by Amy Myers
It wasn’t.
The quiet was shattered by shouts. Startled, we looked up to see Chris Frant hurrying, almost running, down the hill towards us and even in that light we could tell that something was wrong and rushed to meet him.
‘Graham’s rung,’ were the only words I made out in his gibberish.
‘What for?’ Roger hurled at him.
‘Ambulance, police . . .’ Chris looked close to tears.
‘Bill?’ Louise cried out.
‘No. It’s Joan.’
THIRTEEN
Sitting at tables on chairs already damp with the evening air, we were unable to cope with this new horror. We all seemed to be groping in the dark for handholds to pull us back into a world we recognized. Dusk was hurrying to meet night, and the flashing police lights as vans and cars drove past the catering area to the manor forecourt only served to heighten the impression that this was yet another film set.
I knew I had to force myself to think of Joan, if I was going to be able to contribute anything to find her killer, but it was hard. She had been strangled, Chris had told us in his first gasping words. Graham had stayed with the body, while he sounded the general alert. He and Graham had been looking for Bill to check if they were needed for the next day’s filming, and Tom had told them he thought he was up at Nemesis with Joan. When Graham and Chris arrived there, Joan was dead and there had been no sign of Bill.
I had persuaded Roger and Louise to return to the house to await the police and gather everyone together, but I had known I would have to go to Nemesis. I had enough experience in such situations to check whether there was any chance of saving her. Neither Chris nor Graham had first-aid training. I did.
Joan had been lying in front of the temple door. I checked, but I had seen at once she was beyond anyone’s help. Graham was still green with horror when I arrived, but I insisted he stayed until the police came, not least because I needed him as an insurance policy against my being alone at a crime scene. Having witnessed the terrible sight of Joan’s body, I also needed company. The sight had made me want to throw up, and Graham was in a similar state. Chris, who had by then ventured part of the way back to Nemesis, volunteered to stay with me while Graham took a breather.
While we waited, Chris and I had sat on the grass close enough to Nemesis to ensure any other arrivals would be noticed. There was no sign of von Ribbentrop in the trembling man beside me. It had been a weird time, a silent time, because there was nothing to say. Neither Chris nor I had wanted to face this nightmare head on by putting it into words, and the arrival of the police had been welcome. Responsibility had been passed over, and there was at least something we could do. We could answer questions. The full team was on the way, including Brandon as senior investigating officer, so the police advance guard had told us. I presumed that the location had immediately indicated to HQ that this was no practical joker at work or a false alarm. Graham had rejoined us, and one of the two PCs remained with us. By the time we had talked to Brandon and then returned to the catering area where everyone was still gathered, it was getting on for ten o’clock and the ranks had been reduced to about twenty. Thankfully I had seen Louise amongst them, sitting with Nigel and an older man, probably Sir John.
‘What’s going on, Jack?’ Louise had asked as Chris and I joined them. She didn’t mean the police procedure. I knew she meant the frightening scenarios that must be opening up for her, as well as for me.
I hadn’t been able to reply properly because I had no answer to give her, and we sat there, numb with shock as the crime scene established itself. There seemed no rhyme or reason to Joan’s murder. If Bill had been the victim or Roger Ford there might have been some obvious pattern to this horror, but why would anyone want to kill Joan? Unless this was entirely unrelated to Angie’s death, which was highly unlikely, there was nothing that could have occasioned this terrible response. The quarrel between Angie and Nigel that Joan had overheard was surely too trivial for murder. Had I missed something? If so, it was the wrong place and the wrong time to brood over it. I was too close to tragedy to see its context.
Sir John and Nigel were shortly called for police interview and Chris and Graham had gone to join Brian, so Louise and I were alone. I reached out to her, but then Roger came over to us.
‘Have you seen Bill?’ he asked worriedly.
‘No. Isn’t he with the police?’
‘Maybe.’ Roger looked so shell-shocked that Louise insisted he sat down and then went to fetch a strong coffee for us all. It was going to be a long night – not that the police would keep us out here in the damp much longer. As if reading my thoughts, Nigel came back to announce we were all moving into the Manor, catering staff and all. And so we sheep – for that’s what it felt like – were led into the warm house where we sat in more comfort, but still uneasily, in an eighteenth-century drawing room. We’d been there for fifteen minutes or so when Brandon himself came in, scanned the room and fixed on me.
‘I need to speak to Bill Wade, Jack. Is he here?’
‘I haven’t seen him.’ I called Tom over. ‘Seen Bill?’ I asked him. ‘Chris said you told him Bill and Joan might be up at Nemesis together.’
‘Right.’ Tom looked worried. ‘I told you I had a radio call to cancel the storyboards meeting because he was going up to Nemesis with Joan. He’s always a demon for wanting the shadows right.’
‘That’s for the scene where Joan trots out to the folly and finds me and Lord Charing together,’ Louise explained. ‘Bill has in mind a sort of Mrs Danvers revenge scene as in Hitchcock’s Rebecca.’
Brandon was no film buff so this clearly meant nothing. ‘Mr Wade himself rang you?’ he asked Tom, his gimlet eyes fixed on him as if they could nail him to the spot.
‘Message from him,’ Tom said.
‘So where the hell is he?’ Roger muttered.
‘That,’ Brandon said drily, ‘is what I’d like to know. Quickly.’
‘Is his car here?’ I asked.
No one knew. ‘Check it out, Jack,’ Brandon told me. His tone told me ‘at the double’.
At least the way to the car park was lit, albeit dimly. Even so, it was a lonely walk, or rather run. There were a couple of dozen cars there, including, I saw with misgivings, Bill’s daily driver, a Porsche Boxster.
All sorts of crazy ideas went through my mind. Standing alone in a dark car park on a summer’s night is not conducive to logic. Especially with a murderer at large. Where was Bill? Another corpse? A murderer who’d fled the scene in remorse? Stop, I warned myself. Brakes on. The next step would be a search of grounds and house, which meant involving Sir John or Nigel – a man whom I’d once cast as chief villain. Brandon might want to do the search himself, but I’d offer. He compromised. Nigel, me, and two PCs to search the house. I did make a feeble suggestion about the room in Nemesis – had that been checked? Brandon looked at me pityingly. Yes, it had.
My morale was lower at that point than I had ever known it. I seemed to be standing in the middle of a tornado whirling around me and I tried to clutch on to at least one firm objective. Bill had to be found. On a normal day I would have jumped at the chance of touring Syndale Manor, but this was not a normal day, and both Nigel and I were – to be honest – terrified at the prospect of possibly finding yet another corpse.
‘There are only a few places where he might be,’ Nigel said, producing a mass of keys. ‘We’ll try them first – Roger’s office, my study, my parents’ studies, bathroom and so on. He might be locked in, or taken ill, or both.’
Tension levels rose as one after the other possibility brought no sign of Bill. Was that good or bad? Keep going, I told myself. I still felt dazed, as though I were on some crazy National Trust tour. When none of the obvious locations produced a result, we broadened the search to the private parts of the Manor, again without success.
‘We could try the garages,’ Nigel suggested. ‘The police might not be covering them.’
Even though Brandon’s
men might have covered them, it was such an obvious solution that I became convinced it was the answer, and we rushed straight out to them.
‘Bill’s been worried about the Auburn ever since it came back,’ Nigel said. He explained that the garages were converted stables that Roger had had specially fitted up for the four classics. When we reached them, all of them looked securely locked, and security lights flashed angrily out at us.
‘Bill?’ I yelled.
The string of expletives that answered me from within left us in no doubt that he was locked in with the Auburn. ‘We’ll get you out of there,’ shouted one PC encouragingly. It took a while to find the right keys, especially with Bill ranting his fury at us. When we were finally successful, he shot out of his prison like Nemesis itself.
Brandon had by now joined us, which made Nigel and me redundant. ‘What happened?’ he asked Bill, in his quiet voice.
‘Had word there was trouble down here,’ Bill growled. ‘Message to the Manor phone. Came over to check, door slammed, never carry radio or mobile so that was it.’
The door was, I couldn’t help seeing, self locking, so it could have been accidental or intentional.
‘Message from whom?’ I asked, not to Brandon’s pleasure.
Bill glared at me. ‘Security. OK by you?’
Bill wouldn’t yet know of Joan’s death, but Brandon swept Bill off with him, making it clear that my role was over, and Nigel and I returned to the communal room. It was by now past midnight, and the strain was evident on everyone’s face.
Eleanor Richey was in full flow. ‘Joan of all people,’ she wailed. ‘Surely it was an accident, or if not . . .’ She stopped short of the proverbial tramp or sex maniac and finished feebly with: ‘Someone who climbed over the boundary wall.’
No one commented, and she didn’t look as if she believed it herself. The next person to produce an unlikely scenario was Tom. ‘I reckon it’s one of the caterers. Get some odd people nowadays.’
No one commented, especially as I could see one or two of them present, and Tom relapsed into silence.
‘Her ex-husband?’ Chris ventured. ‘He lives down this way.’
‘No,’ Brian contributed. ‘He moved to the States.’
There were several other attempts but then silence reigned. Louise looked exhausted and I felt it. I was glad when Bill put his head round the door and summoned me to Roger’s office, which was guarded by two PCs – I wondered whether this was to prevent a murderer bursting in, or Roger and Bill from making a bid for freedom. At least Bill was freed from Brandon’s tender mercies, which was a good sign.
‘He’s OK,’ Bill told the guards, indicating me. ‘Check us over if you like. Just need to talk.’ The strength of Bill’s personality achieved its object, and the door was opened for us without a murmur. Roger was already there, and barely seemed to have the strength to acknowledge our arrival.
‘Any ideas on this nightmare, Jack?’ he asked.
I shook my head. It was still too new, too raw.
Bill took over. ‘You any further on with Angie’s murder?’
‘Several trails to follow,’ I said diplomatically. ‘The trouble is that it’s never a matter of following clues up to the finishing line. You start off with a whole range of trails, some of which lead somewhere, some of which don’t. I’m eliminating the don’ts.’
Roger grunted. ‘Was Joan part of the joker’s trick box?’
‘How can I know yet?’ I said wearily. ‘She could have been getting too near the truth for comfort.’ And perhaps that was true. I remembered her words to me: ‘I’m afraid . . .’
Roger nodded, more to himself than to me, as though this confirmed his own thinking. ‘Bill and I don’t think that line about the cars is leading anywhere.’
‘I agree,’ I said. Or almost, I told myself. ‘But if we take that out, we’re getting very close to home,’ I said steadily.
‘That’s where we are too,’ Roger said. I could see the muscles in Bill’s cheeks working overtime. It wouldn’t be long before frustration burst out again.
It wasn’t. Two seconds or so. ‘That garage, Jack. I was locked in.’ He looked at me fiercely. ‘But you know, I could have done that on purpose. Brandon found that out quickly enough, and I don’t intend to find myself at the wrong end of a murder charge.’
‘No fear of that,’ I said without thinking.
‘There is, and we know it,’ Roger whipped back. ‘There’s some joker playing with dynamite round here. The sooner Joan’s killer is found, the happier I’ll be.’
‘That message,’ Bill said. ‘Security never sent it. Brandon found that out. I could have wangled a text to myself. Easy enough. Brandon knows that too. We have to move, Jack.’
‘Even if that means back to Running Tides?’ I asked.
‘Even that.’
By one thirty the last of us had been released and I drove back to Frogs Hill, much shaken. Roger had said filming at Syndale Manor had been suspended perhaps altogether. Tomorrow, Saturday, they would return to Stour Studios and announce their decision about the film’s future.
Louise was so tired that I persuaded her to go back to the hotel. That’s what love is. She demurred. She wanted to be with me. That’s love too. I kissed her and said the impersonal hotel would be better for what was left of the night, and that we had all the time in the world to be together. And that’s really love.
Memories of Joan lying alone at Nemesis hung over me, naturally enough, as I turned off the Egerton Road into Frogs Hill Lane. Even the thought of home could not shake me out of the darkness of the day. There were no street lights of course as I drove along the narrow bumpy lane with the hedgerows high on either side. As I turned in at my gate the security lights came on, but tonight they seemed harsh, no warm glow. They merely seemed to underline my stark failure to find Angie’s killer. It was no good telling myself that if the police could not track him down, how could I hope to do so? The police are hedged in with the need to find sufficient proof to convince the CPS before they can charge their suspect. I am not so constrained, at least in my thoughts, and I was all too well aware that Joan’s ghost had now been added to Angie’s in reproaching me.
Ahead of me as I drew up, the Pits loomed and in the stark light even they looked forbidding. Here be dragons indeed, one waiting round every corner. There was no sound, save the hooting of the occasional bird and the rustle of trees and tonight darkness was far from being a friend. I was relieved when I was inside the farmhouse again. No dragons lurked here, only the Glory Boot. I could have time to think a little and then sleep. Think how Joan Burton, friend of Margot Croft, could possibly have fitted into this crescendo of violence. How did it fit with Angie’s murder? I could not believe that Nigel was so deep into car crime that it led to not one but two murders. Or was the fantasy of film throwing its mantle over the truth, blowing stardust in my eyes to disguise the real picture?
To my disbelief, the security lights went on again. A cat? A fox? Nemesis? Then, for heaven’s sake, there was a knock at the door. At gone two o’clock?
‘Police?’ I wondered as I dragged myself to open it. I realized at the last moment that this might not be such a good plan and put the chain on just in case. It wasn’t Brandon’s smiling face on the doorstep. It was, unbelievably, Pen’s. Already she must have got hold of the new story, and being Pen, she was on to it.
‘Story, Jack?’ she asked hopefully.
‘It’s two o’clock in the morning, Pen.’ I tried not to screech too loudly.
‘Story, Jack?’
‘No,’ I bellowed ungraciously.
A foot was placed in the doorway. ‘Cup of cocoa for a lone lady? Or have you got Louise tucked up in there?’
‘No and no,’ I snapped.
‘Can I quote you on that?’
‘No.’
‘Do take that chain off the door. I feel unwelcome,’ she complained.
I gazed at her wondering if she was a werewolf sent to haunt me.
I struggled with reason. If she quoted me as refusing to talk to her, I would appear once more in print as someone with something to hide, and that wasn’t going to do my reputation any good. If I did talk to her, I’d be murdered by Brandon and possibly Bill too. I chose truth.
‘There’s nothing I can tell you because I don’t know myself. I’m knocked sideways and I can’t think straight tonight. I liked—’ I pulled up short. I nearly used Joan’s name and that probably wasn’t public yet.
Pen’s eyes gleamed. ‘Friend of yours, was he?’
So she hadn’t got the full story yet. ‘Fishing, Pen?’
‘My job netting innocent minnows like you. Is my theory proven or is it not?’
Here we go again, I thought. ‘No comment, sweetheart.’
‘My guess is, laddie,’ she replied thoughtfully, ‘that it’s got a whole lot closer to proof this evening.’ Pen grinned. ‘I’ll give you a break, Jack. I’ll leave. But I’ll be back.’
‘That I don’t doubt, unfortunately.’
When I arrived at Stour Studios on Saturday morning, it was gone nine and I half expected to find that the film production had been abandoned, and indeed everything seemed suspiciously quiet. I checked in at reception where a very pale Jane was presiding. Filming, she told me to my surprise, was taking place in Studio Two: Miss Shaw and Miss Richey.
I found that hard to believe at first. Filming so soon? Then I realized that this could be Bill’s way of dealing with the situation. Fine for him, but how did the cast feel about it?
When I reached Studio Two, I saw that ‘filming was taking place’ was somewhat of an overstatement. The crew was there, so were Louise and Eleanor, but they looked frazzled. Louise and Eleanor were sitting on the set of a drawing room, while Bill was giving the benefit of his blistering tongue to the crew. It appeared that perspective was wrong for a high-angle shot resulting in the mastershot for the scene being a complete failure. Louise noticed my arrival and came over to me.
