Death on Daytime: A Tess Darling Mystery (The Tess Darling Mysteries) (20 page)

“Talk straight, woman. Take on
who
?” But he was distracted, Tess could tell. She let her soft, blonde hair fall across his sleeve. He lifted his gnarled hand, as if to touch -

“Jeenie.”

His hand stopped. Tess pressed on. “You never even seemed to like her much. You’re crowing now she’s dead, so why resuscitate her career? Why push her above Sandy Plimpton, your biggest-earning star?”

For a second, there was just the sound of his heavy breathing. His reply, when it came, had the intimacy of threat. “What I did for Jeenie, you’ll
never
know. Jeenie’s making more money for me dead than she
ever
did alive. I plan to enjoy it.”

A sharp knock sounded on the door of his office. The agent fell back in his executive chair, swiveling slightly – like Blofeld, thought Tess, just short of a cat. Then Rod’s receptionist slunk in, purring at her master. “Vernon Kaye’s here to see you. I’ve shown him into the atrium, but he’s been at the energy drinks again—”

“I’ll come up,” said Rod. “We’re done here, aren’t we?”

Tess shrugged. She knew when she was beat. So she tugged down the hem of her mini-skirt. She pulled up the hood of her Puffa. When she’d done puffing the hair from her eyes, she caught Rod grinning at her. Whatever had just gone down between them, the old rogue had enjoyed it.

“I live by the agent’s golden rule,” he said. “All Talent is disposable, woman. Shooting stars, each and every one.” By way of farewell, he waved at the photos crowding his walls. Glossy professional shots of TV performers and presenters, going back thirty years. Rod’s clients ranged from the Light Entertainment faces of BBC’s Golden Age to the Botox-blown stars of last year’s TOWIE. Taking centre-stage was surely the most recent addition: a poster-sized, ‘action’ shot of Jeenie Dempster, framed in black, and captioned,
Gone too Soon
.

The photo had been taken on a
Pardon My Garden
shoot. Jeenie’s hair was blowing in the wind, and Tess could see Miller’s foot in shoot. Flanking the memorial were recent stills from
Live With.
Sandy Plimpton on the sofa. A smiling headshot of Fergal Flatts. A flapping-tongue shot of Colin Pound.

Yep, thought Tess, she was ready to go. Moving to leave, however, she saw it. In a glass cabinet by the door. On the top shelf, flanked by
Viewers’ Choice
awards and BAFTAs, stood one, last photo. Framed in gilt.

“It’s you,” she murmured. The man who’d been haunting her dreams. Or should that be boy? The photo showed a younger man than she’d been expecting – with delicate, almost shrewish features above his goatee.
The
goatee. The distinctive wispy point at the end of his chin – this was the man from Jeenie’s photo, wasn’t it? She’d found ‘A’. Only in this picture, his beard looked… buffed. And his baseball cap had been replaced with an academic’s mortarboard.

“Problem?” said Rod.

“No, it’s just…” Tess tried to cover her confusion at the picture. “I’m surprised, that’s all. You’re picking your presenters more upmarket, these days?”

The agent moved round his desk to his trophy cabinet. Carefully, almost reverently, he unlocked the glass. But his gaze, like that of Tess, was only for the boy. “That’s him at uni,” he said. “Matriculation they call it. Jesus College, Oxford – studying theology of all things.”

“He’s a
religious
presenter?”

“Oh, this one ’ere ain’t Talent.” Proudly, Rod passed the picture to Tess. “Meet my son, Aaron.”

S
he went straight to Miller. He’d know what to do.

Truth was, Tess was scared. But she’d been scared before – lots of times (usually by things she’d done to herself). She knew the drill: Whenever life took a swerve, and her mistakes threatened to career off with her, Tess reached for Miller. He could stop a truck.

So where was he? Stood outside Goodge Street tube, Tess checked the time, and cursed delays on the Northern Line. She’d texted Miller, as she ran down the steps from the Rod Peacock Talent Agency.
Meet me at Goodge St tube, urgent.
He’d set off at once. Now she just had to wait: Her walk from Rod’s offices to the station had taken two minutes, but Miller would have to slog from her flat to Colliers Wood station, and then travel most of the Northern Line.

She checked the time again. Then checked over her shoulder – for what, she wasn’t sure. But one thing, she was learning: running scared was easy. Sticking it out hurt.

As the light of the day started to fade, Tess took comfort from the commuters moving round her, the tourists straggling up from the Tottenham Court Road. She hung out with a Big Issue seller for a bit, but he had to take off for an evening class. Rain fell. It turned cold. Blowing on her hands, Tess felt bad thoughts settle.

Seeing the picture of Aaron Peacock had been more than a shock. It had made things real.

Nonsense, obviously. As experiences went, you couldn’t get more visceral than digging a body out of the ground. Perhaps that was the problem. Jeenie’s corpse, the panic, the shock – everything about that storm-drenched dawn in Mrs Meakes’ garden had been…heightened. Horror made it surreal. The subsequent media storm had upturned Tess, and swept her along. She felt like
Alice Through the Looking Glass -
but with messier hair – more
Tess Through the Telly
. She’d stepped through the screen, and now she was lost, floundering – a dirty blonde in a world of grotesques.

Take today – she’d entered Fat Alan’s flat, and tumbled straight down a time tunnel. Then she’d entered the Rod Peacock Talent Agency, and found a hall of mirrors. False smiles on the walls, dreams kicked across the carpet, distortion ruled. So Tess had crashed, like a giant, past Rod’s stick-thin receptionist. Reaching his private office, she’d promptly shrunk like an ant under his shoe.

Then she’d looked into a very ordinary cabinet. She’d seen a bog-standard graduation photo, and watched it turn into a killer. In this world of craziness, where nothing stuck, and everyone faked it, the one, real, utterly banal thing was death. It may or may not have been Aaron Peacock who did it. But somehow, seeing the shy, sensitive but otherwise normal-looking, young man in that picture, she’d got it. As she stood on this darkening street corner, surrounded by human traffic, utterly alone, Jeenie’s killer was… somewhere. Adjusting the cuff of their sleeve, wiping a hair from their cheek, scratching their ankle where their sock tickled. They’d killed. They’d beaten Jeenie round the head, gagged her to the point of asphyxiation. They’d heaved her body through a small, suburban house, and thrown it into a muddy pit. Then they’d gone home. Made themselves a bit of supper maybe? Put a wash on? All that blood, though, maybe best burn them?

Tess shook herself. She didn’t like too much ‘real’. ‘Real’ had a habit of jumping out at you. Then smashing your teeth in.

“Malteser?”

“Miller.
Shit, you scared me.”

“Sorry.” Miller pushed back the hood of his duffle coat. His mop of black curls boinged out, reassuringly. “Tube took forever. What’s up?”

“I—”

“You’re pale.”

“I am?”

“Like a mushroom.” He leaned over her for a moment. “Yup, smell like one, too.”

“I—”

“You got hammered last night, Tessie. You haven’t eaten all day. And now you’re excited.” He regarded her from behind his spectacles, oblivious to the tourists trying to push past him to the entrance of Goodge Street station. “Something’s happened, I can tell. But I don’t want to hear it till you’ve had a bit of chicken. And perhaps… “ His eyebrows rose above his specs. “A little hangover poo? Just to clear the air?”

Bloody Miller, thought Tess. He had no sense of crisis. Ten minutes on, emerging from the toilets at the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Goodge Street, she was still cross with him. There was a killer at large. Who cared that he’d found them a table by a window – and treated them to a Family Bucket? They were on a case, for Christ’s sake, not a date. That said… when Miller insisted Tess take the seat without the sticky Coke stain on it, she accepted. And when he tucked his serviette round his neck, she grinned.

“I’ve got new information.” She took the bucket from him. “That guy in the photo with Jeenie – our mystery man? It’s Aaron Peacock,
Rod Peacock’s son.
”

She tore into a breaded drumstick. “Aaron was in love with Jeenie – obsessed with her – and Rod knew it.”

Miller shook his head, stunned. How
could
she ignore the gristly bit? The woman never ceased to amaze him. (But that was the trouble, wasn’t it? Even when she smelled like a mushroom). Sighing, Miller took the drumstick from Tess. Manfully, he applied himself both to chicken
and
Peacock. “Rod can’t have been happy,” he munched. “Discovering his son was mad about a monster. D’you think that’s why we found Rod at Jeenie’s flat? He was looking for Aaron?”

“He was looking for Aaron’s
letter
,” said Tess. “He must have known his son was writing to her – reproaching her. Rod couldn’t take any chances. IIIf the police found evidence of an unhappy love affair, Aaron Peacock would have gone straight into the frame for her murder.”

“Maybe,” said Miller. “Maybe not. We don’t know when the photo was taken, do we? Their thing could’ve ended ages ago”.

“Not for Aaron it didn’t. Jeenie could have dumped him months ago – but he wasn’t giving up, was he? Remember the guy Fergie caught following Jeenie? Just a couple of weeks ago.”

Miller nodded. “The description fits.”

“And
this
was sent just before her death.” From the pocket of her Puffa coat, Tess pulled out the romantic snapshot of Jeenie and a bearded man they now knew to be Aaron Peacock. Rod may have requisitioned his son’s letter, but he’d failed to secure the photographic proof of Aaron’s ill-judged passion.

I am your beginning and your end – and I
shall
come for you.

Tess recalled the bunch of lilies rotting on Jeenie’s coffee table. “Aaron’s obsession was very still very much alive, believe me.”

“I believe you. Good work, Ossifer.” Miller saluted her with his chicken. “What now?”

“We find Aaron.” Tess checked her phone for the time. “Strike that–
you
find Aaron. I’m due in the edit twenty minutes ago.”

She pushed away the bucket of chicken. Suddenly, her stomach had gone. Tomorrow morning at 10.15am, she was due to file her first report on
Live With.
Sandy Plimpton had made her brief clear: Tess was to update viewers on the police investigation into Jeenie Dempster’s death. She was to follow up with results of her
own
journalist investigation, culminating with her world-exclusive interview with ‘known stalker’, Alan Pattison. Sandy Plimpton may have been silenced at this morning’s police press conference, but it was a temporary gag. Tomorrow morning, she’d be back in studio – back on the
Live With
sofa. No-one could shut her up – least of all Tess.

In the time since leaving Rod Peacock’s office, Tess had already picked up several LOUD TEXTS from her Executive Producer demanding MORE DETAIL ON THE SYNCH YOU ARE PLANNING TO USE FOR THE ALAN PIECE. Having hired an edit suite off Berwick Street, Sandy wanted Tess to get round there–and start cutting together her report. YOU HAVE 12 HRS TO PULL TOGETHER A 3-MIN VT. THINK YOU CAN MANAGE IT?

Hearing her phone beep again, Tess opened up Sandy’s latest motivational text. YOU FUCK UP? I KILL
PARDON MY GARDEN.
THEN I TELL YOUR TEAM WHY.

“Shit,” said Miller. “How am
I
going to find Aaron?”

“By getting on the next train to Oxford.” Tess killed her phone, and silenced doubt. “We can do this.
You
can do this.” Rising up from the table, she handed Miller his duffel coat. “Trains go from Paddington, I’ve checked. Sit by a window, get off when the sign says
Oxford
. Find Jesus College and hunt down their star theology student.”

“Then what?”

“Sit on him until I can get there.”

Watching worry cloud his face, Tess spared Miller her latest piece of news. That hour she’d spent waiting at Goodge Street? She’d done more than delete Sandy’s texts. She’d also put in a call to Welsh Di, at the Backchat office. With
Pardon My Garden
still on hiatus, the stymied production manager had been happy to give up the gossip on Peacock and his personal life. Was Rod married, for starters?

“Not now, he’s not,” said Di. “She died. And can you blame her?”

There’d been no evidence however. No evidence of anything in fact. Mrs Peacock had died in mysterious circumstances—”Big hush-up, if you ask me, but nothing ever came to light.” Their son had been just a boy at the time. Rod had guarded Aaron’s privacy ever since. “Packed him off to one of those fancy boarding schools where they do faggin’ and can’t never take their nasty clothes off”,” said Di. Tess presumed she meant uniforms. “Mind you, a few years ago, there was a story going round…”

“Yes?”

“Aaron killed a cat. A kitten, it were – one of the other boys had snuck it in.”

“And Aaron
killed
it?”

“Sliced it open, I swear. Or did he fall in love with his teacher?” Di failed to decide. “Either way, the poor bugger was pulled out of school, and locked away with some creepy, God-squad, home tutor. Now you know me, Tess, I’m not one to spread gossip. But locked away all those years, with nuthin’ but Jesus and some felt-tip pens – it can’t have turned out pretty, can it?”

Tess had hung up on Di, feeling a shiver of anticipation. But everything looked different under the harsh lights of KFC. As she watched Miller shrug on his duffel coat, and prepare to hunt down Aaron, she panicked. “Be careful,” she said. “You’re big, but he’s bonkers. About Jeenie at least.” From the little they’d so far gleaned, Aaron Peacock was a lonely, inexperienced youth, who’d loved the murdered woman with a fierce intensity. “He could be dangerous when cornered.”

Miller nodded. He understood the risks. (Hadn’t he always with Tess?) “I’ll find him for you,” he said. “Whatever it takes.” Their eyes met across the table. Then he grabbed hold of her chicken. “You know I get hungry on trains. Best take the whole bucket”.