The wrong mark. Part 3

The two policemen met just before lunchtime the next day in the local police station. “To sum up, what we have is a stage covered with strange chalk marks and a lady who must have had her rifle stolen and left out in the trees. It would appear that the rifle was aimed at point as high as my neck. That would be as high as Penny’s head according to the forensic people! We’d better pop down to the pub where she worked and try to get some background”

Never one to pass up a drink DS Smith agreed at once. The talk in the pub was all about the shocking death of their barmaid. Most of the customers were horrified, but one or two of the regulars seemed to think that owing to the way she encouraged some of her men friends, it wasn’t too surprising that something unpleasant had happened to her.

It soon appeared that Penny passed her favours around fairly generously. She liked to associate with large muscular men, of whom there were a generous number in the local countryside. This was accepted by most of the locals, but Brian Jones playing the part of Rupert in the play, was a normal sized townie and a newcomer to the area. He had fallen really hard for the lady and been rejected on several occasions, hinting at dark things if she didn’t accept him.

Penny was a real country girl so she didn’t believe in marrying any sort of foreigner let alone pale pink town dwellers with no muscles. Neither did she believe any of Brian’s threats, so she’d just laughed at him. The play hadn’t helped matters either, at every rehearsal and subsequent performance, she had turned down his advances and every time he’d pulled out his gun and shot her.

“Reckon he was getting into the habit,” was the general opinion.

“We’re going to have to check out the theft of Penny’s rifle from her house,” said Jenkins as they left the pub.

Back at the station later that afternoon, the Inspector suddenly remembered something. “Do you know sergeant, there’s one member of the group we’ve both forgotten.” There was a pause while his sergeant looked at him questioningly, “the groundsman,” he replied, “somebody must have put all those crosses on the grass. Come to that he must mow the grass occasionally; otherwise nobody would ever see the actors.”

“Extending that statement a bit,” grinned his sergeant, “who told him to put the marks there in the first place? You know I think you’ve just made a significant break through in this case sir. Whoever has authority over the groundsman must be the killer.”

A quiet word with the Jim the groundsman supplied the information that the director of the play spent a lot of time arranging the marks in the exact positions he wanted to place his actors during each scene.

“Of course a lot of the work is wasted,” said the director when he was finally tracked down, “Jim not only puts the marks down, but he also obliterates most of them whenever he cuts the grass, so he spends a lot of time after each cut replacing them.”

“How often does he do the mowing?” asked Jenkins.

“A day or so before each performance usually, he’s a blessed nuisance, but of course by then most of the cast know their places anyway, but I prefer the professional way of doing things if possible.”

“I think I’ve got an idea,” said Jenkins, “find out how tall Brian Jones is. He’s the guy who played Rupert,” he reminded John. “I’m going to the firearms boys and find out what that contraption was on the trigger guard.”

----OOO----

The next day they met once again to discuss the results of their enquiries. John had discovered that Brian was the same height as Penny, while forensics had found that the rifle had been fired recently and the contraption bolted to the trigger guard was a firing mechanism activated by a mobile phone. The theft of the rifle was rejected for the time being, since there was no evidence of any break in at Penny’s home and if it had been stolen she should have notified the police very quickly.

“I have another theory abut this killing,” said the Inspector, “Penny and Jones were both 5ft.7”, suppose it was Brian who was meant to be killed. Penny was fed up his advances and meant to get rid of him once and for all. Rather a flimsy reason for murder I must admit, but some of these villagers are a bit weird in their ways. Now then,” he continued, “I reckon Penny must have had help from one of her village friends. He fixed up the rifle while Penny stood in Brian’s position on the stage so that he could sight in the weapon; remember she and Brian are the same height. Then after the murder he would take the rifle from the tree and throw away the electronic trigger, so that Penny could clean and return the weapon to the club as she’d said she would. No questions asked!”

“So that means we have to arrest everyone with a mobile phone in the audience”, said Sergeant Smith with a sigh, “then we can see who had the correct number to activate the trigger!”

“I doubt it,” said Jenkins, “I’m sure by now whoever was responsible will have deleted the number. We’ll have to think of another way to find our man. Any thoughts on the matter sergeant?”

The ensuing discussion soon showed that it was probable that only the two members from Lower Wharton who were members of the Great Benton rifle club were likely to have the expertise or the motive to set up the equipment. So the boys in blue decided to take one suspect each to be interviewed.

The results were not very helpful. Sergeant Smith had found that his man had been on holiday in France at the time of the play. He’d checked out his movements just to make sure and there was no doubt he was telling the truth.

The inspector’s man was still in hospital with appendicitis. He had been in intensive care at the time of the shooting and was not due to return home for another two days.

“Back to the groundsman I think,” said Jenkins, “I have a feeling that those marks on the stage might be crucial to this case.”

“It is a bit strange now you come to mention it,” said Jim when questioned. “Normally Penny couldn’t care less about the director’s position marks on the stage, but for this play she was dead keen.”

“In what way was her attitude different?”

“Well she was particularly interested in the marks for the final scene. Every time I mowed the grass she came round to check that the marks were still clear and in the correct place. She reckoned it was crucial to the success of the play that the two main characters were in their ideal positions to maximise the effect from the audience’s point of view.”

When the two policemen interviewed the director again he agreed with the groundsman. Particularly after her attitude to stage positions in previous plays, upon reflection her conduct did seem peculiar.

----O----