The Final Curtain

by Priscilla Masters

  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.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Sunday, April 1, 8 a.m.

  Gabriel 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.’

  Sunday, April 1, 4 p.m.

  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.’

  ‘Yeah. Let’s go in.’

  But as they entered the front door, he spoke. And shared his thoughts. ‘This place is too small for us, Jo,’ he said. ‘We should have more of a family home.’

  Her heart sank. Right to the bottom of that deep wishing well.

  ‘I’m taking a few days off,’ she said lightly. ‘Shall we go away?’

  He kissed her cheek very gently. ‘I have a better idea, Jo,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I take a few days off too? We can have a stay-cation and look at properties.’

  The dismay she felt was as powerful as a thump on the chest. Was Matthew thinking about starting a family? It was her nightmare.

  As she walked into Waterfall Cottage, her joyful heart had been replaced with an organ of solid stone.