by Amy Myers
I returned to reception and produced my police credentials. The receptionist was unimpressed – until I mentioned Dark Harvest and Stour Studios. It turned out she was a film fan, and it was seventh heaven for her to have the hotel full of crew and staff. Once, she told me with pride, Justin Parr himself had come in and was ever so nice to her. It took a while for me to get her back to solid ground.
‘Do the crew mainly use the bus?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes,’ she said helpfully. ‘It comes back about ten fifteen. The bar closes at midnight, but some of them are still sitting around long after that. I work the night shift every so often.’
‘Do many of them eat here?’ From what I’d glimpsed of the menu I didn’t think that the Roux brothers masterminded the Cricketers’ kitchens, and it was far more likely that the film crew and cast ate at the Studios. The food on film sets is usually excellent.
‘Not often,’ she conceded.
‘Were you working night shift last Thursday by any chance?’
‘Yes.’ Her face lit up as she realized she could help me.
‘Anything special happen that night? Anyone come in during the small hours?’
She looked at me in wonder. ‘Of course. There’s a lot of clubs in Maidstone.’
I realized I was going to get nowhere unless I had specific names. One last hope. ‘Do you have CCTV here?’
She brightened up again. ‘Not here. In the car park.’
That was something at least. I’d alert Dave to that one. ‘What’s in the lock-up garages?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her face fell. ‘I could get Winston to show you.’
‘I’d like that.’ I smiled at her, and she cheered up. Winston proved to be a lad of not more than twenty and spic and span in a uniform I recognized including the yellow jacket. The same firm as the Studios employed. ‘Shotsworth Security?’ I asked as we set off through the garden. He nodded.
‘Good firm to work for. Why do you want to see the garages?’ he enquired.
‘Part of a major crime investigation,’ I assured him, as he unlocked the first padlock and threw the doors open. All that greeted me was an empty garage.
Winston thought this very funny. ‘No crime there, sir.’
‘Good heavens! The bird has flown,’ I exclaimed solemnly.
‘Perhaps he’s nesting here.’ He chuckled as he unlocked the other one.
That too was empty. ‘Second bird flown too?’ he asked.
‘You never know in my line of work.’ To make him feel he wasn’t being cheated, I carefully noted the clues of the empty garages into my Blackberry, and we parted good friends.
I spent the rest of the day locally, trying local pubs to ask residents and staff if they’d seen the car. Without success. All that told me was that it had probably turned left into the Lenham Heath road, which had fewer houses along it and connected with the A20 running between Ashford and Maidstone. The next step was obvious: the next morning, Wednesday, I would check out the security at the studios with the guard himself. I didn’t want to run into Louise without some sort of trophy progress, but short of broadcasting an appeal to the nation, nailing down how and when and whither this car vanished was the pathway to finding it. I was reasonably happy with the ‘how’ at least, and even the ‘when’. Now came the hard part.
Having checked in at the barrier, I decided to park first and then walk back, but the best of plans can be held up by a beautiful blonde. As I parked, a rather smart Bentley just drew up and the blonde was emerging from it. She looked familiar and I realized that I had seen her on my TV screen.
‘Would you be Eleanor Richey?’ I asked.
She turned blue, blue eyes on me. ‘Why yes, I would. And you are?’ She was cooing with all signs saying welcome, and her accent told me she was no English rose, but a fully fledged American beauty. The coo in her voice was not, I thought, a response to my charm but because it was her natural manner.
‘Jack Colby. I’m part of the police hunt for the Auburn.’
She looked impressed. ‘I love that car. I felt a million dollars driving it.’
‘Of course.’ I smote my head in mock disgust at myself. ‘You’re playing Cora Langton, aren’t you? I thought they weren’t doing the car shots till next week?’
‘Angie let me try it, the sweetie. She knew I was nervous about it, so we took it for a drive last Thursday and let me take the wheel. We went into Lenham Square and back. Caused quite a stir.’
I imagined it had. Lenham’s a good centre for exotic cars, being near the A20 and the Chilston Park country hotel, plus its being a stopping point between London and the Channel. I doubt if it sees many Auburn 1935s, however. The village has a magnificent central square, surrounded by picturesque houses from medieval days onward. Cars can park there, and the Auburn would have had the whole population gaping at it.
I wondered whether it was significant that the car had been taken on the Thursday night. Did I really think that someone had spotted it in the square, tracked it to the studios and arranged to pinch it that speedily? Not possible. Stealing a classic takes a bit of thought and planning. Even so I noted that the car had been in use that day.
Eleanor and I walked to the studios together, and I left her at reception to return to the security barrier. But then I ran slap into Bill Wade.
He was not amused. ‘What the sweet hell are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘Expecting to find my car? Got any leads on it yet?’
One has to be positive with the Bill Wades of this world. ‘I know how the car could have left the complex. Now I’m covering other ground.’
‘What ground, where?’ he snapped.
‘First step the security guard and the DOP again – I need the list of who was on call last Friday.’
‘The car went Thursday night.’
‘I know.’
He held my glance, and nodded, professional to professional. ‘Good. Let’s go see Greg. Roger will want a word with you about insurance after that.’
I didn’t ask who Greg was. It had been Rick I spoke to yesterday. But I’d lose all credibility if I queried it. Instead I followed in Bill’s wake as crew and staff scattered to either side like the waves of the Red Sea as he led the way to Greg’s domain on the first floor of the admin building.
It turned out Greg didn’t have the list; it was on somebody called Jackie’s computer. Bill simply stood there. Greg got the message and the list shot through in double-quick time. He handed it over to Bill who skimmed it, and passed it to me. ‘Roger,’ he reminded me. ‘Now. Talk to Ken later.’
So off we went again. ‘Tell me how my Auburn got out,’ Bill commanded. I obeyed but he was not that impressed.
‘Good work over that hedge, Jack. But the joker still had to get into the garage to get those doors open.’
Time to win a brownie point. ‘Not if he went into the garage during the day and unbolted the rear door ready for that night.’
‘Still had to get in through locked doors.’
‘Not that day. Your wife was out with Eleanor Richey in the Auburn.’
‘Ahead of me there.’ He brooded as we crossed the courtyard. ‘So it’s someone here.’
‘Looks that way, but not certain.’
A piercing look came my way. ‘What are the chances of my getting it back?’
‘Soon or sometime?’
‘Both.’
‘Soon – slim. Sometime – fifty-fifty.’
‘As bad as that? Someone here has it in for the film, that what you think?’ he shot at me. ‘Angie loves that car. Always has. I owned it before I met her, I was driving it during Running Tides, but I guess she reckons it’s hers now, not mine. You’d best have a word with Angie. She thinks there’s something odd going on about the cars for this production.’
‘If that’s so, that does affect Dark Harvest. Any reason why it should be the target?’
‘No, but I’ve had security tightened. There are other cars to bear in mind – the Bentley, the Hor
ch, the Fiat. Any or all of them could be next to go.’
That was a looming disaster that I hadn’t thought of, but I did a good job of treating it coolly.
‘Could be,’ I answered, ‘but the joker has made his point with the Auburn, so the others might be safe.’
‘I want that Auburn back,’ Bill said drily. ‘It’s special.’
I agreed. And there was something else that was special too: Louise. I caught a glimpse of her as we came out of the building, but she didn’t see me. It was all I could do to refrain from rushing after her to demand what Nigel Biddington was doing in her life, but I managed it. In any case, Bill was frogmarching me to Roger’s office so I had no choice.
His office was beyond the reception desk I’d visited on my earlier visit. Bill strode right by the desk and thumped on Roger’s door. There was no reply.
‘Is he in, Jane?’ he asked.
‘I think so. He was earlier.’
Bill didn’t deal in uncertainties. He gave her a scathing look and marched into the office with me close behind. The room was empty but the patio doors were wide open. ‘Must be in the garden,’ Bill said briefly, and out we went.
I remembered that farmhouse garden. It had been a delightful one, even for a boy of my age, perhaps eight or nine. It wasn’t large, but instead of depending on open space for its effects it was an intricate puzzle of intertwining paths, little bridges over a running stream, tiny waterfalls and arches of roses. The farmer’s wife had probably created it as her own private domain and the studios had not altered it, as far as I could see, although it must take a lot of upkeep. Perhaps Roger Ford liked to relax here. I remembered there were a couple of stone seats hidden away in concealed nooks.
Bill strode to the middle of the garden and looked around, but there was no sound or sight of Roger.
‘Not here either,’ Bill grunted.
‘Maybe he’s dozed off,’ I said, putting my head round a trellis covered with sweet-smelling roses.
And then I saw it. I saw the blood first and gagged. Plenty of it was dry but some had trickled into a tiny pond and coloured it red. I forced myself to look further. And there lay the body it had come from. It looked very dead.
I must have let out some kind of noise, a retch maybe, for Bill hurried to my side. Just what I didn’t want, but I was too late.
The body was turned away from us, but it was a woman’s and I knew immediately whose it was. It was Angie’s.
FOUR
Neither of us moved. I registered that there was some insect buzzing nearby and that incongruously a bird was singing and the sun burning on my arm. Then I found myself punching in 999 on my mobile even though my mind was still fighting to get back in gear and Bill was half walking, half staggering towards what was left of his wife. How could I say stop? There was no doubt it was Angie even though half her head had been blown away. The gun was lying at her side to prove it.
My eyes stayed on Bill even while I was talking on the phone. That done, I made another one – to Dave Jennings – to tell him he had been right. There was something wrong somewhere. Nightmarishly wrong.
Bill had squatted down by the body and his hand rested protectively on his wife’s yellow silk trousers. The matching jacket was blood-soaked.
I forced myself to action, walked over to him and pulled him to his feet. ‘Out,’ I said gently.
He looked at me like a hurt animal, but for once in his life Bill Wade acquiesced. We must have been silent because when we went into the building – through its rear door this time, not the office patio doors – everything seemed strangely normal. Only Louise, who was chatting to Jane at the front desk, read my face correctly, looked from me to Bill and became very still.
‘Angie’s dead,’ I said briefly. ‘The police are on their way.’
She gave a half gasp, steadied herself and took charge of Bill. It was high time. The phrase goes ‘beside himself with grief’ but Bill had gone inside himself. He seemed to have shrivelled into grey old age, his power ceded without a murmur. ‘I’ll take care of him,’she said. I must have looked fairly shaky myself, because she added, ‘Are you OK, Jack?’
I nodded. So I was, on the surface at any rate. I could function. With Bill gone I dealt with the receptionist, thankfully not the gorgon of my first visit; Jane was a sensible girl in her mid twenties, even if understandably out of her depth at the moment.
‘Police?’ she queried, looking scared as well as shocked.
‘Afraid so.’ I decided not to specify why an ambulance would not suffice. ‘I need your help now. Who’s your closest reliable ally?’
A moment’s thought. ‘Tom Hopkins and Julie. I job-share with her but she’s around. And Ken Merton – he’s at the security barrier.’
Where I knew he would be needed. ‘Page Julie and Tom then, to help us guard this building. No one gets in before the police. Not even Roger Ford.’
She took my point. ‘Where . . .?’
‘In the garden.’
She went a shade greener, if that were possible, but she had her wits about her. ‘What about the gate?’
‘What gate?’
‘There’s one into the garden on the far corner. It’s not always locked.’
‘Stay here, I’ll check.’
I dashed back and forced myself back through that garden, steeling myself to pass Angie’s body again. The gate took some finding since it was masked by two tall hedges with a narrow winding path between them. The gate was open and I wasn’t going to touch it. I cursed the fact that I hadn’t yet bought a mobile that took photos. Then it was back to reception where Julie, the older woman of my first visit, had now joined Jane and both of them were looking at me as though I had personally engineered this crisis. No Tom yet, so I despatched Jane to guard the open gate and left Julie in charge of the building to repel all attempts to enter it. She’d be good at that. Then I hurried down to the security barrier to put Ken Merton in the picture. His cheerful face grew highly suspicious; he needed convincing that I wasn’t a maniac and that the police were really on their way. And then, only then, did I return to the farmhouse to wait.
Waiting is the worst part of bad times such as these. The police arrived rapidly – and without the usual procedure of PCs first checking and reporting on the scene. I suspected it was my name relayed through Dave Jennings that had brought DI Brandon out with the whole works so promptly. He nodded without enthusiasm as I explained how I was involved and what I had done and not done at the crime scene, including checking the gate. Crime scene? Brandon certainly seemed to be treating it as one, not surprisingly. I couldn’t see Angie Wade committing suicide.
The cordons were up all round the farmhouse and the garden, including that useful gate. The cast and crew had been corralled into Studio Three, but Jane and I were escorted to the cast’s green room above the canteen for easy access. This was the comfortable social area for them to meet between calls if they wished. Not much comfort here at present, however. Jane and I felt like two overlooked passengers on the Marie Celeste. I wondered what had happened to Bill and Louise but the question was answered when Louise herself joined us and collapsed on to a sofa.
‘Hope you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t feel up to dealing with questions en masse in Studio Three. Bill and Roger are with the police now, so I’m off duty for a while.’
That shook me. ‘Is Bill up to questioning?’
‘Believe it or not, yes. He was pretty wobbly but when Roger arrived, it seemed to put him back on track, at least on one level. He was beginning to talk logically again by the time the police called him, and Roger too.’ A pause. ‘What happened, Jack?’
Those dark eyes held mine steadily. ‘She was shot in the head,’ I told her. ‘The gun was at her side.’
‘So it could have been suicide?’ Jane asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said flatly.
Louise reached out and touched my hand. I’d like to have poured out the horror of it, but I couldn’t,
not with Jane present.
‘But if it wasn’t suicide, that means someone murdered her,’ Jane said, horrified. ‘All these awful things that have happened, the dog and the car and now murder.’
‘We don’t know they’re connected,’ Louise said promptly. ‘Nor do we know she was murdered.’ She looked so desperate that I decided to join in. In any case, talking about it was inevitable, and however callous it might sound, it could also be helpful.
‘Murderers don’t usually announce their intentions in advance,’ I pointed out.
‘It’s one hell of a coincidence,’ Jane muttered defiantly.
‘Angie hasn’t always been the target of what’s been happening,’ Louise argued.
We said no more, perhaps because we all saw where this might lead. Was anyone else going to fall victim?
Jane broke the silence as she burst out again, ‘Mrs Wade loved that garden. It’s so unfair. And I didn’t hear anything. No shot, nothing.’
‘There was probably a silencer on the gun. What time did you begin work this morning?’ I asked.
I’d been so caught up with Bill and the sheer ghastliness of the scene that I hadn’t thought about the time element.
‘The same as usual,’ she wailed. ‘The cast and crew and some of the staff begin at six but the office doesn’t open until eight thirty.’
‘Were there a lot of people going in and out this morning? Did you see Angie go in?’