Body on the Stage (19 page)

They made their way to the cabin
and stood awkwardly, waiting for the authorities to arrive and take
responsibility. Dennis would have loved to pull out a piece of
firewood to sit on and rest his shaky legs, but knew he shouldn’t
touch anything.

“Good call, Gaz,” said Tony.
“You were right on the money, saying he’d be up here.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting
him in that state. I thought we’d find him lurking inside a cabin
somewhere and we’d haul his sorry ass out to drag him down to the
cop shop, maybe beat some sense into him on the way there.”

“Jeez mate, don’t start saying
things like that! If this turns out to be a murder enquiry the last
thing we need is you saying you wanted to beat up the victim. The
cops would be real happy with that.”

“I’m not that stupid. And you
can’t say we’ve got any compelling motive from their point of view
– we didn’t even know the guy. Never met him, why would we want to
do him any harm?”

“Why would we be up here looking
for him then?”

Gazza fell silent.

“I’m so sorry to get you mixed
up in this,” said Dennis. “Like you said, Gazza, I thought we’d
find him hiding out and would be able to put things to rights, make
him pay back Cathy and then have the satisfaction of running him
out of town. If that is his corpse over there then he’s just
created a whole lot more problems for us.”

A white police vehicle nosed
between the trees and pulled to a stop nearby. A tall, lean figure
emerged and busied himself with protective shoe covers and latex
gloves. He came over with easy strides.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. What
have you turned up for us then? Something of interest in the river,
I hear.”

“Hello Jack, glad it’s you,”
said Gazza. “Always good to see a familiar face in these
circumstances. We didn’t have a real good look, but we think it
might be a body caught under a branch in there, and chances are
it’s that some dude called Vincenzo that Dennis here knows.”

“Ah, so our missing Italian may
have surfaced at last, eh Dennis?” Jack Matherson raised an eyebrow
and looked interested. “We’d better check it out.”

They followed him back towards
the river, walking in single file along the same path.

“I had a poke about with this
stick,” said Gazza, handing it to Jack, who put it to the same use,
feeling along the sides of the dim shape in the water and pushing
here and there.

“I agree with your findings,
Gazza, it definitely feels like a body I’m afraid. Scoot back to my
car chaps, we’ll talk there once I’ve called in the crime scene
techs.”

They walked over to Jack’s
vehicle and climbed in. Dennis was glad to sit down. He tried to
ignore the creepy feeling in his stomach but it doubled when the
white police van came into view some time later.

“I don’t envy them,” said Gazza.
“How long has he been missing, Dennis?”

“About a week, I think.”

“If he’s been under water all
that time it’ll be pretty unpleasant.” He nudged Tony sitting
beside him in the back seat. “Bet the eels have been having a good
feed, eh?”

Dennis felt his stomach lurch.
“Jeez, Gazza! Could you be a bit less ghoulish? It would be really
embarrassing to throw up in Jack’s car.”

“Yeah, fair enough, sorry Doc.”
Gazza sounded genuinely contrite, and Dennis realised he was
probably covering his own distress with an attempt at humour.

Jack Matherson opened the
driver’s door and joined them.

“Right, suppose you tell me what
made you come looking up the Hook Valley for our missing Italian.
Did you have any information leading you here?”

“No, it was a wild hunch of
Gazza’s,” said Tony. “We’re just helping out Dennis and Cathy by
hunting down this Vincenzo dude ‘cos it sounds like he did a runner
with cash from the gym, and we don’t approve of that sort of thing
happening to our friends. We checked at the flasher hotels in town
but Gazza reckoned there would be quiet places to hide up here so
that was our next bet.”

“Good call,” said Jack, nodding
to Gazza. “Now we just have to figure out how and when he got
here.”

“I asked at the office,”
volunteered Dennis. “Showed them a picture but the woman there
today didn’t recognise him. That’s all we know. I just wish it was
more.” He slumped down in the passenger seat.

“Good man, that’s one thing I
won’t have to do. I’ll interview the other staff members later,
find out who might have seen him, and check their register to see
if he was staying here. Not that he’ll have used his real name, of
course, but you’d be surprised how many criminals use their own
initials or a recognisable pseudonym.”

“Will you need Cathy to identify
him?” asked Dennis. “She knew him best, but if the body is really
unpleasant I could have a look instead – I should be able to tell
if it’s him or not.”

“OK, you can have a first look,
and we’ll only call Cathy in if you’re unsure. That’s very
gentlemanly of you, Dennis.”

He blushed. “Just trying to do
the right thing.” Inside he screamed at himself. ‘Are you insane?
That’s a rotting corpse out there and you just volunteered to go
into an enclosed room with it. What if you faint? Or throw up?’ He
ignored the thoughts and turned to Jack. “I’m ready when you
are.”

“Excellent. Good to see the age
of chivalry isn’t dead.”

“Rather you than me, Doc,” said
Gazza, with a quiet admiration in his tone that made Dennis sit up
taller.

Dennis met up with Jack later to
view the body.

He steeled himself as the pale
green sheet was pulled back to reveal the head and upper chest. He
was already feeling queasy from the smell of disinfectant and
chemicals. The waft of putrid gases coming from the corpse was
almost enough to make him gag, but he fought down the nausea and
focussed on the remains in front of him. The skin looked too pale
for Vincenzo’s olive colouring but he assumed that was the result
of blood-loss and immersion. His glance roved across the face but
skittered away as he saw a sharp dent in the front of the skull.
The hair, plastered close to the scalp by water and silt, was the
right colour, and the body shape in general was slim and lean. He
leaned forward to check a mark on the upper arm, cautiously pulling
the sheet away to reveal a tattoo.

“That’s Vincenzo. He has… had a
tattoo of a falcon on his left arm. I’m pretty sure that’s it. If
Cathy has photos of him I expect the tattoo would show up and you
could compare it to this one.”

He stepped away from the body
with relief. “Is that all you need? I think I should get some fresh
air…” He started to look around with increasing desperation and
Jack quickly steered him to the nearest men’s room. Dennis splashed
cold water on his face and tried to keep his stomach from hurling
its contents into the basin. Jack handed him a paper towel.

“You did really well in there.
I’ve seen bigger men than you measure their length on the floor
when faced with even a normal dead body, let alone one that’s been
underwater for some time.” He stopped at Dennis’s pleading look.
“Not helping? Sorry! Look, take your time, come out when you’re
ready and I’ll run you home again.”

“I’m OK. I’m fine.” Dennis threw
the damp paper towel in the bin and squared his shoulders. “Quite
happy to get out of here as soon as possible though.”

He followed Jack back to the
car. “Will you be seeing Cathy about this or should I tell her
tonight when I go to the gym?”

“I’m going round there now, once
I’ve dropped you off. I need to talk to her in person first, but
after that you can discuss anything you like.”

Dennis picked up a hint of
professional discretion in Jack’s normally casual tone.

“I guess you have a procedure to
follow in these cases,” he said. “She’s not a suspect though, is
she?”

“Just standard procedure, that’s
right,” said Jack neutrally. “Crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s,
making sure we do everything properly. You can’t imagine how
annoying it can be when some villain walks free because we screwed
up with our investigation. It doesn’t happen often, of course. And
it’s not going to happen this time either.” He smiled at Dennis,
his eyes clear. “Thanks to you and your merry sidekicks, we can
close the missing person enquiry, and we’ve made good progress on a
homicide as well. It’s always a big advantage to have a body to
work on. You can probably leave the rest to us now. Just relax and
get on with your own life – I’m sure things are getting pretty
hectic with workouts and rehearsals, aren’t they?”

“Oh yes,” said Dennis with
feeling. “I don’t know how I used to complain about being busy
before I got into the theatre and the gym. They just take over your
entire life!”

“Yes,” said Jack dryly, “I’ve
seen how many hours Jessica puts in at that palace of magic she
calls a theatre. I can’t complain about it when my job has me
working all kinds of odd hours, but sometimes I think it would be
nice to count on a weekend away together once in a while.” He
hummed a few bars of ‘A Policemen’s Lot is not a Happy One’ as he
drove Dennis back home.

“Thanks for the ride,” said
Dennis as he got out and closed the car door.

“You’re welcome!” Jack drove off
with a cheery wave.

Dennis went inside, shut his
front door and leaned against it, closing his eyes. But the vision
of Vincenzo’s body floated in front of him so he quickly opened
them again and headed for the kitchen in an automatic search for
comfort. He switched on the kettle and pulled out his favourite
mug, feeling reassured by the normality of the actions. It was time
for his mid-afternoon snack of tuna and rice wafers but his stomach
strongly suggested that if he sent any food down it would be sent
straight back, so he settled for a simple instant coffee, cradling
his hands around the hot mug as he sat at the kitchen table
thinking. He wasn’t good at on-the-spot decisions, preferring to
think through all the possible ramifications before he settled on a
course of action. Right now he was considering the blood stains
he’d found in the gym. Now that Vincenzo had turned up dead, they
might be relevant and he should probably tell the police about
them. But, he argued with himself, they’ll be checking the gym
themselves and will find them anyway, so there’s no need to say
anything. It might look bad if he admitted he’d found them before
but hadn’t said anything – he might look as if he was covering
something up. The police might even think he and Cathy were in
collusion over Vincenzo’s disappearance. He decided, on further
reflection, to keep quiet.

When he got to the gym that
night he went straight to Cathy’s office. She sat at her desk, head
in her hands.

“Cathy? Are you OK?”

She looked up, pale, with
shadows under her reddened eyes. Dennis crossed the room in one
swift movement and pulled her into a hug. She drew in a shuddering
breath and relaxed against him, wrapping her arms around his waist
and resting her head against his shoulder.

“It’s been a rough day,” she
murmured into his shirt.

“Yes,” he said simply.

They stood for a long moment,
drawing strength from each other. Then Cathy broke away, looking up
at him.

“Jack said you found the body.
That must have been awful for you.” She shuddered.

“Oh it wasn’t so bad. Tony and
Gazza were there, it was a nice day to be out in the sunshine
looking at the scenery.” His mouth wrote a smile but his eyes
wouldn’t cash it.

“Was it…was it really awful? I
mean, it’s been ages since he, you know,” she trailed off,
unwilling to say the words.

“It wasn’t the most fun thing
I’ve ever done, but it’s over for now. Let’s talk about the future
instead, shall we?” He guided her into her seat. “How does this
affect your business, now he’s been found?”

“I don’t know. I’d been hoping,
of course, he’d turn up and I could get the money back from him
somehow, but that’s been knocked on the head, hasn’t it?” She
sighed. “And somehow I doubt he’s left me anything in his will to
cover it. So I guess it’s up to me to try and trade my way out of
trouble – if I can. I just need some money-making scheme to get
back on track. As long as the show is successful I’ll get a bit of
income from that, but I’ll need more.”

“Whatever I can do to help, just
ask. Anything at all.”

“Oh Dennis, you sweetheart,
thank you.” She paused and then looked at him more closely. “What?
I can see the cogs going round in your head – you’re thinking of
something, aren’t you?”

He grinned. “Just a silly idea,
you’ll roll your eyes when I tell you. Really, it’s not even worth
listening to.”

“Well, you have to tell me now.
Come on, spit it out.”

“OK,” he shrugged, “don’t say I
didn’t warn you. I was just thinking about the routines you’ve
created for the actors at the theatre, their strip routines.”

“Yes?”

“Well there would be lots of
guys out there who’d like to be able to surprise their girlfriends
with something like that – so why don’t you offer classes once a
week? Take eight or ten guys at once and show them how to move, how
to tease, how to put on a bit of a show. You could charge a decent
rate for something as unusual as that because they’re not going to
find it anywhere else. It would boost your cashflow, wouldn’t
it?”

Cathy threw her head back and
laughed. “Oh Dennis, you’re wonderful! It’s actually not too bad an
idea. That’s one way of taking my mind off my worries! Fill the gym
with hunky men and show them how to strip! Genius.”

“I really didn’t think that
through, did I?” he said wryly. “Competing with the actors was bad
enough – how can I compete with half the population of Whetford as
well?”

“You don’t have to compete,
sweetie,” she soothed him. “You’re the tops in my book.” A smile
lit his face. “Actually…” she said, looking at him more
thoughtfully.