Death on Daytime: A Tess Darling Mystery (The Tess Darling Mysteries) (6 page)

“They’ve been talking about Jeenie’s death all morning,” said Mrs Meakes. “Don’t have a jot of news. Look – now there’s that sweaty one, what’s his name?”

“Colin Pound,” said Tess. “He’s the studio chef. He’s usually beating eggs behind the Bakery Bar.”

“Not today he’s not,” said Mrs Meakes. “He’s on the sofa, look, chatting up viewers and going through their twats.”

“Tweets,” said Miller.

“Phooey, more like. None of these people actually knew Jeenie. So
what
if she was on their telly? Didn’t make her Mother Teresa.”

“Death though…” said Tess. “It gets to people.”

“It does that, love, you’re not wrong,” Mrs Meakes laughed. Then coughed. “Give us a push, lad,” she rattled. “I’m down the hall.”

Taking hold of the pensioner’s NHS wheelchair, Miller swung her out of the TV room. “Round the corner, thank you,” she directed him. “Then third room along on the right… here we are!” They entered her room. “Not much to look at, is it?”

“You think?” said Tess. Jeenie’s body lay across Mrs Meakes’ bed. Several times over.

“Good work,” said Miller. “You got the papers then.”

The length of Mrs Meakes’ mattress was covered in sheets of newsprint – today’s tabloids and broadsheets, all carrying pictures of the dead presenter. A few had used glossy publicity shots. Most, however, had blown up grainy stills from yesterday’s
Pardon My Garden –
the moment Gideon pulled Jeenie’s body from the ground – Tess bringing down the camera on top of it. “Following the case, are you?” asked Tess.

“I
have
got a bit gripped,” acknowledged Mrs Meakes. “But not a lot happens in this place, does there? They get out the bunting if someone so much as buys a stamp, don’t they, dears?”

Tess was so transfixed by the newspapers on the bed, it took her a second to realize the old lady was longer addressing her or Miller. Instead, she spoke to a clutch of photo frames arranged on her bedside table. Tess glanced at them briefly. An old, black and white wedding picture of Mr and Mrs Meakes shared a hinged frame with a more recent colour shot: the happy couple, shrivelled and shrunken but still hand in hand. The rest of the bedside table was taken up with a dusty, analogue radio, a fresh box of tissues and a smaller family picture: a delicate, oval frame a held a photo Tess guessed to have been taken back in the 70s. It had that pinkish tinge Tess associated with faded Kodak paper – and the pair in the picture were dressed like characters from
The Brady Bunch
– a mother and daughter with matching red hair and ruddy grins.

“All gone now, of course,” Mrs Meakes sighed. Pulling a sympathetic, ‘who’d be old?” face, Tess turned back to the headlines on the bed. She knew Miller would be kind, so she didn’t have to. Sure enough, she heard him say, “Go on,” like he meant it, (then start fiddling with the radio dial when she did).

“That’s my daughter – such a bonny thing – we lost her in a car crash over thirty years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” said Miller. “
And now the traffic
,” crackled Radio 3.

“Her husband cleared off, so Reg and I brought up her little girl as our own. That’s her in the picture, such a bonny thing.”

“
The M25 is jammed clockwise at Junction 8—”

“But she died too, soon enough. Six months ago, I lost Reg. You know, dear, I’ve had four police visits already since Monday.”

“
Four?
” Tess was in. “What did they tell you? Please, Mrs Meakes, if there was anything—”

“Vital Evidence, they said. They had to take it away. I said, ‘
Go ahead. Whatever it takes’
. It was like that when I got there, I told them, and…” She looked up at Tess. “
You
covered it up.”

“
Me?
” said Tess. “Covered up
what?
”

“My sofa. On the day you came to film. I saw, as soon as I arrived. You – or one of your nice production people – must have gone upstairs and fetched down my bedspread. Because there it was – spread over my sofa – protecting it from all that mud and mess.”

“But… I don’t get it…” Tess sat down on the bed. Newspaper crackled around her. “You got to Squarey Street
before
us. You let my crew in.”

“That’s right,” nodded Mrs Meakes. “Maggie – one of the carers here – a lovely girl – she wheeled me all the way to No.13. Wasn’t that nice of her? So early it was – but she knew I wanted to get things ship-shape before you arrived – oh dear, that doesn’t…” Realisation dawned. “If
you
didn’t cover my sofa, dear, who did?”

And what the hell had they been trying to hide? “Think, Mrs Meakes,” urged Tess. “When exactly
did
you get to Squarey Street?”

The old lady seemed to be tiring however, her head to nod. “Shall I go find Maggie?” said Tess. “She’ll know—”

She rallied. “Quarter to eight–I remember now–I looked at the clock above the window. That’s when I saw it.”

“What?”

“The window. In my kitchen. Where I used to stand and watch Reg digging his flowers—”

“But on Monday, Mrs Meakes, what did you see this
Monday
?”

“It had been smashed – the window – right by the latch. At the time, I just blamed the storm of course, but after…after that poor girl, I started thinking: what if it had been
forced?
You know…”

Mrs Meakes nodded across her newspaper-strewn bed – towards the room’s only bookcase. It was crammed with old Penguin paperbacks. Tess saw fusty thrillers by Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L Sayer. “I do like a good murder,” confessed the widow. And it always turns out to be the little things, doesn’t it? That crack the case. The police got quite excited.”

They did? Frowning at the rows ofwhodunnits, Tess let fiction blur, and tried to focus on facts. What if Mrs Meakes was right? What if an intruder
had
broken into Squarey Street? Instead of
following
Jeenie, the killer lay in wait. What terrible things had been done in that dark, deserted house? Had Jeenie fought… or begged?

Had she known she was about to die?

“Could you say all that again?” Tess asked quietly. “But on camera?”

“You mean…” Mrs Meakes’ hands fluttered up. “Film me?”

“We’ve been tasked with compiling a report for
Live With Sandy and Fergal,”
said Tess. “But if you’d find it too much –

“My dear” she clapped. “Just you try and stop me! Oh, I know this poor girl died and in such a way – but I’ve been reading these mysteries for years, and now here I am – in the middle of one – a proper one at that.” Her hands clasped; her breath caught. “This murder took cunning, my dear, the most devious kind.”

Tess believed her.
Shit,
she believed her. She could do this – she could –

“Stop,” said Miller. “Please.” He was still bent over the dial on Mrs Meakes’ radio, but now he was turning up the volume. “Listen.”

It took a second for Tess to tune out the crackle of static. Then she heard what sounded like the tail-end of a bulletin – local news, perhaps, or a talk station. “
Following evidence that Jeenie Dempster was being stalked prior to her death, police have arrested a fan seen frequently outside the building where she worked. Mr Pattison, aged 41, is unemployed and appeared visibly distressed when taken to Croydon Police Station for questioning.”

Miller’s eyes sought hers. Her stomach flipped.

“Crap,” she said. “They’ve got Fat Alan.”

C
roydon Police Station looked like a cross between an adult education college and the
Big Brother
house on eviction night, its mean windows and red brick walls lit up by flashbulbs and MAG lights. Reporters crowded on to a disabled ramp by the building’s main entrance. The road outside was jammed with press vehicles, Panda cars and Tess’ Fiat.

“Move it, you knackers!” she roared, as a Newsnight van cut in front of her. Yanking on her steering wheel, Tess tried to get out from behind – and almost clipped a paparazzo riding pillion on a motorbike. He flipped her the bird. She slammed on the brakes.

“It’s no good,” she said. “I’ll never get parked up in this. You’re going to have to go it alone, alright?”

“Alright.”

Craning round to the backseat, she watched Miller unzip his camera-bag. “Use the in-built mic, keep the angle wide, and get what you can,” she said. “Good luck.”

Armed with his camera, Miller climbed out of the car. Bravely, he faced the throng. Swiftly, he turned back. “What if someone tries to interview
me?
”

“Swing your camera at them,” she said. “And if it’s a reporter from Newsnight, aim for their teeth.” No-one cut up Tess and got home without their gums bleeding.

Hearing the news of Fat Alan’s arrest from Mrs Meakes’ radio had been a bad moment. Tess had sworn at the unexpected police brutality, and then cursed herself for not seeing it coming. Once Sandy Plimpton ‘revealed’ the existence of a stalker, his arrest had been inevitable. Alongside virulent Eczema and clinical obesity, Fat Alan suffered the terrible affliction of being Jeenie Dempster’s One and Only Fan.

Duties included waiting outside Backchat TV for the presenter’s autograph – which naturally Jeenie never gave – and helping the
Pardon My Garden
crew carry kit between their van and their office. (Having endowed Alan with the honorary title of ‘Freight Consultant’, Tess used him like a camel). In return for his labours, the team gave him endless cups of tea and heartwarming updates on Jeenie (‘today she smoked 7 fags and jabbed the soundman with a pen’). Occasionally, the kindly Welsh production manager Di passed Alan a cast-off from his idol – a muddy sock or nicotine-stained glove – which he took with tear-welling gratitude.

Faced with his obsessive devotion to their worthless presenter, Tess had felt a strange mixture of recoil and admiration: The man
was
undoubtedly unhinged, but soddit, at least he’d committed to a course of action. Who was
she
to say staking out a TV centre was a worse route to love than hurtling round nightclubs like a rum-fuelled dodgem with the brakes off?

While Tess had spent the past couple of years vulcanising her bumpers, however, Fat Alan was still soft as a lamb and as trusting as a puppy. Ushered into a police interrogation, he’d probably accept a murder charge in exchange for a go on their coffee machine. Put bluntly, he needed help. Unfortunately, Tess and Miller were the best he was going to get.

Having filmed Mrs Meakes’ piece to camera, they’d bid a swift farewell to the old widow – she was as keen as they to see Alan aided. Starting up the car, Tess had programmed ‘Croydon Police Station’ into the SatNav, while Miller called their
Pardon My Garden
production manager. If anyone knew what was going on, it was Welsh Di. (The fixers of the TV world, good production managers traded on gossip. If the budget only stretched to one camera and an overnight in a Travelodge, it cheered everyone up to know Dean from Factual had syphilis). Sure enough -

“It all kicked off after yesterday’s show,” Di’s voice sang from the speakerphone on Miller’s mobile. “The police were shut up with Sandy for hours. Then they started on me and Gideon, wanting to know if we’d tampered with Mrs Meakes’ sofa. Her
sofa?
Of all bloody things. Well, I told ’em we were too busy digging up bodies to fuss over the covers on a buggery couch, didn’t I?” She drew breath. “Then they got arsy and marched Fat Alan off.”

“To Croydon Police Station?”

“That’s the one. We
think
they kept him in overnight, poor sod, but what can I do? I’m stuck by ’ere, holding things together while Gideon breathes into a paper bag, so tell Tess, now she’s herself into an investigative reporter,” her voice pirouetted upwards. “To keep her bloody phone on!”

Fair point. As Miller pushed his way into the press throng, Tess pulled the car over, and rummaged in her Puffa jacket for her mobile. Turning it on, she found her mailbox full. Journalists wanted her story – but how had they got her number? Were they already hacking her phone? Making a mental note to stop ordering pizza as breakfast, Tess started deleting the wheedling requests for her story. She’d just killed a Daily Mail columnist at “Hello,” when a noise went up outside.

Tess wound down her window. Across the road, shouts and scuffles were presaging a movement behind the glass doors of the police station. Seconds later, a cordon of grim-faced officers ushered out a suspected killer in Green Flash plimsolls and a
Choose Life
T-shirt.

Fat Alan.

‘
Have they charged you?’ ‘How long had you harboured sexual feelings for Jeenie?’
yelled the tabloid press
. ‘Are your trousers ironic?’
queried a lady from Grazia.

Even from this distance, Tess could see Alan was shaking with terror. He clawed at the policemen to let him back inside. They were pushing him forward with thinly-concealed contempt when screams started to erupt from the press mob. At the foot of the disabled ramp, reporters were turning to flee. Those trapped higher up started scrabbling over the handrail or jumping from the top of the slope. Something was cutting a merciless swathe through the crowd towards the police station.

Heart pounding, Tess watched TV cameras topple from tripods and boom mics felled by a force of nature – one with preternatural strength and a duffle coat. Head down, toggles flying, Miller charged up the ramp towards Fat Alan.

“Miller!” she roared. But he couldn’t hear her. Of course not – he was on his own, wasn’t he?

She checked the road behind. A space had come clear by the kerb. Zipping up her Puffa, Tess formulated her exit strategy: Dump the car, walk rapidly to the nearest McDonald’s and hide her face in a Filet-O-Fish. Miller, Fat Alan, the police and the nation’s press could sort things out between them. She’d done enough hadn’t she? Retreat now, and she’d gain professional dignity, the respect of her father and an early night.

Miller? He’d be fine. As long as the police weren’t mean. Because mean people made him angry, and when Miller got angry –

“Oh, fuckit.” She fired up the car. The lane ahead was still clogged with traffic, but the on-coming lane was clear. She pulled into it, just as a double-decker bus came round the corner ahead. “Shit, shit, shit.”