Free Dead on Cue by Sally Spencer

body.’
    Paniatowski nodded, though it was clear she had no idea where Woodend was going.
    â€˜This Miss Smythe doesn’t appear to have as strong a stomach as you do, Sergeant,’ the chief inspector continued. ‘She saw all that blood an’ gore, an’ right away she had an attack of the vapours. The doctor who examined her when she came round again is of the opinion that it might be better if she stayed away from work for a couple of days.’
    Rutter and Paniatowski were both still looking puzzled – and Woodend was starting to enjoy himself.
    â€˜I know one of the top fellers in North West Television vaguely,’ he said. ‘I met him on a case a few years back, while the pair of you were still crawlin’ around in nappies. Horace Throgmorton, his name is. I was talkin’ to him on the phone, not half an hour ago. I put my idea to him, an’ he thought it was a right good one.’
    â€˜What idea?’ Rutter asked exasperatedly, beating Paniatowski to it by a fraction of a second.
    â€˜It should be obvious,’ Woodend told him. ‘This director feller needs a new bagman, an’ I need to have one of my people movin’ around the studio without attractin’ too much attention to themselves.’
    â€˜You’re saying you want me to pretend to be a director’s personal assistant?’ Paniatowski asked.
    Woodend chuckled. ‘On that case in Blackpool, you pretended to be interested in curtain design,’ he pointed out, ‘an’ I know for a fact that if it hadn’t been useful to the investigation, you’d never even have noticed there
were
curtains over the windows.’
    â€˜But I’ve already told you I know nothing at all about how television works!’ Paniatowski protested.
    Woodend chuckled. ‘You’re a smart lass – you’ll soon pick it up.’
    â€˜So I’m supposed to learn a new set of skills
and
do police work at the same time, am I, sir?’
    Woodend nodded. ‘Like I said, you’re a smart lass.’
    â€˜And no one at the studio will know I’m a bobby?’
    â€˜Not a single one of them. The only people who’ll have been told the truth about you will be a couple of clerks in the personnel department back in Manchester.’
    Paniatowski thought about it for a second, then grinned. ‘Could be an interesting challenge, sir,’ she said.
    â€˜Oh, it’ll be that, all right,’ Woodend agreed. ‘What with us blunderin’ around in a world we know nothin’ about, an’ the press screamin’ at us to come up with a quick result because – after all – it’s not every day that a big television star gets herself topped, it could turn out to be far too bloody interestin’.’
    It was a quarter past ten when Woodend turned off the asphalted road and headed down the rutted track which led to his handloom weaver’s cottage.
    He didn’t like arriving at the scene of a crime with any preconceptions, so, as usual, he was trying not to think about the murder. But that was not proving as easy as it normally did, because this was not like a normal case. He had never met Valerie Farnsworth – and now he never would – but having watched her on his television screen twice a week, he felt as if he already knew her.
    He shook his head in annoyance at himself. He
didn’t
know her, of course – he only knew the character she’d played in
Maddox Row
. Yet he couldn’t cast off the feeling that though she’d only been acting the role, she must have put a part of herself into Liz Bowyer – that he must have at least glimpsed a little of her individual essence even though she had only spoken someone else’s lines.
    And it was not just true of her. Jack Taylor, the laughing postman; Sam Fuller, the cranky old-age pensioner; Madge Thornycroft, the Row’s gossip – he felt he knew a little