Stagestruck

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Diamond said.

  ‘It’s all right. Nothing is visible to the audience,’ Shearman added in earnest support of his decision. ‘There are no scene changes. The set is all in place. You and your officers can remain at the back here throughout and you won’t disrupt the show.’

  A cancelled performance was anathema to theatre people. And from a police point of view it might suit to have the minimum of fuss. Yet how bizarre to have an audience enjoying the play while a corpse was behind the backcloth.

  ‘No. Send them home.’

  Shearman was appalled. ‘What – cancel, at this late stage? Impossible. Denise wouldn’t have wanted that.’

  ‘Denise is out of the equation. It’s my decision.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. I’m in charge here. What can I possibly say to people?’

  ‘Unforeseen circumstances. The truth will have leaked out anyway. They’ve seen the ambulance and the police cars as they came in.’

  ‘We’ve got coach parties coming in from miles around.’

  ‘Bath isn’t short of other attractions. They’ll think of something else to do. Teashops, pubs, shopping. I suggest you make the announcement now if you want us out before the evening performance.’

  Red-faced and angry, Shearman caved in and used his phone to issue instructions.

  ‘Make sure the staff don’t leave as well,’ Diamond told him. ‘I may need to question them.’

  For all his bluster, Shearman wasn’t going on stage to announce the cancellation. He delegated that thankless task to his front-of-house manager.

  ‘Did anyone see Denise arrive this morning?’ Diamond asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Someone would have told me. I was trying to contact her.’

  ‘So when do you think this happened?’

  ‘I’ve no idea how long she’s been up there. People are walking through here a lot, but you don’t look up unless you have a reason.’

  ‘What was your reason?’

  ‘I told you, I was with Gisella. She’s the understudy who took over from Clarion. I wanted to show her the lucky butterfly – as encouragement.’

  Diamond’s interest quickened. ‘Butterfly, you said?’

  ‘Not a real one. A piece of scenery from way back. You can see it yourself right up near the roof if you stand in the right place. A dusty old thing more than sixty years old, but we value it as an emblem of good fortune.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Shearman moved a few strides to the left and pointed upwards, across the tower and at a higher level from where the corpse was lodged. A flashlight would have helped. Fortunately the thing suspended among other strips of scenery was colourful enough to make out. Red, purple, green and yellow and with scalloped edging, it didn’t look like any species of butterfly known to biology.

  ‘The scene painter enjoyed himself by the look of it.’

  ‘It was for a pantomime.’

  ‘Ah, I heard about this from someone else. So you looked for the butterfly and saw the body?’

  ‘Gisella spotted it first. To her credit, she didn’t scream. I almost did myself when she pointed.’

  ‘Gisella stayed calm?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say calm. She was in control, but obviously shaken.’

  ‘So you’re saying the body could have been there some hours without anyone noticing?’

  ‘Quite possibly. It’s dark up there, as you see.’

  ‘Nobody goes up between performances?’

  ‘There’s no reason to. The scenery for this production is all in place and we won’t be changing it this week.’

  ‘I’m trying to work out when it happened. She wasn’t at home overnight. We searched her house this morning.’

  ‘Then it’s not impossible she did this some time yesterday. She phoned in about two in the afternoon.’

  ‘And spoke to you? How did she sound?’

  ‘Exhausted, really. She said she was sorry but she’d have to let us down because she couldn’t face the evening performance. Denise is not a skiver. I knew it was genuine. I told her to get some rest and we’d cope without her, which we did.’

  ‘Who was the last person who spoke to her here?’

  ‘One of yours.’

  ‘A police officer?’

  ‘A sergeant in uniform with a policewoman taking notes. He was doing all the talking.’

  ‘Sounds like Sergeant Dawkins.’

  ‘With a rather abrasive style of speech.’

  ‘Definitely Dawkins.’

  Shearman was quick to add, ‘I’m not suggesting your sergeant said anything that caused Denise to take her own life.’

  Privately, Diamond reserved judgement on that. He’d been driven near the limit by Dawkins. ‘Why did she come in yesterday morning?’

  ‘It was the obvious thing to do after what happened to Clarion. She felt responsible, being the one who made her up. I don’t think she’d slept much. Neither had I, come to that.’

  ‘Did she appear depressed?’

  ‘Anxious, certainly. Depressed, probably. Whether suicidal is another question. I had no inkling of that, I assure you. But I can imagine how it preyed on her mind as the day went on and we had no better news of Clarion. Listen, can’t we bring her down from there?’

  ‘Not until the pathologist has seen her and photographs are taken.’

  ‘It’s obvious how she died. She jumped.’

  Diamond didn’t comment. He was psyching himself up for a duty he didn’t relish. ‘How would I get up there?’

  ‘Do you want to get closer?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t be doing it for nothing.’

  ‘The quickest way is up the iron ladder in the corner.’

  He eyed the ladder, close to where the counterweight-carrying arbor moved up and down a track parallel to the wall. A vertical climb with the rungs spaced a foot apart looked a stern test of an overweight detective’s agility. He was in two minds. He could ask Halliwell to do it. In truth he needed to see the set-up for himself.

  Shearman said, ‘There’s a little platform at each level, about every ten feet. Do you see?’

  He was already having second thoughts. ‘I’ll wait for the paramedics to come down.’

  ‘It looks as if they’re on their way.’

  With mixed feelings, he saw that they were, and so was the police officer. ‘She’s well dead,’ one of the paramedics said on reaching the ground. ‘Her neck is broken. Are you police as well?’

  Diamond introduced himself. ‘No indication how long she’s been there, I suppose?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Are you going up to see?’

  Duty demanded that he did. ‘I’d better.’

  ‘How are your knees? We can’t do much for the lady, but we’ll run you into casualty if need be.’

  Bloody cheek, he thought. ‘I played rugby for ten years. My knees are as good as yours.’

  ‘Just asking.’

  He was canny enough not to show off by shinning up the ladder like a sailor. By pausing between levels, he got to the catwalk breathing heavily, but without mishap.

  Now it was a matter of edging out to view the body, making certain he clung onto the single handrail. What he saw was Denise Pearsall’s body lying face up along the battens, her head skewed into an unnatural angle, the hair red, the face deathly white. Her eyes and mouth were still open, the tip of her tongue protruding, and a line of dried blood running from the edge of her mouth to her jawbone. Traces of eye make-up and lipstick on features that had once been attractive made the death scene more grotesque. Had she prettied herself for her final act?

  She’d stood no chance. She’d dropped from the loading bridge where the counterweights were added or removed, a distance at least ten metres higher, and hit the metal hard, snapping her spine at the neck. It would have been instant death, he told himself. But to see where she’d fallen from, he’d need to climb a stage higher.

  It had to be done. He hauled his overweight
frame up the last set of rungs until, gasping for breath, he reached the bridge, a catwalk with access to the steel cables and pulleys. Spare weights were ranged along the length of it. With only the briefest of glances downwards, he edged out to the position directly above the corpse. She’d have needed to step over the handrail. It couldn’t have been accidental. Presumably she had intended to hit the floor, not the battens below. His blood ran cold.

  Over to the other side was the piece of butterfly scenery, a psychedelic monster as tall as he, probably the last thing Denise saw before she died. It hadn’t brought her much luck.

  He’d seen as much as he needed. With painstaking care he picked his way down the sets of ladders.

  An aroma of coffee wafted upwards. He was thinking he could do with some after that morbid duty. On completing the descent he saw Dr Bertram Sealy, the local pathologist, with his flask open. ‘Should have guessed.’

  ‘You should invest in one of these,’ Sealy said, holding up the flask. ‘Indispensable in my work. You’re sweating, superintendent. Did you go up to the very top? You want to watch your blood pressure, doing stuff like that in your condition.’

  ‘Coming from you, that’s rich.’

  ‘So what did you discover? I’ve heard of corpsing in the theatre, but this is excessive.’ Sealy fancied himself a master of the black humour exchanged between pathologists and policemen to make the job bearable.

  ‘This wasn’t a cry for help, that’s for sure. If you take a jump like that, you mean to do the business.’

  ‘Was she a headcase?’

  ‘Not known to be. But it seems she may have blamed herself for an incident here two evenings ago.’

  ‘The Clarion what’s-her-name thing? I saw it in the paper. Nasty.’

  ‘If you can give me an estimate of when death occurred, doctor, that would be useful.’

  ‘Said he, always the optimist. Do I need oxygen climbing that high?’

  ‘You ought to make it.’

  ‘I hope so. My wife knows I’m visiting the theatre and she told me to ask for complimentary tickets. Is it a good play?’

  Sealy showing off his self-composure.

  ‘I haven’t seen it.’

  ‘You should ask for a ticket. Perks of the trade.’ Pathologists have to be positive, and Sealy lived up to the challenge. He screwed the empty cup back onto the flask and walked over to the ladder. ‘I’ll need someone to carry my bag. Do you want to go up again?’

  Diamond snapped his fingers at a young uniformed constable. Then he turned his back on Sealy. ‘Does she have a room of her own somewhere?’ he asked Hedley Shearman, thinking a suicide note might exist.

  ‘No. Dressers do their work around the dressing rooms. The nearest thing to an office would be wardrobe.’

  ‘She worked out of a wardrobe?’

  Shearman didn’t turn up his nose, but his eyes said a lot. ‘It’s one of the biggest places backstage, where all the costumes and wigs are stored.’

  ‘Beverages, too?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m parched.’

  ‘You won’t get a drink in wardrobe, but the bars were doing some trade until we sent the audience away.’

  ‘Show me to the nearest, then.’ He told Halliwell to keep an eye on things and got a moody look back.

  ‘It’s a jewel of a theatre,’ he forced himself to say to soften up Shearman over a beer in the dress circle bar. ‘Are the finances in good nick?’

  ‘Reasonably good. Mostly we play to full houses.’

  ‘What’s the seating capacity?’

  ‘Eight seventy-five. We used to seat more, but we removed some capacity when we last refurbished the main house in 1999. Necessary, though. It was a tight fit before, I have to admit. The present seating is the best you’ll find anywhere, by Quinnet of Paris, who fitted out the Royal Opera House. You’re a big man, but you’d be comfortable, I assure you.’

  The personal reference wasn’t welcomed by Diamond. ‘I’ve never had trouble fitting into seats.’

  ‘More leg room, I meant.’

  ‘I once sat through an entire evening here.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Diamond aired more of his limited theatrical know-how. ‘You need well-known actors to bring in the audiences.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re not tied to the star system. We have the Ustinov Studio as part of the complex and we can put on more experimental, contemporary productions there.’

  ‘Clarion Calhoun was chosen for her box office appeal. Is that right?’

  Shearman glanced away momentarily. ‘She wasn’t my personal pick.’

  Diamond didn’t miss an opening like that. ‘You’d have gone for someone else?’

  ‘I had reservations about Clarion. She went to drama school, but hasn’t done much since. It was a top-level decision, the choice of play and the casting. Anyway, that’s water under the bridge. The poor woman won’t be doing any more acting in this run.’

  ‘How did Denise feel about the choice of Clarion in the main role?’

  ‘No idea. I never discussed it with her. Why should I? She was only a dresser. They’re pretty low in the pecking order. No way would they have a say in casting.’

  ‘But she was on the permanent staff. If there was a general feeling that Clarion wasn’t up to the job, it would have fed through to Denise.’

  ‘You’re losing me.’

  ‘There’s a sense of unity in this theatre,’ Diamond said, playing to Shearman’s vanity. ‘You sense it as soon as you step into the place. An outsider like Clarion – not known as an actor – is given the star part. There must have been some muttering in the ranks.’

  ‘How does this affect the tragedy of Denise’s suicide?’ Shearman asked.

  ‘I’m thinking aloud. She was well placed to get Clarion sidelined.’

  ‘Deliberately? Oh, no.’

  Diamond nodded.

  Shearman dismissed the suggestion with a flap of his hand. ‘By making her up with something that damaged her face? No chance.’

  ‘You may as well know. It was caustic soda.’

  The man jerked back so suddenly that he spilt beer on his trousers. ‘That isn’t possible.’

  ‘It is. It was analysed.’

  After a moment of silence he said in a strangled voice, ‘I can’t accept that Denise would have done such a thing.’

  ‘Why else did she kill herself, then?’

  Shearman thought about that and released a long, audible breath. ‘God almighty.’

  ‘How well did you know Denise? Was there any malice in her?’

  ‘Malice?’ He repeated the word as if it was foreign. ‘None that I ever noticed. We never had any complaints from actors.’

  ‘We’ll need to inform her next of kin. Presumably you keep her personal file somewhere?’

  ‘All it would have is her letter of application and some contact details. We’re a theatre, not the civil service.’

  ‘I’ll see it, just the same. Does she have any family?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. We weren’t on close terms.’

  ‘She’s been here six years, Mr Shearman.’

  ‘I keep telling you. She was only a dresser.’

  ‘It’s about rank, is it? There must be someone in this theatre she was on speaking terms with. Who did she know best?’

  He hesitated. ‘She worked for Kate, the wardrobe mistress. I wouldn’t say they were the best of friends. You’d better speak to Kate. She objects to the official label, by the way. She likes to be known as Kate in wardrobe.’

  ‘Is she in the building now?’

  ‘I’m sure she is. They wash and iron the clothes after each performance. This is all such a shock. I’m still coming to terms with it. Caustic soda? I can’t believe Denise would do such an abominable thing, yet why else would she have killed herself?’

  ‘Will you manage without her?’

  ‘Of course. Actors are good at coping. Clarion was the except
ion and that was only down to inexperience.’

  ‘I ought to be getting back.’ Diamond drained his glass. ‘Just now when we spoke about the choice of play you said it was a top-level decision. You’re the boss, aren’t you?’

  Shearman gave a hollow laugh. ‘Don’t be deceived. A theatre is full of egos known as managers. House, front of house, marketing, production, development. Even kids straight out of drama school are classed as assistant stage managers, or deputies. Basically, if you’re not a scene shifter or a callboy, you’re a manager of some description.’

  ‘But someone has to make decisions.’

  ‘Not me. Not this time.’

  ‘Who’s the big cheese, if you aren’t?’

  ‘The chairman of the board. Francis Melmot.’

  ‘He signed up Clarion?’

  ‘There was consultation, so-called. I was asked what I thought, but the decision wasn’t mine. He outranks me, and so do all the trustees, come to that.’ The bitterness wasn’t disguised.

  ‘So it’s run as a trust?’

  ‘Most theatres are, these days.’

  ‘And is it usual for the board of trustees to decide on the play?’

  ‘Not in this theatre. Artistic decisions are generally left to the salaried staff. We’re employed for our expertise… supposedly.’

  ‘You’re saying she was foisted on you by the board?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it like that. You mustn’t misquote me.’ Suddenly, Shearman regretted what he’d revealed. ‘We’re very fortunate in having the trustees we do.’

  ‘Their decision could have a bearing,’ Diamond said.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Not at all.’

  ‘If an exception was made and an edict was issued from on high that Clarion had to be given the role -’

  ‘You’re not listening. I told you there was consultation.’

  ‘But the decision wasn’t yours. I’d better speak to Francis Melmot.’

  Shearman’s face flushed crimson. He’d given too much away. ‘Oh, dear. I don’t think this is wise. The casting has no bearing on what happened. Denise wasn’t involved in theatre politics. She got on with her job like the rest of us. There must have been some dreadful error.’