Murder Takes the Stage (26 page)

‘And we've got the Christmas list coming in soon,' Luke said. ‘I'll have to make other arrangements. Should I build temporary storage or hire other premises?'

She and Luke were still in the midst of this discussion when, of all people, Janie appeared. Georgia saw her through the window as her car drew up and groaned. What now? Janie looked nervous, glancing cautiously up at the window before she knocked on the door, as if she expected an iron portcullis to descend on her head.

‘I heard about the fire,' she said awkwardly when Georgia opened the door. ‘It's my day off, so I thought I might be able to help.'

And you might be able to drop in on Peter too, Georgia thought meanly. A natural enough hope on Janie's part, but today? Then, feeling ashamed, she put herself in Janie's shoes: wouldn't she be tempted to do just as Janie had done? Probably. She resigned herself to her fate, especially when she saw Luke retiring to the far office. The hint was taken.

‘You can come over to Medlars and help me have a cup of coffee. The rest of the gang have got iron rations here, but I could do with a break.'

‘I know I shouldn't have come,' Janie said, following her into the house, ‘as Peter and I have split up.'

‘On the contrary,' Georgia said as cheerily as she could. ‘It's kind of you. And I was very sorry about the split.' It was true enough. Peter had been distinctly grumpier since it had happened.

‘Don't be. It was my own fault, wanting too much too quickly. I was thinking of myself, not Peter, I suppose. Actually I came about something else, in addition to a genuine offer of help. I didn't feel I could go to Peter with it, so I thought I'd come to you.'

‘About Tom Watson?' Georgia asked guardedly, remembering their last chat.

‘No. About Rick.'

Her worst fears. How could she cope with this
now
? But she had to try. ‘We've still got no further. It's all been negative information so far.' Then seeing Janie's look of sympathy, Georgia tried to explain. ‘I feel as if I'm walking through cobwebs. Each time I make it through one, there's another to battle through. None of them goes anywhere.'

‘I felt like that after my mother's death. It was the shock, but in your case it must be different. The experience of now he's there, now he's not, but where is he?'

‘You're right.' Georgia looked at her in some astonishment. She'd never seen this side of Janie before.

‘About Rick,' Janie continued diffidently, ‘do you think you could be working the wrong way round? You're taking the story as told by Christine and trying to narrow down where they went and who this blonde lady could possibly be. I wondered if you should try it the other way up.'

Georgia was totally confused. This was getting more Kafka-ish every minute. ‘I don't understand.'

Janie tried again. ‘Think of the best Mozart performances—'

‘Which is what we've been doing.' Not again. They'd been through all this.

‘Yes. But you've been looking at Miss Blondie as she was when he vanished. Remember Rick's view of her – a
real
singer. Suppose she was the best – an exceptional person and singer. That means she would be going somewhere in her career. Of course a thousand things could have stopped her doing so, but suppose nothing did? Suppose she's right at the top of her profession now. She'd be in her mid thirties like Christine. Suppose she's another Janet Charing or Josephine Mantreau?'

Georgia sought to make sense of this. ‘But what then?'

‘Take the ball and run with it.'

‘You mean look at early photos of them and see if they have long blonde hair?' She seemed to be making heavy weather of this.

‘Why not?' Janie said. She flushed, as she must have sensed Georgia's disbelief. ‘Don't give up, that's all.'

‘Nor you,' Georgia found herself replying, and was rewarded by a smile.

‘Physician heal thyself?' Janie asked.

‘Why not? It's happened before.' Georgia had meant just to be polite but was surprisingly heartened.

‘Matthew Trent,' Peter was muttering as Georgia reached the office on Monday morning. Nearly the end of July and still no sign of any answers. Her father was hunched over Suspects Anonymous. ‘Why should he want to murder Tom Watson? Revenge? Highly unlikely. He's a man motivated by money, not emotions.'

‘I thought we had dismissed him as a suspect.'

‘Car business established 1972. I still think he's involved.'

‘With less foundation than the Loch Ness monster.'

‘You're very frivolous today. Perhaps this might appeal to you if you need evidence. Mike emailed a list of unidentified bodies that might fit our guidelines. This one caught my eye.' He pointed to his printout. ‘Barn fire with male body, near Margate, July 1975. Badly burnt. Never identified, presumed to be a vagrant. Farmer's employees all accounted for. No one missing locally. Fire due to arson. Culprit never found.'

Arson? That had an unpleasant ring of familiarity. ‘Any indications of suspicious death?' she asked. It did indeed sound on target. ‘Presumed overcome by fumes. And there, for my money,' Peter added soberly, ‘lies poor Bert Holmes.'

Arson? That had an unpleasant ring of familiarity. ‘Any indications of suspicious death?' she asked. It did indeed sound on target. ‘Presumed overcome by fumes. And there, for my money,' Peter added soberly, ‘lies poor Bert Holmes.'

THIRTEEN

‘
D
NA. That's what you're going to ask me, isn't it?' Peter asked soberly. He seemed as shaken as Georgia was at this possible, even probable, link between their missing clown and a burnt unidentified corpse.

‘Actually—' What she had been going to ask was whether the police had had any leads at all in identifying the body.

‘Checking DNA is a chicken and egg situation,' he interrupted. ‘Mike says if we get a definite link with its being Tom Watson, Thanet Area will put its hand deep in its pocket to go for exhumation and DNA check. But how do we get further if we can't start on the sure footing that it was Tom's body?'

‘We—'

‘Harold Staines is mixed up with this. That's for sure. The boss—'

‘Come off it.' It was her turn to interrupt. ‘I agree he's obviously involved, otherwise why the threats to us. But the boss? Quicksilver? He couldn't have been king of the London underworld
and
an up-and-coming West End producer.'

Peter looked injured. ‘I meant boss of
Waves Ahoy!
But now you come to mention it, why not of the Silver Gang too? You need money for West End productions, and Harold didn't hit the big time until well into the seventies.'

‘Problem,' Georgia retorted smartly. ‘He could hardly vanish as king of the underworld and pop up immediately as king of the theatre. Don't you think someone might have noticed?'

‘That,' Peter snarled, ‘is true. So we're back with Buck Dillon. He might be more inclined to talk to us now that we have this tentative link to Tom Watson's fate.'

‘Unless Buck himself was the Giant Rat organizer,' Georgia felt obliged to say.

Peter took his revenge. ‘Locally perhaps, in the nineteen fifties, but he couldn't have commuted to London as king of the underworld. Buck was living here all the time.'

‘That rules out Sandy Smith too for big boss. We're left with Harold very tentatively, and perhaps Matthew.'

‘You're wrong,' Peter instantly shot back. ‘Sandy was no longer in Broadstairs in the late fifties and sixties. He said he was travelling the country with seasonal shows, but we've no proof that he wasn't based in London – just as we've no proof of whether Matthew was. I
still
think he's involved.'

She sighed. ‘We've been over this ground before. Assuming he was sitting at that table in the Blue Parrot, when Pamela rang to tell Matthew about Tom's visit in 1975, he would just have lain low to avoid being recognized.'

Silence. Then: ‘Let's go back to Tom,' Peter said. ‘He returns to Broadstairs for his daughter's birthday on a mere whim.'

‘It happens.'

‘Feeble, but agreed.'

‘He also wants to tell her he really was innocent of Joan's murder, and even who he thinks the guilty party was.'

‘Pamela didn't mention that to us.'

‘Perhaps for good reason.'

‘Accepted.'

‘His mission also involved a visit to Micky. Why?'

‘To get Pamela's address?'

‘Wrong. Alison Robin's mum had kept in touch with Pamela. She would have told Tom her whereabouts and married name. And there could be another reason  . . .' He looked at her speculatively, and Georgia guessed where this was going.

‘I can't believe it,' she said firmly. ‘Micky was a family man—'

‘Who adored Joan. He wrote in his diary for sixteenth August “The day it happened”. Sparse words, but they surely indicate involvement to some degree – even as a murder suspect. Mavis didn't give Micky an alibi. He could have killed Joan through jealousy at finding his adored goddess had clay feet.'

Georgia shook her head. ‘I can't go with that theory. Ken would have winkled that out and his scoops would have stopped abruptly.'

‘The last one did. But,' Peter added, ‘I suppose I agree with you. But where do we stand on Sandy?'

‘He's a strong alibi for the time of Joan's death. And do you see Sandy tottering into town late at night to commit murder?'

‘No, but I could see that son-in-law of his doing it.'

‘Agreed, but why should he? Protecting his father-in-law? Weak.'

A pause. ‘Isn't there any way round that alibi? Why don't you tackle Mavis again? And make sure you ask about Micky.'

‘Do you want to come?'

‘No, I'll take Buck Dillon out to lunch if he's free. Let him know about the Margate vagrant. You know, Georgia, I can't help feeling we're missing something – the link that binds all this together. It's like that fox finial on your oast: we need a strong wind behind us to swing us round in the right direction.'

Georgia tracked Mavis down via her mobile to a local charity shop, where she said she was a volunteer. She found her on her own surrounded by black bags stuffed full of people's unwanted offerings. Unwanted on both sides, by the look of some of Mavis's piles.

‘I have to get this done, dearie,' Mavis informed her. ‘The van's coming for the stuff in an hour. Don't mind, do you?'

‘I could help,' Georgia suggested.

‘Offer accepted,' Mavis said promptly. ‘I'll be kind to you. You can sort the books. They need to be separated into rubbish, sellable rubbish and those worth a bob or two. We keep the sellable rubbish here and get shot of the other two piles.'

‘As good as done,' Georgia said promptly. She certainly had the easier option, looking at the vast array of offerings lying around. Nevertheless, it was hard to concentrate on the grey areas of whether a tatty paperback was really tatty and out of date, making it unsaleable, whilst trying not to lose sight of Tom Watson. In this cramped shop, surrounded by clothes, china and every manner of ornament, old records and videos, she found it hard to think of Mavis as a chorus-line dancer of yesteryear. She looked as if she had always been roly-poly and beaming. Fortunately there was no sign of a bottle today, so presumably that was only a leisure-time indulgence.

‘Now what can I do for you today?' Mavis asked at last.

‘Guess what.'

‘That's a no-brainer,' Mavis observed. ‘What's up this time?'

‘We think Tom might have been killed when he returned in the seventies.'

‘Sounds nasty. Pushed off a cliff, or did he jump?' Mavis was busily sorting her piles of clothes, but Georgia sensed she was more shaken than she appeared. ‘Poor old sod, Tom didn't deserve that, even if he did kill his wife. Who do you think killed him?'

It was a natural enough question, but it seemed to Georgia not to be as casual as it sounded.

‘Whoever killed Joan Watson would be the obvious answer.'

‘But you don't know who that was, do you? Not still thinking it could have been my David, are you? Anyway, he didn't get rid of Tom. He'd been dead three years by 1975. Killed by Elvis Presley and Bill Haley. Funny, if he'd hung on, I reckon he'd have had a comeback. You should have heard him—' There was a catch in Mavis's voice, and Georgia hastened to say:

‘No, not David, but the answer might lie in
Waves Ahoy!
So I wanted to double-check that Sandy was with you
all
the evening, first at the pub and then at your home, which would have taken the time past the point when the murder was reported and the police arrived.'

‘That's right,' Mavis agreed. ‘I can't help you, much as I'd like to. I know it was over fifty years ago, but when you have an evening like that, it tends to stick in your memory. Whatever else fades, it's glued on. So that – and the evening when my David died – won't go away. David gave the police the same evidence as me.'

‘And –' Georgia wondered how to put this – ‘you didn't forget something then. Perhaps, for example, Micky was more in the picture than he seems, and because—'

‘If you're asking,' Mavis cut in, ‘whether David and I glossed over something because we were all one big happy family at the show, forget it.'

‘They were your friends though.'

‘Micky yes, Sandy no, Harold was so-so. David and I both loathed Sandy Smith. Couldn't understand how Tom, Micky and Harold could work with him. David hated being in the same show as him, let alone having the amount of contact that poor old Tom did. He was a creep of the first order, David said. Shagging Joan, roping her into his nasty little smuggling ring.' She ignored Georgia's immediate reaction and swept on. ‘David said all the trouble in the show was down to him. He might look a jolly old gent now, but leopards and clowns never change their spots.'