by Linda Regan
‘And you didn’t see him?’
‘No, guv, I didn’t as it happens.’
‘So they could be mistaken?’
‘I’d say that’s unlikely. It would have taken about ten minutes to push the scenery on – they’d have it timed down to the last second. I saw them leave the backstage area as Trevor left the stage. So Coombs had time to follow Sophie into the basement, kill her and come back up the same staircase, then squeeze around the back of the set, change his costume …’
‘And go up to Michael’s office to give himself an alibi,’ Banham finished. ‘Just one thing, though – when did he get the knife?’
‘That I don’t know, guv. Perhaps it was premeditated and he had it in his costume. He has got form. Isabelle checked his CRO. He attacked someone called Joseph Blake. With a knife.’
Stephen Coombs blew his nose into a tissue, examined the contents and sniffed noisily as he dropped the paper into the bin and pulled a greying handkerchief from his pocket.
Banham said, ‘I want you to go through your movements from your last appearance on stage, up until we found Sophie’s body at 3.23 p.m.’
Stephen shifted nervously in his seat in front of his dressing room mirror, and tugged the enormous beige cardigan he was wearing around his vast bulk. Banham and Alison stood close to him, leaning against the Formica-covered shelving in front of the mirrors.
When Alison picked up her notebook and turned to a clean page, he covered his mouth with a grubby hand and bit into the skin by his thumbnail.
He started to speak very quickly, his eyes darting from Banham to Alison and back. ‘Lucinda’s death had left us all at sixes and sevens, see. The Only Man on the Island scene didn’t go well. Barbara was angry and Vincent was being his usual prattish self, no bloody help to anyone. We had two understudies on stage and all he could do was make jokes at everyone’s expense. That made me angry, see.’
He paused and looked at Alison. When she stopped scribbling and looked up he carried on. ‘It don’t seem important now, but I was doing my best to hold the scene together. Maggie couldn’t see out of the cat costume – the head had slipped. Barbara was too self-absorbed to notice, so little Fay was guiding her round the stage. Maggie should have been next to Barbara, but she stayed close to Fay because Fay held her hand, see. Then Vincent started going off the script, and Alan walked off. The scene went from bad to worse.’
Banham looked at Alison, unsure what Stephen was talking about.
‘So you were very angry when you left the stage?’ Alison said, looking up from her notebook.
‘I’m a professional, love,’ Stephen answered. ‘Vincent needed reporting. Instead of helping, he made fun of Maggie and Fay and scored laughs at their expense.’ He shifted in his chair and tugged at the beige cardigan, which was trapped under his large bottom. ‘Any professional would have been angry.’
‘In what order did you come off the stage?’ Banham asked.
Stephen’s eyes shifted sideways. ‘I always come off first, always – I have costume changes …’
‘Where did you come off?’ Banham interrupted.
‘I do that change in my dressing room. I have time to get there and change during the dance. Sometimes when I’m in a hurry I have to change at the side of the stage, see…’
Banham interrupted him again. ‘Which side of the stage was this?’
Stephen stared into his capacious lap. ‘I make my exits on the side nearest my dressing room. It gives me more time …’
‘And you did that today?’ It was Alison’s turn to interrupt.
He nodded, chewing more skin off his thumb. ‘And Sophie always exits on the other side. Fairies come off and on at the opposite-prompt side, see; that’s the rule in panto. It’s the side of the good.’
‘Just the relevant facts, please,’ Banham said sharply.
‘It is relevant, mate!’ Stephen slumped even further back in his chair.
‘So you came off on the stage left side?’ Alison repeated.
‘Yes.’
There was a brief silence while Alison made a note. Stephen shifted uneasily.
‘Did Sophie always cross under the stage after that entrance?’ Alison asked him.
‘Oh, I couldn’t be sure of that, lass. I just rush and do my change, see. But I expect she would have done what she always does; why wouldn’t she?’
‘I don’t know,’ Banham said, ‘but I’ll find out. So you did your change, and then what?’
‘I came looking for Michael. You saw me. You were there when I came up to the office.’ His voice picked up speed again. ‘I wanted to report Vincent, see.’ He suddenly stopped for a second, then said quietly, ‘Seems petty now. But the truth is, Vincent Mann’s a prat. He knows nothing, it’s his first pantomime, and my twenty-second …’
‘Not a quick change then,’ Banham said dryly. ‘If you had time to do all that.’
‘Where did you go then?’ Alison asked coldly.
‘Back downstairs. I went to the bog before my next entrance, in the Sultan of Morocco’s palace. That’s when Sophie should have been there, and that’s when you two came and joined us.’
‘Did you see anyone in the toilet downstairs?’
He shook his head. ‘I saw Barbara walking toward the stage in time for her entrance as I came out.’
Banham watched Stephen carefully. ‘We’ll need the costume you changed out of – the red and white bathing costume. We need to send it along to the lab with the others. Where would it be?’
Stephen was silent for a second. ‘In the laundry basket, outside in the corridor. I was sweating like a pig in that last scene. It needs a wash.’
He became very uneasy, flicking his eyes away from Banham to Alison, then down to the floor. After a long moment Banham said, ‘Sergeant, go and get that costume, and make sure it goes to forensics.’
Alison left the room. Beads of sweat had broken out on Stephen Coombs’s temple. He pulled out his grubby handkerchief to dab the perspiration, and Banham noticed a small tic at the top of his fat upper lip.
Banham spoke again. ‘Last night during the ultraviolet scene, you didn’t do your normal costume change. Why was that?’
‘Of course I did. Who told you I didn’t?’ Before Banham could answer, he carried on, ‘I always change while the scene is going on, see. I change into the red and white bathing costume for the Only Man on the Island scene.’
‘From your green dress?’
He dabbed at his perspiration again. ‘That’s right.’
‘Sophie Flint told us she saw you after the ultraviolet scene, and you were still wearing your green outfit. In fact, she was going to make an official statement this afternoon at the station saying just that.’
Stephen shook his head and wiped his hands on the grey handkerchief. ‘How would she know?’ For the first time he looked Banham in the eye. ‘She can’t see two inches in front of her without her glasses, and she don’t wear them during the show. Did she say she saw me after the UV scene?’
Banham nodded. Perspiration was still breaking out at Stephen’s temple and running down his face. ‘When the ambulance arrived?’ he demanded.
Banham nodded again, keeping steely eyes on the nervous man.
‘I was cold. It gets bloody cold backstage, see, and that bathing costume is flimsy.’ His voice had risen in pitch as well as volume. ‘I put my dressing gown on over it. My green dressing gown. See?’ He gestured with his head to the back of the door, where a dark green dressing gown was hanging. ‘There. Satisfied now, are you?’
Banham said nothing for a few moments, and Stephen’s face grew even more sweaty.
‘Tell me about the GBH incident you were arrested for.’
The colour drained from the big man’s face. ‘I might have known that would come up.’ He leaned forward and Banham got a whiff of his body odour. ‘It was seventeen years ago, and it’s none of your business. I’m not under arrest. You’ve seen my dressing gown. You’ve got nothing on
me.’
The door opened and Alison’s head appeared. ‘Can I have a word, guv?’ she said urgently.
Chapter Twelve
Banham followed her into the corridor.
‘It’s not there, guv.’ Alison lifted the fraying lid of a wicker laundry basket standing against the wall next to the toilet door. ‘A few sweaty socks, half a dozen pairs of tights, one white shirt. No red and white bathing costume.’
Stephen had poked his head out of the dressing room door. He was watching and listening.
‘Well then, someone’s took it,’ he shouted down the corridor. The fear in his voice was clear.
‘I tell you, I bloody put it there,’ he shouted as Alison and Banham returned to his room and closed the door behind them. A spot of saliva landed on Banham’s cheek. ‘Some bastard’s taken it if it isn’t there. That’s where I bloody put it, see.’
Banham lifted a hand and wiped his cheek on the cuff of his sheepskin jacket.
‘Ask Maggie. She’s in charge of wardrobe.’ Stephen’s voice was now unsteady.
Banham turned and walked toward the door.
Stephen then turned to Alison, his voice rose in pitch. ‘What is this?’ he shouted accusingly at her.
Banham swung round. ‘This,’ he said angrily, ‘is a murder enquiry. And you, Mr Coombs, are a suspect. You are not free to leave the building.’ He opened the door. ‘Sergeant Grainger will escort you back to the stage. You’ll wait there until I decide what to do next.’
Stephen turned a grubby finger in the end of his nose. He struggled to get out of the chair, and when he succeeded he walked through the door without looking at Banham.
When Alison returned from escorting Coombs back to the stage, Banham was walking the corridor from the dressing room to the phone at the stage door.
‘Maggie McCormack said she hasn’t been near the laundry basket,’ Alison told him. ‘She was playing the cat, and had no time to cover the wardrobe duties as well. Shall I get DC Walsh to take Coombs to the station for further questioning?’
He rubbed his mouth in a familiar gesture, his mind still on the distance between the stage door telephone and the dressing room. ‘Not for the moment,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Let’s see if we can find the costume.’
He continued down the corridor and stopped outside the chorus room, looked to his right towards the door to the haunted passage, then back to the stage door.
‘We’ll take Maggie McCormack’s statement next,’ he said still absorbed in his train of thought. ‘Forensics have been over all the dressing rooms, haven’t they?’
‘Yes, guv. And uniform have searched every inch of the building. They’ve brought their best dog in now. If the weapon’s here they’ll find it.’
‘Good.’ He opened the door to the chorus room. ‘Bring Fay in after we’ve spoken to Maggie, and Maggie can stay with her if she likes.’
‘The chorus have asked if they can go home. Crowther’s taken their statements. They were all on stage at the time of the murder, so they can’t be suspects. Shall I let them go?’
He looked up. ‘No one goes,’ he said sharply. ‘Not until I have read and approved the statements.’
‘Fine,’ she said, giving him her squirrelly look. ‘Why don’t you get yourself a coffee from the machine upstairs?’
He didn’t answer, but when she went to get Maggie, he went to the Green Room and did as she suggested. The coffee was sweet and frothy, and it hit the right spot. He bought Alison a cup too, careful to press the No Sugar button.
In the chorus room he had to move an assortment of make-up and sweet wrappers to find a place to put the plastic cups down. He pushed half-drunk, lipstick-stained bottles of mineral water to one end. He was amazed at the quantity of make-up, brushes and gadgets the young dancers needed. Three gadgets were plugged into a single adapter in the wall socket – a pair of curling tongs, something with “hair straightener” written across the plastic casing and a third he couldn’t make out. He turned it one way then another, then squinted between the ridges; finally, holding it at an angle towards the light, he made out the word “Crimpers”. He was none the wiser, but they all felt too hot, so he pulled the plugs from the wall.
In the far corner stood a tall can of men’s deodorant, and a red plastic container with Afro-Caribbean Powder written across the lid. A packet of Marlboro Lights also marked the place, a green plastic throwaway lighter beside them. He didn’t need his detective skills to work out that they belonged to Trevor Bruce, the boy dancer, who had obviously moved in with the girls to keep them company since the death of Lucinda.
Maggie and Fay had made themselves a place at the other side of the room, on the floor in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror. With a shock he caught sight of the back of his head in the mirror; his balding patch was worse than he had thought. He told himself he wouldn’t worry about it; at least he had lived long enough to start ageing. Nevertheless he lifted the collar of his sheepskin coat to hide the view.
He sipped the coffee and read the messages on the Good Luck cards that decorated the mirrors in front of the crowded dressing table. There was a card signed by Lucinda, and another from Sophie, both written only days ago. Now both of them were dead. A deep sick feeling filled the pit of his stomach, and he didn’t know if it was grief for himself or for the girls’ families.
One thing he did know was that four of his team were on duty, and they had failed to prevent a second murder. Sophie’s mother would never wake up happy again.
He gave himself a mental shake. Alison was right: if he let his personal feelings get in the way, they would cloud his thinking and give the killer an edge. But Banham wasn’t a quitter; he was going to put this murderer behind bars. Sophie’s mother wouldn’t be let down as he had been over his lovely Diane and little Elizabeth. This was the reason he had moved from uniform to CID and applied to join the murder division: to bring killers to justice.
His mind was working overtime: how long would it take to come off the stage, get the knife from wherever the killer had hidden it, then get down in the basement, cut Sophie’s throat, come back up one of the staircases, hide the knife again and go to wherever they had to be on the stage – all without anyone noticing? Whoever had murdered Sophie would have had to be quick; getting the knife from its hiding place would take time … unless …
A light seemed to go on inside his head. What if the knife was hidden somewhere on the stage? That was the one area which hadn’t had a thorough search.
A maroon sheepskin jacket hung on a rail by the door. Banham recognised it as Maggie McCormack’s; she had been wearing it last night, after Lucinda’s death. He slipped his hand into the pocket and felt a piece of paper. He pulled out a cheque, made out to her, signed by Michael – for the sum of five thousand pounds. He quickly replaced it as the door opened; Alison came in, followed by Maggie.
Maggie settled herself on the canvas chair in the corner without waiting to be asked. She was dressed in her street clothes, a white, low-cut T-shirt, heavily decorated with silver diamantes and tucked into figure-hugging jeans. She crossed her legs so that the frayed slit on the top of the thigh was in full view, allowing tanned skin to peep through. She clutched the edge of her red angora cardigan round her shoulders as if she was cold.
Her eyes were very brown and set quite close together, and her hair heavily streaked with thick blonde highlights. Banham perched on the far end of the dresser, arms folded. He watched her for a few moments; she checked her appearance in the mirror and lifted a hand, heavily decorated with gold jewellery, to hook a lock of hair behind her ear. He realised she wasn’t cold at all, but was holding the cardigan to prevent it obscuring his view of her ample bosom. She hooked her hair behind her ear again, apparently enjoying the attention.
Alison settled in a chair next to Banham and opened her notebook.
‘When was the last time you saw Sophie?’ he asked Maggie.
Maggie voice had a hard edge and she had obviously tr
ained herself not to drop her h’s and t’s. But she hadn’t trained away her flat Estuary accent. ‘To talk to?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘In the interval, when we were rehearsing the moves for the UV scene.’
Banham’s hand unconsciously strayed to his mouth.
‘But I actually saw her last during the Only Man on the Island scene.’ She crossed one leg over the other, and turned at an angle which revealed more of her large breasts. Banham noticed the dark flecks in Alison’s eyes; she didn’t like this woman.
‘She was standing by the stage waiting to make her entrance.’ Maggie’s bosom rose as she took a thoughtful breath. ‘While we were on stage.’
‘Did you see anyone else in the wings at that time?’ Banham asked.
‘Alan, my husband, should have been – not where she was, but on the opposite side. But he wasn’t. I didn’t know that at the time; the bloody cat’s head had slipped, it was all lop-sided, and the netting I’m supposed to see through was practically under my chin. I could hardly see anything. Fay was leading me around the stage, and then off at the end of the scene. That’s when she said Alan had gone off to the pub again.’
‘But you saw Sophie on the other side of the stage waiting to go on?’
There was a beat, then she nodded. ‘Yeah, I saw her there, before my head slipped. She was watching the scene and didn’t look pleased.’
She flicked at her hair, and Banham studied her. She had a sharp mind and a cunning face. But she was obviously nervous and trying hard to hide it.
‘Where did you go when you left the stage?’
‘To the loo. To sort out the cat’s head.’ The fingers flicked at her hair again.
‘Which loo?’
‘The ground floor one, next door to here – it’s the nearest. Fay had to lead me. That’s when she told me about Alan going walkies.’ She looked away, clearly uncomfortable now. ‘He really can’t help himself,’ she added. ‘He can’t handle it when people start getting nasty.’