by Linda Regan
‘Yes, Sergeant Grainger mentioned that. How long?’
‘Three days. Sorry, can’t go any faster – the reagents need to develop.’
Banham looked up at Alison. ‘We’ll need DNA from all the actors, to eliminate them.’
As he straightened up he heard a woman’s laugh. Heather Draper was standing a few feet away with Max Pettifer. The smile left Max’s face when he noticed Banham staring at him. ‘She died from a blow to the temporal artery,’ he said. ‘It was very quick and she was dead before the paramedics got here.’
‘She died instantly, I suspect,’ Heather Draper agreed. ‘But that’s off the record – as usual I’ve said nothing until the post-mortem’s done and you’ve had my report.’ She lifted the girl’s head so Banham could get a good look at the blow.
‘She must have hit the stage weight with a lot of force if she fell,’ he said.
Heather pointed to the girl’s cheek. ‘Someone has been knocking her about too. Those bruises aren’t fresh, a few days old at least.’
Banham rubbed his hand across his face. ‘When can I have your report?’
‘Hopefully tomorrow. I know the mortuary’s free. I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.’
He knew she would do her best; they always worked well together. Not so Max Pettifer, overweight and too fond of the sound of his own public-school voice.
‘I know it’s urgent, old son,’ he said. ‘I’ll do my best, but I didn’t invent Christmas, nothing I can do if the laboratories are shut.’
Penny Starr looked up from where she was examining the area around the corpse. ‘I’m happy to give up my Christmas leave,’ she said. ‘Colin is on the case anyway, so it’s not as if we’d see much of each other. I’ll give a couple of the technicians a ring – they’ll be glad of the overtime.’
‘Thank you, Penny.’
They might make some progress after all.
Alison Grainger was still beside him. ‘How far have we got?’ he asked her.
‘Her name is Lucinda Benson,’ Alison said. ‘She was the principal girl in the pantomime. Uniform called us; they were told she fell against that stage weight, in the middle of a routine that took place in pitch black and included most of the cast.’
‘In pitch black? No wonder she fell! This place is a death trap. And what was that stage weight thing doing there?’
‘It’s supposed to hold the scenery up.’
‘But it’s not; the scenery is falling down. How easy would it be to lift that concrete block in the middle of a routine that took place in the dark?’
‘You’d have to be quick, and strong, and know where to aim,’ Alison told him. ‘In the dark, that might be difficult. But all the people on stage with her know the backstage area extremely well, and they’re used to the lighting.’
‘Have we got a list of the actors who were on stage yet?’ he asked.
She pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket. ‘I got this from the producer. They’re all waiting in the Green Room upstairs. DC Crowther got here first; they told him everyone was on stage when it happened, except the pantomime dame who was changing his costume. Crowther said he couldn’t understand their technical jargon.’ A sheepish expression flicked briefly across her face. ‘I’ve … been in a few pantomimes myself … when I was a child, of course, not recently. So I told him to ask me if there was anything he didn’t understand.’
Banham suppressed a smile. ‘Good thinking, Sergeant.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘You haven’t told anyone else, have you? That you’ve worked in pantomime?’
‘No, guv.’
‘Good. Keep it to yourself. We may need that card up our sleeve. Where’s Crowther, by the way?’
‘I sent him out front with DC Walsh to take statements from the pianist, sound engineer and usherettes – not that any of them saw much. I said we’d all meet up in the Green Room when you arrived. I hope that’s OK?’ She looked at him apprehensively.
‘Do we know who was standing where on stage at the time of the death?’
She shook her head. ‘All the children, and the actors except the dame, were walking on and off the stage carrying different-coloured ultraviolet fish.’
Banham blinked in bewilderment. Alison continued, ‘I’m sure the choreographer will know who was where in the scene.’
‘Good.’
Alison began to walk off stage; he caught her up as she reached the wings. ‘Um … why were the fish ultraviolet?’ he asked.
‘It’s called the underwater ballet scene. There’s a storm at sea, and all the cast fall overboard and land in the ocean. They’re dressed from head to toe in black, and the stage is in darkness too, so the audience can’t see them. When the actors walk across the stage holding the ultraviolet fish in the air, it looks as if the fish are swimming about on their own.’
‘Right,’ he said, completely bemused. ‘So how do we know who was next to her when she fell?’
‘According to the producer, she fell at the end of the routine. He said the actress who plays Dick Whittington – the star of the show, Barbara Denis – should have been standing next to her.’
‘Should have been?’
‘He said we’d have to double-check that with the choreographer. He told me all the cast have said the same – they heard a bump at the end of the routine, just before the lights came up, and they thought someone had fainted or fallen over. Then when the lights did come up, Lucinda was lying in a heap on the floor. They all knew something was seriously wrong, so they dropped the curtain.’
‘How many actors were there on the stage?’
‘According to this list, there are five actors, four adult dancers and six children in the cast. Plus the choreographer, and the stage manager who’s mostly in the wings.’
‘So DNA swabs from all the adults if they’ll give them, and bag all the costumes for forensics.’
‘Crowther was already doing that when I arrived. He’s been here a while.’
‘And there I was thinking you were the one trying to take over the investigation,’ Banham said dryly. ‘How did he get here so quickly? He lives miles away’
Alison grinned. ‘Penny Starr doesn’t – she lives around the corner from here, and he spent Christmas with her.’
Crowther always managed to pull the women, Banham thought. The DC was no oil painting; what was his secret? He stole a glance at Alison – he’d managed to mess that up before it even started.
He dragged his hand across his face wearily and walked over to the high desk at the corner of the stage. A copy of the script lay on the stool beside it, open at a page headed Underwater Ballet. He flicked through it, but made no sense at all of the different coloured underlining and other marks.
‘They call that the prompt corner, Guv,’ Alison said.
‘Does someone sit there during the show?’ Banham asked.
‘The stage manager should,’ Alison told him. ‘Apparently tonight he was in the pub. And yes, uniform are checking on that.’
‘So who brought the curtain down? Isn’t that his job?’
‘He didn’t say. I’ll make sure I ask him.’
‘What’s up there?’ he asked her, pointing to the rows of lights and twisted ropes hanging from the ceiling over the stage.
‘They call it the flies. Sometimes the sound engineer and the electrician operate from up there, but in this show the sound engineer is at the back of the auditorium. So there wouldn’t have been anyone up there today.’
‘Shouldn’t have been,’ Banham corrected. ‘Something else to check.’
‘Everyone involved in the show backstage is in the Green Room.’ Alison handed him the notebook she was holding. ‘This is a list of the whole cast and crew, made up by the producer.’
She was still wearing her gloves, maroon wool to match her cap and scarf, with pom-poms dangling from the wrists. He reached out and caught her hand.
‘What’s with the pom-poms?’ he asked.
She pulled away. ‘A Christma
s present from my mother.’
Her embarrassment was almost tangible. ‘We do need to talk,’ she said, lowering her voice.
‘About what?’
‘About last week.’
He looked down. ‘There’s no point, Alison. It was my fault, I shouldn’t have tried to mix business with pleasure. It won’t happen again.’
His heart was in his boots. Why couldn’t he be honest with her and tell her how he felt? What he really needed was to move more slowly.
But he’d said it now, and blown any chance he had of trying again.
‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault,’ she said after an agonising couple of seconds. ‘It wasn’t a crime scene. But never mind; if you think business and pleasure don’t mix, I won’t say any more. End of chapter. OK?’
The black flecks in her eyes turned blacker when she was angry. He had once told her that her eyes were a shade of sludge. That had made her furious; the flecks had turned jet black and she had told him to go to night school and take a course in romance. Everything he said came out wrong.
She was waiting for him to speak. OK, business, not pleasure. ‘Right, sergeant, let’s get on with this enquiry. Start with the children; take their statements and let them go. I’m going to see what Crowther has found out, and then I’ll talk to the producer.’
‘Yes, Guv.’
He looked up and found himself staring into those shiny black flecks in her eyes. She turned away and headed for the swing door that led to the corridor. He followed. She pushed the door wide open, walked through it and let it fly back to hit Banham in the face.
Chapter Two
No matter what Detective Constable Colin Crowther was wearing, he always looked as if his clothes belonged to somebody else. Today his jeans were a little too baggy and his grey jacket a touch too long in the arms. The front of his short, over-gelled brown hair, heavily styled but years out of date, as usual, stood erect from his head, and the rest with its natural curl lay flat against his skull. He had a boyish face, big brown eyes, a wide smile, a lot of charm and a Cockney accent.
Crowther was ambitious. Banham knew he was desperate to make sergeant, so it came as no surprise when the young officer hailed him loudly and launched into an account of everything he had done in the hour that he’d been at the crime scene.
Crowther had arranged a liaison officer to go round and break the news to the dead girl’s parents, then organised the available uniform officers, supervised by DC Isabelle Walsh, to secure the area. He had personally labelled each of the black outfits that were worn by the actors and bagged them in evidence bags, all ready for Penny to take away to test for fragments of concrete. Then he had spoken to the staff in the pub next door, who had confirmed that Alan McCormack, the stage manager, had been in there at the exact time the accident happened.
Crowther reminded Banham of a spaniel waiting for a bone. ‘You take a lot on yourself, don’t you, lad? The post-mortem won’t be done till tomorrow. Until then we don’t even know if we’re looking at a murder enquiry.’
The young constable’s face fell. ‘I kept Sergeant Grainger in the loop, guv. I just thought …’
The truth was he’d done extremely well. Banham relented. ‘OK – just wait for instructions from now on.’
Crowther tapped the side of his nose and lowered his voice. ‘I’ve found out a little something of interest, guv’nor.’
Banham lifted his eyebrows.
‘I had a quick word with the girl who set the dance routines,’ Crowther said. ‘Sophie Flint. She explained what happened at the time the woman died.’
‘Go on.’
‘Apparently, the geezer who plays the pantomime dame, Stephen Coombs is his name, isn’t on stage in that part of the show because he has to change his costume during that routine. But tonight, when the routine was over and …’ Crowther screwed the side of face up as he often did when in thinking mode, ‘Vincent Mann, that’s the feller, rang for the ambulance … Sophie Flint said Stephen Coombs was standing in the corridor – and he hadn’t changed his costume.’
‘She told you this?’
‘Yes, guv.’
‘We’ll need an official statement.’
They started to climb the stairs to the first floor. ‘Have you spoken to anyone else?’ Banham asked.
‘I had a quick word with the chorus dancers, guv.’
‘All young and pretty, were they?’
‘The three girls are a bit gorgeous, I’ll admit, guv,’ Crowther said with a grin. ‘I daresay the black bloke is somebody’s type; not mine though.’
Banham couldn’t help liking Crowther. He had too much confidence and not enough experience, and his enthusiasm was inclined to run away with itself unless he was kept on a leash, but he worked hard and had a good future ahead of him.
‘Keep your eye on the ball,’ Banham told him, stopping as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘Don’t, for goodness’ sake, start flirting with any of the women. At the moment they’re all suspects.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it, guv.’
‘Besides,’ Banham added, ‘I’m relying on you not to upset Penny. She’s offered to work through her leave and keep us ahead on the forensics side, but only because you’re here.’
Crowther lifted his lapels and pulled his shoulders back. ‘I train ’em well, guv.’
Banham fought the urge to smile. How did Crowther do it? He couldn’t get it right with one woman, but this lad managed to juggle two or three at once.
‘Sergeant Grainger is taking statements from the children,’ he said, ‘so you and I will make a start up here. How many …?’ He looked down the list he had torn from Alison’s notebook and started to count the names.
‘Just four actors, guv,’ Crowther prompted. ‘There’s also four adult dancers, and the dame, who wasn’t on stage at the time. Sophie Flint, the choreographer, also plays the fairy, she says.’
Banham looked at the list again. ‘Vincent Mann, the comic. He’s the one who rang for the ambulance. He pulled the girl’s balaclava off, leaving his sweaty handprints all over her.’
‘That don’t help matters,’ said Crowther.
‘Barbara Denis plays Dick Whittington,’ Banham read, ‘And Alan McCormack, the stage manager, also plays Alderman Fitzwarren – and was in the pub this evening.’
Crowther shook his head. ‘How can you be on stage playing a part, if you’re in the pub?’
‘And also be at the side of the stage keeping an eye on things,’ Banham said. He looked back at his list. ‘Fay McCormack, she’s Alan’s daughter. She plays the cat.’
They were now standing outside a door bearing the sign:
OFFICIAL COMPANY OFFICE
SOPHIE FLINT (Choreographer)
MICHAEL HOGAN (Producer)
‘What happens in the official company office?’ Banham asked.
‘Don’t know, Guv.’
‘Is it unlocked?’ Banham asked.
‘Let’s find out.’ Crowther turned the handle and the door opened.
The man at the far end of the office nearly jumped out of his skin. He was tall and middle-aged with longish dark hair streaked with silver. He reminded Banham of an aging Seventies pop star, with his lived-in face and long, grey-green cardigan over green corduroy trousers. The look was finished with scuffed black cowboy boots. The bags under his eyes were very prominent, and he clicked an electric kettle off and on nervously.
‘This is Michael Hogan, the producer of the show,’ Crowther told Banham. ‘Mr Hogan, you were asked you to wait in the Green Room with everyone else.’
‘I just spoke to your sergeant,’ Hogan said. ‘She’s taken the children down to the basement to interview them in their dressing room. It’s getting cold down there now the heating’s off, so I’m making a pot of hot coffee for her. Would you gentlemen like some?’
‘White, two sugars,’ Banham said with a thin smile.
‘White, one sugar for me,’ Crowther added.
‘How is your enq
uiry progressing?’ Hogan asked, taking a packet of fresh coffee out of a cupboard and spooning some into a pot which stood beside the kettle.
‘It’s hardly started yet.’
‘But it was an accident, wasn’t it?’
‘We can’t comment at the moment, Mr Hogan, we need to make some enquiries.’
Hogan poured boiling water into the coffee pot. The rich smell filled the air, and Banham suddenly felt in desperate need of a large cup to keep him going.
‘I’m going to sound callous,’ Hogan said, concentrating his attention on the coffee, ‘but as all the seats for tomorrow’s matinee are sold, I have to ask.’ He looked sheepishly at Banham. ‘This won’t have any repercussions on the rest of the pantomime run, will it, Inspector?’
Banham scrutinised the man for a second before replying. ‘I can’t answer that yet. We’ll have to wait to see how long forensics need the area. I’ll try and let you know how things are progressing in an hour or so.’ He folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. ‘Were you in the building during the performance this evening?’
Hogan’s attention was back on the coffee. ‘I’ve been in the building all night.’ He looked back to Banham again. ‘The cast didn’t know that, though. I arrived after the show had started.’
Crowther took out his notebook and started scribbling.
‘I wouldn’t have come in at all, except that the show needs to be cut. Sophie, my assistant, is the choreographer. She said there were too many ad libs creeping in, and the show was getting longer. I have to keep the running time down to two and a half hours, to give the front of house staff time to get the afternoon audience out and clear the sweet papers and ice cream cartons before the evening performance.’
‘So you came in this evening?’
‘Yes. To watch the show and look for cuts we could make.’
‘You were in the audience?’
Hogan nodded.
‘So someone could vouch for that?’
He nodded again, then shrugged. ‘Actually, only the first half of the show. I had a drink in the bar at the interval, to give me a bit a bit of Dutch courage.’ He smiled and gave a nervous laugh.