computer: a still from Locker Room Orgy. 'Look,' he said, 'it wasn't that Eva wasn't totally committed to Decency, but she needed to make money. She'd got used to a certain standard of living, and who can blame her? She'd heard I'd gone into straight film-making and she came to me in the hope of lining up some work for later. We talked about using her reputation to pitch a TV series. It was going to be about these women she used to work with who were trying to shake free of their pasts and lead ordinary lives. She had a title: Fallen Angels. But nothing was going to happen until after the campaign was over, OK? Decency came first.'
'Did she tell anyone else about these plans?'
'Not as far as I know.
Jenny studied his face and decided he seemed more or less genuine. He didn't come across as sharp enough to be a good liar. If he were female, you would have called him a bimbo.
'Tell me, what was Eva's state of mind when you met her?'
'To be honest, I thought she was feeling the strain of being on show the whole time. She reminded me a little of how she was after the accident, when she was depressed. She was showing the same signs.'
'Such as?'
'She was jumpy, smoking a lot, and her hand would shake - you know, like an old person's.'
'Did she have any enemies that you knew of?'
Cassidy glanced up and down the boardwalk, then leaned in across the table, lowering his voice to a whisper. 'If you're asking do I think someone other than Paul Craven killed her, I'd say anything's possible. But what I do know is the porno business, and that the people that run it are far too rich and clever to get their own hands dirty - you know what I'm saying? I've thought about it every which way, and if Craven didn't do it, he must have arrived to find her already dead, right? So it could have been a professional hit - why not? You should hear the stories this scriptwriter tells me.'
Jenny said, 'Would you like another drink?'
Cassidy said, 'Only if you're having one.'
The second dose of vodka loosened Cassidy's tongue to the point at which Jenny sensed he was trying to please her. He told her that he'd met Eva when she'd already been in the industry for some time and they were cast in the same movie. They'd bonded over their love of sixties music - a time when pop was a rebellion, not just a business. From the moment he met her, Cassidy said, he knew she was different from the other girls he worked with; there was something behind her eyes, an intelligence, depth. It was what made her so special: her audience wanted to get to know her for more than just her body. And even though she was making big money, she was always planning for the future. Way before she found God, he remembered her saying, 'There's no reason we only have to be one person throughout our lives, we can be as many as we like.'
Thinking Eva would have been an interesting woman to have met, Jenny said, 'How did that happen, her conversion?'
'Just like the story goes. "He caught me just as my fingers were slipping from the edge," is how she described it to me.'
'And you're convinced it was genuine?'
Cassidy grinned, showing off expensive teeth. 'Put it this way, I hadn't been inside a church since my First Communion. When we met that second time, in February, Eva said she'd had a word of knowledge - I think that's what she called it - telling her to tell me to go to Mass. Can you believe it? Me! But just for her I went four times in a row, confessed my many sins, and - guess what? - the first channel I talked to about Fallen Angels virtually bit my hand off. The only problem was they wanted someone else to play Eva's part.'
'How did she react to that?'
'Like you'd imagine - she was disappointed, but I kept telling her she'd have a share of the show and a creator credit. That would have made her a proper player, part of the business. Pretty actresses are ten a penny.'
'But it wasn't going to solve her money problems.'
'I told her she should work in PR, cash in on all the skills she'd learned with Decency.' He stared into his empty