All My Enemies

by Barry Maitland

  “Well, not necessarily, Mrs. Sparkes. But that is possible. Do you have someone in mind?”

  “Oh no. I find it hard to imagine that anyone in our audiences would be capable of violence, really. Half of them are friends, work-mates and relatives of the company, loyally turning out to support their loved-ones’ mania. The rest are people who for some reason decide to leave the box and come out for an evening of cheap live theatre. We have a core of regulars on our mailing list. Many are pensioners, who like the social occasion and have made a habit of it. There’s a strong contingent who live on the Green Line bus route, but the only trouble with them is that they have to catch the last bus home, which stops outside the theatre at 10:27. So it is very important that we finish our performances by 10:25, or they all get up and leave. Edward tells a wonderful story about his grandmother, who was one of the Green Line pensioners. He was in something where he died on stage near the end of the play. Unfortunately they were running over time, and in the closing minutes he became aware of his grandmother in the front row getting to her feet. She came forward to the edge of the stage where he was lying, dead, and . . .”

  She stopped suddenly. “Oh dear. I’m rambling on, aren’t I? I’m sorry, Chief Inspector, where were we?”

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Sparkes. What did Edward’s grandmother say?”

  “Well, she said, in a loud whisper that the whole theatre could pick up, ‘Good night then, dear. You were very good. Don’t forget you’re taking me to the shops tomorrow.’ ”

  They smiled.

  “It’s all so innocent, you see. I can’t imagine a murderer being interested in our shows.”

  “Among your regulars . . .” Brock pondered. “Suppose I paint a picture, see if it reminds you of anyone. A young or middle-aged man, rather quiet, solitary. Probably comes alone, maybe doesn’t get into conversation with other people during the intervals. He seems to have an obsessive interest in the plays, perhaps comes to the same production several times. Hmm . . . anything else, Kathy?”

  “Clean-shaven. Knows about theatrical make-up—Leichner spirit gum, for example. Probably a smoker. One possibility might be that he’s obsessive about a member of the cast, one of the women.”

  “Nobody springs immediately to mind,” Ruth said slowly. “Of course, we do get lonely, single people coming along to productions for the sake of some human contact, I suppose. The suburbs can be a very lonely place. But I’ve never really noticed anyone special—never been looking, I suppose. The really obsessive ones tend to end up as members of the company. They become addicted to the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd, as someone once put it.

  “The idea of an insane admirer of one of the women in the cast is an especially terrifying one, isn’t it?” Ruth’s eyes widened with fascination at the possibility. “Like those mad fans who stalk Hollywood film stars, except that here he is attacking other women in her place. Is that what you mean? Of course, one would expect the woman he admires to have been a member of the cast on each occasion, wouldn’t one?”

  She jotted down some names. “There were several women in both The Lady and Barefoot . . . Vicky is one of Stafford’s favourites, and she played the lead, Corrie Bratter, in Barefoot, and a smaller role in The Lady. She was also in Equus. There were probably others too. I think you might have to eliminate me from that list, Chief Inspector,” she smiled ruefully, “although the idea of one of the Green Line pensioners forming a murderous passion for me does have its appeal.”

  “What about the women in the present production—were they in those earlier ones?” Kathy said. “Vicky was. What about Bettina?”

  “No, she only joined us at the end of last year. This is really the first production she’s had any sort of part in.”

  “The Nurse?”

  “Let me see . . . She was in Barefoot, I think, but she’s almost as old as me, Kathy.”

  “Who picks the plays you do?” Brock said suddenly.

  “The producers. Stafford in particular. We do four productions each year, and for the past few years he’s been responsible for each alternate production, with someone else taking the ones between. He really shouldn’t be doing this one now, because he did the last, Barefoot. But it suited both him and the next producer to swap their slots—I think Stafford is planning to go away later in the year. The other producer had intended to do Blithe Spirit, and it was scheduled in our programme, but Stafford was against having two comedies in a row, and so he made the change to The Father, much to everyone’s despair, as you well know, Kathy.”

  “He’s quite a character, isn’t he?” Kathy said. “I imagine he usually gets his own way.”

  “Oh good heavens, yes! He is SADOS in many ways. Without him it would simply fall apart. He provides the focus, the drive. Everyone else just falls into line behind him.”

  “Why does he do it?” Brock asked.

  “He loves the theatre above everything else. I believe he would have been good enough to be a professional actor or producer himself, and probably was persuaded to take the safe decision early on to become a schoolteacher, instead. A decision which he has no doubt regretted ever since.”

  “Like you, Ruth. A schoolteacher, I mean.”

  “Yes, like me.”

  “Does he have a family?”

  “His wife died some years ago. Since then he has lived on his own. They had no children.”

  She hesitated. “We’re his family, really. The theatre is his family.” She blushed suddenly and for a moment looked acutely embarrassed.

  “What is it?” Kathy said gently.

  “No, no. Nothing.”

  “Come on, Ruth. Tell me. What occurred to you?”

  “Oh . . .” She hesitated again, then said, “He told me, after Marjory died . . . I probably shouldn’t be saying this, because I don’t think he’s told the others this story . . . but he’s always been infatuated with the theatre, you see, and at some point he fell in love with a beautiful actress, who bore his child. They had it adopted, because he was married to Marjory at the time, and he never saw the actress or the child again. And then, as it turned out, Marjory was unable to bear him any children. It’s such a sad story, you see, and so . . . theatrical. When he told me about it, I realized then how important we are to him. I suppose we are part of a sort of dream that he’s had all his life, and has never really fulfilled, quite.”

  They spoke to Edward Quinn next.

  “You were part of the group that went up to see Macbeth at the National Theatre three weeks ago, Mr. Quinn,” Brock said.

  “Yes, that’s right. There were eight or nine of us, I suppose. Pretty much the people who are here tonight. Ruth organized it—she must have told you.”

  “Yes, she has. Would you have a good look at these pictures, please?”

  Brock spread out photographs of Angela Hannaford on the table.

  “Ever seen her before?”

  “I don’t think so. She looks sort of familiar, but . . . no, I don’t think so.”

  “You might have seen her at the theatre that night, or on the train home.”

  “She was on the train, was she?”

  “You caught the 11:08 from Waterloo, is that right?”

  “I suppose it would have been, yes. But I don’t recall her.”

  “You all got off the train at Grove Park, did you?”

  “Er, one couple got off at Hither Green, I think, and then the rest of us at Grove Park, where we’d left our cars, or at least . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well, I hadn’t actually. My wife, Rosemary, drove down to the station to collect me. She was waiting when we arrived.”

  He said it with a touch of embarrassment. Checking up on you, Kathy thought.

  Brock looked at his notes. “The others were all couples, except Mrs. Sparkes, who got a lift home with two of them, and Mr. Nesbit, who picked up his car at the station and drove home alone, is that right?”

  “Think so, yes.”

/>   As he got up to go, Kathy said, “How are the lines?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t talk about it. I’m getting to the panic stage.”

  Kathy smiled. “They had me prompting for them yesterday,” she said to Brock.

  “Really? Getting a bit of a taste for it, are you, Kathy?”

  After they had spoken to all the cast, only Stafford Nesbit remained. They walked across the landing to the other room and watched as the rehearsal drew to an end.

  “Grandmama doesn’t tell lies.”

  The actress was the girl with the short blonde hair, Bettina, whom Kathy hadn’t heard act before, playing the Captain’s daughter, Bertha. She seemed clumsy and inexperienced compared to the older members of the cast, her movements wooden, voice flat, face expressionless.

  “Why not?” Quinn smiled paternally at her.

  “Because then Mama tells lies too.”

  “Ah.”

  “If you say that Mama tells lies, then I’ll never believe you again.”

  Quinn seemed more confident in this scene, Nesbit less inclined to interrupt him.

  “. . . but when you come, Papa, it’s like the spring morning when they take down the double windows.”

  For a moment Bettina seemed able to bring her character to life, her expression became animated, staring intently into her partner’s eyes.

  “My dear, darling child!”

  Kathy watched Quinn move to her side. Better watch your step, Edward, she thought.

  They trailed away, singly and in small groups, leaving Nesbit alone with the two detectives. He looked drained. “Well,” he said, putting his long fingers to his temple, “have you found what you wanted?” He sounded mildly disdainful.

  Brock murmured to Kathy, “Why don’t you take him on?” and they drew chairs over to the small table where he was sitting. Kathy caught Brock’s eye and he gave her a little nod.

  “When Zoë Bagnall vanished last January,” Kathy said, “immediately after starring in your play The Lady Vanishes, what did you think about that extraordinary coincidence?”

  Nesbit seemed startled by her abrupt opening.

  “I’m not sure I really took a view . . .” He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes with his finger tips. “I mean, I suppose it didn’t really register, not in the way you’re suggesting. It was some while, several weeks I think, before people were saying that Zoë was missing. It seemed likely that she had simply moved on.”

  “Without saying a word to anyone?”

  “Some of her friends seemed to think that wasn’t improbable . . .”

  “Your next play was Barefoot in the Park. On the night of the last performance, Saturday June 9, a young woman was murdered nearby in Spring Park. She was found the following morning, fully clothed but without tights or shoes—barefoot, in fact, in the park.”

  Nesbit stared at Kathy without reaction, his face registering nothing. She found it uncanny, as if the man’s brain had simply been unable to find a suitable expression to paint on his face.

  “You were aware of this?” she asked.

  Nesbit swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving slowly up and down his long leathery throat. “No . . . no.”

  “You don’t seem surprised by what I’m telling you.”

  “I am . . . surprised. I am surprised . . .”

  Kathy waited, but when there was nothing more she continued, “The play you did before The Lady Vanishes was Equus, which you took to the Edinburgh Festival. In late August last year, while you were there, a woman was murdered in a lane in central Edinburgh, not far in fact from the place you performed your play. She suffered massive head injuries. In particular, her eyes were stabbed out . . .”

  Stafford Nesbit straightened in his seat, rigidly upright. He flinched as Kathy finished the sentence, “. . . like the horses in Equus.”

  The room was silent, Nesbit motionless.

  “You must have read about the murder in the Edinburgh papers, Stafford. It was widely reported on account of the brutal nature of the attack. You’d have been taking the paper each day, wouldn’t you, to look for reviews?”

  Nesbit shook his head slowly in denial. “I’m sure you’re quite wrong about this,” he said eventually. “It’s inconceivable.” His voice was faint, without any of its previous conviction.

  “What’s inconceivable?”

  “That . . . that what you’re suggesting . . .”

  “What am I suggesting?”

  “That . . . there’s some connection between a string of murders, and my plays!” He finally got it out.

  “I’m really interested to know whether you noticed these coincidences. It would be hard to believe you didn’t—not after Zoë Bagnall.”

  “I have no recollection of thinking any such thing. I rarely read newspapers.”

  “Really?”

  “Surely, surely you must see that some other explanation is much more likely. Three coincidences . . .”

  “Four, with the murder in Petts Wood three weeks ago. You must have heard about that. Angela Hannaford, murdered after going to see Macbeth at the National Theatre, just like you.”

  “You think . . .” Where before he had denied, he now seemed dumbfounded. “Do you really think that could also . . .”

  “You travelled home on the same train as her. Pretty extraordinary, don’t you think? Are you feeling all right?”

  “It’s so . . . hot in here.” He was mumbling, dabbing with a handkerchief at his pale temples and attenuated, stringy throat.

  “That’s why we’re so interested in everyone’s movements that evening,” Kathy continued. She spread the photographs of Angela Hannaford out in front of Stafford. “Have you ever seen her before?”

  “No . . . Are you suggesting that one of us . . . ?”

  “Well, that is possible. More likely, I think, would be the possibility of someone on the fringe of your group, following your movements and timing his own actions to coincide with yours.”

  “Good God,” his voice a whisper. “Why? Why do such a thing?”

  “It seems to date back to at least August of last year. Did you reject anyone from your group about eighteen months ago? Did you refuse someone a part in Equus?”

  Nesbit’s eyes widened in dismay. “No one, surely . . . they would have to be mad to do such things for such a reason.”

  “Could someone have developed a fixation for one of the women in your cast? Who was the female lead in Equus?”

  “Vicky played Jill.”

  “She’s the woman that the disturbed boy tries unsuccessfully to have sex with before he attacks the horses, isn’t she?” Kathy asked.

  “That’s right.” Nesbit abruptly turned away from Kathy and looked Brock in the eye. “You want me to cancel The Father, don’t you? You’re afraid it will happen again.”

  “That’s certainly one possible course of action,” Brock nodded. “I’d be extremely nervous come—what is it?—tomorrow fortnight, when you’re due to put on the final performance of the play, if you went ahead with the killer still at large.”

  “You’re wrong, quite wrong.” He turned back to Kathy and fixed her with his large, piercing eyes, and for the first time the force of his feelings seemed to find genuine expression. “It isn’t the way you imagine it at all. There will be no repeat of the pattern with The Father.”

  “How can you know that?”

  Nesbit didn’t answer at first. In response to Kathy’s challenge the hoods came down over his eyes and he looked away. When he turned back they were expressionless again. “There are no violent deaths in The Father. Don’t you see? The Captain has a stroke at the end, that’s all. There is nothing to imitate.”

  “There’s a scene with a gun . . .” she said, having wondered the same thing.

  “But it isn’t used,” he snapped impatiently.

  “There were no deaths in Barefoot in the Park either, if I remember right,” Brock said. “It’s a light comedy, isn’t it? I don’t think that’s going t
o stop him.”

  Nesbit looked close to defeat. “Please,” he whispered, and looked at Kathy, pleading. “It’s important.”

  “Why?” she said.

  “You don’t understand . . . You don’t understand.”

  AS KATHY MANOEUVRED OUT of the pub car park, she asked Brock, “You think they’re in the clear, at least?”

  “Hard to see how any of them could have murdered Angela. They were all together until they arrived back at Grove Park station, then Nesbit was the only one who wasn’t accompanied home. If he’d spotted Angela at the theatre, say, or Waterloo station, and targeted her as a likely victim, he wouldn’t have known which station she would be getting off at. Petts Wood was only one of seven possible stops after Grove Park. He couldn’t have kept ahead of the train and checked the people leaving each of the stations.”

  “Are we going to stop them putting the play on?”

  “Don’t know,” he replied, looking back over his shoulder. “Let’s see what Alex Nicholson has to say, shall we? You told Ruth Sparkes back there that our man may be a smoker. How come?”

  “The match in Angela’s mouth.”

  “Ah, right.” He looked back over his shoulder again. “Have you noticed a dark blue Cavalier on your tail at all?”

  She glanced in the mirror and saw a pair of headlights following them out on to the street.

  “It followed us into the car park when we arrived, and now it’s leaving behind us.”

  “Maybe it’s one of the SADOS crowd,” she said. “I thought I saw a pale grey BMW a couple of times this week, then I thought I must be getting paranoid.”

  “Gentle,” Brock muttered. “Still bothers you, doesn’t he?”

  PART THREE

  FINAL STAGES

  THIRTEEN

  DR. ALEX NICHOLSON WASN’T at all what Kathy had imagined. She seemed very young, slight of build, with a thick mane of black hair worn with a low fringe over her eyes. She was wearing a black waistcoat over a white shirt, hanging out over black jeans and shoes.