What Bloody Man Is That

by Simon Brett

  Because, however much he fudged round the issue, Charles Paris kept coming back to the certainty that Warnock Belvedere had been murdered.

  It wasn’t just the brandy bottle which he was now certain he had seen in the old actor’s hand while the store-room door was still intact. There were a couple of other details.

  First, there was Warnock’s mention of ‘a generous friend’. That implied that someone had given him the bottle, secure in the knowledge that the actor was likely to swig away until it was empty.

  But more significant was another fact, which Charles had omitted, by genuine oversight, to mention to the police. Now, not wishing to encourage them towards suspicions of murder, he was quite glad of that oversight.

  The second important fact was that when he went into the store-room, the light had been off. If Warnock Belvedere had followed the course of action which Detective Sergeant Dowling described, there was no way that he would have done it in the dark.

  Which meant that someone else had switched the light off.

  The show, as theatrical cliché and the economic health of the Pinero Theatre, Warminster, demanded, had to go on. Warnock Belvedere had been quickly replaced. One phone-call from Gavin had procured an elderly actor of benign competence contracted to start rehearsal on the Wednesday morning. No extravagant, inventive casting this time. The director had gone for someone who lived locally and with whom he had worked many times before. Given only two weeks to the opening night, he opted for safety. And there was a general relieved feeling in the cast that the production would be more relaxed without the flamboyant malignancy of Warnock Belvedere.

  As it had on Charles (though in his case more literally), the death had had a sobering effect on the whole company. They had all felt slightly guilty about the lack of discipline which had been creeping into rehearsals, and slightly schoolboyish over the way they had taken advantage of Gavin’s weakness. Warnock’s demise had been a well-timed slap on the wrist, and they all settled down with renewed concentration to make sure that Macbeth would be ready in time for the paying public to enjoy.

  It was just as well that they were prepared to work hard, because there was a long way to go. Apart from the problems of integrating a new Duncan and a new Macduff’s Son into the production, there was also the problem of George Birkitt. His sojourn in Paris seemed to have wiped from his mind all trace of the previous week’s rehearsal, and certainly very few of Shakespeare’s lines appeared to have taken any lasting hold on the slippery surface of his memory. For him, the Tuesday rehearsal was like starting again at Day One.

  Felicia Chatterton’s concentration, of course, could not be faulted, but at times Gavin Scholes wished it could have been differently channelled. Since her approach to acting required that every intonation and movement should ‘feel right’, rehearsal was frequently interrupted by long silences while she tried to make the mental adjustment that one of Gavin’s instructions necessitated.

  On the Tuesday afternoon, for example, they were working on the Sleepwalking Scene. Felicia’s neurotic trauma was very convincing; Charles could feel the power of her talent whenever he was on stage with her.

  ‘To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate,’ she intoned in a tinglingly agonised whisper. ‘Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done –’

  ‘Erm, can I just stop you there . . .?’

  Gavin, who was leaning against the front of the stage, interposed.

  ‘Sorry?’ She seemed to come out of a trance. ‘Yes . . .?’

  ‘I think we want to make that a bit sexier, Felicia.’

  ‘Sexier?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a hark back to the strong physical thing between the Macbeths we got going in Act One.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gavin didn’t sound quite so sure now, but hoped he might convince her with a textual argument. ‘It’s in the words, love. “To bed”. . . “come”. It’s definitely sexual imagery.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Felicia gave this studied consideration. ‘I suppose it might be. Certainly “to bed” has a sexual resonance . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Gavin agreed eagerly.

  ‘But I’m not sure about “come”. I’ve a feeling its sexual connotation is more recent. Nineteenth century, I think. I mean, we know that “die” meant “achieve orgasm” in Shakespeare’s time, but I’m not sure about “come”. Maybe we could look it up . . .?’

  ‘Well, yes . . .’ Gavin was beginning to regret having started up this particular avenue. ‘I mean, I’m not so concerned about the actual words . . .’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ asked Felicia, shocked.

  ‘Well, yes, of course I am. I am. But I mean, it’s more a feeling that I want to come across.’

  ‘Ye-es?’ She sounded uncertain.

  ‘You see, we’ve established at the beginning of the play that the Macbeths have this strong sexual thing . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that a good part of her power over him is based on what she can do for him in bed . . .’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And then, when he starts to get real power – i.e. when he becomes king – her sexual power over him is weaker. He goes his own way, he starts to exclude her from his plans . . .’

  She nodded her earnest blond head. ‘Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck.’

  ‘Exactly. So really that signals the beginning of the breakdown of the marriage. He doesn’t need her any more. He thinks he can manage on his own now he’s got power. The balance of the relationship has shifted . . .’

  ‘Yes. I accept that.’

  ‘Probably the balance of the sexual relationship has shifted too. Maybe he is now the initiator. Unfortunately, we can’t be sure . . .’ Gavin lightened the atmosphere with a little joke. ‘Shakespeare didn’t write any bedroom scenes for the Macbeths.’

  ‘No,’ Felicia concurred with unfeigned regret. ‘It’s a pity, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, anyway, what I’m saying is that the sleepwalking scene expresses the breakdown of Lady Macbeth’s personality under the stresses of what she’s done, and I think it also expresses the breakdown of her marriage – i.e. her sexuality – and I think we want an echo of that, a reminder of what the sexual relationship used to be like – in this scene.’

  ‘Hmm . . .’

  ‘I mean, as well as everything else, as well as her revulsion for the monster she has unleashed in her husband . . .’

  ‘Hmm . . .’ Felicia Chatterton’s pretty little brow wrinkled as she endeavoured to accommodate this new idea.

  ‘You see,’ Gavin went on, ‘I think this scene’s got to be sexy. We can help it with the cozzy. I mean, I think the nightgown’s got to be really low-cut, show us a lot of . . . you know. In a way, I think that makes it more poignant. I mean, it’s one of the reasons I wanted to cast a young Lady Macbeth . . . so that what we witness is not some menopausal breakdown but the crack-up of a woman at her physical peak.’

  ‘Yes. And you think I can get all that into the “to bed” lines?’

  ‘Well, I hoped so. But if you think it’s too difficult . . .’

  ‘No, no, no.’ She brought her hand up to her face and held the bridge of her nose between thumb and finger as she focused her concentration on the problem. ‘Just give me a minute to see how I can make it work.’

  The minute of silence stretched to two minutes. Charles, in his role of the Scottish Doctor, shuffled his feet and tried to avoid the eye of the Waiting-Gentlewoman, in case he giggled. Felicia Chatterton remained immobile, shoehorning the new thought into her mind and seeing how it fitted.

  ‘Erm . . .’ said Gavin eventually. ‘I think we’d better move on.’

  ‘Yes, sure, I know, Gavin, but what you’ve just suggested is a kind of reinterpretation of the whole part . . . I mean, a shift in her relationship with everything around her.’

  ‘Yes, I take that.’

  ‘Going to take a bit of time to work out the ramifications . . .’


  ‘Yes,’ Gavin agreed, bitterly regretting that he’d ever given the note. ‘Well, if you could possibly just, sort of, work out the ramifications later, you know, in your own time, and if you could just, for the minute, say the lines a bit sexier . . .’

  ‘What, without working out why I’m saying them sexier?’

  ‘Exactly.’ The director looked jubilant. She had got his point at last.

  ‘Well . . .’ said Felicia Chatterton dubiously. ‘I suppose I could try. . .’

  All of this, inevitably, took time. And, unfortunately for Charles, he was not occupied during that time. He was standing on stage, true, but he didn’t have a lot to do – just deliver the occasional line in the intervals between Lady Macbeth’s agonizing over her motivations. As a result, his mind was free to wander. And it kept wandering back to the same predictable subject.

  If Warnock Belvedere had been murdered, the main suspects for that murder were the people who had been in the bar at the end of the Monday evening, when Charles had made his ignominious exit. He strained his memory to recall the scene. It hurt his head to concentrate. His brain felt bruised and dry, unaided by the temporary assistance of a lunchtime drink.

  Who had been there? Norman, behind the bar. His wife, Sandra, as ever ignoring him, on the other side of the counter. Felicia Chatterton and Russ Lavery, rapt over more open-heart surgery on the character of Lady Macbeth. Gavin Scholes, with Lady Macduff and two Witches.

  Given Warnock Belvedere’s propensity for putting everyone’s back up, any one of them might have had a motive for wanting him out of the way.

  Hmm, Charles thought without enthusiasm, I’m going to have to start checking on the movements of all of them, aren’t I?

  Chapter Eleven

  LADY MACDUFF and the two Witches were quickly eliminated.

  Charles didn’t have to be over-elaborate in his enquiries. An apology for his drunkenness and the confession that he couldn’t remember anything of the previous evening got Lady Macduff talking, with suitably theatrical emphases, about how ghastly it had been for Warnock to have died like that, and how awful to feel that if only they’d stayed in the theatre a little longer they might have been able to help.

  ‘Why, what time did you leave?’ Charles asked casually.

  ‘Almost immediately after you did. Gavin gave us a lift. Our house is on his way home.’

  The three actresses, it transpired, were sharing a rented house some four miles from the theatre. Gavin had deposited them there together at about half past eleven. So, unless he wanted to get into elaborate conspiracy theories or imagine them walking back and breaking into the theatre, Charles could rule Lady Macduff and the two Witches out of his investigations.

  Mind you, he thought, if I open the enquiry up to people who could have broken into the theatre . . . or indeed people who might have hidden themselves in the theatre all evening and not gone up to the bar, the field becomes infinitely wide. At least I’ll start with the obvious ones.

  He didn’t rule out Gavin Scholes along with the actresses whom he had driven home. The director stayed on the list. For a start, he had suffered publicly from Warnock Belvedere’s attacks on his professional competence, which gave him a degree of motive. Also, he had a car, which made returning five miles to the theatre no problem. And, most significantly, he had keys which would let him into the theatre once he got there. What was more, he knew the building so well that he could easily have worked out the potential of the liquor store-room as a scene for a murder.

  But there was another person on the theatre staff who knew that store-room even better.

  Norman Phipps wasn’t in the bar at the end of the Tuesday’s rehearsals, so Charles prepared to give his order to a spotty youth in a bow-tie.

  He had to bite back his instinctive ‘Large Bell’s, please’. He was really determined about this not drinking business. His body and his soul both needed the scouring of abstinence.

  But actually thinking of what to order again presented a problem. Perrier still seemed too insipid; he wanted something with a bit of taste.

  ‘Um, could I have a . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ prompted the spotty youth, aware of the increasing arrivals of actors at the end of rehearsal. Charles, even off the booze, had not lost his practised skill at being first to the bar.

  ‘Um, a, er . . .’

  ‘What? Come on, I’ve got lots of people to serve.’

  ‘Yes. A . . . er . . .’ He took the plunge. ‘Tonic water.’

  ‘Ice and lemon?’ the barman asked as he turned to the shelf of bottles.

  ‘What’s the alternative?’

  The spotty face looked back balefully. ‘No ice and lemon.’

  ‘That’s all you can have with tonic water, is it?’

  ‘Some people,’ the spotty youth replied in a voice heavy with long-suffering, ‘have gin or vodka with it.’

  ‘No, I meant non-alcoholic.’

  ‘Ice and lemon is the most usual. Angostura bitters some people ask for.’ This was spoken with undisguised contempt.

  ‘Oh, get on with it,’ urged a thirsty Donalbain, pressing against the counter.

  ‘I’ll try the Angostura,’ Charles concluded hastily.

  It wasn’t very nice. As he sipped it, he reflected that he’d never liked pink gin much. And pink tonic water excluded the only element that made pink gin even mildly tolerable.

  Also it was bloody expensive. The prices of soft drinks were iniquitous. For the first time in his life he felt the righteous anger of the teetotaller against the discrimination of an alcohol-oriented world.

  He looked across the bar-room to John B. Murgatroyd steering two fistfuls of pints to a seated group of actors. Oh dear, was giving up the booze going to lose him friends as well?

  He wondered where Norman was. Obviously the Bar Manager couldn’t be expected always to be on duty, but he had been behind the counter for most of the previous week. Saving money on staff, no doubt. After all, with just the cast rehearsing, business was fairly slack. He’d need to draft in extra help once the season really started with the opening of Macbeth.

  But, even as he thought this, the next best thing to Norman entered the bar. Sandra Phipps was, as ever, dressed to emphasise her sexuality, this time in a tight flying-suit of shiny scarlet material. Perhaps a bit too tight. The constricting belt drew attention to the little roll of fat at her waist, a legacy presumably of bearing Stewart.

  Charles waved to her and she came across to him readily enough. ‘Get you a drink?’ he asked.

  ‘Ooh, you men,’ she simpered. ‘Always trying to get girls drunk, aren’t you?’

  He began to wonder if there was any question in the world to which Sandra Phipps would not give a sexually loaded answer.

  Still, he played along. ‘Of course,’ he leered. ‘You know we’re only after one thing.’

  She giggled and said thank you, yes, she’d like a Tia Maria. Somehow, that seemed to him to epitomise her character, cloyingly sweet and in some way synthetic.

  He gave the spotty youth the order. ‘And I’ll have a . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Um . . .’

  ‘How was the tonic and Angostura?’

  ‘Quite revolting.’

  The spotty youth nodded. ‘Could have told you that.’

  ‘Well, is there anything you could tell me that is nice?’

  ‘Lot of things. Bell’s whisky’s not bad.’

  ‘I know that,’ Charles said testily. ‘I mean, non-alcoholic things.’

  ‘No. You got me there.’ He addressed his mind to the problem. ‘I have seen people,’ he offered cautiously, ‘drinking alcohol-free lager . . .’

  ‘Does it make them look happy?’

  The spotty youth shook his head. ‘Miserable as sin.’

  Charles threw in the towel. ‘Oh, I’ll have a tomato juice.’

  ‘Worcester sauce?’

  ‘Yes. Salt. Pepper. Eggs. Ketchup. Everything you’ve got.’

/>   ‘Vodka?’

  Ooh, it was tempting. His head still felt as if it had been the match ball in a South American Cup Final. And surely a Bloody Mary was just medicinal . . .

  But virtue triumphed. ‘No, thank you.’ After all, it was going to be his peace offering to Frances. A dried-out husband. Goodness, she’d think her birthday and Christmas had both come at once. Must ring Frances, he thought. Must ring Frances.

  He took the drinks across to where Sandra perched on a bar-stool, stroking her scarlet thighs.

  ‘Cheers.’

  She raised her glass. ‘May you always get enough.’ Predictable again.

  ‘Norman not about?’ he asked casually, thinking how he could ease the conversation round to the questions he wanted to ask.

  But her reply removed that necessity. ‘He’s with the police.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She giggled. He was aware that, beneath her customary brassiness, she was very nervous. ‘Yes. Do you reckon they’ll’ve arrested him yet?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The murder of Warnock Belvedere.’

  ‘What? Goodness, it never occurred to me that the old queen might have been murdered,’ Charles lied.

  ‘No, of course he wasn’t.’ She giggled. ‘Only joking.’

  ‘So why do the police want to see Norman?’

  ‘Check out about how he kept the store-room. He was quite worried going to see them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, he’s the licensee here, isn’t he? If they can prove negligence, you know, if there was something wrong down in the store-room, he’d be liable. Big insurance claim is the last thing he needs.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve had a couple of sessions with the police,’ Charles confided, softening her up before he started on the important questions.

  ‘Oh yes. Why?’

  ‘Well, I found the body.’

  ‘Of course. How did they treat you?’

  ‘I think they’re deeply suspicious of me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My behaviour last night was a bit . . . well . . .’

  ‘Yes, you were well gone.’ She paused, then probed, ‘What did the police seem to think?’