Stagestruck

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘We met. She was Clarion’s dresser, not mine. I don’t need one.’ He pointed with his thumb to the shabby sports coat and grey flannels on a hanger beside the dressing table. ‘That’s the only costume I wear in this production. I change my tie a few times and that’s it.’

  ‘Did you know Clarion before joining the cast?’

  ‘No, and her singing sucks, but it doesn’t mean I wished her any harm.’

  ‘Were you worried about the play? I’m told she wasn’t much good in rehearsal.’

  ‘Wasn’t much good? She was crap. But I’ve been in the business long enough to know it can be all right on the night.’

  ‘But it wasn’t. What an experience you must have had.’ Deliberately Diamond was playing to Barnes’s ego. This was all about him.

  ‘It wasn’t something I want to repeat,’ he said. ‘One minute she seemed to have forgotten her lines and the next she was screaming in pain. I defy any actor to cope with that.’

  ‘After the curtain came down, were you one of the people who went to her dressing room?’

  ‘No. I waited in the wings to see what would happen next. They gave Gisella the part, as you know. I steered and coaxed her through it in ways you wouldn’t even begin to appreciate.’

  ‘She was ready to go on?’

  ‘Scared, obviously. In fact, she saved the night from total disaster. And she gets better with each performance. Have you seen it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You should.’

  ‘Your own performance is worth seeing, I was told.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The actor glanced in the mirror. Flattered, he was off guard.

  ‘What do you inject before the show?’ Diamond asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

  ‘What?’ He swung back to stare at Diamond.

  ‘I noticed the needle marks.’

  ‘I’m diabetic.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Preston. And I don’t believe the horseshit you told us a moment ago about locking yourself in to visualise the role. You come here early to jack up.’

  ‘You can’t prove a damn thing.’

  ‘I’m not investigating your habit. I know why you flew into such a rage over the search. You thought we’d find the syringe. And why you were so quick to cover your arms when we came in just now.’

  He’d turned ashen as Diamond was speaking. ‘You people have no idea of the stress actors are under night after night.’

  ‘Heroin?’

  ‘Methadone, on prescription.’ His manner switched from aggression to supplication. ‘I’m fighting the addiction. I can give you my doctor’s name if you keep this to yourself. I don’t want the management finding out. Please.’

  ‘Does anyone else in this theatre know?’

  ‘Absolutely not. It would destroy my career.’

  ‘We can count on your co-operation, then?’

  In a voice otherwise purged of defiance he managed to say, ‘Bastards.’

  12

  ‘She definitely broke her neck,’ Keith Halliwell reported on his phone from the mortuary.

  ‘We know that,’ Diamond said. ‘I saw for myself, but was that the cause of death?’

  Halliwell took a moment for thought, a moment that didn’t yield much. ‘Must have been.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Are you kidding me, boss?’

  ‘She could have been dead already.’

  This didn’t persuade Halliwell. ‘What – and somebody pushed her off the loading bridge? Difficult. How would he have got her up there?’

  ‘There are pulleys and lines for hoisting things.’

  ‘He’d need help.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Unknown to Halliwell, the word that had first sprung to Diamond’s mind was “definitely”. His confidence was shrinking. Now that he’d spoken, his theory did sound far-fetched, if not totally off the wall.

  ‘If she died by some other method it would have shown up in the postmortem,’ Halliwell pointed out. ‘You mean a bullet through the head or a dagger in the heart? There are more subtle ways of misleading a pathologist, Keith.’

  ‘I was impressed by Dr Sealy. He said because of the position she was found in, she must have been falling backwards. Therefore she climbed over the rail and held onto it with both hands before letting go. Suicides often do it that way, not wanting to look down. He said that’s why she didn’t end up on the floor. She didn’t see the battens that broke her fall.’

  ‘Pretty conclusive, then?’ he said without pressing his doubts. ‘No other marks or injuries?’

  ‘None that he noticed, and he’s thorough. He did add that he’d wait for the lab test on the samples he’d sent. There was some suspicion she’d taken alcohol shortly before she died. Even I could smell it.’

  ‘Dutch courage.’

  ‘I reckon.’

  ‘Whisky? Gin?’

  ‘He calls it ethanol. Same thing.’

  Diamond was unimpressed. ‘Typical bloody Sealy. Alcohol to you and me. Ethanol to him.’

  ‘He couldn’t tell what drink it was. You get the same sharp, sweet smell whether it was cheap beer or vintage bubbly. When you’re alive, alcohol metabolises, but after death it gets trapped in the blood.’

  The science didn’t interest Diamond so much as the how, when and where. ‘And what did he say about the time of death?’

  ‘Not much more than he said before. Probably between eight and twenty-four hours before she was found.’

  ‘No use to us. But thanks, Keith. How’s the stomach?’

  ‘Mine?’

  Diamond smiled at that. ‘I’m asking if you could manage a sandwich after the postmortem.’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  Which is why you always get the job, he thought. ‘If you fancy a bite to eat, John Leaman and I are about to call at the Garrick’s Head. There was a punch-up at the theatre this morning. Tell you about it then.’

  He was trying to be realistic. The theory he’d flirted with had withered away. Dr Sealy would surely have picked up some indications of murder. Postmortems rarely add much to what is already obvious. True, Sealy cared more about covering his back than giving pointers to the police, but he was good at his job, and Keith Halliwell was a sharp-eyed observer. An unexpected discovery had never been likely. The case was moving to a conclusion. All it wanted was confirmation that Denise took responsibility for the Clarion incident. If her powder box contained traces of caustic soda, the suicide would be hard to deny. Paul Gilbert should soon report on the lab result.

  ‘Do I need a drink!’ he said to Leaman.

  They were greeted in the pub by the barmaid announcing, ‘Here’s your friend, Titus. I told you he’d be back.’

  The dramaturge, Titus O’Driscoll, at a table by the fireplace, looked up from the book he was reading. ‘My cup overfloweth. Well, it would have, if he hadn’t arrived with someone else.’

  Diamond, trying to be tolerant, raised a grin. ‘John Leaman works with me.’ He turned to the barmaid. ‘We’d each like a pint of your best.’

  ‘Are you off duty, then?’ Titus asked.

  ‘At this minute, yes. And how are you, Titus? Fully recovered, I hope.’

  ‘The head, yes,’ he said, ‘but the heart remains in intensive care. I’m not used to being in the arms of strange policemen.’

  Leaman’s eyes gleamed like the brass fittings on the bar.

  ‘Titus fainted and I caught him before he fell,’ Diamond explained, as if catching gay men was as commonplace as tying shoelaces.

  ‘And the reason I fainted is one of the great unsolved mysteries,’ Titus said. ‘I have a theory of my own too embarrassing to mention in present company. Well, I will.’

  This had gone far enough. ‘No, you won’t,’ Diamond said at once, ‘because it wouldn’t be right.’ With the case just about to be put to bed there was no need to hold back. ‘You passed out because you saw a dead butterfly in Clarion’s dressing room.’

  For a moment Titus was speechless.
Then: ‘Oh my word!’ He had lost so much colour that there was danger of another fainting episode.

  ‘You still don’t remember?’

  ‘Now tell me it was a tortoiseshell. It was? No wonder I collapsed.’ His blue eyes widened and he said in a doom-laden voice, ‘The curse strikes again.’

  ‘Nobody ever mentioned a curse that I’m aware of.’

  Titus was in Hammer Horror mode. ‘The death of Reg Maddox all those years ago after the dead butterfly was found on the stage. If that doesn’t have the force of a curse, I don’t know what does.’

  ‘But Clarion didn’t die.’

  ‘Denise did, the day we discovered it. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I know what theatre people are like about superstitions. It could have caused a panic.’

  ‘Really.’ Titus rolled his eyes and made an expansive gesture with his arms. ‘As if we’re the sort of people who panic. Where is the butterfly now?’

  ‘In a drawer in my office,’ Diamond said. ‘It’s been there since Tuesday, and I’m still breathing.’

  ‘Mock the dark forces at your peril. I’m in urgent need of a drink.’

  Diamond nodded to the barmaid, who said, ‘Water, Titus?’

  He pursed his lips and turned away, so she poured him a glass of wine. She was enjoying every second of this.

  ‘It’s summer,’ Diamond said. ‘Butterflies get trapped all the time in places like this.’

  ‘That’s not the issue,’ Titus said after taking a sip. ‘They become an omen when they die.’

  ‘They’re short-lived anyway. I dare say there are others lying around the theatre.’ He turned to Leaman for support. ‘When you were doing your search, did you notice any?’

  Leaman shook his head. ‘I wasn’t looking for butterflies.’ A simple statement and a reminder how single-minded he was.

  ‘What did you hope to find?’ Titus asked Leaman.

  ‘A handbag.’

  ‘Any particular handbag?’

  ‘The one belonging to Denise Pearsall.’

  Diamond said, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t know where it is?’

  Titus cocked an eyebrow. ‘Are you implying that I picked it up? No, I did not.’

  ‘What would Titus want with a handbag?’ the barmaid said and shrieked with laughter. She could get away with stuff like that.

  Diamond wasn’t amused and didn’t smile. His thoughts hadn’t moved on since the remark about butterflies. Painstaking as John Leaman was in tracking anything down, he could have missed other items of importance. Tunnel vision, they called it in CID. ‘Titus,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Our tour backstage was cut short. Would you mind showing me the rest?’ An inner voice shrieked that he must be crazy, volunteering to go back into the theatre, but he’d been steeling himself for this. Backstage was less of a problem for him than the auditorium itself.

  ‘As I recall it,’ Titus said without enthusiasm, ‘we weren’t on a tour. We were ghost-hunting.’

  ‘So we were.’

  Titus softened a little. ‘True, we didn’t look at all the dressing rooms. Number eight is renowned for psychic phenomena.’ He sighed. ‘But I don’t believe you’re interested in the occult.’

  The barmaid said, ‘He could be interested in you, Titus.’ She was making mischief and Diamond let it pass. She was an unlikely ally.

  Titus drank most of the wine at a gulp. ‘What about your colleague?’ he asked Diamond.

  ‘He’ll wait here.’

  ‘Just the two of us?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘If you insist, then.’ He drained his glass and left it on the bar.

  On their way through the foyer, Titus said, ‘I’m under no illusions, Peter. You’re a detective on a case. What I don’t understand is why you need me to show you around the building.’

  ‘There’s a double incentive,’ Diamond said. ‘It’s a warren backstage. I’d soon be lost on my own. And I get a man-toman talk with you.’

  ‘Really?’ Titus pressed the combination on the digital lock and they passed into the red-carpeted corridor behind the royal circle.

  Diamond’s nerve came under immediate test. The auditorium was visible through several entrances. He looked away, avoiding even a glimpse of the curtains. ‘Shall we start with that haunted dressing room you mentioned?’

  ‘We can’t go in. It’s in use,’ Titus said.

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Gisella, the young woman who understudied Clarion.’

  ‘She gets the spooky room?’

  ‘It’s comfortable and close to the stage and I don’t suppose she knows about the manifestations,’ Titus said. ‘After the accident she was offered the number one and turned it down.’

  ‘Everyone was called for a meeting this morning, so she may be in,’ Diamond said, refusing to be put off. ‘She’ll invite us inside, won’t she? How well do you know her?’

  ‘We’ve spoken.’

  ‘Cordially, I hope?’

  ‘Of course. Unlike some I could mention, I’m not a prickly personality.’

  ‘Which way, then?’

  They had reached the pass door to backstage. Titus worked the digital lock again.

  ‘Is there one combination for all the doors?’ Diamond asked.

  ‘No, they’re different. Newcomers are given a plastic card with the numbers. I long ago committed them to memory.’ He pushed the door open and they went through. ‘Dressing room eight is on the OP side. We have to cross behind the stage.’

  A passing stagehand smiled at Titus and winked.

  ‘People are obviously used to seeing you here,’ Diamond said. ‘I expect they’d notice a stranger.’

  ‘You’re being a detective again,’ Titus said. ‘This is supposed to be a ghost hunt.’

  ‘A stranger could turn out to be a ghost.’

  ‘Or an evil person who maims famous pop singers. If you really want to know, it would be almost impossible for a stranger to pass through here unnoticed.’

  ‘They’d get lost as well.’

  ‘Very likely.’ In the passageway close to the stage, Titus stopped and pointed ahead. ‘Dressing rooms eight and nine, usually occupied by some of the principal actors, but not the leads.’

  ‘Let’s see if she’s in.’ Diamond knocked on number eight.

  ‘It’s open,’ a childish voice came from inside.

  He raised a thumb at Titus and turned the handle.

  ‘Oh,’ Gisella said from her chair in front of the dressing table. ‘I thought you were the boy bringing more flowers.’ She was looking at them through everyone’s idea of a theatrical mirror, fringed with light bulbs. All they could see of her was the permed nineteen-thirties haircut above a slender, white neck. ‘If you’re press,’ she said, ‘it isn’t convenient now. I’ve done so many interviews already that I need a break.’

  ‘Now come on, Gisella,’ Titus said. ‘You know me, the dramaturge. And this is my friend Peter.’

  ‘I’m sorry, guys, but I don’t have time to socialise.’

  ‘That goes without saying,’ Titus said. ‘We’re only here to look at the room.’

  This unflattering comment seemed to intrigue her. She swivelled in her chair to look at Diamond. ‘Peter who?’

  He told her his name.

  ‘Are you an actor?’ Before he could answer she added, ‘Do you have a stage name?’

  He realised what this was about. She thought he was being shown the room because he’d be using it when the next production got under way.

  He was about to deny it, but Titus got in first. ‘One could easily mistake him for Timmy Spall. Is that who you’re thinking of?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Kenny Branagh? Martin Shaw?’

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ Diamond said to get realistic. ‘Do you mind if I look round?’

  Gisella was definitely surprised, but she had the wit to make a melodramatic gesture out of it, pressing a hand to her brow. ‘The police!
I am undone.’

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ Titus said. ‘He’s a nice policeman.’

  She said in a more serious voice, ‘If you think I had anything to do with Clarion’s accident, you’re mistaken. Just because I was understudying doesn’t mean I wished her any harm.’

  ‘Have you noticed how cool it is in here?’ Titus said with a look at Diamond heavy with significance. ‘Unnaturally cool, I mean.’

  ‘I haven’t complained,’ Gisella said. ‘I like it.’

  ‘It’s always cool, even in a heatwave,’ Titus said. ‘No one has ever explained why.’

  More supernatural hokum, Diamond decided. Ghost-hunters were always going on about drops in temperature.

  ‘Do you see the handbag?’ Titus said.

  ‘Where?’ Diamond said, all attention.

  ‘Behind you on the wall.’

  He swung around, and was disappointed. Framed in a glass case were a bag and a pair of gloves.

  ‘They belonged to one of the most exquisite beauties ever to grace the stage,’ Titus said. ‘Vivien Leigh. The room is named in her honour. I don’t think there’s any suggestion that she is the visitor here.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Gisella said. ‘She died at least forty years ago.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Titus gave Diamond another piercing glance.

  The room’s spectral possibilities didn’t impress Diamond at all. He was more interested in Gisella’s unease at having a policeman in her room. ‘You said you wished Clarion no harm. Was she a friend?’

  ‘In the sense that we’re all in the same company,’ she said. ‘We got along well. Most people here are friendly, some over-friendly.’

  ‘A certain theatre director?’ Titus said.

  She gave a shrug that seemed to answer the question.

  ‘He was with you when you spotted Denise’s body,’ Diamond said, wanting to hear her account.

  ‘Yes, I knew what was going on. He was cosying up to me on the strength of some nice reviews I’d got. Men of his sort aren’t subtle. He offered to show me the theatre mascot, that butterfly in the wings, and I could feel him pressing against me as I looked up. He was taking advantage for sure. The old, old story of a man thinking he has power over a woman.’