Stagestruck

16

Diamond and Paloma were debating whether to finish a vintage Rioja or have it corked and take it with them. Truth to tell, he wasn’t a wine man. He’d started the evening with a beer. The wine was mainly for Paloma and he’d restricted himself to less than a glass, keeping her company. They had eaten well in the Olive Tree at the Queensberry Hotel and his thoughts were turning to a taxi ride to Paloma’s big house on Lyncombe Hill and a romantic end to the day. He was trying to persuade her to finish the bottle at home and she was arguing that he hadn’t drunk his share.

‘I know my limit,’ he said. ‘You don’t want me turning grouchy.’

‘Is that what happens?’ She was laughing.

‘Even more grouchy, then.’

‘Funnily enough, I quite enjoy your grouchy moments. You can be amusing and curmudgeonly at the same time.’

‘It’s a rare talent.’

‘So what are you going to do about Flakey White?’

Put on the spot, he said, ‘From what the Yard told me, it won’t be easy to trace him after more than forty years.’

‘But you’ll try?’

‘I suppose. I can try Hampshire, where he was convicted, and some of the adjacent police forces. Not sure what good it will do. He may have emigrated, or died. He’d be an old man now.’

‘You need to know. This can’t be shelved. It goes deep. I see it in your eyes each time it’s mentioned.’

‘I’m on the case.’ He released a long breath. ‘But it’s not an after-dinner topic.’

‘If my friend Raelene can be of any help the offer is still open.’

He was about to wriggle out of that one when they were interrupted by an old-fashioned phone bell.

‘Sorry,’ he said, fishing in his pocket. ‘Didn’t know I had it with me.’

Paloma watched in amusement, half expecting him to produce a phone set with receiver, cord and stand. In the event, he took out the mobile she herself had given him over a year ago. Some playful member of his team had programmed a ring tone from the nineteen-sixties.

He switched off and raised an apologetic hand to the people at the next table.

‘Who was it?’ Paloma asked.

‘No idea.’

‘You can find out.’

‘I have better things to do.’

‘Like?’

‘Like asking for the bill and getting them to call a taxi. Did we settle what to do about your wine?’

‘Our wine. All right, let’s take it with us. But I think you should check that call.’

He handed the mobile across.

Paloma pressed two keys. ‘Bath Central.’

He winced. ‘At this hour?’

‘Hadn’t you better call them back?’

A few minutes later, two taxis left the Olive Tree. One took Paloma home to Lyncombe; the other, Diamond to the Theatre Royal.

Saw Close was crowded when he arrived. The theatre crowd had not been out long and many were waiting for transport. His taxi was hired before he stepped out of it.

This time he didn’t pander to his anxieties by using one of the side doors. Taking a grip on his nerves he marched straight into the foyer, braced for the personal challenge of entering the auditorium. But there was no need for heroics.

After making himself known, he was directed down some stairs and along the red-carpeted passageway leading to the front stalls and boxes. Through open doors to his right he couldn’t avoid glimpsing the stage itself, yet he was relieved to see that the house lights were on, the safety curtain down and the cleaning staff at work along the rows. The access to the boxes was up the curved stairs at the end of the passage. This little theatre was an obstacle course of different levels. Grabbing the rail, he climbed upwards, passing the box on the royal circle level and then higher to where a uniformed female constable guarded the door of the upper box. She recognised him and actually gave a cursory salute.

‘No need for that. Who are you?’ he asked.

‘PC Reed, sir.’

‘I expect you have a first name.’

She blinked in surprise. ‘It’s Dawn.’

‘Who’s inside, Dawn?’

‘DI Halliwell and the manager, Mr Shearman. Oh, also the deceased.’

‘Bit of a squeeze, then. Don’t let anyone else in.’

He pushed open the door. The single wall light didn’t give much illumination. Keith Halliwell was bending over the body of a woman, shining a torch on the face. Shearman was in shadow on the far side.

‘Have you checked for a pulse?’

Halliwell looked up. ‘Ah, it’s you, guv.’

‘I wasn’t asking about me.’

‘She’s been confirmed as dead by the paramedics.’

‘Any idea who she is?’

Halliwell sidestepped the question. ‘Mr Shearman identified her.’

But at this minute Shearman was reluctant to repeat the name. He was looking deathly pale himself. ‘It’s a nightmare,’ he said, ‘and just when I thought we were getting over our difficulties.’

Diamond moved in for a closer look. He wasn’t often thrown by surprises. This ranked high in the register and he took several seconds to absorb it. He knew the features at once and the torchlight showed the skin damage. The dead woman was Clarion Calhoun.

‘For the love of God. She’s only just out of hospital.’

‘Discharged this morning,’ Shearman said.

‘What’s she doing here?’

‘She called Mr Melmot with a special request. She wanted to see the play before it closes, but not from the public seats where people would recognise her. She was brought in through the side door wearing one of those hoodie things and given this box for the evening.’

‘Did you know about this?’

Some colour returned to his face. ‘I was in on it, yes. Mr Melmot told me.’

‘Who else knew?

A shrug. ‘Now you’re asking. Word gets round, even when you try and do something in secret.’

‘Who brought her up here?’

‘One of the security people, name of Binns.’

‘I’ve met him. Security so-called.’

‘Fair comment. Anyway, I was waiting in here for them. I welcomed her.’

‘How was she looking?’

‘I couldn’t see much. She was holding the scarf across her face, to hide the damage, I suppose. She seemed calm and said she’d be all right. I offered to send up a drink, but she didn’t want one. It was obvious she wanted to be left alone, so I didn’t linger.’ He shook his head. ‘What the press will make of all this, I dread to think.’

‘Do they know?’

‘I haven’t told anyone except you, but it’s certain to leak out.’

‘I can’t disagree with that,’ Diamond said. ‘Look, this is ridiculous, using a hand torch. Why don’t we get proper lighting? It’s a theatre, for God’s sake. They can point a spotlight straight in here.’

‘I’ll see to it at once,’ Shearman said, eager to be out of there.

‘Careful. Keep close to the wall.’

The little manager’s voice turned even more panicky. ‘You don’t think this was a crime?’

‘We can’t see unless you fix the bloody spot.’

Sounding as if he was hyperventilating, Shearman edged around the wall and hurried out.

‘Give me that torch,’ Diamond said to Halliwell.

No question: this nightmare was true. She was definitely the woman he’d visited at Frenchay Hospital. The scarring was still apparent, even if most of the redness had faded. As to a cause of death, he could see no bleeding at the mouth or nostrils. Although a grey chiffon scarf was around her neck, it wasn’t tight and there were no obvious ligature marks. She appeared to have fallen sideways from a chair that was still upright.

Sudden deaths can and do happen to people in the prime of life, but they are rare. This one had to be suspicious, to say the least.

‘Has anyone else been by?’ he asked Halliwell.

‘The two paramedics.’

‘When?’

‘Before I got here. A pathologist is on his way.’

‘Right. And who discovered her?’

‘The theatre director, I think.’

‘Shearman. Did he say what time?’

‘I got the impression it was when the show ended. I suppose he came up here with the idea of escorting her to a taxi.’

‘“Got the impression”?’

Halliwell looked uncomfortable. ‘I haven’t asked him yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘I haven’t been here long.’

Diamond bit back the impulse to find fault. ‘It’s all very odd, Keith. If she was murdered – and we’d better assume she was – it throws new light on the previous incidents.’

‘The dresser’s fall?’

‘And Clarion’s scarring. Is someone responsible for all three?’

Halliwell didn’t answer. He’d worked with Diamond long enough to know guessing wouldn’t do.

As if cued by Diamond’s remark about new light, the spot came on, dazzling them, and after their eyes adjusted they found the box deprived of its lush look. Cracks in the paint-work, old stains on the carpet. Even a cobweb on the ceiling was exposed in the glare, and tangled in it was a dead butterfly, a tortoiseshell.

Diamond gave it a glance and passed no comment.

The two detectives learned no more about Clarion’s death. There was no obvious injury, no sign of a weapon, not even a glass she’d drunk from. In the powerful light her skin was paper white apart from the scar tissue. There wasn’t the facial congestion you expect in a violent death like strangulation.

Halliwell spotted a black leather handbag on the floor below the front of the box. It was zipped. If theft had been the motive and money or cards taken, it was unlikely that the thief would have bothered to refasten the zip.

‘Leave it,’ Diamond said at once. Proper forensic procedure debarred them from handling anything at this stage. ‘We’re doing everything by the book, right?’

‘Right, guv.’

‘She’s so famous that every action we take is going to be picked over by the media. And what is more, from now on, anyone backstage from the manager down has the chance of making big money by selling exclusives.’

‘Christ, they’ll be round here with their mobiles taking pictures.’

Diamond nodded. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if the lighting guy has already taken a long shot from somewhere up there.’

‘And those paramedics may have spoken to the press. You want to seal the building?’

‘That would be a start. This theatre has more entrances than Victoria station. I’m sure PC Reed is a good copper, but we need twenty of her. Yes, get reinforcements. Get our team in, everyone you can raise, and a scene of crime unit.

Tell them to bring arc lamps and some kind of screen for the open side.’

‘There are curtains.’

He cringed at his own stupidity. Crimson velvet and about ten feet long, they were difficult to miss, but he’d managed it. ‘Where would I be without you? Pull them across. And where does this other door lead to?’

He opened it and got his answer: the dress circle.

He pushed open the door to the stairs and told PC Reed she now had two doors to guard, so she’d better come inside the box with the body. ‘Does that bother you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good answer. You’re the speed writer, I believe.’

She nodded.

‘Do you get every word?’

‘I try to.’

‘And is it understandable to anyone else?’

‘If they can read my writing.’

‘May I see?

She took her notebook from her tunic pocket and opened it at an example.

‘What’s this, then?’ he asked.

‘The interview with Denise Pearsall.’

‘On Tuesday morning? You and Sergeant Dawkins?’

‘Yes.’

He frowned at the first few letters – hv w mt b4 – and then smiled. ‘Neat. I get it. May I tear these pages out? I’d like to read the rest.’

‘Take the notebook, sir.’

‘No, you’re going to need it. We’re expecting the pathologist. If he says anything, be sure to get it down. Over to you, then.’

He and Halliwell stepped through to the dress circle and for no obvious reason he felt less troubled than he’d expected by the sight of the auditorium. He looked across to the far side and spotted a movement in the royal circle, one level down. He shouted through his hands, ‘Where are you going, Mr Shearman?’

‘Backstage, to see if the actors are all right.’

‘Make an announcement over the public address. Nobody leaves the building. Everyone still here is to assemble in the stall seats: actors, crew, cleaners, front of house people, the lot.’

‘It’s getting late.’

‘That’s an order.’

Halliwell, phone in hand, told him CID and uniform were alerted. More officers were already downstairs and security had been told to seal the building. ‘But if she was murdered, whoever did it is most likely out and away.’

‘Which is one good reason to find out who’s still here,’ Diamond said. ‘Get them listed when they’re all together. They’re going to be stroppy. Do your best. I’ll speak to them as a group.’

Dr Sealy, the pathologist, arrived, grumbling that he’d been watching an old Inspector Morse on television and now he wouldn’t find out who did it.

‘Give me strength! This is the real bloody thing,’ Diamond said.

‘Without the culture.’

‘Do you want me to hum the Morse music?’

‘Frankly, old boy, if you sang the whole of Die Meistersinger, it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference.’ Sealy lightened up at the sight of PC Reed, still on duty. ‘But here’s a Rhine maiden sent to help me into my zip-suit.’

‘She won’t be doing that,’ Diamond said. ‘She’s working for me.’

‘Getting into one of these isn’t simple, you know.’

‘Tough.’

Dawn Reed remained impassive while Sealy struggled into the white suit.

Over the public address, Shearman made his announcement telling everyone where to assemble. There was a definite tremor in the voice.

The crime scene people arrived soon after and set up their lighting. Downstairs, more uniformed police reported for duty. Halliwell went off to supervise them.

From the dress circle, Diamond watched the actors and backstage staff respond to the summons and take seats in the stalls. A hierarchy was observed without any supervision from the police: actors in the front row, stage management behind them, the crew next, then the front-of-house team and finally the cleaners. Among the actors, Diamond spotted Gisella, Preston Barnes and the woman playing Fräulein Schneider. Kate from wardrobe was in the third row. A late arrival from backstage was Titus O’Driscoll and he was uncertain where to position himself until Shearman offered him a second-row seat. There must have been forty to fifty people there already.

Binns, the stand-in doorkeeper, was one of the last to arrive, having reluctantly been replaced by a policeman.

Still upstairs, Diamond opened the door of the box and asked Sealy if he’d found anything of interest.

‘Run away and play, will you? I’ve hardly started.’

Impatient investigating officers don’t cut much ice with pathologists. Diamond exchanged a long-suffering look with PC Dawn Reed. ‘Tell me when he comes out.’ He took the stairs down to the ground floor and was pleased to find most of his CID team already there: Ingeborg was helping Halliwell list the names of all present. Leaman and young Paul Gilbert were in the aisle and the man he thought of as the square peg, Fred Dawkins, was in conversation with one of his recent colleagues in uniform.

Diamond asked Shearman if anyone was missing.

‘I think not,’ the manager said. ‘There’s a spare programme here. If you go through the names you’ll find all the cast and crew are accounted for. How long will this take?’

This was brushed aside. ‘So where’s the big man?’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘Melmot.’

‘Francis? He’s not in the play.’

‘I’m not asking who’s in it. Was he in the theatre tonight?’

Shearman pressed a hand to his mouth as if the thought had just dawned. ‘He was, yes, doing the hospitality bit with our special guests. It was Francis who told me Clarion wanted to come. We decided between us that a seat in the box was the best way to keep her hidden.’

‘But has anyone seen him since the play ended?’

Nobody spoke.

Then Gisella said, ‘Did I hear right? Clarion was here?’

Titus O’Driscoll, seated next to Shearman, gave a gasp. ‘I knew it, we’ve been duped.’

Diamond glared. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The sighting.’

‘You’re not making sense.’

‘There was a sighting of the theatre ghost this evening, the same grey lady you and I discussed the other day. A manifestation would be a sensational event by any stretch of the imagination. That’s why I’m here. A reliable witness saw her in the Arnold Haskell box, the one with the drawn curtains.’

All the conversations around them had stopped.

‘This evening?’ Diamond said.

‘During the play. She was all in grey. Where’s Fräulein Schneider?’

‘Here,’ a voice answered from the front row. The big woman turned a stricken look on Titus.

‘Don’t be nervous,’ he urged her. ‘Tell them what you saw.’

‘They won’t believe me.’

‘Out with it, ma’am,’ Diamond said.

Her words soared melodramatically. ‘She was here tonight, I swear, staring at me from the upper box where she is known to materialise.’

‘Dressed in grey?’

‘Totally. In a hooded gown of exactly the sort a lady of fashion wore to the theatre two hundred years ago. Most of her face was veiled in some shroud-like material.’

‘She’s round the twist,’ a voice from the back said.

‘You see?’ she appealed, hands outspread.

‘What time was this?’ Diamond asked.

‘I don’t know. I was on the stage in performance. Before the interval.’

‘Was she there after?’

‘I can’t say. I was too petrified to look.’

‘She was not,’ Titus said. ‘I observed the box for the whole of the second half.’

‘Are you doubting me as well?’ Fräulein Schneider said in the voice of a martyr.

‘Not at all, madam. I hate to say this, but I fear that my friend Mr Diamond can account for what you saw.’

‘The dead woman everyone is talking about?’

‘Get with it, love,’ someone shouted from the third row. By now almost everyone knew why they were there.

Diamond didn’t want this potentially vital witness driven into silence or hysteria. ‘What you’ve told us, ma’am, could be important, and I want to hear more from you in a moment.’ While he had full attention from everyone he announced what he could about Clarion, stressing that she’d been wearing a grey scarf and dressed in a grey hooded jacket that if seen from the waist up could conceivably have been taken for a cloak.

Fräulein Schneider gave vent to a great theatrical sigh.

Diamond said he expected a number of witnesses had seen Clarion and he would need statements from all of them.

‘What the hell was Clarion doing here?’ Preston Barnes asked.

He got a dusty answer from Shearman. ‘She wanted to see the play. Perfectly understandable considering she was in it until Monday night.’

To avoid this descending into a free-for-all, Diamond said his officers would start taking statements directly.

‘Did someone murder her?’ Barnes asked.

‘It’s an unexplained death. We have a duty to investigate.’

‘Most of us can’t help you at all.’

‘We’ll be the judges of that. Everyone will be interviewed.’

‘We’ll be here all bloody night, then.’

This prompted quite a hubbub of alarm over personal arrangements.

Diamond ignored that and briefed his team. The key points to discover, he told them, were whether anyone had seen or heard anything about Clarion’s visit. Those unaware of it would be allowed to leave.

‘If one of them killed her, he’s not going to put up his hand and tell all,’ the hard-headed John Leaman said.

‘I’m not expecting a confession tonight,’ Diamond said. ‘We’re collecting facts.’ He named his interviewers and sent them to various parts of the auditorium. He was left with one lost sheep, Fred Dawkins.

‘Am I not to be trusted, guv?’

‘Far from it, Fred. Have you heard of Wyatt Earp?’

He frowned. ‘The sheriff?’

‘I think you’ll find he was a marshal, and so are you, for one night only. Marshal this lot in an orderly way, keep them sweet and send them one by one to whoever is ready to see them. Can you handle that?’

‘Only if I get a badge and a gun.’

The man had a glimmer of humour. Given time, he might fit in.

A massive gap in the sequence of events needed explaining. Diamond took Shearman on one side. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do. You told me you went to the box at the end of the play and found the body.’

The manager had turned pale. ‘That is correct and I called 999 and got the ambulance here.’

‘I’m more interested in what you didn’t tell me. At which point of the evening did you know she was dead?’

His mouth moved without any words being spoken.

‘You heard what O’Driscoll said. No one was visible in the box during the second half. She was already dead, wasn’t she?’

Still he didn’t answer.

‘There she was, your VIP guest. It would be extraordinary if you didn’t look in during the interval to see if she was comfortable. The truth,’ Diamond said.

Shearman sighed and finally found some words. ‘Unless you’ve been in my position you couldn’t possibly understand the pressure I was under. I had a theatre full of people, a performance in progress. To interrupt it would have created mayhem.’

‘You haven’t answered my question. When did you find out? In the interval?’

‘Shortly before the second half started. I knew she’d prefer to remain hidden, so I took her a glass of champagne. I tapped on the door and looked inside and had the shock of my life.’

‘Think hard before you answer this. Are you certain she was dead?’

‘Definitely. I spoke her name several times, and felt for a pulse. Absolutely nothing. I was petrified. The four-minute bell had gone for the second half to begin again.’

‘So you let it run. The show must go on. That’s the mantra, isn’t it? You had a dead woman lying in the box -’

‘No one could see her. She’d fallen on the floor. It looked like an empty box to anyone who didn’t know.’

‘How long is the second half?’

‘About an hour and a quarter.’

Diamond was appalled. ‘You left her lying dead for all that time and did nothing?’

‘What could I do? Empty the theatre? I couldn’t get her out without disturbing the audience. I was in a terrible dilemma. I’m responsible for all those people. She wasn’t visible to anyone, as Titus told you.’

‘You could have got her down the back stairs.’

‘Not without being noticed. You heard what Titus said. He was watching the box and no doubt others would have seen us moving her.’

‘When this leaks out, as it’s bound to, the press are going to hang you out to dry.’

‘I had to reach a decision. It seemed the best thing to do. It was all down to me. Francis wasn’t about.’

‘He’d already left, had he?’

‘I’ve no idea, but he wasn’t taking much interest in Clarion at that stage.’

‘Did you tell anyone? Kate, the wardrobe mistress?’

‘I kept it to myself, I swear. And as soon as the show was over I dialled 999.’

‘If Clarion was murdered – and it’s quite possible she was – we’ll need to know where everyone was during the interval.’

‘I can tell you what I was doing for most of it. I was trying to speak sense into Schneider.’

‘Schneider?’

‘It’s the part she plays. Everyone calls her that. She was ranting on hysterically about the grey lady and not being able to continue. I told her flatly she was a professional actor with a duty to the rest of the cast. She’d obviously noticed Clarion in the box before the interval, but I couldn’t tell her who it was.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’s a blabbermouth. She wouldn’t keep it to herself. Clarion wanted privacy.’

‘Wasn’t she visible from the audience?’

‘She was sitting well back. Only someone on stage would catch a glimpse.’

‘Any one of the actors could have spotted her, then?’

‘They may have seen a figure there. Hard to recognise who it was.’

It was clear to Diamond that anyone in the cast or crew might have learned that Clarion had been in the theatre. Melmot and Shearman knew for certain, and so did the security man, Binns. For a would-be murderer, the opportunity had been there: Clarion alone in the box during the twenty-minute interval.

He’d heard as much as he wanted from Shearman. Binns was next up, all silver buttons and defiant, staring eyes, expecting an attack on his professional competence.

‘How did you learn about Clarion’s secret visit?’ Diamond asked.

‘Mr Melmot.’

‘How exactly – a note, a phone call?’ ‘Personally. He came to the stage door and told me himself.’ ‘This was hot news.’ Binns shrugged in contempt at the obvious. ‘Tell anyone else, did you?’ He didn’t like that. ‘What do you take me for? It’s more than my job is worth to go blurting it out.’ ‘So what happened?’ ‘I carried out his instructions to the letter. Waited out front for her to come in her black limo. Escorted her round to the side door and up the back stairs to the top box. Mr Melmot was already up there and greeted her and my job was done.’

‘She arrived by limo, you said?’ ‘Chauffeur-driven Mercedes, like I was told to look out for.’ ‘Was anything said when she first got out?’ ‘Not by her. She had a scarf across her face like one of them Arab women and the hood of her jacket was over her head. I told her to come with me and she did.’ ‘Did she appear nervous?’ ‘How would I know when all I could see was her eyes?’ ‘You’re in the security business. You can tell a lot from a person’s behaviour, or you ought to.’ ‘She was in control of herself, if that’s what you’re asking.’ ‘Was it busy outside the theatre?’ ‘It was past the time when they’re hanging about outside.

The show was almost starting. No one took any notice of her.’ ‘Was anyone lurking around the stairs to the box?’ ‘No.’ ‘After taking her upstairs, where did you go?’ ‘Back down and round to the stage door. I was there for the rest of the evening.’ Just a functionary. That was his defence, anyway. If anyone had a case to answer, it wasn’t Charlie Binns. Diamond kept an open mind. If Binns and Shearman could be believed, the people ‘in’ on the secret visit amounted only to three. But at the interval Fräulein Schneider was mouthing off to Gisella and Preston and everyone who happened to be in the wings that she’d seen the grey lady in the upper box. Anyone who guessed the truth or simply went to investigate could have attacked Clarion. Her death had taken place in that twenty-minute slot.

Was it murder?

He returned upstairs, fixed on dragging some definite information out of Dr Sealy. The stairs didn’t do anything to lower his blood pressure.

‘What killed her, then?’ he said when he’d got his breath back.

Sealy was still crouched over the body. ‘I told you -’ he barely managed to say before Diamond cut him off.

‘You told me nothing. You’ve been studying the body for

– what? – forty minutes and given me no help at all. I’ve got all of fifty people down there wanting to get off home. I can’t hold them indefinitely.’

‘Your call, old boy, not mine,’ Sealy said without looking away from the body.

‘Is there anything I should be told?’

‘About her death? Nothing I can tell you.’

‘Are you saying it was natural?’

‘No.’

‘Unnatural?’

‘I reserve judgement. I’ll do the PM tomorrow. Do you want to be there?’ He knew what to do with a knife, how to twist as well as dissect.

‘Not even a suspicion?’

‘I’m a scientist, my dear fellow. Suspicion is speculative and I don’t have any truck with it.’

‘Put it this way, then. Is it possible she was killed and no mark was left?’

‘Entirely possible, but don’t ask me to list the possible causes or we’ll be here all night.’ He stood up. ‘It gets to your knees, all this stooping. Pity she didn’t die sitting up in the chair.’

‘Just for your comfort?’ ‘Well, if she had, she’d have been visible to the audience and I imagine someone would have spotted something was wrong.’

‘I don’t know. People fall asleep watching dull plays.’

The first glimmer of concern crossed Sealy’s features. ‘Is it dull? I was given tickets for Saturday.’

‘I haven’t seen it. Look, if you’re not going to tell me anything, I might as well be off.’

‘There’s something I can tell you,’ Sealy said.

‘About the cause of death?’

‘No. About the victim. Take a look at her arms.’ He crouched again and rolled back one of the sleeves of the grey jacket as far as the elbow.

Diamond leaned over his shoulder for a better look. There were scars on the inner side of the forearm. ‘She was a druggie?’

‘No. These old injuries are not the same as you get from shooting up. She’s cut her wrists more than once. Clarion Calhoun was a self-harmer.’