A Reconstructed Corpse (10 page)

‘The murderer?'

‘Right.'

‘But surely that's what profiling does. I mean, criminal psychologists work out –'

‘You don't need a criminal psychologist to do it. That's the point I'm making, Mr Parrish –'

‘Paris, actually.'

‘What?'

‘My name's “Paris”.'

‘Oh, right. Well, Mr Paris, I'm saying that anyone of reasonable intelligence who's spent his working life dealing with murderers can produce you a profile at least as well as a bloody criminal psychologist can – except that the copper'll do it a lot cheaper and a darned sight quicker.'

‘So have you worked out a profile of Martin Earnshaw's murderer?'

‘Course I have.' The superintendent grinned smugly. ‘The man who did it –'

‘You're sure it's a man?'

‘Oh yes. He's very clever – highly intelligent character we're up against here. Also he's a bit of an exhibitionist. He didn't dismember the corpse for the purposes of concealment. Oh no, he did it so that he can control the pace of the investigation. He's going to feed out bits of the body when he feels like it.'

Bob Garston's dream come true, thought Charles, and that prompted him to say, ‘So presumably the murderer's delighted by the coverage he's getting on
Public Enemies
?'

‘You bet he is, Mr Paris. He's enjoying all that very much indeed. You see, as I say, he's highly intelligent and he likes pitting himself against other intellects. He was always going to be doing that with the police, but now he's also challenging the combined intelligence of the entire television viewing public.'

Charles was tempted to say ‘Not much contest', but bit the words back. ‘Traditionally, exhibitionists like that tend to get caught because they become over-confident, don't they, Superintendent?'

‘Yes, I would agree. Part of the thrill for that kind of murderer is seeing how close to the wind he can sail. He loves almost boasting about his crime. almost actually telling people he's done it and, as you say, it's that temptation that often leads to his downfall.'

‘So do you reckon that's what'll happen in this case?'

‘Maybe.' The superintendent tapped his teeth reflectively. ‘I've just a feeling this murderer may be a bit too canny for that.'

‘So do you think you'll get him?'

Superintendent Roscoe beamed a complacent smile on Charles. ‘Mr Paris, I told you – this case is going to be the triumph of my career.'

Greg Marchmont again moved uneasily. He wasn't the only member of the force, Charles concluded, who would be relieved when retirement finally came for Superintendent Roscoe and his dated attitudes.

In Brighton the car drew up outside the same hotel they had used the week before. Probably W.E.T. had some mutually back-scratching discount scheme with the place.

The two policemen and the actor got their luggage out of the boot and carried it inside. Superintendent Roscoe's golf bag was a huge leather job with a zipped hood. It looked brand-new and was evidently its owner's pride and joy. Roscoe refused the hotel porter's offers of assistance, insisting on carrying it himself.

Inside the hotel foyer, Greg Marchmont looked round without enthusiasm. ‘Back a-bloody-gain.'

‘It's been a week,' said Charles.

‘For you it may have been. I was here yesterday. Up to town last night, down here again this morning – like a bloody yo-yo.'

‘You were following up on something yesterday, were you?'

The clam-up was instantaneous. ‘Sorry, I can't tell you.'

‘Sorry, I shouldn't have asked.'

The detective sergeant gave him a bleak smile. Charles noticed how tired and tense Marchmont looked. The case – or perhaps some other pressure – was taking its toll on him.

They went to Reception to check in. Whether being dead had actually enhanced his status or not Charles didn't know, but that week he got a much better room, complete with sea view and minibar.

Geoffrey Ramage and the W.E.T. camera crew were already there. After lunch (in which Charles, relaxing into his role, indulged himself a little more than the previous week) there was some more walking practice to recapture the definitive Martin Earnshaw gait. The director was not easily satisfied and kept making him do it again, but Charles knew this was simply to kill time. Martin Earnshaw had left his home for the last time at seven in the evening, so the W.E.T. crew couldn't start shooting until it got dark. Fortunately, in the intervening four weeks the evenings had drawn in and they left the hotel round four.

The Earnshaws' house was on the borders of Hove, all very middle class and discreet. So middle class and discreet that the setting up of cameras and lights elicited not the slightest reaction from the neighbours. This was in marked contrast to what would have happened in most residential locations. Anything to do with television usually draws an instant crowd.

Still, nobody was complaining. This middle-class restraint of curiosity made Geoffrey Ramage's job a lot easier, and rendered redundant Greg Marchmont and the other policemen delegated to guard the location.

When they arrived at the house, Charles was interested to notice the detective sergeant give a tiny nod of acknowledgement to an apparently empty van opposite. No doubt inside it some of his colleagues were maintaining twenty-four-hour surveillance on Martin Earnshaw's widow.

Chloe, as ever in equal parts fragile and tactile, was expecting them and let them into the house. She neither welcomed the intrusion nor resented it, apparently resigned to the necessity of turning yet another knife in the wound left by the murder. Again she greeted Charles, identically dressed to her husband when last seen, with a piercing, anguished stare. And again his response was unworthy.

Geoffrey Ramage took them quickly through the required actions, with Chloe occasionally interrupting to correct some detail of what was to be reconstructed. Charles found this a new, and rather unnerving, experience. To have Martin Earnshaw's actions described to him by the director was one thing, but to be taken through them by the dead man's wife was something else entirely. Charles was made very sensible of that element in
Public Enemies
, the blurring between fantasy and reality, which Bob Garston so prized.

They were only going to reconstruct what could have been seen from the street. Charles found himself wistfully – and it must be said, again unworthily – dwelling on what Chloe and her husband might have got up to inside the house in the moments before his departure. Why was it this woman always brought his thoughts back to sex? He didn't exactly fancy her, and yet he could not ignore her strong erotic aura.

Still, even the bit seen from outside involved her giving him a goodbye kiss and, as they rehearsed this, Charles realised gleefully that he would be fulfilling a national fantasy. When the reconstruction appeared on Thursday's
Public Enemies,
men all over the country would be envious of Charles Paris.

The kiss, though Chloe insisted on proper lip contact and even a hug and a little pat on the bottom from him, was strangely asexual. It wasn't just because of the circumstances, the lights, the camera crew. Charles had rehearsed enough stage kisses not to be expecting any major excitements. But he was still surprised at how cold and positively antaphrodisiac Chloe Earnshaw's lips proved to be.

Oh dear, he berated himself, another unworthy thought. The woman had just been widowed in appalling circumstances. What was he expecting – that she'd suddenly demonstrate seething passion to a total stranger? He felt guilty and chastened by his reaction.

Charles Paris's latest performance as Martin Earnshaw did not involve much. He had to open the front door, succumb to the kiss from Chloe, and walk off down the road, turning once to wave as she closed the door.

This action, it was hoped, would be the latest prompt to the collective television-viewing memory. Had anyone out there witnessed the scene? Had anyone who had witnessed it seen some other significant detail . . . like, say, a couple of heavies with butcher's knives lurking in the shadows? Given the apparently total lack of interest in the affairs of others manifested by the Earnshaws' neighbours, it looked unlikely that anyone would come forward.

Still, audience research had shown flashbacks of the living Chloe with her dead husband likely to prove a popular ingredient in
Public Enemies,
so, regardless of their likelihood of advancing the investigation, the scenes would definitely be shown.

A couple of run-throughs and Chloe and Charles were set to go. Then suddenly the heavens opened. Geoffrey Ramage quickly decided they'd delay shooting until the cloudburst had passed. Much as his
film noir
instincts were drawn to dark moody shots through the falling rain, he knew that it hadn't been raining on the evening Martin Eamshaw really left, and it was his brief to reconstruct those events as closely as possible. The director comforted himself with the thought that, after the rain had stopped, he'd still be able to get some pretty damned dramatic effects with light reflecting off the wet pavement.

As the W.E.T. crew busied themselves covering their equipment against the downpour, Charles found himself invited into the house by Chloe Earnshaw. She led him through to a spotless kitchen and offered tea. Just as she was filling the kettle, the telephone rang. Chloe did nothing and after a moment the ringing stopped.

‘Ansafone,' she replied to Charles's quizzical look. ‘Get lots of calls – most of them from cranks.'

‘Couldn't you change the number?'

She looked at him, appalled. ‘No! All right, most of them are nonsense, but one of them might be important. One of them might be able to give me some information about Martin.'

‘Yes, I'm sorry. Wasn't thinking.'

‘It's all right.' She stared searchingly into his face and Charles felt himself transfixed by the intense beam of her dark blue eyes. ‘You do look like him,' Chloe Earnshaw murmured. ‘Not really like him, but there's something . . .'

‘Ah. Well, sorry . . .' said Charles lamely.

‘Not your fault. And indeed, if your likeness to Martin leads to us getting more information about the murder, then it will have been a very good thing – certainly nothing to apologise for.'

‘No.' Still her eyes bored into him, making Charles uneasy. ‘It must be awful for you,' he stumbled on, ‘just sitting waiting for something to happen, having nothing to do.'

‘Nothing to do?' she echoed incredulously. ‘But I'm unbelievably busy.'

‘Yes, of course you've got the house to look after and –'

‘No, not that. I'm busy setting up this support group.'

‘Support group – what for?'

‘I'm setting up a national support group for the spouses and partners of murder victims,' Chloe Earnshaw replied sedately.

Well, yes, you
would
be, wouldn't you? Even as he had the thought, Charles knew it was yet another unworthy one.

After the filming, Charles changed out of his Martin Earnshaw kit and handed it over to the pretty Wardrobe girl. ‘Anyone going out for a meal this evening?' he asked hopefully. ‘Well, um . . .' The girl blushed. ‘I'm not sure. I mean, I'm kind of committed.'

Geoffrey Ramage appeared in the doorway behind her and Charles instantly understood the nature of her commitment. The director, given overnight freedom from wife and small family, was going to make the most of it. Judging from the eye contact between him and the Wardrobe girl, it was a set-up job. He'd probably fixed for her to be allocated this particular duty. Some television traditions, like extramarital screwing on location, die hard.

‘Oh, fine. Well, probably see you back at the hotel.'

‘In the morning, Charles,' said Geoffrey Ramage firmly, emphasising the exclusivity of his and the girl's plans for the evening.

Charles felt a momentary pang of wistfulness – even jealousy – in the car back to the hotel. He thought back to previous location filmings, when he'd set up similar arrangements for himself. In retrospect, none of them had been particularly successful. Indeed, given how rare it was for one to be successful, he wondered why the image of a one-night stand still retained any magic at all.

Charles Paris looked back gloomily on his sex life. There had been some wonderful moments, delirious, peaceful moments of pure pleasure, but their memory was hard to recapture. Something so perfect at the time does not make for good recollection, particularly when recollected in less cheerful mood. Thinking about such moments in the past only prompts mourning for their current absence.

Anyway, sexual highs never last. It's only the continuing relationships that count, he thought morbidly, picking at the scab of his self-pity. Awareness of his cooling relationship with Frances ached like a bruised bone.

There was a message for him back at the hotel. From Louise Denning. ‘POSSIBILITY OF FURTHER FILMING TOMORROW (WEDNESDAY). STAY AT HOTEL UNTIL CONTACTED.' She managed to get the same peremptory tone into all her communications.

Oh well, might mean another fee, thought Charles Paris morosely, as he ambled through into the bar.

A small Brighton hotel in late November is not likely to be doing much business, and there was only one other person drinking. A substantial figure sat hunched over the counter with his back to the door. Geoffrey Ramage was off with his quarry for some restaurant foreplay – or maybe they had gone straight up to the bedroom. And the rest of the W.E.T. crew were probably off bitching at everyone else in the business and milking their expenses over a rowdy Italian meal. I suppose I should eat something at some point, Charles reminded himself. Still, couple of large Bell's first.

As he approached the counter, he recognised the other drinker. It was Greg Marchmont, who gave him a deterrent sideways look and returned studiously to his whisky. The bleared look in his eye suggested it wasn't the first of the evening.