Murder in the Second Row

by Bev Robitai

  ‘I was going to insist, but since you’ve invited me so nicely I accept with pleasure.’ His dark eyes met hers. ‘Where would you like me?’

  Her doubts melted under the intensity of his gaze. And she couldn’t resist a gift line like that.

  ‘Jack, I want you – I want you between my…’ she paused, and he leaned forward eagerly. ‘I want you between my bedroom and the front door, in case of intruders.’ She burst out laughing at his exasperated look. He eyed her severely.

  ‘Jessica, there are times when your smart comments could really put a man off his game.’

  ‘Oh, come on Jack, I’m just messing with you. It’s my way of dealing with serious stuff, OK? You must have figured that out by now. Get into the bedroom, will you? It’s late enough already.’

  She lay in bed watching him prowl around checking the windows before climbing in beside her.

  ‘Tired?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Not as tired as I hope to be.’

  He was still chuckling as their lips met. She found to her delight that he was a graceful lover, smoothing over the occasional awkward moves and leading her confidently in a dance of spiralling desire. His fingers stroked and teased while his mouth moved possessively across her lips, her neck, her breasts, making her arch her back with a gasp. He built up the tension until she was ready to explode.

  ‘I think we can take the foreplay as read now, Jack, would you move on please?’ She squirmed impatiently, reaching for him, but he teasingly pulled back.

  ‘Don’t rush it, Jessica. Good things take time you know.’

  ‘Jaaaack!’ she wailed. ‘Please! If you keep me this close to the edge I’ll get there without you!’

  ‘No you won’t,’ he murmured, sliding over her, ‘I’m right here with you.’ He moved slowly at first, then faster as she urged him on, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him hard against her. For once, every flippant remark was chased right out of her head. He stoked her steadily-growing need so deliberately, with such artistry, that she was lost in the moment. Nothing else existed, just two hot bodies working together with an amazing harmony that she had never known before. She felt him start to climax just as the first waves of her own broke over her, crest after crest of foaming boiling release that left her spent and gasping, clutching his arms, falling back onto sweat-damp sheets with a shaky sigh.

  ‘Oh wow.’

  ‘That’s all you can say? Wow?’

  ‘That’s not just any old wow, buddy. That’s “WOW!!” with neon lights and fireworks and a full marching band!’ She reached up and pushed damp hair off his face. ‘You’re pretty good at that, aren’t you? Do you practise a lot on your own to get that degree of skill?’

  He kissed her hard to stop her from talking. ‘Be quiet now, Jessica. Enough clever lines from you. If you set the alarm early enough you can have some more in the morning. Time to get some rest.’

  ‘Oh Jack, you’re so masterful I could swoon,’ she murmured drowsily.

  ‘Shhhh, go to sleep.’

  They slept undisturbed.

  In the morning he gave her a slow-motion replay, gentle and dozy at first, alive with unguarded looks and murmurs, a cosy togetherness that brought them both a warm rush of release with little effort.

  ‘Mmmm, that was nice. Can we stay here and do that all day?’

  Jack raised himself onto an elbow and checked his watch. ‘Actually, since it’s Sunday today, yes, we could. Unless you’d like me to make you some breakfast first?’

  She bounced to a sitting position at once and dropped a pillow behind her to rest against.

  ‘Ooh, yes please! Let’s have eggs and toast. Coffee with milk and one sugar, please.’

  He snagged a towel from the end of the bed and hitched it round his waist, pausing at the bedroom door.

  ‘How would you like your eggs?’

  ‘Oh, however suits you. I’m easy.’

  ‘I could throw one of your smart remarks back at you for that, but I’m a better person.’ He lifted his chin and made a dramatic exit.

  Jessica chuckled happily. This small-r romance thing wasn’t so hard after all if you stopped making such a big deal out of it.

  They spent the day together, in and out of bed, talking, laughing, and with no thought of anything beyond her four walls. Jessica felt knots of tension leaving her muscles, and the last few were massaged away by Jack under a hot shower late in the afternoon. She sprawled on the bed in just a towelling robe, more relaxed than she’d ever been in her life.

  ‘You know, we should do this more often. It must be terribly good for us. Lots of exercise, no big unhealthy meals – some real quality time.’

  ‘Pity we have to work at all, really. Speaking of which…’

  She groaned. ‘Don’t say you have to be on duty tonight, do you?’

  ‘Er, no, but shouldn’t you be overseeing a show in an hour?’ He grinned at her look of shock.

  ‘I’d forgotten all about it! Theatre? What theatre?’ She sat up and looked dejectedly at him. ‘You mean I have to leave this idyllic love nest and go out into the harsh cold world? How unfair is that?’ She pouted. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t want to come with me, would you?’

  He hesitated. ‘I would, but I really should finish reading some more reports before tomorrow morning. Tell you what, I’ll take you down there and pick you up afterwards, how’s that? You’ll be safe enough at the theatre with all your security guys around, and more than safe back here with Jellicoe and me to guard you.’ He paused. ‘That’s if you want me here?’

  She flung herself across the bed and pinned him down, laughing into his face. ‘Silly question! It’s all I can do not to chain you to the bed-head with your own handcuffs, dammit. Yes, Jack, I really would like you to be here tonight, OK? Do you want a written invitation?’

  He flipped her over effortlessly. ‘No, but a spare house key might be handy.’

  Chapter 16

  When Jack dropped her at the theatre, he came in to have a word with Matt and Paul to warn them about the threat to Jessica. They assured him that they’d be on full alert and would ring him personally if they needed to, putting his number on speed-dial in their cell phones. Jessica waved him off with a hug and a kiss and her promise that she would be extra careful to avoid any risky situations until he came back to collect her.

  She managed to turn her thoughts to the job in hand and went to check the house numbers, which was fortunate as she found her name was on the Front of House roster for ushering that night – a fact she’d completely forgotten.

  ‘Hi Gerald, how do bookings look tonight?’

  He waggled his hand in a so-so gesture. ‘About the same as last night, no worse. Have you got any promotional miracles you can pull out of the hat?’

  ‘I’m working on it. You just keep standing there and taking the money, and I’ll see what I can do.’

  In a fit of inspiration that she wished she’d had days ago, she thought of ringing the nearby retirement village and offering their residents half-price tickets for the night. She checked her watch. An hour before show time might just be enough time for some of them to make it. She looked up the phone number and made the invitation, then remembered to warn Gerald to look out for herds of elderly patrons demanding half-price tickets.

  ‘I think you’d better stay close to the box office to help me with that,’ Gerald said. ‘If they’re all coming at the last minute and they’re old and slow, we’ll need extra hands to take the money and get them seated. Looks like you just volunteered.’

  She grinned at him. ‘Fair enough. At least it’s bums on seats, even if they are wrinkly ones.’

  Gerald was right. When they came in they were indeed slow to process, but since there were only five of them it wasn’t really a problem. Jessica shrugged philosophically and showed them to their seats.

  Just before the show was due to start, a group of six entered the auditorium. They handed their tickets to one of the young ushers and she set off with
them towards row B but stopped in confusion. Row B was full. Jessica watched as the usher checked the seat numbers again and asked the seated patrons to check theirs. Headshaking all round, followed by angry frowns and raised voices. Jessica guessed what the problem might be and went to help.

  ‘Good evening, sorry about this mix-up – may I see your tickets please?’ The florid-faced man leading the group of newcomers thrust a handful of tickets at her with a disapproving snort. Jessica checked the date.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, sir,’ she said sweetly, ‘but you seem to have come to the theatre on the wrong day. These tickets were for last night’s performance.’

  She saw a look of alarm from what she assumed was the man’s long-suffering wife so she quickly continued. ‘But it’s no problem at all – we do have enough spare seats to fit you in tonight. If you’ll just follow me, please?’

  She took them a few rows back to an empty section, then went to tell Gerald so that he didn’t direct any latecomers to those seats.

  Jessica picked up her torch and took her seat in the auditorium next to the main door. The young usher leaned across the aisle to thank her for helping with the difficult customer.

  ‘I thought he was gonna bite my head off! What a hardass!’ she whispered, rolling her eyes.

  The house lights dimmed and the music faded out. Curtain up. This time Jessica kept one eye on the show and the other on the audience, mindful of her responsibilities as usher.

  The first half went smoothly, and as the lights came up for interval, she pushed open the doors to the foyer, standing back quickly to avoid the rush. She got the house total from Gerald and took it out the back to write up.

  ‘Hello Jessica my sweet, where have you been all my life?’ said Austin, slipping a damp arm round her waist as she reached up to the noticeboard.

  ‘I think you know that answer to that one, Austin. It’s either a) avoiding you, b) in your wildest dreams, or c) for most of it I wasn’t even born.’ She smiled to take the sting out of her words and deftly skipped out of reach. ‘Gotta go, duty calls.’ She grabbed a slice of lemon cake and went back to mind the audience.

  The florid-faced man was knocking back a glass of red wine in the foyer while his timid wife sipped a can of soda.

  ‘Is everything all right, sir? Are you having a pleasant evening?’ Jessica asked him politely.

  ‘Oh yes, I suppose so – although we are seated a bit further back than I would have liked. And this wine tastes corked.’ He looked down his bulbous nose at the glass.

  ‘I think you’ll find that all our bottles are screw-topped sir, but I’m sure the barman will cheerfully replace that for you.’ Jessica winked at his wife as she walked away, receiving a surprised smile in return.

  Gerald, on seeing that the crowd at the bar had been served, moved to ring the buzzer for the second half. Jessica shepherded the last of the stragglers back into the auditorium.

  When the curtain rose there was an ‘ooh’ from the audience at the impressive Petra set, making Jessica smile with satisfaction. “Garishly unnatural” indeed. She wanted to find that newspaper critic and make him eat his words, preferably garnished with arsenic.

  Act Two unfolded as intended, with the audience eagerly following the twists and turns of the plot. The scene closed with Dr Gerard solemnly announcing to the Boynton family that their formidable and hated mother was dead. There was a dramatic silence followed by a blackout. Seconds later, a cell phone could clearly be heard ringing backstage. A ripple of amusement ran through the audience, increasing to a roar of laughter when a man in the front row called out ‘Too late, she’s dead!’

  Jessica buried her face in her hands and groaned. Somebody would be in for a roasting for that. A cock-up that was so horribly noticeable by the audience would be an almost unbeatable contender for the Golden Paddle award.

  She stood up and edged along the back row towards the control room where she peered in the window to see Gazza working the lighting desk. She mimed violent strangulation. He replied with a gunshot to the head. Somebody out back was due both punishments.

  Once the audience had left after the show, Jessica marched backstage with purposeful tread to find out whose phone had rung so inconveniently. Austin was tidying away the cue script in the stage manager’s corner, and since he was technically responsible for everything onstage and behind the proscenium arch, she interrogated him first.

  ‘Well? Which blithering idiot managed to ruin that little dramatic moment then?’

  ‘I’m afraid that was Erica. Her youngest daughter is home sick and she wanted to be reachable.’

  Jessica stopped, the wind taken out of her sails. ‘Well, couldn’t she have set the bloody thing to vibrate instead?’

  ‘She didn’t know how, apparently. Don’t worry, young Stewart has shown her what to do so it won’t happen again.’

  ‘Oh. Right. OK then. Glad that’s all taken care of. So there’s nothing else you need tonight, Austin?’ She caught the glint in his bloodshot eye before he spoke and quickly forestalled him. ‘No, I can see you’ve got it all under control. Carry on then. I guess I’ll just go on home. Good work.’

  Feeling a little as if she was neglecting her duties by leaving immediately, she went out to the foyer to see if Jack had remembered to come and get her. He wasn’t there, and she considered going backstage again to see if anything needed to be done, but he turned up a few minutes later with a faintly smug look on his face.

  ‘That was fun. One of your customers was double-parked out there while he got his five passengers loaded up, and when I went to move him along I noticed that his car registration had expired. I’m afraid he’s had a rather expensive evening.’

  ‘Was he a rather snotty red-faced bloke, tweed jacket and twittering wife?’

  ‘That’s the chap. Oh God, he’s not somebody important to the theatre, is he?’

  ‘Nope, just an asshole. You can throw the book at him as hard as you like.’ She took his arm and smiled up at him. ‘Ready to go home?’

  Next morning, Jack woke her up early. Showing excellent time management skills, he had her lying back breathless and satisfied by the time her radio alarm came on. She hit the snooze button and snuggled up against him.

  ‘That was impressive. You deserve a hearty breakfast after all that exercise. It’s my turn, so what will it be, sir?’

  ‘Toast and coffee will do nicely, thank you.’

  She padded into the kitchen, leaving him stretched lazily on her pale blue sheets. After a few minutes he called to her.

  ‘Jess? You might want to hear this. Brad Bannerman’s going to talk about the show.’

  She hurried in and stood by the bed, listening intently to the radio.

  ‘This is Brad ‘The Man’ Bannerman on Wake up Whetford, and I want to tell you about a fantastic show I saw on Saturday night.’ He went on to read his review, then talked warmly about the theatre and how important it was to the local community. His words were stirring. In fact, if even half of the people listening followed Brad’s advice and went to the show, it could well bring in more than enough money to reach their target.

  Jessica’s eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. The theatre group had struggled for so long and so hard that when somebody else came along to help it was almost overwhelming. She held her fingers against trembling lips.

  Jack sat her gently on the edge of the bed and went to deal with breakfast.

  That night bookings were well up, and they continued to climb for the rest of the week as word-of-mouth response to the show got around. By the time the doors opened on Friday night there was a queue of people right across the front of the theatre waiting for door sales. Even Gerald had a smile on his face. Jessica was euphoric.

  ‘Isn’t this brilliant? D’you reckon we’ll actually get a full house tomorrow for final night? Wouldn’t that be great?’

  ‘It certainly would. That piece on the radio made all the difference to bookings. You must have made quite an impress
ion on Brad Bannerman for him to speak so enthusiastically about the theatre. Well done! I tell you what, you’d better dust off those full house signs just in case because they haven’t seen the light of day for quite a while.’

  Final night

  Jessica went down to the theatre early to help out with preparations. Despite her sore foot she carried cases of wine in to the bar for Greg and lent a hand with stocking up the sweet counter as well. Excitement was high, and when the cast arrived the level increased even more.

  Austin gave his usual final night speech backstage.

  ‘I don’t want to see any bloody silliness tonight. No playing tricks on each other, no changes to the script. This audience has paid to see the same show as everyone else and we give them that, understood? Now, there’s a party after the show for cast and crew and your significant others – that doesn’t mean invite your entire family or the blokes from the pub. And lastly…’ There was a groan from the old hands. ‘Yes, you know what I’m about to say - pack out. You are ALL expected to be here at the theatre bright and early tomorrow to help with pack out. No exceptions, no excuses except untimely death. Hungover or not, you can still push a broom around and give a hand with putting things away. Right, get your heads straight for tonight’s performance and make it a damn good one.’

  Jessica went out front to check on the house numbers. A queue of patrons was still filing in through the front door, and when she put her head out to check, she saw that it stretched right along the street. She grinned from ear to ear and looked in at the box office to see how many seats were still vacant. They might just fill them all.

  Gerald sent word backstage to delay starting the show until he’d processed the remaining customers. He officially announced “Full House” with one couple left to seat, and squeezed them into one of the private boxes to avoid turning them away.

  Jessica gleefully put out the Full House signs in front of the theatre, and photographed them for future promotion purposes. Then she slipped upstairs into the opposite box and pulled up the scrappy old office chair to sit in and watch the show. The excited hum from the audience faded with the house lights, leaving an expectant silence. The curtain rose and the last performance began.