from the post-mortem on Denise Pearsall?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I would expect them to confirm that she was drugged.’
‘For sex?’ Diamond said. ‘Nothing about recent intercourse was mentioned by the pathologist.’
‘No. I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on the date rape connection. The purpose would have been to induce passivity. Within ten minutes the subject feels euphoric and relaxed. She would then have allowed herself to be taken across to the gallery from which she fell or was pushed. In other words, Mr Diamond, I have just provided you with potential evidence of malice aforethought.’
‘I’m obliged to you.’
‘Have you found the glass she drank from?’
‘Her killer is too smart to have left it behind,’ Diamond said. ‘And I don’t suppose it’s any use trying to trace the source of the drug if it’s as old as you say. Who uses this stuff legitimately?’
‘People with severe sleep disorders. Personally I prefer Horlicks.’
Shortly after, Diamond stepped into the CID room to tell the team and they seamlessly picked up from where he’d ended the phone conversation with Duckett.
‘How do people get hold of this drug?’ Paul Gilbert asked.
‘It’s no big deal,’ Halliwell said. ‘I expect you can get it on the internet.’
‘This was old stock.’
‘Plenty of it was changing hands in the nineties and is still in circulation. We’ve taken it off blokes going into night clubs. They don’t seem to have any problem acquiring it. There are evidence bags downstairs with the stuff.’
‘There must have been a lot of it around.’
‘How many pharmacies are there in the country? How many doctors over-prescribe?’
‘Of more importance to us,’ Diamond said, ‘who in the Theatre Royal would be likely to have a supply of the stuff?’
Fred Dawkins said, ‘The pocket Lothario.’
‘Come again.’
‘Hedley Shearman. The little man with the large libido.’
‘Fred’s right,’ Halliwell said. ‘Shearman is just the kind of shagbag who would use the date rape drug. He has plenty of form as a seducer, as we’re finding out. Before coming to Bath, he was front-of-house manager at a theatre in Worthing and got one of the box office ladies pregnant. His second wife divorced him on the strength of it.’
Diamond was less convinced. ‘There’s no evidence that he or anyone else had sex with Denise.’
‘He could have made a play for her some other time,’ Halliwell said, clearly liking this scenario. ‘Maybe she gave him the brush-off and threatened to report him to the board. He got scared and set this trap for her.’
‘Is that enough to justify murder?’
‘He’s still paying for the divorce. Losing his job would be a disaster. That’s the motive and we know the opportunity was there. As manager he could move around backstage without anyone paying attention.’
‘But would he risk the theatre closing?’
‘It didn’t, guv. Everything carried on as usual after Denise’s death. He was one of the keenest to let the show go on. He argued with you about the matinee that was cancelled.’
‘True.’
‘He looks the strongest suspect we have,’ Paul Gilbert said.
Diamond was reluctant to pin it on Shearman at this point. ‘Are you also suggesting he murdered Clarion?’
‘He was the man on the spot, wasn’t he?’ Halliwell said. ‘He arranged for her to be seated in the Arnold Haskell box. He could have gone there any time during the play. He was the only one of the theatre staff we know for sure was in there with her. He admits she was dead at the interval and he delayed reporting it until the show was over. If that isn’t guilty behaviour, what is?’
‘But why? Why murder Clarion?’
Halliwell shrugged. ‘He’s unstoppable. He fancied his chances with her.’
‘Little Hedley Shearman?’ Diamond shook his head. ‘With an international pop star?’
‘You’ve got to remember how vulnerable Clarion was at that stage. She’d been scarred. She’d come back to the theatre, his territory. He felt he had power over her, placing her in the box. He came on strong with her, she told him to get lost and he snapped and killed her.’
‘With a plastic bag he happened to have brought along for the seduction? I don’t think so, Keith.’
Halliwell wasn’t giving up on his suspect. ‘Well, he tried it on earlier, before the interval, and she laughed in his face. He was humiliated, so he went back with the bag and suffocated her.’
‘Thanks. I’ll bear it in mind,’ Diamond said in a tone suggesting the opposite. ‘Has anything else of interest been uncovered yet?’ He moved around the room looking over people’s shoulders. He could be an intimidating presence. Everything went quiet again apart from the tapping of keyboards and the occasional beep of the phones.
