Death on Daytime: A Tess Darling Mystery (The Tess Darling Mysteries) (15 page)

“A few,” she said. “The old classics, you know? Never trust a policeman. Innocent until proven guilty.”

“You want proof? Fine.” He was enjoying this. “You can help me. Setting down his sports bag, the officer flipped through various document wallets wedged inside. Pulling out a two-page photocopy, he thrust it at Tess.

“Can you identify this for me?”

She took the document, and gave it a wary once-over. “It’s a copy of Monday’s call sheet.”

“The filming schedule for the day Jeenie died?” he clarified. She nodded. “Who got a copy?”

“Everyone on the shoot,” she said. “We send them out to the crew, a couple of days in advance.” It was the essential shoot document, carrying contact details for everyone involved in the day’s filming, plus a projected timetable for the shoot, culminating with final wrap time, and starting with details of Jeenie’s early morning pick-up. Suddenly, Tess had a bad feeling. “This call sheet – where did you get it?”

“Alan Pattison’s flat.”

“You’ve gone through his
flat?
” “Very revealing it was too.” His brown eyes gleamed. “
Quite
the Aladdin’s Cave.”

“You—”

“Can’t brief a showbiz hack like yourself about the
full
evidence uncovered – obviously – but thanks to your confirmation of this document…” He took the call sheet back from her. “We now know that the day Jeenie was killed, your friend Alan was in a position to predict her every move.”

“Along with just about anyone who knew her!” said Tess. “Jeenie was sent the first call sheet to go out – she was the Talent – anyone who went round to her flat could have seen it.” Tess pictured Jeenie complaining to her showbiz friends about another early filming start… then remembered she
had
no friends. “Sod Jeenie, what about all the people coming in and out of our production office at Backchat? Any
one
of them could have grabbed a copy of the call sheet. It’s always madness setting up a shoot – draft schedules would have been tossed round the
Pardon My Garden
office for most of the week before – the details were scrawled all over our white board.”

But the officer wasn’t listening. As he zipped up his sports bag, Tess sensed he was wishing he could zip up her instead
.
“You’re not seriously suggesting Jeenie was murdered by a colleague?” he said.

“Why not? You went to Jeenie’s wake. You saw what it was like at The Soho Club: Dante’s Inferno with the odd bottle of San Pellegrino to douse the flames.”

“The bar did get a bit hot maybe,” he frowned. “But everyone seemed very happy to see each other—”

“Of course they did. You can’t get a cosier place than Media Land if you’ve got a prime time show or a ratings hit. But for everyone else – scrabbling to bag a commission, cut costs, stay on air – it’s like working in a mental asylum; one staffed with lunatics and facing a perpetual threat of closure. Daytime TV is the most desperate place of all – just look at the cast of
Live With.
You had Jeenie Dempster stealing Sandy Plimpton’s husband – and about to steal her job. If Sandy knew she was being replaced, so did Fergie. Flatts would have been sick at the thought of sharing a sofa with Jeenie – and terrified she’d be about to push him off. Jeenie eviscerated Fergie at the Backchat Summer Party. Everyone knew she was a bitch. Look what Jeenie did to Mark Plimpton – and
he
was her sodding boyfriend!”

“The couple were having
minor
difficulties in their relationship, but were otherwise happy and in love,” countered DS Selleck. “Mr Plimpton gave us a full statement last night.” Sobered up and in the company of a lawyer, guessed Tess, a lawyer who’d have strongly advised him not to mention little things like his nasty break-up with the murdered woman, followed by her ruinous campaign of blackmail.

Realising last night’s increasingly ‘off the record’ interview with Mark Plimpton would stay just that, Tess chose to bluff. “Keep reading the papers,” she said. “No doubt a real policeman will get there soon enough.”

Selleck clenched his jaw. “I don’t know what you’re implying.” He moved towards her. “But I
do
know you didn’t seem so suspicious of Mark Plimpton when I found you huddled together last night.”

“I was turning on the charm.”

“That I’d
love
to see.” Static crackled in the small space remaining between them.

“Fancy a drink?” said Tess.

“You – what?”

“How about next Tuesday? Say 8-ish, nowhere too classy.” Grabbing the officer by the arm, Tess steered him back down her hall. “In terms of romance, it wouldn’t be giving away too much to say I’m partial to a pint of beer and a bit of chicken. But if you so much as
mention
Fat Alan, I’ll tip the lot all over you.”

Out the door before he could fathom how he was about to date a woman he mostly wanted to punch, Selleck collided with Miller. It hurt. The giant cameraman was wrapped up in a duffle coat and scarf. To the fraught policeman, he looked like Paddington Bear after one too many protein shakes.

To Miller, the fraught policeman looked like he needed a hug. So he gave him one, then set him down on the path outside. Turning back to Tess, Miller produced a crumpled, purple ruffle shirt. “Found it in your front hedge,” he said.

He looked enormously cheerful, thought Tess. Then she took the shirt, and remembered she was wearing just her bra. “When I saw your clothes in the hedge,” he beamed. “I thought it might be an idea to look around a bit.”

He passed over her flat keys, bank card and mobile phone. Pocketing the lot, Tess struggled into her shirt. Then she pulled Miller into the hall, shutting the front door on DS Selleck. “Fat Alan is fucked,” she said. “The police found Monday’s call sheet in his flat, and God knows what else, the poor sod. We’ve got to find him, Miller, get him Legal Aid or something.”

“No problem.” Reaching down behind Tess, Miller unplugged his DV camera from the hall socket where he’d left it charging yesterday. “Best get ready for anything.”

“What are you doing?” she demanded, as Miller headed back out into the frosty morning with his camera.

“Fetching Fat Alan.”

“But – but – from
where
?”

“Gwyneth Paltrow’s bin.”

M
iller, it turned out, had been doing some investigating of his own.

“A lot can happen in one night,” he said, as Tess chased after him, pulling on her coat. (She had her keys, card and phone, didn’t she? She was good to go). Having waved DS Selleck off in his gleaming Ford Mondeo, Miller led Tess towards Colliers Wood Station, filling her in en route.

She’d been right. Miller
had
stayed behind at Jeenie’s Memorial Service to see Mrs Meakes into a taxi. “I don’t know what happened to her lady from the care home—” he said.

“The not-so-blessed Maggie?”

“She’d gone shopping, and not come back, Mrs Meakes said. She was upset, but I told her it could happen to anyone, especially now there’s that M&M shop at Leicester Square. But afterwards, when I tried to find you at Jeenie’s wake, they wouldn’t let me in.” Tess squeezed his arm, touched he’d even tried. (Miller wasn’t good round pretentious types. They made his bottom itch).

Crossing Merton High Street to the tube, Miller said he’d subsequently sat himself down at a table outside Café Boheme on Old Compton Street. From here, he’d had a comfy view of both The Soho Club and its attendant paparazzi. Like him, they were not fit to enter media’s most exclusive haunt. Like him, they were very fond of chips. Miller had spent most of the evening ferrying them platters of ‘pommes frites’ and trying to pet their cameras.

“Jethro’s been papping for nearly ten years,” he told Tess. “He’s been up Pippa Middleton’s bottom – .”

“Please,” said Tess. “Not while we’re moving.” Descending the escalators to the Northern Line, her hangover kicked in. Miller’s news would have to wait. The first twenty minutes of their tube journey consisted of Tess lying with her head in Miller’s lap, speaking only to ask him to stroke her hair and/or sing to her. Gently, he hummed to her ‘Gangnam Style’, before carrying her like a baby from Northern Line train to District Line. Only when they finally transferred to the Circle and Hammersmith Line, did Miller deem Tess strong enough to be drip-fed information – and a large bottle of Lucozade Sport. “Jethro, this pap,” he explained. “He took the photos of Fat Alan – the ones in yesterday’s
Daily Mail
.”

“I don’t get it,” mumbled Tess, sucking on her bottle so hard the plastic cracked. “Alan’s a nobody. How did a paparazzo find him?”

“By following
us,”
said Miller. “Jethro was stood outside Jeenie’s flat, when we turned up on Wednesday. He was taking pictures from across the road. He was only planning to get a couple of shots of her front door, so when
Fat Alan
got out of our car, Jethro couldn’t believe his luck. He followed him home. Only Jethro wouldn’t tell me
where
until I agreed to cover his celebrity bin round.”

“His celebrity
what
?”

“Bin round,” beamed Miller. “Jethro gave me a list of famous people’s addresses. Then I had to climb into their wheelie bins to see if they’d left anything out for him. Gwyneth’s bin was lovely. Full of Turkey Twizzlers,” he sighed. “And something tasty called Vagisil. Whoops, here we go.”

Pushing Tess out on to the platform, and then up the steps to Notting Hill Gate, Miller consulted his directions, (as scrawled by Jethro on to a cigarette packet at half past three that morning). Starting, stopping, re-tracing their steps, re-starting, and then stopping again (so Tess could have a discreet moment behind a tree) they emerged from a warren of West London streets into the shadow of a huge tower block.

They weren’t the first. “Great,” said Tess. “More sodding reporters.”

Huddled outside a dingy convenience store opposite the foot of the tower block, bored-looking photographers talked into their mobile phones, split packets of gum and staked out Britain’s Most Hunted Man. Tess watched dark clouds skate over the concrete summit of the sky-rise, and felt herself seized by the hangover dreads. “I don’t know about this, Miller.”

“Me neither,” said Miller. “Exciting, isn’t it?” He loped purposefully past her, pointing his DV camera, and Tess thought: He’s my knight errant. With a really blunt lance.

“What if Selleck was right?” she called after him. “What if Fat Alan
did
kill Jeenie?”

“He didn’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because Fat Alan doesn’t want to change the world. He just wants to fit into it.” Miller stopped, and played with his spectacles for a second. “He’s the odd one out, you see, and people like him scare others. Stupid really.” He moved off again. “They’re the scaredest ones of all.”

Seeing her friend’s giant form swallowed up by the darkness of the stairwell, Tess felt something tighten inside her chest. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll always have me.” But she didn’t say it loud enough, and he didn’t hear.

Further progress was slowed by the discovery that the tower block lift was out of order. Undaunted, Miller started up the dank, concrete steps to the thirteenth floor. Tess lacked his dogged approach however. She kept wasting breath on swearing, and then got into a fight with two youths on the ninth floor, who asked to see her tits, and only scarpered when she went
Game of Thrones
on them (with a British twist, of course, namely kicking one in the shins, and threatening to tell the other’s Mum).

By the time Tess did catch up with Miller, it was too late. He was already knocking on the door to Flat 101, and straightening the toggles on his duffle coat, prior to impressing whoever opened it. “Shove off, will you?” A woman’s voice came from behind the door. “I’ve done telling you all. ‘E’s not ’ere.”

The woman’s voice sounded tired but defiant. Her door, though drab, appeared clean. So it was with attendant dignity Miller bowed his head to her peephole. “We’re looking for Alan Pattison,” he said.

“I told you,” she said. “‘E’s not ’ere. Any more trouble and I swear I’m calling the police.”

“Easy, Miller.” Tess came up beside him. “I can take it from here.” Drawing a deep, much-needed breath, she exhaled:
“ALANOPENTHEDOORWE’REHERETOHELPORTHEPOLICEWILLLOCKYOUAWAYFORTHIRTYYEARSANDYOU’LLDIELONELYPLUSI
REALLY
NEEDAWEE.”

There was a pause. A long pause, followed by the sound of several locks being tackled. The door opened to reveal a tough-looking woman in late middle age. A rustling behind her presaged the appearance of a more familiar figure. “Tesch? Miller?” said Fat Alan. “Meet my Mum.”

Mrs Pattison had broad shoulders, thick ankles and hands weathered by hard work. She wore a sweep of white hair in a ponytail tipped orange with nicotine and her face was lined and hard. To Tess, she looked like an old, Apache Indian, who’d been put through ten kinds of crap by the White Man. “Come,” she turned. “I’ll put the kettle on. My Alan needs all the friends he can get.”

They followed the broad, bowed back of Mrs Pattison into the tiny hallway of her flat. Gesturing for Alan to go first, Tess checked him out from behind: grubby T-shirt hanging over polyester slacks. If he owned any dralon clothes, he wasn’t wearing them.

“Take ’em into your room, son,” said Mrs Pattison. She indicated a door at the end of the cramped corridor. It was closed, with a heavy chain looped around the door handle, and a large, metal padlock fastening door to frame.

Tess looked back at Mrs Pattison. Her defiance was crumbling, the lines in her face turning to cracks. “There’s nothing we can do now, is there? All these years we’ve been hiding from it – but it was too strong for us – it’s coming out.”

Christ, thought Tess, what was behind that door? Miller seemed to be thinking the same. “Is it a badger?” he asked.

“Please,” Mrs Pattison grabbed Tess’ arm with surprising force. “Don’t think less of him, he can’t help himself. It’s not right, I know, but what can I do? She broke my boy. She broke you, Alan, didn’t she?”

He nodded. But there was something horrible about his pliancy, realized Tess. He had the soft, sly look of a child who’d done something wrong. And liked it.