Stagestruck

by Peter Lovesey

Ingeborg drummed her fingers on the desk in impatience.

  Dawkins was not to be put off. He was into his stride now.

  ‘What if there was a second box?’ Diamond frowned. ‘There wasn’t, not in her bag.’ ‘A box she used for last-minute powdering, when Clarion was waiting to go on, one she kept in the wings on some ledge where she could reach for it when needed? It could still be there.’

  ‘Possible, I suppose,’ Diamond said, weighing the suggestion. He and Ingeborg had watched the young girl Belinda brushing the actors’ faces and she’d said Denise had been there the first night. ‘Yes, definitely worth checking. Inge, you can take this on.’

  ‘Now?’ Ingeborg asked.

  ‘Sooner the better. And take Fred with you.’

  Her eyes doubled in size. Insubordination threatened. She’d already done more than her share of mothering Dawkins.

  But the man himself was ecstatic. ‘You’re sending me?’

  ‘Yes, but keep a low profile. Leave the talking to Ingeborg. Any problem with that, Inge?’

  She said with an effort at control, ‘No, guv.’

  Galvanized, Dawkins was already making for the door.

  After they’d left, Halliwell said, ‘He’s keen.’

  ‘Keen to get out of here, anyway,’ Diamond said. ‘Well, people. How has it been? Busy this morning?’

  One of the civilian staff spoke up. ‘A number of phone calls. Sergeant Dawkins handled them.’

  ‘In his inimitable style, no doubt.’

  ‘There was one message from the Assistant Chief Constable.’

  ‘Georgina? He didn’t say.’

  ‘It’s logged.’

  ‘What do you mean – logged?’ He had a mental picture of felled trees.

  ‘Stored in the system. I believe the ACC wants to speak to you.’

  ‘Why didn’t someone tell me before this?’

  ‘If you look at your in-box, sir, you’ll find Sergeant Dawkins marked it as priority.’

  ‘My in-box? He’s got a tongue in his head. He was here until a few minutes ago.’

  ‘I think he may be shy.’

  ‘Have you seen the suits he wears? Shy he is not.’

  The blood pressure soared to a dangerous level. It was a good thing Dawkins had left the building.

  In her eyrie on the top floor, Georgina was in a benign mood when Diamond entered and muttered an apology about not responding sooner.

  ‘It isn’t urgent, as I thought I made clear to Horatio.’

  He was thrown by the name. He had to dig deep to recall who Horatio was and when it came back to him, he wasn’t thrilled. How was it that the so-called shy man, Dawkins, was on first-name terms with the Assistant Chief Constable?

  Georgina was thinking of other things. ‘All the trouble at the theatre – did you get to the bottom of it?’

  ‘Not yet, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It’s more complex than I first thought.’

  ‘The suicide?’

  ‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure it was a suicide.’

  Her eyebrows lifted like level-crossing gates.

  ‘She left no note,’ Diamond said.

  ‘I expect she was too distressed. People with suicide in mind aren’t always so organised.’

  ‘And we haven’t been able to prove a definite connection with the caustic soda incident. We’re still working on it. Denise Pearsall doesn’t seem to have had any grudge against Clarion.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m following you,’ Georgina said. ‘Are you suggesting she died by accident?’

  ‘I’m wondering if she jumped at all.’

  ‘Now you’ve lost me altogether.’

  ‘She may have been pushed.’

  Georgina blinked. ‘I can’t think how.’

  ‘Neither could I until this morning when I had another look backstage. Foolishly I’d assumed she climbed a ladder to get up to the loading bridge. Today I learned there’s a way onto it from the second floor.’

  ‘Is that significant?’

  ‘It is if someone wanted to murder her. Much simpler than climbing a vertical iron ladder.’

  ‘Murder? Peter, are you serious?’

  ‘There’s a dressing room up there, just the one, not in use in the present play. I found clear evidence somebody was in there recently. It would make a useful base for anyone intending to ambush her.’

  Georgina let him know she would need a lot more convincing. ‘It’s far more likely she went in there herself prior to taking her own life.’

  ‘Even so, I’m having the room checked by a scene of crime team.’

  ‘You’re reading a lot into this.’

  ‘I want to know who was in there and why.’

  ‘What would be the point of killing Denise? She was a nice woman, from all I heard, respected by people in the theatre.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And she’d struggle with an attacker, surely. There would be marks on her body that would be obvious in the postmortem. Was anything mentioned by the pathologist?’

  ‘No, but there was alcohol in her system.’

  ‘She may have taken a drink to get her courage up.’

  ‘Or someone gave her a cocktail of drink and drugs.’

  ‘Drugs were present as well?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘That’s speculation on my part. We won’t know until the blood is tested.’

  ‘And if, as I suspect, the results are negative?’

  ‘I’ll look at the possibility of more than one killer being involved.’

  Georgina clicked her tongue. ‘This is in danger of becoming an obsession, Peter.’

  ‘If you remember, ma’am, you got me started on this.’

  ‘Only because I could see the theatre being closed down. That seems less likely now, even if Clarion sues.’

  ‘Do I sense that you’d like to call off the hounds?’

  She looked away, out of the window. ‘No, you can finish the job. I’m more confident than I was.’ She turned to face him, eyes shining more brightly than her silver buttons. ‘I was chosen last night for Sweeney Todd.’

  ‘Nice work, ma’am.’ He couldn’t resist asking, ‘What part are you playing?’

  ‘Not one of the principals. I have the voice, but as a newcomer to the BLOGs, I can’t expect a major role this year. I’ll be strengthening the company.’

  In the chorus, in other words. ‘And it’s to run at the theatre?’

  ‘The third week in September. Rehearsals have been under way for some time. I’m joining late.’

  ‘Where do you rehearse? Not in the theatre?’

  ‘No, we don’t have the use of it yet. Our rehearsal room is a church hall.’ But she took his enquiry as a pledge of interest. ‘Do you sing, Peter?’

  He laughed. ‘Like a corncrake.’

  ‘Well, if you wanted – if you were looking for a way to get involved – you could be an ancillary.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘One of our back-up people, using whatever talents you possess, designing the programme, making props, painting scenery. There are jobs galore.’

  ‘Theatre isn’t my thing.’

  ‘Fair enough. I only mentioned it in passing. Living alone, as you do, you might want to join something outside the police.’

  If I do, he thought, it won’t be anything you belong to.

  ‘Horatio doesn’t do any singing,’ Georgina added, ‘but we couldn’t stage a production like Sweeney without him.’

  There was a pause for thought.

  ‘Dawkins?’ he said, feeling the blood flushing his face. ‘Sergeant Dawkins is in the BLOGs?’

  ‘Hasn’t he told you? He’s our movement director. All the action sequences are co-ordinated by him. Dances, fights, stunts, swordplay.’

  ‘Movement director?’ His head reeling, Diamond was reduced to echoing her words.

  ‘He’s a trained dancer, you know.’

  ‘He told me that much. How long has he been doing this?’

  ‘Befo
re I joined.’

  Now it was revealed why Fred Dawkins had been plucked from the uniformed ranks and foisted on CID. He’d got to know Georgina through the BLOGs and worked his ticket. What a shaft.

  ‘I know exactly what’s going through your head,’ Georgina said, ‘and I have to tell you I moved him into CID on merit. He impressed me long before I joined the BLOGs. In fact, I’m surprised you hadn’t spotted him.’

  ‘I knew him,’ Diamond said. ‘He stood out.’

  ‘He’s a rising star.’

  ‘Risen.’

  ‘Don’t mistake his slow speech for woolly thinking. He’s got a quick brain. You need to be sharp to choreograph an entire show like Sweeney.’

  ‘He’s sharp, all right.’

  She was missing all the irony. ‘You can safely send him off the building on an operation. I gather he’s frustrated being confined to barracks.’

  ‘Has he been complaining to you, ma’am?’

  She backtracked a little. ‘It may have been mentioned in passing. He’s too gifted to be on the end of a phone all day long. Let him off the leash and I predict he’ll not let you down.’

  ‘He’s off the leash right now, making another search of the theatre with Ingeborg Smith.’

  ‘Splendid. If anyone can get results for you, Horatio will.’

  He’d heard as much of this as he could take. ‘Is there anything else?’

  On his way downstairs he forced some perspective into his thinking. Nothing fundamental had changed. He was still stuck with Dawkins and he’d have to give the man a chance. Everyone works the system and there were infinite ways of doing it. Fred hadn’t joined the BLOGs to cosy up to Georgina. He was already installed there. He’d got lucky and cashed in. Who wouldn’t have?

  14

  Hedley Shearman was on duty again in the Theatre Royal, bruised, but no longer bleeding, demanding to know what the devil the police were up to, poking around in the wings.

  ‘Searching,’ Ingeborg told him. A short answer can be a good riposte to bluster.

  ‘That’s obvious.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But what do you hope to find?’

  ‘Make-up.’

  ‘The stuff Denise was using Monday night? I don’t think you’ll find it here. She was very organised. She wouldn’t have left anything lying around.’

  ‘She may have been so organised that she kept some handy in the wings for use before the show. That’s why we’re checking.’

  ‘Well, it had better not take long. We have a performance tonight and I don’t want you getting in the way of the actors.’ He took a second look at Dawkins and frowned. ‘Aren’t you the man in uniform who was here Tuesday morning putting me through the third degree?’

  Dawkins had been obeying orders, keeping that low profile Diamond had decreed. Faced with open hostility, he broke his vow of silence. ‘I wouldn’t characterise it as such.’

  ‘You look and sound awfully like him.’

  ‘It was not the third degree. It wasn’t even the second.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t like the term,’ Shearman said, getting some of his bounce back. ‘I was on the receiving end and I know what it felt like. Why aren’t you in uniform today?’

  Ingeborg was quick to head off an elaborate explanation. ‘He’s joined CID.’ She looked at her watch. ‘If you want us out before the show, better let us get on with it.’

  Another glare and then Shearman moved off towards the dressing rooms.

  Basic stage scenery is constructed as flats, canvas over a wooden framework, and when it is in position some of the horizontal battens form ledges. Small objects are sometimes lodged there, lucky mascots, bits of chalk, pens and torches. But it was doubtful if anything as big as a powder box would fit. More likely they’d find what they were looking for tucked away in a corner at floor level. Plenty of areas backstage needed checking. They went about the search systematically, each working at a different side of the stage, dividing the space into sections, lifting props, discarded cloths and coils of cable.

  ‘I’m getting less confident,’ Ingeborg called across the stage after twenty minutes. ‘If it’s here, it ought to be obvious.’

  Dawkins didn’t answer and it wasn’t clear whether he disagreed or was still observing the embargo.

  ‘Putting myself in Denise’s place,’ Ingeborg went on, ‘if I had some powder laced with caustic soda I wouldn’t leave it lying around. I’d get rid of it.’

  Still there was no answer from the opposite side.

  ‘But then,’ she added after more thought, ‘if someone else doctored the stuff, Denise wouldn’t have known.’

  This time Dawkins couldn’t resist. ‘Don’t you think the someone else would also have got rid of it?’

  ‘In that case we’re wasting our time.’ Deadpan, as if she didn’t remember, she asked, ‘Whose idea was this?’

  Dawkins became silent again.

  Diamond had an inbuilt resistance to computers and he didn’t make a habit of checking for on-screen messages. If his own staff had anything to report, he expected to be told. Most of them knew this. To be fair to Fred Dawkins, anyone new on the team might have acted as he had, thinking it wasn’t unreasonable to expect the top man to make regular checks.

  Dawkins was out of the office now, so Diamond stopped complaining about the call from Georgina he’d almost missed. Still the thought nagged at him that there could be other information waiting for him. Unseen by the team, he stepped into his office to check the in-box.

  There wasn’t much. Headquarters had issued a new online procedure for budget reports. Stuff that, he said to himself. Keith Halliwell had called in from the mortuary. Old news. He’d seen Keith since then. Clarion Calhoun was moving out of the burns unit to a private hotel in Clifton called the Cedar of Lebanon and would become an out-patient. Nothing remarkable in that. There was always pressure on bed-space in hospitals. Finally, there was a note that the crime scene investigation team had started work in dressing room eleven.

  He regarded one oval-shaped button on the keyboard as his friend. A tiny image of the moon put the computer into sleep mode. He pressed it and watched the screen go dark. Magic.

  With two separate searches now under way, he could keep the appointment with his old school friend. On this fine afternoon, he chose to walk to the Abbey Churchyard and treated himself to the carnival atmosphere as he zigzagged between crocodiles of French schoolkids waiting to tour the Roman Baths and cheering the buskers balancing on unicycles juggling flaming torches. He didn’t have time to watch, unfortunately. No matter, he thought. Later, he’d do some flame-throwing of his own when he caught up with Sergeant Dawkins.

  The short fat guy in a pork-pie hat was standing below the bottom rung of the famous ladder to heaven carved into the Abbey front, and not realising the symbolic stance he was making. The years had been kind to Mike Glazebrook; he could have passed for forty-five. Diamond shook his hand and suggested they had tea at one of the outdoor tables on the sunny side.

  ‘You’ve put on some weight since I saw you last,’ Glazebrook said. ‘Is it fattening, this police work?’

  ‘I was going to ask the same about structural engineering.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t get a safety certificate, but I hold up, just about.’

  The banter was a useful way to roll back forty years and revive the mateyness that passed for friendship at school. They chose a table and each ordered a cream tea as if to affirm that healthy eating wasn’t for them.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d remember me,’ Diamond said. ‘It wasn’t as if we were at secondary school together.’

  ‘Spotted you straight away. It’s the onset of senility,’ Glazebrook said, straight-faced. ‘The short-term memory goes, but we can recall trivial details from our childhood.’

  ‘Are you calling me trivial?’

  ‘Sorry. Make that significant.’

  Straight to business, Diamond decided. ‘My recollection is that we got to know each oth
er through that play we were in as the boy princes.’

  ‘Richard III.’

  ‘Except they didn’t call it that. Wasn’t it Wicked Richard, so as not to confuse it with the Shakespeare version?’

  ‘Shakespeare?’ Glazebrook rocked back and laughed. ‘Who did they think they were kidding? Even at that age I could tell it was crap. But you’re right about the title. Didn’t one of the actors write it?’

  ‘Very likely. Maybe the art teacher who recruited you and me. Now what was he called?’

  ‘Mr White – Flakey, to us kids.’

  Diamond raised his thumb. ‘Of course.’ This was promising. The man had a reliable memory.

  ‘I don’t remember him doing any writing,’ Glazebrook added.

  ‘He painted the scenery, I expect.’

  ‘He must have, and probably did the posters and the programme.’

  ‘He would have been useful to them with his art skills and his link to the school,’ Diamond said. ‘That’s how we got roped in. There was no audition. I can’t think why he picked you and me out of all the kids.’

  ‘Can’t you?’ Glazebrook said with a suggestive smile.

  ‘We must have looked the part. Princely.’

  Glazebrook laughed again. ‘No chance. We were two miserable little perishers. I used to have a photo of us in costume and we didn’t look overjoyed in our breeches and tights. My mother tore it up when she read about Flakey in the News of the World.’

  Diamond tensed, played the words over and felt a vein pulsing in his temple. ‘Read what?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear? He wasn’t called Flakey for nothing. He was sent down for five years for interfering with schoolchildren, as they called it then. Dirty old perv.’

  The pulsing spread through his arms and chest. ‘I heard nothing of this.’

  ‘Really? And you a cop? We’d long since left the school when he was found out. It must have been five or six years later. I was put through the inquisition by my parents, wanting to know if he’d got up to anything with me. He hadn’t, but I wouldn’t have told them if he had. You try and forget stuff like that.’

  ‘Right,’ Diamond said automatically, his thoughts in ferment.

  ‘He didn’t try it on with you, did he? You’d have told me at the time, wouldn’t you?’ He gave Diamond a speculative look. ‘I guess not, if I wouldn’t discuss it with my parents. But at this distance in time we can be open with each other.’