Private Lives

15



‘So I got the anti-harassment order against named paparazzi agencies this morning,’ said Anna, explaining her morning in court to Grammy Award-winning singing sensation Chantal Elliot. ‘They can’t come within a hundred metres of you and we’ll put a notice to that effect outside your house, your mum and dad’s place and at these offices. They’re not allowed to approach or follow you either. It’s not perfect, but it should make things better.’

The tiny star leapt off the sofa in her manager Ron Green’s office and threw herself around Anna.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’ve saved my life,’ she said, grabbing her tightly.

Anna froze, not knowing how to respond. She couldn’t believe how bony the girl felt in her arms. The twenty-year-old peroxide blonde was like a tiny doll that might break if she hugged her back.

‘Does this mean it’s going to stop? Like, for ever?’ sobbed the singer, black make-up running down her face. ‘’Cos I just can’t cope with it any more. If the paps keep chasing me, I’m going to kill myself. I mean it.’

Anna nodded. Chantal was well known for her struggles with drink and drugs and seemed to be in the papers on a weekly basis for various hysterical outbursts on the pavement outside nightclubs.

‘The paparazzi will have to back off for now at least,’ she explained gently. She could understand how the constant presence of photographers would be hard to handle if you were so highly strung. ‘But you have to know we can never stop it all. Not if you keep . . . well, putting yourself in the news.’

Chantal pouted, wiping her eyes vigorously and smearing her mascara even more.

‘But I’ve been in rehab, I’ve been clean for two months now.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, why are they still so interested in me?’

Because you’re a one-woman headline machine, thought Anna. She looked at the fragile girl dabbing her eyes, all scrunched up on her manager’s sofa, and wondered if it was all an act. Could she really be so naive? In the weeks preceding their application for the anti-harassment order, Chantal had complained about journalists and photographers peering in through her windows and going through her rubbish, following her to the off-licence and waiting for her when she stumbled out of a club. It was as if she genuinely couldn’t connect the two parts of her life: Chantal the performer who thrived on and desperately needed the attention, and Chantal the damaged little girl with the multiple addictions who couldn’t stand the pressure of living in a goldfish bowl. The final straw had been two days ago when she had popped out for a packet of Rizlas and been besieged by half a dozen paparazzi. As she had run across the road to escape them, one photographer had run over her foot on his moped. Chantal had had a complete meltdown and sat on the pavement screaming until someone had called an ambulance. This, of course, had been splashed across every front page in the country: ‘Chantal Finally Loses It’, ‘Pop Star Taken To Nut House’. Anna had actually been shocked at the complete lack of sympathy the papers had shown her. But then she supposed this was just another in a long line of breakdowns for Chantal. If you couldn’t get this close to her and see just how vulnerable she really was, it could easily look as if she was cynically courting the publicity, then crying wolf when she didn’t like it.

Chantal forced a smile, then started skipping around the office like a child.

Ron touched Anna on the shoulder to beckon her out of the room.

‘Are you sure they are going to leave her alone? You can see how unsettled she is.’

Anna folded her arms in front of her and looked doubtful.

‘Right now, she’s a meal ticket for the media. She’s an addict, so it’s a story. She kicks the habit. Another story. She falls off the wagon – another story right there. The press are just waiting, watching, and if they want pictures, they’ll get them. We’ve got the order against those named agencies, but there’s nothing to stop them employing freelance photographers and cutting a deal.’

Ron smiled.

‘Well, the main thing is that Chantal feels as though the pressure has been lifted for a while. So thanks for that at least.’

Anna shook her head. ‘No, Ron, thank you.’

She knew that Ron had particularly asked for her when he needed legal help, and it had been just the boost Anna had needed. After all the publicity with the Sam Charles case, clients were giving her a wide berth; no one wanted her bad professional luck to rub off on them. But Ron was a good friend. She’d done a lot of work for his management company when she’d been at Davidson’s, and he’d stayed loyal when he’d needed help with Chantal.

‘You don’t know how much it means to get back in the saddle and nail a successful injunction for you,’ she said.

‘Come on, don’t get all teary on me, Anna,’ said Ron with a wink. ‘I’ve got enough of that on my hands with madam through there. I came to you because you’re the best, no other reason.’

She blushed slightly.

‘Thank you.’

‘And don’t let the bastards grind you down, all right?’

No chance of that, she thought to herself. I’m back in the game.

She left Ron’s Hammersmith office and got a taxi to Piccadilly. It was a baking-hot day and she pulled the window down, feeling the warm air on her face. Donovan Pierce was a relaxed firm but not so relaxed that she could wear shorts, vest and flip-flops. Her fitted light wool Armani dress had looked good in court, but it wasn’t exactly ideal for walking through the park.

It was almost one o’clock. She’d give herself half an hour here – tops. The up side of her reduced workload was that she had more time to figure out how to get Blake Stanhope for contempt of court. So far she’d hit a brick wall. Neil Graham, the editor of the Scandalhound website, had finally taken her call but had been typically obtuse and difficult. Perhaps he was still miffed about the photo-doctored picture of the actress Serena Balcon she’d sued him for last year. Regardless, there was no way he was going to confirm that Blake had leaked the story. Not yet anyway.

What the hell am I doing here? Anna thought as she paid the cabby and walked through the gates of Green Park. Meeting this strange girl had seemed to make sense yesterday. It had certainly been a left-field conversation with Ruby, but she’d been intrigued by the girl’s story. Perhaps the truth was that she’d been feeling isolated and vulnerable and Ruby’s desperate need had struck a chord with her. Oh well, let’s get this over with, she thought. Ruby Hart, where are you?

Scores of office workers and tourists were teeming on to the parched yellow grass, to sunbathe or have lunch under a shady tree. She glanced at the photo of Ruby that the girl had emailed her, so she could recognise her, but no one seemed to fit the bill.

Anna looked at her watch. She had to be back in the office by two o’clock or Helen Pierce would start asking questions. Although the frosty atmosphere had lessened a little – Ron Green’s business had no doubt helped in that regard – she still felt like a pariah in the eyes of the senior partner, but she knew there was no point in dwelling on the injustice of it all. She just had to pick herself up and prove to Helen that she had been right to hire her in the first place.

‘Anna?’

She turned; she had been so caught up in her thoughts, she hadn’t seen the girl approach.

She was small, and her dark-blond hair was scraped back in a ponytail. Despite the heat, she had thick black leggings on under canvas shorts, and she was chewing nervously on a painted nail.

‘You must be Ruby,’ said Anna, shaking her other hand. ‘Shall we walk? It’s too hot to stand around.’

Ruby nodded shyly.

‘Sorry I didn’t want to meet in your office. I didn’t think I’d get past the receptionist.’

Anna smiled. ‘No, you don’t look like our average client. How old are you?’

‘Seventeen.’

God, you look much older, thought Anna, observing the girl’s hard, care-worn look. Don’t jump to conclusions, Anna, she scolded herself.

‘So where have you travelled from?’ she asked as they began to walk around the lake.

‘Near Doncaster.’

‘Are you at college?’

Ruby nodded. ‘I’m doing my A levels. I’m applying to uni when I get back,’ she said with a hint of pride.

‘Great. Which one?’

‘Cambridge.’

‘Well done you.’ Anna smiled, hoping it hadn’t come out as patronising. Which it was, she thought. You had her down as a teen mother on crack, didn’t you?

‘So what do you want to do? When you finish your degree, I mean?’

Ruby shrugged.

‘I used to think about journalism, but maybe it’s too corrupt and deceitful.’

Anna couldn’t help but give a cynical laugh, thinking immediately of Andrew and how he’d got Sophie a food column on his newspaper, then begun an affair with her soon after. Deceitful wasn’t the half of it.

‘What’s so funny?’ said Ruby.

‘Sorry, it wasn’t you,’ said Anna. ‘I deal with the papers for a living, remember? And yes, you’re right, perhaps there are some deceitful journalists. But then again, there are lots more very good, very honourable ones too. People who make a difference and who risk a lot to make politicians and companies accountable.’

‘Does that sort of journalism even exist any more?’ said Ruby doubtfully.

Anna thought about the endless debates she and Andrew used to have about the state of the media. Andrew’s complaints about the overstretched budgets. The pressure on the news team to get the most up-to-date stories, not necessarily the most probing ones. ‘It’s the death of investigative journalism,’ he’d once told her. ‘With our budget cuts and media lawyers strangleholding us every two minutes, how can we ever get the world-class scoops we used to?’

‘It exists. Perhaps not as often as it should,’ she said guiltily, knowing that Andrew blamed lawyers such as herself for the demise in reporting. ‘But it does.’

They reached a patch lined with trees and sat on a bench in the shade of a poplar.

‘I still haven’t quite worked out how I can help you,’ said Anna, turning to Ruby.

‘My sister was murdered and no one believes me.’

‘Then why should I?’

‘Maybe you won’t, but I thought you might at least pay attention to me.’

Is that what this is about? thought Anna with a sinking feeling. This poor girl just wants someone to talk to? She glanced at her watch and took a deep breath.

‘Okay, so perhaps you should start at the beginning.’

Ruby glanced away and began chewing her nail again. A flake of black polish came off and stuck to her lip.

‘I told you,’ she said. ‘My sister died six months ago. The inquest took ages. Finally they ruled an open verdict.’

‘And you’re unhappy with that?’

‘She was found dead at her flat by her landlord. Apparently she’d fallen down the stairs. She was wearing heels and the steps were steep.’

‘It sounds plausible. What was the cause of death?’

‘A broken neck.’

‘Because she’d fallen down the stairs?’ said Anna, trying to work out the sequence of events.

Ruby nodded. ‘That’s what the coroner said. But I think she was pushed.’

Anna leaned closer.

‘Is that a possibility?’

‘The pathologist spoke at the inquest. He said it was impossible to know for sure, but the injuries that caused her death were “largely consistent” – she put up her fingers to denote quotation marks – ‘with a tumble down the stairs.’

‘Then why did the coroner not pronounce accidental death?’

‘No one knows for sure what happened. And the coroner admitted there were some things out of character. For instance the amount of alcohol she’d taken. Amy rarely drank. Plus a neighbour in her apartment building saw a man in the stairwell near her apartment the evening she died. The police followed it up, but nothing came of it. They didn’t think it was suspicious.’

Poor Ruby, thought Anna. She was clearly just a traumatised kid looking for something to cling to. Anna couldn’t blame her for that, but she wasn’t sure how she could help her either.

‘Ruby, I can’t even begin to understand how awful this has been for you,’ she said gently. ‘Sometimes trying to make sense of something helps us work through the grief. But I have to say that this sounds like a very tragic accident.’

Ruby nodded. It was as if that was the reaction she had been expecting.

‘That’s what my mum says. She says it’s my coping mechanism. She wouldn’t even let me speak at the inquest. No one ever takes a seventeen-year-old seriously anyway. But it just doesn’t sound right.’

‘So what makes you think this wasn’t an accident?’

‘The police report says that Amy was wearing high heels when she was found at the bottom of the stairs. But I’m not sure she was wearing them when she fell. For a start, she only had one nail painted and it must have been wet when the shoe went on because there was polish on the inside leather of her shoe.’

‘What does that prove? She could have been painting her nails and then had to rush out. She grabbed some heels, she was in a hurry, she stumbled.’

‘She was in leggings and a T-shirt when they found her. Stuff to lounge around in. Not to team up with a pair of Jimmy Choos. My sister would never wear her Choos with her comfy clothes.’

She looked back at Anna with embarrassment.

‘I know, it sounds like I’m clutching at straws, doesn’t it? I can see no one’s going to believe any of that in court or anything, but I knew my sister and it just doesn’t add up to me.’

‘So why didn’t the police treat her death as suspicious?’

Ruby shook her head sadly.

‘I don’t know.’

Anna looked at her watch again. She felt bad letting the poor girl down, but she really didn’t have time for this.

‘Listen, Ruby, I’d love to be able to help you,’ she said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. ‘But this isn’t my area of law and besides, you really haven’t given me anything I could work with. You said on the phone that someone famous killed your sister. Either you tell me everything or I’m really going to have to go.’

‘I don’t know who to trust.’

Anna put her hand over Ruby’s.

‘You can trust me, Ruby. Just tell me what happened.’

Ruby took a deep breath.

‘My sister had started going out with a famous actor, I told you that. I was excited at first. Asked her to get me his autograph. But then after they’d been out, she didn’t want to talk about him. She told me he was an idiot and that they’d had an argument and she didn’t want to see him again.’

‘So?’

‘So she rejected him. And I bet famous people don’t like that. I bet he went round to her house and they had another row and, well, the next thing we know, Amy is dead.’

‘You know he went round?’ she asked, puzzled.

‘No. But it all makes sense. People are usually killed by people they know, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘What about the shoe? The nail polish? I think he went round to her flat, and at some point he pushed Amy down the stairs. Maybe it was an accident but he wasn’t going to take the blame for it. I think he put the high heels on her feet to make it look like she fell, and left the flat.’ She was twisting her hair furiously around her fingers.

‘Was Amy’s boyfriend interviewed at the inquest?’

She nodded.

‘He claimed they had split up by the time she died.’

Anna’s hopes of this turning out to be anything worth skipping lunch for were rapidly dwindling.

‘You’ve not told me. Who was Amy’s boyfriend?’

‘Ryan Jones.’

Anna just blinked. The name meant nothing to her.

‘You know, Ryan Jones,’ said Ruby. ‘He plays Jamie in Barclay’s Place.’

Barclay’s Place was a low-budget suppertime soap aimed at students. It wasn’t even on terrestrial TV. Anna had been expecting Ruby to name a Hollywood A-lister with top political connections, at the very least a theatrical ‘sir’ with some pull with the papers.

‘I want to challenge the inquest,’ said Ruby finally. ‘And I want you to do it for me.’

Anna felt disheartened. ‘Look, Ruby, I’m sorry for your loss, I truly am. But I think this is just a very, very sad accident, however hard that might be to accept. And I’m not sure challenging the inquest is going to help you and your family move forward.’

‘But you can challenge an inquest?’

She shrugged. ‘Well, yes. You’d have to apply to the High Court for a judicial review, although you’re going to need more of a reason than “Amy didn’t wear high heels in the house”.’

Ruby ferreted in her bag and pulled out a tatty-looking purse.

‘Listen, there’s over a hundred quid in here,’ she said, trying to press it into Anna’s hands. ‘I want you to be my lawyer. You know about the law and you know about celebrities. When I read about you in the papers I knew you were the person who could help me.’

Anna had to smile. ‘You’re one of the few people who probably does believe in my legal capabilities right now.’

‘Take the money,’ said Ruby.

Anna shook her head. ‘Oh Ruby, I can’t. I can’t do this for you. This isn’t what I do.’

‘Please,’ said Ruby, tears pooling in her eyes. ‘My sister was beautiful and clever. She came from nothing, my dad beat us up, but she made a nice life for herself. And now she’s dead. I don’t know if you have a sister, Miss Kennedy, but if you do and she got killed, you’d want to know why, wouldn’t you?’

‘Obviously I would, but . . .’

Ruby’s eyes challenged hers.

‘I know what sort of law you do, Miss Kennedy. You cover things up for rich people. Why don’t you do the right thing for a change? Why don’t you help uncover the truth for once?’

The words sat with Anna uncomfortably. She looked at Ruby kindly.

‘Go back to Doncaster. Go back to college. Get into Cambridge and make your sister proud.’

‘Can you at least do me one favour?’ said Ruby, handing Anna a brown envelope. ‘At least take this. Everything I could find out about Amy’s death is in there. Just read it.’

‘All right,’ said Anna, stuffing it into her bag. ‘But now I really have to go.’

‘Even if you don’t want to help me, thanks for seeing me at least,’ Ruby said. ‘Most people would just think I’m some nutter.’

The thought had crossed my mind, thought Anna.

She turned away and practically ran towards the gate, praying that there would be cabs on Piccadilly. ‘Helen Pierce is really going to kill me,’ she muttered to herself. ‘And to be honest, I wouldn’t blame her.’