1 Oxford, England, Present Day #3
As she’d been talking, Elizabeth was scrolling on her mobile phone and now held it out so that Lyssa could see the screen.
The photograph may have been old and in black and white, but even so, Lyssa could tell that the elfin blonde young woman depicted in it was indeed startlingly lovely and had an aura of tragedy about her.
Even though she had been smiling, you just had to take one look at it to sense that the woman in the image was somehow doomed.
Which only added to her charisma, naturally.
Lyssa gave a little sigh and leaned back in her chair. ‘It must have felt like such a waste of a young life,’ she said gently.
Elizabeth nodded, looked at the photograph of her dead relative for a moment, then shrugged and slipped the phone back into her bag. ‘She was found in her garden, drowned in the pond, the day after her twenty-third birthday,’ she said simply. ‘At her own birthday party.’
Lyssa swallowed hard but said nothing. She knew what it was like to lose someone so young and unexpectedly, and for a moment she felt tears stinging at the back of her eyes and fought them back fiercely. To give herself time to pull herself together, she reached for her drink and took a slow sip.
‘Of course, the press had a field day,’ Elizabeth said bitterly.
‘The vultures.’ Then, catching Lyssa’s questioning look, waved a hand vaguely in the air and forced a smile.
‘Sorry – don’t get me started on them. Let’s just say that back then, they were less than sympathetic.
It was 1966, and despite what we think now about the “swinging” 60s, the times were still not particularly liberal.
And you can image what they made of a young girl from a prominent family living in sin with the long-haired singer of a pop band. ’
Lyssa could well imagine. ‘I expect “groupie” was the mildest thing they came up with.’
‘And the rest,’ Elizabeth said bitterly. ‘To hear them talk, she was an immoral, drunken, drug-crazed, out-of-control nymphomaniac and nobody was surprised by her self-destruction.’
‘They brought in a verdict of suicide, then?’ Lyssa asked, keeping her voice calm and trying to bring down the emotional level a notch or two.
Elizabeth must have sensed what she was doing, for she took a long slow breath, drank some water, and visibly relaxed her shoulders.
But then she was back to fidgeting again, and began restlessly tossing a small diamond-and-platinum cigarette lighter between her hands.
With a small grimace, she pushed the lighter back into her bag.
‘No,’ she finally said in answer to Lyssa’s question. ‘The jury concluded it was accidental drowning, whilst under the influence of drink and drugs. The postmortem found a small amount of LSD in her system, and quite a lot of champagne.’
Lyssa didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing at all.
That’s when Elizabeth Grainger lifted her head defiantly, and levelled a long look her way. ‘That’s why I want us to put the record straight,’ she said firmly.
It wasn’t until they were at the coffee stage that Elizabeth brought up the sometimes tricky subject of money, and for that, Lyssa was grateful.
Although she wasn’t worried that a woman who casually lunched at places like the Ivy and wore designer outfits that probably cost more than Lyssa’s monthly mortgage rate would quibble at her fees. She just always hated to bring up the subject herself.
‘Of course I’m happy to pay your going rate,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Perhaps a downpayment of 10 per cent up front, say, and then a monthly payment during the writing of a first draft, with a final payment and bonus on completion? Does that sound good to you?’
She then named a sum that made Lyssa very happy indeed – although she wouldn’t start counting her chickens until her agent had gone over the contract details and the first deposit was safely in the bank!
‘And this is for you,’ Elizabeth said, reaching into her Gucci handbag and handing over a computer memory stick. ‘It’s all the stuff I’ve managed to collate about Monty from the family and my own research so far.’
‘Thanks, I’m sure it will be very useful,’ Lyssa said, slipping the small gadget into the internal, zippered part of her own (definitely not Gucci) handbag.
‘There was also some cine film footage that was taken at Monty’s birthday party, by one of the guests – you know, with one of those old handheld cameras?
’ Elizabeth screwed up her face in a wry grimace.
‘Apparently, he was a bit of an amateur enthusiast – probably thought of himself as a potential film-maker or something.’
At this, Lyssa’s heart rate shot up. ‘I don’t suppose you have a copy of it, do you?’
Elizabeth rolled her eyes theatrically. ‘I wish! I was kind of hoping you might be able to find out more about it – who knows, maybe even track it down if by some chance it still exists. I remember Mummy telling me the swine who took the film went on to tell his experiences of the party to the press and also sold some of the stills from the film to the jackals for a tidy sum, but I haven’t found out his name yet.
I was hoping you might be able to identify him and see if he or his descendants might be willing to sell the film again – to us, this time. ’
‘I’ll certainly do my best,’ Lyssa said ardently.
‘Right, then. I’ll send over the contract paperwork via email as soon as it’s all set up,’ Elizabeth assured her, and with another energetic handshake, she was off.
She walked fast, dodging around people and the waiters and waitresses as if anxious that they might slow her down.
Lyssa, taking more time getting her things together, could only watch her with a sort of bemused wonder.
A few minutes later, she stepped out on to the High Street and, remembering her promise to Freida, texted her that she was now emerging, unscathed (and un-abducted) from the Ivy, and was heading home.