‘Oh, I know,’ he said wearily. ‘But she made it bloody obvious that she thinks I must be to blame somehow. We’ve never really got on.’ He swept the newspapers off the sofa and sat down next to me. ‘These fucking newspapers. That’s what has really upset me.’
‘But – isn’t it a good thing, really?’ I said. ‘That it’s in the papers. Someone might remember seeing her. Or she might see the headlines herself and realize how worried we all are…’
Upstairs a baby began to cry. It was Grace. I got to my feet. Agnes began to cry too on a slightly higher note.
‘The dawn chorus,’ I said. ‘Come on, we’d better deal with them.’
Kevin said, ‘You’re right about the publicity. Of course you are. But somehow this makes it all seem so real, you know? And when it’s all over the papers there’s no going back, is there.’
* * *
I thought about that as I stood by the window in Agnes’s room, holding Grace up so that she could look out. It hadn’t occurred to me the newspapers might make it harder for Melissa to come home. What had Thomas Wolfe said? You can never go home again. And in a way he was right, wasn’t he? The home Melissa came back to wouldn’t be the one she had left and the newspaper coverage could increase the gulf between the two. Seeing what she had done in cold print might make it seem more final and dramatic. And it would never be forgotten: whenever a journalist turned up the files to do a lazy scissors-and-paste job on Melissa – or Kevin – the story would come up again.
I turned from the window. Kevin fastened the tabs on Agnes’s nappy and straightened up.
‘She’s too young to find this out,’ he said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘What life’s really like. That you’re never safe, not really. You know, some people manage to get through their entire life and they never realize that. Not until the end anyway.’
I knew exactly what he meant, but all the same …
‘I don’t think Agnes really understands that Melissa has disappeared. They say that babies are about six months old before they realize that it isn’t a new mother who appears every day. So if Melissa seemed to disappear every time she left Agnes, this might not be much different.’
Kevin lifted Agnes up and swung her gently with his hands under her arms. She chortled and waved her hands about.
‘What about last night?’ he said. ‘Agnes was missing her mother then, wasn’t she?’
‘Perhaps she was just missing the breast. She fell asleep when I’d fed her.’
Kevin looked dubious and I wasn’t convinced myself. Did Grace really forget about me when I was out of sight? I didn’t believe it for a moment. To hell with the baby books.
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I’m sure Agnes doesn’t know what’s happened. And perhaps she won’t have to know. Melissa could show up any moment. I mean, thousands of people go missing every year and most of them turn up again, don’t they?’
‘Tim Fisher told me that two hundred thousand people go missing every year and all except three thousand come home in a few days.’
We contemplated that fact.
Kevin said, ‘Somehow, I can’t quite get a handle on that.’
I knew what he meant. On the one hand the odds seemed almost to guarantee that Melissa would be back in a day or two. On the other, 3000 seemed an enormous number: it was enough to fill the Everyman theatre three times over. I saw row after row, tier after tier, of blank faces …
The doorbell rang.
Kevin froze with Agnes held up in the air and we stared at each other. The window looked out on the other side from the drive so we hadn’t heard anyone driving up.
Then he put Agnes in her cot and made for the stairs.
‘I hope that’s not the bloody press,’ he said.
I followed more slowly with Grace in my arms and was just at the bend in the stairs as Kevin opened the door. I stood and watched. Outside were two strangers: a tall thin man and a woman with fairish gingery hair. I thought Kevin might be right, but then it struck me that the suit the man was wearing and the woman’s jacket and skirt weren’t quite right for journalists.
The man unfolded his wallet and showed something to Kevin.
‘Detective Sergeant Michael Vickers,’ he said, ‘and this is Constable Wendy Pritchard, from Cambridge CID.’
‘What’s happened?’ Kevin asked.
‘Can we come in, Mr Kingleigh?’ His voice was slow and deep, making everything he said seem deliberate and considered.
‘But why? What is it? What’s going on? Where’s Tim Fisher?’ When Vickers didn’t reply, Kevin looked at the woman for a response. She said nothing. My own feeling of foreboding increased.
‘If we could come in…’ Vickers repeated.
Kevin stood back and they filed in past him. They had their backs to the stairs and didn’t seem to have noticed me.
Vickers said, ‘We’ve found your wife’s car, Mr Kingleigh.’
‘You’ve found the car? But then where’s Melissa?’ Kevin’s voice was hoarse. Was he wondering – like me – if they had come to announce the discovery of a body?
‘We’re hoping you can help us there,’ Vickers went on.
‘Me? But – where did you find the car?’
‘Oglander Road.’
Kevin looked baffled. ‘But – where?’
‘You don’t know?’
Kevin shook his head. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘It’s in London. East Dulwich. Not all that far from your flat in Camberwell Grove, Mr Kingleigh. Twenty minutes’ walk at the most.’
The repeated use of Kevin’s surname seemed ominous.
‘But does that mean … has she gone to the flat?’
‘Can you tell me where you were between the hours of eleven o’clock on Tuesday evening and nine o’clock on Wednesday morning?’
‘I was at the flat all night until around seven when I left to come up to Cambridge.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
‘I’ve already told Constable Fisher that I was all alone there.’
‘Sure about that?’
‘Of course I’m sure!
There was a small silence, then Vickers said:
‘I want you to come down the station to answer a few more questions.’
‘But what more can I tell you! And I’ve got the technical rehearsal this morning, it starts at ten.’
‘Don’t you want to help us find your wife, sir?’ said Vickers.
Kevin stared at him. ‘Of course I do! But—’
‘It won’t be necessary for me to arrest you, sir, I’m sure. You’ll want to give us every assistance in your power. Won’t you, now?’
Chapter Eleven
‘THEY haven’t actually arrested him?’
‘No, but I think they would have done if he hadn’t gone of his own accord. They let him drop Agnes off at the nursery first.’
‘Oh, God. And Melissa. They really think she might be…?’
‘They didn’t really say. They’re playing their cards very close to their chests.’
‘I just don’t believe it,’ Stan said. ‘It’s impossible that Kevin could have, well, you know…’
‘I can’t believe it either,’ I said. ‘I mean, what possible motive could he have?’
Stan was still pursuing her own line of thought.
‘Not in the middle of rehearsals. The director murder his leading lady before the opening night?’ She shook her head as if words failed her.
I looked sideways at her, wondering if she was serious.
We were sitting in the stalls. Richard had asked Stan to take the technical rehearsal. We had come into the auditorium ahead of time because it was the only place where we could find privacy to talk. She gave me a rueful little smile.
‘Though they might have felt like it sometimes. Oh, look, Cass, I know it’s nothing to joke about, but honestly, it is ludicrous. You know how important this production is to him. His big break and all that. He’d neve
r have done anything to jeopardize that. Unless…’
‘What?’
‘What if he didn’t mean to do it?’ she said. ‘What if he just lost his temper and hit her?’
She saw the problem at the same moment that I did. We both spoke at once.
‘No – he wasn’t—’
‘He wouldn’t have—’
I gestured to Stan to continue.
‘He was definitely in London that evening,’ she said. ‘So he’d have had to come back on purpose.’
‘It would have had to be planned and premeditated.’
Did the police really think that? That in the middle of the night while Grace and I were asleep less than a mile away, Kevin had arrived at Journey’s End, murdered Melissa and driven off with her body in the boot. It was ludicrous. Wasn’t it? I remembered his reaction to her disappearance. Surely even Kevin wasn’t that good an actor.
‘Are you really going to be able to run the technical rehearsal without Kevin?’
‘Oh, yes. It’s all in here.’ She tapped the bulky ring-file on her lap. ‘Every detail of every scene. Lighting, sound, everything. And don’t forget I’ll have to run the production anyway once it’s opened.’
‘But who’s going to be Captain Levison?’
‘Rufus can go on.’ Rufus was the assistant stage-manager.
‘But he doesn’t know the part.’
‘He’ll have to take the script on with him. I’ve even seen that done on the first night. But, oh God, I hope it doesn’t come to that. After all, they’ll probably let Kevin go soon. I mean, there can’t really be anything in it, can there? He can’t really have…’ Her voice tailed off. We contemplated the unspoken thought in silence. Stan’s hand strayed to her mouth and she chewed on a nail. She suddenly realized what she was doing and jerked her hand away.
‘Haven’t bitten my nails for years.’
‘What are you going to tell everyone?’
‘As little as possible for now. Just that Melissa’s car has been found, and so Kevin is talking to the police.’
* * *
‘Who’s not here?’ Stan said.
‘It’s Belinda,’ Clive said.
The cast were ranged along the front row of the stalls. Stan was standing on stage in front of the closed curtains.
‘Has anyone seen her?’ No one spoke. ‘Clive? How about you?’
He shook his head. ‘Not since the end of yesterday’s rehearsal.’
‘Well, we’d better go on.’
I found that I was biting my nails, too, or rather, the skin around them. One of my fingers was bleeding. I stuck my hands firmly under my thighs and listened as Stan outlined the situation with skill and economy, putting it in its most unthreatening light. It was an admirable performance, but I wondered if anyone was fooled: not Clive, judging by the glance he darted at me.
‘The best thing we can do,’ Stan concluded, ‘is get on with the technical until Kevin shows up, so let’s all give our minds to that, OK?’ Her gaze travelled along the front row, eliciting nods of agreement. She looked at her watch and frowned. ‘We don’t need Belinda right away, so we’d better start. Mike,’ she beckoned to one of the stage hands, ‘see if you can track her down, will you? OK, everyone, beginners in place, please.’
The curtain rose to a smattering of disorganized clapping from the audience. I had never seen so many people in the auditorium before: all the technical crew, the designer and her assistant and anyone else who had worked on the set. Jake and Geoff were filming from one of the boxes and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jake clapping energetically. I’d already seen the designs for the drawing-room of East Lynne, of course, and there had been a model. But that had been only one twenty-fifth the size of the actual set; it hadn’t prepared me for the impact of the real thing. There were the usual Victorian artefacts: a display of wax birds under a glass dome, a sofa with lacy antimacassars, oil paintings in ornate gold frames, a grand piano, but there was something strangely off-key about it, something edgy and disconcerting. The lighting gave the wax birds a sinister significance, like something in a Hitchcock movie. The ornate frames were actually painted directly on to the walls, with no attempt at illusion. So were the ancestral portraits. The sofa was a kind of acid green and the walls were a strong pink. I knew these colours were historically accurate – the new chemical dyes that had been developed early in the nineteenth century were both garish and popular – but the effect was unexpectedly strident.
The drawing-room occupied only the front of the stage. French windows opened on to the vista of a long formal garden. Here too there was something askew. A balustrade jutted out at a strange angle. The topiary shapes were hard to read. Was that an eagle or something more sinister … a vulture perhaps? There was a vast urn on a plinth and a bust with a draped head, like something out of a cemetery. Again it wasn’t clear at first what was illusory. The topiary bushes, yes, those were of flat, painted board … but the urn and the bust, they were solid.
Act One began. This was the first time I had seen Phyllida Haddon in the flesh and my heart sank. I tried to tell myself that I was bound to have a less than favourable reaction to whoever took over from Melissa. Melissa was Lady Isabel for me. Phyllida had one of those faces where the skin seems to be stretched just a bit too tightly. Her nose was rather sharp and the whole cast of her face was pert and doll-like. I missed the naïveté and innocence that Melissa had managed to convey. I suspected that Phyllida always played the same part, whereas Melissa was a different person in each new role. On the technical side, things went surprisingly smoothly and the first real setback didn’t come until half-way through the scene when Archibald proposes to Lady Isabel.
‘I would devote my life to making you happy,’ he declared.
‘Mr Carlisle, you have all my respect. I know – oh fuck, fuck, fuck, what is it that I know?’ Phyllida snapped her fingers. ‘Prompt.’
‘“How noble you are”, and it’s respect and esteem,’ Stan said from the side of the stage.
‘Mr Carlisle, you have all my respect and esteem. I know how noble you are and I think so very highly of you, but, but…’ She clicked her fingers again.
‘But as for love…’
‘Yes, yes, as for love…’
‘Take that speech from the beginning,’ Stan said from where she was sitting in the third row of the stalls.
‘Mr Carlyle, you have all my respect and esteem. I know…’
There was the sound of hurrying footsteps echoing on boards. Belinda appeared at the side of the stage, pale and out of breath.
‘So – sorry,’ she gasped, holding her hand to her side. ‘Stomach – upset.’
Stan nodded curtly. ‘Go and get your rehearsal skirt and corset on.’
She didn’t need to say anything else. Everyone was well aware that nothing short of cholera or a broken limb – and maybe not even that – was sufficient to excuse being as late as this. I thought Belinda was about to burst into tears. But she bit her lip, and hurried off.
The rehearsal picked up where it had left off. After further declarations of affection Archibald left Lady Isabel to consider his proposal. She stood there for a few moments gazing pensively into the distance. Then she gave a tremulous little smile and walked slowly to the door on the other side of the stage. She opened it and made to go through it. Something seemed to hold her back. She retreated a step or two. I stood up to get a better view and now I could see what the problem was. She tried again to manoeuvre her crinoline through the doorway; it caught on the frame and bounced her back on to the stage. I knew what must have happened. This door had been built to modern dimensions. It should have been extra wide to accommodate the crinoline. Phyllida couldn’t get off the stage.
I could see her shoulders quivering with suppressed laughter. There was a moment’s silence. Someone further down the row from me began to titter. Someone else guffawed, then everyone was laughing. There was an edge of hysteria to it. Phyllida turned to face the audienc
e. She was giggling so much by now that she could hardly stand up. She grabbed hold of the edge of the door to support herself. I was laughing, too. I couldn’t help myself.
There was a clattering of footsteps coming up the stairs to the stage and Stan appeared in my line of vision.
‘Stop this,’ she roared. It was if the headmistress had appeared in a classroom of unruly children. There was immediate silence. In a moment or two all that could be heard was an occasional hiccup from Phyllida.
‘Get a grip, all of you,’ Stan said. She had lowered her voice so that one almost had to strain to hear. I couldn’t help but admire her technique. ‘Please remember that you are professionals. This is supposed to be a melodrama, not a bloody farce.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that, old love,’ a voice murmured in my ear.
I gave a start. With all the commotion on stage, I hadn’t noticed that Clive had dropped into the seat next to me. There were tears of laughter on his cheeks. He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a big white cotton hanky to mop his face.
By now the carpenter was running on to the stage. The designer and her assistant were making their way up from the stalls.
‘She’s right about one thing,’ Clive went on. ‘It’s no laughing matter. Melissa missing. Director in quod. If we lose any one else, Jake and Geoff won’t be filming the bloody show, they’ll he appearing in it. And, frankly, Jake couldn’t possibly be worse than Rufus as Lady Isabel’s dastardly seducer. It’s more like Mrs Robinson and the Graduate. Philly could obviously eat him for breakfast. I just hope she does at least manage to learn her lines in time.’
‘Have a heart, Clive,’ I said, half my mind on what was happening on stage, a pantomime of measuring, head scratching, consulting of designs. ‘She only saw the script yesterday.’
‘Oh, I know, I know. Mustn’t bitch. We’re lucky to get her, I know that. But I do so miss Melissa.’ His tone was heartfelt. ‘It’s dreadfully worrying, all this.’ He shot a sideways glance at me. ‘The police don’t seriously think Kevin’s got something to do with it, do they?’
‘I don’t know what they think,’ I said, quite truthfully.
Stage Fright Page 13
