Diamond took over. “You’re quite a problem for me, Ann. In this country you can’t be arrested for resisting arrest unless you assault the officer trying to take you in, which you didn’t. So you’re here because you stole a valuable motorbike and you can argue that you didn’t steal it at all. It’s at my discretion whether you’re charged with something more serious. I’m looking for you to cooperate.” He didn’t tap the side of his nose but he might as well have done. “Understand?”
She gave the nod he was hoping for. Better still, she reached for the glass of water in front of her... with her left hand.
To get her talking, he threw in a simple question. “How is a stunt person paid — by the year, the week or the day?”
She shrugged. “By the day usually.”
“I’m not going to ask how much you earn, but I hope it’s more than when you started with Swift and Proud. You’re a top-class stuntwoman and you’re also Sabine’s, em... what are the words I’m looking for?”
“Body double.”
“Thanks. You should be getting two fees. I bet they pay you a fraction of what she earns, or what the other actors get.”
“I’m not bothered,” she said. “It’s regular work.”
“No complaints, then?”
“None at all.”
He continued in the same disarming tone, but with words that could have been the opening statement of a prosecution. “When you burgled Daisy Summerfield’s house in June it wasn’t because you were jealous of her salary, it was simply that you were short of money. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
He was ready for a passionate denial. Instead, she stared through him, as if the wall behind contained more interest.
She was absorbing the shock of being found out, he decided. “You say it’s regular work, but months can go by between productions and even then you might not be needed much. I expect you pay for insurance and you have an agent who takes a slice of your income. The temptation to get easy money by illegal means must be strong.”
Now he’d started, there was little else he could do but set out the facts as he understood them. “I don’t know a lot about the old lady except she’d been in well-paid TV parts for years and owned some nice pieces of jewellery. The Richmond police quickly decided the burglar couldn’t have been a professional. They found fingerprints, a shoeprint and a number of stolen items abandoned in the garden.” He picked up the envelope Leaman had given him. “The prints and the DNA don’t match anything on the database of known offenders. I had them sent here so we can compare them with yours. You won’t mind, I’m sure.”
Her face drained of the little colour it had. “It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Not wholly stupid,” he said, elated as anyone who has scored the winning goal and not showing it. “You might have got away with it if Daisy hadn’t returned home early. According to the call sheet, she’d have to return next day to film her last scene. Bad luck that they made a late change. Even worse luck that she suffered the cardiac arrest when she saw you.”
“Is that how you got on to me — the call sheet?”
“I thought it likely it was an inside job — ‘inside’ meaning people involved in the show. We could eliminate a lot of them who were working at Bottle Yard when the burglary happened, cameramen, riggers, production staff and so on. Yes, the call sheet was a help to me, not so much for the cast members listed on it, but those who were not — and they included you. The burglar had to be someone with wheels and you had the use of the stunt bike. You could do the hundred-odd miles on the motorway in a couple of hours, easy.”
“More like a hundred and twenty,” she said.
“As much as that? You must have started with a full tank and filled up again at some stage. I’m mentioning this because the mileage was your undoing, wasn’t it?”
This time she didn’t answer, so he moved on.
“The Swift show is all about burglaries and break-ins and you ought to be quite the expert by now, but the real thing is a whole different challenge, as you discovered, especially when Daisy arrived unexpectedly. You hid in the wardrobe, the crime scene people reported. Nasty shock for the old lady, fatal as it turned out. Nasty for you, too. I can only imagine the thoughts that went through your head. Would it go down as murder, or manslaughter, or what?”
The danger of this approach, giving the facts of the case as he understood them but with a sympathetic spin, was that she would become the silent listener and confirm or correct none of it. She hadn’t contested anything he’d said except the distance between Bristol and Richmond. He was in two minds whether to invite her to tell the rest of the story herself.
“What’s that?” he said suddenly. A buzzing sound had interrupted him.
Halliwell, embarrassed, cleared his throat. “Your phone, guv.”
He tugged it from his pocket. A call from Ingeborg. “I’d better take it outside. Call a break, Keith. I shouldn’t be long.”
Halliwell checked the time and spoke the words that put the interview on hold.
Left alone with Halliwell, Ann asked, “Is the tape switched off?”
He confirmed it with a nod, so she said, “I’m in deep trouble, aren’t I?”
“Seems so,” he said.
“Is he an understanding man? If I tell him everything, will it work in my favour?”
Halliwell didn’t need to think about that. “It’s always a good thing to cooperate.”
“Up to now it hasn’t helped me.” She reached for the glass of water and sipped some. No more was said until Diamond returned and the interview was on record again.
Ann spoke before Diamond started. “I want to make something clear. I didn’t steal the motorcycle. I’m allowed to use it when we aren’t filming to practise moves I need to make in the show. They turn a blind eye if I ride it privately sometimes.”
“Understood,” Diamond said, “but a round trip of two hundred and forty miles was going too far, wasn’t it? Literally too far.”
There was no arguing with that.
“Did someone query the mileage or the petrol consumption?”
“Are you listening? What I’m saying is I didn’t steal the bike, so you can’t hold me here.”
He smiled. “Nice try, Ann, but if I released you I’d rearrest you immediately for the theft of Daisy’s jewellery. Getting back to your trip to Richmond and who found out, you know for a fact it was the producer himself. Greg Deans was known as an efficient organiser with an eye for detail. He looked at that mileage and put two and two together: your two-hundred-and-forty-mile ride and Daisy’s burglary. Did he call you to his office, or was it a more private meeting?”
“He came to my flat.”
“Smart move. Difficult for him. He should have reported you to the police, but he didn’t. He could have sacked you and he didn’t. Where was he going to find another body double who did stunts? You couldn’t be replaced. The show had to go on at all costs. Fair summary?”
“I can’t tell you what was in his mind.”
“Whatever it was, you kept your job.”
“I wish to God I hadn’t.”
At least he was getting responses.
“What did Greg actually say to you?”
“He kept it short. He got me to admit what I’d done. I was bricking it thinking he’d hand me in. He said the whole show could go down the tubes because of my criminal behaviour and he was considering my future.”