Act of Murder (31 page)

‘Ah Nell! My bonnie, bonnie girl . . .’

Susan Coupe threw herself onto his heaving chest, clutching at him with a desperate longing. It was as if she were trying to claw her way into his body.

‘I love you!’ she said. ‘I love you still.’

Morgan-Drew whispered in Slevin’s unwounded ear, ‘They are now Wilfred and Nelly Denver. These are lines from the play.’

Her voice was muffled, but there was no mistaking what she was saying.

‘Never mind the past, dear. Come home and make a fresh start tomorrow!’

Shorton coughed, and blood dribbled from his mouth. His eyes began to turn in on themselves and he laid a hand on Susan’s head. ‘The sweetest and truest wife a man ever had . . . I
can’t stop, I’m going down, down as fast as I can go . . .’

His breathing grew even more laboured, and he seemed to make a Herculean effort to refocus his gaze on Susan Coupe for the last time. She raised her head and gazed down at him with her eyes
filled with tears. He licked his crusted lips and spoke haltingly, and she brought her ear close to his mouth so that only she could hear what he was saying. Then his lips suddenly parted and
remained thus, and his hand slid from his lover’s head. James Shorton lay still and silent in death.

Susan Coupe did not throw herself on his lifeless body. Instead, she forced herself to her feet and turned to her audience.

‘He was my Sir Galahad, you know. His last words will act as his epitaph – I will make sure of that.’

Then she took a deep breath and recited the passage from Tennyson that Shorton had uttered before every performance:

She lowered her head and waited for the applause, but none came.

E
PILOGUE

‘Why did you put yourself in such danger, Jonathan?’

As the train pulled out of the station, the two actors sat back in their first-class compartment and looked out at the snow-covered scene. Farther down the train, in third class, the remaining
members of the Morgan-Drew Touring Company were giving their own views on the drama that had unfolded before their eyes only a few days earlier. They had all agreed that the tour should continue,
in the best traditions of the profession, and so now they were en route for Liverpool, where they would transform the stage of the aptly named Shakespeare Theatre into Ancient Rome.

Jonathan Keele allowed the rattle of the train to fill the silence before answering.

‘I am dying, Benjamin. Soon I will be with my dearest Catherine again. I failed her so badly, you know.’

‘Jonathan. We have been over this so many times. The doctors diagnosed melancholia of puberty. There was nothing you could have done while she was being cared for in that place.’

‘I could have visited more often.’

‘You were in America, as I recall.’

‘Yes. When she took her life. I should have been here! If I had, then she would have confided in me.’ His voice began to crack, and tears were beginning to glisten in his eyes.
‘And I thought, now that I know my own end is near, why not take this opportunity to hasten the exit? I so dearly wanted Shorton to fire that gun.’

Benjamin shook his head and gazed through the window. Far off, he could see the stark winding-heads of the coalmines, black skeletal frames against the pure white of the snow that covered the
fields and the endless rows of houses. He thought of Herbert, and how he had once more been completely taken in by what he thought was something precious and dear. Then he thought of the one
Herbert had tried to blackmail.

‘Poor Susan,’ he said softly. ‘I wonder what will happen to her?’

The old actor shook his head. ‘I fear she will follow my dearest Catherine.’

‘Surely not?’

‘The girl isn’t strong enough. She will face trial for conspiracy to murder, but given the evidence so ably gathered by Sergeant Slevin, a strong defence should ensure she will
escape the clutches of the hangman.’ He gave a long and heavy sigh. ‘But she will doubtless face a prolonged period of incarceration. And she has already been incarcerated for so very
long, has she not? Those places are diabolical.’

Both men remained silent for many minutes. Soon they would be in Liverpool, where they would recreate the might and the turmoil of Ancient Rome. But there was nothing grand, nothing spectacular,
about the scene both of them brought creatively to mind.

The stage was bare, and the darkness was almost complete, save for the thick iron bars of a noisome, silent cell backlit by a flickering flame. A young woman was lying on the chill, damp floor,
rearranging the hair on a child’s doll and humming a lullaby to herself. She stopped as the shadows cast by the flames seemed to creep upon the doll until its tiny face was shrouded in
black.

Then she looked out into the auditorium, and screamed.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Seán Costello for his sterling editorial work in helping to prepare the novel for publication.

I would also like to thank the University of Dundee, the City of Discovery Campaign and Birlinn Ltd for establishing the Dundee International Book Prize and providing encouragement for writers
everywhere.

Dundee International Book Prize 2010

Act of Murder
by Alan Wright is the winner of the Dundee International Book Prize 2010. The prize is the richest in the UK for new authors. For more details on the
annual competition email [email protected].

The Dundee International Book Prize is a joint venture between the City of Discovery Campaign, the University of Dundee and Polygon, the fiction imprint of Birlinn Ltd. It is supported by the
Apex Hotel, Dundee.