Changeling

by Sarah Rayne

  Julius Sherry and Gerald Makepiece partook of a light supper in a wine bar that catered for early theatre-goers, and then walked companionably along to the theatre. Gerald had drunk more wine than perhaps was good for him, and Julius, at bottom a kind-hearted soul, tried to ensure that the poor little rabbit at least ate a good plateful of the wine bar’s excellent chicken and ham pie.

  As they went in at the stage door, Sir Julius remarked that it was to be hoped that Tod would put in an appearance tonight because it had been rather rude of him to have disappeared last night. He added irritably that you could never tell what Toddy might be getting up to and thought, but did not say, that it would be just like Toddy to have spent the night with a lady somewhere – and to be smugly public about it this evening – whereas Julius had been tactfully but firmly fobbed off by Gilly Blair. He was feeling elderly and disconsolate as a result and was likely to be touchy with anyone who had spent last night in the arms of Venus, or in the arms of anybody, really.

  Gilly thought the first act had gone as well as it had last night. It was a marvellous feeling to know you were achieving all of this, especially after only a single week of rehearsal. Not bad for a hooker! She might even agree to have supper with Sir Julius after the show; he was a persistent old bugger, but he could be quite interesting to talk to, and he had actually sent yellow roses round to her dressing room tonight. Roses in November!

  She stood at the side of the stage, waiting for her cue for the court scene, and beneath the stomach-churning stagefright, she felt a sudden, huge, all-embracing happiness and an awareness of every sense becoming heightened. I’m invincible, and I can do anything, thought Gilly, in delight. I’m going to have supper with a baronet after the show, and it’s not impossible that very soon now I’m going to be rich and famous. I’m not actually loaded with talent, of course: I do know that. I do know that all of this is because of a freak stroke of luck. But I think I’m getting by. And no one has noticed that I’m a masquerader; in fact a couple of the reviews actually singled me out for praise. The piercing happiness sliced through her again, so that her face kept wanting to smile.

  Danilo would say it was dangerous to feel like this; he would say it was what Celtic folk called fey – the false euphoria that the gods sent down just before tragedy struck. But tragedy was not going to strike.

  She concentrated on the stage. They were coming up to the scene in which Mab enters imperiously and berates the Fianna captain for losing a battle. By way of punishment, he must seek out and bring back the magical cauldron. As the order was given, the royal armies poured onto the stage like paratroopers of World War One armies marching out to the sound of cheering and flag-waving. Jingoism, that had been the word they had used.

  It was an elaborate scene. Flynn Deverill had designed an extravagantly beautiful set, all glittering crystal pillars and spun-sugar columns. There was a small dais at the centre, with Mab’s throne, and great swathes of shimmering silver silk framing it.

  As the Fianna prepared to set out on their quest, the palace dissolved and gave way to the outskirts of the dark, dangerous forest through which they would travel, and as the eerie and sinister trees were wound up from the shallow under-stage area, a soft, scented wind blew gently across the stage and out into the audience. This was a remarkable and startling effect and it had caused quite a stir last night; people had apparently talked animatedly about it during the intervals, and nobody could remember anything quite like it being done in a London theatre before.

  Flynn had worked closely with the backstage staff to create this scented wind, losing his temper several times with spectacular abandon and cursing the carpenters and the two stage managers in a mixture of what most people thought was fluent Gaelic, punctuated with what was unmistakably plain Anglo-Saxon. In the end they had achieved what he wanted by disinterring the old-fashioned wind machine from the back of the prop room and adapting it.

  The wind machine was a monstrous Heath-Robinson affair; a hand-operated machine standing on squat legs and set into action by crank handles and flywheels. There was a rotating drum attached to it; in the old days this had been filled with dried beans or pebbles and then turned to give the sound of heavy rainfall or hail. Flynn had had the machine adapted so that the drum was mounted above a kind of industrial fan – the sort you saw in factories – and driven by an electric motor. The drum was filled with shredded but strongly-scented pot pourri, so that once it was set turning, the pot pourri was forced into the fan which blew it across the stage. There had been much muttering about the use of this contrivance, which the carpenters had dubbed Deverill’s Mincing Machine, and several unions had been consulted. But once the thing was built it worked marvellously, everyone was agreed on that.

  Then there had been more head-shaking and disapproval by some department of health and safety who had had to be called in, and who apparently harboured dark suspicions of the pot pourri being spiked with sinister substances by evil-minded people plotting to drug the entire Harlequin audience. Flynn had lost his temper all over again, damned everyone within range for a bunch of amateurs, and threatened to resign. But in the end the safety people had been placated by Stephen Sherry setting up a system of very stringent checks, and issuing half a dozen complimentary seats.

  Gilly thought the transformation of the palace into the forest outskirts was a very good scene indeed. It was achieved by what was called the rise-and-sink, which was an old-fashioned but effective mechanism that lifted the silken drapes on their wooden frames up into the flies, and simultaneously wound up the forest from the cellar directly beneath the stage. Sir Julius had told her last night that the Harlequin was so old, there were several cellars under at least three stages: ‘The old place has sunk,’ he said. ‘Building settlement, they call it. So there are layers because they built new stages smack over the old ones. If you went pot-holing down beneath the present stage, you might find all kinds of priceless fragments.’

  The wind machine was even creakier tonight than it had been at rehearsals. Gilly could hear the crank handle groaning, and she could hear the stagehands muttering on the catwalk overhead as they prepared to fly the silken drapes up to the grid and wind the forest up from the under-stage. This took place about five minutes after Mab’s entrance, and it had gone down very well last night.

  Here was her cue. Gilly took a deep breath and walked out onto the stage, feeling the instant warmth from the audience. There were only a few lines of dialogue – the chastising of the Fianna captain, and then the summoning of the royal armies to capture the cauldron at the forest’s heart. The wind machine was taking a long time to get going – Gilly wondered fleetingly if it had given up the ghost. Would they have to ad lib to cover the hesitation? Flynn Deverill would be pacing the floor and swearing if he was out front. Here came the faint rumbling vibration from beneath the stage, indicating that the enchanted forest was being brought up. The lighting plot dimmed, and the ancient twilit wood began to take shape all around them. Deep violet light poured in from overhead, purple-tinged and sinister, and Flynn’s trees were so ancient and so nearly human-looking, that even Gilly, who had seen them in the cold light of a ten a.m. rehearsal and knew that they were plywood and painted polystyrene, felt a shiver of atavistic fear. For a moment it felt as if she really was standing at the edge of an old, dark forest with evil magic stalking through the night.

  Evil, creeping up . . . Edging nearer . . . Gilly gave a shiver that was not entirely simulated, and prepared to embark on the speech which would send them all off to brave the assorted dangers and various adventures. She had got as far as the first few words when the last section of the forest came up into its appointed place, and a gasp and then a shudder of horror went through the audience. There’s something wrong, thought Gilly, faltering. Something’s gone dreadfully wrong. What? Where? Something to do with the mechanism – the rise-and-sink? And there’s something wrong with the wind machine as well – it’s screeching like a banshee, but it isn’t working ye
t. There’s a smell as well – something foul and sickish. Like decaying fish, like meat gone off in hot weather . . .

  Several of the actors were stumbling back, their hands flying to their faces in half-protective gestures. Odd how ugly real horror looked as against the acted sort. It’s the backdrop, thought Gilly, panic starting to rush in. There’s something wrong with the backdrop. She had been half facing front, the Fianna captain on one knee before her, but in another second she was going to have to turn round.

  People in the audience were getting to their feet, and there was the sound of the seats tipping up, and cries of fright. Women were screaming, and exit doors were being pushed frantically open. There would be a stampede in a minute. From the wings a furious voice was shouting to bring down the bloody curtain, for Christ’s sake bring it down you bunch of tossers!

  As the curtain descended, Gilly at last turned to face the back of the stage, and the rising panic at once switched to stunned horror. Impaled onto Flynn Deverill’s eerie fantastical forest, pinned there in a macabre X-shape, and lit to nightmarish clarity by the woodland dusk, were two of the most gruesome objects Gilly had ever seen. They’re dead bodies, she thought, staring helplessly. They’re skewered to the backcloth like – like monstrous human butterflies in a collection. This is dreadful, it’s dreadful. It’s not believable. I can’t fit this into anything sane.

  One of the bodies was recognisably that of a partly naked man. His head hung forward, but it was possible to see his features, and it was to him that Gilly looked first. Tod Miller, she thought, appalled. Is it? Oh God, yes it is. He’s partly wrapped in something – I can’t quite see what. Something thin and dry-looking. There was a huge jagged-edged wound on the left side of Miller’s chest, with white splintered rib bones protruding. Blood had run out of the wound and dried in dreadful smeary patches, and whatever it was that was hanging over Miller’s shoulders had had its edges dabbled in the blood.

  Gilly looked then to the other shape, and saw why she had been trying to avoid this one even more strenuously.

  The second body was nailed to the backdrop in the same way, but Mia Makepiece had been dead for a week, and it was only the improbable chestnut hair that gave Gilly the clue to identification. But it looks as if he’s left her a face, thought Gilly, as the hair swung forward. That’s a mercy.

  But although Mia’s killer had left her face alone, he had not left much more. Great sections of skin had been peeled away from her thighs and from her shoulders and stomach, leaving huge livid patches like raw meat. The image of a butchered carcase, the hide imperfectly removed, was impossible to avoid. Except that when you saw carcases in butchers’ cold stores, they did not have the beginnings of putrefaction . . . They did not have this bloated, decayed look, and they did not give you the impression that at any minute they might start to leak their terrible juices all over the floor . . .

  He’s skinned her, thought Gilly, sickness welling up, so that she clapped her hand to her mouth to force it down. Oh dear God, whoever killed her skinned her and sewed the bits of skin into a cloak – sewed them, for heaven’s sake! – and then wrapped the cloak around Tod Miller. She tried to stumble back, but her legs did not seem to be obeying her.

  As if on cue, from the other side of the stage the wind machine suddenly tore out of its sluggish coughing mode and shot uncontrollably into top gear. There was a wet slopping sound – appalling, intolerable! – and gobbets of Tod Miller’s gouged-out heart rained across the stage.

  Julius Sherry said, ‘Half the audience thought it was a sick publicity stunt and the other half thought it was a surreal twist of the plot.’

  ‘Some twist. Some plot,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Has it been confirmed that it was – hum – Mia Makepiece and Tod?’ asked Maurice Camperdown.

  Julius glanced with embarrassed pity at the mute figure at the foot of the table. ‘Yes,’ he said, and Gerald Makepiece gave a moan of anguish.

  ‘They’ve been – well, identified?’

  ‘Oh, for the Lord’s sake, Morrie,’ said Flynn, who was standing at the window staring moodily into the street, ‘do we need the gory details? We could all see who they were! And the police are looking for a maniac,’ he added, in a preoccupied voice.

  ‘Will they close us down? The police?’ This was Camperdown.

  ‘They’ll have to close us temporarily at least while their forensic team crawls all over the whole theatre.’

  ‘What about advance ticket sales? Tonight’s performance?’

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone’s had time to think about anything like that, yet,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Well, somebody’s got to, and very quickly,’ said Maurice.

  Sir Julius cleared his throat, and said, ‘Mr – ah – Mr Simkins, I don’t quite know the bank’s exact procedure in a case such as this, but—’

  Simkins said dryly that there was no exact procedure, because the bank had never before been faced with quite such a situation. The words, ‘And hope never to be again,’ were not spoken, but they hung heavily on the air.

  ‘Then,’ said Julius, heavily, ‘we should tell the company what we know so far. Reassure them if we can. Stephen – Morrie – will you come with me now? They’re all assembled in the upstairs Green Room. Flynn, I don’t know if you want to be present—?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to be present.’

  Julius said, ‘Your beautiful set, Flynn. My dear chap, I can’t imagine how you must be feeling—’

  ‘I’m not your dear chap, and of course you can’t imagine how I’m feeling,’ said Flynn, tersely. ‘Isn’t it astonishing how bloody murder churns up insincerity? If you’ve finished being polite, I’m off to see the police. There’s no need to look so alarmed, Julius. I’m only going to tell them about the intruder we saw on opening night; if you’ve been fiddling the takings, nobody’s found out yet.’

  Gilly sat in a cold and miserable little huddle in a corner of the Green Room, her mind churning with bits of the evening’s events and fragments of the show, and how after all it was dangerous to be too happy too abruptly. Underneath it all was a faint warning that it would not take much to make her physically sick. She had not actually been sick yet, which was God’s mercy, but it still might be touch-and-go.

  Most of the sidh had been sick, and several of the Fianna. Some of them had not made it to the cloakroom, which had been unfortunate, and, as Danilo said, had added to the mess on the stage. He had said this a bit defiantly, and nobody had been quite sure if it was a ghastly attempt at black humour or a clumsy attempt to draw attention to himself. Only Gilly had understood that Danilo had said it deliberately in order to churn up anger in people’s minds and blot out the gruesome thing they had seen.

  The sorceress-guardian and her two attendants, who had been standing in the wings waiting for their cue for their first entrance, had actually been hit by one of the bits of flesh. The sorceress had gone into strong hysterics and had had to be given a sedative by a doctor who had been in the audience. Gilly had nearly gone into strong hysterics herself when the front-of-house manager had gone out onto the stage and said, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’

  The sorceress and the attendants had now had scaldingly hot showers and were dressed in jeans and sweaters. Gilly wished someone would give her a sedative and tell her to go and stand under a hot shower because she was beginning to think she would never be warm again. It was therefore a bit of a shock – although it was not entirely unpleasant – when Julius Sherry put his hand on her arm, and said, in a soft voice, ‘My dear, here’s a large brandy for you, and if you want to go home, I will drive you.’

  This was a tiny core of warmth and friendship. Gilly sipped the brandy gratefully, and said she thought she had better stay on for a while; they were all going to be questioned, and anyway, she was beginning to feel better.

  ‘Good girl,’ said Julius, nodding to the others, and then going off with a heavy tread and serious expression to high-level d
iscussions. It had been very kind of him to think about her. He was actually rather nice when you thought about it sensibly. Gilly sipped the brandy and resolved to think about it very sensibly indeed. If Mia Makepiece – oh dear, it was better not to think about her – but if other girls could marry doting elderly gentlemen with money, there was no reason why Gilly could not.

  Although she would much have preferred Cauldron and overnight fame.

  Flynn seated himself opposite to Sir Julius Sherry’s desk, which had been temporarily allotted to the detective inspector in charge of the investigation and said, ‘We’ll cut the preliminaries, inspector, because I should tell you I saw your man a couple of times and I can give you a description.’

  ‘Did you indeed, sir?’

  ‘I did, and what you’ve got to look for is a creature with a deformed face who wears a dark mask to hide it, and a black cloak.’

  This was received with stony-faced courtesy. The inspector, who had been told that theatre folk were apt to be flamboyant, and who remembered Flynn Deverill’s extraordinary denouncement of the Inigo Jones Award last year, said, ‘That’s a very interesting statement, Mr Deverill. Would you happen to know any more about the person than that?’

  ‘I would not. But I’ve seen him twice now; in fact on the opening night of Cauldron he damn nearly killed me.’

  ‘I see,’ said the inspector, and wrote down the words, ‘intruder seen on first night of play’. ‘Can you give a more precise statement, Mr Deverill? Where exactly did you see this person?’

  ‘In the old part of the theatre. The haunted part,’ said Flynn, impatiently. ‘And don’t say, “I see” again. All self-respecting theatres have ghosts, inspector. There’s a couple of interconnecting brick tunnels near to the stage void. He was down there.’