by Linda Regan
Banham noticed how straight and white his teeth were. Probably all capped; expensive job. So he hadn’t always been so desperate for box-office profits.
‘I had to go and see my ex-wife. Barbara Denis, the star of the show.’ Another nervous laugh. ‘She can be a force to be reckoned with if she doesn’t get her own way – and I had decided to cut her love duet with Lucinda. It wasn’t very good.’ He paused again then stretched his mouth down like a scolded schoolboy. ‘I needed a drink first.’
He slowly pressed the filter downwards on the steaming coffee. It smelt delicious.
‘So did you tell Barbara and Lucinda you were cutting their song before the second act started?’ he asked.
‘No. I intended to, but I got side-tracked.’
‘Who by?’
‘First I bumped into Maggie McCormack as I came through to the backstage area. She’s my wardrobe mistress and my stage manager’s wife. And general all-round helper.’
‘Was your stage manager there at that time, or had he gone to the pub?’
‘He was on the stage. He’s in the show too. He plays the part of Alderman Fitzwarren.’ Hogan looked slightly embarrassed. ‘It’s a bit of a tight budget this year, I’m afraid. Everyone is doubling up.’
Banham nodded dismissively. ‘How soon was this before the scene in the dark?’
‘The ultra-violet scene, you mean? About ten minutes. It starts approximately twenty minutes after the curtain goes up on Act Two, and the second act was about ten minutes in when I left the bar.’
‘So when, exactly, did he go to the pub?’ Crowther asked.
‘Then, actually. He walked off stage during the scene. He’s always doing that. There’s a clash of personalities between the dame and the comic, and they argue on stage. That happened tonight, and Alan hates it. He walked off and went to the pub.’
‘You saw him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you let him go?’
Hogan shrugged. ‘It’s complicated. I’ve employed him for years, and I’m used to it.’
‘What did you do then?’ Banham asked.
‘I put the head-cans on and spoke to the lighting and sound director. He works from the box at the back of the auditorium. I told him that Alan had buggered off and asked him to take his own cues from the stage. He’s used to it. He’s used to Alan too, he just gets on with it. So are the other actors, they just say his lines and no one notices.’
Crowther and Banham exchanged glances.
‘And when was the last time you saw Lucinda?’ Banham asked.
‘Actually at that moment,’ Michael answered. ‘As I finished speaking to Robert. Lucinda came off stage and saw me in the wings. She came straight over to me. She’d been crying.’
‘You must have good eyesight,’ Banham said. ‘Isn’t it dark backstage?’
‘I could tell by her voice,’ he said quickly.
‘What did she say?’
‘She said she wanted to talk to me before Barbara did. She said Barbara had been picking on her for days, accusing her of singing flat. They’d had a terrible row over it.’
‘Was Barbara jealous of Lucinda?’ Crowther asked.
Hogan gave a little laugh. He reached up to the top of the metal filing cabinet in the corner of the office and took down three mugs and a tray. ‘Barbara is over fifty. She’s in the menopause and riddled with insecurities.’ He set the mugs on the tray and sighed loudly. ‘Lucinda is …’ He shook his head and corrected himself quietly. ‘Lucinda was a beginner. Sometimes she did sing flat and Barbara shouted at her. It’s not personal, Barbara’s very professional, she needs the show to be good. She needs to get other work, she wants to relaunch her career! So she gave Lucinda a hard time, but she wouldn’t have murdered her for singing off key.’
‘Did Lucinda argue with anyone else?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘What did you say to Lucinda?’
‘I told her I’d try and sort it out. Then she went back on stage.’ Hogan put his hand to his face. ‘Then Vincent Mann, the comic, came off the stage and made a beeline for me. He was furious. He told me to do something about Barbara. He said I was to tell her to stop picking on Lucinda, or he would do something about it himself.’
‘What do you think he meant?’
Hogan shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea. He made things worse by telling Lucinda to stand up for herself. The rest of us have worked with Barbara before, we know her well, and we know it’s best not to argue with her. Her bark is much worse than her bite.’
The producer was visibly upset. ‘Take your time,’ Banham said.
‘That wasn’t the time to tell Barbara I was cutting the duet,’ Hogan continued after a brief pause. ‘It would have made things worse. So I decided to wait until the end of the show, then call the whole company together for a pep talk. I just wanted them all to do their jobs. I need to make as much money as I can this season.’ He closed his eyes. ‘My debts are closing in on me. I’m fighting not to go bankrupt.’
Banham gave him a moment to compose himself before asking, ‘What happened then?’
Hogan shook his head. ‘I walked away from Vincent Mann.’
‘And went where?’
‘Oh, up here. Sophie wasn’t on stage, I knew she’d be here, changing into her black costume for the ultraviolet scene. I wanted to ask her what she knew about the arguments.’
‘While she was changing?’ Banham asked.
Hogan turned back to the tray and busied himself with the cups. ‘Or doing her hair.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She said she thought Vincent Mann was behind it all.’
Banham watched him, but said nothing.
Hogan turned to face him. ‘Sophie told me Barbara was behaving even worse than usual this year, picking on everyone. She thought it was because Barbara wasn’t getting enough attention; the audiences liked Vincent more than her, and she was terribly insecure. She told Sophie she wanted all her solo numbers re-choreographed.’ He smiled. ‘Sophie refused, of course, and Barbara threw a terrible tantrum. It all went in one ear and out the other with Sophie.’ He smiled again, like a proud father. ‘She’s very good at handling people. She’s also very shrewd. She knew we had a serious problem.’
Crowther scribbled in his notebook. Hogan looked from Banham to Crowther and back again. Banham said nothing.
‘Sophie suggested I sack Vincent,’ Hogan continued after a few seconds. ‘She thought that would sort out all our problems.’ He lifted the top off a tin and picked up a spoon. ‘I told her that wasn’t an option. Vincent is a well-known television presenter and the audiences were buying tickets to see him.’ He pulled a sideways expression. ‘Sophie had already thought about that. I might have known she’d have worked it out.’ He spooned sugar into a mug of coffee, which he handed to Banham. ‘She said I should play the role.’ Banham watched him adding sugar to another cup as he explained, ‘She said we didn’t need him to pull in audiences any more, as the tickets were already sold for most of the run. Barbara would be less insecure if I was playing the comic, and I could sort out Lucinda and Barbara’s differences.’
‘Could anyone have overheard this discussion?’ Banham asked him.
‘Everyone else was on stage at the time.’ Hogan handed Crowther the coffee. ‘And by then it was getting near the ultraviolet scene and Sophie had to go down herself. But I agreed to give it some thought.’
‘And did you?’
‘Yes. I walked Sophie to the stage, then I went down to the basement into the juveniles’ room; the kids were all on stage so I knew I’d have ten minutes of peace and quiet.’
Crowther looked up from his notebook. ‘So you were on your own in the juveniles’ room when the UV scene took place?’ he asked.
‘Actually no.’ He paused. ‘Maggie McCormack came in.’
‘I thought you said you saw her earlier going out through to the auditorium to watch the show,’ Banham said quickly.
Crowther was having trouble writing; his pen seemed to be running out of ink.
‘And I stayed there, thinking, right through that scene,’ Hogan said.
‘Did you come to any decision?’ Banham asked.
Hogan lowered his eyes again. ‘Yes. I decided that I would go with Sophie’s suggestion and get rid of Vincent Mann.’
The only sound was from Crowther’s biro scribbling on the corner of the notepad. Banham pulled a pen from his pocket and handed it to him.
‘Is there anything else?’ Hogan asked. ‘Only I want to take this coffee down to your sergeant.’
‘What alerted you to the incident on the stage?’ Banham asked.
‘The tannoy was on in the children’s room and I heard the curtain being brought in. So I ran upstairs and … well, Sophie said there’d been an accident, and the ambulance was on its way. I made the announcement to the audience, I told them they could all have tickets for another show. Not that there are many left.’
He indicated the coffee.
‘Yes, go ahead,’ Banham said.
‘And you’ll let me know if I can run the show tomorrow?’
Banham tried not to let his irritation show. A nineteen-year-old girl had just lost her life, yet the man only seemed interested in keeping the ticket sales going. ‘I can’t make a decision on that just yet,’ he said. ‘The forensics team have a lot to do.’
‘Will I know tonight? Only I’ll have a lot to sort out.’
‘You won’t get the costumes back by tomorrow,’ Banham said abruptly. ‘Forensics will need them for quite some time.’
Hogan gripped the tray more tightly. He looked at Crowther and then back to Banham. ‘I see,’ he said hesitantly.
Banham opened the door for him. ‘I’ll keep you informed,’ he said.
Hogan still didn’t leave the room. ‘The cast are planning to stay here tonight,’ he said apprehensively. ‘The roads are pretty bad, and the last buses and trains have gone now. They’ve all slept on the floor many times when the weather’s been too bad to travel. I hope that’s all right with you.’
Banham nodded. ‘As long as they stay away from the stage.’
Banham had been looking forward to the coffee, but screwed his face up after the first mouthful. ‘Not enough sugar,’ he said as soon as Michael Hogan was out of earshot.
‘I’ll drink it, guv,’ Crowther said. ‘There’s a machine in the Green Room. As it’s the season of goodwill, I’ll treat you to a plastic cup of instant.’
‘I’d sooner you treated yourself to a biro that works,’ Banham told him.
The door to the Green Room was next to an enormous mirror that took up three-quarters of the wall at the end of the corridor. The door was ajar, and the mirror reflected the inside of the room. Banham stopped a few feet from the open door and took the opportunity to study the cast members who were gathered there.
In one corner of the Green Room stood a vending machine. Beside it a lopsided plastic Christmas tree had been carelessly planted in a black bucket with torn Christmas paper wrapped around it. The tree was bare, apart from a grubby white fairy who had slipped and now hung sideways from the dusty top branch. On the floor beside the tree sat three young blonde women and a large black man.
‘The chorus?’ Banham asked Crowther in a low voice.
Crowther nodded, and pointed to another blonde girl, wearing a pink velour track suit and pink trainers with flashing lights on the sides. Her hair was pulled off her face and secured with a raspberry pink velour scrunchie into a long ponytail that trailed down her back. She was sitting on her own, sipping from a plastic cup.
‘Sophie Flint, the choreographer, guv. And that –’ Crowther pointed to an enormous man sitting a few yards away, his bulk overhanging both sides of his canvas-backed chair, ‘That’s the man that plays the dame, and hadn’t changed his costume when he should have.’
Banham studied the fat man, then turned his attention to a tall, handsome woman who sat in the next chair. ‘Presumably the older woman is the formidable Barbara Denis,’ he asked.
Crowther nodded.
‘Now why did I know you’d have spoken to all the young women, but not the older one?’
‘Not on purpose, guv.’
‘Good! You can interview Barbara Denis now. I’ll talk to the fat man. That just leaves Vincent Mann, the one who dialled 999.’
‘And took the balaclava off the dead girl,’ Crowther reminded his boss.
Vincent Mann was easy to spot in the mirror, even though his head was buried in his hands. He wore a bright yellow, blue and red jacket and bright buttercup yellow shoes. Another man sat in the chair next to him, holding a half-full glass. He was older, with flyaway grey hair and a red, blotchy complexion. Alan McCormack, Banham thought, the stage manager who had been in the pub.
‘Make sure uniform takes a statement from the stage manager,’ he told Crowther.
‘So are we releasing the actors after we talk to them?’
Banham rubbed his fingers across his mouth. ‘They’re staying in the building tonight. If possible, I’d like to let the show go on. It’ll keep the suspects together while we gather information.’
Crowther took his notebook from his pocket. ‘All right if I hang on to your biro till the morning, guv?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘You know, I reckon that pathologist fancies you.’ Crowther gave Banham a cheeky wink.
‘Whatever gives you that idea?’
‘She’s going to get the post-mortem done in the morning. It’s holiday time – that’s a favour she’s doing you.’
‘She’ll get paid,’ Banham said crisply, to cover his embarrassment. ‘And you said yourself, it’s the season of goodwill.’
‘True.’
‘I’m glad you agree.’ Banham smiled. ‘In that case, you can stay here for the night with the actors.’ He lowered his voice. ‘This wasn’t a freak accident. You know it, and I know it. Someone in this building has committed murder.’
Alison tried to push her hurt feelings to the back of her mind and get on with her job. She and Paul Banham had been friends as well as close colleagues for years, and he always asked for her to be assigned to his murder enquiries. He had spent months dropping hints, and when she finally agreed to an evening out they’d had a great time – then he came out with the old ‘business and pleasure don’t mix’ number.
Despite her confusion, and anger, she wanted to be here working with him. He was a great detective, and her work was her life, so she had to put the personal issues out of her mind. She had six shivering children to interview in the freezing basement under the stage.
As she entered the children’s dressing room, a sudden flood of childhood memories hit her. Nothing seemed to have changed since her own days as a pantomime juvenile. White ballerina costumes, silver lurex finale dresses, sailor costumes, coloured peasant skirts, chiffon harem outfits were all bunched on a sagging clothes rail on the far side of the long room. In a tidy row at the base of the rail were rows of tiny ballet slippers, black tap-dancing shoes and small black flippers.
Chairs spread with brightly coloured towels marked each child’s territory. On the towels stood bright lipsticks and black eye pencils, and photographs of JLS or McFly, and one of a beautiful chestnut pony mounted in a pink fluffy heart-shaped photo frame.
Suddenly the face of Simon le Bon jumped into Alison’s mind. He was the one who smiled down from the mirror beside Alison’s place in the dressing room all those years ago and got the plump teenager through the endless costume changes and teasing.
She had been a chubby tomboy who liked nothing more than playing football with her army sergeant father. But her mother had sent her to a local dance academy, telling her it would help with her weight and posture.
All the children in the class were expected to be ‘babes’ in the pantomime at the local theatre every Christmas, and th
ey all loved it. All except Alison. She had been a fish out of water. But she said nothing; her mother so enjoyed being backstage, sewing sequins and making costumes that made Alison look slimmer. It was then, at the age of nine, that she began to watch what she ate, and her weight started to drop.
The dance classes continued till she was fourteen. Then one of her classmates ran away from home, and she was allowed to help with the search; once involved with the local police she was hooked, and told her parents she wanted to be a detective. Her mother offered to take her to self-defence classes in place of dancing school, and she happily swapped pink leotards and tap shoes for a judo kit. She was a natural; even now she would happily barge into a fight, and could always hold her own with the boys.
But she continued to count calories, and felt guilty every time she ate a large meal. Even now, aged thirty-four, she weighed less than nine stone, light for her five foot seven frame. She still sometimes swallowed too many laxatives, and often fasted for a couple of days. The rest of the team often joked about how skinny she was, and secretly she enjoyed it.
She stared at herself in the huge mirrors, despising the two extra pounds that clung to her body after Christmas, and wondering if Banham might find her desirable again when she shed them.
She rubbed her gloved hands together to keep circulation moving. It was far too cold in here to keep children hanging around. She left the dressing room and made her way along the under-stage passageway, where the little girls were sitting with their parents, huddled into their coats and scarves.
‘I won’t be a minute – I’m going to look for some heaters,’ she told them.
‘They’re not allowed,’ said one of the mothers. ‘Fire regulations.’
‘If they’re so keen they should put in a fire escape,’ Alison retorted. ‘Those spiral staircases aren’t much good in an emergency.’
‘It’s there.’ The mother indicated a large double door with a fat double lock on the inside, only just visible behind three heavy wicker skips, overflowing and piled high with dusty costumes.
Alison tried to pull one of the skips back and the mother jumped up to help. ‘Sorry,’ she said as one of the dads joined her and dragged it away from the exit. ‘It’s my fault, I’m in charge of the costumes. We’re so short of space down here.’