“For once, it’s what he’s not done.” I gave her a brief rundown. “I’ve got a hunch that’s so far off the wall I’m not even prepared to tell you what it is,” I said.
“What is it you need?”
“A look at the scene-of-crime photos. I don’t know any of the team working the case, otherwise I’d ask. The boss cop’s a DI Tucker.”
“I know Tucker’s bagman. He did a stint with me at fraud before he was made up to sergeant. I expect I can persuade him he owes me one. I’ll try and sort something out this evening, provided I can get back to Manchester,” she promised. I grovelled, she took the piss, we said goodbye.
I automatically scanned the car park, clocking Alexis over by the chuck wagon. She was leaning on the counter, steam rising from the cup of coffee in her hand, deep in conversation with Ross and a couple of the younger cast members who had braved the Chronicle.
I drifted back across the churned-up slush to where Ted and Gloria were rounding some bushes and walking into shot, their body language shouting “argument” at the top of its voice. At the same moment, I heard a commotion behind me. I swung round to see Cliff Jackson loudly lecturing a PA that he was a police officer and this was a public car park and she was in no position to tell him where to stand.
The director’s head swung round. “Jesus Christ!” she yelled. “And cut. Who the fuck do you think you are?” she demanded.
“Detective Chief Inspector Jackson of Greater Manchester Police. I’m here to interview Ms. Gloria Kendal.”
“Are you blind? She’s working.”
Nothing was calculated to make Jackson’s hackles rise faster than anyone who thought the law didn’t apply to them. “You can’t seriously imagine that your television program takes precedence over a murder investigation? I need to talk to Ms. Kendal, so, if you don’t mind, you’ll just have to rearrange your filming schedule to accommodate that.”
Gloria and Ted had reached us by now. “Accommodate what?” she demanded crossly. She was clearly not thrilled with the prospect of shooting the snow scene again.
“As I’ve just explained to your director here, I’d be obliged if you would accompany me to the police station for a further interview,” Jackson barked. He clearly wasn’t star struck like Linda Shaw.
Gloria gave me a panic-stricken look. “I don’t want to,” she protested.
Time for my tuppenceworth. “You don’t have to. Not unless he’s arresting you. If you want him to interview you here, that’s your right.”
Jackson rounded on me. “You’re still here? I thought I told you to butt out of this investigation?”
“When you pay my wages you can give me orders,” I said mutinously. “My client does not wish to accompany you to the police station, as is her right. She is willing to talk to you here, however. Do you have a problem with that, Inspector?”
Jackson looked around him. “There’s nowhere here to conduct an interview,” he said contemptuously.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Alexis loomed up at his elbow. “I wouldn’t say that, Mr. Jackson. I’ve been doing interviews all over the place. Is there some kind of problem here? Is somebody being arrested?”
“What the hell is the press doing here?” Jackson exploded.
“Press?” the director yelped. “Suffering Jesus, this is supposed to be a closed set. Security!” she bellowed. She pointed at Alexis. “You, out of here.” Then she turned to Jackson. “The same goes for you. Look, we’ve got a people carrier over there. Plenty of room in that. All of you, just fuck off out of my sight, will you?”
Gloria started walking towards the big eight-seater van as two uniformed security guards appeared to escort an unprotesting Alexis back to her car. “Come on, Kate,” Gloria called over her shoulder. “I’m not talking to him without you there.”
“She’s got no right,” Jackson protested. “You’re not a lawyer, Brannigan.”
I shrugged. “Looks like you get to talk to Gloria with me present, or you don’t get to talk to Gloria at all. She is one determined woman, let me tell you.”
I watched Jackson’s blood pressure rise. Then he turned abruptly on his heel and stalked past Gloria towards the people carrier. She followed more slowly and I brought up the rear with Linda Shaw. “I thought Gloria was off the hook,” I said mildly.
Linda pursed her lips. Then, so quietly I could have believed I was imagining things, she said, “That was before we knew about the motive.”
Chapter 15
PLUTO IN VIRGO IN THE 5TH HOUSE
She is critical, both of herself and others. She is driven to seek the answers to the world’s problems and has an analytical mind which she uses in her pitched battles against injustice. She has a great appetite for life, enjoying a vigorous lust in her sexual relationships.
From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson
I’d barely absorbed the impact of Linda Shaw’s bombshell when she delivered the double whammy. “Or the fingerprints on the murder weapon,” she added. There was no time for me to find out more; we’d reached the people carrier by then. Funny, I’d never suspected her of sadism before.
Gloria had already climbed into the front row of rear seats and Jackson, predictably, was in the driving seat. I went to sit next to Gloria, but Linda put a hand on my arm and motioned me into the back row before she slid into place next to my client. “I’ve already told you everything I know,” Gloria started before the doors were even closed. Bad move.
“I don’t think so,” Jackson said brusquely, twisting round to face us. I had a moment’s satisfaction at the sight of a painful razor rash along the line of his collar. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.
“I didn’t kill her. She was still alive when I left her.”
“You had reason to want her dead, though.” Jackson’s words seemed to materialize in the cold air, hanging in front of us like a macabre mobile.
“I beg your pardon, I never did,” Gloria protested, her shoulders squaring in outrage.
Jackson nodded to Linda, who took out her notebook and flipped it open. “We’ve had a statement from a Mr. Tony Satterthwaite—”
“That vicious scumbag?” Gloria interrupted. “You’re not telling me you wasted your time listening to that no-good lying pig?”
“Your ex-husband has been extremely helpful,” Jackson said smoothly, nodding again at Linda.
“Mr. Satterthwaite was distressed by Ms. Dawson’s death, not least because, according to him, it was his affair with her that precipitated the end of your marriage.”
I remembered that line about backbenchers resembling mushrooms because they get kept in the dark except when someone opens the door to shovel shit on them. I knew just how they felt. I glared at Gloria. She stared open-mouthed at Linda. It was the first time I’d ever seen her stuck for something to say.
“He suggested that you had never really forgiven Ms. Dawson for the affair, and that you were, and I quote, ‘the sort of devious bitch who would wait years to get her own back.’ We’d be very interested in your comments, Ms. Kendal,” Linda said coolly.
“You don’t have to say a thing, Gloria,” I said hurriedly.
“What? And let them go on thinking there’s a word of truth in what that money-grubbing moron says? My God,” she said, anger building in her voice, “you lot are gullible. I dumped Tony Satterthwaite because he was an idle leech. He couldn’t even be bothered to look further than his own secretary when he decided to have a bit on the side. Even though she looked like Walter Matthau. He never even met Dorothea, never mind had an affair with her. I’d kicked him out a good six months before she first turned up at Northerners.”