The Final Curtain

by Priscilla Masters

  SIX

  Wednesday, January 18, 8.30 a.m.

  The minute she walked inside the station Joanna knew something was up. There was an air of puzzled tension that was foreign to the normally calm and friendly place. Today everyone looked fed up and apprehensive. Tense, eyes looking elsewhere. Avoiding hers.

  She tried the desk sergeant first but he merely looked even gloomier than the rest, didn’t respond to her question of whether everything was all right, except to jerk his head towards her office.

  Korpanski’s face was no different from the others. He was sitting at his desk, staring at the floor, his shoulders bowed. He didn’t even look up when she entered, which was a very bad sign. There was something even he was not looking forward to telling her. She fixed him with a direct stare, forcing him to meet her eyes. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s the matter with everyone?’

  He groaned as she hung her coat up, then gave a big sigh. ‘Chief Superintendent Rush has decided to make a visit here,’ he said, ‘prior to his taking up the post next month.’

  ‘Oh, great.’ She sighed, sharing everyone else’s gloom. Then she dropped into her chair and switched her computer on. ‘Just great. Bugger all interesting going on in Leek and he decides to pay a visit. With the government cutbacks we’ll probably be closed down and become a six-hour-a-day satellite from Stoke.’

  Korpanski half turned in his chair. ‘Well, there was a hit and run last night,’ he tried hopefully.

  ‘Fatal?’

  He shook his head and peered into the screen. ‘Cuts and bruises. And we’ve identified the van driver through CCTV.’

  ‘As I said, bugger all going on.’ She leaned forward on her elbows. ‘When did Leek get so law abiding?’

  Korpanski frowned. ‘You seem a bit out of sorts for someone who’s just got back off her honeymoon, married to the man of her dreams.’

  ‘And who has the daughter of her nightmares coming for …’ Joanna affected a high-pitched, silly little girl’s voice, ‘lunch on Sunday.’

  Korpanski’s frown deepened. ‘If you marry a guy you take on his family, Joanna.’

  She scowled into her computer screen. ‘Don’t preach to me, Mike. No one can take on the Devil’s child.’ She logged on with heavy, thumping fingers, banging the keys so hard they practically complained.

  Korpanski tried to make light of it. ‘If she’s the Devil’s child then Matthew must be the Devil.’

  She would have pointed out that fifty per cent of Eloise Levin would surely be her mother but the truth was that when their marriage had finally broken up, Jane Levin had melted away like an actor exiting a scene. She had simply vanished and now was remarried with another family, presumably happily. So she was wrong-footed and unable to do anything but glare at her colleague.

  He continued, ‘Well, you knew what Eloise was like before you married him. It isn’t as though he’s suddenly thrust her on you. You knew she was tricky and hostile.’

  She didn’t respond. All of a sudden something very weighty and tired had come over her, as though she had a long and wearisome journey both behind and ahead of her. She dropped her forehead into her fingertips and rubbed at her hairline. ‘Well, I’ve got Eloise to look forward to and now I’ve got Chief Superintendent Rush joining the party …’

  The words died in her mouth. A tall, thin man in his late thirties, with a spike of red hair, pale skin and a hard, straight scar for a mouth, was standing in the doorway, watching her. ‘Inspector Piercy, I presume,’ he said, stepping forward, lips pressed together tightly. ‘I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.’

  Like hell. It was written all over his face.

  ‘You must be Chief Superintendent Rush.’ She forced a smile on to her lips, knowing it would not reach her eyes. Then she stood up and extended her hand.

  He shook it and nodded. Obviously a man of few words. Then he swivelled his head around in a sharp, angular movement. ‘And DS Korpanski?’ Mike was treated to another tight smile.

  Joanna searched his face for a single line that hinted at humour – and found none.

  Great.

  His eyes were a pale, cold icy blue, hardly human as they peered at her. ‘Oh, and congratulations, Piercy, on your recent marriage.’ Spoken in a voice not a degree above freezing.

  She responded equally frostily. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I shall talk to you both later,’ he said, still standing in the middle of the room.

  The three of them stood awkwardly until they were saved by the telephone bell which dropped nicely into the silence.

  Joanna picked up the receiver, hoping Rush wouldn’t hear the relief in her voice at the interruption. ‘Yes?’

  The desk sergeant’s stolid voice broke in. ‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but I’ve got Mrs Weeks on the phone again. She, umm, sounds a bit upset.’

  Rush was listening in. Antennae quivering.

  ‘Put her through.’ Her heart was sinking. This was one case which definitely didn’t show her or the Leek Force in a good light. ‘DI Piercy,’ she said tightly, wishing Rush would just go away. She would prefer him not to hear this conversation.

  She hardly recognized the voice on the other end. Timony Weeks was screaming, hysterically, down the line. ‘Tuptim,’ she wailed. ‘Tuptim. My cat,’ she wailed.

  Great, Joanna thought. The traditional crappy call-out of the fire brigade. She said a prayer: Don’t say it’s stuck up a tree, please, Mrs Weeks. Or down the well.

  And even she could hear the irritation in her voice as she asked, ‘What about your cat, Mrs Weeks?’

  It was Diana Tong who took over the phone and even her normally controlled voice shook. ‘Someone appears not to like cats, Inspector. It’s been strung up on the front door.’

  Joanna was shocked. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s hanging there.’ Diana’s voice was breaking.

  Joanna hadn’t liked the snooty moggy but this was horrible. She gave Mike a swift glance then spoke into the phone. ‘Don’t touch anything, Mrs Tong,’ she said. ‘We’ll be out there as soon as possible.’

  Rush was standing motionless, eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation which Joanna was forced to give.

  ‘This is a sixty-year-old lady,’ she explained. ‘An ex-actress who has been repeatedly calling us out for minor occurrences.’ She paused. ‘So far. Some of these might have been in her imagination but she’s convinced someone is threatening her. She lives alone in an isolated house on the moorlands and was a well-known actress in a sixties soap. More than forty years ago she was quite seriously assaulted by a fan. She also has an ex-husband who is a convicted criminal. Yesterday we were called out because she was convinced her dead husband’s watch, which was buried with him, had turned up on her bed. Today – this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She has a pedigree cat which she’s extremely fond of. It has been missing for a day or two. Apparently it’s turned up dead, hanging from her front door.’ She didn’t need to spell out that this was an escalation of events, but Chief Superintendent Rush appeared to feel he needed to say it, eyebrows flexed. ‘It appears then that something really is very wrong.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ But Rush was still eyeing her, waiting, she supposed, for her ‘take’ on the incident.

  She gave it to him – as best she could. ‘It may just be some local person who’s playing tricks,’ she said, ‘or it may be something connected with her colourful past. Anyway, the sooner we get out there and take a look around, the better. I’m sure you agree.’ Korpanski was already on his feet, apparently as eager to escape as she was. ‘We should get over there right away,’ she finished apologetically, as she slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat.

  Rush gave her a tight smile and a nod and Joanna breathed a tiny prayer of thanks to Mrs Timony Weeks as she followed Korpanski out of the room.

  As he manoeuvred the car out of the tight parking lot she turned to him, screwing up her face. ‘He’s just as bad as I thought he�
�d be,’ she said grumpily. ‘If not worse.’

  Korpanski took his eyes off the road to grin at her. ‘Go on,’ he teased, ‘I can see you two being the best of friends.’

  ‘Sod off.’

  Korpanski simply laughed out loud. A rich, throaty, masculine bellow, then sang in his deep, gravelly voice, ‘There may be troubles ahead. But while there’s music and moonlight …’ He resorted to humming the rest of the tune until he got to, ‘Let’s face the music and dance.’

  She couldn’t help herself laughing. ‘I won’t disagree with any of that. So what do you think about this call-out?’

  ‘Sounds a bit more serious this time, doesn’t it?’

  She nodded, wishing she hadn’t even thought that she would like some more tangible evidence than cigarette ash, then tried to put the brakes on. ‘Let’s just wait and see exactly what has happened.’

  Almost through force of habit they stopped on the ridge and looked down on Butterfield Farm. It looked calm and peaceful in the winter sunshine, though the property itself was, as always, in the shade. But it was hard to imagine anything as brutal or cruel happening here as the murder of a much-loved pet and the deliberate act of hanging it from the front door. Joanna stared. It was Beatrix Potter land, surely? There couldn’t be a more idyllic spot than here. Even Korpanski murmured something about it being ‘pretty perfect’. But if this truly had happened someone else must have looked down on it, as they were now, but with malicious intent. That person had not wanted to admire it, but to spoil it and intimidate its inhabitants. So was this mischief-maker even now creeping around the place? Looking as they were at its stone roof and neat surround, busily planning another crime? Joanna scanned the entire panorama of pale and empty fields superstitiously. She could see nothing untoward, no one skulking. In fact, nothing at all out of the ordinary.

  But she was well aware that if the assault on the cat had happened as described it was a disturbing turn in events. And someone was behind it.

  Korpanski let out the handbrake and as they descended the track and neared the farm Joanna found herself wondering: what next? Where is this all going to lead? Where will it end?

  They pulled into the yard, parking next to an elderly, mud-spattered Volvo. ‘The gardener and his wife,’ Joanna observed. It looked appropriate, a sturdy rural vehicle.

  ‘Rossington,’ Korpanski agreed. ‘Frank and Millie.’

  Diana Tong must have been watching for them. She hurried out of a side door as they pulled up. ‘This is dreadful,’ she said, her face pale and shocked and her hands clasped together. ‘Dreadful. Poor Tuptim. She was there when I came in this morning. Why anyone … Such a cruel thing.’ She snatched a breathy sob. ‘How could …?’

  ‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ It was Korpanski who spoke while Joanna watched Mrs Tong with interest. There were times when she appeared resentful towards her employer. Angry, even. But now all this had apparently melted away. Because she had finally got her revenge?

  Diana Tong led them around to the front door and Joanna stood and stared. She would never have harmed any animal although she wouldn’t have described herself as an ‘animal lover’. But this? It was enough to turn your stomach. God only knew what the poor animal had suffered. A loop of rope was nailed to the door from which the cat dangled, head lolling, eyes dulled blue glass, tail hanging down like a rat’s, looking somehow larger and yet less important in death than in life. It was horrible and cruel. There was simply no point to it. Joanna felt angry. This had been done purely to upset Timony Weeks.

  But a tiny whisper insinuated something else. This had achieved something. This was irrefutable evidence. Her stories would be believed now, her call-outs treated with priority.

  Joanna argued with herself, while her eyes absorbed the scene: Timony Weeks had adored this cat. She had stroked and caressed it as a child, or perhaps even a lover. Many people do substitute an animal contact for a human one. Maybe, after so many failed marriages, Timony had joined these ranks.

  She couldn’t have done this.

  The cat’s tail hung down almost to the floor, its paws dangling limply. The scene had been set to extract maximum horror. And the effect had obviously worked. At the foot of the door was a pool of fresh vomit. Joanna eyed Diana Tong. ‘Poor Timony,’ she said. ‘She just threw up and then fainted.’

  Korpanski’s eyes were on the vomit. ‘So no DNA there then,’ he muttered, disappointed.

  Whether the animal had been alive or dead when it had been pinned to the door was uncertain. Joanna’s guess was that the animal had already been dead or surely the poor creature would have struggled, and there were no scratch marks on the woodwork. Blood trickled from its mouth, so her guess was that the cat had been strung up straight after it had been killed. Probably strangled with the rope. At her side Korpanski was standing still, frowning. She knew her sergeant. Something was going on in that blunt instrument of a brain of his.

  Joanna drew out her mobile phone. No bloody signal. Of course, they were in a remote valley. Without a word Diana Tong handed her the house phone and Joanna summoned the police photographer and forensics. The sight of the dead cat had triggered a memory of a lecture she had heard a while ago. The point of the lecture had been to alert the police to sadistic assaults on animals. They were, it had been claimed, often the first signs of abnormality a psychopath displayed. The next target, the lecturer had pointed out, could well be human. She looked up to see Diana Tong watching her and knew she was thinking along the same lines: what fate was planned for Timony Weeks? What was the reason for this cruel warning? For almost three weeks now there had been taunts and hints, half-revealed glimpses of something hiding behind the curtain. Now the pointless psychological jokes had escalated into a very real threat. What effect would it have? They followed Diana Tong inside.

  Timony Weeks sat, shrunken as a mummy, wrapped up in a blanket, shivering, on the sofa. No Noël Coward costume today. She looked tiny in her white towelling dressing gown and she was shaking with shock. Mike, watching from the doorway, looked like a powerful bodyguard. There was something almost biblical about his stance and threat. Joanna sat down next to the actress, waiting for a moment before speaking to Timony in a gentle voice, as though speaking to the inner Timony, the child actress who lived inside this sixty-year-old’s body.

  ‘I’m sorry about your cat,’ she said. ‘I have sent for a photographer and a team of forensic evidence collectors.’

  Timony Weeks said nothing; neither did she look up.

  Joanna pressed on. ‘We will do everything we can to find out who committed this cruel act.’

  Timony Weeks still said nothing. Apart from the shaking there was no other movement. Head and body did not respond. It was as though she could not hear. All the same, Joanna continued, ‘This signifies an escalation in events which worries me.’

  Timony Weeks’ head cranked around so her eyes stared straight into Joanna’s face. Her lips were dry as cracked leather and her face looked as if it was struggling against the facelift to burst out with some emotion. She mumbled something which Joanna did not quite catch the first time around.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘In what way, worries you?’

  Joanna was reluctant to relay the contents of the forensic lecture she had attended. But all the same, ‘I’m worried about …’

  ‘You believe me now? That this person means me harm?’

  ‘I think it’s possible, Mrs Weeks. I think it’s time for us to take a look at all this more thoroughly.’

  With a further effort Timony lifted her head to stare straight ahead. ‘I told you there was something bad behind all this, didn’t I? I knew that something was very wrong. The atmosphere here …’ She scanned the room and looked out of the window, towards the empty lane and the ridge beyond before it rested on the rocky tors of The Roaches. ‘It was all wrong. I knew something awful would happen, Inspector. I was just waiting for it.’ She bent her head so she was almost touching Joanna’s hand. Sh
e smelt of rose water and lavender. It was an old-fashioned, pleasant smell, nostalgic, sweet and suitable.

  ‘You did,’ Joanna agreed. ‘So we need to know who and why. I could do with some names, Mrs Weeks, a place from where to start our investigations. Think. Who could wish you harm, apart from Sol? Could it be to do with Butterfield Farm? Is there someone who wants you out of here? A neighbour, someone who wants the land? It is a lovely property.’

  But at the back of her mind other things were niggling her as she tried to put the jigsaw together. Who could have known about the Rolex watch? Anyone. Colclough’s sister had known. It had been in all the papers. Timony Shore’s life had been played out in public. So what about some of the other little menaces? The smell of cigarette smoke. Was it pure coincidence that it had reminded her of an unhappy previous relationship?

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Mrs Weeks was regaining some of her spirit. ‘This isn’t about Butterfield Farm. It isn’t about property or money. This is personal. It’s about me.’

  Joanna glanced across at Korpanski. What did he make of this? she wondered. But he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on the woman as though he, too, was puzzling this one out. Even Diana Tong appeared to be holding her breath, watching, motionless, intrigued as to what answers could be forthcoming.

  Timony Weeks seemed to be distracted by some mental image in the far distance. ‘There is something there,’ she said. ‘Some guilt. When I write my … It lies at the back of my mind, like an oil slick, something I am responsible for. I have flashbacks,’ she said in her throaty voice. ‘They stem from my days – years – in the Butterfield series. I seem to have different memories.’ Her eyes looked questioningly at Joanna, as though she might be able to interpret these flashbacks, then she cleared her throat, puzzled. ‘But surely it was a happy time?’ It was a statement that sounded like a wondering question.