Final Act

by J M Gregson

  ‘Who killed him, David?’

  A question was better than a direct accusation, David supposed, but only just. ‘I don’t know, do I? I’d have been straight in to tell the police if I had, wouldn’t I?’

  Trevor Fisher didn’t respond to that. He couldn’t rid himself of that persistent image of David dumping the trainers in their rubbish to be destroyed for ever. He said, ‘I’ve given myself the day off. Do you want to meet again later?’

  Deeney said rather woodenly, ‘That would be nice. I’ll need to get back to the hotel to eat with the others this evening, but we could meet for a cup of tea at around half past four, I should think. There’s a place by the river, towards the bottom end of the town.’

  John Watts was even more briskly efficient than usual. As director, he was normally in charge of location shooting and everyone accepted that he would be the driving force behind the day’s progress. But with the demise of first Jackson and now Clark, he had taken on responsibility for the whole enterprise and become the person whom everyone depended on to make sure that Herefordshire Horrors did not founder in these most dangerous of seas.

  He gave terse, useful instructions to the man and the three women in the first scene of the day, in which David Deeney’s vicar spread his wings and showed unexpected aspects of his character. The scene was short enough for him to review the rushes and pronounce it a successful take before he gave his final instructions to set up the furnishings and props for the second scene of the day, where Sandra Rokeby and Sir Bradley Morton were to confront each other unexpectedly in a stable, of all unlikely places. Then he strode briskly to the hut designated as the murder room, anxious to fulfil his obligations to the CID in what was for him an inevitably busy day.

  He glanced at his watch even as he accepted their invitation to sit before them, indicating that he was fulfilling what he saw as a tiresome but necessary duty. ‘Please make this as brief as possible. You will no doubt accept that I must be even more busy than usual, in the light of what happened to Ernie Clark last night.’

  ‘You’re taking over the producer’s responsibility for the series?’ Lambert raised his eyebrows elaborately, though he was by no means surprised.

  Watts smiled, his thin face a picture of repressed energy. He had trimmed his small beard, so that it no longer waggled extravagantly when he spoke vigorously. ‘For this episode certainly. Possibly for future Inspector Loxton series, if things work out that way.’

  ‘You’ve been quick to seize control. It’s almost as if you had been expecting Mr Clark to meet the fate which had already overtaken Samuel Jackson.’

  He refused to bridle in the face of this attack. The man was trying to rile him and make him reveal things, but he would not succeed. ‘Someone has to take over. Someone has to hold everything together. There weren’t many candidates: actors are not the best organizers, as you may have noted by now, chief superintendent.’

  His deep-set grey eyes seemed almost taunting. Certainly they were watching closely and missing nothing that was available to them, here as elsewhere on the location site. It was Bert Hook who now said quietly, ‘Did you ask Mr Clark to meet you in the hotel car park last night?’

  ‘No. Why would I do that?’

  ‘To kill him and engineer the situation which you are now exploiting.’

  ‘That’s outrageous!’ John was genuinely annoyed now, forgetting the resolution he had made as he came here to keep calm and dispose of this necessary evil swiftly and without excitement. ‘The very idea that I would do such a thing is preposterous!’

  ‘Preposterous or not, someone seems to have done just that. It’s our job to find which one of a relatively small number it was. You are the one who seemed most prepared for the event, the one who has taken over Mr Clark’s role in addition to your own. You have just told us that actors are not generally fitted for that role. You have virtually invited us to consider you as a leading suspect for murder, Mr Watts.’

  It was logical enough when put like that, John supposed. But these thoughts seemed more astounding when they came from the mouth of that stolid, unthreatening presence, which looked as if it should be in uniform and riding a bike round a village in a 1950s’ Ealing comedy. ‘I didn’t kill Sam Jackson and I didn’t kill Ernie Clark. I should like that formally recorded.’

  Hook smiled over his notebook. ‘I can only record that you deny it, Mr Watts. We hope to be able to record the facts of the matter within the next thirty-six hours.’

  It was always rather chilling for suspects if you mentioned exact times, in Bert’s experience. It wouldn’t do any harm to suggest to this competent, well-organized man that they were contemplating an early arrest. ‘Mr Jackson stayed with Mr Clark in his house in Gloucester on the night before he was murdered here. They don’t appear to have had any secrets from each other.’

  He managed to make that sound quite threatening, even though John Watts hastened to say, ‘I wouldn’t have expected them to, as producer and assistant producer. The Ben Loxton series is a great success, but they had a lot at stake as a partnership, here and elsewhere.’

  ‘Yes. Mr Clark kept certain notes on his director and the members of his cast. Things which he thought might be useful to him, we must suppose. I expect most of them were passed on to him by Samuel Jackson, who seems to have revelled in such knowledge.’

  ‘Sam loved to revile people and humiliate them. He loved it even more when he could discover things in their lives which they would rather have kept hidden. Knowledge was power, he said. It enabled him to keep salaries down and do what he wanted to actors rather than allow what they wanted. That was why you had a wide range of possibilities for his killer. We were all shocked, because we do not see our acquaintances and friends as killers, but we were not surprised about the victim. Frankly, most of us were not distressed by Jackson’s death.’

  ‘Whereas you were by Ernie Clark’s?’

  John took his time, knowing that he had led himself into this. ‘He wasn’t as obviously hostile as Sam. He didn’t take an open delight in discomforting people. But you tell me he knew everything Sam knew, so I suppose whoever killed Sam would have almost the same reason to kill Ernie.’

  ‘Exactly the same reason, in fact. What do you think happened to Mr Jackson’s mobile phone, Mr Watts?’

  John felt as though his heart had stopped for a moment, then lurched on. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see him use it very much.’

  ‘Really? That seems surprising, in someone who was Jackson’s chosen director and had been for several years. Mr Clark seems to have been speculating on where his partner’s phone might have disappeared to when he met his own death.’

  ‘I can’t think where it would have gone. Perhaps the person who killed him took it away.’

  ‘That seems extremely likely to us also, Mr Watts. That’s why we should like to know who disposed of it.’

  ‘Sam knew a lot of things about a lot of people. Unsavoury things. I can well imagine that if someone had spoken to him on his phone, whoever it was might have wished to remove all trace of that conversation, especially when Sam became a murder victim and the police were investigating his possessions.’

  ‘Yes. The person with the best opportunity to remove a personal phone from his possession would be the person who discovered his body, wouldn’t you think?’

  John Watts felt panic now, but he kept his cool nonetheless. ‘No. I would think the person who killed him had the best opportunity to take the phone away, and probably the best motive to do that.’

  ‘Correct. The person who killed Jackson might also be the person who affected to discover the body, of course. We have to bear that in mind. What do you know about that phone, Mr Watts?’

  He was persistent as well as perceptive, this stolid-looking sergeant. Watts was conscious of Lambert’s intense face also, with the clear grey eyes watching him for minutes on end, seeming never to blink. He had the feeling that they knew things about him, knew about that phone and what he
had done with it. Were they trying to trap him into a denial? You never knew quite what they had discovered from their relentless questioning of the other people involved and their searching of Ernie Clark’s house. He said very quietly, scarcely believing he was voicing this, ‘I disposed of that phone. I took it from Sam’s pocket when I found him dead on Tuesday. I drove out after dark and flung it from a bridge into the Severn near Tewkesbury.’

  ‘And why did you do that, Mr Watts?’ Hook sounded as if he had known of that journey on Tuesday night from the start, though it was in fact the first he had heard of it.

  ‘Sam knew things about me. He knew that I’d told lies, said that I had directing experience which I did not have. It was when I was a young man and desperate to get work. He’d spoken of it to me the night before he died, reminding me that he knew, reminding me that if I wanted to go on working for him I wasn’t to expect a rise in salary. I thought the record of that call would show up on his mobile account and reveal that I had a motive to kill him. When I found his corpse, the phone was actually sticking out of his pocket. It seemed almost an invitation to remove it and dispose of it.’

  The three men were silent for a moment, picturing the scene he had described. Each of them knew that it was a short leap from that to the image of the murderer standing over the strangled corpse of Samuel Jackson, wondering what there was left in the caravan which might incriminate him.

  Lambert had not spoken for a long time. He now said, ‘Do not leave the hotel where you are staying without giving us full information on your intended movements, Mr Watts.’

  FOURTEEN

  Sir Bradley Morton had agreed to visit the murder room for further talks with CID at four in the afternoon. He should be finished with filming commitments by then, he assured them. Meanwhile, he had more important things to do.

  Sandra Rokeby had agreed to drive him into Gloucester. He hadn’t brought his own car to the location shooting: there was no problem getting to and from the hotel, as lots of other people in the cast and crew had cars. He only missed his car on occasions like this, when he felt the lack of independence. His wife had always been prepared to run him about, but she’d been gone for years now. He wondered idly as he sat beside Sandra whether she was still happy with her new man, and found himself hoping that she was. Well, that was good; he’d have been much more bitchy about her at one time. Perhaps age really did mellow you, as some of his favourite authors maintained it should do.

  Sandra was normally very lively and at ease with Brad, but the conversation was muted on this bright, warm morning. Probably both of them were inhibited by what had happened to Ernie Clark last night. They did not speculate on who might have killed him; both of them had a feeling that such a line of speculation was better avoided. He gave her precise directions as they ran into the ancient city with its towering cathedral.

  ‘You know this neck of the woods well,’ Sandra said as she waited at traffic lights.

  ‘It’s where I began life.’ Then after a pause: ‘And where I shall end it, I expect.’

  ‘But not for a good few years yet, I trust!’ said Sandra Rokeby conventionally.

  ‘Are you glad to be rid of Ernie Clark?’ asked Brad, brutally and suddenly.

  She had not expected anything as direct as this, particularly when they had hardly spoken for the first few miles. ‘I was glad to see Sam off the scene. I think we all were,’ she said. It was an evasion, she knew, an excuse for not answering him directly about last night’s death. But old Brad was a lovable rogue, not a detective, wasn’t he? Sandra said, ‘Ernie was nothing like as nasty and vindictive as Sam. But he knew all the things Sam knew, didn’t he, and he was prepared to exploit them in the same way. I wasn’t quite prepared for that.’

  Sir Bradley smiled grimly. ‘We work in a nasty business, don’t we?’

  Sandra eased the car carefully forward through the crowded central streets of Gloucester. ‘No nastier than many others, I suspect. People do whatever is necessary to strengthen their own positions in many walks of life, I fancy.’

  He glanced at his watch as they pulled into the hospital car park. ‘I shouldn’t be long. He normally keeps pretty strictly to his appointment times.’

  ‘One of the advantages of going private, I expect.’ She hadn’t asked him why they had come here and he hadn’t told her. Unusual, that. Old Brad didn’t have many inhibitions or keep many secrets from her. They’d been friends since he’d made his first pass at her and she’d laughingly rejected it. That was more years ago than she cared to recall this morning.

  He said, ‘You need BUPA or something similar, in our trade. You can’t afford to be unavailable if there’s work around.’

  ‘Unless you’re a knight of the realm and a national institution, with people clamouring to employ you.’ A little flattery never went amiss, even between old friends.

  ‘I’m going now, before I find you irresistible and leap upon you,’ he said with dignity. ‘There’s a coffee bar near the entrance.’

  ‘I shall probably just get myself a paper and wait here for you.’ She felt suddenly serious and solemn. After all, she had no idea what he was here for.

  He took care to throw his shoulders back and walk very upright as he strode into the place. Always present yourself at your best: the actor’s adage. A woman recognized him in the reception area, but he was past her and into the lift before she could speak to him, staring straight ahead in the manner cultivated by all show business people.

  The man he had come to see hadn’t followed that tenet about presenting himself carefully. His hair could have done with a comb and he needed a shave. But Brad knew he was an eminent man in his field, which was all that mattered. The consultant stood behind his desk and offered his hand. ‘We could take a blood test,’ he said, with the air of a man who knows that his options are limited.

  ‘There’s no point,’ said Sir Bradley Morton. ‘We both know the score. I just need more pills.’

  ‘It’s your choice,’ the specialist said uneasily. He understood the actor’s thinking exactly, but his instinct, his training and his whole professional ethos were to preserve human life for as long as possible. ‘It’s my duty to encourage you still to consider chemotherapy. I might—’

  ‘Bollocks, Mr Dunne!’ said Brad crisply. ‘It’s not your duty to repeat yourself and it’s not my duty to listen. Will the pain get worse?’

  ‘It needn’t do, not appreciably. If you up the dose as the pain increases, it will shorten life but make it bearable. Morphine’s a killer, ultimately. But it kills pain too.’

  ‘I’ll up the dose, don’t you worry about that. I’m a fully paid-up coward, when it comes to pain. As far as I can tell, it’s not affecting my work so far.’

  ‘There’s no reason why it should do, at this point.’ In truth, Dunne didn’t know how well an actor could cope at this stage of the illness; that aspect was a new experience for him as well as his patient. ‘I expect “Doctor Theatre” helps you to cope.’

  Bradley Morton smiled. ‘That’s easier when you’re literally in a theatre and there’s an audience to interact with. We’re filming on location for the Inspector Loxton television series at present, so you’ve only a camera and a director to keep happy. But I’m such an old ham that it hasn’t been a problem for me. Bit of a shame that the nation will never see my shot at King Lear, but I’ve been pretty lucky in my acting life, really.’

  That was a final piece of vanity; Brad knew in his heart of hearts that he would never have been asked to play Lear. This time it was he who stood and offered his hand to the professional behind the desk. They gripped and held for a fraction longer than they had done when he arrived, for each of them knew that it would be the last time.

  Dunne remained still in his chair for a moment after the ageing actor had left. People often seemed to acquire a new dignity when death was inevitable.

  Whilst Sir Bradley Morton was contemplating the end of his life as an actor, a woman who had only recently
embarked upon that journey was having a difficult time with John Lambert and Bert Hook. Peg Reynolds felt inexperienced and very susceptible in the face of this very considerable detective experience.

  ‘You took dinner in the hotel about an hour after most of the rest of the cast.’ Lambert issued the simple statement as if it were a challenge

  ‘Someone told you that, did they? I expect they enjoyed doing it.’ Peg was trying to be aggressive, but aggression did not sit happily upon her.

  ‘We ask questions and people answer them. It’s the way the system works. If people behave as if they have something to hide, it excites our interest. Why did you choose not to eat with your colleagues and to eat later than them?’

  For a moment, she toyed with the idea of telling them she had been rolling naked on the bed with James and offering them every detail of their violent congress. It would be thrilling to shock these two older men. But they didn’t look as if anything could shock them. Keep to the truth as far as possible, people said, when you have things to conceal. Unnecessary lies are just an additional source of danger. ‘We argued, my boyfriend and I. We seem to spend a lot of time arguing nowadays. Far too much, I’m sure.’

  The phrases carried a ring of finality, of an acceptance that there must be closure, but Lambert ignored that for the moment. He glanced down at a note from DI Rushton. ‘Your boyfriend is James Turner.’

  ‘Yes. Your lot have interviewed him. You’ve asked him all sorts of questions, though it was obvious that he couldn’t have killed Sam Jackson.’

  ‘He had to be eliminated, as had thirty or so other people. It’s the way we proceed.’

  ‘And now you have a second murder. Your procedures don’t seem very effective.’ It was a cheap jibe, but one she couldn’t resist. She was still very young and in this situation she felt even younger.

  ‘And now we have to eliminate you from suspicion of the killing of Ernest Clark – assuming that is possible.’