Stagestruck

by Peter Lovesey

‘Has he tried it on since?’

  ‘Not yet, but I’m sure he will. I watched him trying to hit on Clarion last week when we were in rehearsal. She brushed him off like some ugly little insect. It creased me up.’

  ‘Did you know Clarion before you were picked for this play?’

  ‘I knew of her. Doesn’t everyone? But we’d never met.’

  ‘You must have met her in rehearsals.’

  ‘Sure. She shared all the director’s notes with me and showed me the moves, as you do with an understudy. And we practised lines together.’

  ‘Was she nervous?’

  ‘A bit. Well, a lot, actually, even though she wouldn’t admit it. You see, it was years since she’d done any acting. Our director, Sandy, kept telling her she was marvellous and heading for a huge success, but then he left us all to it after a far-from-smooth dress rehearsal and flew out to Hollywood.’

  ‘He couldn’t be bothered?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say so, but yes.’

  ‘That was my impression, too,’ Titus said. ‘Sandy came with a reputation for looking after number one.’

  ‘You’re the beneficiary,’ Diamond said to Gisella. ‘You stepped up, grabbed the opportunity and got rave reviews. Just about everyone else came off worse: Clarion, Denise, the rest of the cast, looking forward to a long run, the management, facing a possible lawsuit.’

  ‘So I got lucky,’ she said with a defiant stare. ‘In this job, sweetie, you take whatever chance comes your way.’

  There was a simmering resolve to this young woman. Four days had turned her from a bit-part actor into a leading lady

  – with attitude. ‘Have you heard from Clarion since you took over?’ Dia

  mond asked.

  ‘Clarion has bigger things to worry about than me.’

  ‘Why don’t you move to the number one dressing room?

  It’s better than this.’

  ‘It was offered, but I still think of that as hers. This is perfectly serviceable.’

  ‘Cold,’ Titus said.

  ‘It’s not midwinter. I told you it doesn’t bother me.’

  The reason didn’t ring true to Diamond. Here was a deeply ambitious actress turning down the star dressing room. Was there something about this less salubrious room she was reluctant to leave behind? It was furnished for two, with a second mirror and dressing table almost hidden behind enough bouquets and sprays to fill a florist’s.

  He pointed. ‘Is there anything of yours in the drawers?’

  ‘Not those, no.’

  ‘Mind if I take a look?’

  ‘What for?’

  He opened the top drawer and found it empty. So was the other. He crossed the room to inspect the hand basin. ‘Does this ever get blocked?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The plughole. Make-up. Hair and stuff.’

  ‘Not while I’ve been here.’

  He opened the cupboard underneath. No caustic soda. Not so much as a dead butterfly. ‘We’ll leave you in peace, then. Are you performing tonight?’

  ‘Every night.’

  ‘Break a leg.’

  In the corridor outside, Titus said, ‘Peter, that was a fearful old cliché, if I may say so.’

  ‘Break a leg? I thought it was what you say to actors instead of wishing them good luck.’

  ‘It went out with kitchen sink drama, about nineteen sixty.’

  ‘We’d better get through before I embarrass you some more. Something is puzzling me. This was dressing room eight. One, two and three are on the prompt side. What happened to four, five, six and seven?’

  ‘Upstairs on the prompt side. And ten and eleven are above us.’

  ‘Who uses them?’

  ‘In a small-cast play like I Am a Camera, scarcely anyone. There’s no need.’

  ‘Above us, you say. I haven’t been upstairs. Some of my team have.’

  ‘There isn’t much to see.’

  ‘But I’ll see it.’

  They climbed the narrow staircase to dressing room ten, distinctly less glitzy than the ground-floor rooms. The mustiness testified that it hadn’t been used for some time. Titus informed him it was supposed to take up to four actors and was probably home to more when big-scale productions like musicals and pantomimes were put on. Diamond opened some cupboards and drawers and then asked if there were more rooms on this floor.

  Titus shook his head. ‘It’s the only one this side. You don’t want to bother with eleven. It’s up another flight of stairs and hasn’t been used in weeks.’

  ‘Take me to it.’

  ‘No one has ever seen a ghost there.’

  ‘There’s a first time for everything.’

  Dressing room eleven, when they got up there, short of breath, turned out to be a barn of a place, with nine mirrors and dressing tables, bare of anything else except chairs and a clothes rail. ‘Fit for the corps de ballet or the chorus,’ Titus said with disdain. ‘I don’t come up here.’

  After a cursory check that included a glance into the WC and shower, Diamond had to admit that Titus had been right – any self-respecting theatre ghost would shun this one.

  ‘Down all those stairs again?’ Titus said in a superior tone when they stood in the passageway.

  ‘You said this was the only room?’

  ‘On this floor? Yes.’

  He pointed across the passage. ‘What’s that, then? The cleaners’ store?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  Whatever the door was for, it needed redecoration.

  Numerous scrapes and dents could well have been made by buckets and vacuum cleaners.

  Diamond pushed the door open and got a shock. He was looking straight across the dark chasm that was the fly tower. This was the loading bridge, the same catwalk cluttered with counterweights that he’d reached previously by climbing vertically hand over fist from floor level. Why hadn’t he noticed the door then? Because after the white-knuckle experience scaling the ladder he’d given all his attention to Denise’s broken corpse.

  ‘Should have thought of this,’ he complained more to himself than Titus. ‘The scene shifters need to get access.’ He leaned over the metal railing and reminded himself what a long way down the floor was, but vertigo wasn’t his problem in this theatre. Already his mind was working on new scenarios. A major objection to his murder theory had been the difficulty of getting the body up to this level without assistance. Now he knew how it might have been done.

  Equally – to be less fanciful – Denise could have used the back stairs herself in her suicide plan. As an experienced dresser, she would have known all about room eleven and the door across the passage.

  ‘Peter, I’m lost in admiration,’ Titus said from behind him. ‘I thought I knew this theatre like the back of my hand. I wouldn’t have looked behind that door unless you had.’

  Diamond didn’t answer. He was still weighing the possibilities this had opened up.

  Finally he turned away. ‘I’ll take another look at that dressing room.’

  ‘There was nothing in there,’ Titus said.

  ‘Nothing obvious.’

  They returned to number eleven and its nine dressing tables and it still gave the impression of long disuse. Diamond stood in the centre with the air of a prospective buyer trying to visualise the place fully up and running. ‘Do the cleaners come in here most days?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Titus said, his voice piping in protest. ‘I’m not the caretaker.’

  Diamond answered his own question. ‘Likely they wouldn’t when the room isn’t in use.’ He moved closer to the line of tables and crouched like a bowls referee judging a closely contested end.

  ‘Have you found something?’ Titus asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What are you doing, then?’

  ‘Looking at the table tops.’ He took two steps to his left and assumed the same position, eyes level with the surface.

  Consumed with curiosity, Titus came closer and
tried to ape Diamond’s stance. ‘There’s nothing I can see. Are you a sensitive?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Certain people have extra sensory perception.’

  The man never let up. Diamond straightened up. ‘Be honest with me, Titus. Have you ever seen a ghost?’

  ‘Up to the present time, no. But I’m sensitive to emanations like the grey lady’s jasmine.’

  So tempting to shoot him down in flames, but in a mysterious way Diamond didn’t care to dwell on, he had formed a liking for Titus. Back to reality. ‘I was right. The place hasn’t seen a duster for some time.’

  ‘It’s a dressing room, not an army hut.’

  Unfazed, he moved on again to the next table, the last along that side. ‘When we came in just now we didn’t touch the tops of these, did we?’

  ‘I certainly didn’t,’ Titus said. ‘I watched you from the doorway. You looked into the shower room. You didn’t open any cupboards.’

  ‘Because there aren’t any,’ Diamond said. ‘It’s built for economy.’ He completed his examination of each of the surfaces on the facing side. Then he stood back. ‘What we have here are nine dusty tables and one over there’ – he pointed to the one farthest from the door – ‘has a distinct curved shape in the dust at the front edge. You’ve heard of fingerprints? That looks to me like a bum print.’

  13

  ‘Talc, pure talc, and nothing else.’

  ‘That’s a pain. I thought we were getting somewhere.’

  Diamond, Halliwell and Leaman had returned from their liquid lunch to find DC Paul Gilbert waiting in the CID room to report on the contents of Denise’s box of powder. It wasn’t the result anyone wanted to hear.

  ‘I could have had my feet up watching a film last night instead of standing in a car park kidding myself we’d found solid evidence.’

  Young Gilbert hung his head as if he was personally res ponsible. ‘But we can use this,’ Diamond said, more in charity to the young cop than real confidence.

  Gilbert looked up. ‘Can we?’

  ‘If Denise’s talc was harmless, how did Clarion come into contact with the caustic soda?’

  ‘It can’t have been accidental,’ Halliwell said, picking up the point. ‘We’re talking about a dangerous substance with all kinds of warnings on the container. Someone was hell-bent on damaging Clarion’s face. If Denise didn’t do it, who did?’

  ‘I can name some people with an interest in stopping Clarion.’ From across the room, Ingeborg said, ‘We’ve been over this, guv, and we got nowhere.’

  ‘Yes, but since we spoke I’ve met some of these characters.’

  ‘The understudy?’ Ingeborg said without enthusiasm.

  ‘Only four days into the run and already behaving like the prima donna. Clarion’s misfortune is Gisella’s big break. Very little sympathy there and huge ambition. For some reason,

  though, she hasn’t moved into the star dressing room.’

  ‘Feels safer where she is?’ Halliwell said.

  ‘Could be as simple as that.’

  ‘Now she’s got the part, she doesn’t want to get unpopular with the rest of the cast, lording it over them?’

  ‘I can believe that, too. I pointed out that she’s the only person to benefit from Clarion’s exit from the play.’

  ‘What did she say to that?’

  ‘Basically, that actors ride their luck and take any chance they get.’

  ‘Doesn’t she understand she’s a prime suspect?’

  ‘She rules out foul play. They all do.’

  ‘That’s actors for you,’ Halliwell said. ‘Turn their backs on real life and put on a show.’

  Diamond didn’t comment. He’d started on this update and he meant to complete it. If Ingeborg showed signs of disenchantment, the entire team needed firing up. ‘I also met the male lead, Preston Barnes, after he punched the theatre director on the nose.’

  ‘Punched him? What for?’ Ingeborg said, all interest again.

  ‘For allowing John Leaman to search his room this morning. Barnes had things to hide. Turns out he’s a junkie.’

  ‘Really? What’s he on?’

  ‘Methadone, he says. He needs a fix before each performance.’

  ‘But is he also a suspect? Why would he want to hurt Clarion?’

  ‘Maybe like me she saw the state of his arms and worked out what he’s doing to himself. He’s fearful of anyone in the theatre finding out.’

  ‘But where’s the logic in damaging her face?’

  ‘To be shot of her. She’s not going to give any more thought to his drug habit. She’s out of it now.’

  ‘I suppose.’ She didn’t seem wholly convinced.

  Undaunted, Diamond moved on. ‘Another one in the mix is Hedley Shearman, him of the bloody nose, who incidentally is quite a goer. I opened a door and saw him having it away with Kate, the wardrobe mistress.’

  ‘Before or after the punch-up?’ Leaman asked.

  ‘The night before, during the play.’

  ‘A lot of it goes on behind the scenes,’ Ingeborg said, speaking as the ex-journo.

  Even so, her inside knowledge prompted a few smiles.

  ‘Did they know you saw them at it, guv?’ Halliwell asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you do, shut the door?’

  ‘Not immediately. I had to make sure it was consensual, didn’t I? And it was. They’re still good friends. Kate patched him up this morning after he was hit. But I was speaking of motives. Shearman claims he was railroaded into having Clarion in the play. He was sure she’d flop and he’d take the blame.’

  ‘Who railroaded him?’

  ‘Francis Melmot, chairman of the board of trustees. Melmot is a Clarion fan. He came up with the idea of using her in a play and got the board on side. Met Clarion for lunch and invited her to stay at Melmot Hall.’

  ‘Get away,’ Halliwell said with relish. ‘Did she go?’

  ‘She did, for a couple of days, he said.’

  ‘Couple of nights.’ Halliwell got a laugh for that.

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Diamond said. ‘There’s a domineering mother living there.’

  ‘He’s a mummy’s boy at his age?’

  ‘Mummy is quite the duchess. I wouldn’t care to cross her.’

  ‘Then she wouldn’t be troubled by bourgeois values,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Upper-crust mothers positively encourage their sons to get laid.’

  ‘Is Melmot seriously in the frame?’ Halliwell asked.

  ‘He must be,’ Diamond said.

  ‘He’s a fan, you said. What’s his motive?’

  ‘It became obvious in rehearsal that Clarion was going to screw up. She was no Sally Bowles. His own reputation was on the line. He had to find a way of stopping her.’

  ‘By scarring her?’ Ingeborg said with disbelief. ‘What sort of fan is that?’

  ‘Might I venture an opinion?’ a voice said from close to Diamond, reminding him of things he’d been trying to forget. Sergeant Dawkins in his leather jacket and jeans had blended with the team.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Regarding the fun and games.’

  ‘I don’t think I mentioned fun or games.’

  ‘Rightly so,’ Dawkins said, and nodded as if that ended the exchange.

  ‘Fred, if there’s something you want to say, out with it.’

  ‘There are ladies present.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath from Ingeborg.

  ‘“Fun and games”,’ Dawkins said, ‘is a euphemism.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Fred,’ Ingeborg said. All the good will he’d earned with her had just drained away. ‘Do you mean sex?’

  ‘In a word, yes.’

  ‘Say it, then.’

  Dawkins tugged the leather jacket more tightly across his front. ‘What if those nights in Melmot Hall didn’t turn out as Mr Melmot hoped? If the’ – he paused – ‘sex was unsatisfactory, or a disaster, he may have panicked that Clarion would tel
l everyone and he’d be a laughing-stock.’

  No question: this new man brought fresh thinking to the team.

  ‘Good point, Fred,’ Diamond said. ‘It’s true she didn’t stay long.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Stay long.’

  ‘What?’

  Halliwell said, ‘It’s a joke, guv.’

  ‘Is it? Oh, I get you.’ Not many in CID had caught on.

  Leaman said, ‘Those are our suspects, then?’

  ‘For my money, yes,’ Diamond said.

  ‘What about the gay guy?’

  ‘Titus?’

  ‘He knows his way around the theatre.’

  ‘He would. He’s the dramaturge. Advises on the scripts, or something like that. Yes, he goes backstage. He’s toured me round a couple of times. What are you driving at, John? You think Titus had a motive?’

  ‘I don’t know about a motive. He had the opportunity for sure if he can come and go without anyone asking what he’s up to.’

  ‘Agreed, but I can’t see why he’d want to damage Clarion’s face.’

  Leaman backed down. ‘Just me thinking aloud, guv.’

  ‘No harm in that. I doubt if Titus has it in him to do anything like this. He’s full of stories about spooks, but when he saw a dead butterfly he passed out.’

  Now Ingeborg thought it was worth pursuing. ‘As someone who cares about the theatre, he could have decided to stop her.’

  ‘But not like that.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s capable of it?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, any of you,’ Diamond said, ‘but I have some respect for Titus.’

  No one in the room had any doubts about the big man’s sexuality and no one sniggered. Yet there was a moment of awkwardness that lasted until Dawkins cleared his throat.

  Diamond turned to him. ‘You want to say something else?’

  ‘It popped into my head… guv.’

  ‘What did?’

  ‘A thought.’

  Everyone waited. They were getting used to the slower delivery of this new man. He sometimes made sense, given a hearing.

  ‘The box of talcum powder in Denise’s bag was harmless.’

  Diamond nodded.

  ‘But the fact remains that Clarion’s face was damaged by caustic soda.’

  ‘Correct.’