A Reconstructed Corpse (23 page)

‘Well, I . . . Your golf clubs.'

‘I've never played golf in my life.'

‘But . . . So what was in . . .? Oh my God,' said Charles, as he realised the implication. ‘The legs?'

Superintendent Roscoe grinned complacently. ‘Yes, I bought the golf bag in Brighton. I put the legs in and took them up to London and back again – in a bloody police car, for God's sake – just for the fun of doing it!'

‘And it was you in disguise who I followed when you were going to plant the legs in the station car park?'

Roscoe looked at him in surprise. ‘Yes, that was me. I was really sailing close to the wind then – I enjoyed that. And then when you were banged up down in Brighton, you told me all about it . . . and I could hardly stop myself from telling you it was me you'd been following.'

‘But most of the dirty work you got Marchmont to do for you?'

‘Mm. He was only still in the force on my say-so, and his life was so fucked up the job was about the only thing he had left. I knew he'd do anything I told him, anything. And once he'd started, he was implicated. An accessory to murder – no way he was going to blab about it then.'

‘Except he couldn't stand the pressure.'

‘No. The stupid bugger!' Roscoe slammed his fist on the desk in frustration. ‘He's screwed up the whole bloody thing!'

‘But if he hadn't . . .? If you'd managed your final coup – and got the discovery of the head announced on
Public Enemies
– what then?'

The superintendent sighed. ‘I hadn't really thought that far. Just do it, round off the whole perfect sequence – that was all I'd thought about. Oh, I don't know, I might have staged a neat little suicide for Marchmont
after
the end of the series. There was enough evidence pointing in his direction for everyone to think he'd done the lot. I could have fixed that, but . . .' His eyes grew distant and unfocused. ‘I hadn't really thought beyond finishing it . . . my final triumph. Retirement?' He screwed up his face. ‘I don't think I'd be much good at retirement. Being in the police's been my life. Maybe I never was much good at it, but it was my life . . .'

Charles brought the superintendent out of his reverie by asking, ‘And what had you got in mind for the final
Public Enemies
? How were you going to stage the revelation of the head?'

‘Well, I was . . .' Roscoe stopped, and a sly smile came to his lips. ‘I'm not going to tell you. We all have our professional secrets, after all.'

‘Ah. Right. And now . . .?'

‘Now?' The superintendent spoke as if he didn't understand the word.

‘Yes, what are you going to do now?'

‘Oh.' He looked bleakly out of the window. ‘I hadn't really thought.'

‘I mean, there's no way your involvement can be kept quiet now. I don't mean that I'm going to say anything, but I'm pretty sure Noakes and her lot will start to put two and two together. Once it's known that the murder victim's Ted Faraday and not Martin Earnshaw . . .'

‘Yes, yes . . . Oh, I'm sure they'll work it out. They may not be quite in my class, but they're not stupid.' Superintendent Roscoe sounded bored now, as if he were speaking of something which didn't involve him at any level.

‘Well . . .' Charles shrugged. ‘I guess how you play that is up to you.'

‘Hm.' Roscoe nodded abstractedly. ‘Yes, I guess it is.'

He was silent, locked away in his own thoughts.

Charles Paris rose from his chair. Just before he got to the door, he looked back, but the murderer was miles away, in a world of his own.

It was while he was waiting for the lift that Charles Paris heard the muffled crack of a gunshot.

HE TOOK IN a few pubs and an Italian restaurant on the way back, so it was nearly midnight when he finally reached Hereford Road. As he walked past the payphone, he remembered that he'd never rung Juliet, and his shame was increased by the sight of another sticker, bearing the message: ‘CARL PARRIS – PLEESE RING JULIETTE.'

It'd have to wait till the morning. Juliet might not have minded a call at that hour, but her husband Miles, insurance maestro and heavily backed favourite in the Most Boring Man In Britain Stakes, certainly would.

It wasn't a good night. Charles's thoughts churned blackly and his brief moments of sleep were crowded with images of dismembered daughters. Drinking more Bell's to try and shift the mood probably didn't help either.

He waited till half past eight to ring Juliet. ‘It's me, Charles.'

‘Oh, Daddy, I've been trying to contact you for days.'

‘Yes, well, I've, er, sort of been . . . you know.'

‘I just didn't know if you knew about Mummy . . .'

‘Knew what about Mummy?'

‘She's in hospital.'

‘Hospital? Why?'

‘Oh, just for some tests.'

Frances looked very pale and thin with her dark – now dyed dark – hair spread out over the pillow. But she managed a grin when she saw who had come to visit.

‘Charles, you shouldn't have bothered. I'm not going to be in here long.'

‘But I . . . I couldn't not have come to see you.'

She didn't look totally convinced by this.

He sat down at the bedside. ‘I haven't brought you anything, I'm afraid. You know, grapes or . . .'

‘I'll survive.'

He desperately wanted to ask her why she was there, what was wrong, but somehow the words wouldn't form themselves into the right order.

He took her hand. She didn't resist. He fondled it in his, feeling the reassuring ridge of the kitchen knife scar on her thumb, and was swamped by the knowledge of how much she meant to him.

Frances's hand returned the pressure. He kissed her thin lips.

The last episode of
Public Enemies
was, inevitably, an anticlimax. The news media were not going to let themselves be upstaged again and were hungry for revenge.

The story broke on the Saturday, so the weekend papers and television news bulletins took great pleasure in producing ever new revelations about the death and dismemberment of Ted Faraday. All their reports made references to
Public Enemies
, the television programme which had devoted nearly a whole series to investigating the wrong murder.

By the following Thursday the public was sick to death of the story and of the very mention of
Public Enemies
. They voted with their feet – or rather with their remote controls – and the ITV ratings plummeted.
Dad's Army
had never been so popular.

Bob Garston and Bob's Your Uncle Productions, realising that the prospects for another series of
Public Enemies
had been seriously jeopardised, started developing a new True Crime format called
The Sex Offenders
. This would reconstruct historic and current sex crimes with the same public-spirited grittiness which had characterised
Public Enemies
. The thinking was that an appeal to the public's prurient fascination with sex, as well as to their prurient fascination with violence, could not fail.

Bob's Your Uncle Productions did not mention the new idea to Roger Parkes, whose contract at W.E.T. had not been renewed. Geoffrey Ramage, however, thought he was in with a chance of being employed because in his time he'd directed quite a few blue movies.

The Sex Offenders
, however, fell foul of an increasingly puritanical IBA, and was abandoned at an advanced stage of preparation, after Bob's Your Uncle Productions had spent a considerable amount of development money.

Bob Garston, so recently flavour of the month, suddenly couldn't be given away with soap. His girlfriend, Detective Inspector Sam Noakes, very quickly left the sinking ship and started an affair with a junior cabinet minister who was very strong on law and order issues.

Her police career continued to advance, but not as quickly as had once been prophesied. When the new head of the ‘Video Nasties' department was announced, it wasn't Sam Noakes. Her involvement in the
Public Enemies
debacle had left a permanent black mark against her.

The true story of Ted Faraday's death never emerged. The police closed ranks and, though the suicides of Greg Marchmont and Superintendent Roscoe were reported, no connection was ever made between them and the private investigator's murder.

So far as the public knew – and it was a thought which gave them a deliciously unpleasant
frisson
– the man who had killed and dismembered Ted Faraday was ‘still at large'.

Chloe Eamshaw was not prosecuted for wasting police time. Though her fabrications had cost them hundreds of thousands, it was reckoned impossible to proceed against her without raising embarrassing questions about the force's own shortcomings during the investigation.

Martin Earnshaw became a kind of folk hero. His simple manner and the tag of ‘The Man Who Came Back From The Dead' made him ideal tabloid fodder. And when he married his beloved Veronique, the paparazzi gave the occasion almost as much coverage as a royal divorce. The couple retired happily to her family farm, where they bred Limousin cattle and children.

Chloe Earnshaw, almost as discredited as Bob Garston but still drawn to publicity like a moth to flame, tried to set up a charitable trust to help victims of tabloid character assassination. She arranged a major launch, featuring a couple of minor film actors, three rock musicians, a television weather girl and innumerable soap stars.

Unfortunately, though the event was well organised and publicised, no press arrived to cover it. Chloe Earnshaw should have realised that she would never get away with biting the hand that had so lavishly fed her.

Within a year, the public had completely forgotten the name of Chloe Earnshaw. And that hurt more than any of the supposed sufferings during her brief camera-flash of fame.

The tests on Frances were inconclusive. ‘There's nothing to worry about,' said the consultant jovially, ‘or if there is we haven't found it!'

She said she felt fine, but still tired easily. Her husband made all kinds of extravagant promises that he'd keep more closely in touch with her, that he'd really try to rebuild their relationship.

But Charles Paris remained Charles Paris, and the road to hell is paved with empty bottles of Bell's.

He went back into empty-glove-puppet mode, and his so-called ‘career' returned to its customary stasis. The theatre was, as Maurice Skellem put it, ‘very quiet', and nobody seemed to be making television drama any more. Or those who did seemed determined not to employ Charles Paris in their productions.

Sometimes, when things were really bad, Charles would walk through the streets of London and, if he saw someone of approximately his build and age, would think idly to himself, ‘If I killed that man, I might be employed to play him in a television reconstruction of the murder. But is it really worth the hassle?'

Generally speaking, the answer he came up with was no.