Showstopper

11

Before they left Keynsham police station, Gilbert checked his phone and found a text from Ingeborg asking him to tell the boss to call her urgently. When told, Diamond said, “Why didn’t she text me?” Like most of us, he had a large blind spot about his own faults.

Gilbert had the good sense to shake his head as if he had never noticed that Diamond treated his phone as if it was a used tissue he was keeping in his pocket until he passed the next litterbin.

He took the alien object out and stared at it. The urgency from Inge, he guessed with a sinking heart, was because Georgina was on the attack with all guns blazing.

A small amount of battery strength remained. “Is that you, Inge?”

“Guv, where are you — still at Keynsham?”

“What’s the fuss about?”

Her answer wasn’t what he expected. “Remember when we interviewed Sabine and you asked about the actor who was originally cast as Swift?”

“Trixie Playfair?”

“I’ve managed to trace her and she’s not at all keen to talk to us, which makes me think she’s got something to hide. If I pin her down, would you like to be in on the action?”

She made it sound like an assault, but he knew what she meant and he trusted Ingeborg’s judgement. If Trixie was being evasive, all the more reason to see her — and sucks to Georgina. “Where is she, then?”

“Not far from where you are. You did say you’re still at Keynsham?”

“I didn’t, but I am.”

“Trixie is now a drama teacher in a private school for girls called Chimneys in Compton Dando. That’s only two miles south of where you are. I can meet you there in half an hour.”

“Have you made an appointment?”

“I sent a text and she doesn’t want to see us, which is why I suggest we turn up unannounced.”

“Good thinking.”

Leaving Gilbert to eject Will Legat from custody and get him back on the road, he walked off to find his car.

No need to ask how Chimneys got its name. They were visible against the sky from a long way off, ornamented red-brick pillars three metres high in clusters of three capped with clay pots. The eighteenth-century mansion had been in use as a private school since the 1980s, a venture that had prospered because an extension twice the size had been added at the back in more recent times. How such an ugly thing had met the building regulations was a mystery.

Ingeborg’s yellow Ka was already on the drive. She got out. “How would you like to play this, guv?”

“The office first. I can’t march into a girls’ school unannounced.” He didn’t mind marching into most places, but there were limits.

“Before we go in,” Ingeborg said, “there’s something I should tell you.”

“I should be wearing a suit and tie?” For the first time in years, he was wearing casual clothes for work, or what he took to be casual: open-neck shirt, sports jacket, corduroy trousers and brown brogues. His thinking was that a new image might persuade Georgina he could move with the times. Just his luck that he was now about to visit an upmarket girls’ school.

She smiled. “Not at all. You’re fine.” She hesitated. “Has Paloma seen the new ensemble?”

“Not yet. It’s not actually new. I’ve had it in the wardrobe for a while. Paloma will suggest I buy a whole new outfit.”

“She’s usually right. She knows about clothes.”

“Historic clothes.”

She bit back the comment she could have made. “I was about to say I called my contact at the Post and asked about the mysterious caller.”

He was still thinking about Georgina.

She said, “You wanted to know if the voice was male or female.”

“Got you. Any luck with it?”

“She checked with the switchboard and phoned back this morning. Definitely a woman.”

“Good work, Inge. That narrows it down.”

The school secretary, a friendly middle-aged woman dressed in a Take That T-shirt and jeans and wearing a nametag that said Sheelagh, seemed untroubled when Diamond explained that they were police officers needing assistance about an ongoing enquiry. In fact, her eyes glinted with what looked like relish when Miss Playfair was named. She studied her computer screen. “She’s finishing off a year-twelve session in the drama studio. Does she know you’re coming?”

“We texted her.”

The glint became a gleam. “If you step out, you’ll catch her before she goes to lunch. The studio is at the far end of the annexe. As far as you can along the corridor and you’ll see it in front of you.”

“Did you get the impression I did?” Diamond asked Ingeborg as they made their way past a row of classroom doors.

“That Trixie isn’t the flavour of the month?”

“You did.”

The drama studio was circular and glass-sided, giving a view of the music and movement session for about fifteen senior girls in black leotards led by a woman in a white spandex suit. A red headband kept the sweat from her eyes and allowed her blonde ponytail to swing freely. She would have made a striking Caitlin Swift.

“Seems confident,” Diamond said.

“Teachers need to be.”

“Difficult to square with what we’ve heard about her.”

“She’s in charge here,” Ingeborg said. “Altogether different from a TV studio where she’s being directed.”

But Diamond was already asking himself whether Trixie’s reason for quitting Swift had been something other than the TV equivalent of stage fright.

“Are we going in?” Ingeborg asked.

He looked through the glass again at all those leggy schoolgirls. “Better wait.”

She smiled faintly and didn’t comment.

Only after the session ended and the last girl had disappeared through a door on the left did they enter.

Trixie must have heard the door open, yet she didn’t turn her head. She hadn’t lost her dramatic timing. She removed the headband and freed the hair. It fell lightly against her neck and shoulders as if it had just been brushed. “Yes?”

“I sent a text earlier,” Ingeborg said. “DI Smith and DS Diamond of Bath Police.”

Trixie still chose not to look at them. As if reading from an autocue, she said, “Didn’t you get my reply? It’s not convenient. I’m about to shower. You have no right to be here.”

“We checked in at the office and were sent here,” Diamond said to the back of her head. “You’re not in trouble, Miss Playfair. We’re looking into events connected with the TV company that makes Swift. You auditioned for the part and got it.”

“That’s over and done with,” she said. “Years ago. I didn’t go through with it.”

“And we need to know why,” Ingeborg said. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the article in the Post.”

“Nothing to do with me.”

“But you’re in it.”

“I don’t think so.”

“They don’t print your name, but the jinx is supposed to have started with the actor originally cast as Swift having to be replaced. Unless we’re mistaken, that’s you.”

Finally, she turned her head. “Piss off, will you?”

Diamond blinked. Sane people don’t speak to the police like that.

The hostility contrasted with Sabine’s eagerness to please when she had been interviewed. Sabine with the fearsome reputation had disarmed them with charm. Trixie, supposedly a victim of nerves, was a spitting cobra.

“Was there pressure from anyone else for you to pull out?”

“Was I fired? No.”

“I don’t mean that. I’m talking about heavy persuasion.”

She shook her head. “I made my own decision.”

“You walked away from a part most actors would give an arm and a leg to get?”

“So?”

“You must have known the damage you were doing your reputation. No casting director would want to use you in a main role after that.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I knew what I was doing. I didn’t just quit the show, I finished with professional acting.”

“Why?”

She gave a sigh that was more impatient than regretful. “You’re going to push and push, aren’t you?”

“I have to. We heard you had a crisis of confidence.”

“There’s no more to be said, then.”

“It’s true, is it?”

“Broadly.”

Sensing an opening, he said, “But not the whole truth?”

She was silent for a tense interval before saying, “I don’t speak about it because most people aren’t capable of understanding.”

He waited through another period of non-communication.

Finally, she said, “It wasn’t stage fright. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told about brave souls like Stephen Fry and Michael Gambon who battled through stage fright. Even Laurence Olivier. But I wasn’t facing an audience. I was rehearsing in a TV studio, for Christ’s sake, in front of a camera, a director and a crew and I couldn’t hack it. Is that what you want to hear me say?”

“All we want, Trixie, is the truth of what happened.”

“And I’m giving it to you. Until you’ve experienced it, you can’t know the terror I felt. It came from nowhere, like a computer crashing. One day I was in command, the next I was shot to pieces.”

“A stress attack?”

“Call it what you like. It felt like an out-of-body experience. I watched myself trying to be the character I was playing and I knew I couldn’t do it. Heard myself speaking the lines and that’s fatal. I was never going to make it. To succeed as an actor, you have to become whoever you’re trying to play. If you don’t believe, you’re screwed.”

Ingeborg said, “You were gutsy to admit it.”

“It was screamingly obvious.”

“But not to everyone else. Who did you tell?”

“My agent, obviously.”

“Who is that?”

“Moore and Moore Talent.” She glared at them, daring them to laugh.

They didn’t.

“It’s a company. Several different people did their best to get me back on track, but no amount of persuasion was going to work.”

“Were they sympathetic?” Diamond said.

“No.” She immediately corrected herself. “At first they were and then, when they realised I wasn’t going to budge, it was more like pull yourself together, woman, because we all stand to lose a fortune.”

“Unhelpful.”

“Nothing was going to help.”

“So the agents informed the TV people?”

“They did and had a lot of trouble convincing them. I went in to see the producer later.” She paused. “She was lovely. Very understanding.”

“Mary Wroxeter?”

She nodded, her expression softening at the mention of the name.

“Had you given Mary any hint of your decision?”

“She’d been there when I flipped. She understood how devastating it was. She had amazing empathy.”

“Did she try and talk you round?”

“When I went to see her? No. She knew it was over. She listened and believed. At the end, she hugged me.”

For all the aggro she’d shown, her account had come across as genuine. The decision to quit had been her own. Even at this distance in time, Diamond could feel her humiliation. And although he’d never met Mary Wroxeter, he could picture her giving comfort. “Did you have to return a lot of money?”

“A settlement was agreed.”

“I expect the lawyers came out the winners.”

“Tell me about it!”

“No regrets?”

“I’d be stupid if I didn’t wonder sometimes how things might have turned out. None of us knew the show would win awards and run for years. Now can I get my shower?”

“Sabine, the actor who replaced you—” Ingeborg started to say.

“I don’t give a toss about Sabine.” But the eyes said otherwise. The name was a needle plunged into her flesh.

“We’ve spoken to her,” Diamond said to wind her up, quick to pick up on the reaction. “We found her easy to get on with. She’s in a good place, one of the highest earners on TV. She can name her terms. Have you met her since you left?”

“Why would I? I don’t need favours from her.”

“I expect you watch the show.”

“Hardly ever. I soon got tired of it. When Mary died, all the originality died with her.”

“Do you keep up with any of the others?”

She flared up again. “What’s this about? Are you trying to suggest I had something to do with all the jinx stuff?”

Diamond was there to ask questions, not answer them. “Did you make friends with any of the cast or crew?”

“I wasn’t there long enough to know anyone properly. And now I really do have to go. I’ve got another class in under an hour and I won’t get a lunch break.”

Before they left he insisted on calling at the office again. Sheelagh, the school secretary with the enquiring mind, greeted them like old friends. “You found her? How did it go?”

“We got all we needed,” he told her, which wasn’t quite true. In his job, you never got all you needed. “How does madam fit in here?” A mischievous question that made Ingeborg look away in embarrassment.

“She doesn’t even try. She’s got her own private hideaway in that gorgeous studio. Nice if you can get it. Did you see her changing room?”

“We weren’t invited in. We spoke in the dance area.”

“Typical. Hardly anyone has seen inside. She’s got it all on tap. Coffee-maker, fridge, washing machine, TV and sofa-bed, would you believe? It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s booze as well.”

“So, Sheelagh, what does she get up to?”

“That’s anyone’s guess.”

“Are there men on the staff?”

“Not enough.” She laughed. “No, I’m joking. To be fair, I don’t think there’s anything like that. She lives with a guy we’ve seen a couple of times when he came to pick her up because the weather was really bad and she couldn’t cycle home. They seem to hit it off. But she doesn’t mix with the rest of us and people can easily take that personally.”

“Is she popular with the students?”

“They don’t mind her. She puts in the work with them. Did you get what you came for?”

“You asked me that already.” He wasn’t interested in fuelling the school gossip machine. He was ready to leave.