Stagestruck

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘He’s an oddball,’ Halliwell started to say.

  ‘Tell me something new,’ Diamond said.

  ‘I can’t think how he managed to convince the ACC he was CID material. He means well – I think – but he says the strangest things. Our civilian women got the idea he was put in to spy on them. He was going on about time and motion. You remember when every business brought in time and motion experts to improve efficiency?’

  This angered Diamond. ‘Bloody nerve. He’s got no right to talk to my staff like that. Time and motion. It’s old hat, anyway.’

  ‘I know, but it made everyone nervous. I told him to shut up about it and he didn’t seem to understand what the fuss was about.’

  ‘I’ll tear some strips off him. I thought leaving him in the office was the best option. Now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘He’s in a world of his own.’

  ‘It’s when his world collides with ours that things go belly up.’

  They crossed the river to the cheap housing of the Dolemeads estate, on the flood plain of the Avon. Excelsior Street was one of the first to be built after the clearance of a notorious Victorian slum known locally as Mud Island, where the houses were chronically damp and regularly flooded. In the first years of the twentieth century the site was raised by as much as twelve feet and a prestigious new council estate erected, not in the local stone, but red brick.

  Ingeborg was waiting outside Denise Pearsall’s narrow terraced house. She said she’d tried the doorbell and got no response. She’d spoken to the neighbours who described Denise as a very private lady. They hadn’t seen her since the weekend.

  Halliwell had brought an enforcer, the miniature battering ram used to open locked doors. ‘Before we use that,’ Diamond said, ‘let’s see if there’s an easier way.’ By sliding a loyalty card between door and jamb, he freed the latch and opened up.

  In the narrow hallway, the morning’s post of junk mail showed Denise had not been there for a day or two. Ingeborg was sent to search upstairs while the men inspected the living room and kitchen. The interior was clean and decorated in pastel shades of pink and blue. The only messages on the answerphone were several from the theatre asking Denise to make contact as soon as possible.

  The tidiness made for an easy search. If her home was any guide, Denise was organised to the point of compulsion. Even the fridge magnets were in rows you could have checked with a ruler.

  It didn’t take long to discover that her professional makeup kit wasn’t in the house. Ingeborg found some lipsticks and creams in the bedroom that were obviously for personal use and there were a few sticks of greasepaint in a drawer downstairs that they put into evidence bags.

  ‘She’ll have her main stuff in the car,’ Diamond said. ‘We’ve got to find that soon.’

  Halliwell picked a magazine from the rack in the living room. ‘How about this, guv?’

  Clarion was on the cover of a celebrity mag.

  ‘Good spotting, but it’s hardly incriminating. Show me a page with her picture defaced and I might get excited.’

  Ingeborg came downstairs carrying a three-ring binder with photos of actors Denise had dressed, most of them autographed with gushing compliments about how wonderful she’d been. She’d listed each production she’d worked with and the leading actors. The handwriting was as neat as the house, and as uninformative.

  ‘We’ll take this,’ Diamond said. ‘Is there a computer up there?’

  ‘In the small bedroom she uses as an office,’ Inge said. ‘I checked. She seems to delete the e-mails after she’s read them and there’s very little to see. I get the impression she doesn’t use it much.’

  Diamond went upstairs to see the rooms for himself. The place looked as if it awaited a house guest – and a finicky one. The bed apparently hadn’t been used overnight. Crisp, clean bed linen, surfaces free of dust, carpets hoovered, all in marked contrast to his own chaotic living arrangements.

  He picked up a doll from the chintz-covered armchair in the corner. ‘A bit like Clarion, would you say?’

  Ingeborg smiled. ‘I can’t see it, guv.’

  ‘No, and no pins sticking into it either.’ He left the room and started down the stairs. ‘Did you search the bathroom?’ he called back.

  ‘The shower surfaces are dry. Nothing much in there except toothpaste and showergel,’ Ingeborg said from the bedroom. ‘She makes herself up in here.’

  ‘The cupboards, I mean. Cleaning materials. I’m thinking of caustic soda to clear the drain in the shower.’

  ‘She doesn’t use it. There’s a bottle of Sink Fresh. Not the same thing at all.’

  He checked the kitchen and all the cupboards downstairs, reflecting as he studied the labels that the absence of any caustic soda didn’t mean Denise was in the clear. She would have taken the stuff to the theatre.

  He decided they’d seen enough and failed to turn up anything of significance. They hadn’t even come across an address book or a phone with stored numbers.

  Back in Manvers Street, finding Denise and her car remained the priority even though there was little anyone in the building could do about that.

  After the fruitless search in Excelsior Street, Diamond felt ready to get some frustration out of his system. He asked Fred Dawkins to step into his office. ‘What’s this I hear about you upsetting the civilian staff?’

  ‘With the best of intentions – ’

  ‘Don’t burble, man. Answer my question.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Dawkins said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You asked me what you hear about me upsetting the civilian staff. What you hear is in your head.’

  The logic was correct, but inflammatory. ‘You know bloody well what I’m talking about.’

  ‘That, too, is questionable.’

  ‘You were out of order talking about time and motion. Don’t deny it, Fred. People don’t lie about stuff like that.’

  ‘Time and motion?’ Dawkins scratched his head and seemed genuinely at a loss. ‘Ah, I have it. I was quoting Ford.’

  ‘Henry Ford?’ Diamond said, thinking of car production.

  ‘John.’

  ‘Stagecoach?’ He knew his old films and he was damn sure John Ford the director wasn’t into time and motion.

  ‘’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.’

  ‘Sergeant, there’s something you’d better get very clear. We don’t go in for personal abuse in this department.’

  ‘It’s Jacobean.’

  ‘It’s offensive.’

  ‘It’s the title of a play.’

  ‘I’m not on about plays. This is about you stirring up trouble in the department.’

  ‘By speaking of time and motion?’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  Unexpectedly, Dawkins made a fist and raised it. Briefly, Diamond thought he was about to strike him, but it was a theatrical pose and the man started speaking lines. ‘“Why, I hold fate clasped in my fist, and could command the course of time’s eternal motion, hadst thou been one thought more steady than an ebbing sea.”’

  One thing, and one thing only, was clear. Manvers Street nick wasn’t ready for Jacobean drama.

  ‘“Time’s eternal motion,”’ Dawkins repeated.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I can explain.’

  ‘Save your breath. I’m beginning to cotton on. Do you make a habit of quoting lines from plays?’

  ‘I would characterise it as an occasional indulgence.’

  ‘Knock it off, for all our sakes. It caused confusion and near panic. The only quoting we do in CID is the official caution.’

  ‘I shall curb the habit,’ Dawkins said, and added with an earnest look. ‘I trust I haven’t blighted my prospects… guv.’

  They were blighted the moment you stepped in here in that clown suit, Diamond thought. ‘So are you a theatre-goer?’

  ‘One of my indulgences,’ Dawkins said.

  ‘I suppose it comes with the dancing. Do you know the play Clarion w
as in?’

  ‘Know it, no. Know of it, yes. I haven’t seen it, which is a pity. I was at some disadvantage questioning Mr Shearman, the manager, but I formed the impression that he wasn’t all that familiar with the script himself.’

  ‘It’s the same story as Cabaret, I’m told.’

  ‘Then you were not told the whole truth. There’s no music in I Am a Camera, no dancing and no changes of scene. The only changes are of time and costume. Putting it on at all was a risky venture.’

  ‘A vehicle for Clarion Calhoun.’

  ‘That, I think, goes without saying.’

  ‘You also spoke to Denise Pearsall. What did you make of her? Was there any aggro towards Clarion?’

  ‘Aggravation? None that I noticed. I saw anxiety in plenty.’

  ‘Denise was troubled?’

  ‘Exceedingly.’

  ‘From guilt, would you say?’

  ‘Difficult to divine. Conscience, possibly. She appeared to accept that her make-up was the likely cause of the occurrence.’

  ‘Did you question her about it?’

  ‘Minutely. She told me she used new materials.’

  Diamond’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Some new brand?’

  ‘She meant “new” in the sense of unopened. The brand was the same she had used before without ill effect. That was made clear.’

  ‘She wasn’t blaming anyone else, then?’

  ‘The question of blame didn’t arise. If you care to look at a transcript of the interview it is now stored in the computer, as you instructed.’

  ‘Good. I will.’ Somehow, Dawkins was coming out of this so-called roasting better than he came in. ‘Watch what you say in future.’ Even as he spoke the last words, Diamond knew he’d used the faulty logic the man revelled in dismantling.

  But Dawkins had the sense not to comment. He nodded and left the room. If there was a faint smile lingering it may have been only in Diamond’s imagination.

  The notices were in and Hedley Shearman was relieved. The critics praised Gisella Watling’s performance and didn’t make too much of Clarion’s collapse. The sensational stuff had all been covered in news stories the previous day. UNDERSTUDY’S SUCCESS IN DEMANDING ROLE, went one headline. Another: GISELLA’S STARRY NIGHT. Reviews like that would keep the show afloat until the end of the week. Nobody now expected it to transfer to London unless Clarion made a miraculous recovery.

  He clipped the reviews. Anything good for morale was to be encouraged. They would be pinned on the stage doorkeeper’s noticeboard where everyone would see them as they arrived. Before that, however, he would use them to boost his chances with Gisella. He was waiting inside when she arrived for the matinee.

  ‘Have you seen these?’ he said. ‘They loved your performance.’

  She hadn’t. She was over the moon, even if she tried to appear casual. In all the mayhem after Clarion broke down, he’d missed an opportunity to get to know this young woman who had been thrust into the limelight and performed so ably. She was taller than Clarion, with less of the showbiz glamour about her. For the play, her dark hair was styled with waves and cut short at the back, a style he could quickly get to like. She wasn’t a starry-eyed beginner. She must have been on the stage some years. The concept of ensemble casting in the modern theatre ensured that she knew the role and didn’t need to appear on stage with the book in her hands. Even so, it had taken courage to go on.

  ‘It’s a big step up the ladder,’ he told her with a fatherly show of encouragement that often did the trick with young actresses. ‘All sorts of people will read this, especially casting directors. You never know where it will lead. Clarion’s misfortune is your opportunity.’

  ‘I don’t think of it like that,’ she said in a voice that could have come from a twelve-year-old. ‘I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to get the part this way.’

  ‘My dear, the theatre is one long story of actors seizing the moment. Did you know Shirley MacLaine was just a dancer in the chorus of The Pajama Game and doubling as understudy when the star, Carol Haney, broke her ankle? She was thrust into the limelight, took the audience by storm and got the movie role as well, because Hal Wallis happened to be in the audience. You never know your luck.’

  ‘I still feel bad about Clarion.’ Her eyes confirmed it. To Shearman, she appeared utterly sincere.

  ‘Why should you? You’re not responsible.’ After a pause he added, ‘I hope.’ He laughed. ‘Ignore my twisted sense of humour. You could move into the number one dressing room if you wish. You’ve earned the right.’

  ‘I’m happy where I am, thanks.’

  ‘Which room is that?’

  ‘Number eight. The one with the gloves and handbag in a frame on the wall.’

  ‘They belonged to Vivien Leigh, you know. It’s endowed in her name.’ He stopped himself telling her that eight had the reputation of being haunted. Various unexplained phenomena had been reported over the years by actors who had used it. ‘If it ever feels cold in there, be sure to ask for a fan heater.’

  ‘Thanks, but it’s comfortable. I’d better get up there now.’

  ‘Do you do your own make-up?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m used to it.’

  ‘Well done. Hope there’s a good house in this afternoon with at least one butterfly. You know about the Theatre Royal butterflies?’ He was being over-friendly now, doing his best to charm her. He’d got lucky like this a few times over the years.

  ‘Yes, I heard the stories.’

  ‘I’ll come with you and show you something. It’s on the way. It won’t hold you up.’

  She had to pass the fly tower to get to her dressing room. He walked close behind her, enjoying the swing of her hips. ‘Back in the nineteen-forties, when the whole butterfly thing started,’ he said, moving closer, ‘the man who had my job was called Reg Maddox and he designed a butterfly ballet for the pantomime and because of what happened one of the big gauze butterflies made as the backdrop was kept hanging in the flies as a kind of talisman. You wouldn’t know it was there unless someone told you where to look.’

  They had reached the fly floor, the area immediately behind the stage, where the peeling walls, old props, unwanted arc lamps and looped cables were in sharp contrast to the plush public areas of the theatre. Above them, the steel-framed fly tower, with its intricate single-purchase counterweight system of grids, lines and pulleys, rose eight metres clear of the rest of the building.

  ‘The lighting isn’t so great here, but if you look straight up, you’ll get a sight of the lucky butterfly right at the top.’ He pointed upwards with his left hand and at the same time curled his right over her shoulder. ‘Do you see it?’

  Gisella tilted her head back and didn’t flinch when Shearman touched her. She was taller than he, but he didn’t mind that. As he sometimes said when he’d got a woman into bed, the length that mattered wasn’t from head to foot. He’d moved so close that he could feel her hair against his cheek. The sensation pleased him. He wasn’t looking up at the damn butterfly. He knew where it was.

  Suddenly she tensed and her whole frame shuddered.

  He jerked his hand away from her shoulder. ‘It’s okay,’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t,’ she said in a shocked voice. ‘Can’t you see what I can? It’s anything but okay.’

  8

  Apolice car and an ambulance were parked in front of the triple-arched theatre entrance in Saw Close. The whole area was congested with people arriving for the matinee.

  ‘The stage door,’ Diamond said to Keith Halliwell, and headed along the paved passage, past the tables outside the Garrick’s Head. His negative feelings about entering the theatre had to be ignored. When you get the shout in CID you can’t stop to think. Up the steps into the dim interior, they found their way through the backstage honeycomb and emerged under the fly tower, where an assortment of actors and technicians were gazing upwards at two paramedics and a uniformed police officer who had made their way along a narrow catwalk close to wher
e a body was jackknifed over a pair of battens suspended from the grid under the roof. One arm hung down. The other must have been trapped.

  ‘Do we know who it is?’ he asked a stagehand.

  ‘It must be the dresser. She went missing earlier.’

  Missing no longer. He hadn’t met Denise Pearsall and wouldn’t have recognised her. All he could make out was that whoever was up there was dressed in jeans and black trainers. There was no indication of life.

  He stood for a moment in silence. Violent death of any sort is a desecration, deserving of pity. A fall on to steel battens, almost certainly fracturing the spine, was chilling to contemplate. Here was a woman who had been in the prime of a useful, creative life. Who could say what hopes, memories, disappointments had been prematurely ended by this act?

  A short, stout, self-important man in a striped suit came over and put an end to compassionate thoughts. ‘Plainclothes police, are you? I’m the theatre director, Hedley Shearman. I made the emergency call.’

  ‘Was it you who found her?’

  ‘I was with Gisella, one of the cast, and we happened to look up and had the shock of our lives. That arm, hanging down. Dreadful.’

  ‘Are you certain who she is?’

  ‘It has to be Denise, Clarion’s dresser. You can’t see her face from here, but some of her long red hair is visible. I knew she was upset by what happened on Monday. She phoned yesterday and told me she couldn’t face coming in for last night’s performance. God forgive me, it didn’t cross my mind that she was suicidal.’

  Diamond turned to Halliwell and asked him to pass the news to Manvers Street, making clear that although the missing person enquiry would shortly be called off, the dead woman’s car still needed to be found. ‘Where does she park?’ he asked Shearman.

  ‘The nearest is right across the street, but it’s so small you hardly ever get in there on a weekday. Most of us use Charlotte Street or the multi-storey in Corn Street.’

  Halliwell used his personal radio.

  ‘When did you spot her?’ Diamond asked Shearman.

  ‘Twenty minutes ago. Gisella – who is playing Sally Bowles now – had just arrived for the matinee and I wanted to point something out to her in the fly tower. She looked up and saw the arm. She’s profoundly shocked, as I was. She wants to go on, though. I’m not planning to cancel the performance.’