He nodded and watched them leave, two kids let out of school early. A touching sight. He hoped his faith in them would be justified.
The sheets of paper that had been run through Denise’s printer had some marks along the right side that didn’t remotely match the suicide note. Diamond showed them to Paul Gilbert and explained their significance.
‘Is this good news, or bad?’ young Gilbert asked.
‘Good and bad. It’s more evidence that we’re working on the right assumption, that she was murdered,’ he said, ‘so that much is good. If she’d printed the note at home, suicide would have been a safe bet.’
‘So what’s bad?’
‘We don’t know which machine it was printed on. We can’t be sure of anything until we find out.’
‘I expect the murderer has a printer,’ Gilbert said. ‘If we asked each of the suspects…’ His voice trailed away as he realised why he’d been called in.
‘And it’s quite possible our crafty killer didn’t use his own computer at all,’ Diamond said. ‘You can start by getting specimen sheets from all the printers at the theatre. I’ve seen one in the box office. There must be a number of others. When you’ve eliminated them, start making a nuisance of yourself, going into people’s homes. Don’t let anyone offer to do the printing for you.’
‘Isn’t there a flaw in this, guv?’ Gilbert said.
‘What’s that?’
‘If I was the killer, I’d already have cleaned my printer so it wouldn’t leave marks at all.’
Just when Diamond was starting to feel he’d caught up with computer technology and found its Achilles heel. ‘Let’s hope he hasn’t thought of that. Run these tests as discreetly as possible.’
Gilbert looked as if he’d rather stack shelves in Sainsbury’s.
‘Look at it this way,’ Diamond said. ‘You could be the guy who fingers the killer.’
He didn’t seem convinced.
Motive would be the key to the murder of Clarion Calhoun.
Alone in his office and sensing that time was running out, Diamond turned to the classic trinity for all crimes: opportunity, means and motive. Opportunity wasn’t of much help. In a theatre where so much was going on and with the victim isolated, the opportunity had been there for the taking. The means, a plastic bag, was so commonplace that there was doubt if it was worth searching for. The theatre was full of bags. Leaman had called in again to say he had found another nine in the props room, making a total of fifty-six at the latest count, and it was probable that the bag actually used had been disposed of elsewhere.
Only the motive was worth pursuing. Why would anyone want to kill Clarion when she had withdrawn her threat to sue? The theatre had been saved from a damaging court case. She was everyone’s fairy godmother. The good news had been relayed to the entire theatre community by Francis Melmot. But now that Clarion was dead, all bets were off. The future of the place was plunged back into uncertainty. Surely no one wished the theatre to be closed after two hundred years?
There had to be another reason why she was killed. She’d fought her way to the top as a pop star. How many hopefuls had she pushed off the ladder? It was possible someone had harboured a grudge. But when you considered the line-up of suspects, none of them had any connection with the pop world except – very remotely – Melmot, who had been a fan, not a rival.
Who stood to gain financially from Clarion’s death? She had property, for sure, and money, though probably not the fortune she’d earned at the peak of her career. She was going to make a substantial donation to the theatre. Was that the trigger that had killed her? Did someone foresee their inheritance being frittered away on wigs and make-up and weird experimental plays?
He made a note to find out the terms of Clarion’s will, if she’d made one, and who the main legatees were. There had been a live-in boyfriend at one stage, but he’d returned to Australia after they split up. There was a manager called Declan Dean, and she’d dumped him, too. Anyone else? Tilda Box would probably know. Indeed, Tilda Box might be the beneficiary. She seemed to have been more than just an agent. She and Clarion had been seen clubbing together. But then Tilda had been in London at the time of the murder.
The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that nothing would be gained by treating the two murders in isolation. The victims were totally unlike each other, yet the theatre had brought them together as leading actress and dresser. Clarion’s extravagant act of self-harm had thrown blame onto Denise. The unfortunate dresser had at first assumed like everyone else that she’d made a dreadful mistake. Her death, almost certainly dressed up as suicide, must have been cunningly arranged by the killer, who evidently knew the theatre intimately, the butterfly superstition, the empty second-floor dressing room and the door to the fly tower and the compartment in the stove where the so-called suicide note was discovered.
Equally, Clarion’s killing required special knowledge, the news that the injured star was secretly visiting the theatre. Really only three people knew in advance. Others may have worked it out for themselves after the “ghost” was sighted, but the killing didn’t have the feel of a last-minute decision. The murderer had come prepared with the airtight killing bag and chosen the short span during the interval when the curtain was lowered and most of the audience were outside. A muffled cry of distress from the box hadn’t been noticed. He or she had left unseen, probably by the rear door. It was hard to imagine one of the actors having committed the murder on the spur of the moment and then going back on stage for the second half.
Realistically, Shearman, Melmot and Binns were the prime suspects. Binns wasn’t on the staff, but it was his job to patrol the building and he knew the security codes and could come and go at will.
Reassured that he’d drawn the net as tightly as he could, Diamond looked into the CID room again. ‘Anything I should be told?’
‘Keith just called from the theatre a minute ago,’ Ingeborg said. ‘He said to tell you about a fourth suspect.’
Telepathy seemed to have been at work here. Galvanised, he said, ‘Who’s that?’
‘Kate, the wardrobe lady. Like the others, she knew Clarion was on her way to the theatre the evening she was killed.’
