by Linda Regan
Alison looked up as he walked in. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms; she held his eyes for a moment, and when he didn’t speak she lowered her head and carried on writing her statement. ‘Was anyone with you, Maggie, when you were watching the show from the audience?’ she asked the woman.
‘No, I was alone.’
‘Where did you sit exactly?’
The woman took a couple of seconds to think. ‘In the front stalls, row D, at the end. It’s an usherette’s seat.’
‘Which side?’
‘Stage left, the same side as the pass door, but from the auditorium it would be on the right. Does that make sense?’
‘Perfectly,’ Alison nodded curtly. ‘It says here that you do the wardrobe and look after the children and generally help backstage.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ The woman’s smile was as artificial as her nails, Alison thought. ‘I’m married to the stage manager, who also plays Alderman Fitzwarren. So I help out if he’s on stage, or …’ She paused. ‘Or not around.’ A frown spread across her forehead. ‘I thought they could manage in the UV scene, they normally do, so I popped out to watch the routine from the front.’
‘Could the usherettes vouch for you being there?’
Maggie lifted a beautifully manicured hand and raked her fingers though her highlighted hair. A thick gold watch was evident, and her nails were painted to match the maroon jacket she wore over brown leather trousers.
Alison waited, pen poised.
‘Yes,’ Maggie said. ‘If they were down the front they would have seen me.’
‘And you saw the entire ultraviolet routine?’
‘Yes. I knew something was wrong at the end because they don’t usually bring in the curtain. That’s when I ran back.’ She swallowed and paused to compose herself. ‘That’s when I saw poor Lucinda.’
‘How did the routine appear to you, up until then?’ Alison asked her.
‘No different from usual.’
‘Go on.’
Maggie turned to her daughter. ‘Fay would be the best person to ask. She’s in the show – she plays Dick Whittington’s cat.’
Fay should have been in the Green Room with the rest of the cast, Banham thought. But he let Alison continue.
Alison’s eyes remained on Maggie. She put her hand up to hush Fay before she could speak. ‘I was asking you how the scene looked from the audience.’
‘You don’t notice the bad choreography from the front,’ Maggie said after a beat. ‘I only know because I was a dancer, and Fay knows because she is in it. But the audience ooh and aah in all the right places, so they obviously enjoy it.’
‘OK, what do you think?’ Alison asked Fay.
‘I’m in the row in front of the other principals,’ the girl said. ‘We can’t see the row behind, but ours never goes wrong. We don’t make mistakes.’
Banham interrupted. ‘Do you ever hear them bump into each other?’ he asked her.
She threw him a look of pure disdain. ‘We can’t hear very much; we’re wearing balaclavas over our heads and ears.’
‘But you heard the bump at the end of the routine when Lucinda fell?’ Alison asked.
‘Yes. You can hear a bit. Sometimes I hear Barbara telling people to fuck off. She goes wrong all the time and blames everyone else.’
‘Fay! Language!’
Maggie gave her daughter’s shoulder a little shake and Fay tossed her head. ‘Well, she does.’
The girl lapsed into sullen silence and Alison looked from mother to daughter and back again. ‘The show’s only been open for what, a week?’ she asked.
They both nodded, Fay with a show of reluctance.
‘So what do you mean, she goes wrong all the time?’
‘Oh, we do this routine every year,’ the girl said.
‘Which of the principals have done it before?’ Banham cut in.
‘I have,’ Fay said quickly. ‘I’m a principal now.’
Alison smiled, remembering how desperately her young dancer friends had wanted to be principals. The thought had filled her with horror.
‘Anyone else?’ she asked.
‘Sophie.’ Fay’s mouth twisted into a scowl. ‘She’s in it every year, and she’s choreographed since she was eighteen.’
‘Don’t you like her?’ Alison asked.
‘They were juves together, it’s just childish competition,’ Maggie said with a shrug. ‘They get on fine, really. Barbara’s the unpopular one, everyone hates her.’
‘Is Barbara unpopular with all the cast?’ Alison asked Fay.
Fay looked at her mother; Maggie nodded.
‘Yes, we all hate her. She picks on everyone. She’s always telling us that she’s the star. I play her cat, so I have to trail around by her heels right through the show. She’s always telling me I go wrong in the dances, but it’s her that goes wrong, not me.’
‘Fay’s been dancing all her life,’ Maggie said.
‘Is she the star, or is Vincent Mann?’ Banham interrupted.
‘Oh, the audiences love Vincent,’ Fay said. ‘He’s really famous, he’s on television. But Barbara has her name on top of the poster and is in the star dressing room, so she thinks she can pick on everyone.’
‘Did she pick on Lucinda today?’ Banham asked.
Fay nodded. ‘She made her cry.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she said Lucinda was messing up the love duet and singing flat.’
‘What did you think of Lucinda?’ Banham asked Fay.
The girl looked sad. ‘I felt sorry for her. She was always crying.’
Banham spoke gently. ‘Did she talk to you a lot?’
Maggie frowned at her daughter and Fay shook her head.
‘Who picked on her the most?’
Maggie and Fay spoke together. ‘Sophie Flint.’
Alison’s eyes widened.
‘Sophie is Michael’s adopted daughter, and she thinks she’s the bee’s knees,’ Maggie said. ‘She isn’t even very good, which is why the dances are a mess, but she’d never admit that. She walks around wearing a T-shirt with I’m a Choreographer, Call Me God written across it. That just about sums her up.’
Banham picked up a plastic chair and placed it beside Alison. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Paul Banham, I work with Alison. He looked at Fay. ‘So Sophie blamed Lucinda if things went wrong?’
‘Well, she couldn’t pick on Barbara,’ Maggie cut in quickly. ‘Barbara’s even tougher than she is. So she took it out on Lucinda. There wasn’t anyone else.’ She faced the two detectives. ‘She knows my Fay doesn’t make mistakes.’
Alison lowered her eyes. Nothing changes, she thought. In her day all the mothers, including her own, believed their little girls were stars in the making. They were seldom right.
‘Tell me about the male members of the cast.’ Banham said to Fay.
Again, Maggie answered. ‘Stephen Coombs has got a terrible temper, so Sophie stays out of his way. And Vincent Mann is terribly neurotic so Sophie wouldn’t want to upset him. He’s the one pulling in the audiences.’
‘Did any of the men pick on Lucinda?’ Alison said.
Maggie looked at Fay. ‘She irritated Uncle Stephen,’ the girl said. ‘He was always telling her off, and they had a terrible row on the first night.’
‘What over?’ Banham asked.
‘He said she killed one of his laughs.’
Banham looked puzzled and Alison explained, ‘She spoke her line without waiting for the audience to react to his, so he missed getting the laugh on one of his jokes.’
‘You are well-informed,’ Maggie said.
‘I read a lot. And it’s fairly obvious!’
‘How were the other men with Lucinda?’ Banham asked Fay.
‘Vincent liked her a lot. He stuck up for her when Barbara and Stephen picked on her.’
‘Is that all the men?’ Banham asked.
‘Apart from Alan, my husband,’ Maggie said.
‘And there’s Trevor, the black dancer,’ Fay said. ‘But he’s only chorus, and dancers always keep themselves to themselves.’
Alison scribbled in her notebook as Banham asked Fay, ‘What about tonight? Did you see Lucinda fall at the end of the routine?’
Fay’s voice rose a notch, and she started to get distressed. ‘No, I heard scrambling behind me. That was the principals trying to get into their places. I’m in the line in front with the children, not because I’m a juvenile, but because I’m small. Then I heard a crash on my right.’
‘Where exactly were you standing?’
Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘I’m centre stage at the end of the routine, of course.’
Alison fought the urge to smile. The girl was so proud of being centre stage, in the dark, in a black costume that no one would see.
Fay continued, ‘I looked over in the direction of the noise but I couldn’t see anything. I assumed someone had fallen getting into position. Then we got up, and the children walked off …’ She paused. ‘Lucinda didn’t move,’ she said, fighting back tears. ‘Someone shouted, “Bring the curtain in.” Lindsay, one of the dancers, ran off and started to bring the curtain in. Vincent was kneeling beside Lucinda; he was pulling her balaclava from her head and trying to wake her.’
Banham and Alison made eye contact.
‘Then Trevor ran to help Lindsay. The curtain is so heavy, it’s impossible to do on your own. It always gets stuck.’
‘And was Stephen around?’ Banham asked.
‘I didn’t notice,’ Maggie answered quickly.
‘Did you notice?’ he asked Fay.
‘No, we had balaclavas on, it’s hard to see anything.’
‘But you saw Lindsay and Trevor pull in the curtain and Vincent run to Lucinda?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Thank you,’ Alison said. She lifted the untidy bundle of statements and tapped the edges together on the laundry basket.
‘Can we go?’ Maggie asked. ‘It’s freezing down here.’
Banham nodded and huddled into his sheepskin coat. He couldn’t argue with that.
‘I’ve spoken to all the juveniles,’ Alison said when Maggie and Fay had gone.
‘I thought that young madam was a principal. Why wasn’t she in the Green Room?’
‘Her mother was down here sorting out the children’s costumes. I suppose she was helping.’
Banham sighed. ‘Not very good as doing as they’re told, are they?’
‘Anyway,’ Alison went on, ‘she reckons the principals often go wrong in that UV routine.’ She looked at Banham. ‘If that’s the case, it could mean not everyone was where they should have been when Lucinda fell.’
Banham picked up her train of thought. ‘And no one is sure who is who, with everyone from head to toe in black, and no lighting.’
Alison nodded, and they said almost in unison, ‘So someone could have been trying to kill someone else.’
In the pause that followed, Alison pulled off her woolly cap and shook her long, crinkly, mousy hair free. It fell over her face and she lifted it with a cupped hand and pushed it back over her head, then squashed the cap into her coat pocket. Banham loved her hair. It reminded him of an Airedale dog.
She saw him looking at her. ‘Something on your mind?’ she said.
He cast about for something to say. ‘I hope you enjoyed the coffee,’ was the best he could come up with. ‘The vending machine stuff was disgusting.’
‘I think Michael Hogan was trying to get round me. He kept asking if the show would be able to carry on. His year’s income depends on what he makes at Christmas, apparently.’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘I told him I was only a sergeant, and you make all the decisions.’
Banham opened the coffee pot and smelled the dregs of the coffee. ‘I’m letting the show continue,’ he said. ‘We can’t do anything until we get the results of the post-mortem, anyway. And if we keep it running, we’ll know where all the suspects are.’ He rubbed his hands to warm them. ‘Eight o’clock tomorrow morning for a briefing. Hopefully we’ll have the post-mortem result around lunchtime. You can come back here before tomorrow’s matinee and take DNA swabs from everyone.’
She nodded, and he gazed at her for a moment.
‘What?’ she said with a small smile.
‘I like your hair loose,’ he said quietly. ‘And I am sorry for last week,’ he added after a pause.
He turned and left the room. Alison followed, and found him by the fire exit.
‘That’s it, is it?’ she said. ‘You lead me on, let me down at the last minute, then say sorry and it’s all forgotten?’
‘I don’t know what else to …’
‘Oh, leave it,’ she said sharply. ‘We’ve got a job to do.’
She wasn’t sure, but she thought he gave a small sigh of relief. Her throat thickened and she coughed to clear it. ‘There’s something else you should know about.’ She turned back into the juveniles’ room. ‘There’s a door, behind that clothes rail.’ She pointed to the corner of the room. ‘Michael Hogan brought the coffee through it. There’s another of those spiral staircases – according to Michael, it comes out next to the dressing rooms on the ground floor. Then if you go up another staircase, there’s another door next to the mirror by the Green Room. He said no one ever uses it. It’s rumoured to be haunted.’
Banham stepped behind the clothes rail and examined the wall. ‘The weather’s getting worse,’ he said. ‘Do you want a lift home?’ He took a deep breath. ‘You could leave your car here; we’re coming back after the morning meeting.’ He rattled the door handle as an excuse to keep his back to Alison.
‘No, thank you. I’d sooner take my own car.’
He turned the handle and felt for the light switch. The passageway was filthy, but the centre was noticeably less dusty. ‘Either ghosts walk up and down this passageway, or it’s used quite a lot,’ he said. ‘I’ll get forensics to have a look in here after they finish on stage.’ He paused. ‘It’s snowing hard out there. It makes sense to take one car.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ll know you got home safely. And I need you on this case. And … you’re tired.’
‘Yes, I am,’ she agreed. ‘I’m tired of being patronised. You’re a bad driver.’
He smiled. ‘I thought for a minute you were going to say I was a bad lover.’
‘How would I know?’
Chapter Five
The full investigation team was gathered in the incident room, watching footage taken the previous night by the police photographer. The camera shot showed Lucinda’s body lying at the side of the stage with the concrete weight beside her head, then widened out to take in the area that surrounded the fatality. The fact that the very pretty DC Walsh had seated herself next to Banham hadn’t gone unnoticed by Alison Grainger.
DC Crowther entered the incident room and the aroma of fried bacon, freshly baked bread and tomato sauce followed. He handed a bap overflowing with bacon and a greasy fried egg to Banham.
‘Good man,’ Banham said, unwrapping the serviette. ‘How was your night in the theatre?’
‘Very interesting,’ Crowther said with a mischievous wink. ‘I slept on a chair in the chorus room, with three blondes huddled together in sleeping bags on the floor and a six-foot black poof next to them. Sarge?’ He offered the leaking paper bag to Alison. She would have loved a bacon and egg roll but she shook her head. She intended to shed those two pounds that she had put on over Christmas as quickly as possible. She buried her nose in the cardboard cup of black coffee she was nursing to stop herself inhaling the scent and giving in to temptation.
‘Only Know-all Col could find a café open on Sunday morning two days after Christmas,’ DC Walsh said, taking a sandwich from him without so much as a thank you.
Crowther had earned his nickname Know-all Col in the murder squad because he always seemed to know where to go for what was needed and at the exactly the right mo
ment. His dad was a scrap metal dealer, and his consequent connections with some of the most notorious gangsters in the area accessed some useful contacts. He was still in his twenties, and, like Isabelle Walsh, desperate for promotion.
He had tried his luck with Isabelle many times, but always got turned down. Alison knew Isabelle was too ambitious to settle for a DC; she had her sights set much higher. She had been in CID for two years; Alison still remembered sourly how stunning she used to look in uniform. She was like a young Vivien Leigh: perfect features, delicate ears and a cute button nose, and no matter how she wore her shoulder-length dark hair, the hat always flattered her. Most of the men in the station fancied her, and she made full use of it to get what she wanted in the force; it hadn’t taken her long to make the jump to Murder Division.
Alison’s morale was low after the time she had been forced to spend staring at her reflection in the theatre’s wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. She was only too aware that her own nose was anything but cute, and her wide face far from perfect. She watched Isabelle bite into the sandwich and hoover the bacon into her mouth. The amount of carbohydrates the girl could eat seriously irritated her. She’d have to starve herself for a waist as tiny as Isabelle’s.
Suddenly she was aware Banham was looking at her. She immediately took a large swig of the black coffee.
‘Not hungry?’ he asked her.
She shook her head. ‘I’ve eaten,’ she lied.
He stood up to start the briefing. She noticed he hadn’t shaved, and found that a turn-on. She gave herself a shake.Business only, she reminded herself firmly.
‘At this moment, we have nothing but gut instinct to tell us this is a murder enquiry,’ Banham said. ‘We should have the results of the post-mortem by midday today; that will tell us whether there was brain movement after the blow and before the fall. If there was, we have a case.’
DC Crowther, keen to let everyone know he was pulling strings, interrupted through a mouthful of BLT. ‘Penny’s at the lab, working her holiday to try to get us something.’