Fatal Act

by Leigh Russell

  At last the train drew in. She found an end seat. Luckily it was one of the new rolling stock, which ran more smoothly than the bumpy old trains. Taking out a small mirror, she studied her face one last time. Everything had to be perfect today. She looked up as the train passed Wembley Stadium. At night the huge arch looked magical, lit up like the entrance to space. In the daylight it looked like the skeleton of an alien dinosaur. The day was chilly and she shivered as she left the station. She wished she had worn a warmer coat.

  The audition passed in a whirl of adrenaline and excitement. She remembered her lines, which was always a relief, although it was impossible to tell how she was doing during her short performance. At least they all appeared to be listening. The producer remained aloof throughout, but Bethany was sufficiently experienced not to set any store by that. It could even be an encouraging sign. The casting director she had expected wasn’t there. His replacement was friendly enough, and they all chatted briefly to her while she answered their questions in as relaxed a manner as she could. Yes, she was available for the whole of the run if the production was extended, or went on tour. It went without saying that she was willing to sacrifice anything else in her life for the duration of the show. She was shaking physically by the time she left the building, confident she had managed to keep her nerves hidden. Under the circumstances, she had acquitted herself well.

  Reaching her flat, she thought she glimpsed a figure in a grey hood and sunglasses standing perfectly still between the street lamps on the other side of the road. She felt a flicker of unease before her door slammed shut and she leaned back against the wall, overwhelmed by the enormity of her day. The audition had gone well. That was all that mattered. Now she had to try and put it out of her mind. It might be a few weeks before she heard anything. Normally gregarious, she was relieved her flatmate was out. Lucy was bound to quiz her about the audition, and she didn’t feel like talking. But as she was making a cup of tea her agent rang and forced her to relive the experience.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m home.’

  ‘That was quick. They didn’t keep you hanging around then?’

  ‘No, I got there early and they asked me to go straight in.’

  ‘Good. That’s always a good sign if they don’t keep you hanging around.’

  Bethany knew that was bullshit.

  ‘So, how did it go?’

  Bethany sighed. Now it was over, she didn’t want to think about it.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She gave a brief account of what little she could remember of the audition.

  ‘It went by in a blur, to be honest.’

  ‘That’s the adrenaline. It’s not a bad thing. So, there were no surprises, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  Bethany scowled at the phone. Dinah’s relentless optimism was wearing.

  When she opened her bedroom window for a smoke, she noticed the figure was still there, standing motionless across the road. She turned away quickly, and hurried into the kitchen. It had been a strange day altogether. She was glad it was over and she had come through it without a hitch. Within a week, she might hear she had landed the part of a lifetime. The worst that could happen was that she wouldn’t be cast, and she would have to continue the dreary round of auditions and waiting, auditions and waiting, until her lucky break came.

  ‘I don’t know how you put up with all the rejections,’ her sister had said.

  Bethany had just shrugged.

  ‘I’m an optimist.’

  It was true. She knew the future was going to turn out well for her. With her looks and talent, and her determination, how could she fail?

  Chapter 13

  ON MONDAY MORNING GERALDINE overslept. She didn’t stop for breakfast but set off straight away. There were warnings of severe weather conditions in Kent where she used to live. Her sister had sent her photos of her niece building a snowman. London meanwhile was cold, with a hard frost lacing the trees, although it was already February and hadn’t yet snowed properly. She nipped into the canteen on her way up to her office. Of course there was a queue to pay. There always was when she was late. She wasn’t bothered, aware that she faced a long morning of dull routine checking, looking for inconsistencies in statements made by Piers and his son, before they started formally interviewing their main suspect. Reg was convinced they had their killer safely locked up in a cell but Geraldine still wasn’t sure Piers was guilty. Driving a van into his victim’s car seemed such a stupid way to set about killing her.

  ‘He’s in the theatre,’ Reg had said, waving one hand dismissively in the air, as though that explained everything. ‘These people don’t think like we do.’

  Geraldine thought that was a feeble attempt to explain away something that didn’t make sense. Always mindful that Reg was her senior officer, she kept her opinion to herself.

  At half past nine the team was summoned for a briefing. Geraldine didn’t expect to hear anything new. Reg would make encouraging noises and tell them to keep at it. She gazed around the room, nodding a greeting at her colleagues, most of whom looked as despondent as she was. Reg came in a few moments later. He looked stressed, his tie askew beneath his unshaven chin.

  ‘We do have some news,’ he announced in his pompous manner, ‘although I’m not sure you’re going to like it. Go on then.’

  He nodded at a detective constable who had been speaking to the scene of crime officer team.

  ‘The mechanics have been examining the Porsche and the van, and basically they’ve found something wrong with the van. The door was tampered with. Someone got in without a key and started the engine by fiddling around with the wiring. Whoever it was, they knew what they were doing.’

  ‘So it was a professional job?’

  ‘Well,’ the constable hesitated, ‘it could have been joy riders.’

  ‘The point is,’ Reg interrupted impatiently, ‘anyone could have been driving that van when Anna was killed. It wasn’t someone who had the keys to the van.’

  There was a pause while they all considered the implications of this news.

  ‘It must have been joy riders. Why would a professional car thief want to steal a clapped out old van like that?’ a young constable asked.

  ‘It can’t have been just some random thief or joy rider,’ Sam pointed out. ‘It would be too much of a coincidence if that particular van, belonging to Piers, happened to drive into Anna’s car somewhere up in London.’

  ‘So do you think the van was stolen deliberately?’ someone asked.

  ‘It wasn’t necessarily driven by someone who didn’t have a key,’ Geraldine said.

  ‘Yes,’ Reg agreed. ‘Piers could have tampered with the van himself to throw us off the scent.’

  ‘Whoever was driving the van on Friday night could have deliberately used it in order to frame the owner,’ Geraldine pointed out.

  ‘Yes, that’s possible too,’ Reg agreed. ‘But it could equally have been Piers – or his son for that matter. One of them could easily have damaged the lock to make it look as though the van was driven by someone who didn’t have a key.’

  ‘Is that likely? It sounds a bit complicated,’ someone said.

  ‘All I’m saying is that the damaged lock on the van doesn’t rule Piers out,’ Reg said, ‘although it does open up other possibilities.’

  He sounded irritated.

  As Anna’s boyfriend, Piers was the most obvious suspect. This new development only served to make things less clear. They were all interested to learn that more evidence had come to light in the van and was being examined, including a strand of long blonde hair which would probably turn out to have belonged to Anna.

  ‘I think it’s time to put pressure on the suspect,’ Reg said and Geraldine nodded at Sam.

  The interview didn’t go well and ended inconclusively. Piers insisted he had been at home all night on Friday. He made the point that if he had wanted to kill Anna, he would hav
e used a more reliable method.

  ‘I lived with her. I could have despatched her in any number of ways –’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘I didn’t have anything “in mind”, as you put it. I wasn’t planning to do away with her at all. She was a wonderful girl and we were happy together –’

  His voice cracked and he paused. Geraldine might have felt sorry for him if the black-haired girl hadn’t been with him when they had picked him up the previous day. They had all known she wasn’t his sister.

  ‘All I’m saying is that if I had wanted to kill her, do you really think I would have attempted something so stupid as a car accident? Or even have staged some kind of fake accident so I could murder her and get away with it? The whole thing is preposterous, and frankly idiotic.’

  After a frustrating morning, they let their suspect go. They had no evidence with which to hold him, and his solicitor was there, snapping at their heels. Geraldine returned to her desk and studied her file on Piers. They knew a lot about him. He had led a colourful life, with three marriages and a string of girlfriends. While he grew older, his companions remained in their early twenties. For all that his personal life had been so busy, officially he only had one son. Geraldine wondered how many other children he had fathered whose paternity had gone unrecorded. Piers was an attractive and charming man who took advantage of his position to meet and seduce aspiring young actresses. Geraldine wished she could find him guilty of murdering his girl friend. It would be a fitting end to his philandering. But however unsavoury a character he was, she didn’t believe he would be crass enough to commit murder.

  Geraldine had plenty of dull administrative tasks to complete. Instead she occupied herself delving into Piers’ busy past, making detailed notes on each of his three wives, for future reference. She wasn’t sure that any of them were relevant to the current case, but at this stage of the investigation no information could be discarded.

  His first wife had been a student in Piers’ class at drama school. She had been barely eighteen when they met, and not much older when she became his wife for a brief period. After the divorce, she had stayed with her second husband until her death at the age of fifty-two. Piers was in his mid-forties when he met his second young wife, on a production he was directing. They married as soon as the show closed, and a year later their son was born. That was the wife who had drowned. By the time he divorced his third wife he was nearing sixty, and he had been single ever since, dating a succession of young starlets. As far as Geraldine could discover, he had parted on good terms with his two ex-wives who had survived the marriages. Geraldine closed the document she had been studying and stood up and stretched. She had read enough about Piers for one day. Now she wanted to see what she could find out about Anna.

  Chapter 14

  MOST PEOPLE WOULD BE at work now, their morning nearly over, stuck behind desks in monotonous nine to five jobs, watching the clock and waiting for lunch time. In a couple of hours they would all be back at their desks, yawning, watching the clock once again, this time waiting until it was time to go home. He lay in bed and grinned to himself, relishing his own good fortune. After a shower, he had returned to bed where he lay, stretching out his legs, enjoying the cool soft touch of silk sheets on his skin. He wouldn’t get out of bed again that day until hunger forced him downstairs. With closed eyes, he allowed his thoughts to wander back through his memories. Everything brought him back to the van hurtling along a dark street, the deafening crash and eruption of shattered glass.

  The possibility that Anna might survive the impact hadn’t entered his calculations, but he hadn’t lost his nerve on discovering she was still breathing. He never panicked. His training had drilled that response out of him. But he was thankful he had stopped to check she was dead. He might so easily have slipped away, leaving her unconscious but alive. That would have spoiled everything. As it was, he hadn’t even stopped to think. With so many shards of glass to hand, it had taken no more than a second to finish the job. It was literally a stroke of genius. He shivered, remembering all the blood. He had been fairly well protected by the window frame. When he had reached in only his glove and sleeve had been drenched. Afterwards he had hidden his hand in his pocket and the blood had barely shown on his black sleeve in the darkness. A busybody police officer had nearly caught him red handed – quite literally – but he was quick thinking and the stupid plod had sent him away. It was a pity there was no one to share the joke. He had to be content to laugh about it by himself.

  It was Monday. A whole weekend had passed since he had driven the Porsche off the road. He had been like a shadow, prowling in the night. It was hard to believe he had been there, despatching her with his own hands. It felt unreal, as though he had watched a character being murdered in a film. But he knew it had happened, just as he knew he would do it again. It was time for retribution. Now he had started there was no going back.

  Chapter 15

  SHORTLY AFTER ANNA’S TWELFTH birthday, her mother had died of cancer. Now her father had lost his younger daughter as well, under circumstances if not more tragic, certainly more sudden. Albert Porter still lived in Acton, in the house where his two daughters had grown up. When his elder daughter’s marriage had failed, she had returned to live with her father. Jane was four years older than Anna. Wondering if Jane would be at home with her father, Geraldine took a deep breath and rang the bell. She hoped she wouldn’t find the bereaved father at home on his own and was relieved when a thin-faced woman opened the door. There was no mistaking the family resemblance.

  Jane’s eyes were red and puffy. Where Anna had been fashionably slender, her body toned and healthy-looking, Jane was gaunt, a skinny version of her attractive younger sister, as though all of Anna’s features had been coarsened in her.

  ‘We don’t want any callers right now,’ she said gruffly.

  Geraldine hurriedly introduced herself before the door closed.

  ‘A detective inspector?’ Jane hesitated. ‘What do you want with us?’

  ‘Am I right in thinking you are Anna Porter’s sister?’

  ‘What if I am?’

  ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘About your sister, Anna.’

  ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? We went and saw her –’ Her face puckered and she bit her lower lip while her eyes filled with tears. ‘Anna’s dead.’

  Geraldine lowered her head. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing more to say, is there? Except that we’d like to be able to bury her in peace.’

  ‘I’m afraid that may not be possible, not yet.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Geraldine took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure how Jane would react to what she was going to say.

  ‘We’re investigating the circumstances of Anna’s death.’

  ‘She died in a car crash, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Miss Porter – Jane, can I come in?’

  ‘I don’t understand. What do you want with us? We just want to be left alone.’

  ‘Please.’

  With a shrug, Jane gave a curt nod and led Geraldine into a drab front room where a grey-haired man sat hunched in a red armchair distractedly stroking a well-fed tabby cat that was curled up in his lap. The cat was purring loudly.

  ‘Dad, there’s a policewoman here.’

  Mr Porter looked up dully and muttered a polite greeting. Had it not been for the tragedy that had struck the household, this might have been an ordinary Monday evening, with Mr Porter waiting for his daughter to dish up his dinner.

  ‘Mr Porter, I’m very sorry about Anna.’

  He shrugged and looked down at the cat.

  Geraldine looked at Jane, who was hovering by the door, and then back at Mr Porter.
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  ‘We’re investigating the possibility that your daughter’s death may not have been an accident,’ she said gently.

  Anna’s father gave no sign he had heard but, from the doorway, Geraldine heard Jane gasp. She glanced up. Jane was scowling.

  ‘Can’t you leave us alone?’ she hissed. ‘Haven’t we been through enough? First we lost my mother, and now this –’

  ‘Leave it, Jane,’ her father interrupted softly. ‘It’s not her fault. She’s just doing her job.’

  He half rose to his feet, and gestured to Geraldine to take a seat. As he shifted, the cat slithered to the floor. It stalked out of the room with its tail held straight up in the air, brushing past Jane who was hovering in the doorway. Quietly, Geraldine explained that, unlikely as it seemed, there were grounds for suspecting the crash had not happened by accident. Anna’s father looked baffled. Jane took a step forward. She went and perched on the arm of her father’s chair, from where she reached out and put her hand on his sleeve. There was silence for a moment when Geraldine finished speaking. Then Mr Porter sat up. He sounded agitated.

  ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Why would anyone want to hurt Anna?’

  Jane’s response was more measured.

  ‘Surely you can find out whose car drove into her.’

  ‘Yes, we know the owner of the other vehicle,’ Geraldine answered cautiously. ‘But we haven’t yet established who was driving it.’ She paused. ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Anna?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ Mr Porter snapped.

  Geraldine turned to Jane.

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Anna was a sweet girl,’ she replied promptly, ‘and popular, wasn’t she, dad? Only a maniac would want to drive her off the road.’