‘Oh, I don’t think the person we’re looking for is sane,’ Geraldine agreed.
She questioned them further. It seemed that, when she went to drama school, Anna had lost touch with the childhood friends her family had known. Her class at drama school had been a close-knit group but Jane and her father hadn’t met them. Jane shook her head.
‘We only saw them on stage, in their shows –’
‘Weird productions, most of them,’ her father interrupted. ‘I don’t remember many of their names, but you can look them up on the website.’
‘Did she have any particular friends?’
‘Yes, there was that boyfriend, what was his name? Derek?’
‘Dirk,’ Jane corrected her father.
‘Dirk, that’s it.’
Geraldine asked about him, and they told her what little they knew.
Dirk and Anna had been in a relationship in her final year at drama school. Dirk was also an acting student, in the year below her.
‘He seemed a pleasant enough boy,’ Mr Porter said.
‘He was a twit,’ Jane chipped in.
‘Yes, that’s true, but he was harmless. At least he wasn’t old enough to be her grandfather.’
Jane grunted. Clearly Anna’s family had not approved of twenty-two-year-old Anna living with a man in his mid-sixties. Geraldine didn’t blame them. Piers might not look or behave like a man in his sixties, but that didn’t alter the reality.
Tired and dispirited, Geraldine made her way home. She didn’t have a long distance to travel, but the traffic was heavy. Thoroughly disgruntled by the time she arrived back at her flat, she was ready for a shower and a glass of wine. Refreshed and out of her work clothes, she changed her mind about the drink and brewed herself a pot of tea instead. She was trying to decide whether to take the evening off or press on with researching Piers, his son, and Anna’s ex-boyfriend, Dirk, when her phone rang. For an instant she thought it was Sam, but then she recognised the voice.
Geraldine could tell that Celia thought she was making an excuse when she said she couldn’t talk just then because her dinner was burning on the hob. Undertaking to call Celia back as soon as she’d eaten, she rang off and turned her attention to the question of food. She was too tired to go out, and besides she would have to call Celia back soon. If her dinner really had been ready on the hob when they spoke, she had about half an hour to herself – an hour at the most.
Exactly one hour later, she picked up the phone and settled down to listen to Celia nattering about her weekend. Geraldine lounged on her sofa sipping a glass of Chianti. She had decided to spoil herself after all, since she wouldn’t get much work done that evening now that she was on the phone to Celia. She smiled. For once, work could wait until the morning. She would only be going round in circles, driving herself crazy with incomplete pieces of information that made no sense whichever way she tried to put them together. She woke with a guilty start to the sound of Celia calling her name.
‘Are you there?’
‘Of course I’m here. You have my full attention,’ she lied.
But her half-waking dreams had taken her to the scene of a car crash where a dying girl had been on the point of revealing the name of her killer.
Chapter 16
GERALDINE TOOK THE NORTHERN line to Euston station. She crossed the busy main Euston Road, passing Euston Square station, and walked south, along Gower Street. It was mid-morning on Tuesday and the street was buzzing with traffic: private cars, taxis, and the occasional bus looming over the rest of the vehicles, while cyclists nipped along the kerb. Weaving through the traffic, they took their lives in their hands. The pavement was busy too. Most of the pedestrians hurrying along were young. Glancing into one of the London medical colleges on her way past, Geraldine saw rows of students sitting on a wide stone staircase, waiting for lectures. More people in their early twenties were waiting at the bus stop. She passed impressive old buildings and reached the drama school, housed in a high stone-fronted building. Entering through gleaming doors, she approached a young woman seated at a desk. Pretty, in a generic kind of way, the woman had a swinging brunette pony tail and heavily made-up blue eyes. She greeted Geraldine with a practised smile, displaying perfect teeth.
‘I’m here to see a student called Dirk Goodbody.’
Geraldine waited while the receptionist checked through several schedules. The foyer looked as though it had just been painted, the wood flooring polished, chrome and glass windows gleaming in white walls.
Finally the receptionist looked up with a smile.
‘Yes, he’s on this site today, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. He’s in rehearsal.’
‘I’d like to see him right now.’ Geraldine held up her warrant card. ‘We can have a quick chat here, or I can ask him to come to the police station, but that’s some distance away and it means he’ll be gone for the rest of the day.’
‘But –’
‘So perhaps a quick chat here would be best for everyone?’
It wasn’t a question.
‘Of course. He’s in rehearsal room B7. That’s up the stairs and turn left. It’s the third door.’
‘Thank you. Tell me,’ Geraldine added, ‘his name isn’t really Goodbody, is it?’
The receptionist grinned. ‘That’s his stage name. He chose it. His real name’s Dirk Goddard. The principal wasn’t too sure about Goodbody, but at least it’s memorable. And wait till you see him!’ She handed Geraldine a laminated visitor’s card. ‘Here, you’ll need this to swipe yourself in.’
Walking along the ground floor corridor, Geraldine passed a notice board covered with flyers about upcoming productions, information about auditions and printed schedules of rehearsal times. The stairs led to a second corridor. She found rehearsal room B7 easily and knocked on the wooden door. There was no answer. The corridor was very quiet. She knocked again, more loudly, before opening the door. A surreal scene greeted her. A row of figures stood very upright, dressed in black, their faces concealed behind black masks crowned with blond wigs. In front of them were two figures dressed in white, with white masks and black wigs. The pair in front were poised, arms raised, as though about to engage in stylised physical combat. No one moved as an irate elderly man turned round. He was squat and bald, and wore an outlandish loose jacket that flapped like a cape when he moved.
‘This is a rehearsal!’ he screeched, as though Geraldine was interrupting a life and death medical procedure. ‘Leave the room!’
The old man’s eyes bulged with fury as Geraldine stepped forward and held up her identity card.
‘Is Dirk Goodbody here?’ she demanded, doing her best to sound authoritative.
‘Young woman, this is a rehearsal,’ the old man shouted back at her across the room.
‘I’m a police officer,’ she began but he interrupted her.
‘I don’t care if you’re the bloody Queen of England, you’re disturbing the rhythm of the performance. Please leave at once.’
‘I’m conducting a murder investigation,’ she interrupted him loudly, moving further into the room. ‘If you obstruct me in the execution of my duties, you’ll face criminal charges.’ She turned to the assembled cast who had remained completely still throughout the exchange, like statues. ‘Which of you is Dirk Goodbody?’
‘Take a break,’ the director growled, defeated. ‘Ten minutes.’
Immediately the drama students relaxed their posture. Stretching their arms and legs and rotating their heads, they began chatting quietly amongst themselves. One of the white clad figures removed his wig and mask and bounded over to Geraldine. In his twenties, he was strikingly good-looking and seemed to be bursting with energy. Tall and sturdily built, he flicked his long blond fringe out of his eyes with a leonine shake of his head as he spoke.
‘You wanted to see me?’
His voice was arresting, with an accent that smacked of Eton and Oxbridge. He smiled sadly at Geraldine, adding softly, ‘I take it this is about
Anna?’
As he leaned towards Geraldine and gazed into her eyes, she could imagine Piers resenting the young man’s friendship with Anna.
‘Were you and she very close?’
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
‘I’m not sure what you mean by close. We were friends. But it’s a small world and people like to gossip. Everyone knows everyone else. There are always connections. Some of the students here keep in touch with some of the graduates from Anna’s year. A few of them are auditioning for a show Trevelyan’s involved in casting. He’s – he was – Anna’s boyfriend –’ He broke off and heaved a deep sigh. ‘Well, people talk, you know how it is in this business.’
‘No, I don’t. Tell me.’
‘Well, nothing’s secret for long.’
‘I guess it’s the same in any organisation, wherever you have a lot of people working together.’
‘You won’t find anywhere quite like this business,’ he assured her.
Geraldine wondered whether he could have killed Anna, perhaps motivated by jealousy. He was certainly strong enough to have despatched her with one blow.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’
‘It’s not easy to have a private conversation here, but we could perch in a corner of the bar. Come on, I could do with a drink, seeing as we’re on a break.’
Geraldine refrained from reminding him that she was actually working and he was being questioned in the course of a murder investigation. As a rule, people spoke more freely when they didn’t feel under pressure. Once they were arrested and charged, the situation changed but for now he was under no obligation to answer her questions. If she scared him, he might clam up. So far she didn’t think he had even realised she was checking him out as a potential suspect, although his nonchalance could be assumed. It was going to be hard establishing the truth from someone trained to lie about his identity.
No one else gave a second glance to the fit young man standing at the bar wearing only a skin tight white body stocking. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, Geraldine could see why the receptionist had grinned at his name. While Dirk bought himself a beer, Geraldine sat at a table in a corner of the bar and looked around a smartly decorated area, all white and chrome. A few young people were seated at a table on the far side of the room. At the bar a young boy with white blond hair was chatting to a tall skinny girl. There was an atmosphere of subdued activity, although nothing was happening. A few people were sitting around talking.
‘Tell me about Anna,’ Geraldine said when Dirk returned.
‘Are you sure I can’t get you a drink?’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Oh, of course, you’re on duty.’
He nodded knowingly, as though they were somehow in cahoots. Geraldine stared blankly at him.
‘Anna’s a great girl,’ he began cheerfully and then stopped, his eyes opening wide in an expression of shock which looked fake.
Geraldine watched the performance without commenting.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, ‘it’s so hard to take it in, that she’s really dead.’
Geraldine didn’t answer and was gratified to see that he looked unnerved by her silence. He took a gulp of his beer and wiped his lips on his sleeve.
‘What do you want to know?’ he asked at last, setting his glass down. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? Died in a car crash.’
‘Who told you that?’
He shrugged. ‘Everyone knows. It was in the papers. And, like I said, people talk.’ He sighed. ‘Poor Anna, she used to love seeing her name in the papers.’
‘What was the nature of your relationship with the deceased?’
‘The deceased,’ he repeated solemnly. ‘God, it sounds so final, doesn’t it?’ He sighed theatrically. ‘We were friends. We were good friends.’
‘Were you in a relationship with her?’
‘You mean did we have sex? Yes. We got together in her last year here, when I was in my first year. She came straight here from school, but I went to uni first, and then I had a gap year.’
Growing expansive, Dirk told her about his trip to Africa, where he had spent time helping in an orphanage. He didn’t appear to be deliberately trying to convince her he was a decent person, incapable of violence. He simply liked talking about himself. Finally he returned to the subject of the dead woman.
‘Anna was two years ahead of me here, but I’m – I was – a year older than her. We got together in her last year. It was great. She was just lovely.’ He sighed. ‘We kind of drifted apart when she left.’
His face reddened slightly.
‘Did you meet someone else?’
‘Well, yes, there was – there is – someone else, as it happens.’
Geraldine couldn’t imagine Dirk ever went for long without a girl in tow.
‘And anyway she hooked up with her casting director soon after she graduated, which was lucky for me, because Trevelyan’s a big cheese.’
‘Why was that lucky for you?’
He looked surprised.
‘Anna asked him to take a look at me.’
Despite all his studies and travels, there was only one topic that interested Dirk. He brought everything back to himself. He glanced at his phone and Geraldine pressed on, aware that she might not have much time.
‘Where were you on Friday night between two and three in the morning?’
‘What is all this? I mean, I know Anna’s dead, but it was an accident, wasn’t it? Why are you so interested all of a sudden? I mean, would you mind telling me what the hell’s going on?’
He looked genuinely surprised when Geraldine explained that they were trying to establish the identity of the other driver involved in the accident.
‘Can’t you people tell that from the car registration? I’d like to help you get to the bottom of it, of course I would, but I really should be in a rehearsal right now. Other people depend on me to be there,’ he added with conscious self-importance.
‘We’ll get done a lot faster if you just answer my questions. Where were you on Friday night between two and three in the morning?’
‘Oh Jesus,’ he broke off, frowning, as though it was an effort to remember. ‘I was with my girlfriend, Megan. We’d had a busy day, so we went back to the flat, watched a film, went through my lines together, and crashed. I was with Megan all night.’
He gazed at Geraldine with a wide-eyed expression of innocence on his handsome face. Geraldine wrote down the name of his girl friend. She started to ask him about his friendship with Anna after she left the drama school, but just then a harassed-looking girl entered the bar and scanned the room. She was slightly plump, with long red hair. Her frown deepened when she saw them and she hurried over to tell Dirk everyone was waiting for him, and Wendel was going mental.
‘He said ten minutes,’ she reminded him plaintively.
Dirk looked at Geraldine anxiously. Then he turned back to the redhead.
‘You go back up. Go on. Tell him I’m right behind you.’
The girl hesitated.
‘Go!’
The girl obediently spun round and ran off.
Dirk sprang to his feet, towering over Geraldine as she sat at the table.
‘I’ve got to get back to rehearsal. No one messes with Wendel. I’m in enough trouble as it is!’
‘I’ll see you again,’ Geraldine muttered under her breath, as he hurried away.
Chapter 17
THE ENVELOPE HAD BEEN delivered to the drama school by hand, addressed simply to Zak Trevelyan. With a burst of adrenaline he tore it open, trying to control his excitement. It was bound to be junk but, like all his fellow students, he was waiting for a lucky break. Although most of them didn’t manage to find work until after they graduated, if at all, there were exceptions. Stories were passed around of students who were talent spotted and offered paid jobs before they had even completed their training. Some of the stories were true. He slipped a single sheet of paper out of the envelope
and scanned it quickly. Like the envelope, the letter was typed. It was very short.
Hello Zak
It’s a long time since we met. You won’t remember me. You were just a baby when I saw you last. Your late mother was my sister. Perhaps I can take you out for dinner? Please give me a call on the number below and I hope we can spend some time together soon.
Darius (your uncle)
Zak wasn’t sure whether to feel pleased or disappointed after reading it. He had always known that he had an uncle, but his father never talked about him and Zak had never asked. Reading the letter, he was curious to meet him. Besides, his uncle had offered to buy him dinner. It would be churlish to refuse. It wouldn’t do any harm to meet the guy in a restaurant and find out what he was like. Plus he might talk about Zak’s mother who had died when he was a baby. All Zak knew about her was that she had been beautiful and she had drowned. His father had been vague when questioned about her. Once Zak had pressed him, claiming he had a right to know. His father had snapped that he didn’t want to talk about her.
The thin high-pitched voice that answered the phone could have belonged to a man or a woman.
‘Hello?’
Zak hesitated. It might be his uncle on the line, but it could equally be a wife or girlfriend.
‘I’d like to speak to Darius.’
‘This is Darius. That must be Zak?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘You sound like your mother.’
Zak was surprised. His mother had died seventeen years ago. A motorbike revved past on its way up the street and he missed what his uncle said next.
‘What?’
‘Can I take you out for dinner?’
‘That would be great.’
They met at Garfunkel’s in Tottenham Court Road. It wasn’t very smart, but it was convenient. When Darius had asked him to suggest somewhere, Zak hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else on the spur of the moment. It was just five minutes’ walk from the college, and a safe choice as he didn’t know his uncle. All the same, he was disappointed when his uncle agreed. But if the restaurant was second rate, the meeting wasn’t. Zak recognised his uncle straight away. It came as a shock, because they were so alike, with identical straight black hair, dark eyes and olive skin, the same neat square chin and small mouth, and a similar lithe physique, like a Mediterranean James Bond. It was like looking at himself in twenty years’ time, with short hair.
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