The Final Curtain

by Priscilla Masters

  Anyway, she liked working with DS Hannah Beardmore. The soft voice and gentle nature of the DS would be a welcome change from Korpanski’s fiery questions. Even considering the assaults on the animals he’d made it quite clear he found her interest prurient, claiming it had become an obsession, her questions irrelevant and repetitive, her interest in the sixties soap odd, and the repeated visits a complete overreaction to a handful of happenings and the animals’ sad fates. But the drum beat constantly in Joanna’s mind was, What next? What next? What next? Where do the roots of all this attention lie? Who is the intended victim here, what is the intended outcome? As the events compounded was something more serious lurking around the corner, something she could and should prevent? And the main question: who was behind it?

  There was desperation in Diana Tong’s eyes as she pulled the door open even before they had had a chance to knock. She must have been watching the lane, perhaps sensing that someone from Leek Police would visit today. ‘We tried,’ she said softly. ‘We did try to escape, get away. But we were pulled back by the burglary.’ Her eyes skittered around the garden, rested a while on the tape that fluttered around the well. ‘We just had to return.’ She put her face close to Joanna’s. ‘I am not a fanciful woman, Inspector,’ she said, her mouth quivering slightly, ‘but I have a feeling that a trap is being set. There is an atmosphere of evil around here, enveloping Butterfield in a poisonous smog. Someone is …’ She frowned and thought but she couldn’t find the words. ‘And they will win. You understand? They – will – win.’ She stood back, flat against the door. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.

  Joanna had the feeling that Timony had taken or been given a tranquillizer. Either that or she had drowned her sorrows in alcohol. Or maybe a bit of both. ‘Finished,’ she said without further explanation. Her speech was slurred, her laptop on her desk. She was rubbing her temples and staring down at the screen. As she registered Joanna’s arrival her eyes were bloodshot and her gait, when she rose to greet them, was unsteady. She must have realized that Joanna was looking at her with suspicion and cognition because she quickly apologized for her state. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so upset. First Tuptim and now this.’ Her tears started to flow and she reached for a tissue. ‘Tuptim was my child,’ she said finally. ‘My family. The only thing that loved me. My beautiful, beautiful pet.’

  Diana Tong hovered in the background, still looking anxious but adding nothing. Joanna might have expected her to intervene, contradict her employer’s statement, assure Timony that she would always have her. But of course, the relationship between the two women was much more complicated than that. Diana was watching Timony with a look of despair, as though she were a hopeless case, as though she did not know quite what to do with her.

  Joanna stopped herself from saying that she could always get another cat to love her. Even she, who was no cat lover, realized that this would appear as insensitive as telling a woman who has just miscarried that she can always have another baby. The comparison caused her heart to skip an extra beat as she recalled her own miscarriage a few years ago.

  Hannah Beardmore was already sitting with her arm around the actress, soothing her with words, the equivalent of ‘There, there.’ Given the sensitivity of the situation Joanna was extra glad that she had brought the DS rather than Korpanski. He would have contributed precisely zero sympathy. This was exactly what was needed here, a little bit of kindness.

  ‘It was only a badger that was down your well,’ she said. ‘He was almost certainly already dead when his body was deposited there.’

  No reaction from either woman. No by whom?

  She continued. ‘And the other was a wig.’ She fixed her gaze on Timony Weeks’ head. ‘Red hair,’ she said. ‘Just like …’

  For the first time ever Timony Weeks looked embarrassed. ‘Sometimes,’ she began, swallowed, and spoke again, ‘if I don’t get to a hairdresser …’

  ‘What she’s trying to say,’ Diana snapped, ‘is that she sometimes wears a wig when her hair’s a mess. It belonged to her.’

  Behind her Joanna heard a tiny snort. She didn’t turn around and meet her sergeant’s eyes or she would have joined her. Instead she drew in a deep breath. ‘When we’ve checked that it doesn’t hold any significant forensic evidence we’ll return it to you,’ she said.

  Timony was shaking her head. ‘No, don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t want it back.’

  Joanna should have pointed out that it was her property, and that she should sign a disclaimer if she didn’t want it returned, but she desisted.

  Diana still watched from the doorway. No offer of tea or coffee. But Joanna sensed that her attention was not focused on either her or DS Hannah Beardmore. All her attention was concentrated on her friend, her employer. She was looking at her with such a look of pity as would have melted a granite heart. Joanna watched and realized that she actually knew very little about these women’s personal history besides the essential facts. What glued them together? Diana Tong had another house, lived elsewhere, was or had been married. Family? All she knew about Timony was in the public domain. She could have gathered it all from a newspaper over the years. But Diana Tong was a closed book.

  A secret. Maybe it was time to find out a little more.

  She decided to start at the beginning, even if that meant covering some of the details Mike had already gleaned when he’d interviewed Diana. ‘How long have you two been together?’ She dropped the question into the room and wondered why Diana Tong’s face looked at her now with respect, as though she had been wondering when the police would get around to asking these pertinent questions. She made no reference to her conversation with Mike.

  ‘Years,’ she said, entering the room now and, with a quick glance at Timony, sitting down on the sofa. At ease. ‘I was Timony’s wardrobe mistress from the mid-sixties. I had been …’ She looked a little sheepish. ‘I’d been quite a fan of Butterfield Farm from when it started. In nineteen sixty-four they were looking for someone to take over as Timony’s guardian and I was lucky enough to get my dream job.’ She smiled. ‘Timony interviewed me herself and we hit it off right away. From then on I was her wardrobe mistress, personal secretary and sometimes bodyguard.’

  ‘You were there when the fan assaulted her?’

  There was a quick look between the two women, as though each was checking her story against the other’s. ‘I wasn’t there that night,’ Diana said carefully. ‘Timony had another escort to and from the studio as well as a chauffeur, so she didn’t really need me. I wasn’t there,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You were there at the time of her first marriage,’ Joanna proceeded conversationally, ‘to Gerald?’ Joanna was aware that DS Beardmore was taking all this down in note form.

  Timony’s face grew sentimental. ‘Gerald,’ she said, ‘was my first real love.’

  Joanna watched her carefully. True? Or false? She directed her next question to Diana Tong.

  ‘And what did you think of Gerald?’

  Diana Tong was startled by the question. She had not expected this. Her eyes looked a little panicked. Then she quickly recovered herself. ‘He was,’ she said, ‘a perfect gentleman.’

  Timony looked pleased with the answer.

  Joanna was not so sure. ‘Two of Timony’s husbands are still alive,’ she continued. ‘We wondered whether …’

  ‘Possibly three,’ Diana corrected.

  ‘Remind me,’ Joanna said. ‘Husband number two?’

  ‘Sol Brannigan,’ Timony inserted. ‘We were hardly together.’ A quick glance at Diana for confirmation. ‘Were we? I don’t know why he married me. For a bet, I sometimes thought. He began so charming, so attentive, and ended up completely not caring. He also stole from me,’ she sighed, ‘to fund his gambling habit, I suppose, which doesn’t excuse his thieving.’ She lay back on the sofa, arms outstretched. ‘I was glad to see the back of him, truth be known.’ Her young face looked tired. ‘He frightened me. I never could prove it
but I always believed that some of the money he splashed around was the proceeds of organized crime. I told you he was a gangster. I knew for a fact that he had guns in our house during the brief time we were together. Strange people used to call at odd times of the day or night. And always I would be ordered out of the room. They threatened me never to listen at the door or pick up the phone during a conversation and eavesdrop. I felt very threatened and it was something he enjoyed.’ She half closed her eyes. ‘He loved having power over people.’ Her eyes flicked wide open as though she was baring her soul. ‘If you want my opinion these … tricks … and the cruelty towards Tuptim fit in with his character all too well. He liked to irritate and intimidate me. Blowing cigarette smoke into the kitchen was typical of Sol.’ She paused. Smiled. ‘And then along came Robert Weeks. So unfortunate he was actually married to my friend, Carmen.’ She gave a wicked smile. ‘But then I’m not the sort to let another woman stand in my way. He fell in love with me,’ she said, as though trying to convince her audience to believe this story. ‘Robert Weeks. Absolutely lovely. Gorgeous-looking. Terrific actor. He’d hoped eventually to be a director. We married in ’seventy-seven and were happy. We had almost thirteen good years together but, cruelly, cancer took him from me.’ Her words might be clichéd theatre but Joanna had no doubt at all that the sorrow behind Robert Weeks’ death was genuine. Then Timony’s face broke into a mischievous smile. ‘Carmen never forgave me,’ she said. ‘She turned up at his funeral, made an awful song and dance about things. She had to be taken out. Such an embarrassment.’

  ‘Is Carmen Weeks still alive?’

  Timony shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The last I heard she was living in Dubai.’ Her expression changed. ‘I told you, Inspector, I’m not a good person when bad things happen to me. And I’m definitely not good on my own. I married on the rebound the following year. Another mistake. Adrian MacWilliam was a lot younger than me.’

  Mentally Joanna was compiling a list of potential ‘perps’. So far it contained two fairly unlikely persona, Sol Brannigan and Carmen Weeks. ‘Go on,’ she prompted.

  ‘When Robert died I was desperate not to be alone but I knew within a month that Adrian was a big mistake. He was a drinker.’ Her mouth tightened, became almost prim.

  ‘Is Adrian still alive?’

  Timony shrugged. ‘Haven’t a clue,’ she said, ‘but I would think so. He would only be in his early fifties.’

  Joanna glanced across the room at Diana Tong. ‘Do you know?’

  Mrs Tong was patently surprised at the question. It startled her. ‘No,’ she said bluntly. ‘Should I?’

  ‘He might be,’ Timony interspersed, ‘although he was a drunk. And they don’t tend to live such very long lives, do they?’

  ‘I suppose not. That is if they don’t mend their ways,’ Joanna said. ‘And then there was Mr Van Eelen.’

  ‘Another mistake.’ She gave a sudden radiant smile. ‘I have had an eventful life, haven’t I, Inspector?’

  No one could disagree with this statement. Joanna nodded, as did Hannah Beardmore.

  ‘I’ve made enemies.’

  Joanna nodded again, warily.

  And Timony suddenly burst out: ‘What do I have to do to convince you? I know there is a threat, Inspector. I want you to find out where it’s coming from and do something about it. Stop it, please.’

  ‘But I don’t know where to look,’ Joanna said, exasperated. ‘I’ve asked repeatedly who you think might be behind this, and for any information or clues you might have. All I get is vague answers. I need your help.’

  Both women sat stony-faced, silent.

  Joanna appealed to Diana Tong. ‘Was an arrest made of the fan who went for her?’

  ‘I believe he went to Broadmoor. He was insane.’

  ‘And his name was Dariel,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Yes,’ Timony put in, shuddering. ‘Paul Dariel. Look, I really don’t want to have to remember all this. He stalked and threatened me for years. I was just a child, thrust into the limelight, living in an artificial world created by a television series. I was thirteen years old when he started but my mental age was much, much younger.’ Her face assumed an odd, faraway look. ‘I’m beginning to realize that now. Emotionally I really was Lily, the little girl who lived at Butterfield Farm with her mummy, daddy and her brothers. When, all of a sudden, I am catapulted from a Disney view of the world into a Tarantino or a Kubrick, I was, emotionally, unable to deal with it. It was horrible. The studio didn’t seem interested in my mental state.’ She looked across at her friend sentimentally. ‘If I hadn’t had Diana I don’t know what would have happened. Just to keep me working the studio had assured me that they didn’t take the threat seriously and I think that provoked Dariel. I didn’t have the skills to convince them how frightened I was. I was just a child.’ She dropped her hands into her lap. ‘Completely naive. It is only now, as I have been writing my memoirs and reliving the times, that I see just how simple I was. How I saw things in my own way, without understanding.’ Timony half smiled. ‘You mustn’t forget, Inspector, that all this was a very long time ago. Dariel himself would now be in his sixties. He may still be in Broadmoor. He may even be dead.’

  Joanna nodded. She could easily find out about Paul Dariel. ‘So five years after you broke up with Adrian MacWilliam you married Rolf Van Eelen.’

  Timony lost the anxious, distraught look and appeared mischievous again. ‘Ah, the lovely Rolf. A toy boy,’ she said, not without affection. ‘I was forty-eight. He was thirty-one and gorgeous. A hotel porter.’ She chuckled. ‘Not stupid, but uneducated. I really should have known better, shouldn’t I? He just loved the fame, the attention, the money, the jet-setting lifestyle. He loved all that. Trouble was he didn’t love me.’

  Joanna smiled in sympathy. Hannah Beardmore was looking completely fascinated. Goggle-eyed, her mouth slightly open, she looked like a star-struck fan herself. The story of Timony Weeks’ life was a long way from her own moorlands background, her husband’s infidelity and the subsequent battle scars.

  ‘And you’re still …’ Joanna asked the actress delicately.

  There was a twinkle in her eyes as she replied. ‘Yes. Still legally married. Never bothered with a divorce. Every now and then Rolf is in contact, tries to touch me for some money, like Sol. Sometimes I send it, sometimes I don’t. Depends how I feel. I told you he went off with a sort of friend of mine, Trixy. Good name for her, though I’d have spelt it differently. Glamorous blonde with no breasts – at least, not real ones. An actress who’d been married to a very wealthy financier who conveniently died not two years after they’d been married.’

  ‘Are they still together?’

  ‘Far as I know.’

  ‘And where was he when you last heard from him?’

  ‘Appropriately enough, Marbella,’ Timony said with a snort. ‘But that was a few years ago now. I haven’t heard anything for two or three years.’

  ‘Has he ever threatened you if you don’t give him money?’

  ‘Gracious, no,’ Timony said with another snort. ‘For all his faults Rolf was not an evil character, not like Sol. He was not a bully and certainly not violent. He would wheedle stuff out of you. He was greedy. And boy, did he like the women. He had an extraordinary appetite for them.’ She gave a secretive smile. ‘And I don’t mean just sexually, Inspector. He just loved women’s company. Any age, blondes, brunettes, redheads, old, young, fat, thin, tall, short. He just liked women.’ Her eyebrows moved up a difficult fraction of an inch. ‘Particularly rich ones in expensive clothes, smelling of expensive perfume, high maintenance and generous with their assets.’ She laughed. ‘He was born to be a gigolo, that one.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Joanna said. ‘Should I be interested?’

  ‘Unfortunately, probably not,’ Timony said. ‘None of these mind games is in his character.’

  ‘And then there is this long-lost sister who also stalked you for years. Freeman mentioned her.’

&n
bsp; Timony sat up, wary.

  ‘Did you, in fact, have a sister?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So …?’

  ‘It went on for years, from the early sixties. Letters. All made up. The woman was a fantasist. She was always trying to meet up with me. She was a creepy one. Sent me photographs of my “family”. MY family!’ For the first time Timony seemed angry.

  ‘Did you ever find out who she really was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did she want out of you?’

  ‘For us to be together, loving sisters, that sort of thing.’ She grimaced and continued. ‘It was quite scary, you know, not knowing who she was. She could have been anyone. And I never knew where or how the next approach would be. There were telephone calls that went dead when I answered, tears and threats down the phone, presents I didn’t want, cheap stuff.’

  ‘Similar to what’s happening to you now,’ Joanna observed. ‘Edgy practical jokes.’

  ‘Yes, except …’ Timony frowned. ‘Except that these seem more subtle. Cleverer. And more sinister. I knew what my “sister” wanted. Money. Love, affection, an acknowledgement of our supposed relationship. With this I don’t know what this person wants.’ Her small fist beat the palm of her hand. ‘My life or my sanity, I suspect.’

  Joanna frowned. The interview was quickly descending into the usual melodrama.

  ‘You can’t imagine how famous I was,’ Timony said, her eyes bulging. ‘I was like Liz Taylor or Sophia Loren. People wanted a piece of me.’ She leaned forward. ‘Have you seen any of it? It’s available in DVD.’

  ‘I’ve seen a couple of episodes,’ Joanna said, awkward that she couldn’t honestly claim to have either enjoyed it or been impressed by it. So she fixed on a smile. Timony looked pleased anyway and Joanna proceeded towards the point of her reference.