Bitter Water

by Douglas Clark

  Green shook his head gloomily. “It sounds simple,” he grunted, “but I’m damned sure it won’t be.”

  “We’ve got to try it,” urged Tip.

  “Of course, flower. But rats are funny things. Remember what Conan Doyle said.”

  “We’re on to Sherlock Holmes now, are we?” asked Berger scathingly.

  Green ignored him. “About the giant rat of Sumatra. He said it was a story for which the world is not yet prepared, and I’m just not prepared to believe that the pigmy rats of the Victory caused this page three girl to kick the bucket. I ask you! Can you see Carla Sanders eating a chocolate that’s been half-nibbled away by a rat or any other agency?”

  “It wouldn’t have to be nibbled away,” said Masters quietly. “If Carla Sanders was in the habit of leaving a box of chocolates open on her dressing room table, so that she could just lift one out while she was putting on her make-up, she could have been asking for trouble, not from a rat who gnawed one of the goodies, but from an infected one that just ran over them.”

  “You mean the bugs could have been on its paws, Chief?” asked Tip.

  “There is that possibility,” admitted Masters. “But I was envisaging another possibility. Rats crouch and run, crouch and run.”

  “Got the picture,” grunted Green. “They crouch to sniff the air and then gallop on.”

  Masters nodded. “I’ve already told you these microorganisms come from rats’ urine. Well, rats don’t use toilet paper. When they urinate it’s a thousand to one that some of the fur on their undercarriages is splashed or dampened.”

  Tip said, quite chirpily, “I see what you’re getting at, Chief. If one had a wee and then a second or two later ran onto an open box of chocolates, crouched for a moment and then dashed on its way, one or two of the chocolates could have been infected.”

  “Quite right. And it wouldn’t have wetted the chocolates so as to make them obviously ruined. All it would have transferred to them would be lethal microorganisms which, as the name implies, are totally invisible to the human eye.”

  “I knew it,” said Green disgustedly. “A real choice investigation we’ve got on our hands.” He looked across at Tip. “I hope you never leave the lids off your boxes of chocolates.”

  Tip shivered. “I certainly shan’t in future. Not after this conversation.”

  “You do get boxes now and again, then, do you, petal? From admirers, like?”

  Tip blushed and looked across at Berger. “Now and again,” she murmured.

  Masters sat up and closed the file. “Right. That’s as far as we’ll go at the moment. Sergeant Berger, if you’ll take Tip and get your own investigation under way at the Victory, the DCI and I will do a bit of book research.”

  Berger rose.

  “Don’t lay too much store by what you are going to do,” warned Masters. “Remember that a few minutes ago you were supplying us with a list of possible motives for somebody who wanted to get rid of Carla Sanders.”

  Berger nodded. “And I shall remember the DCI’s scepticism, Chief. His nose is telling him it wasn’t a four-legged rat that killed La Sanders, and though I hate to say this, I’ve got quite a respect for his nose. It’s the only part of his anatomy …”

  “Out!” growled Green, not displeased by the compliment paid to his investigative perspicacity, and unwilling to let the moment be spoiled by some less than complimentary reference to his body. “Out. And get back here in time to do some real work this afternoon.”

  They met again in Masters’ office at two o’clock. Berger and Tip reported that the stage-door keeper at the Victory had sworn there was no such thing as a rat on the premises but the theatre manager had intervened to say that whether there was or not the staff would co-operate fully with the Yard and traps would be bought and set immediately. As soon as a rat was caught—if it was caught—Berger would be informed. Berger had advised the manager to call the local Town Hall for advice as to how to bait the traps and where best to site them.

  “If they play their cards right,” grunted Green, “the local rodent-operative will come and do the job for them.”

  “The manager was hoping for that,” said Tip. “But it was clear to me that he doesn’t share the doorkeeper’s belief that there are no rats backstage, and he’s also in a blue funk at the idea of any other actors suffering the same fate as Carla Sanders. He’s obviously got a popular show on his hands and he doesn’t fancy the stars of the piece getting knocked off like flies.”

  Masters nodded. “He could have lots of trouble. The actors might refuse to play, and were it to get out that infected rats are scampering about the place the audiences would begin to thin appreciably.”

  “We kept it as quiet and low-key as possible, Chief,” said Berger.

  “I’m sure you did. Now to other matters. Miss Sanders was unmarried, but shared a flat with a Mr. Howard Collier, also an actor, and her current boyfriend of the last eighteen months or so.”

  “Current?” asked Green. “She’d had others before him?”

  “We shall have to enquire into that, Bill, in case a former partner could have been feeling sufficiently rejected by her as to wish her harm.”

  “That’s highly likely,” said Tip bitterly. “These tarty pieces like playing the field without a thought for the sensitivities of others. I can imagine some former lover feeling jealous if he was kicked out just because she was getting ahead in the profession.”

  “It’s unlike you to be so bitter, Tip.”

  “Women like that give the rest of us a bad name, Chief. And set a bad example to ordinary girls who, without such encouragement, might settle down to happy stable relationships. But you don’t want me to give you the full spiel, do you?”

  “No, thank you. Just the normal woman’s point of view. We appreciate that.”

  Green winked at Tip and Masters consulted the file before saying: “Sanders and Collier lived at Flat 19, Hammer Head Court.”

  “I know where that is,” said Berger. “Very nice, but not too upmarket.”

  “In that case,” said Masters, “you can take us there.”

  As Berger had said, the flat was in a pleasant enough modern block, set on a corner, at an angle across its own plot, so that the triangle of ground in front of it made a sizeable lawn and shrub garden which could be entered from both streets. The carriageway led under the centre of the block to lock-up garages behind. A door on each side of this entrance led to the two halves of the block. Flat 19 was on the left as Berger drove in.

  The door was opened by a man in his thirties, wearing a broad-striped, multicoloured dressing gown apparently over his naked body. Bare feet, unshaven chin, unkempt hair and less-than-fully-functioning eyes suggested he had come from his bed to answer the ring.

  “Mr. Howard Collier?” Masters asked the question though he recognised the face despite its appearance.

  “Yes. Who are you?” The tones were those of many a television ad voice-over.

  Masters introduced himself and his colleagues and requested entry. Collier let them in willingly, asking their business as he did so. When he moved aside to let them pass, Masters was pleased to glimpse that the actor was actually wearing boxer shorts under the gown.

  “I am here to ask a few questions concerning Miss Sanders’ death.”

  The man ran a long-fingered hand through his hair. “The police are interested in Carla? Why?”

  “If you are putting the percolator on, chum,” said Green, “make sure there’ll be enough in it for five.”

  Collier stared at him for a moment or two. “That sounds as if you’re anticipating a long session.”

  “Could be.”

  “In that case come through to the kitchen.” Collier padded through ahead of them. “I’ll use the Cafetière,” he said. “It’s supposed to hold enough for eight.”

  “Would you like me to do it for you, Mr. Collier?” asked Tip.

  The actor declined the offer and as he filled the electric kettle he in
vited them to sit on the breakfast bar stools.

  Masters watched him getting mugs from one of the wall cupboards and grinding coffee beans in an electric mill. “You seem to be very adept in the kitchen, Mr. Collier.”

  “And you seem to be very adept at not telling me why you are interested in Carla’s death, Chief Superintendent.”

  “I’m not trying to avoid doing so,” Masters assured him. “Mr. Green suggested coffee merely to allow you time to accustom yourself to our presence and, if you’ll forgive me, your eyes to the daylight.”

  “Fine. Now that that bit of blarney is over, let’s have it. The reason why you’re here.”

  While Collier continued to busy himself, Masters said: “Miss Sanders was, according to the doctor who attended her eight or nine days ago, that is on the opening night of her new play, a perfectly fit and healthy young woman. He did not, of course, do any medical tests in her dressing room, but he did take her temperature and pulse and examine her limbs for damage other than abrasions on one leg and a twisted ankle.”

  Collier had turned to face him. As he leaned against the work-top, he said: “She was totally fit. She had to be. Her part in Round the Barley was as much physical as anything else. Movement the whole time.”

  Masters nodded. “I was lucky enough to see that first night and admired Miss Sanders’ movement and timing very much.”

  “Then you don’t need me to point out that five or six weeks rehearsing that show was a gruelling time, yet Carla came through it without a sign of fatigue.”

  “Quite. And the observations made by the doctor who attended her that night were borne out the next morning by her own doctor whom she had been advised to visit, I believe. My information is that as Miss Sanders was so anxious to get back to the stage, her own GP examined her thoroughly.”

  “And gave her a completely clean bill of health except for the damage to her leg. I know. I was with her. Took her there and stayed throughout. Heard everything that was said.”

  Masters nodded his understanding of this and waited while Collier put four heaped tablespoons of coffee into the heated container and added the boiling water. As Collier then stirred the brew and inserted the filter plunger just into the top of the container, he continued: “The pathologist who carried out the postmortem thinks it more than a little strange and highly frightening that a young woman who is superbly fit and healthy on Friday morning should be dead of a galloping infection by the early hours of the following Tuesday morning.”

  “So do I.”

  “Find it disturbing? Speaking generally, I mean. Not as the man who has just lost his … er … partner?”

  Collier stared at him for a moment, perplexed by the question. Then he said, slowly, “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You are asking me if, apart from this bug killing Carla, I am not scared stiff on my own account?”

  “Not quite. I meant are you disturbed in general by the sudden occurrence of the disease and the possibility of it being at large to damage other people?”

  “I haven’t thought about it.” Collier turned to the coffee pot and pushed down the plunger. “It never struck me,” he declared vehemently, “to consider it in that light.”

  “Understandable,” grunted Green. “In the circumstances. The loss of your girlfriend would be your main concern.”

  “Only concern,” amended Collier, handing him a mug of coffee. “We were …” The sentence petered out.

  “What were you?” asked Masters quietly.

  “I was going to say mates, and then felt it to be somehow inappropriate.” Again the actor ran his hand through his tousled hair. “What I mean is, Carla and I got on together.” He handed Masters a mug of coffee.

  “Well-suited in every respect?”

  “That’s about the size of it. And consequently there were no storm clouds on the horizon. I know a lot of people thought she was just a body without a lot up top …”

  “But?”

  Collier handed out the rest of the coffee before continuing. “She had quite a lot of sense, actually. The trouble is, or was, that in our profession you have to be fly, competition being what it is.”

  “Except for the favoured few, perhaps?”

  “The real top liners rise on their undenied ability. The rest of us are also-rans, in comparison. Others better than some, of course. Some who can’t act for toffee get a meal ticket for life in a soap opera, playing some meagre, gimmicky little part …” He spread his hands, theatrically. “But that’s the luck of the draw. Carla knew the problems and she devoted all her nous to furthering a career which she knew was based on nothing much more than a smashing figure. So she turned all her intellect to cunning, if you like to call it that. She acted a part offstage as well as on. Always the same part, playing the role people expected of her. But, as I say, she did it deliberately, or at least she did in the beginning. After that it became second nature to her.”

  “But you saw through it to the real woman beneath the playacting, did you chum?” asked Green.

  “I think I did.”

  “So what did you do about it? Or did you string along with the idea?”

  “I had just about got her to let down while at home here: to be herself with me and to take an interest in living a normal life when she had to go and catch the bloody bug that killed her.” Collier was controlling any emotion he may have felt, but even so he turned his face away. For a moment or two Masters left him to gaze sightlessly out of the kitchen window.

  “Have your coffee, Mr. Collier,” he said gently, at last.

  Collier turned back to face them. “Sorry for the display. God! Fancy letting myself go in front of four cops!”

  “Don’t worry about that. Two of us have wives we wouldn’t want to lose, too, you know, and I don’t think the other pair are totally insensitive either.”

  “Still! Oh, hell! What were you saying? Asking me if I didn’t think her death so strange as to merit investigation. Was that it?”

  “More or less. You did think it strange, didn’t you? Surely the thought must have struck you that Miss Sanders’ rapid death was out of the ordinary?”

  Collier frowned. “As I said, I haven’t deliberately thought about it in that light, but now you mention it, I must admit to having a feeling there was something not right.”

  “The illness, you mean?”

  “Yes. One can accept that people, young and old, do get illnesses. Severe ones at times. Even fatal ones, and the fact causes sorrow, of course, but not disquiet, if that’s the right word. At the back of my mind there’s been a niggle.”

  Masters waited to see if Collier was going to continue along this line of thought. As the actor didn’t do so, he said: “There’s been the same niggle at the back of the mind of officialdom, too. That is why we are here. To resolve that niggle, if we can.”

  Collier shrugged. “How can you do that? There’s nothing concrete to go on as far as I know. I’ll tell you all I can, of course.”

  “Thank you. Can we discuss the events of the last few days of Miss Sanders’ life?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  “Go ahead. There’s nothing you shouldn’t hear about.”

  “Excellent. When did you last see Carla Sanders when she was really and totally fully fit? We’ll start from there.”

  “Fine. The answer to the question doesn’t need thinking about. The last time I saw Carla fully fit was a week ago yesterday. Last Thursday week, the day of the night when she opened in her new play which you tell me you saw.”

  Masters nodded. “What happened—or didn’t happen—during that day? Before the evening show, I mean?”

  “I was trying to keep her cool. That was the biggest job. But I suppose you can imagine what it’s like during the day before a big opening. Nerves, excitement, fear, nausea and every other emotional and physical nasty one can experience mixed up with a hell of a lot of to-ing and fro-ing when you should be resting.

 
“Carla had to go to the theatre in the morning. Some last-minute alterations to a dress or a scene to change slightly. I don’t know, because I don’t think she said, and in any case she was chattering on about so many things I could very well not have picked it out from all the other gabble that was going on. Then from the theatre she went for a hairdo which took hours. Then back here for a late lunch, but she wouldn’t eat anything. She’d had no breakfast either. No solids, that is. You can imagine how it was.”

  “I know very little about the theatre but, as you say, I’ve always believed that the day of the opening night is something actors don’t look forward to if they haven’t got an iron nerve.”

  “They are few and far between, believe me. But I did get Carla to agree to rest for an hour or two late in the afternoon. Then I got her up and insisted on her having an omelette with me. I had to go off to the theatre, too, remember.”

  “I suppose you did. I had forgotten that. What are you appearing in?”

  “Mirror Writing at the Leader. It’s a thriller.”

  “I remember reading about it. You play a detective, I believe?”

  Collier had the grace to grin. “After meeting you I’d say ‘play’ was the right word. You don’t seem to be going about your business in anything like the way I portray Seneschal—he’s my part, Seneschal. But to get on with what we were talking about. I like to get to the theatre by soon after six and take my time over getting ready. And I need a light meal before I go, because there’s no dinner or supper for the likes of us before eleven at the earliest.”

  “Miss Sanders ate the omelette?”

  “Wolfed it down, actually. I had to tell her to go easy or she’d give herself indigestion. And after it she had some cream crackers and cheese and a cup of black coffee.”

  “It would appear there was nothing wrong with her appetite despite her eating nothing earlier in the day.”

  “Nerves,” said Collier.

  “You are quite satisfied she was completely well at that time, then?”

  “Completely. We went off together to our respective theatres. I dropped her at the Victory. She was a bit quiet in the cab, where earlier on she’d been chattering nonstop, but I put that down entirely to nerves.”