Splinter in the Blood

by Ashley Dyer

  There must be something online about these interviews or showcases, or whatever they called them, she reasoned, and she began by typing the agent’s name and “acting agent.” She was in fact listed under “talent agent,” and the trade press rated Wendy Frinton Talent Agency one of the top twenty in London. There was no list of events, other than those of her impressive list of actors, and there was nothing on the website about showcases or interviews. As far as Ruth could make out, the website acted as a kind of buffer or firewall between Frinton and the hordes of wannabes clamoring for her attention.

  Farther down the Google search list, Ruth found links to dozens of YouTube videos; Wendy Frinton had her own channel. She skimmed the list, flicking back to a title that stood out from the “How to” clips. A link with the tagline: “OMFG you’ve GOT to see Wendy Frinton RANT!!!” It was date-stamped at just forty minutes earlier. She clicked on the link and found herself looking at a thumbnail image of the woman herself, midrant, judging by the twist of her mouth. Ruth clicked the “play” icon.

  Wendy Frinton buzzed onto the screen like a hornet on caffeine. Her hair was bright yellow and stood up in tufts from constant tousling. A vivid yellow-and-black top completed the look. She was seated at a white melamine table; behind her, what looked like a hastily erected screen made from a swatch of curtain fabric. She gripped the table edges as if ready to tear a piece off and hurl it at the computer screen. Ms. Frinton introduced herself at breakneck speed, but slowed down long enough to enunciate the name of her agency clearly.

  “Okay, it’s five fifteen in the evening, UK time,” she began. “And I am in the middle of schlepping up and down the country interviewing actors, slogging through about a million showcases (no exaggeration), trying to find the stars of tomorrow. So if I look frazzled, it’s because I freaking am.”

  She gazed with a baleful eye into her laptop camera. “You know I love you guys, and I want you to be the best you can be, but I am NOT your fricking MOTHER. So I’m going to ask you some questions you should already have asked yourselves and, by the way, you should ask yourselves every time you get the teeniest, tiniest whiff of an opportunity. You might want to snatch up a pen and paper and write this down. Okay? Ready?” She paused for breath. “Here goes: One—are you prepared? Two—did you rehearse your audition piece ten different ways to Christmas before setting out today? Three—if it’s a blind audition, have you practiced blind readings?” She raised a finger and pointed at the screen. “Do not tell me you can’t rehearse a blind reading—YES, YOU CAN—because every time you read something, anything, blind, you will get more confident at reading blind.”

  She slumped back in her seat for a second, as though exhausted by the need to tell her protégés what she deemed obvious.

  “Where was I up to?” she murmured, glancing down at something off-screen. “Three. Okay, so this is four: When it’s your turn, do you step onto your spot with a big smile? Five: Did you greet the casting director? As an aside, because I really, really shouldn’t have to say this: Before you got there, did you check him/her out on Google?” Her eyes bugged as if someone had said something outrageous to her from the other side of the screen.

  “Come on—you’re Generation Y, the ‘Millennials,’ you’re supposed to be online, connected, twenty-four seven. You were brought up on this stuff. So get connected—do your research, guys!” She jutted her jaw out and blew enough air to lift the hair off her forehead. “Which I guess brings us to number six, banner headline: ‘BE PROFESSIONAL.’ Seven: Did you show up on time? Did you show up at all?

  “Oh, God, you’ve got to show up. Don’t ever fail to show up for an audition.” She stopped and clamped a hand over her mouth. For a second it looked like she would terminate the video; she even reached forward as if to do just that. But at the last moment, she snapped her hand back and drummed both hands on the table top.

  “Look,” she went on in a slightly more subdued vein, “I’m going to share this with you because it pissed me off so much and I do NOT want you to make the same mistake. Brief story: I arranged an audition for a client. This is a young actor—not even out of college, yet. But talented—I mean REALLY . . .” She sighed. “So I got her this audition, it’s with a big TV production company. Major opportunity for her—I mean huge.” She looked away from the screen for a second, and Ruth could see she was struggling for control.

  “I get a call this afternoon—she didn’t show up.” She slapped a hand to her forehead as if she had just got the call, a look of horror and disbelief on her face. “She missed the freaking audition.”

  Ruth leaned closer to the screen. Was she talking about Kara?

  “Believe me, budding starlets,” Frinton said. “Chances—I mean annnn-y chances at all, but especially chances like this, do NOT. Grow. On trees.” She stared wrathfully into the laptop camera. “I called her. She didn’t get back to me. I e-mailed her. Nothing.”

  She grabbed two handfuls of hair and dragged her fingers through the already tangled mass. “What am I supposed to do with that? I’ll tell you, my talented friends. The next e-mail I sent, I fired her.”

  She is—she’s talking about Kara. Ruth reached for her desk phone and punched in Ms. Frinton’s office number.

  “You cannot not show up for an audition,” Frinton went on. “Nobody owes you anything in this world.” She pinched a little smidgen of nothing between her forefinger and thumb to emphasize her point. “And if you think the world out there is a tough place, it’s a bowl of fricking cherries compared with the acting profession. No-body even owes you a chance in this business. If you’re offered a chance and you blow it off . . . do not expect a second go-around.” She took a breath. “Sorry if that sounds harsh,” she said, sounding anything but. “It’s just the way it is.”

  Someone spoke, and she glanced over her shoulder.

  “Okay, my assistant says I gotta go. Think on that, little ones. Make sure you’re ready when the call comes, and I wish you all a wonderful showcase season.” She blew a couple of stage kisses, and the video ended.

  The agency’s landline gave up ringing and went through a reroute procedure to a mobile phone. A moment later, Ruth was talking to Hayley, the assistant.

  “Detective Sergeant Lake again,” Ruth said. “Remember me?”

  “I’m afraid Ms. Frinton—”

  “I know, she’s schlepping up and down the country. I’ve just watched her video. But I asked for an urgent call back on police business, and since I gather she’s had time enough to post to YouTube, she can make time for me.”

  “I’m sorry, she’s in the middle of—”

  “Showcases, yes, and I’m in the middle of a murder investigation, so listen to me very carefully, Hayley. You will put her on the line, or I will charge you, and possibly the godlike Ms. Frinton, with obstructing a murder inquiry. Have I made myself clear?”

  Within two minutes, Wendy Frinton herself was on the line.

  “Listen, Sergeant. I don’t care who you are—you can’t just threaten my assistant—”

  “Nice YouTube tutorial,” Ruth interrupted, speaking over her. “The talented actor who didn’t show for the audition was Kara Grogan, wasn’t it?”

  “I didn’t name any names. And anyway . . .” Her voice trailed off and Ruth imagined her making the connection between Kara Grogan’s name, and a cop investigating a murder. “You’re not saying that Kara . . .”

  “Great excuse for a no-show,” Ruth said, deliberately brutal. “Being dead.”

  She heard a faint echo as Ms. Frinton whispered “dead.”

  “Murdered.”

  “God, I feel like shit for calling her the way I did. How did it—I mean, what were the circumstances?”

  “Don’t you read the news, Ms. Frinton?”

  “This time of year, I read The Stage, Entertainment Weekly, Spotlight—and nothing at all in the last few days. You see it’s—”

  “Showcase season, I know. But Kara was murdered nearly two weeks ago.”
<
br />   “Oh.” She sounded chastened.

  “We think she was abducted by a serial murderer.”

  “The Thorn Killer?”

  “So you do watch the news.”

  “I may live in a theatrical bubble, but it’s tethered to planet Earth,” Ms. Frinton said.

  Ruth heard voices off and the agent responded with a gruff, “Tell them to wait.” Then, “Okay—what d’you want to know?”

  “You assumed Kara had blown off the audition, but her peers and her teachers say she was one of the most conscientious and driven people in her class.”

  “I thought it was that damn phobia of hers.”

  “What phobia?”

  “Stage fright. I thought she’d chickened out.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Ruth said. “I watched her on YouTube; she was brilliant.”

  “That doesn’t mean a thing. A good actor can be a puking, mindless, shaking mess a minute before they step onstage and give the performance of their life as soon as they hit the spotlight. Everyone gets stage fright. The best actors get the worst stage fright because they will not accept anything less than perfection of themselves. I told her. I gave her a list of the best of the best who all had to learn to deal with going onstage despite the frickin’ monster of stage fright on their backs. Told her to read their biographies, then ask herself why she should be any different.”

  “Did ‘the best of the best’ include, Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, Sheila Hancock, Benedict Cumberbatch, Barbra Streisand?” Ruth reeled the names off from memory.

  “Yeah, those and a few more . . .” There was a question in the agent’s tone.

  “She bought the biographies, Ms. Frinton. She read them cover to cover, made notes in the margins.”

  “I should have known.” The agent sounded sick. “The kid was well prepared. Said she was getting help, too.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Therapy, I assumed.”

  They had found no record of Kara seeing a therapist. But the skin on Ruth’s scalp prickled, and she knew she was on to something.

  “She didn’t tell you who she was seeing—or where?”

  “Sorry, I don’t usually get into personal stuff with my clients.”

  “What was she like—as a client?”

  “Star material. I liked Kara; she had something, and she was willing to put in the work, too. She put stuff online, she had a range of roles prepped—she showcased her talents, when so many of these kids just want to get ‘discovered.’” She groaned. “I really should’ve known . . . this wasn’t like her. But I was embarrassed and angry she didn’t show up for the audition.”

  “It’s unusual to have an agent before you’ve even graduated, isn’t it?” Ruth asked.

  “You saw her on YouTube. Like I said, Kara was talented.”

  “Yet she didn’t want her housemates to know she’d signed with you . . .”

  “Of course she didn’t—you don’t want to piss off the people you’ll have to act with on your final presentations.”

  “Is it possible her peers didn’t know about the stage fright?”

  “Who can say? We all cover up. Who wants to appear weak or vulnerable?”

  “I can identify with that,” Ruth said with unusual candor. “But isn’t acting all about exposing your emotions and vulnerabilities?”

  “Touché,” Ms. Frinton said. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to talk to her peers about that.”

  “Not even her teachers knew about the audition.”

  “Here’s how it works,” the agent said, clicking into YouTube mode. “Only two percent of drama school students end up in the West End. And the choice parts go to the likes of RADA and LAMDA actors. The rest are lucky to get any kind of acting job in the first six months after they graduate. The truth is, most of these starry-eyed lovelies will abandon drama as a career in less than a year, and even if they stick at it, they’ll probably earn less than ten thou per annum. But there’s another, far more important reason Kara wouldn’t have told anyone. She was under embargo.”

  “She couldn’t tell anyone she had an audition?”

  “I was approached because, despite my somewhat mouthy persona, the casting director knows I don’t blab. This is, ‘I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you,’ stuff. This is Star Wars: The Force Awakens level of secrecy. Y’see, they’ve lined up an A-list star for the lead and they’re keeping a tight embargo till . . . and there I go again, running off at the mouth. You really don’t need to know all this,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “She was researching mediums, psychics, that sort of thing.”

  “For the role,” Ms. Frinton said, then muttered, “Shit. Do not tell anyone I told you that.”

  “It really was a big opportunity, then,” Ruth said.

  “Hugh-frickin’-mongous.” Ms. Frinton sighed. “I’m gutted for the kid—she would have been good—maybe even great.”

  Another muffled interruption, and the agent said, “Sorry, I can’t hold them off any longer. Anything else you need?”

  “Yeah,” Ruth said. “You might want to take the YouTube rant down.”

  Chapter 20

  Ruth Lake hung up the phone, pushed her chair back from her desk, and stared at the ceiling. A smoke alarm was positioned a few meters away, and she focused on the periodic flashes of its LED.

  “Competitiveness,” “jealousy,” “secrecy” . . . those words just kept coming up, and now “stage fright” was a new piece in the human jigsaw that was Kara Grogan.

  Kara’s housemates were lying to her, Ruth was certain. Did they know about the murdered girl’s terror of going onstage? Would they be willing to exploit that terror to gain an advantage? Her academic tutor had said the competition could get ugly, and Ruth wondered just how ugly. Did it even matter? After all, it wasn’t Kara’s friends who had murdered her. But the revelation that Kara suffered from stage fright was new, and it was different. It was Ruth’s duty to investigate further, but she also needed to know.

  It could be that Kara confided in Helen, the housemate who had helped her with line rehearsals. It might even follow that Helen knew who was helping Kara to deal with her stage fright.

  Ruth checked her watch. It was after seven p.m.—she might just catch the housemates at home.

  Angela answered the door. She was carrying a steaming mug in one hand and had a sandwich stuffed in her mouth, presumably to free up her other hand to open the door. She gave an inarticulate squawk of displeasure, ripped the sandwich from her mouth, and opened her arms wide.

  “Sergeant Lake!” A quantity of her hot drink overtopped the rim of her mug and sloshed onto the floor tiles, but she ignored it. “What a surprise!” She stood back to let her through.

  Helen came trotting down the stairs a few seconds later. “Is there news?” she asked.

  “A few questions,” Ruth said. “If you have a minute?”

  Helen was dressed for going out in a parka jacket and scarf, and she had a shoulder bag strapped messenger style across her chest.

  “I’m on my way to work,” she said. “Late shift. But, sure—anything to help.”

  Angela’s mouth twisted into a mocking smirk. She turned and led the way to the sitting room.

  It was empty, and Ruth noticed the two cards she’d left still lying on the coffee table, gathering dust.

  “Can you call Jake and Lia downstairs?” she asked.

  “They’re out,” Angela said, taking a seat on one of the sofas. She spoke with a finality that said she did not intend to be helpful.

  “Okay . . . Did any of you know that Kara was preparing for an important audition?” Ruth asked.

  Angela’s expression hardened for a microsecond, and Ruth thought, There it is again: jealousy, the green-eyed monster.

  “Clamshell Kara share her good fortune with the rest of us? Not a chance,” Angela said. She swiveled in her seat. “You’re very quiet, Helen,” she said, peeping over the rim of her mug as she took a sip.
<
br />   Helen gave her housemate a cold, hard look. “That’s because I’ve got nothing to say.”

  “What do you know about Kara suffering from stage fright?” Ruth asked.

  Helen looked concerned, but Angela set her face into an unresponsive mask. “Why should we know anything?”

  Interesting, that—answering a question with a question. Ruth chose to answer with another question of her own.

  “Is it possible that Kara was seeing a therapist about it?”

  “Anything is possible,” Angela said. “But it’s not like she would tell us.”

  “I’m afraid she didn’t mention anything to me, either,” Helen said, with a quick glance at her watch. “And I’ve really got to go . . .”

  “Okay, but if you think of anything . . .” Ruth scooped up one of her business cards from the coffee table and handed it to Helen.

  “No problem,” she said, jamming the card into her pocket.

  Ruth left five minutes later, convinced that Angela was lying: she knew about the stage fright. Her car was parked half a block away, and as she reached it, her mobile buzzed. It was a text message.

  “Meet me at the Quarter in Falkner Street—Helen.”

  It was less than five minutes’ walk, but Ruth drove, thinking that Angela might be watching.

  In her early years on the force, Falkner Street was synonymous with sleaze. Back then, this area of town had been on her beat, and sex workers had plied their trade on every corner between Falkner Square and Hope Street. A woman could not walk a hundred yards from her home to a bus stop without being propositioned by a curb crawler—or worse—a pimp looking to recruit new girls. Now those same streets were part of the trendy Hope Quarter, synonymous with five-star restaurants, bistros, cafés, and boutique hotels.

  Ruth squeezed into a spot on Hope Street and walked the last few yards. The place she was looking for stood midrow of a cluster of restaurants in a Georgian terrace, fronted in heritage-style colors. The cobbled road and York stone pavement lit by the warm glow of faux Victorian streetlamps completed the atmosphere of chic. It was freezing cold, and little patches of snow still clung, soot blackened, in the shelter of the lemon-colored sandstone wall enclosing the grounds of Blackburne House, opposite.