Murder Most Frequent: three more Inspector Constable mysteries (The Inspector Constable Murder Mysteries Book 5)

by Roger Keevil

“Well … I suppose. It's a sort of secondary rôle to Stu.” Matthew seemed to realise that he was not exactly sounding particularly enthusiastic. “I mean, I'm really glad he gave me the part, even though it's not the main character, but of course he always played the lead in his own productions.”

  “And I assume you worked together quite happily?”

  “Yes, of course. And I talked to him at the end of technical rehearsal, but I don't remember seeing him after that.”

  “And you, miss?” Copper turned to the nervous-looking young woman in a chair alongside that of Matthew, who reached out for her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “Oh … um … yes, Stuart did come into my dressing room around teatime, but that was the last time I saw him. And they wouldn't let anyone go into his room after … well, you know.”

  “No, miss, what I meant was, can I just make a note of your name please?” clarified Copper, seeking to soothe the uneasy flutterings.

  “Oh. I see.” The girl gave a tremulous half-giggle and pushed back her long blonde hair from her face. “Sorry, but I've never been involved in anything like this before.” She took a breath and seemed to steady herself. “My name is Jessica Davenport. I'm twenty-nine, and I'm playing Rachel – she's a mental patient who's lost her memory, so she has no idea who she is.”

  “Sounds quite challenging, miss,” remarked Copper.

  “It's not really my kind of part,” said Jessica. “I'd much rather do comedy, but you can't be choosy in this profession, so when my agent sent me to audition for Stuart, he offered me the part and I took it.”

  “Yes, well, he would, wouldn't he?” came a muttered growl from a man leaning against the wall opposite Jessica.

  Copper swivelled to face the man who had spoken, a tall strongly-built individual with a heavily-lined face and thick iron-grey hair. Late fifties, estimated the sergeant, his senses prickling at the first hint of conflict. “You have some thoughts on the subject, sir?” he asked mildly.

  “Just a few,” replied the man, heaving himself upright and taking a step towards Copper. “And just so's you know, the first thing anyone will tell you is that Stuart Nelson and I just did not get on. I'm David Winston, by the way – I'm L.X. Sorry, that's tech-speak – I mean I do the lighting.”

  “What, do you mean for this particular touring production or just for the Queen's Theatre?” Copper sought to clarify.

  “Both,” said David shortly. “We're all freelance these days – you have to take the work where you can get it.”

  “Even if it's offered by someone you would not consider a friend?” probed Copper.

  David shrugged. “That, or starve. It's just one of those things, and it's not as if I was the only one who ever got on the wrong side of Stuart. He was an arrogant swine who never appreciated anyone else's work, which is why we had that row after tech, but it's not as if I'm going to kill a man just because he said I got my lighting cues wrong. In his opinion! That's the trouble with these actor managers – they all think they wear the mantle of Laurence Olivier, and they think they know everything. Begging your pardon, ma'am,” he added, turning to a woman seated quietly at the end of the room, “but that's just the way I feel.”

  “I don't think there's the need for you to wash quite so much of our dirty linen in public, David dear,” reproved the plump middle-aged woman in the chair alongside him. “We've had quite enough of that as it is.” Dressed in a sort of smock with several pockets from which protruded various ends of ribbons, scissor handles, and tape measures, her crinkly faded red hair was tied back with a chiffon scarf which trailed down over one shoulder. At her wrist, a kind of bracelet with a foam pad held several pins with coloured heads. “Anyway, that's really rather more my job.” She gave a quiet chuckle. “Sorry, sergeant – slightly misplaced black humour, I'm afraid. My name's Angela Bailey. Miss. I'm the company wardrobe mistress, hence the laundry thing. Which reminds me, I've got some things in the tumble dryer up in my room which will be absolutely baked to a frazzle if I don't go and rescue them. Sergeant, would you mind awfully if …?”

  Copper registered the implication of her comments. “I shall want to speak to you at some point, but I think that will be all right, Miss Bailey, provided you don't leave the theatre,” he replied.

  “Leave the theatre, dear?” Angela laughed again. “No chance of that – they'll have to drag me out kicking and screaming. So I'll be up in Wardrobe when you want me. Do come up and have a chat. Just keep on up the stairs until you bump your head on the ceiling, and that's where I am.”

  “Actually, sergeant, would you mind if I bunk off too?” The individual who spoke wore black from head to foot, with a T-shirt bearing the logo of a celebrated heavy metal rock band, a heavily studded leather belt, biker's boots, long black hair caught back at the nape of the neck, and piercings in ear and nose. Heavy silver rings, variations on the death's-head motif, adorned the fingers of both hands. “The way I left my board, the damn thing's liable to crash if it doesn't get to do something every so often.”

  “Sorry, sir?” Copper sounded thoroughly confused.

  “My F.X. board – the sound board – sound effects for the play,” explained the other. Copper began to catch on. “It's all computer controlled, and I was half-way through an update when all this kicked off, and the whole thing gets very temperamental anyway, so can I go and rescue it – please?”

  “I suppose if it's essential, Mr …?”

  “Mott – William Mott. Will. I'm the sound technician. Look, I promise I won't run away. And I expect you'll want to talk to me anyway – away from other people, if you see what I mean.”

  “Er … yes, by all means, Mr. Mott,” said Copper, who was beginning to get a mild sense of loss of control of the situation. “But again, please don't leave the theatre.”

  “I'll stand surety for him if you like, sergeant,” commented Angela brightly. “Come on, Will – you can make yourself useful. Carry this basket of costumes up for me.” She pointed to a half-full hamper of garments sitting alongside her chair and headed for the door as Will, shrugging amiably, followed in her wake with his burden. The door closed behind them as Copper turned to the final occupant of the room, the woman who sat calmly, slightly withdrawn from the others, hands clasped in her lap.

  “And you, madam?”

  The woman regarded him coolly from clear grey eyes. Dark hair in an elegant ageless style framed a face of classic proportions, subtly made up to enhance its natural beauty. Early forties, guessed Copper to himself. Wrapped in a long dressing gown, maroon silk with a dragon motif in dull gold, she exuded an air of quiet self-control. “My name is Elizabeth Hamilton, sergeant. And Stuart Nelson was my husband.”

  Dave Copper was slightly taken aback by the unsensational nature of the revelation. “Oh … I'm sorry, madam, but I had no idea. Um … please accept my condolences for your loss.”

  “Thank you, sergeant,” replied Elizabeth. “You're very kind. And I dare say you'd like some more information from me.”

  “Well, yes … that's if you feel up to it, Mrs. … er … Miss ...”

  “Miss Hamilton will do very well, sergeant,” said Elizabeth, taking pity on Copper's unease.

  “Only I wouldn't want to cause you any upset at a time like this.”

  “Please, sergeant, don't worry that, because we're theatre people, we're all going to engage in theatrics. I think we're all a little more grown up than that. Well, some of us are, anyway,” commented Elizabeth drily. “So, what would you like to know?”

  “You say Mr. Nelson was your husband?”

  “Yes. I met him when we were both doing 'Pygmalion', and we've been together ever since. We married not long after, so that would be …” A brief pause for reflection. “...twenty-two years ago now. Goodness – as long as that. It's probably something of a record in this profession.”

  “And have you always been involved with Mr. Nelson's company?”

  “Oh, gracious, yes. Ever since he set it up. S
tuart enjoyed running his own theatre company – it's probably what he was born to do. He was a very good director – and actor, of course.” A sigh. “And now it's all come to an end.”

  “And can you tell me when you would have seen Mr. Nelson this evening?”

  “Stuart came into my dressing room at about a quarter to seven,” replied Elizabeth. “I didn't see him after that.”

  “Then I think I'll leave it there for the moment. If you wouldn't all mind waiting here for a little while longer, I'll just go and check ...” Copper let the sentence fade away as he headed for the door. As he was about to leave the room, he turned back with a final afterthought. “And once again, please accept my sympathy.”

  *

  “... so, now you know as much as I do, guv,” said Dave Copper, closing his notebook with a snap.

  “And I've got a feeling we're both about to learn a lot more,” remarked Andy Constable, as the sound of bluff rumbling tones wafted up the staircase in the wake of the detectives. “Nobody else sounds like that – we are about to be joined by the medical department.”

  “Evening, Andy … sergeant,” wheezed the man who lumbered into view on the landing. “I do wish sometimes that you could regiment your corpses into appearing during nice civilised hours like nine to five. Either that, or you can be the one who explains to my wife why she is sitting at home in a posh frock on the phone to a rather nice restaurant, cancelling our reservation.”

  “Sorry about that, doc,” replied Constable. “But 'Death will come, soon, too soon'.”

  “Don't you start quoting Shelley at me,” grumped the doctor. “I did that poem at school too, you know. I did the other one, too - 'I met Murder in the way'. So, did we? Let's have a look at your dead man, and I'll soon tell you.”

  “Just through there, doc,” said Copper, indicating the Number 1 dressing room.

  The doctor knelt at the side of the shower cubicle. “He's a bit untidy, isn't he?” he commented. “Well, let's see what we've got. Middle-aged man, late forties, maybe fifty-ish … looks well nourished … reasonable physical condition as far as I can see … oh, rather nice bruise coming out there on his jaw … can't see any other obvious wounds on the body, but it's difficult to tell when he's all doubled up like this. There may be something to find when we've got him laid out nice and flat ...”

  “And I assume that's when you'll be able to give us a likely time of death,” said Constable.

  “Oh, we've already got that, guv,” interposed Copper. “Just on seven, by what I've been told. The chap down at the stage door said something about a bang, and he came rushing up and found Mr. Nelson like this.”

  “A bang?” echoed Constable. “What, like a gunshot? But doc, you say there aren't any wounds. As far you can see, obviously.”

  “Equally obviously, Andy,” replied the doctor heavily, “gunshot wounds tend to be associated with a certain amount of blood. Of which we have a distinct lack here.”

  “So any ideas as to cause of death?”

  The doctor took a closer look at the floor of the shower tray. “Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, gentlemen, but perhaps you should be considering this.” Beneath the slumped body was a towelling mat, of the type more likely to be found on the floor outside a shower than inside it. The doctor lifted the corner gingerly. Tucked under the mat, and taped to the plastic of the tray with a sturdy white tape which rendered them virtually invisible to a casual glance, were a pair of wires whose exposed ends lay in the pool of moisture under the waterlogged fabric. “Not, I would suggest, part of the standard fittings of your normal shower.”

  “Sergeant, see where those wires go,” ordered the inspector sharply.

  Copper crouched down alongside the doctor and examined the area. “They go just under the corner of the glass door, guv,” he reported, “and then they look as if they've been shoved under the edge of the carpet here.” He crawled along the floor towards the door. “Yes, they go all along here at the foot of the skirting board, and then out into the corridor ...” He opened the door and looked out. “... and into a wall socket here just outside. Which at present is switched off.”

  “Well, at a guess, it probably wasn't switched off at the crucial moment,” remarked the doctor. “I can do a few tests, once my minions have hauled him away from here when you've finished looking at him, but I'd say that a reasonable working hypothesis would be that your man has been electrocuted. Result, heart failure. And since, as I say, showers do not usually come wired up to the mains, I'd say you have a definite case of murder on your hands.”

  “Shall I just go back home and have a quiet evening in front of the television?” enquired Constable mildly. “You two seem to have the case pretty much sorted between yourselves.”

  “Oh, you don't get out of it that easily, Andy,” chuckled the doctor. “I, on the other hand, do. I don't think there's anything here which tells me that my professional skills are going to be needed any time before tomorrow morning, so I am going to leave the late lamented in your capable hands and see if I can salvage something out of this evening. You know, it's strange,” he continued, as he reached in a pocket for his mobile phone and dialled. “Getting to grips with a dead body always sharpens my appetite. Funny, that. You'll have the report on your desk tomorrow, Andy. Toodle-oo.” Before the detectives could react, the doctor was out of the room and disappearing down the corridor. “Hello, darling … yes, I've managed to escape … look, why don't you call the restaurant back and see if they've still got that table ...” His voice faded away as he descended the stairs.

  *

  “That was all a bit short and sweet, wasn't it, guv,” commented Copper, still rather taken aback at the speed of the doctor's departure. “So now what?”

  “Further and better particulars, I suppose, sergeant,” responded Constable. He surveyed the rather forlorn spectacle of the dead man lying naked in the shower. “Let's see if we can't have this guy taken care of with a bit more dignity, and then we can have a word with the chap who found the body.” He made his way out of the dressing room and down the stairs, to be greeted at the foot by the arrival of a group of overall-clad officers. “Impeccable timing, everyone,” he said. “I was just wondering where you lot from SOCO had got to. And you're Sergeant ...” He searched his memory.

  “Singleton, sir,” the leader replied. “Una Singleton.”

  “Excellent.” Constable turned his attention to two sombrely-clad individuals who had entered in the wake of the SOCO team. “And I assume you two are what the doctor is pleased to call his minions.”

  “Yes, sir,” said one of the new arrivals. “We just caught him before he jumped into his car and zoomed off. Dead man up on the first floor, so he said.”

  “Dressing Room 1,” confirmed Copper.

  “Leave him to us, sir.”

  “Good. And Singleton and the rest of you, make a start in there, but then you'd better move on to the other rooms in that corridor in case there's anything relevant, and then … oh, to hell with it, you know what to do. See if you can find one and one and make them add up to three. At the moment we have no idea what we're looking for, so just rummage the whole place.”

  “Very good, sir.” The team leader began to issue orders briskly.

  “And if I'm not much mistaken, guv, this is where we'll find Mr. Castle,” said Copper, tapping on the half-glazed door of a small cubicle just inside the stage door.

  The knock was answered by a rather wan-looking Peter Castle. “Oh, it's you, sergeant.” He held back the door and admitted the two detectives to the cramped fug of his booth.

  “This is my senior officer, D.I. Constable,” explained Copper. “We'd like you to tell us what happened in the period running up to Mr. Nelson's death.”

  “What, the whole day?” asked Castle.

  “If you think it will be helpful, sir,” said Constable.

  “You'd better sit down then.” The detectives squeezed on to two folding chairs which the stage door
man produced from alongside his desk. Castle took a deep breath and seemed to marshal his thoughts. “Now, the first thing I can tell you is that there wasn't anyone else in the theatre today apart from the cast and the technical people. I know that, because they all have to come past me, see – I've got that little hatch there ...” He indicated a sort of glazed serving hatch with a sliding door in the wall overlooking the entrance hall. “... so I can see anyone who goes out or comes in.”

  “What about the box office people?” interjected Copper, recalling an earlier conversation.

  “Oh no, they don't come round here,” said Castle. “Like I said, they're all quite separate. We don't mix. They only go in at the front, and all the doors between the foyer and the rest of the theatre are kept locked unless it's a performance.”

  Constable resumed the questioning. “So, Mr. Castle, tell me about today.”

  “I always get in about nine-thirty in the morning, because the post and the deliveries come to the stage door. Not that there was anything today – most Mondays there isn't.”

  “Anyone else from the company in at that point?”

  “What, the actors? Fat chance!” snorted Castle. “You won't get an actor anywhere near a theatre before midday. No, the only ones who were here this morning were Stuart, David Winston, and Will Mott. David was going through the lighting plot with Stuart, and Will told me yesterday during get-in that he had some sound effects to sort out, so he came in just before twelve, as far as I can remember. So then I suppose they were busy around the stage after that, because I didn't see anything of them until Stuart and Will went over to the pub for lunch around one o'clock.”

  “Mr. Winston didn't go with them?”

  “No. I don't know what he did.”

  “So what about the period after lunchtime?” asked Constable.

  “The whole company was called for two o'clock for the technical rehearsal at two-thirty.”

  “Sorry – what exactly is the technical rehearsal?”

  “It's where they go through all the technical bits and pieces for the show,” explained Castle. “Because, even though they've been here before with other productions, it's always that bit different for every theatre they go to – you know, timing on the lighting or the set changes, cueing the curtain up and down, sound effects and what-have-you. They don't do the whole play – just the bits where something happens.” He leaned forward confidentially and lowered his voice. “To be honest, it's always very bitty, and usually ends up a bit of a mess, and that's when the fur starts flying. I stay out here and keep my head down.”