What Bloody Man Is That

by Simon Brett

  ‘Just a pity he should be ill today. When St. Joseph’s had a trip to Macbeth.’

  Sandra shrugged. ‘Yes, it’s bad luck. But the run’s only just started. Be plenty of other opportunities to see the show. I’m sure I can slip him in.’

  ‘I don’t think you will, though, Sandra. Will you?’

  She flushed as she looked up at him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to Stewart’s form teacher.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s the Head of English at the school.’

  ‘I know that,’ she snapped.

  ‘Which is why he led the school party to the play.’

  ‘So . . .’

  ‘He said in the after-show discussion that he thought his pupils would learn more by seeing the play than by any amount of talking about it.’

  ‘Look, it’s very good of you to take my son’s education so much to heart. I will ensure that he sees the play at some point. Will that satisfy you or would you rather –?’

  Charles cut through her heavy sarcasm. ‘Stewart’s form teacher also said how much he thought his pupils would learn by actually being in a production of the play . . .’

  Sandra avoided his eye. ‘Well, yes, I’m sure they would, but I don’t see what –’

  ‘And yet you say he stopped Stewart from taking part.’

  ‘Yes. The understanding was, right from the start, that Stewart could do it, so long as his work didn’t suffer. Unfortunately, because the rehearsal schedule got out of hand, he missed some homework and . . .’ She gestured helplessly. ‘. . . that was it.’

  ‘I see.’ Charles let her relax for a moment before continuing, ‘Except that Stewart’s form teacher gives a completely different version of events.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He says he never made any fuss about Stewart’s work. He didn’t care a great deal. He reckoned a boy who wasn’t basically academic was going to learn more about Macbeth by being in the production as Macduff’s Son than by writing any number of essays about it. He said he didn’t care how much time Stewart needed to have off for rehearsals.’

  ‘Well then, he’s changed his tune. He told me –’

  ‘No, he didn’t. You told him. He didn’t ring you over the weekend after the first run-through. You rang him, and said that the rehearsals were proving too much for Stewart, that he was getting overtired, and you thought it was your duty, as his mother, to pull him out of the show.’

  ‘Well, all right, what if I did?’

  A tap on the glass in front of her drew her attention. ‘Excuse me. Do you have two tickets for this Saturday’s matinée? They will be at Senior Citizen rates.’

  She concentrated once again on her charts and dealt with the booking. Her voice retained its customary professional cheer, but from behind her, Charles could see the flush spreading to her neck.

  When the Senior Citizens had departed with the tickets, she turned back to him.

  ‘All right, so I thought the show was too much for Stewart. That was my judgement as his mother. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘If that was the case, why did you tell Gavin it was the school that objected?’

  ‘I thought it sounded better. If I said it was just me, Gavin would have tried to persuade me.’

  Charles nodded. ‘Good. But not, I’m afraid, good enough.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m suggesting that tiredness wasn’t the reason you wanted Stewart out of the production. I’m suggesting that there was something about this production of Macbeth that upset your son. That still upsets him, which is why he suddenly developed tonsillitis this morning, so that he didn’t have to come and see it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘But I do.’

  And he did. Suddenly, he saw what had happened with dazzling clarity. It was all in the play. Think about Gavin Scholes’ production of Macbeth and it all became clear.

  Charles had observed before that nearly everyone was involved in the battle scenes. Even Lady Macduff and the Witches had to change sex and don armour. So once the battle scenes started, almost all the company would be milling round the stage area, and the dressing room area would be virtually deserted.

  As it had been at the end of the first Saturday run-through.

  In fact, there would only have been three people in the dressing room area.

  Felicia Chatterton, having given her all in the Sleepwalking Scene, would be lying on her dressing-room floor doing relaxation exercises.

  That left two.

  Warnock Belvedere, who had refused to double, had been there since the end of Act One Scene Six.

  And Stewart Phipps, good-looking thirteen-year-old Stewart, had been there since Charles and the other Murderers had killed him in Act Four Scene Two.

  ‘I think, Sandra, that what upset Stewart about this production of Macbeth was that Warnock Belvedere made a pass at him.’

  The panic in her eyes told him that his guess had been right.

  ‘And I think that that is the reason why Warnock Belvedere was murdered.’

  All of the colour drained from Sandra Phipps’ face.

  Chapter Nineteen

  NORMAN PHIPPS was still reorganising his store-room when Charles Paris found him. The actor looked at the tubes from the beer kegs and gas cylinders. All had been replaced and looked as good as new. There was no sign that this was the place where one elderly actor had met his untimely, but universally welcomed, demise.

  Norman looked up and nodded a greeting. He avoided words whenever they weren’t strictly necessary.

  ‘Norman, I’ve just been talking to Sandra . . .’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘About Stewart and what happened.’

  Norman deliberately placed another crate on top of a pile. ‘How do you mean – what happened?’ he asked evenly.

  ‘About Warnock Belvedere.’

  The Bar Manager froze for a split second before asking, ‘What about Warnock Belvedere?’

  ‘About how he died.’

  ‘I thought we knew that. Asphyxiation from the carbon dioxide.’

  ‘Yes, but what caused it?’

  Norman gave a little shrug. ‘He was drunk, wasn’t he?’

  ‘On a bottle of Courvoisier.’

  ‘On top of what he’d had in the bar, yes. Surprising the drink alone didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Hmm. The question is – where did he get that Courvoisier from?’

  Norman looked Charles straight in the eye. ‘Police seem to reckon he got it out of this cupboard. After he’d broken in here.’

  ‘I think he had it before he broke in here.’

  ‘Seems unlikely.’ Still there was no change in the man’s even intonation.

  ‘I know he had it before he broke in here,’ said Charles.

  ‘Oh. How’s that?’

  ‘I saw him when I came down from the bar at closing time.’

  Norman Phipps again saved words, but said it all with a sceptically raised eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, I know I was pissed, but not that pissed. He was definitely holding a bottle, and he said it had been given him by a “generous friend”.’

  ‘Afraid I didn’t know any of his friends,’ said Norman, turning back to his pile of crates.

  ‘There was another suspicious thing about the death.’ Charles waited for a reaction, but didn’t get it. ‘When I found Warnock’s body in here, the light was switched off.’

  Again, the momentary freeze before Norman said, ‘So what?’

  ‘It seems unlikely that he switched the light out before conveniently passing out on the floor.’

  ‘Possible.’

  ‘But, as I say, unlikely.’

  A non-committal shrug.

  ‘Norman, Sandra says she gave Warnock that bottle of brandy.’

  This, at last, did produce a reaction. Norman’s body went rigid; then he turned slowly to face Charles. To the
latter’s surprise, on the Bar Manager’s face was a smile of pleasure. ‘Did she?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Yes. She did. Which would suggest very strongly that she was responsible for Warnock’s death.’

  Norman Phipps shook his head slowly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s lying.’

  But he didn’t say the words as if they were important. The feeling of pleasure still meant more to him. As a casual afterthought, he added, ‘Sandra didn’t kill him. I did.’

  ‘Because of what he did to Stewart?’

  A slow nod of the head. ‘Yes. I wouldn’t have done it. I thought Stewart would just get over the experience, in time. I mean, I agreed he should come out of the production, but that was all. Not enough for Sandra, though. I suppose she was feeling guilty. She should have been keeping an eye on him. That’s what a chaperone in the theatre’s for, isn’t it?’

  Charles nodded. ‘Yes, to protect children from people like Warnock . . . amongst other things.’

  ‘Hmm. Norman spoke as if in a dream. ‘Anyway, Sandra went on so, I had to do something . . .’

  So Charles had been right. It was like Macbeth, the woman urging the man to murder. But he had got the personnel wrong. Not Felicia Chatterton and Russ Lavery, but Sandra and Norman Phipps.

  It all fitted. Even, he thought, ironically, down to Duncan being murdered by his host. Hadn’t Warnock always insisted on addressing Norman as ‘Mine Host’?

  ‘So what you mean is that Sandra told you to kill him?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘How was it then?’ asked Charles Paris gently.

  The Bar Manager came out of his reverie and focused on his interrogator. ‘Not a great marriage, Sandra and me. Doesn’t look that good from the outside, does it? Afraid it’s not that much better from the inside. Fact is, we’re . . . different. Sandra’s more . . . what’s the word? Passionate? Physical?’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Yes, I bet you do. What I mean is, in crude terms, she likes sex more than I do. I don’t mind it once in a while, but . . .’

  He shrugged.

  ‘So the alibi she gave the police . . .’

  He let out a short bark of laughter. ‘Just getting at me. Again.’

  ‘Like she got at you over Stewart?’

  Norman Phipps nodded. ‘She went on and on about it. Said that an experience like that, at that age, would make a boy homosexual for life . . .’

  Now it was Charles’s turn to be quiet. He didn’t want to break the intimacy of the confessional.

  ‘I said I thought he’d get over it, and then she said . . . she said . . .’ His voice did not break, but he seemed to be having physical difficulty in getting the words out. ‘She said that he’d grow up like his father. She implied that the reason I didn’t like sex as much as she did was that I was . . . that I wasn’t a real man . . .’

  His voice stopped again, but still his manner remained unemotional.

  ‘She said a real man wouldn’t let someone like Warnock get away with doing something like that to his son.’

  ‘So you thought you’d show her?’ Charles prompted gently. ‘Show her that Warnock hadn’t got away with it?’

  A slow ‘Yes’ and a nod. ‘It wasn’t difficult. I’d thought about the carbon dioxide many times before. I once nearly passed out down here when I was fixing that electrical socket.’ He pointed to the bottom of the wall. ‘There was a leak from one of the cylinders. I knew what was happening, so I just got out. But, even at the time, I remember wondering what it would be like for someone who was already unconscious.

  ‘You’re right, of course, I had got the bottle out earlier. Just left it on the table in his dressing room.’

  ‘But how did you know he’d stay in the theatre? He might have taken the bottle back to his digs.’

  ‘I went down just after closing time. I . . .’ For the first time, the voice was choked with emotion. ‘I told him that . . . that Stewart had liked what he’d done. I said Stewart wanted to see him again. I said, if he waited in the dressing room, I’d . . . bring Stewart to him.’ That fitted. Charles remembered Warnock’s unwholesome desire for a ‘nice little bumboy’. He also remembered with distaste that the old actor had even propositioned him. So, with Norman’s offer of his son, and a bottle of brandy to while away the time, Warnock would happily wait in his dressing room.

  ‘I went home with Sandra usual time. I waited an hour, then came back to the theatre. I’ve got keys, you know.’

  ‘Was Sandra asleep?’

  ‘Just about. She doesn’t sleep well.’ Lady Macbeth again, thought Charles. ‘As I had hoped, the old bastard was out cold. I took his stick and used it to break the locks. Then I dragged him in, laid him on his face and put the empty bottle in his hand.’

  ‘Did you wear gloves?’

  Norman shook his head. ‘I’ve handled everything in this room. Nothing odd to find my prints on the bottle. And there would be plenty of his.

  ‘Then I broke the beer tubes and the gas lines. I closed the door, to make doubly sure the CO2 wouldn’t escape, and waited.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Twenty minutes. When I opened the door, the job was done.’

  ‘So then you made your one mistake by switching off the light, and went back home?’

  ‘That’s it. Sandra was awake when I got back, worried where I’d been. I told her what I’d done, but she . . . she . . .’ Once again emotion threatened. ‘. . . she didn’t react like I’d hoped . . .’

  The murderer turned away, and rubbed the back of his hand noisily against his nose. When he turned back, he asked pathetically, ‘But she really did say she’d given him the bottle of brandy?’

  ‘Yes, she did.’

  Norman Phipps let out a sigh. Again, the information seemed to comfort him. Perhaps it proved that, beneath the jagged surface of their marriage, his wife really did feel some love for him.

  ‘Mr Paris . . .’

  Charles turned guiltily at the sound of the voice behind him.

  Detective Inspector Dowling stood framed in the doorway. There was no longer any diffidence in his manner; on his face was an expression of uncompromising anger. ‘You’re not going to be able to hide from me, Mr Paris.’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t trying to. I just . . .’ Charles felt himself blushing. Why did he always revert to a guilty adolescent when faced by an authority figure?

  ‘I’ve had enough faffing around, Mr Paris,’ the Detective Inspector continued. ‘I want to ask you some serious questions about the murder of Warnock Belvedere.’

  Oh, thought Charles in panic, so the police know it was murder. Oh God, and I’m still their main suspect and they’re bound to –’

  But his illogical ramblings were interrupted by a voice from the other side of the room.

  ‘I think, Detective Inspector,’ said Norman Phipps quietly, ‘that I’m the one you want to talk to.’

  Chapter Twenty

  IT WAS THE following Wednesday’s Schools Matinée, and the buzz from the auditorium on the dressing-room Tannoy sounded even more hectic than the week before.

  ‘This lot’s going to be trouble,’ said John B. Murgatroyd, his voice strangely muffled inside his helmet.

  ‘Why are you wearing that bloody thing?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Protection, laddie, protection. Filter the beer fumes emanating from your gob, me old chum.’

  Charles giggled weakly. Shouldn’t have gone into the bar at lunchtime. Fatal. He knew that, really. And shouldn’t have had three pints. Would have a desperate urge to pee in the middle of the Apparition Scene. Oh dear, wouldn’t do to pee in the Witches’ cauldron.

  Still, it was only a Schools Matinée.

  His pledge had lasted till after the previous Wednesday’s second show, but no longer. Well, he had promised himself a drink once he’d worked out who’d killed Warnock Belvedere. In fact, in all the relief of ceasing to be a murder suspect, it’d been a good few drinks.

  And the familiar
dry ache of a hangover had greeted him on the Thursday morning. It hurt, but it certainly felt more normal. Felicia Chatterton might go on about her body-clock, but Charles Paris had one too, and his had been thrown seriously out of kilter by those eight days without the regular imperatives of licensing hours.

  Eight days. Not bad. Damned nearly nine days. At least, he could prove he could do it. Drink? Well, I can take it or leave it, he would now be able to say with confidence. But he wouldn’t leave it again for a while.

  Well over a week, though. Pretty good. Well over the week that he’d promised himself he would announce to Frances as a proof of his reformed character.

  The trouble was, he hadn’t got round to ringing her during the period of actual abstinence, and to ring her and speak of it retrospectively wouldn’t have quite the same dramatic effect.

  No, he’d have to think of another approach. He would ring her soon. Really.

  ‘Saw some of the kids coming in.’ John B. Murgatroyd’s muffled voice brought him back to reality. ‘Looked a right load of scruffs. Yes, I think they’re going to be trouble. Still, Gavin’s away,’ he added innocently.

  There wasn’t much comfort for Charles in the director’s absence. Gavin was in London auditioning for his production after next, Alan Ayckbourn’s Ten Times Table. He was already into rehearsal for Deathtrap, the second show of the season. And he hadn’t drawn Charles aside for a little chat about either play. So it looked as if Maurice Skellern’s optimism about ‘other parts’ had been misplaced. Once Macbeth finished its run, it was going to be back to London, with all the delights of his bedsitter and the Lisson Grove Unemployment Office, for Charles Paris.

  Oh well, wouldn’t be the first time.

  And at least Russ Lavery had been kept on to play the young man in Deathtrap. Good part for someone so new to the business. That boy will go far, thought Charles, with only a twinge of jealousy.

  John B. Murgatroyd reached into the folds of his Lennox gown and produced the hip-flask. This time Charles accepted his offer.

  ‘Settle the beer,’ he said, somehow making the whisky sound like a medical necessity.

  ‘Five minutes, please,’ called the Stage Manager’s voice over the Tannoy, facing Charles with a dilemma of the bladder. He felt he should have a pee before the show started, but it was more a logical thought than an urgent necessity. And he knew, with that amount of beer inside him, if he had one pee, he’d be peeing all afternoon. Better to keep his nerve and hold it. Sometimes go for hours like that.