The Hero's Fall (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 14)

by Phillip Strang

‘The father?’

  ‘There’s no name on the birth certificate, and besides, it’s before Angus’s time, nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Even so, find out more about her, but not from the woman herself.’

  ***

  The news that the programme Angus Simmons and Tricia Warburton had co-hosted was to be cancelled, did not come as a shock to the pundits who followed such matters.

  Tricia Warburton was the first person Homicide contacted after the announcement.

  ‘The bastards,’ Tricia said as she sat in Challis Street.

  ‘What’s behind it?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘The bastards,’ Tricia repeated, the makeup askew, wearing a pair of jeans ripped at the knee, a blouse that was stained, her hair going in all directions.

  ‘Did you drive here?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You’ll not be driving home. You’re drunk.’

  ‘Just a couple.’

  ‘A couple of dozen. Hand over your car keys. We’ll make sure you get home safely. Drunk in charge of a vehicle won’t make your day any better.’

  ‘It can’t get any worse.’

  ‘Miss Warburton, it can,’ Isaac said. He didn’t feel inclined to be as agreeable as Wendy. What he needed was the truth, the reason behind her sacking. He intended to get it.

  Wendy put out her hand, receiving in return a set of keys. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘No problems, not now. How about black coffee?’

  ‘I could do with vodka, not coffee. Those bastards.’

  ‘Those bastards terminated your contract and your crew without a warning and an explanation. The most they said was a mealy-mouthed statement that due to financial restraints and the recent death, the man irreplaceable according to them, they had decided to break with Miss Warburton and her team. There’s more, but most of it is thanking you for your valued service, the usual jargon when you get shafted.’

  Isaac chose ‘shafted’ over ‘terminated’. It was a subtle attempt to show that he sympathised with the woman, empathic even, as he had been sidelined in the past, pushed to another department for no other reason than a commissioner who wanted his own man in charge of Homicide. For Isaac, the woman might be innocent of all sins, but for now, she was guilty of an error of judgement, an indiscretion or possibly a crime.

  ‘No more alcohol, Tricia,’ Wendy said. ‘You need sobering up, and what’s happened to you brings the focus onto you, what you know, what they suspected.’

  Wendy made a phone call. Five minutes later, Bridget entered the room. She carried a coffee for Tricia, as well as a plate of sandwiches. ‘I thought your visitor might be hungry,’ she said.

  ‘Not for me,’ Tricia said as she picked up one of the sandwiches. Her behaviour, alcohol aside, was erratic.

  Isaac bade his time as the coffee was drunk, the sandwiches eaten, and Tricia had taken time out to freshen up. Eventually, all three were ready, Tricia looking better than before, her hair brushed, lipstick applied.

  ‘Tricia, let’s go through the reason they terminated you, not this nonsense about financial constraints.’

  ‘They believe that Angus and I were pulling a stunt, that he was meant to pretend to fall, regain his grip and complete the climb.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Not totally.’

  ‘The truth is always the best,’ Isaac said.

  ‘The same as honesty is always the best policy. Well, let me tell you, it isn’t, never was, never will be.’

  ‘What do you mean? Was it a stunt gone wrong?’

  ‘Angus knew what he was doing. He could have been up that building in half the time. And if he had, he wouldn’t have been shot.’

  ‘Who else knew this?’

  ‘The film crew, no one else.’

  ‘Does senior management believe that someone passed on that information to the person who shot Angus?’

  ‘They don’t believe; they know it.’

  ‘Proof?’

  ‘Condemned at the altar of public opinion; pronounced guilty by social media, a pariah in the newspapers, my career over.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Talk to them, but they’ll tell you what I’m about to. They received an email, anonymous as they always are. Slagged me off, called me a conniving bitch, an adulterer, a murderer, and the crew with me, in collaboration.’

  ‘They took it seriously?’

  ‘Conspiracy theories don’t need proof, just enough people to believe the nonsense.’

  ‘You had a substantial following on Facebook,’ Wendy said.

  ‘I did. It served me well, raised my profile, but the public is fickle. By this time next week, my following, apart from the determined, the neurotic and those with their marriage proposals, will be gone, and no one, regardless of whether you find the murderer or not, will retract their condemnation. I’ll be forgotten, a nobody.’

  ‘Hardly a nobody,’ Wendy said. ‘Does other people’s opinion matter that much?’

  ‘To me, it does.’

  Isaac knew that Tricia Warburton was right, having had an experience of television and the viewing public in the past: another murder investigation, the suspected murder of a leading lady.

  He remembered the woman long after the case was closed, her eventual death resulting from a hit and run, the investigation swept under the carpet, a file long buried in the police vaults.

  ‘Did you see the email?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘I saw a printout.’

  ‘Do you know who it’s from?’

  ‘Anonymous. I thought I was clear about that.’

  ‘You were,’ Isaac said. ‘Could it be the actions not of a disgruntled fan, but someone astute, recognising gains to be made?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, not to me. My career is over.’

  Isaac felt like giving the woman a shake. Her state of mind, the creeping negativity, dramatically changed from her previous optimism.

  ‘Emails can be traced back to the source,’ Wendy said.

  ‘I don’t have it. You’ll need to talk to those who shafted me.’ The bitterness remained.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift home,’ Wendy said. ‘I’ll get someone to follow with your car. Tomorrow will be better.’

  Chapter 8

  Allan Baxter's death, a person that both Simmons and Hampton had climbed with, made the evening news. An avalanche earlier in the season than expected had buried him under a hundred feet of snow.

  Maddox Timberley, who had met Baxter, had been asked for comment, the closest person to the late Angus Simmons. A wonderful man, well respected and well-liked, especially by Angus, she had said.

  Wendy met with the woman later that day, received a different opinion.

  ‘Angus didn’t care for Allan, thought him a difficult man to work with, as well as he took chances sometimes. Not that I’d say that, would I?’

  Wendy understood the woman’s sensitivity. Nobody wanted to hear evil of a person after their death, except Hampton, but he was a man embittered by circumstance, a man condemned to loneliness and derision.

  ‘We’re no nearer to solving what happened on the building,’ Wendy said. ‘Not sure if we can trust Tricia Warburton, not certain if Angus wasn’t taking a risk.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Maddox said.

  ‘Ratings, all-important as you know. Not everybody would have approved of Angus climbing that building.’

  ‘Once Angus had decided, there would be no changing his mind, not that I mean he would be reckless. A meticulous planner, that was Angus, and as for what happened to Baxter, it wouldn’t have happened to him.’

  ‘He was in a similar position in Patagonia, climbing with Hampton.’

  ‘It’s not the same. If he had known about the possibility of an avalanche, Allan Baxter could have chosen to take the risk. If it had been Angus and there was an adverse report, he wouldn’t have gone, and climbing buildings for ratings, knowing there was an inherent risk, would have be
en unconscionable to him.’

  Wendy thought that Angus’s girlfriend was naïve. Simmons had enjoyed the limelight, the fame, the best seat in a restaurant, even the paparazzi snapping a shot of him and Maddox by the side of a swimming pool.

  Even though he had complained about the incident, it hadn’t harmed his career, nor Maddox’s, a photo shoot of her on a Caribbean beach one week later.

  ‘Maddox, you’ve met Mike Hampton?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘The accident was before my time, but Angus used to speak about him.’

  ‘Fondly?’

  ‘Always. It upset Angus that Mike was that way, and I know that he tried to make friends with him, even went out to his house once, got as far as the front door.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘I went down with Angus. At the door, a woman, not Hampton’s wife; Angus knew her, someone else, unpleasant.’

  ‘Did she introduce herself?’

  ‘If you mean, did she announce who she was, extend a hand in friendship?’

  ‘That would be the usual approach.’

  ‘She was offensive, started shouting at Angus, blaming him for her brother’s accident.’

  ‘Describe her?’

  ‘Rough, tattoos up both arms, her hair shaved close to the scalp, butch.’

  ‘Did Angus know her?’

  ‘Upset him, the sister’s manner, but as he said on the drive back to London, the black sheep of the family, trouble with the law, in jail a couple of times.’

  ‘Then why was she there? We’ve found no record of her, not with her brother or with Angus.’

  ‘With Mike the way he is now, I would have thought that was fairly obvious,’ Maddox said. ‘The man’s found an ally, another blackened heart.’

  ‘Hampton’s wife never mentioned the sister,’ Wendy said. ‘How long ago since you went there?’

  ‘Three months, no more. You don’t think…’

  ‘I think nothing, not yet, but we’ll need to check out this woman, find out why we haven’t heard about her before.’

  ***

  Isaac and Larry were at the television station at eight in the morning, security easing them through after a glance at their warrant cards. From outside, the building had looked austere, a style of post-war modernism, redbrick, metal-framed windows. Inside, the walls knocked out, the building transformed into modern and fresh-looking, contemporary art on the walls.

  ‘Chief Inspector Cook, Inspector Hill, pleased to meet you,’ a young woman said. ‘We’re expecting you. If you’d be so kind as to follow me. I’m Alison Glassop’.

  The woman glided them through a maze of corridors and into an elevator. She was public relations excellence without a blemish or a hair out of place, pearly-white teeth, the perfect complexion and poise.

  A boardroom at the top of the building, a view out over the city, a group of people standing, beaming smiles, hands extended. It was not what Isaac and Larry wanted. However, it showed the senior executives’ intent, their need to smother the negativity the station had attracted after Angus had died, the public relations disaster that had ensued after removing Tricia Warburton and the people she had worked with.

  ‘This is Bob Babbage,’ a gnome of a man, barely to Isaac’s shoulder, a pointed nose, downcast eyes, said. Isaac didn’t need to be told that the man making the introduction was Jerome Jaden, the chief executive officer and majority stockholder.

  ‘Bob’s our company lawyer,’ Jaden said. ‘He deals with any legal issues we have.’

  Unsaid, but Isaac knew he was there to stop Homicide from asking embarrassing questions, to prevent any of those in the boardroom saying anything prejudicial. Alison Glassop was the personable front of the company, Babbage was the hard-nose, not there for popularity or corporate conscience.

  Isaac shook Babbage’s hand, as did Larry. He was, Isaac knew, the main adversary in the room.

  Jaden moved along the line. A woman in her forties, elegantly dressed in jacket and trousers, carrying more weight than she should, her hair cut short, her appearance perfect. ‘I’m Karen Majors, head of sales. It’s a tragedy, losing Angus like that,’ she said.

  Babbage’s ears pricked as the woman spoke, ready to pounce if she digressed.

  Isaac imagined that the group had been versed in what could be said, what couldn’t: contrition, sympathy for the deceased, keep to the reason that Warburton and Simmons’s people were removed, breezed over with corporate jargon, executive decision, financial necessity, failing ratings. Babbage would have trained them well, annoying some, pleasing others, but as with a political party, unity when in public, dissension when not.

  ‘We never met him, but we’ve met his co-host on a few occasions, as well as his girlfriend,’ Isaac said.

  ‘If we discuss these items formally in sequence at the table, it would be more constructive,’ Babbage, attempting to maintain a casual manner, but failing, said.

  ‘It’s murder, Mr Babbage. Our discussions here today will be of our choosing,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Last but not least, our head of programming, Tom Taylor,’ Jaden said, attempting to defuse the tension.

  The man looked to be no older than thirty, the new broom brought in to sweep out the old. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said.

  To Larry, Taylor was the male counterpart of Alison Glassop, pearly-white teeth, perpetual smile, shallow.

  ‘It was you that sacked Tricia Warburton?’ Larry said.

  ‘Terminated, a corporate decision.’

  ‘Yes, that’s understood. But it was you that told her?’

  Babbage was on his feet, hovering close, his eyes darting from person to person.

  ‘Tom’s just taken over the position,’ Jaden said. ‘Unfortunately, we had to let go of the previous head of programming. A sad loss, but it was his time.’

  ‘First Tricia Warburton and then her crew, and now we hear that the previous head of programming has left the company. We’ll need to interview him,’ Isaac said.

  ‘That can be arranged.’

  Both police officers knew it would be, but only if the man had been versed in what to say.

  If the company wasn’t responsible for a man’s death, they were playing a dangerous game, which could backfire in their face. Attempting to protect the television company’s image in the face of a homicide investigation was not a wise move.

  In Isaac’s view, anything less than total honesty raised suspicion and indicated probable deception. Jaden, a man with a long history of television and radio company ownership, should have known that, but Babbage probably didn’t. And removing the head of programming at the same time as Tricia Warburton was suspicious.

  The meeting commenced with Isaac and Larry on one side of the large table, Babbage, Majors and Taylor on the other. Jerome Jaden sat at the head, his chair superior to the others’, a sure sign of powerplay, mine’s bigger than yours. Alison Glassop fussed around, a beaming smile, ensuring everyone had a cup of tea or a coffee, spending longer attending to Tom Taylor, a clear sign of more than a professional relationship.

  ‘Mr Jaden,’ Isaac said, once Alison had left the room, ‘Angus Simmons’s death is murder. Who and why remains a mystery, a mystery that hopefully, we can clear up today.’

  ‘Tragic,’ Jaden’s reply.

  ‘I believe that’s been said enough already.’

  Apart from Babbage, the sweet-talking charm offensive from those at the TV station had finished. Isaac knew there was a hard-nosed businessman behind Jaden’s façade, only interested in financial gain, not the viewing public or those who worked for him.

  ‘Very true.’ Jaden conceded the point.

  ‘Simmons fell due to a bullet to his upper back, although it did not impact with great force. Anything less, and he might have held on, but as we know, he didn’t.’

  ‘Are you suggesting suicide?’ Taylor asked.

  ‘Are you?’ Larry replied.

  ‘No,’ Taylor said, a nervous stutter.

  ‘Now that’s b
een cleared up,’ Isaac said. ‘We’ve been told that it was planned for one of the co-hosts to go. Correct?’ Isaac said.

  ‘I can confirm,’ Jaden said. ‘It’s not only us; other stations are doing the same. Advertising revenue is down.’

  ‘Signalling the eventual demise of television broadcasting as you would understand it.’

  ‘Change is inevitable. We are taking action, and besides, nothing is certain. There will always be a market for television. But of immediate concern is revenue, the lifeblood of this organisation. Karen’s done a sterling job, but she can’t work miracles. And as for this reduction of hosts, that is not a correct statement.’

  ‘I should have said one host if the ratings stabilised or reduced, two hosts if they increased, and from what you’ve said, that means more adventurous stunts, more risk, the probability that someone would do something stupid, which Simmons did. A sense of regret?’

  ‘No, why should there be? We didn’t condone or approve of what Angus did, and, I should say, with Tricia’s approval. All we said was that the ratings needed to improve, the advertising revenue to increase.’

  ‘Was that the responsibility of Angus and Tricia? Advertising revenue, ratings?’

  ‘It was. Angus had experience from his mountaineering exploits, knew how to get sponsors, and Tricia had worked in radio before. They weren’t asked to collect the money, only to ensure that the programme brought in the viewers and improved the ratings. And they had done a decent job, but the odds were against them, no doubt the reason Angus attempted that damn stupid climb. No different from when he and Hampton climbed that mountain.’

  ‘A mistake? You knew about it?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘It was before he worked for us. Not that we knew at the time, but we had to research Angus. We needed to check out if he was responsible, of good character. And we needed to get insurance for him, cover our backs if anything went wrong.’

  ‘Mr Jaden means professional diligence,’ Babbage said, miffed that the ‘cover our backs’ comment had got through.

  ‘I understand,’ Isaac said. ‘Corporate responsibility, all-important. What did you find?’

  ‘Angus Simmons wasn’t a risk-taker. Sure, he took on challenges which to us looked foolhardy, but he was a meticulous planner, well regarded in mountaineering circles. He was a good choice for a co-host.’