Full Dark House

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘I know because I typed them out for him myself,’ explained Alma. ‘They were Mr Bryant’s dental records.’

  May walked down Charing Cross Road and cut through to the back of the National Portrait Gallery, carefully avoiding the junk-food swill of Leicester Square. He detested the swirling scrum of the pedestrianized zone, the latent danger, the shoving, dislocated crowds that filled a once-beautiful space. It was hard to imagine, but the area had been pleasanter to stroll through when traffic had traversed it. Now, the tourist hot spots of the city were the very parts that made it like everywhere else. Was it possible to imagine those buildings without inhaling the animal-fat stink of McDonald’s or KFC? He never thought London would cease to appeal to him, but the little faded glory it still possessed was being scuffed away by the dead hand of globalization. On his down days he saw London as a crumbling ancient house, slowly collapsing under the weight of its own past.

  As he pushed his way through a herd of name-tagged visitors in matching baseball caps, he wondered if he had left it too late to retire to the continent. France seemed a good bet, more at ease with its history. Crucially, he had never visited the place with his old partner. Perhaps he could be freed from memories there. He thought of his embittered son, recovering from years of addiction in a French commune, of his wife and daughter, and how he had survived them both, but even then he remembered Nathalie, how Bryant had loved her and lost her . . .

  Damn you, Arthur, he thought, let me go.

  He knew there was only one way he could stop himself from subsiding into the silent past: he needed to settle the murder of his alter ego. Without the truth, there would be no rest. Not now, not ever.

  22

  BLOCKING

  ‘I’m offended that you should even ask,’ Benjamin Woolf bristled. He never looked more suspicious than when he was trying to appear injured. ‘I represent a great many artists.’

  ‘I’m not saying you had anything to do with their deaths, even though no one actually saw you at the time of Senechal’s impalement,’ Bryant snapped. ‘You’re very touchy for an agent.’

  ‘We don’t all have hides like rhinos, Mr Bryant.’

  ‘How many other performers in the company do you represent?’

  ‘Oh, quite a few.’

  ‘Exactly how many?’

  Woolf made an effort to look innocent and failed. ‘I’d have to work that out and get back to you.’ The detectives had set up a base in the company office, and were seeing everyone who had been present in the auditorium when Charles Senechal had met his death.

  ‘Do you have some kind of special deal going on with the cast members you represent?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘Something like that.’ Woolf ran a finger along his thin moustache.

  ‘Are you on friendly terms with them all? How close were you to Miss Capistrania and Mr Senechal, for instance?’

  ‘I keep a respectable distance from all my clients. I’m there when they need me. I give them advice and support, I listen to their problems, nothing more.’

  ‘But it’s a twenty-four-hour job, isn’t it? You take their calls when they come off stage at night, cope with their insecurities, assuage their doubts?’

  ‘Of course. All theatrical agents worth their salt do.’

  ‘Do you know much about their personal lives? Who they were closest to, who they were amorously involved with?’

  ‘Some are forthcoming, others aren’t. I don’t pry, if that’s what you mean. They have to tell you some things, obviously.’

  ‘What did Tanya Capistrania have to tell you?’

  ‘You must understand she had very few friends in this country. She told me she was seeing someone in the company. I don’t know much about Charles except that he’s married and has a flat in Paris. His wife and son are on their way here right now.’

  ‘So Miss Capistrania was having an affair and Charles wasn’t.’ Bryant sucked hard on his pipe, trying to keep it lit.

  ‘For all I know he could have been. Performers become very tight-knit during the course of a run. They form liaisons that last only while they’re working together.’

  ‘Would you care to divulge the identity of the man Miss Capistrania was seeing?’

  ‘I suppose it won’t do any harm to the young lady now,’ sighed Benjamin. ‘But you musn’t say I told you. It was Geoffrey Whittaker.’

  ‘The stage manager?’ Bryant was surprised. He didn’t look the type to conduct a torrid affair.

  ‘It’s not the first time he’s got up to this sort of thing. He’s pretty well known by the Piccadilly commandos.’ He was referring to the squad of prostitutes who brazenly worked around the Circus, stepping out of doorways to accost servicemen on leave.

  ‘He’s a bit old to be a Lothario. What about Miss Capistrania?’

  ‘Tanya was famous for upstaging her fellow players. She was very driven to succeed. The usual story, pushed by her family from an early age. Nobody’s got much good to say about her.’

  ‘And Charles Senechal?’

  ‘The opposite. Everyone thinks—thought—he was wonderful. He’s played all three of the baritone roles in Orpheus before, a consummate professional and a wonderful singer.’

  ‘I see. What about some of the others who were there when it happened, Harry—what’s his surname, Cowper? And Corinne Betts?’

  ‘Corinne’s seeing one of the shepherds. A boy in the chorus. I don’t think it’s anything more than mutual convenience. Harry, well, he’s a bachelor. Let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘So there are a few amours in the background. Any risk of blackmail with Harry?’

  ‘I suppose there’s always a risk, but the theatre’s safer than most places. Outside the Palace, people keep asking if I’m a visiting calypso player. In here, nobody cares about the colour of my skin. Why are you interested?’

  ‘The globe could have been intended to hit anyone, couldn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, I see. Harry’s well liked. There’s often someone like him in a theatre company, born to be a den mother to the rest. Runs around after people making them feel better. Nurses the bruised egos. Corinne’s got a bit of a mouth on her, but I don’t know that she’s made any real enemies. Some of the cast went to Café de Paris to see her perform her comedy routine a couple of weeks ago, and she bought them all drinks afterwards. It won her a lot of friends.’

  ‘So there are no real connections that you can see, apart from the fact that Miss Capistrania and Mr Senechal were both performers represented by you.’

  ‘May I remind you that I’m the one losing out here.’ Woolf made a further effort to look pained, but appeared to be suffering from heartburn. ‘They were more than my clients. They were investments.’

  ‘I’d say everyone’s investments are in danger of disappearing now, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘No,’ replied Woolf, ‘no, I wouldn’t. Don’t you know the show always goes on?’

  ‘If I find reason to suppose that anyone else’s life is in danger, I won’t hesitate to close down the production.’

  ‘Aren’t you a bit young to have that authority?’ asked Woolf, alarmed.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Bryant admitted, giving up on his pipe, ‘but it would be interesting to find out. Let me get this clear in my head. While the globe was being cut loose, there were four people actually on the stage: Mr Senechal, Miss Betts, Miss Wynter and Mr Cowper. Mr Mack was further back in the wings, Miss Parole was in the stalls with Mr Whittaker, Miss Penn, Mrs Thwaite and Mr Varisich, heading in the direction of the pass door. Stan Lowe was manning the stage door, and you were out in the front box office. What were you doing before the siren sounded?’

  Benjamin thought for a moment. ‘I was talking to Elspeth. I left the auditorium, but then I heard the commotion and ran back in.’

  ‘To your knowledge, was there anyone else near the stage or in the stalls?’

  ‘I don’t think so—wait, Anton was still in the orchestra pit. Eve and Olivia were arguing about something as
they came out, a problem with a dress, so they must have been nearby.’

  ‘Do you think it likely that any of them could have climbed the gantry to the globe and cut it loose?’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ interrupted May. ‘The gantry is clearly visible from the stage.’

  ‘Then there’s someone we haven’t accounted for,’ said Bryant, prodding his partner in the shoulder. ‘Someone else in the theatre. Someone up there, in the dark.’

  23

  OFF TO THE REALM OF DARKNESS

  ‘Have you heard? They’re killing all the poisonous snakes and reptiles at London Zoo, in case the cages get bombed,’ Betty Trammel, one of the Orpheus chorus girls, told John May that afternoon. Like most of the other female dancers, she had long legs, a tiny midriff and shapely breasts that the detective found himself covertly watching. ‘And they’ve had to put sandbags around the pink flamingos because they’re suffering nervous breakdowns.’ She smiled at the detective and rolled her enormous eyes. They were set in a heart-shaped face, framed with blond curls. ‘I used to cut home through Regent’s Park to my place in Camden, but they’ve closed the public path past the zoo. It’s getting so a girl doesn’t know what’s safe any more.’ Betty spoke with more refinement than the other chorines. She had a smile that could put a froth on a cup of coffee, and she knew it.

  ‘I’m in Camden. I can walk you home if you like,’ May offered gallantly.

  ‘I might just take you up on your proposal.’ She placed her hands on spangled hips and grinned. ‘Give me two minutes to get changed.’

  Bryant watched in disgust as Betty bounced off into the wings. ‘What is it,’ he asked, ‘that makes girls go so damnably gooey-eyed over you? I don’t understand it. You only have to stand next to them and they start rolling bits of themselves about like Betty Boop.’

  ‘I think they just feel, you know, comfortable around me,’ said May, surprised by his own powers.

  ‘Well, they don’t do that with me,’ Bryant complained, scratching the back of his ear in puzzlement. ‘I can’t see why not. I’m a bloody good catch. I have prospects. I have an enquiring mind. You’d think that would be appealing.’

  May stared at the aisle carpet, embarrassed. He could not tell his new friend that there was something about his fierce energy that disturbed people. The more Bryant tried to be sympathetic, the less believable he was. It was an unfortunate effect that was to bedevil him throughout his life.

  ‘And the types that go for you,’ Bryant continued, ‘well!’

  ‘What’s wrong with their “type”?’ asked May, offended.

  Bryant searched the air, almost at a loss for words. ‘You can’t see it? My dear fellow, they’re so—obvious.’

  ‘Look, if it bothers you that much, I don’t see why you don’t find a date of your own. Go down to the box office and ask Elspeth out, she’s keen as mustard. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ Bryant poked his pipe-stem down into his top pocket, considering the idea. ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. Go on, ask her. She’ll be glad to get out of here.’ The blackout made houses stuffy and airless at night. Even in a building as large as the Palace, the still atmosphere weighed heavily in the lungs.

  ‘All right,’ vowed Bryant, grinning bravely, ‘I will. I’ll go and ask her right now.’ And he did.

  She turned him down. It didn’t take her long either. He was gone for only two minutes.

  ‘She has to look after a sick relative,’ said Bryant on his return. ‘I wasn’t convinced.’ He grumpily kicked at the ground. ‘Here’s your bit of fluff.’

  Betty had rouged her cheeks and changed into a fox-fur coat. Divested of her blond wig, she was revealed as a mousy brunette. She waltzed into the company office and seized May’s arm as though it was a lifebelt. ‘Are we going for a drink, then?’ she asked cheerfully, pinching May’s cheek.

  May was almost pulled through the doorway. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Arthur,’ he volunteered. ‘Stay out of the light.’

  ‘Yes, you go and have fun. I still have a police investigation to run.’ Bryant shoved his trilby onto his head. ‘I think I’ll go back to Bow Street and ruin Biddle’s evening.’

  By the next morning, the mood of the company had become morose and belligerent. To have a member of the cast killed by a stage prop was not unheard of, but after a long night of bombing raids that frayed the nerves and lasted until dawn the idea of it panicked everyone. Performers were at the mercy of stagehands when there were a large number of scene changes to incorporate in the action. Three years earlier, two members of a Belgian dance troupe had been fatally injured at the Albert Hall when a vast steel wheel had collapsed on them. The scenery at the Covent Garden Opera House, with its newly overhauled hydraulic system, had nearly decapitated one of its principal players in front of a horrified first-night audience. Recently, a trapdoor in the Palladium stage had opened without warning, dropping a chorus girl down a dozen steps, breaking both her ankles. Players were superstitious and productions easily made bad reputations for themselves.

  Helena Parole was aware of the cast’s sensibilities, but hoped they would be cheered by today’s arrival. Their Orpheus was landing, fresh from a triumphant American tour of The Tales of Hoffmann, the opera wrongly regarded as Offenbach’s only serious work. Miles Stone had hit the big time, but his Orpheus contract pre-dated his rise in stock, and he had not managed to wriggle out of the agreement in time to seize his Hollywood break. MGM was offering him a role in a screwball comedy that would help to cement his image as the smart girl’s sex symbol, but unless something went wrong with Orpheus and the production was cancelled, Miles knew that he would be forced to remain in bomb-strewn London throughout the winter. The film would be recast with someone else, and his window of opportunity would slam firmly shut.

  Consequently, the company’s leading player found himself in an ambivalent mood when he arrived to find that Jupiter was dead. It was a tragic loss, of course, but if the cast were so demoralized that the production could not continue, he would be freed.

  ‘Everybody back to their positions and we’ll take it from Eurydice’s invocation to death.’ Helena Parole rubbed her eyes. The cast was nervy and out of sorts. Anton Varisich, the conductor, was particularly bad-tempered, and seemed unable to control his orchestra, who were coming in late on their cues. On stage, Eurydice lay in the cornfield as Aristaeus stood over her, feeling her pulse.

  ’La mort m’apparaît souriante, qui vient me frapper près de toi,’ sang Eve Noriac.

  Helena threw her script over the seat in front of her. ‘For Christ’s sake!’ she shouted. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ called Eve, rising on one elbow and squinting down at her. ‘I’m used to singing in French. It’s easier for me to remember my lines this way.’

  ‘The management has decreed we’re to use our sovereign nation’s native tongue,’ snapped Helena. ‘They want a popular hit. The only people who can speak another language in England are foreigners. Let’s go again from the top.’

  ’Death appears to me smiling, coming to strike me while I’m near you . . .’

  Helena sat back and listened. Eurydice had a remarkable soprano range. The plot was of no consequence to a modern audience, a once-saucy parody of classicism that held little meaning for anyone now, and yet Eve invested her words with such conviction that you would listen if she sang addresses from a telephone directory.

  Helena was suddenly aware that the music had stopped. ‘What now?’ she cried, sitting up.

  ‘Someone’s taken my fork,’ complained Aristaeus. ‘It was here a minute ago.’

  ‘Will somebody find his bloody fork?’ called Helena. ‘Harry, go and look for it, would you?’

  ‘Can he just mime it for now, Helena?’

  ‘Helena?’ Aristaeus had walked to the front of the stage and was shielding his eyes from the key lights. ‘I
s this a practical?’

  ‘You know it’s not. I told you that earlier.’

  ‘So the trapdoor’s not going to open when I reach “Off to the realm of darkness”?’

  ‘No,’ she replied wearily. ‘We won’t start using the drops and lifts until the end of the week. No sense in wishing more accidents on us, is there?’

  ‘I can see you’re busy,’ said John May quietly. ‘I’ll wait here until you’re ready for me.’

  Helena checked her watch in alarm. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was time for our meeting, Mr May. We’re running behind this morning.’

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ said May. ‘I’m enjoying the rehearsal.’ He felt like sitting in the dark for a while. Betty had kept him out later than he had intended, and the AA guns stationed in Regent’s Park had been booming for most of the night. On top of this, he had now spent his entire first week’s wages on a girl, and he hadn’t been paid yet.

  ‘We’re still interviewing everyone who was with Miss Capistrania and Mr Senechal on the days of their deaths,’ May reminded her as they seated themselves in Helena’s arched office above the balcony. ‘I need to talk to your assistant.’

  ‘Harry, yes, he was there when Charles was killed.’

  ‘And Corinne Betts, who I’m told actually saw the globe fall.’

  ‘She’s not on today’s call sheet but Harry has her landlady’s telephone number.’

  ‘Mr Bryant reckons that casts grow into extended families during the run of a production,’ said May. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘For better or worse, yes.’ Helena opened the window behind her chair and lit a cigarette, waving the smoke out. The management had asked the company to reduce their daytime smoking because the new auditorium upholstery absorbed the smell. Nobody had bothered to point out to them that the whole of the city stank of burning varnish and brick dust. ‘We’ve got a cast of real troupers. Normally a deranged German sniper could burst in and machine-gun the audience, and they wouldn’t miss a line. I know many of the boys and girls from previous productions. They’ve been doing scenes in groups for a while. They’ve received musical direction and attended rehearsals with the same choreographer. Now it’s just a matter of keeping them calm.’