“Oh yes,” she said, her voice guarded.
“I’ve something at the office I think you might like to see,” I told her.
“Oh yes? And what would that be?” She sounded neutral. I guessed Jackson was within hearing range.
“You need to see it to get the full effect. I can promise you it’ll help your clear-up rate.”
“I’d heard you’ve already contributed to that this week,” she said tartly. “I can’t say I’d like to share the experience.”
“This is different,” I said firmly. “Please, Linda. I’m trying to do us both a favor here. You know and I know that if I approach Jackson his first instinct will be to rubbish what I’ve got. And that could mean a murderer walking. You don’t want that any more than I do. So will you come round?”
“Give me an hour,” she said, a noticeable lack of enthusiasm in her voice.
It couldn’t have suited me better. An hour was perfect for what I had to do.
Given the grief I’d already had over the Perfect Son, I’d expected Shelley to rip Gloria’s face off and send her home with it in a paper bag. Instead, Gloria got the star treatment. Apparently, according to Shelley, if her boy was with Gloria, he couldn’t be getting into the kind of trouble I organized especially for him on a daily basis. But Gloria, being a mother herself, would understand Shelley’s concerns. Gloria patted Shelley’s hand, sympathized and told her what a credit to his mother the Perfect Son was. Donovan shifted
Eventually, I managed to shoo Gloria into my office. She did a double take when she saw Freddie perched uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa. I’d promised him there was no reason why anyone had to know he was Dorothea’s son or that he’d been the major mole, but his body language didn’t actually indicate conviction. When Gloria walked in, his face spasmed in panic. “Gloria,” he stammered, jerking to his feet and taking an involuntary sideways step away from her.
“Hiya, chuck,” she said warmly, collapsing on to the sofa. “You another one of Kate’s mystery witnesses, then?”
“Er … yes. She never mentioned you were coming …” He shot me a look that said he’d never trust a private eye again. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I’d lied to him, but I hadn’t. Well, not so’s you’d notice.
We didn’t have long to wait for Linda. She came in with more attitude than a rap band. “This better be good,” she said even before she got across the threshold. I waved her to a chair and leaned against my desk.
“Since you’re all so thrilled to be here, I’ll keep it short as I can. There’s been a mole at NPTV making a small fortune out of selling scandal stories and advance storylines to the press. Dorothea Dawson thought she had worked out the identity of that mole by studying her astrological charts and matching what they told her against the names of people who had access to advance stories and who were in a position to find out about the murky pasts of the cast.” I nodded towards Freddie.
“You might remember Freddie here. He works in the make-up department at Northerners. Freddie witnessed an encounter between Dorothea and a senior management figure at NPTV. Freddie, can you tell DS Shaw what you told me last night?”
He was so overwhelmed with relief that I hadn’t after all revealed either of his secrets that he told the story we’d agreed
“What did Turpin say?” I asked.
“He went bright red. He told her if he wanted to waste the company’s money, there were plenty of perfectly good charities. Then he just stomped out without doing whatever it was he’d come in for.”
“Turpin might well have interpreted Dorothea’s comments as an indirect blackmail threat,” I pointed out.
Linda had listened with her head cocked to one side, critically appraising his words. Then she gave a slight nod. I was about to say more, but she raised one finger and made a series of notes in her pad. “Interesting,” she said.
“There’s more.”
“I’m sure,” she said.
“You’ve already taken a statement from Gloria about the events of the evening when Dorothea was killed. I don’t know if you remember, but she had a far better opportunity than I did to take notice of who else was in and around the car park at the same time. Among the people she saw was that same NPTV executive, John Turpin. Maybe you’d like to confirm that for us, Gloria?”
My client nodded avidly. “That’s right, chuck,” she said eagerly. She was loving every minute of it, just as I’d expected. I hadn’t really needed her there, but she was paying the bill, and I figured a bit of grand-standing might just be worth a Christmas bonus. “I saw John Turpin standing in the doorway of the admin block. He looked as if he was wondering whether it was worth chancing getting his good suit wet in the sleet.”
“Thanks for confirming that, Ms. Kendal. But we did know that already, Kate,” Linda pointed out, not even bothering to make a note this time.
“I’m just sketching in the background, Linda,” I said apologetically. “I became involved in this case because Gloria here was getting death-threat letters. She hired me to take care of her.”
“Which you and yours have done admirably,” the irrepressible Gloria chipped in.
“Thank you, Gloria. I may need that testimonial before long,” I said. “This morning, when I unlocked the office, there was a padded envelope in the mailbox.” I produced an envelope from the desk behind me.
“Inside was an assortment of papers and a floppy disk. The disk contains what I believe are the originals of the letters sent to my client. A note attached to the floppy claims that the originals are to be found on the hard disk of John Turpin’s home computer. I’d have thought that might be grounds for a search warrant?”
Linda grunted noncommittally, frowning at the disk and the note I handed her. “Why would he target you specifically, Gloria?” she asked.
“I haven’t a clue, chuck,” she said. “The only thing I can think of is that I’m the only one of the show’s really big names who lives alone, so maybe he thought I’d be easiest to scare. Mind you, he’s never entirely forgiven me for our Sandra giving him the elbow all those years ago.”
“What?” Linda and I chorused.
“He took our Sandra out for a few weeks, years ago now. Before she met Keith. Any road, she decided he wasn’t for her and she chucked him. He wasn’t best pleased. He’s never had a civil word for me since.”
All I could do was stare at her and shake my head. I love clients who go out of their way to make the job easier. I just don’t seem to get many. I took a deep breath while Linda took more notes.
“Also in the envelope.” I placed more papers in front of her. “A photocopy of Turpin’s phone bills, home and mobile. A photocopy of what looks like a Rolodex card, giving the number of Tina Marshall. She’s the freelance journalist who broke a substantial number of the Northerners stories in the press. Check out the number of calls to her number. I think you’ll find most of them were made a few days before a big Northerners story broke.”
Linda was now sitting upright, totally focused on the papers in front of her. Her finger flicked to and fro. Then she looked me straight in the eye. “This fell through your letterbox,” she said flatly.
“That’s right. It seemed to be my civic duty to pass it on to you, Sergeant.” I rummaged inside the envelope. “There is more.” I handed her the material Gizmo had culled from his electronic sources. More for Gloria and Freddie’s benefit than Linda’s, I ran through the contents.
“And at the time when he placed that order for NPTV stock,” I wound up, “only the killer could have known that the viewing figures were about to climb sky-high on the back of Dorothea Dawson’s murder.”