The Final Curtain

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘Timony Shore,’ he mused. ‘Such a long time ago. What does she look like now?’

  ‘Well, umm.’

  Freeman burst out laughing. ‘No. Stop. Don’t tell me.’ He put his hand up. ‘Let me tell you. She’s had a facelift, liposuction, dyed her hair and had her teeth veneered and she’s still as skinny as they come.’

  He was so near the truth that Joanna couldn’t smother the giggle that escaped her lips. She put her hand up to her mouth.

  ‘So,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’m right so far. Now what’s she been up to that has the police on her back?’

  ‘She appears to have been subjected to some harassment,’ Joanna said cautiously.

  ‘Not for the first time,’ Freeman responded cheerily. ‘She was the star of the show. And subsequently had a bag-load of odd letters; some woman kept writing to her claiming she was her long-lost sister, and she had lots of proposals for when she came of age, but the worst time was with a sort of crazed fan who followed her for months. We had to get security for her because he would wait for her to leave the studio after rehearsals. One night, unfortunately, he got close enough to lunge at her with a pair of scissors. She had a nasty scar which we could write into the script. We simply had her fall off a hay cart but she very nearly lost an eye. And that would have been a problem for the Butterfield scriptwriting team. And besides, it would have made her rather …’ His eyes flicked to the side and he licked his lips, realizing he should stop short of being politically incorrect to a policewoman. ‘Well, let’s just say she wouldn’t have looked quite so pretty.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Joanna was a little shocked. But then she supposed that this was the way you thought about things when you were the producer of a major TV series. Heartlessly practical, your actors turned into commodities. Dehumanized. So now, far from envying their glamorous lifestyle she almost pitied them.

  ‘We put a Band Aid over her brow to draw attention to the wound and then put make up over the scar.’ His eyes twinkled at Joanna. ‘She was a valuable asset to the studio. Even the tumble off the hay cart had to be done by her screen double. We couldn’t have had Timony really falling off a cart. That would have stopped production for months the way she used to go on. But because of Lily’s stage presence, the gentle but determined way she defended animals, always hugging horses and freeing cats from traps, protecting foxes from the hunt and so on, she had quite a following, you know.’ He smiled. ‘She was a sort of early Animal Rights Campaigner. She really milked it,’ Freeman said. ‘Kept having fainting fits and being sick. She’s quite histrionic, you know.’

  Joanna nodded in agreement, half forgetting that Freeman would pick up on it. He looked amused. ‘In the end we had to give her six months off to recover.’

  ‘And how did you write that into the script? Or did you use a screen double during her absence?’

  For the first time Freeman looked unsure of himself. ‘Well, you know, I think …’

  Think? Joanna thought. But you produced the whole thing. To lose a star of the show for six months is a big deal.

  ‘We had a distant aunt break her leg,’ Freeman said awkwardly. ‘Saintly Timony went to look after her.’ He gave a lopsided grin. ‘She had a terrific postbag for that one, fans begging her to return.’ He smiled into the screen. ‘We did a lovely scene,’ he said. You know the bit in The Railway Children, when Bobby wanders down to the station and meets her father?’

  Joanna nodded. Everyone knows that scene. Even now, years after her own father’s death, it still had the power to jerk unexpected tears out of her.

  ‘Steam train, father alights, walking towards camera, face nicely obscured by the steam.’ His grin broadened. ‘I swear they got that scene straight from Butterfield. Only it wasn’t Roberta, it was Lily returning to Butterfield. Wrung tears out of grown men, according to the postbag.’

  ‘What year was that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Freeman blew out a breath. ‘About ’sixty-six or ’sixty-seven. A few years before the famous film. Somewhere around then, anyway,’ he said airily. ‘Luckily Timony always looked young for her age so although she was almost fourteen Lily Butterfield would only have been about twelve. The fans sent her lots of cards urging her to return.’

  ‘And was Timony Weeks saintly in real life?’

  Freeman smiled and shrugged. It was obvious he had not been in the habit of analysing his child protégée’s personality. He had simply wanted her to deliver her lines. ‘Who knows,’ he said carelessly. ‘The actor and the part they play frequently merge. As far as I know she was fond of animals but I didn’t read anything in the newspapers about her really chinning up to the master of the hunt or nursing a sick aunt. She was a bit more self-centred than that.’

  ‘And the cast? They were close?’

  ‘Too bloody close,’ Freeman grumbled. ‘There were all sorts of things going on. Affairs, petty jealousies, little factions. It’s the same in any long-standing production. They get too close. Like a family. And then the quarrels break out. People take sides.’

  ‘And, of course, Timony eventually married her stage father.’

  A shadow crossed Freeman’s face. ‘Gerald.’ He smiled. ‘Far too old for her really. She was only just seventeen when they married. He was in his fifties. I think he had to marry her to …’ His voice trailed away and all of a sudden Joanna caught something in Freeman’s eyes. He had said something he shouldn’t. He wavered and hesitated, his head moving, his face frozen into tension, eyes warily wondering whether she had picked up on his faux pas. He looked uncomfortable and sucked in a sharp and worried breath. His eyes had dropped from hers. He regretted that last sentence.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Out of turn. Fact was she did adore him. And he her.’

  Too late. Joanna had absorbed the statement and would remember it. He had to marry her to … Normally that meant that the bride was pregnant and the shotgun wedding took place so the infant would not be born a bastard. But there had never been mention of a child. In fact, Timony had said categorically that she did not have children.

  She kept digging. ‘What did you mean by that?’

  He blustered his answer. ‘I suspect they were already having sex.’

  ‘Timony was of age,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Quite.’ But his eyes still looked shifty.

  Joanna probed. ‘Timony was eight when Butterfield first hit the scene?’

  ‘Yes.’ He appeared uncomfortable, squirming in his seat.

  ‘How exactly did that work?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Her parents …?’

  ‘Were thrilled at the opportunity for their daughter.’

  ‘They didn’t mind handing her over to you?’

  ‘No. No. As long as we had an adult responsible for her. Sandra McMullen was the wardrobe mistress. She became a mother figure to little Timony. Took her under her wing. She had a house near the studio so Timony lived there with her. The whole thing worked perfectly.’

  Joanna chewed this over for a moment. It all sounded neat. As neat as a lie. She licked her lips. ‘I want to ask you something more specific,’ Joanna said, ‘about an event that may or may not have taken place. Timony has mentioned a storyline about someone dying horribly. Perhaps sliding down somewhere. I got the impression it was a man who had slipped down a bank or fallen and died and she was looking down on him. Maybe he’d fallen down the well? She said she was glad because he wouldn’t be able to hurt her any more. Does this sound like one of your storylines?’

  ‘Not on the Butterfield set,’ Freeman said. ‘Wouldn’t have worked. Too scary by half for all those early sixties kids.’ Equilibrium restored now, he gave a little laugh. ‘Besides, if anyone had hurt Lily Butterfield there would have been outrage. Oh, no. She must be thinking of some other part she played. She did quite a bit of stage and screen work after Butterfield folded.’

  ‘Why did it fold?’

  Freeman leaned back in his chair and thought for a mom
ent. ‘The easy answer,’ he said, ‘is that ratings went down and new dramas came along, but the real explanation is that the audience simply outgrew it. The kids that came later had different tastes. They wanted something else. Westerns, Dr Who. Audiences were falling so the BBC pulled the plug. And to be honest, we’d run out of steam. Our storylines were looking stale and our ideas had all been tried before. There’s only so much mileage you can get out of any series, in my opinion, unless you change radically. This was about country life, a farm, a family. To be honest, when it was decided in ’seventy-two that it would be our last series, I wasn’t sorry. To use a modern phrase, Butterfield was past its sell-by date.’

  ‘Right. Well, thank you. One more thing. Mr Freeman, Timony has been subjected to a series of rather teasing, mischievous events, the latest of which is that someone has killed her cat and strung her body up on her front door. Can you think of anything or anyone that might have given rise to these?’

  ‘No. She was always popular with the other members of the cast.’

  ‘What about the attack by the fan?’

  ‘It’s over forty years ago. He was a schizophrenic, poor chap, suffering from delusions, and ended up a long-term patient in a mental hospital, I believe. Probably dead by now.’

  Joanna agreed. Mentally she had discounted the ‘crazed fan’ of so many years ago, apart from the fact that he might not be the only fan who was crazy and obsessed. It was one of the real costs of fame. She fished around. ‘The parts she took up after her work on Butterfield?’

  ‘Nothing as high profile,’ Freeman said, ‘or as long running. She did a few stage productions for which she was overpaid and some minor screen parts for which she was also overpaid. She learnt the spoiled brat approach early in life.’ He gave a calm smile.

  ‘Is there anything else that might …’ She smiled at him, knowing she was mocking herself, ‘… help us with our enquiries.’

  He returned the smile with twinkling eyes. The self-effacement hadn’t escaped him. ‘Not that I can think of, Inspector Piercy.’ He paused. ‘It must be something to do with her current life. I can’t believe there’s any connection to her role as Lily Butterfield.’ He frowned. ‘This is nothing too serious, is it?’ He too was fishing. ‘I mean, she’s not in any danger, is she?’

  ‘Well, the business about her cat has upset her.’

  ‘Ye-es. I am sorry to hear that,’ Freeman said. ‘Very sorry. Give her my regards when you speak to her.’

  ‘I will.’

  The interview was finished.

  At four p.m. Mark Fask called in to the station. He had once been a scenes of crime officer in the police force. But a few years ago the decision had been made that this was a job for a civilian. So Fask had promptly left the Force, picking up his pension on the way, and formed his own company. It was very successful. Fask was familiar with the laws of admissible evidence and his former colleagues almost always engaged his firm to glean the specimens from numerous crime scenes. It hadn’t escaped Joanna’s notice that the former officer, whose car had previously been a Skoda, was now driving a top of the range BMW. Success indeed.

  Fask was a stocky man with pale skin, thick curling hair and dark brown eyes. ‘I’ve bagged up the cat,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ll pop it in the deep freeze and keep a hold of it for a bit.’

  ‘What about the rope used to hang it?’

  ‘There’s a coil of it in one of the outhouses,’ Fask said. ‘It’s been cut with a serrated knife. Apart from that there’s nothing much to get from it.’

  ‘Any fingerprints on the door?’

  Fask shook his head. ‘None apart from the ones that should be there.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not so far. Poor animal looks as though it had its neck broken before it was strung up. The head was loose. Rope was knotted real tight around its neck. I’ve preserved the knot. Nice cat too. Seal point Burmese, if I’m not very much mistaken. I suppose that’s why they called it Tuptim.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tuptim. Burmese name.’

  ‘Is it?’ Joanna felt stupid.

  ‘Haven’t you seen Anna and the King of Siam?’

  ‘Years ago.’

  ‘Don’t you remember the Burmese girl who was given to him as a bride? Fell in love with Lun Tha, the man who brought her to Siam.’

  ‘Vaguely. So that’s where she got the name from.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you’ve answered one question at least.’ The least important one, she could have added but didn’t.

  Fask grinned. ‘Glad to be of service, Jo. And the cat, by the way, would have been worth a few hundred pounds.’

  ‘Really? You’re a mine of information, Mark. I didn’t realize you knew so much about cats – or the films industry.’

  He looked abashed. ‘Pub quizzes,’ he explained.

  ‘Did you get anything else from around the scene?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Do you know where the cat was killed?’

  ‘Probably in the big barn. That’s where the rope was. There’s a saucer of water there. My guess is that the cat was lured in and—’

  ‘Do you have a time frame?’

  ‘Well, Mrs Tong says she stayed at Butterfield overnight as Mrs Weeks was getting increasingly twitchy about being there on her own. Apparently Tuptim liked to roam during the night, went in and out as she pleased through the cat flap. She was found at seven this morning and last seen late Monday evening, they think, so the usual rules. Somewhere between those two times. She was pretty stiff and cold by the time I got to her so my guess is late last night.’

  Joanna nodded. ‘Anything else that might help, Mark?’

  ‘Not really.’

  He left and Joanna remained with a feeling of dissatisfaction. Korpanski was busy in another room so she was on her own.

  She spent the afternoon on the computer and downloaded a couple of episodes of Butterfield Farm. There was no doubt about it – Timony Weeks had been a beauty. Not a great actress, that was obvious. She hammed her lines a couple of times, relied too much on a helpless look for a wide spectrum of emotions: fear, grief, happiness, guilt and confusion. All were created by a widening of the eyes and a slight parting of the lips. The episode Joanna was looking at had been shown in 1963 when Timony would have been eleven. She looked younger, more like eight. But however poor the acting had been and the frequent fluffing of lines, even Joanna could recognize that Timony Weeks had had an undeniable screen presence: long, thick hair which she tossed around to great effect and huge, vulnerable eyes which looked beseechingly into the camera. They were enough to melt the hardest of hearts. Added to that was a mouth that trembled every single time she looked at a wounded animal – which was roughly four times per episode. And the check shirts and denim dungarees which she wore around the farm were very ‘cutesy’ while the nylon dresses, hair ribbons, white ankle socks and sandals that she wore into town were undeniably dainty. Watching episodes of the series Joanna soon realized that Timony Weeks had stolen the show with her winsome ways. She had two older brothers, Keith and Sean, great muscular monkeys of men who guarded and protected her at every step and in turn she rewarded them with her sweet smile, a flash of those eyes and occasionally a quick, embarrassed kiss on their rough male cheeks. And then there was David, a younger brother who seemed to have no purpose at all in the series and no part to play except to be cuddled and comforted by his soft-hearted sister, Lily.

  Gerald, who played Joab Butterfield, her screen father, looked old enough to be her grandfather rather than her father. The part he played was taciturn and dignified in dungarees whereas May, her screen mother, was a troubled, fretting scold with permanent scowl lines scoring her forehead. Joanna looked closer at Gerald. At a guess he would ‘scrub up’ very nicely. He was tall and thin, and could have been distinguished-looking in a suit rather than denim. He had a proud, erect posture and thick grey hair. In spite of his age and the part he was playing,
Joanna caught a frisson of attraction between the screen stars and felt uncomfortable when Timony climbed on to his lap, threw her arms around him and gave ‘Daddy’ his goodnight kiss. Joanna watched a couple of episodes but soon got bored with the sickly sweetness of the storylines, the stilted acting and disjointed conversations. Freeman and the BBC had been right to pull the plug, probably a few years too late, and bow out. It wouldn’t have passed muster for today’s more sophisticated dramas like EastEnders or Coronation Street. She switched off and sat, thinking, for a while. She knew she was missing something and central to that conviction was the certainty that it was all to do with Lily Butterfield, or Timony Shore. She rubbed her forehead, closed her eyes and tried to picture what it was that was disturbing her.

  She longed to talk this over with Matthew but wasn’t sure she could find the right words. The events were so nebulous and insubstantial. It was all about feeling and impressions, instincts and ideas. Even the business about the watch seemed insubstantial.

  All except the killing of the cat. That was real enough.

  As she drove home that evening her mind kept returning to the puzzle of events at Butterfield Farm. Something was troubling her. It lay at the back of her mind, an oily, green sludge which she could feel in her brain. She was conscious of it all the time. The urge to talk the case over with Matthew strengthened with every mile she drew nearer to Waterfall Cottage. But when she reached the lane and their home she realized that Matthew was not there. There was no sign of his car and the cottage was in darkness. She sat outside for a while, disappointed. It was not late. Only seven o’clock, but this was unusual. A first, in fact. As a pathologist Matthew did not have to go on calls and emergency stuff. He was generally home around six. She decided she would ring him on his mobile once she’d gone inside and lit the woodburner.