More Deaths Than One

by Marjorie Eccles

  Having delivered herself of this Janet, rather prosaic young woman that she was, sat back, suddenly feeling distressingly like her own strait-laced Scottish grannie. Had she let her imagination run away with her? Or her Presbyterian conscience? After all, as she’d remarked to Mitch, what had there been to go on? Trish staying on after the others had left, waiting for a lift: home, or so she said, from Ashleigh. Refusing Janet’s own offer to drive her home. A feeling that she was up to the neck in something with the pair of them, though Janet had always felt that Fleming, in fact, seemed to find the girl mildly tiresome. It was difficult to explain, but now that she’d spoken, she’d have to have a go.

  “I tried to have a word with her, but she wouldn’t listen. She just shrugged and walked away. And there really wasn’t anything definite.”

  “Leave her to me, I’ll have a talk with her. But come on, Janet, what did you think was going on?”

  Janet tried to remember that she was a policewoman first, a Presbyterian second, and told him.

  NINE

  “I have kiss’d poison for’t, strok’d a serpent.”

  LILI FELT she’d hung around long enough while the Chief Inspector interviewed that feather-brained Trish. Her high heels were killing her and she badly wanted to kick them off, put her feet up and lie back with a cup of tea at her elbow. So she simply picked up the big canvas holdall from which she was inseparable and told one of the cast she was off and if the police had a mind to talk to her, they’d find her at home.

  Home was a small house in a short street of nineteenth-century workmen’s cottages that sloped down to the river, not far from the Gaiety. A very long time had passed since The Leasowes had been the pasture from which the street derived its name. Now, smart white paint, window boxes and ruffled blinds were evidence of proud home ownership, the Renaults and Sierras parked outside in the street gave status to the occupants. The house which Ashleigh Cockayne rented at the top of the street was a little different. It had been recently repainted by the Council when it was offered as an inducement to secure a Community Arts Director for the town, but they hadn’t run to window boxes and Ashleigh’s taste wasn’t for Austrian blinds.

  It was a tiny house: one room, a kitchen and a scullery downstairs, two bedrooms and a bathroom above, but big enough to accommodate Lili as an extra as well as Ashleigh, since the way their lives had been lived had taught them not to demand too much space, and not so large that a fairly total disinterest in any form of housekeeping would result in chaos. It had been minimally furnished by the Council and embellished by the personal clutter with which each defined themselves. It was a home. Lili thankfully eased off her shoes, boiled the kettle, switched on the gas fire and settled herself in like a snail into its shell.

  Mayo meanwhile was talking to Trish Lambert, leaving Kite to chat to the rest of the cast over coffee, which came black, bitter and boiling in Styrofoam beakers, full of promise to keep them all on their toes. Hopefully, Kite would get them talking. It was to his advantage that he looked ingenuous and younger than his years, with a ready smile and open manner, which he knew how to exploit. Few people realized his acuity until it was too late.

  Janet Lindsay had with some difficulty at last managed to produce Trish. When she knew the police wanted to speak to her the girl had locked herself in one of the lavatories and for fifteen minutes had refused to come out. Eventually persuaded by Janet’s calm reasonableness that she couldn’t stay there all day, she emerged, enveloped in a big, loose sweater that covered her nearly to the knees and merely hinted at the sexy curves beneath. She’d been crying and her make-up had worn off, revealing a crop of freckles on the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones. She was very pale and looked about eleven years old, with the sullen look of a guilty child, and when she heard she was going to be questioned by the Chief Inspector himself, she became, it seemed to him, frightened, too. But there was nothing of this in her first words: “I haven’t done anything wrong. Why d’you want to ask me questions, and none of the others?”

  “We may yet want to question them all. There’s nothing to be afraid of, just tell the truth, that’s all. You know that Rupert Fleming is dead, and what we need to do is trace his movements. It seems likely you were one of the last people to see him alive.”

  “Me?”

  “You had a rehearsal on Monday evening?”

  “That’s no secret.”

  “And afterwards you stayed on while the rest of the cast left.”

  “So? There’s no law against it.” She had decided cheekiness was to be her best defence, but that didn’t worry Mayo. It wasn’t any more than he’d expected. Nine out of ten kids he had to question reacted in the same way, especially when they’d something to hide.

  “Why did you stay, Trish? What was the reason?”

  “Can’t we stop talking about me? What I did or didn’t do’s my business.”

  “Ours too now, I’m afraid. What happened when you stayed behind? Please explain as clearly as you can.”

  “Explanations are so boring.”

  “I expect I can stand it.”

  “If you must know,” she said after a truculent pause, “Ashleigh asked me to stay behind to have supper with him. He was going to take me to the Rose.” She gave the name of Lavenstock’s only nightclub, throwing out the information with a studied casualness that didn’t come off, as though it was quite natural that she of all the cast had been accorded the favour, picked out from the other women members by an older, sophisticated man. Well, she didn’t have to be intelligent, as well as sexy. And she was still very young.

  Just how young, Mayo was genuinely surprised to find, when he asked her. “Fifteen,” she answered sulkily.

  He waited, eyeing her gravely before saying deliberately, “Did your mother know what you were doing, staying out till all hours?”

  The colour flared into her face, then receded. “I haven’t a mother. They’re divorced. But listen” – and now panic lifted her voice – “you’re not to tell my father ... he’d kill me!”

  “How is it he doesn’t know what time you get home?”

  “He’s at work. He works nights. He’s a security man at Leverson’s.”

  Poor devil, thought Mayo, empathizing with the absent father, knowing from firsthand experience the pitfalls and terrors of bringing up a teenage daughter alone. But of all the jobs Lambert could have chosen, that surely was the worst. Didn’t he realize the extent of the problem he had in this daughter of his? Mayo experienced a momentary, unexpected plummet of the heart. Supposing if, after all, he thought, imagining Julie, who had grown more subtle, less understandable as she grew older ... then he smiled to himself, knowing his Julie, or thinking he did, and brought his mind back. “You’re alone in the house all night?” he asked.

  “I’m not a child!”

  “Old enough to know what you were doing?” She tossed her head, looking away, and he sighed. “Would you find it easier to talk to Miss Lindsay on your own?”

  “I don’t care, it’s all the same to me.”

  Mayo made a sign to Janet, who took a deep breath and asked gently, “All right, it was photographs, wasn’t it, Trish? Photographs that Cockayne took, and then developed here in the Camera Club’s darkroom?”

  The quick colour again came into her face, turning it a sullen red. “If you know so much, why’re you asking me?”

  “But I’m right, aren’t I?” The girl lapsed into a stubborn silence. “Aren’t I, Trish?”

  “If I tell you, you won’t tell my dad, will you?” she mumbled at last.

  “That depends whether you tell us the truth or not.” The response was another mulish silence.

  “He was taking pictures of you, wasn’t he, Trish? The sort you wouldn’t want to show to your family and friends?” Janet prompted.

  “What if he was?” she burst out. “They weren’t – well, you know what I mean, nothing kinky. Ashleigh’s not like that, they were for art and photography magazines ... he said the
y’d help my career, he’s promised he’ll use them to try and get me into films.” Sweeping her red hair over her shoulder, she said, her chin lifting, “If you’ve a good body, why be ashamed of showing it?”

  Mayo looked at this child, younger than his own daughter in more than years. He felt very tired. “Let’s hear all about it, Trish.”

  But the extent of her knowledge was limited to her posing for the pictures here at the theatre, after the rest of the cast had gone and the other organisations had finished for the night. Cockayne had used his own camera and availed himself of the facilities of the Camera Club’s darkroom to develop the pictures. Sometimes they used some of the props. After that, it had been up to Rupert Fleming.

  Mayo caught Janet’s eye and she nodded imperceptibly. Trish’s words confirmed everything that had made her suspicious: certain props for which she’d been responsible having been disturbed, the camera which Cockayne was so touchy about when she’d expressed interest, those late nights ... it had all seemed too add up.

  “Did he ever bring any other girls to be photographed, Trish?” Mayo asked.

  “No way!”

  She was indignant, naive enough to believe herself unique, but there’d have been others. Who, when and where would emerge, he thought grimly, remembering those rather more than nasty girlie mags they’d found in Fleming’s drawer. He’d nothing but contempt for a sordid little operation of this sort, using under-age girls, selling their bodies to promote dirt like that in low-grade skin magazines for what must have been precious little reward. The more he discovered about Rupert Fleming, the less pity he felt for his untimely and horrible end.

  “All right, Trish. Let’s talk about what happened on Monday, after the rehearsal. You stayed behind and Mr. Cockayne began taking pictures of you, right?”

  “No, I’ve told you, we were going out for supper that night. Besides –” She checked herself and slid him a glance before hurrying on, evidently thinking better of what she’d been going to say. “I waited for Ashleigh in his office while he checked that everyone had left and got the keys from Ernest Underwood.”

  “Ernest Underwood? Who’s he?”

  “The caretaker. He can’t go home at night until he’s handed the keys over to Ashleigh.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  “Ashleigh’d just got back with the keys when Rupert Fleming came in. He’d been watching the rehearsal but we both thought he’d gone home. Ashleigh was really mad and asked him why he was hanging around. He told him we were going out and if Rupert wanted to see him he’d just have to come back the next day.”

  “Didn’t that surprise you – that he should speak to Mr. Fleming like that? After all, they were supposed to be good friends, weren’t they?” She shrugged. “What was Fleming’s reaction?”

  “He said, ‘Come on, let’s have a drink and forget about all that, Ashleigh. It’s water under the bridge.’ Ashleigh said, ‘That’s not the way I see it,’ and they started arguing. I couldn’t make out what they were on about, it was really boring, and then Ashleigh suddenly gave in. He said all right, if that was what Rupert wanted. And that was it.”

  “D’you mean Fleming left after that?”

  “No!” The girl flushed with remembered chagrin. “It was me who had to leave! I was choked off by then and I asked them what about me, and Rupert said there’s always a taxi, ask Ashleigh to get you one. So he did, he took me down and got me one from the rank round the corner. I could see he was really sorry about everything, having to cancel our supper and that, and he promised we’d go another time, but I was furious. Well, it wasn’t very nice, was it? All because of Rupert Fleming barging in!”

  “I can see why you were upset. Didn’t Cockayne explain what it was all about?”

  “Only that it wasn’t his fault, but they’d things to talk about that couldn’t be put off. He laughed in ever such a funny way, but he told me not to worry, he’d make sure Rupert Fleming didn’t spoil any more of our little outings.”

  Mayo caught Janet’s glance. “Have you any idea at all – can you make guess, even – what it was all about, this quarrel between the two of them?”

  She looked away. “No.”

  “Sure, Trish?”

  “Well, I guess – I suppose it may have been something to do with ... well, Ashleigh’d decided he wasn’t going to take any more pictures. Not just yet anyway ... I don’t suppose Rupert would’ve been very pleased about that, exactly.”

  Mayo studied her, unable to make up his mind whether she was quite as naive as she sounded. “Was it a sudden decision, to give up taking them?”

  “Not really. That was why he was taking me out,” she said in a sudden burst of candour, “to make up for there being no more sessions.”

  “He gave no reasons?”

  “He said we mustn’t flood the market. We used to try to make me look different, different hairstyles and that but – he just thought we ought to give it a rest for a bit.”

  Mayo considered her, until her eyes dropped under his unflinching stare. He was a case-hardened copper and he couldn’t believe that Cockayne had restricted himself simply to taking pictures of the girl. He’d a hell of a lot to be responsible for, this Cockayne, no wonder he’d scarpered.

  “I’d like to go back to Monday, Trish. What was your impression of Mr. Fleming when he came up to Cockayne’s office? How did he seem?”

  “Oh, no worse than usual. I mean, he was always a pain. Oh, all right, I know that’s not a very nice thing to say about somebody who’s dead, and I suppose he was okay, if you like that sort – but he always acted so superior. He looked at a person as though they were dirt. Not a bit like Ashleigh. He’s really, really nice.” Her face suddenly flushed, she looked down at her hands, the hands of a little girl, small and ringless, the nails badly bitten. “I’m sorry I was mad at him, now. When’s he coming back?” she asked in a small voice.

  Mayo said, making his voice kind, “Probably soon, Trish. And thank you, you’ve really been a very good witness.”

  “Can I go now?” He said she could and she sprang up with relief. At the door, she paused. “You won’t tell my dad, will you?”

  “I promise he won’t hear a thing from us unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  That didn’t make her a lot happier, but it wasn’t intended to. He hadn’t finished with Trish yet. She’d had a fright, and it might pull her up short for a while, but girls like her needed a bit more than that. If they wanted to go to the devil, they would, and there wasn’t a lot you could do about it, but she hadn’t yet gone so far along the road that there was no chance of turning her around to face the way she’d come.

  “What are you afraid of, Miss Anand?”

  “Oh, Lili, please! No one ever calls me anything else.”

  Mayo had been talking to her for fifteen minutes before he eventually found the opportunity to ask the question that had been hovering on his lips ever since he began. By many circuitous routes they’d reached the point where she had admitted that Cockayne, far from being in London on business, had disappeared to all intents and purposes into thin air. She was now leaning back in her chair with her tiny feet on a footstool in an attitude of exaggerated exhaustion, her eyes half-closed, her hand to her forehead. On her forefinger was a heavy silver ring with a black stone of some sort, the size of a knuckle-duster. The histrionics would have amused Mayo, had the circumstances been different, but not now, he reflected, repeating the question and waiting for his answer.

  “Afraid?” Her response was a little too alert for the pose she’d adopted. Under the shade of her hand, the glance of her bright black eyes had sharpened their focus.

  “Huh-huh.”

  He allowed the silence to grow until she suddenly swooped her hand down and pulled from the big canvas bag at her side a large piece of colourful tapestry stretched on a wooden frame, into which she began stabbing a needle threaded with bright wool. Emerging on the canvas was what appeared to be a woodland scene, with small a
nimals and birds, squirrels, a pheasant, rabbits, a snail and a butterfly jostling in unlikely juxtaposition among jewel-coloured flowers of equally improbable association. The needle flew in and out several times, then her hand stopped its stitching and dropped to her lap. Their eyes met and she said in a trembling voice that forgot all its years of speech training, “Oh dear God, I’m so afraid he might have killed himself.”

  “Cockayne? Killed himself? Why should you imagine that?”

  “Imagine? You call it imagination if you want ... I wouldn’t.” She drew a deep breath before continuing more calmly, “He once said to me – we were watching the TV news and some murderer had been given a life sentence – and he said, ‘If ever they wanted to put me away for life I’d drown myself, before being shut away like that, I swear I would.’ ”

  “He used those specific words?”

  “The very same,” she averred solemnly, and he didn’t doubt they were. Her memory would be excellent, trained to remember every word and nuance. “He said it had to be the best way. Just jump in the water and let go.”

  Mayo raised his eyebrows. Easy to talk. Not so easy to find the courage when it came to it.

  “Oh, you can look like that, but he meant it, you can be sure of that. And besides –” She paused to give him a sideways, assessing glance, then decided to go on. “Besides, I saw it in the Tarot.”

  “The Tarot. Ah.”

  He’d no patience with superstition and the dangerous games played with it, and she saw that. Her black eyes gleamed to equal those of the squirrel she had fashioned. “Don’t despise the Tarot, Mr. Mayo. I’ve seen more things there than you’d believe. Last week, I saw La Mort.”