The actors began a brisk exodus from the set, aiming in the direction of the Northern TV building’s main exit. Bill and Liza dallied behind the bar, as if there was unfinished business they wanted to talk over. Finally Bill said:
‘You got half an hour or so, Liza?’
‘You know I always have for you, Bill.’
‘Come on, then. Let’s go and find a pub.’
The figure came out of the front door of the house, and a dim light from the hall, immediately shut off, was the only illumination that it got. It slipped to the side of the house and picked up something from just inside the open garage. The hood of its anorak was pulled over the face, and its right hand now carried not only a can of some kind but also some tightly folded paper. It scuttled to the gate and headed in the direction of the city centre, pulling now and then at the hood and keeping its head well down, as if studying the configuration of the pavement.
The walk was not a long one, perhaps twenty minutes, but it just stopped short of central Leeds – slowing down as it neared the area with a view towards the West Yorkshire Playhouse. The streets here were mean, but mean these days meant affordable, and individuals or organisations that had bought some of them up made sterling efforts to clean the brickwork, install bigger windows, freshen the outer paintwork. Through the windows of some of them could be seen cheerful interiors, brightly lit, dashingly papered. The figure stopped some way from its goal, cautiously pushing the hood back a mite, gazing intently.
There was a light on in the targeted house, one of a terrace. But there was only one light, upstairs. Perhaps it was in one of the bedrooms. The figure put its twin burdens down by the wall of a disused factory, and hid them as well as possible by standing near them. Twenty minutes later the light in the terraced house went out. The figure did not stir.
It was a quarter of an hour later, during which all had been quiet in the house, when the shape suddenly reached into its left-hand pocket and took something out, then into the right-hand one and did the same. Two minutes later it replaced them, then looked towards the house, number nine. It was in darkness. The figure bent to pick up paper and can, and moved cautiously forward. Standing for a moment outside the front door the observer (if there had been one) might have seen that the paper was a tabloid – maybe The Sun, maybe The Times – whose pages had first been torn apart, then torn in half. Several of them were taken, soaked from the can, then pushed through the door. Finally one of the sheets was folded up as a spill, lit with a cigarette lighter, then stuffed hurriedly through the door.
As the flame lit up the open letterbox the figure hared off down the street in the direction it had come, leaving the can behind to add to the conflagration when the door collapsed. It had been a very thorough job, a credit to the planning which had gone into it. It did what it was intended it should do.
The pub that they found was the Red Deer, just off Upper Briggate, in the centre of Leeds. In its brasswork, its faded sepia photographs and its heavy wood tables and settles, it was not unlike the Duke of York’s, which may have been its attraction to Bill and Liza. Bill looked around contentedly.
‘Makes me feel at home, this place,’ he said. Liza laughed.
‘You always say that. But the Duke of York’s is not your home.’
‘It’s as much a home as I’ve had since my first one. The girls are the only things that give the present one any feeling of home. God forgive me for never giving them a real one.’
‘You’ve given them quite as good a home as most kids have these days,’ said Liza loyally. Bill stirred uneasily in his chair.
‘Well, me and Angela have done what we could, and not done bad. But it’s not fair on Angela, is it? She’s forced to be old before her time…One good thing, though: at least I’m cured of that snotty little bitch Susan Fyldes.’
‘That wasn’t what you said back at the Duke of York’s, after she’d given you a right squashing, as far as I could see.’
‘I’ve thought it over since. It’s the best thing that could have happened. Fine thing it would have been, wouldn’t it, if I’d introduced her into the family, she only five or six years older than Angela. Not to say one that was no more motherly than the bitch I’m married to now.’
‘So what makes you think you’re over her?’ asked Liza carefully. Bill didn’t respond well to scepticism about his resolutions.
‘I was getting over it already. Really I was. Then tonight she told me to get out of her space, said I was a nothing man. It wasn’t just the words, it was the tone of voice, the expression on her face. Reminded me of Bet.’
‘Well, that’s a relief, I admit. Now at least you can go forward. Concentrate on getting custody of the children in the divorce.’
Bill bent forward over the table, his face red with anger.
‘It shouldn’t even be an issue! Bet’s never been interested – they’ve always been a burden to her, nothing more than that. Her application for custody must be pure mischief. Or someone else is putting her up to it.’
‘Who would?’ asked Liza thoughtfully. Then she said: ‘Of course, there is Hamish Fawley.’
‘Her supposed fiancé. But why would he? I’ve never done him any harm.’
‘I don’t suppose Stephen Barrymore has either, but it doesn’t stop Hamish being poisonous to him.’
Bill shifted uneasily again, an agonised expression on his face.
‘Unless he’s serious about the marriage, and wants…wants to get control of three young girls.’
It was out – the nightmare from the back of his brain.
‘But why would he? The fact that he’s bedding Bet doesn’t suggest he’s the type who’s attracted by schoolgirls.’
Bill just shook his head.
‘The attraction may not be sex so much as… tormenting them, torturing them by pressing sex on them – sex with someone they fear and hate.’
It was Liza’s turn to shake her head.
‘Well, all I can say is I’ve never heard that perversion alleged of Hamish, and I’ve heard practically every activity on God’s earth attributed to him at one time or another. Snap out of it, Bill, or it will affect the girls.’
‘Yes, yes,’ muttered Bill. He shook himself. ‘It was just worst case scenario imaginings. And really the girls are fine, not worried because their mother’s gone. The worst thing that could happen is they’ll have a rotten diet. Angela has grown up thinking “food” means takeaways. And she and I will stop that if the younger ones start putting on weight.’
‘Of course you will. You will come through this, and with flying colours. I know you will.’
Liza was experienced in conversations with Bill, and was adept at hiding any reservations she might feel. She knew him so well. When he said ‘I’ve got to go to the loo’ she knew he was going to ring his daughters. They were the three women more important to him than her.
The figure scurried through the near-deserted streets, confidently negotiating the winding and intersecting highways as if it was the keeper of a maze. The anorak was clutched around its body and the bottom of its jeans were getting dusty from the ill-swept roads. The hood was kept pulled down over head and face, which continued to look intently at the road. Because, behind it, now several yards away, a red glow in the sky suggested a fire. And in the distance sirens started, coming nearer and fast. But in the end the figure knew they would arrive too late. One of the firemen expressed on television the same fatalism the next day.
‘There was nothing anybody could do,’ he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Burnt-Out Case
Surveying the scene next morning, in the chilly and grimy light of day, Charlie Peace was struck by the meanness of it all. The house where Hamish Fawley died was new and spruce, yet the skimped space for all the activities of life made it seem mean – a mean house, in a mean little street, in a mean area of Leeds, with the hideous modern palace of the Department of Work and Pensions within all-too-easy walking distance. All this, and then
the burnt entrance area, with burnt door and window frames, evidences of a hatred, or a fear, or a contempt that condemned a man and a woman to a hideous death – all seemed to add up to an appropriate end to Hamish Fawley, in tune with the meanness of spirit of the man, as Charlie had seen it in action in the studios of Northern Television.
He had been called at home in Slepton Edge and sent to an address in Leeds, where his least favourite policeman, Superintendent Birnley, was waiting for him. Waiting, he had no doubt, to offload on him the grind of the investigation, while retaining for himself all the glory of publicity that could be milked from the very public nature of the victims. With a sigh that developed into a groan Charlie donned his white protective clothing, and went into the blackened and smoke-smelling hallway, then upstairs to the bedroom. Birnley acknowledged his arrival with a grunt, then resumed his random survey of the charred room, in particular the two bodies – one half-on and half-off the bed, the other over by the window.
‘Right,’ said Birnley finally. ‘I’ve got to go back to HQ. There’s going to be a lot of public interest in this: second-highest ranking soap in the ratings, behind Corrie, of course, but way ahead of EastEnders. What have we got here that I can tell a press conference? I don’t think there’s any doubt it’s a bloke called Hamish Fawley, who was renting this little love nest from Northern Television. The woman is his fiancée, Bet Garrett, also currently in Jubilee Terrace. I’ve had a few words with the producer, Reggie Friedman, and I’ll wise up with someone who watches the programme and try and sound as if I did when I talk to the meeja.’
Charlie had also been surveying the room.
‘I’ve phoned the casting people at NTV, on the way here. Just to get a few basic facts. Bet Garrett is the estranged wife of the man who plays Bob Worseley in Terrace. He’s a middle-aged man, and these clothes don’t suggest they’d be worn by his wife.’
He gestured to a chair in the corner of the bedroom, badly singed, on which lay a very skimpy skirt decorated around the waist (or groin) with chains, beads and buckles. Birnley favoured him with an elaborate sigh.
‘Laddie—’ (Charlie particularly disliked his habit of calling him that – Birnley not having a drop of Scottish blood in his veins) – ‘have you never heard of mutton dressed up as lamb? Or for that matter, have you never watched a middle-aged man making a fool of himself, even unto marriage, with much younger meat?’
‘The Garretts have teenaged children.’
‘Well, you’ll find it’s her, all the same. Friedman was pretty sure.’
Charlie felt he need do no more to enjoin caution on his superior. It ought to be the other way round, he thought.
‘Well, I’ll be on my way,’ said Birnley, picking up his papers. ‘I could easily walk to police headquarters from here if I was that way inclined.’ He smirked round the little group. ‘Very considerate of our murderer.’
‘Are we quite sure it was murder?’ asked Charlie.
‘Oh, no doubt in the world. Didn’t you smell the petrol? Pretty funny way to commit suicide, eh?’
Charlie thought he could be in for a right rollicking if he recommended caution on two fronts. Anyway, he felt pretty sure that on this matter Birnley was right. He had not often met a more murderable victim than Hamish Fawley.
‘What did Reggie say? What did you learn?’
The cast of Jubilee Terrace were scattered around the canteen with but a single thought in their head. Les Crosby, who played Harry Hornby the newsagent, had been seen talking to Reggie as they went up the steps of the Northern Television studios, and had gone together to Reggie’s office. That was enough to make them shout their questions. He turned and came over.
‘What are you talking about? I didn’t learn anything. There is a new plot-line for Young Foulmouth – a strike of newspaper boys and girls. He wanted to be sure I was happy about the way things were being planned, and we got on to possible consequences later on: maybe one of the girls becoming a sort of surrogate daughter for Lady Wharton.’
‘But what did he say about Hamish?’
Les Crosby frowned in bewilderment.
‘Why should he say anything about Hamish? We don’t all need to discuss him morning, noon and night, you know. As a matter of fact he didn’t mention him.’
‘In other words, you haven’t heard—’ put in Garry Kopps.
‘Haven’t heard what?’
‘Hamish has died in a fire in his house,’ said Shirley Merritt, ‘Bet Garrett died as well.’
‘Good God.’ Les Crosby sat down, and started drinking someone else’s coffee. ‘How did the fire start? And where was Hamish living?’
‘Hallway we heard,’ said Garry Kopps. ‘And in one of those NTV houses not far from the West Yorkshire Playhouse.’
‘You’re thinking what the rest of us are thinking,’ said Winnie Hey to Les.
‘Probably. But remember Vernon. We all thought someone had pushed him in front of a bus when we heard about his accident.’
‘Not all of us – only some. And who’s to say we were wrong?’ said Carol Chisholm.
‘Point taken. I wasn’t around when this copper came sniffing. But one anonymous letter doesn’t make a murder case.’
‘Nobody said it did,’ said Philip Marston calmly. ‘I think we should put a bung into speculation like that. Say someone put petrol and a lighted match through the letterbox and so killed Hamish and Bet. They’re the most hated members of the cast. Who’s going to be the first to come under suspicion?’
They thought about this.
‘I didn’t hate Bet Garrett,’ said Marjorie. ‘I hardly knew her.’
‘Exactly,’ said Philip. ‘Because you hardly knew her you didn’t hate her… Actually a lot of us loathed her for what she did to Bill and the children.’
‘We only have Bill’s word for most of that,’ said Garry Kopps.
‘But we believe it because Bill is the straightest of us all, and the moralist in the Terrace. He’s a good man, and Bet was a cheap tart.’
‘You’re committing the vulgar error that all fans make, of confusing the actor and the part he plays,’ went on Garry Kopps. ‘Bill is a moralist and a model to us all when he is playing Bob Worseley – the man who can keep order in a public bar and shame any man – or woman – who steps out of line. But I wouldn’t give tuppence for any morality that issued from the mouth of Bill Garrett. Look at the kind of woman he married, for a start.’
‘It’s because of all he suffered and learnt while he was married to Bet that I’d accept what he said as moral guidance,’ said Philip Marston.
Several of the cast nodded: they’d listen to, if not necessarily follow, moral guidance from good old Bill. No one analysed their reactions to the man. If they had they would have realised that they were really unsure where Bob Worseley ended and Bill Garrett began. And the same, though he showed no awareness of the fact, was true of Garry Kopps. He played a similar role as moral arbiter in the corner shop, where people gathered. And other cast members often talked about him as if he was Arthur Bradley, and ought to be given a five-minute God-slot on Radio Four.
Charlie Peace, alone in the bedroom of the charred house, stood and looked around the last resting place of Hamish Fawley. He hated murder scenes, but had got used to suppressing his nausea. They were a regular but not a frequent part of his job. He preferred other sorts of cases that required from him pretty much what a murder case (other than a crime of passion) did: insight into ingenuity and ambiguity; psychological perception: ability to sort out the relevant from the merely incidental.
He crossed to the upright chair under the window. Hamish’s jeans and shirt were under the women’s clothes that he had noticed before, and also a handbag. He looked into that first, his hands protected by the latex gloves. He always thought he looked like a down-market chef in his protective gear. The handbag turned out to be the nearest thing to a make-up case. He put his hand into the tight pocket in the front of the ridiculous shirt. There was a card there.
Gingerly he pulled it out. It was an Equity card – that prized permission-to-act for all would-be professional performers. Only this one was in the name of Sylvia Cardew. A tentatively smiling teenage face grinned out from the card. Charlie whistled.
He went through in his mind all the possibilities: that Bet Garrett acted under a stage name, or possibly her maiden one, and this was an old picture of her. Whence ‘Bet’ though? That Bet had had a marriage earlier than the one to Bill, maybe even a marriage that had produced some or all of the three daughters, and this was her first married name, and a photograph that flattered her and concealed her age.
But somehow, from the little Charlie knew of Hamish from his brief encounter with the Jubilee cast, the alternative explanation seemed to be the most likely one: that Hamish was playing away from his fiancée, that this was indeed a genuine and recent picture of the woman whose burnt body still lay on the bed, and that she was a teenager, or a not-long-since teenager as the photograph suggested – naive, keen to get ahead in the acting profession, and willing to do anything to ensure that. Sad.
‘If you want to get ahead, go to bed,’ he said, adapting an old advertising slogan. He took his mobile from his pocket.
‘Rani? It’s Charlie Peace. I need to get a message through to Superintendent Birnley. As quick as you can. I believe he’s going to hold a press conference.’
‘He is. Pretty premature I’d say.’
‘Yes, well, there’s no holding an old trouper back. The message is that I’ve found in the clothing of the woman found in Hamish Fawley’s bed an Equity card with the name Sylvia Cardew on it. He needs to keep stumm and not give any name to the female victim – OK?’
Killings on Jubilee Terrace Page 8