Authors: Peter Robinson
‘I guess not.’
‘You bet your ass not. As far as most people are concerned it’s strictly
Beavis and Butt-head
,
The Simpsons
and
Married with Children
. You can forget your fucking
Middlemarches
and your endless P.D. James adaptations. Your average television viewer ain’t got the attention span for shit like that. And she looked different then.’ Stuart laughed. ‘Boy did she ever look different. I’ve seen pictures. You know, the frizzy hair, green and orange, and the weird make-up, black lipstick, skin-tight leather pants, bare midriff. Fucking earrings as long as your arm. She even had a tattoo of a butterfly on her left shoulder. Still got it, I guess.’ He laughed again. ‘She sure wasn’t the Sally Bolton who came to my office that day with Ellie.’
‘Sarah mentioned Ellie, too,’ Arvo said. ‘Said she was the one who brought the two of you together. That right?’
‘Right. Ellie Huysman. She and Sarah went to drama school together in London, then Ellie decided she didn’t have either the talent or the stamina for acting, so she came over here and went into the business side. Eventually got into casting and ended up working for me. Small world, huh?’ Stuart laughed. ‘I think after a couple of years she wished she’d stuck with acting. Would’ve been a lot fucking easier.’
‘And you met Sarah through Ellie?’
‘That’s right. I was meeting with her one day about this new cop show the network was coming up with and she mentioned she thought Sarah would be perfect. They were looking for something different but the same, as usual on TV, if you get my meaning, and there’s always a pretty good market for the right kind of Brit women. You know, Amanda Donohoe, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter and the rest. So I ordered some videos of Sarah’s work from PBS, and I saw what Ellie meant.’
‘Is Ellie Huysman still around?’ Arvo asked.
‘Moved to Canada late last year, just after she introduced me to Sally. Said she couldn’t stand living in LA one more minute. Not that I blame her, some days. I mean, we got a few problems here, right? But I ask you, fucking Canada? Anyway, she lives in Toronto now. She’s still in the business. Apparently they make movies up there in the snow, too.’
‘You got her number?’
‘Sure.’ Stuart pulled a small address book from his pocket and gave Arvo a number with a 416 area code. ‘She’ll be able to tell you a lot more than I can about Sarah,’ he said. ‘Like I said, they’re old friends. Go way back.’
‘What does Karen think about your relationship with Sarah?’
Stuart narrowed his eyes. ‘I know what you’re getting at, Arvo,’ he said, ‘but forget it, there’s nothing like that between us at all. Never was. Sarah’s special. It’s like she’s family.’
‘Karen goes along with this?’
‘Karen adores her.’
That satisfied Arvo for the moment. He had met Karen a year ago at a party Stuart had thrown. She was a strong-willed, intelligent woman about twenty years younger than Stuart, and she had given up a promising acting career for her husband and family. She and Sarah would be about the same age, Arvo calculated, around thirty-four. If Karen accepted Sarah, that was a good enough character reference for him.
They leaned on the railing and looked out over the ruffled ocean. A smell of fresh-brewed coffee drifted over from a waterfront café and mingled with ozone on the light breeze. Perfect, Arvo thought. Just enough glare to make you put on your shades. Warm, but not so you’d start sweating. There was one more possibility he had to pursue with Stuart.
‘Right now Sarah’s hot property, isn’t she?’ he asked.
‘Up and coming. This series is really putting her on the map. And real quick. We’ve got movies lined up. Real movies. Maybe Merchant-Ivory. You know, all those English country houses and big lawns in the mist and rain. The real thing, not just Hollywood made-for-TV crapola, though there’ll be some of those, too. Bread-and-butter shit.’
‘Can you think of any reason why someone might want to sabotage her career before it’s even got off the ground?’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. I’m saying maybe somebody’s playing games with her, trying to freak her.’
‘Oh, come on, Arvo. That’s crazy.’
‘No crazier than any other possibility. No matter what you read in papers or see on the screen, there aren’t psychopaths lurking around every street corner. But maybe there
is
someone who hates Sarah Broughton so much he wants to pull the plug on her career.’
‘Like that cheerleader thing, where the girl’s mother tried to have the competitor’s mother killed just to put the kid off her stride?’
‘Could be. She must have beaten people out to get the part.’
‘Sure, but . . . No, no, I can’t see it.’
‘If Sarah’s a little fragile to start with, you can see how someone might think that sending her crazy letters like that could send her over the edge.’
‘Not to mention finding a dismembered body practically right in front of her house?’
‘That too.’
Stuart rubbed his chin. ‘You’re saying that the letters, the love stuff, might just be a way for someone to get at her? That whoever is doing it is crazy in some other way from the way he makes it seem?’
Arvo laughed. ‘You could put it like that. Sometimes crazy people are clever enough to pretend to be crazy in a different way. People read about stalkers in the newspapers all the time. They’re probably easy enough to imitate. We’ve had at least five false-victim cases. Maybe this is just the other side of the coin, a false-obsessive case. Do you know anything about Sarah’s private life that might help me pin someone down?’
‘Far as I can tell, her private life is very private these days, and that means as in
by herself
private. I know it might seem crazy to you, her being a beautiful Hollywood celebrity and all, but she’s kept to herself that way ever since I’ve known her. No drugs, no wild orgies, no tabloid headlines. This woman is squeaky clean. Christ, she hardly even fucking drinks.’
Stuart paused. Arvo looked out to sea and saw a large oil-tanker drifting across the horizon. From an open window across the street, he could hear Nat King Cole singing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
‘She buries herself in her work,’ Stuart went on. ‘I’m telling you, this lady is
different
. Has to be or this town would’ve chewed her up and spit her out by now. She’s not impressed by us. She’s just not your typical asshole star. When she’s not working, she just wants solitude, peace and quiet.’
Arvo looked around. ‘Hell of a place to come for that.’
Stuart scratched the side of his neck. ‘Fuck, don’t I know it. But for Chrissake, Arvo, the last guy she was in love with OD’d outside a nightclub. That’s gotta have some effect on a person’s psyche. Maybe work helps keep her mind off things she’d rather not think about. I don’t know. I’m no shrink. But these letters and now this murder . . . Maybe you’re right. If he keeps this up, it might just send her over the edge. Tough or not, there’s only so much a person can take.’
‘I’m looking for a name, anything, just somewhere to start,’ said Arvo. ‘You know as well as I do that these guys usually haven’t met their victims. They watch them on TV or at the movies and think they’re getting personal messages over the airwaves. Then they start stalking them, find out where they live, get hold of their addresses and phone numbers. It’s not difficult. You can buy them along with the map to the stars’ houses on Sunset Boulevard. But if our man really
does
know Sarah Broughton, whether he’s a true stalker or just someone out for revenge or sabotage, that could give us an edge.’
Stuart gave a little shiver. ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘So back to my question. Do you know of anyone she associates with who gives you any cause for concern? Friend? Colleague?’
Stuart chewed his lower lip as he thought. ‘Shit, Arvo,’ he said finally. ‘Like I told you, this town is so full of loony tunes I wouldn’t know where to start. And I’m just talking about people I’ve seen around, you know. People on the show.’
‘Other actors?’
‘Yeah. And some of the crew. They’ve got a cameraman I swear’s the fucking image of Charlie Manson, but everyone tells me he’s a harmless whale-hugging vegan, not to mention one of the best damn cameramen in the business.’ Stuart shrugged. ‘I guess I can’t really answer your question.’
‘Can you get me a list of all the people she works with and comes in contact with at the studio?’
‘Sure I can.’
‘At least that’s a start. Have you heard of this Justin Mercer, that old boyfriend she mentioned?’
‘I know the name. Why?’
‘You’ve got plenty of contacts in the business, so maybe you can find out where he is these days.’
‘I guess I could do that.’
‘What about Jack Marillo, the co-star?’
‘They’re pretty good friends.’
‘Just friends?’
‘That’s right.’ Stuart lowered his voice. ‘Just between you and me, Jack’s queer as a duck. Nice guy, though.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Sorry Arvo, but I gotta go now. Karen’s expecting me. Got people coming. Fucking holidays, huh?’
Arvo nodded. He had almost forgotten it was 22 December. He made a few notes in a tiny, spider-trail hand that no one could read but himself, then moved away from the railing.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where we’re going with this, but I’ll stay in touch.’
‘No problem.’ Stuart shook hands and walked down to the nearest cross-light.
As Arvo walked towards his car, a bum detached himself from the greenery and stuck his hand out. Arvo gave him a buck.
‘Merry Christmas,’ said the bum.
16
On Saturday morning, Sarah walked halfway to Whitby and back along the beach. She had spent much of last night unable to sleep, thinking about the letter. It so obviously admitted to the murder that she couldn’t simply overlook it. She knew she would have to do something soon. Like a bad tooth or a lump in your breast, you could ignore it for a while, but it wouldn’t go away. She had been good at procrastinating in her life. Too damn good.
The problem was that she didn’t know whether she should phone the detectives in Los Angeles and tell them everything now or let it wait till she got back.
Finally, distance helped her decide on the latter. What good would it do anyway? She didn’t know
who
the letter-writer was. Besides, surely now that he had murdered someone, the police would have forensic evidence to go on? By the time she got back, they probably wouldn’t need her. She would hang on to the letter, of course, and give it to them later – it might be useful as evidence – but beyond that, she didn’t see how she could help.
Also, if she phoned, they might send the local bobby round to put her on the next plane back to LA, and she would miss Christmas with her family. Just when she felt she was making some progress.
A bitter wind blew off the North Sea. Bundled up in a shirt and sweater under her down jacket, a woolly hat, mittens and earmuffs, Sarah didn’t feel too cold. The sky was as grey as used dishwater, but now and then the clouds would break for a moment and a shaft of sunlight would shoot through and dance on the pewter sea, reminding her of the calm after a storm.
Behind her, the whitewashed, red-tiled cottages seemed piled on top of one another like children’s playing-bricks, huddled together in crooked, cobbled alleys higgledy-piggledy fashion. The village straggled down a steep hill to the sea in much the same way as the ones on the Greek islands that Sarah had visited with Gary. A small church perched on top of the cliffs, and even though it wasn’t Sunday, Sarah could hear children’s voices singing ‘Away in a Manger.’
She had forgotten how unusual the geology was around the bay. There wasn’t much sand, only the curved layers of dark, barnacle-encrusted rock, which looked like a slice through an enormous onion, or a giant scalloped seashell embedded in the shore. The grooves showed where the waves had eroded the older rocks more quickly than the bands of limestone and ironstone between them. It was a great place for fossil hunters, and it also created numerous rock-pools where Sarah stopped to watch tiny crabs scuttle beneath the pellucid water.
Out to sea, Sarah could see a ship with white sails flapping in the wind. She shivered, imagining what it would be like out on the North Sea today in a sailboat. She pulled her jacket more snugly round her neck and carried on walking. The wind whistled around her earmuffs.
When she arrived back at the harbour, she walked up the ramp to the street. It was just after noon. Instead of returning to the cottage, she decided to call at the pub where Paula worked and give her sister a surprise.
There weren’t many people in the public bar, but when Sarah walked in, what conversation there was stopped at once. Even the clack of dominoes ceased. The only sound came from a radio playing an old pop song somewhere in the back. Sarah recognized it: Susan Maugham singing ‘Bobby’s Girl.’
At first, the reaction she got reminded her of the opening scene of
An American Werewolf in London,
where the young tourists get lost in the Yorkshire Dales and go into an isolated pub to ask their way. She could see the grizzled, sea-leathered, wind-reddened faces trying to place her. She smiled and said hello to everyone, then walked towards the bar.