Final Act

by J M Gregson

  Bert Hook had said nothing throughout these brisk exchanges between his chief and Clark. Instead, he had carefully watched the man who was now the sole producer of the Inspector Loxton series and made the occasional note. He looked hard at Lambert once the man had left the murder room, sensing some of John’s frustration at the cool control of the man who now ran everything which was being busily enacted around them. ‘He’s a cool one, that. I don’t think he said anything here that he hadn’t rehearsed beforehand.’

  Lambert smiled his frustration. ‘They’re a strange lot all round here, Bert. I find them so, anyway. They’re used to deceiving people. It’s their trade, and it’s been so for so long that they now seem to find it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. I get the impression with some of them that if they can sell us a falsehood, that will give them more pleasure and professional satisfaction than telling us the truth.’

  Bert grinned. ‘It’s probably the artistic temperament. It tends to produce lying bastards.’

  ‘Is that how you’d describe the man we’ve just seen?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He’s not an actor, remember. He’s more of an entrepreneur. A businessman among these artists, who attends to the practicalities.’

  ‘Even more likely to be a lying bastard, then.’

  ‘No comment, sir. But he is the one who’s gained most by Jackson’s death, and he seems inordinately pleased with himself about that.’

  ‘He’s got plenty of nerve, certainly. If he’s the one who put paid to Jackson, he’ll have planned it thoroughly and covered his tracks effectively.’

  The man who was the subject of this judgement would have been flattered by the verdict on his competence. Ernie Clark drove away from the location site now, feeling the accusations and the intrigue slipping away behind him as he went. They’d seen his competence, because he had been content to display that to them. He was even a little vain about it; but he knew that he must be careful not to seem over-confident and glib about what had happened and what it was going to mean for him.

  He wondered what the actors were making of Sam’s death. He could imagine the frenzied discussions in the hotel since the death had been discovered on Tuesday. There would have been all sorts of speculation, some of it wildly wide of the mark, some of it more reasonable. They had a talent for melodrama, the acting profession. They preferred the bizarre solution to the obvious one – not that there was anything obvious about this, of course.

  Part of him wished that he’d been able to listen to some of the wilder speculations. There would be conspiracy theories, in due course, if the police did not come up with a speedy arrest. Perhaps even if they did – conspiracy theorists and wildly imaginative actors never let an arrest and an obvious solution get in the way of an interesting theory. But he knew that he was better away from that hotbed of gossip and accusations. He was staying in his own house on the outskirts of Gloucester and pleasantly isolated from the furore following Jackson’s death.

  Sam had stayed here with him on the night before his death, when he was newly arrived in the area for the location shooting. The police had been here, of course, on the night after Sam’s death. They had removed the clothes from his room, even taken away the sheets and the bedding for forensic examination, assuring Mr Clark earnestly that they would be returned in due course if they produced nothing significant.

  They would have been interested in a loaded revolver, for certain. But that had been locked away before they investigated the rather sterile guest room where Sam Jackson had spent his last night on this earth. Ernie opened the locked drawer in his desk and examined it now. A small and innocent-looking thing, for something with so lethal a potential. The metal gleamed softly around the very visible maker’s name: Beretta. A well-known name, he thought, though he was no expert on firearms. It occurred to him for the first time that it would have suited Sam Jackson’s image to carry a pistol. Sam would have enjoyed giving people the impression that he might need to defend himself at any moment from the multitude of enemies he had amassed in the world. But he never had, as far as Ernie was aware.

  He could have done with having a weapon like this with him on the one occasion when he had needed it, when his innocent necktie had been enough to see the life choked out of him on Tuesday. Ernie Clark took the pistol from the drawer and put it in his pocket as he went out to his car. You couldn’t be too careful, with a murderer still not apprehended by the police.

  Back on the location site near Oldford, Chief Superintendent Lambert was interviewing the final major histrionic suspect. Perhaps he had unconsciously chosen to put Sir Bradley Morton last, since the theatrical knight was almost an amalgam of the traits which disturbed John Lambert about actors as interviewees.

  Morton arrived as if this were yet another opportunity for him to display his skills and knowledge, though being a murder suspect must surely be a unique occurrence even in his vast range of life experiences. ‘It’s taken you a long time to get round to me,’ he said accusingly, as if it were a dereliction of CID duty to put him anywhere but at the top of the investigational list.

  ‘We issued an important initial instruction,’ said Lambert. ‘We said that anyone with significant knowledge to contribute should come to us immediately, without waiting for a formal interview. Are you now telling us that you are in possession of such knowledge?’

  Morton considered the matter carefully before deciding that the only safe policy was to proclaim his ignorance. ‘I’m afraid I have no significant piece of evidence to volunteer,’ he boomed sonorously. ‘I have an intimate knowledge of the theatrical world and its many idiosyncrasies, which I am ready and willing to put at your disposal.’

  ‘I’m sure we shall be grateful for that,’ said Lambert, with an irony which was lost on the larger-than-life theatrical presence sitting before him.

  Sir Bradley inspected the upright chair they had set ready for him and disposed himself upon it so that it looked somehow like an armchair, from which he now held forth to these lesser mortals who were presuming to question him. He had on a bow tie and a lemon yellow shirt beneath a green cardigan. He carried them as though they were expensive robes of state and he was playing a Shakespearean king. He said, ‘I hope you are making progress in this matter. Sam Jackson was a dear friend of mine.’

  ‘Was he, indeed? Well, that’s good to hear. I think the other people we’ve spoken to have declared without exception that they did not like him. Perhaps a friend of his will be able to offer us a different perspective on this, DS Hook.’

  ‘That would be most useful, sir.’

  ‘We were not intimates, Chief Superintendent Lambert.’ Sir Bradley was booming again; his tones seemed to bounce off the insensitive walls of the murder room and demand a loftier hall.

  Lambert forced a smile. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Sir Bradley. As I say, most people have declared a dislike, even a loathing, of Samuel Jackson. They put up with him because they had to. He had the power and the money to control their future fortunes. They did not like that, but they recognized the reality of the situation.’

  Morton smiled the broadest and most understanding of his many smiles. ‘I do not condemn them. I understand them. They are not all as fortunate as I am. When one has reached a certain eminence in this profession, one can afford to be more cavalier about these things. I am not short of offers of work – indeed, I find that these days I have to make a careful choice amongst the many opportunities available to me. I recognize that I am fortunate in this, but I flatter myself that I have earned a certain standing over the years. This is an uncertain profession, especially for young people starting out in it, but when you reach my advanced years and have a record of successes behind you, you are able to treat theatrical and television producers with a degree of condescension.’

  Lambert was thoroughly irritated by the man’s evasions. He raised his eyebrows elaborately. ‘Really? We must have been misinformed. Some people have suggested that your chances of further work
in this series would be enhanced now that Samuel Jackson is no longer around.’

  ‘I don’t know who could have told you that. I detect a distaff hand in this. The fair sex are anything but fair, when they have an axe to grind. I’m sure you have found that, in the course of your many successful investigations of serious crime. Whoever is your informant, he or she is much mistaken. Sam and I went back a long way. I was a well-established actor when he was making his way in the business. I offered him a helping hand and in the course of time he was truly grateful. He was virtually begging me to accept an extended role in the Inspector Loxton series when someone removed him from this earth.’ It was an extravagant claim, but Brad couldn’t see how anyone could refute it, without Jackson around.

  ‘I see, sir. That is most interesting; it is a pity that we were misinformed.’

  ‘Perhaps not exactly misinformed. But I try to take a broad view of life. I may have been biased in Jackson’s favour because he put up money to support the man who I think of as our greatest television playwright before he had become a household name.’ Brad looked at his listeners and saw only confusion. ‘I refer, of course, to my fellow Forest of Dean man, Dennis Potter.’ Morton bowed his head reverently. It seemed safe in this context to claim a more intimate relationship with the great man than he had actually enjoyed. ‘Dennis grew up in Berry Hill, a Forest of Dean village within twenty miles of here. We had a certain rapport. I recognized his talent early and was pleased to appear in some of his early plays.’ Potter might not have remembered that, but he hadn’t been around for twenty years and more, so he wasn’t going to dispute it. He was one of the links with high culture which Sir Bradley had grown used to claiming for himself.

  Lambert studied him closely throughout this, then nodded it away as an irrelevance. ‘From what you tell us, you must be very upset by this death, unlike the other people we have spoken to. None of them liked Samuel Jackson. You seem to be the only one who has lost a friend.’

  Morton knew that he had shown no more sorrow than anyone else in their hotel. Rather the reverse, in fact. He’d ordered two bottles of claret and made Tuesday night something of a celebration in the dining room. He wondered if that had got back to this shrewd, observant fellow with the lined face and the unblinking grey eyes. ‘If you reach my age, you get used to losing friends.’ He spoke like a mournful ninety-year-old. Lambert knew from Rushton’s notes that Sir Bradley was in fact seventy-three. ‘One tries to be philosophical when another one departs. And I suppose Sam Jackson was an old acquaintance rather than an old friend. He was a facilitator; they are important to us, but Sam was not himself of the acting fraternity.’

  ‘But it may well be one of the acting fraternity who killed him, Sir Bradley. Was it you?’

  He recoiled as if he had been physically struck. Theatrical, Bert Hook would have called it, had it been an amateur who struck the pose. The knight looked as if he was wondering just how much umbrage he might take at this suggestion. Then he smiled broadly, indicating what a tolerant man he was, despite the honours thrust upon him. ‘I suppose you have to ask these things, Mr Lambert, in your role as super-sleuth. These labels accorded to one by the popular press can be tiresome, as you and I both know. I tell you here and now that I did not kill Sam. I did not visit him in his caravan in the hours before his death, which I heartily lament. I trust that my word is good enough for you. I have a certain standing in my profession.’

  ‘And I have worked hard to acquire one in mine, Sir Bradley. Among the things I have learned is to look for facts rather than mere assertions, whoever is involved. When I entered CID many years ago, my inspector gave me three pointers. Assume nothing. Believe no one. Check everything. I have found it good advice over the years.’

  ‘You are a cynic, chief superintendent.’

  ‘Criminals make you that, Sir Bradley. Cynicism becomes part of your professional equipment. Have you any views on who might have killed your friend and facilitator, Samuel Jackson?’

  ‘No. Ernie Clark has gained most by it. But that’s probably a cynical observation.’

  ‘It is a fact we have to bear in mind, Sir Bradley. But other people have gained as well. No one except you has lamented this death. Please keep your eyes and your ears open in the days to come. As a Titan of your profession and a highly experienced man, you may well pick up things which other people miss.’

  Morton accepted this as a compliment; he met very little irony nowadays and he had long since become accustomed to accepting flattery at face value. He left with a slight bow and what was almost a knightly flourish of his right arm.

  Lambert looked at the door for a long moment after he had left. ‘What did you make of that?’ he asked Hook.

  ‘I think he half-believes the image he has created for himself. I think that like many of his craft he is not good at distinguishing where fantasy ends and the real world begins.’

  Lambert looked at his extensive file on Sir Bradley Morton’s background. ‘Despite what he says, I think he hated our murder victim as much as anyone. I wonder if he did anything about that.’

  TEN

  The evening was a poet’s idyll, calm and mild. The sun stretched unbroken over hill and valley, river and forest, until it sank slowly behind the Welsh mountains, as if reluctant to leave behind this peaceful scene.

  The cast and director of Herefordshire Horrors congratulated themselves again on the accommodation which had been secured for them. The food and the rooms were excellent here; the hotel had made every effort to anticipate their every need. Whatever their status might be now, all theatricals had lived in the humblest of digs and eaten the humblest of food in their younger days. In Sir Bradley Morton’s memorable phrase, they all remembered the days of peeing in sinks at the local rep. Many of the younger cast members had in fact never known rep, but they all knew well what it was to live from hand to mouth and to husband every penny against the uncertainties of their theatrical futures.

  This pleasant hotel on the bank of the River Wye was one of the perks of a successful television series, and those who had known much harder times were very happy to take advantage of it. It was May now. Gloucestershire and Herefordshire were enjoying a late-spring heat wave, with temperatures soaring into the mid-twenties and the weather set fair for the next few days. The heavy rain at the beginning of the week had passed away now, and the Wye ran softly in its channel sixty feet below the quiet road.

  Actors and director, cameramen, wardrobe mistresses and continuity girls, wandered after dinner along the banks of the Wye, in liaisons which were innocent or exciting, according to choice. The balmy evening and the idyllic setting encouraged romantic notions, as tend to take over when people are away from home and operating in strange and wonderful surroundings. The scent of freshly washed female hair, mingling with the scents of trees and the sound of unseen water, is a heady mix in the warm darkness.

  Couples strolled ever more slowly as they completed the return journey to the hotel. Of course, one walks more slowly with an arm round a partner’s waist. Some couples separated reluctantly when they reached the entrance to the hotel, with kisses that lingered and were often repeated as a farewell to nature’s magical epilogue to the day. Others stayed together, or separated with muttered arrangements to rejoin each other discreetly in the rooms on the upper storeys of the building, where intimacies might be resumed and developed.

  Most of this sporadic procession of lovers and opportunists passed beside the car park, which accommodated rows of vehicles parked there for the night. There was some expensive machinery here, but the people enjoying the privacy of the summer darkness had other and more vital concerns than motor transport. No one gave a glance or a thought to the vehicles which sat silently in the spacious parking area behind the hotel.

  The dark red Jaguar which was furthest from the walls of the hotel was one of the more impressive vehicles, sleek and low in the darkness, the dew on its roof reflecting the starlight and eventually the crescent moon for a
nyone who cared to watch. But no one did. The long, low car kept its secret through the night.

  It was one of the staff arriving to do the early breakfast shift who found the secret of the Jaguar. The corpse was clearly visible in the sharp morning light. It carried still a startled look, though it had been dead now for many hours. The young woman who found it took a little while to register just what it was. Then her scream rang loud and strong through the morning air.

  ELEVEN

  It was just after six thirty when the corpse in the Jaguar was discovered. By eight o’clock, a full scene of crime team had been assembled and was about to begin work in the fenced-off section of the car park. John Lambert had been informed of this new death by seven thirty and by eight thirty he was on the spot with Detective Sergeant Hook.

  The pathologist had completed his examination of the corpse, or as much as he was able to do of it in situ, as the duo arrived. ‘Straightforward, from my point of view,’ he said. ‘Probably not so straightforward from yours.’ He tried not to sound too satisfied about that. Dr Patterson gained a secret satisfaction from being involved in lurid deaths, and this seemed certain to be one of those. Almost certainly a second murder in a week, and the police to all appearances baffled – the pathologist thought it fair to use that favourite tabloid word.

  Murder has a ghoulish glamour, even for someone as familiar with death as a pathologist. This was different from, and far more intriguing than, the routine road deaths and suicides to which he was more usually called to render his professional services and opinions. Other deaths were simply part of the job, regrettable but routine. Murder had a Grande Guignole quality, even for the professionals involved in it. You didn’t admit that, of course, especially when you were a balding and experienced man of fifty-three, but you felt an excitement nevertheless.