Joanna was thoughtful as Mike drove them back to the station. The killing of the cat, though horrible and an obvious attempt to upset its owner, was not, as far as the police were concerned, even factoring in the plethora of recent call-outs, going to be a big enough case to attract major resources. But if it was the portent of a more serious crime, ignoring it could prove to be a big mistake. And one which she had no doubt that Chief Superintendent Gabriel Rush would take pleasure in noting. So she decided she would not turn it into a major investigation, but she would make sure that all the evidence of the assault on Tuptim was preserved as meticulously as if it was part of a murder investigation.
Having reached a decision she looked across at Korpanski. ‘So, who do you think did this?’
‘Someone either doesn’t like cats or they’ve got a grudge against our child actress,’ he said gruffly, keeping his eyes on the road. ‘Maybe they resent the fact that the child star has grown up.’
‘State the obvious, Mike, why don’t you?’
He simply grinned across at her, completely unruffled by her manner. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘what I really think is it could be anyone who doesn’t much like her, from our dear Mrs Tong to the bloody gardener or one of the farmers from hereabouts.’
She glanced at him sharply. ‘Aren’t you ignoring Timony’s famous and high-profile past?’
Without waiting for a response she continued, ‘You don’t think it’s someone connected with Butterfield – the soap? You think her stories of a dead person down the well are untrue, either made up or a figment of her imagination?’
Korpanski shrugged. ‘I’m keeping an open mind, Joanna, but wherever this nightmare of someone dying came from it didn’t come from the TV series.’ He looked across at her. ‘I think we’re all agreed on that. It wouldn’t have fitted in, would it?’
‘No,’ she said dubiously. But what bothered her was that Timony had portrayed the scene just a little bit too graphically, as something she had actually seen, as real as though it had just happened. Added to that was the fact that the scene had embedded in her subconscious rather than in her conscious memory. Perhaps it was nothing more than that – a dream. She continued thinking aloud. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, Mike. Ghosts didn’t murder that cat.’ She glanced across at him, frowning. ‘Maybe you’re right. Looking at it objectively it is much more likely that these recent events are coming from someone who’s close to her now. The TV series was too many years ago. Most of her fellow actors would be in their sixties, at least. It would be a bit unlikely for them to start playing these tricks after all this time. Why wait until now? What would be the point?’ She screwed her face up. ‘What does someone hope to achieve by this? That’s what I don’t understand. What is the bloody point?’
Korpanski had no answer so she carried on. ‘The only likely outcome is that Timony ups sticks and leaves Butterfield. I can’t think of anyone who’d want that. It wouldn’t benefit a single soul.’
‘Except, maybe, the neighbouring farmers.’
‘Hmm.’ Joanna was unimpressed by this.
Struggling through the roadworks that seemed to bedevil Leek, they’d finally reached the station. Korpanski swung the car into an empty parking space, switched the engine off, turned around and challenged her. ‘So what do we do next?’
She shared her decision. ‘We’ll hang on to the forensic evidence and run it through the labs if anything else happens. No one is going to fund a load of fingerprint stuff and DNA analysis on the killing of a cat. The last thing I want is Rush arriving here and straightaway taking the piss out of me for wasting police resources on finding the Hanger of Cats.’ She formed her fingers into claws and wriggled them in front of Korpanski’s eyes. He couldn’t help himself smiling and gave a little chuckle. ‘And for now?’
‘We’ll ask Timmis and McBrine to keep an eye on Butterfield. It won’t be hard for them, the place being so visible from the road.’
Police constables Josh Timmis and Saul McBrine made up the Moorland Patrol. Based in Leek but covering a huge area of largely empty moorland, isolated farms and craggy outcrops such as The Roaches, their day-to-day work consisted of rescuing overambitious climbers and sorting out road traffic incidents caused by drivers who assumed that the Highway Code didn’t apply up here. And then there were the minor offences: littering, heath fires and the results of extreme weather conditions, whiteouts and blizzards, torrential rain and the occasional mud slip. They were kept fairly but not too busy. Josh Timmis was both a bloodhound (persistent) and a terrier (he never let go). Thorough and honest, he had watched the moorlands for years. Saul McBrine had recently married his long-term girlfriend, Josie, and rumour had it that Josie McBrine was expecting their first child.
While Timmis was short and wiry, McBrine was tall and lanky. They were firm friends and enjoyed working together, usually. Luckily this Wednesday lunchtime they were in the station together rather than out on patrol, and at two p.m. were listening to Joanna and Mike’s accounts of recent events.
‘Have there been any other attacks on animals in the area?’
Timmis shook his head. ‘Not that we’ve heard.’
‘No one been spotted brandishing a knife?’
‘No.’ Timmis was frowning. ‘I know that place,’ he said, ‘though I’ve never called in there. It always looks deserted – apart from an elderly couple who drive over once a week.’
‘Haven’t you seen Mrs Weeks herself? Skinny, dyed red hair, wears sort of theatrical clothes,’ Mike asked bluntly.
‘No.’
‘How long has the house been there?’
‘’Bout ten years, I suppose. There was a tumbledown cottage there. Old shepherd’s place. It was demolished and Butterfield was built on the site. They’d never have got planning permission otherwise. You know how tight the moorland planning department is,’ Timmis volunteered. He was obviously spokesman today. ‘You want us to visit?’
‘No.’ Joanna shook her head. ‘Nothing too obvious but keep an eye on the place. And keep a log, will you, of who comes and goes? There is a sort of secretary-cum-companion called Diana Tong. She’s tall and well built, straggly grey hair and generally wears trousers. They have two cars, a blue Isuzu and a black Qashqai. The elderly couple you’ve seen are the Rossingtons, Frank and Millie, home help and gardener. They have an ancient Volvo estate, dark green. I understand they come once a week, for a full day in the summer and a morning in the winter. Any other cars are visitors which Timony Weeks tells me they rarely have so considering recent events any strangers would be noteworthy. Do you know who owns the surrounding land?’
McBrine took over. ‘There’s a couple of farmers got land borderin’ on Butterfield,’ he said. ‘To the north-west is a guy called John Reeves. He’s a decent, honest sort of chap but an ’opeless farmer. How he’s kept going over the last few years I don’t know. In fact, I’ve heard that he’s not keepin’ his head above water but is sinkin’ fast with major money worries.’
‘Right. And the other one?’
‘Tom Brassington owns the land to the south-east. He’s a sticky one. Hard to work out,’ McBrine said. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Josh?’
His colleague nodded. ‘I think he’s a bit on the fiddle. Nothing major, just insurance scams, animals lost, a cow struck by lightning, that sort of thing, you know? He’s a bit sharp. Kind of bitter. Goes on a bit about the tough life of farmers, you know. Feels the world owes him a living just because he’s a farmer.’ He finished the sentence in a sing-song voice that made Joanna think that he had heard this phrase once too often.
‘Plenty of people like that about,’ McBrine concurred. ‘The rest of the land is owned by the Peak District National Park.’
‘There was one episode a few years back,’ Timmis said slowly. ‘Never really came to anything but it seems he took a pot shot at a guy whose dog was chasing after some of his pregnant animals.’
This sounded a bit more like it. ‘Was the guy injured?’
‘No. Shaken up. He made a complaint but no one could prove anything.’
‘Surely there was some evidence?’
‘Plenty of shotgun pellets lying around but it didn’t prove anything. Brassington said he often shot at rabbits so there would be plenty of shotgun pellets lying around. The case was dropped. There was never a chance of it going anywhere.’
Joanna met Mike’s eyes. This sounded a bit more promising, though it didn’t really fit the profile. Brassington sounded too much of a blunt instrument. Not subtle enough to have played the minor tricks. The murder of the cat and the display of her body, however, sounded more like his style. Perhaps it was a lead.
‘OK. Talk to the two farmers,’ Joanna requested. ‘Keep an eye on them, particularly Brassington. See if you can pick anything up.’
‘Such as?’
‘General stuff, their attitude towards Butterfield and its inhabitants, anything. If they had nothing to do with the cat business maybe they saw something or have heard a rumour.’
Joanna gave them one of her very best smiles. ‘Look, you two, this is hardly going to be a major investigation, is it? A cat hanged, even if it was a snooty Burmese named Tuptim. I wonder where she got the name from,’ she mused. Korpanski and the two moorland patrol officers simply shrugged, uninterested. Surely it could have nothing to do with this minor investigation?
‘OK, then?’ McBrine asked. They were anxious to return to their native moors.
‘Yeah. Thanks.’
When they’d gone Korpanski gave Joanna one of his looks. Stubborn, pugnacious and above all, curious. ‘So, what are we going to do now?’
‘You are going to do a bit of digging into Diana Tong’s past,’ Joanna said, ‘while I am going to speak to James Freeman.’
‘Who the hell is he?’
Joanna tapped her computer screen. ‘He, Sergeant Michael Korpanski, is or was the producer of Butterfield Farm. He’s now in his eighties, has all his marbles and a website devoted to his work, mainly, of course, the long-standing series, which was, apparently, his greatest success. I have emailed him outlining events and he has just emailed me back. He lives in Knightsbridge and I have set up a video link and am about to interview him.’ She couldn’t resist a smirk, which Korpanski bounced right back.
‘So how much time are we going to spend on this case, Jo? The case of the mad woman and a dead cat?’
‘We’ll keep it on the back burner,’ she responded, ‘but I’m not dropping it. I’ll have a word with Fask later and see what forensics he’s got on the cat’s corpse and the door, et cetera. I can’t see Rush authorizing a ton of expensive tests on a cat’s demise but if things do escalate further at least we’ll be ready for them.’ To her sergeant, who could be a superstitious being, the phrase, flippantly uttered, sounded like a temptation to the fates.
She settled back in her chair and focused on the screen. James Freeman, she decided, as she looked at the image displayed in front of her, was one of those lucky people who never age. They never become frail or weak; they don’t lose their hair, their teeth or the use of their legs. Their voices remain firm and strong and their memories crystal clear. He was a delight to interview, with an impish sense of humour and a frank honesty that endeared him to her from the start.
‘Timony Shore,’ he mused. ‘Such a long time ago. What does she look like now?’
‘Well, umm.’
Freeman burst out laughing. ‘No. Stop. Don’t tell me.’ He put his hand up. ‘Let me tell you. She’s had a facelift, liposuction, dyed her hair and had her teeth veneered and she’s still as skinny as they come.’
He was so near the truth that Joanna couldn’t smother the giggle that escaped her lips. She put her hand up to her mouth.
‘So,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’m right so far. Now what’s she been up to that has the police on her back?’
‘She appears to have been subjected to some harassment,’ Joanna said cautiously.
‘Not for the first time,’ Freeman responded cheerily. ‘She was the star of the show. And subsequently had a bag-load of odd letters; some woman kept writing to her claiming she was her long-lost sister, and she had lots of proposals for when she came of age, but the worst time was with a sort of crazed fan who followed her for months. We had to get security for her because he would wait for her to leave the studio after rehearsals. One night, unfortunately, he got close enough to lunge at her with a pair of scissors. She had a nasty scar which we could write into the script. We simply had her fall off a hay cart but she very nearly lost an eye. And that would have been a problem for the Butterfield scriptwriting team. And besides, it would have made her rather …’ His eyes flicked to the side and he licked his lips, realizing he should stop short of being politically incorrect to a policewoman. ‘Well, let’s just say she wouldn’t have looked quite so pretty.’
‘I’m sure.’ Joanna was a little shocked. But then she supposed that this was the way you thought about things when you were the producer of a major TV series. Heartlessly practical, your actors turned into commodities. Dehumanized. So now, far from envying their glamorous lifestyle she almost pitied them.
‘We put a Band Aid over her brow to draw attention to the wound and then put make up over the scar.’ His eyes twinkled at Joanna. ‘She was a valuable asset to the studio. Even the tumble off the hay cart had to be done by her screen double. We couldn’t have had Timony really falling off a cart. That would have stopped production for months the way she used to go on. But because of Lily’s stage presence, the gentle but determined way she defended animals, always hugging horses and freeing cats from traps, protecting foxes from the hunt and so on, she had quite a following, you know.’ He smiled. ‘She was a sort of early Animal Rights Campaigner. She really milked it,’ Freeman said. ‘Kept having fainting fits and being sick. She’s quite histrionic, you know.’
Joanna nodded in agreement, half forgetting that Freeman would pick up on it. He looked amused. ‘In the end we had to give her six months off to recover.’
‘And how did you write that into the script? Or did you use a screen double during her absence?’
For the first time Freeman looked unsure of himself. ‘Well, you know, I think …’
Think? Joanna thought. But you produced the whole thing. To lose a star of the show for six months is a big deal.
‘We had a distant aunt break her leg,’ Freeman said awkwardly. ‘Saintly Timony went to look after her.’ He gave a lopsided grin. ‘She had a terrific postbag for that one, fans begging her to return.’ He smiled into the screen. ‘We did a lovely scene,’ he said. You know the bit in The Railway Children, when Bobby wanders down to the station and meets her father?’
Joanna nodded. Everyone knows that scene. Even now, years after her own father’s death, it still had the power to jerk unexpected tears out of her.
‘Steam train, father alights, walking towards camera, face nicely obscured by the steam.’ His grin broadened. ‘I swear they got that scene straight from Butterfield. Only it wasn’t Roberta, it was Lily returning to Butterfield. Wrung tears out of grown men, according to the postbag.’
‘What year was that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Freeman blew out a breath. ‘About ’sixty-six or ’sixty-seven. A few years before the famous film. Somewhere around then, anyway,’ he said airily. ‘Luckily Timony always looked young for her age so although she was almost fourteen Lily Butterfield would only have been about twelve. The fans sent her lots of cards urging her to return.’
‘And was Timony Weeks saintly in real life?’
Freeman smiled and shrugged. It was obvious he had not been in the habit of analysing his child protégée’s personality. He had simply wanted her to deliver her lines. ‘Who knows,’ he said carelessly. ‘The actor and the part they play frequently merge. As far as I know she was fond of animals but I didn’t read anything in the newspapers about her really chinning up to the master of the hunt or nursing a sick aunt. She was a bit more self-centred than that.’
‘And the cast? They were close?’
‘Too bloody close,’ Freeman grumbled. ‘There were all sorts of things going on. Affairs, petty jealousies, little factions. It’s the same in any long-standing production. They get too close. Like a family. And then the quarrels break out. People take sides.’
‘And, of course, Timony eventually married her stage father.’
A shadow crossed Freeman’s face. ‘Gerald.’ He smiled. ‘Far too old for her really. She was only just seventeen when they married. He was in his fifties. I think he had to marry her to …’ His voice trailed away and all of a sudden Joanna caught something in Freeman’s eyes. He had said something he shouldn’t. He wavered and hesitated, his head moving, his face frozen into tension, eyes warily wondering whether she had picked up on his faux pas. He looked uncomfortable and sucked in a sharp and worried breath. His eyes had dropped from hers. He regretted that last sentence.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Out of turn. Fact was she did adore him. And he her.’
Too late. Joanna had absorbed the statement and would remember it. He had to marry her to … Normally that meant that the bride was pregnant and the shotgun wedding took place so the infant would not be born a bastard. But there had never been mention of a child. In fact, Timony had said categorically that she did not have children.
She kept digging. ‘What did you mean by that?’
He blustered his answer. ‘I suspect they were already having sex.’
‘Timony was of age,’ she pointed out.
‘Quite.’ But his eyes still looked shifty.
Joanna probed. ‘Timony was eight when Butterfield first hit the scene?’
‘Yes.’ He appeared uncomfortable, squirming in his seat.
‘How exactly did that work?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Her parents …?’
‘Were thrilled at the opportunity for their daughter.’
‘They didn’t mind handing her over to you?’
‘No. No. As long as we had an adult responsible for her. Sandra McMullen was the wardrobe mistress. She became a mother figure to little Timony. Took her under her wing. She had a house near the studio so Timony lived there with her. The whole thing worked perfectly.’
Joanna chewed this over for a moment. It all sounded neat. As neat as a lie. She licked her lips. ‘I want to ask you something more specific,’ Joanna said, ‘about an event that may or may not have taken place. Timony has mentioned a storyline about someone dying horribly. Perhaps sliding down somewhere. I got the impression it was a man who had slipped down a bank or fallen and died and she was looking down on him. Maybe he’d fallen down the well? She said she was glad because he wouldn’t be able to hurt her any more. Does this sound like one of your storylines?’
‘Not on the Butterfield set,’ Freeman said. ‘Wouldn’t have worked. Too scary by half for all those early sixties kids.’ Equilibrium restored now, he gave a little laugh. ‘Besides, if anyone had hurt Lily Butterfield there would have been outrage. Oh, no. She must be thinking of some other part she played. She did quite a bit of stage and screen work after Butterfield folded.’
‘Why did it fold?’
Freeman leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment. ‘The easy answer,’ he said, ‘is that ratings went down and new dramas came along, but the real explanation is that the audience simply outgrew it. The kids that came later had different tastes. They wanted something else. Westerns, Dr Who. Audiences were falling so the BBC pulled the plug. And to be honest, we’d run out of steam. Our storylines were looking stale and our ideas had all been tried before. There’s only so much mileage you can get out of any series, in my opinion, unless you change radically. This was about country life, a farm, a family. To be honest, when it was decided in ’seventy-two that it would be our last series, I wasn’t sorry. To use a modern phrase, Butterfield was past its sell-by date.’
‘Right. Well, thank you. One more thing. Mr Freeman, Timony has been subjected to a series of rather teasing, mischievous events, the latest of which is that someone has killed her cat and strung her body up on her front door. Can you think of anything or anyone that might have given rise to these?’
‘No. She was always popular with the other members of the cast.’
‘What about the attack by the fan?’
‘It’s over forty years ago. He was a schizophrenic, poor chap, suffering from delusions, and ended up a long-term patient in a mental hospital, I believe. Probably dead by now.’
Joanna agreed. Mentally she had discounted the ‘crazed fan’ of so many years ago, apart from the fact that he might not be the only fan who was crazy and obsessed. It was one of the real costs of fame. She fished around. ‘The parts she took up after her work on Butterfield?’
‘Nothing as high profile,’ Freeman said, ‘or as long running. She did a few stage productions for which she was overpaid and some minor screen parts for which she was also overpaid. She learnt the spoiled brat approach early in life.’ He gave a calm smile.
‘Is there anything else that might …’ She smiled at him, knowing she was mocking herself, ‘… help us with our enquiries.’
He returned the smile with twinkling eyes. The self-effacement hadn’t escaped him. ‘Not that I can think of, Inspector Piercy.’ He paused. ‘It must be something to do with her current life. I can’t believe there’s any connection to her role as Lily Butterfield.’ He frowned. ‘This is nothing too serious, is it?’ He too was fishing. ‘I mean, she’s not in any danger, is she?’
‘Well, the business about her cat has upset her.’
‘Ye-es. I am sorry to hear that,’ Freeman said. ‘Very sorry. Give her my regards when you speak to her.’
‘I will.’
The interview was finished.
At four p.m. Mark Fask called in to the station. He had once been a scenes of crime officer in the police force. But a few years ago the decision had been made that this was a job for a civilian. So Fask had promptly left the Force, picking up his pension on the way, and formed his own company. It was very successful. Fask was familiar with the laws of admissible evidence and his former colleagues almost always engaged his firm to glean the specimens from numerous crime scenes. It hadn’t escaped Joanna’s notice that the former officer, whose car had previously been a Skoda, was now driving a top of the range BMW. Success indeed.
Fask was a stocky man with pale skin, thick curling hair and dark brown eyes. ‘I’ve bagged up the cat,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ll pop it in the deep freeze and keep a hold of it for a bit.’
‘What about the rope used to hang it?’
‘There’s a coil of it in one of the outhouses,’ Fask said. ‘It’s been cut with a serrated knife. Apart from that there’s nothing much to get from it.’
‘Any fingerprints on the door?’
Fask shook his head. ‘None apart from the ones that should be there.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Not so far. Poor animal looks as though it had its neck broken before it was strung up. The head was loose. Rope was knotted real tight around its neck. I’ve preserved the knot. Nice cat too. Seal point Burmese, if I’m not very much mistaken. I suppose that’s why they called it Tuptim.’
‘What?’
‘Tuptim. Burmese name.’
‘Is it?’ Joanna felt stupid.
‘Haven’t you seen Anna and the King of Siam?’
‘Years ago.’
‘Don’t you remember the Burmese girl who was given to him as a bride? Fell in love with Lun Tha, the man who brought her to Siam.’
‘Vaguely. So that’s where she got the name from.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you’ve answered one question at least.’ The least important one, she could have added but didn’t.
Fask grinned. ‘Glad to be of service, Jo. And the cat, by the way, would have been worth a few hundred pounds.’
‘Really? You’re a mine of information, Mark. I didn’t realize you knew so much about cats – or the films industry.’
He looked abashed. ‘Pub quizzes,’ he explained.
‘Did you get anything else from around the scene?’
‘Not a lot.’
‘Do you know where the cat was killed?’
‘Probably in the big barn. That’s where the rope was. There’s a saucer of water there. My guess is that the cat was lured in and—’
‘Do you have a time frame?’
‘Well, Mrs Tong says she stayed at Butterfield overnight as Mrs Weeks was getting increasingly twitchy about being there on her own. Apparently Tuptim liked to roam during the night, went in and out as she pleased through the cat flap. She was found at seven this morning and last seen late Monday evening, they think, so the usual rules. Somewhere between those two times. She was pretty stiff and cold by the time I got to her so my guess is late last night.’
Joanna nodded. ‘Anything else that might help, Mark?’
‘Not really.’
He left and Joanna remained with a feeling of dissatisfaction. Korpanski was busy in another room so she was on her own.
She spent the afternoon on the computer and downloaded a couple of episodes of Butterfield Farm. There was no doubt about it – Timony Weeks had been a beauty. Not a great actress, that was obvious. She hammed her lines a couple of times, relied too much on a helpless look for a wide spectrum of emotions: fear, grief, happiness, guilt and confusion. All were created by a widening of the eyes and a slight parting of the lips. The episode Joanna was looking at had been shown in 1963 when Timony would have been eleven. She looked younger, more like eight. But however poor the acting had been and the frequent fluffing of lines, even Joanna could recognize that Timony Weeks had had an undeniable screen presence: long, thick hair which she tossed around to great effect and huge, vulnerable eyes which looked beseechingly into the camera. They were enough to melt the hardest of hearts. Added to that was a mouth that trembled every single time she looked at a wounded animal – which was roughly four times per episode. And the check shirts and denim dungarees which she wore around the farm were very ‘cutesy’ while the nylon dresses, hair ribbons, white ankle socks and sandals that she wore into town were undeniably dainty. Watching episodes of the series Joanna soon realized that Timony Weeks had stolen the show with her winsome ways. She had two older brothers, Keith and Sean, great muscular monkeys of men who guarded and protected her at every step and in turn she rewarded them with her sweet smile, a flash of those eyes and occasionally a quick, embarrassed kiss on their rough male cheeks. And then there was David, a younger brother who seemed to have no purpose at all in the series and no part to play except to be cuddled and comforted by his soft-hearted sister, Lily.
Gerald, who played Joab Butterfield, her screen father, looked old enough to be her grandfather rather than her father. The part he played was taciturn and dignified in dungarees whereas May, her screen mother, was a troubled, fretting scold with permanent scowl lines scoring her forehead. Joanna looked closer at Gerald. At a guess he would ‘scrub up’ very nicely. He was tall and thin, and could have been distinguished-looking in a suit rather than denim. He had a proud, erect posture and thick grey hair. In spite of his age and the part he was playing, Joanna caught a frisson of attraction between the screen stars and felt uncomfortable when Timony climbed on to his lap, threw her arms around him and gave ‘Daddy’ his goodnight kiss. Joanna watched a couple of episodes but soon got bored with the sickly sweetness of the storylines, the stilted acting and disjointed conversations. Freeman and the BBC had been right to pull the plug, probably a few years too late, and bow out. It wouldn’t have passed muster for today’s more sophisticated dramas like EastEnders or Coronation Street. She switched off and sat, thinking, for a while. She knew she was missing something and central to that conviction was the certainty that it was all to do with Lily Butterfield, or Timony Shore. She rubbed her forehead, closed her eyes and tried to picture what it was that was disturbing her.
She longed to talk this over with Matthew but wasn’t sure she could find the right words. The events were so nebulous and insubstantial. It was all about feeling and impressions, instincts and ideas. Even the business about the watch seemed insubstantial.
All except the killing of the cat. That was real enough.
As she drove home that evening her mind kept returning to the puzzle of events at Butterfield Farm. Something was troubling her. It lay at the back of her mind, an oily, green sludge which she could feel in her brain. She was conscious of it all the time. The urge to talk the case over with Matthew strengthened with every mile she drew nearer to Waterfall Cottage. But when she reached the lane and their home she realized that Matthew was not there. There was no sign of his car and the cottage was in darkness. She sat outside for a while, disappointed. It was not late. Only seven o’clock, but this was unusual. A first, in fact. As a pathologist Matthew did not have to go on calls and emergency stuff. He was generally home around six. She decided she would ring him on his mobile once she’d gone inside and lit the woodburner.
He answered on the second ring. ‘Hi, Jo.’
‘I’m home,’ she said, ‘and you’re not.’
‘Oh. Sorry. I forgot to mention it. There’s a lecture tonight. It’s on tissue sampling and toxicology. I promised Eloise I’d take her. There’s a dinner afterwards, Jo, so I’ll be quite late and won’t need a meal. I’m so sorry. I simply forgot to tell you.’ His voice was in the stage whisper of someone about to enter a lecture theatre and surrounded by people he did not want listening in.
Her mouth dropped open. This was a first. Not only was it a first but she suspected it would not be the last. It wasn’t a problem but Miss Eloise being involved was rubbing salt into an open wound. She could just picture the girl’s snide little comment.
‘Tightening up the apron strings, Daddy? Being scolded for staying out late?’
Joanna glowered. She doubted this situation would have arisen before they were married. Was he already taking her for granted? Had marriage given Matthew Levin, her very new husband, a confidence he had lost when he had dissolved his marriage to Jane and resumed his affair with DI Joanna Piercy?
‘OK, Matt,’ she managed, in a friendly tone, unwilling for Miss Eloise to score any points at all, ‘I’ll maybe see you later.’
Piss him, she thought when the call was ended. Piss him. She needn’t have headed home so fast. She could have stayed on at the station, caught up with the backlog that had accumulated during her honeymoon. Or she could have gone out for a drink with Korpanski like the good old days. Instead, like the good wife she was, she had hurried home, hoping to talk to Matthew about children’s TV in the 1960s. She blew out a heavy sigh. She felt foolish.
Oh, well.
She poured herself a glass of chilled rosé wine and switched the computer on. This case was intriguing her, pulling her in. Behind the interest, she knew, was her degree in psychology. What makes people think and do the things they do? What influences behaviour and social attitudes? The why and wherefores. And the subject that interested her over all others and which she had done her thesis in: why is a particular era in history the one that produces the Beatles or Hitler, Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher? These people all had one thing in common. They had come along at a time when a certain sector of people had needed them. So … could she apply this to a TV series? She believed so. She used this skill to look into children in the early sixties, found Butterfield Farm on the Internet, settled back and began to watch another episode.
This one was from 1965 and began with the strumming guitar music which was becoming familiar to her. It was the sort of rhythmic sound that she might have associated with an old Western. Relaxed. Easy. As she watched the credits rolled up. Timony Shore was the fourth name. And the action began.
It started in the kitchen, with Lily holding a tiny lamb and burying her face in it, weeping. She wrapped the lamb in a blanket and sat near the stove, cradling it, her hair falling over her face and the animal. Then she set it down and went to fetch a feeding bottle which presumably contained milk. It was boat shaped, with a teat on the end. The lamb simply moved its head away and flopped down. Even Joanna felt a bit cheated. Surely it was not going to die?
Then, as she watched, a young man swaggered in. One of the monkeys. Lily’s brother, Sean. Joanna smiled. The one that Colclough’s sister had labelled a ‘dish’. There was certainly a raw sexuality about him. He took the lamb from her and began to rub its fur vigorously. He was stocky, with thick, curling hair and powerful, hairy forearms, shirt sleeves rolled up to expose a tattoo. Joanna peered at it. A tattoo of a tractor? She put her hand over her mouth, giggling. As she watched, Sean stuck the teat into the lamb’s mouth and, as he stroked its fur, the lamb began to suck greedily while Timony watched, eyes wide open. How old was she? Thirteen going on eight. The acting was ham. And Colclough and his sister had been right. It was sickly sweet. And yet, for all that, Joanna had to admit that it did tug at the heart strings. Even she was moved by the plight of the lamb and the little girl.
You cry, Piercy, she warned herself, and you’ll have to stop watching. And then she wondered. What was it about these corny stories that could have such an effect?
She watched the next scene, Sean Butterfield handing the lamb, milk bottle and teat very carefully across to his little sister. How old was Sean? she wondered. At a guess nineteen, twenty.
As the action moved outside Joanna was stunned to realize how closely Timony Weeks had recreated Butterfield Farm. This was no coincidence. She must have copied the place deliberately. Even down to the well at the front, complete with rack and bucket. Of course, everything else was different – old-fashioned lumpy tractors, some Shire horses clopping over cobbles, a Rayburn rather than an Aga in the kitchen. But it sent a shiver down Joanna’s spine as she watched the action, which lasted an hour without any breaks.
She assumed that Butterfield had been recreated because it had been a period of happiness and success for Timony. It was an unusual but hardly unique scenario. But what the hell did all this have to do with recent events?
She switched the computer off and sat, staring into the darkness, wondering. When Timony Weeks had her holiday with Mrs Tong, would Butterfield Farm once again be a happy hunting ground? Was that what she wanted? No answers, no explanation? No more bother?
No. Something wasn’t right here. If she was honest with herself she did want to understand what and why all this had happened. It was preferable to silence and nothing. She wanted to know.