Death of a Dancer

by Anthony Litton

  ‘Surely, though, preparing the papers to take over the theatre, the transfer of your family money, arranging for the warehousing and so on, must have taken months to organise, not days?’

  ‘Oh yes, but you see, I knew from the very first moment I saw her that we were meant to be together, so most of my planning happened before I knew... that... that some of its detail had to be... adapted,’ he replied, with macabre understatement.

  ‘Because Miss Kujenikov had formed an attachment to Daniel. Tell us about him.’

  ‘Daniel!’ DeLancy sneered, his eyes flashing malevolence. ‘The boy wonder! Or so he, and everyone else, thought!’

  ‘At what point did you involve him in your… plans?’

  ‘As soon as I could, after I caught them together, giggling and hugging each other; it was disgusting!’

  ‘We understood that he’d disappeared some weeks before you closed the theatre, so how did you manage to find him, get him to return?’

  ‘That was simplicity itself, Inspector, simplicity itself! His own arrogance made sure of that! Once everything was in place, I said I’d help him and Ariana to be together, help them overcome the inevitable family reaction. He believed me! I also told him that I knew someone powerful in the music world, who was interested in his work. He fell for that too; deluded young fool!’

  The old man gave a chilling little laugh which turned into a cold smile and then continued. ‘I persuaded him to “disappear” for three weeks, so he could “polish” some new works. They were more pretentious rubbish, of course, but I was careful not to tell him that!’ He sneered, his words again speeding up as memories raced back up into his consciousness.

  ‘Once everything was ready, the night The Dolphin “disappeared”, I phoned him and told him to meet Ariana and me at the theatre, after the show. I said they could meet up there and he could have the first moments of the rest of his life with her. A good choice of words, don’t you think! Anyway, when he arrived, I sat him down, saying she was on her way. I stepped to one side, so I could watch his face, and then swept the box’s curtains aside so that he could see the stage; see Ariana.’

  He paused for a moment, then continued, ‘You know, even after all these years, I can still so clearly see the look on his face. Or rather, the looks,’ he sniggered. ‘There were so many, each flashing so quickly across his smug, arrogant features; his wonder as she appeared, suspended, in her beautiful crystal bower, his puzzlement when she didn’t move, then... then, the horror as he realised just what he was looking at! It quite paralysed him! Not for long, but time enough for me and my colleague, who’d come in quietly behind him, to get the rope round his shoulders and pin him to the chair. Which of course, we’d firmly fixed to the floor beforehand.’

  ‘And... then? What? You left him there and fled abroad?’

  ‘Oh no, not right away. I couldn’t quite bear to leave her. Not yet,’ he continued, strange longing and pain in his voice, ‘so, once the boarding had gone up during that first night, I returned and sat quietly, looking at her. ‘I can still recall,’ he went on, his tone suddenly changing, becoming jarringly upbeat, ‘those wonderful, exquisite moments, over the next two days or so, when I’d re-appear in the box and just look at Ariana; sit by Daniel’s side. I even made as if to untie him, teasing him a little... Then... just for a moment... hope would flare in the poor boy’s eyes! Did I do that two or three times? I can’t remember,’ he shrugged.

  ‘You left a nineteen-year-old boy, to die, and die horribly, and then couldn’t resist – what’s your word? – teasing’ him?’ Calderwood asked, his voice calm; his face showing nothing of the effort required to keep it so.

  Renick shrugged dismissively. ‘If it wasn’t for him, Ariana would have continued loving me, I know she would!’

  ‘So tell me, why, after all the effort to cover your tracks, did you leave instructions for the theatre to be, in effect, “rediscovered” after fifty years?’

  Renick, shook his head slowly, smiling ruefully. ‘Two reasons, Inspector; ninety seemed an inconceivable age to reach. Quite simply, I thought I’d be dead; a misjudgement, obviously! The second, and most important, reason, though, was that I didn’t want her to remain hidden; be forgotten,’ he added, sadness again sweeping across his face.

  ‘Was that why you left the photographs largely untouched and the can of film? So they could be found, her memory brought back to life?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, even though they’d all been done by Daniel. He had caught her beauty and grace, so they deserved to survive, so people today could see her again. It was also why I asked my colleague to use his skills to do what... what he did,’ he added, his voice now so faint that Calderwood had to lean forward to catch his words.

  Then the DI moved onto the one thing that really interested his silent colleague.

  ‘Tell us about your “colleague”. How did you meet Victor Andrews?’

  ‘Ah yes. Victor!’ Renick, unsurprised at Calderwood’s knowledge, almost purred the name, suddenly doing another of his lightning changes of mood and shaking off his eerily genuine grief. ‘A quite remarkable man! I’d met him on one of my London trips. We became drinking companions. He told me that he had some sort of job working with plastics and associated materials, but was bored with it; said his employers put too many restraints on his talents. He hinted that he was working on some highly secret stuff, but was, in his words, “being held back” and so had wasted years. He began to bore me too, to tell you the truth. But then...!’ Renick snickered. ‘Then! during one of our more... extended evenings, he blurted out something of his past; not much, but enough to make me curious and do some research on him. I hit a brick wall, of course, and I told him so, goaded him, saying that I didn’t believe him.’ He laughed softly, the calmness in his voice again contrasting oddly with an increasing tension, restiveness, in his body. ‘That’s all it took! His arrogance couldn’t bear for me to think him less than he was! So he told me everything, even his real name.’

  ‘Surely he’d realise the risk of prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, by telling you?’ Calderwood queried.

  ‘Possibly,’ Renick shrugged, ‘but it was almost twenty years since he’d been taken undercover and, I suppose, he thought he would be safe. Or,’ he added softly, his voice suddenly bleak with self-knowledge, ‘perhaps he didn’t; perhaps he found, finally, that the burden was too much to carry on his own. Anyway,’ he added in a brisker tone, ‘he wanted a change, said he had some really ground-breaking ideas, but needed more freedom than he currently had. It certainly sounded as though a fortune could be made, so, about a year before…’ His voice broke, briefly, and he took a deep breath to steady himself, ‘...before Aria arrived, I spent a great deal of money in setting him up in his disgusting “laboratory”, as he called it!’

  ‘Laboratory?’

  ‘Yes. I gathered he’d been quite fruitful in his immediate post-war years; did some quite valuable work in plastics and similar materials, and was very well thought of. Fortunately for him, I think,’ he added, with a cynical smile. ‘I doubt his new masters would have kept him around long if he’d turned out to be a dud! Things were alright between us, initially,’ he continued, ‘but he started becoming a problem: getting too sure of himself, misjudging the strength of the hold he thought he had over me, because I’d indulged his... appetites.’

  ‘Indulged his appetites?’

  ‘Yes, He needed to “let off steam”, to “free up” his “creativity”, he said. Apparently his... previous employers had allowed him to do something similar, immediately after the war, but had put a stop to it.’

  ‘What form did this “letting off steam” take?’ Calderwood asked, not wanting to hear the answer he knew was coming.

  ‘Actually,’ Renick said, ‘channelling is perhaps a better word,’ he murmured, after a moment’s reflection. ‘Yes, channelling,’ he decided, with a satisfied smile. ‘He was working on plastics in ways difficult to imagine then. In my view, he was,
if not a lone genius in the field, certainly up there amongst the leaders in it. He was developing a whole range of different types, some as unbreakable as the hardest steel, others as fine and malleable as the finest silk. The one that had really caught his fancy was one which blended the two, producing a material with almost limitless strength, yet could be easily formed, moulded, into any shape required. He claimed it would work at any temperature or in any climatic conditions: whether it was the hottest deserts, the ice-fields, or the steamiest jungle. I, personally, saw it working in an amazingly wide range of temperatures.

  One version of this that he was developing – and the one that interested me the most, as it became obvious that I had to “adapt” my plans with Aria,’ he added, his voice suddenly hard, ‘stayed totally inert in any situation – bar one. When it came into contact with human skin it became another skin, but infinitely stronger and longer lasting. It was awe-inspiring to watch, as it gently and permanently covered anything human; watch as it settled into the shape of that skin and the body beneath it, without the slightest distortion and then, within minutes, be almost unbreakable. I’m not sure there’s anything like it, even today,’ he added, lost in thought.

  ‘I knew when I saw how exquisitely it worked on various other... “subjects”... that Victor could create something beautiful for me,’ he went on, his voice now soft, almost caressing, ‘something that would be a fitting final resting place for her. A glittering, transparent bower that would hold her, protect her and keep her, untouched... by time, by... ‘ he trailed off, his eyes distant as the decades rolled back

  ‘Let us be quite clear; are you telling us that...?’ Calderwood began, returning to his original question.

  ‘Yes, Inspector, I am,’ Renick replied, his eyes re-focusing, jerked back into the present by the question, ‘though I suspect you already know. Quite simply,’ he shrugged casually, ‘Victor needed human guinea pigs to speed up his work; give it zest, even. The British Government, and then myself, following the example of our German friends, gave him that “raw material”.’

  Chapter 56

  ‘Our government allowed it to operate for two years, apparently,’ continued Renick, placidly. ‘Then, some “spineless politician” found out and stopped it. ‘Probably a Yid,’ was the way he put it. Proved Der Führer had it right and so on. Quite tedious, he got. I’m sure, though,’ he continued, an ominous note entering his voice, ‘that tedious as old “Victor” could be, the great British public would be interested, even today, to know what was done in their name! After all,’ he added, mockingly, ‘I’ve not signed the Official Secrets Act!’

  Calderwood said nothing, merely looked quietly back at the old man.

  ‘Anyway, I digress. The very evening it all happened, he began throwing his weight about. He’d helped me first with bringing Ariana from the laboratory, where I’d taken her after the last show, when the drugs I’d given her had knocked her out, and then, shortly afterwards, with securing Daniel. He then threatened me, demanding huge amounts of money, saying I knew enough about him to know he wasn’t someone to be shrugged off, particularly as I’d helped him acquire more “raw material” and so on and so on. Stupid, stupid man,’ he added, with quiet venom, his eyes flickering with remembered anger. Or was the flickering caused by something else? Calderwood wondered, an idea silently taking shape in his mind.

  ‘So how did you react?’ he asked, aloud.

  ‘I killed him, of course, a couple of days later. He’d left me no option.’

  ‘And where did you dispose of the body?’

  ‘I didn’t. I just sealed up the cellars we – he – had been using and went abroad.’

  ‘Whereabouts were these cellars?’

  Renick laughed softly, mockingly. ‘Don’t treat me as a fool, Inspector. Do you really think I’ll give away my insurance?’

  ‘Insurance, sir?’ repeated Calderwood woodenly, well aware of his colleague’s heightened interest. Though, he admitted, she was good. Not by as much as a pause in her note-taking, or stiffening of her body, had she given away the fact that, for her and her superiors, nothing in the case mattered but the next few minutes.

  ‘Yes, Inspector, my insurance. As I’ve already pointed out, I’ve not signed the Official Secrets Act, so am free to speak – provided I’m still alive, of course. Which, with the security of my ace in the hole, I stand a considerably better chance of remaining,’ he added coolly.

  ‘Very well, sir, we’ll leave that for a moment, though I would strongly advise you not to treat any information you have as, insurance, I really would,’ Calderwood remarked, before moving on. ‘Whereabouts abroad did you go?’

  ‘Oh, various places. France first, though an undiluted diet of the French was considerably more than I could take, so I then went to Spain, then onto Morocco, where I had my boat built. Over the years, I got a taste for the sun; amongst other things,’ he added.

  ‘With the money you’d had... transferred, I imagine you could go anywhere,’ Calderwood remarked.

  ‘Yes.’ responded Renick, with an amused smile. ‘Initially, at least,’ the other man continued. ‘Until it ran out,’ he added, ‘which is what I suspect you really want to know about.’

  ‘Well it was rather a large sum and its loss did lead to your being here today,’ Calderwood pointed out.

  ‘That you scarcely need to point out to me, Inspector!’ responded the other man tartly. ‘Suffice it to say, that the blissful sunshine and the wonderful, wonderful sense of freedom I had by being away from that pack of nonentities back in Estwich, rather went to my head. I became, unfortunately, rather too fond of the wide array of drugs so easily available in North Africa. That, and a rather tawdry relationship with someone who was as addicted as I, and had other, even more expensive tastes, meant that I ran out of all my money in less than thirty years.’

  Calderwood, his suspicions hardening, watched closely as Pemberton’s voice progressively became more clipped, almost staccato, and his body and movements, subtly, almost invisibly, became jerkier, slightly disjointed, as he continued, with a rueful shake of his head. ‘Equally unfortunately, I owed huge amounts to the... gentlemen... who had kindly supplied our addictions. So there I was, more than broke, with almost nothing left, except for my lovely boat, which I wouldn’t sell, even to pay off the thugs. They became dangerously pressing, so I got a scratch crew together and sailed the Aria back to the UK.’

  ‘So what did you do then?’

  ‘Lay low for a while. Then, using the last of my cash, booked into a rather grand hotel.’

  ‘And there met Mrs Jeffries.’

  ‘And there met Rowena,’ he agreed.

  ‘And defrauded her; then left her.’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Both actions necessary, Inspector, I assure you.’

  ‘And then, more than twenty years later, you arrange to have her killed. Why?’

  ‘You know the answer to that, Inspector! That was totally down to you! Once I saw the photograph in the newspapers – not entirely flattering, by the way! – I knew it was only a matter of time before she’d see it and recognise me, recall the boat and then blab to someone.’

  ‘Had you not tried to have her killed, she may never have made any link between your two identities, of course.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Renick conceded. ‘But I couldn’t risk it, not until I’d sold the Aria and gone abroad again. I should have done it years ago, of course,’ he added meditatively. ‘I was too fond of her, you see, had too many memories.’

  ‘Fond of who? Mrs Jeffries?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd! I’m talking about my boat! My lovely, lovely Aria.’ he said, his voice sinking to almost a caress.

  ‘So you arranged to have Mrs Jeffries killed: a woman you’d beggared and who had done you absolutely no harm,’ the young DI responded quietly.

  Renick shrugged and didn’t answer.

  ‘What I can’t understand,’ Calderwood continued, after a short pause, ‘is why it was neces
sary to have your niece, Arabelle, killed. Besides its callousness, it was totally unnecessary. What on earth could that achieve but ratchet up our determination to find you?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t agree more, Inspector! A very counter-productive act, I must agree. Or I would – if I had had her killed. But, you see, whatever else you may try to charge me with, that one won’t stick, for the very simple reason that I did not have Arabelle killed.’

  Chapter 57

  ‘It’s a bit of a bugger, that’s what it is,’ Bulmer had muttered, late into the evening of the next day, as he’d reluctantly left for home, his presence needed by a flu-stricken wife and children.

  His superior couldn’t but agree, as, even later, he tiredly pushed aside a large pile of papers.

  He and his temporary DS had got no further with Renick the previous day. They’d taken him again though his story, before his increasingly disjointed speech made progress impossible. Throughout, the old man never, however, deviated from his flat denial of being responsible for his niece’s murder.

  ‘The devil of it is, he has no reason to lie. He’s already admitted stuff every bit as bad, or worse, so has no reason, that I can fathom, to deny responsibility for Arabelle’s killing,’ Calderwood said, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

  ‘I agree, none at all,’ replied ‘DS Williams’.

  ‘Anyway, we’ll charge him with what we have, then hand him over to you and then review all our paperwork – again! – to see if anything sheds any light on Arabelle DeLancy’s death and re-interview everyone again, if necessary. I’d like his arrest kept under wraps for 48 hours at least, while we do all that,’ he added and she nodded her agreement.

  ‘One thing’s for sure,’ he went on grimly, ‘if there is another killer out there, I want whoever it is! It was one of the most savage murders I’ve ever seen.’ He shook his head as he recalled the brutal scene. ‘Anyway, at least you’ll have some extra leverage with Renick, I think,’ he continued. ‘From his body language, I’d say it’s pretty certain that he’s still an addict. What do you reckon?’