Jet could or would not
identify the man for whom Daphne had ditched him and continued to insist that
he did not know the woman in the bathtub.
Jet was escorted back to
his arrest cell. He would get the usual meals from the canteen and otherwise be
left alone with the obligatory TV..
***
Back in his superintendent
office, Gary was at a loss as to what to do next.
“Would it help to discuss
it with me?” Nigel said.
“We have a dead woman in a
bathtub and have no idea who she is or where she comes from. And we have a
woman named Daphne who went off with an unknown man last Wednesday and has not
been seen since. Discussing the problem won’t get us any further.”
“Remember the adage: If you
don’t try, you’v already failed?” said Nigel. “We also have a guy who is at odds
with his story and himself.”
“I think I’ll go home for
lunch and consult Cleo,” said Gary.
“I think you’ll have to,
Gary, sich you won’t talk to me about it. I’ll stay and write reports. Len
asked me if I could lend him a hand with his, too. I think it would be OK if
you took the rest of the day off.”
“It isn’t usual for
assistants to send their bosses home, but you’re right.”
“I’ll get a camera
installed,” said Nigel. “If you are going to do interrogations in here, you’ll
need one.”
“I wasn’t going to, but
we’ve all moved on, haven’t we? Can you poke around and see if there a suitable
room you could use as an office for yourself up here, Nigel? You won’t want to
be in here all the time because Gisela and Henry trundle over for secret chats
designed mainly to undermine the Town Hall.”
“Maybe I should stay in
here if that’s the case.”
“You wouldn’t like it. You
need a refuge and nothing constructive comes out of those chats. Roger used to
hate them. He called them occupational therapy. And they had to be secret, no
matter what rubbish they were about. I’m going to put a stop to all that, but
I’ll have to toe the line at first if I want to get my way and gradually change
the concept.”
“So that no one will
notice?” said Nigel.
“Not till there’s a fait
accompli.”
“Bien-sûr!”
***
Cleo was glad to see Gary.
They hadn’t had time to talk about their spat over the Price Bureau. Cleo had
the feeling that Gary was really angry about Dorothy’s scheme and was probably
defending the Hartley Agency in his own way. But the mere suggestion that she
would desert her agency for a fool’s errand, which is how she saw Dorothy’s
plan, was ridiculous, even if he had not remonstrated when she suggested going
in with Dorothy as a joke.
“I’m sorry I was
unfriendly,” he said. “I am contrite.”
“You’d better apologize to
Dorothy. I’ll survive on the rest we have together and the Hartley Agency will
stay open, Gary.”
“But that nonsense she is
planning will have to be stopped.”
“Don’t be so hard on her.
We’ve been on at her to retire and she doesn’t want to,” said Cleo. “Sure, she’s
taking too much on, but let her find out the hard way. She will go on and on
about it until she does.”
“She would be lost without
you, my love, so let’s get it over with fast,” said Gary. “Or shall I make sure
they don’t get a trading license in the first place?”
“What would be the official
reason?”
“Lack of qualifications.”
“OK. I’ll tell
Dorothy to postpone getting that license until we know more about what they are
going to do,” said Cleo. “Will that do for now?”
“I’ve never seen her so
determined, so it may already be too late,” said Gary. “Didn’t Vera want to see
about it yesterday?”
“Maybe she didn’t. Dorothy
would surely have told us if she had.”
“A chat with Vera might be
a good idea then - without Dorothy. They don’t have to take up their Bureau
even if they have a licence.”
“Dorothy is worried about
that memory stick,” said Cleo. “I think that made her more determined to start
her own business.”
“Dorothy did nto do the bit
of investigative work that would have got her somewhere,” said Gary.
“Meaning?”
“Finding out who now owns
the nextdoor house.”
“I don’t think she had
thought much about it. There was no reason to until that memory stick turned
up,” said Cleo.
“The possibility that the
stick had landed in the wrong letterbox never really occurred to her, Cleo. And
now that recording has opened a can of worms.”
“I rather hope someone was
playing a hoax,” said Cleo.
“Amateur dramatics?”
“We never listened to
anything after that dream episode. Who knows what else is on it,” said Cleo.
“Do you still have it here?”
said Gary.
“I do. I am going to copy
it befoe giving it back.”
“Let’s listen in, shall
we?”
***
After the dream episode
there was silence, then a piece of Christmassy music and someone humming to it.
“Can you make sense of
that?” said Gary.
“Dorothy is still in charge
of the Christmas entertainment round here. Gary. Someone might be auditioning.
That music was possibly a bt of casting.”
“Never. Playing potted
carols is a very strange way of trying to get a part.”
“In the pop world such demo
tapes are part of the equipment.”
“So if we listen long
enough, maybe we’ll find out the identity of the ‘recording artist’.”
What they then heard
started off more worrying than edifying.
A male voice said “If you
liked my story, contact me through the stars. Leo is in Virgo and Aquarius is
hunting.”
This was followed by
satanic laughter.
“How stupid is that!” Cleo
declared.
“Astrology now! No
connection to the dream.”
“The astrology reference
was a device, Gary. I think someone is being sexually molested.”
“Well I’m not listening to
any more junk. Dorothy can listen right to the end and tell us if the speakers
reveal their identities or if she knows who Leo and Virgo are.”
“I’ll phone her.”
“Do that, but you should
copy the whole recording before giving it back.”
“That’s 8 gigabytes, Gary.”
“No matter. I’d like this
nonsense seen off. It’s either an audition or a practical joke or something
serious we should attend to. For instance, who bears a grudge against Dorothy?”
“She did have a problem
with people going against the travesty show instead of the usual pantomime,”
said Cleo.
“There you have it. Some
nut is trying to wheedle a part for next time,” said Gary. “Can we discuss what
I’m here for now?”
“Sure. What’s the problem?”
“I don’t have a strategy.
What do you do with a dead woman you can’t identify and one who has disappeared
for a week. They are probably connected, but I can’t see how.”
“What if the woman who
disappeared murdered the other woman?”
“There’s also the boyfriend
to consider. What sort of girl goes with one guy to a disco and leaves with
another?”
“I can’t advise you,” said
Cleo. “Who is the guy who made off with the girl?”
“Jet Black, our jilted
boyfriend, says he does not know him.”
“If he’s lying, he may hold
the key to the mystery,” said Cleo.
“Talking of keys…”
The phone interrupted and
Gary answered it.
***
“Where are you, Daphne?” he
said, switching on the speaker.
“At work,” she replied..
“Don’t move. I’m on my way.
Where did you get my phone number?”
“A man gave Maureen a card
and your number is on it.”
“OK Daphne. Stay at the
Gazette office and wait for me.”
“I’ve got to work till
seven,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good. I’ll be there in 20
minutes.”
***
“What a turn-up for the
books,” said Gary.
“Almost that deus ex
machina again. Awesome! I can’t wait to hear her story.”
“Neither can I. Keep my
lunch warm.”
“I haven’t cooked it yet.”
“Did you notice how similar
her voice is to the one on the recording?” said Cleo.
“I was listening to content
rather than sound quality.”
“So you may want to ask her
about that.”
“You’re right. Get that
Agency of yours open, Cleo.”
“Not the Price Bureau?”
“Do I have to answer that?”
***
Gary could not get to the
Gazette office fast enough. Of course he was glad she was alive, but had the
other woman died for her?
“Where have you been since
last Thursday, Daphne?” he asked.
“What business is it of
yours? You might be a cop, but I’ve got a private life.”
“Answer my questions and
I’ll answer yours.”
“Very well. I had a few
days off,” she said.
“Your colleague didn’t
know.”
“Yes she did. She plays at
being nice to people, but she’s trying to get me out of here. I had back
holiday to take from last year and I left her a note. She said it would be OK.”
“But I was told that you
were off work without permission.”
“Maureen was lying. She
wants my job.”
“Why would she want your
job? She already works here.”
“She wants her sister to
work here.”
“OK, let’s leave that for
now. Where were you for a whole week?
“At home and then at my
Mum’s. Why?”
“Because yesterday morning
a young woman was found dead in your bathtub Daphne,.”
The young woman paled and
clutched at the reception counter.
“How did she get in?” she
said. “Who was she? Who killed her? Was it Jet? He pinched my doorkey.”
Gary made a mental note of
what Daphne had just said. It tied in with Black’s story, but he would not
pursue that line for the moment.
“I only said she was dead,
Daphne. I did not say she had been murdered. I think we’d better go to my
office at HQ to continue our conversation.”
“I can’t go now. I’ve got
to work.”
Bertie Browne had not heard
what was happening at the front of his office because he was watching sport on
TV in his managerial room, as he liked to call it, but he heard Daphne shouting
and came to see what was going on.
“Oh, It’s you, ” he said
when he saw Gary, who was not one of his favourite people.
“I’m about to take Daphne
to my office, Bertie,” he said. “Any objection?”
Gary knew that Bertie could
hardly say there was. But he did protest that Daphne had to work because the next
edition had to be up and running as soon as possible.
“Then you’ll have to deal
with it yourself, Bertie. Get your things Daphne. I don’t know if you’ll be
able to come back to work today.
“What has she done?”
screeched Bertie.
“Nothing, Mr Browne,”
Daphne retorted.
“I’m hoping to find out,
Bertie.”
***
Daphne was overawed by the
size of Gary’s office. She was also put out by the presence of Nigel in the
guise of a cop. She was a fan of his as a cross-dressing show ‘girl’. He was
marvellous. What was he doing here?
“This is Nigel,” said Gary.
“I see that you already know my assistant.”
“No,” said Daphne. “Not
personally.”
Daphne took a little diary
out of her handbag and pushed it towards Nigel.
“Can I have your autograph,
Miss – Mr. ….?
“That’s OK, Daphne,” said
Nigel. “Sorry I couldn’t let you audition. The show is just a dressing up game
for men. I’m a cop and I work here. I couldn’t live on the proceeds of the show.
Who shall I say it’s for?”
“Me. Daphne.”
“Are you THE Daphne?”
“She is,” said Gary.
“Where were you?” said
Nigel. ”We thought you were dead.”
“Don’t jump the guns,
Nigel. We must talk systematically.”
“Coffee or tea, Daphne,”
said Nigel, taking the hint.
“Tea. No sugar. I’m
dieting.”
“Have a biscuit, Daphne. I
can call you Daphne, can’t I? We are still friends even if I did turn you down
as a stripper.”
“Daphne’s fine,” she said. “I
wasn’t going to strip.”
How beautiful are the feet,
thought Gary. If Daphne had been trying to get a part in a show, she was
dabbling in stage-craft, so Cleo might be on to something. Nigel went to get
tea out of a machine that would have the capacity to serve a battalion, but had
to be coaxed to provide really boiling water.
“Have the biscuits got a
lot of calories?” Daphne asked anxiously.
“Not many,” said Gary, who
had no idea.
“I’ll just have one then.”
“Have two. They’re very
small.”
The packet was half empty
even before the tea arrived.
Nigel and Gary exchanged
amused glances. Daphne was not taking her dieting very seriously. Gary hoped
she would take the interview more seriously, although he had now decided that
she could not be guilty of anything except naivety.
***
“Do you make recordings,
Daphne?” Gary started, now using a totally different approach.
Daphne looked puzzled.
“Is it possible that you
made a recording to use as an audition tape?” Gary explained.
Daphne still looked
puzzled.
“You’ll have to ask my
agent,” she said.
“Who?” said Nigel. Daphne
had not turned up to the audition with an agent. Not that it would have made
any difference, but agents usually came along. “Who is your agent?”
“Ronnie.”
“Who’s Ronnie?” Gary asked.
Nigel chipped in.
“Ronnie Fish is a notorious
lover-boy with a new angle on self-survival,” he explained. “Isn’t that so,
Daphne?”
“I thought lover-boys went
for vulnerable girls in gymslips,” said Gary.
“Not all of them. That’s a
criminal offence, so they take older girls who are just as vulnerable, but over
18, and men like Ronnie, who is more of a pimp than anything else, use
different ruses to tempt their prey. There was an article about it in Joe’s
Cop’s Corner last month. Didn’t you read it?”
Gary shook his head. It had
been too chaotic at home. His brother Joe’s rubric on new forms of criminal
activity had indeed escaped his attention.
Daphne was listening wide
eyed.
“Too many babies at home, I
suppose,” said Nigel, to Daphne’s astonishment.
“Not too many, Nigel, but a
strain on time and nerves.”
Whose babes?” she asked.
“Not babes, Daphne.
Babies,” said Nigel.
***
“Can I have another
biscuit,” Daphne asked. “They are not as nice as Ronnie’s, but tasty.”
“That’s another ruse,”
Nigel said. “Did the biscuits make you feel warm all over?”
“Free as a bird,” Daphne
said. “It made it easier to …well…”
“Cannabis,” said Nigel.
“Biscuits with cannabis are quite fashionable even at ladies’ tea-parties.”
“Get Mia to haul him in,
Nigel. She’s in charge of drugs now.”
“Drugs?” said Daphne.
“Ronnie only gave me headache pills for my migraine. That’s not drugs and
biscuits aren’t drugs either.”
“Ecstasy,” said Nigel.
“Maybe we could use a female ingénue in the show after all.”
“What’s that?” said Daphne
through a mouthful of biscuit. “Are you offering me a job?”
Cleo would have said that
the questioning was rapidly descending into a comedy routine.
***
“Tell us about Ronnie,”
said Gary, anxious to get back to the questioning he needed for possible progress
on the dead woman case.
“Is that the person you
left the disco with, Daphne?” Nigel asked. “The guy who says he’s a casting
director?”
“He’s a theagre agent.”
Same thing,” said Nigel.
“Is he really your agent?”
Gary aksed.
“Yes, but he’s also a good
friend.”
“Where does he live?”
The other side of
Middlethumpton. Oxford road.”
“Had you arranged to meet
him at the disco?” gary asked, thinking of Jet’s story.
“Not exactly. I went there
with another friend.”
“Who was that?”
“Jet. Do you know him?”
“Would it matter if I did,
Daphne?” said Gary.
Nigel had gone back to his note-writing
and was scribbling furiously to keep up with the dialogue.
“I don’t know.”
“What did you do
immediately after you left the disco?”
“Ronnie said he had a job
for me, so we got in his car and drove to his place.”
“Had Ronnie got you jobs before?”
“No.”
“What kind of a job is it?”
“I have to get undressed
and wear fancy underwear or see-through beach things. My own clothes are not
suitable for auditions. Then I get to perform for impres…”
“Impresarios?”
“That’s them.”
“How many impresarios did
you perform for, assuming the visit to your mother was only a slip of the
tongue?”
“I don’t know their names.
They came from London. Important theatre people.”
“They mainly like little
girls. Inexperienced, if you get my meaning.”
Gary wondered if Daphne
understood what she was saying.
“Were you told not to tell
anyone about them, Daphne?”
“Sort of, but there’s no
harm in telling, is there?”
The girl is a twit, Nigel
decided.
“What did they usually do,
these little girls?”
“I’d rather not say,” said
Daphne.
“Why not? I won’t split on
you to Jet.”
“So you do know him?”
“Slip of the tongue,” said
Gary, angry with himself.
“It was all rather
strange,” she said.
“Did they want you to
perform intimate things?” said Gary.
Nigel left the room. He had
the feeling that Daphne would prefer him not to hear any more. He was right,
but he eavesdropped through a crack in the door and Daphne had her back to it.
“I didn’t like him here,”
Daphne said.
“You can trust him, Daphne.
Carry on with your story. “Did they…?”
Nigel returned to his
table.
“I’ll listen to the radio,”
he said, inserting earphones.
Daphne smiled. If he was
listening to music, he wouldn’t hear what she said anyway.
Of course, Nigel was
listening to the girl’s tale and making notes.
“Ronnie said it would help
me to get a good part if I did what they wanted.”
“So you did.”
Daphne nodded. She was
ashamed because she now realized that her week under Ronnie’s roof had not been
about auditioning, but about being available to the men that Ronnie brought in;
older men who were disgusting. She was a good girl. She had never done that
before.
“They were all his
colleagues in the theatre,” she said.
“More tea!” Gary asked.
“Yes please.”
“More biscuits?”
“I’ve eaten them all.”
“I’ve got another packet,
Daphne, I’m glad you like them.”
***
Nigel followed Gary into
the kitchen to get the tea.
“I’ve put a patrol team
onto that guy,” said Nigel.
“What about his surname?”
“Fish. He’s known round
about.”
Gary filled Daphne’s cop
and she told him not to tell anbyone what she had told him.
“It’ll be my death,” sie
wimpered.
“Telling me was good,
Daphne, and we won’t split on you.”
“Why do you think he might
want to kill you?” said Gary. “Doesn’t he love you?”
“I think he’s done it
before.”
“Done what?”
Daphne drew a fearful
finger across her throat.
“That’s a murder
accusation, Daphne.”
“I think he got my friend
to go there. I never saw her again.”
From being a relatively
harmless interview, it was becoming ominous.
“Have you reason to believe
what you have just said, or are you just upset about Ronnie’s bluff?”
“I’m serious,” said Daphne.
“What is your friend’s
name?”
“Irene.”
“When did you last see her
or hear from her?”
“About a year ago. You
don’t think…?”
“I don’t think anything yet
Daphne. We will need to talk about Jet, but not now. You can go back to work
and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“But I don’t want to see
Ronnie. I ran away this morning. He’ll be looking for me.”
“And you went to the
office, Daphne? That was foolish of you.”
“I felt safer there. I
could not get into my flat because I didn’t have a key and my neighbour wasn
out.”
“You had a lucky break,
Daphne,” said Gary. “We’ll find him before he finds you, Daphne. Nigel will go
with you to the office and look after you until we get Ronnie here.”
Nigel rolled his eyes like
he had seen Cleo do.
“OK, Gary. If you think
it’s a good idea, but I’d rather take her to the canteen for a square meal to
go with the round biscuits.”
“What would you prefer,
Daphne?” said Gary.
“The canteen. Mr Browne
would only ask questions.”
“OK. Off you go, you two.
I’ll see about Ronnie and get Mia to help me deal with him. He’ll be on a drugs
charge. We don’t know what he did with your friend Irene, if anything.”
“I could let Daphne look at
the mug shots in the archive.”
“Brilliant. Let me know.”
“What’s a mug shot?”
“In this case it’s a photo
of a missing person,” said Nigel.
“I didn’t report her
missing,” said Daphne.
“But someone might have, or
someone just found the body and the face is in the collection, or the person
has lost his or her memory.”
All the time Gary was
thinking of the dead woman in Daphne’s flat, of course, but he did not want to
pre-empt an identification. If Daphne recognized the woman on the photo the
next step would be facing her with the corpse and he was not sure if Daphne’s
nerves were stable enough.
***
“Can I have a pork chop?”
So much for finer feelings,
thought Gary.
Daphne excused herself to
go and use what she called the restroom. She was clearly out of her depth with
crime stuff. Gary was sure she knew nothing about the corpse in her flat, but
there was always a chance that she would know who it was.
“Show her the photo of the
dead woman in her bathroom, Nigel.”
“I was going to.”
“And find out how many
people have a key to her flat, Nigel.”
“I’ve thought of that, too,
Gary. She really is on a different planet.”
“I’ll phone Mia. Ronnie
should not be out there abusing young women longing for stardom.”
“Do you think she made that
recording you talked about?”
“The voice is similar, but
those kinds of young women imitate the stars and all sound pretty much the same
.”
“Maybe Dorothy was not
meant to get the recording. Does she have an illustrious neighbour?”
“Someone bought Jane
Barker’s house and moved in recently.”
“We’d better look him up
then, hadn’t we?” said Nigel.
“You have a suspicious
mind, Nigel.”
“Don’t we all?”
“I hope Daphne has not
run off, Nigel. She’s taking a long time in that loo.”
As if on cue Daphne
returned. She had redone her makeup and back-combed her hair. Gary would not
have admitted it, but he was relieved.
“Why the war-paint?”
said Nigel.
“You never know who
you’ll meet,” said Daphne.
She had clearly
recovered from her week of depravity.
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