Merely Players (19 page)

A short pause. He could hear her breathing, could picture that look of wide-eyed concentration, that slight furrowing of her forehead which was so attractive to him. Then she said, ‘You're right. I'm sorry. It's just that I'm more on edge than I expected to be. It was quite an ordeal. And you're the only one I can talk to.'

‘So how did it go?'

Now that she had managed to contact him at last, she realized that she hadn't much to say, beyond the fact that it was over. ‘All right, I think. They wanted to know when I last saw him. They'd found his Purdey shotgun – whether in the car or beside his body, they didn't say. I don't think they know yet exactly when he died. But I might be wrong about that: they don't give much away.'

‘What else did they ask?'

‘If I knew of any enemies he had. I said I wasn't in touch with the people he'd been working with. Which is true enough. He's shut me out of his life pretty effectively over the last year or so.'

‘And let me into it.'

‘I suppose so. Except that I like to think you'd have been part of my life, however Adam had behaved.'

He was silent for a moment, wondering how far her husband's neglect of her had contributed to her turning towards him. ‘Did you tell him that Adam was fond of putting it about?'

‘I think I suggested it. But I didn't have to, really. They were looking for anything and anyone who might have had reason to hate him. Don't the police say that sex and money are the motives behind most crimes?'

‘I think they do, yes.' He gave a small, mirthless chuckle. ‘Which is why we have to be careful, isn't it?'

‘I suppose so. I think that at one point they were suggesting I might have been bored here and looking for diversions, but I didn't give them anything.'

‘Attagirl! I can just see you looking puzzled and innocent! You're a cracking actress, and you'd do it so much better than I could.'

‘It's different when you're acting for real. But I think it was OK. They didn't really press me. But they said they might be back to see me again when they knew more.'

‘I expect that's part of their routine. I shouldn't worry about it.'

‘I feel very lonely. I'll be glad when the children come home from school and demand my attention.'

‘I want to hold you in my arms, my darling, to feel your fingers on my back! But we mustn't see each other for a while.'

‘No.' Jane sighed heavily. ‘I can see why, but that doesn't make it any easier. Let's hope they arrest someone soon.' She blew a little kiss into the phone. She enjoyed being silly and childish again, with the right person.

‘We'll speak again tomorrow. Same time? I'll make sure I'm here.'

Paul Barnes put down the phone and stared at it thoughtfully for a few seconds.

When a citizen becomes a murder victim, lists of his associates are quickly compiled and fed into computers. Principally through cross-referencing, modern technology can throw up matters of interest which in the past might have taken weeks to emerge. When a victim has the public prominence of Adam Cassidy, these lists of people who have connections with the deceased can quickly become so long that there is a danger of careful police work becoming counter-productive.

DCI Peach, scanning a catalogue of names and functions which was lengthening alarmingly, lighted upon one which prompted his immediate attention. He collected Clyde Walcott and drove the thirty miles to Manchester swiftly.

The block letter capitals stretched black and bold across the full width of the frosted glass door. TONY VALENTO. THEATRICAL AGENT. Peach paused for a moment before he turned the handle. He said in a low voice to his companion, ‘You might need to be the hard bastard here, DC Northcott. I need you to protect me from my easy-going nature.'

In the outer office, the PA uncrossed long legs from beneath a very short black skirt and looked at them doubtfully. She said coldly, ‘Mr Valento doesn't take people on unless they already have considerable experience in theatre or television. He normally prefers to make his own contacts with people in the profession rather than have people approach him.'

‘He'll see an old acquaintance like me, love.' As her mouth opened to protest, Peach brandished his warrant card before her blue-lidded eyes. Clyde Northcott sprang forward on cue to line his own card up beside his chief's. Peach grinned. ‘I take DS Northcott around with me in case things get violent. But he's a softy, when people are reasonable. He enjoys his tea and biscuits, when people are kind enough to provide them.'

The PA spoke in a low voice into the intercom. She did not trouble to conceal her disappointment as she said, ‘Mr Valento will see you now, Detective Chief Inspector.'

Peach already had his hand upon the door. ‘Long time no see, Tony!' he said as he flung it open. ‘Can't say that's been a disappointment, though.' His smile said that this sort of meeting was much more to his taste than the one he had conducted with a grieving widow earlier in the day.

‘What the hell do you want, Peach?'

‘And a good afternoon to you, Tony! I think you know very well what I'm here for.'

‘I haven't a bloody clue, mate. And time's money. So spit it out.'

Peach took the seat he had not been offered and gestured to Northcott to take the one beside him. He looked round at the pictures of show business luminaries, past and present, which lined the walls, presumably because they were clients of Valento. Only then did his attention switch back to the big man with the black curly hair and olive skin who sat behind the desk. ‘Adam Cassidy. Sometime client of yours. Recently became an ex-client, as you learned a week ago. Now also a murder victim. Are these three things a random series of events, or is there a logical progression in them? That is what I have to ask myself.'

‘Don't be fucking daft, Peach!'

Percy's smile grew wider. ‘You've written that down, DC Northcott? Not a formal cassette-recorded interview, this, but we might wish to recall Mr Valento's tone and attitude at some future date. As a citizen anxious to help the police with their enquiries, he doesn't seem wholly cooperative.' He glanced at the door to the outer office. ‘And we wouldn't want important clients with delicate ears to hear unseemly words, would we? Ah, here comes the tea. What friendly and thoughtful staff you have, Mr Valento!'

Tony Valento glared his disapproval at the girl as she set the tray with china crockery on his desk; Peach and Northcott beamed quietly at the rear view of short skirt and long legs. Percy sprang to his feet as the PA closed the door firmly behind her. ‘Shall I be mother, Tony? It's no trouble, really it isn't.' He poured the tea with elaborate care.

Valento glared at the cup and saucer set in front of him and shook his head angrily when offered the biscuits. ‘You're wasting your time here, Peach.'

‘I'm glad to hear it, Tony. If we could eliminate you from this enquiry, it would be a major step forward.'

‘I can tell you exactly where I was at the time of this death.'

Clyde Northcott looked up from his notebook and spoke for the first time. ‘And when would that be, Mr Valento?'

The agent realized immediately that he'd made a mistake. Until this moment Peach, the man he'd clashed with years ago, had taken all his attention. Now he looked into the black, unsmiling face with the unblinking brown eyes and the faint scar at the top of the left cheekbone. More the sort of face he was used to dealing with, this, among the heavy muscle he and his associates used when they needed it. He said, ‘I'm willing to tell you where I was on Friday night. That's what you want to know about isn't it?'

Clyde allowed himself a slow smile. ‘Is it, Mr Valento? You tell us. We haven't established a time of death yet. We're still waiting for the PM report and forensics to tell us that. So how would an innocent man like you know so much more than them?'

‘I don't know, you black dumbo! It's just that from what they said on television, it seemed to me—'

‘Whoa, Tony! Stop it right there.' Peach's amiable tone was gone. ‘Seems we're going to have to add racialist abuse to obscene epithets and unhelpful attitude. Won't make a good impression on a judge, these things. Not when he takes into account your previous record.'

‘It's not going to come in front of any fucking judge, because there won't be any bloody charges, Peach.'

The big man didn't sound as confident of that as he meant to. The olive forehead was now oily with sweat, but he couldn't give the man on the other side of his desk the satisfaction of seeing him wipe it. Peach nibbled a chocolate digestive thoughtfully, took a sip of his tea, and said, ‘Tell us how you know when Cassidy died, will you, please? In your own time – wouldn't like to hurry you on something as important as this.'

‘I'm sure they said Friday night on radio or television. I'm sure I'm right.'

‘Oh, I'm sure you're right as well, Tony. I'd put a week's wages on it being Friday night, now that you've told us. But none of the bulletins included that information, because we didn't know it ourselves when they were issued.'

Valento said from beneath a thunderous brow, ‘I must have just assumed it. It must have seemed the likeliest time, from what I heard. I wasn't paying a lot of attention.'

Peach's amusement returned to him with that remark. ‘Not paying a lot of attention, Tony? When hearing about the death of your most valuable and high-profile client? Or rather, ex-client. You didn't take kindly to his switch of agents, did you?'

Valento silently cursed himself for the threats against Cassidy he had issued in his phone conversation with that smooth bugger Mark Gilbey, who had poached Cassidy from him. He said sullenly, ‘I can get along without Cassidy. I got the bastard everything he had and he sold himself on without even consulting me. But we're big enough not to need him.'

‘Maybe, but treachery hurts, doesn't it? And you're not used to it, are you, Tony? You're used to responding with violence when anyone upsets you; we know that from our previous dealings with you. This killing will certainly encourage others to think twice before deserting you, won't it?'

‘You never proved anything against me, Peach! Never even got me into court.'

‘But we could have proved it, and you knew it. Cost you best part of a million pounds to prevent those two giving evidence against you six years ago, I'm told.'

‘They're in Marbella now, having a good laugh at you.'

‘Must be quite an unsavoury place, Marbella, with the number of villains sitting beside those expensive swimming pools. I expect you'd feel at home there.'

‘I didn't kill Adam Cassidy. I can account for my movements for the whole of Friday night and Saturday, so I'm out of the frame whenever he died.'

‘Can you, indeed? Almost suspicious that, a man having an alibi for such a long period. Doesn't often happen with innocent people. But I'm sure you're right about it, Tony, if you say so. Doesn't get you off the hook, though, does it?'

‘Of course it does. I'm telling you that I can demonstrate that I couldn't possibly have done this killing.'

Peach set his cup and saucer back on the tray, then wiped his mouth delicately on the paper napkin provided. He smiled contentedly. ‘That's not your way, though, is it? We know from previous experience that you don't do anything as sordid and obvious as killing for yourself. You employ people to do that sort of work for you.'

‘I didn't use a hit man on Cassidy.'

‘I'm glad to hear it, Tony. But I'm sure you wouldn't expect us simply to accept that. Not from a man with your record. We'll get a formal statement from you about your whereabouts at the time of this death, once it's definitely established. But we shall also investigate the whereabouts and the movements of people you have employed in the past to eliminate men who have displeased you. Hit men, as professionals like you and me call them. Don't leave the area without letting us know your new address, will you?'

They departed as abruptly as they had arrived. Tony Valento was more shaken than he cared to admit to his PA. He took a few minutes to collect himself before he picked up the phone.

The death of Adam Cassidy was the lead item on the six o'clock news bulletins on both television and radio. There were snippets of scenes from his work, most of them showing him as the man-of-action hero, triumphing over evil against the odds.

The word ‘murder' was used for the first time. Chief Superintendent Tucker, the man in charge of Brunton CID, said that although no one was at present helping police with their enquiries, he was confident of an early arrest, in what he recognized was a case of national, even international, interest. He jutted his chin towards the camera and said that he was determined that the man or woman responsible for this despicable crime would not get away with the brutal murder of a well-loved national figure.

Tucker's image was a little undermined by the news editor, who chose to follow his statement with a clip from a recent edition of the
The Gerry Clancy Show
on afternoon television. This purported to show the dead actor's sense of humour and his concern with the wider issues of life. In reality, the item had a nice, understated paradox for any viewer who chose to see it. Adam Cassidy was making a fool of Tucker, the same senior policeman who was now directing the investigation into his sudden and violent death.

The irony was not lost on the person who had killed Cassidy. But more important to the murderer was the fact that as yet the police had clearly come upon nothing vital.

THIRTEEN

D
ean Morley looked more than his forty-seven years. Perhaps that was because he was nervous, Clyde Northcott thought. In his early days in CID, he had considered anxiety a possible indication of guilt. Now he realized that everyone who is interviewed in connection with a serious crime is nervous and that sometimes the most innocent people are the most nervous of all. But perhaps it might just be that actors were naturally nervous at nine fifteen in the morning, being more naturally creatures of the evening and the night.