Changeling

by Sarah Rayne

  And then the moment vanished and there was only the angry darkness again, and the driving need to remove this travesty who would spoil Cauldron.

  There was only the deep swirling awareness that he was again in Rossani’s world; he had fallen down into it once more, and his mind was merging with Rossani’s.

  And this was the night when Rossani was hungry for prey . . .

  He stripped the garish clothes off the creature who had walked so easily into his trap, and stood looking down at the pale, exposed flesh for a moment.

  And then he reached into the deep pocket of his cloak and drew out the narrow-bladed scalpel. As he bent over the unconscious Mia, Rossani’s eerie song was thrumming all about him, and he was no longer aware that he was singing it in a soft, mad, crooning little voice.

  O never go walking in the fields of the flax

  At night when the looms are a-singing;

  For Rossani’s at work and he’s hungry for prey;

  He’ll melt down your eyes and he’ll spin them for gold.

  He’ll peel off your skin and he’ll sew him a cloak . . .

  Chapter Eleven

  Sir Julius Sherry seated himself at the head of the table in the Harlequin’s Green Room and looked round at the small group of people assembled there.

  It had really all been rather distressing. A police inspector had been and gone; he had asked people a great many apparently unrelated questions about the missing Mia Makepiece, mostly concerning her movements prior to the time she had left her hotel at 8.30 on Tuesday evening. He had irritated most people by his casual attitude, and he had incensed Gerald by suggesting, in barely veiled terms, that ladies sometimes disappeared for a couple of nights to pursue their own clandestine activities. Stephen Sherry and Morrie Camperdown had had to restrain Gerald from physically attacking the man at that point, and Sir Julius had produced his hip flask, with the idea of administering a couple of tots to Makepiece. Unfortunately, Gerald had swigged almost the entire contents without anyone (least of all Gerald himself) realising, and was now judged to be in a stage halfway between abject misery and a drunken stupor. It was anyone’s guess whether he would burst into tears all over again (which would be embarrassing), be sick on the floor (which would be messy as well as embarrassing), or fall asleep, which would mean they could make a few sensible decisions without him.

  It was thought that the inspector’s men had made some kind of a search of the theatre, but it was not thought it had been particularly detailed. As Sir Julius pointed out, Gerald Makepiece had already made his own search of the Harlequin, scurrying up and down, muttering anxiously to himself as he went, and opening doors to the unlikeliest of places. He had even distractedly plunged into the ladies’ cloakrooms and insisted on opening every cubicle in case Mia had fainted and was lying behind a door undiscovered. Nobody had yet found a way of telling him that so far as any of them knew, there had not been a rehearsal of any kind anywhere on Tuesday night.

  The inspector had taken himself off half an hour ago, saying he was very sorry, gentlemen, but there was not really much more that could be done and he dared say they would be wanting to discuss the lady’s replacement in their play.

  Since Sir Julius had taken the head of the table, Tod, after a prolonged stare which should show the pompous old fool where he got off, walked deliberately to the other end and sat down. Gerald, hiccuping with misery and brandy, sank wretchedly into the nearest chair and stared disconsolately at his feet. Clearly he was not going to be of much help to anyone at this meeting, but he had had to be included as one of the board of Mia Productions, and at least the brandy had stopped him from filling up with embarrassing masculine tears every five minutes, or dashing off to search broom cupboards. Sir Julius thought he would not have offered his flask at all if he had known the silly little man was going to down the lot, and remembered with annoyance that it had been a rather good cognac. And it looked as if they were going to have trouble with Tod Miller, who had tried to take the head of the table and only been prevented by Sir Julius nipping in first. It was typical of Toddy to stump sulkily to the other end of the table, and sit there glowering, the hammy old braggart.

  Stephen Sherry and Camperdown took places approximately in the middle, and Flynn Deverill, who had been summoned as a Harlequin trustee, lounged untidily in the window seat with the air of one disassociating himself from the entire proceedings.

  Sir Julius drew breath to embark on a little speech, in which commiseration (for Makepiece) and bracing, forward-looking good humour (for everybody else) were going to be nicely blended. He was forestalled by Tod, who leaned forward, linked his hands earnestly together, and said, in his most impressively sonorous voice, ‘My friends.’

  ‘Oh Jesus save us all, he’s about to be intense,’ said a bored voice from the window seat.

  Tod said loudly, ‘My friends, the thing we must all remember this afternoon is the famous adage of our beloved profession—’ He paused for effect, and allowed his eyes to roam over his auditors, coming to rest, more or less at random, on Camperdown.

  ‘Yes?’ said the musical director, politely.

  ‘The words that were coined by a better mummer than I—’

  ‘He’s going to get it wrong,’ observed Flynn conversationally to Stephen. ‘Unless he’s thinking of Hamlet, of course.’

  ‘Dammit, Flynn, I am not thinking of Hamlet!’

  ‘Whatever you are thinking of, I wish you’d get on with saying it,’ said Sir Julius testily.

  ‘I was going to say,’ said Tod, huffily, ‘that the show must go on. That’s what I was going to say.’ He sat back, looking jowly and responsible.

  Flynn promptly said, ‘Stephen, you owe me a tenner.’

  ‘A fiver,’ said Stephen, glancing at his watch. ‘You said he’d say it in the first three minutes—’

  ‘Skinflint,’ said Flynn amiably, pocketing the five-pound note that Stephen handed over.

  Tod glared at them both, and did not know what things were coming to when vulgar bets were taken about what people might say, especially when there was such a serious situation before them. ‘Very serious indeed,’ he said. ‘We must all stand together. The play’s the thing.’

  ‘I told you he was thinking of Hamlet, Stephen.’

  Gerald Makepiece emerged from his torpor to say brokenly that Mia would have wanted the show to go on. ‘Wherever she is, she’d want Cauldron to go ahead,’ he said, reaching into a pocket for his handkerchief again.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Amnesia,’ said Sir Julius, suddenly, and looked brightly round the table. ‘Mark my words, that’ll be the answer. And it can happen to anyone at any time. I remember I had a great-aunt once—’

  ‘Or she might have had a bit of a fall,’ put in Camperdown. ‘A touch of concussion, and been detained in a hospital somewhere—’

  ‘Any advance on amnesia or concussion? Stephen? Toddy? What about a hostage situation? Or a threat by a secret organisation to blow up the entire western world unless we pay ten billion dollars into a Swiss bank account? Or – listen, here’s a really good one, now – a consortium of rival theatres wanting to sabotage Cauldron—’

  Tod said, frostily, that it was incumbent on them all to behave in a responsible and serious-minded fashion in this crisis, and to treat people’s feelings politely.

  ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend me from Toddy’s serious politeness,’ said Flynn. ‘Stephen, have we the understudy outside?’

  ‘We have. Danilo’s here as well.’

  ‘And,’ put in Maurice Camperdown, who was trying very hard not to appear pleased, but was secretly thanking whatever fates might be responsible for the unexpected disappearance of Mia Makepiece, ‘in my opinion, Julius, Toddy, the understudy can go on.’

  ‘Ah. Indeed?’

  ‘Gilly Blair. The little red-head, Julius. You might remember her?’

  ‘Of course he remembers her, the priapic old goat.’

  �
��Well, since you mention it,’ said Sir Julius, studiedly off-hand, ‘I believe I do remember now. Dear me yes. Pretty little thing.’

  ‘Stephen, what’s your opinion?’

  ‘She’ll need extra rehearsals,’ said Stephen cautiously. ‘But we’ve got time for that. She’s seemed competent at the understudy run-throughs.’

  Somebody muttered that they did not want competence, they wanted brilliance, and Tod demanded they consider bringing in a big name. ‘Could we not think who might be available?’ he said, in his best I-dine-with-the-rich voice. ‘Between us we must have so many contacts and friendships in the profession. One meets with people. The Groucho Club, and the Garrick, you know.’

  ‘Toddy would like us all to think he has lunch with Elaine Paige every Tuesday and Lesley Garrett every Friday—’

  ‘I’m inclined to agree with Morrie about the understudy,’ Stephen, the peace-maker, put in hastily.

  ‘—not to mention supper with Lloyd-Webber—’

  ‘You don’t know Andrew, do you, Toddy?’ said Camperdown, surprised.

  ‘Not intimately. Hum.’

  ‘But listen, I think we can bring the understudy up to concert pitch in the time. There’s just over a week left.’

  ‘And in any case,’ said Flynn, getting up from the window seat, ‘the budget won’t run to superstars, Toddy. Let’s hear what the red-head’s like before the little fowl tips over into unconsciousness.’

  ‘Don’t expect too much,’ said Stephen, warningly.

  But in the event, Flynn thought the understudy was not as bad as he had been fearing. She was not brilliant, but she had a degree of stage presence which he had not expected, and her voice was certainly sweeter and truer than ever Makepiece’s had been. She was naturally graceful as well, and she looked the part. Slender and slight, but with a faint street-urchin look, so that you suspected that beneath the graceful fragility she might be quite capable of abusing you in gutter language. It was rather an attractive quality; Flynn thought it was a quality that Mab might well have possessed. This was not someone who would set the town alight, thought Flynn, studying Gilly from his seat in the stalls; but she would do. Yes, put her in the frock and light her a bit, and she would do.

  It was as Stephen and Morrie took them through Mab’s scenes with the sidh prince, that Flynn heard a faint sound from the dress circle. A door closing, had it been? The inspector’s men still searching? He glanced at the others. Julius and Tod were watching the stage – Julius was nodding approvingly at the red-haired Gilly, and Toddy was looking glum. Little Makepiece was slumped in his seat; Flynn felt a twist of sympathy for the poor little man.

  After a moment he got up and went softly and stealthily to the back of the theatre, and out into the foyer. It was already dark outside, with the depressing afternoon darkness of early November, and rain was lashing against the huge plate-glass doors. Flynn shivered, and turning up the collar of his coat crossed the foyer towards the curving stair leading to the dress circle. Probably there was no one up here at all. But it would not hurt to check.

  But as his feet trod soundlessly across the thick, dark-red carpet, he felt a prickle of unease. There was someone up here. There was someone up here who was being very furtive and very stealthy. In Flynn’s mind there formed again the image of the dark-clad figure he had glimpsed before; the watcher who had vanished into the shadows. A prowler? Even a spy, as he had suggested to them in the Green Room? It was a bit far-fetched, but it was not completely out of the question. Espionage was rife in all professions, and it was just believable that a rival house was trying to find out what the Harlequin’s new show was about. But it was not terribly likely.

  The dress circle was cold, as if the heating had not been switched on up here, or as if one of the exits had been left open. Flynn went quietly in and stood for a moment, his eyes adjusting to the dimness. There was a faint overspill of light from the stage, but it was still very dark up here. On stage the little red-head and Danilo were singing the duet in which Mab pleads for mercy, and the prince overpowers her. Their voices blended well. Wherever Mia Makepiece had gone, she had done Cauldron a favour by going. And that’s odd, thought Flynn, because I’d have wagered half a king’s ransom that Mia would never have bowed out of Cauldron. Yes, but did she bow out willingly, or was she made to bow out? said his mind. Was that likely? Could someone have cooked up a plan to remove her for Cauldron’s good, and if so, who? It was surely too subtle for Tod Miller. Yes, but supposing you were right about Toddy having a collaborator? Supposing there really is a fine Italian hand somewhere in all this? Almost at once Flynn caught a flicker of movement on the rim of his vision, as if his thoughts had taken substance in the shadowy theatre and evinced an abrupt response. He stood very still for a moment, and then very slowly he turned his head, scanning the darkness.

  In the far corner, standing near to the exit that led down to Burbage Lane, was a dark figure. Whoever it was was standing so still that he – or even she? – melted into the shadows so that it was impossible to see where the figure ended and the shadows began. So much part of the darkness was the figure that for a moment Flynn distrusted his own eyes.

  But no! – there was someone standing there, and it was someone cloaked and wearing a deep-brimmed hat. Flynn found this unspeakably sinister. But whoever this was, it was unquestionably the same person he had seen before. He’s watching the stage with exactly the same intensity, thought Flynn, and he’s listening with fierce concentration. This is absurd. This is Phantom of the Opera territory. He moved then, deliberately making a noise, and at once the figure swung round. Flynn had a brief fleeting impression of darkness where the face should have been, and the figure flinched, and threw up a hand as if to ward off a blow. And then it turned with a swirl of silk and darted towards the exit. Flynn heard its footsteps echoing on the old stone steps that led down to the lane, and then bounded across the floor after him.

  Christian was furious at having been so nearly caught, and he was even more furious that it should have been Flynn Deverill who had so nearly caught him.

  He went down the steps to Burbage Lane, the cloak billowing out around him, his mind working at top speed. He would never outrun Flynn; the evening rush hour was in full flood and the streets were teeming with people. And to run full pelt through crowded London streets, with someone in pursuit, would be to attract attention. His mind flinched from it.

  If he could have been sure of picking up a taxi, he thought he might have gone out into St Martin’s Lane, but he could not be sure. He could not be sure, either, that Deverill would not be able to hail a second taxi and follow him; Deverill was the kind of man who would always attract a taxi driver’s attention. He would attract waiters’ attention in restaurants as well, and he would attract females like a magnet. Christian was aware of a deep hatred for Flynn who was good-looking and talented, and who had been held in high regard by Christian’s father. The son he wanted! thought Christian, bitterly, as he slipped around the side of the building and into the narrow alley that led to the Harlequin’s sub-basement entrance. He paused, listening. Was that someone running hard after him? No. Most people assumed that this was a blind alley; it was only when you went right up to the end that you saw the jutting spur of brick and realised you could get through.

  He took a deep breath, fighting for control, hating Flynn who had been the cause of his loss of control. Flynn’s suspicions might have been aroused in earnest; he might even mount some kind of search. Christian reviewed everything he had done. He had not been able to re-brick the opening in the old tunnel – he had not even bothered to try – but he had managed to smear sufficient dust and rubble around to make it look like a natural cave-in. He thought a cursory search would not show anything untoward.

  But supposing Flynn reported seeing a prowler, and supposing the police connected it with the disappearance of the Makepiece woman? Was there anything that could lead them to the Christchurch Street house? Was there anything to implicate Chris
tian himself? He thought there was not. He thought he was safe.

  But the anger against Flynn, who had so nearly seen him and so nearly caught him, solidified into a cold hatred. Flynn was not quite indispensable, because Flynn was Cauldron’s designer, and from what Christian had seen so far, he had caught the mood very exactly indeed, and he had understood the subtleties and the imagery that Fael had wanted to depict.

  But once the show was running, Flynn would no longer be necessary.

  The Harlequin thrummed with excitement and shone with anticipation.

  Flynn, strolling through the Green Room, a large whisky and soda in his hand, arrayed for once in the sharp formality of evening clothes, felt the invisible flame of the place start to burn. Remarkable. Is it the players, churning up their inner emotions, unleashing their controlled passions, or is it the theatre itself, waking with delight to another first night? I could reach out and slice a layer of the atmosphere tonight, he thought. And if I did, what should I find in those layers? Fear, certainly, but excitement as well, and probably envy and greed and vanity.

  Yes, all of those things were present tonight; they coursed through the old theatre, feeding the strange, inner lamp that glowed just out of sight and just beyond awareness. Flynn finished his whisky and headed back to the bar for a refill. All the emotions were here tonight: the vanity of players, the selfishness of showmen. A greedy breed, showmen.

  Gilly was feeling all of the emotions that Flynn had identified and several more besides. It was all very well for people to say she would be absolutely fine; she was to go out there and knock them in the aisles, and wasn’t this a chance most of them would give their back teeth for? Gilly knew all of that. She had known she would be nervous, as well, but she had not bargained for this paralysing terror. She thought she would probably feel better if she could stop reminding herself that she had only had a week of rehearsals. A week was plenty long enough, everyone had told her that, and it had been a very concentrated week indeed.