A Decent Interval (23 page)

Charles hadn't really thought of her in that light before but, remembering the deftness with which she had neutralized any sexual advances from him, he thought Ned might be right.

‘Anyway, so what? What if I am considering putting Billie-Louise in as Ophelia?'

‘Well, Milly Henryson for one is going to be extremely upset.'

‘Charles, one thing that working with Tony Copeland over the years has taught me is that you can't be sentimental in this business. If Billie-Louise, because of her
StarHunt
fame, is going to put more bums on seats than Milly Henryson, then for Tony the question as to who should play the part would be a no-brainer.'

‘And have you suggested the idea to him yet?'

Ned English looked shifty. ‘Not as such, no.'

‘Another thing,' Charles continued on the wave of his alcohol-driven confidence, ‘that's being said backstage is that Billie-Louise might have had it in for Katrina Selsey.'

‘Why?'

‘You talked about no-brainers, Ned. Surely that's the ultimate one? Billie-Louise goes through the whole process of
StarHunt
, week by week training, being tested, reckoning all the time she's the best candidate to play Ophelia. She gets to the end of the process, and thanks to the audience vote, the part is given to Katrina Selsey. If that's not a recipe for jealousy and resentment, I'd like to know what is.'

Interestingly, Ned English made no attempt to defend his girlfriend's character from this attack. Instead he said, ‘If that were true, in which direction would backstage gossip then lead?'

‘Well, since you've been with Billie-Louise at least since the time
StarHunt
ended, people are wondering how long she's been putting pressure on you about playing Ophelia.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Meaning that having Katrina out of the way would have been very convenient for her.'

This really hit the director hard. ‘Are you suggesting that Billie-Louise arranged Katrina's little accident?'

‘I am not suggesting anything, Ned. I am merely reporting backstage gossip.' Charles pressed home his advantage. ‘And backstage gossip is not suggesting that Billie-Louise arranged Katrina's accident. It's saying that Billie-Louise persuaded you to arrange it.'

Ned English shuddered from this new body blow. ‘Have you been talking to Billie-Louise?' he asked.

Charles Paris had never met Billie-Louise, but he didn't think it was the moment to admit that. Instead he replied, ‘Maybe.'

‘She didn't ask you to do it for her, did she?'

‘Do what?'

‘Arrange something that would … make Katrina unable to continue with the show?'

Stepping further down the track to mendacity, Charles risked another: ‘Maybe.'

‘Oh God, she's …' Ned struggled to come up with the appropriate words. ‘Ambitious, I suppose. That's at the bottom of it, but she's so desperate to be part of celebrity culture that she … I don't know. I sometimes wonder if there's anything she wouldn't do to get a foot on the next rung of the ladder of fame.'

‘But, apart from that, your relationship works all right?'

‘It's heaven, Charles.' Through the round glasses the brown eyes looked straight at him, full of undeniable sincerity. Clearly not the moment to mention Ned having come on to Geraldine Romelle after their lunch. ‘I love her. I've never felt like this about a woman. I'd do anything for her.'

‘Anything?'

‘Anything short of doing what she asked me to do to Katrina.'

‘She didn't ask you to kill her, did she?'

‘God, no. It was just to do something – something that'd stop her being in the show.'

‘Did Billie-Louise make any suggestions as to what that might be?'

‘No, she left it to me. I think she saw it as some kind of test.'

‘Of?'

‘Of how much I loved her.'

‘Ah.'

‘But I didn't do it, Charles! I promise you I didn't. I told her, I'd do anything for her, but not that.'

‘And did you respond like that because of your conscience, your high moral standards … or because you were worried what would happen if Tony Copeland found out what you'd done?'

Ned English's uneasy shifting in his seat answered Charles's question.

‘Do you actually know, Ned, how Katrina Selsey died?'

‘Banged her head on the floor.'

‘But what made her bang her head on the floor?'

He shrugged. ‘No idea, Charles.'

‘Well, I don't know this for sure … maybe the police do, but they're not about to share their findings … but I think someone had doctored Katrina's mascara.'

‘Oh?'

‘Put bleach or something else corrosive into the tube. When she applied the brush to her eyes, the shock made her jerk backwards. She stumbled over the chair … with results that we know all too much about.'

Ned English was thoughtful. ‘Sounds like a woman's crime.'

‘Mm?'

‘Done by someone who knows how women's minds work, how often they tidy up their make-up and so on.'

‘Maybe. What would you say to the theory, Ned, that Billie-Louise, realizing there was no way you were going to do it for her, sabotaged Katrina's mascara herself?'

‘Doesn't work.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because the night Katrina died – and indeed the nights either side – Billie-Louise was staying in my flat in London.'

‘She couldn't have come down here without you knowing?'

Ned shook his head. ‘I spoke to her a good few times every day on the landline.'

‘Ah.'

‘But,' the director went on, ‘if you're right about that business with bleach or acid in the mascara, then I saw something rather interesting that evening.'

‘Oh?'

‘I didn't think about it at the time, because why should I? But during the first act, after your scene on the battlements – you know, Hamlet and the Ghost, just before the Polonius and Reynaldo scene – I came backstage to give Sam a note. I'd thought of something he could do differently in the Play Scene. Anyway, as I was going into the wings, I met someone who was holding a tube of mascara.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes.' Ned nodded thoughtfully as a new block of logic slotted in. ‘And it was someone who would benefit very directly from Katrina being out of the show.'

Charles Paris felt pretty sure he knew the answer, but still asked, ‘Who?'

‘Milly Henryson,' said the director.

W
hen he woke on the Saturday morning, for some reason Charles Paris didn't have the hangover that his antics of the previous day so richly deserved. Dryish mouth and the shadow of a headache, but that was all. And copious draughts of water dealt with those symptoms.

His condition made him feel perversely virtuous. And his mind was working beautifully.

It would be the
Hamlet
company's last day in Marlborough. A matinee and an evening performance, then the whole bandwagon would move on to Malvern. The skull set would hopefully be re-erected in the theatre there in time for a Dress Rehearsal on the Monday evening, and the play would open to an Elgar-loving audience on the Tuesday. Just one week in Malvern, then on for weeks in Wilmslow and Newcastle before – hopefully – after another week of rehearsal in London, the Tony Copeland production of
Hamlet
would take up its rightful berth in the West End's Richardson Theatre.

In the old days, thought Charles Paris nostalgically, we'd have worked through the weekend and opened in Malvern on the Monday. But astronomical rates of overtime and revised Equity regulations had made working on Sunday a rare event for most contemporary actors. So immediately after that Saturday evening's performance, many of the
Hamlet
company would shake the dust of Marlborough off their heels and be in cars on their way back to London. And those who didn't go then would be off first thing on the Sunday morning.

Charles Paris would be one of the latter group, travelling by taxi and train. He hadn't owned a car since the early, ‘conventional' period of his marriage to Frances, when they'd spent much of their time ferrying their daughter Juliet to school, ballet classes, parties and all those other essential social commitments of a young girl's life. It felt like a very long time ago, before the encroachments of working away from home, infidelities and booze had put too much strain on the relationship for Charles and Frances to continue cohabiting. He'd asked himself the where-did-it-all-go-wrong question too many times to bother asking it again that Saturday morning.

Given the natural break in the
Hamlet
production schedule, Charles really hoped that he could unravel the mystery of Katrina Selsey's death before the company left Marlborough. There would be a neatness about that, for one thing. Also, Charles Paris had read enough crime fiction to know how difficult it is to investigate a crime when you're away from the place where it happened.

His optimism about a successful outcome was higher than it had been at any time since Katrina died. Milly Henryson had always been in the frame. Nobody had a stronger motive for getting Katrina Selsey out of the way, and the understudy was already reaping the benefit of her crime by playing the part of Ophelia.

And now Charles had what amounted to a witness statement from Ned English. The director had seen Milly Henryson holding a tube of mascara on the night that Katrina's tube of mascara had been fatally doctored. You didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to join the dots on that one.

Charles Paris found that crime investigation was very like doing
The Times
crossword. Some days its logic was impenetrable, he couldn't find any verbal links anywhere. Then came the occasional day when he got the first answer the moment he looked at the clue and put in the rest of the solutions almost as quickly as he could write them down.

That Saturday morning felt like one of those
Times
crossword moments. And, as if to confirm the feeling that everything was going his way, the moment Charles had this thought his mobile bleeped, telling him he'd got a text message.

It was from the stage management, listing the day's calls for the
Hamlet
company. The actors were called for the customary ‘half', thirty-five minutes before the start of the matinee. But the backstage crew were called for twelve o'clock to plan the get-out after the evening show.

And, of course, as she'd told him in The Pessimist's Arms, Milly Henryson was still expected to fulfil her ASM duties.

Charles kind of knew that Milly was one of those people who'd be early for things. Well brought up, polite, thoughtful girl. Well educated too – she'd been to a school with a very good headmistress.

So, because he was experiencing one of those rare days when nothing could go wrong, he was unsurprised to find the girl alone in the Green Room when he arrived at the Grand Theatre at eleven thirty. And – another measure of how good a day he was having – she was alone, reading a copy of
The Stage
.

He did not hesitate about going to sit next to her. ‘So,' he said, ‘soon it'll be goodbye to Marlborough.'

‘Yes.'

‘And will you leave with pleasant memories?'

She grimaced. ‘Some. It's kind of my first professional job in a proper theatre, which is good. And then it's been great, getting my big break, getting a chance to act with Sam. But …' Her expression suggested those pluses were outweighed by the minuses.

‘Hm.' Charles realized he didn't have time to be delicate in his approach. Soon other members of the stage management team would be arriving. The window for private conversation would be a short one. ‘I wanted to talk to you about getting your big break.'

‘Oh?'

‘It's an ill wind and all that. You get your big break, but what did Katrina Selsey get?'

Milly Henryson coloured. ‘Look, obviously I'd rather the circumstances had been different, but I don't have to tell you, Charles, how important a part luck plays in the theatre. Yes, my good luck was a result of Katrina's incredibly bad luck, but it'd be stupid for me to feel any guilt about that.'

‘Would it?' asked Charles Paris pointedly.

‘What do you mean?'

No time for equivocation. Hit her with the facts. ‘During the first half of the show, Milly, the night Katrina died, you were seen backstage with a tube of mascara.'

‘Yes.' The girl turned the full beam of her dark-blue eyes on him. She looked completely innocent, but Charles Paris had encountered too much duplicity in his life to be fooled by that.

He was, however, a little taken aback when Milly said, ‘I have it with me every night.'

‘What for?'

‘Well, for Sam, obviously.'

‘For Sam?'

‘Charles, you know Sam has very pale eyelashes. For them to register onstage he has to use a lot of mascara.'

‘Oh?' said Charles Paris, feeling his card-house of conjecture beginning to topple.

‘And always when he comes off after his scene with you on the battlements … well, it's so powerful, the way the two of you play it …'

‘Thank you,' said Charles Paris, unable to curb the actor's instinctive hunger for a compliment.

‘And Sam almost always ends up with tears pouring down his cheeks, so I stand in the wings with the mascara, so that I can repair the damage before his next scene.'

‘Oh. And what do you do with the mascara once you've done that?'

‘Put it in Sam's dressing room.'

‘So the night Katrina died, what—?'

Charles looked up to see Bazza enter the Green Room. The stagehand scowled at him. The
tête-à-tête
with Milly Henryson was at an end.

Thank God, thought Charles, that I didn't actually accuse her of doctoring Katrina's mascara, that I didn't accuse her of murder.