The Final Curtain

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘She wouldn’t mind?’

  Colclough gave a loud guffaw. ‘Mind? She’ll love to reminisce. You’ll have more of a job keeping her quiet and getting away. She’s a widow, lives on her own – quite a chatterbox, you know. Elizabeth Gantry’s her name, married a guy called Bob Gantry. Nice bloke. He died a few years ago. Heart trouble. Poor old Lizzie. Lonely ever since.’

  ‘Do you have her address and a telephone number, sir? I should give her warning that I’m coming.’

  And so on that Tuesday afternoon, just as the sun sank behind the sharp crags of The Roaches, speckled by a few flurries of snowflakes, Joanna found herself outside a smart semi on the Buxton road out of Leek. It was almost one of the last houses in the town before the road climbed and climbed towards The Roaches and The Winking Man, a craggy outcrop in the shape of a man’s profile, which watched the bleak and empty scenery of the moorland without comment, except to wink at you as you passed.

  As she rang the bell she smothered a smile. Colclough’s sister? Things didn’t get weirder than that. She wondered if Elizabeth Gantry had the same bulldog jowls as her ‘little brother’. Or if she had the same beneficent attitude towards people.

  She looked around her. The place was neat and clean, the drive swept, the hedge clipped. Windows were polished and the paintwork fresh. The place had an air of brisk, efficient activity. In the drive stood a clean and polished four-year-old blue Ford Focus.

  Colclough’s sister opened the door to her first knock. She beamed at Joanna, a plump and smart-looking woman who looked much younger than her sixty-two years. Joanna looked for some family resemblance and found it in the perceptive twinkling eyes.

  ‘So you’re the famous Detective Inspector Piercy,’ she said in fine humour, pumping Joanna’s hand in a bone-cracking shake. ‘I’m so glad to meet you at last. I’ve heard a lot about you from my brother.’

  Joanna smiled, already warming towards her.

  Elizabeth rattled on. ‘He thinks the world of you, you know. You’re going to miss him when he finally retires.’

  Like thunder.

  Aloud Joanna said, ‘I certainly will.’

  ‘He rang and said he thought I might be able to help you with an enquiry. I’m completely intrigued. Let me make you a coffee and you can tell me how.’

  She bustled off into the kitchen and Joanna wandered into a neatly pristine sitting room strewn with framed photographs and dominated by a tall shelf of books. Joanna glanced along the shelves at the titles. It was an eclectic mix. Novels, ancient and modern, books on sewing and embroidery, Lyles Antiques Guide, books on nursing and midwifery, tropical diseases and gardening, as well as a peppering of bestsellers. When Elizabeth Gantry, née Colclough, returned with a tray of tea (in bone china mugs, Joanna noted with interest) she saw Joanna studying the titles. ‘I do like my books,’ she said, with the enthusiasm that she shared with her brother. ‘Trouble is I can’t bear to throw any of them away. Some of those I haven’t opened for years. But they make me feel comfortable. A home isn’t a home unless it has a few shelves of books, is it?’

  Joanna nodded.

  Elizabeth Gantry set the tray down. ‘Now do tell me how I can help you, Inspector Piercy, before I burst with curiosity.’

  ‘My name is Joanna. Please call me that, Mrs Gantry.’

  The blue eyes were still sparkling. ‘I will, if you’ll call me Elizabeth.’

  Joanna nodded again, aware that she must tread carefully. ‘Elizabeth’ might be Colclough’s big sister but that did not give her the right to information that only the police were privy to. She was still the general public.

  ‘I wanted to ask you about the TV series Butterfield Farm,’ Joanna said carefully, ‘which was on in the sixties.’

  Elizabeth’s blue eyes widened. ‘And now I’m even more intrigued. What on earth can a forty-year-old television series have to do with you today?’

  ‘One of the actresses in it lives near here and has been involved in a number of incidents.’

  Elizabeth Gantry’s eyes were wide open. ‘Who?’ she breathed.

  ‘She was a young girl then. Only eight years old when the show began. I understand she played the part of Lily Butterfield, the youngest daughter.’

  ‘Oh,’ Elizabeth gasped. ‘Not Timony Shore? My idol. I so wanted to be Lily Butterfield. She was so beautiful. Beautiful red hair that curled right down to her waist.’

  Joanna contrasted that with the bright, dyed mane of today.

  ‘But I thought TV …?’

  ‘You’re quite right, Inspector. TV was black and white but you could tell that Lily Butterfield had the most beautiful red hair. There were often pictures of her in the magazines. She was quite a celebrity. And she always wore spotless white pinnies and little white socks. It was on all through my childhood from when I was about ten. I loved Butterfield Farm. And particularly Lily. She could ride a horse like a cowboy and was really brave. In one episode there was a savage dog and she confronted him, soothing him with her words, until he licked her hand. She was all heart too. Kind to animals. In another episode there was a wounded fox. And the master of the hunt, a big bully of a man, was there on his tall horse brandishing a whip, and Lily stood her ground fearlessly, told him to go away and persuaded her daddy to take the fox to the vet’s. She was my heroine, Inspector. Not only beautiful but brave. I was devastated when she took some time off for …’ she smiled, ‘exhaustion.’ She did a sudden double take. ‘And you tell me she lives near here?’

  ‘Not in Leek, out in the Staffordshire Moorlands. In a farm that’s all on its own, named Butterfield. After the series, I expect.’

  Elizabeth nodded, then opened her mouth to speak again. This could go on for a very long time. Joanna interrupted quickly. ‘Was there an episode where there was a murder?’

  Elizabeth looked startled. ‘A murder? Oh, no. There was never a murder.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Oh, no. Not murder. That wouldn’t have been its style. In the early sixties people wanted to protect their children from reality. Whether it was the war or whatever, there was almost a conspiracy to protect children from unpleasantness.’ She frowned. ‘It’s funny. I’ve never really thought why things were as they were then but for certain they were different from today where parents appear to want the children – particularly daughters – to look, well, like …’ She couldn’t quite say the word. She gave Joanna an apologetic smile. ‘Well, grown up. Parents then wanted to keep their children children for ever.’ She gave an abstracted smile. ‘There was one episode where someone tried to steal some money and another when a cat was stuck down a well but one of Lily’s brothers, Sean, rescued it. Like most of my friends I was madly in love with Sean. He was a dish.’

  Joanna smothered a smile at the outdated slang.

  Elizabeth continued, ‘That episode was so exciting. He lowered himself down into the well and picked the cat up. The episode ended with the cat licking its way through a saucer of cream.’ She began to hum a tune.

  Ding dong, Joanna thought. She tried a long shot. ‘Was the cat a Burmese?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Colclough’s sister looked puzzled at the question. ‘Just an ordinary tabby. A mouse-catcher. Nothing posh like a Burmese.’

  So much for instinct.

  ‘The boys all liked the cattle rustling bits, particularly when Farmer Butterfield pushed the thief, an unpleasant rival called Amos Jones, backwards right into a cowpat that had been dropped by one of the very cows he’d been trying to steal. Everyone was roaring with laughter, particularly Arthur.’

  Joanna giggled at the image of Arthur, in short trousers, chuckling at this very appropriate punishment. Poetic justice, indeed.

  ‘Was there, at any time, any trouble towards Timony?’

  ‘There was,’ Colclough’s sister said. ‘You’ve probably heard about that mad man. He got right up to her, actually attacked her with a pair of scissors. He was sent to prison or a mental hospital or somewhere. It was horrible. Poor girl. She was only in her e
arly teens. She had some time off after that. I wondered if she’d ever come back. I think it really frightened her. But apart from that one isolated incident, everyone else just adored her.’

  If her stories are true, someone doesn’t any more, Joanna thought.

  ‘While she was away hundreds of people sent her cards and flowers and presents. I believe,’ Elizabeth continued, now well into her memories, ‘that Timony herself has, subsequently, had quite an eventful life.’

  ‘Yes.’ The words, eventful life, set Joanna thinking. If there was someone behind these minor occurrences surely the key was more likely to lie in her subsequently dramatic life rather than in her long-ago career as a child star? On the other hand, if these call-outs had no basis in fact but were the product of paranoia and an overactive imagination, the origin might well be the assault in her past. In which case, Timony Weeks needed not the police force but a counsellor.

  She stood up. Elizabeth did too, blushing a fierce red. ‘I don’t suppose …’ she began awkwardly. Wringing her hands, she said, ‘Could you? I mean, you wouldn’t get me Timony Shore’s autograph, would you? It’d mean so much to me.’ The words tumbled out in an embarrassed rush.

  The request embarrassed Joanna almost as much as Colclough’s sister but she nodded. ‘I’ll try,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you very much. I would so appreciate it.’

  She thanked Elizabeth Gantry for her help but at the door she hesitated. ‘Do you know anything more about Timony?’

  Colclough’s sister was unabashed at this exposure of her idol worship. ‘Lots. I followed her life and career for years. Right up until it folded. I was twenty-two by then. She had a very eventful life, my dear. Several husbands. There was a whiff of scandal about her, you know. Not surprising when you think how famous and beautiful she was. She married her screen father, Joab Butterfield, but I believe he died abroad, only a few years after they’d married.’ She frowned. ‘In tragic circumstances.’

  ‘A car accident,’ Joanna filled in, ‘in the States.’

  Elizabeth Gantry nodded. ‘And then there was this business with the “crazed fan”, as the newspapers called him. She went missing for quite a few months after that. Of course, the family kept talking about her on the show.’

  ‘Did they make up a storyline to cover her absence?’

  ‘Something about an aunt having broken her leg so saintly Lily acted as nursemaid.’

  Joanna smiled.

  ‘I was really worried that she wouldn’t come back – not ever. I think I even wrote in to the BBC.’

  ‘And?’ Joanna prompted curiously.

  ‘They wrote back thanking me for my concern and saying that she would be on screen again as soon as she was better, but that she’d been terribly upset by the assault and the subsequent court case.’ She caught herself up sharply. ‘Is that what’s happening now? Is that why you’re involved – another stalker?’

  I hope not!

  ‘We don’t know. It’s possible. We’re not sure whether Mrs Weeks is being a little imaginative or whether something really is going on. If there is it doesn’t appear to be too serious. Do you remember anything else?’

  Elizabeth was obviously trying to scrape something – anything – else up. Her eyes brightened. ‘When her first husband died it was in all the papers that she buried him wearing his best pinstriped suit and a Rolex watch. What do you think of that?’

  What did Joanna think of that? She wasn’t quite sure, except that it gave her a very creepy feeling. Which compounded as Elizabeth spoke her next sentence. ‘I said to Arthur that it must be worth thousands – I hoped someone didn’t dig him up and nick it.’ She gave a cackle of laughter. Joanna did not join in.

  ‘Is there anything else, Elizabeth?’

  ‘No-oo, I don’t think so.’ She looked disappointed. ‘Well,’ she said brightly. ‘I could go on all day about Butterfield. But somehow …’ again the eyes sparkled with mischief, ‘I don’t think you’ve got all day to listen.’

  ‘No.’ But through the reminiscences Joanna was seeing a faint glimmer of light. ‘Do you know anything about Timony’s illness? What sort of illness was it? Mental illness?’

  Elizabeth Gantry’s frown deepened and she looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t know,’ she said with some surprise. ‘The press wasn’t as intrusive then as it is now. I don’t think the details were ever released. She simply vanished from view for a few months. That’s all I know. The public understanding was that she was traumatized by the assault. And, as I said, that was the line the BBC put out.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Sometime in the mid-sixties.’

  ‘So Timony was fourteen?’

  ‘I think she was only thirteen.’ She hesitated. ‘She seemed different when she came back.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Her manner. Before she had seemed to fizz. She always jumping up and down, screeching with excitement over something or other. When she came back she seemed older, not quite so excitable. I don’t know.’ She smiled. ‘Maybe it was I who had got older.’

  ‘Yes. Maybe. Elizabeth,’ Joanna finished slowly, ‘if I think of any other questions I want to ask would you mind if I came back?’

  ‘Not at all. I’d be delighted. I’ll get my scrapbook out ready next time.’

  Privately Joanna hoped that this would not be necessary and that she had heard the last of Timony Weeks’ eventful life. She wanted to get back to real-life policing. Real crimes – not imagined ones. And if Timony did call them out again next time she would like some hard evidence. Fag ash was just that little bit too insubstantial.

  They shook hands and Joanna left.

  When she arrived back at the station Korpanski handed her a sheet of paper. How easy it is to find out anything about a person, particularly when they have a criminal record. Here it was. Name, address, car registration number, mobile phone number, credit card details and police criminal record. Sol Brannigan had served time and was currently out. Joanna read on. He appeared to have had a penchant for Grievous Bodily Harm x 3 and Armed Robbery x 2. He had married Timony while out on bail for the first of these charges and served a few prison sentences – never quite as long as they ought to have been. But he had never killed anyone and it appeared he had a few advantages which would have stood him in good stead with judge and jury. He was intelligent, had a silver tongue and appealing manner and, with his ill-gotten gains, could usually afford good counsel. Usually the excuses dreamed up by the accused are so lame as to need running blades but Brannigan had not done the ‘just passing’ one or pretended he had simply ‘found’ the stolen goods. Oh, no, his stories were full of people who could hardly be traced but were often tracked down to some Eastern bloc country. He had covered his paper trail, vaporized witnesses – except the ones who poured doubt on the prosecution, used tortuous methods of banking and managed cash flow so the juries were foxed. Hence the light sentences. Nothing could be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Brannigan had been convicted on, in the judges’ words, ‘the strongest suspicion’ and ‘unavoidable conclusion’. But in the jurors’ minds the little seeds of doubt had been sown, ready to sprout like weeds in the cracks of a pavement.

  So Brannigan was clever and he came over well in the courtroom.

  He was also … Joanna studied the mugshot … very good-looking, in an Italian style. Black hair and dark eyes, whose power stared out of the photograph, and full, mocking lips.

  There was the confidence of a man who had organized crime propping him up.

  Joanna read the pages through a couple of times, then said, ‘Thanks, Mike. He looks a nasty and dangerous piece of work.’

  Korpanski shifted the observation into a question. ‘So can you really see him travelling all the way up to Staffordshire just to play those stupid tricks on his ex-wife?’

  She looked at the face again and shook her head. ‘He’s certainly clever and devious enough, but no. He’s more likely to ring her every now and again whe
n he’s a bit short of money. She’s helped him before; why would he take her refusal seriously now? But he hasn’t even been in contact recently.’

  ‘He’d ring her, like he’s done in the past, if he had money problems.’

  She came to a decision. ‘My feeling exactly. We do nothing further, Mike. No more investigations or questions. We drop the case.’

  Korpanski’s response was a huge grin. ‘You know what,’ he said, ‘I just might take Fran out to the Belgian Bar to celebrate.’

  Even though it was now dark outside she felt lighter too for having made a decision.

  And yet …

  It might be only seven o’clock but it was densely dark outside, the street lamps shining fuzzy orange, and she could feel the cold even in the car with the heater turned full up. But she decided to take the road home through the moorlands, knowing it was the road which would take her along the ridge above Butterfield Farm.

  For one last time, she told herself.

  Maybe it was Colclough’s sister’s obvious heroine worship of the ex-star but she was still curious about Timony Weeks. It was possible that the months away from the set had been spent in a mental hospital. Maybe she had had a nervous breakdown. She wished plenty of things: that the well did not sit quite so prominently in the front of the house, because it conjured up an image of something – or someone – falling down it. Even if it was only a cat. She wished too that the house had not been named after a long-defunct soap. For some stupid reason she even wished that the cat with the snooty disposition and the exotic name had not been missing. And she wished too that Timony had not mentioned a murder which everyone else appeared to have forgotten. Certainly Diana seemed to know nothing about it.

  It was still and starry as she reached the top of the ridge and looked down on the house. There were a few outside lights on but otherwise no sign of life at all around the property. If Timony was inside she must have all the curtains tightly drawn. Joanna couldn’t even see how many cars were in the drive – if any. She opened the car window to listen and heard music being played very faintly. A strumming Spanish guitar, a little like the signature tune of a Western. It sounded strange and foreign floating on the still night air. Then she froze, for a moment, because she heard a shriek. She waited and heard it again, an agonized, animal sound. And then a fox trotted towards her and Joanna turned for home.