Death of a Dancer

by Anthony Litton

  ‘I think you’re right,’ she agreed, nodding. ‘I also think he may have very little money left, which would explain his rather shabby appearance,’ she added.

  Calderwood nodded. ‘Yes, another reason for selling the boat, perhaps; and if he needed money very quickly for a fix, it would also explain why, despite the obvious risk, he came to the marina himself,’ he mused. ‘What are your plans? Will you travel back today?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘I’ve already phoned for a car and some support officers, one of whom is a medic. Once you’ve finished with him, we’ll take over and head straight to London. A pity, really,’ she added. ‘I’d have liked an excuse to travel back with you. Oh!’ she burst out laughing, at his startled look. ‘That came out so badly! What I meant was that I’ve got an aunt, or rather, great-aunt, who’s up that way at the moment, and I’m overdue a visit to her. She’s in Beldon Magna. It’s not that far from Estwich, I think.’

  ‘Beldon Magna?’ It was his turn to laugh, as she nodded. ‘Not Eleanor Blaine-Appleby, by any chance?’

  ‘No, Mollie Besson, but she’s staying with her! You know Eleanor?’ she asked, startled in her turn.

  ‘Indeed I do,’ he replied. ‘A remarkable lady,’ he added. ‘Anyway, I’m around in the area for the next six months at least, so we may meet up at some point,’ he continued, unexpectedly looking forward to it.

  ‘I hope so, too,’ she’d replied quietly.

  ‘Before you do go, though, tell me how you managed to metamorphose so completely during our interview with Renick!’

  She shrugged, smilingly. ‘I’m not entirely sure to be honest. I just sort of think myself different, that’s the only way I can put it.’

  ‘It’s certainly impressive!’

  ‘Thanks, but it’s also a bit of a double-edged sword!’ she replied ruefully.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, because of the juvenile wit – largely, it must be said, from my male colleagues! – my nickname is Cam, for “camouflage” or “chameleon”. Unfortunately,’ she added with a smile, ‘my middle name is Camilla, which really doesn’t help!’

  ‘And what is your first name, or do you use Camilla?’ he teased.

  ‘No, I bloody don’t!’ she retorted. ‘It’s Helen,’ she added.

  *

  That was yesterday, which had been a very long day. Today had been equally lengthy and had been spent almost entirely reviewing all the statements of all the interviewees in the light of Renick’s startling claim. The whole team had reviewed all the paperwork and had produced nothing new. First, second, or even third, re-readings flagged up nothing that they’d missed. So Calderwood decided to try a technique which often worked well for him. Pushing aside all the paperwork, he let his mind drift, soothed by the music playing softly on a small CD player.

  A deep love of most kinds of music meant that during the times that he had the office to himself, he tended to flood the room with the sounds of something from his eclectic collection. Undecided earlier, he’d rifled through half dozen or so of his current favourites, leant back in his chair and let his mind wander, unfettered and at random, over previous interviews...

  ... ‘Right, we need to re-interview the whole family, before word gets out that it’s Daniel DeLancy’s body and not his uncle’s. It may give us a slight edge,’ he remembered saying...

  Chapter 58

  ‘Her husband must be away then,’ Bulmer had remarked cynically, and, as it turned out, accurately, when they were asked to come to Estelle Carradine’s house for their requested second interview.

  ‘Thank you for seeing us again at such short notice,’ Calderwood said courteously, as they were shown into her sitting room, which overlooked the manor’s extensive gardens, bare and sombre under the dark, scudding clouds which darkened the wintery afternoon. The room had beautiful proportions but was spoilt, in his view, by its overly self-conscious furnishings which, like her cousin’s, were all in a style fashionable forty or more years previously.

  She was dressed to kill again, both men noted, as they took in the elegant two-piece suit of heavy cream silk. As on their previous meeting, her accessories, in this case a silver-grey blouse, cream scarf pinned at the throat with a pearl and opal brooch, had been chosen with great care. I wonder if she ever wears anything that’s just comfortable? Bulmer wondered casually.

  ‘I’m perfectly happy to help, Inspector,’ Estelle replied, not sounding it and staying sitting, as she indicated, with a languid wave of her hand, where they were to sit. ‘But really, I can add nothing further to what I’ve already told you about the ’60s; and obviously, I’m not involved in Arabelle’s death,’ she continued, with little attempt to hide her disinterest in it.

  Calderwood, who knew she had an alibi for the night of her cousin’s murder, and doubted she had the connections to hire someone to do it for her, was, already, virtually certain that she wasn’t involved. Nevertheless, he questioned her at length, before moving on to what was, in fact, their visit’s main purpose.

  ‘Now, if we could go back to our first meeting, Mrs Carradine, there’s a couple of anomalies in your statement we’d like to clear up,’ Calderwood said.

  ‘Anomalies?’ she said, almost rearing back. A bit like a well-bred horse, he thought, in passing.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied calmly. ‘We’re trying to get a fuller picture of relationships within the families around the relevant time. You told us that, besides having little time for your father, you had as little for the rest of your extended family; is that correct?’

  ‘It is,’ she nodded.

  ‘We didn’t discuss the reasons behind your feelings for the others, your siblings and cousins, for example. I wonder, if you could expand a little, today?’

  ‘What a curious question!’ she remarked, raising her overly plucked eyebrows. Seeing that he wasn’t going to add anything further, she sighed. ‘Very well. My brothers were of little interest to me, nor I to them. As for my cousins, Arabelle was always a strange child, particularly after her accident which left her with an appalling stutter for years; Alistair was a waste of everybody’s time, tiresome and often snivelling; my other cousin, Daniel, was charming and could be great fun, but was more than a little shiftless. I’d realised very early on that I wanted something different from a life such as my own family had had,’ she shrugged elegantly. ‘So, when I married, I moved on and away from them all.’

  ‘We were told that before and after your marriage, you were actually madly in love with Daniel and that he was the one who moved on,’ Calderwood replied, using the new information emailed by Desmond, with deliberate bluntness.

  ‘I suppose that came from Alistair; poisonous little queen!’ she spat, venomous in her turn.

  ‘No, it wasn’t Mr DeLancy-Graeme,’ he replied quietly. ‘Why would you assume it was?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Inspector!’ she started and then stopped. ‘Anyway, I really don’t see how all this has anything to do with the theatre’s re-discovery, Inspector, I really don’t!’

  Interesting, Bulmer thought, nothing about Ariana’s being found.

  ‘Bear with me, for a moment,’ Calderwood replied calmly. ‘As I say, we have to fill in as many gaps as possible, however irrelevant our questions may seem.’

  ‘Very well, if you must, but I have told you previously that I had little regard for my cousin,’ she replied crisply.

  ‘Indeed you have,’ agreed Calderwood, ‘but, as I say, we now understand that that was, in fact, very far from the case.’

  ‘Then whoever told you that is mistaken. Even if they weren’t, I fail to see that it’s any business of theirs – or yours – if it were true. I also don’t see what possible bearing any of it could have on The Dolphin’s re-emerging and the dancer’s body being found. Why would you want to know about how Daniel and I felt all those years ago?’ she asked a little shrilly. ‘He went off and left us half a... Dear God!’ she stopped suddenly, the blood draining from her face.

&n
bsp; Calderwood nodded. ‘Yes, Mrs Carradine. One of the bodies is your cousin, Daniel.’

  He watched carefully, cataloguing the expressions that flitted briefly and contradictorily across her face. Even so, he was startled by her words.

  ‘Daniel? Dead?’ she murmured finally ‘So, he didn’t go! You see, my love,’ she added quietly, nodding her head, her face suddenly feline and her voice full of immense satisfaction, ‘I said you could never leave me!’

  Chapter 59

  Alistair DeLancy-Graeme let them in with an air of peevish unease; an attitude noticeably different from their previous visit.

  ‘I’m, of course, only too desperate to help in any way that I can, Inspector, but I know absolutely nothing that would throw any light on poor Arabelle’s hideous death,’ he said, ‘nothing at all!’

  ‘I’m sure you understand, sir, that we need to interview anyone who knew her,’ Calderwood replied quietly, as they all sat down.

  ‘That’s all very well, Inspector, but, to be perfectly honest, I still can’t see why you’re here,’ Alistair repeated pettishly. ‘From what I’ve heard, there was a huge amount of physical force used and...’ he paused dramatically, ‘...one doesn’t want to sell oneself short, but look at me!’ he said, throwing his arms wide. ‘I’m nearer seventy than sixty and am of somewhat slight build. Scarcely up to the rough-house I hear that it was!’ he finished, dropping his arms back to his lap, a smile of quiet triumph on his thin features.

  ‘It was an attack that seemed to require a good deal of physical strength, that’s true, sir,’ Calderwood responded quietly. ‘We do, however, need to speak to anyone who can throw even a little light onto the situation, besides, naturally, having to eliminate them from our enquiries. So, could you tell us where you were Wednesday evening, between the hours of seven and ten thirty pm?’

  ‘Oh, this is ridiculous! Oh, very well! I suppose I must. I was in alone, the whole evening; not a very good alibi, I must confess, but true nonetheless,’ he continued reluctantly.

  ‘Alone? Was your manservant not here?’ the DI queried, neutrally.

  The little man’s eyes flickered for a moment. ‘No, he was out, unfortunately,’ he replied shortly.

  Calderwood nodded. Knowing that Cerian had discovered that the ‘manservant’ was a figment of Alistair’s imagination, he moved on. ‘When was the last occasion you saw Miss DeLancy?’

  ‘It was several weeks ago. My aunt had telephoned and asked if I could put my hand on some family papers. She’s into genealogy, and she needed them to clarify something or other. I found them and took them over. I saw Arabelle briefly in the hallway. That’s it,’ he finished, shrugging his shoulders.

  ‘You had no conversation with her since?’

  ‘No, none. Really, Inspector, how many more times are you going to ask the same questions?’

  ‘As long as it takes for me to be able to eliminate you from our enquiries, sir; or otherwise, of course,’ Calderwood responded coolly.

  ‘You cannot seriously believe that I had the physical strength to do to her what I read was done! Good heavens, man, quite apart from having absolutely no motive, she was taller and, I suspect, despite her increasingly frequent drink-sodden state, probably almost as strong as me. Hardly a good target! You’ve said yourself that the attack required a lot of physical strength!’

  ‘No, sir, that’s not what I said,’ replied Calderwood slowly.

  ‘Yes, you did!’

  ‘No, sir, I did not. What I actually said was that it was an attack that seemed to require a lot of physical strength; not quite the same thing, as I’m sure you’d agree,’ Calderwood responded amiably. ‘Which brings me to my next question,’ he continued, into the sudden silence. ‘We noticed, on our previous visit, that there were a number of less faded patches on some of your walls. Could you tell us what caused them?’

  ‘It’s obvious, surely, if a little embarrassing. I’ve sold the odd picture over the years, to meet sudden, unexpected expenditure,’ Alistair replied after a moment, a guarded note creeping into his voice.

  ‘It’s always sad to have to part with family treasures,’ nodded Calderwood sympathetically. ‘Which artists?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Which...? Oh, different ones, Inspector. No names you’d recognise,’ he replied dismissively. ‘Oops, sorry! I meant they were mostly lesser known names, not that you were...’ he trailed off. ‘My apologies, if...’

  ‘No apologies necessary, sir. I do in fact, know a little about art, so I’m sure I’d recognise some names at least.’ He paused, clearly waiting for a response.

  ‘Oh... One can scarcely remember! Let me think...There was a Hill, Jonathan Hill, a local artist, a reputed Hilliard, though of very doubtful provenance, and one or two others inherited from family members, quite good, but not enormously valuable.’

  ‘And these were sales over a period of time, you say, sir?’

  Alistair nodded.

  ‘If that’s the case,’ Calderwood said, moving in for the kill, ‘the faded patches would be of differing shades, surely?’

  ‘What are you getting at, Inspector?’ Alistair asked, into another sudden silence.

  ‘Merely, that such a uniformity of shade,’ Calderwood explained, gesturing at the walls, ‘would seem to indicate their removal was at the same time. Perhaps just before our first visit,’ he replied bluntly, the fencing over.

  ‘What an absurd suggestion! Why on earth would I want to do such a thing?’ snapped the older man, though with something less than total conviction.

  ‘No reason at all, sir, if they were pictures,’ Calderwood replied blandly.

  ‘I ha...’ Alistair started to say, then stopped, as Calderwood continued.

  ‘But they weren’t, were they, sir? They were, in fact, certificates: certificates commemorating your increasing expertise in martial arts, specifically, taekwondo and karate, perhaps two of the most lethal. An expertise, moreover, which goes back several years before the death of Ariana Kujenikov.’ He stopped, and they both watched the other man open and close his mouth. Much like a stranded goldfish, thought Bulmer unsympathetically.

  He and Calderwood continued to say nothing, waiting for some response from Alistair, who’d quickly moved from stranded goldfish mode to that of deflated balloon as he sagged back against the faded cushions of his armchair.

  ‘How...? Oh, it doesn’t matter, I suppose,’ he muttered eventually.

  Calderwood nodded. Once he’d noticed the overlooked certificate on the wall in the hallway, it had been easy to check the archives of the local papers. As he’d suspected, the records showed Alistair’s increasing expertise, from the age of thirteen onwards, in both of the lethal arts.

  ‘What we find difficult to understand, sir,’ Calderwood continued, ‘is why you removed them before our visit, and before Miss DeLancy was murdered.’

  ‘It... it’s obvious, surely,’ Alistair muttered.

  ‘Not to us, sir. Could you explain?’

  ‘Well, having such skills would obviously make me a major suspect, wouldn’t it?

  ‘In what, sir?’

  ‘Well, the murders, of course!’

  ‘At the time we spoke, we didn’t know there’d been more than one murder, nor that there was more than one body. Nor did we know the identity of that body, nor how that person was killed. So why would you jump to the conclusion that your... skills, could make you a suspect?’

  Silence filled the heavy air of the big room. The two police officers were content with it; Alistair DeLancy-Graeme wasn’t, but was clueless how to fill it.

  ‘I’d think, Inspector, you’d have better things to do, than ask me irrelevant questions with three murders on your hands: things like trying to identify who two of them are, for example,’ he muttered, eventually.

  ‘Oh, we have, sir. In fact, that’s one of the reasons for our coming round today. You see, we have identified both bodies found in the theatre. Obviously, as a member of the family, we wanted to inform you be
fore we go public with the news and their identities.’

  ‘Both bodies! One’s the Kujenikov girl, I suppose,’ he said dismissively, ‘but... who’s the second?’ he asked, his voice suddenly uneven, ‘my uncle?’

  ‘As you say, sir, Miss Kujenikov is one, but the other isn’t your uncle. It’s your cousin...’

  *

  A light tap on his office door, brought the young DI out of his reverie. Looking up, he saw Desmond peering in.

  ‘I’m picking up Mum and Mollie,’ his visitor said. ‘They’ve been to a show and then went off clubbing; well, to have supper at The Falcon, anyway! I was in town, so I said I’d pick them up, but they’ll be another half hour, so I’m killing time,’ he grinned. ‘I’ll shove off, if you’re having deep thoughts,’ he added.

  ‘No, come in,’ smiled Calderwood. ‘The thoughts are less deep, than repetitive – and random!’

  ‘That’s OK, then,’ Desmond smiled, entering the office. He started to speak further, paused, and then said something which threw a sudden blaze of light onto the case’s very last, dark corner.

  Chapter 60

  ‘Inspector! My goodness, is that the time!’ Edgar Turnbull asked, early the following evening, looking up from his desk, as they were shown into his office for their third meeting with him. ‘My apologies! We were so over-run today – the publication of the new children’s best seller, by you-know-who!’ he added archly. ‘Can I interest you in one of her books, for one of your children? A niece or nephew perhaps?’ he queried, jokingly, his warm smile as welcoming as on their two previous visits. ‘I just need to lock up,’ he added, moving into the shop, nodding a pleasant good night to the last departing assistant, ‘and then we can go upstairs, where you can satisfy my curiosity and tell me to what I owe the pleasure of this further visit,’ he smiled, as he quickly switched off the lights, locked the ornate double outer doors and set the alarms. He then led them up a staircase which arched elegantly up to the next floor. Arriving on a small landing, he opened a smartly painted door and stood aside for them to enter.