Classic Calls the Shots (7 page)

‘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.

N
either 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?'

Jane shook her head. ‘But she'd been in. I knew that. She'd taken her post. She and Mr Wade and Mr Ford all have their own keys, so they can get in at any time. And there's the gate of course.'

There was. There were also the open windows in Roger Ford's office. ‘Is Mr Ford's office the only one on the ground floor?' I asked her.

‘Yes. There's a waiting room of sorts across the entrance hall, but no one used it this morning. Mr Wade's and his wife's are on the first floor, both overlooking the garden.'

‘Is that her regular office?' It seemed strange to me because she was a consultant on the film, and so technically an outsider and not part of Oxley Productions.

Jane pulled a face. ‘She made a fuss and so she got it.' Then realizing these were ambiguous words, she burst into tears and Louise comforted her. ‘I'm sorry,' Jane wailed. ‘It's the shock. Did she . . . did she die while I was there or earlier?'

‘I don't know,' I said again. I had found Angie at about twenty to ten, and the blood, I recalled, was congealed. I comforted Jane by reminding her that the side gate was open when I found it, albeit that for all she knew I had pulled it open myself before asking her to guard it.

‘Were there a lot of visitors this morning?' Louise repeated my question.

‘You, Miss Shaw. Mr Ford came in and out, and so did Mr Wade.'

‘Did they stay in their offices long?'

‘I don't know about Mr Ford, but Mr Wade never does. Not on a shooting day.' Jane looked dismayed at yet another ambiguity.

‘Filming usually begins at six thirty,' Louise explained hurriedly. ‘It takes a bit of time for us to get costumed, and the crew to sort themselves out so we tend to arrive here about five forty-five when the gates officially open. From about six fifteen or so, Bill is usually on set continuously.'

‘Was he today?'

She looked at me stonily. ‘I don't know. I wasn't on call until eight. And if it's relevant I don't know about Roger Ford either.'

I had to persist. ‘He must have been in his office at some point, Jane, because the windows were already open when Bill and I went through them at twenty to ten. Was the rear door to the house locked? If it was, perhaps that's why Angie went through the patio doors. Or perhaps she was with him when you arrived at eight thirty?'

A step too far. Much too far. Jane closed down. ‘I unlocked that door like I do every day when I come in. Other than that, I really couldn't say.'

Louise stepped in. ‘I'm sure Jane would support me, Jack, and indeed everyone at Stour Studios, when I tell you there's no way Bill or Roger would have been involved in Angie's death. Bill adored her. He was a lion to everyone else but a pussy cat where she was concerned.'

‘Even when she effectively threatened his film?'

‘They would sort it out between them. Murder wouldn't come into it. Angie was sharp. She knew there was a line she couldn't cross and she rarely did.'

‘She seems to have done over Tom Hopkins. He was sacked yesterday.'

Louise hesitated. ‘That's true.'

‘Tom,' Jane said, ‘is
never
sacked. I saw him around this morning just as usual.'

Had she indeed, I thought. Then why hadn't we seen him since Angie's body had been discovered?

My second and more formal interview with Brandon was unexpectedly straightforward. He had established himself in one of the front ground-floor offices in the production building, and the whole of the farmhouse was cordoned off as a crime scene. Brandon and I had taken each other's measure on a previous case, and though I can't say the rapport between us was strong, he didn't seem to be automatically assuming I was in the frame for this murder. He is serious, with a one-track mind, the automaton type. Keeping one's nose to the trail you are on is a good attribute for a copper, but he can carry it too far, until you wonder what makes him tick when he's at home with his wife and kids. He listened with only one or two interruptions to my story.

‘This car theft,' he said at last. ‘You think that was part of this dirty tricks campaign?'

‘From what I've been told, I do. Angie Wade was as fond of that car as Bill was, and she was identified with it by everyone here.'

‘And she wasn't popular on the set.'

‘An understatement.'

‘Any line on that missing car yet?'

‘No, but it's early days. I have a feeling that it's not that far away.'

‘A pricey job, from what Dave tells me.'

‘He's right,' I agreed. ‘Too rare to be an easy mark.'

‘So the theft could have been a warning to Angie Wade. But why bother to warn her? Seems odd.'

‘I agree. She told her husband there was something weird going on over the cars.'

A pause while the automaton gobbled up this information. Then: ‘You're going on looking for that car?'

‘Unless called off by Dave or Bill Wade.'

‘Good. Keep in touch over anything I need to know, will you?'

Good
? Was this really Brandon letting me on the ground floor? I decided to put this to the test. ‘What time was she killed?' I asked.

‘She arrived with her husband in their BMW more or less on the dot of six. He seems to be a stickler for punctuality. Estimate is that she'd been dead between two to three hours when you found her. Some leeway necessary.'