Death of a Dancer

by Anthony Litton

  ‘How long were you together?’

  ‘A little under two years. I’d had a very bad fall several months before we met and needed extensive care. The house I’d previously owned was too large, really, so I’d sold it and had moved into a nursing home until I was mobile again.’

  ‘Was that the Moranedd ?’

  ‘Yes. My visit to the hotel was my first trip “solo”, as it were, in over six months. I then went back to the nursing home for a few more months while all the paperwork for a new, smaller property was completed and the house adapted for me. I was still quite fragile, so Peter Renick oversaw everything. Unfortunately for me,’ she added grimly.

  ‘Unfortunately?’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately. The project went many thousands of pounds over budget. In one way, I wasn’t too bothered, to be honest. I had more than enough money to cover it and still have plenty left. That said, I was still a businesswoman and wanted value for my money. As I say, I hadn’t really the energy to deal with it all, so I left most of it to Peter. We’d not been together long, but I trusted him. And he was a clever bastard,’ she added.

  ‘In fooling you, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, but more the way he went about it, once he realised that I was getting angry enough to actually do something about it myself; go and sort the builders out for what I thought was their crap inability to keep to the agreed quotes. He went off – to see them, he said – and came back with a £20,000 repayment – in cash.’

  ‘A lot of money,’ Calderwood remarked quietly.

  ‘Yes. It was about a third of what the overspend was. He’d cleverly sacrificed a chunk of the money his swindle had got him, to get me to trust him completely. From then on, I increasingly left everything to him, both my personal money and the running of the businesses. I didn’t realise how much it cost me until it was much too late,’ she ended, with an angry sigh.

  ‘When did you realise what he’d done?’

  ‘Not until the day before he walked out on me, over twenty years ago.’

  ‘What brought things to a head?’

  ‘A letter from a friend who, at one time, had handled Ted’s business affairs. He wrote that he’d heard the business was near insolvency and could he do anything to help.’

  ‘And you’d had no inkling of this during the previous two years?’

  ‘No, none,’ she replied.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I was still so blinded by Peter, that instead of calling in independent experts, I raised it directly with him. Hell! Talk about stupid!’ she exclaimed, raising her arms off the bed in a ‘can you believe it’ gesture.

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘Much as you’d expect. Surprise, outrage, hurt; accused my friend of being jealous of the success of the businesses, of us, of what we had together, et cetera, bloody et cetera! God, he was convincing! I thought later, when I found out the truth and how completely he’d ruined me, that he should have been on the stage! Anyway, to cut my story short, I believed him and we agreed to go the next day and see my friend, allay his fears.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘I did. Peter didn’t,’ she replied succinctly. ‘He left during the night and I never saw him again.’

  ‘Did you attempt to find him? Get at least some of your money back?’

  ‘I was going to, believe me! Then the expert I, rather belatedly, called in, told me a) I’d apparently signed all the necessary papers, so whatever Peter had done had been done in my name, so he was virtually untouchable, and b) that I had no money left anyway to do any extensive searches or mount any meaningful action. It was wipe out,’ she added simply, before continuing. ‘So there we are, I’d turned, overnight it seemed, into one of those gullible, silly people that Ted and I used to find so unbelievable, when we read about some swindle or other. How could anyone be that stupid, we’d wonder, be that gullible that infantile, that-this, that-that... We genuinely couldn’t understand how people could let themselves be so thoroughly worked over. It wasn’t gloating; it was genuine incomprehension. Too late, I learned the answer to our questions,’ she added, sadly. ‘You see, we’d asked them from within the security, the companionship, of a strong, loving, relationship.’

  She paused and then continued softly. ‘I found out that the answer was quite simple and not so difficult to understand, after all. It was the loneliness, the heart-aching loneliness of being alone after losing someone, that opens up many, me included now, to being abused by the likes of Peter Renick.’

  ‘Do you know where he is now? What he’s doing?’ Calderwood asked quietly, giving no hint of how much he was moved by her story.

  ‘I didn’t even know he was still alive, until all this started up,’ she replied. ‘I don’t even know why he... why he would want me out of the way! What possible threat could I be to him?’

  ‘He obviously thought you were – and a big enough one to cause him to break cover for the first time in many years,’ Calderwood remarked quietly.

  ‘And that’s another thing! Why now?’ she asked suddenly. ‘All this was over twenty years ago. If he wanted me dead, he’d had years to do it in! Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ she said looking across at him. ‘Something I don’t know about; otherwise you’d not have issued the photograph,’ she continued, nodding to herself.

  Calderwood nodded. ‘We wish to talk to him about some events that have occurred in a town called Estwich...’ And he went on to give the stunned old lady a brief outline of the discovery of the theatre and its macabre contents.

  ‘I’ve read about that!’ she exclaimed suddenly; ‘Well, it was read to me, my eyes can’t take print for too long, these days,’ she added. ‘But it’s all involving a family called De... something or other. So how does Peter fit into that picture? And why were the police there so quickly last night?’ she queried suddenly. ‘Did someone know something was going to happen?’ she added, accusingly.

  ‘No, we didn’t, Mrs Jeffries. The young constable who was first in the room had been put outside your home only last evening and simply as a precaution. We felt there was little or no chance of his being needed, otherwise we’d have informed you of what we planned to do,’ he replied quietly.

  She nodded, ‘I owe him my life, don’t I?’ she said simply, after a moment.

  ‘You probably do, Mrs Jeffries, as, perhaps, you do to my young colleague here. She was the one who used her initiative and set the ball rolling,’ he replied, smiling across at Cerian.

  The old lady turned her head and looked at the now embarrassed DC. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve given me a chance to stop being a silly old cow,’ she added, surprising both the police officers. ‘I’d given up, you see. The last few years I’d stopped caring, stopped wanting to live. After all, I thought, why put myself to all the bother? I’d lost Ted, a husband I’d loved, a man who was my life partner in the fullest, truest sense and, after him, another man who I thought I’d loved; did, for a while, if I’m honest. In the process I’d managed to lose the life’s work of Ted and myself and lost a fortune and my self-respect, so what reason did I have to go on living?’

  She stopped, her voice trembling. ‘I thought that, right up until the moment that I woke up last night and knew that I was going to die. Right then, I’d get what I wanted and that would be it, I’d be dead. But, you know, I realised in that tiny, tiny fraction of a second, that I didn’t want to die; not then, not after being such a negative old bissom. When I go, and I know it won’t be too many years, perhaps months, before it does happen, I want it to be after I’ve enjoyed, consciously enjoyed, my last time on earth. So, again,’ she said, reaching out her hand to the younger woman, ‘thank you, my dear.’

  Chapter 48

  ‘I just wish I could be of some help to you,’ she fretted, after they’d all briefly fallen silent. ‘I just can’t think of anything that could lead you to the bastard, more’s the pity,’ she said, helplessly wringing her thin hands.

  ‘
Did he ever talk about his life, his supposed life, before you met?’ Calderwood queried.

  ‘He rarely spoke about it. From the odd occasion when he did, I gathered he’d lived abroad for many years, though he never said where. I’m sorry, that’s not helping much, is it?’ she continued, tears suddenly appearing in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t distress yourself, Mrs Jeffries,’ soothed Calderwood. ‘It may be something so small that you don’t realise its significance. One thing we can be sure of, though,’ he added grimly, ‘is that Renick has been careful for half a century, so for him to break cover now, must mean that there is something you know which could lead us straight to him. Sometimes it takes a little time,,’ he continued gently, ‘but, I’m sure we’ll get there.’

  She gave a little nod of thanks, her face still screwed up in the effort to remember anything that could help.

  ‘We tracked down the man who put your attacker in touch with whoever wanted the attack carried out, and he said a curious thing,’ Calderwood went on carefully. He and Cerian were fairly sure what Paget’s mate had actually heard was indeed water, but not from a bath. If the old lady could confirm that, give them a town or village near water of any kind, they may, just may, be able to start narrowing things down, begin closing in on him.

  ‘He thought he heard water in the background when... whoever was his principal... was giving his instructions. Does that ring any sort of bell?’ he asked carefully.

  ‘Water? No. When he was with me, we lived inland, just over the border in Cheshire,’ she replied, dashing his hopes. ‘Oh!’ she said suddenly, her face lighting up. ‘That’s it! It must be! His boat! His boat!’

  Chapter 49

  The two detectives felt an almost electrical charge at the word. This was more, much, much more, than they could realistically have hoped for – if he still had the vessel.

  ‘He had a boat?’ responded Calderwood, keeping his voice carefully neutral

  ‘Yes. He always played it down, but you could tell how much it meant to him: the way his eyes softened; even his voice was different, somehow.’

  ‘Can you remember where he berthed her?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry, it was so long ago and I only went there once or twice. I think it was a marina somewhere near one of the northern towns. Carlisle, perhaps? Lancaster maybe? No, not them, and he was talking of moving it, anyway.’ She shook her head, angry at herself, but unable to help further.

  ‘I don’t suppose you can remember the name of the vessel?’

  ‘No, the only thing I can remember,’ she added after a pause, ‘is that it was something to do with music.’

  ‘Music?’

  ‘Yes, odd really, as he wasn’t very musical,’ she remarked, with another puzzled shake of her head.

  They continued to chat quietly for another ten minutes, but nothing new emerged and they decided to call it a day when they saw Rowena struggling to keep her eyes open.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Jeffries, you’ve been a great help,’ Calderwood murmured quietly as they got up to go. ‘We’re staying overnight, so we’ll call back in tomorrow, before we head back,’ he added.

  She nodded drowsily, raising her hand in a sleepy farewell as they left the room.

  ‘A lovely lady,’ Cerian remarked, as they walked down the long corridor to the exit.

  Calderwood nodded his agreement ‘And it was a very useful conversation, very useful. We got a lot out of it, I think.’

  ‘Yes. A pity we didn’t get the name of the boat, though,’ Cerian responded gloomily.

  Calderwood looked down at her quizzically. ‘Oh, but I think we did, Cerian, I think we did.’

  Chapter 50

  ‘Yes. I think we have quite a lot,’ Calderwood repeated later, with quiet satisfaction. ‘Particularly when you consider where we were only a day or two ago,’ he added, as, brandy glass in hand, he scanned the hotel menu.

  He’d refused to say any more about the boat, merely suggesting she read through all the case notes as she’d find a clue, more than a clue, in them. She had had to be content with that. So, in the two hours since they’d booked into the sleekly modern hotel on the edge of town, while her superior made a number of long phone calls, she had spent the time re-reading all the paperwork in the file they’d brought with them.

  So engrossed had she become, that she’d left it almost too late for a shower. The result was she was now sitting opposite Calderwood, her hair damp, with its usual mass of curls straightened and framing her face. Making her look ridiculously young, he thought, unaware that she was thinking the same of him, dressed as he now was in jeans and open-necked shirt.

  ‘So, have you got any further with the name of the boat?’ he’d teased gently, when they’d met a few minutes previously in the bar.

  She’d grinned, a little shamefacedly, as she passed over a slip of paper with one word written on it.

  ‘Well done,’ he said, smiling as he glanced down at it.

  She grimaced. ‘I should have picked it up earlier, though.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. You weren’t at either of the interviews where it was actually mentioned, so it was just one of masses of tiny detail in Colin’s notes. You’d have got there when we’d all done a routine re-reading of everything at some point.’

  She nodded, knowing that he was probably right. Though I bet you’d still have beaten me to it, she thought wryly. She’d worked with the young DI and Bulmer for more than a year. It had been the team she’d most wanted to be assigned to when she’d arrived in the county and she was still pinching herself that she’d actually achieved her goal. Her initial respect for both men had grown exponentially since then. Calderwood’s quick mind and his ability to think and analyse at almost preternatural speed still left her breathless. Bulmer, also, she’d noticed, frequently functioned well beyond the level normally expected from a DS.

  She’d been puzzled why he wasn’t higher in the rankings, until he’d told her about the Timpson rape. He’d told her nothing of his experiences arising out of his insistence on simple justice, but she knew enough of the police code to have a good idea. Digging afterwards, what she’d heard had both shocked her and redoubled her respect for her genial superior. His story had reminded her that what she liked most about both men, was just that – their straightforward honesty.

  ‘We’re moving in on him, Cerian, I can feel it,’ Calderwood said as, their orders placed, he sat back, enjoying the warmth of the large room. ‘I’ve contacted Colin and the team are pulling out lists of all marinas in the country. Most will have registers of names and addresses of the boats berthing with them. It’s a heck of a task, so fingers crossed,’ he added.

  She nodded. ‘And they can narrow it down quite a lot by them focusing on the south-west, initially at least, after what Paget’s mate said,’ she remarked.

  ‘Yes. It would seem he did move it after leaving Mrs Jeffries. A bonus for us is that, had we had any doubts, the name itself, makes it a virtual certainty that Peter Renick and Gerald DeLancy are one and the same,’ he remarked, looking down at the slip of paper Cerian had passed him. On it was the single word ‘Aria’.

  Chapter 51

  ‘And that’s why Rowena Jeffries thought it was something to do with music,’ Calderwood said. ‘She’d obviously heard the word in an operatic context, where, as you know, it refers to solo singing. So,’ he continued, ‘as he apparently never disabused her, if, indeed, she’d ever asked, she continued to think that. Whereas, of course...’ he trailed off.

  ‘It was his private name for his beloved Ariana,’ she ended, softly. ‘He must really have loved her, to keep her name after all these years,’ she added.

  ‘Love? I’m not at all sure that what he felt for her at the end, possibly ever, in fact, could be called “love”,’ Calderwood remarked. ‘Of course, he may no longer have the boat,’ he continued.

  She nodded, the same thought had occurred to her. ‘Bit of a coincidence, though, guv, Paget’s mate talking abou
t sloshing sounds.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he nodded in his turn. ‘In any event, it’s about the only lead we’ve got, so we better hang onto it!’ he smiled. ‘Anyway, how’s Jack taking your being away overnight?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘Colin says it’s the one thing Ellen hates about the job,’ he added. ‘So it’s fortunate that it doesn’t happen often.’

  ‘Oh, Jack was fine about it,’ she replied airily. ‘Eventually!’ she added, giggling. ‘He wasn’t keen at first,’ she added, in response to Calderwood’s raised eyebrows. ‘Not keen at all, in fact,’ she continued, reflecting that the phrase was more adult, though considerably less accurate, than the almighty sulk her news had brought on.

  ‘Anyway, I sorted it, by pointing out that he’s away quite often and, as he was so het up about my being away overnight, I might start to wonder what he gets up to when he’s away. That shut him up!’

  And well it might! he thought, amused. Jack Balatyne’s roistering ways were well known within the County force. Although one of the force’s most promising young officers, when he was off-duty, the hackneyed trilogy of wine, women and song, had been the guiding lights of his social life. Wine and song still were, Calderwood mused, though he’d heard no reports of any womanising since he’d taken up with the fiery Welsh girl. Which, he reflected, showed either Jack’s total devotion to her, or a very acutely developed sense of survival.

  When comforting a distraught female colleague over her boyfriend’s infidelity, Cerian had been heard, in Jack’s hearing, to recommend giving the straying young man a ‘Bobbitt’ and the consensus was that she wasn’t entirely joking. As the reference referred to the cutting off of the offender’s penis, after the real-life case of the same name, the story caused many a wincing male to cross his legs protectively.

  ‘Ah! Here’s our dinner! Good, I’m famished!’ he added, seeing the waiter approach, smiling at her energetic nod of agreement. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Cerian was definitely not a vegetarian and she and Calderwood got stuck happily into their food: she into a large plate of steak and chips and he into salmon with new potatoes and salad.