Murder Takes the Stage

by Amy Myers

  ‘I do. If you agree, however, Harold wants us to meet at Medlars. He’d hardly do that if he’d just burnt your oast down.’

  She stared at him, trying to take this in. ‘You think it was Greg after all? But his letter—’

  ‘I still think that was a warning, not a threat.’

  She was by no means convinced but reluctantly agreed to the Medlars’ meeting, provided that Luke did too. He elected to be out, hardly surprisingly. The idea of the letter and fire being a warning hadn’t gone down well with him, and she was decidedly edgy as the time for Harold’s arrival came. She watched him get out of his car, walk over to the oast and gaze at the ruins of the storeroom. Rustling up all the control she could muster, she walked over to him.

  ‘Would I be right in thinking that Armageddon is getting nearer, Georgia?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps even expected at the reunion on Saturday?’

  ‘Yes. At least as far as Tom’s visit in the seventies is concerned,’ Georgia answered him as she led him through to Medlars’ living room, where Peter was waiting, and established him in a comfortable chair.

  ‘Ah. So Joan’s death still remains a mystery,’ he continued after he had greeted Peter. The armchair she had picked was a low one, in the hope that it might diminish his control of the situation. It didn’t seem to work.

  ‘I’d be annoyed,’ he continued, ‘if my reunion were hijacked, even though I do agree this investigation can’t go on. Ken’s death alone proved that. I came here to confess to you both that I’ve not been entirely frank.’ A disarming smile. ‘And before you ask me why, let me tell you it was for old times’ sake. If the story about my involvement in petty smuggling in the fifties comes out, it would only be a few days’ wonder, so I can live with that, and I’ve no doubt you have worked out who organized that little deal. Not me, I hasten to add.’

  ‘Sandy Smith,’ Peter said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Correct. However, there’s another matter,’ Harold continued. ‘It came as no surprise to me that Tom visited Pamela in the seventies. I had met him not long before in London.’

  ‘By chance?’ Georgia asked. So he must have been the old friend whom Tom had mentioned to the Eastleys. At least that was established.

  ‘No. He asked to see me at the theatre one day. He gave his real name, which meant nothing to my staff, but of course it did to me. I had believed him dead long since, so it was a shock.’

  ‘Did he tell you why he had cut off ties with his earlier life?’

  ‘No. He just said the only person he really regretted leaving behind was Pamela. He didn’t want her to think that he’d abandoned her. He adored her, for all she was David Maclyn’s child, not his. Funny that, you’d think there’d be bad blood between David and Tom, but there didn’t seem to be. Pamela was officially Tom’s child, although quite a few of us suspected she wasn’t.

  ‘What Tom really wanted to know that day,’ he continued, ‘was if I knew what had happened to Sandy. Well, I didn’t, except that he was back in Broadstairs still doing the odd show. Tom asked me if I knew Sandy had been living in London, and I told him no. Tom had always refused to join Sandy’s smuggling ring in Broadstairs, and Sandy was suspicious of him because of that. Sandy liked the excitement and the big lights, and there was no way I could see him eking out a living for the rest of his life as a kids’ conjurer. After I’d got over the surprise when Tom visited me in the seventies, I decided I didn’t want to poke my nose in too far. I had a career of my own to think of, and it wasn’t going to include crime, especially major crime. Tom told me he thought Sandy had been mixed up with one of those big London gangs but had given it up. He was thinking of going down to Broadstairs on Pamela’s birthday, and he seemed worried about running into Sandy. It would be only a brief visit.’

  ‘It was,’ Peter said baldly. ‘We think Sandy murdered him.’

  Georgia’s was one of the first cars to arrive at the Broadstairs hotel on the Saturday, as she and Peter had decided to lunch in the bar before the show began. Perhaps they were relying too much on this reunion. Its importance seemed to have grown in their minds, and even Mike had declared his intention of being present if Sandy Smith was to perform and Vic Dale to be present. What’s more, DI Jenkins would be with him. Dale was apparently the suspect for the shooting in south London last year, and therefore possibly in the frame for Ken’s murder too. A full investigation was under way, Mike had told them. Perhaps, Georgia thought, Sandy Smith had still not fully retired from crime, if Vic was in full operation.

  She was glad to arrive, despite the tension building up inside her. Peter’s humming and singing in the car had grown worse. ‘All for the love of a lady . . .’ He had blushed as she asked him to lower the volume. ‘Sorry. Janie’s persuaded me to join the Fernbourne Choir. She’s a rattling good alto.’

  The odd thing about working closely with other people, Georgia thought, was that the closer one grew, the more one’s thoughts drew closer together. Ever since Peter had begun to sing Jack Point’s song, it had stayed in her mind, and one day she had caught Luke humming it too. The song seemed to be haunting all of them, bringing not only Rick’s disappearance but also Tom Watson constantly into her mind. Romantic fancy? Perhaps, but every time Peter hummed the tune, both Tom and Rick swirled round and round in her imagination. It could indicate a path forward at last, she thought hopefully.

  It was sorely needed. Luke had postponed publication plans for the Watson book – or lack of it. After all, he had pointed out to her, you don’t know the ending yet. Galling but true. This afternoon might change that.

  Making Waves, as the reunion show was called, was to be held in the same room as Ken’s funeral. Perhaps lunching in the bar had been a mistake, for it simply increased her edginess, which Peter was sharing. Did he have a plan? She had no idea, and she knew that if she asked him at this stage, he wouldn’t tell her anyway. Since Harold had told them about Tom’s visit to him in London, she had begun to form her own ideas of how Joan Watson had died and longed to know if Peter was working in the same direction. The sooner the afternoon began, the better, so far as she was concerned.

  ‘Now?’ Peter said at last as they finished lunch.

  ‘Yes. Let’s go.’

  They had to reach the hall through the hotel corridors, as the doors to the terrace were closed, presumably for noise reasons. The one door open led to what must be in use as the changing room for the cast, a tiny room squeezed on the end of the building. This had an entrance both to the outside and to the wings of the small stage. All very efficiently planned, although on a rather smaller scale, Georgia imagined, than Harold was used to in the West End.

  As they took their places, she could see the room was well filled, although there were another fifteen minutes to wait before the show began. Automatically she began picking out familiar faces: the Trents, Fenella, Greg . . . No Christine, but then Georgia had not expected her to be there. She couldn’t see Cath either. From behind the red stage curtains there came the sounds of furniture and scenery being dragged into position and a buzz of conversation. To her, the closed doors now seemed symbolic; there was no turning back now. And yet never had she wanted fresh air so much.

  ‘No Mike yet,’ Peter observed. ‘What’s keeping him?’

  ‘I’ll try and track him down.’

  It was just an excuse, and Peter probably realized it. Four walls could get claustrophobic when one was waiting on tenterhooks – especially when she had no idea exactly what they were waiting for.

  She hurried along the terrace and down the steps to the gardens, intending to skirt the hotel buildings to get through to the car park. As she approached the corner, however, something made her glance over to the edge of the far flower borders.

  Dear God, it’s a clown, was her first reaction, her heart leaping into sudden fright. It was Tom Watson. The ghost was here.

  No, it couldn’t be. She felt herself swaying with shock and had to force herself to be calm. Then she looked again. The clown was
still there, sitting motionless on a bench. It was no ghost. It was a real clown, asleep, his head drooping. Not Tom Watson’s ghost, thank heavens, but someone from the show. It must be Sandy. A flood of relief. How stupid of her—

  But he was very still. Perhaps it was a dummy, an inflatable clown – could it really be Sandy beneath that hat and that paint, lolling with the white costume billowing around him, the red—

  Red what?

  She realized she was running towards him – it – whatever it was, ghost, man or corpse. Even as she ran, she took in the full horror. It could only be Sandy Smith, and he was dead or near to it. She could see a knife sticking out of his chest. Red was for blood, the red spatters that stood out on the white of his clown’s costume. Better that than to look at that ghastly red paint of the clown’s face, which still grinned on, although Sandy would never smile again.

  She tried to scream, but she couldn’t; the sound seemed frozen in her throat, and she heard nothing, lost in her own terror. But it must have made some noise after all, for people were running towards her now, and one of them, thank heavens, was Mike.

  ‘How are you feeling now, Georgia?’ Mike came to sit by her on the far side of the gardens. It seemed only a few minutes, and yet white tape denoted a crime scene and the whole garden was now swarming with police and white-coated Scene of Crime Officers. Even Mike was in white. They looked almost like clowns themselves, she thought crazily.

  ‘Better, thanks, Mike,’ she said truthfully. Cups of tea weren’t the be all and end all to recovery from shock, but they most certainly set you on the right path. She had some way to go though; her mind felt completely clogged up. She remembered talking to Mike earlier and to DI Jenkins; and to everyone else, including Peter. He had seemed to be doing most of the talking, but she had tried. Luke had arrived too, summoned by Peter, she gathered. But they seemed to have vanished temporarily, leaving her stuck here on a bench with a couple of legs that didn’t seem as though they wanted to take her anywhere.

  ‘You’d be better inside now, Georgia,’ Mike said. ‘If you can take it, Peter’s sitting with a group of those most involved, waiting for Jenkins to get round to them.’

  ‘Involved in Sandy’s death?’ Surely Jenkins wouldn’t permit that.

  ‘No. Jenkins has those tucked away. Peter’s with the Tom Watson group. It’s Jenkins’s call, but I persuaded him to agree, provided Peter sticks to Watson and not the Winton and Smith murders. I’m still not sure it’s wise, but you know what Peter’s like.’

  That raised a faint smile on her lips. She did. Peter wanted to end the story of Tom Watson and its terrible consequences here and now. Was this always his plan, or had the events of the afternoon precipitated it?

  ‘Pamela Trent is in the group,’ Mike added, ‘but not Matthew Trent, councillor.’

  ‘I take it you don’t like him.’

  ‘Smarmy git.’

  Unusual language for Mike, Georgia thought, and she could understand why.

  ‘Jenkins is pretending to observe the niceties,’ Mike continued, ‘but he’s of the same opinion. He’ll give him a hard time.’

  ‘Do you think he did it?’ Georgia asked fatuously. Of course Mike couldn’t answer.

  Mike duly gave her what she would call an old-fashioned look. ‘Did what? Anyway, I think you’ll find Peter will have something to say on that. Shall I give you a hand? You look a bit rocky.’

  With Mike’s hovering support at her side, she returned to the hotel. He led her to a small private room, where she found Peter and Luke superintending tea and cakes for Mavis, Harold, Pamela, Cherry – and Cath. It all looked very homely, but her heart sank. With Peter raring to go, it wouldn’t stay that way long. She thought Mike would disappear, but instead he sat back from the main group in a window seat. In plain clothes, he didn’t stand out as a police presence – except to her. Was he keeping an eye on Peter? No, that wasn’t Mike’s style, so he must have had some other reason.

  Cath leapt up to find her a chair – and another cup of tea. Well, why not, Georgia thought. Tea and cakes pinned you to the real world, unlike murdered clowns sitting on hotel benches. ‘Christine had her baby today,’ Cath told her.

  That too was good. Something positive amid the wreckage of today.

  ‘It’s a boy. They’re naming him Kenneth.’

  ‘Ken would have liked that.’ Georgia felt her voice wobbling even more. Something even more positive to hang on to.

  ‘Very nice,’ Mavis observed, ‘but why are we all sitting here like dummies, Peter? Waiting for Tom Watson, are we?’

  ‘Can’t we just forget Tom?’ Pamela pleaded. ‘If stirring up the old story has led to today’s atrocity, surely you should stop meddling in it?’

  ‘Unfortunately, no,’ Peter replied soberly. ‘There’s Ken Winton’s murder to take into account. If that was brought about by Ken’s enquiries, don’t you think Christine deserves to know how it came about? And Tom Watson is the key to that,’ he added to Georgia’s relief, in view of Jenkins’s guidelines. ‘But I appreciate your coming here, Mrs Trent. I take it that you do want to know who killed your mother?’

  A silence, then a whispered, ‘Yes, but that’s nothing to do with today’s murder.’

  ‘Oh, but it is,’ Peter said. ‘It’s all the same sad story, and it’s time it was told. You agree, Harold?’

  For a moment Georgia thought he would leave, because his face darkened, but if so, he decided against it.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  A story of lost love, Georgia thought dully. Tom Watson’s, Rick’s and Jack Point’s. No. Don’t try to fit them together, she told herself. Try to think logically, because in a way these murders had been logical, even Sandy’s.

  Peter wasted no time. ‘Don’t think of what you’ve heard and read or what you remember about Tom Watson. Think of it as a story about someone you’ve never heard of before. Tom was just an ordinary sort of fellow, except when he was onstage and had an identity. He was a clown, but underneath the paint he had an emotional life that no one knew about. At first he poured his love out at the feet of his wife, but then he found out she was disloyal and unfaithful. Then he met a girl who adored him and thought he was the best thing since ice cream.’

  Georgia, sitting next to Cherry, heard her quiet moan, and Harold, on her far side, put his arm round her.

  ‘Being an ordinary fellow,’ Peter continued, ‘Tom fell in love and wanted to marry her, although he was a lot older than her. Divorce was more difficult in the 1950s: his wife could not divorce him because she had no evidence; he did not want his sweetheart’s name to be used in court, nor would he fake evidence of another woman in his life. Nor did he really want to divorce his wife, because once he had loved her. Moreover he adored his daughter Pamela.’

  Georgia could see Pamela’s eyes fixed on Peter, her expression unreadable, whereas Cherry was whispering, ‘No, no . . . he did . . .’

  ‘Then on the sixteenth of August one year matters came to a head,’ Peter continued. ‘I believe his story is this: Tom told his wife that her affairs must stop or he would divorce her. She laughed at him. So he poured his woes out to his sweetheart and they arranged to meet at a pub, knowing his wife had gone straight home. This wasn’t the Black Lion, because they wanted to talk the situation over quietly.

  ‘But something went wrong, and his sweetheart did go to the Black Lion. Not knowing that, he sat there waiting for her in the hope she would arrive. When Tom at last reached his home, he found his wife dead. He was distraught. He called the police, but he did not confess to killing Joan. He allowed them to think that he had, and he allowed them to go on thinking that all through the trial and afterwards. He let it be thought that he must have committed suicide, but instead he created a new life for himself in London. It was his bad luck that during that new life which brought him comfort of a sort, Tom ran into one or two of his former associates and recognized them.’

  Peter must be holding back because of Sandy’s dea
th, Georgia thought, or was he for once taking heed of police instructions?

  ‘Years later,’ Peter continued, ‘when Tom decided to give his daughter a birthday present by reappearing briefly in her life, he was attacked and killed. His body was driven some distance away and put in a barn that was then set on fire. Without identification, our Tom had disappeared for good, or so it was thought. But now it’s possible for Tom to have justice and a burial at last. His DNA can establish whether that burnt body was Tom’s or not, because, although he has no living relatives that we know of, his sweetheart kept a lock of his hair.’

  What was Cherry making of all this? Georgia wondered uneasily. She was showing no reaction.

  Peter had not quite finished. ‘This is only Tom’s story, of course. His sweetheart, however, has a quite different one, a story that has finished today with Sandy’s murder. Hasn’t it, Cherry?’

  Cherry threw off Harold’s arm and stood up, smiling at them vacantly. ‘I had to do it, you see,’ she explained earnestly. ‘Once I realized that Sandy had killed my Tom, I had to do it for Tom’s sake. Just like the first time.’

  It was a much smaller group now. Mike had stepped forward to escort Cherry as she left the room, with Harold anxiously following them. Of course, Georgia realized, Mike must have known all the time that it wasn’t Matthew who had killed Sandy; it had been Cherry.

  She still had to battle to believe it, even though the process had begun when Harold had told them about Tom’s visit to him. There had been no mention of Cherry, and surely Tom would have asked after her, whether or not he knew of her short marriage to Harold. But Harold had not mentioned her, because he was protecting her. No longer. Unlike the night when she murdered Joan, there was no one to deal with fingerprints today, no one to save her, and that was as well, for she was surely certifiable. Georgia had wondered whether Harold would go with her to the police station, but he did not. Looking his full age, he had come back into the room again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Peter in particular. ‘After you had told us all about Tom’s return visit, she became convinced she was going to meet Tom again at today’s reunion. She came to me to ask – I’m afraid – what I thought she should wear. I decided enough was enough and told her what I had always thought had happened to him. That he’d met a sticky end after his Broadstairs visit.’