Angel and the Actress (3 page)

‘Yes, Don. I know. Women don’t like being touched by men they don’t know. Flora is coming to you when she’s finished the search. I should think she’s near the end of it by now. Liaise with her, will you? She’s somewhere around the
house and grounds. If you’ve any problem, let me know.’

‘Right, sir,’ he said, and he went out.

Angel turned to Cartlett. ‘Now then, sir—’

Cartlett said, ‘Look you here, Angel, I am an American citizen, and at home I am welcomed and fêted and looked up to by everybody. I come to this damned freezing hell of a country and have somehow been involved in the death of a famous woman, which has nothing at all to do with me. I’m a guest in this goddamn country, but the way I have been treated, I might just as well be a bum on the backstreets of Baltimore. Now the latest insult is that you want to vacuum me. Isn’t that what you do to carpets and drapes?’

‘Well, sir, I am sorry for any discourtesy that you may think has been shown to you, but you will understand that we are trying to find out who murdered Joan Minter. And as the officer in charge, I have to—’

‘All I understand, mister, is that I have an important meeting tomorrow in Beverley Hills, and I simply must be there. My studio is negotiating with a prominent author and a famous actor to make an outstanding motion picture through 2015. As chairman of the board I simply have to be there. The result of these negotiations will affect the employment of two hundred and sixty men and women for the next year or so. There are a lot of family’s futures wrapped up in this deal.’

‘I would like nothing better than to be able to release you, but you were present at a murder and I must extract from you every possible piece of information I can before I can do that. I trust that the members of your board can deal with the negotiations in your absence.’

The American was furious. His face was scarlet. He ran his hand through his hair and rose to his feet. ‘You’ve not heard a word I’ve said. I must contact the American Embassy.’

‘Please sit down, Mr Cartlett,’ Angel said.

‘I will not sit down. I am not prepared to be put off by a load of double talk.’

Angel was quite unmoved by the attitude of the American. He dipped into his pocket and took out a small plastic box the size of a mobile phone and placed it on the table. ‘I’d like to ask
you
a few questions. It’s possible I might get from you all I need. This is a recording machine. I trust you have no objection to me recording the interview. It will save time making notes.’

Cartlett raised his eyebrows, leaned over Angel, offered a questioning gaze and said, ‘You mean … I could be allowed to return to the States
today
?’

‘It’s possible,’ Angel said. ‘I’m not making any rash promises. You must be reasonable, Mr Cartlett. And try and see the situation from my point of view.’

Cartlett returned to the chair, sat down and breathed out a long sigh. He stroked his hair. He did this repeatedly. It seemed to have a soothing effect on him.

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘It all depends upon scientific evidence, and the way the inquiry goes.’

‘Well, let’s move it along then, Inspector,
please
.’

Angel nodded. ‘Very well. What was your relationship with Miss Minter?’

Cartlett pursed his lips and his eyes narrowed. ‘I was fond of her,’ he said, ‘and I think she liked me. We first met about 1974. That’s forty years ago. It began when she
was already a big name in the business. I was putting Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet
together to perform in the great cities of the world. I called it “The Great Cities Tour”. I already had David Chesterfield as the male lead and was hoping to get Hannah Lubrecki for Juliet, but it fell through. Now I knew that Joan was a great actress, but she didn’t have the attraction Hannah had. Nevertheless, I wanted to sew this up quickly so I agreed a deal with Joan, who was wildly enthusiastic about playing Juliet opposite David Chesterfield. Thereafter she worked in my productions many, many times. She knew her strengths and always drove a hard bargain; but she was always excellent box office.’

‘And, after all those years, what is your opinion of her now?’ Angel said.

Cartlett shrugged. ‘She was an actress and a businesswoman. I was a producer and a businessman. I still am. At the time she needed me, I needed her. We
had
to rub along together.’

‘Have you any idea who might have hated her enough to want to murder her?’

Cartlett began stroking his hair again. Then he ran his fingers across his eyebrows before he said, ‘Well no, Inspector. I cannot think of anybody who would be so wicked.’

Angel thought he had been very slow to answer. ‘So, everybody loved Joan Minter, did they, Mr Cartlett?’ he said.

‘No. The film business is a tough business,’ Cartlett said. ‘Actors in particular need the hide of an elephant to withstand all the battering that goes on. They need to
know how to be two-faced, to conceal their real feelings and to be able to say that they love everybody and everybody loves them. That’s why they’re known as “loveys”. Take Felix Lubrecki, for example, son of the famous Hannah Lubrecki. After the business of Joan being cast as Juliet all those years back, Joan made the point to the media that she
took
the part from Hannah.
That
suggested to the outside world that the studio thought that Joan was a better actress than the great Hannah Lubrecki was. That was far from the truth. And
that
made Hannah depressed. She was also out of work for a few months. It set her on a downward spiral. She took to the bottle. Someone – possibly Joan, but I don’t know for certain – put it around that she was an alcoholic, which also wasn’t true. But that was another reason why the offer of star roles stopped going her way. Eventually she died in a poor way in a flat in London somewhere. But Hannah was a magnificent actress. And such beauty you rarely saw. Those Polish cheekbones … some women would die for. She was far more beautiful and superior to Joan Minter’s chocolate-box beauty. So you can hardly expect Felix to feel kindly disposed towards Joan, can you? Yet, here he is, being offered, and apparently cheerfully accepting, her hospitality. But you don’t have to tell Felix that you heard all this about his mother from me.’

Angel raised his eyebrows. ‘Thank you for that,’ he said. ‘I’ll bear it in mind when I speak to Mr Lubrecki.’

Then he looked at his notes. ‘Do you own a firearm?’ he said.

‘I have a shotgun and a revolver at home.’

‘You didn’t bring the revolver with you, did you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Tell me exactly what happened when you were listening to Joan Minter speaking from the top of the grand piano.’

‘Sure. She was having a great time. She had a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I think she had had a drop or two more of champagne than she should have. She made a side-swipe at her four ex-husbands and was recalling the beginning of her career at a kid’s competition somewhere locally when the lights in the room went out and a gun close by me went off.’

‘How near were you to the gun?’

‘A couple of yards, I guess. Then the door was opened.’

‘How near were you to the door?’

‘Three yards, I guess.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘The gunman, I assume, went out, crossed the hall and went out of the front door.’

‘Did the light from the hall show into the room while the door was open?’

‘No. The hall light must have been switched off.’

‘Before the shooting, did you see anybody in the room you didn’t know?’

‘No. But I wasn’t taking a roll call.’

‘And after the shooting, did you notice anybody missing?’

‘No. But
someone
definitely went out. I wasn’t inclined to chase after him because he had a gun. A second or two later the front door banged.’

‘Didn’t the light from the gun flash illuminate the person with the gun?’

‘Not to me. I was in front of it.’

‘What makes you think it was a man?’

‘I dunno. I guess it seems the most likely gender to be toting a gun around. I know that women can use a gun these days, but …’ He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

Angel nodded.

There was a knock at the door.

Angel looked round. ‘Come in,’ he called.

It was Ahmed. He was carrying a sheet of A4 and a laptop.

‘Good morning, sir,’ he said, then he saw Erick Cartlett. ‘Oh, good morning, sir. Am I interrupting anything?’

Cartlett glared at him.

Angel said, ‘Come in, lad. Sit down.’ He looked at the sheet of A4 Ahmed was carrying, assumed it was for him and held out his hand.

Ahmed passed it to him. ‘It’s an email, sir. Came in just as I was leaving. It’s from Records.’

‘Take your coat off and sit down,’ Angel said, then he looked at the email.

It said:

Angel became aware that Cartlett was tapping his foot on the carpet. He looked up at him.

The muscles round the American’s face were drawn tight.

Cartlett stared at his watch then said, ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten about me.’

Angel sighed. He put the sheet of A4 on the table. ‘This is some valuable information about the gun that we believe was the murder weapon.’

‘I am not interested in
that
,’ Cartlett said. ‘When are you going to permit me to leave?’

Angel’s lips tightened. ‘Not before I have the results of the gunshot residue test, sir. And maybe not even then. It depends on what it shows. Now, I have all that I need from you, Mr Cartlett – for the time being. I suggest you wait in your room so that I can reach you quickly.’

Cartlett’s eyes flashed. His face was scarlet. He leaped to his feet. ‘Dear
God
!’ he said. Then he stomped across the room to the door, snatched it open, went out and closed it with a bang.

Ahmed turned to Angel with a quizzical look.

‘He’s been nothing but trouble,’ Angel said. ‘I don’t trust him.’

He reached out, picked up the miniature recording machine, pressed the playback button and handed it to Ahmed. ‘Tap that out. It’s the interview with him.’

‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said as he unzipped the laptop case.

‘I’m ready to continue with the interviews and I want you to take down the witnesses’ replies.’

‘I’ll do it directly onto here, sir,’ he said, indicating the laptop, ‘if that’s all right. It saves time.’

‘Right. First of all, find me a man called Felix Lubrecki. He’s about forty, slim, black hair. He is a guest here. If you’re stuck ask DS Taylor or DS Carter.’

‘Right, sir,’ Ahmed said, and he left the room.

A
S HE WAITED
for Felix Lubrecki, Angel picked up the email about the Walther PPK/S.32. He leaned back in the chair and reread it while rubbing his chin. He was thinking that as the gun was found on the lawn directly opposite the front door of the house, it suggested that after the murderer had shot Joan Minter, he or she had left the drawing room, crossed the hall, gone out through the front door, run straight across the drive onto the lawn and deliberately or accidently dropped the gun while making good their escape on the way to the main gate. If that were so, whether it was a guest or an intruder, the murderer would
not
be among the gathering remaining, which was all very confusing. Was he looking for a murderer among the wrong band of suspects? Should he start looking at the four ex-husbands? Should he therefore allow Erick Cartlett to return to the States? These were some of the problems that troubled him. He squeezed the lobe of his ear between a finger and thumb.

There was a knock at the door.

Angel said, ‘Come in.’

It was Ahmed. He put his head round the door. ‘I’ve found Mr Lubrecki, sir,’ he said.

‘Right. Come on in,’ Angel said.

Ahmed stood back and let Felix Lubrecki enter the room in front of him.

‘You wanted to see me, Inspector?’ he said.

Angel nodded. ‘Please sit down, Mr Lubrecki. Yes, I am interviewing all the guests at Miss Minter’s party individually.’ He put his hand out to indicate Ahmed and said, ‘And DC Ahaz here is taking notes.’

Lubrecki nodded.

After asking for Mr Lubrecki’s address and telephone number, Angel said, ‘You must have been a very good friend of Miss Minter to have been invited to this special party?’

‘I’m not sure that I would have regarded myself as a
very
good friend, Inspector. She was appreciably older than I am. My mother, Hannah Lubrecki, was a contemporary of hers and in earlier days knew her well.’

‘Were they good friends, then?’ Angel said craftily.

The question made Lubrecki hesitate. His eyes shot rapidly from left to right and back again. He licked his bottom lip then said, ‘Erm … not exactly, no.’

Angel put his hands together to form a steeple then slowly interlocked the fingers. He pursed his lips, looked at him across the table and raised his eyebrows.

Lubrecki said, ‘Well, Inspector, my mother was a very beautiful woman, particularly when she was in her twenties and thirties. You may say that I am prejudiced, but I’ve seen her in films of the sixties and seventies.’

‘So have I, Mr Lubrecki,’ Angel said. ‘I can
unhesitatingly confirm what you say. She was most … erm, alluring.’

‘And Joan was jealous of her success,’ he said. ‘My mother was offered a leading role in a blockbuster part, which she accepted. Joan got to hear of it and, using her womanly wiles, somehow got the producer to change his mind. My mother wasn’t told that Joan had got the part instead of her. She was amazed to read about it in the newspapers with a quote by Joan saying that she had got the part in straight competition with Hannah Lubrecki. This wasn’t true and did my mother great harm. Anyway, they had a big row the next time they met. Thereafter, there was always a coldness between them. Of course, my mother still got offers of parts, but never the big remunerative roles she had been used to getting.’

Angel nodded. Then he said, ‘Well, why would Miss Minter invite you, then?’

‘Oh, well, I played her infant son in an early film called
Beware My Vision
. She was very kind to me. She said I was the son she never had. Over the years, our paths crossed frequently, and I was in many of the films she was in. Never the lead. Never in the glorious superstrata that she enjoyed. But there I was, third or fourth or sixth or tenth down the list of credits.’

‘I see,’ Angel said. ‘So
you
were on very good terms with Miss Minter?’

‘I wouldn’t even put it as strong as that, Inspector. This is a dog-eat-dog profession, and it is better to have a short memory rather than a long one. Being ostensibly on good terms with Joan and being seen with her over the years has stood me in good stead for getting more work by
simply being in the public eye.’

‘Thank you. I understand. Was there anybody else who held a grudge against Miss Minter?’

Lubrecki rubbed his chin. ‘I’m afraid there would be quite a few people. Of course, so much of it is wicked gossip initiated by sour grapes.’

‘Well, tell me. Let me decide.’

Lubrecki’s forehead creased. ‘Well, there’s the story about Perdita Gold.’

Angel’s eyebrows went up.

Lubrecki noticed and said, ‘Oh? I see you know who I mean.’

‘Oh yes,’ Angel said. ‘Another very stunning woman. Occasionally seen as an oriental princess or queen in romantic love stories. Very beautiful, she was.’

‘You wouldn’t have thought she was so beautiful if you saw her arriving at Shepperton at six o’clock on a January morning with her hair in a towel.’

Angel smiled.

‘Anyway,’ Lubrecki said, ‘Perdita was promised top billing when writer/director Karl Hartmann offered her a part in
Valley of Desire
. When the publicity went out her name was
under
that of Joan’s. Worse than that, she was cast as Joan Minter’s character’s sister and Perdita is more than twenty years
younger
than Joan. When Perdita challenged all this, Joan said that those conditions were written into her contract. Perdita stuck it out and made the film but said that subsequently it held her back from getting some parts and the money was much less. That was a long time ago. But she remembers having to do a live pier show in the South of England somewhere during
the summer of 2000 to make ends meet.’

‘Were Miss Minter and Perdita Gold sworn enemies, then?’

‘I wouldn’t go that far, Inspector. But, of course, if Perdita
had
been invited to this party here, she didn’t turn up, did she?’

‘Is there anybody here who was involved in that story?’

‘Yes. There’s Leo Altman. He had a small part in the film. Which reminds me of another story about Leo Altman and Joan, which doesn’t show Joan up in a good light.’

Angel nodded. ‘Please tell me about it.’

Lubrecki said, ‘Well, there was a young film-maker called Charles Fachinno, who had an option on a screenplay of the best-selling novel,
Dawn Never Comes
. He wanted Joan Minter and Leo Altman for the leading parts. Joan read it, liked it and phoned to say that she’d like to do it. They talked money, agreed a deal and a contract was being drawn up. At the same time, with funds borrowed from a bank, Fachinno bought the screenplay for a quarter of a million pounds. Then Joan gave back word. Because she gave back word, the leading man, Leo Altman, also gave back word. The story was reported in a society magazine and nobody would look at Fachinno’s project after that. It looked as if Joan had rejected it because she had considered it wasn’t a commercial proposition. Fachinno owed the bank. He appealed to Joan, told her the situation; she said that as she hadn’t signed anything, it was hard lines. She had been offered double the money in the comedy,
Find the Lady
, which turned out to be a huge success. Fachinno said that she had made it worse by letting word get out that she had declined the
part. He had thought he could trust her. Anyhow, it bankrupted the man. Also, Leo Altman never had a leading part offered again. He had to be content with bit parts of butlers or doctors. He crawled about after Joan Minter pretending to take sides with her. He had been hoping that Joan would sometimes put in a good word for him, but she never did.’

Angel knew he would have to see Leo Altman to get his version of the story.

‘Thank you, Mr Lubrecki. Those backstage happenings are quite … um, enlightening.’

‘I hope they prove helpful in your enquiries, Inspector.’

‘I hope so too. Now can we turn to the murder yesterday? Where were you when Miss Minter was making her speech and was shot?’

‘I was several feet in front of the man with the gun.’

‘What makes you think it was a man?’

‘I don’t know. There wasn’t a sound or anything to indicate it was a woman. Maybe it was because there was no rustling sound from his clothes. If it had been a woman, there might have been. There were no smells of paint, powder or perfume emanating from him either.’

Angel blinked. It was unusual to hear such a police-like answer from a witness. ‘Thank you,’ Angel said.

He was slowly coming to the belief that, indeed, the murderer must have been a man.

‘Just a couple more questions, Mr Lubrecki. I take it you knew all the people present in the room before Miss Minter was shot?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Well, after Miss Minter was shot, did you notice who
was missing?’

‘Well, no … I didn’t notice.’

‘Pity,’ Angel said.

Angel continued the interviews after lunch. He knew that he must try to finish them that day so he would have to get a move on.

Ahmed ushered Mr Leo Altman into the room and when he was comfortably settled at the table opposite Angel, the inspector said, ‘Yours is a well-known face to me, Mr Altman. You seem hardly ever to be off our screens these days.’

The grey-haired gentleman nodded and said, ‘Then you must be watching old films, Inspector.’

‘I suppose I am,’ he said.

‘That sounds almost like a compliment.’

‘It was intended to be,’ Angel said with a smile. ‘Now, I’m anxious to know what your relationship was with Miss Minter.’

‘Well, we had known each other a very long time. She probably knew me as well or better than anybody else here. I had a great respect for her. She had worked and battled her way to the top of her profession.’

‘Were you envious of her standing? You said that you had known her a
very
long time?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I wondered if you felt that Lady Luck had not been kind to you.’

‘You could say that, Inspector. Success in this business is made up of three things: talent, judgement and being in the right place at the right time.’

‘And what caused the disaster of the project
Dawn Never Comes
?’

Altman shuffled uneasily in the chair. He rubbed his chin. ‘Fancy you knowing about that.’

Angel said, ‘You were going to be the star in that film, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, I was. It was a long time ago. It was a great story and a great part for me.’

‘What happened? The film was never made, was it?’

‘No, it never was. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.’

‘But it needn’t have happened, need it?’

‘No. It was a great shame. It came when I was just beginning to break through from minor parts to leads.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Angel said. ‘What happened?’

‘Well … a young man, new to the film business, got an option on the book
Dawn Never Comes
and he started to set it all up. He wanted me as the male lead and Joan as female lead. A film was about ten weeks’ work and tremendous exposure thereafter round the world. I thought, if it’s good enough for Joan, it would be good enough for me. His name was Charles Fachinno. I’d never heard of him. He’d been a big wheel in the potted-meat business. All those little glass jars. You don’t see them these days. Well, who eats potted meat these days? Anyway, he sent me a screenplay, which I thought was outstanding. My agent worked out a deal which was highly satisfactory and I was ready to sign a contract, when I got a message that Joan had changed her mind. That made me a bit nervous. Well, very nervous. Then I began to think about the situation. Fachinno was unknown to us. Being successful in the
potted-meat business wasn’t any recommendation for producing what I thought was going to be a major film. Also, I had no idea who the director was going to be. It’s important to have someone in that job that you’ve confidence in. So I didn’t sign and I returned the contract unsigned.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘All hell broke loose. One of those glossy magazines came along and Joan gave them the story that she’d no faith in the new blockbuster film that was being talked about. She told them that she didn’t know anything about the “potted-meat man”. He was in a business he didn’t know about. She said the screenplay was amateurish and boys’-own. She rubbished it so much that I was embarrassed. Then I heard Charles Fachinno had been to see her but she had been very rude to him. On the strength of getting a verbal agreement from her that she would take the female lead, Fachinno had put his potted-meat business as security and got the bank to shell out a quarter of a million to the author and a commitment to shell out further sums. But now Fachinno couldn’t make the film because Joan had so compellingly disparaged the project. I wasn’t pleased because my name had been associated with what was now becoming regarded as a flop. Coincidentally, or maybe because of it, I was out of work and had not a single job in my diary. I was becoming quite desperate … almost at the stage of getting out of the business, when I saw an ad in
The Stage
for auditions for the part of a butler in a new play called
Find The Lady
starring, surprisingly, Joan Minter. I was amazed and resentful that she had come out of the mess so well, the mess that she had helped to create. I really had to eat humble pie to get
that job as butler. And have been butlers, doctors, hotel clerks and judges ever since. I never did get a lead offered after that.’

‘But you’ve never been out of work, have you?’

‘That’s true.’

‘Now about yesterday. Can you tell me where you were standing just before Miss Minter was shot?’

‘I was in front of the man with the gun. I was standing between Felix Lubrecki and Erick Cartlett.’

‘Were you far from the door?’

‘About six or eight feet.’

‘I take it you knew everybody in the room?’

‘Yes. Everybody except Joan’s staff: her secretary, the butler and the caterers.’

‘Yes, of course. Could you say who
wasn’t
there after Miss Minter had been shot and the lights were turned back on?’

‘No. I never thought to look. It was all too dreadful …’