‘Well—’
‘If it helps, Mrs Christie…’ He leaned towards her with a conspiratorial tone. ‘We’d be happy to help with your research. I can’t imagine that it happens very often, that you have a ready-made story land at your feet. If you’d like to be part of our investigations, we’d be happy to oblige. The post-mortem on this poor young man’s body, for example…’
She shook her head. ‘Inspector, it’s very kind of you. But it won’t be necessary.’
‘You mean, what you do is always fiction?’
‘Precisely. The story unrolls within my imagination. It has very little connection with real life.’
‘Hmmm.’ He took a cigar from his pocket and considered it. ‘Maybe that’s why I don’t read murder mysteries,’ he said. He glanced at her. ‘In my work, the answers tend to be all too obvious. No mystery, no puzzle to solve.’
‘Perhaps that’s for the best, Inspector,’ Agatha said.
‘Perhaps it is, Mrs Christie,’ he said, as they walked out to the foyer.
*
The foyer seemed drab, abandoned. The evening air outside was humid, its heaviness adding to the sense of things shutting down, closing in.
Agatha went into the theatre.
The police had roped off the stage. A sheet had been placed over the centre where the body had been lying.
Sian was sitting on the edge of the stage, dabbing at her eyes with a large white handkerchief. Stefan was walking to and fro next to her, gazing upwards. ‘But how?’ he was saying. ‘It’s too precise. Too coincidental.’
Alicia stood, her hands on her hips, gazing upwards. ‘Accidents do happen,’ she said.
Hywel shook his head. ‘But so soon after Cosmina’s death?’
Georgie was pacing in front of the orchestra pit. ‘Ruined,’ he said. ‘One killing is bad enough – we could have survived that. The notoriety might have been helpful for sales. But two… No one will come and see us. I need to talk to the box office.’ He strode away down the central aisle.
‘That bad luck is still with us,’ Stefan said. ‘And if that rail really did just come down, very bad luck indeed.’
‘You still going on about that gypsy? She was a sham, like most of Porthcawl, in my view.’ Hywel took Alicia by the arm. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find some supper.’
Stefan took Sian’s hand. ‘I need a drink, love.’
Only Luca Belotti was left, perched on the stage steps. He unfurled himself, a slight figure in tight black leggings and loose white shirt. ‘Gypsy curses,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘I suppose people have to believe in something.’ He turned to Agatha. ‘And what do you believe, Signora Christie?’
She wasn’t sure what to say, gazing up at him as he stood there.
‘Your stories, for example,’ he went on. ‘Do you believe them to be true?’
‘Well,’ she began. ‘No. In that they’re stories.’
‘But yes, in that there is a truth about them, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps.’ She noticed that for all his Italian airs, his accent seemed to be that of a Londoner.
He smiled. ‘Young Stefan there, claims he encountered a gypsy, selling her twigs outside our theatre in Porthcawl. And they had words, the result of which was that she uttered some kind of curse upon our company.’ He took two neat steps back to the stairs, sat down in one swift move. ‘It’s not a magic I believe in,’ he said.
‘So your magic—’ she began.
He shrugged. ‘It’s all technique,’ he said. ‘Mirrors. Machinery.’
‘And yet – the audience – we – were amazed,’ she said.
‘People want to be fooled,’ Luca said. ‘It’s all in the mechanics. It’s just a question of how you hide it.’ He jumped to his feet, executed three twirling dance steps. ‘It must be the same in your work, Signora Christie.’
‘I’m not sure I—’
‘Your stories console, they reassure. They tell their readers that everything is going to be all right.’
‘It’s hardly magic,’ she said.
‘Allowing people to believe in something that never happened? That’s magic all right.’
She smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ she said.
‘And now,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve had these terrible unhappinesses. People need magic more than ever.’
‘Do you think the company will survive?’
He shrugged. ‘Whether it does, whether it doesn’t – I will always do my work. I’m planning a solo show, yet another reason for Mr Carmichael to be angry with me.’ He smiled. A jump, a slide, and he was sitting on the edge of the stage, swinging his legs. ‘This—’ he gestured around him – ‘this is all I’ve ever wanted. Even from my childhood, I used to squeeze through the backstage windows to see the illusionist for free.’
‘In Italy?’
He shook his head. ‘Bermondsey. The Old Star, mostly. My dad was a leather worker. But Reg Slater don’t sound as good as Luca Belotti. And anyway, Belotti was the name of my mother’s father. She always said it was in my blood, my mother did. Her father, in Parma, used to make theatre with shadow puppets. And before that, way back, they were merdules.’
‘Merdules?’
‘In Sardinia,’ he said. ‘It’s very powerful magic. Up in the mountains. They have a mask and a whip, and they chase away the devil to protect the sheep.’ He gave a childlike smile.
‘Real magic,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘And yet you won’t have a gypsy curse?’
He shook his head. ‘I know real magic when I see it.’
‘And your own work?’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘My own work is everyday magic. I concentrate on the mechanics. If I leave it to the spirits they may let me down.’
She smiled. ‘You just said you don’t believe in magic.’
He shook his head. ‘What happens here—’ he patted the stage – ‘that may not be magic. But out there—’ He gave an expansive wave of his arm – ‘that’s altogether different.’
‘So you do believe?’
‘I am a magician,’ he said. ‘When I was little, I used to try all sorts of things to make the spirit magic work. Turn round six times, shut my eyes, count to twenty-one, that sort of thing.’
‘And now?’
He tilted his head to one side. ‘My work is about wonderment,’ he said. ‘That’s what I try to bring to my audience. A sense of the wonder of life. And you,’ he said. ‘You must be the same.’
‘But – my work is in stories.’
‘I’m working on a story myself. It will be mime, but it will have a beginning, a middle and an end. Like your work. If you stay around for the next few days you may get to see it. I’m practising bits of it.’
‘That would be nice,’ she said.
‘You can advise me.’ He smiled. ‘It’s work in progress.’
‘I’m sure I won’t be any use to you at all.’
He hugged his knees to his chest. ‘I wouldn’t say that. Your work may all be about words. But – telling a tale of murder – you need the silences too. Wouldn’t you say?’
She considered this.
He jumped to his feet, took two dancing steps across the stage. ‘What people choose to say – what they choose to hide…’ He stood, a solitary figure on the stage, illumined only by a shaft of electric light from the wings. ‘My work may be about illusions,’ he said, ‘but like you, I hide the workings. The mirrors, the tricks up my long sleeves…’ He did a little mime, shaking something out from his shirt, holding it up to the audience in wonderment. ‘Your magic is all in the workings too.’
She smiled.
With a jump he was standing by her side. ‘Signora. Shall we go?’ He gave a bow, offered her his arm.
She got to her feet. ‘Mr Belotti,’ she said. ‘This company is very troubled.’
He stopped, turned to her. ‘If I had anything to say on the matter, I would say it.’
‘You have no reason to think that anyone would w
ant Mr Petrovich dead?’
He gave an emphatic shake of his head. ‘We are a close company. In our work, you have to be.’
He led the way down the aisle.
Out in the foyer she turned to him once more. He had vanished.
In the bar, she could see Patrick and Isabella sitting with two cocktail glasses in front of them. They seemed to be engaged in an intense conversation, which stopped as she approached. Isabella looked up, with a warm smile. ‘Darling Agatha,’ she said. ‘I guess you’ll refuse a martini.’
‘I will,’ Agatha agreed.
Patrick managed a thin smile. ‘At least sit with us, Agatha,’ he said. ‘We were just discussing our relative freedom now that the detective inspector doesn’t need us anymore.’
‘Freedom from his cigars,’ Isabella said. ‘And cheap ones at that. I can go back to my moths. I do miss them so. And here’s darling Georgie too. Perhaps he’ll want a martini—’
‘Not for me, dear heart.’ Georgie approached with his waltzing step, all cheerfulness restored. ‘We’re back in business. Work to do.’
‘You are?’
‘Tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘The show will go on. And here you are. Come and join us.’ With a flourish, he handed them a ticket each. ‘You’ll see the lovely Saffra this time. She’s unmissable.’
He went on his way, humming a tune.
Isabella gazed at his departing tailcoat. She shook her head. ‘Dear Georgie. He’s never been one for reality to have much of an impact,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have thought all these ghastly events had just occurred in his theatre company.’
Patrick had picked up his glass and was turning it in his hands. ‘The show must go on,’ he said. His voice was tight, his expression brittle.
Isabella placed her long pale fingers on his sleeve.
‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’
CHAPTER SIX
It was nice to be home.
Agatha sat at her desk. The afternoon sun flecked the mahogany with gold, shone across the pages of her notebook, the heap of correspondence that Carlo had left for her.
Outside, the Chelsea street was quiet. A gardener watered, the clip of horse’s hooves, a motorcar chugged past. Mrs Burdett had been watering her window boxes but had now gone back indoors.
Agatha flicked through the post. A letter from Rosalind at school, where all seemed well. A note from her publisher about spellings for ‘our cousins across the Atlantic’, and did she mind a few changes in the new American edition…
The invitation from Wales, from the Driscoll Institute. It was in Cardiff, it seemed. The talk was on Tuesday.
‘A talk?’ Mrs Burdett had said last week, calling to ask her what she thought about ranunculuses, ‘I mean, they can be pretty, but your geraniums do seem to do so well in this London air…’
‘Yes,’ Agatha had said. ‘In Wales.’
‘Wales?’ Mrs Burdett pursed her lips. ‘No one goes to Wales.’
The title of the talk was My influences: A life in writing. Carlo had scribbled across the top, ‘I know you hate these things. Happy to decline for you.’
She picked up her pen.
A brass rail, heavy with its canvas drape, crashing to the floor.
A man’s body, sprawled and bleeding. His eyes staring, empty of life.
She remembered how Patrick had reappeared from the theatre with talk of his pipe, how he was always losing them, the need for several of different colours.
He’d been out of breath, she remembered, strangely so for such a small exertion.
But how? How to get something of such weight to land with such precision? It was so unlikely.
And yet, what else? The police were almost bound to conclude that Alexei killed Cosmina, and Patrick killed Alexei.
She leaned back in her chair. She looked out of the window.
The card from the Driscoll Institute was of superior quality, and the bold typeface seemed to exude an unshakeable confidence that the invitation would be accepted.
She imagined taking the train, heading away from London, away from these neat, careful story notes juxtaposed with real tragedy, the chaos of real murder, Patrick’s grief and rage, two young people’s lives cut short—
There was a loud ring at the doorbell.
When she opened the front door, there was no one there.
An envelope lay on the mat. ‘Mrs A. Christie,’ it said, with the address.
She tore open the white paper, saw the signature, ‘Isabella Maynard.’
‘There is much to discuss,’ the note said. ‘I shall be in the tea room at Claridges, at four this afternoon. I’d be grateful if you would join me.’
The street was deserted. Isabella’s delivery boy must have been instructed not to wait for a reply.
American confidence, that one issues an instruction and it is simply fulfilled.
She shut the door, staring at Isabella’s card, at the looped handwriting, the neat flourishes of black ink.
Or just the deep self-belief that comes from being Miss Isabella Maynard?
She paced the room, thinking. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half hour.
She changed her dress, put on her lilac coat and left the house.
*
The tea room was filled with the chink of porcelain and the murmur of conversation.
Isabella was sitting in one corner at a small table. She was wearing white, with a touch of pink, as if chosen to match the tablecloths and tea sets.
Agatha reached the table.
Isabella reached up and grasped her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, with feeling. ‘Thank you for coming.’
She seemed different, Agatha thought, joining her at the table, as the waitress arranged a second cup and plate. The self-assurance seemed more brittle, the tousle of her pinned-up hair more careless. When she spoke, her voice was low.
‘The game is lost,’ she said. ‘There seems to be nothing I can do. Patrick – he seems to think – he seems to think he did it.’ Isabella’s eyes filled with tears.
‘But – how?’
Isabella dabbed at her face with the back of her hand. ‘He called on me this morning. He said that when the police question him, which they will, he will admit to having adjusted the ropes, knowing that Alexei was alone, underneath the rail.’
‘But—’
Isabella met her gaze. ‘He was the only person there. Apart from Alexei. And he even showed me a scrape on his hand from loosening the rope.’
The women fell silent.
Alexei killed Cosmina. Patrick killed Alexei.
‘Oh, Mrs Christie,’ Isabella burst out. She looked tearful and childlike, as if the veneer of performance had been peeled away to reveal this plain, unpainted woman. ‘It’s so absolutely tragic.’
‘It is,’ Agatha agreed. They sat in silence, both held by the image of poor Patrick, so educated, so intellectual—
‘He’s trapped,’ Isabella said. ‘Trapped in a nightmare brought about by his own passions. I mean, if it was one of your books…’
Agatha interrupted. ‘It’s nothing to do with my books. This is real life.’
Isabella gave a nod. ‘I know. Which, I guess, makes it even worse.’
‘Much worse,’ Agatha said. ‘And in any case,’ Agatha said. ‘My stories are clockwork, and unlikely. That’s the problem,’ she added.
‘The problem?’
Agatha looked at her. ‘I seem to have run out of steam where all that’s concerned.’
They fell silent, both listening to the soft surrounding chatter. A waitress brought tea, milk, sugar.
After a moment Isabella looked up. ‘It’s difficult, isn’t it. Finding the story you really want to tell. It’s like that with my dance.’
‘It is?’
‘Patrick is always so helpful when I’m stuck. You wouldn’t think to look at him that he would know anything about dance, but he says it’s the same as his work. He says it’s a
ll about the layers. Digging downwards towards the heart of the matter, occasionally stumbling upon a treasure, dusting it off, carefully bringing it to the surface. He says dance is just a different archaeology.’
Agatha sipped her tea. ‘He’s a very clever man,’ she said.
Isabella raised her eyes. ‘Oh, Mrs Christie,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘What can we do?’
‘Do you think he did it?’
Agatha hesitated.
‘When we were all there, with Alexei, dead, before us—’ Isabella stopped short.
‘He didn’t seem surprised,’ Agatha said.
Isabella tapped on the table with her manicured fingers. ‘I won’t have it, Agatha. He’s not a murderer. That woman snapped him up at a vulnerable point in his life. He hasn’t been thinking straight since Sylvia died.’
‘It’s true he hated Alexei,’ Agatha said.
Isabella’s expression was fierce. ‘He hated him very much. But you see – Cosmina was bad for him. Very bad. The woman wasn’t honest. Where she comes from, they don’t know how to be honest. Romania – they serve so many masters, they change their loyalties with the weather. You could hear it in her voice. No fidelity.’ She spoke with undisguised rage.
‘So – when you’d heard she was dead—’
‘I was delighted.’ Isabella faced her, all pretence gone.
‘But—’ Agatha began. ‘Would you and Patrick…’
‘Be together?’ She gave a thin smile. ‘Oh, how I’ve longed for it. I love the man, Agatha.’ Her voice shook. ‘I love him.’ She fiddled with her empty plate, then looked up. ‘I tried to tell Patrick, “She’s bad for you, she’s an opportunist.” There was this rumour of a wedding, when they were on the tour in Wales, Georgie let slip about it. I tried to say to Patrick, “If Cosmina and Alexei were secretly married, then you have no chance…”’
‘What did he say?’
She looked despondent. ‘I fear I made it worse. He said, “If that man has married her…” He was so angry. And I couldn’t prove it without asking Alexei straight out. And now it’s too late.’
‘Would Georgie know?’
She shrugged. ‘You never get a straight answer with that man. And it was a disastrous tour, as they all keep saying. Illness, floods. If Alexei and Cosmina ran off to get married, I doubt anyone would have noticed.’
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