“But you’re an employer, Mr King. An employer has responsibilities to ensure his staff are protected from drugs. To make sure they have a safe working environment.”
Harry King shook his head in disbelief. “Here we go. Another angle to shut me down. You’re aware this is home for most of the out of town actors here. This is their home, inspector. I told you before, I’m not their father. And what’s more I refute any allegation that we are not doing our best as employers here – I know Lana frequently checks up on the ones who live with us here. She does it because she cares about the place. There’s no way you can accuse us of not protecting them.”
“Oh, I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr King. But I can tell you what we do know. Marvin the runner, wasn’t just acting as a runner on your movie projects. He was acting as drug runner, picking up and dropping off the orders placed by your actors. He was making up his wages with money made from deals on the side. And it wasn’t just a small thing, Mr King. The kid was busy with this stuff. When we picked him up he had a bagful of drugs and a pocketful of hard cash. For that alone he’s going to be in very serious trouble, and all of that stuff was coming right back here.”
“Marvin was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And whatever he was doing has nothing to do with this studio, or with me.”
Hogarth nodded. “I told Marvin you’d say that. But I’d consider this if I were you. As his case gets closer to court, and as reality begins to dawn on Marvin that you’re prepared to let him carry the can and say nothing in his defence, I think Marvin might start to see you a little differently, Mr King. He might start to talk.”
“Talk? Then let him talk! Let him say whatever he damn well wants. You can’t intimidate me, Inspector,” said King. The little man’s temper was getting the better of him, his face turning red, starting to tremble.
“That little idiot brought it on himself. What? You think I told him to deal drugs here, so you could shut me down? That I told him to go and get fixes for those fools so they couldn’t get it up on camera?! What do you think I am? An idiot! This business is my life. You might think it’s shameful and shabby, but I don’t care what you people think. I’ve been working hard at this for decades. This is what I do. Those drugs have nothing to do with me, and I don’t condone them at all.”
“You don’t condone them. But I wonder if you turn a blind eye, Mr King. The people who work for you here – how many of them are as hooked as Aimee Gillen?”
“What the hell are you talking about? What are you insinuating?”
“How many of those actors and actresses living in those cells down there are dependent on the drugs Marvin was scoring for them?”
“Is that a question you think I can answer? Seriously?”
“I’m thinking out loud. The kind of thinking which a decent criminal prosecution solicitor will work over a hundred times before they bring it to court. So, here we are, Mr King. Marvin was a dealer for who knows how many of your actors and actresses. What if you knew about that? What if you sanctioned it?”
“Are you plum crazy?” said King. “You know about Aimee Gillen. That girl lost it because of drugs. She went from being a star to being a virtual recluse, and she became useless as an actress. I don’t want that here. I want my people good and clean and ready to go, just like those two out there.”
Hogarth kept his eyes on King.
“Or it could be that you allow them to form a habit, because it helps you to control their behaviour? It might even offer you a way to recruit some fresh young talent, eh? Everyone knows that young people think it’s cool to get high.”
“This is insane,” said King. He looked at DS Palmer. “Are you with him on this? Because this is pure fantasy right here. And if this gets to court, I swear I will pump good money into it, and make mincemeat of this case. I promise you that right now.”
Palmer nodded hesitantly.
“You’re off the reservation, Inspector. Even your colleague here thinks so, I can tell.”
Palmer winced but Hogarth didn’t change his focus.
“Mr King, Aimee Gillen was a drug user with a tobacco tin full of premium grade cocaine in her bedroom. Marvin was also known to visit her, checking in on her, supplying her, as he did with plenty of actors and actresses here. We know that. He’s been seen. Those drugs could be one of the reasons why Aimee Gillen died. And it happened under your watch.”
“You’re blaming me now? I helped her. I warned her.”
“So you say. But in the days before her death, Aimee Gillen was so desperate she made calls to a criminal law solicitor, calls to a newspaper, and calls to the police.”
Harry King fell silent. His face became pinched and pale. His eyes narrowed and flicked between Palmer and Hogarth.
“You’re making it up,” said King. “I don’t get it. Why would Aimee need a solicitor? And the police? Come on. What was that about? Was she in trouble?”
Hogarth grimaced. “She must have been in enough trouble to call a solicitor for help. The solicitor firm told us that the call was about sexual harassment, and that she used the word coercion, too.”
“Bullshit!” said King. “I mean it. I don’t care what she said, but that’s not true. We make sure our girls are safe and well, and well paid too. They are our stars! They are our business. You think I would want to exploit them in any way at all?”
“Aimee Gillen made those calls, Mr King. She used those words. And within days of doing so, she was dead.” Hogarth let his meaning sink in.
King narrowed his eyes and shook his head. He looked away in thought.
“Aimee was a mess… but we looked after her. I never would have let her get hurt or exploited by anyone.”
“But you already had, Mr King. The level of drugs in her system show how addicted she’d become. You know she was a mess. You said so yourself. And almost all of that will have been down to the fact she was so hooked on drugs – and on a supply which was coming through one of your other employees, on a grand scale.”
“I didn’t know what Marvin was doing. I swear.”
Hogarth stared into King’s eyes. He shook his head.
“Sorry, Mr King. I don’t believe that’s possible.”
King sighed and looked away.
“I think it might have proved very useful for you to have actors and actresses who needed a little fix now and then,” said Hogarth. “Especially, if you were the person controlling the supply.”
“What?”
“Think about it. You have an actor who won’t do a scene, so you withhold their fix. You have a girl who you’d like to go on camera, a new girl maybe, but she’s nervous and won’t do it… so you wait until she’s hooked, and it makes it easy for you to persuade her. You can control the situation through the drugs.”
“Tell me, have you seen any evidence of that behaviour anywhere near my studio,” said King. His voice quiet. The small man had lost his sharp edges. He spoke quietly, tamely.
“I’ve seen the drugs, Mr King, and my colleague witnessed your runner obtaining cash for deals from the actors’ rooms. We saw the deal, and he has already confessed that he intended to bring those drugs back for the actors here.”
“But have you seen any evidence that I would ever do anything like that?”
“Mr King, Aimee Gillen called solicitors and police and reporters. I believe she felt abandoned, victimised, and I think she had seen even worse treatment against other staff here too. She wasn’t just going to complain about this place, Mr King. Aimee Gillen used the word coercion. And she called a reporter. She was going to blow the lid on what was happening here and blow it sky high.”
King fell silent.
Hogarth pushed further.
“Are you using drugs to coerce and control people here, Mr King?” said Hogarth.
King stared at him and shook his head. The little man’s face looked pained and pinched. Hogarth’s throat felt like it was drying up.
“Did things go too far with Aimee?”
“Lies!” he shouted. He shouted so loud, the crew in the studio looked through the production room window.
“Lies?” said Hogarth. “I don’t see why a woman would lie when she called a lawyer. Or when she called the police.”
“I don’t know why Aimee would have lied, either, Inspector. And it hurts, because I looked after that girl for near on twenty years. But it’s a lie all the same. And I’m not going to let you shut my business down because of an institutional grudge against the porn business.”
“Those phone calls aren’t lies, Mr King. And those drugs aren’t lies either. All of this is going on under your roof.”
Harry King stood up and put his hands on his hips. He shifted on his feet, a small and forlorn looking figure. “You’re going to try and destroy me because of this, aren’t you?” The man said, in a small voice. “Well, you know what? Screw you. If you’re taking me down for nothing, I’ll go down fighting. We’ll carry on filming until you wrench the cameras out of our hands.” The little man grabbed the door and stormed out into the studio. His shouting faded as the door slammed shut. In the studio, the double door entrance opened and Lana Aubrey walked in. She took one look at the chaos, and her eyes flicked to the production room window. She glowered at Hogarth.
Hogarth saw the misgivings in Palmer’s eyes.
“I know, Palmer. I threw everything at him, for at least some kind of admission of guilt. But it didn’t work. We still don’t have enough.”
“Then maybe this isn’t murder after all, guv.”
As Harry King ranted out in the studio, Lana Aubrey made a beeline for the production room door. Here it comes, he thought.
“Oh, I still think it was murder,” said Hogarth, quietly. “But the only thing we’ve got against Harry King is negligence. We can get him for the supply and possession of the drugs on his premises. But without a direct complaint against him, that may as well be nothing at all. But make no mistake, Aimee Gillen was murdered. She was killed because she was about to expose the truth of what was going on here.”
Lana Aubrey stormed into the small room, her voice already raised.
“How dare you invade the studio like this?! You could have booked an appointment first.”
“Miss Aubrey…” said Hogarth. His eyes were drawn to the pale gold bracelet shaking on his wrist as she pointed at him.
“And you’ve arrested Marvin? On what grounds, exactly?”
“On drugs charges if you must know. Drugs which he was supplying to all and sundry in this place. Which makes me question if management knew about it.” He stared at Aubrey’s pale hazelnut eyes. They blinked in surprise – or maybe something else.
“Of course not,” said Aubrey, her face a mask of indignation.
“Marvin seems to think you did.”
The woman blushed, but Hogarth couldn’t tell if it was just anger.
“Don’t worry, Miss Aubrey. You’re not in the dock. Not yet.”
“Whatever he told you, that young man is a liar, through and through. He’s trying to pass the buck. If he was bringing drugs into this place, then it’s all on him.”
“I thought you might say that, Miss Aubrey. Sorry for the fuss, but if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got work to do.”
Hogarth pushed the door open and made a way past Aubrey out of the studio. The production crew watched them as they left. Lana Aubrey folded her arms and watched them go.
“Next time you call me first,” she called.
Hogarth offered a non-committal smile as he walked out of the door. When the studio doors shut behind them, he spoke to Palmer as they walked.
“Coercion and control, then poisoning and murder. The key to this case has to be hiding here somewhere.”
“You have to remember, Aimee Gillen was in a bad way. You don’t want to stake your career on a woman like that.”
“I didn’t stake my career on Aimee Gillen. Roger Johnson did that for me.” Hogarth read Palmer’s eyes. “You don’t think it was King, do you?”
Palmer shook her head.
“And after that performance, neither do I. He’s a lot of things, but Harry King isn’t a killer. I’m getting lost, Palmer. I need another look at the evidence. I must have missed something. Something obvious.”
When Hogarth turned away Palmer shook her head. An arrest for murder was further away than ever and Hogarth was fast running out of time.
Twenty-five
Fuelled by caffeine, Hogarth’s mind whirred with a slew of contradictory impressions of the two cases in his life. Ali and Aimee Gillen. But if he was to keep his job beyond the end of the week, he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. So, he sent Ali a text to keep her at bay. Working late tonight, so don’t wait up. And this time it was true. There was nothing for it but to study the known aspects of the case and find a way through. DC Simmons had no trouble leaving at six, but by seven, Palmer still lingered in the office as if she had something on her mind. Something to say but not the guts to risk it. Hogarth didn’t have the spare mind space for anyone else’s crap, so he focused on the flipchart, and Palmer eventually got the message and went home. But after a while of staring at every known element of the case, re-assembling and re-jigging them across the floor of the CID room, Hogarth sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. It was eight pm, and somewhere not very far away Melford’s clock was ticking. The interview with Harry King weighed heavy on Hogarth’s mind. Harry King wasn’t guilty. Half way through the King interview, he’d known he was sinking. He’d gambled that Harry King was the source of Aimee Gillen’s coercion and sexual harassment, that the drugs were the tool and the means of coercion. But the idea was nothing but assumption – as the flipchart pages soon made plain. Marvin and the drug deal operation were on one side of the floor, the words harassment and coercion on the other. And as Hogarth looked at them, he knew he had made a simple human error. He’d assumed the crimes were connected. But they didn’t have to be connected. Of all people he should have known. There were distinct, selfish, and criminal motives in everyone he’d ever dealt with. Even if Marvin’s drug game was known to Harry King, it didn’t mean King was forcing any of those girls to do anything they didn’t want to do. He was paying them as it was. On top of that, King had the authority of owning the studio. If he wanted to sleep with any of those girls, he already had enough bargaining power to make it happen.
Hogarth stood back and propped his chin on his fist. He read the notes again. “Think!” he snapped.
Abandoned line of coke. Out of character – Marvin agreed.
No sedative in blood at time of death. Wired on coke. Death from heat alone very unlikely.
Cracked tile – same night. Glass fragments. Line of dried liquid. Booze?
Marvin drug racket.
Marvin last person on scene – possible murderer.
Aimee Gillen. Calls to Gunthers, Police, Reporter.
Aimee Gillen depressed. Friendly with Chrissie Heaton. Others too?
Coercion/Harassment.
“Think. Think, damn it. There’s something else here. Something patently bloody obvious and you’re not getting it!” he uttered the last word with a growl, as the door creaked open behind him. He looked round and saw Palmer. It seemed like she’d only just left, but the clock said she’d been gone an hour or more. Palmer looked better than when he had last seen her. Refreshed, serene. And there was that look in her eyes, sympathetic to the point of pity. Hogarth blinked and looked down to the floor.
“Guv?” said Palmer.
“Hang on,” he said. “I’m in the bloody middle of it here.”
“That’s why I came back. To help.”
“I don’t see how you can. You already think I’ve lost the plot.”
Palmer closed the door behind her.
“I said I’ve come to help,” she said firmly.
Hogarth nodded.
“Fine. Then help me think of what’s missing, be
cause something is missing here. I know it is… That stuff on the broken tile, maybe that’s it. And we need to know more on the girl.”
“Which girl?” said Palmer.
“Aimee Gillen’s so-called friend – Chrissie Heaton.”
Palmer sat down, the confusion showing on her face.
“Why her?”
“Aimee Gillen called Alice Perry about a friend. She was worried about her friend. Perry didn’t believe her and dismissed the call. But we know there had to be something in it. All we’ve heard is that Gillen was depressed, useless, needy, suicidal. They’re all painting her as a waste of space. But If she was such a waste of space, then why the need to kill her?”
“Maybe they didn’t. Isn’t that the point. If there’s no murder, then she wasn’t killed,” said Palmer.
“But she was. There are too many rogue elements for it to be anything else. But we still need the why. I think it has something to do with these ‘friends’.”
“But Heaton said Aimee Gillen was no friend. Chrissie said she tried it on.”
“Which tallies neatly with Lana Aubrey’s version of events. But those phone calls can’t be ignored. When she used the word ‘friends’ to Alice Perry, we need to find out if Gillen meant Chrissie Heaton, or someone else.”
Palmer nodded. “Okay. But the girl has shut me down twice. I don’t think we’ll get much from her.”
“See?” said Hogarth. “If she’s got nothing to hide, why shut you down. You said she’s acting scared. She knows something. Call her up.”
“That didn’t work before, guv.”
“Then try again. Tell her unless she comes clean, you’ll arrest her.”
Palmer sighed. “I tried that too.”
“And we’ll do it if we have to. Okay, let’s work around this. Let’s do some digging on her. See what we can find…”
“How?”
“Marvin. They’re about the same age. He’s got to know something.”
***
Hogarth led the way with Palmer. They walked into the dim interior of interview room 1 which still smelt of the sweat and coffee of earlier interrogations. Marvin had been dragged in by PC Jordan. He looked bored and sleepy-eyed but picked himself up off the table as they walked in.
The Darkest Deed_A Gripping Detective Crime Mystery Page 20