The I-Spy Murders

by David W Robinson

  “That’s right,” Joe said. “Her killer was a man.”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Helen,” Naughton said wearily. “Murray may or may not be right, but it wasn’t me.”

  The attention of the entire room came back to Joe.

  “He’s telling the truth. It wasn’t him. In fact, it wasn’t any of the crew. It was one of the Housies.”

  The announcement was greeted by awed silence. Anne broke it by laughing wildly, and it was quickly followed by Dylan’s sneering opinion.

  “How do you propose we got out, Mr Detective, while the cameras were watching us?”

  “We know how that was worked, son.” Joe deliberately belittled him with the added sobriquet. “See, while the Chief Inspector and I were working on this, we assumed all along that it was a member of the production crew. We never, for one minute, figured on teamwork, and we should have done.” He smiled grimly. “What’s I-Spy about if not teamwork?”

  “Are you telling me there was more than one person involved?” Naughton was as surprised as everyone else.

  Joe nodded. “I even kept Frank in the dark earlier today. I only realised it myself at four o’clock this morning, and I’ve spent most of the last few hours working it out. In fact, even though I realised yesterday that there were two people involved, I only learned the whole truth about twenty minutes ago. One of the production crew was working hand in glove with one of the Housies.”

  “Impossible,” Helen declared. “How could they communicate? Unless you’re suggesting it was Master Spy.”

  “You know, Helen, you put your finger on the one flaw in my theory. The one bug I couldn’t get over. There was no way they could communicate, and if they couldn’t communicate, how could the crewman tell the Housey the stock feeds were running and it was safe to leave the dorm, how could the Housey know that Ursula was asleep? Just take a look at this.”

  Joe hit the keyboard of his netbook and the screen came alive with footage of him in the men’s dorm. Without warning, a light flashed on and went off again inside a second.

  “That,” he said, “is the light of a mobile phone receiving a message. Most mobiles are the same. You put them into sleep mode but when a message comes through, the screen flashes and when you read the message, the entire thing lights up.”

  “That is impossible,” Helen said. “No one had a mobile phone. It’s against the rules.”

  Joe shook his head. “I had this debate with Naughton earlier.” He gazed at the Housies. “Three of you were carrying mobile phones which you’d smuggled in. But only one of you was the killer.” He hit the keyboard again. “Here’s the original footage I based my experiment on.”

  They watched in silence as the light hovered briefly above Greg’s bed. When Joe stopped it, all eyes turned to Greg.

  “Now wait a minute,” he protested. “I killed no one.”

  “Do you deny you had a mobile phone?” Joe demanded.

  “I… er…” His face sank. “No. No, I don’t deny it. All right, I know I wasn’t supposed to have one, but you don’t know what it’s like to be separated from your wife and family for a week. I missed them. I wanted to keep in touch with them. It was only the occasional text, just to let her know I was thinking about her.”

  Joe nodded. “You had a picture of them on your shelf, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Is that so surprising? I wasn’t the only one.” He pointed at Anne. “I know for a fact she was carrying a phone because I heard her talking to her husband when she was alone in the Romping Room. And she hated Ursula. Ask your friend, Brenda. She’ll confirm it.”

  “I don’t deny it,” Anne shouted, “but I didn’t kill her.”

  “I already know Anne had a mobile,” Joe said, “and the video caught her using it the same way it caught you.” Summoning his anger, he glared at Greg. “But the photograph of your wife and children was laid flat on the shelf on the night Ursula was killed. Because you knew it would reflect the light of your phone back to the camera. Didn’t you?”

  “What? No. I swear I didn’t do it.”

  “Then explain the photograph?” Joe pressed.

  “I can’t. It should have been stood up. I didn’t even notice it was laid flat.” Sweat broke on Greg’s forehead. “I put that photograph up so that it was facing the camera on the far wall. That way, my wife would see it every time they showed the inside of the men’s dorm and she’d know I was thinking about her. I was tired on Thursday night. Really sleepy. I just never noticed it was laid flat. If I had, I’d have stood it up.” His face worked and worried and pleaded with them. “You have to believe me. I’m innocent. And you –” he pointed a shaking finger at Joe. “You’re making a big mistake.”

  Joe smiled. “No I’m not,” he said as Azi positioned himself behind Greg. “I believe you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Pandemonium ensued for a moment. Even Hoad and Azi joined in the chorus of complaints. Joe waited for quiet.

  “The photograph really was laid flat to prevent it reflecting any light,” he said. “But Greg didn’t do it.” Joe swung his attention round the room and fixed it on the killer. “Did he, Dylan?”

  In contrast to Greg, Dylan was his customary, easy-going self. “What is this? You gonna accuse each of us in turn? Why not Marc? It was his dressing gown cord she hung herself with.”

  “I’m told the proper word is hanged, not hung,” Joe riposted. “See, I told you all, I’ve spent almost the whole morning trying to recreate that bit of video, and I couldn’t. It didn’t matter whose bed I tried it from, the light was either too much or too little. But then I checked footage from the dorm when it was fully lit, and that’s when it hit me. The reflection didn’t come from Greg’s photograph. It couldn’t. The photograph was laid flat. Instead it came from this.” He reached down to his bag on the floor, and came back up with a newly bought razor, the head tucked into a shiny plastic safety sheath. He tossed it on the table. “That’s the same razor as Greg uses. A Gillette Fusion, four-blade wet razor. I bought it an hour ago at a supermarket in Kelsall, about a mile from here.” He picked up the object and turned it over in his hands. “When I put that on Greg’s shelf and tried the experiment again, I managed to duplicate the scene. But again, I had to try it from every bed, and the only one it worked from was yours, Dylan.”

  The young man laughed again. “You’re talking outta your pants, man. So you got me using a mobile phone. What of it. I ain’t the only one.”

  “True,” Joe agreed. “But you’re the only one using it just before Ursula’s death. And why? Because that’s when your accomplice texted you to say the stock feeds were about to run and you had to check on your buddies in the dorm, make sure they were all asleep.”

  The young man shook his head. “Garbage,” he laughed, but the amusement sounded forced and unreal.

  “We’ll see,” Joe promised. “I’ve been doing a lot of research over the last few days into the death of a man named Victor Prentiss. He was a nasty piece of work, Victor. A movie producer, but one who used unusual methods of casting his films. It involved movie wannabes getting into bed with him. If they didn’t, they couldn’t expect much help from him. One of those wannabes was Ursula Kenney. She was interviewed soon after his death, but cleared of any involvement. What we do know is that Prentiss was seen with two women on or around the night of his death. No one really knew what happened and the official verdict was death by autoerotic asphyxiation. I don’t think it was. I think it was murder. I think the two women he was with that night grew tired of his constant abuse and decided to strangle him with his own belt. Since he had a penchant for scarfing, it was easy enough to pull off… no pun intended.”

  “You’d never prove it, Joe,” Hoad pointed out.

  “I know. But four people knew the truth. The two women who murdered him, Ursula Kenney and Dan Wellesley. We know what happened to Ursula, and Dan had his head caved in before I could get to him. Why? Because they both threatened to expose the truth a
bout Prentiss’ death, and someone on I-Spy needed to shut them up.”

  “That lets me out,” Dylan declared. “I never heard of this Victor Pratt.”

  “Not quite, Dylan,” Joe said. “And by the way, his name was Prentiss. No, you didn’t know him. You were only a kid when he was killed. But your mother did.”

  Dylan’s laughing face, soured and darkened. “You leave my mother out of this.”

  “Touched a nerve, did I?” Joe smiled easily. “You should learn to chill out, boy. It does wonders for your stress levels.” He addressed the room again. “Victor Prentiss is the reason your mother committed suicide while you were a child, and you know it.”

  Fury built in Dylan’s eyes. “You talk about my mother like that, and you don’t even know her.” His voice was a hiss suddenly exploding into a roar. “I’ll kill you.”

  He leapt from his seat, but Rahman clamped an arm around him and wrestled him back down into the chair.

  “Thanks, Azi,” Joe said. Checking his notes, he went on, “Let’s think about Ursula, for a minute, huh? Everyone here agrees she was a complete bitch. Those who knew her – Marlene – said she was a crap actress. Victor Prentiss knew her years ago, and he probably thought she was crap, too, because he never did anything to advance her career. But he enjoyed her. Eventually, she gave up on stardom and became an estate agent. So there she is sailing gleefully through life selling houses when I-Spy hits the screens and she sees names she recognises on the credits. Not only that, she sees a face she knows. Marlene Caldbeck, who back when she appeared with Ursula was known as Margaret Billingham.”

  “I told the plod, I had nothing to do with her death.”

  “You’re very much alike, you and Ursula,” Joe said. “Neither of you ever learned how to shut up long enough to let others speak. We know you didn’t kill her. Dylan did that.” Before Dylan could protest his innocence again, Joe went on. “But did you help in the background, Marlene?”

  “I told you…”

  “No, you didn’t help,” Joe interrupted. “You were only guilty of covering up your association with her because it would have barred you from presenting I-Spy, which in turn would have cost you money. So let’s get back to Ursula. She sees these names and faces and all the old anger comes back. They’re successful, she’s selling houses. She wants what they have. Fortunately, she knows something about one of them. Something linked to the death of Victor Prentiss. She knows he was murdered. So she writes in with her demands. ‘Get me on I-Spy, or I go to the cops with what I know.’ She doesn’t need to win it. She only needs to appear so she can show everyone what a great talent she has. But she’s miscalculated. The person she’s recognised is prepared to go to extreme lengths to shut her up. Permanently. And later, when Dan Wellesley gets in touch, after he’s spoken to me, he, too, put himself in the firing line… isn’t that right, Helen?”

  Her face drained of colour. For a moment Joe thought she was about to confess, but she retained control of herself and in a voice choked with indignation, said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “Right at the beginning, Scott was telling us about you tearing a strip off Marlene at some final meeting, because she’d hinted that she may have known one of the contestants. As it happens she did, but you knew her, too, Helen. You were the one who foolishly opened your mouth about that night with Victor Prentiss.”

  “Wrong,” Helen declared. “I was never an actress.”

  Joe smiled. “Who said we were looking for an actress?”

  “You did. Just now.”

  Joe shook his head. “I said we were looking for two movie wannabes. That could mean actors, writers, directors, camera people… and producers. You told me that the competition is just as fierce for crew as it is for performers, and back then, even though you’re fiftyish now, you were still a wannabe, still looking for the big break. In fact, you told me that, too.”

  Helen shrugged. “I’m telling you, I did not know Ursula Kenney. I had never met her.”

  “Then how do you explain this.” Joe hit his computer key and a photograph appeared; the same image, Brenda had been so intent upon the previous night. A casual shot, it showed a much younger Ursula in the foreground, smiling falsely into the camera, and amongst the several people in the background, also many years younger but clearly recognisable, was Helen. “Ursula tagged this photograph with the caption, ‘Millennium Eve Amdram Group, Liverpool’. You knew her because you were working with her. What happened? Did you get drunk on Millennium Eve, start whinging about men, and how you’d screwed one for a contract but he died while you were playing your games? Or did you get really drunk and tell her that you’d murdered Prentiss? And how did Dan Wellesley know? Was he there the night Prentiss was murdered?”

  Helen gaped.

  Joe pressed home his advantage. “Let me ask about that permanent irritation on your right leg, huh? A childhood accident you said when you showed me the scar. We all have accidents like that when we’re kids. Trouble is, flat scars don’t grow as you do. They stay the same size. It’s about three or four inches long. For that scar to have been caused in your childhood, it would have sliced out a huge proportion of your infant leg, and would probably have been an emergency. It wouldn’t have been a ‘minor incident’ as you described it. That is an adult scar, and it was caused when you cut your leg on a stray branch as you were covering the body of Victor Prentiss in Hogshead Wood.”

  Silence fell. It was Sheila who broke it.

  “I’m sorry, Joe, but there’s so much of this that I don’t understand.”

  “You’d have to check Dan Wellesley’s website to get a clear picture, and you can’t do that now because someone wiped the website out the morning he was killed. Fortunately, I’d already had a good look, and I’d made notes as well as downloading a number of photographs.” Joe checked his netbook and called up the relevant documents. “Wellesley was a venture capitalist. He sank money into viable propositions, and he financed a number of Prentiss’ projects. In return, he got invited to some pretty wild parties with Prentiss. There were plenty of pictures on his website of actresses and other women from the movies who Prentiss had coerced into bed. Amongst them were two women I recognised.” Joe hit the keyboard again and a picture of a much younger Helen appeared. “Helen Catterick aged about, I dunno, thirty, I guess.” He hit the keys again and another picture appeared. “No names, no pack drill. That was Wellesley’s policy and I had trouble remembering where I’d seen this picture before. But when I saw her, she was a little older. She was your mother, Dylan. You showed her photograph to the camera earlier in the week. She was one of the two women who were with Prentiss the night he died. One of the two women who rang Dan Wellesley to tell him what had happened. Helen, you and Dylan’s mother bought Wellesley’s silence with the threat of exposing him if he opened his mouth, and he bought your silence with the same threat. Then, when Ursula died, he remembered and decided to see if he could make any more out of it. What did he want on Saturday night? Your knickers off one last time?”

  Helen folded her arms and said nothing.

  “Joe,” Hoad said with great restraint, “would you like to explain just what was going on?”

  “Sure. No problem.” Joe called up his notes on the netbook. “Ursula was from Liverpool. My guess is when it was announced that I-Spy was coming to Chester, she wrote or emailed Helen with her threats and Helen arranged it. I saw the original list of Housies and Ursula’s name was first on it. At the bottom of the list was a kid named Neil someone or other, but his name had been crossed off and Dylan was drafted in at the last minute. When I asked Naughton about that, he said Neil had been involved in a car accident. I don’t know what really happened but I guess Helen got in touch with Dylan and told him that Ursula was about to drag his beloved mother’s name through the mud over the Prentiss business. So Dylan came on the show with one of two options. Either lay Ursula and shut her up, or kill her to shut her up. His mother didn’t hesitate to throttle Prentiss, and Dyla
n loved his mother, so he would be ready to do anything to save her reputation.”

  Dylan leapt to his feet again. “Don’t you talk about my mother like that.”

  Rahman restrained him again.

  “I’m not judging your mother, Dylan.” Joe said. “I’m stating facts. Between them, Helen and Dylan came up with a plan, and he hit it off with Ursula right away. Why not? He’s young, fit, good looking. He played Ursula like a reluctant fish all week, and on Thursday he put the proposition to her. Shut up about Victor Prentiss. Ursula refused. Remember what Marc said when he came outside on Thursday? He’d heard Dylan and Ursula talking in an excited manner. Everyone drew the wrong conclusion. They thought the couple were getting it on. I think they were arguing. So Plan A went into action. At some time on Thursday, Helen slipped the Zimovane to Dylan through one of the hatches. Probably in the Romping Room. It was probably already in powder form. Several people went near those shakers in the kitchen that day, including Greg and Dylan, both claiming to be looking for the sugar. But why would Dylan need to look for it? He’d cooked a meal the night before and he used two teaspoons of plain flour in that goulash, so he knew which contained the flour. And that’s how the Zimovane got into the flour shaker.”

  Brenda glowered at Dylan. “I ought to horsewhip you.”

  “He’d probably enjoy it,” Greg said, and the room broke down again in a melee of threat, counter-threat, accusation and recrimination.

  When order was restored, Joe went on.

  “If you check the video of Brenda’s dinner, Dylan eats less of it than anyone else and pleaded a tricky tummy. Nonsense. He was making sure he didn’t get too much of the Zimovane. Somewhere on Thursday evening, he slipped a note to Ursula. ‘Meet me in the Romping Room at midnight and we’ll have some fun to make up for this afternoon.’ Ursula goes along, but Dylan keeps her waiting for so long that she falls asleep. Meanwhile, Helen has slipped a couple of Zimovane in Bexley’s tea. She knew Driscoll was always concerned about her kids, and she put that information to good use. She rang Driscoll, told her there was a problem with her kids, stood outside waiting for the woman to leave, then hopped over the wall to check on Bexley. He’s asleep, she comes in and texts Dylan to tell him to check on the other Housies and get ready. Then she runs the stock feeds, texts him a second time to go. He goes along to the Romping Room and strangles Ursula with one of her own stockings. Then he puts the stocking back on her, which is why you couldn’t find it, Frank, and he hangs her with the cord from Marc’s dressing gown, which he probably took earlier in the day. There’s no log of a stock feed running, but the video shows one running at about half past midday, and you’ll find that Dylan was in the dorm at that time.”