Dead on Cue

by Deryn Lake

  Araminta, who was sitting close to Ekaterina and who obviously admired her enormously, said, ‘Do you have a masseur just for you?’

  Ekaterina looked casual. ‘He comes to my house most days. I think he is between jobs.’

  ‘He’s very good-looking.’

  ‘Don’t tell him. I believe he is rather in love with himself.’

  Rufus said nothing but poured Ekaterina another glass of wine. She looked at him and thought that she could spend the rest of her life like this.

  ‘Was it at this point that Gerry made a scene?’ she asked, as the Elizabethan Fair reached a splendid climax with the jester escorting forward the Queen herself.

  ‘Yes. But thankfully there’s no sign of him tonight.’

  ‘The Odds must have frightened him off. Although . . .’ Ekaterina added thoughtfully, ‘he is not the type to be easily scared.’

  ‘Yes, but one of them was actually trying to strangle him. It was an absolute melee. I was thinking of joining in myself but they suddenly toppled over and Gerry got free. What sort of a mood has he been in today?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him. He slept in a guest room last night and was off at the crack of dawn.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s up to something.’

  ‘Perhaps. But at least he hasn’t spoiled the show.’

  ‘No, thank God.’

  The Elizabethan scene ended to much applause and yet again the audience was plunged into blackness. When the lights went up it was to reveal a troop of Roundheads coming to arrest Sir Giles Beau de Grave for his support of Charles I. A tremendous skirmish was fought with Nick manfully throwing anything he could lay his hands on at the soldiers before further reinforcements arrived. Rafael Devine’s voice soared over the ensuing chaos.

  ‘The Lady Marguerite Beau de Grave held the castle for three years after her husband was smuggled out dressed as a woman.’

  Paul Silas, in drag, minced past a group of the militia who called out rude remarks as she passed.

  ‘But then she was finally forced to surrender and Cromwell, to repay her in kind, ordered that every roof in Fulke Castle should be removed. Thus it stood, empty and ruinous, until the restoration of Charles II, who personally saw to it that all the repairs were undertaken.’

  The lights dimmed and a single spotlight came up into which stepped Ivy Bagshot looking, Kasper thought, quite tall and graceful.

  ‘To mark the end of Fulke Castle’s war-torn years, Lady Marguerite planted an oak tree in the courtyard, which grows and flourishes to this day. It was to symbolize an age of peace and harmony that came to the castle at last, putting an end to its violent and bloody history.’

  The lights subtly changed adding a warm glow to the surroundings and the next scene appeared, taking place in the year 1790 when Georgian buildings were added to the castle. Mr Hooker, a Georgian architect, walked round with Sir Rollo Beaudegrave, together with his wife and innumerable children, looking at the plans and talking about how he foresaw the buildings works proceeding.

  Then came the familiar darkness and once more Rafael Devine’s glorious voice brought the magnificent show to its end.

  ‘In 1918, with the Victorian part of Fulke Castle built and the family settled therein, nothing could have pleased Sir Edward Beaudegrave and his wife Violet more than when their son returned triumphant at the end of the Great War. Captain Rupert had fought bravely alongside his men and had been awarded with a Military Cross . . .’

  ‘My great-grandfather,’ Rufus whispered with pride to Ekaterina.

  ‘. . . for his efforts. Soon the house became full of young people celebrating the twenties in style and Captain Rupert was one of them.’

  The warm lights came up with every member of the cast on stage. Barry Beardsley (as the Captain) was doing an energetic Charleston with Estelle Yeoman, in the midst of a crowd of others all dancing to the best of their ability. Kasper spotted Nick in evening gear doing his best to keep up with the rest of the company. He also couldn’t help but notice the Italian Stallion dancing like a professional and looking somewhat like Rudolf Valentino with his black hair slicked back tightly.

  ‘So there our story ends. The future of Fulke Castle is assured. It still stands, beautiful and proud, dominating its moat. It has dealt with war and suffering, peace and plenty, and now has become a magnificent tribute to a great and glorious past.’

  At these words someone touched a switch and the entire castle was floodlit, its image brilliantly reflected in the water beneath. The effect was both breathtaking and somehow shocking but it had the desired effect upon the audience who rose to their feet and cheered both loud and long. In the Tudor dining hall Ekaterina burst into tears and threw herself into Araminta’s arms.

  ‘Oh it was wonderful, wonderful,’ she kept repeating, until Rufus took over from his daughter and administered a large and very white handkerchief.

  Below, in the courtyard, Kasper was wildly excited and so was Madisson, who was whistling and shouting like a mad thing. However, the company did not take a bow, the ending being so dramatic and magical that it had been generally decided that to do so would ruin the illusion.

  There had only been one snag backstage and that had been when the burly stagehand – Charlie Higgs – whose job it was to clear the dummy from the set after its dramatic fall from the battlements, had found it hard to pick up. In the pitch darkness he had decided that somebody had stuffed stones inside it for a joke and had murmured, ‘Very funny!’ as he had heaved it away under one of the arches. There it would be left until tomorrow night when it would be picked up and carried to the battlements before the show began.

  So it was that the dummy lay alone all that long night, its eyes gazing up at the stars until eventually they faded and dawn slowly lit the beautiful building of Fulke Castle, turning it the colour of a rose. Then the dummy gave a long harsh sigh and slowly lowered its broken eyelids in the last and final sleep of all.

  TEN

  Like a charging herd of elephants the cast, as one, headed for The Beaudegrave Arms as soon as they had changed out of their costumes. They had arranged with the landlord to get a large round ready and they rushed for their tray standing at the corner of the bar and pounced on their glasses, which they raised in a toast.

  ‘Here’s to the show,’ said Paul Silas, and proceeded to pour a pint of beer down his throat without pausing.

  ‘The show,’ repeated the others, and clinked glasses happily.

  Paul completed his enormous swallow and said, ‘Damn shame about Adam Gillow not turning up. Where the hell was the man?’

  Robin Green, back in his shorts and sandals, put down his gin and tonic. ‘What do you mean he didn’t turn up? I fought with him on the battlements tonight. He was here all right.’

  ‘Well, where did he get to for the rest of the show? He wasn’t in any of the other scenes. Was he?’

  Paul turned to the rest of the cast who were variously drinking and enjoying.

  ‘Well, he definitely wasn’t at the end because I had to do the Charleston on my own,’ said plain-faced Cynthia Wensby plaintively.

  ‘I didn’t see him in the Elizabethan Fair,’ remarked Nick, putting in his twopenn’orth.

  ‘Well I don’t care whether you saw him or not,’ answered Robin. ‘He fought me on the battlements until someone hit me in the legs and I fell over, and that’s that.’

  ‘Perhaps you wounded him mortally,’ said Ricardo, and everybody laughed.

  It had been a happy team, Nick considered, though he had to admit that the scene at the dress rehearsal had been very unpleasant. He, along with many other members of the cast, had wondered whether Gerry Harlington was plotting some terrible revenge for tonight but they had come through this evening not only unscathed but in triumph. Of Mr Harlington there had been no sign. All was apparently well.

  ‘Must you really go home?’ said Rufus Beaudegrave. ‘We have a million guest rooms if you would like to stay.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Daddy.
We’ve only got about thirty,’ Araminta answered, clutching on to Ekaterina’s arm.

  ‘No, I really must get back. Thank you very much all the same. Another day I would like to come, that is if I may?’

  ‘You’re welcome here any time. Now girls, say goodnight. I’m just going to walk Ekaterina back to her car.’

  Rufus’s daughters automatically lined up according to height looking a little like something from The Sound of Music.

  Ekaterina laughed delightedly. ‘Do you always do that?’

  ‘Oh yes. It was something grandma taught us,’ said Araminta.

  ‘Well, you must tell her that it looks good. She still lives, yes?’

  ‘Indeed she does. My mother is very much alive and is more like Maggie Smith in a character role than Maggie Smith, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Perhaps one day I will meet her.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps you will.’

  They walked in an easy silence to Ekaterina’s car, then she turned to Rufus and very simply held out her hand. He took it and kissed it, held it a moment longer than was necessary, then said, ‘Come again,’ and walked away. With a sigh she got into the driving seat and drove off into the darkness.

  Nick had spent the early part of the night sleeping like a log, having thoroughly enjoyed his first venture into amateur drama since he had left university. But round about dawn he woke with a start and wondered if his resident ghost, William, had banged something. Yet all was quiet. Nonetheless, Nick rose, slipped on a dressing gown and went downstairs. Hearing someone in the house, Radetsky, the cat, zoomed through the cat flap and stropped round Nick’s ankles.

  ‘It’s too early for breakfast. You’ll have to eat your biscuits,’ Nick said.

  The cat gave him a knowing look from vivid emerald eyes and obligingly started to munch his way through a bowl of Catkins Poultry and Vegetables Tucker. Nick put the kettle on and made himself a cup of lapsang souchong. Then he sat in the living room and wondered what it was that could possibly be worrying him.

  The congregation at the church was steadily growing. Only by one every other month, but these were regulars who smiled at him on the way out and shook his hand. He had found a cleaner and a gardener so as far as those chores were concerned he was well catered for. He was missing Olvia Beauchamp but had to admit to himself that he was very interested in Jonquil Charmwood, who was turning out to be as pleasing a personality as she was easy on the eye. Nothing wrong in that area. And then he hit on it. The fight at the dress rehearsal when Robin Green had leapt on Gerry Harlington, a mass of snarling sinew with skinny brown legs, and had started to strangle the life out of him, had been very upsetting to say the least. And what had happened to Gerry meanwhile? If the vicar had read the black man’s character correctly he would never allow a slur to his manhood to go unpunished like that. On the contrary, he would have made it his personal business to seek revenge. So where was he?

  Nick sipped his tea and thought that when a decent hour had been reached he would phone Gerry and ask how he was, for surely he must have gone home by now. Knowing that he was wide awake and further sleep was impossible Nick had a shower and prepared for the day ahead.

  Paul Silas woke at seven o’clock and stared at the sleeping figure of his wife, thinking to himself that she was not ageing well. Little puffs of fat had gathered at her chin and her mouth was puckered, surrounded by small sharp lines. Her hair, dyed middle-aged blonde, hung shoulder length and was dead straight, emulating the style of girls thirty years younger who all, in Paul’s opinion, looked as if they had been hauled up from the bowels of a river and left to drain out. Heaving a sigh he got out of bed and looked at himself in a full-length mirror.

  He was still in good shape, there could be no doubt about that. Pulling his stomach in and holding his breath he looked like a man of thirty – or thereabouts. Fit enough nonetheless to play the Scarlet Pimpernel, which was one of the titles that the Odds were considering for their next production. Naturally Mike and Meg Alexander wanted to do a two-hander, Heloise and Abelard, but Paul had informed them in no uncertain terms that they must hire a hall and put it on privately if they wished to continue down that route.

  Stark naked, he walked to the kitchen and boiled the kettle to make some coffee in the cafetière and while he waited played back the answerphone messages from last night. There were two that hung up rather than speak to a machine, a third call for Elspeth, then came the fourth – and Paul shivered as he heard it.

  ‘Oh hello, this is a message for Paul Silas. It’s from Eileen Gillow, Adam’s wife. Adam is terribly sorry but he won’t be able to make the performance tonight. There’s been an accident at Waterloo station and all the trains are being diverted via Redhill. He’s phoned to say he won’t be back till ten at the earliest and to make his apologies. Sorry for any inconvenience.’

  Paul could hardly believe his ears and he sank back in a chair as the full import of the words bore in on him. Somebody had fought Robin Green up on the battlements but that somebody had not been Adam Gillow. So who the hell was it? And without waiting for anything further to happen, Paul picked up the phone and dialled a number.

  Ekaterina woke at dawn and gazed up at her ceiling, which was tinted pink with little ripples from the moat reflected on it. Just for a minute she lay thus, thinking about how good the show had been last night and how much she liked Rufus and how she, who had never particularly wanted children, had felt the stirring of an unknown feeling when she was in the company of his four well-behaved daughters. And then anxiety struck her as she suddenly realized that for the second night running Gerry had not appeared in the bedroom and, indeed, she had not set eyes on him for nearly forty-eight hours. Getting out of bed and pulling on her dressing gown she ran down the corridor calling his name.

  Opening the door of every guest room she peered within but they were all empty, the beds undisturbed. Now she was starting to panic and rushed down the stairs and straight to the big room at the back where he had a gym plus sound equipment. The stillness frightened her. There was nobody around and the very air of the house told her that he had not been inside it for hours. She looked at the kitchen clock and saw that it was only a quarter to seven. Perhaps he had finally walked out on her, given up on their farce of a marriage. Yet she held the purse strings – in fact she was the sole source of Gerry’s income – so she doubted very much that he would sacrifice such a lucrative situation. And yet, of course, if he were to divorce her he would be entitled to half her estate and that would be worth a fortune. Suddenly Ekaterina didn’t care any more. She was sick of him. As far as she was concerned he could have the money and was welcome to it. The ugly duckling he had married had turned into the queen of the swans and from now on he could go his own way. Ekaterina had mentally swatted the Wasp Man and she laughed to herself at the thought.

  Rufus Beaudegrave had hardly slept, full of excitement at the splendour of the Son et Lumière and the reception of the audience. The Odds might well be a mismatched bunch of amateurs but they had come together and delivered excellent performances in this particular show. And it had been made all the more wonderful by Ekaterina – that lovely, warm and tremendously beautiful Russian woman – bursting into tears of joy at the end. He pulled himself up, remembering that she was married to that American actor, the one who had ruined the show at the dress rehearsal of the Elizabethan Fair by executing the most ghastly dance he had ever seen. Rufus admitted to himself that he had smiled broadly when Gerry had been leapt on by the funny little man who always wore shorts. It was only when he had seen that the chap was strangling the life out of the creep that he had made a move to stop it. But too late. The struggling couple had vanished in a pile of arms and legs and that had been the end of that. But how that lovely girl had ever become entangled with the Wasp Man Rufus had no idea.

  As dawn had crept over the moat and lit the castle with its early-morning pallor Rufus got out of his four-poster bed – which had been in the family for two hundred ye
ars though now with a thoroughly modern mattress – and put on jeans and a sweater. Going to the kitchen he made himself a swift cup of coffee and whistled to the old spaniel that lay patiently in its basket, regarding him with a mournful brown eye. Then the two of them set forth for a morning walk round the island on which the castle was built. Going round the Victorian addition first, Rufus slowly made his way towards the setting of last night’s Son et Lumière and felt a swell of pride at his tremendous ancestry. Mind you, with the castle entailed as it was, it would all pass to his wastrel of a brother when he died. But there you are, there was nothing he could do about it. Unless, of course, he were to remarry and produce a son. Rufus drew in a breath hard. He was daydreaming and it would do neither him nor anybody else any good.

  He had arrived under the ancient battlements where the mock fight had taken place last night and was just about to move away when his dog, old Moses, suddenly started to whine then began to sniff and paw at something lying there.

  ‘Come on, Moses,’ shouted Rufus. ‘Leave it, whatever it is.’

  But the dog persisted and in the end his owner crossed over to see what it was that was so interesting.

  It was the dummy that had crashed so convincingly on to the cobbles below. But something about it was so strangely lifelike that Rufus paused for a moment and nudged it with his foot. The helmet shifted slightly and Rufus’s attention was riveted. Instead of the stitched up man of straw that he had expected to see he could glimpse a human eyelid, closed. Suddenly he was shaking all over as he knelt down and gingerly removed the helmet, which he had to struggle to take off. Inside, a smashed skull covered with a congealing mess of sticky blood lay together with what was left of a black man’s face. The Wasp Man had danced for the very last time.

  ELEVEN

  Inspector Dominic Tennant was having an easy morning. Last night he had appeared on Meridian News talking about a homophobic assault that had ended with the victim dying of multiple stab wounds in an alleyway in Brighton. Fortunately there had been a number of witnesses, one of whom had been able to give the police names. There had been subsequent arrests and the perpetrators had been charged. As far as he was concerned the case was closed.