A Theatrical Murder

by David W Robinson

  And then he saw it. It was so obvious, it made him laugh out loud, and when he looked closer at the name, everything slotted into place.

  “Clever. Very clever.” He reached for the phone. “Nichols? I’ve got your killer.”

  ***

  Nichols came in first, and Joe briefly explained his reasoning, before the inspector dispatched Hinch back out to the auditorium to bring the suspect in.

  “You’re sure of your facts, Murray?” Nichols demanded when they were alone.

  Joe nodded. “Proving it is gonna be your problem, and I don’t imagine it’ll be easy.”

  When Hinch returned with an angry Michelle Arran at her side, they waited for the inevitable tirade to expire.

  “What is going on here? You told us we can pack the props into other bags and get out of here. You said you don’t suspect any of us of handling the drugs or the money.”

  “And my guess is Inspector Nichols is right. As Irma indicated in her note, that was all Sedgwick and Dempster.” Joe paused a moment. “Tell me something, Michelle. Did you train as an actress?”

  Wrong-footed by the question, Michelle appeared slightly taken aback. “I, er, well, I did a little training, yes. But I wasn’t very good, and I’ve never had a speaking part in any of the productions I’ve appeared in, so it’s not like I could apply for a union card or anything.”

  “You were not good enough?” Joe asked.

  “Well, as I said, I, er… Look, what is this?”

  “I’m simply trying to ascertain whether you were as good as your sister?”

  The colour drained from her cheeks. “My sister?” The voice was faint and distant.

  “Michelle Arran. It’s an anagram of Rachel Lierman.” Joe laughed. “I’ll bet you’re good at anagrams, aren’t you? Why did you change your name, Michelle? Was it to keep your identity secret from Edgar, Irma, Sedgwick and Dempster? Or were you ashamed of Fay?”

  Michelle met the question with bluster. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s quite simple. Irma and Edgar may have hated the way Sedgwick and Dempster turned out, they may have been disappointed in them, but there’s no way they would have killed them. Edgar wasn’t even capable of it, and Irma’s account doesn’t make a lot of sense when you look at the nitty gritty. But there’s something else. Something you said in your statement to the police. You saw the change in Nat Billingham’s face. How?”

  “I was in the wings,” she replied.

  “So you were. Reading your statement you were stage right. Now the police and I took that to mean right as we looked at the stage, and you, being the clever girl that you are, you were happy for us to think that, weren’t you? Because you are so much smarter than everyone else, aren’t you? But, when Nat pointed out to me we had the stage areas the wrong way round, it then occurred to me that you couldn’t have seen his face from the wings, unless you were on the other side of the stage, the side from which Sedgwick was shot. And, of course you were on that side, because you told us so in your statement. The shot came from stage right, not stage left as we’d always assumed.”

  Michelle maintained a calm aplomb. “I… all right, so I made a mistake. I didn’t see his face. It was all very confusing. People were not sure what happened. Perhaps I imagined I saw his face.”

  Joe shook his head. “You know, the police are not going to let this drop. The dart which killed Sedgwick is gone. You probably picked that up during the confusion on stage. Edgar and Irma drank the curare and I doubt that anyone would get anything from the bottle other than Irma’s fingerprints. But the dart which killed Dempster was still in his neck when he was found, and the forensic bods will tear it apart seven ways from Sunday. If there is the slightest, microscopic trace of you on it, they’ll have you. If they find even one molecule of you in Irma and Edgar’s room, they’ll continue to hound you.” He paused to let the ideas sink in. “What was it? Revenge for Fay?”

  For a long moment Joe believed she was going to brazen it out further, but finally her shoulders fell and she sighed. “You know they all worked together on a production of Oliver Twist about six years ago?”

  Joe nodded.

  “Well, I was a wardrobe assistant on that production. It was the first time the four had been together since seventy-six. They didn’t know me but I knew them, and I knew what they’d done to Fay.”

  “They didn’t even recognise your name?” Hinch demanded.

  Michelle shook her head. “The Lierman name was mud all over the northeast after Fay managed to kill herself and nearly kill her four friends in that accident. Irma and Edgar made sure of that. So I rearranged the letters of my name and changed it by deed poll. At least that way, I could get work in the theatre.”

  “And while you were working on Oliver Twist you overheard them talking about it?” Joe suggested.

  Michelle’s features darkened. “Not just talking about it, but laughing about it. Oh, they didn’t think it was funny how Fay had died, but they thought it was absolutely hilarious how they’d all got off scot free after they blamed her. Just like I told the coroner at the inquest.” Her voice had lowered to a hiss. After pausing for a moment to control her emotions, she went on, “You know how in books and movies they say your blood can run cold with anger? Well mine did that afternoon. I wanted to go out there and rip them to pieces, but I didn’t. Instead, I got in touch with the police and told them what I’d overheard.”

  “And the cops did nothing?” Joe asked.

  Michelle nodded. “They wouldn’t take me seriously. No way were they going to reopen the investigation into a thirty-five-year-old fatality on such thin evidence. It would be my word against those four, and there was very little chance of a conviction. The police told me I had to live with it. But I didn’t want to live with.”

  “So you decided to kill them,” Joe said. “But why wait five years?”

  “Because it’s the first opportunity I’ve had to get them all together.” She sniffed. “Even then, I had to arrange it.”

  Even Joe was puzzled by this reference. “What?”

  As she explained the procedure, Michelle’s voice took on a new enthusiasm. “I knew all along what they’d done. When I heard them talking about it on the set of Oliver Twist, and particularly when the police refused to take action, I decided that it was up to me to make sure they paid for what they’d done. In my book, the three men were all equally guilty. Edgar introduced them to drugs, but Sedgwick and Dempster were the ones fannying around in the car. Irma bore the bigger responsibility. She was the one who decided they should blame it on Fay. She had just lost someone she claimed was her best friend, yet she decided to sully my sister’s name and our family name with those lies. Irma, I decided, was going to die last, and of the four, she was the only one who would know she was going to die. Sedgwick would know nothing, neither would Edgar, and Dempster would be more concerned with the police than with the circumstances surrounding Sedgwick’s death, but Irma would know everything before I killed her, including the fact that I was going to kill her.” Michelle smiled. “It was wonderful to watch her terror.” She sighed as if she was sad that it was all over. “Obviously I could have hit all of them separately at any time over the last five years, but aside from the risk of being caught, bumping them off piecemeal like that would have put the others on their guard. They – and I – were the only ones who could make the connection to Fay. And as I killed each one, I spoke to my sister. I said, ‘Fay, this is for you. You can truly rest in peace, now’.”

  Very poetic,” Nichols sneered. “But you’re getting ahead of yourself. You said this was the first time you’d been able to get them all together.”

  “Hmm, yes. It wasn’t as difficult as you might think. Most of Irma’s suicide note tells it like it is, but for Irma, read me.” Michelle smiled craftily. “And obviously the key was the Oliver Twist project. The truth about Fay’s death was not the only thing I learned when we were filming it.”

  Jo
e’s mind leapt ahead of her. “Sedgwick and Dempster’s drug smuggling?”

  She nodded. “A pair of crafty idiots, those two. They’ve had the cops running round in circles for years. They were sly enough to dodge the law both here and in Spain, but they were still a pair of idiots. After Oliver Twist, I wangled my way into Sedgwick’s set up. Not difficult. I put his last props mistress out of the way. A simple hit and run.”

  Nichols was aghast. “What?”

  Michelle nodded matter-of-factly. “Somewhere in North Newcastle. Can’t remember her name. Lucy someone or other. Greaves, I think it might have been. I needed her job, so I watched her, patternised her life, and then waited for her coming out of her favourite pub. The Chicken Coop, it’s called. A dark Saturday night, she was a bit tiddly, I drove at her and… bump.” Michelle spread her hands in a chilling gesture. “Naturally, I got rid of the car a few days later, but no one every tracked it down, and obviously I didn’t mean to kill her, only hurt her, but…” Now she shrugged. “Anyway, it left a vacancy open and I actually canvassed Sedgwick for the job. Rang him up and said, ‘Malcolm, I hate to seem like a grave robber, but I hear your wardrobe mistress died. I wondered if you might consider me as a replacement’.”

  Michelle laughed again and Joe shuddered. “So you got to working for Sedgwick. Go on.”

  She brought her laughter under control. “Well, I could have taken him any time I wanted, but I waited, bided my time and instead, just like Lucy, I patternised his movements and Dempster’s. A part of my job was to act as booking agent. I booked the theatres for Sedgwick. He would give me a list of towns two years in advance, and I rang the theatres to secure them for the performances. It was obvious that he would be meeting his drug dealers in these towns, but that didn’t interest me. After three years, he told me he was going to put on Hamlet, and I thought that by the time we got around to it, I would be ready. Hamlet is about revenge, and it would be time for me to take my revenge.”

  Michelle paused a moment, her eyes glazed, recalling the events.

  “When he was casting, I suggested the Andertons and Dempster. He was happy enough with Edgar and Irma, but he wouldn’t have Dempster. He maintained this pretence that they hated each other. But he did recall Nat Billingham working on Oliver Twist. Luckily for me, Sedgwick was dithering about the route the tour should take. I knew Dempster would be appearing in Mablethorpe, so I suggested the east coast. Start in our home town of Newcastle and work our way down; Middlesbrough, Hull, Grimsby, Skegness, Kings Lynn, Lowestoft.” She laughed. “He fell right into it. I even suggested Skegness instead of Sleaford and he was all for it. When we got to Skegness, I would have all four in the killing bottle, and I was going to enjoy it.”

  Joe felt his anger rising. He was not alone. As Michelle paused, Nichols ranted at her.

  “You knew Sedgwick and Dempster were drug dealing, and you let it go until you could arrange your revenge. How many lives have they ruined in that five years? How many young people have they wrecked with the drugs?”

  Michelle’s answer brimmed with bitterness. “I don’t know, and to be frank, I don’t care. They ended my sister’s life, they ruined her reputation, and they ruined the good name of my family in the theatre. Well, now I’ve ended their lives, and I’m glad I did. My sister can rest in peace now.”

  “It was easy, too, wasn’t it?” Joe demanded.

  “Sedgwick was,” Michelle agreed. “All that movement backstage, no one quite sure where anyone else was when he went down. It was easy to sneak round the back, lean round the wings and shoot him in the leg, then get back to the other side. And if you’re wondering what happened to the dart, when the curtain came down, I was one of those who rushed onstage to help. And while we were messing him about, trying to get him to breathe, I took the dart and put it in my pocket. I flushed it down the lavatory while we were waiting for the police to arrive.” Michelle smiled arrogantly. “All too easy. And when it came to Dempster, you, the little smartarse, you actually made it easier.”

  “Me?” Joe bristled.

  “Irma’s suicide note tells it like it is. Someone rang Dempster arranging to meet him on the beach. It wasn’t Irma, obviously. It was me. He was panicking after you went to see him. That panic made him trust me.” She sighed. “So, so easy. He said, ‘give it to me’ and I did. Right in the neck.” She held up her hand, two fingers forward like a gun, and clicked her cheek.

  “And the other two?” Hinch asked. “Edgar and Irma? Don’t tell me they were that easy.”

  “Not difficult. I knocked on their room about half past six this morning. Edgar was out of it. Morphine, Irma said. He was having one of his turns. She was actually glad to see me, the daft old bat. Glad of the company. She let me in, we had a cup of tea, and then I told her who I was and what I was about to do. Naturally, she didn’t believe a word. She thought she could brazen it out with me. Insisted that she had told the truth at the inquest all those years ago. Then I told her what I’d overheard during our time on Oliver Twist. You should have seen her face. Angry one minute, panic-stricken the next. And she practically wet herself when I put the poison to Edgar’s lips and pinched his nose. His mouth fell open, and he woke up. He didn’t really know where he was or what was going on, but naturally, the first thing he did was swallow. Goodbye Edgar.” Michelle chuckled. “I then made Irma dress so we could go for a walk on the seafront. By now, she was terrified and it got even worse. Her face when I gave her the rest of the curare is a picture I will never forget. A study in terror. She begged me not to force her. She promised to go to the police and tell them everything, own up to what really happened nearly forty years ago. But I wasn’t listening, was I? It wouldn’t bring back my sister, it wouldn’t clear my family’s name. Irma had a simple choice. She would either drink the stuff or I would shoot her with a dart coated in it.” Now she laughed out loud. “She drank it. Hands shaking like a jelly in a hurricane. And while I watched her, I could see my sister’s face smiling down on me. The books were balanced.”

  Joe ignored most of the arrogance. “You say you made her go with you? Why?”

  “She wanted to stay with her beloved Edgar.” Michelle invested the two words with the maximum of contempt. “She wanted to be with him until the end, but she never stayed with Fay to the end. None of them did. So I insisted she couldn’t stay with him.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you that he was already dead? That he was so weak the curare would have killed him almost instantly.” Joe did not wait for an answer. “And how did you get Irma to move? She knew you were going to kill her anyway, so how did you persuade her?”

  “I told Irma she could either come with me or I’d forget about using the curare and I’d drown her instead. Run a freezing cold bath, throw her in and hold her head under the water. Just like Fay had suffered. She chose the curare instead. Like all cowards, she gave in and came with me. Anything to cling onto life for a few minutes more. Anything to take the easy way out.”

  Joe shook his head. “That wasn’t cowardice. In fact, I reckon it was pretty courageous of her.”

  Anger clouded Michelle’s face. “What?”

  “Well, there was always the chance you might meet a police officer on the beat, but even if you didn’t, Irma knew what she was doing. Y’see, you’d taken away the only thing of any value in her life. Edgar. She wouldn’t have wanted to go on without him, so even if you hadn’t been there, she would probably have ended her own life. And although she would have preferred to be with him when she died, by going with you she actually signalled to us that there was something not right about her death, and that, Michelle, is what led us to you.”

  Michelle bristled. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Suit yourself, but that’s how it happened. You got too smart, and old Irma made sure you’ll pay for it.” Joe leaned forward to ram home his point. “What they did to your sister’s name all those years ago was pretty cowardly, but I reckon most people would have done the same. What they didn
’t do was kill her. It was an accident, misadventure, call it what you like. It was brought on by drug use and your sister was as drugged up as the rest of them. If she’d been clean, she would probably have survived.” He sat back again. “And you can say what you like, Michelle, but no one forced Fay to take those drugs.”

  An ugly silence hung in the air for a brief time. It was Nichols who broke it.

  “Where is the air pistol?”

  “I threw it in the sea. That’s the thing about places like Skeggy. They’re so quiet at this time of year. You know?”

  “Which brings us to Tony Chelton,” Joe said. “What did you do with him?”

  Nichols’ eyebrows shot up. “What? Who?”

  “I told you about him,” Joe insisted. “The night of the play, Chelton was in the bar, fuming. I couldn’t work out why. He tried to get a word with Sedgwick, but Sedgy gave him short shrift. Pity. It might have saved his life if he’d listened. Mightn’t it, Michelle?”

  She shrugged. “Moot point. I might still have got away with it.” She addressed the police. “Tony and I had a bit of a thing. I made the mistake of telling him what I was going to do. He hated Sedgwick, and Dempster and I thought he’d be on my side, but he wasn’t. He was in Stockton when Dempster visited the theatre, and he came to see me. I persuaded him I’d changed my mind and anyway, Dempster would be nowhere near us for the rest of the tour. Tony was happy with that. Then Mablethorpe and Skegness dawned on him. He turned up here and tried to stop me. I told him, the only way he could do that was to turn me in. He wouldn’t, but he did try to warn Sedgwick.” She laughed. “Trouble is, I got there first, and warned Malcolm that Tony Chelton was out for his blood over some bad cocaine. That’s why Sedgwick gave Chelton short shrift as you put it.”

  “So what happened to Chelton?” Joe demanded.

  “He died.” She sighed. “Cocaine overdose, I think. At least it should be an overdose the amount I gave him when he turned up at my digs late on Friday night.”