Free The Final Curtain by Priscilla Masters Page A

looked at her with her doll-like, expressionless face. ‘OK, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I’ll answer all your questions as best I can.’ Her voice was quiet, low and husky, but Joanna had the feeling that you could use this voice to create an effect. It could be low and husky, it could also be sexy and strident. Her choice. She continued: ‘First of all, why do I stay out here when I am uncomfortable and being hounded?’ she began.
    Joanna felt on safer ground. This was her beat. ‘Well, it would seem logical, Mrs Weeks, whether these episodes are real or part-imagined, to move into the town.’
    Mrs Weeks seemed impervious to Joanna’s attempt to bring things down to earth and hurry the interview along. But the detective’s displayed impatience did not have the effect of hurrying her through her statement.
    â€˜You need to understand about my life,’ she said, and again Joanna felt her temper simmer towards boiling point. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. She and Korpanski had more than enough work to do. The theft of luxury cars in and around Leek was moving towards epidemic proportions. They simply didn’t have the time to listen to a prolonged and drawn-out life history, however eventful that life had been. Child star … And yet, as she glanced across to pick up Korpanski’s take on the situation, Joanna could see from his expression of studied indifference and the gleam in his very dark eyes that, like herself, he felt some curiosity towards this strange woman.
    Whether Timony picked up on this or not she began the story like an episode of
Listen With Mother
. ‘In nineteen sixty,’ she began, ‘when I was eight years old, I was signed up as a child actress to what would become the biggest …’ she smiled to herself, ‘I suppose these days you’d call it a soap.’ She paused (for maximum effect?) and continued, ‘There weren’t many TV programmes then and it was one of the few series aimed at …’ She paused, and mocked, ‘“the family”. It was called
Butterfield Farm
. It was a huge hit and ran for twelve years. I was the little Shirley Temple in it. I played Lily Butterfield. I was very small for my age. When I was eight I looked about five. I wore tiny nylon dresses, sometimes dungarees. I sang and I danced and I had a mop of curly red hair.’ She laughed. ‘Not that you could tell it was red. Television then was all in black and white.’
    For the first time they saw her really smile with her porcelain teeth. And although her mouth was surgically stiff and swollen, something of the pretty child peeped out from behind the face that had become a tight mask.
    She continued, ‘The series ran until I was nearly twenty, finally folding in early nineteen seventy-two. I always looked young for my age and the studio managers made sure I stayed even younger. I was on a strict diet and when my breasts began to form they were bandaged up.’ Again she smiled but this time her expression was tinged with cynicism and an element of disgust. She looked as though she expected either Joanna or DS Mike Korpanski to interrupt but neither did. They knew they were in for the full version. They were both thinking the same thing – that they may as well sit this one out and then, perhaps, all would be resolved and the call-outs would stop.
    After scanning them both, Timony went on: ‘These days they’re more likely to put fake boobs in the young stars, I suppose. They seem to want kids to look sexually active from the age of eight.’ She paused, a shadow straining her face. ‘Or even six.’ She rubbed her forehead as though it itched. ‘Anyway, the show brought its rewards. I was earning in excess of a thousand pounds a week, which was riches in the early sixties.’ She smiled, or at least her lips curved upwards. ‘Looking at it nowadays, the storylines would seem a bit