Dead on Cue by Sally Spencer Page A

chief inspector sat perfectly still for a few seconds, then reached for his packet of Capstan Full Strengths.
    â€˜Oh dear,’ he said regretfully, as he lit up one of his cigarettes. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

Eleven
    B ill Houseman’s office was a very far cry from the homely living rooms which were inhabited by the fictional characters of
Maddox Row
. The desk was made of flawless teak. The sofa covered in a soft white leather. Theatre posters in expensive metal frames hung complacently from the pastel-blue walls, and each of the exotic scatter rugs on the polished wooden floor had probably taken some poor bloody Bedouin tribeswoman months to produce.
    It was an office which had been designed to impress any visitor with its occupant’s importance, Woodend decided, and though he’d seen plenty of other offices which had had much the same aim, it did seem to him that in this case the occupant had tried just a little
too
hard.
    Houseman waved Woodend to a chair, and sat down himself behind his opulent desk.
    â€˜We’re both very busy men,’ the producer said briskly, ‘so why don’t we get straight down to business?’
    â€˜Aye, why don’t we,’ Woodend agreed.
    Houseman picked up an elaborate paper knife from his desk in his right hand, and ran the point softly along the length of the index finger on his left.
    â€˜I fully appreciate the fact that you have a job to do, Mr Woodend, but I hope you realise that you’re not unique in that,’ he said.
    â€˜You mean, all I’ve got to do is catch a murderer, whereas you have an important television show to produce?’ Woodend asked mildly.
    â€˜Is that some kind of joke?’ Houseman said sharply.
    â€˜More of a comment than a joke,’ Woodend replied. ‘I must say, Mr Houseman, it doesn’t seem to me as if you’re takin’ the murder of Valerie Farnsworth very seriously.’
    A look which might almost have passed as an apology crossed the producer’s face, and he laid the paper knife down on the desk again.
    â€˜You’re quite right, of course,’ he admitted. ‘I probably haven’t taken it seriously enough. But the fact of the matter is, I haven’t had the time to stop and consider it properly yet.’
    â€˜Haven’t had
time
to consider the murder of one of your cast?’ Woodend asked sceptically.
    â€˜You have to understand my situation, Chief Inspector. I’m totally wrapped up in the world of
Maddox Row
. I have to be – it dominates every hour of my day – and for me, at this particular moment, the death of Liz Bowyer is both more immediate and more tragic than the death of the woman who played her. I expect that when I can finally step off the roller-coaster ride which this job has become for a few hours, the implications of what has happened will really start to hit me, and I will begin my grieving. But for the moment, the show must go on.’
    Nobody should be
that
obsessed with his job, Woodend thought. And then, just before he put the thought into words, he pulled himself up short.
    Wasn’t he just as bad as Houseman? he asked himself. When he was working on a case, didn’t he develop tunnel vision, so that while he might notice the slightest nuance in something one of his suspects said, he was totally oblivious to anything which did not help him to solve the murder?
    Joan had told him as much, in her gentle way, and Annie had been far more outspoken on the matter. His bosses, too, constantly complained that he ran a one-man show to the exclusion of the wider concerns of policing – and for the first time he began to wonder if they might be right.
    He would try to be a better husband, father and member of the police team, he resolved – but first he had to find out who’d killed Valerie Farnsworth.
    â€˜Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to see Miss Farnsworth dead?’ he