The Understudy

by Sophie Hannah

  It can’t be Bronnie Richardson, of all people. Can it?

  Bronnie looks confused. ‘No, that’s not . . . no. I’d never write horrible graffiti about anyone or do the noose thing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘You’re in charge of costumes. For shows like Oklahoma! and Oliver! in which nooses feature.’

  ‘You think I put the noose . . .? I didn’t. I swear, Carolyn, that wasn’t me. Only a monster would do that. I thought you meant . . .’

  ‘What?’ I snap.

  Elise walks toward her, slowly. ‘You said, “That wasn’t me.” But something was you, wasn’t it? Something apart from making records for students who don’t exist, I mean. What was it that you did, Bronnie? Spit it out. You’re looking guilty as hell. Did you know there was no record of Imogen in the system? Did you know she was Lisa Daisley?’

  ‘No!’ Bronnie wipes her eyes and nose. ‘Carolyn, I promise you, on my life, I knew nothing about that and I never colluded with Lisa to do anything or torment anyone.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t,’ says Kendall, eyeballing me furiously as if I’ve committed a terrible faux pas.

  ‘I’ve never even had a parking ticket,’ says Bronnie. ‘I’m a good person—just a wife and mother, trying her best, and yes, sometimes making mistakes.’

  Christ on a fucking cracker. I don’t expect Bronnie to be Inspector Morse or anything, but has she never watched TV, or a movie? Doesn’t she know it’s possible for someone seemingly safe and middle class to be a deranged psychopath on the down-low?

  Bronnie’s just confessed to participating in a serious fraud. She might well have done worse things, ones she’s not yet willing to admit to. And doesn’t Kendall understand that a charismatic manipulator can appear more deeply shocked and innocent than all of the innocent people around her, who aren’t trying quite so hard?

  I almost laugh at the idea of Bronnie Richardson as charismatic. Elise, too, looks as suspicious as I feel. The bonds that seemed to exist between the four of us in Bronnie’s kitchen not so long ago are splintering pretty fast.

  ‘Of all of us, you’re the one who’d find it easiest to hatch your plans with Lisa Daisley,’ I say to Bronnie. ‘I’m not accusing you, I’m simply stating a fact. You work at the Academy—doing admin as well as wardrobe, as you’ve just told us. Who knew Fake Imogen was starting at the beginning of the autumn term? I didn’t. Elise and Kendall didn’t, as far as I know. But you could have. Who got the lead role in the forthcoming musical? Your daughter. And why? Because, ever-so-conveniently, both Ruby and Jess didn’t get to perform that night, thanks to the noose drama.’

  ‘Who was best placed to put that noose where Ruby’s costume should have been?’ Elise joins in the interrogation. ‘You told us yourself: You were in the room with Ruby’s costume most of that night.’

  ‘And you were the one who just happened to have a past connection to Lisa Daisley,’ I say. ‘It might have been a clever double bluff, you suddenly saying, “Wait! I know where I’ve seen that tattoo before,” and seeming to help solve the mystery.’

  ‘You’re a grade-A bitch, Carolyn Mordue,’ says Kendall breathlessly. ‘A ruthless, heartless predator!’

  ‘Kendall, your daughter’s in the fucking hospital. I’m trying to find out who put her there. Think what you like about me, though—I honestly don’t give a shit.’

  ‘A double bluff?’ Bronnie blurts out, wiping new tears away with the back of her hand. ‘Are you serious? What kind of world do you live in?’

  ‘Same one as you. One in which teenage girls are tormented so badly that some of them run away from home, and others try to kill themselves.’

  ‘But . . . but I mean . . . if anyone was thinking of doing a double bluff, I’m not even the most obvious person!’ says Bronnie. Then she actually points her finger. Not at me, which I could have understood, but at Kendall. ‘What about her?’

  ‘Kendall?’ I laugh. ‘What, you mean the one whose daughter tried to kill herself? I suppose her plan might have gone badly wrong, but—’

  ‘Yes, it might have, because she took it too far.’

  ‘Bronnie, why are you accusing me?’ Kendall sounds confused.

  ‘Last year, who was the most hated girl at OFA?’ There’s a wildness in Bronnie’s eyes that I haven’t seen before. ‘Ruby, right? Word got around about how she treated Jess. Carl and I used to say to each other all the time: “Thank God she’s not ours. Can you imagine having a daughter like that? You’d be so ashamed.” ’

  Now tears are streaming down Kendall’s face.

  ‘And then, this year—new term, new start—and what happens? Fake Imogen appears—a grown adult pretending to be a teenager, an imposter posing as a legitimate student—and the most terrible things start to happen . . . to Ruby. And suddenly everyone feels sorry for her. Suddenly it’s “Poor Ruby,” and, oh, look, Imogen’s been behaving really obviously like a proper weirdo, and all of this started the day she arrived at OFA.’ Bronnie pauses for breath, red in the face.

  ‘So your theory is . . .’ Elise prompts her.

  ‘Kendall could have hired Lisa Daisley and paid her a load of money to come here and be Fake Imogen and play the role of an even worse bitch than Ruby. Then all the girls could bond together, against the common enemy, and suddenly Ruby wouldn’t look so awful, because there’d be a genuinely scary psycho to be the new bad guy.’

  ‘It’s possible, but it doesn’t sound likely,’ says Elise matter-of-factly. ‘Though it has to be more likely than Bronnie and Lisa Daisley being in cahoots.’

  ‘Why?’ My money’s still on Bronnie. She’s beside herself with panic, can hardly keep still. I think she’s the one.

  ‘If our mystery conspirator pushed the slate off the roof, it can’t have been Bronnie. She and Lisa were both in the courtyard when the slate fell and nearly killed Ruby.’

  ‘What about you, Elise?’ says Bronnie.

  ‘What about me?’ Elise fires back, a small smile on her face.

  ‘You’re the one who cares least about all of this. From the start, you’ve had this superior air—as if you’re above it all, as if it doesn’t affect you or Sadie.’

  ‘Have I? I suppose that’s fair. Ask yourself this, though: Would I have that “air,” as you call it, if I were the guilty party? Wouldn’t I try to blend in by whipping up as much hysteria as possible, like you lot constantly do?’

  ‘What about Carolyn?’ says Kendall. ‘No one can deny that she probably hates Ruby enough to want to drive her to suicide.’ She turns to face me. ‘You and your oh-so-clever double-bluff theories!’ A drop of her saliva lands on my cheek and I make a show of wiping it off. ‘The cleverest double bluff of all would be to present yourself as the person really keen to investigate and get to the truth while all the time you’re the one behind everything.’

  ‘It’s a good theory,’ I concede. ‘Unfortunately for you, I have a slate-day alibi. Cast iron. I was at Bristol University that day, examining a PhD thesis called Agent-based Models of Law in Multi-level Trade Regulation. It was as much fun as it sounds.’

  I turn away from her, pick up my bag, and head for the door. ‘This is getting us nowhere. We can swap accusations and defenses all day long and we’ll achieve nothing.’

  ‘What’s your plan?’ Elise calls after me.

  ‘To take some action for a change, instead of just talking and arguing endlessly,’ I tell her. ‘To take some action alone,’ I add under my breath as soon as I’m out of the room and out of earshot. There’s one person who can tell me who Fake Imogen’s ally at the academy is, and who will tell me, even if I have to use violence to squeeze the truth out of her: the woman herself.

  Lisa Daisley, here I come.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m in a dingy internet café in a basement, with a Styrofoam cup of coffee beside me, searching the hell out of Lisa Daisley. I haven’t got my laptop with me and I need a bigger screen than my phone’s for something as important as this. Jess would say this is a sy
mptom of me being ‘so old.’

  The three other computer terminals are occupied by young men, all of whom have an unfortunate look about them. Downtrodden, Downcast, and Down-at-heel. None of them seems aware of the others, or of me, which is ideal.

  Lisa’s agent’s website has her listed, but offers no useful information. She evidently hasn’t starred in many shows, because hardly anything comes up about the real Lisa Daisley, a.k.a. the fake Imogen Curwood.

  I can find only one result that’s useful, on a website called mandy.com. This tells me that three years ago, Lisa played Felicia Montealegre in a play called Len and Ezra at Bromley Little Theater in Kent. I also learn that in 2016, she was in a show called One Man, Two Guvnors, in which she played a character called Rachel Crabbe.

  I finish my coffee, buy another one from the blank-eyed, stringy-haired man behind the counter, and sit back down at my terminal. Unable to think of where to look next, I stay on mandy.com and try to find out more about the two shows Lisa Daisley was in.

  I feel a sudden tightness in my throat as I start to read about Len and Ezra, which turns out to be a play about two men trying to write a musical together. Fucking idiot, Mordue. Can’t you even read the word musical without envy starting to spurt and flow inside you—in case the musical in question is better than yours, or more successful, or both?

  This isn’t even a real musical; it’s a made-up one that’s the subject of a play. There’s no way it can be better, or do better, than mine. Still, I can’t stop myself reading the blurb of the play, to see if I can work out how good the non-existent musical in Len and Ezra might be if it were real.

  Oh, my word. It’s unbelievable, the shit some people come up with. This sounds so bad—which delights my competitive heart, but confirms my belief that there’s no justice. A dreadful play about a dreadful, pretend musical, and yet it got staged at a real theater.

  I read the plot synopsis again, to check I didn’t imagine how bad it was: ‘It’s a long time since West Side Story took the world by storm, and American musical theater composer Leonard Bernstein fears that his glory days are long gone. Envious of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s success with the musical Cats, he decides that he too must collaborate with a modernist poet in order to prove he’s no has-been. He approaches Ezra Pound, whose poem “Meditatio” begins with the line “When I consider the curious habits of dogs . . .” and suggests that, together, the two of them try to repeat Lloyd Webber and T. S. Eliot’s winning formula. Instead of Cats, their musical, based on Pound’s poetry, will be called Dogs. There’s only one problem. Pound’s dubious political affiliations . . .’

  I can’t bear to read any more. I close the link and click on the one for Lisa Daisley’s other show, One Man, Two Guvnors. Scrolling through the cast list, I come to an unusual name that seems familiar: Khye Munton. Where . . .?

  Before I’ve finished asking myself the question, I have the answer. I close this link, go back to Len and Ezra, and click on Cast.

  There it is: Khye Munton also played Ezra Pound. He’s been in two shows with Lisa Daisley. I wonder how well he knows her. Aren’t theater people supposed to drink together after the show finishes, into the early hours?

  I go back to Google and type Khye Munton’s name into the search box. There are quite a few results for him. He’s played some starring roles, by the look of it. It doesn’t take me long to find out who his agent is. Thankfully, it’s not the same agent as Lisa Daisley’s; it’s a different one, who has no reason to be suspicious.

  His name’s Simon Lowings. The agency he works for is called Independent Talent. I type the number into my phone, then close down the computer, pick up my bag, and head outside.

  I wait till a pair of large lorries have driven past, one after the other. Then I make the call. Simon Lowings is away from his desk, but a colleague manages to find him. By the time he states his name and asks how he can help me, I’ve decided to be honest. ‘My name’s Carolyn Mordue,’ I tell him. ‘I believe you’re Khye Munton’s agent?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Lowings sounds happy about this.

  ‘I need to talk to Mr. Munton fairly urgently, about a mutual acquaintance: Lisa Daisley.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t—’

  ‘I know you can’t give me his number, but I was hoping you could give him mine and ask him to please ring me? It’s really important.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Please? If he doesn’t want to contact me then he doesn’t have to, obviously. I’m only asking you to give him the option of helping me.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Carolyn Mordue.’ I say it slowly, so that he can write it down.

  ‘No, I mean . . .’ Lowings leaves the sentence unfinished.

  ‘Oh, you mean, who am I in the world of showbiz? Am I someone important? No.’ I resist the urge to ask Khye Munton’s agent to help me change that by agreeing to represent me and my half-finished musical. ‘I’m nobody. I’m actually a law professor at Cambridge.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lowings clears his throat. ‘All right, I’ll give Khye a call—he should be coming out of a rehearsal any minute now. I’ll pass on your number and your request.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I say.

  Ten minutes later my phone rings. The screen says Unknown number. My heart starts to beat a little faster. Could this be the call I’m hoping for? Can it be this easy? Copying Simon Lowings, I answer the call and say my name instead of hello, something I’ve never done before.

  ‘This is Khye Munton.’

  ‘Oh . . . hi. Thank you so much for ringing.’

  ‘’S no problem. You want to talk ’bout Lisa?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘She okay?’

  ‘Yes, she’s . . . I’m not ringing because something bad’s happened to her or anything like that.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Don’t really know her. Don’t now and never did.’

  ‘But you were in two shows with her, right? Len and Ezra and One Man, Two Guvnors?’

  ‘’S right.’

  ‘So you must know her a bit?’ I press on. How can an actor have such a toneless voice? Maybe he saves his expressive powers for when he’s on stage.

  ‘Hardly. Spoke to her a few times. Why d’you want to know?’

  Can it do any harm to tell him the truth? I decide not. He’s assuming this is going to be a boring chore call about a woman who means nothing to him; I’d like to shock him out of that assumption.

  ‘Since September, Lisa Daisley has been lying about her age and identity. Under a false name—Imogen Curwood—she enrolled at the Orla Flynn Academy, a performing arts school in London, and pretended she was seventeen years old. She then did a whole lot of deeply sinister things, including throwing herself downstairs and pretending she was pushed, threatening other students with nooses, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Shit.’ Khye Munton breathes. ‘For real?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Can’t imagine the Lisa I knew doing any of that.’

  I roll my eyes, glad he can’t see me. ‘Why not?’ Why can nobody but me imagine anyone they know doing evil things, and why can I imagine it of everybody I know, all too easily?

  ‘She was always . . . it sounds harsh, but she was dull. Never really chatted to the rest of us in rehearsals. Sat in a corner staring at her phone most of the time. Can’t see her having the imagination to think of a false ID and all that other shit.’

  ‘So for both shows you were in together, Lisa didn’t socialize with the rest of you?’

  ‘Not really. She was often dashing off to do various other jobs. Bar work, that sort of thing. Always harder up than the rest of us, she was. And even when she did come drinking with us, it was weird.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘One time she told this strange story about her friend who had killed herself—like, I was ready to feel sorry for her, but she kept going on about how angry she was, and hadn’t the friend th
ought about what it would do to her, to Lisa?’

  ‘Is there anything you can think of, any detail about her that might help me to find out more about her? Her family, her background, people who knew her well, or better than you did?’

  ‘Sorry. I’ve told you all I know about her. Oh . . . well, not that this’ll help you, but I know she went to the same posh boarding school as Adrianna de Miquel. Proud of that, she was. Wanted it included in her bio in the program notes for Len and Ezra, and threw a hissy fit when she was told there wasn’t the space.’

  I’ve never heard of Adrianna de Miquel. After thanking Khye Munton for his help, I look her up on my phone. She’s one of the stars of The Filter—a TV drama I’ve heard of but never watched. And there’s the name of the posh boarding school she attended: Villiers in Kent.

  Who knows a person’s true character, and that of their family, better than the teachers who see them day in, day out for all of their secondary school years? Lisa Daisley might not be seventeen, but she’s in her early twenties. Many of her teachers will likely still be at Villiers. And it’s a boarding school, so if I set off now, there should still be plenty of staff around by the time I arrive.

  I might not have found out much from Khye Munton, but at least I know where I’m going next. That’s good enough for now.

  I cannot believe this is a school. I mean, I know it is, because of the signs on the large gates, but it certainly doesn’t feel like one. If I didn’t know better, I’d be convinced I was in the grounds of a large country park or some aristocrat’s estate, with fields, tree-lined avenue, and the gentle slopes of hills in the distance—and all of this encircled by high, solid walls.

  It’s getting dark by the time I arrive. I get out of the taxi that’s brought me from the station, pay the driver, and walk in through the enormous iron gates. There are several buildings in the distance, amid the greenery. I don’t know which one to aim for.

  I walk for several minutes along what I suppose you’d have to call the school’s main road, until I come to a post which has several signs attached to it, pointing in different directions along many different paths. I read a few and am none the wiser: Darville, Elstow, Goundry. What the hell are they? Thankfully, one of the signs says Main Reception.