The Final Curtain (11 page)

‘A car accident,' Joanna filled in, ‘in the States.'

Elizabeth Gantry nodded. ‘And then there was this business with the “crazed fan”, as the newspapers called him. She went missing for quite a few months after that. Of course, the family kept talking about her on the show.'

‘Did they make up a storyline to cover her absence?'

‘Something about an aunt having broken her leg so saintly Lily acted as nursemaid.'

Joanna smiled.

‘I was really worried that she wouldn't come back – not ever. I think I even wrote in to the BBC.'

‘And?' Joanna prompted curiously.

‘They wrote back thanking me for my concern and saying that she would be on screen again as soon as she was better, but that she'd been terribly upset by the assault and the subsequent court case.' She caught herself up sharply. ‘Is that what's happening now? Is that why you're involved – another stalker?'

I hope not!

‘We don't know. It's possible. We're not sure whether Mrs Weeks is being a little imaginative or whether something really is going on. If there is it doesn't appear to be too serious. Do you remember anything else?'

Elizabeth was obviously trying to scrape something – anything – else up. Her eyes brightened. ‘When her first husband died it was in all the papers that she buried him wearing his best pinstriped suit and a Rolex watch. What do you think of that?'

What
did
Joanna think of that? She wasn't quite sure, except that it gave her a very creepy feeling. Which compounded as Elizabeth spoke her next sentence. ‘I said to Arthur that it must be worth thousands – I hoped someone didn't dig him up and nick it.' She gave a cackle of laughter. Joanna did not join in.

‘Is there anything else, Elizabeth?'

‘No-oo, I don't think so.' She looked disappointed. ‘Well,' she said brightly. ‘I could go on all day about Butterfield. But somehow …' again the eyes sparkled with mischief, ‘I don't think you've got all day to listen.'

‘No.' But through the reminiscences Joanna was seeing a faint glimmer of light. ‘Do you know anything about Timony's illness? What sort of illness was it? Mental illness?'

Elizabeth Gantry's frown deepened and she looked thoughtful. ‘I don't know,' she said with some surprise. ‘The press wasn't as intrusive then as it is now. I don't think the details were ever released. She simply vanished from view for a few months. That's all I know. The public understanding was that she was traumatized by the assault. And, as I said, that was the line the BBC put out.'

‘When was this?'

‘Sometime in the mid-sixties.'

‘So Timony was fourteen?'

‘I think she was only thirteen.' She hesitated. ‘She seemed different when she came back.'

‘In what way?'

‘Her manner. Before she had seemed to fizz. She always jumping up and down, screeching with excitement over something or other. When she came back she seemed older, not quite so excitable. I don't know.' She smiled. ‘Maybe it was I who had got older.'

‘Yes. Maybe. Elizabeth,' Joanna finished slowly, ‘if I think of any other questions I want to ask would you mind if I came back?'

‘Not at all. I'd be delighted. I'll get my scrapbook out ready next time.'

Privately Joanna hoped that this would not be necessary and that she had heard the last of Timony Weeks' eventful life. She wanted to get back to real-life policing. Real crimes – not imagined ones. And if Timony did call them out again next time she would like some hard evidence. Fag ash was just that little bit too insubstantial.

They shook hands and Joanna left.

When she arrived back at the station Korpanski handed her a sheet of paper. How easy it is to find out anything about a person, particularly when they have a criminal record. Here it was. Name, address, car registration number, mobile phone number, credit card details and police criminal record. Sol Brannigan had served time and was currently out. Joanna read on. He appeared to have had a penchant for Grievous Bodily Harm x 3 and Armed Robbery x 2. He had married Timony while out on bail for the first of these charges and served a few prison sentences – never quite as long as they ought to have been. But he had never killed anyone and it appeared he had a few advantages which would have stood him in good stead with judge and jury. He was intelligent, had a silver tongue and appealing manner and, with his ill-gotten gains, could usually afford good counsel. Usually the excuses dreamed up by the accused are so lame as to need running blades but Brannigan had not done the ‘just passing' one or pretended he had simply ‘found' the stolen goods. Oh, no, his stories were full of people who could hardly be traced but were often tracked down to some Eastern bloc country. He had covered his paper trail, vaporized witnesses – except the ones who poured doubt on the prosecution, used tortuous methods of banking and managed cash flow so the juries were foxed. Hence the light sentences. Nothing could be
proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Brannigan had been convicted on, in the judges' words, ‘the strongest suspicion' and ‘unavoidable conclusion'. But in the jurors' minds the little seeds of doubt had been sown, ready to sprout like weeds in the cracks of a pavement.

So Brannigan was clever and he came over well in the courtroom.

He was also … Joanna studied the mugshot … very good-looking, in an Italian style. Black hair and dark eyes, whose power stared out of the photograph, and full, mocking lips.

There was the confidence of a man who had organized crime propping him up.

Joanna read the pages through a couple of times, then said, ‘Thanks, Mike. He looks a nasty and dangerous piece of work.'

Korpanski shifted the observation into a question. ‘So can you really see him travelling all the way up to Staffordshire just to play those stupid tricks on his ex-wife?'

She looked at the face again and shook her head. ‘He's certainly clever and devious enough, but no. He's more likely to ring her every now and again when he's a bit short of money. She's helped him before; why would he take her refusal seriously now? But he hasn't even been in contact recently.'

‘He'd ring her, like he's done in the past, if he had money problems.'

She came to a decision. ‘My feeling exactly. We do nothing further, Mike. No more investigations or questions. We drop the case.'

Korpanski's response was a huge grin. ‘You know what,' he said, ‘I just might take Fran out to the Belgian Bar to celebrate.'

Even though it was now dark outside she felt lighter too for having made a decision.

And yet …

It might be only seven o'clock but it was densely dark outside, the street lamps shining fuzzy orange, and she could feel the cold even in the car with the heater turned full up. But she decided to take the road home through the moorlands, knowing it was the road which would take her along the ridge above Butterfield Farm.

For one last time
, she told herself.

Maybe it was Colclough's sister's obvious heroine worship of the ex-star but she was still curious about Timony Weeks. It was possible that the months away from the set had been spent in a mental hospital. Maybe she had had a nervous breakdown. She wished plenty of things: that the well did not sit quite so prominently in the front of the house, because it conjured up an image of something – or someone – falling down it. Even if it was only a cat. She wished too that the house had not been named after a long-defunct soap. For some stupid reason she even wished that the cat with the snooty disposition and the exotic name had not been missing. And she wished too that Timony had not mentioned a murder which everyone else appeared to have forgotten. Certainly Diana seemed to know nothing about it.

It was still and starry as she reached the top of the ridge and looked down on the house. There were a few outside lights on but otherwise no sign of life at all around the property. If Timony was inside she must have all the curtains tightly drawn. Joanna couldn't even see how many cars were in the drive – if any. She opened the car window to listen and heard music being played very faintly. A strumming Spanish guitar, a little like the signature tune of a Western. It sounded strange and foreign floating on the still night air. Then she froze, for a moment, because she heard a shriek. She waited and heard it again, an agonized, animal sound. And then a fox trotted towards her and Joanna turned for home.

T
he minute she walked inside the station Joanna knew something was up. There was an air of puzzled tension that was foreign to the normally calm and friendly place. Today everyone looked fed up and apprehensive. Tense, eyes looking elsewhere. Avoiding hers.

She tried the desk sergeant first but he merely looked even gloomier than the rest, didn't respond to her question of whether everything was all right, except to jerk his head towards her office.

Korpanski's face was no different from the others. He was sitting at his desk, staring at the floor, his shoulders bowed. He didn't even look up when she entered, which was a very bad sign. There was something even he was not looking forward to telling her. She fixed him with a direct stare, forcing him to meet her eyes. ‘Are
you
going to tell me what's the matter with everyone?'

He groaned as she hung her coat up, then gave a big sigh. ‘Chief Superintendent Rush has decided to make a visit here,' he said, ‘prior to his taking up the post next month.'

‘Oh, great.' She sighed, sharing everyone else's gloom. Then she dropped into her chair and switched her computer on. ‘Just great. Bugger all interesting going on in Leek and he decides to pay a visit. With the government cutbacks we'll probably be closed down and become a six-hour-a-day satellite from Stoke.'

Korpanski half turned in his chair. ‘Well, there
was
a hit and run last night,' he tried hopefully.

‘Fatal?'

He shook his head and peered into the screen. ‘Cuts and bruises.
And
we've identified the van driver through CCTV.'

‘As I said, bugger all going on.' She leaned forward on her elbows. ‘When did Leek get so law abiding?'

Korpanski frowned. ‘You seem a bit out of sorts for someone who's just got back off her honeymoon, married to the man of her dreams.'

‘And who has the daughter of her nightmares coming for …' Joanna affected a high-pitched, silly little girl's voice, ‘lunch on Sunday.'

Korpanski's frown deepened. ‘If you marry a guy you take on his family, Joanna.'

She scowled into her computer screen. ‘Don't preach to me, Mike.
No one
can take on the Devil's child.' She logged on with heavy, thumping fingers, banging the keys so hard they practically complained.

Korpanski tried to make light of it. ‘If she's the Devil's child then Matthew must be the Devil.'

She would have pointed out that fifty per cent of Eloise Levin would surely be her mother but the truth was that when their marriage had finally broken up, Jane Levin had melted away like an actor exiting a scene. She had simply vanished and now was remarried with another family, presumably happily. So she was wrong-footed and unable to do anything but glare at her colleague.

He continued, ‘Well, you knew what Eloise was like before you married him. It isn't as though he's suddenly thrust her on you. You knew she was tricky and hostile.'

She didn't respond. All of a sudden something very weighty and tired had come over her, as though she had a long and wearisome journey both behind and ahead of her. She dropped her forehead into her fingertips and rubbed at her hairline. ‘Well, I've got Eloise to look forward to and now I've got Chief Superintendent Rush joining the party …'

The words died in her mouth. A tall, thin man in his late thirties, with a spike of red hair, pale skin and a hard, straight scar for a mouth, was standing in the doorway, watching her. ‘Inspector Piercy, I presume,' he said, stepping forward, lips pressed together tightly. ‘I've been
so
looking forward to meeting you.'

Like hell. It was written all over his face.

‘You must be Chief Superintendent Rush.' She forced a smile on to her lips, knowing it would not reach her eyes. Then she stood up and extended her hand.

He shook it and nodded. Obviously a man of few words. Then he swivelled his head around in a sharp, angular movement. ‘And DS Korpanski?' Mike was treated to another tight smile.

Joanna searched his face for a single line that hinted at humour – and found none.

Great.

His eyes were a pale, cold icy blue, hardly human as they peered at her. ‘Oh, and congratulations, Piercy, on your recent marriage.' Spoken in a voice not a degree above freezing.

She responded equally frostily. ‘Thank you, sir.'

‘I shall talk to you both later,' he said, still standing in the middle of the room.

The three of them stood awkwardly until they were saved by the telephone bell which dropped nicely into the silence.

Joanna picked up the receiver, hoping Rush wouldn't hear the relief in her voice at the interruption. ‘Yes?'

The desk sergeant's stolid voice broke in. ‘Sorry to disturb you, ma'am, but I've got Mrs Weeks on the phone again. She, umm, sounds a bit upset.'

Rush was listening in. Antennae quivering.

‘Put her through.' Her heart was sinking. This was one case which definitely didn't show her or the Leek Force in a good light. ‘DI Piercy,' she said tightly, wishing Rush would just go away. She would prefer him not to hear this conversation.

She hardly recognized the voice on the other end. Timony Weeks was screaming, hysterically, down the line. ‘Tuptim,' she wailed. ‘Tuptim. My cat,' she wailed.