Exit Stage Left (5 page)

‘I hope you catch whoever did it,’ said Jo Pimlott. ‘Such a nice man. He gave me two free tickets for the matinee on Saturday, but it’ll hardly be worth going now he’ll no longer be in it.’

I didn’t bother to tell her there wouldn’t be a performance at all on Saturday if the theatre manager’s predictions came true.

Back in the car, Dave phoned Colin Wilberforce with the credit card transaction details and asked him to get the holder’s name and address. Then he phoned Sebastian Weaver at the theatre and asked for Ruth Strickland’s address.

By the time he had prised those details from the disorganized Weaver, Wilberforce was back on.

‘The holder of the credit card is called John Walton, and he lives in Stockwell, guv,’ said Dave as he put his phone back in his pocket.

‘And I’ll bet he won’t be home until late.’

‘He might work at home,’ said Dave. ‘Worth a try.’

‘What about Ruth Strickland?’

‘Would you believe she called in sick, guv?’

‘Did she indeed?’ I found that interesting.

‘She lives in digs in Victoria,’ said Dave.

I laughed. ‘Poor old Weaver’s not having a lot of luck, is he? I hope for his sake that Miss Strickland has an understudy. We’ll try her first, and then we’ll have a go at Walton, just in case he’s at home.’

When we’d interviewed the twenty-five-year-old Ruth Strickland yesterday, she was already made up for her part as Miss Prism, and she’d struck me then as being quite plain. But seeing her today, even in figure-hugging jeans and a sweater, and her attractively bobbed black hair loose, I saw no reason to change that view. Although Fred Higgins, the stage-door keeper, had described her as being ‘quite a dish’, I think he may have needed new glasses. Perhaps she had hidden talents, and it wasn’t her acting ability that I had in mind.

‘Yes?’ For a moment or two, she failed to recognize us. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m sorry, do come in. We spoke yesterday when you were at the theatre.’

‘I understand from the manager that you’re not feeling well, Miss Strickland.’

‘It’s Ruth.’ She waved a hand at a settee. ‘Do sit down. I must admit that I wasn’t feeling too good this morning, but it was the shock of hearing about Lancelot’s death that rather knocked me sideways, I’m afraid. What an awful thing to have happened.’ She paused and touched her nose with a tissue: more of an affectation than a necessity, I thought. ‘Personally, I don’t go along with all this “the show must go on” nonsense. I just know I couldn’t have given of my best at this afternoon’s matinee, but I’m sure that my understudy will manage to take my place.’

‘It would appear that you were probably the last person to see Mr Foley alive, Ruth, apart from his killer,’ said Dave. ‘That’s why we’ve come to see you again.’

‘D’you mean that no one saw him after he left the theatre?’ Ruth Strickland contrived an expression of innocence, but then she is an actress. ‘I think I saw him talking to the woman who plays Lady Bracknell. That would have been—’

‘I’m talking about you and Mr Foley having supper together at Pimlott’s Bistro,’ said Dave, sharply interrupting Ruth Strickland’s fantasizing.

‘Oh, God! How did you know about that?’

Dave smiled disarmingly. ‘Because we’re detectives, Ruth. You were having an affair with Lancelot, weren’t you?’ He could always be relied upon to go straight for the jugular, and he couched his guess in terms that made it sound like a fact.

‘But I didn’t think anyone knew about us.’ The question clearly disconcerted Ruth, but she made a good showing of being quite coy.

‘You were seen kissing and embracing at the restaurant, just before Lancelot rushed off and left you to find your own way home.’ Dave was quite good at guesswork, and he was a shrewd judge of character. ‘And it’s not the first time you and he dined together. So, Miss Strickland, may we have the truth from now on?’

‘Heavens! If Debra gets to hear of this she’ll kill me.’

‘I’m afraid you haven’t kept up with events, Ruth,’ I said. ‘Lancelot had left his wife and was in a relationship with another woman. That’s probably why he dashed away; he was living with her. She’s the one who might want to pick a fight with you.’

‘Who is she?’ Ruth began to look quite distressed.

‘I’m not at liberty to say.’ I was not unduly concerned whether Ruth Strickland found out about Jane Lawless, but I didn’t want her confronting ‘the other woman’ and then perhaps comparing notes. Moreover, it served my ends to keep suspects apart for as long as possible. And right now, I hadn’t ruled anyone out.

‘How long had this affair with Lancelot been going on?’ Dave asked casually.

‘Er, about five weeks, I suppose.’ Ruth sniffed and dabbed her eyes again. ‘Maybe a bit longer.’

‘But it was just an affair, was it? Nothing more serious than that.’

‘It was serious. He was going to leave his wife when the time was right and marry me,’ said Ruth as the first tears began to roll down her cheeks. ‘That’s what he told me, but I didn’t know he’d already left her for someone else! I can’t believe he’d do a thing like that to me.’

‘And I suppose that, on that basis, you slept with him from time to time.’ Dave was quite relentless and ignored the tears, dismissing them as part of the character she had assumed for this little scene.

‘Yes,’ whispered Ruth, with another unconvincing sob.

‘Oh dear!’ Although Dave only uttered those two words, they were eloquent in their understanding of a young woman who’d been taken for a ride. Literally.

‘I don’t think we need to trouble you any more, Ruth,’ I said, ‘but as a matter of interest, d’you know if Lancelot was seeing any of the other girls in the cast?’

‘I’m sure he wasn’t. In fact, I didn’t think he was seeing anyone else at all.’ Ruth Strickland finally broke down and dissolved into real sobs.

We left her to her grief. She was just another girl who’d been seduced by an older married man with vague promises of marriage. She wouldn’t be the last.

But when the police had departed, Ruth Strickland dried her crocodile tears and smiled.
Well, Jane
Lawless
, she thought,
eat your heart out, because Lancelot told me that he’d leave all his money to me if ever anything happened to him.

Finally, she rang the theatre. ‘I’m feeling much better now, Sebastian,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right to appear tonight.’

D
etective Sergeant Lizanne Carpenter and Detective Constable Nicola Chance were both in their thirties and experienced CID officers. Lizanne had obtained a copy of the electoral roll for Chorley Street and thus had some idea of who lived where. Arriving fairly early, they had set about the task that DCI Brock had given them: gleaning as much information as possible about Debra Foley, by pretending to be interested in Lancelot.

But they met with little success. Most of the people who were at home had either not heard of Lancelot Foley or had heard of the murder through the medium of television, newspapers, tablets or the many social networking sites. Regrettably, nobody had anything to say that would get the police any closer to discovering who had murdered Foley.

It was not until half-past eleven when they called at twenty-seven Chorley Street, a house immediately opposite the one occupied by Debra and previously by the late Lancelot Foley, that, in Nicola’s words, they struck gold. But only after an initial misunderstanding.

The woman who answered the door of number twenty-seven was at the very least in her mid-seventies, if not older. Nevertheless, she was erect of stature, and her grey hair had been dragged back severely from her face and fashioned into a bun at the nape of her neck. She wore a rather shapeless grey woollen dress that reached almost to her ankles. Flat brogue shoes and wire-framed spectacles completed the picture of a woman who appeared to have strayed into the present day from another age.

‘Miss Dixey?’ asked Lizanne, looking up after referring to the voters’ list. There were two women called Dixey listed, and this must be one of them.

‘I’m
Thelma
Dixey,’ said the woman. The reason for the emphasis became clear when at that point another woman appeared behind her. This second woman was the image of Thelma, but a complete contrast in attire. She was stylishly dressed, wore make-up, red nail varnish and high-heeled shoes, and spectacles with designer frames. ‘And this is my sister Norma. We’re twins,’ Thelma added unnecessarily. ‘But don’t waste your time, my dear. We always vote Conservative, and we’ll do so in this by-election. Just you get along and persuade these other people to vote for that nice young Mister …’ She paused and turned to her sister. ‘What’s his name, Norma, dear?’

‘I don’t remember, Thelma, dear, but I’m sure he’ll make a good MP.’ Norma shook her head in despair at her failing memory. ‘I think he’s in Mr Churchill’s party.’

‘We’re police officers, Miss Dixey,’ said Lizanne, hoping to get to the point of their visit without too much delay. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Carpenter, and this is Detective Constable Chance. We’ve not come about the election.’

‘Oh, good gracious!’ exclaimed Thelma. ‘It’s such a cold day, and you look perished. You’d better come in and have a cup of tea. Come along, my dears.’

The two detectives followed the Dixey twins into a sitting room full of ageing furniture, and in which bric-a-brac and framed photographs occupied every available space. The windows had net curtains which, Lizanne suspected and hoped, would have been twitched frequently by the Dixey sisters.

‘Do sit down, my dears, and Norma will make some tea.’ Thelma glanced at her sister. ‘You’ll make the tea, won’t you, Norma, dear?’ She turned to Lizanne. ‘We’re both eighty-one, you know, but I’m her elder sister by four minutes. So she always does what I tell her.’ She smiled impishly. ‘Apart from when I tell her to stop dressing like a tart.’

‘We’re investigating a murder, Miss Dixey,’ Lizanne began, once Norma had left the room.

‘Oh dear, how terrible for you,’ said Thelma. ‘And you’re such nice young ladies, too.’

‘It’s the murder of Lancelot Foley,’ said Nicola.

‘Oh, surely not. D’you mean that nice young actor who lives opposite?’

‘Yes, that’s the one.’

‘And he’s been murdered, you say?’

‘Early yesterday morning in Chelsea.’

‘Really? But Chelsea’s such a nice neighbourhood. He told me once that he was in
The Importance of Being Earnest
. I love Oscar Wilde’s plays; such a clever young man. A terrible shame that he died in poverty. Or was it in Paris? Oh never mind.’

Norma came into the room with a large tea tray and put it down on a coffee table.

‘That was quick,’ said Lizanne.

‘We have one of those clever taps that dispenses boiling water,’ said Norma. ‘But you have to be careful otherwise you could scald yourself. Milk and sugar?’

‘These two young ladies are from the police, Norma,’ said Thelma.

‘I know that, Thelma. They told us that at the front door.’ Norma glanced at Lizanne. ‘I’m afraid my sister’s memory is going,’ she said.

‘It certainly is not,’ said Thelma vehemently. ‘Anyway, you couldn’t remember the name of our candidate. And that nice Mr Churchill you mentioned died years ago. You’d forgotten, hadn’t you? Anyway, never mind all that. This nice young lady’s just told me that that nice Mr Foley has been murdered.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Norma as she poured the tea and handed it round. ‘What a pity.’

‘So far we’re at a loss to know who was responsible for the murder,’ said Nicola, ‘and we were wondering if you could help at all, as you live opposite.’

‘As matter of fact we hadn’t seen him lately, and we were wondering whether perhaps he’d moved out,’ said Thelma. ‘But Mrs Foley is still there. She’s an actress, you know.’

‘Is she really?’ Lizanne hoped that by feigning ignorance of Debra Foley, the Dixey twins might be more forthcoming about her. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Oh yes, she’s on the West End stage, just like Mr Foley was. In fact, he told me that his wife was in the same play as he was.’

‘Have you ever spoken to his wife, to Mrs Foley?’

‘No, she’s a bit aloof, and she’s not all she makes out to be, you know,’ said Norma, butting in before Thelma could answer. ‘In fact, I think she’s a bit above herself.’

‘Really?’ said Lizanne.

‘Oh yes. I’ve seen her going out in the afternoons looking very dowdy and wearing sunglasses. But, being famous, I suppose she dresses like that because she doesn’t want to be recognized in the street. We’ve looked them both up on the Internet,’ added Norma, revealing that she and her sister were more up to date than was at first apparent. ‘Or was it on our iPads, Thelma?’

‘You did it on your laptop,’ said Norma, shaking her head.

‘How often does Mrs Foley go out dressed like that, Miss Dixey?’ asked Nicola.

‘Most afternoons, except Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. But only when I happen to be looking out of the window.’

‘Perhaps it’s something connected with the theatre,’ suggested Nicola, thinking that the Dixey twins probably spent most of their time looking out of the window. When they weren’t looking people up on the Internet. ‘Rehearsals, perhaps?’

‘But I told you that she’s in a play already, and you don’t have to keep rehearsing once the play is on, surely,’ said Norma.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Thelma. ‘You don’t keep on rehearsing.’

‘You don’t have to repeat everything I say,’ said Norma crossly. ‘I’m sure these nice young ladies heard it the first time.’

‘When you’ve seen her going out on those afternoons, Miss Dixey,’ said Lizanne, addressing Norma, ‘have you seen her return?’

‘No, never. I’ve no idea where she goes, but I suppose she goes on to the theatre from wherever she’s been. Mind you, on Wednesdays and Saturdays a taxi comes for her at about one o’clock, and she’s all dressed up on those occasions, but I suppose that’s when she’s going straight to the theatre. I think they have matinees on those days. Well, they did when we were girls, but we don’t go to the theatre any more.’

‘Thank you, ladies,’ said Lizanne. ‘You’ve been most helpful. And thank you for the tea.’

‘See the young ladies out, Norma,’ said Thelma, and poured herself another cup of tea.

‘Mr John Walton?’ I asked when we arrived at the flat in Stockwell where he lived. It was fortunate that he was in on a weekday mid-morning, but he told us later that he worked at home for most of the time.

‘Yes.’ Walton appeared to be very nervous, but I suppose two men at his door, one of whom was black, would cause a degree of uncertainty, especially in an area where there is a fairly high crime rate.

‘We’re police officers,’ I said, and Dave and I showed Walton our warrant cards.

‘What’s it about?’ Walton did not appear to be reassured; in fact, quite the opposite.

‘Perhaps we could come in rather than hold a discussion out here, Mr Walton,’ said Dave.

‘Oh, er, yes, of course. Please come in.’

The sitting room was not very large, and the four armchairs it contained seemed to fill it.

‘Hello.’ The young woman sitting in one of the armchairs was a curvaceous redhead with a low-cut blouse, which is probably why Lancelot Foley had responded so readily to her request for his autograph.

Dave and I introduced ourselves and explained that we were attached to the Murder Investigation Team.

‘Murder? Good heavens,’ said the young woman. She appeared to be about twenty or so, and John Walton wasn’t much older.

‘Oh, this is my partner, Selina Cork,’ said Walton somewhat belatedly. ‘But who’s been murdered?’

‘Lancelot Foley, the actor,’ I said.

‘Oh no!’ Selina Cork looked aghast. ‘When?’

‘You hadn’t heard about it?’

‘No, we hadn’t. We don’t watch the news very much,’ said Selina, who was already proving to be a stronger character than her partner. ‘We only saw him the day before yesterday. As a matter of fact he was in the same restaurant as John and me – Pimlott’s in Covent Garden – and I asked him for his autograph. I knew who he was, and it was a bit cheeky, really. I thought he’d bite my head off, but he was very nice and gave me a signed photograph of himself.’

‘Yes, we know all that,’ I said.

‘You do?’ Selina stared at me as though I possessed magical powers.

‘Yes, but what I’m interested in is whether you left Pimlott’s before or after Mr Foley.’

‘It was at the same time. But what struck me as strange is that he didn’t leave with the young lady he’d been dining with.’

‘Would you explain what you mean by that, Miss Cork?’

‘Well, I thought it was a bit odd, really. They’d been together, talking and laughing, and then when it was time to leave, Mr Foley went off on his own.’

‘Can you be sure?’ asked Dave. ‘Is it possible that he waited for the young lady outside?’

‘No, definitely not, did he, John?’

Walton gave his partner a weak smile. ‘I don’t know, sweetie. I don’t think so, but he might have done.’

‘Oh, really!’ scoffed Selina. ‘Sometimes I think you walk about with your eyes shut, John Walton. And to think you’re in advertising!’

I got the impression that John Walton and Selina Cork would not remain partners for much longer.

‘I saw Mr Foley rush off towards the Strand; almost running, he was.’

‘And the young woman was not with him?’

‘No, I didn’t see her again. As far as I know she stayed in the bistro.’

Beyond saying what a nice man Lancelot Foley was, neither Walton nor his partner had added anything to our pitifully small pile of evidence. To sum it up, Foley had been in the company of a young woman, but they had no idea who she was. Foley and his companion had seemed to be a normal couple and were deep in conversation the whole time they were there. Foley then left by himself and was last seen hurrying towards the Strand. I assumed that it was there that he picked up the taxi that took him to the end of Freshbrook Street.

I thanked them, and Dave and I left, doubtless leaving them with a topic of conversation that would last them for weeks.

That afternoon, I decided Dave and I would pay Lancelot Foley’s solicitor a visit.

The solicitor had his chambers on the first floor of an office block in Chancery Lane. The reception area was wood panelled and richly carpeted, a clear indication that this lawyer was expensive. But what lawyer isn’t?

A woman was seated in a commanding position behind a large desk. ‘May I help you?’ she asked. There was something in her voice that indicated that she held a fairly senior position in the organization. We later learned, however, that she was the senior partner’s secretary.

‘I should like to see the senior partner, please.’

‘Can you tell me what it’s about?’ The middle-aged secretary was obviously intent upon adopting the same obstructive attitude as some receptionists occasionally to be found in doctors’ surgeries. Her brown hair was pulled tightly back into a ponytail – a fashion that Dave described as a Croydon facelift – and she stared imperiously at us through horn-rimmed spectacles that I was cynical enough to think were worn for effect.

‘No,’ said Dave firmly. ‘It’s a confidential matter.’

‘He’s very busy at the moment,’ responded the secretary. ‘May I make an appointment for you?’ she asked. She scrolled up a page on her computer as though there were no alternative and afforded us a saccharine smile.

‘No,’ said Dave again, placing his hand on the woman’s desk and leaning forward menacingly. ‘We are police officers, and we’re conducting an enquiry into the murder of one of your firm’s clients. It’s imperative that we see his legal representative without delay.’

‘Oh!’ said the secretary, rising from her desk. She glanced nervously at a waiting client who had abandoned the
Times
crossword and was taking a great interest in the conversation. ‘One moment.’ She went through a heavy oak door, to emerge only seconds later. ‘Please come this way.’ She spoke sharply, clearly disappointed that her attempt at access control had been thwarted.

‘Cynthia tells me you’re from the police,’ said the smug, overweight man seated behind a vast desk. Unlike our beloved commander’s desk, there was nothing on this one save an intercom system, a desk tidy and one or two other bits and pieces, but nothing that seemed actually to be connected with work. ‘Something to do with the death of one of our clients. I presume you’re talking about the unfortunate demise of Mr Foley.’ He brushed at a speck on the lapel of his immaculate grey suit.

‘That’s correct,’ I said. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock, and this is Detective Sergeant Poole.’