Free Death on Daytime: A Tess Darling Mystery (The Tess Darling Mysteries) by Tash Bell Page A

her point, she stomped off into the dingy, galley kitchen. Here, a forensic slamming of cupboard doors revealed an ancient box of Ritz crackers, a hotel jam sachet, and near-concrete proof the dead woman couldn’t scrape egg off a fish-slice. Opening a pedal bin jammed with pork balls and empty wine bottles, Tess recoiled: It could have been her bin on a good day.
    She was scanning the sink counter, wondering whether a ring of formica fag burns constituted the personal detail Sandy Plimpton sought, when something moved behind her. It was Selleck, crossing the flat to Jeenie’s bedroom door. He stopped still, and held his hand up to her in warning.
    Suddenly, the flat seemed very small. The officer was straining to listen for something. Over the thud of her heart, Tess heard it: heavy breaths coming from the other side of the closed bedroom door. For the first time in her adult life, Tess was glad she was with a policeman.
    ‘This is DS Selleck, Croydon,” he said loudly. “Whoever is behind this door, I’d like you to come out now.”
    Silence. The handle started to turn. As the hinge creaked open, Tess realised she was experiencing something more than fear. Fuckit, the fear was there alright, like a dull gripe in her stomach. For all her fat talk to the detective sergeant, she’d never been near death before – certainly not the kind that made her look over her shoulder in case she was next. Huddled together over Jeenie’s sodden body yesterday, the
Pardon My Garden
crew had shared a sense of violation. The normal order of things had been upturned. The natural response was dread.
Now, however, Tess knew her response had evolved and sprouted guilty wings. Fear had mutated into a shameful excitement – the kind Tess once got from pulling on tight jeans and doing the Running Man.
    Blood racing, she stared at the handle as it continued to turn. The door yawned open. From the darkness emerged a shiny, corkscrew perm. “Ey oop Tess,” it said. “Pulled again, ‘ave yer?”

CHAPTER FIVE
    D S Selleck looked ready to punch someone. He settled for talking loudly to the man beneath the perm.
    “I need to some ID” said Selleck. “Now. This flat is out of bounds to all but next of kin.
    “I’m Jeenie’s agent,” he snorted. “I
am
her fookin’ next of kin.”
    Tess shuddered, as the words rang round the dismal flat. Jeenie had never sounded so alone.
    Rod Peacock was known to Tess, of course. His huge, sandy perm was famous round Soho, (ditto the zoot suit and winkle-picker shoes that, as today, completed the set). Rod was proud to call himself a Teddy Boy, but keen not to mislead. “Don’t let the fancy threads throw yer,” he told new clients. “I’m a fookin’
bastard
.”
    One of the biggest hitters in the industry, Rod’s story was a modern-day fable of rags to riches via Light Entertainment. Twenty years ago, the little man with a big perm had been struggling to flog female impersonators and barrel-chested comedians round Yorkshire working mens’ clubs, when his star act – a gout-ridden comic called ‘Jonesey’ – got ejected from a live TV talent show for rounding off a lewd joke about Princess Margaret and Liberace with, “Poofs, hey? Don’t you wanna poonch their fookin’ faces in?”
    Fame promptly followed. While Jonesy proceeded to sink into an alcoholic decline, his manager soared. Rod found negotiating skills forged in hard working mens’ clubs transferred themselves neatly to the softly-furnished offices of Soho. Hefting talent on to the screen with a mixture of threats, bribes and bullying, the Rod Peacock Agency now owned the biggest names in TV, including the varied team of hosts and experts fronting
Live with Sandy and Fergal.
Rod had personally secured the contracts of everyone from Sandy Plimpton and Fergal Flatts to Colin Pound and, more recently – and most inexplicably – Jeenie Dempster.
    Why Rod Peacock had plucked an ageing kids’ TV presenter from obscurity – how