‘It had been wiped clean of prints.’
‘Aye, it would have been,’ Woodend said. ‘That’s the problem with murderers these days. They watch far too many cop shows on the television, an’ learn just what mistakes not to make. Were there any prints in Valerie Farnsworth’s dressin’ room?’
‘Obviously there were the dead woman’s – but there were also dozens of others we haven’t even begun to check on yet.’
‘Probably won’t do any good, anyway,’ Woodend said. ‘If the killer remembered to wipe off the screwdriver, he’s not likely to have left his dabs anywhere else, now is he – at least, not on that particular visit.’
‘No, it doesn’t seem likely he will have,’ Hebden said. ‘Anything else I can do for you, sir?’
‘Aye. Get together all them statements an’ reports you’ve been collectin’, an’ hand them over to Inspector Rutter here. He’ll be takin’ them back to Whitebridge with him.’
‘I’ll be what?!’ Bob Rutter exclaimed.
Woodend looked first at Rutter, and then at Hebden. ‘Why don’t you nip down to the studio canteen, an’ get yourself a cup of tea?’ he suggested to the local inspector.
Hebden took the hint, and rose to his feet. ‘Yes, I’ll do that.’
Woodend waited until Hebden had left the room, then said, ‘An’ what was that little almost-outburst about?’
‘You’re sending me back to Whitebridge?’ Rutter demanded.
‘What else did you expect?’
‘I imagined that my team would be given space here in the studio.’
‘If it was left up to me, that’s probably what would happen,’ Woodend admitted.
‘And isn’t it left up to you? You are the boss?’
Woodend sighed. ‘That’s the kind of comment I’d expect from a young constable with bum fluff still on his chin,’ he said. ‘You’re an inspector now, an’ you should be able to see further than that. You should know that all I am is your immediate superior.’
‘So whose tune are we both dancing to?’ Rutter asked. ‘DCS Richard Ainsworth’s?’
‘Dick Ainsworth’s sold on this daft idea of a “crime centre” based in a police station,’ Woodend said. ‘It gives him somethin’ to show the press – somethin’ he can brag about when he gets together with all the other DCSs. But he can’t brag about it if it’s just an empty room, can he? He needs bodies to fill it. So we’ll give him some, if that’s what it takes to keep him happy.’
‘And that’s what I am?’ Rutter asked. ‘A body? One of the extras hired to fill in the background?’
‘Just because this case involves television people, there’s no need for you to start talkin’ like one of them,’ Woodend said, a little sharply. ‘Of course you’re not just a body. Them witness statements need lookin’ into. You know that yourself. It’s a slow, painful process, but it’s got to be done – an’ there’s no reason why it can’t be done as well in Whitebridge as it could be done here. Besides, the closer Maria gets to givin’ birth, the more she’ll want to see you—’
He came to an abrupt halt, a look of distress crossing his face. Maria Rutter wouldn’t be seeing anybody – ever again – he reminded himself. Ever since she’d been injured at the Belgrave Square demonstration, she’d been totally blind.
There was a short, awkward pause, then Woodend said, ‘Well, you know what I mean. She’ll want you around. An’ it’ll be a lot easier for you to be around if you’re workin’ out of Whitebridge.’
‘Meanwhile, you’ll be here with the trusty Sergeant Paniatowski, actually solving the crime.’
‘There’s no sayin’ the murder will be solved here in the studio,’ Woodend said. ‘The big break in this case could come just as easily through some inconsistency in the statements.’
‘Whatever aspect of the case I’m working on, I’d still rather do it from here,’ Rutter said stubbornly.
Woodend shook his head. ‘That’s not possible. If you’d been a blonde with bosoms like WDS Paniatowski, I might have given you the job of snuggling up to Jeremy Wilcox instead of her,’ he said. ‘But you’re not, an’ I couldn’t.’
‘You’ve changed,’ Rutter said bitterly. ‘All this talk about keeping Ainsworth happy! There was a time – not so long ago – when you wouldn’t have given a damn what your boss wanted.’
‘I’ve never had a boss who was close enough to breathe right down my neck before – that was one of the advantages of workin’ for the Yard,’ Woodend said. ‘But maybe you’re right, an’ I have changed,’ he conceded. ‘People do, you know. An’ so do situations. That’s what’s happened to our partnership – it’s changed.’
‘Because of Paniatowski!’
‘Sergeant Paniatowski has nothing to do with it.’
‘Doesn’t she?’
‘No, she bloody doesn’t,’ Woodend said. ‘Listen, Bob, for the first couple of days on that case in Blackpool, I really missed havin’ you with me. I felt half-naked without you by my side. Then I realised somethin’. Do you know what it was?’
‘I’m sure you’re about to tell me, whether I want to know or not.’
‘I realised I wasn’t missin’ you at all. The person I was missin’ was Sergeant Rutter. Well, you’re not him any longer – nor ever can be again.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meanin’ you’ve outgrown the job of bein’ my sidekick, an’ it’s about time you accepted the fact. So however much we both might regret it – an’ I do, for one – you can’t be my Tonto any longer, an’ it’s time you started learnin’ to be your own Lone Ranger.’
Rutter stood up. ‘Thank you for that little speech, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll bear that in mind when I’m back in Whitebridge, up to my neck in paperwork.’
‘You do that,’ Woodend agreed.
Bob Rutter walked over to the door, opened it, then turned round to face Woodend again.
‘Hi ho, Silver, away!’ he said, before stepping into the corridor and disappearing from sight.
The chief inspector sat perfectly still for a few seconds, then reached for his packet of Capstan Full Strengths.
‘Oh dear,’ he said regretfully, as he lit up one of his cigarettes. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’
Eleven
Bill Houseman’s office was a very far cry from the homely living rooms which were inhabited by the fictional characters of Maddox Row. The desk was made of flawless teak. The sofa covered in a soft white leather. Theatre posters in expensive metal frames hung complacently from the pastel-blue walls, and each of the exotic scatter rugs on the polished wooden floor had probably taken some poor bloody Bedouin tribeswoman months to produce.
It was an office which had been designed to impress any visitor with its occupant’s importance, Woodend decided, and though he’d seen plenty of other offices which had had much the same aim, it did seem to him that in this case the occupant had tried just a little too hard.
Houseman waved Woodend to a chair, and sat down himself behind his opulent desk.
‘We’re both very busy men,’ the producer said briskly, ‘so why don’t we get straight down to business?’
‘Aye, why don’t we,’ Woodend agreed.
Houseman picked up an elaborate paper knife from his desk in his right hand, and ran the point softly along the length of the index finger on his left.
‘I fully appreciate the fact that you have a job to do, Mr Woodend, but I hope you realise that you’re not unique in that,’ he said.
‘You mean, all I’ve got to do is catch a murderer, whereas you have an important television show to produce?’ Woodend asked mildly.
‘Is that some kind of joke?’ Houseman said sharply.
‘More of a comment than a joke,’ Woodend replied. ‘I must say, Mr Houseman, it doesn’t seem to me as if you’re takin’ the murder of Valerie Farnsworth very seriously.’
A look which might almost have passed as an apology crossed the producer’s face, and he laid the paper knife down on the desk again.
‘You’re quite right, of course,’ he admitted. ‘I probably haven’t taken it seriously enough. But the fact of the matter is, I haven’t had the time to stop and consider it properly yet.’
‘Haven’t had time to consider the murder of one of your cast?’ Woodend asked sceptically.
‘You have to understand my situation, Chief Inspector. I’m totally wrapped up in the world of Maddox Row. I have to be – it dominates every hour of my day – and for me, at this particular moment, the death of Liz Bowyer is both more immediate and more tragic than the death of the woman who played her. I expect that when I can finally step off the roller-coaster ride which this job has become for a few hours, the implications of what has happened will really start to hit me, and I will begin my grieving. But for the moment, the show must go on.’
Nobody should be that obsessed with his job, Woodend thought. And then, just before he put the thought into words, he pulled himself up short.
Wasn’t he just as bad as Houseman? he asked himself. When he was working on a case, didn’t he develop tunnel vision, so that while he might notice the slightest nuance in something one of his suspects said, he was totally oblivious to anything which did not help him to solve the murder?
Joan had told him as much, in her gentle way, and Annie had been far more outspoken on the matter. His bosses, too, constantly complained that he ran a one-man show to the exclusion of the wider concerns of policing – and for the first time he began to wonder if they might be right.
He would try to be a better husband, father and member of the police team, he resolved – but first he had to find out who’d killed Valerie Farnsworth.
‘Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to see Miss Farnsworth dead?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Houseman replied – far too quickly.
‘No one at all?’ Woodend persisted. ‘You’ve never heard anybody threaten her? Anybody say they wished she was dead?’
Houseman sighed. ‘Of course I have.’
‘Who?’
‘Everybody in the cast, at one time or another. But you have to understand that what we’re dealing with here is actors.’
‘Would you mind explainin’ that?’ Woodend asked.
‘I’ll do my best,’ Houseman agreed. ‘Actors live in a very strange world. At nine o’clock in the evening, they’re strutting around the stage with the eyes of the entire audience on them. They can bring forth from that audience both tears of joy and shudders of fear. It gives them a tremendous feeling of power.’
‘It must do,’ Woodend agreed.
‘Then the performance is over, and by eleven o’clock they’re sitting on the last bus home, worrying about where they’re going to find the money to pay the rent for the crummy little bed-sits they live in. Do that for a while, and it’s bound to have some effect on you, isn’t it?’
‘Could you be more specific?’
‘Since drama is so much more rewarding than real life, they infuse real life with drama. So when they threaten to kill someone, they really believe that they mean it. But only for that moment. Then the scene changes, they’re in a different play, and the former object of their hate becomes their dearest love.’
‘You’re talkin’ about strugglin’ actors here, aren’t you?’ Woodend asked. ‘Actors whose only reward is the audience’s applause. I would have thought your cast had other compensations. Aren’t they quite well-paid?’
‘They’re very well-paid,’ Houseman said. ‘But they have all struggled in the past, and it’s not a mantle they can easily shrug off easily.’
It’s not a mantle you can shrug off easily, either, if I’m readin’ you right, Woodend thought.
‘Val Farnsworth never even considered the possibility that she would end up a star,’ Houseman continued. ‘She had the wrong accent, for a start. And then, suddenly, a star was what she was. But that doesn’t mean she felt secure. None of them do, because part of their mind is always back in that tatty bed-sit.’
An’ I bet you could describe yours in great detail, even now, Woodend thought.
‘So Val was never happy with what she had,’ Houseman said. ‘She always wanted more. More lines, better lines. And she wanted the very faults and weaknesses which had made her character so popular written out of the script. If she’d had it all her own way, Liz Bowyer would have become a perfect being – and incredibly boring. But Val wasn’t the only person suffering from actors’-disease. Every member of the cast, from the stars right down to the humblest walk-on, feel exactly the same way.’
‘But they don’t all have the power to turn their wishes into reality,’ Woodend said thoughtfully. ‘I imagine Val Farnsworth was popular enough with the audience to make things go pretty much the way she wanted them to.’
Houseman laughed, but without much evidence of genuine amusement. ‘If I may say so, you’ve completely misunderstood the situation. Actors are rather like children. Or perhaps dogs. Of course, they’d rather have things going entirely their own way, but I can’t allow that. I treat them firmly, but kindly, and eventually they end up doing what I want them to do.’
‘So you’re sayin’ you had Val Farnsworth under control?’
‘I have everyone who’s concerned with Maddox Row under control. That’s my job.’
‘You don’t seem to have had the murderer under control,’ Woodend pointed out.
Houseman winced. ‘That was a little below the belt, wasn’t it, Chief Inspector?’ he asked.
‘Killers don’t normally play by the Queensberry Rules – so I can’t afford to, either,’ Woodend replied. ‘There is one thing that’s been puzzlin’ me, Mr Houseman.’
‘And what might that be?’
‘I started out, if you remember, by askin’ you if you knew of anybody who might have wished to see Val Farnsworth dead.’
‘And I thought I’d pretty much answered the question.’
‘That’s just where you’re wrong. You haven’t at all. Because you immediately started talkin’ about the actors in the series.’
‘I thought that’s what you wanted me to—’
‘An’ there were more people than just actors in this buildin’ when Val Farnsworth was killed. A lot more. In fact, I’d guess that the majority of folk who work on Maddox Row aren’t actors to all.’
‘You’d be right in your assumption.’
‘So why did you confine your answer to the actors?’
Houseman gave him a puzzled frown. ‘I suppose it was because, in drama, if a noble lord is killed, it’s normally by one of his own kind, rather than by a member of the peasantry,’ he said finally.
‘So you’re comparin’ the actors to aristocrats, an’ everybody else involved to serfs?’
‘Essentially, I suppose I am.’
‘Do you see yourself as a serf?’
‘Of course not!’
‘An’ the director?’
‘He might be an oaf, but he’s certainly not a serf.’ Houseman paused. ‘You’re surely not suggesting that I could have killed Val, are you?’ he demanded.
‘I’m not suggestin’ that anybody in particular killed her at the moment, sir,’ Woodend said. ‘I don’t have anythin’ like enough information to make that kind of judgement.’
‘But you’re not ruling me out?’
‘I think we’re gettin’ a bit ahead of ourselves here, sir,’ Woodend said, side-stepping the question. ‘If my investigation’s goin’ to make any progress at all, I need to get a better mental picture of the studio, an’ how it works. An’ that means I need to do some wanderin’ around. I imagine that on my first wander you’d prefer it if I was accompanied by one of your staff.’
‘I’d prefer it if you were always accompanied by one of my staff,’ Houseman said.
‘That’s not the way I work.’
‘A television studio is a very complex and finely balanced set of structures,’ Houseman said. ‘You wouldn’t allow a layman to blunder around the scene of a crime, because of the da
mage he might inadvertently do. And I’m afraid I can’t allow you to blunder around the studio for exactly the same reason.’
‘You seem to be missin’ the point,’ Woodend said. ‘This is both a television studio an’ the scene of a crime. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s the scene of a crime first.’
‘Naturally, when you’re looking at it from your perspective—’ Bill Houseman began.
‘My perspective’s the only one that matters at the moment,’ Woodend interrupted him. ‘There’s somethin’ else you should get clear, an’ all. I wasn’t askin’ your permission for what I intend to do – I don’t need it. What I was proposin’ when I mentioned a guide was a compromise between what you want, an’ what I want. If you knew me better, you’d realise compromisin’s not somethin’ I do very often – so if I was you I’d grab the chance while it’s there.’
‘I don’t think we’re going to get along, Chief Inspector,’ Houseman said coldly.
‘I don’t give a bugger whether we do or not,’ Woodend told him. ‘Are you goin’ to give me a guide? Or should I just find my own way around?’
‘I’ll give you a guide,’ Houseman said, through gritted teeth. ‘But I shall also be writing to your superiors to complain about your attitude.’
‘Aye, well that’ll be nothin’ fresh for them,’ Woodend said.
He leant back in his chair and lit up a Capstan Full Strength. So much for the new, improved Charlie Woodend, the policeman-diplomat, he thought.
Twelve
The central concourse was not as busy as it had been earlier, but Woodend suspected it was no more than a temporary lull, and that by one thirty, when he was given his tour of the studio, it would be as hectic as it had been when he first arrived.
He was to be shown round by Jane Todd, Bill Houseman’s personal assistant – the woman who had contacted the local police after Val Farnsworth’s body had been discovered. In his mind, Woodend was already starting to build up a picture of her. She was the producer’s gatekeeper, which probably meant that she was as hard as nails and as unyielding as an iron bar – the sort of woman who can make a slavering Dobermann seem like a cuddly toy.
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