Murder in the Second Row

by Bev Robitai

  They sampled the selection of breads, dipping them into gleaming green pools of olive oil or smothering them with tasty pesto. When they were down to the last piece, Jack chivalrously offered it to Jessica but happily devoured it himself when she declined.

  ‘Ah, that hit the spot.’ He dusted the last crumbs from his fingers. ‘Now then, tell me how you came to be a theatre manager. Is it a lifestyle choice?’

  ‘Not exactly. Given the opportunity, I’d prefer to be earning a bit more than I get from this job! There’s a small wage from the Theatre society, and the City Council tops it up to something that’s almost enough to live on, but it’s just as well I have some savings from my last job to tide me over the odd financial hiccup. I was made redundant and this was a way to keep earning while I look for work, and also a way to help the theatre a bit.’ She looked down. ‘Sometimes the struggle to keep it going gets a bit wearying.’

  He nodded understandingly. ‘I can sympathise with that. Police work can have the same effect. No matter how often you catch offenders and put them away, there are always more coming along to commit the same stupid crimes. After a while you have to question why you’re doing it.’

  ‘Is that why you fell foul of your last boss?’

  ‘Probably,’ he acknowledged with a wry smile. ‘He’d reached his level in the hierarchy without thinking too much, and didn’t like the idea of someone questioning the way things were done. If I hadn’t transferred, I would probably have resigned.’

  ‘So what would you have done instead?’ she asked curiously. ‘If you were given free choice of any career you wanted.’

  Their meals arrived, sparing him the need to find an answer immediately. He set to with gusto.

  Jessica tasted her first mouthful and closed her eyes with pleasure. ‘God, this is good. To taste this wonderful, it must be desperately bad for me.’ She speared a forkful and offered it to him. ‘Want to try some?’

  He closed his hand round hers and guided the fork to his mouth. ‘Mmmmm.’ He swallowed. ‘Oh yes, that’s fantastic. Thank you.’

  He returned to his own plate. ‘Try some of this.’

  He put a hand under a dripping forkful and held it to her lips. She opened them and took his offering, catching the trickle of sauce with her finger. As their eyes met, a jolt of electricity seared through her, and she was sure her face must be radiating enough heat for him to feel it. Somehow she managed to swallow the mouthful and busied herself with her napkin, hiding until normality returned.

  ‘Gosh, that’s even better, isn’t it? What a good choice you made there, Jack.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, giving her a penetrating look. ‘I thought so too.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question yet though. If you weren’t a policeman, what would you like to be?’

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t really considered. Maybe a truck driver, with new scenery every day and no responsibility except for the truck and its load.’

  ‘Ooh yeah,’ she laughed, with a western drawl. ‘I kin jest see you in a greasy old denim shirt and baseball cap, jumpin’ down from your big rig at the gas station. You’d fill ‘er up, mosey on inside, and pick yerself up a hot new country music CD to listen to while you’re on the road.’

  He shuddered. ‘Ah, if country music is compulsory then I’ll pass on the truck driving. How about you, Jessica? What would your ideal career be?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m still waiting to figure that one out. I’m quite good at organising things, so maybe a PA to some high-flying businessman. Or, I really like outdoor activities so perhaps teaching people to abseil and scuba dive and stuff like that. But to be honest, I haven’t the faintest idea of how to break into a new career.’

  Jack mopped up the last of his pasta sauce and pushed his plate aside.

  ‘It looks like we’d both better stick with what we’re doing for now.’

  The waitress took their empty plates and offered to bring them the dessert menu. Jessica groaned and shook her head.

  ‘Not for me, thanks. I couldn’t fit in another mouthful. How about you, Jack? Do you have a sweet tooth?’ Then, emboldened by wine, she surprised herself. ‘You could have a coffee at my place if you like – it’s a bit quieter.’

  His eyes flickered briefly. ‘Just coffee here, I think.’

  That set her back, and as he sipped at his mochaccino, she found herself asking, as casually as possible, the question that had been at the back of her mind all evening.

  ‘Did you transfer here by yourself, Jack? Do you have any family in the area?’

  ‘Oh, just my gorgeous wife and two adorable children.’

  Jessica was shaken. Had she misread his warmth entirely? She felt flustered and wrong-footed. She hoped that her face was expressionless, or at least showing nothing but polite interest. Several seconds passed while she tried to process the information.

  Finally he broke into an apologetic grin. ‘I’m sorry, I was just kidding. Forget I said it. It’s this bloody job – sometimes we have to shut ourselves off…’ He shook his head in frustration.

  ‘No, that’s OK.’ She felt a flush of heat on her face as if a neon sign saying “dateless and desperate” was right above her head. She picked up her purse, too embarrassed to meet his eyes because he’d think she was a complete idiot. ‘I think I’d better head home now. Work tomorrow, you know how it is.’

  ‘Jessica, wait, please.’ Jack leaped to his feet and put a warm hand on her arm to keep her at the table. ‘Please, sit down. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It was just a clumsy joke. Please. Come on, I’ll give you the marshmallow from my coffee if you stay.’

  She sat down reluctantly to avoid a scene, but the magic spell had definitely been broken and they went their separate ways soon afterwards.

  Chapter 8

  Next morning Jessica swung into action, marshalling a full turn-out of construction crew to work on the theatre. It would require a major effort to unscrew the rows of seats from the floor to get them out of the way of the carpet cleaner, and the more help they had available, the quicker the job would be done.

  Gazza swore as his drill bit buzzed futilely in a burred screw head.

  ‘That bloody girl’s still causing trouble even after she’s dead! Shifting these feckin’ seats wasn’t on the schedule until we had the money for a new floor. How are we supposed to fasten them back down with the boards in this state?’

  ‘The same way as we’ve made do the last couple of times,’ Howard reminded him. ‘Fill the holes with glue and matchsticks so the screws will hold a bit longer. We’ll be fine until there’s a bunch of excited kids at a panto that rock the whole front row backwards. The domino effect.’

  ‘Feckin’ waste of time,’ muttered Gazza.

  Jessica was inclined to agree, but at least the carpet would look better for losing its thin topcoat of potato chip grease and ice-cream smears.

  ‘Cheer up guys,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ll bring in a few beers when we’re done.’

  ‘Oh, why didn’t you say so before,’ said Gazza bravely, trying to sound more cheerful. Jessica gave him a pat on the shoulder and headed out to the Green Room to see how Stewart and Nathan were getting on with stacking the heavy rows of seats.

  ‘Hi Jessica,’ panted Stewart. ‘Could you give us a hand with this for a second?’

  She took some of the weight in the middle of the row they were struggling with and helped them get it in position next to the rest. The cast-iron frames made the seats punishingly hard to manoeuvre.

  ‘I’ll get a couple of the others to come back here and help if you like.’

  Stewart nodded, too breathless to speak.

  ‘Thanks. They’re really heavy,’ said Nathan.

  ‘How are you guys?’ asked Jessica. ‘I mean, since finding the body. It must have been pretty horrendous for you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Nathan. ‘Creepiest thing that’s ever happened to me, that’s for sure. It’s been amazing for my
work though. I’m moving into like, a real dark phase. Heavy, dramatic stuff. Kind of lets it all out, you know?’ He looked at his friend. ‘Not so easy for Stewie though. You just think happy thoughts, don’t you mate?’

  ‘At least I’ve got things to be happy about,’ said Stewart, looking up at him from where he’d slumped exhausted on the floor.

  Jessica smiled and left them to it, promising to send help out right away.

  Back in the auditorium, the guys were working slowly towards the back rows of seats, looking noticeably reluctant to approach the scene where the body had been found.

  ‘Have you got enough light to see what you’re doing?’ asked Jessica. ‘I can rig up a work-light to make this dark corner less shadowy if you like.’

  ‘Yeah, that might help, ta,’ was Gazza’s offhand reply. She smiled to herself and fetched a halogen light on a stand from the workshop.

  Once all the seats had been removed, Jessica called Clara-Jane who busied herself lighting candles in readiness for her cleansing ceremony.

  ‘What is it that you do, exactly?’ asked Jessica. ‘Have you had to perform this sort of thing before?’

  ‘Not personally, but my mother used to. I called her last night and she talked me through it. It’s all to do with satisfying the spirits that reside here. If they’re upset, like by violence or extreme unhappiness, then the whole vibe of the building changes. We need to reassure them and let them know that their home is a safe place to be.’

  ‘Wow. How would they cope if the theatre was pulled down and they had to live in a shopping mall?’

  ‘Jessica!’ said Clara-Jane, horrified. ‘Don’t say that, even as a joke. That’s just the sort of thing that would upset them even more. Just stay quiet and let me cleanse the theatre’s aura, will you?’

  ‘Don’t you think you’d be more use cleansing the place with the carpet cleaner?’ Jessica saw the look on her friend’s face and mimed zipping her lips shut.

  Clara-Jane placed the candles in the four corners of the auditorium, then lit some incense sticks. Starting from the stage, she walked back and forth across the room, wafting the smoke ahead of her. When she reached the far corner of the back wall where the body had been found, she paused, muttering words that Jessica couldn’t quite hear. She made sweeping gestures that seemed to gather the smoke and guide it towards the rear door of the auditorium. With her long purple skirts brushing across the floor, she made her exit through the door and out into the foyer. Once there, she threw open the double doors and cast the smoke outside.

  With perfect timing, Howard pulled up in his van and unloaded the steam cleaner.

  ‘Thanks for getting the doors open, Clara-Jane. It would be a heck of a job to get this thing in through the side door. Cheers.’

  She inclined her head gracefully and allowed him inside.

  By mid-afternoon the whole auditorium was physically and spiritually immaculate, the carpet looking several shades lighter as it dried. Howard and Gazza showed Stewart and Nathan how to fill the screw holes, and by the end of a long and tiring day all the seats were back in position.

  Howard leaned backwards, easing his aching spine.

  ‘Who needs to join a gym when we’re getting this sort of exercise?’ He wiped a gleaming forehead on the sleeve of his faded Les Miserables t-shirt. ‘Considering we’re all too tired to go partying tonight, do you want to come round to my place for a quick barbeque? I think I can get MaryAnn to cook so we can all just flop out and relax.’

  There was a muted and grateful chorus of approval.

  ‘I’ll bring those beers I promised,’ said Jessica, earning herself a ragged cheer. ‘We’ve done great things today, team. From tomorrow, we’ll be back to the schedule and on track for the show. Now let’s get going – last one to Howard’s place gets the low-alcohol beer!’

  There was a mad dash for the door.

  Once flagging energy had been restored by a generous application of sausages and salad, the members of the Regent Theatre society, sprawling in Howard’s backyard, began discussing the murder.

  ‘Look at it logically,’ said Howard. ‘Assuming it wasn’t just a random attack, who would have wanted Tamara dead?’

  ‘Most of the people who knew her,’ said Gazza.

  ‘Gazza! That’s a terrible thing to say!’ Clara-Jane was appalled. ‘She wasn’t a truly bad person, just young and misguided.’

  ‘Misguided like a missile, more like. Did you not see the damage she was doing to Phil and Pippa? If either of them did it, I’d say it was justified.’

  Jessica saw her friend about to explode and swiftly interceded.

  ‘Of course it wasn’t them, Gazza. Stop making mischief. If you’re just going to wind people up then go inside and do the dishes.’

  ‘Oh you don’t need to do that,’ exclaimed MaryAnn. ‘But you could put the kettle on while you’re in there.’

  Overwhelmed by superior forces, Gazza levered himself up and beat a retreat to the kitchen.

  ‘Before anyone suggests it, it wasn’t me,’ said Stewart quietly. ‘She made my life pretty unpleasant at times but I would never have thought of doing anything about it.’

  ‘Good for you, Stewart. That shows what a nice person you are.’ Clara-Jane patted him on the back.

  ‘I thought about it,’ admitted Nathan. ‘Oh, not killing her or anything, just getting her to shut up about Stewart somehow. But I hadn’t figured out how. I’m not sorry she’s gone but it was someone else who managed it.’

  ‘Wasn’t there some fuss with Austin at that last rehearsal?’ asked Howard. ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘He offered her a costume for her role as Nadine the nurse,’ said Jessica. ‘Understandably, Tamara took offence when she saw it.’

  ‘Ah. The Naughty Nurse outfit, was it?’ Howard grinned. ‘I can imagine her wearing it in her, um, professional capacity, but only if she was getting paid for it. And having Austin suggest it would definitely have made her mad. Did she yell?’

  ‘Oh yes! Tore strips off him in front of the whole cast, made him look about two inches tall. She’d probably still be telling him off if some woman in the auditorium hadn’t reined her in sharply.’

  ‘Yeah, real sour-looking old bat. Who was that?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Jessica. ‘I told the police about her but couldn’t give them any details. Maybe Adam knows who she was.’

  ‘So Austin might possibly have felt humiliated enough to retaliate, do you think?’

  They all pondered the idea for a while.

  ‘Can’t see it myself, but who knows how his mind works,’ said Howard finally. ‘Is there anyone else in the frame? Who haven’t we thought of?’

  Stewart cleared his throat hesitantly.

  ‘Wasn’t she going out with Nick? Maybe they had a quarrel of some kind?’

  Jessica remembered Nick’s garbled words as he turned up drunk on her doorstep. She stayed silent, uneasily questioning herself about times and dates.

  Gazza ambled back from the kitchen and flopped down in a deckchair.

  ‘OK, dishes are done and the kettle’s boiled. Where are we up to? Has anyone accused me yet?’

  ‘Did you have a reason to kill her?’ asked Howard.

  ‘Only the fact that she was a total pain in the arse. But there are plenty of other people I consider pains in the arse and I haven’t topped them yet, so that’s not going to fly. What about you, mate? Did you do her in?’

  Jessica saw the merest flicker of a wink pass between Howard and MaryAnn.

  ‘Yes! But only because she was trying to blackmail him!’ said MaryAnn dramatically. ‘Howard had been having a stupid affair and Tamara found out about it. She insisted that Howard had to buy her silence. Thank God he had the good sense to come to me and admit it all, otherwise we’d have been fleeced out of everything we own.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘So I killed her myself before she could tell anyone else. I wouldn’t have Howard’s good name dragged thro
ugh the mud by that little tramp.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  Too late, Gazza realised the joke.

  ‘Aw Christ, I must be bloody tired for you to have put that one over. You bastards, you deserve each other.’

  Beer and exhaustion combined to send them all into hysterical giggles. The logical approach had given way to lunacy.

  ‘Why did you kill her, Jessica?’ asked Howard. ‘Let’s hear your reason.’

  ‘Easy,’ said Jessica promptly. ‘I was insanely jealous because Austin was paying more attention to her than he was to me. When he gave her that erotic vinyl Naughty Nurse outfit, it was the final straw. It should have been mine, all mine!’

  The prospect of Nurse Jessica in fur-trimmed panties seducing a panting Austin had them howling in protest. Howard wiped tears from his eyes and looked at Clara-Jane.

  ‘Your turn. Why did you kill her, Clara-Jane?’

  ‘I recognised her from one of my previous lives. In her last reincarnation she was an evil demon who caused terrible destruction in the world. She escaped from me back then, so when I saw her again I knew I had to release her satanic energy back into the underworld.’

  ‘Jeez, somebody’s been watching too many episodes of Twilight.’

  ‘All right Gazza,’ she retorted. ‘Let’s hear why you had to kill her after all.’

  ‘National security.’

  ‘OK, go on. We need more than that.’

  ‘If I told you I’d have to kill you too.’

  ‘Not good enough, Gazza. Give us a reason or you lose the game.’

  ‘All right, but you’ll have to swear to keep this secret.’

  ‘Yes, get on with it!’ said Howard. ‘You’re just dragging this out till you can think of something!’

  ‘She would have blown my cover. As soon as she walked into the theatre, I compared her to the picture in my top secret briefing papers and knew she was a spy who turned traitor two years ago. She would have recognised me, eventually, and given me away to the enemy, so she had to be silenced.’