In the Still of the Night

But Billy answered Harriet, his voice rough. ‘Mike’s been killed. The same as Derek – exactly the same. Strangled.’

Harriet groaned and he nodded.

‘God, when is this going to end?’ he asked her rhetorically. ‘What the hell is happening here? The PR people are going crazy trying to talk on every phone in their office. Of course, the press know all about it.’ He almost seemed to wring his hands, his face distracted. ‘I’m beginning to think we’ll have to come off air. Shut the who

le production down.’

‘Over my dead body,’ Harriet said, then began to laugh hysterically. Everyone looked at her, shocked and startled. ‘S-sorry,’ she gulped, getting herself under control. ‘We use these phrases without thinking, don’t we?’ Tears suddenly came into her eyes. ‘I can’t believe it. Mike. Dead.’

She had been close to being in love with him briefly; it had left a tenderness. He was a bastard, of course; but he had had charm and his body was fantastic. They had never been to bed, but Harriet was a highly sexed woman and very aware of Mike that way.

‘I’ll miss him,’ she realised, then, in bewilderment, ‘Who would kill Mike?’ she whispered.

Nobody answered her.

It was a short drive from the riverside studios to the police station, a modern building with a view of the river from its top floors, the windows all dark glass to cut down the glare of the sun in summer, the roof bristling with scanning devices and electronic equipment.

Annie was taken in through a police car park enclosed with twenty-foot-high wire fences; the gates opened and shut electronically. She just had time to see a horde of reporters clustering outside the station entrance who turned and saw the car, came running, shouting, blinding her with flashlights as they took blind shots. The police car shot through into the yard and drove right up to the back of the building.

Annie was rushed out of the car and into the station while behind her cameras went on flashing and the reporters yelled and fought to get at her. She had been exposed to press interest for years, but it didn’t prepare her for this. She was trembling, and it didn’t help to meet more stares inside the building; there were policemen everywhere, behind the reception desk on the ground floor of the station, hurrying along corridors, turning to look at her curiously, waiting for lifts, a battery of eyes that were an ordeal to face.

‘This way, Miss Lang,’ said the policeman guiding her, and took her into the end lift, up to an interview room on the second floor.

Annie was kept there answering questions for several hours. Billy had made sure their lawyer joined her to sit in on the interviews, but she didn’t try to evade any of the repeated questions about her whereabouts the night before, her relationship with Mike, how they had got on, how she had felt about his recent comments to the press about her, if she had seen his interview on breakfast TV.

‘Were you angry with him?’

The lawyer stirred, frowning, but Annie answered. ‘Yes,’ she said frankly, meeting the inspector’s eyes. ‘But not enough to kill him! And I doubt if I could, anyway. Mike was very fit, I’d never have been able to overpower him.’ She held up her small, slender hands. ‘Do these hands look strong enough to strangle a man?’ A shudder ran through her at the thought.

Inspector Chorley shrugged. ‘He was drugged before he was killed – the stuff had been put into a glass of whisky, we found traces of it in the sediment in the bottom of the glass. He was unconscious when he died, and you wouldn’t need strong hands – he was strangled with a woman’s tights, in exactly the same way Derek Fenn was. Anyone could have killed him. Tell me, did he know this ex-tutor of yours, Roger Keats, the man who claimed to have killed Derek Fenn?’

She shook her head, face uncertain. ‘I doubt it. I suppose he might have done. A lot of actors either studied at the school or visited it later, when they were professionals. The school liked to get well-known names along to give workshops or judge competitions.’

‘Did Mike Waterford ever come to the school when you were there?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I never met him, if he did.’

‘But he might have done?’

‘The theatre is a small world. Everyone knows everyone else, actors and directors are obsessed with work, it’s all they talk about. Mike obviously knew people who’d been to the school, apart from me, I mean. He may have known Roger Keats.’

‘But you don’t recall Mr Waterford ever mentioning his name?’

She shook her head.

‘Apart from having a quarrel with him after he talked about you so freely on television the other day, how did you normally get on with Mr Waterford? Did you like him?’

She was tired of being wary and careful; she just told the truth, although she could see from the lawyer’s face that he was appalled by her frankness as he listened.

‘He was unprofessional, selfish, wanted to hug the limelight. He enjoyed making little digs at you, he could be spiteful and his ego was monstrous. He had all the worst faults of actors, magnified a hundred times. No, I did not like him.’

The inspector half-smiled, she sensed he hadn’t liked Mike much on television, and he was secretly amused by what she had said. But he said, ‘It can’t be a coincidence, you know – that first one member of the cast is killed, and then another. And both men were important in the series, weren’t they? Have you got any ideas on that? Why would this murderer want to kill Mike Waterford?’

Her eyes were wide, troubled, baffled. ‘I don’t know – I can’t work it out at all.’ She looked at the inspector, searching his face. ‘Do you think it was Roger Keats who killed Mike? But why should he?’

He shrugged. ‘At the moment all I have is a lot of evidence to sift before I can make guesses. OK, Miss Lang, that will be all for now. If you think of anything else, ring me, won’t you? Any little detail, anything you remember … it could be very important. Oh, and you’d better give me your boyfriend’s address, and where he works? We’ll need you to sign your statement too. Constable Higgs will print it out at once – just wait two minutes, please.’

A policewoman had sat in the corner taking down her words on an almost silent word processor; Annie heard the hum of it beginning to print as she looked through her bag to find Johnny’s address.