What Bloody Man Is That

by Simon Brett

  Chapter Seven

  HE WOKE WITH a head like a hornet’s nest, a mouth like a blocked drain, and a desperate need to pee.

  For a moment he didn’t know where he was. The darkness was total. Then, remembering, he felt along the table towards a light switch.

  The sudden blaze drove red-hot nails into his eyes. He blinked in agony. Not time to get to the Gents along the passage. He used the wash-basin noisily, comforting himself with the thought that some of the old actor-laddies reckoned that brought good luck.

  He swayed erratically until he had overcome the apparently insuperable problem of doing up his zip. Then he looked at his watch.

  Ten to three. Ugh. He must get back to his digs.

  There was no light in the passage outside. Oh no, the Stage Doorman must have thought the theatre was empty, and locked up. God, he might be stuck in there till the morning. That’d give the rest of the company a good laugh, he thought ruefully.

  He found a switch in the passage and deluged himself with more scalding light. He made his way gingerly towards the Stage Door, hoping against hope that it might just be secured on a latch that could be opened from the inside.

  As he edged along, he noticed that the door to Norman’s store-room was open. Curious, he moved closer.

  The padlock had not been unlocked, but one of the rings to which it was attached had been wrenched away from the door-frame. The screws still stuck forlornly out of the metal plate.

  There was no light in the store-room, so he found the switch and once again light seared his eyeballs.

  When he had stopped blinking, he stepped down into the room and looked at the scene that greeted his aching eyes.

  The padlock on the spirits cupboard had also been forced, and one or two bottles had crashed on to the floor. Also, a couple of the tubes which ran from the kegs to the ceiling had been pulled down.

  And on the floor, in the middle of this chaos, face-down, lay Warnock Belvedere.

  Beside him was his walking stick. Ragged scrapings on its shiny surface suggested that it had been used to force the padlocks.

  In Warnock’s hand the bottle of Courvoisier was still clasped. It was empty. Beer from one of the broken plastic pipes bubbled fitfully over the thick tweed of his suit and into his stained beard.

  God, the old soak must have been desperate. Finished the brandy bottle and still needed more. So he’d broken into the store-room, tried first to get some beer, and then attacked the spirits cupboard.

  As Charles Paris looked down at the crumpled, sodden heap on the floor, and as his own head throbbed like an old dishwasher in its final cycle, he swore that he would never touch another drop.

  Oh well, better wake the old bugger up, he thought. See if we’re both going to be locked in here for the night.

  He reached down to shake the prostrate actor’s shoulder, but got no response.

  He shook harder; then turned Warnock over on to his back.

  The face revealed was grotesquely more purple and congested than usual.

  Nobody was going to wake up Wamock Belvedere.

  Ever again.

  Chapter Eight

  CHARLES TRIED the Stage Door and the main doors in the Foyer. He tried the delivery door through which he had helped Norman with the beer kegs and he even tried the big shutter door of the scenery dock. They were all firmly locked from the outside.

  He was imprisoned in the theatre with the corpse of Warnock Belvedere.

  It gave him an uncomfortable feeling. He was unwilling to go back and look at the body, for in his imagination it had become more grotesque, the colour more livid, the eyes more bulging. Charles shuddered at the image. He felt ghastly. Apart from anything else, his head still seemed to be full of disgruntled piranha fish, nibbling away at it.

  He would have to summon help. He went up to the administration area. The Artistic Director’s door was locked, but fortunately Gavin’s secretary had an extension line in the outer office. Charles picked it up. The dialling tone prompted him to wonder whom he should ring.

  Obviously the police. But maybe he should ring Gavin first. After all, the Pinero was Gavin’s responsibility; he should be informed of the accident as soon as possible.

  Yes, the director first, then the police.

  Gavin lived alone. There had been a wife for some years, but because of his obsession with the theatre, she had rarely seen her husband. And when she finally walked out, Gavin had hardly noticed her absence.

  The phone was answered on the third ring. Gavin sounded fully alert. Maybe he had been awake, agonizing over his production and how he was going to make up the lost rehearsal time. If that was the case, the news Charles was about to give wasn’t going to ease his troubles.

  ‘Gavin, it’s Charles Paris. I’m calling from the theatre.’

  ‘Why the hell are you there?’

  ‘I got locked in by mistake.’

  ‘And you want me to come and let you out?’

  ‘Maybe, but in fact it’s worse than that. Warnock Belvedere’s here too.’

  ‘You and Warnock staying behind . . . well, there’s a turn-up. What were –?’

  Charles cut through this untimely attempt at humour. ‘Listen, Wamock’s dead.’

  There was a silence from the other end of the phone. Then, in an appalled whisper, Gavin Scholes’ voice said, ‘What, in my theatre?’

  The police voice which answered the phone was impassive as it took down the details of what had happened. Or if the voice had any colouring at all, it was a tone of slight sceptical disbelief. Charles cursed all the alcohol he had had that night. He knew his speech was still slurred.

  He explained that the theatre was locked, and gave them Gavin’s address, so that the keys could be picked up. Yes, Mr Scholes would be awake; they had just spoken on the phone.

  Right. The police would be along as soon as possible. Would Mr Paris please remain where he was until they arrived.

  Fat bloody chance of doing anything else, he thought as he put the phone down.

  The theatre was aggressively silent now, and it seemed full of the looming presence of Wamock Belvedere’s body.

  Charles shivered again. God, he felt terrible. Really needed a drink. As he walked down towards the foyer, he looked wistfully through the padlocked grille of Norman’s bar.

  For a moment, he thought of the open store-room downstairs All those bottles. Or easy enough to fill a glass from the dribbling beer tubes . . .

  But no. He didn’t want to confront that congested face again.

  Besides, he was going to give up the booze. Wasn’t he?

  The police were there in ten minutes, but it was a long ten minutes for Charles Paris. They came in through the Stage Door and he met them in the passage which led to the dressing rooms. There were two uniformed officers, but he could hear the sounds of other cars drawing up outside.

  Charles felt very weary and unsteady. His words, he knew, were still fuzzy with drink, and he did not miss the sceptical exchange of looks between the two policemen as he showed them where Warnock Belvedere lay.

  They thanked him politely and asked where they could find a telephone. They asked if he would mind waiting in the theatre for a while. In his dressing room? Yes, that would be fine. They wouldn’t keep him longer than was necessary.

  In the dressing room, Charles’s head once again found the cushion of his table, and once again he dropped into a dead, unhealing sleep.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Mr Paris.’

  His shoulder was being shaken, and it took him a moment or two to realise where he was.

  The policeman who was waking him was a new face. Not in uniform, this one.

  There was another unfamiliar figure in the doorway, and, beyond, he could see the anxious face of Gavin Scholes.

  ‘Sorry,’ Charles mumbled through a mouthful of slimy cotton-wool. ‘Middle of the night, you know. Very tired.’

  ‘Yes, very tired, I’m sure, sir.’ Was he being hypersensitive to hear a hi
nt of reproof in the policeman’s voice? Oh, why on earth had he drunk so much?

  ‘We don’t want to keep you here longer than necessary this evening. But we would be most grateful if you could just describe exactly what happened.’

  ‘What, you mean when I found Warnock . . . the, er, body?’

  ‘Well, yes, and before that. We’ve spoken to Mr Scholes about the earlier part of the evening. If you could take it from the moment that you left the bar at closing time . . .?’

  Suddenly the two policemen were sitting and one had a pencil poised over a notebook to take down Charles’s words.

  There didn’t seem much to tell. Charles had spent most of the time between leaving the bar and discovering the body in an alcohol-induced stupor. How much detail did they want, he wondered. Did he have to tell them about peeing in the wash-basin? He decided to edit that detail out of his account.

  ‘Why didn’t the Stage Doorman realise that you were still in the theatre?’

  ‘My dressing room light was not switched on.’

  ‘That seems rather strange. Why were you sitting in the dark?’

  ‘Well, I just . . . I just didn’t switch it on.’

  ‘I see.’ The words were delivered without emphasis, but their implication was apparent. The policeman turned to the door where Gavin still waited.

  ‘Mr Scholes, would the Stage Doorman check that all the dressing rooms were empty?’

  ‘He should do, yes.’

  ‘So, if he didn’t, you’re saying he was failing in his duties?’

  No, that wasn’t at all what Gavin wanted to say. His Stage Doorman had been at the Pinero for eleven years, and Gavin was very loyal to his staff. Somehow, these policemen had a way of making everything sound suspicious.

  ‘Let’s just say that on an evening like this the Stage Doorman might be more casual than when we’ve got a show on.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Could you explain that?’

  ‘I mean that, while we’re in rehearsal, there are fewer people around by the end of the evening. When there’s a play actually in performance of course all the cast would be here till late, and there’d still be a lot of members of the public in the bar and so on.’

  ‘Ah. I see. Thank you very much, Mr Scholes.’ The unemotional tone was evenly maintained.

  ‘Mr Paris, could you describe exactly what you saw when you went into the store-room? And, indeed, why you went in there in the first place?’

  Charles explained about seeing the forced padlock, and described what he saw in the store-room. He knew he didn’t do it very well. The words seemed too big for his mouth, and many of them got mixed up between his brain and his tongue.

  At the end of his recitation the policeman thanked him politely and asked for the address where he was staying.

  ‘I don’t think we need keep you any longer this evening, Mr Paris. I’m sure the best thing for you to do will be to go back to your digs and . . . sleep.’

  Again Charles wondered if he was unduly sensitive to that hesitation. Had the policeman really just stopped himself from saying, ‘. . . sleep it off’?

  ‘Yes. Sure. Thank you.’ He rose gracelessly to his feet.

  The policeman also rose and turned to Gavin. ‘I would like to talk to you a little more, Mr Scholes, about the late Mr Belvedere. If you don’t mind . . .? I realise it is very late.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I don’t need much sleep. Anyway, once I’ve been woken up, that’s it for the night. I never get back to sleep.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Scholes. Shall we go up to your office?’

  ‘Fine. See you in the morning, Charles.’

  ‘What, we’ll be rehearsing as usual?’

  ‘We must. Ten o’clock call, as ever. Somehow I’ve got to get this show on.’

  ‘What show is it you’re rehearsing on at the moment, Mr Scholes?’ the policeman asked politely.

  ‘Macbeth.’

  ‘Oh. That’s the play that’s meant to be bad luck, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gavin wryly. ‘The Scottish Play.’ Then the implication of Warnock’s death struck him again. ‘Oh Christ, I’ll have to get another Duncan.’ He looked hopefully at Charles who was walking past him with concentrated caution. ‘Charles, I wonder if you’d mind . . .?

  ‘Sorry.’ A shake of the head. ‘Not that I don’t want to help out, but I am the Bleeding Sergeant, aren’t I? I think I’m as versatile as the next actor, but even I can’t envisage standing up on the stage and saying, “What bloody man is that?” to myself.’

  ‘No. No,’ said Gavin wistfully. ‘Pity . . .’

  The police kindly drove Charles back to his digs. When he got up to his room, and before he collapsed into the long-desired haven of bed, he looked through the curtains to the road outside.

  The police car was still there.

  A chill thought struck him.

  Was the alcohol making him paranoid?

  Or was he under surveillance?

  Chapter Nine

  THE NEXT morning the police car had gone, so Charles shrugged off his anxieties. Or at least he would have done, if shrugging hadn’t been far too painful an activity for the delicately poised time-bomb which was now balanced on top of his neck. He had the worst hangover he could remember.

  The gentle September light seemed to laser through his eyeballs into his brain. He took one look at his landlady’s bacon, eggs and fried bread and had to leave the dining room, thus causing irremediable damage to their relationship – his landlady was one of those women whose emotional life is conducted solely through the medium of food and for whom every unconsumed crust or potato-skin is a mortal affront.

  He couldn’t face the claustrophobia of a bus, so he walked to the Pinero, arriving a little after ten. But the fresh air didn’t help.

  And what greeted him at the theatre did little to improve his mood. He was met at the Stage Door by the policeman of the night before who, courteous as ever, said, ‘Mr Paris, good morning. As I mentioned last night, I would like to talk to you a little further. Mr Scholes has kindly said that we may use his office, so if you’d care to come up with me straight away . . .’

  ‘Oh yes. Fine. But I am meant to be rehearsing. Perhaps I’d better have a word with Gavin to –’

  ‘That’s quite all right, Mr Paris. I have spoken to Mr Scholes. I won’t keep you any longer than necessary.’

  ‘Oh. All right.’

  They didn’t speak again until they were up in Gavin’s office. It was a crowded room, its every surface high with copies of Spotlight, scripts, set designs and the other impedimenta of theatre production.

  The policeman sat at Gavin’s desk and indicated a low chair for Charles. ‘Mr Scholes’ secretary was kind enough to offer to make us coffee if we wanted any.’

  ‘It would be very welcome. Black, please.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The policeman, like a good host, went to the door and arranged the order. Then he returned to the chair. He looked very alert, in good condition for someone who had presumably been up most of the night.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Charles. ‘I didn’t get your name in all the confusion.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Dowling.’

  ‘Ah.’

  The Detective Inspector looked up as someone entered the room. It wasn’t the coffee. Instead, Charles was aware of the other plain-clothes policeman of the night before moving silently to take a chair in the corner behind him. ‘Detective Sergeant Halliwell will once again be taking notes. We have to have a record, obviously.’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was another pause while Gavin’s secretary brought in the coffee. Charles gulped at his too avidly, burning his tongue.

  When the door was safely closed behind the secretary, Detective Inspector Dowling, who had yet to touch his own coffee, looked directly at Charles. ‘Mr Paris, how well did you know Mr Belvedere?’

  ‘I only met him about ten days ago, when we started rehearsal. Before that I’d heard a
certain amount about him, but we’d never actually met.’

  ‘How had you heard about him?’

  Charles shrugged. Incautiously. It still wasn’t a good idea. His head felt as fragile as ever. ‘The theatre’s a fairly small profession. You hear about people. Particularly the so-called “characters”. Stories tend to build up about people who’re “larger than life”.’

  The Detective Inspector nodded. ‘And what had you heard about Mr Belvedere?’

  ‘That he was an actor of the old school . . .’

  ‘Could you clarify what that means for . . .’ A helpless gesture of the hands ‘. . . a mere layman?’

  ‘I suppose that it means Wamock worked in a more flamboyant style than modern actors. More expansive . . . if you like, more hammy . . .’ Charles caught the incomprehension on the Detective Inspector’s face, ‘. . . likely to be a bit over-the-top . . .’ That evidently wasn’t much clearer, ‘. . . tended to overact a bit . . .’

  ‘Ah. Thank you. I understand. And what else did you hear about him?’

  ‘That he could be difficult.’

  ‘Difficult for whom in particular?’

  ‘For a director. Actors of that generation don’t really think directors are necessary, just kind of jumped-up stage managers. They think all the important bits of theatre come from the actors themselves.’

  ‘Thank you. This is fascinating, Mr Paris . . . you know, for me, coming into a place like this, knowing, I regret to say, very little about the theatre and theatrical people . . .’ He paused, then changed his tone. This, Charles was beginning to recognise, was a technique with the Detective Inspector. First he would disarm with courtesy, then come in hard with the questions he really wanted to ask. ‘Would you say Mr Belvedere was liked amongst the group?’

  It sounded wrong, the word ‘group’. ‘Company’ he should have said. But then, by his own admission, he knew nothing about the theatre.

  Still, there was only one answer to the question. ‘No. He wasn’t liked. I mean, some people were amused by him – he could be very funny, though usually in a pretty vicious way – but I would be lying if I said he was liked.’