Death on the High C's

by Robert Barnard

  ‘Well,’ Owen said finally, ‘I suppose you could say it was Calvin Cross.’ All at once there came into Owen’s voice the strident bleat of the congenital agitator, the collector of grievances. ‘You’re not to jump to any conclusions, though. Calvin is black, but the sort of prejudice one meets all the time in officialdom simply isn’t going to do much longer. Calvin was born in this country, and he’s as British as you or I. The police are going to have to change their attitude to the coloured community, with a new generation growing up, and people like Calvin among them.’

  It was quite the most unconvincing of the poses Owen had adopted thus far. By the end he was beginning to sound lame even to himself. Nichols could only assume that it was adopted on the spur of the moment to somehow compensate for having mentioned Calvin’s name at all. He allowed himself the luxury of a pause, and then said:

  ‘In my experience the police give the benefit of the doubt to the coloured community rather more often than the general public gives it to the police. But let’s not get side-tracked. I’m interested in Calvin Cross not because he’s coloured, but because you say he disliked—’

  ‘Not disliked. I didn’t use that word.’

  ‘—because he didn’t get on too well, then, with Gaylene Ffrench. I presume from what you’ve just been saying that Miss Ffrench made some remarks about him being coloured, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s so. He and Bridget Lander got engaged, and she seemed outraged at the idea.’

  ‘That’s rather odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘She was Australian, remember,’ said Owen.

  ‘My experience of young Australians doesn’t suggest they are that far behind the world on questions of that sort,’ said Nichols.

  ‘Gaylene was not exactly an average Australian,’ said Owen.

  ‘Ah . . . But I thought you were suggesting just now that she was. I wonder, now, if there might not have been something else behind it than pure old-fashioned colour-prejudice.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Owen, resuming his agonized-conscience pose. ‘Most of the trouble between them came because she was trying to give a super-sexy performance, a Sadie Thompson job, and he wasn’t responding in any way.’

  ‘So there was an element of the personal in their relationship. I gather Mr Cross was probably not one of the ones who went to bed with Miss Ffrench.’

  ‘I believe not,’ said Owen. ‘So far as I know.’ Then he added: ‘I suppose that was basically the trouble.’

  ‘She was playing for him and didn’t get him?’

  ‘Yes. She was playing as only she knew how. But Calvin wasn’t at all attracted.’

  From what he had heard thus far of Gaylene, Nichols was only surprised that anyone ever was.

  ‘I presume she gave up after Mr Cross got engaged?’

  ‘In a way. She’d rather lost hope by then anyway. But she kept on nagging at him in a way that I know got under Bridget’s skin.’

  ‘They had words, did they?’

  ‘Yes, they had words.’

  ‘If Miss Ffrench didn’t sleep with Mr Cross, who else did she sleep with?’

  Owen considered, and then spread out his hands in a would-be-Italianate gesture.

  ‘Who knows? How deep is the ocean? But the ones I know are Mike Turner, myself, Raymond Ricci—we mentioned him, he’s a bass, Anglo-Italian family, rather handsome—and then James McKaid—Northern Irishman, chip-on-the-shoulder type, not generally liked in the company. Oh yes, and then of course her Australian boy-friend when he got here, just a few days ago.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nichols, ‘I have a picture of him here. Rugby player.’ Nichols gazed at the bottomless good-humour of Hurtle’s smile, beaming out from that morning’s paper. ‘I suppose all the sleeping around stopped when he arrived?’

  ‘Oh yes, I imagine so. Yes, he and she have been around together since then, I think. She missed a rehearsal Wednesday to cheer him on at the game, she said.’

  ‘So he wouldn’t know about all the others?’

  ‘That I couldn’t say.’

  ‘You don’t think he could have been jealous?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Certainly he didn’t show it,’ said Owen finally.

  It occurred to Nichols that Owen was contriving to cast doubt on, or emphatically not to remove doubt from, an extremely large number of people. He had noticed the insistence on ‘Anglo-Italian’, so unexpected from one who had just proclaimed Calvin’s Britishness. He had noticed the emphasis on McKaid’s chip on the shoulder. It seemed a particularly odd attitude for a producer to take up about members of his own cast.

  ‘What had your own relations been with Miss Ffrench since you—stopped going together?’ Nichols asked.

  ‘Oh, perfectly amicable. She was a good rehearser. We just had a normal professional relationship.’

  ‘There were no artistic disagreements, shall we call them? About how the part should be played, or that sort of thing?’

  ‘None at all. It’s a quite simple and straight-forward part, hers. If you give it plenty of sex it comes out all right. Gaylene did this, and that was fine by me.’

  ‘I see,’ said Nichols. ‘It struck me she might have had ideas of her own, and not be easy to produce.’

  ‘All opera-singers have ideas of their own,’ said Owen sourly. ‘Not very good ones either, as a rule.’ Then he removed the sneer from his lips and said with affected tolerance: ‘Of course one has to work these things out at rehearsal. It’s all a matter of give and take, you know.’

  Nichols thought that if it was advice and criticism that was being talked about, he had seldom seen anyone more likely to give and less likely to take it. He led Owen on to giving an account of the first attempt on Gaylene’s life, as reported by Gaylene herself. Owen stressed how convincing she had been initially, and how scepticism had only set in later. Of the other attempt, he only knew what he had read in the papers. As he was preparing to leave, the interview at an end, Nichols said casually: ‘Oh, by the way, where were you last night?’

  Owen jumped, as if stung, and opened his mouth as if to shout a reply. Almost immediately he remembered where he was and who he was talking to.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was at home early on, then I came to the theatre to see how Così Fan Tutte was doing. It was Miss Lander’s first performance with the company, you see, and I’d rehearsed the production last season. Then I went back-stage to congratulate her, and there was a bit of a crowd, so pretty soon I went home.’

  ‘I see,’ said Nichols. ‘Well, I think that’s all you can help us with at the moment, sir.’

  It had been an odd reaction, he thought, as Owen closed the door behind him. Almost automatic, as if he was quite unable to let anybody question, criticize or go against him. He felt—as, being a policeman, he often had felt—how dangerous a little authority was. It was the easiest of all drugs to get hooked on. Or had the reaction meant more than that? He looked at Sergeant Chappell, who once again had on his eager young face an expression of distaste.

  ‘What did you make of him?’ asked Nichols.

  ‘The age of team-spirit is dead,’ said Chappell.

  ‘Hadn’t you registered that till now?’ said Nichols. ‘It’s only in the force we cover up for our mates. What sort of general impression did he make on you?’

  ‘Rather a nasty individual, if you ask me,’ said Chappell. ‘Nasty temper.’

  ‘True. This is one murder, though, that certainly doesn’t have the look of having been done in a fit of temper.’

  ‘Very unsure of himself too,’ went on Chappell. ‘Puts on a series of poses the whole time, depending on what’s being asked. You never once got a sincere reaction out of him.’

  ‘That’s what I noticed most. Seems to me the sort of chap who’s always trying to impose himself on people, or to impress them in one way or another. And when he’s in a situation where that isn’t possible, he quite simply doesn’t know what to do.’

  ‘In
teresting to hear what the cast will have to say about him,’ said Chappell. ‘I’d bet the atmosphere has been less than happy-families during the rehearsals.’

  ‘Yes, I’m looking forward to hearing that. And then there’s this Sergeant Harrison. According to Turner he knows practically all there is to know about this mob. I’d have him in tonight if he was around, but as he’s sick we’d better give him till tomorrow. The technical boys will have reported by then, so he’ll probably be able to help us on that side as well.’

  But the words were hardly out of his mouth when the telephone rang. He picked up the phone.

  ‘Is that t’lad in charge of this ’ere murder case?’ said the voice at the other end.

  ‘That’s right. Nichols is the name.’

  ‘Aye, well this is ’Arrison. Stage-door-keeper. Sergeant ’Arrison they call me.’

  ‘Your name was just on our lips,’ said Nichols. ‘We’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘Not ’alf so mooch as I want to talk to you,’ said Sergeant Harrison. ‘I’d’ve been down before, but I’ve only just realized.’

  ‘Can we come and see you, perhaps?’

  ‘No need. I’ve just had a spot of my old trouble. Malaria—it comes back now and then. Relic of Malaya, that is. Nothing serious. You’ll be pretty busy at t’theatre, I reckon, and I’m right as rain now, so I’ll be on my way in two ticks to see you. I could kick myself for not having thought of it sooner.’

  ‘We could send a car for you.’

  ‘No need. I’m not a bloody invalid, man.’

  And Sergeant Harrison rang off. There was someone who was blunt, direct and to-the-point, thought Nichols. He was going to be a nice change after these theatre people.

  • • •

  Sergeant Harrison knocked out his pipe in the ashtray on the mantelpiece, and looked with affection at the framed photograph of his daughter in Birmingham standing just beside it. She’s what I’d call a fine figure of a girl, he said to himself with a sort of self-satisfaction. Not like these willowy creatures you see around these days. Then he looked at the mirror, and began tying a dark blue tie with military precision over a light blue shirt. Then he took out a pair of hair-brushes, and punished his hair into the sort of rigid, disciplined style that one used to see in hair-cream advertisements thirty or forty years ago. The police were men with standards themselves, he thought, looking at the result. They were going to be interested in what he had to tell them. And they couldn’t know too soon.

  Then Sergeant Harrison went into the hall and cast an appraising eye over the coat-rack. The day had been hot, but it could be chilly at this time of night. Best not to take chances in the circumstances, not after the malaria bout. He’d need to be at the theatre tomorrow—to see all the fuss and excitement, and keep a bit of order about the place. He took down a navy blue rain-coat, rather naval in style, and belted it around his substantial frame. Then, with a last look in the hall mirror to see that he was presentable, the pardonable vanity of a military man, he checked in his pocket that he had the key, and opened the front door.

  As he stepped out into the near-darkness he uttered first a sharp grunt of surprise, then a louder grunt as he felt the long, thin knife enter through his ribs. His body went rigid with pain, and as he toppled forward the abundant life left him in a long emission that was halfway between a breath and a shout. It ended in an undignified gurgle.

  Thus died Sergeant Harrison of the Prince of Wales Theatre, formerly of the Royal Artillery, whose ancestors had fought for their Sovereign as soldiers of the line at Agincourt, Malplaquet and Waterloo, and for their class at Peterloo and factory gates throughout the grimier parts of the North of England. Their graves were unmarked lumps of foreign soil, or off-white tombstones of inferior stone and knobbly design. Sergeant Harrison’s own immediate destination was the police morgue, where he lay side by side with Gaylene Ffrench, both fine figures, and a tribute to the care and feeding of their respective countries.

  Next morning Mike Turner asked his company to add another date and time to the little alibi cards they were writing for Superintendent Nichols.

  CHAPTER IX

  Lower Registers

  It was a sad and tired Superintendent Nichols who got back to the Prince of Wales Theatre next day a little after twelve. He had been up half the night, attending the last police rites over the body of Sergeant Harrison, and these had been difficult and depressing. Peering with the aid of police lamps at the body of a man not long past his prime, questioning the neighbours, going through the orderly little house, and hearing the howls of his dog—this was the sort of thing he ought to be used to and case-hardened by, but he was not. His sleep had been short and fitful, and by morning his mind had become possessed of the conviction that the murderer he was after was of a quick and daring mind and utterly ruthless by temperament. The murder of Gaylene Ffrench was one thing: though obviously premeditated, it was clear that the girl had made herself so effortlessly objectionable to everyone within range of insult that, in so far as murder is ever understandable to a normal, gentle person, hers could well be. But the immediate follow-up, simply to gain self-protection, this suggested quite something else: someone cruel and quite beyond the normal operations of the human conscience. This was a murderer who had to be caught and caught quickly.

  Almost as soon as he arrived at the theatre Nichols saw for the first time someone who by all ordinary standards ought to be considered a prime suspect for the murders. If anyone stood to gain by Gaylene’s death (beyond, that is, the general gain of not having her around any longer) that person was her understudy. And in the darkened theatre, in the hour before the general rehearsal began, Nichols saw Calvin Cross and Mr Pettifer helping her to prepare for her big chance.

  Barbara Bootle was, like Gaylene, a big girl. Hefty was the word her relations used, and she wished they wouldn’t. She was a tall, heavy Lancashire girl, without an atom of sex, and nothing but an ever-ready blush and a shame-faced manner to suggest that the subject had ever been brought to her attention. Lost among the other boys and girls of the chorus, she had done what everyone else had done and had been Sicilian peasant women or medieval German maiden without attracting attention to herself. Her rich, edgy mezzo had won her promotion to understudy Gaylene, and she had prayed every night that Gaylene (who had effortlessly ignored her existence) would remain in the blooming good health which seemed her birthright. ‘Any other part, Lord,’ she said in her rich Lancashire brogue, ‘but not a whore.’ And now the part was hers, not just for one or two, but for all performances.

  She stood on the stage, her shoulders sagging, her face crimson, contemplating a point on the floor with rapt attention. There was an angularity about her body that suggested she had had to be corsetted in iron to keep her limbs together, and that otherwise she would be sprawled limply on the stage like a puppet whose master has let go of the strings. She seemed to be praying to her God to advance Armageddon to some date before the first performance.

  ‘If you’ll just let me put my arm around your waist,’ Calvin said tentatively. ‘That’s all that’s necessary, really.’

  Miss Bootle nodded miserably, and her shoulders straightened to a military rigidity. When Calvin’s black hand appeared around her other side her eyes fixed themselves on the middle distance and her mouth set itself in a firm line, like an early Christian martyr waiting for her turn with the lion.

  ‘If you could just relax a little,’ said Calvin, ‘laugh . . . roll your eyes . . . ’ She looked at him in panic. ‘Well, perhaps that’s not necessary, but if you could just loosen up a bit and try to enjoy it.’

  Barbara Bootle bared her teeth in a dreadful smile.

  ‘Like this?’ she said.

  Even from the middle of the stalls Nichols could see she was shaking all over. On the whole, she seemed a very poor starter as a suspect. The knife that went through Sergeant Harrison’s ribs was surely propelled on its way by sterner nerves than these.

  • • • />
  When Nichols talked to Raymond Ricci it was mid-afternoon, and he had just finished his Act I, scene II appearance in the first full rehearsal of Rigoletto. Nichols had stood in the darkened theatre, and had seen him show his menacing, thin-bladed sword to Rigoletto: ‘You see before you a man who bears a sword.’ Memories of the wound in Sergeant Harrison’s side as he lay in his own little front garden in the spot-lights rigged up by the police flooded through Nichols’s mind, and reality and performance seemed for one moment to merge and be one. It had been an unnerving experience.

  Now Ricci sat before him, his sallowness increased by bold make-up, his legs clad in black tights, his upper half in what on stage looked like a rough coat of animal skin, though close up it looked and smelt more of the plastics factory than of any beast in creation.

  Raymond was still tensed up after his big scene: though off-stage he exuded generally a sort of Mediterranean languor, the stage always set his nerves tingling, and today was the first time he had sung his role with the orchestra. Perhaps that was why he was so unusually on edge, making nervous little gestures with his hands, and now and then screwing up his eyes compulsively.

  ‘Yes, we went together for a bit,’ he said, throwing out his right arm in a gesture of frankness. ‘I suppose you’ll have heard that from someone by now, knowing the people around here. We went together. Not for long, though.’

  ‘How long, sir?’

  ‘Just as long as I could stand her. If I remember rightly, that was a little over a week.’

  ‘You slept together, but you didn’t actually like her, is that right?’ said Nichols, feeling horribly square.

  ‘That’s about it,’ said Ricci, blinking. ‘She wasn’t likeable, as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, not likeable at all. But she was available. And how.’