An Unsuitable Death

by J M Gregson

  Lambert studied him for a moment before he made any response to the man’s declaration of his calling. Clarke wore jeans and a light blue roll-neck sweater. He had the slim limbs and coltish movements of youth, which made him seem taller than he was. His thin face was at once handsome and a little gauche: with a little make-up to emphasise his prominent nose and flaxen hair, he could have played a young Andrew Aguecheek as well as Romeo.

  Tom Clarke had long, delicate fingers, as unlined as those of a marble sculpture, but they clasped and unclasped in his lap as he sat facing Lambert. This was a young man who did not find it easy to keep still. Lambert took note of that, and determined to play things slowly at the outset: nervous subjects were the ones who found it most difficult to hold things back.

  Eventually he said calmly, “You asked to see the officer in charge of the investigation into the death of Tamsin Rennie. I am that officer; my name is Superintendent Lambert, and this is Detective Sergeant Hook. You had better begin by telling us about your relationship with Miss Rennie.”

  Tom Clarke threw his arms wide, then brought them back together and resolutely folded them. He looked as if he would like to get up and pace about the small room, but the set-up here plainly did not allow for that. “She was my girlfriend.” He said it defiantly, as if he half-expected the claim to be denied. Lambert wondered what Tamsin Rennie’s reaction to the statement would have been, had she been sitting in the room beside him. He sighed, studying the young face six feet away from him intently. It was the old problem with murder, the only crime where the victim was unable to volunteer any information. “I see. You’re telling us that you were her only boyfriend?”

  A flash of temper across that interesting young face was quickly controlled. “I mean I was the only man who mattered to her. We should have been married in due course, if…” The man who was so ready and eager to deliver the words of others was suddenly lost for words of his own.

  It was Bert Hook who eventually said quietly, “If you had been able to persuade her to give up the others?”

  Tom Clarke flashed a look of hatred at this stolid man who had spoken for the first time. But the weather-beaten features were so calm, so understanding, even sympathetic, that the outburst died in his throat. He waved the too-mobile hands for a moment, then said, “They were unimportant, the others. She’d already given them up. She saw the sense of what I was trying to do. If we’d just been given time, she’d—” Suddenly he sobbed, gasping for control, biting his lip and fighting for the breath which would not come evenly. He looked much younger than his years, like a grief-stricken child trying to be brave in public.

  Lambert waited for a moment for the tears which did not come. Then he said calmly, “She’d have done what, Tom? Given up the lifestyle which was making her miserable? Married you, perhaps?”

  Clarke nodded, grateful that these somber men seemed to know so much. “Yes, just that. I wanted her to marry me, and she would have done, eventually.”

  Again Lambert had that fruitless wish to hear the reaction of the girl who would now never speak. “Eventually?”

  “Well, yes. Tamsin had her problems, as you obviously know, but we’d have come through it, in the end. She was just beginning to believe I could help her when when—”

  “When she was brutally murdered.”

  The sensitive face winced on the phrase, as though it had been struck a physical blow. “Yes. I came here to offer you whatever help I could, but it seems you already know more about her than I do.” For a moment he was almost petulant with the thought.

  “We actually know very little. Far less than you assume. For instance, we didn’t even know of your existence, until a search of Tamsin’s flat revealed this picture.” Lambert showed him the rather old-fashioned posed portrait of his profile against the black velvet, and the mobile face broke into a surprising, rather embarrassed smile.

  “It’s a bit over the top, isn’t it? I was imitating a picture of Ellen Terry I found in the library at RADA. Pure ham, I suppose. It seemed to impress Tamsin far more than any agent I sent it to.”

  “You were at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art?”

  “Oh, yes. Nothing but the best for Thomas, you know. At one time my accent would have been just right for RADA. Now they spend a good part of the time trying to knock a public school accent out of you. Regional accents are all the rage in the commercial theatre now, you know. I was allowed to be an effete public school Cassio last year, but only alongside a Brummie Othello being deceived by a Geordie Iago.”

  Lambert wasn’t quite sure where this was leading, but for the moment he was content to find out all he could about this mercurial young man. After all, he had announced himself as a murder suspect at the moment he came into the room. “You were at public school?”

  “At Shrewsbury, yes. As a day boy, though. We live about halfway between Hereford and Shrewsbury. So I escaped the routine adolescent fumblings in the dorm. Until I entered the theatre, of course!” It was obviously a line he had delivered before, and he looked for a reaction he did not get from the two large men who studied him so gravely and so continuously.

  Hook merely said, “So you know the Shrewsbury area well, eh? That’s where this Sacristan killer has been operating, of course.”

  Clarke looked at him sharply, but the Sergeant was making an entry in his notebook in his round, careful hand, with no trace of a smile on his rubicund features. It was Lambert who said suddenly, “How long had you known Tamsin Rennie, Mr Clarke?”

  “A year, I suppose. Well, very nearly a year, anyway.”

  “And how long had you been sleeping with her?”

  Colour rushed into the too-revealing features. “Now look here, I came here to help, and if all you can do—”

  “Then answer my question! We need to know everything we can about this murdered girl and those around her.” Lambert was suddenly impatient with the self-indulgence of this gilded creature, suddenly aware of the myriad pieces of information that were being documented outside this room and awaiting his attention. “We need to know how serious your relationship with Tamsin Rennie was, how long it had been going on, and whether you think you were the only man seeing her. Then you can tell us when you last saw her and exactly what you know about her death.”

  For a moment, it looked as if Tom Clarke’s fury would burst out in words. Then he controlled himself. Fastening on to the phrase which had most angered him, he said in a low, even voice, “There were other men. When I first knew Tamsin, there were other men. But that was over. I’d made her see that it must be. We were going to move away, to start afresh.”

  That old dream of the young, that you could move to a new area and cast off all the old baggage. That a couple were stronger than one, could give each other the strength to carry it through. It worked, occasionally. But never with an out-of-work actor and a penniless girl with a drug dependency. Lambert said, more gently now, “Where did Tamsin -get money, Tom? She was spending far more than she earned, even when she had regular work.”

  “The rent for the flat, you mean?” He didn’t mention the heroin he must have known about, his eyes flashing a question about how much they knew as he looked into his interrogator’s face. “I don’t really know how she afforded that.” He looked at the carpet by his feet, hearing the hollowness of his own words as he spoke them. Eventually, he said, “Well, I do, I suppose. I just don’t like to admit it. She was taking money from men, when I first knew her. But she gave up all—”

  “She was taking money for sexual favours, you mean?”

  “Yes. She was when I first knew her.” He still couldn’t bring himself to look at them. “It’s against the law, isn’t it?”

  Lambert smiled. The man seemed suddenly very young and naive. “That’s hardly going to concern us now, Tom. But you’re saying that Tamsin helped to finance the rent for the flat by taking money from men who came there. It’s important that you’re completely frank with us. It has surely occurred to you that it cou
ld be one of these men who killed her.”

  “I’ve considered that. I’m sure it wasn’t.” Then, as if struck by the monstrous arrogance of stating this to a detective, he added apologetically, “They were a long time ago, you see, these other men. She’d given all that up, once we became an item.” He produced the last phrase aggressively, as if challenging them to deny it. Lambert again wondered fruitlessly whether Tamsin Rennie would have regarded Clarke and herself as “an item”.

  He produced the second photograph which had come from the dead girl’s flat from his desk. It was all they had to offer, but Tom Clarke did not know that; he looked as if he wondered how much else they had gathered from the place, how many more embarrassing surprises lay in wait for him in the top drawer of this grizzled detective’s desk. Lambert said gently, “This was another picture Tamsin had kept. It was found alongside the one of you which you have already seen. What can you tell us about this man?”

  “I’ve never met him.”

  “That does not answer my question, does it?”

  The slender arms were thrown wide for an instant, as if he meant to protest. Then he folded them carefully, like a child practising a new movement. “All right. He was an older man, who was visiting Tamsin regularly when I first knew her. She had stopped seeing him months ago, along with the others. He was kind and gentle with Tamsin, from what she said. I expect that is why she kept his picture.” He sounded as if even here it was important for him to explain that to himself. He said reluctantly, “That’s all, is it? There weren’t any other pictures of men, were there?”

  Lambert wondered whether he should deny Clarke all knowledge of the sparse crop the SOCO team had harvested from that basement flat. Then he nodded and said, “Those were the only photographs we found there. Can you give us details of any other men who you know had visited her?”

  He leaned forward, clasping his folded arms tight against his chest, giving at least the appearance of careful thought. “No. I told you, she’d given all that up. I didn’t want to know about her past. I only know about that man because she had a bit of a soft spot for him. He was an older man in pursuit of a young girl who didn’t want him. A bit sad, really. I certainly didn’t feel threatened by him. His name is Milburn, by the way. Eric Milburn, I think. I don’t know his address.”

  How easily the young dismiss people even one generation ahead of them nowadays, thought Lambert. Perhaps he underestimates us as well, he thought. He said briskly, “Let’s summarise what you are telling us, Mr Clarke. When you met her, Tamsin Rennie was supporting a residence and a lifestyle which she could otherwise not have afforded by an undefined amount of amateur prostitution.” He held up his hand as the young man made to protest. “As a result of a serious involvement with you, you believe she gave up the lucrative sale of her sexual favours. The employment and remuneration of young actors being as they are, presumably you were not able to provide her with replacement funds.”

  He paused for a moment, knowing that actors are rarely reluctant to talk about themselves, and Tom Clarke did not let him down. “No. I’ve been resting for about half of the time I knew her. I understudied three speaking parts at Stratford for the RSC last year, but I only got to carry the odd spear on stage.”

  Despite his intention to drop the Royal Shakespeare Company casually into the exchange, he spoke the initials with a hint of awe, as if he hoped for some sort of reaction. Lambert merely said, “Which leaves us with this unanswered question: how then did Tamsin Rennie replace the income which was no longer being gathered from her former clients?”

  Clarke, diverted for a moment into his own life, had not been prepared for this. “I — I don’t quite know. Perhaps she had saved a certain amount from — from what she had been doing before I met her. Perhaps her family had been helping her.”

  Lambert nodded at Hook, who said gently, “Come on, Tom. You don’t believe either of those things. If you were as close to her as you claim, you must know that she wasn’t getting any help from her family.”

  The thin shoulders shrugged hopelessly, the arms he had held resolutely folded broke free and flew uncontrolled and wide. “I don’t know. Perhaps she was running up debt, for all I know. I thought I was going to get her out of the situation and make a fresh start.”

  Lambert said, “Do you know Tamsin’s landlady, Mrs King?”

  “No. I never met her. Never even saw her.”

  There was perhaps something significant in this resolute denial, but neither of them could see quite what it was. “She is not a lady who would allow someone like Tamsin to run up large arrears on her rent, I can assure you.”

  Again that hopeless, defeated air. “I can’t help you about Tamsin’s finances. We didn’t talk about them much. We were concerned with bigger things than money. We were trying to sort out the whole of our lives.”

  The grandiose phrase was delivered defiantly, but the bravado was paper thin. Lambert looked at him for a moment, then said, “Indeed. And sorting out Tamsin Rennie’s life involved even greater changes than you have indicated so far, didn’t it, Mr Clarke?”

  Tom felt himself shifting on his seat, even as he said, “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve told you I didn’t know about her finances, that we had—”

  “But you knew about the heroin, didn’t you? You must have done, unless your relationship was nothing like as close as you’ve claimed it was.”

  “I told you, we were going to get married. I loved Tamsin, and she loved me.” With that simple, rather banal assertion, he was suddenly in tears. Neither of the older men opposite him moved forward to console him, to mitigate his grief. A man in extreme distress would reveal more than a man in control of his emotions, and long experience of CID interrogations had made them ruthless in pursuit of the information which was the currency of their trade. Eventually Tom Clarke gathered himself, volunteered them a look of extreme disgust, and said, “All right, I knew about the smack. She was going to give it up, with my help. That was to be part of our fresh start, when we moved away from here.”

  Lambert said drily, “I doubt whether that would have been possible, without professional help. Dependency — and according to the PM report, that’s what we’re speaking of in Tamsin’s case — is not easily cast aside. But that’s not our concern here. It’s how Tamsin financed the habit that has to interest us. On top of a flat she shouldn’t have been able to afford, she was using heroin to the value of hundreds of pounds per week. Now where was the money for all this coming from?”

  Clarke mopped away the tears from his handsome features, using a large handkerchief with a “T” embroidered in the corner, hating them for the question, hating them even more for making his misery so naked. “I don’t know. I told you, my only concern was to get Tamsin out of all that. To make a fresh start together.”

  It was becoming a recurring chorus. Lambert said, “How long had she been dependent on heroin, Tom?”

  He shook his head hopelessly. “I don’t know. I’ve taken a little pot myself, in my time, and at first I thought that was all it was. But I soon realised it was much worse than that. She said she’d gone on to snow, and then to smack. I saw the needle marks, of course, as soon as — well, as soon as we were naked together. She wouldn’t admit it, but I’m sure it got worse while I knew her. She needed more of the stuff, I mean, though she would never admit it. It’s odd, but I never thought of her as dependent. I thought if I could just get her away from Hereford — She always talked as if she was

  going to give it up next week.”

  It was the self-delusion of all addicts: alcoholics, gamblers and junkies were all going to give it up next week. And of the three, it was the drug-dependents who usually died most quickly. Lambert said gently, “Did it not occur to you that drugs might be the source of her income as well as her trouble? People who are dependent lose all moral equilibrium. They will do anything to get the fix their body demands, when they reach that stage. Including selling drugs to other people.”

/>   “No!” The monosyllable came as a shout in the quiet room. Unless he was a very good actor indeed, this handsome, rather callow young man had never considered the possibility before. “I’m sure she wasn’t. Tamsin despised herself for the habit. She’d never have started selling drugs to others.”

  He was desperate for reassurance, desperate to preserve the crumbling image of the girl he had set on his own pedestal. Lambert could offer him no comfort. “It’s something we have to consider, until we find the source of her funds. I can assure you that once you are dependent on heroin, you will do anything to get the drug: the body simply demands it, needs it. Any idea of right and wrong is submerged beneath that need. That is what makes dependency such an awful thing.”

  Clarke nodded, accepting the logic for humanity, yet denying it for his own tiny corner of the human race. “I can see that. But I’m sure Tamsin wasn’t selling on drugs to others. I’d have known if she was.”

  The lover’s old illusion that the partner withheld nothing, that when you became what he had called “an item”, two thought and reacted as one. Even in this moment of Tom Clarke’s agony, Lambert found himself for a moment envying him his youth and its innocence. He said firmly, “Well, as I say, we shall need to find out how Tamsin was paying for the flat and the heroin habit. Whatever the source of her money, it may well have something to do with her death.”

  Clarke nodded wearily. “Well, you’ll find she wasn’t pushing drugs. Is there anything else?”

  Lambert nodded at Hook, who said, “A few more things, for the record. When did you last see Tamsin Rennie?”

  “Monday night. I stayed the night with her and left early on Tuesday morning. I was doing some painting and decorating for a friend of my mother’s, in Shrewsbury, until this happened. I do it while I’m ‘resting’. I’m actually quite proficient at it now.” He grinned weakly, realising the implication that he wasn’t finding much work as an actor.