‘I see. Binny? What did you find out?’
Sergeant Binny nodded in agreement. ‘What Miss Parker says about the girl seems to be correct. I couldn’t find anything against her in the police records, and by all accounts she’s a dream to work with. High-class background and hell-bent on success, which she’s achieved, of course. Up until now, anyway. Not a hint of the usual drugs and all that shenanigans. Miss Hanro seems squeaky clean.’
‘So it would seem,’ said the Inspector with an exaggerated nod. ‘Too squeaky clean?’
‘I swear she didn’t do this herself, sir,’ Posie insisted. ‘It’s too complicated. Besides, the finger was really horrible.’
‘Very well, then. I had to ask. But you don’t think the finger was from a fresh corpse, do you? Rather like some crusty old specimen dug out from somewhere?’
‘That’s right, sir. In fact I could detect a distinct smell of formaldehyde as a preserving agent. It niffed more than a bit, I’ll tell you.’
The Chief Inspector sighed. ‘Well, I don’t think it sounds like we have a mass-murderer on our hands. Thank goodness. Just someone with convenient access to old body parts. However, there are two things that bother me in all of this. And one of them is that finger.’
‘What’s the other, sir?’ piped up Binny, interested, from along the bench. Lovelace crouched forwards, his medal flashing in the dark.
‘Actually it’s the circle of foil around the finger, Sergeant. That worries me a darn sight more than the finger itself.’
Posie frowned. ‘Why so, sir?’
‘It gives the finger meaning, Posie. You said that this odious digit was the left-hand ring finger?’
Here he shot a quick glance in the dark at Posie’s own pink-sapphire ring, as if to check he wasn’t about to make some horribly tactless remark. Satisfied, he went on:
‘Well, you know very well that by wearing a ring you show the world publicly that you are engaged, or married. It’s a sign of belonging to someone, or, some would say, possessing or having won someone. It’s a universal sign of the strongest emotion.’
‘Love?’
‘Yep. And we both know that love is often the driving factor behind murders. More often than not. Love comes in many shapes and sizes, often in dangerous and warped forms. I think the gold foil was a fake wedding ring, a sign: a symbol which was intended to deliver a message to your movie star, or else to hurt her. I think it might have meant something to Silvia Hanro. Perhaps something she didn’t tell you? You said she was holding something back. A lover? A secret?’
Posie shrugged, all the while thinking. She hadn’t thought of the gold-foil as a ring properly, and she was cross with herself because of it. It was so obvious. The Chief Inspector deserved his Blue Plume tonight.
She scrambled to remember Silvia Hanro in her changing room earlier that day, when she had passed across the finger. There had been something Posie had felt Silvia was keeping back, something about today which had been special, but what it was exactly had eluded her. The girl seemed to have a positive ton of secrets.
‘I don’t know if it meant anything to her, sir. But I do know she’s not planning on getting married any time soon. She can’t. Apparently it would be the end of her career. Not that sh’d marry the man you’d expect her to, anyhow.’
She had struggled with herself as to whether or not to keep Silvia’s secret about not being an item with Robbie Fontaine, and yet her concern for the girl won out, and she blabbed about the deception, and the real-life boyfriend. She had the satisfaction of hearing both Sergeant Binny and the Chief Inspector take sharp intakes of breath and Lovelace mutter to himself: ‘Good grief! Well, I’ll be blowed!’
‘There are other secrets, too, sir.’
Posie then described how she had visited both Brian Langley’s home and Pamela Hanro’s. She mentioned the baby, Hilda Hanro, and about how Brian and Pamela Hanro now knew each other and were united in raising the girl, without Silvia’s knowledge or consent.
After she had finished, they all sat in silence for a few seconds. Chief Inspector Lovelace groaned in disbelief.
‘What a can of worms! Where do we start?’
‘You’re telling me, sir.’
****
Eighteen
The oil lamp flickered.
‘Are you certain that Silvia isn’t in danger right now, Posie? It would be a devil of a thing to leave her alone tonight if she’s in peril.’
Posie tried to suppress the thought of the girl in the apricot dress, turning back into the café, alone.
‘I think the person who wrote the letters and sent the finger intends to kill her tomorrow, sir. It’s very specific. For some reason, whether it’s for the public nature of the party, or needing to have the film all finished, she can live until then. I think the murder is intended to be a big public gesture. Probably a shooting, unfortunately.’
‘I agree with you there.’
‘So my feeling is that Silvia is safe until then. The writer is a man, or a woman, of their word.’
The Chief Inspector nodded. ‘I see. Good work uncovering the background. But what about the suspects you told me about earlier? Tell me where you’re up to and let Sergeant Binny chip in with anything extra he may have found out. Is that what’s in that bag, Sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Binny muttered, pulling out a notebook and various bits of paper and heading over to be nearest the oil lamp in order to read them.
‘I’ve been scouring all sorts of things: our own police records; birth and death records; army records; newspapers. The full works.’
Dark shadows flickered across Binny’s face, catching around the moustache he had grown to make people take him more seriously, and Posie saw him concentrating hard, not liking to look as though he had been caught on the hop. She knew that Sergeant Binny was studying hard for his Inspector’s exams in the autumn, but he needed to make a constant good impression with the Chief Inspector in order to be entered for them. She felt for him and the pressure he was under, although she knew that Lovelace was a good boss and a kind man.
‘Ready?’ she asked, getting out her own notebook. Binny nodded.
Posie counted off on her fingers:
‘Suspect one, Robbie Fontaine. He’s a drug addict, sir. Cocaine, apparently. You now know, like me, that he’s not really Silvia Hanro’s boyfriend; he’s married to a woman called Sheila who I’m yet to meet. There’s no love lost between him and Silvia, for sure, but I don’t think he’d stoop to murder. Anything to add, Sergeant?’
The Sergeant consulted his notes in the dim flickering light.
‘Not that much, Miss Parker. He was already in the movies at the time the Great War broke out, although playing bit-parts rather than the romantic leads he now specialises in. He seems to have got his big break during the war, when other actors had famously signed up. He didn’t volunteer for the army, by the way. He managed to wangle it that he was doing “necessary service” at home, making entertainment for the troops.’
Chief Inspector Lovelace raised an eyebrow. He checked his fob watch as the Inner Temple bell struck a quarter-past the hour. ‘I see. Go on, Sergeant.’
‘Nothing much more to add, sir. We had no idea he was married – like the general public we believed in the sham relationship with Miss Hanro – but we did know he was a cocaine addict, although he has no criminal file and no charges have ever been brought against him.’
‘How did you know he’s a drug addict, then?’ trilled Posie.
‘Oh, Posie,’ muttered the Chief Inspector, half-affectionately, half-exasperated. ‘Honestly! If an actress or a film star isn’t a cocaine addict these days it’s a pleasant surprise! Miss Hanro seems to be the exception to the rule. Surely you remember Amory Laine?’
Posie nodded. The beautiful, doomed film star had been trying to quit the drug when Lovelace and Posie had met her at a party on New Year’s Eve, 1921, and Amory Laine’s behaviour as a result had been both erratic and shocking.
‘Erm…’ Posie was saved by Sergeant Binny.
‘He’s right, Miss. But the background information I have on Robbie Fontaine is a bit more certain. Do you remember the Billie Carleton case, Miss?’
She was on firmer ground and nodded eagerly. ‘Of course I remember it.’
The Billie Carleton case of 1918 had been a huge scandal, a sensation. An actress, Miss Carleton, had died accidentally at the Savoy Hotel in London after attending a Victory Ball and the whole affair had cast a spotlight on how many of London’s most glittering stars were using drugs. It had become a sensational court case, with many famous celebrities forced through the Courts to give evidence. The newspapers, looking for news which didn’t focus on the horrors of the Great War, had lapped it all up greedily.
‘Well, it seems that our Mr Fontaine was there, at the Savoy, on the fateful night. Part of a big crowd with Miss Carleton. But he was never made to give evidence, he was ferreted away and kept out of the whole thing. All hushed up. There are just a couple of references here and there to his presence being reported at the time.’
‘How was it covered up?’
Sergeant Binny shrugged. ‘I’d say it was your Mr Langley. He must have gone over and above to keep his rising star out of the gutter press.’
‘You mean he paid someone, somewhere?’
‘I’d say so, Miss. Or else he threatened someone with blackmail, or violence. He seems a very powerful man, your Mr Langley. He’s used to getting his own way and he’s able to do unscrupulous things. Unorthodox.’
Posie nodded. Unaccountably she thought again about the big black crow on the lawn at the Rectory.
‘That sounds about right. Shall I tell you what I know about Mr Langley so far?’
‘Go on,’ said Lovelace encouragingly.
She checked her notes again and carried on: ‘Brian Langley is a cross and angry man, and a wierd one, too: his passion is to grow fancy orchids, several of them poisonous, and exactly that sort are decorating Silvia’s dressing room just now. It’s very strange. If I had to name the most likely suspect, at the moment it’s him. But right now I’m still unsure if and why he’d want to kill his leading lady. And why now?’
Lovelace nodded. ‘Sergeant? Anything more you know?’
‘Yes, there is, actually. Something important.’
‘Oh?’
‘Brian Langley doesn’t just grow orchids for fun, you know. He’s a seller, too. On a very high level. He trades with America a good deal. No wonder he can afford to pay a full-time gardener to look after those things! He makes hundreds and hundreds of pounds a year buying and selling those hot-house beauties. The Customs and Excise boys have crawled all over his business several times now and by all accounts he’s playing it all by the rules. Nothing untoward.’
‘My gosh!’ Posie thought of the glasshouse addition to the strange bungalow at Richmond with its rainbow of blooms. She had had no idea they were so precious, and now she appreciated Mrs Cleeves’ Rottweiler-like security tactics and the fact that visitors were hardly ever admitted.
‘Yes, indeed, Miss. It would seem that in some years Mr Langley has made more through selling orchids than making films for Sunstar! It supplements and keeps Sunstar Films going.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ snarled the Chief Inspector.
‘But it’s true,’ said the Sergeant, a touch apologetically. ‘Even if he doesn’t advertise the fact. And that wasn’t even the important bit I needed to tell you! There’s something else you need to know. The man is even more complicated than you think. He’s a first-class shot.’
‘What! How so?’ Posie said, flabbergasted. She saw the Chief Inspector’s eyes had widened visibly. Brian Langley didn’t strike her as someone who would go out shooting anything other than films.
Binny nodded, pleased at their reaction. ‘He was a member of a gun club before the war, down at Richmond. In fact, he was more than just a member, he was Captain of it for several years; their star by all accounts. When there was a trophy in a competition to be had, he won it. He owned the lot: rifles, revolvers, pistols. Had quite a collection. We have a list of his firearms on our police records. It makes for extensive reading.’
‘Gracious! Is he still a member of the gun club now?’
The Sergeant shook his head.
‘He was just a little too old to serve in the war, of course. That was before things got desperate and the War Office started calling up absolutely everybody, even famous film directors. He was working on films all through the early summer of 1918 and went over to France as a very late entrant. He closed up Sunstar Films and went in as an officer with minimal training in early August 1918. He found himself leading his troops through the Battle of Amiens! He was there only for the end, but it was a bloody, horrible end.’
‘Golly!’ muttered Posie. ‘That was the start of the end of the war, wasn’t it?’
‘It was,’ interjected Lovelace, nodding. ‘Fortunately. It was the start of August when it began. It was a terrible battle, by all accounts. Chap must be brave as hell.’
‘He was,’ said Sergeant Binny simply. ‘He won a Victoria Cross. The highest award for bravery you can get. Although he doesn’t ever seem to have spoken about it in interviews; he refuses to do so. It’s a sort of strange unspoken-about secret.’
‘My gosh!’ Posie was stunned. And suddenly she saw how remarkeably easy it had been for Silvia Hanro to hide the birth of baby Hilda from Brian Langley: he had been off at war in France and wouldn’t have been any the wiser. She gulped.
‘And then what?’
‘I’m only guessing, mind,’ said Binny thoughtfully. ‘But he doesn’t seem to have owned a gun since. Handed all of his firearms into the police in the amnesty just after the armistice. Doesn’t own anything now, and he doesn’t shoot.’
‘He must have been affected pretty badly by what he saw at Amiens, poor beggar,’ said Chief Inspector Lovelace, who had himself fought in the war and been invalided out after Passchendaele.
‘Maybe,’ said Posie darkly. ‘But no-one can take away his ability to shoot well, can they? And you only have a record of what he officially gave back. Who knows if he’s kept hold of some gun or other? A favourite, perhaps?’
‘True, Posie. It’s got to be borne in mind.’
She swallowed hard. Posie didn’t want to give up her first impressions of Brian Langley too quickly in exchange for some sort of war-hero type.
They quickly discussed Pamela Hanro, and agreed that beyond the suffragette record and Posie’s findings about the child, there was little more information to add.
Posie looked down at her list.
‘Tom Moran? The real-life boyfriend? I must confess I don’t have anything on him at all. Only his address at the Albany. I’ll tell you what he’s like though: he’s devilishly handsome, gorgeous, even. And I can see why Silvia is mad about him, for all that he’s missing half his face.’
‘Oh?’
‘He was injured out after the battle of Ypres in 1917. I’d say from our brief conversation that he’s still coming to terms with it. He seems very proud and resentful, as if he’s been handed a very raw deal.’
‘Which he has, poor blighter,’ added Lovelace.
‘Quite. But there’s a sadness or an anger there I don’t understand. Something more than you’d expect, somehow.’
‘Is he capable of sending these threats?’
‘I don’t know sir; truly I don’t.’
Posie shrugged. ‘I must say I don’t envy his lot: he has to watch this ridiculous circus with his girlfriend and Robbie Fontaine on a daily basis. He can’t let anyone know that he’s Silvia’s boyfriend. Plus,
he can’t marry Silvia, as it would end her career. And all the while he hangs around Sunstar Films doing goodness only know what. Even he was scathing about his job title. I do know he’s paid a salary by Brian Langley, though.’
The Chief Inspector frowned. ‘It sounds like it would be enough to drive a fella mad. A sort of strange torture, really. Why doesn’t he just get another job away from it all?’
Posie paused for a moment. ‘You know how hard jobs are to come by these days, sir. Every second man invalided out of the army is after a job just now. Maybe Tom Moran thinks he’ll keep hold of what he has? And besides, people are prejudiced and frightened of bad injuries; it’s true. Maybe it would be difficult to convince a new employer to hire him in a public position? And at least as it is with Sunstar he gets to be physically near the love of his life.’
‘But would he gain anything from frightening his girlfriend, or by killing her?’
‘He doesn’t benefit under Silvia’s Will; it all goes to charity. My guess is the Foundling Hospital, actually, where Silvia dropped off her child. But apparently Tom’s already been bought the Albany flat, though. You know, instead of benefitting under the Will.’
Sergeant Binny whistled through his teeth. ‘Jolly nice present! That must have cost a pretty penny! Even if it is small!’
Posie shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’
‘You mentioned a Trust Fund, Posie. Do we know if Tom gets that if Silvia dies?’
‘I don’t know, sir. But my understanding so far is that it only passes if there has been a legal marriage. So, no. You’d have to ask the solicitors though, Carver & Nicholas. They wouldn’t tell me anything, at least not yet. Pamela thought it might even end up with her.’
‘I see.’
A false and melodramatic coughing noise broke from Sergeant Binny’s throat, echoing around in the darkness.
‘Sergeant? Are you okay?’
‘I am, thank you very much. But this Tom Moran fellow we’ve been discussing isn’t. He’s not okay at all.’
‘What?’
‘He’s dead, actually.’
Posie gasped, incredulous. ‘Please explain.’
Murder of a Movie Star Page 17
