Fatal Act by Leigh Russell Page A

good looking girl, a former glamour model. There were photos of her… She had plenty of fans, believe me, plenty of men ready to chance their luck.’ He turned to his solicitor.
    ‘Get me out of here, for God’s sake. What the hell am I paying you for? Have you seen where I slept last night? Or rather where they kept me cooped up. I didn’t get much sleep.’
    G eraldine stared at the grey-haired man sitting across the table from her. He seemed more upset about his night in a cell than his girlfriend’s death but she knew that grief affected people in strange ways and perhaps the truth hadn’t yet sunk in. Piers turned back to her with a scowl.
    ‘Let’s try and apply some common sense to this, shall we? It seems pretty obvious what must have happened. Some crazy fan of hers found out where she lived. He watched her drive off. Seeing she was on her own, he thought he would seize his chance. He didn’t want to lose her, so he broke into the van and followed her. He was pissed, or high, driving too fast, and ended up leaving the van in some godforsaken street where she was driving, and she crashed into it and that’s what killed her. If that’s not muddled thinking, I don’t know what is. He smashed up both vehicles, killing the poor girl in the process. Realising he had destroyed his idol, he did a runner. Clearly he’s insane. You should be out there looking for him, not sitting here with me. It wasn’t my bad driving that killed her. How many times do I have to tell you? I wasn’t there.’
    He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
    H e looked irritated when Geraldine asked him if there was anything else he wanted to tell them. He glanced at his solicitor for an explanation. The brief just shrugged, as though to say he had no idea what Geraldine was talking about. Piers turned back to Geraldine.
    ‘What do you mean, anything else? Her car was in a collision. She’s dead.’
    ‘Yes, her car was involved in a collision, but Anna didn’t die as a result of the crash, not exactly. She was concussed, and badly injured, but that wasn’t what killed her. Someone gave her a fatal injury after the vehicles collided. That was what killed her. This isn’t a simple hit and run case, Mr Trevelyan.’
    P iers looked perplexed. Already pale and drawn from lack of sleep, his face took on a greyish tinge. There was no mistaking his unease.
    ‘So the van she drove into –’
    ‘No, it wasn’t like that. The van deliberately drove into her car.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘We’ve got it on CCTV. There’s no question that this was deliberate. Anna was murdered.’
    ‘Murder? Anna was murdered? You’re saying someone did this deliberately? But why? Who?’
    G eraldine wasn’t sure if he was shocked at hearing that his girlfriend had been murdered, or because the police had seen through a sophisticated attempt to disguise her death as a fatal traffic accident. At her side, Geraldine heard Sam sniff. She glanced around. She could imagine what her colleague was thinking: Piers worked in the world of acting; they couldn’t take anything he said at face value. But Geraldine thought he was genuinely surprised. His solicitor meanwhile looked grave. He advised his client not to say anything. Ignoring his advice, Piers grew strident in his protestations.
    ‘M r Trevelyan, think carefully. Is there anyone who might have held a grudge against Anna, anyone who might have hated her enough to do this?’
    ‘No one hated Anna,’ he replied sternly. ‘If you’d known her, you’d realise how ridiculous that question is.’
    ‘Who did she mix with? Who were her friends?’
    ‘Anna had no time for friends. She was a lead character in the series. You have no idea what that means. I don’t think you have the faintest idea how time consuming the profession is, or how hard she worked. People like you think it’s easy, appearing on television. Do you know how little time she was given to learn her lines, or the pressure she was