Limelight, p.28
Limelight, page 28
The turnkey returns me to my cell. Its very bareness is deeply depressing, giving me no choice but to lie on my side on the thin mattress, and close my eyes against the brightness of the overhead light. As far as I can tell, it’s early evening. They may or may not bring me something to eat, but even the prospect of food makes me nauseous. Earlier, around lunchtime, I’d smelled chips in the closeness of the corridors outside. Burgers, I suspect. Probably imported from the McDonald’s up the road.
For what feels like hours, I try and kid myself to sleep, but it doesn’t work. Time and again, my dizzy brain returns to the memory of those brief moments I shared with Christianne on the clifftop. Maybe, that Saturday afternoon, I should have anticipated everything that was going to follow, but how could I? Where, in Pavel’s phrase, were the narrative clues? No question, I should have thought harder about Christianne’s clumsiness, about the way she’d fight to keep her balance, and about the little vignettes I witnessed between her and Andy in the privacy of their back garden. The way he was trying to school her putting on his immaculate lawn. The way he protected her around the kitchen. The care he took of her. But the harder I try and get all this into focus, the more I realize that it’s all way too late.
Someone else is in charge of this story now. Someone else is wielding the editor’s pencil, and I have the darkest misgivings about what tomorrow might bring. How much evidence do they need before they formally charge me? And if that happens, do I swap this perch in Heavitree police station for a prison cell while the lawyers attend to their business and the wheels of justice grind little me to dust?
The key word here, oddly enough, is prison. My lovely mum, who now dominates my thoughts, never spoiled me for a moment. On the contrary, she had a very Catholic view of the wages of sin and always warned me that Hell awaits both the guilty and the weak. The latter, I always suspected, fully deserved damnation in her eyes when it came to the judgement call, and as soon as I was big enough to listen properly, she preached the virtues of strength, and something she called fortitude. The latter concept I never fully understood until I met Pavel, but after I witnessed what he could make of his life, regardless of the odds stacked against him, the more I realized that my mum was right. In the tightest corners, like now, you never bow your head, never succumb, never admit defeat. Au contraire, you fight your basest instincts and turn them on their head.
Supper arrives at what I assume to be mid-evening. A key turns in the lock and I’m looking at a microwaved Ginsters pasty with a small sachet of brown sauce.
‘Lovely.’ I sit up on the mattress. ‘You must have read my mind.’
THIRTY-FIVE
Andrea Gifford, when I meet her next day, turns out to be a delight. She must be a year or two older than me. The darkness beneath her eyes suggests late nights and a crippling work schedule, yet she has a patience and a quiet sense of humour that I take as a kind of blessing. That we might be like-minded under these circumstances is a lifeline. For one thing, she’s wearing a pair of my favourite Boden ankle boots. And for another, she’s had the foresight to arrive with a decent cup of coffee, a takeout from some Costa down the road.
‘Treating you OK?’ She nods towards the door. We’re back in the room with no windows.
‘No complaints,’ I say brightly. ‘Microwaved pasty like last night’s, I could live here forever.’
She has the grace to share my little joke. One day, God willing, we might end up splitting a bottle or two of decent Merlot in her favourite wine bar, but for the time being we have to attend to business. She’s reviewed her notes from last night’s conversation with Tony Morse, and has a suggestion to make, but first she needs to ask me a straight question.
‘How much did you know about Christianne’s death?’
‘Nothing. Swear to God.’
‘The dog thing?’
‘Pardon my French but it’s bollocks. I met the dog once. Yes, I picked it up, gave it a cuddle, but no, I wasn’t wearing the bloody mac. They make this stuff up.’
‘The chaise?’
‘They’ve got the timeline wrong. It was still at Bill’s until way after she disappeared.’
‘The Fentanyl?’
‘They’re right that I had a month’s supply, but I flushed them down the loo. This was years ago.’
‘Why?’
‘My son was zombied out at the time, totally off his head. Spice is evil, but I’m guessing you know that.’
She nods, says nothing, then lightly touches the flesh above her right eyebrow.
‘And the tumour?’
‘Better, I think.’
‘Gone?’
‘Not quite. But it knows the end is near.’
‘Unlike you?’
‘Unlike me.’
When she asks her last question, about masterminding McFaul’s flight to France, I once again tell her that it’s nonsense. It’s true that I accepted a flight from Nathan Kline, but the man would never take no for an answer. The phrase sparks a nod and a smile.
‘I know Nathan,’ she says. ‘You have my sympathies.’
The coffee, after this morning’s cornflakes, is delicious. Andrea talks me through the likely course of the day’s events, and when I press her for a game plan, something simple even I can understand, she understands at once.
‘They need to back off,’ she says. ‘And you need to make that happen.’
Back off? I have a very clear memory of each of yesterday’s sessions and the sheer weight of the evidence they seem to have amassed against me still makes my pulse quicken, yet I believe this woman when she advises me to simply be myself.
‘Tony says you’re an actress by trade.’
‘That’s true.’
‘And is yourself a role you might play to some effect? Because he thinks it is.’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘Don’t be. The police don’t take prisoners, not in the way that you and I understand, and neither do lawyers. Bullivant can be a real monster, especially around women. He might not look the part, but lie down and he’ll kick you to death. This happens to be his last big case. Which gives him every incentive to misbehave.’
‘I know that.’
‘Brett told you? Tony said you two were buddies.’
‘That’s true. On both counts.’
‘Good.’ She gathers her papers together and swallows the remains of her coffee. ‘That’s something else I’ve had a word about. Putting you in with young Brett breaks every rule in the book.’
We have to wait a while before Bullivant and Leadbetter appear. The atmosphere in the interview suite is immediately different. Bullivant is more cautious. Yesterday, he was far from cavalier, because he doesn’t do reckless, but I get the feeling my insistence on hiding behind ‘no comment’ gave him ample scope to put his jewels on the table, fix me with that dead stare, and browbeat me into submission. This doesn’t work with Andrea. She clearly comes with a reputation, or perhaps a health warning. Tread carefully. Treat with care.
She begins by suggesting to Bullivant that I might like to make a statement. This I’m more than happy to do. I tell him that I knew Christianne for just three days, and that there’s absolutely no evidence they’ll ever find to suggest otherwise. Christianne was French, like me. We got on incredibly well. We laughed a good deal. And we compared notes on what our lives had taught us with that candour that only a brand-new friendship can spark. Should I have been more curious about little physical problems she seemed to have? The answer is yes. Did she ever admit to having MND? Absolutely not. The issue of what she might have in mind to do about it therefore never arose. We were briefly mates. In French, le mot juste would be copine.
‘That’s c-o-p-i-n-e.’ I spell it for Bullivant’s benefit. ‘I imagine you might like to write it down.’
I’m aware of a tiny shake of the head from Andrea, a shot across my bows. Softly, softly, she’s telling me. Don’t antagonize these people. Don’t piss them off. But I don’t care because I’m feeling far, far stronger and now is pay-back time. Yesterday this man humiliated me. Now I might regain just a little self-respect.
For the next hour or so, referring constantly to his notes, Bullivant explores and re-explores the key elements of his case against me, constantly changing his angle of attack, always trying to throw me off balance, but this time it doesn’t begin to work, chiefly because I have so little to remember. Stick to the known facts, I keep telling myself. And don’t stray off-piste.
Mid-morning, we take a break. Andrea pays another visit to the Costa down the road and I wait for her return, wondering how we’re doing. The answer, to my intense relief, is well. She’s pleased. Bullivant, she says, is beginning to repeat himself, and – something that’s obvious to both of us – he knows it. More, please. But steady as she goes.
The second session occupies the rest of the morning. So far, Bullivant hasn’t mentioned the night I went to dinner at Bill’s place, but now he must have caught wind of that little gathering.
‘This was the day we arrested McFaul. Am I right?’
‘You are.’
‘Did you regard that as a coincidence?’
‘Yes. Anything else never occurred to me. Bill phoned at the last moment. I thought I was there to make up the numbers.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Christianne, obviously. They knew her far better than I did, but we all missed her.’
‘You assumed she was dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dead how?’
‘Drowned.’
‘Did anyone else at the table have views about that?’
For the first time, I hesitate. I have no idea what anyone else has said about what really happened round that table, but I’ve no intention of sharing Beth’s little fantasy about the ebb tide thundering past Exmouth Dock.
‘No comment,’ I say.
‘So, you did talk about how she might have died? Is that what I’m hearing?’
‘No comment.’
Bullivant is frowning now and, looking at his hands, I realize that he picks his fingers. The skin around the nails is reddened and angry.
‘So, what impression did you get of these people?’ he asks.
‘I thought they were fine. Very different but very interesting.’
‘Different how?’
‘Background? Age? I don’t know really. One was an ex-ambassador. Another was a carpenter. Beth runs a shop. Nathan used to be a QC.’
‘Precisely. And didn’t you wonder what brought them together that night? Round that table? Within hours of McFaul’s arrest?’
‘No, I didn’t. Should I have done?’
‘Yes, I suspect you should. And more to the point, I think you did. In fact, it’s our belief that you were there for the same reason everyone else was there.’
‘Which was?’
‘To anticipate how much McFaul would tell us, and to come up with some kind of plan.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Of course you do, Ms Andressen. The people round that table, you included, were complicit in Ms Beaucarne’s disappearance. You all knew what had really happened. You all knew where she was buried, doubtless because you’d all helped carry the coffin. That explains this odd gathering around the table. What all of you had in common is the question we need to ask. And the answer, we think, is the night you buried Ms Beaucarne. Isn’t that the truth?’
I’ve thought a great deal about that meal at Bill’s over the last twenty-four hours, and I suspect Bullivant’s got most of it right. Except, of course, for my own role.
‘No comment.’
‘So be it. Let’s move on.’ He turns to Leadbetter. ‘Annie?’
Leadbetter checks a date on her notes, and then looks up. Overnight, she seems to have developed a cold sore on her lower lip.
‘I want to take you on to Sunday the twenty-second of September. That was the end of the week of Ms Beaucarne’s disappearance. There was a gathering on the beach. You were there. Am I right?’
‘Yes. We came to say goodbye.’
‘There was a ceremony of some sort, music, and then some of you went afloat with a wreath. Yes?’
‘Yes. I was asked to say a few words about Christianne.’
‘Really?’ This appears to surprise her.
‘Yes.’
‘After you’d known her for just a couple of days? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’
‘Not at all. I’m an actress. I also speak French. This was private but it was an event nonetheless. Bill was the one who asked me to do a reading. It was a performance really. He knows my work. He thought I could do the moment full justice.’
‘And afterwards? After the reading?’
‘We dropped a wreath. There were swimmers in the water, ladies who knew Christianne well. It was very moving.’
‘But what was the point of the wreath?’
‘To mark her passing.’
‘Because she’d drowned?’
‘Of course.’
‘But she hadn’t. And you knew that. Because you’d buried her.’
‘Wrong. I didn’t bury her, didn’t carry the coffin, didn’t supply the drugs, didn’t even know any of that stuff had happened.’
‘And the others? Those people round the dinner table?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘No idea? Not even the faintest suspicion? The faintest doubt?’
‘None. None at all.’
‘Really? And you really expect us to believe that?’
‘I do, yes. Because it’s true.’
Leadbetter holds my gaze for a long moment, then shrugs and makes herself a note.
‘There was a reporter on that beach.’ This from Bullivant. ‘I was there. I saw him myself. He was taking photos.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So, who invited him along? And why?’
‘I’ve no idea. Christianne going missing was a big story. The search was huge. That kind of stuff sells newspapers.’
‘Indeed. And a photo appeared in the Journal the following Wednesday, did it not?’
Unprompted, Leadbetter produces a copy of the paper’s front page. The photo shows the boat offshore, listing slightly as we gather to watch the wreath drifting away on the tide. Bill Penny has lowered his head. I’m still holding my copy of the young resistant’s last letter. Town mourns missing swimmer, runs the headline.
‘This was a ploy, was it not, Ms Andressen? A red herring? Confirmation that this friend of yours had been lost at sea? Wasn’t that the purpose of the gathering? And doesn’t that explain the presence of the reporter? By Friday, thousands of people knew Ms Beaucarne had drowned. Why? Because the Journal said so. Very clever, very artful. But a lie. Isn’t that the case, Ms Andressen? Weren’t you all there in the knowledge that this whole episode – the woman dancing round the towel, the face paint, the dropping of the wreath at sea – was a pantomime? To lead us all astray? To disguise the truth of what really happened?’
‘No comment.’
I resist the temptation to glance at Andrea. This is beginning to get tricky again and I’m very aware that not answering questions puts me in a very bad light indeed. Bullivant seems to sense this.
‘Well, Ms Andressen?’
‘I was there in good faith. I missed my friend. By then, McFaul had told me about the MND and I thought she’d drowned herself on purpose.’
‘And it never occurred to you that there might be another explanation?’
‘God, no. Why should it?’
‘Not even with your background? Movies? Plot twists? All that?’
‘This was different. This was real life.’
‘And you think that makes a difference?’
‘Of course it does. What I do for a living is entertainment. Drowning at sea is something very different.’
‘But she didn’t drown, Ms Andressen. She died of a drug overdose. Thanks to Fentanyl that we suspect you supplied. You were there. You watched. You may have held her hand, tried to comfort her. You knew. On that beach, in that boat, you knew. Please don’t go through this charade again. You might not like us, Ms Andressen, but we’re not as stupid as you might think. Just admit it. You were there when she died. You knew.’
‘Wrong. I didn’t.’
Bullivant studies me for a while. Then he extends a hand towards Leadbetter. I sense that they’ve probably rehearsed this moment. The file at her elbow is already open. She extracts a single sheet of paper and gives it to Bullivant. He’s about to slide it across the table but then he changes his mind. McFaul, it appears, has left me a second note, recovered from his bungalow after he’d disappeared.
Bullivant adjusts his glasses. He wants to read it to me.
Thank you for helping Chrissie on her way, McFaul has written. You’ll never know what that meant to both of us. You’re a true friend. Bullivant looks up. Then he passes me the note. ‘Well, Ms Andressen?’
I’m staring at the message. McFaul has written it in capital letters, very carefully, the way a child might. ‘Friend’, I like a lot. The rest will probably put me in prison. My mouth is dry, and I have trouble trying to swallow.
‘No comment,’ I say.
THIRTY-SIX
Andrea thinks the note is inconclusive. You can, she says, parse it a number of ways. ‘Parse’ is a wonderful verb and I haven’t heard it for years. It means analyse or interpret. When I summon a smile and thank her for trying to cheer me up, she shakes her head.
‘I mean it,’ she says. ‘Christianne was on a journey. Wittingly or otherwise, you offered support. She liked you very much. We have that in writing. Twice. You should feel proud about that.’
‘Helped her on her way? Isn’t that a gift to someone like Bullivant?’
‘It’s not Bullivant we have to worry about. He gathers the evidence, as he’s doubtless told you. Then it goes in front of the CPS. They won’t take it to court unless they think there’s a realistic chance of getting a result, and even then they have to convince a jury. These hurdles are much higher than people think. There’s also an issue with funding. This government have put the legal sector on a starvation diet. Court time costs a fortune and we’re running out of money.’
