The Final Curtain (37 page)

When she raised her head it was to say, ‘I couldn't have murdered her, not after everything we've been through.'

They cut through the brambles and scraped away the nettles to find their target.

Time and predation degrade a body in an interesting but predictable way. While soft tissue and flesh are consumed, bones, hair, clothes and objects remain. All is not obliterated.

Whatever he had been in life Hugo Hook was dreadful in death, a collection of bones, rags and a canvas bag which contained a little money – a ten-shilling note and half a crown, a rotted leather wallet and precious little else.

‘Meet Hugo Hook,' Joanna said slowly to the assembled officers and police surgeon. ‘Father to the most famous child actress of her time: Little Lily Butterfield.' She continued, ‘He was released from prison in nineteen sixty-five. Visited his daughter on set, hoping for some help from his own little girl now she was such a famous actress. But Timony, Freeman, everyone, wanted him out of the way. He was killed and his body pushed into the well.'

‘Who by?' It was Jason (bright) Spark who'd asked the question. Joanna drew in a deep breath. She needed to explain a few things to this young man. Plea bargaining, lesser charges, statements. She smiled at him. He may as well learn right now.

‘We don't know,' she said simply.

T
hree interview rooms. Two major crimes. Three suspects. A thousand questions.

As she had suspected, the remains of Hugo Hook had not revealed many secrets, even under Matthew Levin's competent hands. The bones showed signs of injury, sure, but it was perfectly possible that they had been sustained purely by falling down the well. If no one had found him he would have died from a broken neck. It was unlikely – the film set would have been buzzing with people on the days they were filming but maybe, just maybe, the person who'd pushed him got lucky and they'd all gone home. Matthew had held up a cracked vertebra almost as a trophy. ‘Broken neck,' he'd said, holding it aloft. ‘But not necessarily murder, Joanna. Nothing conclusive here.' He'd given a mischievous grin and added, ‘Sorry, darling.'

She couldn't quite conceal her smirk. He really did practically pull off the penitent look. But not quite. ‘Hmm,' she'd responded, not pleased but not really surprised either. She'd left the mortuary planning their next move. She could bluff it through, sure. She'd like to see James Freeman squirm – just a bit – for an hour or so. But she knew the CPS was not going to swallow this big fish. She might have Freeman in custody but she'd never get a confession out of him. And likewise, Diana Tong would be unlikely to testify against him because she couldn't incriminate him without involving herself. Getting in
right up to the neck
. But as Joanna approached the door to Interview Room 3, where Freeman was being held, she suddenly surprised Mike Korpanski by banging her forehead with the heel of her hand. ‘Of course,' she said. ‘Stupid. I'm stupid.' She grinned at Mike. ‘How can you bear to work with me?'

He made a face. ‘Don't really know, Jo,' he tried. ‘With difficulty?'

‘Mike,' she said, turning away from the door.

He looked to her for an explanation. And she tried one. ‘It's all too easy to put money into the equation and make that your motive, but I wonder …'

Korpanski simply stared.

‘Her memoirs.'

And there it was.

Chapter 7.

1965. Not a good year for Timony.

A nightmare. It was a nightmare. This horrid man came pushing and shoving his way on to the set. I can smell him now. Alcohol, dirty clothes
.

Joanna closed her eyes. She could almost hear Timony's voice, speaking in that high-pitched, girly voice.

He said he was my father. He can't be. That dreadful, horrible, vile thing cannot be my father. James took him away. And that was the end of that. He never bothered me again. Another display of a fan trying to claim they were related to me.

Except that he was.

‘Hmm,' Joanna thought. Freeman
took him away
… that was the end of that …
never bothered me again.
It was, at best, equivocal. No jury would convict on that. Particularly as Timony had come across as someone who fantasized, who was unreliable and had a history of repeatedly calling out the police. That stopped Joanna in her tracks. It was. It had been, she corrected, a set-up to discredit her character. The woman she had met had been excitable, yes, but lucid. The worm of this thought slid nauseatingly through her brain.

She summoned Jason Sparks and Danny Hesketh-Brown to her to her and gave them a task. Mobile phone records can be so informative. As was the information her team had found on their trip to Stuart's office. Now she was ready.

She and Korpanski would move from room to room, from question to question. From suspect to suspect, trying to play them one against another.

Hesketh-King was standing at the doorway, practically hopping from foot to foot. He had news. She listened. And took Renshaw next. He was the sort of person who deflates quickly when their lead is challenged. She and Korpanski settled themselves into their chairs. Joanna met his eyes and smiled. ‘I know James Freeman was one of your clients, and that there's been an increased amount of contact between you over the last few weeks, especially around the time of the incidents at Butterfield Farm. There's only one thing I don't know,' she said casually. ‘How much did he offer you?'

As she'd expected the question completely threw him. He had prepared himself for an onslaught. Not this. This had startled him. ‘What?'

‘We know that you were offered money to kill Timony, weren't you?'

‘Why would I do that, and risk my inheritance?'

‘Oh, come on, Stuart. A doting nephew set against a husband estranged for ten years? I'd say that gives you a fair old sporting chance of inheriting, plus the money you received to kill your adopted aunt. And once you had the memoirs, you could blackmail Freeman by threatening to send them to the publisher unless he paid you even more money. You'd end up being quite a rich man.'

He fell right into the trap. ‘
How
do you know?'

His solicitor practically swallowed his teeth.

Ye-es. And Joanna felt like giving a high five. As it was she simply turned and gave Mike a broad, triumphant smile.

Diana Tong was calm now, composed to the point of regal dignity. She eyed Joanna with absolute composure.

‘Two murders,' Joanna said, sitting down opposite her. ‘One killer.'

It surprised Diana. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Two murders?'

‘Timony and her father.'

Diana Tong licked her lips. ‘One killer,' she queried. ‘That's not possible.'

‘No? You, Mrs Tong, were nearest to the truth. You were the one,' Joanna said, holding up her index finger, ‘who knew the reason Timony had to die. But you couldn't quite bring yourself to destroy her autobiography, could you?'

‘I don't know what you mean,' Diana responded stiffly.

‘We know about Stuart, Diana. We know he murdered Timony, and you helped him. We spoke to him just now – we've as good as got a confession. It's over, Diana.'

Suddenly Diana Tong burst into tears, her stiff facade shattered. ‘I thought by persuading Timony not to go ahead and publish, Stuart would back off. But by then he was too keen to get his hands on the money. He was impatient waiting for Timony to change her will; he seemed to
need
money. He knew she was still married to Van Eelen, but thought he had a good chance of inheriting anyway.' She looked up in despair. ‘He's my son and I'd callously given him away because he didn't fit in with my lifestyle. How do you think I feel about that? I didn't have much of my own, so he searched elsewhere.' Then she appeared to feel the need to justify her actions. ‘Unearthing the past was too traumatic for Timony. She couldn't cope with it. She was never a strong woman and she didn't suffer, you know. I made sure of that. I slipped something into her drink. She slept right through. She would have known nothing about it.'

Joanna glanced across at Korpanski, who gave her a little nod. Her instinct had been correct. Diana Tong could not have caused her friend to suffer. While she had been unable to prevent Timony's murder she had done the next best thing: put her friend to sleep. It fitted together. There was only one more question that needed to be asked.

‘Are you prepared to testify?'

Freeman next. He looked tired and old. Defeated. She would have taken pity on him but when she recalled Timony's small, frightened face, lying still on the bed, she hardened her heart. ‘You've made a lot of money,' she said. ‘You're very wealthy.'

Freeman bowed his head as an admission.

‘But Butterfield Farm was your most successful project.'

Closing his eyes, Freeman nodded.

‘You couldn't bear for the real story to come out, could you? All the interviews, the dirty stories, the scandal, the complete disillusionment with your apparently perfect creation, not to mention your reputation, sullied for ever. So you had to get rid of her, just like you got rid of Hugo Hook. I suppose Diana's kept you up to date over the years?'

Again Freeman nodded. Hardly raising his head again but keeping it flopped down.

‘You knew the content of Timony's tome. Diana had told Stuart, who passed on the information. You knew about her dwindling finances, and best of all you knew she had a greedy adopted nephew, who was actually Diana's son. Gerald confided in you when Diana got pregnant. You knew that Diana would feel she had an obligation to help Stuart, having abandoned him when young.'

Again, Freeman nodded, a broken man.

‘At first you thought you could simply discredit her, didn't you, when Stuart got Diana to play silly tricks. But it didn't quite work, did it?' Joanna examined her fingernails. ‘It was never going to work, James.'

As he said nothing she continued, ‘And so you decided to promise Timony's adopted nephew a very tempting sum of money if he would simply liquidate your embarrassment. The memoirs would never be published.' She leaned forward.

‘We have your phone records,' she said. ‘Evidence of communication between you and Stuart Renshaw. You fool,' she said. ‘Didn't you ever think that Renshaw would keep the memoirs and blackmail you?'

Freeman simply stared at her.

‘The weak link was always going to be Diana Tong, torn between two people she felt obligated to. She didn't destroy Timony's work. She couldn't. She wouldn't. It's not possible, anyway. Not these days, with technology. And that, Mr Freeman, means that you are undone both for the past and the recent murder.'

He found some spirit then. ‘You'll never prove any of it,' he said, furious now, maybe sensing he had been tricked and had spilt too many beans. His solicitor put his hand on his arm to restrain his client. Freeman shook it off.

Again, Joanna smiled.

G
abriel Rush was already in his office and as Joanna walked into the station Sergeant Alderley met her and jerked his head to the left. ‘He wants to see you.'

‘Hmm.' Her job already threatened to become a little less pleasant. Rush was planted behind what she would always think of as Colclough's desk and he was watching her with narrowed eyes. He looked like the sort of copper who enjoyed
filling out forms
, someone who would love
protocol
and
methodology
, and
flow charts
,
budgets
and
reports.
She felt her optimism curl up inside her like a piece of stale bread.

‘I suppose I should congratulate you, Piercy?'

Don't strain yourself,
she thought
. It'd be nice but unexpected.

He just about managed it, squeezing the words out like pips from a lemon. ‘Well done,' he said tightly, without a note of enthusiasm.

And she answered with the obligatory, ‘Thank you, sir.'

‘An unusual case.'

‘Yes, sir.' She was missing Colclough already and he hadn't even had his leaving do.

‘So what next?'

‘We'll get Renshaw on a murder charge, Sir, and Freeman on conspiracy, but the payoff is that I don't think we'll get much to stick on Diana Tong.'

Rush tried to make a joke out of it. ‘Well,' he said, ‘as the song says: Two out of three isn't bad.'

It was all she could do to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

She returned to her office even more apprehensive about the future. ‘I'm going to take a few days off, she said, ‘play the happy housewife and keep my husband contented.'

‘Get out of Rush's way, you mean.'

‘No. Strive for marital bliss.'

Korpanski eyed her. ‘And how long do you think that'll last?'

She tried to make light of it. ‘I make it a policy never to answer a difficult question on an empty stomach and a sober mind. I think we should celebrate with lunch at the pub dead on twelve o'clock.' She smiled. ‘So we have four hours to get some work done.'

Matthew was home early too. As she parked her car she could see him looking around their garden, something in his hand. She watched him for a moment. Long-legged in chinos and a grey sweater, the light bouncing off his hair, which was never quite tidy. For a moment he appeared absorbed in the bulbs which coloured the garden – daffodils, tulips, some bluebells which had blown in from the churchyard and self-planted. He looked up, saw her, smiled and, when she reached him, slipped his arm around her. ‘We've a letter,' he said. ‘Looks like Caro's writing. And a London postmark.'

He handed it to her. A neat blue envelope. ‘I'll open it inside,' she said. ‘Brr. It's a bit cold.'