We both sat in silence while we considered the implications.
“But what about Tiffany? Do you think she was hiding just now?” I said.
“I suppose it’s possible…” Graham didn’t sound convinced.
“But not very likely.”
“No… It’s a big floor area,” mused Graham. “We were there just as the song ended. She’d have had to sprint across the stage to get out of sight. And she doesn’t look like a very fast runner to me.”
“Plus we’d have heard her heels clicking across the floor.”
Then we both said at the same time, “Why would she hide anyway?” We looked at each other, baffled.
“It’s weird.” I sighed, and Graham nodded. There was another long pause and then I added, “Suppose Tiffany wasn’t there at all…” I talked slowly, speaking the ideas aloud as they came into my head, waiting for Graham to laugh or disagree with me but he didn’t do either. Instead he nodded again. I continued. “If she wasn’t there … then she couldn’t have been singing … and if it wasn’t her singing … well, it certainly wasn’t Jason. Was it?”
“I don’t think so.” Graham looked at me. “As far as I can see there’s only one explanation that would fit all the facts.”
“Which is?”
“It was a recording.”
“A recording?” I echoed.
“It would explain the consistency of her performance,” said Graham.
“No!” My mouth fell open as I took in what Graham was saying. “You think Tiffany’s been miming?”
“It’s a definite possibility. It’s not uncommon for popstars to do it, especially for television appearances. Tiffany could have been miming all along.”
“But … is that allowed? I thought it was supposed to be live. I thought that was the point.” I felt quite indignant.
“Well … yes. Live theatre should be live. It would go against the Trade Descriptions Act if it wasn’t.”
“Do you think Peregrine knows?”
Graham shook his head. “I doubt that very much.”
“Should we tell him?” I asked.
“We haven’t got any proof,” Graham said flatly.
We sat there for a bit, and then I exclaimed, “All that going from the beginning stuff! No wonder she looked so scared when Peregrine wanted her to skip to the end – it couldn’t be done with a recording, could it?”
“Not without giving the game away.”
“And that look up she does before she starts a song; that finger flick – she must have been giving Jason signals!” I exclaimed.
“Well, yes. I assume he is in on it. That would account for the strangeness of the sound system. I wondered from the beginning why he was using such complicated equipment – it didn’t seem to make sense. But now it does. She’s got what looks like two mikes. But one’s a device to play the song and the other’s an amplifier to make it sound like she’s really singing. Jason must be using a remote control. It’s very clever. He’s been giving Tiffany her songs.”
“Do you remember when we had to come back for my lunchbox and we heard that awful singing? Do you reckon that was her?”
“It could have been.”
“That’s probably why they said she was funny in the paper. If she was singing that badly in the school production they must have thought she meant it as a joke.”
“But I don’t get it,” Graham said, suddenly exasperated. “How does all this fit in with the stalker? Why would Jason be helping Tiffany and then trying to kill her?”
We couldn’t say any more to each other because the other kids had started to turn up. But later, in the dress rehearsal when we were sitting right at the back in our flower costumes, we managed to have a whispered conversation.
“OK,” I said. “So if Tiffany’s not really singing… Do you reckon Hannah noticed?”
“Maybe.”
“That could be the reason for all those strange looks.”
“Could be,” agreed Graham.
We’d got to the bit of the song where we had to stand up and slowly twirl full circle three times, which was a tricky thing to do without getting our petals tangled so it was a while before we could say anything else. My mind was whirring furiously. We’d worked out what Tiffany and Jason were up to but that meant Jason couldn’t be the stalker. He wouldn’t be trying to kill the woman he was helping. Unless…
My next thought chilled me to the core. When we sat back down I said, “Graham, I’m scared.”
“Why?”
“All this time we’ve been thinking the stalker was after Tiffany. But what if he wasn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well it was Geoff that died first, wasn’t it? And then he got replaced. By Jason! What if killing Geoff was the whole point?”
“So what you’re saying is that maybe Tiffany put the poison in her own cup to get rid of Geoff?” said Graham incredulously.
“Yes. And I think I saw her doing it!” I was practically exploding. “She put sweeteners in her tea. Suppose they weren’t real ones? Suppose they were poison? Then all she had to do was accidentally-on-purpose spill Geoff’s tea and give him her cup.”
“That’s why Maggie didn’t see anyone come in,” said Graham eagerly. “Tiffany was already there!”
“Yes!” I gasped. “She could have opened the door to the fire escape when she went to make a fresh cup of tea. She almost sprinted off the stage, do you remember? She’d have just had time to do it before her bodyguards caught up with her. Jason could have made those marks on the door frame when the building was empty – in the middle of the night or something – to make the police think it was an outside job. And that’s why Cynthia didn’t notice the door was open earlier. Ohmygod! Cynthia! She said that stuff about Tiffany’s voice and Tiffany looked really angry. Maybe they thought she suspected something. Maybe they killed her too.”
“They’d only have had to open the dressing room window to make it look like it was someone else,” Graham agreed.
“Exactly.”
We wafted woodenly to the left and then to the right not quite in time with the music. Tiffany set off for the Emerald City, ruby slippers skipping along the yellow brick road. We got to the end of the scene and there was a blackout when the inhabitants of Munchkinland had to leave the stage. But for a moment I couldn’t move. I grabbed Graham and in the pitch darkness I hissed at him, “The chocolates!”
“You don’t think…?” His voice trailed away to nothing.
“Yes. They weren’t meant for Tiffany! No wonder she took the only toffee. It was a hard centre. She knew there wasn’t any poison in it. She was trying to kill us!”
The lights came up then, catching me and Graham in their glare. The scenery had moved all around us and we were standing in the Scarecrow’s field.
“Get off the stage!” shrieked Peregrine.
Graham and I fled, earning sour looks of disapproval from the Munchkins.
After that things went from bad to worse as far as Graham and I were concerned. We couldn’t talk in the dressing room – there were too many people around. There wasn’t any point even attempting to say anything to the police: we knew from past experience that they aren’t very keen on listening to unproven crime theories from a couple of kids. So all we could do was get through the dress rehearsal in an agony of panic and anxiety. Our flying scene was dreadful: Toto wandered into the wrong place, and when we landed I ended up treading on his tail. He yelped and then sank his teeth into the Cowardly Lion, who swore very loudly. When we got hold of Dorothy and took off, Graham – in a sudden spasm of nervousness – jerked sideways and kicked the Tin Man’s head as we flew past him so he started swearing too.
Peregrine was furious. “I have never seen such a shambles! That was appalling. Truly appalling,” he berated us at the end of the rehearsal. “I hardly need remind you that we open tomorrow night. And right now this show is just not good enough. I expect everyone back here first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll have to sq
ueeze in another rehearsal. Two if necessary. It’s our only hope.”
So Graham and I felt tired and forlorn as well as in fear of our lives. We waited outside the theatre for Mum to pick us up, looking over our shoulders every five seconds to check that neither Tiffany nor Jason were sneaking up on us.
“So what do you think? Are we sure the stalker doesn’t exist?” I asked Graham. We looked at each other thoughtfully.
“It seems to be the most likely explanation,” said Graham.
“He’s been great publicity for the show, hasn’t he? It sold out, didn’t it? Maybe Tiffany and Jason dreamed him up in the first place as some sort of stunt. And then he was useful cover for getting rid of Geoff. And Cynthia. And us – if we’d eaten those chocolates.”
“But why did they want to get rid of us?” wondered Graham.
“For the same reason they got rid of Cynthia – we saw too much. We heard Tiffany singing, didn’t we? And you asked him about the sound equipment. It was enough to spook them into thinking we might work it out.”
“Which we have,” quavered Graham. “So will they try again?”
I breathed a deep sigh while I considered the answer. I surprised myself by suddenly feeling relatively safe. “You know, I don’t think they will. Tiffany really, really wants this show to succeed – she’s got a lot riding on it. They can’t afford to do anything that would stop it going ahead now. It’s opening night tomorrow: she’ll be focused on that. They both will be. We should be safe enough as long as we keep our heads down.”
So that was that. We had completely convinced ourselves that the stalker didn’t exist but we were wrong. Because the very next day he struck again.
stage fright
Pretty much everyone in the theatre was riddled with nerves the day the show opened. Everyone, that is, except Tiffany.
She arrived that morning in a kind of happy glow because – according to the breakfast news – she’d just been offered a part in a major Hollywood film. She looked like she was walking on air. She was all beams and smiles to everyone, even the Munchkins. Jason, on the other hand, looked furious.
When we started the rehearsal one of Tiffany’s microphones let out a terrible screech, then crackled and fizzled into nothing. Tiffany flicked a nail against it but it was totally dead.
Peregrine heaved a deep sigh and called for Jason, who came scurrying on to the stage.
Tiffany startled everyone by spitting furiously, “Did you do this deliberately?” I was amazed. I mean, they’d been so careful up until then not to give away the fact that they knew each other. But you don’t speak to a stranger the way Tiffany just had to Jason.
He took a step back, darting a look at Peregrine before saying deliberately, “Of course not, Miss Webb.”
I thought Tiffany was about to hit him but she pulled herself back when she saw the warning look in his eyes.
“Have you got a spare mike?” Peregrine asked Jason.
“No,” Jason replied. “Miss Webb’s microphone was … a special one… Non-regulation. It had its own specification … a particularly sensitive decibel meter…”
“He’s making it up,” Graham whispered to me. “There’s no such thing.”
Peregrine started rubbing his forehead with his handkerchief. “Get another sent down from head office. Sort it out Jason. In the meantime we’ll carry on without it.”
Three things happened when he said that. Jason stared at Tiffany, his eyebrows raised as if he’d asked a question and was waiting for her answer. Hannah grinned from the wings, her black lipstick making her look like a witch. And Tiffany exploded.
“I’ll strain my voice!” she screamed. “I refuse to work without a microphone! You can’t possibly expect me to put up with these conditions.” She stamped her foot like a toddler in a supermarket. I half expected her to lie down and start pounding the floor with her fists but instead she stalked off, ruby heels clicking across the stage as she made for her dressing room. Jason ran after her, and before they disappeared I heard her wail, “I’m going, I tell you. You can’t stop me! No one can.”
There was nothing Peregrine could do. He just stood there, aghast. We all did. The Munchkins were astounded to see a grown-up behaving like that. There was a long, dramatic silence.
And then Hannah stepped forward and said awkwardly, “Peregrine, do you want me to stand in…?”
Peregrine sighed despairingly and said, “It’s kind of you, Hannah, but frankly, my dear, I’ve given up. Our fate is in the lap of the gods. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed for this evening. I’m going to lie down in a darkened room and pray. I suggest the rest of you do the same.”
Shepherded by Daphne, we had to file back to the dressing room, where we spent a long and agonizing day fretting about the coming performance. Everyone showed their terror in different ways – talking non-stop or not talking at all; cheeks flushed red, or faded to a sickly pale; bursting into tears or giggling hysterically.
Graham and I sat together, muttering.
“Who tampered with her microphone?” he asked. “Do you think it was Jason?”
“It can’t have been! He wouldn’t have helped her all this time just to stop now. It doesn’t make sense,” I replied. “Who else knew about her miming?”
“I don’t know. Do you think Peregrine worked it out?”
“Might have. But why would he wreck his own show?” Then I remembered Hannah’s face. “Maybe Hannah did it. I think she guessed ages ago that Tiffany was miming. And she did just offer to stand in for her, didn’t she? Maybe she did it so she can play the part tonight.”
“Well if it was Hannah who fixed the mike I hope she doesn’t let on,” said Graham gloomily. “I wouldn’t fancy her chances if Tiffany finds out.”
The trouble was, we couldn’t really think straight. As the afternoon wore on we got more and more paralysed with stage fright. Graham looked like he was going to his own execution. I didn’t think it was physically possible to feel so scared without actually passing out. I kept having to rush to the toilet and each time I stood up I felt faint and dizzy. It was horrible.
Half an hour before curtain up Elizabeth tapped on the dressing room door to give us our thirty-minute call. She continued down the corridor knocking on all the doors. Two minutes later she let out a blood-curdling scream.
Graham and I stared at each other. “Hannah!” we both shrieked.
But it wasn’t Hannah who was lying dead.
When Tiffany hadn’t answered the knock on her door, Elizabeth had pushed it open.
Tiffany was dead. And the writing on the mirror said: I ALWAYS KEEP MY PROMISES.
opening night
The police wanted to stop the show. For a while I wondered if Peregrine would let them and if he really had done away with Tiffany to collect the insurance money. But no, Peregrine was adamant the production would go ahead. We could hear him in the corridor saying urgently, “ ‘The show must go on.’ That’s not a cliché, Inspector Humphries, it’s the simple truth. It really cannot be cancelled.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” came the policeman’s reply. “I can’t allow…”
“There’s a full house out there,” Peregrine persisted. “If we don’t proceed, the financial loss will break the company. As it is I’ve had to remortgage my house to cover our debts. An awful lot of jobs are dependent on this production’s success. I beg of you. Please reconsider.”
There was a long pause but eventually Inspector Humphries said, “Very well. You can go ahead. I’ll take statements after the show.”
Dizzy with shock and sick with nerves, we took our places.
Cynthia had been right, I noticed. Without her Goth make-up, Hannah – who’d had to get costumed up in five minutes flat – was very pretty. Very pretty and faintly familiar – I had the vague feeling that I might have seen her face somewhere before. And I wasn’t the only one. When Jason – fingers shaking, lip trembling – tried to pin a microphone to her dress, she turned away
and muttered, “I can manage without amplification, thanks.”
She put a hand up as if to shield her face, but the movement just focused Jason’s attention more closely on her. He stared, frowned and said, “Katie…?”
But he didn’t get a chance to say any more because it turned out that Hannah was sick with nerves too. Literally. At that moment she spun round and threw up into the fire bucket, which brought their conversation to a sudden halt.
As for me, I was shaking so much that my petals were rustling like I was caught in a stiff breeze. I was deeply regretting having had anything at all to do with the production. I wanted to go home. Go to bed. Hide under the duvet and not come out until spring. I felt cold inside, as if I’d swallowed a ghost. Graham had lost the power to talk. He was swaying like his knees were about to give way.
But Hannah looked worse than both of us. I really couldn’t see how she would be able to perform. Why was Peregrine putting us through it? Why hadn’t he cancelled the show? What kind of sadist was he?
Peregrine made an announcement telling the packed theatre that Tiffany Webb was unable to perform and that the part of Dorothy would be taken by her understudy. This was answered by a howl of disappointment from the audience. Hannah was sick again.
But then something weird happened.
I’d read about actors whose fear disappears the moment they step out into the spotlight. As soon as the overture struck up, Hannah was suddenly transformed.
She stood up straight, flicked one of her plaits across her shoulder and smiled the kind of smile that fills everyone who sees it with a warm glow. She looked positively radiant. Star-like. When the curtains opened, she filled the stage with her magical presence.
Of course we’d never rehearsed with Hannah, but she was so good it wasn’t a problem. It was like she picked up the whole cast in her arms and carried them along. You could feel the audience’s love for her like great waves of warmth washing over the stage. She sang “Over the Rainbow” with the same familiar sad longing that we’d heard from Tiffany, but Hannah’s voice seemed richer and fuller somehow. Maybe it was the difference between a recorded voice and a live one, I thought.
Dying to be Famous Page 6