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‘What can you tell us about Jane Lawless, Mrs Foley?’ I asked.

‘She’s an actress who has a reputation for sleeping around but preferably with her leading men,’ said Debra cuttingly. ‘But she’s resting at the moment. In fact, she’s been resting for so long that I did wonder if she was actually comatose.’ She added the final comment with a measure of undisguised malice. ‘And as she doesn’t currently have a leading man to screw her, I suppose she picked on Lancelot.’

‘Do you happen to have this woman’s exact address, Mrs Foley?’ I asked.

‘You bet I have!’ Debra Foley sashayed across the room to an escritoire and spent a moment or two rummaging through its contents before scribbling a few lines on the back of an envelope. ‘There you are,’ she said, handing it to me. ‘Lancelot had the audacity to ask me to forward any mail that came for him,’ she added as she resumed her seat.

‘And did any mail arrive for him?’ asked Kate, hoping that some correspondence might assist us in our investigation.

‘A few bits and pieces. I shredded them, of course. I’m not his bloody secretary.’

‘D’you know of anyone who might’ve wanted to harm Mr Foley?’ It was a routine question, and one that rarely produced any satisfactory answers, but it had to be asked.

‘Quite a few husbands, I should imagine.’ Debra leaned across and, using a finger and thumb, delicately took another chocolate from the half-empty box. ‘He always went for married women. I think he felt safer with them for some inexplicable reason. I suppose that if they got pregnant there was always the husband to carry the can.’

‘Is Jane Lawless married, then?’ asked Kate.

‘I haven’t kept up with her current marital status,’ Debra said cattily, and waved a hand in the air. ‘She was once, but I’ve no idea if it lasted. For all I know they might have divorced. I seem to recall that she married a sessions drummer a few years ago. She found him in some sleazy nightclub, but she dumped him very quickly. Or perhaps he dumped her. If he had any sense he would’ve done.’

I had quickly come to the conclusion that Debra Foley, young though she was, was an embittered and cynical woman, and although she was playing the part of a wronged wife, I suspected that she, too, may have had a few affairs. She certainly displayed no emotion at the death of her husband, and that made me suspicious. But from what my thespian girlfriend Gail had told me, the acting profession tends to breed a callous disregard for the marriage vows. And as if to confirm my view that she played the field, at that moment Debra adjusted her position slightly so that the skirt of her peignoir fell away to reveal a substantial amount of thigh. She made no attempt to replace it, but just glanced at me with a smile.

‘One final point, Mrs Foley,’ I said. ‘Do you have the details of Mr Foley’s solicitor?’

‘What on earth d’you want that for?’

‘Solicitors are often unwitting sources of information about murder victims,’ I said airily. What I didn’t say was that I was interested to know who would be the beneficiary of Lancelot Foley’s will. I had a vague and unwarranted suspicion that it wasn’t going to be his estranged wife. But the beneficiary might just be the killer.

‘He’s my solicitor as well.’ Crossing once more to her escritoire, Debra Foley scribbled the details on a piece of paper and handed it to me, pausing on the way back to put another chocolate in her mouth.

‘Thank you, Mrs Foley,’ I said as Kate and I prepared to leave. ‘I’ll let you know when the coroner has released Mr Foley’s body for the funeral.’

‘Thank you so much, Chief Inspector.’ But the sarcastically offhand way in which Debra said it left me in no doubt that she wasn’t in the slightest interested. It was as though Lancelot Foley was already a past chapter in her life and even the final chapter in the book.

Having had not even a cup of tea since my scratch breakfast, I decided that lunch had become a necessity.

‘D’you like Italian food, Kate?’

We drove the short distance to my favourite Italian restaurant in Pimlico and were fortunate enough to be able to park the car right outside. I took a chance on there being no thieves about.

The owner, an amiable Neapolitan named Luigi, bustled across the room hand outstretched, solicitous to the point of being oleaginous. Slim and swarthy with long hair and carefully cultivated stubble, he had all the charm of his race, but even so managed to convey the impression of being a reformed Mafioso. He was, however, a very good restaurateur.

‘Ah,
Signor
Brock, long time no see, as the Pope said to the Archbishop of Canterbury.’ Luigi cast an appraising glance at Kate. ‘And you have a pretty
signorina
with you today. Allow me,
Signorina
,’ he added as Kate divested herself of her fur hat and quilted jacket.

‘Just you be careful, Luigi. No bottom-pinching,’ I said, with mock severity. ‘This young lady is a detective inspector, and she’ll have you in handcuffs before you can say
santa madre
.’

‘Ah! It would be a pleasure to be handcuffed by one so young and so beautiful,’ exclaimed Luigi, quite unimpressed that Kate was a police officer. ‘You must be very talented,
Signorina
.’ Without further ado, he escorted us to a discreet table in the far corner of the room.

‘Well, what did you make of Debra Foley, Kate?’ I asked, once we had made our selection from the menu.

‘She’s one callous bitch, and despite playing the innocent, I’ll bet she doesn’t have a chastity belt in her wardrobe,’ said Kate. ‘
And
I noticed that she made a point of flashing her legs at you.’

‘But you have to admit they were shapely, Kate.’

‘She’s fat.’ Kate dismissed Debra’s blatant attempt at seduction with a wave of the hand. ‘And she obviously didn’t give a damn about the death of her husband.’

‘She certainly seemed to be more concerned about whether the play would survive. Perhaps she doesn’t fancy the understudy.’

‘She’s bound to if he wears trousers,’ said Kate crushingly.

‘I take it you didn’t like her,’ I said as Luigi brought our meals.

‘I think that about sums it up, guv.’

‘Is she a good actress, Kate? You said you saw the play.’

‘I suppose so. It’s not really my sort of thing. I prefer musicals, but my date wanted to see it and I went along with it.’ Kate paused and looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded a bit sharp earlier on, but I’m not really an early morning sort of person.’

‘I can’t say I noticed,’ I replied diplomatically. I had noticed Kate’s short retort, of course, the more so because she’s normally very amiable.

Kate took a sip of her mineral water. ‘The guy who took me was just someone I met at the gym who asked me to dinner and the theatre. There won’t be a repeat performance. Of our meeting, I mean.’

‘You don’t have to explain, Kate.’ I wished she hadn’t raised the subject. ‘Your private life is nothing to do with me or the Job.’

‘It was the Job that was the trouble, guv. He’s in IT, and he thinks that the world begins and ends on a computer screen. Not my sort of bloke at all. In fact, he was a bloody ocker, and I finished up telling him so.’

I was slowly learning Australian, or Strian as Kate sometimes called it, but the meaning of the word ocker deluded me.

‘A loudmouth, guv,’ explained Kate, seeing my puzzled expression. ‘He was going on the whole time about his bloody car and his golf handicap. I don’t know why I ever accepted his invitation.’ She hesitated. ‘A copper should only go out with another copper. They understand each other.’

She had a point. There were times when my relationship with Gail was not as smooth as it should have been. She did not always understand that police duty took precedence over social arrangements, and similarly I found it hard to accept that Gail hankered for a return to her life in the theatre, with the unsocial hours that that would entail. She’d had several offers, but had turned them down, describing them as unworthy of her talents.

When I’d queried why she had been a chorus girl when I met her, she claimed that her ex-husband, out of sheer spite about the divorce, had deliberately thwarted her efforts to get a good part.

I paid the bill, declining Kate’s offer to go halves, and we made our way to Freshbrook Street to interview Jane Lawless.

W
e drove the mile or so from Pimlico to Freshbrook Street. The police tapes had been removed, traffic was flowing and the workmen to whom I’d spoken earlier that day were busy in the hole where Lancelot Foley’s body had been found. Everything appeared to be back to normal.

The apartment we were seeking was on the first floor of a house only a few yards away from the crime scene.

‘Mrs Jane Lawless?’ I asked when a woman answered the door.

‘Yes, I’m Jane Lawless.’

‘We’re police officers, Mrs Lawless.’

‘I rather think that you’re wasting your time. I told the other policeman who called here this morning that I hadn’t seen anything. He was very circumspect in his questions, so I didn’t really know what he wanted. What was it all about, anyway? First thing this morning I noticed some policemen putting tapes across the road, but I’ve no idea what’s happened.’

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Brock, Mrs Lawless, and this is Detective Inspector Ebdon. May we come in?’

‘Of course, but as I said just now, I didn’t see anything.’ Jane Lawless led us into a comfortably furnished sitting room, invited us to sit down and took a seat opposite. ‘So I really don’t know how I can help you.’

She was an attractively buxom woman, probably around thirty and not unlike Debra Foley in build, including blonde hair that was perfectly straight and long enough to cover her shoulders. In fact she was so much like Debra Foley that it seemed that only women of that stature and colouring were of interest to Lancelot Foley. She wore an emerald green dress that was clearly designed to show off her substantial cleavage, and was short enough to display her shapely legs. High heels and black tights completed the ensemble.

‘Are you about to go out, Mrs Lawless?’ It appeared to me that we’d caught her just as she was on the point of leaving for an appointment.

‘No, not at all.’ The answer was curt and dismissive, almost as if I were enquiring into a matter that was none of my business.

‘We’re investigating a murder that took place here in Freshbrook Street late last night or in the early hours of this morning, Mrs Lawless.’

‘So that’s what it was all about! I still can’t tell you anything, though. The first I knew of it was when—’

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that the victim was an actor named Lancelot Foley,’ I said, interrupting bluntly.

‘Oh, good God, no! It can’t be true.’ Jane Lawless paled dramatically and stared at me in disbelief before dissolving into sobs, the tears welling up in her eyes. ‘Did you say last night?’ she mumbled.

‘As far as we can tell. The post-mortem is yet to be carried out. I’m given to understand that you and Mr Foley were in a relationship.’

‘Of course we were in a bloody relationship; it’s no secret,’ snapped Jane vehemently, but she immediately apologized for her outburst. ‘I’m sorry, Chief Inspector, but it’s come as a terrible shock.’ Taking a packet of tissues from her handbag, she used one of them to dab at her eyes, but made no attempt to wipe away her smudged mascara. ‘We live together. He was on his way home. I wondered why he didn’t arrive. We were going to get married. Oh, it’s quite awful.’ The sentences were short and staccato and punctuated by further sobs, her breasts heaving with the effort of recovering her breath. ‘What happened to him?’

‘As far as we can tell he was attacked in the street.’

‘Was it a mugging, then?’ Jane looked up and stared searchingly at me.

‘We don’t think so. His credit cards, cash and Rolex wristwatch were still on him when he was found. It would appear that robbery was not the motive. So far we are uncertain why he was killed.’

‘But this is absolutely crazy.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Who would do such a thing? Some sort of psychopath? Why else would Lancelot have been murdered?’

‘Our enquiries are at a very early stage, Mrs Lawless,’ said Kate, ‘but do you know of anyone who might’ve wanted to harm Mr Foley?’

‘Quite a few, I imagine.’ Jane Lawless leaned back against the cushions of the armchair, a little more composed now, although the occasional tear trickled unchecked down her face. ‘Lancelot wasn’t the most likeable of men, I’m afraid. He was arrogant and egotistical. And he was rude and intolerant. He certainly didn’t suffer fools, gladly or otherwise. I suppose being at the top of one’s profession tends to do that to an actor.’ She reached for another tissue. ‘But I loved him despite all his faults.’

‘I’m sorry to have to ask you personal questions so soon after Mr Foley’s death, Mrs Lawless, but any small detail might help,’ I said. ‘Just now you mentioned marriage, but I understand that Mr Foley was still married. And so are you, I’ve been led to believe.’ I added the last remark tentatively, assuming that Debra Foley was telling the truth when she said that Jane Lawless had been married at some time in the past.

‘I was divorced years ago, and Lancelot’s getting a divorce,’ said Jane tersely, and she paused, running her fingers through her hair. ‘I should’ve said he
was
getting a divorce.’ Another compulsive sob followed this correction. ‘It was going to be an uphill battle, though. Debra would’ve fought tooth and nail to prevent losing him, although she’d be more worked up at the prospect of losing his money.’

‘We’ve already spoken to Mrs Foley,’ said Kate. ‘We rather got the impression that she threw Mr Foley out. At least, that’s what she told us.’

I could see what Kate was driving at. If Debra Foley was so worried about her husband’s money, why did she throw him out? I thought it more likely that he’d walked out on her.

‘Oh, the poor innocent wronged little wife,’ said Jane bitterly. ‘Of course she’d say that, but the truth of the matter is she led him a dog’s life; so much so that he finally left her. Debra didn’t give a damn about Lancelot, but she coveted his money and his standing in the profession. The fact that she was his leading lady in
The Importance of Being Earnest
didn’t help matters either. How she got the part is a mystery, but I imagine it to have been the old casting couch routine. It still goes on, you know.’

‘Did they often appear opposite each other?’ queried Kate.

‘No, my dear, not if they could avoid it,’ said Jane patronizingly. ‘I’m afraid that their mutual animosity tended to spill over, even on stage. That’s all right when the script calls for it, but a disaster when it doesn’t. Fortunately, the director of the play they’re appearing in at the moment is strong enough not to put up with any artistic tantrums.’

‘Who is the director?’ I asked, thinking that he was someone else I’d have to interview.

‘Gerald Andrews,’ said Jane.

That was all I needed. My girlfriend Gail had been married to this very same theatre director, but the marriage had ended when she returned home to find him in bed with a nude dancer. I’d met Gail a year or two after her divorce while I was investigating the murder of her friend Patricia Hunter at the Granville Theatre. Gail and the Hunter girl had been appearing in the chorus line of a second-rate revue called
Scatterbrain
.

‘D’you know where we can find him?’ asked Kate, unaware that Andrews was Gail’s ex-husband. In fact, Kate knew little if anything of my private life.

‘I think he has an office in Golden Square, but I don’t know where exactly. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find him, though. You could try
Yellow Pages
, but no doubt the theatre would have a number for him.’

‘Is there anything more you can tell us about Debra Foley, Mrs Lawless?’ I asked. ‘I get the impression that you don’t like her very much.’

‘I detest the bloody woman,’ said Jane. ‘More for the way that she treated poor Lancelot than anything else. Furthermore, Vanessa Drummond, as she’s known on the stage, is only a very mediocre actress.’

‘I thought she was quite good,’ said Kate. ‘I saw the play a few nights ago.’

‘Did you really?’ said Jane, in tones that could only have been interpreted as criticism of Kate’s choice of play – or, more particularly, of its cast. ‘Personally, I think she was very lucky to get the part, but I think that was more to do with Gerald Andrews than with her thespian ability.’

‘D’you think they had an affair?’ asked Kate. ‘Andrews and Debra.’

I think that’s very likely, Kate,
I thought.
If what Gail told me about him is true.

‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said Jane, lifting her head in a very superior sort of way. ‘As I implied just now, Debra Foley has a reputation for doing anything that would advance her career. There was even a rumour doing the rounds that when she was resting she supplemented her income by entertaining wealthy men about town. And I’m sure you know what I mean by “entertaining”, Chief Inspector.’ She glanced at me and emitted a cynical little laugh.

‘D’you know that for a fact, Mrs Lawless?’ I asked.

‘Of course not, Mr Brock. I’ve never seen her in flagrante delicto with a “client”, if that’s what you’re suggesting. But the theatre is a hotbed of gossip, and it might just be spiteful backbiting,’ she added charitably.

‘I believe you are an actress as well, Mrs Lawless.’

‘Yes, I am, but I’ve not done very much of late. Out of choice, mind you. I’m afraid that late nights at the theatre six days a week, with matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays, can be extremely tiring. Apart from anything else, speaking the same lines every night week in and week out is incredibly boring. I’m actually lined up for a part in a television soap, although I’m sure that Debra would look down her rather long and pointed nose at such an idea. But at least television avoids the monotony of rep, and I don’t subscribe to the view that unless you’ve done Shakespeare you can’t really call yourself an actress. In fact I’m one of those rare actresses who actually detests the Bard’s plays. If someone offered me the part of Portia in
The Merchant of Venice
,
I’d rather starve than take it.’

‘Did Mr Foley happen to leave an address book here, Mrs Lawless?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I think he did, but why would you want that?’

‘Surprising though it may seem, in an overwhelming number of murder cases we find that the murderer knew the victim. It might just be the case with Mr Foley.’

‘I see.’ Jane Lawless stood up. ‘Bear with me for a moment. If it’s anywhere it’ll be in the bedroom.’ A minute or two later, she returned and handed me a Filofax. ‘That’s his diary, and there’s a section with addresses in it.’

‘I’ll return it in due course, Mrs Lawless,’ I said. ‘One other thing: did Mr Foley always arrive home at the same time each evening?’

‘More or less. He always took a taxi from the theatre, and it dropped him at the end of the road. He always walked the rest of the way.’

‘Is there a reason for that?’ asked Kate.

Jane Lawless smiled. ‘I suppose you could call it one of his little quirks, but you’ll have noticed that Freshbrook Street is a one-way street. Lancelot worked it out once that if the cab dropped him at the door it would cost him one pound fifty more than being dropped at the end of the road because of the extra mileage involved going round the one-way system. It’s not that he couldn’t afford it, obviously, but he just resented it.’ She paused in thought before saying, ‘And it looks as though it cost him his life.’

‘I think that will be all for the moment, Mrs Lawless. But we may have to see you again, of course.’

‘Yes, I quite understand.’ As she was showing us out, Jane Lawless paused with her hand on the edge of the door to her apartment. ‘D’you think you could let me know when Lancelot’s funeral is to take place, Chief Inspector?’

‘Of course.’ I just hoped that the funeral would not become an impromptu stage for Jane Lawless and Debra Foley to tear each other’s hair out. Catfights can be extremely vicious, whereas men just try to knock each other down.

‘I think Jane Lawless put her finger on it, Kate,’ I said as we left Freshbrook Street, ‘when she said that Lancelot’s parsimony cost him his life. And all for the sake of an extra one pound fifty on the taximeter.’

‘Given that it wasn’t a mugging,’ said Kate, ‘it looks as though he was murdered by someone who’d studied his movements and knew about him walking the last few yards to the Lawless woman’s house.’

Finally, at five o’clock that evening Kate and I reached Belgravia police station where we had our offices.

A few months ago we’d been moved from Curtis Green in Whitehall to the Empress State Building in Earls Court and had made the mistake of believing that it was to be our permanent base. But we’d counted without the ‘funny names and total confusion squad’ at New Scotland Yard.

However, the aforementioned squad, which is staffed entirely by boy superintendents – known in the Job as the over-promoted
Wunderkinder
– decided that Belgravia was a more suitable location. With his customary cynicism Dave had advised us that we shouldn’t unpack when we got there.

On the plus side Belgravia was by far a more civilized place in which to work; Empress State Building had been out of the way, difficult to get to from central London and overall a damned nuisance.

However, the second move within months had not disconcerted Detective Sergeant Colin Wilberforce, our office manager, who had set up the incident room in the new offices without a single word of complaint. He is an administrative genius and may be relied upon to have the answer to whatever query any of us may pose. But heaven help anyone who interferes with his little empire, including me and the commander. On those rare occasions, his rebuke is similar to that of a Grenadier Guards regimental sergeant major gently admonishing a newly-commissioned subaltern.

Furthermore, Colin seems to have no desire for further promotion, something about which, somewhat selfishly, I am pleased. It is said that no one is indispensable, but in his case I have my doubts. A gentle giant who plays rugby for the Metropolitan Police, and has a cauliflower ear to prove it, he is happily married to Sonia, has three children and lives in Orpington. His spare time, so I’ve heard, is spent tending his garden.

‘All up and running, sir,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and the commander would like to see you. Oh, and Doctor Mortlock’s secretary rang. Post-mortem’s tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. I’ve left a note on your desk.’