The man raised the megaphone to his mouth. ‘Can I have your attention, please!’ he called.
The mechanically distorted voice travelled across the car park, and the small knots of people who had been chatting to one another turned to face him.
‘The entire building has been thoroughly checked out, and it is now safe to enter it again,’ the security officer said. ‘Please return to your posts in an orderly fashion. Thank you for your co-operation.’
The moment the announcement was finished some of the people began walking back towards the building, but there were others who preferred to linger a little, while they finished their cigarettes or their conversations.
Woodend looked around for Bill Houseman, but there was no sign of the producer anywhere. If he was going to avoid being spotted by the reporters, he had better make his move now, the chief inspector thought, joining the stream of traffic flowing back into the studio.
As Woodend walked past the Actors’ Garden, he glanced beyond it to the dressing room where Valerie Farnsworth had met her lonely, terrifying death. He would get Bill Houseman for that, he promised himself – whatever it took.
But as he had told Paniatowski and Rutter the previous evening, it would not be easy. Houseman was nobody’s fool. Without any witnesses to place him at the scene of the crime, he probably thought he was going to get away with it, and as long as he was confident of that, he would not put a foot wrong. So the trick would be to undermine that confidence – to suggest that he might have left behind one telling clue which would betray him. He would fight off the instinct to check he had completely covered his tracks at first, but in the end he would surrender to it. And when he did that – when they caught him in a suspicious circumstance he could not explain away – they would have him.
Woodend passed the scenery workshop and the technical store, and drew level with Houseman’s office. The blind was down, but since it was only thirty-six hours to the next show, it was probable that the producer was inside. Perhaps he had been inside all through the fire drill. Perhaps that was why the chief inspector had not seen him in the car park.
Woodend knocked on the door. There was no answer, but the door was not properly closed, and his knock made it swing open just wide enough for him to see part of the office – and to wish that he hadn’t!
He pushed the door open. Houseman was slumped over his desk. His arms were stretched out in front of him, so that the tips of his fingers drooped over the far edge. His head was resting between his in-tray and his out-tray.
John Dinnage had been found in a similar position. But it was not a heart attack which had reduced Houseman to this state, it was a large carving knife – buried in his back almost up to the hilt.
Woodend closed the door behind him, stepped forward, and placed his index finger against Bill Houseman’s neck. There was no pulse. Bill Houseman, his main suspect in the murder of Valerie Farnsworth, was indisputably as dead as a dodo himself.
Woodend stepped back and let his gaze sweep the room, as if hoping to find the killer crouching in a corner. But apart from himself and the corpse, the office was empty.
He walked over to the door, opened it just wide enough to step outside, and looked at the stream of people making their way back to their posts. Any one of them could have used the confusion of the fire alarm to slip into Houseman’s office and stick the knife in his back. Any bloody one of them!
The chief inspector took his packet of Capstan Full Strengths out of his pocket, and lit one up.
How was DCS Ainsworth going to react to the news of a second killing, especially when the officer in charge of investigating the first had been, if not in the building, then at least in the area?
How was the press – the pack of hungry jackals outside – going to report it the next day?
‘Shit!’ Woodend said aloud – and realised that was exactly what he was in.
Thirty
Like most of the windows in the studio, the one in the safety officer’s room had a view of the central concourse and, looking through it, Woodend could see Bob Rutter’s team organising the staff of Maddox Row into lines outside the conference rooms. It was probably almost an exact replay of the scene on Monday night, after Val Farnsworth’s body had been discovered, he thought gloomily.
He turned to face the people in the room. One of them was the safety officer himself, the other a spotty-faced youth who looked as if he were about to soil his trousers.
‘Let’s start at the beginnin’, shall we?’ Woodend suggested to the safety officer. ‘What was the first thing you did when you heard the fire bell ringin’?’
‘I checked on the panel on the wall over there, to see where it had been set off,’ the other man replied, pointing with his finger. ‘The flashing light told me it was in one of the rehearsal rooms, so I went straight there. That’s where I found young Brian.’
The spotty youth jumped at the sound of his own name.
‘Why did you set the alarm off?’ Woodend asked.
‘B . . . Buildin’ maintenance sent me there to sweep up,’ the youth stammered. ‘There was, like, this big old tea chest in the corner of the room. I think it belongs to the props department. There was smoke comin’ out of it.’
‘They use it for their rubbish,’ the safety officer said. ‘I told them it isn’t safe, but they never listen. My guess is that some idiot dropped an unextinguished cigarette end in there.’
‘So you saw the smoke, an’ you set off the alarm?’ Woodend said to the boy.
‘That . . . that’s right.’
‘There was no need for it,’ the safety officer said. ‘He could probably have stamped it out with this shoe. And if that had failed, there was a fire extinguisher on the wall.’
‘Why didn’t you use the extinguisher?’ Woodend asked Brian.
‘I p . . . panicked,’ the boy admitted.
‘You’re sure that’s what it was?’ Woodend demanded.
‘W . . . what do you mean?’
‘You’re sure someone didn’t pay you to set off the alarm?’
‘No! I . . . I just saw the smoke, an’ then I broke the glass.’
‘All right,’ Woodend said wearily. ‘You can go.’
Brian did not need telling twice. He took a quick gulp of air and fled from the room.
‘Do you believe him?’ Woodend asked, when the boy had slammed the door behind him.
‘Yes, I do,’ the fire officer said. ‘It was a stupid way to behave, but then half these kids haven’t got the sense they were born with.’
‘I believe him, too,’ Woodend said. ‘What happened after you’d located the source of the lad’s panic?’
‘I gave it a quick squirt with the extinguisher, just to make sure it was properly out.’
‘So at that point you knew there was no real danger?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then why didn’t you simply abandon the evacuation?’
‘A lot of people were already outside in the car park by then. Besides, we’ve been told it’s dangerous to issue counter-instructions once an evacuation’s actually in progress. And our procedures specifically state that, whatever the reason the alarm’s been set off, we still have to check every room to make sure it’s safe before we can allow anybody back in the building.’
‘An’ that’s what you did?’
‘That’s what I did – starting with the studio and working my way towards the main door.’
‘So you checked Mr Houseman’s office?’
The safety officer looked sheepish. ‘I called out to ask if anybody was in there, but there was no reply,’ he confessed.
‘No, there wouldn’t have been,’ Woodend said dryly. ‘Dead people are often unnaturally quiet. So while you were doin’ your checkin’, did you see anybody else around?’
The safety officer looked down at the floor. ‘No.’
‘You’re absolutely sure of that?’
‘Look, try and see it from my point of view,’ the
safety officer said. ‘As soon as your investigation’s over, you’ll be gone. But I have to keep on working here – and it won’t make my job any easier if I’ve got anybody into trouble.’
‘So you’d rather shield a murderer than make your own life a little uncomfortable, would you?’
The safety officer shook his head. ‘Of course I wouldn’t. But the people I found had anything but murder on their minds.’
‘Tell me about them anyway.’
The safety officer sighed. ‘There was this couple,’ he conceded. ‘Well, they’re not really a couple as such, if the truth be told. As a matter of fact, they’re both married to other people.’
‘What about them?’
‘I found them in the props store. Her knickers were round her ankles, and he was just pulling his trousers up.’
‘I noticed Mrs Houseman, the producer’s wife, in the car park,’ Woodend said. ‘She didn’t happen to be the woman you’re talkin’ about, did she?’
‘No. It wasn’t her. The woman I’m talking about works in make-up, and the man who was with her is from props.’
‘But you weren’t really surprised when I suggested it might have been Mrs Houseman, were you?’ Woodend asked.
‘Well, you know . . .’ the safety officer said embarrassedly.
‘No, I don’t know,’ Woodend told him. ‘Are you saying that it’s common knowledge that Diana Houseman has been having an affair?’
‘An affair!’ the safety officer repeated.
‘You’re telling me she’s had more than one?’
‘I’m not going to give you any names, because I’ve no proof one way or the other, but if the rumours are to be believed, nobody in trousers was really safe from her.’
Woodend nodded. ‘Let’s get back to the buildin’ check that you did,’ he said. ‘Apart from this couple grabbin’ the chance for a spot of nookie in the cupboard, did you see anybody else?’
‘Nobody. But that doesn’t really prove a thing. If somebody didn’t want me to see them, there are dozens of places in this studio where they could hide until I went off to check somewhere else. The only reason I found that couple I told you about was because they were more intent on what they were doing to each other than they were on what was happening around them.’
Despite his general feeling of despondency, Woodend grinned. ‘What instructions were the staff told to follow once they were outside?’
‘Their instructions were for them to form up in their assigned groups,’ the safety officer said. ‘All the kitchen staff should have been in one group, all the props people in another, and so on. That way, we can do a head count to make sure nobody’s gone missing.’
‘But I take it that didn’t happen.’
‘The big trouble with this kind of thing is that nobody ever takes it seriously,’ the safety officer complained. ‘They hear the bell ring, and their automatic assumption is that it’s nothing more than a drill. So they leave the building like they’re supposed to, but once they’re outside, all procedure goes by the board. It never occurs to them that this time it could be the real thing, you see. It never enters their heads that the people responsible for their safety need to know if there’s anybody left inside.’
‘In other words, instead of doin’ what they’re supposed to do, they do pretty much what they feel like?’
‘That’s about the long and short of it,’ the safety officer admitted sadly. ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt that some of them assembled at the correct points, but the majority probably didn’t. You know what people are like. They drift off to their cars to listen to the racing on the wireless. They go and chat with their mates from other departments. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them didn’t slip off to the nearest pub for a quick one.’ He sighed heavily. ‘It’s not easy, under any circumstances, to get the general public to co-operate with safety procedures in the proper disciplined manner, but with this lot from the entertainment industry—’
‘You think you’ve got problems?’ Woodend interrupted. ‘You should try conductin’ a double murder investigation among this lot from the entertainment industry.’
Thirty-One
The ragged queues outside the studio’s conference rooms were shorter than they had been earlier, but there was still a fair number of people waiting to have their statements taken down.
Woodend, standing in front of the safety officer’s room, wondered how long it would take Bob Rutter’s team to complete their work. Probably no more than an hour or two, he decided. Not that he was entertaining any great hopes that the statements would actually lead anywhere. He’d seen the confusion in the car park for himself, and was well aware of just how easy it would have been for the killer to slip back into the building for a couple of minutes without anybody else noticing.
‘We need to have a word, Woodend!’ said a self-important-sounding voice to his left.
The chief inspector turned towards the man who’d addressed him. ‘Do we, sir?’ he asked. ‘An’ exactly what word might that be? I can think of several that might fit the bill.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Wilcox said, flushing slightly. ‘We should have a talk. Right now!’
‘Aye,’ Woodend agreed. ‘I rather think we should.’
‘The best place for it would be my office,’ Wilcox told him, and without waiting to see whether or not that was acceptable, the director turned on his heel and strode back to his lair.
Woodend followed. When he entered the office, the first thing he saw was Monika Paniatowski, sitting in the corner and trying to look as shocked as a civilian who’d just heard about a murder would.
Wilcox noticed her, too. ‘Get lost for about half an hour, Monika with a K,’ he said, off-handedly.
Paniatowski was just about to rise from her seat when Woodend shook his head.
‘Stay where you are, Monika,’ the chief inspector said. ‘You might come in useful.’
‘Since when have you assumed the authority to order my girl around?’ Wilcox demanded furiously.
‘She’s not anybody’s girl, Mr Wilcox,’ Woodend told him. ‘But she is my sergeant.’
‘Do you mean to say . . . do you actually have the nerve to tell me . . . that you’ve planted one of your police spies in my office?’ Wilcox asked, outraged.
‘We much prefer the term “undercover officers”,’ Woodend said mildly. ‘But yes, in general terms, that’s what she is.’
‘I shall complain!’ Wilcox said.
‘Who to? Your bosses or mine?’
‘To both of them. I’m sure Lord Throgmorton will be as angry as I am when he learns that—’
‘Horry Throgmorton’s known about it all along,’ Woodend interrupted. ‘It was my idea, but he seemed to think it was quite a good one.’
The information seemed to knock the wind out of Wilcox’s sails. ‘I see,’ he said, slightly shakily. ‘Well, in that case, I have no objection to Monika – to your sergeant, I should say – staying.’
‘That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,’ Woodend said dryly. ‘Now what was it you wanted to see me about?’
‘I’d like to know how long all your PC Plods will be here, getting underfoot and generally buggering things up.’
‘Or to put it another way, you want to know how long my officers will be here investigating two separate cases of murder,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ the short answer to that is that I’ve absolutely no idea.’
Wilcox sighed theatrically. ‘Look, I’m trying to be reasonable about this,’ he said.
‘Reasonable?’ Woodend repeated incredulously. ‘Is that how you see yourself? As bein’ reasonable?’
‘What else would you call it?’ the producer countered. ‘The next episode of Madro goes out tomorrow night, as you’re well aware. We’ve already had to cope with the radical change in the script necessitated by Val’s death. Now I’ll have to take over Bill’s duties as well as my own – and having all my people tied up answering your people’s questions isn’t helping me at all.�
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‘You don’t seem too daunted by the prospect of runnin’ the whole show yourself,’ Woodend commented.
‘Why should I be? If I didn’t have confidence that I could do the job well, I’d never have taken it on. But that’s not what I got you in here to talk about. What I want to know is whether you can at least tell me how long it will be before I have all my staff back?’
‘Aren’t you even the tiniest bit curious?’ Woodend wondered.
‘Curious? About what?’
‘About whether it’ll be the Russians or the Yanks who put a man on the moon first!’ Woodend said. ‘Or could I have meant curious about who killed Valerie Farnsworth and Bill Houseman?’
‘Well, of course I’m curious about that,’ Wilcox said exasperatedly. ‘Anxious, too. But I have to put first things first. It won’t help Bill and Val if I allow Madro to fall to pieces, now will it? In a way, going on with the show will be a sort of tribute to them.’
‘So you’re doin’ it for purely unselfish reasons, are you?’
‘No! Frankly, I’m doing it for myself as well. In a couple of years’ time, my memories of Val and Bill will have started to fade, but if I mess up this opportunity I’ve been given, I’ll wake up every morning for the rest of my life bitterly regretting it.’
‘So you’re curious, but not too curious,’ Woodend said. ‘You mentioned a moment ago that you were anxious, too. Is that because you think you might be next on the killer’s list?’
Wilcox looked genuinely shocked. ‘Of course not! That’s a preposterous suggestion.’
‘So what are you anxious about?’
‘That you might arrest one of the key members of the cast – and leave me with a huge hole in the script just before we go on air.’
‘You really don’t care about the murders, do you?’ Woodend asked.
‘Let me ask you a question, Chief Inspector,’ Wilcox replied. ‘When you’re working on a case like this, does anything apart from finding your killer really matter to you?’
‘No, but . . .’ Woodend said uncomfortably.
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