Changeling

by Sarah Rayne

  Fael’s death would be swift and painless, though. It would not be like Miller or Makepiece; not like the bitch Leila in Soho.

  Soho . . . It was annoying to have to return to London and tomorrow’s Sunday night meeting at the Greasepaint, but it had to be done. He had to cover his tracks in all directions; if he had simply vanished it would have caused comment, it would have set up scurrying little pockets of speculation and rumour. Therefore he would preside over one final gathering, and he would end the strange, dark syndicate that had been so satisfying and so rewarding. But it would be positively the last appearance of the creature that the street girls and the buskers and the rent boys knew as the Shadow.

  As he took food from the kitchen cupboards and the fridge to carry up to Fael, he felt no fear at returning to London, to where investigations into the three deaths would still be going on.

  He mounted the turret stair, and the twisted smile touched his lips briefly as he visualised the police investigations into the deaths of Tod Miller and Mia Makepiece. They would turn up nothing, of course, absolutely nothing. He was entirely safe.

  Sir Julius Sherry was not best pleased at the news that, thus far, the detective inspector in charge of the murder enquiry had turned up absolutely nothing of any value.

  Julius had been very shocked indeed at what had happened to poor old Toddy and Mia Makepiece. He was inclined to think kindly of Toddy now, silly old fool, shocking old ham, because Toddy, despite everyone’s dubious predictions, had come up with the goods: he had produced this marvellous magical show that was going to make them all so rich.

  Mia Makepiece, however, was another pair of shoes entirely. Sir Julius would not, naturally, speak ill of the dead, but he thought that Gerald Makepiece might count himself well rid of the greedy little cat. It could not be denied that Mia had been a ruthless little gold-digger, and Sir Julius would not have been surprised to learn that she had pursued the career of a tart at some point, because she had certainly never learned her tricks in Gerald’s bed! A most astonishing sexual appetite she’d had, and amazingly inventive – in fact almost downright avant-garde. Julius remembered certain incidents involving lit candles and king-sized cigar-holders with a touch of embarrassment and an uncomfortable suspicion that he might nearly have got himself into blackmail territory once or twice. Perhaps he had been a touch imprudent over that liaison. Yes, perhaps just a touch. Not that it mattered now, however.

  They had all had a very unpleasant time since the spectacularly gruesome appearance of the two bodies on the Harlequin’s stage, and Sir Julius himself had had the most unpleasant time of all.

  He had held several interviews with the police – which had been tedious – and had resulted in him privately damning Flynn Deverill from here to kingdom come, because it turned out that Flynn had taken the inspector on a private tour of the Harlequin’s nether regions, culminating in the discovery that somebody had tampered with the ancient brickwork leading to the old under-stage area.

  It had been at this point that everything stopped being merely tedious and accelerated into disaster. The police had opened up the entire under-stage area – ‘Got to be done, sir, can’t have murderers roaming about the place’ – which was true, but which did not appear to prevent people treating an historic old theatre with a complete lack of respect. Sir Julius had invoked every name he could think of, from the Chief Constable to the Prince of Wales, but it had been to no avail, and he had had to stand by in fuming impotence while plastic sheets were spread everywhere, and a minatory barrier, with ‘police area – no entry’ all over it was erected.

  It was very nearly a physical pain to see huge-booted Metropolitan policemen stomping about all over Scaramel Smith’s stage. Sir Julius knew quite well that the stage would have been re-built and re-fashioned at least half a dozen times – the Harlequin was three hundred years old, for goodness’ sake! But this section was Victorian at the latest, and therefore old enough to be important, and Sir Julius was enough a man of the theatre to wince at the thought of priceless snippets of antiquity being trampled to smithereens by the dogberry boots of the Met.

  He had peered as far as he could over the barrier, and even with the plastic sheets and the rigged-up electric lights, he had made out lingering traces of Victoriana, if not of Georgiana. There were discarded props and rotting costumes, and old stage weights, and piles of old flats, the paint long since vanished and the stretched canvasses mildewed. There was even a pile of something that Sir Julius, after a moment, identified as old lime cones. They were dried out and long beyond use, but Sir Julius, who did not lack a smattering of imagination, had stared at them with an odd little thrill. He could just remember his grandfather telling how his father had strutted in limelight. A hundred and fifty years ago would that have been? They’re going farther and farther back, he thought, as the inspector’s men began to lever up a section of old wooden flooring. If they keep going, will they come upon the original seventeenth-century structures?

  Even from where he stood, there was a miasma of old, old timbers, and forgotten memories and sadness . . . The scent of extreme age, thought Sir Julius, sighing romantically.

  ‘The scent of woodworm and dry rot,’ said the theatre architect, sighing gloomily. ‘Also, I’m afraid, a severe degree of building settlement. Upon my word, Sir Julius, I’m surprised you’ve got away with keeping the place open as long as this. It ought to have been closed down years ago.’

  ‘Closed down?’ said Sir Julius, blankly. ‘But we’ve only just opened—’ He bethought him of the critics’ acclaim, of the soaring bookings, of the blocks of seats put out to ticket agencies, and felt ill.

  ‘Certainly it must be closed down,’ said the architect firmly. ‘The dry rot alone—’ He made a comprehensive gesture, and Sir Julius hated him.

  The architect had been called in by somebody from the Arts Council of Great Britain, who had been called in by somebody else from the Greater London Council. At some stage, a body called the Historic Buildings Division had entered the arena, and the proceedings had begun to verge on the pantomimic. Sir Julius, dispossessed of his own office by the detective inspector in charge of the murder enquiry, had received these various gentlemen in the downstairs box office, and had felt besieged on all sides.

  The man from the Historic Buildings had entered into a spirited argument with the Arts Council official as to whose responsibility the Harlequin really was. Complicated plans were unearthed as to boundaries, and ancient feudal rights were disinterred from tightly furled and nearly indecipherable Deeds, along with some kind of in-perpetuity rent payable to some defunct board of barons, which had, so far as Sir Julius could make out, ceased to exist somewhere around the time of George I. The architect settled down to draw up something called a Bill of Dilapidations, with the costings reaching five figures before the end of the first page.

  After this, a solemn procession to the offending areas had taken place, led by the architect, with the Arts Council representative and the Council official in attendance, and Sir. Julius himself bringing up the rear in company with little Makepiece, who had appeared from somewhere and elected to join the party.

  The architect, in the manner of his kind, had prodded at sections of brickwork to illustrate his point and poked fearsome instruments into crumbling mortar to prove the astronomical levels of damp, dry rot, and woodworm. He had dangled plumb-lines to prove that door frames were out of true, and had bounced unbecomingly on floor joists which had creaked ominously and had given way altogether at one point, precipitating him halfway down into the unsavoury under-floor area, from which he had to be rescued. Finally, he had returned to the box office, and with the Arts Council and Historic Buildings representatives nodding on either side of him like a Greek chorus, had made his terrible pronouncement.

  The Harlequin was unsafe for public use, and must be closed pending suitable remedial and restoration work.

  By way of palliative, he added that of course everything would be done in sympa
thy with the extreme age of the place.

  The Harlequin company had assembled on the stage and were waiting, with a mixture of nervousness and resignation to hear an announcement from Sir Julius Sherry. Speculation was running high. The Fianna captain and the sorceress thought there might be a new show being announced and were trying to look smugly knowledgeable, as if they had access to inside information. The lodge-keeper and his stage wife, both older and more experienced in the ways of their world, took a more jaundiced view, holding to the opinion that the meeting was simply for the official handing out of everybody’s notice. Facts were facts, and anybody with half an ear to the ground for gossip knew that Cauldron was not going to be able to re-open.

  It was doomed to go down as one of the great failures of theatrical history, said the lodge-keeper, sepulchrally. It was a great pity, because it was a very good show, a very classy show. But there it was. If they wanted his opinion – (‘We don’t,’ said several voices, crossly) – if they wanted his opinion, said the lodge-keeper, raising his voice, they would all disassociate themselves from the company as soon as possible. A doomed show meant a doomed actor, you could not get away from that. The lodge-keeper’s wife supported this point of view, and contributed her mite by pointing out that anyone known to have been involved in Cauldron would probably have to live down the stigma for some time to come.

  ‘Oh, years and years,’ said the lodge-keeper at once.

  The sidh had disposed themselves gracefully over odd portions of the Act Two set, and were busy disagreeing with both these points of view. The male dancers were offering odds on that a tour of some kind was going to be announced, and there were several takers for this, which, as Danilo observed, either spoke volumes for the optimism of actors or for the private spy network of people in the company.

  Danilo and Gilly had discussed the matter privately, and had decided that there was going to be nothing doing for either of them. Danilo said glumly that it was the way things were: just as you thought you had got a break something happened to bugger it up. He was dispiritedly contemplating the club circuit again, and Gilly had accepted an invitation to supper with Sir Julius and another to lunch with Gerald Makepiece. It was anybody’s guess where any of these things would lead.

  Gilly asked if Danilo had heard any news of Fael Miller, but Danilo had not. One of the police sergeants had told him that the opinion was that whoever the killer was, he had some kind of insane motive against Tod. ‘Because of the injuries,’ he said.

  ‘Oh God, the Dwarf Spinner,’ said Gilly, who was more familiar with this show now. ‘That’s what they mean, isn’t it? Rossani peeling off human skin to make a cloak. That’s the maddest thing I ever heard.’

  Danilo said he did not think anyone had supposed Tod and Mia’s murderer to be sane. He slumped in his seat, gnawing at his thumb joint worriedly.

  Several minor members of the company timidly wondered if there might be a possibility of the show continuing here at the Harlequin, but were not paid any attention, and the sorceress had just started an altercation with the lodge-keeper’s wife, when Sir Julius walked onto the stage, with little Gerald Makepiece trotting at his side, Stephen Sherry and Maurice Camperdown following, and Simkins of the bank bringing up the rear.

  ‘The entire company on a Sunday afternoon outing,’ said Flynn Deverill, entering from the auditorium at the same moment, as if, observed Sir Julius to Gerald, he had been lying in wait to make a dramatic entrance.

  ‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ rejoined Gerald, who always felt uncomfortable and inadequate when confronted with dramatic and good-looking young men. To counteract this, he took a seat next to Gilly Blair who was always so nice to him and so very pretty. They had had several discussions about Mia – of course, Gilly had been Mia’s good friend. It had been nice of her to come out to lunch with him yesterday; they had had a very good meal at a nice restaurant in Knightsbridge, and Gilly had said it had made her feel better than she had felt since the appalling second night of the show. Gerald had thought she really meant it and was not just being polite.

  Julius rustled his notes importantly, cleared his throat, and said, ‘Now, you will be wondering why I have called you all here like this, and—’

  ‘And it a Sunday,’ said Flynn, ‘but then a man can be sacked as well on a Sunday as any other day. If that’s what it is, Julius, say so at once, and those of us with religious inclinations can go off to pray for salvation and another job. The rest can go down to get drunk in the bar – you and your man there can pay.’

  ‘Oh, I say,’ began Gerald.

  ‘We’re not here to sack you!’ said Julius, crossly. ‘If you’d come to the trustees’ meeting on Friday night, you’d know that.’

  ‘Oh God, you weren’t expecting me to come to a meeting, were you? Didn’t I tell you I never go to meetings?’

  ‘You’re at this one,’ pointed out Stephen.

  ‘No, I’m here to lead a rebellion if Julius and the little fowl and the money-lender look like cheating the down-trodden peasants out of their dues. We’ll be manning the barricades and tipping boiling oil down over the battlements.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Simkins, who disliked being referred to as a money-lender and thought Flynn irreverent.

  ‘Also,’ said Flynn, ignoring this, ‘somebody’s got to make sure that no more bits of actor managers fall into a wind machine and get spattered across the stage. Are you in trouble with the Health and Safety people because of that, Julius?’

  There was a rather shocked silence, and then Maurice Camperdown said, ‘Flynn, that’s an extremely tasteless remark.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Flynn, pleased. ‘Give me another couple of minutes and I’ll come up with a description of how the pathologist’s men scraped the bodies off the scenery.’

  This time the silence lasted even longer, because nobody could think of a response. Flynn grinned and walked across the stage to sit on a piece of scenery.

  ‘Shall we get to the point of the meeting,’ said Gerald, at last. ‘Time is getting on, you know.’

  Julius cleared his throat and said, ‘Well now. Most unfortunately, the results of the police investigations have turned up some – hum – structural problems in the Harlequin’s foundations—’

  ‘Somebody fell through the stage?’ demanded Flynn. ‘It was bound to happen one day.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, nobody fell through anywhere,’ said Sir Julius, resolutely quelling the memory of the architect and the unsound section of floor. ‘But it appears that some rather major work is needed before we can re-open.’

  ‘Extremely expensive major work,’ put in Simkins, dourly.

  ‘Which is a fairly large obstacle,’ said Julius.

  ‘We will find a way to overcome it, though,’ put in Makepiece, and to his credit, managed not to say, anxiously, ‘Won’t we?’

  ‘Oh, we shall find a way,’ said Julius airily, ‘although at the moment I have to tell you it’s proving beyond our reach.’ He tucked his chins into his neck and regarded the company with the air of a man being immensely sensible in the face of insurmountable odds.

  Flynn said, ‘“When we mean to build/We first survey the plot, then draw the model”.’

  ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with—’

  ‘“And when we see the figure of the house/Then must we rate the cost of the erection”. Are you telling us that the cost of your erection’s proving beyond reach, Julius?’

  ‘Flynn, if you’re being pornographic again—’

  ‘Henry the Fourth, Part Two,’ said Flynn blandly. ‘When was I ever pornographic?’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Julius hastily, ‘Gerald Makepiece and I have been in consultation and we have come up with rather a good scheme.’ He paused, and then said, ‘I should like, at this point, to formally and publicly thank Gerald who has been very helpful indeed at a number of difficult discussions.’ He paused so that this could sink properly into people’s minds, because it
was all too easy to overlook little Makepiece’s unexpectedly astute business sense. The trouble was that people tended to forget that the little rabbit had made a great deal of money manufacturing whatever it was he manufactured, and to remember only what a besotted idiot he had been over his terrible Mia.

  Everyone except Flynn made vaguely appropriate noises, and Julius beamed round the room, and said, ‘Now. What we have decided is that since the Cauldron company has no longer a London home—’

  ‘Being doomed,’ said a muffled voice from the corner.

  ‘Being temporarily dispossessed of its theatre,’ said Sir Julius, loudly, ‘we propose doing what our forbears did.’ He paused for effect, and several people looked bewildered. The sorceress was heard to demand of the Fianna captain what the devil the old boy was talking about.

  ‘Search me. If you ask me he’s been at the sauce.’

  ‘I mean,’ said Julius, pretending not to hear this, ‘that we are going to take to the roads!’ He beamed round the stage. ‘We shall don the mantle of the strolling players of Shakespeare’s day: the vagabonds and the minstrels, peddling our trade in tilt-yards and barns and inns—’

  ‘I hope nobody expects me to peddle anything in a barn—’

  ‘Or sleep in one, dear.’

  ‘I should say not.’

  ‘The results of our discussions,’ said Julius in the tones of a man driven to the far point of extreme endurance, ‘are that we shall open Cauldron in a theatre that was very close to the heart of James Roscius, the man responsible for so many Harlequin successes.’

  He waited, but a listening silence had fallen on the company now. In his corner, slightly removed from the rest, Flynn Deverill was motionless.

  ‘Professor Roscius,’ said Sir Julius, ‘had several theatrical involvements in his later life, and one of those involvements was with the Gallery Theatre in Ennismara, just outside Galway. We – that is, Gerald and I – have talked with the management of the Gallery, and the upshot is—’ He paused for effect. ‘The upshot is that we are taking Cauldron to Ireland and the Gallery.’