Sicken and So Die

by Simon Brett

  The reason was Alexandru Radulescu. He was – at least for a few months – the current vogue name, and no one who mattered in British theatre wanted to risk missing his latest production. Even if it meant forsaking the West End for the comparative wilds of Great Wensham, they had to be there. No doubt Radulescu and the Radulescu style would soon be condemned as ‘dated’ and ‘meretricious’, but during his brief moment in the sun he was the director who could do no wrong.

  His revisualisation of Twelfth Night was hailed as ‘mould-breaking’, ‘daringly different’, ‘a radical reinterpretation of what had always been thought of as a safe old play’ and ‘an evening of pure theatre that challenges the spectator’s every preconception.’

  Charles Paris could have spit.

  He wasn’t surprised that an untutored audience would go for Alexandru’s flashy tricks, but he was amazed that professional critics could be seduced by such modish claptrap. Surely they should respect Shakespeare’s text, and recognise when it was being traduced – that was their job, for God’s sake! Critics should uphold the enduring values of the great British literary tradition, not be a prey to every new fad that comes along.

  Even as he had the thought, Charles Paris realised how impossibly reactionary it sounded. Maybe he really was past his sell-by date. Maybe the values he represented were going the way of the dinosaurs. For a moment he was undermined by the appalling possibility that Alexandru Radulescu might be right.

  But if the director was one of the golden boys of British theatre, there was another coming up fast to share the limelight. Russ Lavery had the kind of reviews even he – and his ego was of no mean proportions – would have been too bashful to write for himself.

  The words ‘star’ and ‘genius’ were bandied about like small change. ‘A truly great Shakespearean performance,’ one critic enthused. ‘To be at Chailey Ferrars last night was to know what it must have been like to witness the debut of Garrick or Kean.’

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, thought Charles. What is going on here? He would never be able to understand the random cycle of critical opinion. He had rehearsed many shows he thought excellent, and then seen them suffer savage dismemberment by the critics. He had been in productions he regarded as total shit, which had received rose-scented notices. It made no sense at all.

  All he knew about criticism was that the only reviews he remembered were the bad ones. Over the years he must have had a good few laudatory notices – come on, he must have done – but all that stayed with him were of a type with the one he’d once received from Plays & Players: ‘Charles Paris was also in the cast, though why is a question which neither the director nor the playwright seemed prepared to address.’

  The cast were given the chance of a lie-in on the Wednesday morning, but there was a rehearsal call for two o’clock in the afternoon. The triumph of the first night had been the product of luck, adrenaline and a sense of occasion. There were still details in the production that needed to be gone over and fixed.

  Needless to say, most of these moments involved Russ Lavery. He was the one who, in his role as Viola, had suddenly taken on a lot of new scenes and, though his first night performance had been stunning, at times he had been flying on a wing and a prayer.

  Most of Viola’s important scenes were with Orsino or Olivia, so Sir Toby Belch and his cronies were not called for rehearsal till five o’clock. Charles Paris, who had risen after his landlady had stopped serving breakfast, reckoned that the late call justified a pub lunch.

  He wandered out looking for the centre of Great Wensham, but found that, in common with many other English country towns, its centre had been removed. Where one might have expected a characterful town square was a brick-paved pedestrian shopping precinct, featuring Marks & Spencers, Currys, Next, the Body Shop and all the chain-store names that appear in every other English town and city.

  Still, he found a pub, Ye Olde King’s Head, which looked as if its construction had been completed the day before. He bought a pint of beer, ordered a lasagne, and sat down with his drink. A compilation of Hits of the Sixties was playing just too loud in the background.

  Damn, he’d meant to buy a Times. Then he could have had a go at the crossword until his food came. Without a paper, though, he couldn’t avoid thinking about Sally Luther’s death.

  He was convinced she had been murdered, poisoned by a fatal injection pushed through the hessian screen in the wings at Chailey Ferrars.

  He was also convinced that her death was the culmination of a sequence of poisonings. Gavin Scholes, John B. Murgatroyd, Sally Luther.

  The question was: who had gained from that sequence of events? The obvious beneficiary of Gavin’s removal had been Alexandru Radulescu, who took over the production of Twelfth Night. But the director could not have been directly responsible for the first poisoning because he had been nowhere near Chailey Ferrars when it happened.

  The idea of Radulescu having someone doing his dirty work for him, though, was quite appealing. And if he’d had an accomplice, then the obvious candidate for the role was Vasile Bogdan. That would certainly explain the conversation Charles had overheard in the Gents at the Willesden rehearsal room.

  But when Gavin’s poisoning was considered in conjunction with Sally Luther’s death, the main beneficiary was undoubtedly Russ Lavery. Because of those two events, he had achieved the Sebastian/Viola double role which had restored his credibility as a stage actor. Was it possible that such an outcome had been planned from the start?

  But Russ hadn’t been at Chailey Ferrars either. Indeed, he had made a great public scene about not wanting to go to Chailey Ferrars. Could all that fuss have been deliberately set up to distance the actor from anything that might happen there?

  If Russ was involved in Gavin’s poisoning, then he too would have needed an accomplice. Maybe Vasile Bogdan also fitted that role . . .? It was Russ Lavery, Gavin had told Charles, who recommended Vasile as a suitable member of the company. Had there been a mutual exchange of favours between the two actors?

  Or were they both involved in a conspiracy with Alexandru Radulescu?

  The element that didn’t fit into any of these possible scenarios was the poisoning of John B. Murgatroyd. In rehearsal he’d been proving unreceptive to the Director’s ideas, but surely that wasn’t sufficient reason to have him removed? The only person who had benefited directly from John B.’s illness was Chad Pearson who inherited the role of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, but Charles had great difficulty including Chad in any list of suspects.

  On the other hand, suppose John B. had been right when he suggested that his poisoning had been a mistake? And that the intended victim had been Charles Paris . . .

  That was a chilling thought, which prompted another, even more frightening.

  Suppose Sally Luther’s death had also been a mistake . . .

  At the time she was stabbed with the syringe, she shouldn’t have been in the wings anyway. She was only there, sheltering from the rain, while they waited for Charles Paris, who had missed his cue.

  The person who should have been there in that cramped space, pressed against the damp hessian, was Charles Paris himself.

  Now the sequence of crimes had a logic. Gavin Scholes had been poisoned so that Vasile Bogdan would have the director he wanted. To get the part he wanted, Vasile’d have to remove Charles Paris. He’d made one attempt at the Indian restaurant, and another during the tech run. On each occasion he had caught the wrong victim.

  But he was unlikely to let that stop him trying again.

  Charles Paris’s lasagne was delivered to his table. He looked down at the greasy, yellow, microwaved slabs, and he didn’t feel hungry.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE RAIN did not return and the Wednesday evening was idyllically warm.

  It was positively hot in the caravan dressing room as they waited for the ‘beginners’ call. Charles felt uncomfortable in his thick Sir Toby Belch costume. He also felt uncomfortable because Vasile Bogdan was
there too. Still, no immediate danger – they weren’t alone together. Russ Lavery, Benzo Ritter and Tottie Roundwood were also present, lounging around, pretending they weren’t nervous and glancing idly through the newspaper reports of Sally Luther’s death.

  ‘Dreadful business, isn’t it?’ said Charles, for want of something else to say.

  The others agreed it was.

  ‘She was so young.’

  Russ Lavery, wearing a dress for Viola’s first appearance in Illyria and sitting in a neat feminine pose, nodded uneasily. ‘Kind of thing happens too often for my liking. Chum of mine, only my age, just got married, suddenly keeled over a couple of months back. Heart attack. Dreadful.’

  From the nodding reactions of the others, it seemed no one thought there was anything suspicious about Sally’s death. But, since he’d raised the subject, Charles dared to probe a little further. ‘I wonder what she died of?’

  ‘Heart? Brain tumour?’ Tottie Roundwood suggested. ‘Usually one of those when it’s as unexpected as that.’

  ‘What do you think, Vasile?’

  The only reaction he got was a shrug of the shoulders.

  Charles decided to be even braver. ‘Funny nobody’s suggested the possibility of foul play . . .’

  ‘Foul play?’ Benzo Ritter echoed.

  ‘Yes, foul play. Murder.’

  ‘Don’t be morbid, Charles,’ said Tottie mildly.

  Vasile Bogdan’s reaction was anything but mild. ‘That’s a filthy suggestion!’ he stormed. ‘The poor girl’s not been dead twenty-four hours. What on earth made you say that, you bloody fool?’

  He’d gone too far. Charles tried to ease the situation with a Twelfth Night quote.

  “‘Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speakest well of fools.”’

  Vasile, about to come back with a fierce rejoinder, was stopped by a tap on the caravan door. ‘Act one beginners, please.’ And they all trooped out for the opening dumb-show.

  Thanks to the day’s newspaper coverage – both sensational and artistic – all of the fixed seats for Twelfth Night were taken and spectators on folding chairs and rugs were densely spread over the surrounding slopes. Some of the audience that evening found the production a bit bizarre – it wasn’t Shakespeare’s play as they knew it – but the newspaper critics had told them it was good, so it must be. Anyway, they all enjoyed their picnics.

  Charles Paris was very wary throughout the performance, watchful whenever Vasile Bogdan was in sight, and watching out for him when he wasn’t. He knew he had to find some proof to back up his suspicions, and a plan was forming in his head as to how he might achieve that.

  The show was a bit second-nightish. The audience wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss, but the cast knew they hadn’t quite scaled the peaks of the previous performance. There had been an inevitable sense of anti-climax, which many of the company proposed to counteract by a meal at the Great Wensham Tandoori.

  Charles Paris, mindful of what had happened after the last communal Indian meal – and with his own plans for the rest of the evening – said he wouldn’t join them. Nobody made any attempt to dissuade him from his decision.

  In the cramped caravan, he removed the Sir Toby Belch costume and put on his street clothes. He felt the reassuring weight of a half-bottle of Bell’s in his jacket pocket. What he was planning to do could well require some Dutch courage. In his other pocket were a pencil torch and a screwdriver.

  Charles got a lift with the rest of the company in the festival minibus, which stopped outside the Great Wensham Tandoori. Studiedly dilatory in getting out of the bus, he was able to check who went into the restaurant.

  He ticked off Alexandru Radulescu, Vasile Bogdan and Tottie Roundwood in the crowd that passed through the door. Good, that gave him at least an hour while they had their meal.

  An hour, Charles reckoned, would be long enough. He reached into his pocket for the Bell’s and prepared to snap the seal, but found the metal cap already loose. Dear oh dear, he must have had a swig earlier. Never mind. He braced himself with another long swallow.

  The house that Tottie, Vasile and Alexandru were renting was on the outskirts of the town, conveniently without near neighbours. Charles had been prepared to use his screwdriver to force a lock or break a pane, but fortunately he found a downstairs window insecurely latched. Carelessness seemed to accompany hot weather.

  After another emboldening swallow of Bell’s, Charles Paris was quickly inside. His pencil torch showed he was in the sitting room. He moved through to the hall and up the stairs. Though not certain what he was looking for, he felt sure he was most likely to find it upstairs.

  There were four doors – presumably three bedrooms and a bathroom – leading off the small landing. Charles opened one, and flashed his pencil light across the room.

  His eyes were immediately caught by a pile of books on the bedside table. Drawn by the line of his torch beam, he approached them.

  One looked ominously familiar. Light reflected from the dull gold lettering on the green spine: Hay – British Fungi.

  The other books were more authorities on the same subject. Charles took a triumphant swig from his Bell’s bottle. He felt vindicated. There had to be something in this room that would positively incriminate Vasile Bogdan.

  He swung his beam across the room to a rack of small opaque glass jars. Each seemed to contain a dry powder and was neatly labelled in a calligraphic hand. He moved forward to read the contents.

  ‘Aconite’, ‘Arsenic’, ‘Belladonna’. . . Good God! He just had time to register that he’d found an entire poisoner’s armoury before his attention was snatched away by something behind the rack.

  A dress drooping from a coat-hanger.

  He moved the torch beam round, revealing more dresses, skirts and blouses, some of which he recognised. The dressing table was littered with pots of face cream and make-up.

  He was in Tottie Roundwood’s room.

  Just as he formulated this thought, Charles Paris heard the sound from downstairs of the front door opening.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  HE CAUGHT THE strong whiff of Indian food before he heard the voices. Damn, he should have considered the possibility of their having a takeaway. Still, presumably they’d eat in the dining room or kitchen. That should give him a chance to make a run for it out of the front door.

  ‘Shall we eat this upstairs?’ said a voice, dashing his hopes. It was Tottie Roundwood who had spoken, but a new Tottie Roundwood. The voice was sultry, even sexy.

  ‘Have we got a corkscrew?’ asked a male voice Charles also instantly recognised.

  ‘No need,’ she replied. ‘This Italian plonk has a screw-top.’

  ‘Good. Upstairs we go then.’

  The landing light was switched on, sending a blade of brightness across the room in which Charles was cowering. The smell of the takeaway came ahead of the footsteps mounting the stairs. He looked desperately round. There was a window, but he didn’t fancy launching himself into the dark from the first floor.

  Hide under the bed, that was the only answer. Just as he’d done in that terrible adaptation of a French farce, Follow Me, Fifi! (‘About as funny as an attack of shingles’ – Western Evening Press).

  Charles was under the bed with a faceful of dust before he remembered what had happened next in Follow Me, Fifi! A couple had come in, lain down on the bed and started making love.

  The footsteps paused on the landing. There was the sound of a long, succulent kiss.

  ‘Your place or mine?’ Tottie Roundwood’s voice asked throatily.

  Oh God, thought Charles, please. This isn’t a French farce I’m involved in; it’s a case of murder.

  After a pause which seemed endless, the man replied, ‘Mine. We can enjoy my music, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tottie chuckled. ‘Amongst other things.’

  The footsteps moved across the landing, away from Charles. A door opened and closed.

  He gave it five minu
tes, then eased himself out from under the bed. There was dust all over him, he knew, but that was the least of his worries. He ran his torch beam once again over the books about fungi and the set of small jars. Making a quick decision, he pocketed the one labelled Aconite. Then he edged his way towards the door.

  It creaked at the first gentle pull, and Charles froze. But there was no reaction from across the landing. He drew the door to him and stood exposed by the light.

  He took a step towards the stairs. Still nothing. From the closed door opposite came the sound of Gregorian chant.

  That was not the only sound, though. In profane counterpoint to the music, Charles could hear the mutual gasps of a couple making love.

  He paused for a moment close to the door. A moan from Tottie changed into a little shriek. ‘Oh, you are a wonderful lover,’ she murmured. ‘These last six months have been the best time of my life, Alex.’

  With great care, Charles moved down the stairs and across the hall. He turned the latch on the front door and closed it gingerly behind him, then padded softly off down the garden path.

  His caution was probably unnecessary. Tottie Roundwood and Alexandru Radulescu sounded far too involved in each other to be aware of anyone else.

  At the end of the street, Charles Paris slipped the half-bottle out of his pocket and rewarded himself with a substantial swig of Bell’s.

  He deserved it. Now at last he had some solid proof of wrongdoing. He didn’t know much about the subject, but felt pretty sure that aconite derived from some form of poisonous fungus.

  He also had a new suspect. If Tottie Roundwood had been having an affair with Alexandru Radulescu for the past six months, a great many previously inconsistent details fell into place. There is little a besotted woman nearing her fifties won’t do to keep the affections of a younger lover.

  Charles wondered how much Alexandru had been involved in the planning. Or had it been a Thomas a Becket scenario? Did Alexandru just intimate the outcome he desired, and leave Tottie to make it happen?