DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 1

predominant in the United Kingdom and sold to twenty more countries around the world. Nowadays, he mostly left it to others to deal with the daily episodes. It was rare for him to leave his elegant office with its sweeping views of London and to venture to the production facilities, a prefabricated town of frontages, held up by plywood and paint, located in what had once been an old industrial wasteland. He had reached his sixty-third year. He was not an attractive man, a little short, yet slim. His hair, once black and thick, now came courtesy of a bottle and an expensive hair.
‘Marjorie is nowhere to be seen, hasn’t been seen for a few days.’ The script producer, Ray Saddler, had been with the soap opera for the last six years, and he had moulded a formidable team of script writers.
‘Has anyone looked for her?’ Williams asked.
‘Of course, we have,’ the series producer, Jessica O’Neill, said. She had joined the production team six months earlier. There had been dissension in the ranks on her appointment. Her demanding manner and excessive attempts at perfection, resulting in numerous retakes, sometimes late into the night, irritated some of the older hands in the business.
‘Milady,’ an antiquated term of respect for a female member of the British aristocracy, was often used in derision behind her back. Charles Sutherland had said it to her face once, but he had been drunk.
The meeting had not been going long before Richard Williams made a pronouncement, as he was apt to do when presented with an imponderable. ‘Write her out, and if the woman turns up, we’ll deal with it then.’
***
Isaac Cook had one uncertainty which concerned him greatly. Why, as a senior investigating officer, had he been pulled out of the homicide incident room to search for a missing woman? He needed to ask his superior officer. Detective Superintendent Goddard was a decent man, a man that DCI Cook respected enormously – their relationship based on mutual respect and friendship.
Challis Street Police Station, an impressive building, at least on the third floor where the detective superintendent had an office with a good view. Goddard sat behind an impressive wooden table with a laptop and a monitor to the right-hand side. In the centre, there was a notepad. A bookcase stood against one wall, full of legal books. A hat stand stood in one corner, where the detective superintendent’s jacket and cap hung.
It was the office of an efficient man: a man who had an admirable habit of not going home at night to his wife unless the desk was clear and all the work for the day had been concluded and filed away. Some days that meant staying late into the night, but that was how he worked, and no amount of cajoling from his wife or his colleagues would change the habit of a lifetime.
He rose and walked around the table as Isaac entered. A firm handshake and both men sat down on comfortable black leather chairs placed to one side in the office.
‘Sir, why are we chasing after a missing person?’ Isaac asked.
‘Do you know who she is?’
‘She’s just an actor in a mundane television drama.’ The detective chief inspector, the only child of Jamaican immigrants, had been a diligent student at school, in part due to his parent’s decision not to have a television in the house. His appreciation of the missing woman and her fame was limited.
‘Marjorie Frobisher is hardly just an actor in a mundane drama; she’s one of the major celebrities in this country.’ Detective Superintendent Goddard understood the reluctance of his best detective to become involved.
‘So why are we looking? There’s no body, no motive and certainly no reason for us to be involved. It should be registered with missing persons.’
‘Agreed, but you don’t understand the situation.’
‘What don’t I understand?’
‘Influential friends…’
‘Is that a reason?’ Isaac asked, although he had heard it before. Someone with influence using it to get preferential treatment.
The detective superintendent had hoped to avoid this conversation, and that Isaac would have continued with the case and got on with it. He realised now that it would have been best to have told him upfront. ‘What do you know about Marjorie Frobisher? Apart from the fact that she’s an actor of little note in your estimation.’
‘I’ve no idea whether she is good enough for an Oscar or a bit part in the local drama society’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest.’
‘Are you telling me to keep looking for this woman?’ The respect between the two men separated by nearly twenty years and rank allowed a little impertinence.
‘This is highly confidential. It must never come into your discussions with anyone. Don’t tell anyone in your office.’
‘Okay, give it to me straight.’
‘There is a very senior member of the government applying pressure to find this woman.’
‘Any names?’
None that I’ve been told, but it’s clear that this woman either knows something about someone, or she’s important to someone influential for reasons unknown.’
‘Is that the best I’m going to get?’ Isaac asked.
‘That’s all I’ve got.’
‘I’ll ask no more questions,’ Isaac said.
‘It could be that she doesn’t want to be found,’ Richard Goddard said. Isaac thought his senior’s statement a little obscure.

Chapter 2
Isaac’s next visit was to the reclaimed plot of land that housed the fictional town of Bletherington. There were questions to be asked, the mood on the streets of the plywood town to be evaluated. He had been told that the series producer was the best person to talk to.
‘Edith Blythe, what can I say? Brilliant characterisation, excellent delivery, great timing ‒ undoubtedly the star of the show.’ A well-dressed, prim and proper woman in her mid-thirties, Jessica O’Neill had come to the position of series producer through a torturous route. She had started some