Showstopper

6

Diamond had never seen anything like it. You couldn’t call it a motorhome. This was a two-storey hotel on wheels, twenty of them at least. It was the size of two furniture vans merged into one. How it had been licensed for use on British roads he had no idea. Pink and silver, with more lights mounted on the front than a Rolling Stones concert stage, it screamed swank.

Currently it was parked on private land at Milroy Court, near Trowbridge, the next Swift location.

Beside it, Ingeborg’s Ka looked like a toy. Diamond struggled out and stood shaking his head at opulence on such a scale. He’d told Ingeborg he was looking forward to meeting Sabine San Sebastian because she was one of the few people who had been part of the production from the beginning. Now he was less sure.

“How do we let her know we’re here?” Ingeborg asked. “I can’t see a doorbell.”

“She’ll have spotted us already. Haven’t you noticed the security cameras at each end?”

No one greeted them. The door was halfway along the side of the vehicle, a metre or more above ground level, and there were no steps. Diamond reached up to rap with his knuckles and got no response. He took off a shoe and banged with the leather heel.

A window on their right opened and a face with Asian features looked out. She was clearly not Sabine. “Yes?”

“DS Diamond and Detective Sergeant Smith of Bath Police needing to speak to Miss San Sebastian.”

“Sabine is in gym.”

“Pity about that. Which gym is that, ma’am?”

“Upstairs.”

“Here?” A motorhome with a gym of its own was something else.

“She must finish workout. Legs, calves, abs.”

“We’ll come in and wait.”

“You wait outside.” The window closed.

“Bloody cheek,” Diamond said to Ingeborg. But they didn’t have much choice. The vehicle was a fortress. “Greg Deans told me about the workouts. The company pays for a personal trainer for her. They must have money to burn.”

“I don’t know if you watch the show, guv,” Ingeborg said. “It’s a very active role. She needs to be in shape.”

“Doesn’t do her own stunts, though.”

“I know.”

“What a let-down for her fans,” he said, his mind already made up about this woman. “I’ve never seen anything in the credits about stunt doubles.”

“It’ll be there in the small print.”

“Very small. She’s the star. She states her own terms.” Sensing that his rant had gone far enough, he turned his thoughts to some strategy for the interview. “Everything I hear about Sabine suggests she’s a hard nut to crack. But I was told she’s superstitious and we can play on the jinx thing. It needs to be taken seriously, right?”

Ingeborg raised her thumb.

They waited another twenty minutes before the door of the motorhome slid open and a set of steps unfolded from a hidden section underneath. The minder looked out. “You are police? You have ID?”

Diamond showed his card.

“Sabine say you wait inside while she shower.”

“We can do that.” He mounted the steps.

“Remove shoes.”

When he saw the hand-painted ceramic floor tiles inside, he understood the reason and unlaced. Each tile formed part of a reproduction of an old master painting, a crowded composition of armed Roman soldiers and struggling women against a background of classical architecture.

Ingeborg had slipped off her shoes as well. They were in a lounge area with chairs and an L-shaped sofa.

“You sit.”

They sat and were left to wait.

“What’s the picture?” he asked Ingeborg.

She turned to look at the wall behind her. “I don’t see one.”

“The floor.”

“That?” she said with distaste. “Looks to me like The Rape of the Sabine Women. As décor, would you believe? Like it celebrates her name. Disgusting.”

Now it was Ingeborg who was on a rant, he thought. “Most of them are clothed.”

“You’re missing the point, guv.”

Minutes later, they were joined by Sabine herself. Smelling of expensive floral shower gel, in a black robe and with her hair wrapped in a red towel, she was shorter than the familiar image from TV screens. Even if you never watched the show, you knew the face. It was difficult to get through a day without those intense blue eyes looking out at you from magazine covers and computer pop-ups. The sharp, strong features were photogenic from any angle. She took the chair opposite and flipped the gown aside to display a bronzed leg. “What can I say? I’m so embarrassed, keeping you waiting. I simply wasn’t in a state to speak to anyone when you arrived.”

Disarming or deceiving? Either way, the apology was unexpected.

“That’s all right. It’s not as if we made an appointment,” Diamond said, a past master at trading charm when needed. He knew he was dealing with a role-play professional. He told her who he was and Ingeborg, too. “We hope you can help us clear up some story lines from real life that weren’t ever scripted for the show.”

“I think I know what you’re talking about,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “As for real life, I’d better warn you I’m nothing like Caitlin Swift. Everyone assumes I’m as cool as she is and of course I’m not. The one-liners are written for me and all the action is staged. I have a stunt double who does the dangerous stuff.”

Unexpected modesty.

A compliment was wanted here. “The success of the show is down to you. You connect with your audience.”

“That’s my job. All I’m saying is don’t expect Swift-like answers from me.” She looked and sounded nervous. “I can’t think how I can help you.”

He said, “May I call you Sabine?”

“Please do. Everyone does.”

“You know more about the show than anyone because you were in it from the start. Several of the other actors have gone. Even the producer has changed. Your experience is going to be helpful, I hope.”

She slid her hands along her forearms and pulled in her shoulders, making herself smaller. “This is what they’re tweeting about the jinx, isn’t it?”

“Are they? I don’t read that stuff.”

“I do.”

“Jinx, bad luck, whatever. We’re here about the things that actually happened rather than what people are saying on social media. We’re interested mainly in two people who went missing, an assistant producer called Dave Tudor. And, more recently, Jake Nicol, a rigger.”

“I heard about Nicol absconding, but I couldn’t tell you who he is. I don’t have anything to do with the grips. They do their job and I do mine. I was told he was only with us a couple of days. But I remember Dave. That’s going back several years.”

“Four, at least.”

“The time of Mary Wroxeter, who created the show.”

The memory evoked a sigh and a sad smile. “She was brilliant, fizzing with ideas. Before she came to us, she’d had a huge success with Robeson and the Welsh. Did you ever see it?”

“It sounds familiar.”

“The one about Paul Robeson, the great African-American bass-baritone, and his love affair for Wales in the 1930s. She cast Aubrey Jones in the role, a black singer with the Welsh Opera she’d known since her student days. His voice was almost as good as Robeson’s, and it was magic. Won all the awards. You should seek it out.”

“I will, now you’ve told me. But I was asking about Dave Tudor.”

“Right. He was Mary’s AP and he needed to be good, because so much was unrehearsed and unscripted. It’s more controlled now and, between ourselves, less exciting. Dave was Mary’s mainstay, telling us actors the last-minute changes. He had to be tactful because there were times when our lines were taken from us and no actor likes that. Almost every scene was re-shot several times over and that’s stressful. Dave managed to stay popular. I don’t know anyone who crossed swords with him.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I’m speaking from my own experience.”

“Was he also dealing with the crew?”

“Everyone. Mary wanted the extra mile from them as well. She often worked with long lenses and a single camera to get a more filmic look. Every tinpot director in the business does it now, but when she started with the Robeson series, the technique was new in television, tough for everyone from the focus-puller to the cable-basher.”

The terminology went over Diamond’s head, but he didn’t stop to ask. “Were there arguments?”

“More like undercurrents. Nothing was out in the open. Dave kept the peace. He had a really likeable personality. I don’t know where he was from.”

“Wales, I expect, going by the name.”

“I’m not so sure. There was the trace of a foreign accent when he spoke, quite sexy, in fact.”

Diamond didn’t miss an opening like that. “Did he make out with anyone?”

This got an embarrassed laugh. “Now you’re asking. Not me, unfortunately. No, I’m giving you the wrong idea. We actors talk the talk, but we’re no different from anyone else when it comes to personal relationships. He was nice to us all, and I expect that’s as far as it went.”

“He must have felt the pressure of working for Mary.”

“No question, but he didn’t let it show.”

“So was it a shock when he went missing?”

“Not immediately. We all assumed he was ill when he didn’t call in. After a couple of days, Mary sent someone to check at his flat somewhere up at Beechen Cliff.”

“Kipling Avenue.”

“Yes, and he wasn’t there. All the signs were that he’d gone out and not returned. That was when it sank in that he was missing.”

“Were there any theories?”

“The one some people favoured is that he was an illegal immigrant and thought the Home Office were on his trail, but I don’t think it was proved. The company is careful who it takes on. There’s loads of form-filling.”

“Was he reported as a missing person?”

“To the police? I couldn’t tell you. The office may have done something. We were in the middle of filming and far too busy to ask. Things move on quickly in this business. Mary needed a new assistant producer and one of the PAs had to step up and fill in.”

“PAs?”

“Production assistant. It’s a dogsbody role, running errands and making coffee. They’re learning on the job, getting experience.”

“So who got the job — Greg Deans?”

“Not Greg. He’d only just started at Bottle Yard. Candida Jones, who was far more plugged in. Candida joined as a runner after leaving school, before Swift was launched.”

A new name to Diamond. He glanced towards Ingeborg, who showed with a twitch of the shoulders that she hadn’t heard of this person either. “Is she still about?”

“I’ve no idea,” Sabine said. “She didn’t last long as Mary’s assistant. She left a year later to start a family.”

“Leaving the field clear for Greg?”

“He was well up to the job by then. He’s a quick learner.”

“He needed to be, because in — what? — a couple more years, Mary Wroxeter died and he took over her job as producer.”

“By then, he was the obvious choice. To be fair, he does it well and makes it easier for us than Mary ever did, but she was more exciting to work with. Don’t get me wrong. Greg is a good administrator — that’s his strength and that’s terribly important, because he doesn’t need to be so creative if he brings in the talent and gives it a chance to flourish.” She was making an effort to be fair to Deans, by contrast with the way Deans had characterised her, making no attempt to hide his dislike.

“And how about you?” Diamond asked. “Do you feel secure in the show?”

The question seemed to unsettle her. She tugged at the gown and covered her leg. “What exactly do you mean?”

“This jinx. Is there anything in it?”

“I have people around me I can trust.”

“The young lady who showed us in?”

“Chen? My live-in driver, hairdresser, cook and chiropodist.”

“Doorkeeper, too, as we found out,” Ingeborg said, to lighten the mood.

Sabine summoned up a half-smile. “She’s good at that, too. It’s great to have fans, but I don’t want them calling unexpectedly.”

“Chen — is that her first name?”

“No. She’s staff. I don’t want her getting too familiar.”

“You said ‘live-in.’ I hope she gets out sometimes.”

“Hardly ever. Her choice, not mine. Most of the TV crowd have never seen her.”

“You must have thought about all the bad luck,” Diamond pressed her, not wanting to leave the topic.

“I don’t let it get to me,” she said, and it sounded like a lie. “The paper kept badgering me for a comment and I refused to say a word. They could twist my words, couldn’t they? If you have any sort of success, they’re queuing up to knock you off your perch. A story like mine feeds people’s jealousy. There’s always a section who want you to come to grief. It’s human nature, isn’t it?”

“It gets serious if they do something to make the grief happen,” Diamond said. “Do you think someone is behind these incidents?”

“I don’t see how. Anyway, they’d have to be an insider.”

“With a grudge, perhaps because they felt they were treated unfairly?”

“Even if that were true, why would they want the whole show to suffer? No, I can’t believe that. I mean, the accident to Dan was just that — an accident.”

“Some of the other things could have been malicious. The fire.”

“That was right at the start before Swift was screened. You can’t blame that on success.”

“The elderly actress who played your mother,” Ingeborg put in.

“Daisy? She had a heart attack.”

“Brought on by finding a man in her wardrobe.”

“He was obviously a burglar. As I heard it, she returned home unexpectedly, ahead of schedule. She was supposed to be filming next morning, but they added the scene at the end of the day so she could get away. She was found dead in her bedroom and there was evidence of a break-in. Someone had hidden in the wardrobe and disarranged things. The police found her jewellery box in the garden. Nothing in it, of course.”

“Just a very unfortunate incident, then,” Ingeborg said, “but how did the burglar know Daisy was supposed to be away filming? It suggests he’d seen the call sheet.”

Sabine shuddered. “That’s a horrible thought. It means...” She didn’t finish the statement.

Diamond was ready to move on. “One other thing the paper wrote is that the person originally picked to play the part of Caitlin Swift pulled out unexpectedly.”

Sabine shook her head. “They drag in everything they can. You can’t compare that with the accidents that happened.”

“How did it come about?”

“Do you really need to know?”

“Please.”

Before saying any more, she loosened the towel, shook her damp hair, bunched it again and secured it, as if she needed time to decide how she would tell the story.

“As Mary told it to me, they weren’t looking for a name. They were confident that the punchy storyline with a female lead — a gal with crime in mind — would sell the series. They wanted a young actor with experience, but they weren’t pitching for a star. She had to have the kind of face people find attractive, obviously, and be physically strong. They cast Trixie Playfair, who had done some bit parts on Heartbeat and other things. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of her.”

Diamond would have shaken his head whatever the truth was.

“I was told she signed the contract and the pilot was written and everyone was happy and then in rehearsal she threw in a bombshell saying she wasn’t ready for a major role. Amazing. I thought it was everyone’s ambition to star in a TV series, but she panicked, poor woman.”

“And they found you instead?”

“Very quickly. I was on the original shortlist. I’d already auditioned for the part — the same day as Trixie and some others.”

“You met Trixie, then?”

“If you can call it that: taller than me, athletic, fussed with her hair a lot. I wouldn’t say we got to know each other. A few words while we sat waiting our turn to read the lines. Auditioning is a necessary evil. You’re not going to open up with someone who might beat you to the part.”

“You thought you’d been pipped?”

“Let’s face it. I was. Nobody likes rejection.”

“Then what happened?”

“A phone call. Mary and the casting director took me and my agent to lunch. They didn’t want the public to know I was only the second choice, but someone leaked it to the Mirror. Trixie had reporters badgering her for the inside story, but it didn’t make headlines because the show was only a script at that stage. Any sniff of a story now and it’s everywhere.”

“Have you spoken to Trixie since?”

She frowned as if the thought hadn’t occurred before now. “Do you think I should have done? That’s got me worried. I thought she wanted to put the whole thing behind her.”

“You’re probably right.” He’d got as much from the jinx story as he was likely to, so he switched to the most recent event. “I heard you did some filming at Charmy Down airfield.”

“I did.”

“Where Jake Nicol was last seen.”

Her look changed abruptly. With ice, she said, “You’d better not be suggesting I had anything to do with him disappearing.” For the first time in the interview they got a glimpse of the imperious Sabine.

“Did I say that?” Diamond said, up for the challenge he’d been expecting from the start.

“I was there like all the others to shoot the scenes in the old control tower.”

“You took the motorhome with you?”

“That’s what I use it for, location work.”

“Quite something, driving this monster on our local roads.”

“You’d better ask Chen about that.”

“She parked up there beside the other vehicles?”

“You have to. It’s the designated area. They don’t want the transport getting in shot. After a couple of wet nights we were in a sea of mud. I insisted they put boards down for me to walk over.”

He’d come to the question that interested him most. “When did you leave? At the first opportunity, I should think.”

She hesitated, as if she, too, knew how much her answer mattered. “The first opportunity, as you put it, wasn’t until late. I was in all the scenes, right to the end, when the light was going.”

“Then what? Did you change your costume, clean off the makeup?”

“I do that in here. If I remember right, I asked Chen to fix me a drink and a sandwich.”

“While the others were clearing up outside? Did you watch?”

“I wasn’t interested in what was going on out there. I remember checking my phone and watching some TV.”

“I’m asking because Jake Nicol must have been out there picking up bits of equipment and loading one of the vans. We believe at some point he may have been attacked.”

She blinked several times. “Really?”

“If you witnessed anything, it could be important.”

“I already told you I don’t know Jake Nicol from Adam.”

“It sounds as if you were one of the last to leave.” She gave an angry sigh. The arrogance Greg Deans had talked about was all too evident now. “What are you getting at?”

“Was it dark when you finally drove off?”

“Chen drove off. I was resting. You have no idea how tiring it is to go through a day’s filming.”

“We’d better speak to Chen.”

She shrugged. “Good luck with that. You’ll need it.”

The charm of the earlier exchanges had vanished as soon as Nicol had been mentioned. She called Chen to show them out and Diamond took the opportunity to ask the stone-faced minder whether she had witnessed anything on the last evening at Charmy Down.

He got a one-word answer.

He got the same answer to each of his other questions. Chen was as chatty as a Buckingham Palace sentry.

The only “yes” was when Diamond said, “Perhaps you’ll show us out, then.”

In the Ka, he said to Ingeborg, “Sabine was a sight more pleasant than Greg Deans led me to expect.”

“She’s an actor, guv.”

“You don’t think it was genuine?”

“Chen was more sincere than she was.”

“I must be a soft touch.”

She said nothing.

In his head, he replayed the key moments of the interview. “The charm cooled off after I mentioned Jake Nicol, I admit.”

“She couldn’t get rid of us quickly enough.”

Ingeborg’s judgements on other women were usually reliable. Sabine couldn’t be dismissed as innocent. Two of the classic murder trinity — means and opportunity — weren’t difficult to pin on her. The motive was the elusive one. She’d made sure she was fireproof by insisting she had liked Dave Tudor enough to want to go out with him. As for Jake, she didn’t know the man, scarcely noticed him. But could she be believed?

He’d asked Inge to drive them back to CID headquarters at Concorde House and they were heading west on the A420 across the valley of the River Boyd, a prettier route than the motorway. They passed through a village called Wick. “I came here once with Steph,” he said in a rare moment of nostalgia. “Wick Gorge is quite a beauty spot.”

“I know it,” Ingeborg said. “I covered a story about Jane Austen in my days as a hack. She mentioned the gorge in Northanger Abbey.”

They drove on.

“Speaking of your journalist knowhow,” he said, “I was banking on you to unlock one of the big mysteries in this jinx business.”

“The whistleblower? I haven’t given up,” she told him. “I asked an old friend who subs for the Post and she said they don’t even know themselves who it is. The story was phoned in anonymously. Someone on their switchboard made a few notes and that was all.”

“Wouldn’t they need to know their source before they broke the story?”

“Not really. Most of it was public knowledge, but no one had joined the dots. It was only when they started checking that they realised how much had gone wrong with Swift. Some of the incidents had been reported in their own pages.”

“The jinx idea would appeal to any journalist.”

“You’re right about that, guv.”

“I thought they were protecting someone. The Post don’t need to know who the source was, but we do.”

“I don’t think they can tell us any more than they have. The stuff they know is all in print.”

“There’s something useful they can tell us.”

“What’s that?”

“Was the caller a man or a woman?”