by Simon Brett
‘I think that might be difficult. According to Lefty Rubenstein, she’s gone back to the States.’
‘I’m sure we can track her down. Do you know where she was staying in Eastbourne? Which hotel?’
‘It was a B&B.’
Malik grimaced. ‘We’ve got a good few of those here.’
‘Yes, sorry I can’t be more helpful. Don’t know any more details.’
‘We can check. And check flight records to see when she left the country.’
At that moment they were interrupted by a knock on the door and the entrance of a uniformed policeman with Charles’s mobile.
‘We’ve checked the numbers the texts came from, Inspector. No trace of any of them.’
‘As I thought. Thank you.’ Detective Inspector Malik dismissed the policeman. ‘Going back to Gloria van der Groot, Mr Paris …’
‘Yes. I did have a thought about her …’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, that if she had a habit of stalking, following Kenny Polizzi, she might have been doing that on the night he died.’
‘And therefore be a very valuable witness? Good idea, Mr Paris.’ More notes on the iPad. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll track her down. It’d be good to fill in a few gaps in Friday night’s sequence of events.’
‘Is it sort of coming together?’
It was a question he wouldn’t have dared to ask to the sterner Detective Inspector Malik of his previous encounter, and she was surprisingly forthcoming in her reply. ‘We’ve pieced together a lot of details. I don’t know if you know that Mr Polizzi was actually under the pier to buy some cocaine.’
‘Oh really?’ said Charles, a little confused. He obviously did know that, but he couldn’t remember whether the Inspector knew he knew. Once again he was unwilling to land Lefty Rubenstein in the soup.
‘Well, we’ve found the man he got the cocaine from. We visited him at his home this afternoon. He gave us some cock-and-bull story about being a journalist investigating Eastbourne’s drug trade, but he’s clearly just a rather incompetent dealer. He’ll be prosecuted once we’ve tied up this case. But he was very useful – he gave us a description of what went on under the pier for at least part of the evening.’
Interesting, thought Charles. Perhaps Vinnie McCree saw more than he’d let on during their Monday night conversation. Perhaps he stayed around the pier area for longer than he had implied. An official police interrogation might have jogged his memory, particularly if he was under threat of prosecution. Charles made a mental note to have another chat with Vinnie McCree.
‘If we can find this …’ Malik went on, consulting her iPad, ‘… Gloria van der Groot then we’ll begin to see the whole picture. And I guess we really have to thank you, Mr Paris.’
‘Oh?’ Charles was puzzled. ‘What for?’
‘For finding Jasmine del Rio’s body. That’s really opened up the whole case for us.’
‘Has it? You mean you think Jasmine killed Kenny and then topped herself?’
Detective Inspector Malik made a mock-tutting sound. ‘I couldn’t possibly make a statement like that before a lot more investigation has been completed, but I do finally think we’re on the right track.’
So the authorities thought Jasmine del Rio was the murderer of Kenny Polizzi.
Charles Paris still somehow didn’t.
Once the interview with Detective Inspector Malik was over it was too late for him to do anything except return to his digs and go to bed. But he got up early the next morning, the Wednesday, reckoning he had time before the Cinderella technical run started at ten to visit Vinnie McCree.
It was suddenly much colder, a reminder that November had given way to December. Ergh, Christmas approaching. He put the unwelcome thought from his mind. At least being in the pantomime meant there’d only be the one day – Christmas Day – to fill somehow.
Charles again noticed how quickly the well-maintained gentility of Eastbourne’s tourist area gave way along Seaside Road to rows of increasingly shabby buildings. Taking his bearings from the Greyhound pub, he soon found the one in which Vinnie lived. In daylight it looked even less prepossessing. The white paint was flaked and mangy, the windows opaque with dust, a rusty ironing board and slumped black plastic bags of rubbish spilled over the tiny front garden. And the bell-pushes on the board by the front door had been repaired and replaced many times. Damp had caused the ink of the names in their little plastic pockets to run to illegibility.
But, as Charles was trying to remember which floor Vinnie’s flat had been on, he noticed signs of more recent dilapidation. The front door was open. Splinters of bared wood around the lock suggested it had been forced. Charles pushed his way inside.
The two doors off the hall were firmly shut, and anyway he had a recollection of a drunken stagger down at least one flight of stairs when he left on the Tuesday morning. He made his way up the creaking staircase.
On the first-floor landing one door was closed but the other hung ajar. Again there were signs on the architrave that it had been forced. Charles went in.
Vinnie McCree lay on the floor in a flurry of newspapers. He had been shot in the forehead.
TWENTY
BUTTONS: I’ve got a little secret, ’cause I’m just that kind of feller. It’s a secret I can only tell to Cinderella.
Charles Paris didn’t call the police. He reckoned his finding three murder victims within six days might strain Detective Inspector Malik’s tolerance. And though they’d parted the previous night on good terms, he really didn’t fancy the inevitable further interrogation if he rang her with news of another murder.
He was confident he hadn’t touched anything. He’d used his shoulder to push open the doors and kept his hand off the banister as he went up and down the stairs. He hadn’t seen or, as far as he knew, been seen by anyone entering or leaving the house. Vinnie’s was a body someone else could have the honour of finding.
But Charles’s mind was full of questions. The main one being: why the hell would anyone want to kill Vinnie McCree? The man was a self-important old bore, but surely harmless.
And was the person who shot Vinnie the same one who had put paid to Kenny Polizzi? By now Charles was not even considering the possibility that Jasmine del Rio had committed the murder under the pier. The whole set-up of her suicide was too neat and convenient. He felt sure that when they investigated a little further, the police would find anomalies in the theory of Jasmine’s guilt.
Unless, of course, Detective Inspector Malik was so pleased to have got a nice self-sealing explanation for the two deaths that she would discourage further enquiries.
The only solution that made sense to Charles was that Jasmine del Rio had been killed because she knew too much. Perhaps she had actually witnessed Kenny’s murder, and for that reason the killer had to eliminate her?
Something similar might explain Vinnie’s death too. Detective Inspector Malik said the journalist had supplied information about what he’d seen on the Friday night. Had he been another witness of the shooting?
Or had the killer found out that the police had been talking to Vinnie and shut him up permanently as a security measure?
That Wednesday they were no longer rehearsing in the St Asaph’s Church Halls. For the first time they would be on stage at the Empire Theatre for the ‘Tech’ (as the technical run was always called). That would take as long as it took (which could be quite a long time) on the Wednesday and the Thursday morning. Then the plan was to have two dress rehearsals, one at two-thirty on the Thursday afternoon and the next at seven-thirty in the evening. These would set a template for the rest of the run, two performances a day until the middle of January, when mercifully the show would end.
Charles reckoned that Cinderella was way off the standard it should be for a show which would confront its first paying audience at the Friday matinee – even though that first audience would be all screaming kiddies. Bix Rogers was still devoting far too much of his time to the choreography, and though the intr
oduction of Arthur Bodimeade had sharpened up the bits when the Ugly Sisters were on stage, there were still scenes not involving them which had hardly been rehearsed at all. Doctor Theatre – or some other actors’ deity – was going to have to do an amazing transformation job on the show in the next two days.
Charles’s mood was not improved when, arriving on time for the Tech, he was told by the stage management that Bix would be rehearsing out of sequence, doing all of the musical numbers first because ‘the lighting for them is more complex’. Since the only musical number Baron Hardup was now involved in was the final Walkdown, it would be a while before Charles would be required for rehearsal. He was told to ‘come back after lunch’ and make sure he kept his mobile on in case the calls changed.
So a somewhat disgruntled Charles Paris went to check out the dressing room he would be sharing with a lot of other actors and decide what to do with the rest of his morning.
He felt very frustrated. The enquiry on which he had embarked now involved three murders, and yet he couldn’t for the life of him see what he could do in the short term to further his investigation. He considered calling Lefty, but couldn’t really think of anything to say. He’d decided it would be unwise to tell the lawyer about finding Vinnie’s body. Let him hear the news through the official channels, through the police.
The one person Charles did want to talk to was Kitty Woo. She must by now have heard what had happened to Jasmine, and she’d be devastated. Charles wanted to offer her some kind of comfort – apart from confirming with her how unlikely Jasmine was ever even to contemplate suicide.
But, as he could hear through the tannoy in the dressing room, on stage the dancers were being put through their paces very hard by Bix. There wouldn’t be an opportunity to talk to Kitty until one of the breaks – and during a Tech breaks could be fairly irregular.
He wandered disconsolately to the green room. The tannoy was turned up louder down there and he could hear the voice of Bix shouting at his lighting designer. Clearly it was going to be one of those Techs which ran and ran.
Felix Fisher, in pale green blouson and full make-up, was sitting in the corner with the Times crossword open in front of him. This made Charles feel slightly awkward. He had his own copy of the paper in the pocket of his duffel coat, but the crossword was a private thing for him. He was a bit anal about it, in fact, and didn’t like being in the same room or railway compartment with someone else doing it.
‘Hi,’ he said casually.
‘Hi, Charles. Both in the same boat, aren’t we?’ The comedian sounded peevish and upset. His manner was jittery. ‘Called too early for rehearsal. First thing I’ve got to do is my version of “All By Myself” for the kitchen scene after Cinderella’s gone off to the ball. No way Bix’ll get to that till mid-afternoon.’
‘I’ve got to wait even longer. If he is insisting on doing all the musical numbers first. Baron Hardup doesn’t feature till the Walkdown.’
‘Bix is such a disorganized prick!’ snapped Felix Fisher waspishly. ‘Do you fancy going out for a coffee?’
Charles looked at his watch. Not yet quarter past ten. They’d be hard pushed to find a pub open and it was a bit early, even for him. ‘Yes, sure,’ he said.
They ended up in the same coffee shop where he had been with Kitty and Laura Hahn. More familiar with the routine now, Charles ordered a double espresso. Felix, ordering a skinny latte, flirted camply with the male barista who recognized him ‘from off the telly’.
‘Presumably you heard about Jasmine,’ said Charles, amazed that it was only the night before that he had discovered her body.
‘Yes.’ Felix sounded subdued. Charles wondered if it was Jasmine’s death that had affected him. ‘That kind of news travels really fast.’
‘On Twitter again?’
‘You bet.’
‘And what are the Twitterists saying?’
‘They tend to be called twitterati, Charles. And they’re saying that Jasmine killed herself in remorse for having killed Kenny. Apparently there was a note of some kind.’
‘But how on earth do they get the news so fast? It was only last night that …’ Charles decided to gloss over his involvement in the discovery ‘… that her body was found. And I don’t think there’s been a police press conference about it yet.’
Felix shrugged. ‘Some journalist may have got on to it. Possibly even a leak from the police … either an illegitimate one or deliberate? There’s no secrecy anywhere any more. Once something’s posted on Twitter the news goes round the world in no time.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Charles, the sum of whose knowledge of the workings of Twitter was not increasing. ‘And would you buy that as an explanation?’
Another shrug. ‘Well, until we get another more convincing one, it does seem to fit the known facts quite neatly.’
But what about the unknown facts? thought Charles. He didn’t voice the question, though.
There was a natural hiatus in their conversation. Then Charles said, ‘I think it’s pretty shitty of the stage management to bring us in for ten. They could have texted us to say the rehearsal call was going to be later.’
‘Don’t blame the stage management. It’s more likely Bix being shitty than them. I bet he only decided the rehearsal schedule when he arrived at the theatre this morning.’
‘I hope at least someone got a message to Arthur Bodimeade not to hurry in. He looks so frail I think he should be conserving every drop of energy he’s got.’
‘Yes, but he is quite amazing when he gets into the routines, isn’t he?’ It was said slightly grudgingly, but it was praise, an hommage to the skills of an old generation that Charles would never have expected to hear from the abrasive young comic. ‘And, actually, now I think of it, Danny said last night that neither he nor Arthur had been called this morning.’
‘Oh? Then why couldn’t someone have told us too?’
Charles’s response was in no way loaded, but Felix seemed to think he needed to supply more information. ‘The fact is, I went out for dinner with Danny last night.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes, we had a very pleasant evening, bitching away about everyone.’
‘Everyone in the Cinderella company?’
‘Everyone in the theatre. And he reserved special venom for some of the guests he’s had staying in his B&B. Astonishing how messy and destructive people can be when they’re away from their own homes. He sees some really weird behaviour. They range from the predictable dirty weekenders who rattle the bedposts all night to one woman he mentioned who just spends all the time in her bedroom crying.’
‘I don’t envy him the job,’ said Charles. The idea of letting strangers into anywhere he lived and then acting like a servant to them held no appeal.
‘No.’ Felix looked a little awkward as he said, ‘And then Danny invited me back to his place for a nightcap … and I’m afraid I realized I had completely misinterpreted his intentions.’
‘You mean he came on to you?’
‘Yes, and how! He seemed to think that my agreeing to go back to his place for a nightcap meant I was agreeing to a whole lot more.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘It was acutely embarrassing because, you see …’ The stand-up was quiet for a moment, weighing up what he was about to say. ‘Oh hell, I can tell you, Charles. The fact is, I’ve got to tell somebody.’
‘Well, fine, if you want to. What is it?’
‘The fact is, Charles … I am not gay.’
‘Oh.’ That did come as quite a shock, and Charles floundered a little for the proper response. ‘Well, I mean, obviously that’s up to you, but …’
‘The trouble was when I was at university and started doing comedy I developed this gay persona and it went down really well. When I did straight stuff it didn’t work. So then I take a show to Edinburgh and it’s shortlisted for awards and stuff. And the more success I have, the more I’m kind of pushed into this gay ghetto. And it’s fine because,
though there are plenty of other gay stand-ups out there, the public can’t seem to get enough of us. So there’s plenty of work. I’d be daft to chuck up something that’s really making me a very good living.
‘But giving up the pretence and coming out as straight becomes more and more difficult. Because there’s kind of a political element now involved. It’s all right for Jews to do Jewish jokes, or Pakistanis to do Paki jokes. If someone else did them, that’d be racist. It’s the same with the gay thing. I can do jokes about being a screaming queen because everyone thinks I am one. A straight man doing the same shtick would almost definitely be seen as homophobic. So I have got myself into a bit of a bind.’
‘I can see that,’ said Charles. ‘And what about actual relationships? Does it mean you can’t have any?’
Felix grinned ruefully. ‘It means I have to be very discreet. Fortunately when I take off the make-up and the silly costumes nobody recognizes me, so I can have a kind of private life, if I’m careful. In fact …’ He paused for a moment. ‘Well, I’ve told you everything else, so I may as well tell you this too. I’m actually married with two small children.’
‘Wow! A secret marriage. Very Wilkie Collins.’
‘Exactly. Isn’t it ridiculous, Charles?’
‘It’s odd, certainly. The exact reverse of how it used to be. I grew up with a generation of actors who had to keep their gay relationships secret, who had to pass off their partners as “flatmates” or “managers” or “chauffeurs”. Yours is the first I’ve heard of working the other way round.’
‘I just don’t know how much longer I can keep it up, though,’ said Felix glumly. ‘The pressure gets worse and worse. I have to be so careful in interviews, in all dealings with the media. And I’m not sure that it really is fair on my wife, or the kids. I wouldn’t mind getting out of the business completely, but the trouble is I make so much more money from stand-up than I could from anything else.’
‘Hm.’ There was a silence, then Charles asked, ‘Why have you suddenly told me this?’
‘Because I get the impression you’re the kind of man who can keep a secret.’