The Final Curtain (10 page)

Catherine was his adored granddaughter.

‘I'll miss you, sir,' she said impulsively.

He leaned across the desk and patted her shoulder with a soft, bouncing hand. ‘We all have to move on, Piercy,' he said. ‘And I'm sure Chief Superintendent Rush will be an excellent successor. He's a very able man, you know.'

How she disliked that word: able.

He looked at her reproachfully. ‘Surely you don't begrudge me a bit of laziness? I've been lucky to have escaped early retirement, you know. I've served my time and enjoyed myself, seen all the changes the government – and the criminals – can dream up. I'm ready to go, truth be told. Now what brings you in here? Purely to commiserate with me?'

‘No, sir. I wanted your advice.'

‘Go on.' His eyes were sharp, bright, shrewd and alert. He might be ready to retire but he would miss the challenge of ‘the chase'.

‘It's about the lady who's been calling us out to Butterfield Farm,' she said.

‘Ah, yes. She's proving to be a bit of a nuisance, isn't she? What have we logged up? Fifteen calls, is it?'

‘More than that, sir.'

‘Bit of a frequent caller, eh? Want to know how to deal with her?'

‘Not exactly, sir.' She drew in a deep breath. ‘Today, when Sergeant Korpanski and I went to Butterfield Farm, in response to an invitation, she started telling us about her days as a child actress in the early sixties.'

‘Oh, yes? What was she in then?'

‘That's it.
Butterfield Farm
.'

‘What's her name?'

‘Timony Weeks, sir.'

He leaned back, steepled his fingers together and half closed his eyes. ‘Timony Weeks,' he mused. ‘Timony Shore, you mean.
Butterfield Farm
. Of course. I wondered why the name Timony sounded so familiar. Saturday evenings, BBC.' He chuckled. ‘There only was the one then. Seven thirty till eight thirty it was on. My sister lived for it. She must have watched every single episode right from the start.' His long grey eyebrows moved together. ‘No video recorders then, Piercy, or iPlayers. No downloads and computer games. Half the street didn't even have a telly. All the kids used to come to us. We used to have a bottle of Corona and some plain crisps with the salt in blue wraps. And we'd sit there, cross-legged, on the floor. Of course, my brother and I preferred
The Lone Ranger
. Much more exciting. We'd sit on the back of the sofa and have shootouts. And my dad preferred Dixon of Dock Green. But the girls – they just loved
Butterfield Farm
. For me all those cows and pinnies was a bit much. It was sickly sweet. Totally unrealistic. Very girly. But TV was TV, Piercy.' His eyebrows met in the middle as he threw out the challenge.

‘Yes, sir.'

His eyes flicked open suddenly. ‘So?'

‘Mrs Weeks mentioned a murder in the plot but she didn't seem very sure.'

Colclough frowned. ‘I don't remember a murder. Not in Butterfield. It was all about milking cows and making patchwork quilts, as far as I remember. Some jam got burnt and a lamb was born in a snow storm, poor little thing. It was touch and go for the entire episode.' His face crinkled in amusement. ‘Great drama. But Butterfield being Butterfield there was never any doubt that the lamb would be all right. And so it was. A cow wandered into the road and nearly got hit by a tractor and a bull terrorized some ramblers. But a murder? No. Doesn't sound like Butterfield to me, though there was some cattle rustling in one episode that we found very exciting. In the end it was a neighbouring farmer who took some cows. They didn't exactly have a shootout but they did come to blows on market day. But no, I don't remember a murder.' He thought for a minute. ‘Tell you what, Piercy, you go and see my sister. She's got a much better memory than me for detail. She'll know.'

‘She wouldn't mind?'

Colclough gave a loud guffaw. ‘Mind? She'll love to reminisce. You'll have more of a job keeping her quiet and getting away. She's a widow, lives on her own – quite a chatterbox, you know. Elizabeth Gantry's her name, married a guy called Bob Gantry. Nice bloke. He died a few years ago. Heart trouble. Poor old Lizzie. Lonely ever since.'

‘Do you have her address and a telephone number, sir? I should give her warning that I'm coming.'

And so on that Tuesday afternoon, just as the sun sank behind the sharp crags of The Roaches, speckled by a few flurries of snowflakes, Joanna found herself outside a smart semi on the Buxton road out of Leek. It was almost one of the last houses in the town before the road climbed and climbed towards The Roaches and The Winking Man, a craggy outcrop in the shape of a man's profile, which watched the bleak and empty scenery of the moorland without comment, except to wink at you as you passed.

As she rang the bell she smothered a smile. Colclough's sister? Things didn't get weirder than that. She wondered if Elizabeth Gantry had the same bulldog jowls as her ‘little brother'. Or if she had the same beneficent attitude towards people.

She looked around her. The place was neat and clean, the drive swept, the hedge clipped. Windows were polished and the paintwork fresh. The place had an air of brisk, efficient activity. In the drive stood a clean and polished four-year-old blue Ford Focus.

Colclough's sister opened the door to her first knock. She beamed at Joanna, a plump and smart-looking woman who looked much younger than her sixty-two years. Joanna looked for some family resemblance and found it in the perceptive twinkling eyes.

‘So you're the famous Detective Inspector Piercy,' she said in fine humour, pumping Joanna's hand in a bone-cracking shake. ‘I'm so glad to meet you at last. I've heard a lot about you from my brother.'

Joanna smiled, already warming towards her.

Elizabeth rattled on. ‘He thinks the world of you, you know. You're going to miss him when he finally retires.'

Like thunder.

Aloud Joanna said, ‘I certainly will.'

‘He rang and said he thought I might be able to help you with an enquiry. I'm completely intrigued. Let me make you a coffee and you can tell me how.'

She bustled off into the kitchen and Joanna wandered into a neatly pristine sitting room strewn with framed photographs and dominated by a tall shelf of books. Joanna glanced along the shelves at the titles. It was an eclectic mix. Novels, ancient and modern, books on sewing and embroidery,
Lyles Antiques Guide
, books on nursing and midwifery, tropical diseases and gardening, as well as a peppering of bestsellers. When Elizabeth Gantry, née Colclough, returned with a tray of tea (in bone china mugs, Joanna noted with interest) she saw Joanna studying the titles. ‘I do like my books,' she said, with the enthusiasm that she shared with her brother. ‘Trouble is I can't bear to throw any of them away. Some of those I haven't opened for years. But they make me feel comfortable. A home isn't a home unless it has a few shelves of books, is it?'

Joanna nodded.

Elizabeth Gantry set the tray down. ‘Now do tell me how I can help you, Inspector Piercy, before I burst with curiosity.'

‘My name is Joanna. Please call me that, Mrs Gantry.'

The blue eyes were still sparkling. ‘I will, if you'll call me Elizabeth.'

Joanna nodded again, aware that she must tread carefully. ‘Elizabeth' might be Colclough's big sister but that did not give her the right to information that only the police were privy to. She was still the general public.

‘I wanted to ask you about the TV series
Butterfield Farm
,' Joanna said carefully, ‘which was on in the sixties.'

Elizabeth's blue eyes widened. ‘And now I'm even more intrigued. What on earth can a forty-year-old television series have to do with you today?'

‘One of the actresses in it lives near here and has been involved in a number of incidents.'

Elizabeth Gantry's eyes were wide open. ‘Who?' she breathed.

‘She was a young girl then. Only eight years old when the show began. I understand she played the part of Lily Butterfield, the youngest daughter.'

‘Oh,' Elizabeth gasped. ‘Not Timony Shore? My idol. I so wanted to be Lily Butterfield. She was so beautiful. Beautiful red hair that curled right down to her waist.'

Joanna contrasted that with the bright, dyed mane of today.

‘But I thought TV …?'

‘You're quite right, Inspector. TV
was
black and white but you could tell that Lily Butterfield had the most beautiful red hair. There were often pictures of her in the magazines. She was quite a celebrity. And she always wore spotless white pinnies and little white socks. It was on all through my childhood from when I was about ten. I loved
Butterfield Farm
. And particularly Lily. She could ride a horse like a cowboy and was really brave. In one episode there was a savage dog and she confronted him, soothing him with her words, until he licked her hand. She was all heart too. Kind to animals. In another episode there was a wounded fox. And the master of the hunt, a big bully of a man, was there on his tall horse brandishing a whip, and Lily stood her ground fearlessly, told him to go away and persuaded her daddy to take the fox to the vet's. She was my heroine, Inspector. Not only beautiful but brave. I was devastated when she took some time off for …' she smiled, ‘exhaustion.' She did a sudden double take. ‘And you tell me she lives near here?'

‘Not in Leek, out in the Staffordshire Moorlands. In a farm that's all on its own, named Butterfield. After the series, I expect.'

Elizabeth nodded, then opened her mouth to speak again. This could go on for a very long time. Joanna interrupted quickly. ‘Was there an episode where there was a murder?'

Elizabeth looked startled. ‘A murder? Oh, no. There was never a murder.' She thought for a moment. ‘Oh, no. Not murder. That wouldn't have been its style. In the early sixties people wanted to protect their children from reality. Whether it was the war or whatever, there was almost a conspiracy to protect children from unpleasantness.' She frowned. ‘It's funny. I've never really thought why things were as they were then but for certain they were different from today where parents appear to want the children – particularly daughters – to look, well, like …' She couldn't quite say the word. She gave Joanna an apologetic smile. ‘Well, grown up. Parents then wanted to keep their children children for ever.' She gave an abstracted smile. ‘There was one episode where someone tried to steal some money and another when a cat was stuck down a well but one of Lily's brothers, Sean, rescued it. Like most of my friends I was madly in love with Sean. He was a dish.'

Joanna smothered a smile at the outdated slang.

Elizabeth continued, ‘That episode was so exciting. He lowered himself down into the well and picked the cat up. The episode ended with the cat licking its way through a saucer of cream.' She began to hum a tune.

Ding dong
, Joanna thought. She tried a long shot. ‘Was the cat a Burmese?'

‘Oh, no.' Colclough's sister looked puzzled at the question. ‘Just an ordinary tabby. A mouse-catcher. Nothing posh like a Burmese.'

So much for instinct.

‘The boys all liked the cattle rustling bits, particularly when Farmer Butterfield pushed the thief, an unpleasant rival called Amos Jones, backwards right into a cowpat that had been dropped by one of the very cows he'd been trying to steal. Everyone was roaring with laughter, particularly Arthur.'

Joanna giggled at the image of Arthur, in short trousers, chuckling at this very appropriate punishment. Poetic justice, indeed.

‘Was there, at any time, any trouble towards Timony?'

‘There was,' Colclough's sister said. ‘You've probably heard about that mad man. He got right up to her, actually attacked her with a pair of scissors. He was sent to prison or a mental hospital or somewhere. It was horrible. Poor girl. She was only in her early teens. She had some time off after that. I wondered if she'd ever come back. I think it really frightened her. But apart from that one isolated incident, everyone else just adored her.'

If her stories are true, someone doesn't any more
, Joanna thought.

‘While she was away hundreds of people sent her cards and flowers and presents. I believe,' Elizabeth continued, now well into her memories, ‘that Timony herself has, subsequently, had quite an eventful life.'

‘Yes.' The words,
eventful life
, set Joanna thinking. If there was someone behind these minor occurrences surely the key was more likely to lie in her subsequently dramatic life rather than in her long-ago career as a child star? On the other hand, if these call-outs had no basis in fact but were the product of paranoia and an overactive imagination, the origin might well be the assault in her past. In which case, Timony Weeks needed not the police force but a counsellor.

She stood up. Elizabeth did too, blushing a fierce red. ‘I don't suppose …' she began awkwardly. Wringing her hands, she said, ‘Could you? I mean, you wouldn't get me Timony Shore's autograph, would you? It'd mean so much to me.' The words tumbled out in an embarrassed rush.

The request embarrassed Joanna almost as much as Colclough's sister but she nodded. ‘I'll try,' she said.

‘Thank you. Thank you very much. I would so appreciate it.'

She thanked Elizabeth Gantry for her help but at the door she hesitated. ‘Do you know anything more about Timony?'

Colclough's sister was unabashed at this exposure of her idol worship. ‘Lots. I followed her life and career for years. Right up until it folded. I was twenty-two by then. She had a very eventful life, my dear. Several husbands. There was a whiff of scandal about her, you know. Not surprising when you think how famous and beautiful she was. She married her screen father, Joab Butterfield, but I believe he died abroad, only a few years after they'd married.' She frowned. ‘In tragic circumstances.'