“How do we let her know we’re here?” Ingeborg asked. “I can’t see a doorbell.”
“She’ll have spotted us already. Haven’t you noticed the security cameras at each end?”
No one greeted them. The door was halfway along the side of the vehicle, a metre or more above ground level, and there were no steps. Diamond reached up to rap with his knuckles and got no response. He took off a shoe and banged with the leather heel.
A window on their right opened and a face with Asian features looked out. She was clearly not Sabine. “Yes?”
“DS Diamond and Detective Sergeant Smith of Bath Police needing to speak to Miss San Sebastian.”
“Sabine is in gym.”
“Pity about that. Which gym is that, ma’am?”
“Upstairs.”
“Here?” A motorhome with a gym of its own was something else.
“She must finish workout. Legs, calves, abs.”
“We’ll come in and wait.”
“You wait outside.” The window closed.
“Bloody cheek,” Diamond said to Ingeborg. But they didn’t have much choice. The vehicle was a fortress. “Greg Deans told me about the workouts. The company pays for a personal trainer for her. They must have money to burn.”
“I don’t know if you watch the show, guv,” Ingeborg said. “It’s a very active role. She needs to be in shape.”
“Doesn’t do her own stunts, though.”
“I know.”
“What a let-down for her fans,” he said, his mind already made up about this woman. “I’ve never seen anything in the credits about stunt doubles.”
“It’ll be there in the small print.”
“Very small. She’s the star. She states her own terms.” Sensing that his rant had gone far enough, he turned his thoughts to some strategy for the interview. “Everything I hear about Sabine suggests she’s a hard nut to crack. But I was told she’s superstitious and we can play on the jinx thing. It needs to be taken seriously, right?”
Ingeborg raised her thumb.
They waited another twenty minutes before the door of the motorhome slid open and a set of steps unfolded from a hidden section underneath. The minder looked out. “You are police? You have ID?”
Diamond showed his card.
“Sabine say you wait inside while she shower.”
“We can do that.” He mounted the steps.
“Remove shoes.”
When he saw the hand-painted ceramic floor tiles inside, he understood the reason and unlaced. Each tile formed part of a reproduction of an old master painting, a crowded composition of armed Roman soldiers and struggling women against a background of classical architecture.
Ingeborg had slipped off her shoes as well. They were in a lounge area with chairs and an L-shaped sofa.
“You sit.”
They sat and were left to wait.
“What’s the picture?” he asked Ingeborg.
She turned to look at the wall behind her. “I don’t see one.”
“The floor.”
“That?” she said with distaste. “Looks to me like The Rape of the Sabine Women. As décor, would you believe? Like it celebrates her name. Disgusting.”
Now it was Ingeborg who was on a rant, he thought. “Most of them are clothed.”
“You’re missing the point, guv.”
Minutes later, they were joined by Sabine herself. Smelling of expensive floral shower gel, in a black robe and with her hair wrapped in a red towel, she was shorter than the familiar image from TV screens. Even if you never watched the show, you knew the face. It was difficult to get through a day without those intense blue eyes looking out at you from magazine covers and computer pop-ups. The sharp, strong features were photogenic from any angle. She took the chair opposite and flipped the gown aside to display a bronzed leg. “What can I say? I’m so embarrassed, keeping you waiting. I simply wasn’t in a state to speak to anyone when you arrived.”
Disarming or deceiving? Either way, the apology was unexpected.
“That’s all right. It’s not as if we made an appointment,” Diamond said, a past master at trading charm when needed. He knew he was dealing with a role-play professional. He told her who he was and Ingeborg, too. “We hope you can help us clear up some story lines from real life that weren’t ever scripted for the show.”
“I think I know what you’re talking about,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “As for real life, I’d better warn you I’m nothing like Caitlin Swift. Everyone assumes I’m as cool as she is and of course I’m not. The one-liners are written for me and all the action is staged. I have a stunt double who does the dangerous stuff.”
Unexpected modesty.
A compliment was wanted here. “The success of the show is down to you. You connect with your audience.”
“That’s my job. All I’m saying is don’t expect Swift-like answers from me.” She looked and sounded nervous. “I can’t think how I can help you.”
He said, “May I call you Sabine?”
“Please do. Everyone does.”
“You know more about the show than anyone because you were in it from the start. Several of the other actors have gone. Even the producer has changed. Your experience is going to be helpful, I hope.”
She slid her hands along her forearms and pulled in her shoulders, making herself smaller. “This is what they’re tweeting about the jinx, isn’t it?”
“Are they? I don’t read that stuff.”
“I do.”
“Jinx, bad luck, whatever. We’re here about the things that actually happened rather than what people are saying on social media. We’re interested mainly in two people who went missing, an assistant producer called Dave Tudor. And, more recently, Jake Nicol, a rigger.”
“I heard about Nicol absconding, but I couldn’t tell you who he is. I don’t have anything to do with the grips. They do their job and I do mine. I was told he was only with us a couple of days. But I remember Dave. That’s going back several years.”
“Four, at least.”
“The time of Mary Wroxeter, who created the show.”
The memory evoked a sigh and a sad smile. “She was brilliant, fizzing with ideas. Before she came to us, she’d had a huge success with Robeson and the Welsh. Did you ever see it?”
“It sounds familiar.”
“The one about Paul Robeson, the great African-American bass-baritone, and his love affair for Wales in the 1930s. She cast Aubrey Jones in the role, a black singer with the Welsh Opera she’d known since her student days. His voice was almost as good as Robeson’s, and it was magic. Won all the awards. You should seek it out.”
“I will, now you’ve told me. But I was asking about Dave Tudor.”
“Right. He was Mary’s AP and he needed to be good, because so much was unrehearsed and unscripted. It’s more controlled now and, between ourselves, less exciting. Dave was Mary’s mainstay, telling us actors the last-minute changes. He had to be tactful because there were times when our lines were taken from us and no actor likes that. Almost every scene was re-shot several times over and that’s stressful. Dave managed to stay popular. I don’t know anyone who crossed swords with him.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I’m speaking from my own experience.”
“Was he also dealing with the crew?”
“Everyone. Mary wanted the extra mile from them as well. She often worked with long lenses and a single camera to get a more filmic look. Every tinpot director in the business does it now, but when she started with the Robeson series, the technique was new in television, tough for everyone from the focus-puller to the cable-basher.”