Merely Players (24 page)

They had driven over a mile and were almost back at Brunton nick before he spoke again. ‘Yesterday morning you said you hoped our killer wouldn't prove to be the man we'd just interviewed because he was what you called a “decent man”.'

Northcott allowed himself a rueful smile. ‘Dean Morley, sir. You gave me a bollocking and said I couldn't pick and choose like that among suspects.'

‘Not a bollocking, DS Northcott. When I give you a bollocking, you'll be quite certain that's what it is. I merely reminded you that it is a CID officer's duty to remain objective.'

‘Yes, sir.' Clyde said nothing further until he was negotiating the sharp turn into the police car park, when curiosity twitched his tongue. ‘Why do you raise that now, sir?'

‘Because, DS Northcott, I fear I may be due a bollocking from you. Or rather, a reminder that I must be clear-sighted and objective and concentrate on facts, not feelings.'

‘And why would that be?'

‘I think your soft contours and constantly smiling face must be unearthing a dangerous weakness in me, DS Northcott. I see in Luke Cassidy a man under immense strain, who is passionate about the things he holds dear. And thus a man who might well be our killer. And I find myself thinking that he is a thoroughly decent man and hoping that he isn't a murderer.'

FIFTEEN

‘
Y
ou need to get your finger out, Peach!'

‘Yes, sir.' If Tommy Bloody Tucker was in disciplinary mode, Percy would just let the torrent of abuse flow freely. Occasionally, that was the best strategy. Sooner or later, and usually sooner, the man would run out of insults and the torrent would be reduced to a trickle. Or better still, it might be turned back to flow in his direction.

‘Never mind “Yes, sir”. I want results. Do you hear me?'

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I mean, you don't want “Yes, sir”, do you? You just told me that.'

Tucker was looking pleasingly puzzled already. He said severely. ‘Don't piss me about, Peach. This isn't bloody good enough, do you hear me?'

‘I hear you, sir.'

‘It's Wednesday afternoon already and you've produced bugger all. A man who is a national figure was murdered last Friday night, and you still—'

‘But not discovered until Saturday night, sir, as you reminded the nation in your excellent television piece yesterday.'

‘Stop pissing me about, Peach! Just because I defended you as best I could to the media yesterday, don't presume that I'm going to tolerate laziness in my team. Is that clear?'

‘Yes, sir. Have to point out that we haven't been idle, sir. In fact, we've been buzzing about like blue-arsed flies ever since this crime was discovered.' Percy had never worked out why blue-reared insects should be considered the most active; perhaps it was the police weakness for alliteration that made blue-arsed flies buzz more actively than others.

Tucker leaned forward threateningly over his massive desk and said heavily, ‘I see no evidence of that, Peach. No fucking evidence at all!' He had largely eschewed the f-word since he became a chief superintendent, so as to set himself above the common herd of policemen. He hoped it carried extra emphasis now as a result of his normal economy.

Percy did comprehensive work on looking hurt. ‘Everyone on the team has been working long hours since the corpse was discovered, sir.'

‘I hope you've not been hammering the overtime budget.'

Non sequiturs were a perpetual problem when you dealt with Tommy Bloody Tucker. The notion that working flat out might demand a bit of overtime had not troubled that unique brain. Percy chose not to react to this contradiction, save with a long-suffering sigh. ‘Perhaps it would be best if I gave you a verbal summary of the progress of the investigation, sir.'

‘I think it's high time you did.'

‘The widow, sir, Jane Cassidy. Formerly Jane Webster, an actress of some standing. It is difficult to be certain about the exact state of their marriage at the time of Cassidy's death.'

‘Difficult but not impossible, Peach. You should have pinned this down by now.'

‘Do you know, sir, I rather agree with you.' Peach spoke in wonderment, as if he had just stumbled upon a modern Wonder of the World. ‘Steps are already in hand to do just that.'

‘Don't give me this “steps are in hand” nonsense, Peach. That's what we use to fob off the public when we've nothing to tell them.'

‘Yes, sir. I seem to remember the phrase featuring frequently in your media briefings. But in this case steps really are in hand. I shall be speaking to the lady myself later this afternoon.'

‘I'm glad to hear it!' Tucker leaned forward confidentially. ‘Two thirds of murders are committed by people within the close family.'

It was almost reassuring to Percy to see the blindin', bleedin' bloody obvious resurfacing in his chief. ‘Rather more than that, actually, sir. But it's good to have your overview.'

‘What about this theatrical agent you mentioned in your memo to me yesterday?'

‘Tony Valento, sir. A man with a previous record of violence, but as slippery as an eel in Vaseline. Greater Manchester CID think he's employed a hit man to remove enemies in the past, but have never been able to bring him to court for it. Valento lost the deceased's custom shortly before his death. Cassidy transferred himself to a new agent to pursue international stardom. To try to get to Hollywood, to be precise.'

‘Really? Cassidy struck me as a bit of a bounder.'

What a wonderfully old-fashioned term for a senior policeman to use, thought Percy. And strangely enough, fairly accurate, from what he'd so far learned of Adam Cassidy. ‘I'm told being a bounder doesn't always pre-empt the right to stardom, sir. DS Murphy has come up with a possible liaison for Mrs Cassidy, which I shall explore further. A man who has the best farm in the area. Sounds quite posh – shoots with the county set, apparently.'

‘Tread carefully, then. Tact, Peach, tact.'

‘You don't think we should get this chap in and give him the third degree, sir? Rough him up a bit, shine lights into his face?' If Tommy Bloody Tucker chose to talk about bounders, there was every reason to recall an earlier age of policing. Percy's face lit up as a delightful thought struck him. ‘You could interview him yourself, sir, whilst I turned a blind eye!'

‘PEACH! You will proceed with extreme care here. Is that clear?'

‘Yes, sir. Pity, that. There's a brother: Luke Cassidy. Spends a lot of time looking after his old dad, whom Adam Cassidy severely neglected. Seems a decent sort of bloke, to me.'

‘Treat him with suspicion. Remember, most murderers come from within the family.'

‘Yes, sir. It's good to have your overview of criminal trends in the nation offering us such valuable insights.'

Tucker glared at him suspiciously over his rimless glasses. ‘Has this Luke Cassidy got himself a good alibi?'

‘Good, sir, but not yet cast-iron. We shall check even more carefully, now that we have your views.' Peach leaned confidentially towards the man behind the big desk, as if offering a clinching piece of confidence. ‘He's a highly respected history teacher at the comp.'

Tucker looked with distaste into the round, eager face beneath the baldness. ‘Who else?'

‘The others are mostly actors from the
Call Alec Dawson
series.'

‘I'll bet they're a rum lot! Actors are, you know.'

Another epithet from the past. Peach nodded. ‘Decidedly rum, sir. And bounders too, some of them, I should think!'

He waited for a reaction, but all he got from Tucker was, ‘Motives?'

‘Indeed, sir. Two of them had just lost big parts in the next series of
Call Alec Dawson
. And with them remuneration which would make even a chief superintendent's income seem puny.' He paused to allow the magnitude of this anomaly to be processed by the slowly moving abacus which was Tucker's brain. ‘One of them is an actor who knew Cassidy right from his early days in the theatre until his death. Chap by the name of Dean Morley. He was to be the main villain opposing Alec Dawson throughout the series, until Cassidy stamped on the idea.'

‘Alibi?'

‘Morley has an alibi, of sorts. It's as suspect as the old wifely assurance that a villain was at home with her at the crucial time – and just as difficult to disprove. He claims to have been at home with his male partner when Cassidy died.'

‘This man Morley is queer?' Tucker's tortoise speed of comprehension had been restored.

‘Bent as a hairpin, sir. But he—'

‘They're devious, those people. I've always found them devious.'

But nothing like as devious as some senior CID men in pursuit of promotions and pensions, thought Peach. ‘I'll bear that in mind, sir. But we have to be careful to treat gay people in the same way as heterosexuals, don't we, sir?'

‘Eh? Oh yes, I suppose we do. This bloody political correctness is a damned nuisance. But you and I are old-fashioned policemen, Peach. We know the score.'

‘Yes, sir. For what it's worth, DS Northcott, a man not prone to the sentimental view, thought that Dean Morley was a decent sort of chap.'

Apparently it wasn't worth much. Tucker looked thoroughly bemused for a moment, then said, ‘Isn't Northcott that tall black officer?'

‘That's the one, sir. The man you'd want to have beside you if and when things turn ugly.'

Tucker shook his head in a bemused fashion and muttered, ‘Political correctness gone mad!' It wasn't clear whether he disapproved of Northcott's height or his colour.

Peach said hastily, ‘There's also an actress exciting our attention, sir. Attractive, dark-haired woman – you may have seen her on screen. Name of Michelle Davies.'

‘
Cherchez la femme
, Peach!'

Tucker looked as satisfied as if he had produced an original thought. But that might have needed a Caesarean, thought Percy. ‘Like Mr Morley, Ms Davies had a highly lucrative role in the next series snatched away on what seems to have been little more than Cassidy's whim.'

Tucker shook his silvering head sagely. ‘She could well have done this.'

‘We thought it a distinct possibility, sir.' The man's now forcing me to be a Jeeves to his Wooster, Percy realized with a shock. He said hastily, ‘She had been to bed with Cassidy, sir. On how regular a basis, we are still not sure.'

‘Well, make yourselves sure, Peach! Do I have to do everything for you? Surely you can complete the straightforward legwork for yourselves.'

‘Indeed we can, sir. And it's high time I was about it!'

Percy Peach went briskly back down the staircase from the ivory tower. He told himself firmly that he couldn't exclude Michelle Davies from suspicion just because Chief Superintendent Tommy Bloody Tucker thought she was a killer.

‘I apologize that this meeting had to be at five o'clock. I know it's an awkward time, but I know also that you want the mystery of your husband's death solved as quickly as possible.'

Peach watched Jane Cassidy's face closely for her reaction to this, but she gave him nothing. The winter darkness had dropped thickly over the countryside outside, but the light in the hall of the big new mansion was bright and clear. The widow's face held the welcome of conventional, automatic hospitality, but showed no reaction to his mention of Cassidy's murder. She said, ‘The time is no inconvenience to me, Detective Chief Inspector. I've been relieved over the last few days that we decided to employ a nanny – I was in two minds about it when Adam suggested it, but it's been a boon since he died.'

She looked much better than she had on Monday. Her dark-blonde hair had been neatly cut and the colour was back in her cheeks. She was lightly but expertly made up. Her clear blue eyes had now no sign of the puffiness which tears had brought to them in the aftermath of her husband's death. She looked if anything younger than her thirty-seven years. She had made a remarkable recovery from her initial grief. Or perhaps that grief had not been so deep after all, thought Percy Peach; policemen were paid to think uncharitably.

There was a pot of tea and rich fruit cake on the table between her armchair and the sofa where she had invited them to sit. She poured the tea with a steady hand and handed them plates and cake. She could have been an actress playing out a scene in a comedy of manners, thought Peach. Maybe she was doing exactly that. She made a comfortable, composed remark about life having to go on when there were children around. He was emboldened to ask her, ‘Will we see you on our screens again, as the children grow up?'

‘I always intended to take up my career again. Now I might do it sooner rather than later. Curiously enough, my agent rang me today. The strange thing is that what has happened might make it easier for me to get parts.'

Peach thought he knew what she meant, but he wanted her to talk about herself, wanted to see just how far she had recovered from the death of the man who had been her husband and her children's father. ‘In what way would it be easier, Mrs Cassidy?'

She smiled sadly. It seemed to him that she knew just what he was doing but was content to play along with it. ‘Adam's death has brought me back into public notice. Every account I've seen mentions “the actress Jane Webster” as the wife of the victim. There will be a certain ghoulish curiosity about whatever roles I undertake. The people who cast for television are aware of such things. They realize the publicity which I would get would help to kick-start audience figures.'

‘That old saw about there being no such thing as bad publicity.'

‘Precisely. Although I'm sure casting directors and producers would prefer to say they were harnessing public sympathy.'

‘You've already thought this through pretty thoroughly.'

She looked at him for a moment. She had a more quizzical smile now, with her head a little on one side. He wondered how many hundreds of men over the years had been influenced by those glistening light-blue eyes. She picked her words carefully as she said, ‘I've been forced to do that by circumstances, Mr Peach. I expect Adam will have left me comfortable for money, but that isn't the point. Hopefully, I have up to fifty years left to live and I need to make a start on that. I always intended to act again: this merely brings forward the date when it will happen.'