Showstopper

2

Bath’s most senior detective was not impressed. “What am I supposed to say about this?” Peter Diamond asked.

“Whatever you want,” his partner, Paloma Kean, said, well used to his bluntness. They had eaten supper on trays in front of the TV.

“Swift. That’s the one set in the West Country, isn’t it? I watched one episode and switched over. Policing isn’t like that.”

“There isn’t much policing in it,” Paloma said. “Swift is a glamorous villain who comes out on top every time. Rides a Harley-Davidson, plays the field with men friends, breaks into big houses and never gets caught.”

“Like I say, it’s divorced from reality.”

“That isn’t the point, Pete. What matters isn’t the storyline. It’s what’s going on behind the scenes in real life. Don’t you think there’s something fishy, all these incidents? I know Ellie Pitcairn, who dresses the show, and she says a lot of people are worried.” Paloma’s company was the go-to source of images used by costume designers in the theatre, TV and film.

“Actors are a superstitious lot,” Diamond said. “What’s the Shakespeare they won’t mention by name?”

“The Scottish play?”

He grinned. “There you go.”

“These aren’t superstitions, matey. People have died.”

“Yes, but they’re saying it’s down to a jinx. That’s my point. They’ve had more than average bad luck and that’s all it is.”

A moment of silence followed, before Paloma said, “I agree with you in principle.”

“But?”

“What if some evil-minded person is behind this?”

He picked up the newspaper again. “Old lady discovers burglar in her house and has heart attack. Understandable. Producer dies unexpectedly. Okay, that’s unfortunate, but sudden deaths do happen. What else? A small fire, a stunt that went wrong, the climber stupid enough to be up a mountain in January and a guy who went AWOL. Most of these are outside anyone else’s control. Over how long — five or six years? The paper must be stuck for news.”

“But would you join their show?”

“No thanks. I get all the drama I want at work — and that’s from my team.”

“That’s dealt with that, then,” Paloma said. “I should have known you’d shoot the story to bits. The producer should ask you along to restore everyone’s confidence.”

“Reality check by Peter Diamond. For a fat fee and my name on the credits at the end? You’re on.”

“On second thoughts, no. You should stay well clear. I know what these luvvies are like. They’d give you merry hell.”

Even so, six weeks later there was a reality check for Diamond when he arrived for work in the crime investigation office at Concorde House, near Bristol, on a Monday morning.

“What’s new?” he asked when he walked in.

“You know that TV series, Swift,” DCI Keith Halliwell, his long-serving deputy, started to say.

“Before you start on that tired old story, Keith, it’s bullshit. There’s no jinx. I saw the piece in the paper and it doesn’t stand up.”

“One of the crew is missing.”

“Old news. If I remember, he was Dave somebody, the assistant producer.”

“Not him. Someone new. This only just happened. And on our patch.”

“Here?” His indifference took a nudge, no more.

“They’re filming in Bath. A guy called Jacob Nicol, a rigger, didn’t turn up for work and hasn’t been in touch since.”

Diamond was back on song. “Am I supposed to be worried? They’re paranoid. They saw the piece in the paper and they’re panicking because someone takes a couple of days off work. What’s a rigger? It doesn’t sound like a key role.”

“They put up scaffolding and lay tracks for the camera. Lighting, hoists, that kind of stuff.”

“Manual work. They can replace him.”

“There’s more to the job than that. They need experience.”

“I refuse to get excited about this, Keith. When we find his body riddled with bullets I’ll sit up and take notice.”

“Hold on, guv. There’s more. One of the crew called at the house and all his property has gone. There are stains that might be blood.”

“This was when?”

“Yesterday.”

“How did we get to hear about this — a 101 call?”

“It came through on the local number. The guy on the switchboard wasn’t very experienced. He got the main details, the address and so forth, but didn’t ask who the informant was.”

“For pity’s sake. Did any of our lot take a look?”

“Paul.”

“Does Paul know the difference between blood and tea stains?”

“I told him to get forensics out there.”

“We’ll find out, then.” Shaking his head at the triviality of it all, the big man headed for his office.

The chest-high stack of paper on his desk had grown markedly since he had last looked at it. He wasn’t troubled. A show of paperwork was his strategy for keeping his boss, Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, off his back. If he’d read the stuff online he could have spent countless hours with nothing to show for it. So he made sure everything was printed and stacked where it could be seen.

The old CID — as he still thought of it — worked under the umbrella of a polango (his word for a police quango) called MCIT, the Major Crime Investigation Team, that generated much of the paper in front of him, the combined output of three police authorities. In theory it made for more efficient detective work. In Diamond’s experience, bad things were done in the name of efficiency. Police numbers had shrunk. Salaries hadn’t improved. Worst of all, the old Manvers Street police station in the centre of Bath had been closed and sold and the men and women who worked there dispersed across the county. His own team had been put out to grass fourteen miles away at Emersons Green. He’d told the powers-that-be — Georgina, to be precise — that closing the old nick was an own goal. The only police presence remaining in the city centre, the hole in the wall at the One-Stop shop, was a joke. Not many Bathonians knew it existed and visitors hadn’t a hope in hell of finding it.

Twenty minutes passed.

There was a knock on the door from someone who still held him in awe. Anyone else wouldn’t wait to be invited. He shouted, “Come,” and they did and it was DC Paul Gilbert, the junior of the team, but only junior in the sense that he was the youngest of an ageing bunch of detectives.

“News from the lab, guv. You know I went to the missing rigger’s place last night? The stains are definitely blood.”

“Right.” He chewed on that for a moment. “I heard there wasn’t much.”

“Four spots.”

“Like from a nosebleed?”

“Possibly.”

“Any disturbance?”

“A rug a bit rucked up, that’s all. But they took away a pillowcase that they say has traces of snot and saliva.”

“How does that help?”

Gilbert blinked twice and said with an air of disbelief, “It’s a source of DNA. The rigger slept in the bed, so they can see if there’s a match with the DNA in the blood splatter.”

Diamond had the glazed expression of a sleuth who had never fully embraced forensic science. “While the plodding policeman patiently continue their enquiries. Did you ask the landlord if he heard anything?”

“He doesn’t live there. It’s a maisonette divided into two flats. The student upstairs heard him come in really late the night before he went missing, like one thirty in the morning. That’s the last thing anyone knows.”

“Where is this?”

“Fairfield Park.” Maisonette territory, high on the northern slopes where developers made a mint from cheap housing sixty years ago.

“Signs of a break-in? Doors, windows?”

“Nothing. Apart from the rug, it looked normal inside. Well, normal except that none of his stuff was there. All the cupboards and drawers were empty.”

“He’d done a flit.”

“It seems so. The place wasn’t much lived in, as far as I could tell, probably rented only for as long as they’re here filming.”

“So unless he tripped over the rug, the chances are whoever gave him his bloody nose will be part of the TV set-up.” Diamond sat back and spread his hands. “Simple. Assemble the suspects in the drawing room and do a Miss Marple.”

Gilbert took most of Diamond’s remarks seriously. This time, he could tell it was meant to be amusing, so he played along. “Guv, have you ever watched the names scroll by at the end of a film?”

Diamond saw the point of that and grinned. “You’ll need a large drawing room. Where are they filming?”

“Below Pulteney Bridge.”

Young Gilbert — as Diamond still thought of him — had done all the right things. His earnestness screamed out for a leg-pull, but Diamond wasn’t without mercy. He could see his young self here, transparently keen to impress.

“If you really want to cut your teeth on this one, better make yourself known to them and see what you can dig up on this rigger.”

Gilbert stared at Diamond as if he’d handed him the key of a Porsche. “Do you think it’s worth following up?”

“You’re the IO on this one. Go for it.”

Investigating Officer. You could have fitted the Royal Crescent into Paul Gilbert’s grin. “Right now?”

“If they’re filming, it’s the perfect opportunity. Make yourself known to whoever is running the show and then dive in. I suggest you start with the remaining riggers if any are left alive.”

Opportunities had to be seized by a keen young DC.

A larger crowd than usual lined the balustrade of Grand Parade looking down at the weir, most of them holding up their phones. This is one of the sights of the city and there are always visitors watching the white water cascade down the shallow steps. Unless the Avon is in spate after heavy rain, the flow under Pulteney Bridge is slow until it gets the shock of the descent. Then the movement gives this spectacular show.

Extra action was on view this summer morning. A woman and a man were down there, ankle-deep, crossing the top step of the crescent-shaped weir, the man clearly in pursuit and holding a gun he wouldn’t be able to use with any accuracy while keeping his balance. The chase was being filmed by a cameraman under the trees on the narrow man-made island parallel with the east bank. Others were directing the show from a viewing platform over the sluice gate.

“That’s so dangerous,” Gilbert said to no one in particular. He had just arrived on his moped, parked it behind the Abbey and joined the spectators.

“They’re okay,” one said. “They’re stunt people.”

“I don’t care who they are. I live here and it’s a death trap.”

“They’ll be strong swimmers. They wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t safe. This is their second take.”

“If they slip, they get sucked in by the undertow, however well they swim. Most years somebody is drowned here.”

“Russell Crowe didn’t drown.”

“Russell Crowe is there?”

“Years ago, when they made Les Mis. He jumps off the bridge and commits suicide. Haven’t you seen it? That was filmed here. You see him jump and get dragged in.”

“That wasn’t here,” Gilbert said. “It was Paris. The River Seine.”

“That’s what you were meant to think.”

A guarded okay from Gilbert. He didn’t believe what he was hearing, but he wasn’t going to argue the point.

“It was definitely here,” the man’s wife said in support.

The know-all said, “Russell Crowe didn’t really drown or he couldn’t have made Man of Steel.”

The wife, who seemed to know more about it, said, “Anyhow, he didn’t do the jump. It was a stuntman. And the bridge he jumps off isn’t this one. That was trick photography.”

Gilbert didn’t have time to stay arguing about Les Misérables and he wasn’t liking what he could see of the reckless free show at the weir. He needed to get across the river himself to where the film crew was. He headed up the street past the long line of onlookers and crossed the bridge, thinking that Russell Crowe or his stunt double couldn’t have jumped off unless they leapt from a roof. Pulteney Bridge is Bath’s bijou version of Florence’s Ponte Vecchio, lined either side with shops.

Several sets of steps brought him down to the grassed area under the trees and the place where the Pulteney Cruisers pick up passengers. The TV crew had unloaded their equipment — a lot of it — by the sluice gate that can be lowered to control the flow. A group of them were chatting. He produced his ID and asked who was in charge and was told the director was too busy filming to see anyone, even the police.

Gilbert said he was content to wait. “I wouldn’t want to cause an accident.”

“Is that, like, a joke?” a large man asked. He had snakes tattooed on his arms and muscles that rippled and made them wriggle. The words were spoken in a way that made Gilbert feel there was only one answer and he’d better get it right.

“I’m serious. What they’re doing is bloody dangerous.”

“Don’t you worry about that. They’re stunt people. They do more difficult stuff than running along a weir.”

Gilbert didn’t argue the point. He turned to the group in general, inviting someone else to join in. “I’m here about the missing rigger. Have you heard from him?”

“Jake?” the big man said before any of the others got a word in. “He’ll be fine. You don’t want to believe the papers.”

“So he still hasn’t shown?”

“He’s a grown-up. If he takes a few days off, that’s his lookout.”

“Can you manage without him?”

“What does it look like?”

“Are you in charge?”

“I’m the key grip, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“What’s your name?” One basic thing Gilbert had learned when questioning people was to insist they identified themselves. In a slightly hostile situation it was doubly useful.

“Fergus. Fergus Webster. What’s yours?”

“Weren’t you listening? I’m DC Gilbert. If you’re the senior guy, Fergus, you won’t mind telling me what you know about Jake.”

“Sod all, basically.” Fergus turned to the others. “What do we know about the guy who didn’t last two days?”

One of them said, “You want a description, officer?”

“That would help,” Gilbert said.

“I’d say he was” — long pause — “average.”

Fergus laughed out loud. Clearly he ruled here. They took their cues from him.

“You can do better than that,” Gilbert said.

A look was exchanged between Fergus and the man who had spoken and Fergus gave a nod.

“Average height,” the man said. “Average build. Put it this way. He wouldn’t stand out in a crowd.”

More of them were grinning.

Gilbert didn’t appreciate the joke. “I’m not here to be messed about. What height is he?”

“Five eight... give or take,” the spokesman said.

“Age?”

“Thirty to fifty, I’d say.” This got more belly laughs.

It couldn’t go on. In a move that excluded all the others, Gilbert took a step closer and pointed his finger at the man’s chest. “This is a warning. It’s an offence to obstruct a police officer.”

The message got home. “Forty, then. Dark hair and not much of it, thin as a rake, pasty-faced with a tash, and didn’t have much to say for himself.”

Unsurprising, when Fergus was around.

Gilbert addressed them all. “So none of you believe this story about the jinx?”

Fergus took over again. “It sells papers, don’t it?”

“Someone from your lot took it seriously enough to report Jake missing, or I wouldn’t be here. Do you know who that was?”

“You’re the detective.”

“How many are working on this show?”

“Today?”

“Altogether.”

“The entire production team? That’s asking.”

“Fifty?”

“Four times fifty, easy. They’re not all with our unit.”

“I think I’ll get closer to the action,” Gilbert said.

“You won’t.” Fergus crossed his tattooed arms. “Public can’t go no closer than this.”

“I’m not public. I’m police.”

“You could be prime minister for all I care. They don’t want no one straying into shot.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Now the arms unfolded and made fists. “You can be careful right where you are.”

A stark challenge to Gilbert’s authority. He wasn’t going to cave in, but he could see this getting physical and he didn’t want to ramp up the aggression with a warning of his own. He was deciding his next move when there was a shout from the riverside.

“Get her out!”

They all heard it — a voice in panic that overrode everything. As one, the riggers made a dash for the steps over the sluice gate. Gilbert went with them.

The island on the other side was narrow, but heavily overgrown. It was difficult at first to see what was going on.

Down on the weir, one of the stunt people had lost her footing and been dragged down the slippery steps. She was the woman standing in for the star, the Caitlin Swift character. Paul Gilbert saw her head surface briefly in the churning foam. The undertow was too powerful. She was sucked down again.