Final Act

by J M Gregson

  David would like to have claimed that he knew all about that. Instead, he said dully, ‘I didn’t have my phone on last night. I expect Trevor tried to tell me he’d been questioned.’

  ‘Perhaps he did. He certainly gave our officer one interesting piece of information. He was puzzled by the fact that you chose on that flying visit to dispose of a perfectly good pair of trainers.’

  David’s heart leapt within his breast, so violently that he felt for an absurd moment that the movement might have been visible. ‘They were well worn. They’d had their day. I’d been meaning to get rid of them for a while. I saw the refuse lorry approaching our house as I turned into the street. I think that is what prompted the action.’

  ‘Scarcely worn, Mr Fisher said. He even considered whether he might retrieve them for you, but found that he was just too late to save them.’

  Bloody Trevor! Sometimes he was so damned innocent that he didn’t think anyone else could have anything to hide. Childlike, he was, at times. But David knew even through his annoyance that it was this bright innocence which had been one of Trevor’s attractions for him when they made their first tentative moves towards each other. Innocence was something you didn’t meet too often in the acting profession. He found it refreshing to get away from the petty jealousies and insecurities of his daytime occupation to the private intimacies of his life with honest Trevor Fisher.

  There was no easy lie to free him from this, nothing which would convince that round, interrogative face of Hook’s which was suddenly so challenging. David Deeney stared down at the shabby floor of the murder room as he said, ‘I panicked, I suppose. I’d been to see Sam Jackson in his caravan on the morning when he died. I’d walked through mud to get there. I knew I must have left some sort of deposit from the soles of my trainers in there. I thought you’d pick that up and identify it as coming from my shoes and think that if I’d been there I must have killed Jackson. It suddenly became very important to me to get rid of those trainers. I didn’t even know that Trevor knew I’d slipped them in the rubbish.’

  ‘Did you twist Samuel Jackson’s tie around his neck before you left his caravan on Tuesday?’

  ‘No. He was in good health when I left him.’

  Hook nodded as if this reply was exactly what he had anticipated. ‘Why did you visit Jackson at that time, Mr Deeney?’

  ‘I wanted some guarantee of more employment in the future. I felt that my work in this particular episode, Herefordshire Horrors, was pretty good; you get to know with experience when things have gone well. I felt that John Watts as director would support that view. I thought it might be the right moment for me to build a little more security into my future.’

  ‘Were you successful?’

  ‘No. I should have known my man better, shouldn’t I? Sam said he didn’t give any guarantees to filthy pooftahs, that he would employ straight men if the opportunity presented itself.’ He was staring at the floor again, feeling the hopelessness of life and of his present situation. ‘He was very old-fashioned in his attitudes, was Sam Jackson. I should never have thought I could change that.’

  They waited until he reluctantly raised his eyes before commenting on this. Then Lambert said, ‘Is there anyone who can confirm this for us?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t anxious to proclaim to the others that I was touting for work.’

  ‘Then please don’t leave the area without keeping us informed of your movements.’

  TWELVE

  Peg Reynolds was still in the hotel after the rest of the cast of Herefordshire Horrors had left. She knew that she wouldn’t be required for shooting until late morning.

  She snatched an early coffee in the lounge, wishing that she was less noticeable than she seemed to be. She wanted to blend into the background, to be as unremarked as any piece of furniture in this conventionally furnished room. But waiters and cleaners seemed to notice her, however much she pretended to be immersed in the newspaper she was trying to make herself read. The truth was that with her youth, her large brown eyes, her shimmering black hair and her air of vulnerability, Peg was always going to compel attention, whether she required it or not.

  Like many attractive, intelligent, otherwise sensible women, Peg showed bad judgement only in her choice of men. She was becoming aware of this, but was as yet unwilling to admit it even to herself. She didn’t want to go back to her room and face James Turner, but she knew she would have to do just that. She lingered over her coffee, hoping to make the exchange as brief as possible, but eventually she had to go. The last thing she wanted was James appearing here and causing a public scene with her, especially with so many police around after last night’s events.

  James was rifling through the contents of her handbag when she got back to the room. That depressed her, but it didn’t really shock her any more; she’d caught him doing it at least twice in the last month. She said dully, ‘You won’t find anything to interest you in there. There’s no money to speak of: you had that long ago.’

  ‘That’s right, rub my nose in it! Don’t let the fact that I’m out of work and struggling to find it escape me for a moment, will you? Peg Reynolds has work and her partner hasn’t! Peg Reynolds is flavour of the month and is delighted that James Turner isn’t. It enables her to patronise him and remind him perpetually what a worthless piece of shit he is!’

  His self-loathing grew with every phrase as his voice rose. But that was no use to her; his contempt for himself only made him more violent and less predictable. She spoke carefully, trying to avoid words or phrases which might annoy him. ‘I’ve got to go, James. I need to be there on time for the shooting. We can’t afford to lose what I earn.’

  ‘“We can’t afford to lose what I earn.” So I’ll be off now, enjoying being in work, ready to offer a good shag to anyone who can offer me the next job in return.’

  She didn’t want to rise to the bait; she knew that he was merely lashing out wildly in an attempt to hurt her. But she heard herself saying, ‘That isn’t true and you know it’s not. I’ve never shagged anyone to get work and I don’t intend to start now.’

  ‘Little Miss Muffet wouldn’t do anything like that, would she? Little Miss Muffet would keep her arse firmly on her tuffet and tell anyone who came by to go shag himself! The same as she tells me to fuck off and find my own work and stop bothering her.’

  He was handsome, she thought, even in this state. His hair looked even more attractive when it was dishevelled than when it was neatly combed; his handsome, regular features were even more compelling when they were flushed, like this. Why couldn’t he get acting work when other, less good-looking men seemed to have it offered to them regularly? Perhaps he just wasn’t a very good actor. She’d been too close to him even to consider that possibility; she’d thought that like other people who were often ‘resting’ he was just unlucky in an overcrowded profession. But maybe he just wasn’t as good as he thought he was and as she’d unthinkingly accepted that he was. But how could she ever put it to him that perhaps he should consider some other sort of employment? She shivered involuntarily on this warm morning at the very thought of that.

  He had her upper arms in his hands now, squeezing hard. The bruises had almost gone, but they’d be back if he lost his rag again. She shut her eyes, knowing that she could not handle him when he was like this, feeling as though the ground was slipping away beneath her feet. ‘Please don’t do that, James. You know that I bruise easily. Everyone will be asking how I got the marks if they see them.’

  He smiled for the first time now, but his lips had no humour in them. ‘And everyone will be offering their sympathy to dear little Miss Muffet! Everyone will be asking who the naughty man was and how they might best punish him. By denying him work, of course. Let’s all see that James Turner doesn’t get any parts offered! Let’s all rub it in by making sure that creepy little Peg Reynolds gets even more work thrown at her!’

  She felt his hands tightening into that vice-like grip, knew now that the bruise
s would be back, that she’d be wearing the only summer dress she had with sleeves. But what about her costume for the shoot? Would that be sleeveless? Even short sleeves would show the damage he was doing to her. She struggled, but she knew that she wasn’t strong enough, that this would only make the damage worse. She shouted desperately, ‘Let go of me, James! I’ve done everything I could to get you work in the last week. More than you know I’ve done!’

  He let go of her at last and they stood panting fiercely, their faces less than two feet apart. She wondered why she had spoken. James Turner was wondering exactly what she had meant.

  One policewoman and several civilians were still working in the ribboned-off section at the end of the car par when Peg Reynolds crept trembling into her battered blue Corsa and drove away to the location site and her work.

  Sandra Rokeby looked uncharacte‌ristically nervous as she entered the murder room. The public image which was so important to her was built on confidence, on parading her physical wares and pretending to be much more of a femme fatale than she really was. But she had a feeling that these two experienced CID men saw through her every move. She felt more naked with them than she had felt with anyone for a long time. Since she was last in love perhaps. That was a long time ago. Love made you vulnerable and she couldn’t live with vulnerability. Not only her public image but her whole life depended on the brash, humorous, sexual image she had laboured for years to create.

  Lambert felt it, and felt it strongly enough to comment on it. He went for vulnerability head-on wherever he saw it and whatever the cause of it, because the odds were against him and he needed to exploit any kind of weakness he discovered. ‘You look nervous this morning.’

  A wan smile. She’d spent a long time in front of her mirror before she’d left her hotel room, but she’d known there were limits to what she could do with this forty-eight-year-old face and she’d had the sense to respect those limits. If you tried to do too much with make-up on a pale, increasingly lined face it didn’t work: you merely looked tarty. There was a big difference between sexy and tarty, of which Sandra was intensely conscious, however much some of her public might confuse them. She’d applied lipstick and eye make-up discreetly, but she knew that she nevertheless looked like a pale and worried woman in her late forties. She said in response to the chief superintendent, ‘I’ve a right to look nervous, Mr Lambert. I’ve seen two powerful men whom I knew quite well murdered within three days. I wonder who might be next.’

  ‘You’re already sure last night’s death was murder, then? We haven’t yet released any details.’

  ‘Ernie Clark was a fit and healthy man, as far as I know. Far healthier than Sam Jackson, I imagine. In view of what happened to Jackson on Tuesday, it would surprise me if last night’s death was anything but murder.’

  ‘Last night? We haven’t had the time of death confirmed yet, Miss Rokeby. It seems you know more than we do.’

  She gave them a wan smile. ‘I saw the girl who found him in the car this morning. Helped to calm her down a little, I hope – she’s a nice kid. It was her impression that Ernie died last night. And she spoke of a bullet wound; that would explain why I knew this was murder, wouldn’t it?’

  She looked at him steadily, responding to his note of aggression, almost welcoming the challenge, it seemed. He said, ‘Where were you last night, Miss Rokeby? As I said, we haven’t pinpointed a time of death yet, so I’d like you to describe your movements throughout the evening.’

  ‘The evening but not the night? How disappointing, when I could give you a resounding negative. I slept alone last night, you see.’

  ‘And earlier in the evening?’

  This was all right. She’d anticipated the question and had her answer ready. But she still needed to be careful with these watchful men, who might or might not know as little as they claimed. ‘I ate dinner with the rest of the cast of Herefordshire Horrors. Well, most of them.’

  It was a deliberate invitation for a question, which was duly delivered. ‘Could you tell us who of the cast wasn’t with you at dinner?’

  ‘Peg Reynolds.’

  ‘And where was she?’

  A slight, experienced smile. ‘You’ll need to ask her that, won’t you? Young blood will have its day, they say, so I can’t tell you what she and her boyfriend were up to, though I can make a good guess. They came into the dining room when the rest of us had already been there for about an hour. They sat at their own table and had their own conversation. You can’t read anything significant into that. It’s what they’ve done all week.’

  Hook made a note and spoke for the first time. ‘This boyfriend of Miss Reynolds. A member of our team took a brief statement from him earlier in the week, but he was not on this location site at the time of Mr Jackson’s death and so is not suspected of murder. So neither Chief Superintendent Lambert nor I have met him. What sort of man is he?’

  It was left very open-ended, as though her extensive knowledge of the other sex would enable her to give a prompt and accurate assessment of the man. Unlike most of her colleagues, she didn’t underestimate this quietly spoken sergeant with the village bobby exterior. ‘His name is James Turner. I should say that I hardly know him, I suppose, but in the interests of accuracy I shall give you my opinion that he’s a nasty piece of work.’

  ‘Nasty in what way?’

  ‘In almost every way, from Peg’s point of view. Their affair won’t last. The question is, how much damage will it do to Peg Reynolds before she finally sends him on his way?’

  ‘Is he violent?’

  She looked hard at Hook, who was about her own age, but suddenly reminded her of the father she had not thought about in years. ‘You mean could he have killed Ernie Clark last night, don’t you? I expect he could, if the circumstances were right.’

  ‘You’d better tell us what those would be.’

  She stopped, looking at the shabby floor, concentrating on what she was going to say, thinking not of the impression of herself she was creating but of what she was going to say about this strange, handsome, sexy, highly dangerous man who had captivated Peg Reynolds. ‘James Turner is desperate to get acting work. I’ve no idea whether he deserves it or not. Merit isn’t always the key thing in our profession; luck and who you know are far more important for a youngster. Turner’s got looks, which always help. My guess is that with his handsome face and someone like Peg Reynolds on his side he can’t be much good if he’s out of work. But I could be quite wrong.’

  She didn’t sound as if she thought that at all likely, Hook thought. ‘Miss Reynolds has been trying to help him?’

  ‘She’s a good woman, Peg. She’s got more talent in her little finger than I had at her age, but I try not to hate her for that. But she’s besotted with that bloody man Turner. We’re stupid like that, you know, we women. We lose all sense of perspective when someone whispers nice things and gives us a bit of pleasure between the sheets.’

  Hook smiled at her flash of bitterness. ‘I’ve known a few men behave stupidly and lose all judgement when similarly affected by women. And not all of them were young men. They seem to take longer to grow out of it than women.’

  She looked hard at him for a moment, wondering exactly how he saw her jaded, worldly-wise, self. Men had controlled her life over the years, though she had learned by now how to sway their decisions. Men controlled the world, yet they were easily influenced by women like her. It had become a habit to assess her effects on men as conversations proceeded. What had been a defensive mechanism in the first place was now a major source of positive progress towards the things she wanted in life. ‘James Turner is violent towards Peg Reynolds. I’m sure that if you saw the whole of her body, you’d find bruises which come from him. When he’s frustrated he hits her – probably just because she’s the nearest person who matters to him. I’ve never been great on psychology, particularly where violence is concerned. I expect people who are violent in one context are well capable of being violent in another
. But you’d have more experience of that than I have.’

  Hook didn’t comment on that. He looked at Lambert, who immediately said, ‘We now have certain information which you chose to withhold from us when we spoke about Samuel Jackson’s murder on Wednesday.’

  She turned her attention back to the big cheese, wondering if these two were employing their own sophisticated version of the good-cop bad-cop strategy. ‘I didn’t give you the story of my life. It would have taken too long and been rather boring. If I withheld something you now think is interesting, it was because it had no connection with Sam’s death.’

  She managed a smile, but she was suddenly looking strained again because of this unexpected attack from the lined, massively experienced face above her. What was it they knew about her and Sam which she would rather have concealed? Lambert shook his head abruptly, dismissively. ‘This is highly relevant to Jackson’s death. It is a piece of information he was prepared to use against you, I think. And possibly against someone else in the Herefordshire Horrors cast as well.’

  ‘You had better tell me what you’re talking about instead of playing games with me. Then I shall tell you why it has no connection with what has happened this week.’

  ‘With two ruthless killings, you mean. This is not a time for euphemisms, Miss Rokeby.’

  She chose her words carefully, hoping that they knew less than she feared they did. ‘Sam knew about a relationship I’d had with his leading man in the Inspector Loxton series, Martin Buttivant. It was a long time ago, when we were both very young. It had no connection with Sam’s death.’

  ‘It was a little more than a relationship that Sam Jackson was aware of and was using against you. I have to tell you that Mr Clark was in possession of the same information. He appears to have been privy to almost everything which Mr Jackson knew. As producer and assistant producer, they obviously exchanged all information which they thought was relevant and useful to them.’