Matthew’s car was outside when she reached home. She let herself in and immediately smelt flowers. Lilies and roses. She sniffed the air then pushed open the door to the dining room. The table was laid with a white cloth and set with sparkling wine glasses and polished cutlery. In the centre of the table was the source of the scent, a cut-glass vase full of pink roses and creamy pink lilies. She sniffed again. Other smells were coming from the kitchen: onions, bacon, basil. She walked through. Matthew, in a navy-and-white-striped apron over his jeans, was stirring something in a saucepan. Pasta was bubbling vigorously in another. He beamed across at her. ‘Good evening, Mrs Levin,’ he said with a sweeping mock bow. ‘Welcome home. How was your first day back at work?’
‘Bloody awful,’ she confessed, sitting down, pulling off her shoes and wriggling her stockinged toes. ‘But what would I expect after being in the Garden of Eden for a fortnight with you?’
‘I see,’ he said with mock gravity, affecting a heavy frown. ‘Having trouble fitting back into the real world, are you?’
‘Yes.’ She stood up, put her arms around his neck and met his soft green eyes. ‘Can’t we sneak off for another honeymoon?’ She brushed his lips with her own. ‘Is there a law that says you can’t have two?’
He looked down at her indulgently and pretended to think about it. ‘Not as far as I know, Jo. But you’re supposed to be the expert in law, aren’t you? If you want my opinion, two honeymoons sound round about twice as good as one. Where would you like to go to next, my lady?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ In her heart of hearts she knew there could only really be one honeymoon. That was the whole point of them. She stroked his cheek with her fingers. It was rough and prickly and her fingers made a rasping sound. She kissed his mouth, loving the taste of it, feeling the masculinity of his arms, his back, his shoulders, breathing in the spicy scent. ‘Matt,’ she said, ‘the flowers.’ She folded her arms around him even tighter and was unable to resist pulling his leg. ‘They are lovely. But …’ She gave a mock frown, ‘aren’t they the traditional penance for an erring husband?’
He laughed and kissed her very gently on the lips, no more than a brush this time. ‘Don’t get too used to this treatment, Mrs Levin. It won’t happen often.’
‘Oh, shame,’ she said, slipping her jacket off.
He grinned at her.
She waited until she had showered, they were sitting opposite each other and she had her mouth full of pasta cooked with bacon, cream, onion, garlic, tomatoes and mushrooms. ‘De-licious,’ she said appreciatively. ‘You have my permission to cook this whenever you get the urge. And for your further information I really did have a rubbish day at work. One old biddy is causing absolute havoc calling the police out every day with complete trivia. I think she could take up the entire Leek police force’s time. By the time we’ve written up one report she’s back on the blower. Keeps ringing. She’s driving us mad. I feel really sorry for Korpanski and the others. They’ve been plagued by her. I’ve only been back one day and already I’ve been out there, and just before I left there was another call.’ She raised another forkful of pasta to her mouth. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do about her. Once the call’s logged we’ve no option but to go.’ She thought for a minute then put her fork down and cupped her chin in her palm. ‘I suppose, realistically, we’ll just have to take longer and longer to respond. Maybe she’ll get the hint in the end.’ She frowned. ‘But, you know what, Matt?’
His mouth was too full of pasta to reply but his eyes encouraged her to respond to her own question.
‘She doesn’t strike me as confused or muddled. She’s one of those face-lifted, in control sort of women. She was an actress and, true to form, has had more than one husband. But she does strike me as sane, if more than a little overdramatic. So what’s going on?’
Matthew swallowed and shrugged. ‘She’s just panicky, I guess.’
‘Mmm.’ She was unconvinced. ‘The call-outs are quite specific in nature,’ she continued. ‘Things that have been moved, a dead mouse – according to her – deliberately planted in the bread bin. I was summoned today because someone had been smoking outside an open kitchen window at five o’clock in the morning.’
‘You’re kidding.’
She waved her fork at him then took a sip of wine. ‘I am not.’
Matthew’s eyebrows were raised but he said nothing, waiting for her to continue. She frowned and met his eyes. ‘The odd thing is, Matt, there was some fresh cigarette ash outside the window and no one there does smoke, so it all seems reasonable. But this place is miles from anywhere. It’s the middle of winter, for goodness’ sake – who’s going to be standing outside a window puffing smoke into the kitchen? What would be the point? She might even have been asleep and slept right through the whole charade.’ She sighed. ‘But there is the indisputable evidence of the ash and it hadn’t lain there long. The only other explanation is that she or Diana planted it there.’
Now Matthew was frowning too, so she continued, ‘I thought I’d got through to her that she shouldn’t keep calling us out for nothing but I’d hardly got back to the station when there’s another call. This time her late husband’s watch has turned up in her bedroom this afternoon in spite of having been buried with him in his coffin.’
Matthew looked incredulous. ‘Now that’s a trick worthy of Houdini,’ he said, grinning.
She nodded in puzzlement and agreement. ‘Surely it has to just be a similar watch,’ she said. ‘Either that or it wasn’t buried with her nearest and dearest. One or the other.’
Matthew grinned at her indulgently. ‘When you’ve excluded the impossible …’ he quoted partially.
‘I can only come to the conclusion that in spite of her apparent sanity Timony Weeks is, in fact, losing her marbles. And fairly quickly.’
At the mention of Timony’s name Matt looked at her in disbelief. ‘You’re joking.’
‘No. That really is her name.’
Matthew’s face was thoughtful. ‘Unless these tricks really are being played on her.’
‘I really don’t know what to think. Anyway, that’s not all my bad news.’
‘There’s more?’
‘As well as being haunted by a sixty-year-old lady, apparently a humourless psycho is to replace Colclough.’
‘All good news then, Jo.’ She was tempted to flick a spoonful of Parmesan cheese at him but knew she wouldn’t fancy cleaning it all up later so resisted, merely making a face at him, then reaching across and touching his hand. ‘And how about your first day back?’ Matthew was a Home Office pathologist, and while his descriptions of his day’s work could be gruesome, to Joanna they were invariably fascinating – and a useful education.
‘Oh. The usual. Nothing very interesting. Nothing for you. No murders or even a suicide. Just sickness, death and mother nature.’
She eyed him sharply. ‘You’ve come down to earth with a bump too, Matt. We’ve only been married a couple of weeks.’
He smiled at her. ‘We’ve had our fairy tale, Jo. Now we have to face the real future together.’
She studied him. With his tousled blond hair, stubborn chin, green eyes and lovely grin he was very easy on the eye, as he had been from the time she had first noticed him, when she had met his eyes in the mirror as he had stood behind her, after a particularly unpleasant post-mortem she had attended, and been amused at her squeamishness. Oh, yes. She had noticed him all right. But that angle of his jaw had forewarned her. She and he were two strong characters. There was always going to be a clashing of horns. He was right, though. However turbulent the path ahead might prove they now had to face the real future together.
And that might well be tough. She knew she had one vision of their future and he another.
She knew he would like to start a family, whereas she …? She could have put it off, perhaps for ever.
As soon as they had finished their meal he stood up. ‘I think I’ll just give Eloise a ring,’ he said, breaking the magic of the evening. ‘See how she’s getting on.’
Which left her to load the dishwasher and put the pans in to soak.
She looked out of the window to a brightening sky. ‘It looks lovely,’ she said. ‘I wonder if I could risk the bike.’
Matthew came up behind her and wrapped her in his arms. ‘No, Jo,’ he protested. ‘It’s too dark. You can’t be seen even with lights and a fluorescent jacket. It’s too dangerous. And it’ll be freezing and slippery.’ He nuzzled her neck. ‘Wait until the spring, darling.’
But instead of the warm stroke of his fingers on her neck she felt the cold grip of resentment and instead of turning around to kiss him she stayed where she was, staring out of the window at the silver streaks in the sky that heralded the approaching dawn. He was clipping her wings already. She could feel her shoulders bunch up, feel the words line up, ready to say, sharply, that she would be the one to make this particular decision, whether she went to work on her bike or in the car. She could feel by the tension in his fingers that Matthew sensed this struggle too and was holding his breath, waiting for her to resolve it. She turned around then and challenged him with a direct stare. His mouth was in a firm line. He said nothing. He was still waiting.
She smiled, somehow feeling that she had gained the high ground here but not quite sure how. ‘You’re probably right,’ she capitulated. Then, ‘But I really must go out on my bike on Sunday, Matthew, otherwise I’ll seize up.’
‘Umm,’ he said awkwardly.
She just knew what was coming next.
‘I meant to talk to you about that,’ he said, the words tumbling out too quickly, as though they had been gridlocked in his brain and were frantic to escape. ‘I thought it’d be nice to have Eloise over for the day.’
She looked at him, feeling her face and her words freeze. Eloise was Matthew’s daughter with whom Joanna had a less than cordial relationship. ‘Nice for whom?’
And watched as his eyes grew as cold as her voice. ‘Nice for all of us,’ he said carefully. ‘I thought it would be nice for all of us.’
‘Well, it doesn’t stop me from going out on my bike, does it, Matt?’
‘No, it doesn’t.’ There was an edge to his voice and she recognized, with a feeling of despair, that the icicles were already forming between them.
‘Good,’ she said, planning an extra-long route on Sunday whatever the weather. ‘Because I can’t wait to get on it.’
His eyes flickered. It was no more than that. A simple flicker, a small yellow light in both green irises. But she read it and felt resentful all the way into work.
Did you really think marriage would solve any of your problems, Piercy? she scolded herself as she manoeuvred the car along the road into Leek.
Korpanski’s black Ford Focus was already parked up outside the station when she arrived and he was sitting at his desk, his computer switched on. She hung her jacket up on the hook on the back of the door. ‘Morning, Mike. Any more calls from our …?’
‘Her companion’s rung in to say that our friend is going away for a little holiday.’
She sat down and switched her screen on. ‘To the funny farm, I hope.’
‘She didn’t say so but she did ask if we could possibly go out there before they went.’
‘What for?’
Korpanski shrugged. ‘Search me.’
‘Shall we both go?’
He stood up with little enthusiasm.
The wind was up and the chilly atmosphere even penetrated the interior of the car as they drove across the moorlands. ‘I’d hate to live out here,’ Korpanski said. ‘It’s so cold and miles from anywhere.’ His eyes scanned the barren landscape. ‘Nothing to look at.’
‘I’d love it,’ Joanna responded, her eyes sweeping the panorama, empty apart from a few stray sheep, pale winter grass and drystone walls. ‘It’s so wild and fantastically bleak and lonely. I’d love it,’ she said again. ‘But it does take a particular sort of person to live out here. They need to be private, self-sufficient.’
Korpanski grinned at her. ‘Like you?’
She had missed this idle banter. ‘Bugger off, Korpanski,’ she said good-naturedly. ‘Actually, I wasn’t thinking of me but our friend Mrs Weeks. Now she wouldn’t have struck me as someone who fitted the profile of a moorland person. She seems much more of a townie. And her clothes and tastes seem to fit that too.’ She considered for a minute. ‘Plus the fairly obvious and extensive cosmetic surgery.’
Korpanski was smiling. ‘Doing a psychological profile, Inspector?’
‘Bugger off,’ she said again, even milder the second time around. Truth was, she was relieved that her recent married status hadn’t altered their relationship. In a way, she reflected, when Korpanski had asked whether he should in future call her Mrs Levin or stick with Piercy he had been asking that very question. What would change? Well, nothing.
As she had done on the previous day they stopped at the ridge to look down on Butterfield Farm and Mike echoed her thoughts. ‘For a house that’s on its own it’s not exactly tucked away, is it? It’s easy to overlook from here.’
She turned to face him. ‘You’re starting to believe her? That there’s some maverick, mad stalker out there?’
‘Not necessarily but—’
‘But what?’
Korpanski’s dark eyes scanned the empty panorama. ‘Why stay out here if she’s so rattled?’
‘Because she’s stubborn, independent, because she doesn’t want to give in to her feelings?’
But she too turned to look at the farmhouse which stood in such isolation, trying to hide inside the valley but only succeeding in drawing attention to itself. ‘I don’t know, Mike. Maybe she just wants privacy.’
Diana Tong was standing in the doorway, watching them as they drove in. And even before they’d parked they could tell her manner had changed subtly from yesterday. She was less haughty and condescending, stepping towards them as they pulled up and greeting them almost like old friends as they climbed out of the car. ‘Inspector, Sergeant. Thank you for coming. Timony and I, well, we think we should do some explaining. Give you some background, you see.’
It was on the tip of Joanna’s tongue to say that this trip was possibly yet another waste of time but at the same time she was curious. She stayed silent, managing to limit her acerbity to, ‘We’d be grateful if you keep it brief and help with the frequent calls your employer’s been making. If they continue,’ she added darkly, ‘we may even be forced to bring a prosecution against her for wasting police time.’
Diana Tong’s feathers weren’t even ruffled. ‘Just hear Timony’s story,’ she appealed. ‘I think you’ll find it goes some way towards explaining at least some things,’ she replied coolly, holding the door open to allow them to file in.
Timony Weeks was sitting on the sofa looking – frankly – terrified, thinner, older and, if her face had been able to display any emotion, Joanna guessed she would have looked distraught. There was a distinct change from yesterday.
Korpanski said nothing but shot her a swift, puzzled look. It was the look a concerned son might aim towards a parent he has suddenly realized is ageing fast. The watch was lying on Timony’s lap. She was looking down at it with an expression of revulsion, her hands and back angled away as though its touch would taint her.
‘I had it buried with him,’ she said, still looking down at it rather than at the police. ‘It was left on his wrist when he was placed in his coffin. I saw it buckled on, the strap fastened. Gerald loved this watch. It was his favourite thing. He asked to be buried with it – on – his – wrist.’ The last few words were spoken in a panicky, hiccupping voice. ‘Someone must have …’
Joanna shifted on her feet, wanting to point out that Mrs Weeks’ first husband might have loved his watch so much he’d asked to be buried with it strapped around his wrist, but that meant that it was almost certainly not this watch. It was a fairly obvious if tacky trick. Unless she had played it on herself. If she hadn’t it was indeed a nasty prank. But if someone else was involved it meant that the person who planted this watch must have known of her late husband’s wish.
Responding to her unspoken thought without comment Diana Tong passed across a yellowing newspaper cutting. Joanna read it and passed it to Korpanski, who also read it wordlessly then handed it back to her. The headline screamed: Child Star’s Late-Husband’s Request.
Underneath it detailed the whole damned lot, that Gerald Portmann, the late husband of ‘child star’ Timony Shore, had asked to have his beloved Rolex Oyster (Perpetual Air-King) to be strapped to his right wrist and buried with him. It went on to describe the clothes he should also be wearing, and underneath that a perfectly tasteless picture of the dead man in his coffin wearing the (also prescribed) dark pinstriped suit, white shirt and tie, the right sleeves of both jacket and shirt pushed up just enough to expose the shining face and dark strap of the watch in question.
Joanna looked down at the item in Timony’s shaking hand. She and Mike exchanged looks and messages. His head gave an almost imperceptible jerk towards the newspaper. She could interpret his comment only too well. So the whole bloody world knew about it.
Even so, Joanna tried to put the point over to Timony. ‘You can’t be sure that this is his watch.’
‘Oh, but I can. The scratch across the glass.’ Staring ahead of her, as though she was a blind person, Timony’s fingernail followed a line, a scratch on the watch glass which reached from the top of the one to the bottom of the line which represented four. ‘That happened when he had the car accident in which he died,’ she explained. ‘He was wearing it then too.’ Her eyes flicked upwards to meet Joanna’s with a mute appeal to be believed. ‘He always wore it, Inspector. He hardly ever took it off. He just loved it. To him it was the ultimate star status symbol.’ Her fingers stroked it and her face looked far away, pillow-deep in memory. Joanna glanced across at Korpanski and could barely resist rolling her eyes. Korpanski, for his part, gave her an innocently bland smile, as though to say, Well you’re the boss, Boss. And I’m just the lackey. She scowled at him.
‘The watch isn’t proof of anything,’ Joanna said calmly. She wanted to take the item from her but even she was a little spooked by the thought of touching a watch which had lain around the wrist of a dead person for …?
‘How long ago did your first husband die?’
‘Gerald died forty years ago, Inspector,’ she said calmly, ‘in nineteen seventy-two.’
Joanna’s eyes locked on the item. Common sense told her that this could not be the watch that had been strapped to Gerald Portmann’s dead wrist. But superstition argued with common sense. Common sense won. She slipped on a pair of gloves and reached out for it.
‘May I?’
Timony Weeks handed it over with a tiny shiver of revulsion.
Joanna looked at it. She’d never really seen what all the fuss was about Rolexes but there was something about the feel of it, the elegance and stark cleanness of its dial. Then, using her much-mocked magnifying glass, she peered closer. Embedded around the dial was what looked like soil.
Grave soil?
And the watch itself was ticking, as though it had an unstoppable, malevolent life of its own. A mechanical heart. Had it ticked away in the grave, Edgar Allan Poe like? For a fraction of a second in the room they were all silent, listening to the quiet but insistent tick of the watch. Joanna passed it to Mike, who’d put a glove on his right hand and stretched it out.
Joanna looked back at Timony Weeks. ‘Why are you so afraid, Mrs Weeks? What exactly are you afraid of? And if you are that afraid why continue to live out here in this lonely spot?’
Timony Weeks looked at her with her doll-like, expressionless face. ‘OK, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I’ll answer all your questions as best I can.’ Her voice was quiet, low and husky, but Joanna had the feeling that you could use this voice to create an effect. It could be low and husky, it could also be sexy and strident. Her choice. She continued: ‘First of all, why do I stay out here when I am uncomfortable and being hounded?’ she began.
Joanna felt on safer ground. This was her beat. ‘Well, it would seem logical, Mrs Weeks, whether these episodes are real or part-imagined, to move into the town.’
Mrs Weeks seemed impervious to Joanna’s attempt to bring things down to earth and hurry the interview along. But the detective’s displayed impatience did not have the effect of hurrying her through her statement.
‘You need to understand about my life,’ she said, and again Joanna felt her temper simmer towards boiling point. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. She and Korpanski had more than enough work to do. The theft of luxury cars in and around Leek was moving towards epidemic proportions. They simply didn’t have the time to listen to a prolonged and drawn-out life history, however eventful that life had been. Child star … And yet, as she glanced across to pick up Korpanski’s take on the situation, Joanna could see from his expression of studied indifference and the gleam in his very dark eyes that, like herself, he felt some curiosity towards this strange woman.
Whether Timony picked up on this or not she began the story like an episode of Listen With Mother. ‘In nineteen sixty,’ she began, ‘when I was eight years old, I was signed up as a child actress to what would become the biggest …’ she smiled to herself, ‘I suppose these days you’d call it a soap.’ She paused (for maximum effect?) and continued, ‘There weren’t many TV programmes then and it was one of the few series aimed at …’ She paused, and mocked, ‘“the family”. It was called Butterfield Farm. It was a huge hit and ran for twelve years. I was the little Shirley Temple in it. I played Lily Butterfield. I was very small for my age. When I was eight I looked about five. I wore tiny nylon dresses, sometimes dungarees. I sang and I danced and I had a mop of curly red hair.’ She laughed. ‘Not that you could tell it was red. Television then was all in black and white.’
For the first time they saw her really smile with her porcelain teeth. And although her mouth was surgically stiff and swollen, something of the pretty child peeped out from behind the face that had become a tight mask.
She continued, ‘The series ran until I was nearly twenty, finally folding in early nineteen seventy-two. I always looked young for my age and the studio managers made sure I stayed even younger. I was on a strict diet and when my breasts began to form they were bandaged up.’ Again she smiled but this time her expression was tinged with cynicism and an element of disgust. She looked as though she expected either Joanna or DS Mike Korpanski to interrupt but neither did. They knew they were in for the full version. They were both thinking the same thing – that they may as well sit this one out and then, perhaps, all would be resolved and the call-outs would stop.
After scanning them both, Timony went on: ‘These days they’re more likely to put fake boobs in the young stars, I suppose. They seem to want kids to look sexually active from the age of eight.’ She paused, a shadow straining her face. ‘Or even six.’ She rubbed her forehead as though it itched. ‘Anyway, the show brought its rewards. I was earning in excess of a thousand pounds a week, which was riches in the early sixties.’ She smiled, or at least her lips curved upwards. ‘Looking at it nowadays, the storylines would seem a bit bland and derivative of American imports, cattle rustling, a lost lamb, a cow that calved.’ She humphed, ‘With a lot of mooing and groaning. Even a murder. Some poor cowhand was found at the bottom of the well.’ Suddenly she looked vague, her forehead struggling to frown. ‘I think …’ She attempted to retrieve her story with a smile. ‘There were so many episodes – one a week every week for twelve years. Along the way I’ve had five husbands.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Not all of them very satisfactory. I’d had two by the time I was twenty-one. My first husband was a lot older than me. He was my screen Daddy on Butterfield.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘It almost felt incestuous but Gerald was one of the loves of my life. I adored him. Unfortunately he died in a road accident in the States, on the Santa Monica highway. He’d been working on a film out there. I’d been due to join him.’ Her finger massaged the area between her eyebrows as though searching for a frown line and failing to find it. ‘The movie never happened. I did try the movies later on but I could never settle in the States. Anyway …’
She waved her hands around, crossed her legs and pulled a frown, then continued. ‘By the time I was eighteen I’d made enough money and Gerald was wealthy anyway. After Butterfield folded – we shot the last few episodes late in nineteen seventy-one – I didn’t really need to earn any more so I had little to do except get married and divorced and make the odd “B” movie. At nineteen I was basically redundant and watched my celebrity fade. A light, first bright, dimming quick.’ Showing a tinge of cynicism she looked straight at Joanna. ‘Let me tell you how it is, Inspector,’ she said, holding up an index finger. ‘This is how it happens. At first newspapers, magazines, interviews, opening supermarkets, meeting royalty, cutting ribbons. They were happy days.’ She spoke quickly. ‘Everyone wanted a little piece of me. And then, poof.’ She exploded her hands. ‘Suddenly, no one did any more.’ She gave a wry smile and looked both bleak and cynical. ‘At twenty I was history. You see, I committed the unforgivable sin, Inspector.’ She turned her head to encompass Korpanski too. ‘Sergeant, I got older. From being the darling of the universe I was thrown out like an old sock with a hole in the toe. You see, no one wanted me to grow up. Ever. My adoring fans couldn’t forgive my ageing. They didn’t want to know the adult me but preserve my memory in aspic as that sweet little girl.’ Again she looked straight at Joanna. ‘The only way to keep a little girl a little girl is for that little girl to never grow up. In other words, to die young. Then she remains the child. For ever Timony Shore or Lily Butterfield. Take your pick. Beautiful, sweet little child.’ The cynicism in her voice was as toxic as mustard gas.
She paused again, then looked directly at Joanna and then at Mike, as though to satisfy herself that they were listening. ‘You have to understand how big and famous I was. There was hardly any family TV in those days, not a great deal of choice, so practically everyone in the UK was tuned into Butterfield Farm on a Saturday evening.’ She tossed her head. ‘I was mobbed everywhere. It was celebrity culture in the early sixties. It brought its pains and gains.’ Her face twisted. ‘At one point I was threatened – stalked – by a fan who tried to gouge my eyes out as I came out of the studio one evening. I was almost fourteen at the time.’ Her finger touched a tiny scar at the edge of her right eyebrow which Joanna would not have noticed unless she had drawn her attention to it in this abstract way. ‘After Gerald died I married husband number two, Sol Brannigan, who was as tough as they make them.’ Her eyes flickered dangerously at the memory. ‘He liked to treat his women rough but he did protect me.’
Joanna recalled that it was Sol Brannigan who had liked to taunt her by smoking just outside her window, and who Timony thought could still possibly be playing tricks.
Timony Weeks leaned forward and appeared to address her next statement to DS Mike Korpanski who was now standing up, his head on one side, looking at her as though he was wondering whether to believe her story and also preparing to leave.
Whether or not Timony Weeks had picked up on the sergeant’s scepticism, she carried on with her story anyway. She was now in full flow. ‘Robert Weeks, husband number three,’ she gave a cheeky smile, ‘was already married, to a friend, when he “fell in love” with me.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘He was a lovely man but after thirteen happy years together he died of cancer.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘I like to think that it would have lasted if he’d lived.’
‘You’ve kept the name Weeks.’
Timony’s eyes looked shrewd and impressed and then mischievous. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I liked the name. It seemed to go rather well with Timony. Besides … I knew it would annoy Carmen.’ She stopped speaking for a moment, smiling at her private joke before continuing. ‘Adrian McWilliams, number four, was married on the rebound and was a horrible mistake. Violence, alcohol, drugs, gambling – you name it. I was lucky to get rid of him. And then,’ another cheeky smile, ‘my only foreigner, Rolf Van Eelen, number five.’ She snorted. ‘A bit of poetic justice here. He walked out on me with one of my friends, Trixy, the bitch. I made their life hell until I got used to the fact that marriage really wasn’t for me. Then I let them go.’ She almost looked shame-faced now. ‘So you see, Inspector Piercy and Sergeant Korpanski, I’ve made a lot of enemies along the way. And not too many friends.’ She glanced, almost questioningly, at Diana Tong, who was standing behind the piano, leaning forward slightly, as though to catch every word in a net of attention. Joanna followed the glance and wondered. No softness or reassurance was beamed back from the dogsbody.
Joanna interrupted the reverie. ‘Are you trying to tell me that someone from your distant past is trying to exact revenge on you?’ she demanded. ‘Either an ancient fan who belatedly has decided he or she doesn’t want you to grow up or something to do with your multiple marriages and divorces, the feathers you’ve ruffled?’ The words sounded vaguely silly and quite insulting even as she spoke, as though she was ridiculing the entire idea. And this tone did not escape Timony Weeks. She moved her head slightly so she watched Joanna from the corner of her eye.
‘We’re talking about events that happened years ago,’ Joanna pointed out. ‘The people involved would be—’ She was going to say elderly but Diana Tong cleared her throat very deliberately at that precise moment so Joanna said instead, ‘Why wait until now?’
Timony Weeks didn’t answer but gave a stiff smile.
Joanna continued, ‘Whatever happened in the past, I still don’t understand why, if you’re nervous, you live out here?’
Cat-like, Timony narrowed her eyes, leaned in close and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. ‘I’ll tell you why, Inspector.’ She flicked her head around to take in Korpanski. ‘Sergeant. In a town or a city anyone can come right up to you, unnoticed, and do what they like. That fan that nearly lost me the sight in my eye. He walked right up to me with a pair of scissors in spite of my having four bodyguards surrounding me. He still got to me. Here I can see if someone approaches. I can watch the track. I have fair warning of an intrusion. I have security lights and a burglar alarm.’
But you still think someone’s getting to you, Joanna thought and fleetingly reflected on the architecture and design of Butterfield Farm. Timony’s words answered some of her questions.
Even Joanna felt spooked by her obvious apprehension. She actually looked around, then caught sight of Korpanski’s bland face with its stolid expression, standing like the genie of the lamp, arms folded, thick thighs apart, and she felt ashamed of herself. ‘Well, Mrs Weeks,’ she said briskly, ‘if all these events you’ve been reporting to the Leek Police really have happened, as you describe, your vigil isn’t doing much good, is it?’ She glanced down at her notebook. ‘Some of the reports are of incidents inside the house. The toilet seat left up? The mouse in the bread bin. And now the watch. You’re sure all this isn’t simply your vivid imagination?’ What she had wanted to say was: an attempt to retrieve your long-lost fame? But she didn’t dare. It was sailing a little too close to the edge. And she couldn’t risk doing that. Particularly now with Chief Superintendent Gabriel Rush about to take up his post. So instead she asked, ‘You’ve lived here how long?’
‘A little over ten years,’ Timony said warily. ‘When my last marriage broke up I decided to build in the moorlands. It was one of the few places with the space, you understand.’
‘But these little – for want of a better word – tricks have been happening for just over two weeks. Any idea why now?’
Both Timony and Diana shook their heads and looked mystified. There was a pause.
Suddenly Timony Weeks seemed to surface. She looked around her. ‘Where’s the cat?’ she rapped out. ‘Where is she? Tuptim? Tuptim?’
Diana spoke lazily from the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, Tims, I haven’t seen her at all today.’
‘Not like her.’ Timony swivelled her lizard neck around to stare at her companion. ‘Did she have her breakfast?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ Timony looked distressed at this. ‘Well, now, Inspector, what is it you were saying, that it is all in my imagination?’
Diana Tong, dogsbody, spoke up for her. ‘It isn’t her imagination, Inspector Piercy. It isn’t. I’ve seen things happen.’
‘What things?’ It came out sharper than she’d meant, as though she was challenging her, calling her a liar, a stretcher of truth. She had been extremely vague earlier when Joanna had asked her if she’d ever seen any tangible evidence. Joanna’s eyes narrowed; she looked from one woman to the other and wondered. They were reading her mind as precisely as a stage psychic. She glanced at Korpanski. His face twitched as though he was swallowing a smile. He actually put a hand in front of his mouth. Joanna scowled at him.
‘Things in the wrong places,’ Diana said irritably. Then, turning to her employer, ‘Oh, what’s the use, Tims? No one believes you – or me.’
Unexpectedly a tear rolled down Timony’s cheek. ‘Please believe me,’ she begged. ‘Please. I know something – someone – is out there and wishes to harm me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Joanna said. ‘I’m really sorry. We have all your calls logged but there’s no hard evidence.’
‘What about the watch?’
Joanna wanted to ask: how can you be sure it’s his watch? Back would come the response. From the scratch. So, if it is, is it possible you might have been mistaken about burying it with your husband? Were you, perhaps, tempted to retain it? As a keepsake?
She said none of these things but picked up her statement solidly. ‘No break-ins, nothing stolen. No assault.’ She felt she needed to say something more. ‘If anything it is, possibly, a mischievous neighbour. Nothing more worrying than that.’
‘But I’m frightened, Inspector.’
Joanna was adversely affected by the ‘little-girl-lost’ voice. High-pitched and squeaky with just the right amount of cracking. She must have been a really great actress in her time.
‘We can’t go out to every person who feels frightened,’ Joanna said in exasperation, getting ready to leave. ‘All I can suggest is that you move to somewhere less remote. What about sheltered housing or a gated estate, somewhere secure? There are a few places going up here in Leek, old mills being converted into luxury flats. You’d be much safer there, Mrs Weeks. And happier.’
‘But I’ve explained,’ Timony said frostily.
‘I understand you have a holiday booked?’
‘We go next week to a favourite hotel of ours in Devon,’ Diana said. ‘We’ve stayed there before. It’s rather lovely and has a pool.’
Joanna turned to Diana Tong. ‘Is it possible you could stay here until then?’
‘No.’ Said flatly and without much sympathy.
Joanna looked at Mike for help. And he stepped right in with his size elevens. ‘You say money is no object, Ms Weeks. Have you thought of hiring private security?’
‘It’s Mrs,’ she snapped at him. ‘Weeks is my married name. Shore was my …’ She hesitated, ‘. . . stage name. And I’m still legally married.’
‘Well, what about your husband then?’ Korpanski was still trying. Hard.
‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t think Rolf would come and act as nursemaid to me. He has Trixy.’ Her face became vinegary.
‘Children?’ Korpanski tried next. You had to hand it to Mike, Joanna thought. He really was trying very hard.
‘Child stars don’t have children,’ Timony said haughtily.
‘Not even when the child stars grow up?’ Joanna asked.
‘Especially not then.’
Joanna looked at Mike. Neither knew how to proceed.
Timony Weeks made one more appeal. ‘Can’t you get it into your heads? Someone is out there trying hard to get at me,’ she said, as though stating an indisputable fact. ‘I can go away for a holiday but I will always have to return here, to Butterfield. If you can’t find out what’s going on and who is victimizing me this trouble will not go away, it will escalate. Do you understand?’ Her tiny shoulders bunched together. She looked unhappy. ‘You have to solve this before something dreadful happens.’ She looked at the watch, still held by Detective Sergeant Mike Korpanski.
‘We’ll take the watch in for forensic examination,’ Joanna said.
Timony said nothing but simply stared.
Joanna left feeling frustrated. She kept turning around as they drove back up the track. Timony Weeks was watching them through the window. She looked fragile and vulnerable. Joanna turned around in her seat and took the car all the way up the lane to join the road. Something was bothering her about the whole situation. It wasn’t just the way Butterfield seemed to lie in permanent shadow on the brightest of winter’s days or even the way the place nestled in its hamlet, almost as though it expected the hills to protect it, or even the fact that it was all too easy for anyone to spy on this isolated property. No. It was the story about the deranged fan who had tried to gouge little Lily Butterfield’s eye out in spite of there being four bodyguards surrounding her.
She was quiet on the way home but Mike wasn’t. He was whistling tunelessly under his breath. And the sound irritated her. ‘Stop whistling,’ she said. ‘I can’t hear myself think.’
‘Sorry. Can’t get the tune out of my head.’
‘What tune? There isn’t a tune. Just noise.’
He looked at her. ‘I think it’s Ding Dong Bell,’ he said apologetically. ‘Can’t think what’s set that off.’
She looked at him sharply. ‘It’s the well.’ The words were out before she’d thought about it. She looked at him. ‘I hope the damned cat hasn’t fallen down the well,’ she said. ‘That’d really set her off.’ Then she muttered to herself, ‘Nursery rhymes, children’s programmes that went off the air forty years ago. A Burmese cat with a strange name. A house that sits and watches for a stranger to call, practical jokes, a dead man’s watch. I don’t know what the police force is coming to,’ she grumbled.