The play tonight was Othello, a repeat of the previous year’s successful production, though with a different cast. Patrick thought that he might try to pick up a ticket for it; he had seen it last year with Joss Ruxton as Othello and had enjoyed it; the director had steered away from some of the gimmicky tricks which had so enraged faithful Stratford theatregoers in recent years.
Denis arrived at the pub five minutes late. He burst in, almost knocking over a mild youth who was standing by the door drinking a coke.
‘Well, Patrick, how’s everything?’ he cried, and without waiting for an answer went on, ‘sorry I hadn’t time for you in the office. It’s all go, go, you know. Season proper starts soon and there’s lots to do.’
‘I’m sure there is,’ said Patrick. ‘What will you drink?’
‘It’s lucky you found me free today,’ said Denis, when they had got their beer. ‘Hi, there!’ he called to a group on the other side of the room, which was heavily timbered, rather dark, and loaded with atmosphere, some of it genuinely old. His acquaintances across the room waved back.
‘Are they theatre people?’ Patrick asked. ‘Your friends?’
They were. Denis named them for him. They were all connected with the administration; none were actors.
‘How long have you been here?’ Patrick asked.
‘Three years.’
‘You must know most people in Stratford by this time?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ said Denis modestly. ‘There are so many. But a lot, a lot.’
‘You like it here?’
‘Oh yes. It’s alive – exciting,’ said Denis.
Patrick could believe it. Although Denis was rather overpowering, his enthusiasm was endearing; Patrick often grew depressed by the negative approach of so many people to their lives and occupations.
‘I suppose you’re busy with rehearsals now?’ he asked.
‘Only the first plays,’ said Denis. ‘They get them together in the last eight weeks – the casting’s often not finished till then.’
‘So late?’
‘That’s right. The leading actors are agreed sooner, usually, but not the others. Actors live very much from day to day. They get offered things, and take them, and then aren’t available when they’re wanted later.’
‘You mean suddenly a film part turns up, or something?’
‘Yes. Or television – they’re gone for ten weeks if they land a series, and perhaps it may lead to another, whereas a season here may not. If someone from television says, “We want you on Wednesday,” they’d be mad not to take it.’
‘A bird in the hand, you mean.’
‘Yes.’
‘Must make the producer’s job difficult.’
‘Oh, it does. There’s a lot to be thought of, you know. You want someone for a big part who’ll accept a small one in another play, and so on.’
‘And I suppose they have to fit in together, as a team?’
‘Oh yes.’
Patrick had not realised quite how last-minute it all was. He had imagined that the director sat down a year ahead selecting his cast from the top to the bottom and signing them up then and there. Such eleventh-hour planning would not suit him as a way of life.
‘There’s a bit of a panic on now, I believe. Chap they’d got for Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet later in the year jumped in the Thames last week,’ said Denis blithely.
Patrick sat up. Here it was.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Mm. Sam Irwin. Not well known, but a good actor. He’s been here before. They wanted him last year, but for some reason he couldn’t come.’
‘I remember Sam Irwin,’ said Patrick. ‘Why did he jump in the river?’
‘I’ve no idea. Pressure of life, I suppose,’ said Denis.
While they ate thick slices of cold ham and baked potatoes, Patrick discovered that most of the actors lived in lodgings or flats round the district; some of the permanent staff had houses in Stratford; Denis himself had a flat in a new block in the town.
‘Have they found anyone to take Sam Irwin’s place?’ Patrick asked after a while.
‘Oh, bound to have,’ said Denis. ‘They’ll have rung round the’Had he been up to audition?’
‘He wouldn’t audition – not someone like him, who’s been around for ages. Things aren’t done like that here,’ said Denis kindly. ‘He’d have been chosen and would have accepted – probably all through his agent. He might have come up to arrange about digs or something like that. I don’t know. Why?’
‘Oh, I was just curious,’ said Patrick. ‘It seems odd that he should jump in the river when he’d got a season here planned. What else was he going to be?’
‘Oh, something or other in Julius Caesar – Cinna, was it?’
‘Cinna the poet? Or the other one?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Hm. Cinna the poet came to a sticky end too,’ said Patrick.
‘Irwin’s career does seem to have been rather a stop-go one. Maybe he didn’t feel he could cope with the challenge here,’ said Denis, with surprising insight. ‘He’d have had at least one more part – probably not a very big one – in Henry V.’
‘You mean he may have got stage fright?’
‘Could be.’
Some shock or other had made Sam’s heart stop before he could drown. Was it the sudden chill of total immersion, or the terror of being bound and stuffed in a sack? But why should anyone want to tie him up and stuff him in a sack? It all came back to that.
Patrick walked back with Denis to the theatre, with the aim of trying to get a ticket for the evening performance. Just as they arrived, he saw Sergeant Bruce, last seen in Sam’s Hammersmith digs, and an older man in plain clothes, leaving the stage door. They got into a large black car and drove away.
So the police had learned of Sam’s commitment here and come to enquire about it. And they had come from London, not merely asked for a report from the local force.
He wondered what they had been able to learn. What a pity the case was not a Yard one; then he could have asked Colin.
He decided to postpone Othello until another time.
2
It was not at all difficult to discover the name of Sam Irwin’s agent. Patrick simply went round to the stage door of the Fantasy Theatre and asked, after driving straight to London from Stratford-upon-Avon. By this time the cast were beginning to come in for the evening performance. The stage door-keeper telephoned somebody, and a man appeared whom Patrick recognised as the actor playing Malcolm. He supplied the answer straight away, said he was grieved about Sam, and announced that he meant to go to the funeral.
Patrick was glad to find some evidence that Sam had been regarded, if not with affection, at least with esteem, by his colleagues. It was too late to call on the agent now; that must wait. The evening lay blankly ahead, and he thought of Liz. He got into the car and drove to Bolton Gardens, where she lived.
Liz took some time to answer the bell, and he had almost given her up when at last he heard her disembodied voice over the entry-phone as he stood on the step outside the old house in which she had a flat. She sounded surprised when she heard who it was below, but bade him enter, and the door unlocked to admit him.
Her flat was on the third floor. It had only two rooms, apart from the bathroom and kitchen, but they were large. Patrick had not been there for some time; there was a comfortable feeling of familiarity, however, as he walked through the door which Liz had left slightly ajar and into the hall, where a vase of daffodils stood on a small table under an old, gilt-framed mirror. Liz appeared at once, wearing a towelling robe.
‘I was having a bath when you rang,’ she said.
Patrick kissed her. He always did when they met, but chastely. Now he suddenly kissed her a second time, and with more fervour.
She looked surprised, but pleased.
‘You look very seductive,’ he said.
‘Do I?’ She laughed, blushed s
lightly, and added, ‘Good.’
It was Patrick’s turn to look surprised.
‘Are you expecting anyone?’ he asked suspiciously.
I should say yes, thought Liz, but she answered truthfully.
‘No. I’ve got a manuscript to read. I was going to spend the evening with it.’ Liz was a publisher’s editor.
‘Come out to dinner instead,’ said Patrick, and rather spoiled it by adding, ‘to make up for the other evening.’
‘All right. Since you press me, I will,’ she agreed.
‘Oh, Liz, I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Patrick, aware suddenly of how graceless he sounded. ‘What a boor I am.’
It was unlike him to castigate himself.
‘Give yourself a drink while I get dressed,’ she said, suppressing an impulse to reassure him. ‘You know where everything is.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Patrick, putting a hand on her arm as she turned away. Her hair was damp round her small, pointed face, and her eyes were large and dark. There were shadows under them. She looked up at him, and there was an instant when either of them might have drawn back with a laugh or a light remark, but neither did. Patrick kissed her again, and less chastely this time.
After some moments they did move apart and gazed at one another in wonder. Then the habit of years reasserted itself; they both laughed, Patrick released her and the incident was over. Liz disappeared into her room, and Patrick went into her sitting-room considerably shaken.
Watch it, he told himself. Liz’ll throw you out if you get those sort of ideas about her; you’re a brother figure to her, no more. You can’t treat Liz like some other girl; she’s vulnerable, and you’ve known her too long. Besides, you don’t want any complications.
When she came back, wearing a long blue skirt and a striped shirt, looking somewhat Edwardian, she behaved as if nothing had happened, sitting in the one armchair and not beside him on the sofa. She seemed composed. While dressing, she had wondered, in some agitation, what mood to adopt, and had decided to play for safety.
The foolish pair sipped their drinks in detached amity.
‘Have you any more news about Sam?’ Liz asked.
Part VI
1
Patrick drove back to Oxford late that night feeling unsettled. Liz had seemed different. All through dinner he had found himself noticing how their minds dovetailed, how swiftly she picked up an allusion, something he had hitherto taken for granted. And she was nice to look at, sitting opposite him in the candlelight.
They talked about Sam, and Patrick described his visit to Stratford-upon-Avon.
‘But if it wasn’t suicide, what could have happened?’ Liz asked.
‘I don’t know. No one could have had a motive for murdering him.’
‘Professional rivalry? Someone else wanting to be Friar Lawrence?’
‘Hardly. He wasn’t successful enough for that. Besides, do you think actors really go round killing one another out of professional jealousy? I doubt it.’
‘Who’ll get his parts now?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘It must have been an accident. He fell in the river – I don’t know – after a few drinks. On his way to the theatre.’
‘But the rope marks on his wrists – how do you explain them?’
‘Some sex aberration?’ hazarded Liz.
‘Well—I hadn’t thought of that,’ Patrick admitted. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. But Sam, surely not?’
‘How can one tell about other people?’ Liz asked.
‘You thought he wasn’t interested, when we met him in Greutz,’ Patrick remembered.
‘He was nervous of women. Some men are,’ said Liz. She hesitated, then plunged on: nothing was altered: this was Patrick, with whom for half her life she had felt free to discuss any subject. ‘They’re afraid that more may be expected of them than they’re prepared – or perhaps able – to offer. An inverted form of conceit, when you think about it. He was a nice man, though. He relaxed, once he was sure no one was trying to trap him.’
‘He was very unsure of himself. I realise that now,’ said Patrick.
‘Yes. Covered it up by fleeing,’ said Liz. ‘One does, doesn’t one—’ She let the sentence fade away, looking suddenly embarrassed, and inspected the small posy of flowers arranged on their table.
Patrick regarded her curiously. He knew little about her day-to-day life now. In Austria, where they had met Sam, she had been attracted to one of the men in the group she was with; Patrick had thought her oddly naive at the time, and he knew she had not enjoyed the experience. Had she indulged in more rewarding amorous encounters since then? Looking at her, he could not believe that she had no emotional life, yet he knew very well that many people who would have chosen otherwise were obliged to accept such a condition.
He told her about Manolakis, the poodle, and the death of Tina Willoughby. It broke the tension between them.
‘But it’s sheer coincidence that this Tina woman was moving to Stratford when Sam was going there. There can’t be any connection. Or if there is, the police will find it,’ said Liz.
‘I suppose you’re right. But I do wonder why she killed herself,’ said Patrick.
‘Why did she want to move to Stratford?’
‘Because of her interest in the theatre, the neighbour thought. As Sam was going there so soon there could be a link.’
‘How can you find things out about her? Knowing you, I imagine you mean to try,’ said Liz.
‘Chat casually to someone who knew her – see what comes up in the course of general conversation.’ Patrick ignored Liz’s sardonic tone.
‘Mm. Couldn’t you suggest to the police that they should do it?’
‘Yes. But if this is a red herring, it’s a pity to go stirring things up,’ said Patrick.
‘I see your point. If something came up at the inquest on Tina to show she knew Sam, the police would automatically follow it up.’
‘Yes.’
‘But it wouldn’t be the same police force, would it? Dealing with both?’
‘No, but if something like that was disclosed about Tina, I think London would hear about it,’ said Patrick.
‘So you’ll wait and see what happens?’
‘I think so. More or less.’
As they drove back to her flat she commented on the car.
‘I like it. Much more dashing than the Rover,’ she said. ‘What made you choose this?’
He could not tell her that he feared the onset of middle age and sought to enliven his image.
‘It’s fun to drive,’ he said. ‘You’re close to the road – there’s immediate, precise control. Like riding a horse – which I’ve done quite a bit, though you may find it hard to believe.’
‘Is there anything you haven’t done, Patrick?’ she asked.
‘Skin-diving,’ he answered at once. ‘I’m scared of it.’
The thought of Patrick being scared was disarming.
‘I thought you had no nerves,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid of a lot of things,’ he told her. ‘Not all of them requiring physical courage.’
He went up with her to the flat, where she made coffee and put on a record. It was Mozart.
‘Nice,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘The manuscript – the one you were going to read tonight. What is it?’
‘Oh – a biography of Florence Nightingale,’ she said.
‘Any good?’
‘Yes, I think so. We’ll probably do it.’
‘Have you been to Claydon House?’
‘No.’
‘Neither have I. We should be ashamed of ourselves. It’s so close to Oxford.’
‘Yes.’
‘We could go, of course.’
‘Why not?’
The weekend stretched blankly ahead of Liz; she had made no special plans, and to spend time with Patrick, whether or not they visited Florence Nightingale’s former home, would be very pleasant
.
‘We might take Dimitris. He wants to see various sights and I mean to take him to some stately homes. I’ll ring you about it,’ said Patrick.
‘All right,’ said Liz, deflated, and decided that she would not, after all, encourage Patrick to stay very much longer this evening.
Driving through the starlit night, Patrick reflected on the evening. In a way, it had ended in a disappointing manner, with no repeat of their warm embrace. Whose fault was that? He tried to work it out. Liz had seemed less approachable, and his own reserve had returned. Perhaps, on the whole, it was just as well.
Patrick spent Saturday writing an article about Ben Jonson, and on Sunday he went to lunch with Jane, where he spent the afternoon clipping a hedge with his brother-in-law, and burning the trimmings. Andrew helped them both. Patrick left after tea, pleasantly tired and smelling of wood smoke.
‘Patrick’s broody,’ said Jane, when he had gone.
‘Oh?’ Michael was used to her speculations about her brother. She often fretted rather crossly about his mode of life.
‘Mm. His mind kept wandering. Didn’t you notice?’
‘Not really. We were just busy with the hedge,’ said Michael, who was blessed with an equable disposition and did not go looking for trouble.
‘We’re very good for him. He’s gone back to college now to dine in grandeur,’ said Jane. ‘If it wasn’t for us he’d know nothing about daily life and hedge-cutting. He’s got that suicide business on his mind, I suppose. I wish he’d leave it alone.’
‘He’s been useful, several times.’
‘I know. But he finds things out about himself while he’s uncovering crimes, and it’s not always happy for him,’ said Jane.
‘Darling, he’s a grown man – and he’s been a fellow of his college for a good many years now. Don’t worry so much about him.’
‘I’m not exactly worrying. I just think he compensates in some way for his own personal failures by sorting out other people’s,’ said Jane.
Cast For Death Page 5
