IMPERFECTION by Ray Clark (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

find him. Cuthbertson, who runs the stage make-up shop. He’s a possible suspect, but he may also be the next victim. Someone tail him for a couple of days. We have to be seen to be doing something, despite the fact that we’re getting nowhere.”

Gardener glanced at the chart again, ticking off the subjects he’d covered, stopping when he reached the word ESLA.

He addressed Steve Fenton. “Anything?”

“Yes. We’ve got the results in. We need everyone back at the theatre with their shoes so we can check them off.”

“Good. Go and ring Paul Price now and tell him I’d like everyone there tomorrow, with the shoes they were wearing on Saturday night. I’d also like to see the results at the next incident room meeting.”

He glanced at them all as a group. “That just leaves the sound problem. The word that Paul Price heard spoken before Leonard White was hung.”

“I know about that one, sir,” said Paul Benson, another young member of the team, who produced a notebook. “It was on a cassette tape. Once we’d identified which one, I popped over to the theatre to speak to the sound technician.”

Gardener glanced over the evidence bags, spotting a tape. “What did he have to say?”

“The sound tech identified it as the tape he’d been given by Leonard White about ten minutes before he went on, with the instructions that he should play it after the safety curtain had been raised.”

“Where did White go then?” asked Gardener.

“To the other side of the stage to wait in the wings, only our sound technician couldn’t see him. Once the curtain was up, he played the tape. At first, he thought it was blank, the wrong one maybe. Then he heard something scream out, which was a bloody sight louder than he’d anticipated. When he searched the desk for the volume level, it was too late. There was nothing else on the tape, and the body was in front of the audience.”

“Did he see White at all after that?”

“No, but to be honest, I think he was in shock. He said he just stood staring at the body until Price came barging through the stage door.”

“Did he recognise the word on the tape?”

“No.”

“Do you?”

“The sound lads have been playing with this for ages. The recording is pretty loud, which means it’s distorted,” said Benson. “But they have managed to clean it up and they think it’s two words, even though it’s said quite fast. Someone shouts ‘look out’, and that’s it.”

Gardener glanced at the ceiling, defeated. It would be nigh on impossible to identify that, but he had to try.

“Any ideas?”

Benson spoke up again. “The sound lads think it comes from an old film. There’s lots of crackling and a definite hiss, so it hasn’t been recorded live. Whoever did it might have used the latest technology, but the soundtrack is very old.”

“Okay,” said Gardener. “Everyone take a copy of that tape. I’ll have one for my dad. Any of you talking to the film historians, play it to them, see if they recognise it. I’m not expecting miracles, but you never know.”

Gardener updated the board and added the word ‘DVD’, intending to follow up on the Inspector Burke clip.

Briggs stood up. “Before you all go, the Chief Super’s been talking to a retired profiler who’s offering his services for free.”

“Do we need one?” asked Reilly.

“It won’t hurt,” replied Briggs. “And it isn’t going to cost us anything. He’s got a lot of experience dealing with these people. He worked on the Yorkshire Ripper case.”

“Peter Sutcliffe? That’s reassuring,” retorted Reilly. “They never actually caught that bastard in connection with his crimes. He was apprehended on false number plates.”

“We should have had the bloke who caught him working for us,” shouted Thornton. “At least he clocked number plates.”

The comment raised a laugh, and Gardener did his best to bring the meeting back to order. “What’s his name?”

“Trevor Thorpe.”

“Can’t say I’ve heard of him.”

“Well, all this is irrelevant,” said Briggs. “He’s offered to help, the Chief Super’s accepted, so he’s coming in during the next day or so to study everything we have. So, the next time we meet in this room, we’ll have a guest. Can we show him some respect?”

The officers dispersed without a word. Gardener wasn’t particularly happy about it, and judging by the expressions of his team as they were leaving, neither were they.

Chapter Seventeen

Martin Brown leaned forward and stared at the documents on his desk.

Running the fingers of his right hand around the inside of his collar, he realised the office was too warm. The general mess – which resembled the aftermath of a nuclear fallout – was also adding to his discomfort. The cupboard to his right was crammed full of magazines and journals. The shelves on the walls were at the point of collapse. Papers were strewn everywhere, on window ledges, pinned to the walls, left on chairs. But they were students; what could he expect? And they were so bloody noisy. He could hear them now in the corridor, shouting at each other all the time, even though they were standing together.

“Hold on a second, Dave.” Martin rose from his seat and closed the door. He came back to the desk and picked up the phone to continue the conversation. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, Martin. I’ve worked for BT for about thirty years. I’ve checked it out three times.”

Martin struggled with the information he’d been given. “But this is William Henry Corndell we’re talking about.”

“So you keep saying. But who the hell is William Henry Corndell?”

“Probably one of the greatest actors of our time,” replied Martin, growing more frustrated.

“Well, I’ve never seen any of his films.”

“He’s not really in films, Dave,” said Martin. “He’s more a