A strange calm descended on Posie and she resumed cautiously but certainly:
‘You believed the threats and the finger were from Brian Langley. It was a crude but important symbolism which you immediately recognised. Why! His leading lady being married would have spelled huge trouble for Brian Langley! I expect, but I don’t know, that Langley warned you it was professional suicide on Sunday, when you were outside in the woods, when he said you would marry over his dead body. And then the threats started up on Monday.’
Silvia Hanro didn’t say a word.
‘I think you probably thought it was funny at first, and then, slowly, you got a bit worried. But you kept thinking it was Brian Langley sending the notes, even when I got called in. You thought it was a warning; that was all. I expect you thought he was double-bluffing you, involving me in the case to make out he was worried! You must have thought I was someone to choreograph, a bit-part: hardly someone to explain things to properly.’
Silvia Hanro had the decency to flush red. ‘I didn’t think that, honestly…’
‘You even threw me a couple of completely dead-end suspects, going on especially about Robbie Fontaine. And that stalker fellow. You wanted to deflect attention away from Brian Langley. Because, when all’s said and done, you love him. Madly.’
‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ said the movie star, furiously, rising. She grabbed up the envelope on the table, stuffing in the orange dress and the wig haphazardly.
‘No. You don’t,’ agreed Posie. ‘But all I’d say, Miss Hanro, is that my advice to you right now is not to go to that Wrap Party. Please don’t attend. You are in danger, and I can’t assure you you’ll come away unharmed. Or even alive.’
‘Don’t be a fool. If you’re so smart you’ll know I need to do everything I can right now to hold on to my fame. Besides, Brian’s already told me it was that little idiot, Elaine. So I was wrong all along, anyhow.’
‘Not necessarily. Sometimes these things aren’t as clear-cut as they appear at first. I think that your initial thinking may not have been that wide of the mark. I’d be jolly careful if I were you.’
Silvia dismissed Posie’s words with a wave of the hand. ‘You can’t be serious! Brian? Brian won’t touch me. Not really. Horrid letters might be one thing, but killing? He wouldn’t touch a hair on my head.’
‘Please reconsider. It might not be all bad for him and for Sunstar Films if you were to die this afternoon…’
Silvia Hanro paused at the door. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Way off the mark. Even if you do think you understand everything, Miss Parker.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Posie, feeling her heart heavy in her chest, knowing her warnings were being disregarded in the most blatant of manners.
‘I never said that. I said I knew everything: not that I understood everything. It’s completely different. There’s plenty I don’t understand.’
‘Like what?’ spat Silvia Hanro.
‘Why you were in such a mad hurry to marry Tom Moran this week – so urgently? What was the reason? You’ve been with him for years, and yet you only do it now! And also, if you got married yesterday, why were you going out into the small hours, disguised, in the city? You were alone, walking in the rain, without your new husband, on your wedding night. Why?’
‘Confound you!’ Silvia Hanro hissed. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you? Who the blazes do you think you are anyhow? Coming in here and trying to look like me? I thought it was just Elaine who was a mad fan!’
But Posie didn’t get a chance to answer. There was just a bang of the door and a resounding silence which carried none of the usual comfort.
Posie sighed and rubbed at her too-heavily pencilled eyes. The Wrap Party would have to be got through somehow.
Alive, preferably.
****
PART THREE
(The Wrap)
Twenty-Nine
The ballroom lay like an oversized bubble before them, shiny and glittering and not quite real.
Posie had only seen the place in broad daylight before, and now, at twelve noon exactly, as she stepped into it, she realised she was completely unprepared: the place was blacked out like a club, despite the bright, hot daylight outside. Dolly let out an exaggerated gasp.
‘Good grief!’ Inspector Lovelace muttered beside her.
Glitter-balls sparkled eerily, hung about like mistletoe, and silver balloons festooned the walls. Tiny rows of lights were lit high up in the blackness, hung from the corniced ceilings. It was very dark, save for an enormous screen which was set up at the far end of the ballroom, where a makeshift stage with a lectern was also rigged up.
The screen took up nearly a whole wall, and already, snippets from the current film Henry the King were playing on it, the same frames, again and again. Hypnotically.
Anguished eyes, Silvia Hanro’s, of course, stared out at the room, an unspeakable horror and sadness reflected in them, and the tight, merciless smile of Robbie Fontaine, a close-up curled across the frame, splashed up over the screen again and again. These were interspersed with a couple of crowd shots, with a fairly convincing painted backdrop of what Posie supposed was meant to be the Tower of London.
Posie turned to see two men at the back of the room working the projector, both dressed all in black, replacing the loops of film hurriedly. They would be doing the same thing now for hours, over and over again, if Brian Langley wanted such a clipped, dramatic effect as a backdrop.
‘This is a logistical nightmare,’ Lovelace hissed in Posie’s ear. ‘Do you remember that club we ended up in once, the La Luna Club, underground?’
She nodded. It had not been a place for claustrophobics.
‘Reminds me of that. It’s like a bad dream. An ideal spot to try and kill someone in. Every corner is a possibility.’
Guests were already drifting through the doors, into the darkness within. On one glittering podium a jazz band were playing, and on others girls were dancing, all in matching silver dresses. All down one side of the room a long table was set up with Harrods food, and a bar had been created on the right-hand side, with waiters and drinks brought in especially from the Café Royal on Piccadilly. No expense had been spared. No-one could guess how badly Sunstar Films were doing, how much of this must be being paid for by Brian Langley’s orchids.
Lovelace, his two Sergeants and about ten other policemen from Richmond were all wearing black tie, the Chief Inspector having insisted they remain to patrol the party, and Brian Langley having begrudgingly ordered in last-minute costumes from Nathan’s, who had arrived in one of their blue-and-gold vans in a tearing hurry.
The policemen melted now seamlessly into the room, hands engaged in the usual poses of holding drinks and buffet plates and cigarettes, eyes trained on anything untoward happening in the semi-darkness.
‘Just keep your eyes peeled,’ warned Lovelace. ‘And stick like glue to Silvia Hanro. Where is she, by the way?’
Robbie Fontaine, in an immaculate dinner suit, had already been besieged by women, and his presence could be felt powerfully, rippling out through the room, even across the noise of the pulsing music and the darkness. Brian Langley, looking unusually pristine and handsome, was holding court near the big screen with a group of men, all identically dressed in tuxedos, and all puffing away on cigars. Posie presumed these must be the important investors he so wanted to please.
‘She’s there,’ said Posie, with relief. Silvia Hanro was entering the room from a hidden back entrance, and all eyes were immediately on her, darting between the real-life woman and the huge black-and-white snatches of her face on the screen behind her. There was a collective intake of breath.
Silvia Hanro certainly did look quite something, dressed in a red sheath dress, her blonde bob gleaming and decorated with a matching tasselled ribbon.
Inspector Lovelace eyed the movie star keenly. ‘Mnnn. Hang on a minute…’
He turned to Posie and frowned. ‘Forgive my stupidity, but don’t
you two look just exactly the same?’
Posie gulped: it was true. In her attempts not to look so fusty and to look young, she had got out a daring red dress bought from Peter Jones on Sloane Square a few years before. It had come with a matching headdress and she had last worn the outfit back in 1921, in the days when she was still very much in love with Len, her working partner. The dress hadn’t been expensive, but it had made her feel a treat, slinky and almost thin. Posie had put it away when their romance hadn’t come off, fearful it would bring back bad memories. And it had languished in her wardrobe until now.
It was a miracle it still fitted her at all, and she had smiled to herself happily as she tugged up the crimson zipper.
But the Chief Inspector was right: it was an exact match for Silvia Hanro’s red dress. Posie felt mortified.
‘There’s not much I can do now, is there?’ she whispered crossly. Posie was aware that she looked as if she were trying to be a carbon copy of the movie star; a cheap trick if ever there was one.
‘You look better in it, though, lovey,’ declared Dolly, loyally, who said she felt sick and must have been telling the truth, for she hadn’t bothered to change and she looked distinctly off-colour in the strange light. She wasn’t even smoking. Posie had ordered that Dolly accompany them, though. There was to be no hanging around in Green Rooms alone today.
‘Look who’s coming in,’ hissed Dolly, sounding a bit more like herself. They all swung around and saw a man entering the room, surrounded by a crowd of adoring fans. Other people looped back to get a look.
‘Ivor Novello!’ Lovelace murmured. They had all three seen Novello before, on stage at the La Luna Club in early 1921, playing the piano. But he had gone on to bigger and better things since then, mainly films.
‘They say he’ll be the greatest movie star of all!’ whispered Dolly. ‘And he’s only just startin’ out in this game!’
The man radiated presence, and looked a good deal like Mark Paris, back in the old days, only more handsome, impossibly so. Lit with an inner fire and possession, the black-haired slim man had a sparkle and glow which seemed almost unearthly. He seemed to hold all who looked at him in a hypnotic sway, his wide, sensuous mouth curled up naughtily at each corner, promising delight.
‘Never mind. Get to it, Posie,’ said Lovelace, breaking the spell. ‘We’re covering you all the way. Lady Cardigeon will stay with me.’
And Posie darted forwards just as Robbie Fontaine was planting himself at Silvia’s side, both stars smiling gleefully and arching into each other as if for warmth, their mask-like faces presented to the world as a perfect dream.
Posie hung like a small shadow behind the couple as cameras began to snap and the acid stench of flashlight filled the air.
‘The press!’ Posie breathed to herself fearfully. Among the swirling mass of people who were now moving about in the room, eating and drinking and dancing, the ‘invited’ journalists and their accompanying photographers stuck out like sore thumbs.
The journalists began to surge forwards like a plague of locusts, engulfing the couple. Eventually they stopped, forming a tight ring around the movie stars, and some men began firing off questions; mainly about whether or not the couple planned on ever getting engaged.
Posie saw Sam Stubbs, accompanied by his photographer, and she looked away, pained. Sam looked very red in the face and excited, like a child at a funfair who didn’t know which ride to go on next. She thought of the telegram he had been sent about Silvia’s death, which was probably right now burning a hole in one of his pockets, its contents etched firmly in his mind.
He, like his colleagues, was after much more than news about the forthcoming film or about an engagement. And they all knew it. They were prowling like hungry vultures, sniffing at the wind.
She looked about her in disgust, all the while keeping Silvia Hanro well in range.
Her senses heightened, as if the whole scene was suddenly brought into sharp relief before her for the first time, Posie saw that the group of investors had now broken up and that Brian Langley had gone. She saw too that many people were peeling back, allowing a dance floor to take shape over near the screen, and in the very centre of it, under the glittering spotlights, dancing like a banshee, alone, was the figure of Meggie Albanesi. She was utterly lost in a world of her own.
Scanning the faces of the shadowy people watching the girl, Posie gave a sudden start, for there was Hector Mallow.
So he had got in after all, and the expression of his face as he watched his prey was enough to turn a girl’s stomach. It was quite revolting.
‘Confound the man.’
And there too, under another dip and turn of a light, was a glimpse of a vivid flamingo-pink kimono sleeve. A kimono which Posie had seen the evening before; a dress probably made especially for tonight, which had been given a trial-run at home the evening before.
Here was Pamela Hanro, trying too hard, holding aloft a drink in one hand, her dark hair scraped back brutally and her face made up heavily in the fashion of an ancient Egyptian queen; violent pink hoops, big as fists, dangling daringly from either ear.
So Pamela couldn’t be bothered to explain that she would be attending this Wrap Party at which her estranged sister is the star-turn, thought Posie wryly to herself.
Why was Pamela here? For what exactly?
Pamela was standing next to a tall man in the shadows, and she seemed to be hanging on to every word that he was saying, trying to keep his attention. Her rapt eyes never left his face. But the man hardly seemed to know she was there.
And then the tall man leant in to her at last and Pamela beamed. And when he turned from Pamela to watch the dancing Meggie Albanesi, Posie saw with some distaste that the man was Brian Langley.
She loves him, Posie realised with a jolt. How complicated.
Brain Langley had forgotten all about Pamela by now, that much was obvious, and Pamela knew it. The Producer was grinning broadly; obviously eyeing up his next box-office star, pleased with what he saw. Pamela was the invited but unwanted party guest, hopelessly uncool. It was as if she had been thrown a crumb of Brian Langley’s favour. She stood slightly apart, humbled.
An investor was suddenly at Langley’s side, pointing to the whirling Meggie Albanesi in an animated fashion. Both men turned their backs on Pamela in her shockingly pink dress and laughed appreciatively.
Posie saw Pamela’s defeated gaze move on from Miss Albanesi, straight on to her own sister who was still fawning for various photographs. Pamela’s eyes lingered on Silvia for a few seconds, but her face appeared unconcerned. Her gaze then wandered off casually, listlessly, across the room. For something to do.
Suddenly Pamela’s eyes widened in something like horror or astonishment and her mouth opened in what must have been a silent scream.
Posie followed Pamela’s gaze behind where she herself was standing, but only managed to see a mass of people getting food or drinks, or turning inwards into the room, all of them dark as shadows.
She just made out the cook, Mrs Thynne, carrying an empty punchbowl, her face like thunder, followed closely by a woman in a navy hat-Mrs Cleeves-who also seemed to be carrying away something of a culinary nature; dirty plates, maybe.
Tom Moran, wearing an unexpected black hat set at a rakish angle, which covered most of his face, followed the two women and skirted around the dance floor. He came up to Pamela Hanro and embraced her. And although Posie couldn’t hear the words, it seemed as if the two were meeting genuinely again for the first time, not as if they had argued bitterly earlier in the week outside the Green Room. They hugged each other for a good long while.
Although, as she watched, Posie saw that Pamela kept looking urgently around the room, nervily, past Tom’s shoulder. And past Silvia, whom she almost ignored. Pamela was like a woman possessed, and an angry fire had lit up her gaunt, plain features.
This is a roll-call of every last one of the people who could possibly want Silvia dead, Posie thought to
herself dismally. And this is the worst possible sort of occasion at which they could all assemble.
The crowds, the darkness, the flickering lights, the press…
Just what had the Chief Inspector been thinking of? Allowing it all to proceed?
‘The deuce!’ Posie muttered, noting that the photos and press attention now seemed to have come to an end. She was filled with a dreadful sense of the inevitable.
The movie stars were hissing at each other in well-practiced undertones. Posie drew closer to listen in:
‘Brian said twelve-thirty. Not a minute later.’
‘He’s busy. Can’t you see that? With the money men…’
‘He’ll expect us up on that podium now, with him, to speak about the film. You know it always runs like clockwork with him.’
‘Och, relax a wee bit, won’t you? A minute earlier or later is no big deal. He hasn’t given us the sign yet, has he?’
‘Confound you and your relaxed ways. Who needs a sign? Let’s move over to the podium now. I want to shake this wretched limpet of a detective off me, too. Dreadful girl: have you seen what she looks like today? Just like me.’
Robbie Fontaine chortled with mirth. ‘She’s done quite a good job of looking like you,though, hasn’t she? A proper wee stunner there, and no mistake. You’re only jealous of that!’
‘As if! Now, hold me close and let’s move. Closer, Robbie. But don’t crush my orchid spray, you fool.’
‘Where is Brian?’
And at Robbie Fontaine’s question, Posie found herself looking around again sharply in the dipping, nightclub-esque lights. The three of them started to move towards the screen, to the podium, Posie bringing up the rear, twisting her head all around.
Going up the steps of the small stage with its wavering backdrop of the film images, Posie caught sight of Brian Langley. He was still with the investor, in front of Pamela Hanro, talking seriously. He had caught sight of his two main actors and looked as if he were trying to finish up the conversation. He looked over and nodded at Posie.
Murder of a Movie Star Page 28