The Final Curtain (31 page)

‘And that was why he attacked her?'

‘Yes. He called her his fallen angel. In the aftermath he was arrested. It was a very high-profile case. Subsequently he tried to hang himself in his cell. The verdict was that he was of unsound mind and he was detained under a section of the Mental Health Act, considered a risk both to himself and to the general public. He was finally released in nineteen ninety and has committed no further offences.'

‘Does he still feel angry with Timony?'

Both officers shook their heads.

‘Has he made any effort to contact her since being let out of a secure unit?'

Again, the answer provoked shakes of the head.

‘Does he know where she lives?'

‘No.' King answered for both of them.

So could she let him off the hook? Had the verdict been correct? Was Dariel no longer a danger to the general public and Timony Weeks in particular? She wished she felt more convinced.

She aimed a questioning glance in Korpanski's direction and raised her eyebrows. He simply nodded and smiled. And she made her decision. For now, rightly or wrongly, she would focus the investigation elsewhere.

‘Right. Ruthin. You spoke to Stuart Renshaw?'

‘I rang his office,' PC Paul Ruthin said, ‘and spoke to him.' He looked uncomfortable. ‘Mr Renshaw
said
that he was acting for Mrs Weeks, managing some of her affairs.'

‘That might be true,' Joanna said coolly. ‘I take it he didn't think to mention that she was also his aunt?'

Ruthin shook his head. ‘No, Inspector,' he said. ‘He didn't. He just said he was acting for her in a professional capacity which could have no bearing on her murder. He said he couldn't help us but would be happy to cooperate in any way he could.'

‘Hmmm,' Joanna said dubiously, her eyes narrowing. ‘I'll bet.' She was only too aware that Timony had deceived her about Renshaw.

The son of a friend? That had been her statement. Oh, no. Much closer to home.

The case would have been so much easier had Timony only been honest with them about her entire past. Maybe if she had she would still be alive. But none of this was taking her any nearer unmasking the killer.

She moved on. ‘And did you have any luck tracking down any of the stolen jewellery?'

‘None of it's turned up yet,' Paul Ruthin said. ‘I've pasted a notice out to jewellers, checked eBay and spoken to one or two people who can give me information about fences for stolen goods,' he said. ‘Most of the pieces were distinctive and one of the local dealers in antique jewellery told me those pieces might have already been broken up or melted down. There are a few places who will take precious metals and even stones, no questions asked. Just stuff them in a Jiffy bag.' He looked apologetic. ‘Sorry, but these days, with the economic downturn, it's not uncommon for people to raid their jewellery boxes.'

Joanna nodded and tried to suppress her growing irritation. So many factors were making this investigation difficult.

She turned next to Timmis and McBrine. ‘You were looking into the two farmers and our Happy Hikers. Have you got anything to add?'

They blew out their cheeks, unconsciously mirroring her own frustration. ‘No. Both the farmers say they don't know anything about Mrs Weeks, that they aren't interested in the property at all, not even in the land, and they can't help us in any way, because …' He grinned at his fellow officers and quoted the farmers' words verbatim and in a broad Staffordshire accent,
‘“We know nowt
.”'

‘What about our happy hikers, Roger and Helen Faulkener?'

‘They've gone back to London but we managed to contact them on their mobiles. They can't help us either.'

‘Did you ask them why they chose that particular spot to have their picnic?'

‘Just because they thought it looked a nice place to stop.' Saul McBrine paused, frowning. ‘Mrs Faulkener, Helen, said it reminded her of somewhere in a film.'

‘How right she is. OK.' She addressed the entire room. ‘Well done. I think in spite of all the blind alleys we are getting somewhere. It's just a bit slow. There are still some good lines of enquiry and plenty of work to do.' She smiled encouragingly round the room, looking at each face in turn, trying to instil confidence in them. ‘Keep at it. We'll meet again in the morning.'

She turned to her side. ‘Mike, I want you to do something for me. I want to pursue two other lines of enquiry, but low profile. Get in touch with James Freeman, the producer. I want to interview him again myself. Face-to-face this time. And the other person I want to speak to is the guy that played Lily Butterfield's older brother, Sean. What was his real name – Malcolm?'

‘Hadleigh,' Korpanski supplied, a little surprised. ‘Malcolm Hadleigh.'

‘Track him down, Mike. I
will
get to the bottom of this.'

Korpanski frowned. ‘By “this” I take it you mean Mrs Weeks' murder?'

‘Which surely has its roots in her abuse as a child? Someone didn't want the truth to come out.'

Korpanski looked sceptical. ‘This many years later? What could it possibly matter?'

‘I think, to someone, it does.'

‘OK.' Korpanski sounded dubious. ‘So why haven't they destroyed Timony's manuscript? Broken the computer, lost the backup files?'

‘It's not that easy these days, Mike. She had Cloud Cover. Anyone could access those files as long as they had her code. Every word as she wrote it became indestructible.'

He blinked. ‘And you? What are you going to do?'

She patted his muscular shoulder. ‘I'll be busy. Don't you worry.'

The officers filed out and Joanna sat at a table and read a little more of Timony Weeks' autobiography. She'd got to the end of 1964 and wasn't surprised that events were sounding much more complicated.

Sean has been really nice to me lately. He told me only yesterday that I'd improved. He's started flirting with me, saying things like I was getting more beautiful every day. I just giggled at first
.
And then he told me as we were brother and sister we could
… The writing stopped. And then it was as though Timony's current voice cut in. Baldly, she stated,
I can't say. I won't say. Even now, years later, I cannot write it down. I know now that what he
said
was nonsense. What he
did
was evil.

I reflect now, so many years later: how many people watching that wonderful, beautiful series, supposed to portray a perfect, happy family, had any idea of what was really going on behind the scenes? That I was abused in one way or another from the day I arrived on set. I'd always thought that the studio picked me because I was pretty or showed talent. That was not true. They picked me for two reasons. One: I was completely innocent. Like raw pastry they could do as they liked with me. Flatten me, roll me out, cook me till I was hard and when I became stale they could just throw me out. And the second reason I was fit for purpose was that my family were quite happy to abandon me. This meant that the studio could do as they liked with me because I had no one to run to – except my sister …

Joanna stared into the distance, shocked by Timony's naivety and vulnerability then which had been exploited, and her venomous insight now.

She continued reading, still wondering what bearing these words and the story behind them had on its author's murder. But now she had confidence. She would understand all this in the end. It was just so much more complicated than she had initially realized. She continued scanning the words and knew, without a doubt, that this book would be a bestseller. But a cruel exposure to anyone who had watched and loved Butterfield Farm. Like Colclough's sister, Elizabeth Gantry.

1965
.

Sean has been funny with me for a month or so, sometimes looking as though he wants to hurt me. He's always been a bit cruel. Even on set he'll pinch my arm hard enough to bruise me. He pushed me over once when I was about ten and I hurt my arm very badly. It felt terrible. I cried and cried it hurt so much. Ever since then I've been a bit frightened of my ‘big brother'. He has a nasty streak to him all right. He loves to humiliate me. At times I think he wants to kiss me. At other times I think he would be more likely to kill me. Bang bang. He says his lines in a nasty, mocking way and when this distracts me so I forget my own lines and get everyone angry he just laughs. I can't work him out. And he loves this. It puts him in the driving seat, right there in full control.

There were a few empty pages where nothing was written and then in April there was another entry.

Sean asked me what I would be doing later, after rehearsals. I told him Diana and I were going to the pictures. He asked if he could come instead of Diana so I told her I didn't want her to come. That I was going with someone else. But I didn't tell her that someone else was Sean.

We didn't go to the pictures that night. Instead we went back to his flat. He talked to me first, telling me what he wanted me to do, as though he was the director and we were in rehearsals.

‘Let's pretend it's just a scene,' he said. ‘You're about to have a bath.'

When I said no, I didn't want to have a bath, he grabbed my shoulder. ‘It isn't real,' he said, sounding as though he was laughing at my stupidity. ‘It's just a scene.'

I didn't want to but I didn't want to appear a silly little girl any more either.

Joanna read through the account, feeling vicious, as many people do, towards a person who assaults a child. But then she looked around her and thought a little deeper. Timony hadn't really been a child, except in the eyes of the law. She had been a stunted adult and would remain so for the rest of her life. She had kept her secret well until now. And Joanna's policeman's nose, which Matthew laughingly told her actually twitched when she was on to something, sniffed out that this was the reason why Timony Weeks had had to die. Bang, bang. One shot in the head, another in the heart.

She continued reading. Timony had finished the chapter and moved on seven months. It was an account of Dariel's assault.
I hadn't been well. I'd been feeling very sick and my stomach was swelling. Diana was looking at me in a very odd way, as though something was very much the matter. I found her uncomfortable company so I avoided being with her as much as possible. I often told her to stay at home when I went for rehearsals.

Joanna frowned. It appeared that, if her theory about Stuart Renshaw's identity was right, Timony was writing some very selective memoirs indeed. Some bits in, others out. For example, when was she going to pen in her pregnancy? Where was Freeman in all this, the producer who was supposed to be
in loco parentis
? And how much of this was actually true? Diana had suggested Timony might have dramatized events in her life to spice up her memoirs or maybe, even, to invite sympathy. Or was Diana herself to be believed? Might she have an ulterior motive for casting doubt on Timony's memories?

It was in November 1965. I was coming out of the studio after some late rehearsals when a young man came towards me. He looked quite nice. He was smiling and had lovely blue eyes. I smiled back. I thought he wanted my autograph so I asked my bodyguard for a pen. He was fishing in his pocket for it when I felt something hit my face. Then something warm ran down my cheek. I put my hand up and it came away smeared with blood. The man was still looking at me, still smiling. I screamed and my bodyguard grabbed him but I was bleeding and screaming and terrified. Some blood must have trickled into my eye because I couldn't see. I thought I would be blind. I don't know why he did it. He said I was evil. He said lots of things but I don't know why he wanted to blind me. It made me frightened but Gerald comforted me and then Malcolm did.

Joanna frowned. Years later she had an explanation – of sorts.

I heard later that the person who'd attacked me was someone called Paul Dariel and that he was crazy, telling lies about me. I took a few months off from filming after that.

So that was how they had covered Timony's pregnancy up, by calling Dariel crazy and avoiding a public court case. The assault had been opportune. While the nation's sweetheart crept off to give birth and dispose of the child they had had the perfect excuse.

Further on she read:
‘I feel so guilty. So neglectful. Responsible. They told me I had led him on but I didn't know what I was doing. He told me it was all my fault.'

The voice was pathetic, childish, vulnerable and naïve, but Joanna was puzzled. Whom did she mean? Who had told her, so cruelly, that the assaults, whether from Dariel or members of the Butterfield cast, were all her fault? Who was it she was supposed to have ‘led on?' And who had spun this monstrous lie? Gerald or Sean Butterfield? Or someone else, someone so far faceless? There were bits missing and bits out of place and the rest was all jumbled up.

Joanna sat and puzzled over the words then left the barn and slowly walked back towards the house. The door was unlocked and she walked in and found Diana Tong, on the floor of the sitting room, surrounded by a scatter of photographs.

She looked up when Joanna entered but said nothing. Joanna sat down and picked up a couple of the pictures. Names and dates were pencilled in on the back.
Me – on set.

She turned it over. Timony, aged about eight, looking about six, leaning precociously forward, big bow in her hair, short nylon dress, hands clasped together, head coquettishly to one side, smiling into the camera. Joanna stared at it for a while, reflecting what a strange childhood Timony Weeks had had. Abandoned by her parents, the darling of the country throughout her childhood and into her teens. Behind the scenes abused and belittled, scolded and scorned. Multiple marriages which, if Joanna remembered from her psychology degree, usually meant someone desperately seeking an idyllic, perfect love. Desperately trying to cling on to her youth, cosmetic surgery for the physical ageing and five marriages to preserve the illusion of still being the nation's pet. But a pet is constrained and has to live by the rules of her master – in this case the general public. And when a pet is beyond his or her usefulness he or she can be taken to the vet's and ‘put down'. Joanna met Diana's calm grey eyes and sensed a communication that Timony's death had been fitting, the final act in a play. A death as theatrical as her life. The last scene.