Dead on Cue (10 page)

‘No, sir, it isn't. All the other exits are fire doors, and they're wired up to the central alarm system. Nobody could have gone through one of them without setting that alarm off.'

‘An' you've checked that the alarm systems on the fire doors haven't been tampered with?'

‘Not me personally, but it's one of the first things I got one of my team to do.'

Woodend nodded. ‘You seem to have been very thorough,' he said. ‘So at least we know that the murderer – whoever he or she is – was still in the building when you arrived. So how many suspects does that leave us with?'

‘In round figures?'

‘That'll do for a start.'

Hebden grinned awkwardly. ‘With all the actors, technicians, make-up artists, camera and sound men, costume people and management, I'm afraid it comes to more or less seventy-five,' he said. ‘And if it had happened earlier, before the clerical staff went home for the night, it would have been even higher.'

‘Seventy-five,' Woodend repeated to himself. He turned to Rutter. ‘How do you feel about those numbers, Bob?'

Rutter shrugged. ‘We've had more suspects than that to deal with in our time.'

‘Aye, we have,' Woodend agreed. ‘When we were investigatin' that case in Liverpool, we had a whole bloody city as suspects.' He turned back to Hebden. ‘I take it you've got the names an' addresses of everybody who was here, haven't you?' he asked. ‘Only I expect my keen young inspector is just itchin' to run his highly-trained eye over them.'

‘Yes, sir. I've got the names and addresses,' Hebden confirmed. ‘I've also got accounts of everybody's movements for the hour before the victim was discovered.'

‘But from the tone of your voice, you don't sound as if you think they'll be particularly useful,' Woodend said.

‘The accounts will eliminate some of the possible suspects.'

‘But not that many?'

‘I haven't have time to study the results thoroughly,' Hebden admitted, ‘but as far as I can tell from a cursory glance, there are very few people who have an alibi for the whole of that period.'

‘Fragmentation,' Woodend said.

‘Pardon, sir?'

‘I was sayin' to Bob earlier that what goes on here isn't all part of one process – as it was when the place was a mill. It's a lot of different processes which occasionally mesh together. For the rest of the time, everybody's concerned with doin' their own little job – so it's not surprisin' they don't have alibis.' He lit up a Capstan Full Strength. ‘What about forensics? Have the boffins been able to come up with anythin' useful?'

‘The victim was stabbed several times with a heavy-duty electrician's screwdriver,' Inspector Hebden said. ‘It's been positively identified as belonging to the studio's maintenance department. It should, by rights, have been in the storeroom.'

‘An' who has a key to that storeroom?'

‘Quite a number of people – but you'll probably get nowhere with that particular line of inquiry, since the store wasn't locked.'

‘Of course it wasn't,' Woodend said, almost fatalistically. ‘So does the murder weapon offer us any other clues?'

‘It had been wiped clean of prints.'

‘Aye, it would have been,' Woodend said. ‘That's the problem with murderers these days. They watch far too many cop shows on the television, an' learn just what mistakes not to make. Were there any prints in Valerie Farnsworth's dressin' room?'

‘Obviously there were the dead woman's – but there were also dozens of others we haven't even begun to check on yet.'

‘Probably won't do any good, anyway,' Woodend said. ‘If the killer remembered to wipe off the screwdriver, he's not likely to have left his dabs anywhere else, now is he – at least, not on that particular visit.'

‘No, it doesn't seem likely he will have,' Hebden said. ‘Anything else I can do for you, sir?'

‘Aye. Get together all them statements an' reports you've been collectin', an' hand them over to Inspector Rutter here. He'll be takin' them back to Whitebridge with him.'

‘I'll be
what
?!' Bob Rutter exclaimed.

Woodend looked first at Rutter, and then at Hebden. ‘Why don't you nip down to the studio canteen, an' get yourself a cup of tea?' he suggested to the local inspector.

Hebden took the hint, and rose to his feet. ‘Yes, I'll do that.'

Woodend waited until Hebden had left the room, then said, ‘An' what was that little almost-outburst about?'

‘You're sending me back to Whitebridge?' Rutter demanded.

‘What else did you expect?'

‘I
imagined
that my team would be given space here in the studio.'

‘If it was left up to me, that's probably what would happen,' Woodend admitted.

‘And
isn't
it left up to you? You are the boss?'

Woodend sighed. ‘That's the kind of comment I'd expect from a young constable with bum fluff still on his chin,' he said. ‘You're an inspector now, an' you should be able to see further than that. You should know that all I am is your
immediate
superior.'

‘So whose tune are we
both
dancing to?' Rutter asked. ‘DCS Richard Ainsworth's?'

‘Dick Ainsworth's sold on this daft idea of a “crime centre” based in a police station,' Woodend said. ‘It gives him somethin' to show the press – somethin' he can brag about when he gets together with all the other DCSs. But he can't brag about it if it's just an empty room, can he? He needs bodies to fill it. So we'll give him some, if that's what it takes to keep him happy.'

‘And that's what I am?' Rutter asked. ‘A body? One of the extras hired to fill in the background?'

‘Just because this case involves television people, there's no need for you to start talkin' like one of them,' Woodend said, a little sharply. ‘Of course you're not just a body. Them witness statements need lookin' into. You know that yourself. It's a slow, painful process, but it's got to be done – an' there's no reason why it can't be done as well in Whitebridge as it could be done here. Besides, the closer Maria gets to givin' birth, the more she'll want to see you—'

He came to an abrupt halt, a look of distress crossing his face. Maria Rutter wouldn't be seeing
anybody
– ever again – he reminded himself. Ever since she'd been injured at the Belgrave Square demonstration, she'd been totally blind.

There was a short, awkward pause, then Woodend said, ‘Well, you know what I mean. She'll want you
around
. An' it'll be a lot easier for you to be around if you're workin' out of Whitebridge.'

‘Meanwhile, you'll be here with the trusty Sergeant Paniatowski, actually solving the crime.'

‘There's no sayin' the murder
will
be solved here in the studio,' Woodend said. ‘The big break in this case could come just as easily through some inconsistency in the statements.'

‘Whatever aspect of the case I'm working on, I'd still rather do it from here,' Rutter said stubbornly.

Woodend shook his head. ‘That's not possible. If you'd been a blonde with bosoms like WDS Paniatowski, I might have given you the job of snuggling up to Jeremy Wilcox instead of her,' he said. ‘But you're not, an' I couldn't.'

‘You've changed,' Rutter said bitterly. ‘All this talk about keeping Ainsworth happy! There was a time – not so long ago – when you wouldn't have given a damn what your boss wanted.'

‘I've never had a boss who was close enough to breathe right down my neck before – that was one of the advantages of workin' for the Yard,' Woodend said. ‘But maybe you're right, an' I have changed,' he conceded. ‘People do, you know. An' so do situations. That's what's happened to our partnership – it's changed.'

‘Because of Paniatowski!'

‘Sergeant Paniatowski has nothing to do with it.'

‘Doesn't she?'

‘No, she bloody doesn't,' Woodend said. ‘Listen, Bob, for the first couple of days on that case in Blackpool, I really missed havin' you with me. I felt half-naked without you by my side. Then I realised somethin'. Do you know what it was?'

‘I'm sure you're about to tell me, whether I want to know or not.'

‘I realised I wasn't missin'
you
at all. The person I was missin' was
Sergeant
Rutter. Well, you're not him any longer – nor ever can be again.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Meanin' you've outgrown the job of bein' my sidekick, an' it's about time you accepted the fact. So however much we both might regret it – an'
I
do, for one – you can't be my Tonto any longer, an' it's time you started learnin' to be your
own
Lone Ranger.'

Rutter stood up. ‘Thank you for that little speech, sir,' he said. ‘I'll bear that in mind when I'm back in Whitebridge, up to my neck in paperwork.'

‘You do that,' Woodend agreed.

Bob Rutter walked over to the door, opened it, then turned round to face Woodend again.

‘Hi ho, Silver, away!' he said, before stepping into the corridor and disappearing from sight.

The chief inspector sat perfectly still for a few seconds, then reached for his packet of Capstan Full Strengths.

‘Oh dear,' he said regretfully, as he lit up one of his cigarettes. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.'

B
ill Houseman's office was a very far cry from the homely living rooms which were inhabited by the fictional characters of
Maddox Row
. The desk was made of flawless teak. The sofa covered in a soft white leather. Theatre posters in expensive metal frames hung complacently from the pastel-blue walls, and each of the exotic scatter rugs on the polished wooden floor had probably taken some poor bloody Bedouin tribeswoman months to produce.

It was an office which had been designed to impress any visitor with its occupant's importance, Woodend decided, and though he'd seen plenty of other offices which had had much the same aim, it did seem to him that in this case the occupant had tried just a little
too
hard.

Houseman waved Woodend to a chair, and sat down himself behind his opulent desk.

‘We're both very busy men,' the producer said briskly, ‘so why don't we get straight down to business?'

‘Aye, why don't we,' Woodend agreed.

Houseman picked up an elaborate paper knife from his desk in his right hand, and ran the point softly along the length of the index finger on his left.

‘I fully appreciate the fact that you have a job to do, Mr Woodend, but I hope you realise that you're not unique in that,' he said.

‘You mean, all I've got to do is catch a murderer, whereas you have an important television show to produce?' Woodend asked mildly.

‘Is that some kind of joke?' Houseman said sharply.

‘More of a comment than a joke,' Woodend replied. ‘I must say, Mr Houseman, it doesn't seem to me as if you're takin' the murder of Valerie Farnsworth very seriously.'

A look which might almost have passed as an apology crossed the producer's face, and he laid the paper knife down on the desk again.

‘You're quite right, of course,' he admitted. ‘I probably haven't taken it seriously enough. But the fact of the matter is, I haven't had the time to stop and consider it properly yet.'

‘Haven't had
time
to consider the murder of one of your cast?' Woodend asked sceptically.

‘You have to understand my situation, Chief Inspector. I'm totally wrapped up in the world of
Maddox Row
. I have to be – it dominates every hour of my day – and for me, at this particular moment, the death of Liz Bowyer is both more immediate and more tragic than the death of the woman who played her. I expect that when I can finally step off the roller-coaster ride which this job has become for a few hours, the implications of what has happened will really start to hit me, and I will begin my grieving. But for the moment, the show must go on.'

Nobody should be
that
obsessed with his job, Woodend thought. And then, just before he put the thought into words, he pulled himself up short.

Wasn't he just as bad as Houseman? he asked himself. When he was working on a case, didn't he develop tunnel vision, so that while he might notice the slightest nuance in something one of his suspects said, he was totally oblivious to anything which did not help him to solve the murder?

Joan had told him as much, in her gentle way, and Annie had been far more outspoken on the matter. His bosses, too, constantly complained that he ran a one-man show to the exclusion of the wider concerns of policing – and for the first time he began to wonder if they might be right.

He would try to be a better husband, father and member of the police team, he resolved – but first he had to find out who'd killed Valerie Farnsworth.

‘Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to see Miss Farnsworth dead?' he asked.

‘No,' Houseman replied – far too quickly.

‘No one at all?' Woodend persisted. ‘You've never heard anybody threaten her? Anybody say they wished she was dead?'

Houseman sighed. ‘Of course I have.'

‘Who?'

‘Everybody in the cast, at one time or another. But you have to understand that what we're dealing with here is actors.'

‘Would you mind explainin' that?' Woodend asked.

‘I'll do my best,' Houseman agreed. ‘Actors live in a very strange world. At nine o'clock in the evening, they're strutting around the stage with the eyes of the entire audience on them. They can bring forth from that audience both tears of joy and shudders of fear. It gives them a tremendous feeling of power.'