sixteen

The afternoon of the memorial service turned out as sunny as the preceding day, and while Helen attended to chores inside the house after lunch, Rex undertook the mowing of the modest front and back lawns with her electric push-mower, enjoying the exercise and the scent of warm, cut grass. He hoped Julie would not forget to water the garden when she was living here. After he had finished, he went inside to shower and change, planning to be at the community centre in good time for the service.

When he and Helen arrived, a radio van advertising an oldies station that broadcast to the Midlands was already idling outside the building, its gold-on-black lettering glinting in the bright rays of sun.

“Must be the station Ben works for as a sound engineer,” Rex remarked. “Hopefully, there’ll be some upbeat music.” He was prone to tears at young people’s memorial services, and was dreading this one. He eased the car into a space under a spreading horse chestnut tree in full bloom, its candles of white flowers thrust out as though in prayer.

A marked police car lurked in a far corner of the expanse of worn asphalt divided into faded white lines. Rex predicted the Derbyshire detectives would be arriving shortly, if they were not here already. “There’s Mike and his sergeant by the entrance,” he said, suddenly spotting them.

Inspector Fiske wore a creased jacket and a black tie, while Antonescu was buttoned into a cobalt blue suit that looked tailor-made for his taut and muscular frame.

“I’ll go over and have a word.”

“I’ll see if Penny needs any help.” His wife’s ex-colleague had just stepped out of her car and was reaching into the back seat for what appeared to be supplies for the service.

“Good turnout,” the inspector commented to Rex while his sergeant split off to follow a stream of mourners into the building. “By the way, I really enjoyed lunch yesterday. Helen’s a lovely lady.”

“Everyone likes Helen,” Rex said fondly. “She’s steady and understanding, as well as fun. My son adores her.”

“She’d make a good copper’s wife. The flighty ones can’t hack the long hours and unpredictability of the job. I’ve had more than one wife complain I was married to the force.”

Rex nodded in sympathy, privately thinking Julie would not make for a suitable candidate. Conversely, would she really want to be wife number four? “Any news yet on the postmortem?” he asked.

The two men automatically moved away from the glass doors, which had been propped open to accommodate those who had come to pay Cassie Chase their final respects.

“Yes, Dr. Hennessey was true to his word. His report so far shows that Cassie was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, either prescription or recreational. A four-five-five cartridge, compatible with the Webley revolver found lying beside her, was lodged in her body, having caused a lot of internal damage. A ballistics test will no doubt further prove it was discharged from the Webley, which Trey Atkins claims was still giving off a chemically smoky smell when he found her. It had only her prints on it, but there was not enough GSR on her hand to be able to conclusively rule her death either a suicide or a self-inflicted accident.”

“The gunshot residue could have been transferred by the killer placing the revolver in her hand to get her fingerprints on it,” Rex suggested as they sauntered along the path skirting the old brick building.

The inspector stopped at the corner and nodded towards a copse of birch trees at the far end of the grounds. “We found a latex glove in the adjacent playing fields, but it was too degraded after the rain early on Saturday and by players’ cleats churning it into the mud to render any viable gunshot residue or DNA.”

“Anything otherwise telling about the glove?”

“Not really. It was of the close-fitting variety worn by hospital workers and food handlers.”

That could apply to at least two members of the cast, Rex mused even as the inspector made the point that the article might have nothing to do with the case whatsoever.

“Can you trace the Webley?”

Fiske gave a dispirited sigh. “It’s a mark and model widely used by the British forces in the First and Second World Wars, and popular with collectors. And the six-digit serial number has been filed off.”

“Any unaccounted-for shoe prints onstage?” Rex asked in desperation, to which the inspector shook his head once again. “And if I might push further … was anything discovered at Cassie’s home to denote her state of mind?”

“Nothing sinister,” Fiske replied, resuming their walk back the way they had come. “Her room was neat and tidy. Soft furnishings in mauve, childhood dolls on display on a shelf. No suicide note, and nothing untoward on her laptop. No postings on social media beyond references to the play and how thrilled she was to be the leading lady, and how wonderful all the actors were; that sort of thing. Trey Atkins isn’t on Facebook, so we have less on him. Cassie had lost her mobile phone the day prior to her death, unfortunately, but we have Trey’s.”

Rex stopped and stood for a moment contemplating the concrete path at his feet, where a single weed had pushed through a crack, and took stock. No definitive proof that the gun had been discharged from Cassie’s hand. And no mind-altering substances found in her system, suggesting she had not felt the need to escape the realities of her life, which by all accounts was going well, aside from her mother’s illness.

“Any indication in the messages between Cassie and Trey that the romance was waning?”

“On the contrary, it seemed to be going great guns. Forgive the unfortunate pun. A sweet romance, nothing hot and heavy. She was saving herself for marriage. It looked like these two were in it for the long haul. He proposed to her a week ago and corroborated this in his interview with us at the station, but they were keeping it under wraps for the time being.”

“Perhaps they were going to announce it after the final performance of the play. A grand finale sort of thing.”

“That would be my guess. In any case, she was wearing a ruby engagement ring on a chain around her neck, hidden under her blouse, when she died. Trey confirmed it was the one he had given her.”

By this point in the conversation, the two men had wandered back to the entrance, and the inspector excused himself and went into the building.

The car park was filling up with vehicles, and groups of people stood about talking, in a few cases laughing. Only the sombre and, for the most part, formal code of dress gave away the occasion. Rex felt he was appropriately attired in a charcoal-grey suit and navy blue tie, picked out by Helen. He pushed back the cuff of his shirt and glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes to go before the service was due to begin.

As he looked up, his wife and Penny appeared from the direction of the car park, carrying a small white box and a plastic bag, respectively.

He stepped forward. “Can I lend a hand?”

“This is the last of the paper napkins and plastic forks,” Penny replied. “I’m having reservations about the napkins,” she told Helen. “Do you think the monochrome is too, well, depressing? I just thought in view of the occasion …” She looked down at her black dress, the same one she had worn on opening night. “Which reminds me, Rex. There’s something I wanted to tell you. I mentioned it to Helen and she thought it might be important.”

“Here,” Helen told Penny. “Let me take the bag. I’ll get this lot inside while you talk to Rex.”

“I’m all ears,” he said as his wife left them. “Did you mention whatever it is to Inspector Fiske?”

“Not yet. You can judge how important it is first.”

They stood aside to let pass a throng of people of around Cassie’s age.

“Well,” Penny began. “On Friday afternoon as I was passing by here in my car, I saw Timothy Holden approach the building in his Father Brown costume, which struck me as odd at the time. That and the fact it was not even five o’clock, too early for the actors to be turning up, even for opening night. The play didn’t start until seven.”

“Before five o’clock … You’re sure of the time?”

“Quite sure, because I looked at the dashboard clock and checked my watch, worried it might be later and I would not get to the dry-cleaner’s before it closed, and I needed this dress to wear that night. Timothy was not on his bicycle, but since he was wearing his cassock, I thought maybe someone had dropped him off—although the actors usually change in the dressing room. In any case, I was in a hurry and didn’t give it another thought until I heard that his bike had been stolen that night. So, maybe he did come on his bike after all, and went off somewhere on foot for some reason.” Penny gazed up at Rex with a quizzical expression.

“Is there a shop close by? Perhaps he went to buy sweets or cigarettes.”

“In his cassock?” Penny frowned in doubt. “There is a corner shop about half a mile from the playing fields, the direction he was coming from.”

Rex had driven through the neighbourhood and seen turbans and tunics, and women in saris and scarves, along with several teens in slogan tee-shirts and low-riding jeans. He concurred with Penny’s scepticism. A man in an old-fashioned clergyman’s costume might attract a few curious glances. He made a mental note to ask at the shop if they had served such a customer.

“Anyway,” Penny said, “Timothy doesn’t smoke and he’s on a diet. Hence the bike. That’s what he told us, anyway. And I made sure there was always a stock of biscuits and drinks backstage. Most of the actors would come to rehearsals straight from work. Sometimes Cassie brought bran and honey muffins from the bakery.” A sad, reminiscing smile came to Penny’s lips. She sighed. “I only remembered the incident this afternoon when I was putting on this dress again.”

Rex resolved to talk to Timothy Holden and get to the bottom of the subject of the bike, which the caretaker had told him had disappeared between shortly before six and ten thirty on the night of the shooting; and not before five. Why would the actor lie to the caretaker? However, it would have to wait, since Helen came out just then and notified him and Penny that the memorial service was about to begin. Rex braced himself.