Stagestruck

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘But I’m with you.’

  She smiled. ‘Has that ever got in the way of police business?’

  They walked in silence for a short way, each reflecting on that last remark. They’d reached the other end of the gardens and the towpath stretched ahead through an eighty-metre tunnel under Beckford Road. There was light at the end, but it was not an inviting place to walk through. ‘I’m not proud of this,’ he said, ‘but to tell you the truth I don’t like going into that theatre. It has an effect on me.’

  ‘I noticed, the only time we’ve been there together,’ she said. ‘You made a huge effort that evening, didn’t you? I appreciated it.’

  ‘It’s not as if I’m a wimp. I’ve attended some gruesome scenes in my time and not turned a hair. Step in there and I can’t wait to get out. I’m sure my body temperature drops several degrees.’

  ‘Is it just the Theatre Royal?’

  ‘Any theatre.’ He sniffed. ‘But we don’t have to talk about my hang-ups.’

  ‘There must be a reason for it.’

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s deep-seated. My parents gave up trying to take me to pantomimes.’

  ‘You must have had a bad experience as a child.’

  ‘If I did, I don’t remember. No, it’s more about my personality. Theatre is make-believe and I’ve never wanted to have anything to do with it. I’m a logical guy. I prefer the real world.’

  She shook her head. ‘Forgive me for saying this, Peter, but that’s bunk. You’re rationalising, giving in to this hang-up, as you call it.’

  He was silent. Not many people could talk to him like that and get away with it.

  ‘And you’re missing so much. For me, that moment when the house lights start to dim is magical. I’d hate to be deprived of it.’

  ‘Bully for you and I understand why, but it doesn’t alter the feeling I get each time I go there.’

  ‘How are you going to head this investigation, then?’

  He laughed. ‘With difficulty.’

  ‘Would you like to overcome your problem?’

  Now he exhaled sharply. He was wary. ‘I’m not sure. What do you have in mind?’

  ‘I know someone who helps people with phobias – ’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a phobia,’ he said at once, ‘and I certainly don’t want to see a shrink.’

  ‘Raelene isn’t a shrink. She’s an earthy Australian, probably the wisest person I know. She can help you, I feel sure, but you have to be willing to unblock whatever it is that your brain is hiding from you.’

  ‘I don’t want to do this.’

  ‘Fair enough. Think it over.’ She looked away, across the canal, and changed the subject. ‘I may be stating the obvious, but could the Clarion incident be a case of stage fright?’

  He shook his head. ‘The burns must be genuine, or she wouldn’t have been moved to Frenchay.’

  ‘I mean if she was terrified of appearing, really terrified, she could have induced the burns herself. How’s this for a theory? She makes her entrance, does the screaming fit, gets off the stage and covers her face with the towel, giving her the chance to apply some chemical that burns.’

  ‘There must be less painful ways.’

  ‘It would explain the delay in her reaction. You said the make-up was thought to be the cause, but if that was the case, she’d have been hurting before she got on stage.’

  ‘You’re quite a sleuth yourself,’ he said. ‘Yes, the delay has to be explained, but until we get the make-up analysed we won’t know for sure.’

  ‘You must be champing at the bit.’

  ‘We’re ready to go, yes.’ They had almost reached Candy’s footbridge, spanning the canal and the railway. ‘Shall we change the subject?’ he said. ‘What’s the project that’s taking up so much of your time?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a costume piece. Sweeney Todd.’

  Outside the Theatre Royal was a Morris column, one of those cylindrical billboards common in Paris and beloved of Proust. It was plastered with posters of I Am a Camera showing Clarion smoking a cigarette in a holder. Leaning nonchalantly against it, waiting for Ingeborg, was Keith Halliwell. He had borrowed a camera from one of the police photographers and was carrying a professional-looking shoulder bag that was supposed to be filled with camera equipment. In reality it contained his raincoat and the camera. He wouldn’t know how to change a lens or what to do with a light meter.

  ‘Yoo-hoo.’ Ingeborg stood only a pace away from him, making a circling movement with her hand.

  He hadn’t spotted her in the crowd in front of the theatre. She had her hair pinned up and was wearing a black velvet skirt, the first time he’d seen her in anything but jeans.

  ‘Did you get the tickets?’ She sometimes forgot she was the DC and he the DCI, but it was obvious that on the present mission she would have to take the lead.

  ‘Royal circle, back row.’

  ‘Shall we do the biz first? I’ve brought my old press-card.’

  ‘Will I need one?’

  ‘Not if you tag behind me with the camera in your hand. Where is it?’

  ‘In the bag.’

  ‘No use there. The whole point is to have it on view. Let’s check the notices in the foyer.’

  Halliwell wasn’t sure why. He thought they were supposed to try and get backstage before the show. But Ingeborg found what she was looking for, a board with an announcement that for this performance the part of Sally Bowles would be played by Gisella Watling.

  They left the foyer. Outside again, they turned right, past the drinkers outside the Garrick’s Head. The stage door stood open, but didn’t look like an invitation to go in. They went up some stairs to the point where you had to declare yourself or turn back. Ingeborg tapped on the window and a heavy-jowled, unfriendly face appeared. ‘Press,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone, allowing a glimpse of her card. ‘May we go in?’

  ‘Who are you?’ the doorkeeper asked.

  ‘Ingeborg, independent.’ She made it sound as if Borg was her surname and the Independent was her employer. A national paper had to be treated with respect by any provincial theatre.

  ‘The press night was yesterday.’ Not a lot of respect there.

  ‘I know, but yesterday the story was all about Clarion,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Tonight it’s Gisella.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The understudy playing Sally Bowles.’

  ‘The curtain goes up shortly. She won’t want to do an interview now.’

  ‘Not an interview. We’re taking some pictures backstage for an exclusive. It’s all been cleared. We won’t get in the way.’

  ‘No one cleared it with me.’ The voice was deeply discouraging, and it added, ‘I’m not the regular man, you know. I work for the security team. Everything has to authorised with us.’

  ‘Didn’t she let you know? So much on her mind, poor lamb. It’s been that sort of day for us, too. We were only given the job this afternoon.’

  Halliwell had to admire Inge’s sales pitch, and some of it was the truth. She must have learned how to blag in her days as a hack.

  She then excelled herself by asking this plonker if they could get a picture of him in uniform to go with the feature she was writing.

  ‘You don’t want me in your paper,’ he said in a tone disclosing he wouldn’t mind at all.

  ‘Keith, why don’t you get the picture of – what’s your name, sir?’

  ‘Charlie Binns.’

  ‘Of Charlie Binns, while I go ahead and let Gisella know we’re here. We don’t want her panicking tonight, of all nights.’

  The man had bought it. He was fastening his silver buttons. ‘I’d better put my cap on.’

  And now it was up to Halliwell to work the camera. He wasn’t even sure which button to press. He was struggling to get the thing out of its case.

  ‘I’ll leave you guys to it,’ Ingeborg said, ‘if you wouldn’t mind letting me through, Charlie.’

  The man adjusted his peaked cap, the door was un
fastened and Ingeborg went backstage.

  Halliwell touched each button he could see and one of them produced a flash. ‘All in order,’ he managed to say and pointed the lens at Charlie Binns and pressed the same button again. ‘Nice one.’

  ‘So when will it appear?’ Binns asked.

  ‘Could be in the magazine this weekend. The editor decides.’ Halliwell was improvising quite well himself. ‘May I go through now?’

  He was admitted to a passageway with several noticeboards. At the far end Ingeborg was talking to a large-bosomed woman who didn’t look as if she was about to go on stage. She had a modern hairstyle with blonde highlights and was in a low-cut top and jeans. She was holding a dress on a hanger.

  ‘This is my photographer,’ Inge said as he approached. ‘Keith, this is Kate, who runs the wardrobe department. I was asking which dressing room Gisella uses now, and she’s still in number eight upstairs. I thought we might get a picture of the number one room first.’

  ‘That’s stage left, on the prompt side,’ Kate from wardrobe told them, pointing. ‘Are you sure you have permission to be here?’

  ‘Yes, we have clearance from Mr Binns on the stage door.’

  ‘Keep your voices down, then, and don’t go anywhere near the stage.’ She headed off in the other direction.

  ‘Do we really want a picture?’ Halliwell asked Ingeborg as they made their way up the corridor. ‘I’m not even sure if there’s film in the camera.’

  People mostly dressed in black were moving about with a sense of urgency as curtain up approached.

  ‘We only need to get in there. Instructions from the guv’nor.

  He called me on the way here. You wear specs sometimes,

  don’t you?’

  He didn’t follow her thread. ‘For distance, yes.’

  ‘Did you bring them?’

  He patted his pocket. ‘I manage pretty well without them, but I thought I might need them for the play.’

  ‘Are they in a case?’

  He nodded, still mystified.

  ‘Not one of those soft ones?’

  ‘Metal.’

  ‘Ideal. Well done.’

  He didn’t ask why.

  Quicker than expected, they were approaching the back of the stage itself. There was no other way forward, so they crossed behind the scenery, trying to look as if they had a function in the production. Above them was the cavernous fly tower with its complicated system of grids and catwalks. They turned right towards the wings where someone was perched on a higher level looking at a screen and working a console. Stagehands hurried past.

  Praise be: a sign pointed to dressing rooms 1-7. Ingeborg gave a thumb up.

  She was off again like the White Rabbit. When he caught up with her she had opened the door of number one and gone in. No one was inside. Some clothes were on a hanger beside the dressing table. ‘We’re looking for a dead butterfly.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Them’s the orders.’

  Halliwell said no more. If the boss had asked them to find a dead butterfly, so be it. He had faith in Diamond’s decisions.

  ‘It should be on the sill, or the floor, if it’s blown off, so look where you’re treading,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Voilà.’ She pointed to the window. A small, speckled butterfly was lying on the sill. ‘Definitely dead, I’d say. This is where your specs case comes in useful.’

  ‘Yes?’ He took it from his pocket and removed the glasses.

  ‘A perfect little coffin,’ Ingeborg said as she gently slid the tortoiseshell off the sill and into the case and snapped it shut. ‘Keep it level at the bottom of your bag and it shouldn’t get too shaken up.’

  Then a voice shocked them both by saying, ‘Beginners, please.’ It came from a loudspeaker attached to the wall.

  ‘Should we get to our seats?’

  ‘Still got a couple of things to check,’ Inge said.

  ‘What things?’

  She crossed to the door and looked out. Other dressing-room doors were opening and actors emerging dressed in thirties’ costumes. ‘Let’s hang back a moment,’ she said. ‘I’d like to meet Clarion’s dresser if possible.’

  ‘Is that another request from the guv’nor?’ Halliwell asked. He had a suspicion Ingeborg was acting on her own initiative here.

  ‘The one who did the make-up.’

  ‘I know who you mean, but is that a good idea? She’s the main suspect and we’re not acting officially.’

  ‘He asked us to check if she turns up.’

  ‘That isn’t the same as meeting her. We could blow the investigation doing that.’

  She saw sense. ‘Let’s find out from someone else, then.’

  ‘After the show has started.’

  They waited in the dressing room with the door ajar. The passageway went quiet and the only sound was the voice over the tannoy giving the countdown as curtain up approached and came. The play itself began to be broadcast, a man talking about Berlin.

  ‘Time to move,’ Ingeborg said.

  She seemed to have an inbuilt compass as well as a strong impulse to get results and Halliwell found himself trailing behind her, avoiding eye contact with everyone else who came by. Everyone backstage had a job to do, a sense of purpose. Any intruder would stand out.

  Dialogue was being spoken and it wasn’t over the sound system. Halliwell was alarmed to find himself on the prompt side of the wings only a few yards from the actors speaking on stage. Several people were standing in the shadows, watchful and waiting. He recognized one of the actors he’d seen leaving a dressing room. A young woman of elfin size was facing the man, using a soft brush on his face. She looked too young to be the dresser, Denise – but then this was territory peopled by the young. Anyone over forty, as Halliwell was, stood out.

  He touched Inge’s arm and gestured to her to move back a few yards. Any closer and they’d get in the way of the performance.

  The actor getting the last-minute dusting must have heard his cue, because he eased aside the handmaiden with the make-up brush and stepped behind a set of double doors. A doorbell was rung. The actors could be heard reacting and the doors opened and a buxom female actor carrying a tray with a beer bottle and glass came through. She spoke loudly in German to the waiting man and he responded. Their off-stage voices would have carried to the audience. It was strange to see and hear it from this side of the scenery. The doors opened again and the actor on stage said, ‘Fritz.’ The cue for the waiting actor to make his entrance. The woman with the tray followed him back on.

  This was all too close to the action for Halliwell’s liking. He’d taken another step back into the shadows. But as the dialogue on stage developed, Inge was stepping over cables, homing in on the young girl with the make-up brush. At heart, she was still a journalist eager for a story. She tapped the girl on the shoulder.

  There was a whispered exchange that Halliwell couldn’t hear. Then Inge turned away and returned to where Halliwell was waiting.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  She led him right around the back of the stage to the opposite side, up a staircase and through a door. Nothing was said until they were through the stage door and in the street, where she took the mobile from her bag.

  ‘I’m calling the guv’nor,’ she said. ‘They’re all on extra duties. Denise didn’t show up tonight. This has got serious.’

  6

  Diamond left Paloma asleep in her bedroom in Lyncombe early next morning. Very early. There was much to do, not least returning to his house in Weston to let the cat out. The wild patch at the end of the garden belonged to Raffles. The litter tray was near the door as a back-up, but as any cat would tell you if it could, indoor facilities are second best.

  That duty done, the big man cooked himself breakfast, thinking over what he’d learned from Ingeborg’s excited call from the theatre the previous evening. She’d said it was obvious who was responsible for the damage to Clarion’s face and it was just a question whether it had been neg
ligent or malicious.

  Obvious?

  He’d been in his job long enough to know that the obvious can be deceiving. From the kitchen window he could see Raffles making a statement about concealment, working the earth with his white paws.

  Last night’s meat pie at the George had been a good one, but it didn’t stop Diamond enjoying a ‘full English’ less than twelve hours later. Tomatoes and mushrooms joined the back rashers cooked to crisp perfection and the eggs turned over and coated pale pink. He made no claims to haute cuisine, but few could match his morning fry-up. A large mug of tea and toast and marmalade topped it off.

  Raffles returned in a beeline to his dish to confirm that at some point in the cooking the guv’nor had stopped to open a pouch of tuna in jelly. The man’s erratic comings and goings were forgivable if he provided the necessary at the proper times, night and morning.

  It was now certain that the Theatre Royal and its community would loom large in CID’s schedule today and probably for longer. Diamond didn’t relish the prospect of entering the place again. He’d actually given thought to Paloma’s offer of a meeting with her friend Raelene to discuss his aversion. Well meant, he was sure, but no, he wouldn’t be taking it up. Even if Paloma was right and his problem was psychological, he’d deal with it himself using his professional skills as one more mystery to be investigated and solved. Meanwhile, he’d grit his teeth and get on with the job. Having found the will power to enter the building yesterday he’d do the same again.

  ‘Count yourself lucky you’re not a theatre cat, Raffles,’ he said to his unlistening pet. ‘They’re all nutters, all superstitious. They’d trade you in for a black one.’

  These one-sided conversations were a by-product of living alone. Unless the radio or TV was on, something had to be done to break the silence. Usually what he said was banal, but it helped him through.

  ‘But if you were a tortoiseshell instead of a tabby, you’d get a better reception – provided that you weren’t dead, of course.’

  Raffles raised his head from the dish, stretched, licked his teeth and left the room.

  ‘Sorry I spoke.’ Diamond drank the last of his tea, checked the time, found his jacket and left the house.