Dead on Cue

by Sally Spencer

  ‘He should have stuck to ridin’ horses,’ Woodend commented. ‘What else does it say?’

  ‘Vance made his name in the 1940s and the early 1950s as the strong, silent hero in numerous western films including Ambush at Dry Gulch.’

  ‘Aye, it was a cracker, that one,’ Woodend said. ‘I especially liked the bit where he knocks the crap out of six fellers in a saloon brawl an’ hardly even ruffles the partin’ in his hair.’

  ‘His career had taken something of a dive in recent years,’ Paniatowski continued, ‘and he was forced to accept roles in low-budget B films such as Gunfight at Cross Creek. Recently, however, he had being hoping to make a comeback as a television star. Plans have been under way for some time for him to appear in a series of dramas in which he would play a gentleman amateur detective, and friends feel that it was the television network’s decision not to go ahead with the series which caused him to begin drinking heavily and, ultimately, led to his death. The series, which was to have been called Arbuthnot and I —’

  Woodend slammed on the brakes so violently that the sergeant was jerked forward in her seat. The Humber skidded slightly, then came to a halt at the side of the road.

  ‘What’s wrong, sir?’ Paniatowski asked.

  ‘Arbuthnot!’ Woodend said. ‘Arbuthnot! That’s not a Yank name, is it, Monika?’

  ‘No, I think it’s Scottish originally,’ Paniatowski said. She scanned the remainder of the article. ‘That’s right, it is. The “I” in the title of the series was going to be Preston Vance himself, and Arbuthnot was going to be the name of his Scottish—’

  ‘Of his Scottish butler,’ Woodend interrupted.

  ‘How did you know that?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘Have you read some other article about it?’

  ‘No. It’s as much news to me as it is to you.’

  ‘Then I don’t see how you could have even guessed that—’

  But Woodend was no longer listening to her. He had covered his face with his big hands and was thinking so hard that she could almost hear the wheels turning round in his head.

  For a full five minutes neither of them said anything, then Woodend lowered his hands again and looked into his sergeant’s eyes.

  ‘I’ve had it all wrong,’ he told Paniatowski. ‘I’ve had it all wrong right from the start.’

  Thirty-Seven

  Woodend and Paniatowski had already been sitting in the small conference room for fifteen minutes when a uniformed constable led Diana Houseman in. The producer’s widow was wearing a slinky black dress which revealed a considerable amount of cleavage, and would not have looked at all out of place at a cocktail party.

  Paniatowski supposed that the dress was her idea of being in mourning. Woodend, his mind racing at top speed, did not even notice it.

  ‘I strongly object to being dragged from my home in this totally unreasonable manner,’ Diana Houseman said, sitting down.

  ‘I don’t really give a bugger what you object to,’ Woodend told her.

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ Diana Houseman said, outraged.

  ‘Have you lost your hearin’ – as well as your morals?’ Woodend demanded.

  Diana Houseman stood up. ‘I have no intention of staying here to listen to your insults,’ she gasped.

  ‘Sit down again, or I’ll have you locked up,’ Woodend said. ‘An’ that’s not a threat – it’s a promise.’

  Diana Houseman hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly sank back into her seat. ‘What’s this all about?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s about you bein’ indirectly responsible for two murders,’ Woodend replied.

  ‘But that’s absurd. I would never—’

  ‘I didn’t say you planned them. I know you didn’t. But you did start the ball rollin’. An’ now you’re goin’ to help us clear the whole bloody matter up, whether you want to or not.’

  For once, Diana Houseman looked cowed. ‘I’m more than willing to do anything I can to—’ she began.

  ‘Here’s the new rules,’ Woodend interrupted her. ‘I ask you a straight question, an’ you give me a straight answer. If you don’t do that, I’ll find a way to make sure you serve time behind bars, even if it’s only a couple of years. Have I made myself clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ Diana Houseman said quietly. ‘You’ve made yourself perfectly clear.’

  ‘Right, now we’ve established that, we can get down to business,’ Woodend said. ‘Yesterday you told me an’ my sergeant here that you’d taken precautions to ensure that your husband didn’t find out about you an’ Paddy Colligan. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you weren’t prepared to tell us what those precautions were.’

  ‘Why should I? It’s really none of your business.’

  Woodend shook his head. ‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ he asked. ‘You still can’t see how one thing led to another?’

  ‘I’m not a detective,’ Diana Houseman said sullenly.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Woodend agreed. ‘There’s other words I could think of to describe you, but I won’t use them now, because they’d make even my hard-bitten sergeant blush. So instead I’ll just tell you what these so-called precautions of yours were, and you can tell me whether I’m right or wrong. Let’s go back to the beginnin’, which is weeks or maybe even months before Valerie Farnsworth was killed. You’d already started seein’ Paddy Colligan, an’ you knew your husband would suspect you of havin’ an affair sooner or later. But that really didn’t matter, because you also knew you could sweet-talk him into forgivin’ you. What did matter was that he shouldn’t find out your lover was Paddy. Correct?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘But you also knew you’d have to give your husband a name – because if he was goin’ to forgive you, he had to have somebody else to blame.’ Woodend paused to light up a Capstan Full Strength. ‘Now this is the bit that really turns my stomach,’ he continued. ‘You couldn’t just pick a name at random, because when your husband challenged your supposed lover, he’d obviously deny it – an’ there was always a chance that Bill would believe him. So what did you do?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Diana Houseman hissed.

  ‘All right, I will. The best way to make sure that your husband believed that the man you pointed the finger at was guilty was to fix it so that he really was.’ Woodend paused for a moment. ‘You didn’t discuss this idea of yours with Paddy Colligan, did you?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘I thought not. He’s a romantic soul. He’d never have agreed to anythin’ so hard-boiled an’ callous. But you had no such scruples, an’ so you started a second affair – with the man you’d decided to set up to take the fall when that became necessary.’

  ‘I did it for Paddy,’ Diana Houseman said weakly.

  ‘You did it for yourself – so you could carry on havin’ your cake an’ eatin’ it as well.’

  ‘And now I suppose you want me to tell you who this second lover of mine was?’

  Woodend shook his head. ‘That won’t be necessary. I took a while gettin’ there, but in the end I worked it out for myself.’

  Ben Drabble and Paddy Colligan were knocking a few of the rough edges out of the following Monday’s script when the door opened and Woodend entered their office in a purposeful manner.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Ben Drabble asked.

  ‘It’s your mate I want a word with, not you,’ Woodend told him. ‘I noticed that now my lads have finished workin’ on it, the cafeteria’s open for business again, so your best plan would be to go an’ grab yourself a quick cup of tea.’

  Drabble looked first at his partner, then back at Woodend. ‘I’m not thirsty,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you think he’ll work a lot better after he’s had a brew?’ Woodend asked Paddy Colligan.

  ‘Go and get yourself a drink, Ben,’ the Irishman said.

  Drabble hesitated for a second, then stood up and left the room.

  Woodend slid his big frame
on to the chair the writer had just vacated. ‘How do you feel about justice, Mr Colligan?’ he asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘From readin’ that play of yours, I’d guess that you were brought up a Catholic. Are you still a believer?’

  Paddy Colligan nodded slowly. ‘I suppose I must be. I wouldn’t feel so guilty about my own sins if I wasn’t.’

  ‘It’s interestin’ that you should mention sin,’ Woodend said. ‘As I understand it, your lot think that a sin can never be forgiven as long as it’s kept hidden. Have I got that right?’

  ‘Where’s all this leading?’

  ‘I know who killed Valerie Farnsworth an’ Bill Houseman,’ Woodend told him. ‘My only problem is that all my evidence is circumstantial. What I really need now is a confession. An’ I thought you could write it for me.’

  ‘You want me to confess to the murders!’ Paddy Colligan demanded, outraged. ‘Well, I won’t do it! My hands may not be entirely clean, but there’s certainly no blood on them.’

  ‘Did I say I wanted you to confess to the murders?’ Woodend asked mildly.

  ‘You said you wanted me to write a confession!’

  ‘So I did,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But I never said it was your confession you’d be writin’, did I?’

  Jeremy Wilcox looked down at the sheets of paper which had dropped on his desk in front of him, and then back up at Woodend.

  ‘What’s all this?’ he asked.

  ‘Read it,’ Woodend told him.

  ‘I haven’t got the time to—’

  ‘It’s only three pages. Bloody read it!’ Woodend said commandingly.

  After the first few lines Wilcox looked troubled, and by the time he had reached the bottom of the third page, his eyes were wide with astonishment.

  ‘You see what it means, don’t you?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘I understand the words, if that’s what you mean, but I find it completely incredible that—’

  ‘It’s all true,’ Woodend said firmly.

  ‘Does that mean that you’re going to . . . that you’re going to . . .?’

  ‘Make an arrest?’ Woodend supplied. ‘Yes, as soon as this little scene’s been played out, that’s exactly what I’m goin’ to do. But I’ll need your help.’

  ‘You’re asking me to sabotage my own show!’ Wilcox protested. ‘I refuse! I absolutely refuse!’

  ‘Do this one thing for me, an’ I’ll be out of your hair forever,’ Woodend promised him. ‘Don’t do it, an’ I’ll have my lads create so much disruption that it’ll be impossible for you to broadcast a show tonight, or any time in the next month for that matter. So what’s it to be? It’s your choice.’

  ‘You call that a choice?’ Wilcox asked.

  ‘It’s more of a choice than Val Farnsworth an’ Bill Houseman were ever given,’ Woodend pointed out.

  Thirty-Eight

  ‘What’s all this?’ George Adams asked, as Paddy Colligan dumped a sheaf of papers in front of him, then walked around the table and dropped a similar pile in front of the rest of the cast members who had been summoned to Rehearsal Room Two.

  ‘It’s next Monday’s script,’ Jeremy Wilcox said from the doorway.

  ‘We’ve already been given it,’ Jennifer Brunton said.

  ‘Not this one, you haven’t, Jennifer. It’s a new version. We’ve made a few changes, and I want to see how they work out,’ Wilcox told her. ‘The scene is the bar of the Tinker’s Bucket. You’ve all just come back from Liz Bowyer’s funeral and—’

  ‘Then why are there so few of us?’ Jennifer Brunton asked. ‘The pub would be absolutely packed on an occasion like that.’

  ‘More people will drift in as the scene progresses and—’ Jeremy Wilcox stopped, suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him. ‘Let’s get one thing clear,’ he continued in a much louder voice. ‘I’m the producer of this show now, which means that what I say goes. And if I tell you the script calls for you to dance naked with a chimpanzee, you don’t argue, you ask whether I want you to do the waltz or foxtrot! Got that?’

  The actors moved their heads slightly in what may – or may not – have been grudging nods of acceptance.

  ‘Right, let’s have a read-though,’ Wilcox said. ‘And just to make my job a little easier, could you try to do it without fluffing any of your lines or stopping to ask stupid questions?’

  Jennifer Brunton looked down at her script. ‘Liz could be a bit of a devil sometimes, but I’m really goin’ to miss havin’ her around,’ she read.

  ‘Yes, so I am,’ Larry Coates read. ‘She was a bit too free with her favours at times, but at least she wasn’t calculatin’ about it, like some women are.’ He looked up from his script. ‘“A bit too free with favours”?’ he repeated. ‘Would Jack Taylor really say that?’

  Jeremy Wilcox sighed. ‘Am I talking to myself here? I said I wanted it reading through without interruptions.’

  ‘Still, it’s a bit close to the bone,’ Larry Coates said dubiously.

  ‘It’s an idea – that’s all. We’re playing around with a few ideas.’

  ‘That’s all very well for you to say,’ Larry Coates replied, ‘but any character who besmirches the memory of Liz Bowyer isn’t going to be very popular with the viewers, now is he?’

  ‘That’s the only bit about Liz, and if you really don’t like it, we can cut it later on,’ Wilcox assured him. ‘Let’s just get through the rest of the scene, shall we?’

  ‘Yes, at least she wasn’t calculatin’ about it, like some women are,’ Coates read from the script in his Jack Taylor voice. ‘Not like a woman I knew in my last job.’ He looked up again. ‘What’s all this about my last job? I thought I’d always been a postman.’

  ‘So you have, but not always in the same post office,’ Jeremy Wilcox said exasperatedly. ‘Read on, and you’ll see how it all fits together.’

  ‘She was the head postmaster’s wife, this other woman,’ Coates read. ‘We had an affair. What I didn’t know was that she was already havin’ another affair with one of the clerks in the back office.’

  ‘An’ didn’t she give him up when she started goin’ out with you?’ Jennifer Brunton read, her bemusement evident in her voice.

  Larry Coates frowned, as if he was starting to suspect something was seriously wrong, but could not be entirely certain what.

  ‘No, she didn’t give him up,’ he read, ‘because he was the one she was really interested in.’

  ‘So why did she have the affair with you?’ Jennifer Brunton asked, now so confused she was almost starting to sound panicked.

  ‘She did it because she wanted someone to accuse, if her husband started to think she was playin’ around,’ Larry Coates answered.

  ‘This will never bloody work, Jeremy!’ George Adams protested. ‘It doesn’t sound like Maddox Row at all. And Larry’s right. There’s no reason at all why you should ask his character to commit professional suicide.’

  ‘If you don’t like the direction I’m taking the show in, I’m sure I can always find some other starving actor to play a loveable old-age pensioner,’ Jeremy Wilcox said nastily. ‘And that goes for the rest of you, as well. Can we please proceed, Larry?’

  Coates’s face had turned grey. ‘The chief postmaster said he was goin’ to fire me for havin’ an affair with his wife,’ he read, ‘but it was a good job an’ I didn’t want to leave it. That’s when I . . . when I decided to kill him.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ George Adams protested. ‘This is brain-buggering insane.’

  The door clicked softly open, and Woodend stepped into the room. ‘I was listenin’ outside,’ he explained, ‘but I thought I’d come inside to see the really interestin’ bit in the flesh. I believe you still hold the centre stage, Mr Coates.’

  Larry Coates looked up at him. ‘I don’t want to read any more,’ he said.

  ‘You’re surely not goin’ to back out now, are you?’ Woodend coaxed. ‘This is your big scene. Don’t you want to see
how it ends? Wouldn’t you like to know if it really works as a piece of theatre? Or would you rather somebody else read the lines for you? I can do it, if you like.’

  ‘You’d only make a hash of it,’ Coates said contemptuously. He looked down at the script again. ‘The only problem was that even if I killed the head postmaster, I couldn’t be sure I’d keep my job, because the other bosses had all agreed with him that it would make the post office more popular if they sacked one of us,’ he read in his Jack Taylor voice. ‘So before I murdered him, I had to make sure I was indispensable. That’s why I decided to kill the most popular postwoman in the office first – so they’d have to give me her job.’

  ‘This . . . this isn’t about the Laughing Postman at all, is it?’ George Adams gasped.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Woodend agreed. ‘Shall you an’ me go an’ have a private chat, Mr Coates?’

  Woodend and Larry Coates sat facing one another across the table in the conference room.

  ‘This theory of yours is all supposition, you know,’ Coates said. ‘You can’t actually prove a thing.’

  ‘Maybe not at the moment,’ Woodend agreed, ‘but once we know where to start looking, it’s remarkable what we can find. I’ve got a team goin’ through your dressin’ room at this very moment. They don’t need to find much – a speck of Valerie Farnsworth’s make-up stained with her blood; a thread from the clothes she was wearin’ when she died. It’ll only take a little thing to make the case against you cast-iron. But why wait for that? If you co-operate now, it’ll go in your favour at the trial, an’ that – combined with the fact that you’d never have killed anybody at all if you hadn’t been caught up in the web of lies that bitch Diana Houseman had woven – is bound to work in your favour. Besides, you’re an actor – a man of spirit. If you’ve got to go down, then at least go down with some panache.’

  ‘Is it true that the only reason Diana slept with me was to cover up her affair with Paddy Colligan?’ Coates asked.

  ‘Perfectly true.’

  Coates laughed. ‘And there was me thinking I was totally irresistible.’ He paused for a second. ‘How did you get on to me?’