‘Where is Barton now, Dob?’
‘In the building. Not far away.’ She spoke distractedly.
‘He must be found.’
‘Yes.’ A listless monosyllable. Then, in a different tone, ‘I still think it’s remarkable how you worked it out. I suppose you saw the books in Peter’s office.’
‘In Peter’s office?’
‘Yes. You know I lent them to him. Barton gave me a set years ago, and forgot about them when he threw out all his copies.’
‘Those were the books you thought might make a series?’
‘Yes.’
Charles felt a great surge of excitement. Something had happened. He hadn’t worked it out in detail yet, but his mind was suddenly racing away in a new direction.
He looked piercingly at Aurelia. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
He thought out loud, piecing it together as he went along. ‘Those books would never make a television series.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ she said frostily.
‘No, it’s not, it’s a matter of fact. They would have made a pretty peculiar set of films in the 1940s, but a television series in 1979 — never.’
‘Perhaps not. I just thought, hoped that — ’
‘No, you didn’t. The idea is a bummer and you know it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Yes, you do. If there’s one quality which has distinguished every moment of your career, it’s your judgement. You have always done the right thing, chosen the right show, the right part. You know what works and what doesn’t.’
‘Perhaps I did once, but as we get older, our judgement gets less reliable.’
‘Your judgement is as good as it has ever been. And yet I heard you say to Peter Lipscombe on two occasions that you thought those books would make a good television series. I didn’t know what the books in question were at that stage or I’d have smelt a rat earlier.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Nor do I completely, but I’m getting there.’ Charles paused and built his thoughts up slowly. ‘You knew, of course you knew, that those books had no potential at all for television and yet you still very deliberately brought them to Peter Lipscombe’s attention. Why? I think you wanted them read, you wanted someone to see the parallels with the crimes that surrounded the Strutters series. Yes, in spite of what you say about wanting to keep your husband’s crimes quiet, I think you were deliberately trying to draw attention to the books’ parallels with what he was doing. And, if you’d given them to anyone other than a television producer, the connection might have been made a lot earlier.’
Aurelia looked crestfallen. ‘All right, so what if I did? I couldn’t actually betray Barton, but by offering the books I was at least opening up the possibility that someone might work out what was happening.’
Charles was almost seduced by her meekness, but not quite. ‘If that was the case, why didn’t you offer more help, show the books to the police or something, tell someone? And why did you sound so disappointed when I said I’d worked out the connection just now?’
Aurelia now looked angry. ‘You’re talking nonsense, Charles. Why else would I lend the books?’
He looked at her very straight. ‘I think you lent them as an insurance policy. So that they were there if anyone started connecting the deaths. And so that if suspicion started to move towards you, it could be diverted towards Barton.’
He wasn’t sure, but he knew that he had to hold her stare until she gave way if he was to have any chance of finding out the truth.
It took a long time, but eventually she lowered her eyes. ‘So. . it’s confession time, is it?’
‘I think so.’ With caution and discomfort, Charles sat down. ‘You killed Sadie Wainwright?’
‘It was an accident. Really, an accident.’ The wonderful blue eyes looked totally sincere, but Charles was getting suspicious of their messages. ‘It was a stupid thing. She had been being unpleasant about Cocky all day, really offensive. Then, when we were walking up the fire escape, she said something even viler and I lost my temper. I pushed her and the railing gave way. That is the truth.’
‘So Cocky was the motivation?’
‘Yes. And after that night’s filming, I thought you’d worked it out. That’s why I poisoned him.’
‘Poisoned Cocky?’
She nodded. ‘I thought if you saw how little I was affected by his death, you’d discount him as a motive against Sadie. But then Romney came along with his wretched card and I broke down, so it. .’
Charles tried to slow things down, so that his mind could accommodate the new information. ‘Okay, Sadie’s death you say was an accident.’
‘Yes, and she was such a peculiarly unlovely person I can’t think that anyone was too upset by it.’ She spoke with a kind of blind selfishness, the murderer s immunity to other people’s existence. ‘Anyway, I didn’t want investigations and things. I had my image to think of.’ Image — the star’s eternal motivation. Was the perfect marriage to Barton just another reflection of the image?
Charles nudged on. ‘But Sadie’s wasn’t the only death.’
‘No. As I say, she was an accident, really. I thought she would soon be forgotten, but. .’
A new set of facts fell into place. Scott Newton had been in a terrible state after the recording of the Strutters pilot, Scott Newton had wanted a private word with Aurelia at the first read-through, Scott Newton had been suddenly affluent at the filming at Bernard Walton’s house. ‘But,’ suggested Charles, ‘Scott Newton had seen Sadie die and, being under a certain amount of financial pressure, had started to blackmail you.’
Aurelia nodded. ‘I gave him one big pay-off, but he wasn’t going to be satisfied with that. So he had to go.’ It was said very matter-of-fact.
‘You moved the flower-urn yourself?’
‘Barton did it.’
‘You told him all about the — ’
She laughed unattractively. ‘I told him that Scott was one of von Strutter’s spies, and that we had to destroy him. And I said the only way we could thwart the Teutonic devil was to use his own murder methods. The way Sadie died had been a coincidence, but I suddenly saw that it could fit very conveniently into a pattern.’
‘And Bar ton didn’t question what you were suggesting?’
‘Not at all. He took to it instantly. It was what he’d been waiting for all his life, for someone to share his delusions.’ She spoke of her husband as one might of a large and inconvenient pet.
‘And it was after Scott’s death that you gave Peter Lipscombe the books, so that he could make the connection between the two crimes if he chose to?’
‘Yes. He mentioned the possibility of their being connected in one of his little notes and that got me worried.’
‘And, if they ever were discovered, you’d set it up so that Barton would get the blame.’
‘He’d never betray me. Never betray a lady,’ she said dismissively’.
Charles sighed. ‘That still doesn’t explain the deaths of Rod Tisdale and Robin Laughton.’
‘No’ Aurelia agreed. ‘It doesn’t.’ She let out a sudden peal of laughter. It was a famous sound, a sound that had been heard on millions of recordings of I Dream of Dancing, but at this moment its gaiety was not infectious. ‘I’m afraid I was hoist with my own petard.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I am afraid I had planted the idea of a von Strutter conspiracy rather too firmly in my poor husband’s head. He started recreating the other murders completely off his own bat. Obviously what I had asked him to do had struck a chord. Barton was happy, happier than he had ever been. I think he felt that murder was going to be the one thing in his life that he had ever been good at.’