The Campbell Curse

by Olivier Bosman

  “Off you go, sir,” the policeman said. “Nothing for you to see here.”

  “What happened?” Billings ignored the constable and stood on his toes to try and get a better look.

  “I’ve asked you nicely once, sir, I’m not going to ask you nicely again. Off you hop, now.”

  Billings reached for the inside pocket of his jacket and took out his badge. “I’m a policeman,” he said, showing the officer his badge. He was still standing on tiptoes, trying to catch a glimpse of what was lying on the ground, but the other two policemen were still blocking his sight.

  “London Metropolitan Police, eh?” the officer said, examining his badge. “What are you doing this far up north?”

  “Security for Miss Carola LeFevre, who is currently appearing at the Royal Lyceum. What happened?”

  “It’s a little girl.”

  Finally, the other two policemen turned around to face him and, in so doing, revealed what they had been inspecting. It was Kitty, wearing her white nightgown, lying face down on the ground. Her face was deathly pale. Her eyes were open but lifeless.

  “She’s dead,” the policeman said. “Looks like she’s been murdered.”

  5. The Aftermath

  Billings had always wondered why he had been so successful in his career. He had never considered himself to be ambitious, nor was he particularly hard-working, and he certainly wasn’t well liked by his superiors. But he was practical. When push came to shove, he was always able to detach himself from his emotions and get the job done. And so it was now. After learning of Kitty’s death, it only took Billings a few beats to banish his feelings of shock, horror and guilt to the back of his mind and bring to the fore all that he had learned about documenting the crime scene from his Bertillon book.

  “Don’t move the body!” he called when he saw one of the policemen crouch down and lift Kitty’s arm off the ground. “Leave everything just as it is. We need to record the precise position of the body and everything around it. It’ll help us in our investigation.”

  “Who are you?” the policeman asked, dropping Kitty’s arm.

  Billings took his badge back out of his coat pocket. “Detective Sergeant Billings from Scotland Yard.”

  “You have no jurisdiction here.”

  “Are you a C.I.D. officer?”

  “No, I’m just a beat constable.”

  “Has anyone from the C.I.D. been summoned?”

  The three policemen looked at each other and did not answer.

  “Well, this is a crime scene, Constable, and you are now jeopardising the investigation. Go fetch somebody from the C.I.D. at once, and don’t touch anything until they are here.”

  “Yes, sir,” the policeman said, and started running out of the close.

  “And bring a photographer with you!” Billings called after him.

  The policeman stopped. “A photographer?”

  “We need to photograph the crime scene. Now, go!”

  The policeman ran off, leaving Billings and the other two constables alone in the close. He came back a short while later accompanied by a short, rotund gentleman with a thick red moustache, a bald head and an angry frown on his face. Tagging along behind them was a thin young man carrying heavy photographing equipment on his back.

  The short gentleman marched towards Billings. “Who the feck are you and why are you barking orders at my men!”

  “I’m Detective Sergeant John Billings from Scotland Yard.” He held his badge out to show the gentleman.

  The man slapped Billings’ hand away. “I know who the feck you are, you bloody Sassenach! You have no jurisdiction here. Now, what’s all this business about a photographer? Malcolm says you insisted we bring one with us. We dragged this poor lad out of the photography studio across the road from the station.”

  They looked at the photographer, who had taken the heavy equipment off his back and was looking around him, confused, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “The actual photographer was too busy taking pictures of some old bint’s poodle, so we got the assistant instead.”

  “We need to photograph the crime scene,” Billings explained.

  “Photograph the crime scene!” the inspector replied. “Who in their right fecking mind is gonna wanna look at pictures of a crime scene!”

  “It will help us in the investigation.”

  “Us? Who’s us?”

  “You,” Billings corrected himself. “It’ll help you in the investigation. The French police have been using this new method for the last few years. I read about it in a book about…”

  “The French! Jesus fecking Christ! Since when have the French been able to do anything?”

  “It makes sense, Inspector… um…”

  “Thwaite is the name. Marmaduke Thwaite.”

  “The way the body fell, scratches on the clothing or on the skin, footsteps on the ground, smudges on the wall. All these things can give you clues as to the assailant’s identity. And having photographs of the crime scene will make it so much easier to…”

  “So what do we have here anyway?” Thwaite had stopped listening to Billings and walked towards the body.

  “It’s a wee lass,” one of the policemen said. “Found her lying dead in this close when I was doing my beat. I think she may have fallen out of that window.” The policeman pointed at a small window overlooking the close, a few stories above them.

  “The girl is called Catherine LeFevre,” Billings said, joining the Scotsmen by the body. “Kitty for short. And she did not fall.”

  They all turned to look at him. “You know her?” Thwaite asked.

  Billings nodded. “She’s Carola LeFevre’s daughter. The famous American actress. She’s been touring Europe with her production of Macbeth. She’s on stage right now at the Royal Lyceum. I came with them from London. I’m her bodyguard. The girl disappeared from the theatre maybe half an hour ago. I came here looking for her.”

  “How do you know she didn’t fall?”

  “Well, she can’t have been up by that window, because she came from the theatre, as I said. And besides, if she had fallen, the impact would have caused some fractures. The position of the body does not suggest any fractures.”

  “What do you think happened to her, then?”

  Billings looked down at the body and saw some bruises on her throat and some scratches on her nose and cheek. “She may have been strangled.” He pointed at the bruises. “Held with her face against the wall and strangled.” Suddenly he saw LeFevre’s pendant watch, which was still hanging around her neck, hidden beneath her nightgown. He crouched down and pulled it out carefully. The glass on the clock face had been smashed and the dial had stopped. “This must’ve broken when she was slammed against the wall. It gives us the precise time of the attack.”

  Thwaite crouched down to look at the watch. “That was ten minutes ago!” he exclaimed. “The assailant must still be around here somewhere.” He turned towards the other policemen. “Well, what are you three numpties still standing around here for? Go out and look for that murderous cunt!”

  After the three coppers had rushed out of the close, Thwaite suddenly saw the photographer’s assistant still lingering about, looking confused.

  “So what do you want to do with that lummox over there, then?” he asked Billings, pointing at the assistant.

  “We need a scaffold.”

  “A fecking scaffold?”

  “The picture needs to be taken from above. We need a bird’s eye view of the crime scene.”

  “And where are we going to get a fecking scaffold from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about we use the wee window over there?” He pointed at the sole window overlooking the close.

  “That’ll do,” Billings agreed.

  “What do you mean, dead?” Hardy was standing in the foyer, peering at Thwaite and Billings through his small, round glasses.

  After the crime scene had been photographed and the Scottish police
men had unsuccessfully scoured the vicinity for a suspect, Thwaite and Billings returned to the theatre and summoned the tour manager to the foyer.

  “I mean dead,” Thwaite replied. “The heart has stopped pumping and the brain has stopped working. You know what dead means, don’t you, Mr Hardy?”

  “But how is that possible? Mr Billings was looking after her.”

  He turned to look at the detective. Billings couldn’t meet his eye and looked down at the ground.

  “That’s what I’m here to find out. But first I need to break the news to her mother. Now, I believe she’s still on stage.”

  Hardy looked at his pocket watch. “She should be in her dressing room now,” he replied. “But she will have to go back on stage for the curtain call in a few minutes.”

  “What will she do after the curtain call?”

  “Well, she’ll go back to the dressing room to get changed, of course.”

  “We’ll tell her then.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until she has finished getting changed?”

  “No. The mother should know as soon as possible. And anyway, if we tell her in her dressing room, we will have privacy. She has her own dressing room, I assume?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I’ll leave it in your hands, then, Mr Hardy. As soon as she’s decent, come and fetch us and I’ll break the news to her. Detective Sergeant Billings and I shall be waiting for you in the foyer.”

  While Hardy wandered off back stage, Thwaite sat down on one of the armchairs and gestured for Billings to do the same.

  “So what’s this I hear about a death threat?” he asked Billings.

  “It’s most probably a malicious prank. Miss LeFevre believes it may have been sent by her estranged husband. It might even have been sent by a fellow actor.”

  “Not an assassination plot, then?”

  “It was a theory my boss came up with, but I don’t think it’s credible.”

  “I’ll be telegraphing your boss this evening. To inform him that we’ll be taking over security for Miss LeFevre.”

  Billings looked surprised. “You will be taking over the security? Why?”

  “Because you are temporarily suspended from the police force, that’s why.”

  Billings looked at the inspector with open-mouthed surprise.

  “You were the last person to see the victim alive, Detective Sergeant. You and this Westbrook fella you mentioned. Right now, you are our main suspects. I’ll be interviewing both of you as soon as we’ve spoken to that actress.”

  Billings was about to protest when one of the dressing room attendants – a boy of about thirteen – hurried into the foyer. “Miss LeFevre will see you now, sir,” he said.

  “Well, off we go then, Detective Sergeant,” Thwaite said, getting up from his seat. “Let’s get this unpleasantness over and done with.”

  The dressing room attendant led the two men to LeFevre’s dressing room and knocked on the door. It was Hardy who opened it. He was looking nervous. LeFevre was sitting at her dressing table, wearing a dressing robe and a kerchief on her head. She had just removed her makeup.

  “What is this all about?” she said, looking from Thwaite to Billings and from Billings to Hardy.

  “I am Detective Inspector Marmaduke Thwaite from the Edinburgh Police.”

  “Is this about Mary? I already said I wasn’t going to press charges.”

  “Where is your wee lass, Miss LeFevre?”

  “My daughter? Well, she’s in Mary’s dressing room, isn’t she?”

  Thwaite shook his head.

  “Oh no, she hasn’t taken her again, has she!” LeFevre frowned and clenched her fist. “I’m going to kill that woman.”

  “The wee lass is dead,” Thwaite interrupted. “One of our constables found her lying on the ground in Grindlay Street Court, just around the corner from the theatre. She was wearing her nightgown. She had bruises on her throat. We believe she may have been strangled.”

  LeFevre went pale. Her eyes darted from Billings to Hardy in a desperate hope for some sort of explanation, but none was forthcoming. Neither man knew what to say, and they both kept staring at the floor.

  “But I don’t understand,” LeFevre said. “What was she doing out on the street? She was with Mr Billings. Mr Billings was looking after her.”

  “I had to do my rounds,” Billings explained. “I left her sleeping in Miss Wesley’s dressing room. Mr Westbrook was with her.”

  “Hal?” There was a look of disgust in Miss LeFevre’s eyes as she said this. “You left her alone with Hal?”

  “We don’t know what happened, Miss LeFevre,” Thwaite said. “But we’ll find out. We’ll catch the reprobate that did this to her. You can be sure of that.”

  Suddenly LeFevre turned towards Billings and gave him an angry, intense look. “It was you!” she cried.

  Billings was taken aback. “Me?”

  “That day in London. When we first met you and you uttered that name. The name you’re not supposed to mention in a theatre. You cursed us!”

  “Now, now, Miss LeFevre,” Hardy intervened. “You know that’s all just superstitious nonsense.”

  “He cursed us! I thought that my sprained ankle was the result of the curse, but no! Death always results from the curse, and this time it was my Kitty who paid!” She grabbed a glass of water from her dressing table and hurled it at Billings. Billings was able to duck just in time to avoid being hit by it, but the glass was followed by a makeup brush, then her jewellery box, then her hair brush and finally even one of her slippers. All these items were hurled at Billings in quick succession, until Hardy and Thwaite finally intervened and held LeFevre’s arms down. Then the actress began to cry. Loudly, desperately, hopelessly, until eventually she was wailing. She flung her arms around Hardy and sobbed on his shoulder.

  “You had better go now,” Hardy said to the other two men. “I’ll stay with her.”

  Detective Inspector Thwaite was leaning against the dressing table in the witches’ dressing room, holding a pencil and notepad in his hands. Billings and Westbrook were sitting on the sofa, looking up at him.

  “You say you were walking up and down Grindlay Street at the time of Kitty’s disappearance?” he asked Billings.

  “Grindlay Street, Cornwall Street, Castle Terrace; I walked around the whole block. It was my hourly patrol.”

  “Hourly patrol? What were you patrolling?”

  “The theatre. As I said, Miss LeFevre had received a death threat in London, and it was my duty to…”

  Billings was suddenly interrupted by a loud, angry scream coming from the room next door. This was followed by the sound of something being thrown against a mirror and smashing it. They could hear the voice of Hardy next door trying to console LeFevre.

  “Still going berserk in there, I see,” Thwaite said.

  Westbrook smiled. “Actors can never resist being melodramatic,” he said.

  Thwaite turned to look at him and frowned. “Have you any children, Mr Westbrook?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, I do. I have five. And if anything ever happened to them, I’d do more than just smash the mirror! I’d break the whole fecking theatre down!”

  “I’m sorry,” Westbrook said, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to be flippant. One doesn’t always know how to react in these kinds of circumstances.”

  “Where were you when Detective Sergeant Billings was taking his wee walk?”

  “I was in this dressing room with Kitty.”

  “Why did you leave the dressing room?”

  “I wanted to go outside for a smoke. Kitty was sleeping, and I was afraid the cigarette smoke might wake her.”

  Thwaite turned back to face Billings. “When did you return to the theatre?” he asked.

  “It only takes a few minutes to walk around the block. I had returned shortly before Mr Westbrook came out.”

  “But you didn’t go inside?”

  “No, I stayed outsi
de in the close at the back of the theatre.”

  “Why?”

  Billings hesitated. “Fresh air,” he said eventually.

  “When did you notice Kitty was missing?”

  “I went back to the dressing room maybe ten minutes later. The actresses had already come off stage by then and were getting changed.”

  “So you and Mr Westbrook were outside in the close on your own, while the wee lass lay sleeping in the dressing room?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what were you two doing there all this time?”

  Both Billings and Westbrook shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and dared not look each other in the eye.

  “We were talking,” Billings replied.

  “What about?”

  “I… um… I can’t remember. Nothing special. Just trivial things. Like the weather and such.”

  Thwaite raised his eyebrows. “The weather? You talked for ten minutes about the fecking weather?”

  “We weren’t talking all the time,” Billings explained, becoming a little flustered. “We stood in silence for a great period of time.”

  “You stood in silence?”

  “Mr Westbrook was smoking his cigarette and I… um…”

  “You were what?”

  “I was just taking in the fresh air.”

  “There is no fresh air in Edinburgh. The air here is thick with chimney smoke and the sickly scent of the brewery.”

  “Well, I like the smell of beer.” Billings attempted a smile, then quickly realised this was inappropriate. He was a terrible liar, and his body language exposed his unease. He was forced to look away from Thwaite’s relentless stare and scratch his head.

  “And all this time, the wee lass was left alone in the dressing room?” Thwaite said, still looking at him.

  “She was asleep. We didn’t think any harm could come to her here.”

  Finally, Thwaite turned his attention towards Westbrook. “Now, Mr Westbrook,” he said, turning the pages in his notebook and looking at some notes he had made earlier. “You assert that Kitty may well have been asleep when she walked out of the theatre.”