Death Of A Hollow Man

Enter the Broker’s Men

Barnaby was out of his seat and onto the stage within seconds. Troy followed hard on his heels.

“Get the curtain down!” Deidre looked blindly at and through him. “Get it down.”

There was a sweep of velvet plush as Colin released the holding mechanism cutting off the grisly tableau from the audience’s startled and excited gaze. Barnaby looked to his wife. She was standing absolutely rigid, her face blank, her eyes tightly closed. Esslyn, his life ebbing, hung around her neck with almost balletic grace, like a dying swan.

Troy slipped his hands under the man’s armpits and lowered him with infinite pointless care to the floor. Barnaby stepped outside the curtain. No need to say, “Could I have your attention please?” The conversation ceased as if by magic.

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident,” he said calmly. “If you’d remain in your seats for a few moments, please. Do we have a doctor present?”

No one spoke. Tim had put up the house lights, and Barnaby noticed Harold’s empty space and the swinging door by row A. Cully’s seat was also unoccupied. He stepped back onto the stage where Sergeant Troy, knife-creased trousers stained crimson, was kneeling, his head turned to one side, his ear almost touching Esslyn’s lips. The sergeant’s mouth was pursed, and his brow pleated with the effort of concentration. He felt an exhalation; cold, infinitely frail, and heard one exhausted sound. The narrow red line was now a gaping incision, and Esslyn’s eyes were glazed. A moment later his life was over. A great crack of thunder, ludicrously apt, was heard, then the patter of rain on the roof. Troy stood up.

“Hear anything?”

“ ‘Bungled,’ sir. As near as I could get.”

“Right. Take the stage door, would you? Colin—over there in the check shirt—will show you where it is. No one in or out.”

The sergeant disappeared. Barnaby looked round. In the wings, next to a clutch of fifth-formers huddled together for comfort in a suddenly alien landscape, Rosa’s husband held her hand. The chief inspector crossed to them.

“Earnest, I need some temporary help. Would you go to the foyer, please? Notify the station what’s happened on the pay phone. Don’t let anyone leave. Won’t be for long.”

“I would, Tom, but I feel I should stay with Rosa.”

“No, no. Do as Tom says.” Rosa wore a clown face, makeup crudely drawn on a chalky background. “I’ll be all right, really.”

“Shall I ask them to send help?”

“They’ll know what to do.”

Earnest, still looking rather uncertain, left them both. By now the wings were full of actors, and the stage deserted. Barnaby noticed with some relief that his wife had lost her terrible frozen stillness and was weeping in their daughter’s arms. Colin returned, and Barnaby asked him for a box or carrier bag and something to cover the body. Colin tipped some flexible cord and electrical connections out of a shoe box and gave it to Barnaby, who placed it over the razor, which was lying near Esslyn’s right hand. A curtain was found, and Barnaby covered the corpse, stepping carefully around the blood, which was still seeping outward. It had made a large stain, pear-shaped with an extra bulge on one side, like an inverted map of Africa.

The curtain was hideously inappropriate, being covered with rainbows and balloons and teddy bears having a grand time. Barnaby took the key to the men’s dressing room from the board, ran downstairs (closely shadowed by Harold), locked it, and returned the key to Colin.

“You seem to be taking a lot upon yourself,” said Harold. Alone among the shocked and haggard faces, his shone with lively indignation.

“What’s it all for, Tom … all this … ?” said Colin, gesturing with the key. “I mean, a terrible thing has happened, but it was an accident. …”

“You’re probably right,” answered Barnaby. “But until I get a clearer picture, there are certain precautions it’s only sensible to take.”

“I must say, I don’t see why,” retorted Harold. “All this showing off. Ordering people about, barging here and there, locking the place up. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m just going to have a word with the audience,” continued Barnaby. “Explain what is going on. We shouldn’t have to keep them too long.”

“You most certainly will not have a word with the audience!” cried Harold. “Any words to be had will be had by me. This is my theater. I’m in charge here.”

“On the contrary, Harold,” replied Barnaby, and his voice made him a stranger to them all. “Until further notice, I shall be in charge here.”

Half an hour had passed. Reinforcements had arrived. The audience had their names and telephone numbers taken and, with a single exception, had gone off to spread the news to family and friends considerably more excited than when they arrived, which, as one elderly gentleman said while buttoning up his overcoat, made the evening a first in more ways than one.

One of the half-dozen worried parents waiting outside to take the fifth-formers home had been allowed to enter and was now acting as chaperon in the women’s dressing room while they were being gently questioned. Registration numbers in the parking garage and adjacent streets had been noted, and a constable was positioned in the pouring rain outside the main door. Another sat onstage on the Emperor Joseph’s throne with the humped gay curtain.

In the clubroom Deidre was trying to persuade her father to drink some coffee. When she had first fled up the aisle to him just after the curtain fell, she had been horrified to see his staring eyes and wildly gesturing hands. His legs, too, had been shaking and twisting, and he drummed his feet like a runaway horse. People sitting nearby were either ignoring him, looking sympathetic, or, in the case of the teenagers in the same row, laughing hysterically. Deidre, tears of pity pouring down cheeks still pale with shock, gradually managed to soothe him into some sort of quiescence. Now, he jiggled and joggled his mug and splashed coffee all over the settee. Deidre spoke softly, reassuringly, to him while he stared over her shoulder. He had just started to make a toneless droning sound when the door opened and a young man with bristly red hair and a sharp, narrow face entered. He wore a sports jacket, and his trousers were marked with dreadful stains. “You Miss Tibbs? The DCI would like a word.”

“I’m sorry,” said Deidre. “I don’t think I can leave my father.”

“I’m not offering you a choice, miss.”

“Oh.” Deidre got hesitantly to her feet. She wondered if she could be talked to in the clubroom, then quickly realized what a stupid idea that was. The last thing she wanted now that her father was calming down a little were questions that might recall the climax of the play.

“Could you … perhaps stay with him?”

“Sorry.” Troy held the door open, adding glibly, “He’ll be okay. Right as rain.” He closed the door and led her firmly downstairs.

Deidre felt a little better when she entered the ladies’ dressing room and realized the detective chief inspector was going to be Tom. She asked if he’d be very long, as she was anxious to get her father safely home.

“No longer than I can help, Deidre. But the quicker we can sort this business out, the better. I’m sure you’ll want to help us all you can.”

“Of course I do, Tom. But I just don’t understand how anything like this could have happened. It worked perfectly well at rehearsals.”

“When did you actually check the props this evening?”

“Just before the half. About twenty past seven, I suppose.”

“And the tape was in place then?”

“Of course. Otherwise I would have—” She broke off then, her eyes widening. “Oh my God, you don’t mean …” Her stare was a mixture of horror and disbelief. “You can’t!”

“What did you think had happened?”

“I assumed it had rubbed thin. Or got torn.”

“I’m afraid not. Completely removed.”

Deidre said “My God!” again, and buried her head in her hands. After a few moments she looked up and said, “Who on earth could have done such a terrible thing?” Barnaby gave her a moment more, then said, “Where was the tray with the razor kept?”

“On the props table. At the back, out of the way. It only goes on once, you see. Right at the end.”

“And it’s fairly dark in the wings?”

“Yes. A certain amount of light spills out from the stage, of course, although the flats cut off a lot. And I’ve got an anglepoise in my corner. For tape and lighting cues. Not that I needed to give any of those. Tim was doing his own thing. He’s been threatening to for years, but no one thought he ever would.”

“Did you see anyone touch the tray or anything on it during the evening?” Deidre shook her head. “Or anyone hovering about in that area who shouldn’t have been?”

“No. But then I wouldn’t, Tom. Amadeus has got nearly thirty scenes. We don’t have a second to think. Oh, there was Kitty, of course. And Nicholas. He sat down there for a minute after his last exit.”

“Tell me about Kitty first.”

“Well, you must have seen what happened in Act Two. I don’t know what it looked like from die front …”

“Pretty savage.”

“I wanted to stop the whole thing, but Colin disagreed. When Kitty came off, she could hardly stand. I sat her down next to the table.” Noticing an intensification of watchfulness in Barnaby’s expression, Deidre added quickly, “But she didn’t stay. I went down to the dressing room to get her a drink and an aspirin.”

“How long do you think you were away?”

“Several minutes. First I couldn’t find the aspirin, then I couldn’t get the top off, then I had to wash a mug. Then I panicked. You can imagine.” Barnaby nodded, imagining very well. “When I got back, Kitty had gone, and I found her in the toilet.”

“How did she react to what had happened?”

“She was terribly angry. Furious. She … well, she cursed a lot. Then she said, ‘If he touches me again, I’ll—’ ” Deidre broke off. She looked around the room at the bottles and jars and showy bouquets and at a good-luck card sporting a large black cat who had obviously completely failed to get the hang of its required function. “Sorry, Tom. I don’t remember what she said after that.”

“Deidre.” Deidre made eye contact with a coffee jar, a jar of artificial sweetener, and one of powdered milk. “Look at me.” She managed a quick glance, timorous almost pleading. “This isn’t a practical joke we’re investigating.”

“No.”

“So what did Mrs. Carmichael say?”

Deidre swallowed and took a deep breath. “‘If he touches me again … ” The rest of the sentence was smothered in a whisper.

“Speak up.”

“‘I’ll kill him.’ But she didn’t mean it,” Deidre rushed on. “I know she didn’t. People say that all the time, don’t they? Mothers to their children in the street. You’re always hearing them. It doesn’t mean anything, Tom. And she was probably worried about the baby. She hit the pros arch with a terrible smack.”

“Where did she go when she left the toilet?”

“Back to the wings. Joycey was standing by to put her padding on. And I followed. She didn’t go near the table again, I’m positive.”

“Do you have any idea why Esslyn should have acted the way he did?”

“No—I can’t understand it. He was perfectly all right till the interval.”

“You haven’t heard any gossip?”

“Gossip? About what?”

“Perhaps … another man?”

“Oh, no, I shouldn’t think so. Kitty was pregnant, you see.”

He was certainly meeting them tonight, thought Sergeant Troy, resting his ball-point against the pad borrowed from the constable on pavement duty. First the old gaffer upstairs singing his cracked old song halfway up Delilah Street, now the droopy-bottomed daughter who apparently believed that once you’d got one in the oven you hung a no-trespassing sign around your neck. In fact, as Troy knew to his philandering benefit, it was the one time you could hold open house with nobody having to foot the bill. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand to conceal an involuntary twitch of derision.

“Now you know the tape was deliberately removed, do you have any idea how this could have been done?” Deidre’s features seemed to gather themselves together in the center of her face, so great were her efforts at concentration. Barnaby said, “No hurry.”

“I just can’t think, Tom. The risk. It was so sharp.” Suddenly she saw David’s fingers, quick and deft, wrapping the razor.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” Before he could persist, Deidre improvised. “I mean—it was so dangerous, it couldn’t have been done in the dark. And although the wings and stage were brightly lit till curtain up, it couldn’t have been done then, either, because of the chance they might have been seen.”

“Who was the first to arrive after you?”

“Colin and David.”

“Did you tell them you’d done the check?”

“I told Colin.”

“But if they were together, that means you told them both.” Deidre’s gaze reconnected with the powdered milk. “Do you remember who came next?”

“Not really, Tom. Half a dozen people arrived together. Rosa and the Everards … and Boris. All the ASMs were in on the half.”

“Did anyone ask if you’d done your check?” Barnaby knew this question to be rather futile. The last thing the person who doctored the razor would wish to do was draw attention to himself. But he felt it still had to be put. Deidre shook her head. “Did you leave the stage area at any time?”

“Yes. I went to the dressing rooms to call the quarter. Then I fetched my ASMs from the clubroom and I went to meet my father. This was just before eight o’clock. He was late.” Reminded, she half rose, saying, “Is that all, Tom? He’s waiting, you see.”

“In a moment.” Reluctantly, Deidre reseated herself. “Did you like Esslyn, Deidre?” She hesitated for a minute, then said, “No.”

“Do you have any idea at all who might have done this?”

This time there was no hesitation. “Not at all, Tom. To be honest, I don’t think anyone liked him very much, but you don’t kill someone just because of that. Do you?”

The question was not lightly put. It was flooded with such intense appeal that Deidre seemed to be seeking reassurance that the police had perpetrated a shocking misconstruction and that the tape had managed to fly away of its own accord. Barnaby’s unconsoling reply was never made. There was a knock at the door, and the constable who had been sitting with the body popped his head round the door and said, “Dr. Bullard’s arrived, sir.”

Meanwhile, next door in the scene dock, the company, while still shocked, was starting to bounce back. Some more than others, naturally. But hushed whispers had already gone the way of solemn looks and reverential head shakings. Now ideas and suggestions were being mooted, but in tones of bashful solemnity out of respect for Kitty’s grief.

Not that this was much in evidence. She sat on a workbench staring crossly at Rosa and tapping her foot with irritation. The first Mrs. Carmichael, her mouth loose and frilly, wept continuously. Her makeup now resembled a Turner sunset. You would have thought that she, not Kitty, was the widow. Earnest, who could have gone home ages ago, remained by her side. Joyce, her blood-soaked clothes hidden behind a screen with Cully’s ruined dress, sat holding her daughter’s hand and wearing her husband’s topcoat. Cully was wrapped in several yards of butter muslin that she had found in a basket. Nicholas, who could not take his eyes off her, thought she looked like an exquisite reincarnation of Nefertiti.

All of them had been searched quickly and efficiently, and although it had been no more than the brisk, impersonal going-over anyone gets at an airport, Harold had taken umbrage and threatened to write to his member of Parliament.

“If a man’s been stupid enough to cut his own throat,” he had cried indignantly, “I don’t know what on earth the police expect to gain by subjecting my people to this humiliating procedure.”

None of his people had really minded, but they had all been equally puzzled by the need for such a step.

“I really don’t see,” said Bill Last, lately Van Swieten, “why they’ve locked up the men’s dressing room. My car keys are in there. And my wallet. Everything.”

“Right,” said Boris, who chain-smoked and was desperate for a drag.

“I don’t see why they want to talk to us at all,” complained Clive Everard. “We’re not responsible for checking the props. It’s obviously Dreary’s fault. Took the tape off for some reason. Forgot to put it back again.”

“Typical,” said his brother.

“It is not at all typical,” said David Smy angrily. “Deidre’s very capable.”

“Hear, hear,” from Nicholas.

Kitty, who had caught sight of Deidre being escorted by Troy, said, “She’s been in there a hell of a time, though. I’d say it looks quite promising.”

“What an unkind thing to say,” protested Avery. “Honestly. I thought adversity was supposed to bring out the best in us.”

“You can’t bring out what isn’t there,” said an Everard.

“Bastard,” said Kitty.

Still, the same thought had struck them all, save one. It would be nice if Deidre had just been careless. Problem solved. And in a not too uncomfortable manner. Quite neat and tidy, really. Then they could all get changed and go home to bed.

But it was not to be. Harold bustled in, quite unsubdued by his forced incarceration, all asimmer with tendentious self-esteem. “I’ve just been questioning the uniformed halfwit in the foyer,” he began, “as to why we are all being treated in this tyrannical fashion and why half my theater seems to be out of bounds, and he was totally unforthcoming. Mumbled something about protecting the scene in a case like this, and when I said, ‘a case like what?’ he said I should have a word with the DCI. ‘Easier said than done, my man,’ I replied. Tom is on the stage at the moment,” he continued, looking accusingly at the chief inspector’s wife, “with a complete and utter stranger who is cutting away—cutting away at that magnificent blue brocade coat. What with that and Joyce messing up her costume, you can imagine what my bill will be like.” “That’s show business,” murmured Tim. “Start the evening with Mozart, end up with Gotterdammerung.”

“And when I tried to ask Tom what he thought he was playing at, he told me to come down here and wait with the others. And an obnoxious youth with red hair practically strongarmed me down the stairs. If there is one thing I cannot stand it’s high-handedness.”

Harold gazed at the ring of incredulous faces and was struck by one showing a remarkably uncontrolled use of color. “And what on earth, ” he concluded, “is the matter with Rosa?”

Above their heads Jim Bullard crouched beside the body, and Barnaby watched him as he had done more times than he cared to remember.

“Cause of death’s plain enough. Don’t need a pathologist for this one.”

“Quite.”

“Extraordinary thing to do. Slash your throat in front of a theater full of people. I know actors are exhibitionists, but you’d think there’d be some limits. At least there’s no argument as to the time of death. Was he on anything?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, the PM’ll show that up. Right.” He rose, dusted his knees, and repacked his bag. “You can get him shifted. No scene-of-crime people yet?”

“I’m scratching round. Davidson’s at his Masonic dinner. Fenton’s gone to the Seychelles …”

“Coo. Well, I’m off back to the U.S. of A. If there’s any Dallas left ..

“Before you go, Jim, I wonder if you’d have a look at Mr. Tibbs. He’s the father of the girl who just went through. Upstairs in the clubroom.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He’s mentally ill. I think what happened tonight might’ve, well, pushed him just that bit nearer the edge. He looked very ill.”

“I will, of course, Tom, but I haven’t got anything with me to give him. You’d be better getting in touch with his own— God! What on earth is that?”

A terrible cry. An awful, keening cry shot through with desolation and woe. Then rapid running and, through the open doors at the top of the aisle, they saw Deidre fly past and disappear into the foyer below.

Outside it was still raining. Freezing needles of rain that could burrow through the wannest cloth, never mind a thin summer shirt and cotton trousers. (He had left his linen jacket behind.) Rushing blindly onto the pavement carrying the abandoned jacket over her arm, Deidre bumped into a young policeman, caped and helmeted, getting soaked in the pursuance of his duty. He caught her arm.

“I’m sorry. No one’s allowed to leave.”

“Tom’s finished with me—the chief inspector, that is. Have you seen an old man?” A little crowd opposite glumly standing beneath a cluster of bright umbrellas perked up at this sign of activity. “He’s got white hair … please. ” She clutched at the constable frantically, rain and tears intermingling on her cheeks. “He’s ill.”

“Slipped through my fingers a few minutes ago. Racing he was. No coat or anything.”

“Oh, God!”

“He went up Carradine Road. Wait, if you hold on, I’ll get in touch …”

But he spoke to the night air, for Deidre had run away.

He saw her a moment later racing across the shining wet tarmac, her dress already soaked, her face a livid green-blue in the glow from the traffic lights. Then she was gone.

Rosa was interviewed next. Supported by Earnest as far as the dressing-room door, she subsided opposite Barnaby in an excitation of cerise fluff.

“You must ask me anything, Tom,” she cried, and her voice, though brave, was a rill of sorrows. “Anything at all.”

“Thank you,” said the chief inspector, who fully intended to. “Can you think of anyone who might have wished to harm your ex-husband?”

“Absolutely not,” Rosa replied promptly. But the look that followed implied that the speed with which her interlocutor had approached the nub of the matter might be considered a bit short on finesse. “Everyone liked Esslyn.”

Barnaby raised his shaggy eyebrows. His eyes shone with a gleam at once caustic and humorous. The gleam implied that he quite understood she felt she had to say things like that, and now she’d said them, perhaps they could cut the obsequies and get down to the nitty-gritty. Maybe even flirt with the truth a little. “That is,” continued Rosa, acknowledging the proposition, “on the whole. Of course, he was terribly unhappy.”

“Oh?”

“Kitty, you see.” She gave him a slightly suggestive yet shaded look, as if she were acknowledging Kitty’s guilt from behind a veil. “A shotgun wedding is never a good start, is it? And of course once she’d got him safely hooked, she started to play around.”

“Who with?”

“That’s not really for me to say.”

“I quite understand.”

“David Smy.”

“Goodness.”

“Of course it might just be a rumor.”

“It was Esslyn’s child, though?”

“We all assumed so.” The verb’s emphasis was beautifully judged. “Poor little mite.”

Barnaby changed tack, deliberately hardening his voice. “How did you feel, Rosa? After your divorce?”

Rosa’s pose fell away. Her naked face showed plain through its rioting complexion. She looked cornered. And older. “I … really don’t see … what that has … has to do with anything, Tom.” She took a deep breath and seemed to be fighting for control.

“Just background.”

“Background to what?”

“One never knows what might be helpful.”

Rosa hesitated and her feathers trembled. Barnaby appreciated her predicament. It was one that every person he interviewed would be in right up to their neck. For the first time in his life all the people connected with the case (for case he was sure there would prove to be) were known to him, and the history of their present and past relationships even better known to his wife. Which made all the usual subterfuges, evasions, white lies, black lies, half-truths, and deliberate attempts to lead him astray rather futile. Advantage Barnaby. For once.

“To be absolutely honest, Tom …” She paused, resting a crimson nail against her nose as if checking it for rapid growth.

“Yes?” murmured Barnaby/Gepetto.

“I was angry at first. Very angry. I thought he was making a terrible mistake. But by the time the decree nisi came through, I had changed. I realized that, for the first time in years, I was free.” She flung her arms wide, narrowly missing Harold’s flowers. Her sailor’s gaze raked the far horizon. “Free!”

“And yet you remarried so quickly.”

“Ah.” The gaze became wary, contracted from the hemispheric, and swept the floor. “Love conquers all.”

They were back in fantasy land, observed Barnaby to himself, but he let it ride. For now. And fantasies were not entirely unrevealing. He repeated his first question.

“Well, Tom, I don’t know about anyone wanting to kill Esslyn, but Nicholas came down here just before the final curtain with a splinter in his thumb and said that Esslyn had tried to kill him!” Barnaby received this dramatic pronouncement with irritating self-control. “Under the table,” continued Rosa. “In the requiem scene. And he’d already damaged Nicholas’s hand.”

“Oh,” said Barnaby. Then, disappointing her: “If we could return to the razor. Did you see anyone touching it or handling the tray who shouldn’t have been?”

“No. And I’ll tell you why.” She looked with deep solemnity at both men. “When I’m acting … when I’m in that state of high concentration that we in the profession must be able to summon if the performance is going to work, I see nothing—but nothing—that isn’t measurably relevant to my part.”

“Even when you’ve no lines?” asked Barnaby.

“Especially then. Sans words, there’s only the action of the drama to anchor the emotions.”

“I understand.” Barnaby nodded, matching her gravity. Troy, unimpressed, wrote on his borrowed pad, “Saw nothing suspicious at props table.”

“What time did you arrive this evening, Rosa?”

“On the half. I went straight to my dressing room and didn’t come out till my first entrance. About ten minutes into Act One.”

Barnaby nodded again, then sat, silent, drumming his fingers absently against the arm of his chair. As the moments passed, Rosa shifted uneasily. Troy, long familiar with the chief’s technique, simply anticipated.

“Rosa.” Barnaby gathered himself and leaned forward. “It is my belief that, far from welcoming your freedom at the time of your divorce and wishing Esslyn well in his second marriage, you fought to keep your own going and have hated him ever since he left you.”

Rosa cried out then, and covered her clown’s mouth with her fingers. Her hands shook, and sweat rolled down her face. Barnaby sat back and watched the actorish deceit evaporate, leaving, oddly now that truth was present, doubt and childlike bewilderment.

‘‘You’re right.” Having said this she sounded almost relieved. She paused for a long time, then started to speak, stopping and starting. Feeling her way. “I thought it would fade, especially after I remarried. And Earnest is so good. But it persisted, eating at me. I wanted a child, you see. He knew that. He denied me. Persuaded me against it. And then to give one to Kitty.” She produced a handkerchief and rubbed at her face. “But the amazing thing, Tom— and I do mean this, I really do—is that all the hatred’s gone. Isn’t that extraordinary? Just as if someone somewhere pulled a plug and let it drain away. It doesn’t seem possible, does it? That something so strong it was poisoning your life could simply disappear. Like magic.”

After a few moment’s silence, during which Barnaby mulled over Rosa’s excellent motive for murder, he indicated that she was free to go. She stood for a moment at the door, looking, in spite of her cheap flamboyant robe and rampaging complexion, not entirely ridiculous. She seemed to be searching for some concluding remark, perhaps with the idea of ameliorating her former harshness. Eventually, almost as if memory had caught her by surprise, she said, “We were young together once.” Barnaby next interviewed Boris, who twitched and shook his way through the questions until Sergeant Troy, from pure pity, offered him a cigarette. Boris insisted that he had seen no one handle the razor all evening, and could not imagine why anyone would want to kill Esslyn. All the other bit-part actors came and went, saying the same thing. As each one left the scene dock, they were followed by a cry of fury as Harold protested against this disgraceful reversal of the natural order of precedence.

One scene-of-crime man arrived closely followed by Bill Davidson, untimely wrenched from his Masonic revels. After a briefing, they went about their business, working through the men’s dressing room first and releasing it for occupation. Cully took her mother home, Esslyn left for the county morgue, and Barnaby called for the Everards.

Clive and Donald came prancing in, their eyes aglow with anticipation, trailing clouds of schadenfreude. They were still made up, and their pointilliste complexions were the peculiar tea-rose pink of old-fashioned corsets. Barnaby chose to see them together, knowing their habit of egging each other on to ever more indiscreet and racy revelations. Now, preening and clucking like a couple of cassowaries, they circled the two chairs cautiously a couple of times before perching. They stared beady-eyed at Sergeant Troy and his notebook, and he stared boldly but uneasily back.

The sergeant liked men to be men and women to be glad of it. Here was a pair he couldn’t place at all. He always boasted he could tell a faggot a mile off, but he wasn’t at all sure about this particular combo. He decided they had probably been neutered at an early age and, having pinned them down to his satisfaction, heard Barnaby ask if they could think of anyone who would wish to harm the dead man and flipped over to a new page.

“Quite honestly,” said Clive Everard, taking a keen, deep breath, “it’d take less time to tell you who wouldn’t wish to harm him. I shouldn’t think there’s anyone in the company hasn’t come up against Esslyn at some time and been the worse for it.”

“If you could be a little more specific.”

“If it’s specific you want—” They exchanged glances glittering with spite. “Why not start with Deidre. He was telling this wonderful story in the dressing room—”

“—positively hilarious—”

“About her father—”

“Laughter and applause—”

“And suddenly there she was in the doorway. She must have overheard Esslyn call the old man senile—”

“Which of course he is.”

“But d’you think she’ll admit it? Absentminded … disoriented … poorly …”

“Poorly,” cackled Donald. “So what more natural than that she had a stab at getting her own back. Oops … Freudian slip there. Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry. His smile was as bright as a new penny as he added, “And of course who would have a better opportunity?”

“This happened when she called the quarter?” asked Barnaby, recalling Deidre’s distressed appearance as he had passed through the wings.

“That’s right. Would you care to hear the story?” Clive added politely.

“No,” said Barnaby. “Anyone else?” Then, when they appeared to be savoring a multitude of possibilities: “What about Nicholas?”

“Ahhh, you’ve snuffed out that little contretemps. Esslyn’d just discovered that his little kitten was having an affair.’’

“And I’m afraid,” murmured Donald, looking with shy regret at Sergeant Troy, “that it was rather our fault.”

“Not that we thought he’d react anything like he did.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“I mean, his complacency is legendary.” “Undentable.”

“So who,” asked Barnaby, “was she supposed to be having an affair with?”

“Well, we heard from Rosa who got it from Boris who got it from Avery who got it from Nicholas that it was David Smy.”

“And where did Nicholas get it from?”

“My dear, apparently he actually saw them,” cried Donald. “Going at it like the clappers in Tim’s lighting box.”

Barnaby supposed stranger things had happened. Himself, he would not have thought that Kitty, whose winsome appearance masked, he felt sure, a self-serving duplicitous little nature, would have fancied the rather stolid David. Mind you, if she was looking for a change, no one could have been a greater contrast to Esslyn.

“And as he was our friend,” said Donald with an unctuous wriggle, “we felt he ought to know.”

“So we told him.”

“In the middle of a performance?”

“Well, you know what an old pro he is … was. Nothing fazed him.” No need to ask how Barnaby knew precisely when. Act II spoke for itself. “Or so we thought.” “But my God—the effect!”

“We didn’t take his ego into account, you see. He’s like Harold. Sees himself as a prince … or a king. And Kitty belonged to him. No one else was allowed to touch.” “Lese-majeste. ”

“He went white, didn’t he, Clive?”

“Quite white.”

“And his eyes blazed. It was really frightening. Like being a messenger in one of those Greek plays.”

“Where you hand over the bad news, then they take you outside and rearrange your innards with a toasting fork.”

“He got hold of my arm. I’ve still got the marks, look.” Donald rolled back his sleeve. “And he said who?”

“Just the one word, ‘who?’ ”

“And I looked at his face and I looked at my arm and I thought, Well I’m not going to be the one to tell him who.”

“Friendship can be taken just so far.”

“Absolutely,” said Barnaby, ignoring his nausea and giving an encouraging smile. “So … ?”

“So I said,” continued Donald, “better ask Nicholas. And before I could say another word—”

“Before either of us could say another word—”

“He’d stormed off. And I never had a chance to add, “ ‘He’s the one who knows.’ ”

“And we realized once we’d got down to the dressing rooms that Esslyn’d got hold of the wrong end of the stick and thought that Nico was actually the man!”

“And you didn’t feel like disabusing him?”

“The place was packed, Tom.” Clive sounded reproving, if not scandalized. “You don’t want everyone knowing your business.”

Even Troy, so impassive in his role of bag-carrier that suspects occasionally thought he had entered a period of hibernation, choked back an astonished laugh at this astounding example of doublethink. The Everards turned and studied him carefully. Clive spoke.

“He’s not writing all this down, is he?”

Deidre ran on. And on. She seemed to have been running for hours. Her legs and feet ached, and a savage wind repeatedly plastered strips of soaking-wet hair over her eyes and mouth. She felt, from the soreness of her throat and totally clogged mucous membranes, that she must be crying, but so much water was pouring down her cheeks that it was impossible to be sure. Her father’s now-sodden coat, still clutched to her bosom, felt as heavy as lead. She peeled her hair away from her face for the hundredth time and staggered into the doorway of Me Andrew’s Pharmacy. Her heart leaped in her breast, and she tried to take long, deep breaths to calm it down. She averaged about one in three, the rest being broken by deep, shuddering sobs.

She rested between the two main windows. On her left stacks of disposable diapers and Tommy Tippee teething rings all supported by surging polystyrene worms. On her right a display of carboys, cans of grape concentrate, and coils of lemon plastic tubing like the intestines of a robot. (Be Your Own Fine Wine Merchant.)

Deidre moved to the edge of the step and stared up at the arch of the black thundering sky, a soft anemone violet when she had first left home. The stars in their courses, never all that concerned with the welfare of the human race, tonight looked especially indifferent. Through the rivulets making their way down Deidre’s glasses, individual stars became blurred, then elongated into hard, shining lances.

She had been running in circles. Starting in the High Street, then working outward in concentric rings. She had looked in all the shop entrances and checked Adelaide’s and the Jolly Cavalier, although a public house was the last place she would normally expect to find her father. In both places bursts of laughter had followed her wild appearance and speedy withdrawal. She scurried round and round, obsessed by the idea that she was just missing him. She saw him, old and cold and drenched to the skin, just one street ahead or a hundred yards behind or even in a directly parallel path concealed only by a house or dark gathering of trees.

Twice she had called in at home, checking every room and even the garden shed. The second time she had been terribly tempted by the still faintly glowing embers in the kitchen grate to take off her wet clothes and make some tea and just sit by the fire for a while. But minutes later, she was driven out to the streets again, afraid she would never find him yet compelled by love and desperation to keep on trying.

So now she stood, her hand pressed against her pounding heart, her skin stinging under the arrowheads of rain, unable to take another step. Not knowing which way to turn. She tormented herself with pictures of her father lying in a gutter somewhere. Or huddled against a wall. No matter that, having covered every gutter and every wall, if he had been, she would have long since discovered him. The ability to think rationally vanished the moment she had stepped into the clubroom and seen the empty chair, and blind panic took its place. She pressed her face against the cold glass and stared into the window.

Once more she turned her face toward the savage constellation of stars. God was up there, thought Deidre. God with His all-seeing eye. He would know where her father was. He could direct her if He chose. She locked her fingers together and prayed, choking on half-remembered fragments of childhood incantations: “Gentle Jesus … now I lay me down to sleep … in Thee have I trusted … neither run into any kind of danger …” Numb with cold, her hands pressed against each other in an urgency of supplication as she stared beseechingly upward.

But nothing changed. If anything, the great wash of iridescent stars looked even more distant, and the milky radiance of the moon more inhumanly bright. On one of Deidre’s lenses a rivulet spread sideways; the lance became a stretched grin.

She recalled her father’s years of piety. His simple confidence that he was loved by his Lord. Overlooked always by that luminous spirit and safe from all harm. Slowly anger began to course through her veins, unfreezing her blood, thawing out her frozen fingers. Was this to be his reward for years of devotion? To be allowed to slide into madness, then abandoned and left to caper about in the howling wind and rain like some poor homeless elemental? A wave of anguish swept over her. Followed by feelings of fury directed at a God she was no longer sure even existed. She stepped out of her shelter into the torrential rain and shook her fist at the heavens.

“You!” she screamed. “You were supposed to be looking after him!”

The police escort, alerted by the constable outside the Latimer, had just missed Deidre several times. Now, Policewoman Audrey Brieriey gave her companion a nudge and said, “Over there.”

Deidre had stopped yelling by the time they got out, and just stood with sad resignation awaiting their approach. Very gently they persuaded her into the car and took her home.

After showing in Tim and Avery, Troy pointedly moved his chair several feet away. Then he sat, legs protectively crossed, giving off waves of masochistic fervor, his breathing ostentatiously shallow. One might have thought the air to be thick with potentially effeminate spores, a careless gulp of which might transform him from a sand-kicker supreme to a giggling, girlish wreck.

Avery, aware of the antagonism, typically became over-helpful, even ingratiating. Tim calmly shifted his chair so that his back was toward the sergeant and ignored him throughout the interview. In reply to Barnaby’s opening question, they agreed they had arrived on the half, gone up to the clubroom, and had a glass of Condrieu accompanied by Nicholas, who’d had a bitter lemon. Then they’d drifted around to the dressing rooms in what Tim called, “a whirl of insincere effusion and fake goodwill.” They did not touch the razor or notice anyone else doing so. They entered the box at ten to eight and stayed there.

“You came out at the intermission, surely?”

“Well, no,” said Avery.

“Not even for a drink?”

“We have our own wine. Tim won’t drink Roo’s Revenge.”

“I was perhaps mistaken then … ?” Barnaby’s voice trailed off mildly.

“Oh! I did dash to the loo,” said Tim. “Once the coast was clear.”

“Yes. Splendid lighting.”

“Our swan song.”

“Was that the actors’ loo off the wings or the public?” asked Barnaby.

“The actors’. There was a queue in the clubroom.”

“Can you think of any reason,” continued Barnaby, “why anyone would wish to harm Esslyn?”

Avery started to flutter, like a young bird trying to get off the ground. Fatally he glanced at Troy, receiving in return a look of such poisonous dislike that it took him a full five minutes to recover. Nervously he rushed into speech. “He wasn’t an easy person. Expected everyone to defer all the time, and most of us did. Except for Harold, of course. I quite liked him myself—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Avery!” interrupted Tim. “We’re both in the clear. We were in the box. There’s no need to be such a bloody toady.”

Avery looked disconcerted, then relieved. “I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Phew,’ as they say.” He mopped his forehead with an emerald-green Paisley hankie. “Well, if that’s the way of it, I don’t mind admitting that I thought Esslyn was an absolute shit. And so did everyone else.”

Tim laughed and felt the blade of Troy’s attention in the small of his back. Barnaby said, “Some more than others, perhaps?”

“People often weren’t bold enough to show it.”

“Or careless enough.”

“Pardon?” Avery looked puzzled but willing, like a puppy who hasn’t quite got the point of a trick but is prepared to give it a try.

“He means,” said Tim dryly, “that this was probably some time in the planning.”

Troy resented the speed of this connection. His own thought processes, though he liked to think he got there in the end, were less wing-footed. Queers were bad enough, he thought, stabbing at the page with his ballpoint, but clever queers …

“You wouldn’t like to make a guess who is responsible?”

“Certainly not,” said Tim.

“Avery?”

“Oh …” As if called upon unexpectedly to make a speech, Avery half rose in his seat, then sank back again. “I’d have thought Kitty. I mean, she can’t have enjoyed being married to Esslyn. He was over twice her age and about as much fun as a night out with the tontons macoutes. And of course they were heading for trouble as soon as the baby came.”

“Oh? Why was that?”

“Esslyn would have been so jealous. He couldn’t bear not to be the center of attention, and babies need an awful lot of looking after. At least,” he added, it seemed to Barnaby a trifle wistfully, “so I understand.”

“You knew she was having an affair?”

“So Nicholas told us.” Avery blushed and looked rather defiantly across at his partner. “And I, for one, don’t blame her.”

Neither of them could think of anything else at the moment that might be of help, so Barnaby let them go, turning to his sergeant as the door closed and saying, “Well, Troy. What do you think?”

Troy knew that it was not his opinion of homosexuals that was being solicited. There had been a particularly repulsive example of the species in a case the previous year at Badger’s Drift, and Troy’s suggestions as to how the man’s activities might be curtailed had been very frostily received. His chief was funny like that. Hard as iron in many ways. Harder than the iron men who thought they could never be broken and were now serving their time. Yet he had these peculiar soft spots. Wouldn’t come out and condemn things that everyone knew to be rotten. Probably his age, thought Troy. You had to make allowances.

“Well, sir—I can’t think of any reason why either of them should have been involved. Unless the dead man was queer, and that’s why his missus screwed around. But from what I’ve heard, he seemed to have had a steady stream of tarts on the go.”

Barnaby nodded. “Yes. I don’t think his heterosexuality is in question.”

“And those Everards, just slimy little time-servers.”

“That seems to be the general opinion. Right—let’s have Nicholas.”

The sergeant paused on his way out. “What shall I tell that little fat geezer? Every time I go in and it’s not for him, he nearly wets himself.”

“Tell him”—Barnaby grinned—“tell him the dame always comes down last.”

Scenes of crime had worked their way through the wings and were now tackling the stage. To save time, Colin and David Smy had been released and told to present themselves at the station the next morning. Barnaby was interviewing Nicholas.

He had always liked the boy, and quickly became aware that Nicholas was enjoying the drama of the situation while feeling rather ashamed of himself for doing so. Which, thought Barnaby, was one up on certain other members of the company, who had taken in the enjoyment while stopping well short of the shame. Having ascertained that Nicholas knew and saw nothing in relation to the tampering with the razor, Barnaby asked if he could think of any reason why anyone would wish to harm Esslyn.

“You’ve never acted with him, have you?” said Nicholas, with a strained laugh. He was blushing with nerves and anxiety.

“I advise you to keep facetious remarks like that to yourself,” said Barnaby. “A man has died here tonight.”

“Yes … of course. I’m sorry, Tom. It was just nerves. Panic, I suppose.”

“What have you got to be panicky about?”

“Nothing!”

Barnaby paused for a moment, letting his impassive gaze rest on Nicholas. Then he exchanged a look with Sergeant Troy. Anything could have been read into that look. Nicholas, already a bundle of quivering apprehension, felt his spine turn to jelly.

Barnaby could not have seen (no one could have seen what had happened to him onstage under the table. But if he had, he would never believe the attack to be entirely unmotivated. Who would? And if Esslyn appeared to have a reason for attacking Nicholas, might Nicholas not be supposed to have a reason for killing Esslyn? How airy-fairy now, thought Nicholas, did his reasoning seem that the other man was temporarily mad. Nicholas could see himself drawn into a whole area of emotional muddle and mess with questions and counterquestions all under that basilisk eye. (Could this be old Tom?) Thank God no one else had seen the confrontation. All he had to do was not get rattled and he’d be fine.

“What have you done to your hand?”

“What hand?”

“Let’s have a look.” An irritated grunt. “The other one, Nicholas.”

Nicholas held out his hand. Barnaby regarded it silently. Troy allowed himself a low whistle.

“Nasty,” said the chief inspector. “How did you manage that?”

“Stung.”

“What by?”

“A wasp.”

“A wasp’s nest in the wings? There’s novelty.”

“I did it yesterday.”

“Ah.” Barnaby smiled and nodded, as if he found this suspiciously unsound explanation quite satisfactory, then said, “I understand it was you who started the rumor of Kitty’s infidelity.”

“It wasn’t a rumor,” retorted Nicholas hotly. “I know I was wrong to tell Avery, and I’m very sorry, but it wasn’t a rumor. I actually saw her in the lighting box with David Smy.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. They were the only two people in the building.”

“Apart from yourself.”

“Well … of course.”

“So we only have your word for it that anyone was with Kitty.”

“She’d hardly have been reeling and writhing about up there on her own.”

“But she might have been there with you.”

‘‘Me!”

“Why not? I’d have thought you were a much more likely contender than David.” Nicholas looked more trapped than flattered.

“Why on earth would I want to tell tales about myself? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You might have wanted things out in the open.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“What happened to your hand, Nicholas?”

“I told you.”

“Forget the wasps. It’s November, not mid-July. What happened to your hand?”

“I don’t remember… .”

“All right. What happened to your thumb?”

“A splinter.” Nicholas seized gladly at this opportunity to give a brief and truthful reply.

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“How?” Barnaby’s look became more concentrated, and Nicholas closed his eyes against the glare.

“I’ve forgotten …”

“Nicholas.” Nicholas opened his eyes. The glare was muted now. Tom looked slightly more like his old self. Nicholas, who hadn’t realized he was holding his breath, let it out gratefully; his backbone unjelled a little; his shoulders relaxed.

“Yes, Tom?”

“Why did you believe that Esslyn was trying to kill you?”

Nicholas gasped as if a pail of cold water had been thrown in his face. He struggled to regain his equilibrium and formulate a sensible reply. At the moment his brain seemed unraveled, nothing but kaleidoscopic fragments. All he could do was stall.

“What?” He tried a light laugh. It came out a strangled croak. “Where on earth did you get that idea?” Rosa. Of course. He had forgotten Rosa. Tom had stopped looking like his old self. He spoke.

“I’ve been sitting in this chair for a very long time, Nicholas. And I’m getting very tired. You start messing me about, and you’ll find yourself in the slammer. Got that?”

Nicholas swallowed. “Yes.”

“Right. The truth, then.”

“Well … my hand … he did that with his rings. Turned them all feeling inward and squeezed tight. Then, near the end of the play when I crawl under the table, he came after me. His cape cut all the light off. I was trapped. Then he tried to strangle me. …” Nicholas trailed lamely off. Barnaby leaned forward and studied his lily-white throat. “Oh—he didn’t actually touch me.”

“I see,” said the chief inspector. “He tried to strangle you. But he didn’t actually touch you.”

Nicholas fell silent. How could he convey the feelings he had experienced during those dreadful minutes when, half-paralyzed with fear, he had shrunk away from Esslyn’s jackal breath and groping, bony fingers. He stumbled into speech, explaining about cutting a page and a half and bringing Kitty on.

“And you really believe that it was only her entrance that stopped him attacking you?”

“I did then … yes.”

“But temporarily?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Obviously anyone really determined balked at one attempt will look for an opportunity to make a second.”

“That didn’t occur to me. I just felt that if only I could get offstage, I’d be safe.”

“You really expect me to believe that?”

“I know it sounds unlikely, Tom.”

“It sounds bloody ridiculous! How much more likely that you come off frightened and angry. Take the razor, nip off to the loo, remove the tape, and bingo! You get him before he gets you. Problem solved.”

“That’s not true. ”

“Cop a plea of self-defense,” said Barnaby cheerfully, “get off with three years.”

“No!”

“Why go straight to the props table?”

“I just sat down for a second. I felt shaken. I’d got this splinter. It hurt like hell. I went down to the men’s dressing room.” Nicholas could hear the sentences clattering out through chattering teeth. Each one less convincing than the one before.

“Anyone see you?”

“… I don’t know … yes … Rosa …”

“What on earth was Rosa doing in the men’s dressing room?”

“She wasn’t. I couldn’t find any tweezers, so I went next door.”

“Who was in the men’s, then?”

“No one.” Barnaby tutted. “But … if I’d been messing with the razor, I’d have taken the tape off, then gone straight back, surely? To put it back before it was missed.”

“Oh, I don’t know. If I’d been messing with the razor, I’d have made sure I had a good excuse to be downstairs and someone saw me going about my lawful business.”

“You don’t think I rammed that splinter down my thumb on purpose? It was bloody agonizing.” Nicholas plucked at the square of grubby Band-Aid. “Do you want to have a look?”

Barnaby shook his head, then slowly got to his feet. “See if you can rustle up some tea, Sergeant. I’m parched.”

Nicholas waited for a moment and, when Barnaby made no attempt to continue the conversation, also got shakily to his feet … “Is that all, then, Tom?”

“For now.”

“D’you think”—Nicholas appeared almost to gag on the words—“I ought to find a solicitor?”

“Everyone should have a solicitor, Nicholas,” said Barnaby, with gently smiling jaws. “You never know when they’re going to come in handy.”

It was about ten minutes later, when Nicholas was putting on his coat, that the odd thing struck him. Barnaby had not asked the first question that even the most inexpert of investigators must surely have put. And the chief inspector, as Nicholas’s still twitching nerve ends could testify, was far from inexpert. He had not asked Nicholas why Esslyn would wish to kill him. There must be a reason for this very basic omission. Nicholas did not believe for a moment it was either lack of care or forgetfulness. Perhaps Barnaby thought he already knew. In which case he knows a damn sight more than I do, thought Nicholas. He decided to look into this further, and retraced his steps to the ladies’ dressing room.

Long afterward, when she was able to look back with some degree of equanimity on the first night of Amadeus and its shocking aftermath, Deidre marveled at the length of time it had taken her to realize that there was only one place where her father felt safe and cared for when she was absent. Only one place where he could possibly be.

The day center, Laurel Lodge, was nearly a mile from the middle of town. Two custard-yellow minibuses, Phoenix One and Phoenix Two, collected the elderly and infirm at their homes and ferried them to and from the center each weekday. So Mr. Tibbs knew the way. In fact, it was not complicated. You just took the B416 as if you were going to Slough, then tapered off on a side road toward Woodbum Common. The distance could be covered in about an hour. Or less, if you were running your heart out and pacing yourself against dark, unreasoned fears.

Deidre remembered the center when she had been hunched over the electric fire in the kitchen being urged by the policewoman to swallow some hot, sweet tea and try not to worry. Now, she sat once more in the back of the Escort warmed by the drink and above all by the knowledge that the hopeless, misdirected floundering was over and that they were definitely on their way to where her father would be waiting. She struggled to keep calm, knowing that her attitude was bound to affect the situation when they met.

She couldn’t help worrying, of course. For instance, the place was locked up and there was no caretaker on the premises, so Mr. Tibbs would not have been able to get in. This observation, when first made, had considerably threatened Deidre’s equilibrium. For the building, thoughtfully, even lovingly designed so that its inhabitants would get the benefit of all the light and sunshine available, was made almost entirely of glass. And what if her father, frenziedly searching for Mrs. Coolidge (or Nancy Banks, who made such a fuss over him) harmed himself by hammering on those heavy slabs or, worse, seized a stone from the garden and tried to smash the doors? Suppose he then tried to squeeze through gripping the jagged raw edges … ?

At this point Deidre would wrench her mind from such dreadful fancies and once more wrestle her way toward comparative tranquility. But the idea would not easily be vanquished, and when the car drew up outside Laurel Lodge, and the dark glass structure loomed apparently undisturbed, she felt a great rush of relief.

The iron gates were locked, a token restraint merely, as the grounds were surrounded by a brick wall barely a yard high. The rain had stopped, but there was still a high howling wind. As Deidre staggered across the gravel, her coat streamed out behind her and her cries of “Daddy, where are you? It’s Deidre” were blown back into her mouth as soon as uttered. Constable Watson had a flashlight in his hand, and was testing all the doors and windows and bellowing “Mr. Tibbs?” in what seemed to Deidre a very authoritative, even threatening manner. He disappeared around the side of the building shining his light into each of the five transparent boxes; the workroom and kitchen, the rest room and office, the canteen. Then he came back shouting “He’s not here,” and Deidre, uncomprehending, yelled back, “Yes, yes … somewhere.”

She waved at the surrounding garden, and the man followed the movement with his flashlight. The beam swept an arc of brilliant light over the surrounding lawns and shrubbery. A band of green-gold conifers, waving and soughing like the sea, leaped into sight, then vanished as the flashlight moved on. The flower beds were empty brown sockets, and the shrubs that gave the place its name creaked in the bitter whirling wind. (Deidre had always hated the laurels. They were so coarse and melancholic, and their leathery spotted leaves made her think of the plague.)

She seized PC Watson’s arm, gasped, “We must search,” and started pulling him toward the nearest dark mass of shrubbery. He resisted, and Deidre, turning back, was just about to redouble her efforts when the blistering roar of the wind ceased. The strife-tom trees rustled and groaned for a few moments more, then settled into silence.

Surprisingly—for they were half a mile from the nearest habitation—a dog barked. This was followed by another sound, which, although muffled by the hedge of Leylandii conifers, was unmistakably a human voice. It was calling out, not in any panic-stricken way but with a sonorous, tolling necessity, like a town crier. Deidre moaned, “The lake!,” and flew in the general direction from which the recitations had come. Her companion followed, trying to light her with his flashlight, but she was running so fast and zigzagging so wildly back and forth that he kept losing her. Once she tripped, fell into a flower bed, and scrambled up, her hands and clothes plastered with mud.

In fact, the lake was not a lake at all but a reservoir. A vast natural hollow that had been extended and shaped into a rectangle, then edged with masonry and planted all about with reeds and other vegetation. People were allowed to sail on it in the summer, and it was home to a large variety of birds and small mammals. Nearby was a concrete building surrounded by a high wire fence with a sign attached. It showed a yellow triangle with a jagged arrow and a man lying down and read danger of death, keep out. Just as Deidre arrived, the moon, so white it appeared almost blue in the icy air, sailed serenely out from behind a bank of dark cloud. It illuminated an astonishing sight.

Mr. Tibbs was standing rigidly upright in an oarless rowing boat in the very center of the reservoir. His arms were flung wide and, as his fingers were almost precisely aligned with the perfect circle of the reflected moon, he seemed to be holding a new, mysterious world in the palm of his hand. His trousers and shirt were torn, his hair stuck out wildly in all directions, and his forearms and chest were scratched and bleeding. But his face as he stared upward was stamped with such ecstatic bliss that it was as if he saw streams of celestial light pouring from the very gates of paradise.

Mr. Tibbs had an audience of one. A rough-haired, rather shabby brown-and-white mongrel with a plumed tail. He sat bolt upright, his head cocked to one side in an attitude of strained attention, his ears pricked. He paid no attention when the others crashed into view, but kept his eyes (brown and shiny as beechnuts) firmly fixed on the figure in the boat.

“I saw a mighty angel come down from heaven!” cried Mr. Tibbs. “Clothed with a cloud. And a rainbow was upon his head! And his face was as it were the sun. And his feet as pillars of fire!”

While the constable used his radio to organize assistance, Audrey Brierley was hanging on to a struggling Deidre. “We’re getting reinforcements, love,” she said urgently. “And an ambulance. They’ll be here in no time. Please calm down. There’s nothing you can do. If you get in there, that’ll be two people we’ll have to pull out. Twice the trouble, twice the risk. Now you don’t want that, do you?” Deidre stood still then. “Good girl. Try not to worry. He’ll be cold and wet, but he’s in no real danger.”

“If any man have an ear, let him hear,” clarioned Mr. Tibbs. Then he flung out his arm in a wide sweep encompassing his human audience of three, the concrete hut, and the scrupulously attentive canine, and fell into the water.

Deidre screamed, Policewoman Brierley hung on anew, and Constable Watson peeled off his heavy tunic, got rid of his boots, and dived in. He kicked out with great difficulty (his trousers were immediately saturated), cursing the fate that had put him on late turn. He attempted a strong crawl toward the dark outline of the boat, and each time he turned his head, a little of the water, freezing cold and tasting richly of mud and iron, slopped into his mouth. He grabbed what he thought was his quarry, only to find himself clutching a huge skein of slimy weed. He swam further in. On his limited horizon the water lapped and bobbed against the sky. Mr. Tibbs’s descent had fractured the immaculate circle of the moon, and it now lay in broken bars of silver around the policeman’s head. He could hear wails from Deidre interspersed with barks from the dog, which, now that the declamation had ceased and the action had started, was running excitedly round in circles.

The policeman reached Mr. Tibbs, hooked an arm around the old man’s neck, and turned him around. To the anguished Deidre, wringing her hands on the bank, her father seemed to spin with graceful ease, but to Jim Watson it was like hauling a hundred-pound sack of potatoes. Thank God, he thought, feeling his arms wrenching in their sockets, the old man wasn’t thrashing about. Indeed, Mr. Tibbs seemed quite unaware that there was any danger in his position at all. He drifted beatifically, cruciformly, on his back. With his rigid, unnatural smile and spreading white hair, he looked like the corpse of a holy man floating in the Ganges. PC Watson plodded on. His arm was almost beating the water in his efforts to keep them both afloat.

Then Mr. Tibbs decided he had had enough and announced his approach to the next world. “We are coming, Lord,” he cried, and made the sign of the cross, poking PC Watson savagely in the eye.

“Christ!” exclaimed the unfortunate constable as an agonizing pain exploded behind his forehead. Mr. Tibbs, no doubt encouraged by this sign of solidarity, twisted himself out of the policeman’s grasp, placed his hands on his rescuer’s shoulders, and sank them both. Jim Watson held his breath, kicked his way violently to the surface, took a fresh lungful of air, and dived again, bringing up Mr. Tibbs.

“Ohhh …” wailed Deidre. “We must do something.”

“He’ll be all right.” PW Brierley sounded more confident than she felt. The two pale faces were still a long way from the edge.

“Can’t you go in and help?”

“Then there’d be two of us round his neck.”

“I thought everyone in the police had to be able to swim.”

“Well they don’t,” snapped Audrey Brierley, unpleasantly aware that her uniform was wet and filthy, her hat lost somewhere in the bushes, her tights in shreds, and that she was screamingly, ragingly, desperately dying for a pee. She moved slightly forward, extending her fingertips another inch. The inch that might make all the difference. She said, “Hang onto my legs.”

The dog, as if sensing that the situation was now completely out of his control had crouched quietly down and was looking back and forth from the couple on the edge to the couple in the water with increasing degrees of anxiety.

PC Watson had been unable to seize Mr. Tibbs with his former neat precision and, having awkwardly grabbed at his shoulder, was now lugging rather than towing him. The policeman’s muscles ached almost beyond endurance with the double effort of trying to steer them both to the bank and keep Mr. Tibbs’s head above the water. Also, the old man’s benign attitude had become transformed, no doubt due to his being snatched from the jaws of death against his will, to one of extreme truculence. He flailed his arms and legs about, and gave little wheezy hoots of crossness. Kevin Lampeter, the ambulance driver, said afterward it was as if someone were trying to drown a set of bagpipes. He arrived just after the police reinforcements, who had brought a coil of rope and had drawn PC Watson and his burden to safety.

Deidre immediately flung herself on her father, supporting him and calling his name over and over again. But he shrank away as if from an unkind stranger. The ambulance men persuaded him onto a stretcher, and the bedraggled group limped, staggered, or, in the case of the dog, trotted briskly toward the waiting vehicle. The wall was negotiated with far less ease than previously. PC Watson, a blanket around his shoulders, climbed heavily into the back of the ambulance, and Mr. Tibbs, all the light fled from his countenance, went next. The dog, attempting to follow, was sternly rebuffed.

“You’ll have to take him up front.”

“Oh, but he’s not—” said Deidre, bewildered. “I mean … I don’t know …”

“If you could hurry it up, please, dear. The sooner we get the old man to a hospital, the better.”

Deidre climbed into the cab, but the dog had got there first. When she sat down, he bounded onto her lap, unfurled his plume tail, wrapped it neatly around his hindquarters, and stared intently out of the window all the way to Slough.

Kitty settled herself composedly. She inspected her pretty face, flirted her curls a bit, and accepted a cup of tea from Sergeant Troy with a look that was as good as a wink and then some. Barnaby assumed her sangfroid to be genuine. Given her present position as suspect number one, this argued either great cunning, absolute innocence, or absolute stupidity. Of the three, Barnaby was inclined to favor the latter. He started with formal condolences.

“A terrible business this, Kitty. You must be dreadfully upset.”

“Yeah. Terrible. I am.” Kitty’s azure glance slid sideways and fastened, sweet and predatory, on Troy’s carrot-colored crown. He looked up, met the glance, flushed, smirked, and looked down again.

“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to harm your husband?”

“Could’ve been any number of people. He was an absolute pig.”

“I see.” He was obviously not going to have the same problem with the second Mrs. Carmichael that he had had with the first. “You would include yourself among that number?”

“Definitely.”

“But it wasn’t you who removed the tape?”

“Only because I didn’t think of it first.” Bold madam, thought Troy. And get a load of those sweet little oranges.

“Did you and Esslyn arrive together?”

“Yes. I went straight to the dressing room. Got dressed and made up. All of a twitch and tremble I was. Ask Joycey.”

“That was a savage bit of business in Act Two,” said Barnaby, circling closer.

“Bastard. Nearly broke my back.”

“I understand he’d just discovered you’d been having an affair.”

“An affair.” Dismay, indignation, and comprehension jostled for position on Kitty’s foxy face. “So that was what set him off. How the hell did that get out?”

“You were seen.”

“Charming. Nosy buggers.” She scowled. “Where was I seen?”

“In the lighting box.”

“Oh, no.” Kitty laughed then. A blowsy, coarse chuckle. “Poor old Tim. He’ll be furious.”

“Would you care to tell me who the man is?”

“But—” She stopped. Her face, spontaneously surprised, became smooth and guarded. “Not really. You seem to be doing very well on your own. I’m sure by this time tomorrow you’ll know his name, what he has for breakfast, and the size of his socks. Not to mention the length of—”

“Yes, all right, Kitty,” interrupted Barnaby, noticing his sergeant’s look of rollicking appreciation.

“In any case, it wasn’t what you’d call an affair. Not a real steamer. More of a frolic … all very lighthearted, really.”

“Did you expect your husband to see it like that?”

“I didn’t expect my husband to find out, for godsake!”

“Who do you suppose told him?”

“His little muckrakers, I should think. They’re never happier than when they’re turning over a nice big stone and mixing up the ooze. He relied on them for all the juicy bits.”

“I understand that after this violent scene onstage, you rested for a while in the wings—”

“Hardly for a while.”

“—next to the props table. In fact, almost on top of the tray with the bowl of soap and the razor.”

“I was only there a second.”

“A second is all you would need,” said Barnaby. “It’s obvious that whoever messed with the razor took it away to do so. And almost the only place where it could have been tampered with undisturbed was a locked lavatory cubicle.” His voice tightened. “I understand it was in the ladies’ where Deidre found you.”

“ Where’d you expect her to find me? In the gents?”

“And that you then said that if Esslyn touched you again, you would kill him.” Kitty stared, suddenly whey-faced with shock.

“What a brilliant lot. Gossips. Spies. Peeping Toms. And now a bloody tipster. You wait till I see her. Little cow!”

“You mustn’t blame Deidre,” said the chief inspector, feeling that the least he could do was save the wretched girl from a further stream of opprobrium. “You were overheard. In the wings.”

“Well? So what?” Kitty was quickly regaining her balance. “You saw what happened onstage. What d’you think I’d say? We must do this more often? In a pig’s eye.”

Her voice was steely and laced with bravado. Barnaby, remembering the coquettish, adoring glances directed at her husband and her other cute wriggling little ways, could only reflect wryly on the commonly held assumption that Kitty couldn’t act for beans.

“Anyway,” she continued, her eyes bright and astute, “if I’d been in the loo taking the tape off, I’d hardly start shouting to the world that I was thinking of killing him.”

“Stranger things have happened. You could have been perpetrating a double bluff. Assuming that we would think exactly that.”

“Oh, come on, Tom. You know me. I’m not that clever.”

They stared each other out. Kitty, her cornflower blue eyes dark with anger, was thinking she’d find out who had spotted her in the lighting box, and when she did, they’d wish they’d never been born.

Barnaby was wondering if she had genuinely not known the reason for Esslyn’s sudden explosion of rage. Had she really been sitting in the scene dock for (he checked his watch) the best part of two hours with Nicholas, also the recipient of Esslyn’s violence, without coming to any conclusions? They must surely have discussed it. He supposed if the Everards had kept their mouths shut, this could be the case. Was Kitty a bored young wife playing around? he wondered. Or was she a calculating harpy who had snagged a financially secure older husband and then wished to be rid of him? Was the removal of the tape an impulsive act? Or planned for some time? If so, Barnaby asked himself (as he was to do over and over again in the coming days), why on earth should it be done on the first night? He became aware that Kitty was leaning forward in her seat.

“You’re not sticking this on me, Tom,” she said firmly.

“I have no intention of ‘sticking’ this on anyone, Kitty. But I intend to find out the truth. So be warned.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I’ve nothing to hide.” But her cheeks colored suddenly, and she did not look at him.

“Then you’ve nothing to fear.”

After a longish pause during which Kitty recollected herself to the extent that she was able to send a second slumberous glance in Troy’s direction, she got to her feet and said, “If that’s all, a person in my condition should have been in her lonely bed hours ago.”

“Quite a girl,” said Barnaby as the door closed behind her.

“Anybody for a gin and tonic?” murmured the sergeant, hopefully memorizing the telephone number at the top of Kitty’s statement. Then he added, “Maybe they were in it together. Her and her bit of crackling.”

“The thought had occurred to me. We’ll see how he checks out tomorrow.”

Troy scanned his notes briefly, then said, “What now, sir?”

Barnaby got up and collected his coat. “Let’s go and find the big white chief.”

Barnaby had hardly set foot in the scene dock before Harold, incandescent with rage, sprang before them like a greyhound in the slips. “So there you are!” he cried, as if to a pair of recalcitrant children. “How dare you leave me while one and then the other of the company is interviewed? It’s not as if you aren’t aware of my position. How am I supposed to keep control when they see me constantly passed over like … like the boot boy!”

“I’m sorry you’re upset, Harold,” said Barnaby soothingly. “Please … sit down.” He indicated a rustic arbor on which dusty blue paper roses were impaled. Reluctantly, simmeringly, Harold lowered himself.

“You see,” continued the chief inspector, “everyone has had a story to tell. Sometimes these are mutually supportive, sometimes they contradict each other, but what I need at the end of the day is the viewpoint of someone who knows the group through and through. Someone perceptive, intelligent, and observant, who can help me to draw all the information together and perhaps see some underlying pattern in this dreadful affair. This is why I left you until the last.” He looked concernedly at Harold. “I thought you’d understand that.”

“Of course, Tom. I sensed that something like that was behind it all. But I would have appreciated a discreet word. To have been kept informed.”

Barnaby’s look of regret deepened. Troy, sitting just to the side of Harold in a deck chair (Relatively Speaking) watched with proprietorial pleasure. You could almost hear the steam hissing out of the old geezer (or geyser, revised the sergeant wittily), and see self-importance taking its place. Next would come complacency, the most fertile ground for the forcing of revelation. (Not fear or anger, as is commonly supposed.) Troy tried to catch his chief’s eye to indicate his appreciation of the maneuver, but without success. Barnaby’s concentration was total.

Actors, thought the sergeant, wearing the shade of a contemptuous smile. You’d have to get up early to find one to match the D.C.I. He had as many expressions to his face and shades to his voice as a mangy dog had fleas. He could imitate the dove and the scorpion and even the donkey if he thought it would serve his ends. More than once Troy had seen him shaking his head in apparent dumb bewilderment while witnesses feeling secure in his incomprehension happily babbled on, quite missing the echo of the turnkey’s tread. And he had a special smile seen only at the moment of closing in. Troy practiced that smile sometimes at home in the bathroom mirror and frightened himself half to death. Now, Barnaby was congratulating Harold on the excellence of his production.

“Thank you, Tom. Not an easy play, but I pride myself on a challenge, as you know. I wasn’t altogether delighted with Act One, but the second half was a great improvement. So intense. And then to end like that … ” He clicked his tongue. “And of course any sort of screw-up, people immediately blame the director.”

“I’m afraid that’s the case,” agreed Barnaby, marveling at Harold’s grasp of the essentials. “You were hardly backstage at all, I believe?”

“Not really. Went through on the five to wish them all bonne chance—well, you were directly behind me, I believe? Then again in the intermission to tell them to pull themselves together. ’

“And you saw no one behaving suspiciously in the wings?”

“Of course not. If I had, I would have stopped them. We had five more performances, after all. And Saturday’s sold out.”

“Do you have any idea who might have tampered with the razor?”

Harold shook his head. “I’ve thought and thought, Tom, as you can imagine. There might be someone in the company who’s got it in for me but…’’—he gave a perplexed sigh—“I can’t possibly think why.”

“Or Esslyn.”

“Pardon?”

“It could be said that Esslyn had been sabotaged just as successfully as your production.”

“Oh. Quite.” Harold pursed his lips judiciously, implying that although this was a completely new slant on the situation, it was not one he was prepared to reject out of hand. “You mean, Tom, it might have been something personal?”

“Very personal, I’d say.” Troy, almost alight with enjoyment, leaned back too hard in his deck chair and broke the strut. By the time he had sorted himself out, Barnaby had reached the four-dollar question. “Did you have any reason for wishing Esslyn Carmichael harm?”

“Me?” squeaked Harold. “He was my leading man. My star! Now, I shall have to start all over again, training Nicholas.”

“What about his relationships with the rest of the company?”

“Esslyn didn’t really have relationships. His position made that rather difficult. I have the same problem. To hold authority, one must keep aloof. He always had a woman in tow, of course.”

“Not since his recent marriage, surely?”

“Perhaps not. I’m sure we’d all know. I’ll say this in Esslyn’s favor—he never attempted to conceal his infidelities. Not even during his years with Rosa.”

Quite right, thought Troy, flicking over his page. What’s the point of having it if you don’t flaunt it?

“She seemed very distressed, I thought.”

“Rosa could always weep to order.”

“In fact,” insinuated the chief inspector, “far more so than the present incumbent.”

“Ah.” In an ecstasy of enlightenment Harold slapped himself about the jowls like S. Z. (Cuddles) Sakall. “In other words, cherchez la femme. Could be, could be. He was the sort to make enemies, mind you. Selfish to the core.”

Barnaby had always believed it was possible to judge the love and respect in which the newly deceased was held by the width of the gap between the immediate, almost inevitable reaction of shock and distress (even if only on the “every man’s death diminishes me” principle) and the point at which the dead party’s failings could be discussed with something approaching relish. In Esslyn Carmichael’s case, the gap was so narrow it would hardly have accommodated one of Riley’s whiskers.

“But in spite of that, you got on with him?”

“I get on with everyone, Tom.”

“Personally and professionally?”

“They’re intertwined. Esslyn didn’t always accept my suggestions easily, but there was never any question of compromise. There can only be one leader.”

Harold’s disdain for accurate introspection and his air-brushed memory were certainly working overtime tonight, observed Barnaby. Or perhaps he genuinely believed that Esslyn had dutifully carried out the instruction of his imperator—which argued a hazy grip on reality, to say the least.

“Returning to the question of motive, you have to remember,” continued Harold, borrowing the obituarist’s subtle shorthand when describing arrogant insensitives, “that he didn’t suffer fools gladly. But then”—a smug smile peeped through the silvery boscage—“neither do I.” When Harold had been dismissed and left, apparently without noticing that he had neither given an overview nor pulled any threads together, Barnaby returned to the now scrupulously investigated and empty wings and took the reel of tape from a box on Deidre’s table. He wound it twice around the handle of her microphone, then removed it by slicing it through with a Stanley knife. He gave it to Troy. “Chuck that down the toilet.” Then he stood listening to the repeated flushings and gushings till his sergeant returned.

“Can’t be done, chief.”

“Tried the ladies’ as well?”

“And upstairs. And the disabled.”

“Well, the search proved none of them were concealing it. Scenes of crime didn’t turn it up. So …”

“Out the window?”

“Right. And with this wind and rain, it could be halfway to Uxbridge by now. Still, we might be lucky. It could’ve caught up somewhere. Have a look in the morning. I’ve had enough for one night.”

As they made their way up through the deserted auditorium, Troy said, “Why did you leave him till last, sir? Old fat ’n’ hairy?”

“I don’t like the way he speaks to people.” Then, when Troy still looked inquiring: “He thinks everyone’s there to do his bidding. Takes them for granted, gives them no thanks, and talks to them like dirt. I didn’t think it would do him any harm to be at the end of the queue for once. ” “Think it’ll do him any good?”

“No. Too far gone.”

“I think he’s round the twist.”

“All theatricals are round the twist, Troy,” said Barnaby, tugging at the doors that led to the foyer. “If they weren’t, they’d get out of the business and into real estate.”

It seemed to take forever for Mr. Tibbs to be seen by all the people who had to have a look at him. Deidre gave the few details that were to be entered on his admission card, and was then told to wait in reception. She had been there over an hour when a nurse came and said she could see her father for a sec just to say good night.

Mr. Tibbs lay, neatly swaddled, in the iron rectangle of his hospital bed. He did not respond to her greeting, but stared straight ahead humming something atonal. His cheeks were flushed bright red.

“Nurse!” called Deidre, anxiety overcoming her innate wish not to be any trouble. “I think he’s got a fever.”

“We’ve given him something for that. He’ll be asleep soon.”

The nurse bustled up with a steel bedpan and started drawing the curtains of the bed next door. “You’ll have to go now.”

“Oh.” Deidre backed away. “Yes. I’m sorry. I’ll ring in the morning.”

“Make it latish. The rounds will be over then, and we can tell you how he’s been and where he’s going.”

“Won’t he stay here then?”

“No. This is just emergency admissions.”

“I see … well … good night then,” said Deidre to some orange folds of fabric. “And thank you.”

After a final look at her father, who already seemed to be part of another world, Deidre drifted back to the reception area. A young man was in the middle of a conversation, phone clamped to his ear supported by his shoulder. He said “Just a sec” to Deidre and went on talking. “Don’t talk to me about Miss Never on Sunday,” he said. “I saw her in the Boltons last night and she spent every other second in the john.” He listened for a moment, sucking his cheeks. “If promises were piecrusts, dear, she’d be in crumbs up to her armpits.” He was very dark. Deidre wondered if he could possibly be Italian. After he had hung up, she explained that she was now ready to go home.

“No can do, I’m afraid. Transport’s for emergencies only.”

“B … b … but …” Deidre stammered in her distress. “I live miles away.”

“That’s as may be, love. What would we do if there was a pileup on the motorway and you were out joyriding in the ambulance?”

“You’ve got more than one, surely …”

“Sorry. Those are the rules.”

Deidre stared blankly at him. In the close, hot air of the vestibule, her still-damp clothes started to steam. She was swaying from exhaustion. Now that her father was being safely cared for, all her emotions—fear, love, terror, despair-tumbled away. She was benumbed almost to the point of nonexistence.

“The buses start up at seven … you could have a little shut-eye.” He felt sorry for her, no doubt about that. She looked really zonked out. “If it was up to me, dear …” He always said that, it made them feel better. Made him feel better, too, come to that. “Or I could call you a taxi.”

“A taxi.” It wasn’t a question. She just repeated it like a child learning a lesson. Deidre struggled to think. The machinery of memory, like all her other psychological and physiological functions, seemed to have ground to a halt. A taxi meant money. She put her hands carefully into each of her pockets. She had no money. With great effort she forced herself to print a memory on the blank screen of her mind. She saw herself running from the Latimer. She was wearing her coat, and her hands were empty. That meant her bag must still be at the theater. So (her brows fretted with the effort of working out the next step) if she took a cab there, the driver could wait while she picked up her bag, then she could pay him and he could drive her home. Deidre, her face gray with exhaustion, labored over the details of this simple plan but could find no flaw.

“Yes,” she said. “A taxi.”

“Be double time,” said reception, cheerfully dialing. “After twelve, you see.”

Deidre declined the offer to relax on a settee while she was waiting, feeling that once she sat down, she would simply keel over and never get up. As it was, she could not understand how her legs supported her body. They felt as if they were made of broken pieces of china insecurely glued together. The car came almost immediately. The driver, a middle-aged man, regarded Deidre with some alarm.

And indeed she was an alarming sight. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes—dull and staring—were black-ringed. Her damp clothes showed patches of mud, and somewhere during the course of the evening she had lost a shoe. She was also (the cabbie could not help noticing) minus a handbag. This fact, combined with her bizarre appearance—he had already decided she was some sort of hippie—gave rise to the quite natural apprehension that his fare might not be forthcoming. Once reassured on this point, he offered his arm, which she did not ignore as much as not seem to see, and they left the building together.

“Animals is extra,” he said when they reached the car.

“What?”

“He is yours, ain’t he?” The man nodded at a small dog who had been patiently waiting outside the main doors and was now trotting alongside.

“Oh …” Deidre hesitated, looking down at the creature. The gargantuan task of trying to explain her lack of comprehension as to his background, ownership, and reason for being there was quite beyond her. “Yes.”

The roads were almost deserted, and they covered the twelve miles to Causton in under twenty minutes. It was not until they drew up outside the Latimer that the large snag in Deidre’s plan became apparent. There was no sign of life. The building was dark, the policeman outside had gone. Deidre stood on the pavement, having realized that not only were her house keys in her bag, so also were her keys to the Latimer.

The cabbie, all his suspicions reawakened, tooted his horn. Deidre moved toward the theater noticing as she did so a tall, gangling scarecrow of a figure with wild spiraling hair suddenly reflected in the glass. She pushed on one of the doors. It didn’t move. She leaned on it then with both hands, more for support than anything else, and felt it shift slightly. Then she pushed with all her might. It was like trying to roll a giant boulder up a hill. Deidre stepped into the darkened foyer. Surely, she thought, there must be someone still here, or why would the door be unlocked? Perhaps, with all the hubbub (light years ago, it now seemed), they’d just been forgotten. At least she would be able to get her bag. She regarded the dim outline of the steps leading, like a cliff face, to the auditorium, and the immense reaches of carpet to be covered before she could start to climb.

She took the first step. And tottered two more. Then light flooded the foyer as the auditorium doors swung open and two figures emerged. Dazzled, Deidre saw the still-moving doors fly slowly up into the air. The steps followed. Then she felt the sudden hard thud of the floor against the back of her head.