Stella sighed. ‘You aren’t wrong there.’ I never had you down for a sympathetic soul, she thought, but you are offering it. ‘I see the returns are holding up. Last week, anyway.’
‘Been nearly a full house most nights.’
‘That’s good.’ She stared down at the papers in front of her. ‘I’m worried about the coming week.’
‘It’s the same show.’
‘I know.’ What she did not say – though both knew what she was thinking – was: But what about the murder? Murders really, and my name involved.
Alice said: ‘Bring more people in, I bet.’ She started to move away.
‘If they can get in. It’s like a fortress, or haven’t you noticed?’
Stella drained her coffee cup, then stood up. ‘Hang on.’ She went over to the set of shelves which was usually loaded with scripts, books, folders of this and that, and dusty collections of old newspapers. The Stage had a space to itself. ‘What became of all the old copies? Where are they?’
‘I thought you’d know.’
‘Tell me.’ Stella was short with her.
‘The police came in, had a look round, and took them away. All that were left … A lot had gone already.’
‘Why wasn’t I asked for permission?’
‘No one said anything to me, Miss Pinero. They just came in, one in uniform and one in plainclothes – CID, I suppose – swept through and took them.’
‘I suppose everyone is being questioned?’
‘I haven’t been done yet. I think they started with Max’s staff. Of course, Jane and the others don’t come in until later, so they will catch them then. As far as I can see, the police are just working their way through.’
Stella nodded. ‘My turn will come.’
‘Shall I take your cup?’
‘Bring me another one, please, Alice, so I can get my strength up. I think I can hear police feet outside, and it makes me feel weak.’
Alice laughed; she did not believe Miss Pinero was weak.
‘I hope we can open tonight. I will have to be firm about that.’
‘I think Miss Bingham has fixed that.’
‘Oh, has she? Is she in?’
‘I think she was. She may have left; she said something about Geneva and then New York on the phone.’
Leaving me in it, Stella thought.
‘How could someone have got the body to the alcove without being seen?’ said Alice.
‘Oh, Alice, when you have worked in the theatre longer you will realize anything can be done. People either don’t see or don’t take it in. They expect things to be moving round … there are plenty of trollies and such like that are in use all the time. The killer used one, I expect. Daresay the police will find out which. And not that difficult …’ she shrugged.
Alice shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I still think it’s strange that no one noticed. I mean, someone killed, people around and not noticing. Of course, the corridors were quiet.’
‘A year or so ago a schoolgirl was raped and murdered in a roomful of her friends and they slept on.’
Alice absorbed this, her eyes darkening, and nodded sadly. ‘Does point to someone in the theatre, though.’
‘That I do not dispute.’
Kind of her not to name me, thought Stella. Perhaps she is shouting my name inside herself. Or perhaps not. She’s being loyal to the Chief Commander, who got her this job, and behind him she is being loyal to her father who got killed while working for that same Chief Commander.
Their eyes met: dark brown and deep blue.
‘Your mascara has run a bit on the right eye, Miss Pinero,’ observed Alice. ‘You don’t mind me mentioning it?’
Stella took out a tissue and went to the big looking glass on the wall. ‘No. Thank you for telling me.’
‘I know you like to look immaculate.’
Stella smiled but said nothing as she dabbed at her eyes. You know I have been crying, she thought. You know I’m in pain, mental and physical. She touched her arm, I ought to have gone to see a doctor. Maisie did her best, but I don’t think it was enough. I hope an infection doesn’t set in. I don’t suppose he had AIDS.
Supposing he did?
Oh well, the postmortem would show all.
Alice said awkwardly, as if she did not believe what she was saying, ‘You know we’re all your supporters here.’
‘Thank you for saying that.’ Even if it is not true. She finished repairing the damage to her face; it was amazing what a bit of make-up would do, for your morale as well as your looks. She began to feel more cheerful as she retouched her lipstick and gave her lashes a fresh brush of mascara. She was an actress, after all. ‘I am playing to my face,’ she said, staring at her image. ‘That looks better, so that’s how I am.’
‘Oh good.’
‘Let’s hope it lasts longer than the lipstick.’
‘You can always put more on,’ said Alice, in a serious voice.
Stella gave her a quick look to see if she was being laughed at, but no, it did not appear so. Unless Alice was a better actress than she suspected. You always had to take that into account. Life in the theatre made you a cynic.
She shuffled the papers on her desk. ‘Back to work.’
‘There’s a fax from Miss Bingham there, I put it on your desk just before you came in,’ said Alice, ‘saying she has got to go to Geneva but will be back this evening.’
Stella found it, and read it. Miss Moneybags herself in operation; Geneva would be a natural landing ground. ‘Darling Stella, just to say I have to attend a business meeting in Geneva, flying out and back this evening, late. Don’t worry and look after yourself. Love from Letty.’
I suppose she does like me, thought Stella. I have never really been sure. But then, do I like Letty? Admire her, yes, respect her, yes, and fear her a little, too.
Let’s face it: I’m jealous of her influence on my husband. Oh, well, if he gives me the elbow, she will have him to herself.
But I won’t think about that. ‘Thanks, Alice.’
Alice took her dismissal with a slight smile, disappearing down the corridor along which she saw Jane and Fanny advancing. ‘She’s there, free and in need of cheer,’ she said to them as they passed.
Jane waved her hand in reply without saying anything. She was friendly to Alice in a distant kind of way but did not regard her as a real inhabitant of theatreland.
‘She’s so broadshouldered and hefty, I always wonder if she’s a lezzie.’
‘Doesn’t necessarily go with body size,’ observed Fanny mildly.
‘Well, there’s something. Don’t like her, you know. Don’t trust her.’
Fanny smiled. ‘You don’t trust many, Jane, love, not even yourself.’
‘Not even myself,’ agreed Jane seriously. ‘I question every move I make when I’m on stage, it’s valuable. So when I do anything, I know it is right.’
‘You take yourself too seriously, love. Lighten up. Anyway, you’ve got this wrong. Alice is not a lezzie, she has a man; I’ve seen them together. Roughish, I thought he looked, if that interests you. You always say you are interested in human nature.’
Jane bowed her head, as if she knew it, but knew it was the burden of great talent. Within ten years, Fanny was to win an Oscar and be lauded as a spontaneous and natural actress. And where was Jane? No one knew. Acting in repertory in the Channel Islands, someone at dinner at the Garrick said. Or was it in the Byre Theatre in St Andrews?
Stella was pleased to see them. ‘Things to talk about,’ she said briskly. ‘As you know, the university drama society is mounting the next production but one in the small theatre.’ She looked down at her notes. ‘King Lear, ambitious of them but there you are.’
The big theatre would be blank for a week, then the next production for Jane and Fanny and Tim would be J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, this being both fashionable now with the intellectual element from the two local universities of the Second City as well as drawing in the
cheerful medium-brows who simply wanted to be amused.
The three women were talking it over when Tim came in. ‘Hi, there, Stella, nice to see you. I say, this is a business: a dead body of our own. By golly, I’m glad I was already in my digs with my landlord to testify.’ He grinned. Tim made no bones about where his sexual tastes lay. Dennis Garden himself was giving him a room. And more – as Tim constantly let all his friends and enemies (he had some of those too) know.
‘No one could ever call you reticent, Tim,’ said Stella. ‘Come on, to work.’
‘Let’s hope we are all around to perform,’ he said, sitting down.
‘Someone will shoot you one day.’ Fanny gave him a push.
‘Can I smoke?’
‘No,’ cried Jane, whose vocal cords were sacrosanct.
‘OK, OK,’ laughed Tim, who had no intention of smoking anyway. ‘Only asked to annoy.’ He looked at Stella and got a smile in return; she knew very well that he was deliberately, and kindly, offering himself as a person she could laugh at.
Dennis must be doing the postmortem at this very moment, he thought, so I might be the first to know exactly how the chap died. But no, Dennis is too professional.
It so happened that the University Hospital in Paget Street where Dennis was indeed at work, was also being visited by Phoebe Astley and Inspector Lodge.
The main building of the hospital was a depressing grey stone block which had started life as a Municipal Public Health Hospital, then been absorbed by the National Health Service and raised to the status of a university teaching hospital. Many smart new buildings had been added. The interesting thing was that it had always been a good hospital and much loved by the people of the district who had been born there and sometimes died there.
Now it was modern and up to date; only the smell which floated out of the walls of the oldest part of the building and which no disinfectant could mask spoke of its ninety-odd years of history. And it lived on the usual knife edge.
Astley and Lodge walked in through the entrance hall side by side. They had agreed to come together to track down and then interview the young doctor who had treated Pip Eton. Phoebe was out of temper with Lodge, who had kept her waiting.
Before seeing him park his car and going out to meet him, she had occupied herself first in discovering the name of the doctor she was interested in and had then passed the time reading the memorials to past members of the hospital killed in all wars since the turn of the century. At least one war had taken place in a faraway country of which she hardly recognized the name, part of an empire long since passed away, but a tribute, certainly, to the pugnacity of the medical staff of old London. ‘Suppose I ought to have known that,’ she thought, as she strolled past the marble and brass memorials. ‘They haven’t changed: show them a fight and they’re in it.’
She toured the lobby again, avoiding hurrying nurses and speeding doctors with coats flying. No memorials to the Falklands Campaign or the Gulf War … too soon, perhaps. They were political souls, here in the Second City, and might not have approved of either enterprise. In the old days it was King and Country and that was it. The last two campaigns had been professional affairs, of course, volunteers not needed.
She was still thinking about it as she went to meet Inspector Lodge. He was all apologies. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. I was held up by a telephone call, you know how it is.’
‘I used the time to find out the name of the doctor who was on duty in the outpatient clinic that evening: Dr Allegra. He’s over here from South Africa, finishing his training. He’s here now, which is lucky for us.’
‘Busy, I suppose?’
‘Sure to be, but we can break in.’
‘Does he know we’re coming?’
Phoebe nodded. ‘He will be expecting us. Follow me, I know where to go.’
Lodge followed her in silence down a corridor to a long room filled with people, emergencies of one sort or another – a broken arm, a possible poisoning, a sick baby: there were two of those, one crying, one deadly silent – waiting their turn to see a doctor. A polite young woman at the desk said she would ring through to Dr Allegra, if they wouldn’t mind waiting.
Since there were no seats left, they leant against a side wall.
Lodge seemed gloomy. ‘Ever had an investment go wrong?’ he asked.
‘Never had an investment.’
‘In a person.’
Phoebe looked at him in surprise. ‘Ah, that … Well, the usual number. Happens to us all.’
‘My man – the one I had planted in the building firm, remember?’
‘The missing one?’
‘I’ve heard from him now. Once … Don’t know now if I can trust him.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I don’t choose these chaps that work with me, I’m just a channel. They do the dirty work, but you have to trust them. I don’t know now. He says he is working on someone important, the real thing.’
‘The murderer? Or the bombers?’
‘I suppose so – both, the claims, connected,’ said Lodge doubtfully. ‘If I can believe him.’
‘Did he name anyone?’
‘No, that’s part of my worry. He wasn’t explicit. I could have done with a bit more detail. More concrete, if you get me.’ He sounded regretful. He likes that man, Phoebe thought.
Phoebe had her eyes on the young man who was coming towards them with a professionally harried look. He held out his hand.
‘Inspector Astley? I’m Dr Allegra …’ He had a slight South African accent, rather attractive to Phoebe’s ears, as indeed he was himself, being tall and fair and nicely muscular. All assets appreciated by Phoebe.
She shook his hand and let Lodge introduce himself, which he did promptly.
‘Not easy to talk here,’ said Allegra, surveying the noisy, crowded room. ‘And I don’t have a room of my own – too junior – but there’s a kind of common room.’
The room to which he took them was long and empty with a few soft armchairs and a table with a coffee machine on it.
‘Like a coffee?’
Phoebe accepted it, while Lodge shook his head.
‘So he’s dead, this chap?’ said Allegra. He shook his head. ‘I knew there was something wrong there.’
‘How do you know he’s dead?’ asked Lodge gruffly.
Allegra was surprised. ‘Is it a secret?’
‘We haven’t released his name.’
‘Word gets around. It’s that sort of place. A gossip mill, that’s what it is. Everyone was talking about the corpse in the theatre … pretty weird, it sounded, and I thought: “That’s my guy.” I’d been worried about him, there was something not quite right.’
‘Go on,’ said Phoebe.
Dr Allegra looked hopefully at Phoebe. ‘I don’t suppose you smoke?’
‘No.’ A lie but what else to say to a doctor?
He sighed. ‘You are wise; my case exactly, but if you had wanted a cig, then I could have had one with you.’
Judging by the smell in the room, his colleagues were not above lighting up as the need took them. He saw her looking at a half filled ashtray and smiled ruefully.
‘Yes, walking wounded we are here.’
Lodge found this interplay tiresome. ‘So, what is it you have to tell us, Doctor?’ He made the word ‘doctor’ sound like a threat.
Dr Allegra looked down at his hand, stretched his fingers, then retracted them, causing Inspector Lodge to draw in his breath irritably.
‘I’m really trying to be straight about this, say what I observed. I thought he was a thorough liar, and although he had a nasty wound I did not think he was telling the truth about how he came about it. He seemed unclear about whether he had been bitten or stabbed. I thought he liked the drama of a bite. There were certainly two serrated, macerated wounds. But I thought they were knife wounds which had been …’ Here he hesitated, ‘… touched up, but not by teeth, another knife or scissors, Yes, scissors might have done it, and th
ey could have been self-inflicted. Whether this was so or not … I thought he had been wounded but done the rest himself. Self-wounding, a known thing. After thinking it over, I decided to report it.’
‘By that time, you knew of the murdered man found in the St Luke’s Theatre?’
‘I did. Word gets around, like I said.’
‘The postmortem will give us some idea on the wounds. It wasn’t the wound that brought him to hospital that killed him, of course.’
‘No, what I saw was not life-threatening. It might have got infected, but I stitched and swabbed it. I think it hurt.’ There was a touch of satisfaction in Dr Allegra’s voice, clearly his patient had got across him. ‘There was something else: he didn’t say he was going, and while I went to get some dressings for him to use at home, he made off.’
‘Not polite,’ said Phoebe.
‘No, and then, a few minutes later, I saw him getting into a car. He was laughing. To himself, I suppose,’ Allegra added thoughtfully. ‘Although I think he had someone with him … a man … Couldn’t see … I didn’t care for him. Capable of putting on an act.’
‘Well, he was an actor,’ said Phoebe.
To himself Lodge added: And also, if we are to believe another performer, a man capable of violence, threats and of having terrorist connections. Did he believe that ‘other performer’, as he called her? His inner jury was still out on that one.
Paul Masters took several calls both before lunch and after, explaining to all callers that Coffin was out entertaining an important visitor but would be back later. Yes, he assured both Lodge and Phoebe Astley, their messages would certainly be passed on. And, no, he did not know why the Chief Commander was not answering calls on his personal mobile. As far as he knew, it was working.
‘Doesn’t want to,’ was what he said to himself. He knew from past experience that Coffin was capable of ignoring calls when he chose. ‘Wants to think.’
And plenty to think about, he mused, as he sat back to his own work. Himself the survivor of several unhappy relationships, he reckoned he could have given the Chief Commander a tip or two on how to handle Stella Pinero. Tougher, rougher, would have been his advice.
‘I wonder where he is, though,’ he said aloud. ‘Nothing in his diary.’ Not that Coffin always followed the rules and let you know where he was, but Paul Masters usually had a better idea than most.
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