had to have a hysterectomy.’

‘Did her parents come here?’

Jeannie shook her head. They had arranged a private clinic and then had taken her into the Drury a few months later, but they had never come to the flat.

Anna was trying to assess all their information and inference that the rape could have involved Amanda’s own father. She also had to get the dates straight. However, neither could really recall the exact timeframe; they had all been pretty drugged up at the time.

‘This driver you say Amanda used to take her for the operation . . .’

‘Never met him, he’d just draw up outside – nice Merc. I think he was one of the unit drivers off the movie,’ Jeannie said.

‘Did you ever actually see his face?’

They shook their heads. All they could add was that Amanda seemed to depend on him a great deal.

When Anna mentioned a possible publishing deal, they looked blank. Nor did they remember her meeting Josh Lyons at the flat.

‘It must have been at a time when neither of you were at home. Josh Lyons remembers coming to this flat and seeing Amanda’s diary. A big thick five-year one with a pink cover.’

‘Well, if we weren’t here, we wouldn’t have met him,’ Felicity retorted. ‘She never said nothin’ to me about writin’ anything and I never saw her with a diary like that. Her BlackBerry, yeah, she was always texting and gettin’ messages and, to be honest, I can’t imagine what she could write about as she couldn’t remember what day it was, most of the time. Was he going to pay her a lot of money for it?’

‘A lot,’ nodded Anna.

‘Like how much?’

But Anna quickly changed the subject.

‘You’re now in Amanda’s room, aren’t you?’ She looked at Jeannie, whose expression became defensive.

‘Yeah, but I didn’t, like, dive in there the moment she was dead. I mean, she said it was OK, ’cos she had that new mews house and wouldn’t be living with us.’

‘Did she leave anything in there?’

‘Well, a lot of clothes and make-up, shoes – we wear the same size and that was all. She would buy all these clothes and never wear them. Some have still got the price-tags on them.’ Jeannie hesitated, then agreed to let Anna look over her room.

Something bothered Anna. It was the two girls’ lack of interest in the proposed book; she couldn’t make out if they were lying or not. She followed Jeannie down the dark hallway. There was a strong smell of mildew, mixed with incense and stale cigarettes.

‘This was Dan’s room.’ Jeannie punched a closed door open, pointing to the floor. ‘That’s where we found him.’

The room was dark, curtains drawn across a barred window. There was a small crumpled single bed with dirty sheets, and strewn around were old sneakers, magazines and books. Three full black binliners were stacked by the wall.

‘That’s his stuff but nobody wants it, so we’ll take it to the Salvation Army.’

‘What about family?’

‘He’s only got an aunt and she’s really old. Dunno if he got anyone else that would want them. His older brother is taking care of his funeral, but he said he didn’t want nothin’.’

Anna stared into the dank, dark room with its overflowing ashtrays and empty beer cans. It seemed strange that they would have packed up his clothes and yet not bothered to clean anything else.

‘We’ll rent it out soon. When we get our money we’ll get the place painted but it’s ever so damp and we got no central heating.’

Jeannie’s bedroom was larger than Dan’s, almost twice the size. On the bed, against the pillows, lay a row of dolls with big china faces and wearing lace dresses.

‘They’re all mine, I collect them.’

‘Amanda had a little toy rabbit, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah, but she always took it with her.’

Clothes lay in piles all over the room, and the dressing-table was stacked with make-up, mirrors and perfumes, hairpieces and wigs; hooked over the handles of the drawers were rows of pearls and chains.

‘You never saw this five-year diary?’ Anna asked again.

Jeannie shook her head, picking up a sweater and opening a drawer to stuff it in.

‘You didn’t think it was strange that she asked to use the flat when you were out?’

‘Nope, she often asked us to disappear for an afternoon when she brought one or other of her boyfriends here for a shag. We didn’t argue about it; she was often paying the rent, after all.’

‘And you’re sure she never mentioned anything about publishing a book?’

Jeannie walked out, not answering. By now loud music was coming from the lounge. Anna just wanted to get out of this room with its overpowering smell of sweet lilacs. She followed Jeannie into the hall.

‘Thank you for your time, Jeannie. I really appreciate it.’

‘That’s OK. Did you see the photograph of us in the paper?’

Anna nodded.

‘We had a lot of press outside, you know, trying to ask us about Amanda, but we never let them in and they kept on taking photographs of us. I wouldn’t mind getting some of them – costs a lot to keep my portfolio up to date.’

‘I’m sorry you didn’t get the part this afternoon.’

‘Yeah, well, they pay a pittance, and I’ll get more from modelling.’

Jeannie stood watching Anna as she headed up the basement steps, lugging the binliners filled with fan mail. She hadn’t offered to help her carry them out. She shut the door and threw a bolt across it, hurrying back into the lounge.

‘You stupid cow, what you light up for? She was a fucking policewoman.’

Felicity giggled and said she’d forgotten. Then she rolled off the cushion, delving beneath it.

‘I’ve got it. I thought she might have even seen it on the fucking bookshelf

She held up the pink diary. Jeannie snatched it from her.

‘How much you think it’s worth? She said it was a lot, didn’t she?’

Felicity shrugged, watching as Jeannie flicked through the pages. ‘You remember the name of that publishing firm?’

Jeannie nodded, still intent on the diary. Then she kissed it.

‘Golden Arrow . . . but we gotta wait a while, let all the fuss die down, and then we go to . . . shit, what was that bloke’s name?’

She knew it was pointless asking Felicity who was now spreadeagled over the cushions, puffing on the joint. Jeannie didn’t feel guilty; on the contrary, the resentment she had felt all those years about losing the film part to Amanda had always been close to the surface. She didn’t even bother really reading the diary’s scrawled handwritten pages; all she cared about was whether it was worth money – money she felt was owed to her. She had always believed that if she hadn’t mentioned the film role she was up for, Amanda would never have auditioned for it. The fact that she was neither as beautiful nor as talented never came into the equation. She, Jeannie Bale, had been robbed of stardom.

She nudged Felicity with her foot.

‘Don’t mention this to anybody, you understand me? We gotta wait for the right time to sell it.’

‘OK.’