Staging Death

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Exactly. And it’s got to be more than straight sexual jealousy. A woman as young and lovely as she is wouldn’t imagine me as a sexual threat. In her eyes I’m far too old, Toby. I doubt if she can even imagine you making love with Allyn, who must be twenty years younger than me.’

  ‘Seventeen, actually,’ he grimaced. ‘At least, that’s what she admits to. So say fifteen. OK, Vee, point taken. It’s got to be something to do with this mysterious Frederick, hasn’t it? And what’s puzzling is that he’s slipped beneath Ted’s radar.’ He shivered, despite the sun. ‘It’s a bit nippy out here. Shall we go back to the house?’

  ‘Not a good idea. I’m supposed to be advising on the layout of these here statues, aren’t I? And I’d have thought it harder to bug a statue than a room.’

  ‘Bug?’ His eyes popped.

  ‘You never know. Talk statues.’

  He nodded. ‘The last couple of items are coming by low-loader this afternoon. Tell you what, there’ll be a full moon tonight. If I get you and your plod a couple of comps for the show, we could all have a glass of champagne down here. Just to show there’s no ill feelings, Vee?’ He gave a smile that would have had ducks abandoning their pond and kissed my cheek. ‘A few folk from the theatre, too.’ He listed his fellow stars. ‘And I believe Allyn’s cousin will be dropping by. You know, Vee, Johann Rusch, the casting director. You never know…’

  My heart did a double somersault. And then I thought of Martin.

  ‘Post-theatre shampoo would be lovely,’ I said, though what Martin would say about one of Toby’s typically over-the-top, not to mention well-after-hours celebrations, I couldn’t imagine. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Oh, God, if I sack Greta what will we do about food?’

  ‘I’ll go to Marks and Sparks for you,’ I declared. ‘On the right china, no one will know. You could get the kids to act as waiters. They’d love it. After bedtime? Flitting round in the dark? Earning pocket money?’

  ‘Brilliant! Vee, you really are too good for him, you know.’ He took my hands, and looked into my eyes, very seriously, before kissing me on the forehead. ‘And for me. Much too good. Be happy, darling.’

  ‘I will, Toby. And work on your marriage, eh? Now, darling,’ I said, ‘we simply must get back to business. Let’s do what we did in Stratford the other day – do one thing and talk about another. OK? So we walk round and look serious. A few hand gestures framing the sculpture, that sort of thing.’

  Another reason Toby was so much in demand as an actor was that he took direction remarkably well. He practically donned a hard hat and flourished tape measures. All he needed was a theodolite and he’d have been a perfect surveyor.

  I responded, to a distant observer deep in discussion with him about the angle of a particularly ugly specimen.

  ‘Is this Frederick still on the premises?’ I asked.

  ‘Ted’s people and cameras haven’t seen him leaving. But they didn’t see him come in, which is worrying. But if I report this to the police I shall have a herd of policemen swarming over the place. Sorry. I mixed my metaphors.’

  ‘You did. And the police would be accompanied, or at least followed, by the media. That might not be the best publicity for you. It would be better if your security people could run him to earth, wouldn’t it?’

  He looked at me sideways. ‘Do I gather you’ve put pressure on this plod of yours to buy me some time?’

  ‘If you persist in calling him a plod, I shall suggest he has the whole of the anti-terrorist squad descend on you and slap you into twenty-eight days’ detention without charge. He hasn’t given you long,’ I added. Martin had said over breakfast that if Ted and his colleagues hadn’t run Frederick to earth by noon, he’d make an official move. ‘He’ll have to come in soon and mob-handed. Think of the number of rooms you’ve got in this place, not to mention the attics and the cellars.’

  ‘And the outbuildings too,’ he added glumly. ‘I’d best get Ted on to it straight away, hadn’t I? If, of course, I can trust Ted,’ he added.

  Impressed by that doubt, I screwed my eyes up to check the angle of something that might have been nicked from Stonehenge, were it not in bronze. ‘Did you double-check his references? You know a lot of these so-called security firms are little better than protection rackets run by criminals.’

  ‘You didn’t get that from University Challenge.’

  ‘No, The Bill. So did you?’

  ‘I got him on the recommendation of someone who looks after some National Trust places. His fides looked pretty bona to me. Ex-army, ex-police. What more could I have done, bar demand a blood test?’

  I nodded vigorously at another lump, my hand suggesting it needed a couple of metres to the left. It would have taken a crane or an earthmover to do it, of course. ‘Nothing, I suppose. But it might be worth simply asking him. He seems a decent man. If he’s been forced into something he might like to get it off his chest. But I think we should start that search now. I know ten in the morning’s pretty well daybreak for you, but other people have been up and about some time, you know.’

  Ted looked ten years older than when I’d last seen him. Toby and I had drifted to his office, as if discussing a possible fugitive’s whereabouts was the last thing on our mind. We’d found him staring at the bank of screens, moving in and out in a bird’s-eye game of cat and mouse.

  ‘I can’t make it out, Mr Toby,’ he said, almost in tears. ‘I’ve been through all the disks and there’s no sign of him coming or going. And if he’s anywhere on the estate he’s got his invisible suit on.’

  ‘So what do you advise?’ Toby asked gently.

  ‘Well, that you accept my resignation for a start, letting you down like this.’

  ‘Nonsense. I trust you absolutely,’ Toby’s mouth said confidently. But he looked under his brows like a kind but firm father confessor. He waited.

  Ted didn’t contradict him.

  ‘Very well, what’s your second piece of advice?’

  ‘Get the professionals in, Mr Toby. A lot of them. If you want him caught quick, that is. Or…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You might just get it out of Greta.’ There was the very slightest emphasis on the pronoun.

  Toby blushed. Twice in one morning! He must be developing a conscience.

  ‘A job for a professional, Ted. You try it.’

  ‘You don’t think I haven’t? All I’ve had was a load of lip and how I… Well, she implied she’d got protection in high places.’

  ‘She hasn’t,’ Toby said crisply. ‘OK, Vena, make the call.’

  ‘Not me,’ I said. ‘You want him and his team on your property, you make the call. DCI Martin Humpage. This is his direct line. Then you’re on your own.’

  For obvious reasons, Martin had told me virtually nothing about the results of the previous day’s activities. As a witness and a victim, not to mention a grass, I must not know what others were saying. In any case, we’d found other matters more important than news of the interrogation of Frankie, who had after all saved my life, and the hospitalisation of Mr Nasty, which seemed to be as genuine a name as either of his other aliases.

  I didn’t expect Martin to greet me with a kiss when he turned up at Aldred House, nor did he. He merely pointed Sandra in my direction, and told her to keep an eye on me before walking off with a group of other officers.

  ‘I think we should offer Allyn some comfort,’ I said. ‘I need to talk to her for one thing.’

  I didn’t think Toby was in earshot, but he said, ‘Spa day. Down in Barnsley. The kids are with their new tutor in Birmingham. I’m due at the theatre for a costume fitting in half an hour.’

  ‘We might as well get off the premises too, Connie,’ Sandra announced. ‘Martin tells me you need a new bike. Shall we go and buy one?’

  ‘I think I’d be more use here,’ I said slowly. ‘If anyone knows the ins and outs of the house I do. I know which stairs link with which corridors. However good this team, they could get themselv
es totally lost in it.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Why not consult the DCI?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re not messing Martin about, are you?’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, changing the subject with a deliberate clunk, ‘did anyone ever work out what those numbers on the cocaine wrapping meant? And have there been any others on other packaging?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I told you, Sandra, anything about Martin and me is strictly off limits. And because I want to know. I wouldn’t even mind knowing what the numbers are.’

  ‘Why?’

  No three o’clock in the morning jokes with her, that was for sure. ‘Because sometimes if you stick something at the back of your mind you come up with an answer. Maybe the answer. Meanwhile, ask the DCI if I can be of assistance. Tell him I promise there’ll be no heroics. Just information he might not otherwise get.’ To give every sign that I was implacable, I folded my arms, which was stupid given the amount of pain it involved. And also because, truth to tell, if Martin did insist I leave the premises I’d have been nothing short of relieved.

  Eventually Sandra stomped off, returning a few minutes later with Martin in tow.

  ‘My plans of the building were lost in the fire, I should imagine,’ I said without preamble. ‘But I’m sure I gave Allyn a set, which Miss Fairford, her PA, should be able to run to earth. But because I’m not an architect, I used a sort of personal shorthand to show how the floors and the different wings related to each other.’

  Martin nodded, dismissing a uniformed constable to search for Miss Fairford and the plan. ‘Where were you planning to set up your base?’ he asked, with just a hint of mockery.

  ‘Wherever I’m least in the way and least nuisance. But I need to be in radio contact with the people exploring. If they see Frederick running down a staircase, for instance, I can tell them what his options are.’

  ‘Good idea.’ For a moment the smile I’d seen and loved last night softened his face. I hoped no one else saw it, for he completely revealed his feelings, just as I did when I returned it. ‘I’m sure we’ve got spare body armour – just in case.’

  I put my head on one side. ‘You and your colleagues wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think that his disappearance was a serious matter. And the most serious crime on your books at the moment must be the cocaine business. You must be throwing all your resources into tracing the people pulling the strings of Mr Nasty and his friends. Yes? So would I be right in thinking that you think that Frederick is connected with them? Or are you after him for a minor visa transgression?’

  ‘The Serious and Organised Crime people have muscled in. They’ve got information and contacts and manpower I can’t match. So I have no option but to leave them to trace all Burford’s so-called clients, which I’m sure they’ll do very fast. As for Frederick, I don’t like foreign nationals to disappear on my watch. Especially foreign nationals with aliases: we’ve no record at all of a Frederick with a surname like an eye chart coming into the country legally. The home address Greta’s given us is spurious. Oh, hers is OK; his isn’t. So did he lie to her or is she lying to us?’

  ‘A touch of the Turovskys.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And what’s her take on his disappearance?’

  ‘She hints darkly that your mate Toby was jealous of him and—’ He drew a finger across his throat. ‘At least that’s today’s story. Yesterday he was just an innocent student who’d gone back to university.’

  ‘And of course the university in question doesn’t have him on its books either. Do you think he’s still alive? You must get her to talk. It was she who made Toby get me off the premises the other day. Blackmail. But I think she’ll find he’s no longer responsive.’

  ‘So we can remind her that blackmail’s an offence, but that we might forget it if she talks?’ He smiled again. ‘Actually, it would be nice to have someone capable of talking to us. Your fellow-thespian Frankie has only learnt one line which she repeats endlessly.’

  ‘No comment?’

  ‘Exactly. And Mr Nasty is still deeply unconscious. He may never make it to court.’

  ‘And it was Frankie that injured him? Not one of your people?’ And please, please, please, God, don’t let it be me and my folder.

  As if he read my mind, he touched my arm. ‘Definitely Frankie. No doubt about it. Very well, let’s get you somewhere safe. We’ll take over Ted Ashcroft’s office. If and when Frederick bolts, with your help we should be able to head him off.’

  ‘At the pass,’ I concluded.

  I was just taking my seat with Ted and a policeman called Bazza with CCTV expertise when Sandra appeared, a slip of paper between her fingers. ‘202544. There might be a gap between the second two and the five,’ she reported grudgingly. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Not a thing.’ And neither did the other set of numerals. I rather think she was pleased to have stumped me. I popped the paper with an ironic flourish down my cleavage, and turned my eyes back to the screens, which cut between the grounds and the exterior of the house apparently at random. She watched for a bit and drifted off, promising to return with tea and coffee.

  ‘There were a few cameras in the house for good measure,’ Ted muttered. ‘Only they both said they wanted them disconnected. Not just switched off, mind you – disconnected.’

  Personally I could think of nothing worse than being under constant surveillance, especially given Toby and Allyn’s liking for extramarital sex, but was spared the need to comment by the arrival of the constable with several photocopies of the house ground plans and the news that both Miss Fairford and Greta were being taken down to the police station.

  ‘You’ve arrested them?’ I asked the young man.

  ‘No, not yet. Just a few questions, like. And it’s really safer for them than leaving them here. You see, miss,’ he explained, ‘if this Frederick doesn’t like being hunted down, it might be he’d take a couple of hostages. Two young women – very vulnerable, they’d be.’

  Plainly he didn’t think an old bat like me need worry. In any case, I’d got the CCTV constable and Ted to protect me.

  ‘It’s a pity you’re not allowed to use thumbscrews these days.’ I remarked. ‘Young Greta knows an awful lot more than she’s letting on. Or a lot less. What if she and Frederick really are just two star-crossed lovers?’

  Ted and the policemen snorted in unison. It was interesting to see how Ted had immediately aligned himself with fellow-professionals, having as little as possible to do with me. They were joshing in a lamentably sexist way when my radio crackled into life. Was I really going to play my part in a manhunt? I pulled the plans in front of me.

  ‘Just how many bedrooms did you say this place boasted?’ Martin’s voice demanded.

  ‘Fifteen in working order, mostly in the most recent part of the house. That’s sections A to F on your plan. In the Elizabethan section – that’s M and N – there are eight, mostly interconnecting. Sleeping seems to have been quite a communal affair in those days. They’re full of stuff stowed as junk but actually an antique dealer’s dream. The idea was that eventually they would be emptied and sorted out and restored, a nice Herculean task that should keep me in business another twenty years.’

  ‘Not to mention cleaning out the Augean stables,’ he said, the grin clear in his voice. ‘Anyway, we’ve had no luck so far, and the sniffer dogs looking round the grounds are bored out of their skulls.’

  ‘Have you brought in those dogs trained to sniff out dead bodies?’ my mouth asked, I swear of its own volition.

  His silence was answer in itself.

  They never had longueurs like this in The Bill. There the fictional police officers had hardly taken their first sip of coffee when things started to happen and they had to tip the lot away. In real life the lad who’d brought the plans had eventually drifted away, and Bazza and Ted were talking football, with only intermittent inspections of the screen, or so it
seemed to me. There was no sign of the tea Sandra had promised.

  My phone rang again.

  ‘I just thought you’d like to know we’ve handed Greta over to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. All my colleagues got out of her was that last time she’d seen Frederick he was alive and well, having had a sleepover in her cottage.’

  ‘And that was when?’

  ‘This morning, she says.’

  ‘Do I detect a note of disbelief?’

  ‘You might. Unless she’s got an obsession with cleanliness, there’s no sign of anyone ever having stayed there. We shall get SOCOs on to it, of course. But for the time being we must assume he’s still around. Vee, is there anywhere else he might be? Any priest’s holes?’ he added hopefully.

  ‘Let me check on my measurements for that part of the house,’ I said, aware that Ted and Bazza had stopped talking and were obviously eavesdropping. The problem with priest’s holes, of course, was that they were designed not to be found. And if I didn’t know about one, having been all over the building with my camera and tape measure, how would Greta and Frederick? I didn’t buy that idea at all. Until I had another idea. Toby’s time at Stratford was sacrosanct, of course, and my phone call was immediately diverted to his voicemail. I wasn’t much of a hand at texting, but I knew Toby couldn’t resist checking any messages when he wasn’t actually on stage.

  There must be some sort of texting shorthand for what I had to ask, but I didn’t know it. So I typed it out in full:

  Where did you and Greta have sex? Important!

  It looked a bit bald, when I came to think of it, but there wasn’t a more polite way of putting it.

  At last Sandra returned with a tray, over an hour since she’d set out. I didn’t comment, but the men did loudly and at length, which gave me excellent cover for Toby’s return message.

  How urgent you know?

  Vital, now I replied. Think Fred might be there.

  CU@2.

  I took my cup of hot water outside and dunked a green tea bag. Martin, intrigued by my text to him, soon joined me.