DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 1

could have just gone incognito, decided it was time for a break.’
Farhan saw the situation differently. ‘The newspapers continue to put forward the idea that she’s probably dead, even if it’s not murder.’
‘And we base our evidence on what the papers say?’ Isaac Cook had not achieved the rank of detective chief inspector on the basis of ‘someone said something’ or ‘what the newspapers are reporting’. He needed evidence, and so far there was none, only innuendo.
‘Of course not,’ Farhan replied.
‘We deal in facts, not what the press and the gossip magazines print.’
Farhan continued. ‘Marjorie Frobisher is at the height of her profession. She had just been given another three-year contract, at a monthly salary five times what you and I receive in a year, and there is her record of service.’
‘What do you mean by record of service?’
‘In the twelve years since the programme first went on air, she has only missed five episodes, and that was because she had no part to play.’
‘Where do you get this information?’ Isaac had asked the production company for some updates when they had first been pulled in to investigate, and he knew less than his colleague.
‘From my wife, where else?’
Isaac sarcastically asked, ‘Does your wife know what happened to the body?’
‘According to my wife, there was a similar situation in another series about six years ago. One of the characters went missing for no apparent reason. Ted Entwhistle, the local butcher on the programme, just disappeared. You must remember, headline news for a couple of weeks.’
‘So what happened to him?’
‘They dragged it out, milked it for all it was worth. They thought they were dealing with a fictional disappearance, not a real-life murder. It appears that the actor portraying Ted Entwhistle had been messing around with an actress in the series, on-screen and off. Her off-screen husband got wind of it, strung him up on a meat hook in an old derelict barn. Poetic justice, the husband said when they caught him. Anyway, that’s what my wife is saying.’
‘A copy-cat killing inspired by a soap opera. Are you suggesting we seriously consider it?’
‘Why not? Marjorie Frobisher’s missing, and according to Detective Superintendent Goddard, she’s probably been murdered.’
‘Is that what’s happened here?’ Isaac had heard it all in his time as a policeman. The idea that a murder could be committed based on what a scriptwriter at the lower skill end of his craft could make up seemed implausible.
‘Ted Entwhistle was real enough. Fiction often overlaps with reality on the television these days.’
‘But you said you don’t watch it.’
‘That’s true, but it’s always on at my house.’
‘If your Ted Entwhistle could be found strung up on a meat hook, what would Marjorie Frobisher’s fate have been?’
‘According to my wife…’
‘Facts, please.’
‘What I was going to say was that Marjorie Frobisher’s character, Edith Blythe, had been the headmistress at the local school. In retirement, she took over from the church organist,’ Farhan said, a little annoyed by Isaac’s oblique criticism of his wife.
‘Let’s go out on a limb. What’s does your wife believe happened?’ Isaac felt there was no need for an apology.
‘I know it sounds crazy, but she believes she’s in a church.’
***
Charles Sutherland, a classically trained actor, or he felt he was, was not classical enough or not trained well enough, or the casting agents were defective in their recognition of genuine talent. He believed it was the latter. Early in his career had been a few walk-ons at some of the best theatres in the country in some of the most prestigious dramas. But they did not last long. It soon became apparent that he was deficient in two critical areas: his ability with accents and his attitude to fellow cast members.
Isolated and penniless, he had over the years been relegated to soap operas: the one area where he had achieved success. Billy Blythe had been his latest reincarnation after other long-running shows of a similar vein. He had been an undertaker, a shopkeeper, a philanderer, even a man of the cloth, but Billy Blythe had been his pièce de résistance.
They had killed his character; it was as if they had killed him. He knew it was the pinnacle of a disappointing career, and that he would neither forget nor forgive.
It had been assumed that his fictional sister would take on the mantle of bereavement, with the small, tight-knit community rushing to her side. The only problem was that she wasn’t there. The executive producer was the first to react to his leading actress’s disappearance with alarm.
‘What are we going to do?’ he had screamed at a meeting of his production staff two weeks earlier. The programme was always recorded one week in advance, so there was time to work round an integral character. ‘Marjorie’s gone and done a disappearing act on us. Has anyone any idea where she is?’ Richard Williams had been in the business almost for ever. He had reluctantly entered the world of soap operas as a script writer on a now defunct episodic programme. A plausible plot about an inner-city school full of delinquents and idealistic teachers in the north of England, it had somehow failed to capture the viewing public’s approval.
He had left the University of Sussex over forty years earlier with a BA in Journalism, and a desire to be a war correspondent, travelling the world, helmet and bulletproof vest, ducking the bullets and bombs, ‘bringing you the news from the front line’. The farthest he got was a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in South Kensington, when the police had come in with tear gas, and he had received a severe dose and a rock to the head for his troubles.
He was soft-spoken yet authoritative. He had guided this soap opera through its early years to where it stood now,