Page 11 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
DATE:13 June 2021
SUBJECT:The Alperton Angels
FROM:Amanda Bailey
Dear Clive,
I’m an author researching my next book and wonder if you could help. I see online you won an award in 2005 for a film based on the Alperton Angels. I’d like to watch it as part of my broader research into the enduring legacy of this case, only I can’t find it anywhere. Is it available on a particular streaming platform or DVD? Also, did you speak to anyone connected to the case as part of your research?
Cheers,
Amanda Bailey
TO:Amanda Bailey
DATE:13 June 2021
SUBJECT:Re: The Alperton Angels
FROM:Clive Badham
Hi Amanda,
Your name was really familiar, then I realised: I’ve readCommon Ground, your book on Rachel Nickell. And now you’re writing to me! I really want to help with your research.
Yep, my supernatural action-adventure script,Divine, was inspired by the Alperton Angels. It won Best Unproduced Screenplay in the London Film Academy Awards 2005. Didn’t speak to anyone as I’d read everything at the time. Also, the occult is my hobby, so I had a bedrock of knowledge to draw from. In any case, I wasn’t so interested in whatactuallyhappened as much as the idea that demons walk the earth in human form. That’s pretty cool, right? That’s what inspired me.
You can’t watchDivineanywhere – yet. Funding wasn’t available so it was never actually made. But I sent the script to every producer whose email I could get my hands on andloadssaid how great it is. One got back to me just last month to say she’s on a big project for the next two years, but once that’s in the can she’ll read it! Fingers crossed. Perhaps your book will renew interest in the case.
Are you looking for a screenwriter to adapt your books? I’m only working part-time in a call centre and teaching a writers’ class at community college. I can easily fit in a script around that. I don’t have an agent, so let me know direct if you’re interested.
Clive Badham
Text messages between me and Clive Badham, 13 June 2021:
Amanda Bailey
Thanks, Clive, could I read your DIVINE script anyway? It fascinates me how much fictional material this case inspired. Even though your film was never made, it’s still an example of contemporary fiction based on it. I can name-check you if I mention it in the book
Clive Badham
Tricky. See, I’m not comfortable with that. As a writer yourself, you’ll understand. Literally anyone could change the name on the title page and claim it as theirs. But if you want a script written, let me know.
An email sent to the contact page of my website, amandabailey.co.uk, 13 June 2021:
TO:Amanda Bailey
DATE:13 June 2021
SUBJECT:A small favour
FROM:Cathy-June Lloyd
Dear Amanda Bailey,
I am chair of a small murder club here in Guildford called Cold & Unsolved. It’s a monthly meet-up where we discuss cold cases and unsolved killings – just for fun, but I’m sure we hit on some interesting theories at least once in a while!
We’ve been investigating the case of Jill Dando and a few of us read your bookThe Doorstep. It’s a real page-turner and we all feel it gets the reader right to the core of that case. I wonder, do you know if the police ever fully discounted all the neighbours? They were on the scene very quickly and the fact any one of them could keep watch over the street, fire the gun and nip back into their house made them our key suspects. We even have their motive: they wanted to buy her house at an ‘atrocity discount’. This theory would explain why there are no reliable sightings of the killer running away. A couple of us wondered if, by calling your bookThe Doorstep, you were subtly hinting at a theory you couldn’t expound for legal reasons.
