Stagestruck

14

Hedley Shearman was on duty again in the Theatre Royal, bruised, but no longer bleeding, demanding to know what the devil the police were up to, poking around in the wings.

‘Searching,’ Ingeborg told him. A short answer can be a good riposte to bluster.

‘That’s obvious.’

‘Yes.’

‘But what do you hope to find?’

‘Make-up.’

‘The stuff Denise was using Monday night? I don’t think you’ll find it here. She was very organised. She wouldn’t have left anything lying around.’

‘She may have been so organised that she kept some handy in the wings for use before the show. That’s why we’re checking.’

‘Well, it had better not take long. We have a performance tonight and I don’t want you getting in the way of the actors.’ He took a second look at Dawkins and frowned. ‘Aren’t you the man in uniform who was here Tuesday morning putting me through the third degree?’

Dawkins had been obeying orders, keeping that low profile Diamond had decreed. Faced with open hostility, he broke his vow of silence. ‘I wouldn’t characterise it as such.’

‘You look and sound awfully like him.’

‘It was not the third degree. It wasn’t even the second.’

‘Oh, you don’t like the term,’ Shearman said, getting some of his bounce back. ‘I was on the receiving end and I know what it felt like. Why aren’t you in uniform today?’

Ingeborg was quick to head off an elaborate explanation. ‘He’s joined CID.’ She looked at her watch. ‘If you want us out before the show, better let us get on with it.’

Another glare and then Shearman moved off towards the dressing rooms.

Basic stage scenery is constructed as flats, canvas over a wooden framework, and when it is in position some of the horizontal battens form ledges. Small objects are sometimes lodged there, lucky mascots, bits of chalk, pens and torches. But it was doubtful if anything as big as a powder box would fit. More likely they’d find what they were looking for tucked away in a corner at floor level. Plenty of areas backstage needed checking. They went about the search systematically, each working at a different side of the stage, dividing the space into sections, lifting props, discarded cloths and coils of cable.

‘I’m getting less confident,’ Ingeborg called across the stage after twenty minutes. ‘If it’s here, it ought to be obvious.’

Dawkins didn’t answer and it wasn’t clear whether he disagreed or was still observing the embargo.

‘Putting myself in Denise’s place,’ Ingeborg went on, ‘if I had some powder laced with caustic soda I wouldn’t leave it lying around. I’d get rid of it.’

Still there was no answer from the opposite side.

‘But then,’ she added after more thought, ‘if someone else doctored the stuff, Denise wouldn’t have known.’

This time Dawkins couldn’t resist. ‘Don’t you think the someone else would also have got rid of it?’

‘In that case we’re wasting our time.’ Deadpan, as if she didn’t remember, she asked, ‘Whose idea was this?’

Dawkins became silent again.

Diamond had an in-built resistance to computers and he didn’t make a habit of checking for on-screen messages. If his own staff had anything to report, he expected to be told. Most of them knew this. To be fair to Fred Dawkins, anyone new on the team might have acted as he had, thinking it wasn’t unreasonable to expect the top man to make regular checks.

Dawkins was out of the office now, so Diamond stopped complaining about the call from Georgina he’d almost missed. Still the thought nagged at him that there could be other information waiting for him. Unseen by the team, he stepped into his office to check the in-box.

There wasn’t much. Headquarters had issued a new online procedure for budget reports. Stuff that, he said to himself. Keith Halliwell had called in from the mortuary. Old news. He’d seen Keith since then. Clarion Calhoun was moving out of the burns unit to a private hotel in Clifton called the Cedar of Lebanon and would become an out-patient. Nothing remarkable in that. There was always pressure on bed-space in hospitals. Finally, there was a note that the crime scene investigation team had started work in dressing room eleven.

He regarded one oval-shaped button on the keyboard as his friend. A tiny image of the moon put the computer into sleep mode. He pressed it and watched the screen go dark. Magic.

With two separate searches now under way, he could keep the appointment with his old school friend. On this fine afternoon, he chose to walk to the Abbey Churchyard and treated himself to the carnival atmosphere as he zigzagged between crocodiles of French schoolkids waiting to tour the Roman Baths and cheering the buskers balancing on unicycles juggling flaming torches. He didn’t have time to watch, unfortunately. No matter, he thought. Later, he’d do some flame-throwing of his own when he caught up with Sergeant Dawkins.

The short fat guy in a pork-pie hat was standing below the bottom rung of the famous ladder to heaven carved into the Abbey front, and not realising the symbolic stance he was making. The years had been kind to Mike Glazebrook; he could have passed for forty-five. Diamond shook his hand and suggested they had tea at one of the outdoor tables on the sunny side.

‘You’ve put on some weight since I saw you last,’ Glazebrook said. ‘Is it fattening, this police work?’

‘I was going to ask the same about structural engineering.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t get a safety certificate, but I hold up, just about.’

The banter was a useful way to roll back forty years and revive the mateyness that passed for friendship at school. They chose a table and each ordered a cream tea as if to affirm that healthy eating wasn’t for them.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d remember me,’ Diamond said. ‘It wasn’t as if we were at secondary school together.’

‘Spotted you straight away. It’s the onset of senility,’ Glaze-brook said, straight-faced. ‘The short-term memory goes, but we can recall trivial details from our childhood.’

‘Are you calling me trivial?’

‘Sorry. Make that significant.’

Straight to business, Diamond decided. ‘My recollection is that we got to know each other through that play we were in as the boy princes.’

‘Richard III.’

‘Except they didn’t call it that. Wasn’t it Wicked Richard, so as not to confuse it with the Shakespeare version?’

‘Shakespeare?’ Glazebrook rocked back and laughed. ‘Who did they think they were kidding? Even at that age I could tell it was crap. But you’re right about the title. Didn’t one of the actors write it?’

‘Very likely. Maybe the art teacher who recruited you and me. Now what was he called?’

‘Mr White – Flakey, to us kids.’

Diamond raised his thumb. ‘Of course.’ This was promising. The man had a reliable memory.

‘I don’t remember him doing any writing,’ Glazebrook added.

‘He painted the scenery, I expect.’

‘He must have, and probably did the posters and the programme.’

‘He would have been useful to them with his art skills and his link to the school,’ Diamond said. ‘That’s how we got roped in. There was no audition. I can’t think why he picked you and me out of all the kids.’

‘Can’t you?’ Glazebrook said with a suggestive smile.

‘We must have looked the part. Princely.’

Glazebrook laughed again. ‘No chance. We were two miserable little perishers. I used to have a photo of us in costume and we didn’t look overjoyed in our breeches and tights. My mother tore it up when she read about Flakey in the News of the World.’

Diamond tensed, played the words over and felt a vein pulsing in his temple. ‘Read what?’

‘Didn’t you hear? He wasn’t called Flakey for nothing. He was sent down for five years for interfering with schoolchildren, as they called it then. Dirty old perv.’

The pulsing spread through his arms and chest. ‘I heard nothing of this.’

‘Really? And you a cop? We’d long since left the school when he was found out. It must have been five or six years later. I was put through the inquisition by my parents, wanting to know if he’d got up to anything with me. He hadn’t, but I wouldn’t have told them if he had. You try and forget stuff like that.’

‘Right,’ Diamond said automatically, his thoughts in ferment.

‘He didn’t try it on with you, did he? You’d have told me at the time, wouldn’t you?’ He gave Diamond a speculative look. ‘I guess not, if I wouldn’t discuss it with my parents. But at this distance in time we can be open with each other.’

‘Sure.’

But he wasn’t. He was trying to remember.

‘In my opinion weirdos like that should be locked away indefinitely or offered the chance of chemical castration,’ Glazebrook was saying. ‘You can bet he didn’t serve five years. He’d have been out on probation, back in society, looking for more little kids to abuse.’

‘They wouldn’t have allowed him to teach again,’ Diamond said.

‘With his art, he could get other work, no problem. When he surfaced again at one stage he was illustrating books – for kids, no doubt. I mean, you don’t get pictures in books for grown-ups, do you?’

‘Covers?’

‘Covers is right,’ Glazebrook said. ‘Covers for pervy behaviour.’

‘Did you keep up with any of the others?’ Diamond asked, to move on. He couldn’t take any more of this.

They talked for another ten minutes, exchanging memories, but Diamond’s heart wasn’t in it. He was reeling from the shock. After he’d settled the bill, they shook hands and went their separate ways.

This time, he paused and stood with the crowd watching the unicyclists performing in front of the Pump Room. In fact he saw nothing. All of his perceptions were directed inwards. His brain was surfing incomplete memories of that time as a boy. He wanted the truth, however sickening it was, but it was elusive. Everything connected with school and that play took on a new and sinister significance. Yet he was finding it difficult to pinpoint any one incident. The brain has ways of blocking traumatic experiences, particularly from childhood. He understood that. The one certainty was that he couldn’t enter the theatre without fear. The whole truth wasn’t revealed yet. He could still only guess at what happened, but the guessing was more informed and more unpleasant.

A shout from the crowd brought him out of this purgatory. Time was going on and he needed to get his head straight, somehow put the conversation with Glazebrook to the back of his mind. He was required back inside the theatre, expected to function as a detective. He watched the buskers juggling with fire, keeping their balance. Then he moved on.

Francis Melmot was outside the stage door, chatting to some front-of-house people who must have thought they’d escaped for a smoke. He hailed Diamond with his usual bonhomie. ‘What a pleasure this is, inspector.’

Not for Diamond.

And ‘inspector’ was a demotion, but the matter wasn’t worth pointing out. Diamond touched his grey trilby and said he hadn’t expected an official welcome from the chairman of the board.

‘I just looked in to share some wonderful news with our loyal and much valued staff,’ Melmot said, at the same time despatching the much valued staff with a flap of the hand.

‘What it it?’ Diamond said with an effort to be civil. ‘A five-star review?’

‘Actually, no, even though we’ve had some excellent ones.’ Melmot drew his shoulders back and seemed to grow even taller. ‘I was advised an hour ago that Clarion has withdrawn her threat to sue.’

‘Who by?’

‘Her lawyers.’

‘That is good,’ Diamond said, and meant it, his mind speeding through possibilities. He could see this whole investigation coming to a swift end. ‘What happened? An out-of-court settlement?’

‘No, we’re not paying a penny. It’s unconditional.’

‘What a turnaround. When I saw the lady yesterday her mind was made up.’

‘Yesterday she was still in shock,’ Melmot said. ‘She’s had time to reflect since then. There’s even better news. She will be making a substantial private donation to the theatre.’

‘Did you talk her round, then?’

‘I haven’t spoken to her.’

Mystified, Diamond refused to believe him. ‘You’re on close terms. I thought a word in her ear may have worked this magic.’

Melmot blinked. ‘I’m not sure what you mean by close terms.’

‘She stayed with you in Melmot Hall.’

‘As a house guest. She didn’t sleep with me, inspector, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

‘Dream on, eh?’

‘What?’ Melmot reddened.

‘You said you were a fan. Didn’t sex cross your mind when you invited her to stay?’

‘That’s downright offensive.’

‘I can’t think why. Personally, I’d take it as a compliment. Anyway, what happened in the bedroom isn’t my concern, except I just wondered if there was a falling out, something that made her leave Melmot Hall in a hurry.’

‘Absolutely not.’ His cheek muscles twitched. ‘Just to put the record straight, inspector, there are twenty-two bedrooms and mine is in another wing. When the rehearsals started in earnest, Clarion wanted to be nearer to the theatre, so she moved into the Royal Crescent. Pure convenience.’

‘Thanks for putting me right,’ Diamond said and trailed a warning. ‘I was going to ask the lady herself and now there’s no need, but I’ll visit her just the same. I’d still like to know why she’s changed her mind about suing.’

The triumphant manner had gone. Melmot tried to sound more conciliatory. ‘I daresay her lawyers talked some sense into her. I understand she’s left the hospital.’

‘I did hear. It doesn’t mean her face will ever be the same again. She’ll have to go back for treatment.’

‘Believe me, inspector, she has the heartfelt sympathy of everyone in the Theatre Royal. Now that the threat of legal action is removed, we sent her some more flowers and our wishes for a full recovery and she’ll be listed in the programmes as a patron.’ He seesawed from largesse to a lament. ‘Of course the saddest thing of all is that the dresser took personal responsibility and did what she did. I’ve no doubt she killed herself because she feared for our future, as we all did. She was deeply committed to this wonderful old theatre.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that,’ Diamond said.

‘Will you draw a line under the investigation?’ Melmot asked, sounding as casual as he could. ‘I believe some of your people are backstage at this minute.’

‘Enquiring into Denise Pearsall’s death,’ Diamond said, conceding nothing. ‘That continues until we find out exactly what happened.’

‘It’s academic, isn’t it? Nothing can bring her back.’

‘But I’ll be giving evidence to a coroner. I need all the facts.’ He took a step towards the stage door. ‘I’d better see what progress they’ve made.’

‘I don’t know how you get inside the mind of a suicide victim.’

‘We can’t and we won’t.’ Diamond nodded and moved on and into the building.

Clarion’s decision baffled him. Her career was in ruins but she could still afford a lawsuit and she had a strong chance of winning. If Melmot hadn’t persuaded her to drop the case, who had?

The back stairs to dressing room eleven were testing for a man of his bulk, yet easier than the iron ladder in the fly tower. He paused at the top to draw breath. He could hear voices ahead. Pleasing to know that the crime scene people were at work in number eleven; less pleasing when he saw who was in charge, an old antagonist called Duckett.

‘What’s the story so far?’ Diamond asked as he raised the tape across the door to duck under it.

‘Stop right there, squire,’ Duckett called across the room through his mask. He looked risible in the white zip-suit and bonnet that was de rigeur for crime scene investigators. Two others, a man and a woman, were similarly dressed and on hands and knees under the dressing tables. ‘Don’t take another step. You’ll contaminate the evidence.’

Diamond chose not to disclose that he’d been in here with Titus at lunchtime. He waited for Duckett to come to the doorway by the least obvious route, hugging the walls. ‘You may not know this, but it was me who called you in.’

‘I guessed as much,’ Duckett said with a superior tone. ‘A dressing room as large as this and filled with trace evidence from I don’t know how many people is about the most complicated scene any investigator can have to examine. Thanks for that.’

‘I won’t need to know its entire history,’ Diamond said. ‘If you can tell me who was here most recently, that would help.’

‘Apart from two lumbering detectives in size ten shoes, you mean?’

One detective and one dramaturge, Diamond was tempted to point out, but it wasn’t worth saying.

‘It’s true there’s about three weeks of dust over every surface,’ Duckett said. ‘You asked who was here and I can’t tell you, of course. All I’m able to say at this stage is that within the last few days two people were in here and one at least had long reddish hair.’

Two people, one of them Denise. This had huge potential importance. ‘The dead woman had long red hair.’

‘We’re in a theatre. I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions as to gender. They weren’t here long, going by what we found, but they seem to have done some drinking. The marks in the dust look like the bases of wine glasses and a bottle.’

‘You haven’t found the bottle?’

‘Taken away, apparently. As were the glasses, the cork and the wrapping. Someone extra tidy, or secretive. The owner of the red hair sat in that chair at the end while the other individual perched on top of the dressing table opposite.’

‘Didn’t they leave any other traces?’

‘People always leave traces. It’s the principle of exchange. When two objects come into contact, particles are transferred. How informative those particles may be is another question. We’ll examine everything and let you know in due course.’

He heard the ‘in due course’ with a sinking heart. ‘Fingerprints?’

‘A few so far, not of much use. Paradoxically, the best prints come from a clean surface, not one coated with several weeks of dust.’

‘Signs of violence?’

‘None that we’ve discovered. All the indications are that the people came in, made themselves comfortable, enjoyed a drink and left. It’s not what I call a crime scene.’

‘A woman fell to her death from the loading bridge across the passage,’ Diamond reminded him.

‘I know, and we’ll examine that, too.’

‘If they left with the bottle and glasses it must be because they didn’t want them discovered later.’

Duckett shrugged. ‘Or simply that they didn’t finish the wine and took it with them.’

‘Is there anything you can tell me about the second person, the one who sat on the dressing table?’

‘Average-sized buttocks.’

‘Average? What’s that?’

‘Slimmer than yours.’

‘Oh, thanks.’

‘You asked.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘We have a mass of trace evidence to examine in the lab. I can see this taking two to three weeks.’

‘What? It’s only dust.’

Duckett was equally outraged. ‘This dust, as you call it, is made up of millions of particles and they may include skin and hair capable of giving DNA evidence, fibres from clothing, soil brought in on people’s shoes, each with potential to establish who was here and what happened. I don’t know if you appreciate how much work is involved. Each specimen has to be put through a battery of tests from simple magnification to infrared spectrophotometry.’

Science never intimidated Diamond. ‘Three weeks, though. It’s not as if you have a corpse in here. It’s an empty room. All right, there’s dust. Don’t start on me again. Just get on with it. I’ve got other fish to fry.’

Crime scene types were like that, he reflected as he started down the stairs. They feed you one titbit and then keep you waiting for weeks. The news that two people had definitely been in there fitted his theory, but the absence of violence did not. He couldn’t reconcile the wine-drinking with the death leap. Had Denise become suicidal after a couple of glasses of wine with a friend? Who was the friend? No one had come forward to say they were the last to see her alive.

For now, he turned his thoughts to the search downstairs.

His people weren’t in the wings. He found them on the stage behind the closed curtain, Ingeborg in Isherwood’s writing chair and Dawkins horizontal, on the sofa. Ingeborg got up guiltily, but Dawkins remained where he was.

‘Didn’t know you were in the building, guv,’ Ingeborg said. ‘We were just deciding what to do next.’

‘I can see. Are you comfortable, Fred?’

‘We completed the search, your worship,’ Dawkins said without turning his head, ‘and I proposed a pause for rest and recuperation. Union rules.’

‘Which union is that – the layabouts? What did the search produce?’

‘Diddley squat, I’m sorry to tell you,’ Ingeborg said. ‘We looked everywhere, guv. Only stopped a few minutes ago.’

‘Do we now admit that the theory of the extra powder box was mistaken?’

‘It looks that way,’ she said.

Dawkins, whose theory it had been, said nothing.

Diamond crossed the stage and sank in the high-backed chair beside the tiled stove. He, too, had earned a break. ‘There’s news,’ he told them. ‘I saw the chairman of the trust, Francis Melmot, and he told me Clarion has withdrawn her threat to sue. What is more, she’s making a donation to the theatre.’

‘Praise the Lord,’ Dawkins said. ‘Our ship is saved, and all who sail in her.’

‘You took a message on the phone this morning,’ Diamond said to him. ‘Did she say anything about this?’

‘The message was from Bristol police, who were guarding her. They informed me she was leaving the hospital for a private hotel in Clifton.’

‘The Cedar of Lebanon. Good thing I happened to check my in-box. In future, Fred, speak to me.’ He mimed jaw action with thumb and fingers. ‘Is that clear?’

‘Clear and duly noted.’

In an obvious attempt to improve the atmosphere, Ingeborg said, ‘What changed Clarion’s mind, I wonder? Do you think the damage to her face is not as bad as it first appeared?’

‘It wasn’t mentioned.’

‘She’d look silly trying to sue if she made a full recovery before the case came to court.’

‘Which would make a sad mockery of Denise’s suicide, if suicide it was,’ Dawkins said.

‘Speaking of which,’ Diamond said, ‘I’ve just been up to dressing room eleven.’ He told them about the evidence of two people drinking wine there, one a redhead, like Denise.

‘Then suicide it wasn’t,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Why not?’

‘Two people, and one ended up dead.’

‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Suppose the other person agreed to meet her for a drink and said something that so upset her that she went straight over to the gallery and took her own life.’

‘Her lover,’ Dawkins said from the sofa.

‘Did she have one?’ Diamond asked, thrown by the suggestion.

Before Dawkins could respond, Ingeborg said, ‘Now you’re talking, Fred. I reckon she was dumped. Hedley Shearman seems to have been everyone’s lover and, if he wasn’t, it wasn’t for want of trying,’

‘Don’t get carried away, Inge,’ Diamond said. ‘Shearman likes the ladies, agreed, but is he that much of a catch? Gisella is unimpressed and she told me Clarion gave him the elbow as well. There’s no evidence Denise or any other woman liked him enough to kill herself for him.’

Dawkins had another theory. ‘Here’s a more down-to-earth scenario. She was told her services were no longer required.’

‘Her job, you mean? By Shearman?’ Ingeborg said.

‘Or the chairman of the board.’

‘Melmot?’ She seized on the possibility. ‘Yes, perfect. He’s the smarmy sort who’d pour you a glass of wine and sack you at the same time. I can see it.’

Diamond was less enthusiastic. ‘Why would Melmot invite her up to an empty dressing room? There’s a management office.’

Nobody had an answer.

The flow of suggestions dried up. Diamond looked at his watch. It wouldn’t be long before preparations started for the evening performance. It was a strange experience sitting here on the stage among the scenery and bits of furniture. He could imagine the curtain going up and the lights on and the actors speaking their lines, creating a drama out of words someone else had written. He found it hard to credit that people did this from choice.

‘Let’s get out of here. You finished the search, you said?’

‘We looked everywhere,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Shake a leg, Fred.’

Dawkins heaved himself off the sofa and performed a theatrical bow.

Ingeborg said, ‘Why don’t you show us a few steps? You’re in the right place.’

‘Wrong shoes.’

‘A soft shoe shuffle. Go on, Fred. The boss doesn’t believe you can do it.’

‘Difficult on a carpet.’ But the showman in Sergeant Dawkins couldn’t resist. He performed a few stylish steps, a double turn and a slick finish. No question: he’d done this before. He was a good mover.

Ingeborg clapped and Diamond gave a grudging nod. ‘Where did you learn?’

‘The obvious place.’

There was never a straight answer from this man.

‘It was a simple question, Fred.’

‘Let me hazard a guess about you, guv. In your youth you spent Saturday mornings kicking a football in the park.’

‘Sometimes.’

‘My parents sent me to dance school. At the time I didn’t appreciate the opportunity, but later I saw some Fred Astaire films and took it up again.’

‘Top Hat?’

‘That was one of them.’

Diamond was more at ease now. ‘And less well known, Flying Down to Rio, The Gay Divorcee, Follow the Fleet?’

Surprised that he could reel off all these titles, Ingeborg said, ‘Are you a dancer as well, guv?’

‘Get real, Inge.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

‘Old films, I know about. If you haven’t seen Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers, I’m sorry for you.’ Now that he’d started, Diamond couldn’t suppress the nostalgia. ‘He would have danced all over this set, and I mean all over – the sofa, the chairs, the bed.’ He looked around the set and his eyes lighted on the tiled stove. ‘The only thing that might have defeated him is that ugly great object. Does it have a part in the play?’

‘It’s a period piece, I expect.’

‘Typical of Berlin in the thirties, is it?’

‘Probably,’ Ingeborg said and took a couple of steps towards it. ‘I don’t think it’s ugly. The tiles are quite pretty.’

‘But you wouldn’t want it in your living room. Is it real, or made specially?’

Dawkins spoke up. ‘It can’t be genuine.’

‘How do you know, cleverclogs?’ Ingeborg said.

‘The genuine kachelofen is built of masonry, to conserve the heat passing through. It would be too heavy for the stage. The tiles may be real.’ His expertise was impressive, but didn’t cut much ice here.

‘It looks real to me,’ Ingeborg said, with a wicked urge to prove him wrong. She reached for the handle of the small square oven set into the tiles and was shocked by the door coming away in her hand and falling on the floor. Dawkins had been right. It was wood, painted to look like metal. ‘Jesus, I’ve broken it.’

‘No, you haven’t,’ Diamond said. ‘Pick it up and push it back in the slot.’

He could have saved his breath. Ingeborg had suddenly become more interested in the space she’d uncovered. She reached inside. ‘Hey, what’s this?’

‘The powder box?’

‘No. Various bits of paper.’ She took out several sheets and glanced at the top one. ‘It’s only the stage plan for this set,’ she said in disappointment. ‘And a couple of pages from a script. I expect someone was cleaning up and put them in here rather than binning them.’

‘I don’t suppose they’re needed now,’ Diamond said.

‘I’ll put them back, in case.’ She was still holding one item, an envelope. ‘This looks like a letter. To All at the Theatre Royal.’

‘Is it sealed?’

‘No. Shall I see what’s in it?’

‘Let me,’ Diamond said.

She handed it across.

He took out a sheet of paper and gave it a rapid look. ‘This is a suicide note.’