Mike Waterford didn’t show up until after lunch; he had been besieged by the press after the TV appearance and had had a great time parrying questions and posing for the cameras. He was smilingly indifferent to the angry complaints of Harriet and Sean as soon as they set eyes on him.
‘What did I do? Told the truth, that’s all. What did you want me to do? Lie?’ He gave them a reproachful glance. ‘Is that what you wanted me to do?’
Sean wanted to throttle him and his murderous impulse showed in his voice. ‘Every other word you say is a lie, you bastard! Annie didn’t have an affair with Derek, and she didn’t have his baby.’
‘That’s what I said,’ Mike assured him soulfully, opening his eyes wide in innocence. ‘I told them … it’s a lie, I said … all the rumours about her and Derek are a lie. That’s what I said. Get a playback of the tape and see!’
‘But you deliberately meant them to think the opposite!’
Mike gazed at him, blinking. ‘Oh, come on – you’re too tortuous for me. I’m just a simple actor, I’m not into playing these elaborate games.’
‘I’ll kill him,’ Sean told Harriet. ‘I’ll throttle the life out of the bastard.’
‘Like Derek?’ Mike softly reminded. ‘You didn’t like him, either, did you, Halifax?’
Sean’s eyes glowed with rage. ?
??Watch yourself, Waterford!’
Harriet looked at him uncertainly. Oh, of course she didn’t believe for a second that Sean was capable of murder, but sometimes he alarmed her – there was always that dark capacity for violence buried somewhere inside him. But haven’t all men got that? she thought wryly. However civilised they might seem on the surface, there was some part of them that flared into dangerous fury if their ego was threatened. And Sean was a bit of a control freak. He showed that where his writing was concerned; he had an obsession with patterning that she had noticed again and again. Maybe most viewers would miss it, because all they took on board was the storyline each episode. But because she had to interpret his work she saw it as clearly as you saw the dome of St Paul’s floodlight by night.
Sean had a way of looking at life, at the world, that was very individual. He liked to be in control, too, and resented anyone who tried to argue with him – or even, at times, suggest alternatives. But she liked him. A lot. She wished she didn’t. Because it was as clear as crystal that he was in love with Annie.
The two men were glaring at each other like rutting stags, locked antler to antler.
Harriet looked at them with sudden amusement.
‘Shall we get some work done? That is what we’re here for, remember? And nothing matters in the last resort except getting this series on to the screen each week.’
Sean looked round at her, a red spark in his eyes. ‘Is that really what you believe?’
She didn’t answer, just looked at Mike and said, ‘I hope you know your lines and moves, Waterford, or I’ll flay you alive and hang your skin out to dry.’
He walked away and Sean shook his head at her. ‘You let him off the hook! You should have let me kill the bastard.’
‘Not if it ruins my series, you don’t!’ Harriet met his angry stare with cool composure.
‘It’s my series, too, you know!’
‘Then don’t let your personal feelings about Annie make you forget how important it is!’
‘At least I have personal feelings!’ Sean threw at her and walked away, leaving her hurt and angry. She felt like going after him and telling him just how personal her feelings for him had been at one time, but what was the point? Long ago she had faced the fact that Sean wasn’t interested in her. She was fast realising that Annie mattered to him more than he cared to admit, and the last thing she wanted to do now was let Sean guess how much she had liked him when they first met.
Later that afternoon, Sean discovered that Marty Keats was not back at work; she had rung the head of wardrobe to tell her that she was at the police station and would be there for some time, and when Sean went looking for Marty he got the news.
He went back to Harriet at once to tell her. ‘Apparently she kept insisting that she wasn’t under suspicion, she was only helping the police with their inquiries. She said her ex-husband had rung her yesterday …’
Harriet’s eyes widened. ‘So he is around, after all?’
‘Not only around,’ Sean said grimly. ‘He said on the phone that he had killed Derek.’
Harriet gasped. ‘He admitted it?’
‘Boasted, according to Marty. And he warned her that he’d kill her if she started an affair with anybody else.’
‘So he killed Derek out of jealousy?’ Harriet gave a quivering sigh. ‘What a relief – Annie was never involved at all!’
Sean did not look convinced of that. ‘Roger Keats has an obsession with Annie, a dangerous obsession. If he is capable of killing Derek, God knows what he may do next. He certainly put the fear of God into Marty. She rang the police at once, and they asked her to help them track Roger down; they ransacked her house, looking for photos of Roger. She’d thought she’d thrown them all away, but they came on one or two she’d overlooked, although they were mostly taken years ago, when he was very young. According to her boss, Marty sounded scared stiff when she rang. And from what Annie’s told us about Roger Keats, Marty’s right to be worried. The man’s obviously crazy. Not just because he killed – but the way he did it, the way he dressed the scene. Thinking about it, I should have guessed he was in the theatre. And when you’ve just killed someone and go to those lengths, well …’