The Strangling on the Stage

by Simon Brett

  ‘Oh yes. What about it?’

  ‘I remember, first time I ever came in here you asked Elizaveta Dalrymple if it was hers. And when she said it wasn’t, you said you’d keep it behind the bar until someone claimed it.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he agreed.

  ‘Well, did anyone ever claim it?’

  ‘Yes. Only a few days later. I can’t remember whether it was the Tuesday or the Thursday, but she came in early for rehearsal and said it was hers.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Davina.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. I remember particularly because she was the only person in the pub, and she very specifically asked me not to tell Elizaveta that she’d claimed it.’

  ‘And so you didn’t tell her?’

  ‘No. Mind you, the wife might have done.’

  ‘Why did your wife know about it?’

  ‘Because I mentioned the engraving on the back of the pendant to her.’

  ‘Engraving? What did it say?’

  ‘“YOU’RE A STAR – WITH LOVE FROM FREDDIE”.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The members of the Devil’s Disciple company who trickled over to the Cricketers round half past six looked very subdued. They were not used to Davina Vere Smith bawling them out and the rarity of such behaviour had had a powerful effect. As they bought their drinks and formed into little groups, the laughter was nervous rather than convivial. Facing the reality of The Devil’s Disciple’s unpreparedness had wiped smiles off quite a few faces.

  Davina herself stalked in last of all and there was a silence, not of unfriendliness but rather of trepidation. None of the cast dared to speak to her, afraid that they might again get their heads bitten off. She ordered ‘a large G and T’ from Len and stalked across the bar to sit at a table, studiedly alone. The actors shuffled around, talking in low voices, as though there was an unexploded bomb in the room.

  This in fact suited Carole and Jude rather well. Since neither of them was involved in the play’s final scene, they alone had not felt the wrath of Davina Vere Smith. They felt rather like the class goody-goodies as they picked up their glasses and went across to join the director at her solitary table.

  ‘How was the second run of the last scene?’ asked Jude tentatively.

  ‘Terrible,’ Davina replied. ‘I didn’t think anything could be worse than the first run at it, but that lot proved it was possible.’ She didn’t seem upset. The outburst seemed to have given her increased confidence. There was even a slight twinkle in her eye.

  Catching this, Jude said, ‘Did you stage it?’

  ‘My tantrum? Yes, of course I did.’ The twinkle had now become a grin, which Davina was having hard work suppressing. She didn’t want her secret to be known to the rest of the company.

  ‘It’s a very effective tactic,’ she went on. ‘I know enough about acting to control when I do it. And because I’m normally sweet and chummy to everyone, the effect is devastating.’

  ‘So you don’t do it often?’ said Carole.

  ‘Ooh no. It wouldn’t work if I did it often. I ration myself to one tantrum per production – sometimes not even one. The longer I go without throwing my toys out of the pram, the more effective it is when I do. And everyone in The Devil’s Disciple really did need a kick up the arse. They’re all getting very lazy and lackadaisical.’

  ‘I suppose that’s the effect of the long rehearsal period,’ suggested Jude.

  Davina nodded. ‘Yes, it can seem to drift on forever. Then suddenly you’re within days of the Dress Rehearsal and it all gets very scary.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Carole, wanting to move the conversation into investigative mode. ‘Do you think the production would have been in as bad a state if you still had Ritchie Good playing Dick Dudgeon?’

  The director shrugged. ‘We might not have to stop as often as we do when Olly cocks up another line, but I don’t think it’d make a great difference. There’s a kind of rhythm to a production, you know. About a month before the show actually opens, rehearsals always tend to get a bit ragged and chaotic. But the thing with Olly and his words, that is quite serious. I was wondering, Carole, if you wouldn’t mind doing a bit of “one-on-one” with him.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Carole stiffly. ‘I don’t know what you mean by “one-on-one”.’

  ‘Just line-bashing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A sort of extension of your job as prompter. If you could spend an evening with Olly, one night when we’re not rehearsing, just going through the text line by line. That might make some of them stick to the Teflon interior of his brain.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I’d be prepared to have a go, I suppose … if you think it might help.’

  ‘I can guarantee it would help. I’ll tell him to have a word with you. See if you can sort something out.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Jude, also keen to move on to what they really wanted to talk about, said, ‘By the way, Carole and I were honoured yesterday.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘We got invited to one of Elizaveta’s “drinkies things”.’

  ‘Did you? Maybe she’s trying to keep up the numbers.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You may have been invited to replace me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, I used to be a regular at those, certainly always went when Freddie was alive. But recently I’ve become persona non grata, so far as Elizaveta’s concerned.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why?’ asked Jude.

  Davina grinned enigmatically. ‘I have a few thoughts on the subject.’

  Carole went for the bald and bold approach, asking, ‘Do any of them have anything to do with the star pendant that Freddie Dalrymple gave you?’

  There was a silence. Davina looked calculatingly from one woman to the other. ‘What do you know about that?’

  ‘You were wearing it when I met you in the Crown and Anchor.’

  ‘Ah yes. So I was. Normally, if I’m doing anything to do with SADOS, I keep it covered.’

  Jude chipped in, ‘Len here told us what was engraved on the back of it.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘Just like, presumably, what is engraved on the back of the one he gave to Elizaveta?’

  ‘Yes. And to who knows how many other of Freddie’s “little friends”.’ Davina looked rueful, but she made no attempt to deny anything. ‘Freddie Dalrymple was basically rather a dirty old man.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘He had a flat in Worthing, on the seafront. That was where he used to go, as he used to tell Elizaveta, to “plan his productions”.’

  ‘So she never went there?’

  ‘No. Which was probably just as well.’

  ‘But you did go there?’

  Davina nodded. ‘I, and, as I say, who knows how many others.’

  ‘Elizaveta told us that, as a director, Freddie took you “under his wing”.’

  ‘Yes. Not just his wing. Also his duvet.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I did love him.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘My father died when I was in my early teens. I think the older man always …’

  Just like Hester Winstone, thought Jude, a pattern of going for the older man.

  ‘Presumably,’ said Carole, ‘Elizaveta had no idea anything was going on?’

  ‘No, I really think she didn’t. She was wedded, not only to Freddie, but to the image of the perfect marriage that she and Freddie shared. I think it suited her not to know what Freddie got up to in Worthing.’

  ‘But when she saw your pendant …’ said Jude.

  ‘Yes. I realized I’d lost it, but I didn’t know where. The clasp’s loose – or it was, I’ve had it repaired. It must have slipped off in here during the post-pantomime cast party. And then when Len showed it to Elizaveta after the Devil’s Disciple read-through …’

  ‘I remember. You said you didn’t wear that kind of jewellery.’

&nbs
p; ‘Well, I couldn’t claim it right then and there, could I? In front of Elizaveta?’

  ‘But you came back a few days later to get it?’ Davina nodded. ‘And Len told Elizaveta who’d claimed it.’

  ‘I think, Jude, to be fair to Len, it was his wife who told her.’

  ‘And was that why she stormed out of the production?’

  ‘Yes. The flare-up with Ritchie was something she staged. She provoked him into being so rude to her. It gave her an excuse to stomp out. But the real reason was that she couldn’t stand being around me once she knew that Freddie and I had … it must have hit her quite hard.’

  ‘Do you think,’ asked Carole, ‘that she hoped her departure – and the departure of all her supporters – would totally screw up your production of The Devil’s Disciple?’

  ‘That may have been at the back of her mind. She doesn’t think that anything can happen in SADOS if she’s not involved. And whereas that might have been true while Freddie was still around, I don’t think it is any longer. Thanks to you, Jude, for stepping in to play Mrs Dudgeon.’

  ‘But of course,’ said Carole stepping deeper into investigative mode, ‘Elizaveta’s departure wasn’t the only disaster that struck your production, was it?’

  ‘What? Oh, you mean what happened to Ritchie?’

  ‘Yes. That was a big setback.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Jude, ‘did Ritchie ever come on to you?’

  ‘Oh, when we first met, yes, of course. He had a kind of knee-jerk reaction to chat up any woman he met. He didn’t get far with me, though. Freddie was still alive, and I was far too caught up with him for anyone else to get a look-in.’

  ‘And what about Ritchie’s death?’ asked Carole.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Did you think it was an accident?’

  ‘Well, of course it was. And entirely typical of Ritchie, the way it happened. Like most actors, he was a total show-off. He’d done his show for everyone at the end of rehearsal, but Hester Winstone hadn’t been there, so he had to do a command performance for her. I mean, of course I don’t want anyone to die, but it did serve Ritchie bloody right, didn’t it?’

  Carole saw a potential anomaly in Davina’s explanation. ‘How did you know he’d done a command performance for Hester Winstone?’

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘Oh? When?’

  ‘A couple of days later. She rang to say that she couldn’t continue as prompter, and she told me exactly what had happened.’

  ‘Before she had her breakdown?’ asked Jude.

  ‘I didn’t know she’d had a breakdown. Though she certainly sounded in a pretty bad way when she rang me.’

  ‘But what about the noose?’ Carole insisted. ‘Someone had switched the noose between the first and second times Ritchie had done the routine.’

  ‘Oh, I assumed Gordon had done that.’

  ‘Why?’

  Davina shrugged. ‘Just so’s his precious gallows would look good. Or because he was making some adjustment to them, I don’t know.’

  ‘I detect you aren’t part of the group within the company who believes Ritchie was murdered?’

  ‘Good God, no, Carole. I know there are lots of feuds and back-stabbings in amdrams, but I don’t think anyone takes it that far.’ Davina let out a healthy chuckle and both Carole and Jude were struck by how normal she seemed. In fact, amidst all the posturing of the SADOS crowd, she was a veritable rock of sanity.

  But there was still something that, to Jude’s mind, required an explanation. ‘Davina, you remember the evening Ritchie Good died …?’

  ‘Hardly going to forget it in a hurry, am I?’

  ‘No, nor me. I was just thinking, though … I was the first person to find his body – that is, the first person after Hester Winstone, who’d actually witnessed his death. I went back because I’d left my bag in the hall. And then you came in.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And moments before I’d seen you in the Cricketers working your way through a large gin and tonic.’

  ‘Sounds like me, yes.’

  ‘So I was just wondering why you had come back into the hall?’

  ‘Oh, I suddenly remembered a note I’d meant to give one of the actors. Normally I write my notes down, but I hadn’t and didn’t want to forget it. I looked round, but couldn’t see him in the pub, so I thought maybe he might still be in the hall.’

  ‘Who’re we talking about, Davina?’

  ‘Olly Pinto.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Maybe he’d just gone home early,’ suggested Carole in the Renault on the way back to Fethering. ‘Decided to forego the session at the Cricketers.’

  ‘It would have been out of character for him if he did. Anyway, I saw him afterwards while everyone was waiting around for the police to arrive.’

  ‘So you’re thinking that Olly switched the nooses?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, Carole. He very definitely stood to gain from Ritchie’s absence.’

  ‘Getting the part of Dick Dudgeon?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘For which he still doesn’t know the lines.’

  ‘No, that’s true.’ An idea came to Jude. ‘I think you should set up your “line-bashing” session with Olly as soon as possible.’

  Davina Vere Smith’s eruption at the Sunday rehearsal had had the desired effect of putting a rocket up at least one of the Devil’s Disciple cast. When Carole rang Olly Pinto later that evening and suggested he might benefit from a run-through of his lines, he was almost pathetically eager to set up the encounter as soon as possible.

  It was agreed that he would come round to High Tor the following day after work (he was employed in one of Fethering’s many estate agencies). Carole said she thought it’d help to have Jude there too, so that she could read the other parts. The real reason for this proposal was that, given the way her suspicions were currently veering, Carole didn’t want to be alone with Olly Pinto.

  She had only just put the phone down after her conversation with Olly when it rang. Her son Stephen. Gaby was laid low with another stomach bug. Could Granny possibly drop everything and come to look after Lily in Fulham for a couple of days?

  Carole apologized that she couldn’t. She might be able to come up for a couple of hours during the day on the Monday, but time would be tight as she had to be back for a ‘line-bashing’ session in the early evening. And then of course she had a regular rehearsal on the Tuesday.

  Stephen said not to worry, he’d sort out one of Gaby’s friends to drop in. But he did sound a bit bewildered by his mother’s reaction. Normally, if it was something to do with Lily, Carole in Granny mode would be in the Renault and on her way the minute the phone call had ended.

  Carole herself was a bit surprised at her reaction. She didn’t love Lily any the less, but she couldn’t let SADOS down. It was a measure of how much she had come to embrace amateur dramatics.

  Olly Pinto arrived at High Tor about quarter past six on the Monday, not wearing his customary rehearsal garb of jeans and a fleece, but in his work livery of pinstriped suit and something that looked like a club tie but probably wasn’t.

  Olly accepted Carole’s offer of coffee and replied to her polite enquiry as to the state of the housing market, ‘Maybe picking up a bit. We usually see an upsurge in enquiries round Easter time. This year’s better than last year at the same stage, though we’re still way off where we used to be before the financial crash.’

  Jude was once again struck by the contrast in the lives of these people, plodding through monochrome jobs by day and transforming into the variegated butterflies of amateur dramatics in the evenings.

  The sitting room at the front of High Tor was not actually cold, but the austerity of its furniture always made it feel chilly. The pictures had all been inherited from distant Seddon aunts and put up on the walls out of duty rather than enthusiasm. The only positive colour came from a bright photograph of Carole’s beloved granddaughter Lily on the
mantelpiece.

  Still, the sober appearance of the room seemed to fit the seriousness of the evening’s task in hand. Olly Pinto had brought his copy of The Devil’s Disciple with him, but Carole very soon confiscated that. ‘No cribbing,’ she said in the voice that had silenced many committees at the Home Office. ‘Jude’ll give you the cues and I’ll prompt you when you get things wrong.’ Carole’s lack of confidence in the actor’s memory was emphasized by her use of the word ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.

  ‘Shall we start at the beginning?’ asked Olly hopefully because, allowing for a bit of paraphrase, he knew Act One pretty well.

  ‘No,’ Carole replied implacably. ‘It was Act Three you were worst on. We’ll start there, then go back to the beginning.’

  He didn’t argue. As Jude patiently fed him the lines, it occurred to her that, beyond the fact of his working for an estate agent, she knew virtually nothing about Olly Pinto’s private life. And maybe for some participants that was the appeal of amateur dramatics, the opportunity to be someone other than your mundane self. Rather like the appeal of acting itself.

  The ‘line-bashing’ was a hard and tedious process, but it did work. The one-to-one concentration – and perhaps the embarrassment of showing himself up in front of the two women – actually improved Olly’s grasp of George Bernard Shaw’s words. In rehearsal when he cocked up a line he could sometimes get a laugh about his incompetence from his fellow actors; no such levity was allowed in the sitting room of High Tor. The world did actually lose a good dominatrix when Carole Seddon decided to forge a career in the Home Office.

  It took them an hour to get through Act Three to the end, and then Carole offered more coffee. ‘I’d offer you a proper drink, Olly, but alcohol might affect your concentration. We’ll have a proper drink when we’ve done the whole play.’

  When Carole opened the door on her way to the kitchen, her Labrador Gulliver nosed his way in to inspect the visitor. After he’d been hustled out by his mistress, Jude asked Olly whether he had a dog.