‘Well you shouldn’t assume. Annie’s worried you’ll spoil the day.’
‘Why? How? When have I ever spoilt anything?’
‘You really don’t understand her, Gina. She’s nervous about going up. She knows how negative you are about the place and she’s afraid you’ll put a damper on things. If it’s just her and me, it’ll be more relaxed.’
Well, sod them then.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘That’s absolutely fine. I’m terribly busy anyway, with my mother arriving on Monday. A hundred and one things to do. That’s quite a relief, actually. Absolutely fine.’
I could work myself up into a lather of outrage and self-pity; I could bring tears to my own eyes by reminding myself of Andrew’s years of neglect and my own heroic efforts as a single mother – my patience, my tolerance, my unstinting support in the unending drama of Annie’s life, but I’ll not weep. I have full cause of weeping, undeniably, but my heart’s in no danger of breaking into a hundred thousand flaws, so I’ll simply move on. I will just add, though, that when Annie gets the miseries, as she undoubtedly will, when the work is boring and the men are horrid and the strain of living in a world of high achievers begins to tell, I do hope it will be Andrew she rings for the tearful late-night heart to heart. Ha bloody ha! Fat chance.
At four o’clock, I don my cagoule and cycle round to the theatre. I have drunk too much coffee in the course of the day and I have an incipient migraine niggling behind my right eye. I am almost looking forward to a row with Alex Driver as a way of letting off steam.
The theatre is not far from the minster, in a group of buildings which overlook a rather unattractive stretch of river. At some point it was given a pseudo-Tudor front of stucco and beams, but it’s strictly functional inside – this being where the council’s interest in the arts, and its financial support, gave out. Unfortunately, the functionality isn’t of the stripped wood and unplastered brick variety, but veers more towards sticky plastic and pock-marked chrome.
I find the stage door easily enough (I have fraught memories of taking the girls to perform in dance displays here – what was I thinking of?) but there is no sign of Alex Driver, nor of anyone else. I drop off my wet cagoule in the green Room and head cautiously upstairs to the dressing rooms, assuming that there must be a stage manager’s office up here somewhere. On the first floor, I find only dressing rooms, their doors open, their interiors empty, waiting expectantly for their new inhabitants. On the second floor I bump into a girl, a diminutive girl with a lot of frizzy blonde hair and a huge bunch of keys hanging from the belt of her jeans. It turns out she’s the ASM.
‘Alex is on stage somewhere, I think,’ she says, looking harassed. ‘There’s a problem with the tabs.’
Tabs are curtains, and they’re of mainly antiquarian interest in theatres these days, but maybe Blithe Spirit calls for a curtain. I head back downstairs and through swing doors into the wings, where I encounter a stack of flats and that familiar stage smell of raw wood, paint and Leichner dusting powder. I move towards the sound of hammering and spot a man, halfway up a ladder, doing something to a curtain track. I have no doubt that this is Alex Driver: the designer jeans and spotless trainers tally exactly with the voice on the phone.
‘Hello,’ I call. ‘I was told I’d find you here. I’m Gina Gray.’
He looks blank. Has he genuinely forgotten or is this just another refinement of the put-down?
‘Costumes for William Roper School,’ I say, a clipped edge entering my voice. ‘We spoke on the phone this morning.’
He continues to stare at me, then light dawns, unpleasantly.
‘Oh shit, I’d forgotten all about you.’ He looks at his watch; I look at mine; it is 4.35. ‘Well, I can’t spend time on you now,’ he says. ‘I’ve got more important things to do.’
This is my cue to say I’m sorry for bothering him and I’ll come back another time, but I don’t take it. I remain resolutely silent, maintaining an expression of polite but detached interest.
‘Well, you’ll just have to find your own way round,’ he mutters. ‘I’ll take you down there and leave you to it.’ He leaps with ostentatious agility from his ladder and heads off across the stage. Through a door, down some steps, through another door, he switches on a light to reveal rack upon rack of costumes so closely packed together as to be unidentifiable at first glance.
‘What play was it you said you were doing?’ he asks.
‘Twelfth Night,’ I say, ‘set 1920’s.’
He sucks in his cheeks and gives me a long, sceptical stare.
Then he opens his arms in a gesture which neatly combines an invitation to look around with a warning as to the hopelessness of my quest. He turns for the door. ‘Let me know when you’re leaving,’ he says, and lets the door bang behind him.
I’ve missed my chance of the row I was looking forward to; the man is so impossible he’s taken my breath away. My head is pounding with unvented rage. On the other hand, I have this place to myself, the whole of the under-stage area crammed full of costumes and leisure to look around without Alex Driver’s sneering assistance. For once, I count my blessings and I get looking.
It takes me a while to find what I’m looking for and I get diverted several times along the way. Hats are my weakness and I have to try on several. It’s hats in the end that lead me to the Boy Friend costumes. Boaters are sitting in a tower, high up on a rack at the end of the room, and beneath them hang a row of striped blazers, which seem just right: light-hearted without being laughably gaudy; stylish enough to give the boys some swagger without being embarrassingly camp. There are loads of them – enough for a sizeable chorus, I suppose – so we should be able to accommodate most shapes and sizes. There’s also something that looks like a Maitre D’s outfit, which would do for Malvolio. There are some lovely women’s dresses too, and I wonder if I should tell Eve about them and save her the trouble of making, but I’m not sure that Eve is actually speaking to me at the moment. I’ve been trying not to think about this since our contretemps on Saturday – that is to say I have thought about it a lot but haven’t come up with a plan of action. Apologising would seem like a good idea, except I don’t know what to say. “I do apologise for thinking your husband might be a child-murderer” hardly trips off the tongue, does it? So, I’ve done nothing and I’m rather relying on Eve’s sweetness of nature to see us through. Only I’m afraid I may have gone too far even for that.
The Boy Friend costumes offer nothing brash enough for Sir Toby, and I wander further, in search of pantomime costumes. That’s when I spot the Toad of Toad Hall rack and, beyond it, a couple of heaps of foam rubber that look as though they may be fat suits. I pick up one which turns out to be female shaped, all boobs and hips, but the other one offers a good beer belly. I pick it up and hold it against me to judge its size and it’s when I go to put it back that I see that it has been lying on top of a couple of packing cases and that the contents of the cases are oddly familiar: vibrant Tudor roses in plastic cases – DVDs of Amy identical to those I saw at Charter Hall. I startle myself with my own laughter, which echoes suddenly in the silence. I can’t help it; I hoot. Where else, I wonder, in what other odd corners are these pathetic things lying, embarrassingly unwanted on Amy’s triumphant voyage?
I’m still laughing when the door opens down the other end. I assume it’s the charming stage manager returned but I find instead, as I fight my way through the racks, that it’s another person altogether: a tall, distinguished-looking man with the flawless tan and silver-grey hair of a soap opera tycoon.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demands.
‘The house style in this place leaves a lot to be desired,’ I say. ‘I’m doing what you might expect. I’m looking for some costumes to hire.’
‘Is anyone else down here?’
‘No.’
‘Well you shouldn’t have been left down here on your own.’
Since it doesn’t seem to be the discourtesy to me that he’s worried about, I make no
reply.
‘I’m Neil Cunningham, the theatre’s director,’ he says, without offering a handshake. ‘Which company are you from?’
‘Gina Gray,’ I say, ‘Marlbury College. I’m doing costumes for a production at William Roper School.’
‘A school?’ If lips curl, his curls. ‘I don’t believe we hire to schools. Some of these costumes are quite valuable. We don’t want a lot of grubby oiks getting their mitts on them. Does Alex know you’re from a school?’
‘Yes. He seemed to think I could be trusted not to vandalise anything.’
‘Well, I’m locking up down here now.’ He jangles some keys.
‘That’s quite all right,’ I say, moving past him to the door. ‘I’ve found what I was looking for.’ And then, because I hate him, and I want to wipe that sneer off his face, I turn at the door and say, ‘You’re having trouble shifting those DVDs of Amy aren’t you? I noticed Glenys had a lot of them lying around the last time I was out at her place.’
The flush that spreads underneath his smooth tan makes his face a curious contrast with the immaculate silver hair. ‘Are you a friend of Glenys’s?’ he asks.
Now, I know I’m inclined to bend the truth in a good cause, but I don’t like to tell a direct lie if I can help it, so I offer him rueful smile. ‘If Glenys can be said to have friends,’ I say and go to sweep out of the door, only to collide with Alex Driver, entering at speed. He seems to take in the situation at a glance.
‘Ah, Neil, I’m glad you came down. I had to leave er –’
‘Gina,’ I supply.
‘– Gina down here to look around. Crisis on stage.’ He turns to me. ‘Found anything?’ he asks.
Neil Cunningham interrupts. ‘Gina was just telling me she’d seen some DVDs of Amy down here, Alex. I can’t understand what they’re doing here.’
The brick-red flush has subsided but there’s a lot of rancour and it’s directed not at me, but at Alex Driver. It’s his turn to flush – a rather nasty salmon pink. ‘Oh yes, they’re just here temporarily. I thought we’d sell them while the panto’s on. It’s the sort of thing people might like around Christmas. I’ll get rid of them, though, if you feel they’re in the way.’
Neil Cunningham says nothing but his look is still venomous, so Alex Driver turns to me. ‘Any luck?’ he asks.
‘Oh yes, the Boy Friend blazers will do fine and there are a couple of Toad costumes that’ll be good too. Do you want me to show you?’
He glances at Neil Cunningham. ‘Ah well, the Toad costumes,’ he says. We like to keep those for professional productions – or reputable amateurs at least. I’m not really prepared –’
Neil Cunningham interrupts. ‘It turns out that Gina is a friend of Glenys’s, Alex.’
The two of them stand looking at each other and I know where I have seen them before. They’re the two I saw arguing in a Morgan car outside Charter Hall on Saturday afternoon. I feel vindicated. My gut instinct told me they were theatrical, and they are. Alex Driver adopts a smile that is, if anything, more unattractive than his sneer.
‘Well then, I’m sure you’ll look after them, won’t you, Gina?’ He appears to swallow something rather large that’s stuck in his throat – his pride, possibly? ‘Let’s go and have a look at them, shall we?’
Fifteen minutes later I’m out of there and I see, as I unlock my bike in the car park, something I didn’t see on my way in – a splendid Morgan car parked in a reserved space which, presumably, says Director. As I cycle home, I wonder if the two men are discussing me. That will depend on what they were doing in Lower Shepton yesterday, of course. If they talked to Glenys, then she may well have told them about the nosey woman from William Roper who’d come prowling around, in which case it won’t take them long to work out that I’m not a friend of Glenys’s at all. Well, I’ve paid a deposit on the costumes now, so let’s hope, I think, as I splash through the puddles, that we’re home and dry.
14
WEDNESDAY 29th SEPTEMBER
09.30: TEAM MEETING
‘So let’s start with key points from the house to house and witness statements,’ Scott said. ‘Paula?’
‘Renée Deakin. I went carefully with the neighbours – didn’t want to suggest we suspected her of anything. I said whoever broke into Charter Hall seemed to have taken care to go in when they knew she wouldn’t be there and then I asked them if someone keeping a watch on her would have been able to see what her work pattern was. Only two of them are at home during the day – a retired woman across the road and a woman with a baby two doors down. Oh yes, they said, Monday, Wednesday and Friday you’d see her go, round about quarter to twelve. And did she always take her car with her? Yes she did. Did she take her car if she was just going to the village shop? Like the rest of them, she’d generally stop off at the shop when she was out in her car anyway. No-one said, “Funnily enough I saw her go out on Wednesday morning just before nine, and I thought it was odd because she was wearing sunglasses.”’
‘OK. Thanks, Paula.’
‘I did sound them out about whether she gossiped about life at Charter Hall. Never, they said. She was very loyal. “Like she worked for the royal family,” one of them said.’
‘Except they’re all selling their stories to The Sun these days,’ Andy Finnegan commented.
‘Andy. How did you get on with the Carsons’ friends and neighbours?’
‘I started by asking Hector Carson for a list of people who visited the house, and he couldn’t come up with anyone much. They don’t seem to see family at all. He’s got a brother living in France; she’s got two sisters still living in Cardiff, where they grew up. We did contact them but they said they never saw her. I get the feeling there’s no love lost there.’
‘But not that they hated her enough to kill her?’
‘I wouldn’t think so. They had nothing to gain, did they? Everything goes to Hector.’
‘Right. What about friends?’
‘They don’t seem to have any locally. Glenys has lots of friends in the acting world, apparently, but they don’t come down to Marlbury. People from the Aphra Behn Theatre call in, though neither of the Carsons would call them friends. They let them use the outhouses at Charter Hall for storage on an informal basis – no money changes hands.’
‘Did you talk to them?’
‘I talked to the stage manager – Driver – Alex Driver. Nothing very useful, though. Said he was last up there a couple of weeks ago and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He did say Glenys seemed jumpy, though?’
‘Did he know why?’
‘Said he didn’t. He wasn’t exactly chatty, I must say.’
‘And neighbours?’
‘The Carsons say they don’t know their neighbours, not even their names. It’s believable. They’re big houses there, down long drives. You wouldn’t chat over the garden fence. We talked to the neighbours on both sides and they confirmed it. They know who Glenys is, of course, but they’ve never been invited to Charter Hall and they don’t want to seem pushy, I guess. One thing, though. The neighbour a couple of houses up river said he notices the Carsons’ little blue motor boat going to and fro – up to Marlbury, he reckoned. Different people on it, he said, adults and children. He wondered if someone was running it as a business. Now, when I asked Hector Carson who used it, he said no-one much. Edmund and his friends messed about on it at weekends, he said. That was all.’
‘Which doesn’t sound convincing. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a good boat, new-looking, well-maintained, seats up to six, I would say. So what do we think?’
‘Could be a tax dodge,’ Steve Boxer said. ‘They’re running a business doing trips up and down to Marlbury but keeping it a secret from the revenue.’
‘But if they don’t advertise, how does anyone know about the trips?’ Paula queried.
‘They’d let the B&Bs in Marlbury know about it, informally. If they’re not paying tax, they can undercut the competition.’
‘
Well, it doesn’t sound like a motive for murder,’ Scott said, ‘but see what you can find out, Andy. Send someone round the B&Bs. Sarah, what about the children’s friends?’
‘As we thought, Marina was very much a loner. No friends really. The kids in her class looked embarrassed when we asked about her. I’d say she was definitely being bullied. Teachers didn’t have much to say about her. She was in what used to be called the remedial class when I was at school. It’s officially called the extra class at William Roper, though the kids call it “the retard class”, I discovered. The maths teacher said she was brighter than she pretended to be. Just lazy, he thought. Eleanor Gray, her form teacher, said she was articulate to talk to but had poor writing skills. The art teacher – who’s Dr Fletcher’s wife, by the way – said Marina spent a lot of time in the art room but never really talked about life at home. She suggested Marina was a bit neglected – parents preoccupied with their careers and so on – but I think we knew that already. And she didn’t really have any specific examples of neglect.’
‘And the brother’s friends, Paula?’
‘Oh he’s a pretty popular guy, it seems. Good academically and stars in school plays. He does invite friends home at weekends. We’ve got a list of boys who’ve been to the house and we’ve talked to them all. The headmaster insisted on being present, though, so I’m not sure they’d have told us any dark secrets about Charter Hall, even if they knew any.’
‘There were some other fingerprints, besides Edmund’s, on his golf clubs,’ Andy Finnegan said. ‘He says some friends borrowed them. We’ve only just got prints from the boys – we needed parental permission and some of the parents were hard to track down.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Justine Todd’s friends confirm she was drinking champagne with them on Wednesday morning,’ Paula said, ‘so that rules her out as the hoax caller.’
‘I was wondering about Dr Fletcher,’ Boxer said. ‘Does anyone confirm he was at the surgery that afternoon?’
‘Yes, the practice manager. She confirms he arrived at about two, though she didn’t see him leave.’
All the Daughters Page 13