Jess
I had to admit to a ridiculous thrill as I approached Linton College and the film set. I was just that little closer to fame. This production company had made two of the last Oscar-nominated films, known for their quirky take on historical subjects. Amy had already filled me in on the general layout of the site in our early morning briefing phone call and told me where Roman could be found.
‘Does he use the canteen?’ I asked.
‘There’s a mobile catering unit but I can’t predict when he’ll take a break.’ Amy sounded tired.
‘What’s the film?’
‘Set in the 1930s – working class grammar school lad falls under the spell of a right-wing femme fatale. Think Lady Chatterley’s Lover with Nazis.’
Intriguing.
‘Any other clues how to get alongside Roman?’
‘Roman smokes. You’ll find him in the corner of shame with the other addicts.’ Amy’s disapproval was plain. With her clean food, clean living ethos, I imagined smoking was one of the deadliest of sins.
‘I presume on a big site they have more than one designated area?’
‘Yes, but he’s most often lurking in the one out front, just past the Porter’s Lodge. I avoid it, for obvious reasons.’
‘Thanks. It looks like I’m going to have to take up smoking again.’
I checked my handbag for the little packet I’d bought at the newsagents in Summertown. Smoking had been a vice as a teen (I’d tried most things I shouldn’t then) but I hadn’t succumbed to a tobacco habit for over a decade. These things were dangerous for me. My lack of impulse control meant that flirting with an addiction could be a slippery slope that I didn’t try very hard to climb back up.
I reported to the lodge to pick up my pass.
‘Name?’
I’d reached the front of the queue without even noticing. ‘Jessica Bridges. I’m filling in for Amy Mason, executive assistant, while she’s on holiday.’
‘Oh yes, I had a message about you an hour ago.’ The spotty lad not much out of his teens checked my passport against the name on his list. ‘Do you know where to go, Miss?’
‘I’m supposed to meet Jonah Brigson at his trailer.’
‘Then you’ll need the staff carpark.’ He handed me a map and drew a dotted line across the site. ‘I can call them and get them to send someone for you.’
‘Thanks, but I’d prefer to find my own way.’
‘Keep to this path. If you spoil a take, the director might shoot you.’ He winked at me, which felt totally wrong as he was way too young for me.
‘I’ll try to duck all bullets coming my way.’
His expression sobered as one of his colleagues, a tubby man in an unfortunate waistcoat, sent him a disapproving look at our banter. ‘Don’t get lost and … er … also, don’t go near the boathouse at any time for any reason until further notice.’
I could guess why. ‘Trust me, I’ll keep to the path. I don’t want to be sent home before I even start work.’
‘You wouldn’t be the first.’ He printed off my pass and fastened it on a lanyard. ‘You won’t believe the number of undercover reporters we’ve had to chase off, all wanting to get shots of where it happened.’
And I was just an ordinary undercover missing persons detective. ‘Oh wow. The murder. I bet.’ I avoided mentioning my small part in this as the one that had found the victim.
‘We’ll be keeping an eye on you.’ He pointed two fingers to his eyes and then up to the CCTV screen.
Ushered out of the door, I turned my map upside down so it faced the same way that I was going. I kept a lookout for the smokers’ corner, which I found easily as it was marked by numerous dropped butts. I’d be back later. Entering into the first quad I took a left and worked my way past chapel and dining room to the ancillary areas of the college where the kitchens and bins were to be found.
The staff carpark had been partly given over to a little huddle of trailers for the lead actors, their home-from-home during the long hours of shooting. I knew from Amy that Jonah would already have been in since dawn for his makeup and wardrobe call. There was always a big rush just in case he was needed but more often than not he was left waiting. He knew to expect his assistant at nine if he wasn’t on set and I was only five minutes late. I knocked.
‘Yeah?’
I opened the door. ‘Mr Brigson, I’m Amy’s holiday cover.’
Jonah, early thirties, pale-skinned with hair buzz cut, was lounging on the couch in ripped T-shirt and jeans. A scar – courtesy of the makeup department – slashed across one cheek and one eye was eerily clouded – again an addition for this part and not something he was likely to be born with. He looked very scary – definitely the kind of man that would encourage you to cross over if you saw him coming towards you late at night.
‘What the fuck? I told Carol I didn’t need an assistant. Didn’t she tell you?’
So much for expecting me. ‘Carol? Um, no. Who is that?’
‘My agent.’ He got up, irritable, and stubbed out a rolled-up cigarette in a saucer. ‘Amy’s bad enough, hovering around to tend to my every whim like I’m some posh boy who doesn’t know how to wipe his own bum.’
This was going so well. I refused to be daunted. ‘And I’d be very good at that, seeing how my landlady’s kid is at that stage and I’m often called in to deputise.’ That was probably too much information.
‘I don’t need you, love. Carol only made me have an assistant so I look like I’m getting equal treatment to Ronnie Merchant, but, fuck, I was looking forward to my couple of weeks with no one hanging around watching me as I scratch my balls or pick my nose.’ He reached for his mobile and I just knew he was going to call to have me fired.
‘You haven’t tried me yet. Scratch, pick and even fart as much as you like, Mr Brigson, I don’t care – I wouldn’t even notice. And who knows? I could just be that missing ingredient to your dull stew of a life – your chilli pepper.’
His thumb hovered over the call button. ‘My chilli pepper? Are you crazy?’
‘Definitely. It must be boring hanging around waiting for your call to come to set. My craziness will at least make the time pass more quickly.’
‘My life’s had enough crazy.’ He opened his contacts to find the number to get rid of me.
‘Then do it for Amy!’ I grabbed the phone from him and held it behind my back. It was such an audacious move he was momentarily dumbfounded. So was I. I hadn’t thought this through. What next?
‘What the fuck are you playing at?’
Oh God, I was going to blurt it all out, wasn’t I? I’d just met one of the hottest tickets in cinema and I was going to spoil it all. ‘I’m here for her – to work out what her ex-partner is doing with her fifteen-year-old daughter, all right? It’s not about you.’
That knocked him down a peg or two – being told he wasn’t the most important story in British tinsel town. ‘You what?’
‘Amy’s partner, Roman Wolnik, has gone off with her daughter and is trying to get their boy too. Pawel’s only seven – he’s a cute kid and likes bouncing on his trampoline. He doesn’t need to be hauled away from home just because the grown-ups can’t get their shit together.’
Jonah put up a hand to stop me – at least he wasn’t using it to place the call any longer. ‘Back up a bit, Mary Poppins. You are here for Amy. Explain.’
‘Her partner Roman Wolnik—’
‘Yeah, I got that part. A dickhead. He stole the girl and is after the boy.’
‘But he also works here for Pegasus Tree Productions. Set dresser. Amy wants me to find out where her daughter is and see what’s going on.’
‘Is he the girl’s father?’
‘No – but he is Pawel’s.’
Jonah sat down and started rolling another cigarette. ‘Why didn’t she say anything to me? We’ve been working together for a month, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Probably too busy wiping your bum.’
He grimaced and tapped the roll-up on the tin. ‘And I never asked, did I? Shit, I’m becoming one of them.’ He jerked his head towards the other trailers. ‘Did she go to the police?’
‘Yeah, and they did nothing. They said the daughter was happy where she was with her stepdad. Old enough to decide for herself and all that.’ I had run away for the first time at around that age – you were never old enough. You might think you knew what you were doing until life slapped you in the face. ‘They won’t even pass on a message.’ I avoided mentioning the daughter’s accusations of abuse. It wasn’t fair when Amy came back to find that rumour had soured where she worked.
He didn’t look surprised by her predicament. ‘Bastards. What does Amy want you to do?’
‘She wants me to get into Roman’s confidence and find out where he’s living at the moment. Her ultimate aim is for me to pass a message to her daughter as everyone else has refused to act as intermediary. I think she wants me to persuade Angelica to come home – and at the very least check she’s safe.’
He lit his cigarette – no designated zone for him, unless the whole trailer was one. ‘And what does she think you can do about it? You’re what? A friend of hers? Moonlighting social worker?’
‘No, I’m actually a private detective.’
He let loose a full belly laugh and stood up, heading for the door. ‘That’s a good one, Poppins. OK, you had me up to that point. Well played. Tell Amy you were worth the ten-minute distraction. Say I’ll see her in two weeks.’
He didn’t believe me! ‘I am – I really am! Not a detective …’ maybe that had been overplaying my hand … ‘so much as a seeker of missing persons. Look – here’s my card.’ I had a business card these days, thanks to Drew’s influence. It just said Jessica Bridges, Personal Enquiries Agent and then my phone number and website.
Jonah took one look and tossed the card into the ashtray. ‘You’re serious? You, Mary Poppins, go hunting for missing persons? You wouldn’t last five minutes in the kind of places runaways end up.’ He breathed out a plume of smoke and looked at me through the fumes. I noticed his nails were bitten short and knuckles tattooed with the cheap ink of ex-cons and bikers. He was no plastic Hollywood star, this guy.
‘You’d be surprised. And I do find them. If you still don’t believe me you can contact the Metropolitan Police. I helped them on a case last year.’ I really hoped he didn’t though, as they might not have many flattering things to say about me. ‘Please phone Amy – hear her side.’
‘Stay here.’ He went into the second room in the trailer. I thought it was just a bathroom but he closed the door before I could peek inside. That gave me time to look around his den. It might be my one and only chance to see inside the life of someone famous. There was a thin spiral-bound script on the table with the name of the film he was working on – Knives Edge. It’d got ‘confidential’ stamped all over it, which, of course, invited me to glance inside. He didn’t have much dialogue and that which he had was mostly swearing. He should be good at that then. By contrast, he did have a lot of action, including in the sack, with his co-star, Ronnie. I read a section. They’re going to do that on screen, are they? Definitely going to be an 18 certificate. I could feel my cheeks heating just thinking about the logistics of filming that. I put the script down and wandered to the window to take a closer look at the photo on the sill. It was of Jonah with his arms around a gorgeous girl with a cloud of black hair. She was holding a violin. Oh yes, I remembered now: the press linked his name with that classy musician, Jenny something. They liked the contrast between the rough London lad and the cultured classical violinist.
‘Like what you see?’ He was back.
Guiltily I put the photo down. ‘What’s the verdict?’ I crossed my arms, prepared to argue some more.
‘Amy persuaded me to give you a chance. Sounds like she’s having a rough time at the moment.’
‘Yeah, the roughest. She’s terrified for her kids.’
‘You can stay and see if you can help her out by getting a message to the girl.’
‘You’re letting me stay!’ I was afraid my relief made my voice a little too close to a squeal, not the professional tone I’d hoped for.
‘Yeah. Chilli pepper, hey?’
‘That’s me.’
He sat down and shoved the script aside. ‘So, Jessica Pepper, what’s the plan?’