Fatal Act (10 page)

He shrugged and looked down at the cat.

G
eraldine looked at Jane, who was hovering by the door, and then back at Mr Porter.

‘We’re investigating the possibility that your daughter’s death may not have been an accident,’ she said gently.

Anna’s father gave no sign he had heard but, from the doorway, Geraldine heard Jane gasp. She glanced up. Jane was scowling.

‘Can’t you leave us alone?’ she hissed. ‘Haven’t we been through enough? First we lost my mother, and now this –’

‘Leave it, Jane,’ her father interrupted softly. ‘It’s not her fault. She’s just doing her job.’

H
e half rose to his feet, and gestured to Geraldine to take a seat. As he shifted, the cat slithered to the floor. It stalked out of the room with its tail held straight up in the air, brushing past Jane who was hovering in the doorway. Quietly, Geraldine explained that, unlikely as it seemed, there were grounds for suspecting the crash had not happened by accident. Anna’s father looked baffled. Jane took a step forward. She went and perched on the arm of her father’s chair, from where she reached out and put her hand on his sleeve. There was silence for a moment when Geraldine finished speaking. Then Mr Porter sat up. He sounded agitated.

‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Why would anyone want to hurt Anna?’

J
ane’s response was more measured.

‘Surely you can find out whose car drove into her.’

‘Yes, we know the owner of the other vehicle,’ Geraldine answered cautiously. ‘But we haven’t yet established who was driving it.’ She paused. ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Anna?’

‘No, of course not!’ Mr Porter snapped.

Geraldine turned to Jane.

‘How about you?’

‘Anna was a sweet girl,’ she replied promptly, ‘and popular, wasn’t she, dad? Only a maniac would want to drive her off the road.’

‘Oh, I don’t think the person we’re looking for is sane,’ Geraldine agreed.

S
he questioned them further. It seemed that, when she went to drama school, Anna had lost touch with the childhood friends her family had known. Her class at drama school had been a close-knit group but Jane and her father hadn’t met them. Jane shook her head.

‘We only saw them on stage, in their shows –’

‘Weird productions, most of them,’ her father interrupted. ‘I don’t remember many of their names, but you can look them up on the website.’

‘Did she have any particular friends?’

‘Yes, there was that boyfriend, what was his name? Derek?’

‘Dirk,’ Jane corrected her father.

‘Dirk, that’s it.’

Geraldine asked about him, and they told her what little they knew.

D
irk and Anna had been in a relationship in her final year at drama school. Dirk was also an acting student, in the year below her.

‘He seemed a pleasant enough boy,’ Mr Porter said.

‘He was a twit,’ Jane chipped in.

‘Yes, that’s true, but he was harmless. At least he wasn’t old enough to be her grandfather.’

Jane grunted. Clearly Anna’s family had not approved of twenty-two-year-old Anna living with a man in his mid-sixties. Geraldine didn’t blame them. Piers might not look or behave like a man in his sixties, but that didn’t alter the reality.

T
ired and dispirited, Geraldine made her way home. She didn’t have a long distance to travel, but the traffic was heavy. Thoroughly disgruntled by the time she arrived back at her flat, she was ready for a shower and a glass of wine. Refreshed and out of her work clothes, she changed her mind about the drink and brewed herself a pot of tea instead. She was trying to decide whether to take the evening off or press on with researching Piers, his son, and Anna’s ex-boyfriend, Dirk, when her phone rang. For an instant she thought it was Sam, but then she recognised the voice.

G
eraldine could tell that Celia thought she was making an excuse when she said she couldn’t talk just then because her dinner was burning on the hob. Undertaking to call Celia back as soon as she’d eaten, she rang off and turned her attention to the question of food. She was too tired to go out, and besides she would have to call Celia back soon. If her dinner really had been ready on the hob when they spoke, she had about half an hour to herself – an hour at the most.

E
xactly one hour later, she picked up the phone and settled down to listen to Celia nattering about her weekend. Geraldine lounged on her sofa sipping a glass of Chianti. She had decided to spoil herself after all, since she wouldn’t get much work done that evening now that she was on the phone to Celia. She smiled. For once, work could wait until the morning. She would only be going round in circles, driving herself crazy with incomplete pieces of information that made no sense whichever way she tried to put them together. She woke with a guilty start to the sound of Celia calling her name.

‘Are you there?’

‘Of course I’m here. You have my full attention,’ she lied.

But her half-waking dreams had taken her to the scene of a car crash where a dying girl had been on the point of revealing the name of her killer.

G
ERALDINE
TOOK
THE
N
ORTHERN
line to Euston station. She crossed the busy main Euston Road, passing Euston Square station, and walked south, along Gower Street. It was mid-morning on Tuesday and the street was buzzing with traffic: private cars, taxis, and the occasional bus looming over the rest of the vehicles, while cyclists nipped along the kerb. Weaving through the traffic, they took their lives in their hands. The pavement was busy too. Most of the pedestrians hurrying along were young. Glancing into one of the London medical colleges on her way past, Geraldine saw rows of students sitting on a wide stone staircase, waiting for lectures. More people in their early twenties were waiting at the bus stop. She passed impressive old buildings and reached the drama school, housed in a high stone-fronted building. Entering through gleaming doors, she approached a young woman seated at a desk. Pretty, in a generic kind of way, the woman had a swinging brunette pony tail and heavily made-up blue eyes. She greeted Geraldine with a practised smile, displaying perfect teeth.

‘I’m here to see a student called Dirk Goodbody.’

Geraldine waited while the receptionist checked through several schedules. The foyer looked as though it had just been painted, the wood flooring polished, chrome and glass windows gleaming in white walls.

F
inally the receptionist looked up with a smile.

‘Yes, he’s on this site today, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. He’s in rehearsal.’

‘I’d like to see him right now.’ Geraldine held up her warrant card. ‘We can have a quick chat here, or I can ask him to come to the police station, but that’s some distance away and it means he’ll be gone for the rest of the day.’

‘But –’

‘So perhaps a quick chat here would be best for everyone?’

It wasn’t a question.

‘Of course. He’s in rehearsal room B7. That’s up the stairs and turn left. It’s the third door.’

‘Thank you. Tell me,’ Geraldine added, ‘his name isn’t really Goodbody, is it?’

The receptionist grinned. ‘That’s his stage name. He chose it. His real name’s Dirk Goddard. The principal wasn’t too sure about Goodbody, but at least it’s memorable. And wait till you see him!’ She handed Geraldine a laminated visitor’s card. ‘Here, you’ll need this to swipe yourself in.’

W
alking along the ground floor corridor, Geraldine passed a notice board covered with flyers about upcoming productions, information about auditions and printed schedules of rehearsal times. The stairs led to a second corridor. She found rehearsal room B7 easily and knocked on the wooden door. There was no answer. The corridor was very quiet. She knocked again, more loudly, before opening the door. A surreal scene greeted her. A row of figures stood very upright, dressed in black, their faces concealed behind black masks crowned with blond wigs. In front of them were two figures dressed in white, with white masks and black wigs. The pair in front were poised, arms raised, as though about to engage in stylised physical combat. No one moved as an irate elderly man turned round. He was squat and bald, and wore an outlandish loose jacket that flapped like a cape when he moved.

‘This is a rehearsal!’ he screeched, as though Geraldine was interrupting a life and death medical procedure. ‘Leave the room!’

T
he old man’s eyes bulged with fury as Geraldine stepped forward and held up her identity card.

‘Is Dirk Goodbody here?’ she demanded, doing her best to sound authoritative.

‘Young woman, this is a rehearsal,’ the old man shouted back at her across the room.

‘I’m a police officer,’ she began but he interrupted her.

‘I don’t care if you’re the bloody Queen of England, you’re disturbing the rhythm of the performance. Please leave at once.’

‘I’m conducting a murder investigation,’ she interrupted him loudly, moving further into the room. ‘If you obstruct me in the execution of my duties, you’ll face criminal charges.’ She turned to the assembled cast who had remained completely still throughout the exchange, like statues. ‘Which of you is Dirk Goodbody?’

‘T
ake a break,’ the director growled, defeated. ‘Ten minutes.’

Immediately the drama students relaxed their posture. Stretching their arms and legs and rotating their heads, they began chatting quietly amongst themselves. One of the white clad figures removed his wig and mask and bounded over to Geraldine. In his twenties, he was strikingly good-looking and seemed to be bursting with energy. Tall and sturdily built, he flicked his long blond fringe out of his eyes with a leonine shake of his head as he spoke.

‘You wanted to see me?’

His voice was arresting, with an accent that smacked of Eton and Oxbridge. He smiled sadly at Geraldine, adding softly, ‘I take it this is about Anna?’

A
s he leaned towards Geraldine and gazed into her eyes, she could imagine Piers resenting the young man’s friendship with Anna.

‘Were you and she very close?’

He shrugged his broad shoulders.

‘I’m not sure what you mean by close. We were friends. But it’s a small world and people like to gossip. Everyone knows everyone else. There are always connections. Some of the students here keep in touch with some of the graduates from Anna’s year. A few of them are auditioning for a show Trevelyan’s involved in casting. He’s – he was – Anna’s boyfriend –’ He broke off and heaved a deep sigh. ‘Well, people talk, you know how it is in this business.’

‘No, I don’t. Tell me.’

‘Well, nothing’s secret for long.’

‘I guess it’s the same in any organisation, wherever you have a lot of people working together.’

‘You won’t find anywhere quite like this business,’ he assured her.

G
eraldine wondered whether he could have killed Anna, perhaps motivated by jealousy. He was certainly strong enough to have despatched her with one blow.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

‘It’s not easy to have a private conversation here, but we could perch in a corner of the bar. Come on, I could do with a drink, seeing as we’re on a break.’

Geraldine refrained from reminding him that she was actually working and he was being questioned in the course of a murder investigation. As a rule, people spoke more freely when they didn’t feel under pressure. Once they were arrested and charged, the situation changed but for now he was under no obligation to answer her questions. If she scared him, he might clam up. So far she didn’t think he had even realised she was checking him out as a potential suspect, although his nonchalance could be assumed. It was going to be hard establishing the truth from someone trained to lie about his identity.

N
o one else gave a second glance to the fit young man standing at the bar wearing only a skin tight white body stocking. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, Geraldine could see why the receptionist had grinned at his name. While Dirk bought himself a beer, Geraldine sat at a table in a corner of the bar and looked around a smartly decorated area, all white and chrome. A few young people were seated at a table on the far side of the room. At the bar a young boy with white blond hair was chatting to a tall skinny girl. There was an atmosphere of subdued activity, although nothing was happening. A few people were sitting around talking.

‘Tell me about Anna,’ Geraldine said when Dirk returned.

‘Are you sure I can’t get you a drink?’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

‘Oh, of course, you’re on duty.’

He nodded knowingly, as though they were somehow in cahoots. Geraldine stared blankly at him.

‘A
nna’s a great girl,’ he began cheerfully and then stopped, his eyes opening wide in an expression of shock which looked fake.

Geraldine watched the performance without commenting.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, ‘it’s so hard to take it in, that she’s really dead.’

Geraldine didn’t answer and was gratified to see that he looked unnerved by her silence. He took a gulp of his beer and wiped his lips on his sleeve.

‘What do you want to know?’ he asked at last, setting his glass down. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? Died in a car crash.’

‘Who told you that?’

He shrugged. ‘Everyone knows. It was in the papers. And, like I said, people talk.’ He sighed. ‘Poor Anna, she used to love seeing her name in the papers.’

‘W
hat was the nature of your relationship with the deceased?’

‘The deceased,’ he repeated solemnly. ‘God, it sounds so final, doesn’t it?’ He sighed theatrically. ‘We were friends. We were good friends.’

‘Were you in a relationship with her?’

‘You mean did we have sex? Yes. We got together in her last year here, when I was in my first year. She came straight here from school, but I went to uni first, and then I had a gap year.’

G
rowing expansive, Dirk told her about his trip to Africa, where he had spent time helping in an orphanage. He didn’t appear to be deliberately trying to convince her he was a decent person, incapable of violence. He simply liked talking about himself. Finally he returned to the subject of the dead woman.