‘So it’s still going smoothly?’ May felt as though he should be taking notes, but wasn’t sure what to write.
‘I wouldn’t say that. The thing never fits perfectly from the outset. Steps get in the way of recitative, cues come in the wrong places and have to be rearranged. You get a lot of masking and scissoring, but nothing that can’t be worked out.’
‘Scissoring?’
‘Actors crossing each other’s paths onstage. We’re over the worst. I shout at them, but it doesn’t mean anything. By opening night we’ll be a big happy family.’
‘Then why do Mr Bryant and I feel shut out?’ asked May.
‘Because you’re outsiders, darling,’ laughed Helena. ‘You expect backstage to be a hotbed of gossip and intrigue, but this one’s not. There’s too much riding on the production for anyone to behave in an unprofessional manner.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ May admitted. ‘I suppose I was expecting histrionics. Highly strung actors, the usual clichés.’
‘So long as you realize that they are only clichés,’ said Helena reproachfully.
Just then the door to the artistic director’s office burst open and a tall, angular woman of about forty flew in.
‘I’m not going to work with that dreadful bitch for one more minute!’ she cried before chucking herself lengthwise onto Helena’s sofa. ‘He’s ruining my entrance. I said to him, “Darling, I wouldn’t let any man step across my entrance, let alone an old cow like you,” and he said, “I can’t see how you would know, dear, you’ve never been with a man in your life,” waving his whip at me in front of the shepherdesses. I said, “I’ve played bigger houses than this,” and he said, “Only when you were working the back passage of the Alhambra, love.” He said, “I’ve played the Duke of York’s, Her Majesty’s, the Queen’s,” and I said, “The Queen’s is an ice rink, dear, no wonder you’re so frigid.” Oh, you’re not alone, I’ll come back later.’ She threw herself back onto her feet. ‘So I’ll leave you to sort that out then, if you would.’ And she was gone in a cloud of Arpège, slamming the door behind her.
‘You were saying?’ said May gently.
‘Well, there are a few exceptions to the rule,’ Helena admitted, blanching.
‘Who was she, by the way?’
‘Valerie Marchmont. She’s playing the role of Public Opinion, God help us,’ said Helena.
Down in the foyer, Arthur Bryant knocked on the window of the box-office booth. Elspeth Wynter looked up from her booking forms and smiled vaguely. ‘Hello, Mr Bryant. A pleasure to see you again.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way,’ said Bryant, tugging his scarf straight. ‘We’re conducting interviews—’
‘Of course, I understand,’ she said hastily. ‘Can we do mine here?’
‘We’re supposed to record them at the unit.’
She looked hesitant. ‘We’re absolutely frantic, what with the schedule running behind.’
‘Perhaps I could arrange something.’ Bryant attempted a smile, liked the effect and widened it. ‘On the condition that you have a bite to eat with me.’
‘I don’t know, it’s our busiest day so far for bookings. I can’t be away from the telephone.’
‘Half an hour,’ said Bryant. ‘A bowl of soup somewhere nearby. I won’t take no for an answer.’
Elspeth was flustered. ‘All right, but it will have to be just over the road. The little Italian place in Moor Street?’
‘It’s a deal.’ He pulled on his hat and flicked the brim of it nonchalantly. May was right. Persistence paid off after all. While his partner had been out with Betty Boop, Bryant had passed a miserable evening filing reports and being covertly studied by Sidney Biddle, who appeared to have nothing better to do than watch him and surreptitiously scribble notes in a diary. Biddle’s visit to the St Martin’s Lane shoe shop had proved disappointing. Although shoes matching the prints were sold only to theatres, they went to nearly every theatre and variety hall in the country.
Bryant stepped outside the theatre foyer and back into the natural light of the morning. Across the road, workmen had barricaded the pavements and were digging holes, searching for cracked gas mains. The Pioneer Corps were salvaging furniture from a bombed office in Shaftesbury Avenue. In schools across the city, children were swapping souvenir incendiary bomb fins from the night’s raids. At this point in the war, over two hundred tons of high explosives were being dropped on London every night.
He took a deep breath. The burning smell lingered in the air even on the freshest days. He wondered whether they were mad, trying to discover how just two people had died, when all around them men, women and children were being killed violently and unexpectedly. The AFS men had been putting out oil bombs in the next street all night long.
Some theory, he knew, would have to reveal itself soon or he’d be in for it. With a sigh of resignation, he stepped back into the chill shadows of the theatre.
24
READING SIGNS
Sidney Biddle was getting angrier.
From what he had seen so far, the Peculiar Crimes Unit was aptly named. The place was a total shambles. There was no excuse for it, war or no war. Everything was just as Farley Davenport had predicted. Procedural policy appeared to be non-existent. There was no chain of command, and members of staff were allowed to do exactly as they pleased. True, Arthur Bryant was the last to leave each night, after diligently entering the day’s activities into the unit’s logbook, but he kept it locked up in his office, so it was impossible to guess whether his entries were accurate or fanciful.
More bothersome was the fact that he, Biddle, appeared to have been excluded from Bryant’s circle. He had been identified as the enemy in the camp and was shut out of all conversations, notes, briefings and interviews concerning the events at the Palace.
And the black-marketeering that was going on! All around him, all day, everyone was on the fiddle. Runcorn and Finch bartering tea, sugar and armfuls of rhubarb with the boys in the tailor’s shop, PC Atherton, Crowhurst and the Bow Street constables coming in with buckets, kettles, clocks, tin openers, gardening tools, boots, pencils and tins of furniture polish. Everyone seemed to know that a potato peeler in good nick was worth two spanners.
Once again, he was an outsider. Sidney sat in the window of the office behind Bow Street station and morosely sipped his tea, watching the clearance boys at work. The empty offices beyond the Royal Opera House appeared to have been commandeered as fire-alarm stations and first-aid posts. Perhaps he should have taken a job with the Press and Censorship Bureau. At least they were performing an essential duty. Last month, the corner of Leicester Square had been bombed flat, and holes had been blown in the District Line railway tunnel at Blackfriars; right now the bureau would be busy suppressing the truth, retouching photographs, stemming negative information, tucking away all morale-damaging reports until after the war.
With a twinge of annoyance he realized that he would rather have been accepted by the others in the unit than marked out as someone to avoid. Even Runcorn, the miserable forensic scientist, ducked back into his office whenever he saw him approaching.
Everyone associated with the unit appeared to hold Arthur Bryant in high regard, although what Bryant had done to earn their esteem was far from obvious. And the other new chap, May, was creeping around in his partner’s footsteps, clearly filled with awe.
Biddle checked the spelling in his report and recapped his fountain pen. By the end of his first week he hoped to have a dossier on Bryant that would draw a constricting ring of common sense around the unit. Davenport had made it clear that he wanted them closed down before the month was out. He’d clearly had enough of boffins being allowed a free hand while everyone else had to buckle down.
Biddle knew something else the others didn’t know, because he had taken the call himself. DS Gladys Forthright would soon be on her way home, because her fiancé had backed out of the wedding. All they needed now was an unstable woman moping about the plac
e. He smiled to himself as he blew on the page and closed it. She might just prove to be the straw that broke this peculiar camel’s back.
‘I’m so glad you could spare the time to have lunch with me,’ said Bryant awkwardly. He never knew what to say to women. Consequently his behaviour around them was formal and slightly unnatural.
‘I’ve always had a soft spot for the police. My brother’s a crown court duty officer, not that I ever see him. I have to be getting back in a minute.’ Elspeth pushed away her soup plate. The café was steamy and crowded with customers queuing for tables. ‘There’s a dress rehearsal this afternoon. Helena feels that several of the scenes aren’t working so she’s changing them. There are no out-of-town try-outs, and unless you tour first, the team only has rehearsals and previews to get it right.’
‘Do shows change much before opening night?’ asked Bryant, scooting a fork around the remains of the suspiciously unmeaty gravy on his plate.
‘Oh, some of them become unrecognizable, especially the musicals. Of course, I’m strictly FOH so I’m not privy to everything that goes on, but you hear it all from the front of house because stages are designed to project sound forward. Do you think Helena will be able to keep the show running?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bryant admitted. ‘Westminster Council will have to be given our crime reports because of the Palace’s status as a public building, but they’ve already got their hands full, so it’s pretty easy for me to stall them. Their final decision will be swayed by the Lord Chamberlain’s attitude. If he decides that it’s a threat to public morality, there’s nothing I or anyone else can do to keep it open. An appeal to Churchill might work, I suppose. I understand that when he was young he used to champion the ladies of the music hall.’
‘All this talk of the chorus girls appearing nude is sending the box office through the roof,’ said Elspeth. ‘We’ll soon have the Christmas season fully booked. If the Lord Chamberlain does shut us there’ll be nothing else to put in after it. We’ll go dark for the first time in thirty years. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘If the Lord Chamberlain objects, couldn’t a compromise be reached?’
‘Yes, if Miss Parole would just agree to cover up the girls’ . . . you know . . .’
‘What?’
‘Nipples,’ she mouthed at him, looking down at her chest. She dabbed a napkin at her forehead, embarrassed. ‘It’s so hot in here, Arthur. That scarf must be strangling you. We never overheat in the foyer, even in the middle of summer. So much marble.’
‘You’re all very loyal to the theatre,’ Bryant conceded. Just being outside the building made Elspeth uncomfortable. He wondered how she would cope if the directors closed the show down and fired the permanent staff. Theatre management seemed a separate breed from the acting companies, one of the oldest and least recognized London tribes, working long hours for low salaries, never in the limelight themselves, unable to imagine any other life apart from the stage. ‘Mr Whittaker’s like you. I’m surprised you aren’t . . .’
‘What?’
‘Well, together.’
‘Me and Geoffrey?’ It was good to see her smile. ‘God, no. The theatre would always be in the way. We’d never talk of anything else. Besides, he’s a terrible womanizer.’
‘Are there really no problems between Helena and members of the cast?’
‘None that I know of. The only row is with the stagehands, because of these accidents. I mean, we’re all assuming the rumours are true about Miss Capistrania suffering something similar. Everyone’s wondering who’ll be next, but they all get on with their work. It’s incredible how the press has managed to twist the whole thing around. Have you seen the article by Gilbert Riley in this morning’s edition of the Evening Standard? He’s suggesting we’re the victims of some ancient theatrical curse. And then there are those photographs.’ Elspeth was referring to the fact that someone had managed to take several shots of semi-naked chorus girls through the door of a rehearsal room several days earlier. ‘Where’s Mr May today? He seems ever so nice.’
She fancies him, thought Bryant immediately. Well, why not? He had the same effect on every woman he met. Presumably it was some kind of chemical reaction, scientifically quantifiable and easily explained. Some men had it, he decided, and others didn’t.
‘He’s finishing the interviews,’ said Bryant, pushing his plate back and picking up the bill. ‘I have to submit a report to my superior by tomorrow. The process would normally take longer, but the war is speeding everything up.’
‘The last fourteen months have passed so quickly,’ agreed Elspeth. ‘So many horrors, so many changes. I just celebrated my thirty-second birthday. Not a good age for a single woman.’ Her hand absently brushed her cheek. In the dusty light from the restaurant window she suddenly looked much younger, as if she had been kept all her life within the walls of the theatre, untouched by the ravages of the outside world. Bryant felt a sudden pang of desire for her. ‘It’s rather ironic still to be working in a shrine constructed for a man who made merciless fun of spinsters.’
‘Oh, Gilbert, you mean. Yes, he was a bit hard on the ladies. But Sullivan balanced him. He loved women too much. It must have been an interesting alliance.’
‘I daresay you see the parallels with your own partnership,’ said Elspeth carelessly.
Bryant pretended to bridle at the thought. ‘Crusty curmudgeon and laconic ladies’ man, whatever can you mean?’ he said.
Elspeth’s eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘Oh, I don’t think you’re such a curmudgeon. You have the heart of someone who’s been in love. Trust me, I know the signs.’
‘Well, once was enough.’
‘You’re young. You have plenty of time yet, provided you can manage to stay out of harm’s way.’ She checked a tiny gold watch. ‘I need to get back. Perhaps we can see each other when I get out.’
‘And perhaps we can eat somewhere other than here,’ said Bryant, paying the bill. ‘Their meat sauce tasted as though it had been boiled up from the innards of a horse.’
‘If they keep reducing our rations, I imagine that’s what we’ll end up eating.’ Elspeth rose and straightened her hat as a woman shoved past her to claim her seat.
The young detective laid a gentle hand on Elspeth’s shoulder. ‘I’ve overlooked something. You know the theatre better than anyone . . .’
‘I know it well, but so does Geoffrey. And Stan Lowe, and Mr Mack.’
‘Am I making mistakes? What have I missed?’
‘I think perhaps . . .’ She hesitated for a moment, studying his wide blue eyes. A connection tingled as she opened herself to him, then quickly cooled as she remembered her place. ‘I think you should talk to the owner of the theatre company. You might learn more than you imagine. Everyone has secrets.’ She pushed open the restaurant door and glanced guiltily at the theatre. ‘I’ve said enough. I really must go.’
For the briefest of moments Bryant had read something in her eyes that he could not interpret: fear, mistrust, the pain of hidden knowledge. He was young, and still had much to learn about people, especially women.
25
THE NATURE OF ILLUSION
Every time May passed near the footlights of the Palace stage, chorus girls would peer round the wings at him and start giggling. He wondered what Betty had told them. The evening had been a lot of fun, though bloody expensive, and the pretty chorine had made it obvious that she would welcome entertainment again at the weekend. Knowing that Bryant had returned to the unit the previous night, May felt an odd sort of disloyalty to his partner. It was only the end of his third day, and he was fraternizing with potential suspects instead of working late.
‘I thought I’d find you down here,’ he said, spotting the unruly fringe of chestnut hair that stuck above the back of a row of stalls, six rows from the orchestra pit. Bryant was sprawled with his legs hooked over the seat in front. The stage was partially lit with Fresnel spots to reveal a hellish scene. Crimson caverns of oil a
nd fire glittered with droplets of lava, and the petrified purple bodies of demons jutted from priapic stalagmites. The effect was, if not quite obscene, very near the edge of public toleration in 1940.
May pushed down the seat next to his partner and leaned over. ‘Did you know that while the theatre company is occupying the Palace, it owns the stage, the backstage area and all rights of access, but not the front of house or its offices? Those are in the control of the theatre’s owners. Each of the companies is placing the responsibility on the other, so now we’re not allowed to talk to staff on the premises. I’m trying to make arrangements to continue off site.’
‘We should have done that from the start,’ said Bryant grumpily. ‘It’ll shake them up to be questioned in official surroundings. I wish I hadn’t tried the mystery meat pie at luncheon, I feel most uncomfortable.’
May pointed at the semi-naked women cavorting with each other onstage. ‘I suppose all of this offends your purist sensibilities.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Bryant. ‘Offenbach was far from pure. In fact, he outraged the purists of his age, so he’d probably approve of the nudity, although he might think some of the sex scenes are going a bit far, even in our supposedly enlightened times.’
‘Perhaps you could tell me what’s supposed to be going on’—May waved a hand at the stage—’all this operatic hellfire and brimstone.’
Bryant unbuttoned his waistcoat and massaged his podgy stomach. ‘For a start it’s not an opera, it’s an opéra bouffe.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘It has mythological, supernatural elements. It’s fanciful. It’s intended as a comic diversion.’
‘So there’s no fat lady singing at the end?’
Bryant swivelled his head and studied his partner coolly. ‘You’re not much of a music lover, are you?’
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