Provender Gleed (38 page)

The solicitous, ever sympathetic wife. How often had she pretended to play that role? It came to her easily now, second nature.

'Some coffee?' said Prosper. 'Yes, all right. Why not? Have a servant bring some.'

'Better yet,' Cynthia said, 'I'll make it for you and bring it myself.'

57

The taxi driver was tongue-tied throughout the journey to New Aldwych, repeatedly trying to formulate a sentence and failing. Frequent checks in his rearview mirror confirmed that none other than Provender Gleed was sitting in the back of his cab, but he simply could not work out a way of remarking on the fact that wouldn't come across as glib or grovelsome, nor did he feel he could opt for some innocuous comment - about the weather, say - for fear of sounding disrespectfully trite. He was torn between excitement and the desire to appear unflustered, as if driving a Family member across London was something he did every day. He knew that at the first available opportunity he would call his wife and anyone else he could think of and tell them about this, and the prospect somewhat mitigated his present state of speechlessness. In his account of this episode, he and Provender would be chatting like old pals and the Gleed heir would declare himself impressed by the taxi driver's opinions and observations on life. It wouldn't be a lie so much as an embellishment of the truth: had the driver not been dumbstruck, Provender would surely have been delighted to hear what he thought about things.

As far as Moore was concerned, the driver's silence was golden. He'd been worried that the man would talk them all to death before they reached the Notting Hill Skyway or even the Shepherd's Bush Tunnel. Provender's presence, however, was talismanic. It granted an unexpressed wish.

It did the same at the Shortborn Theatre. The building which Moore had been unable to penetrate, this seemingly impregnable fortress of Thespis, raised its portcullis and lowered its drawbridge and surrendered without a siege. All that was needed was for Provender to enter the lobby, and within seconds there were members of the front-of-house staff rushing around madly, and the manager appeared, and there was much hand-wringing and kowtowing, and the three visitors - Provender, Moore, the girl called Is - were given free rein to venture anywhere they wanted. Provender asked the manager where he might find his cousin, and was told, 'On stage.' It transpired that an unscheduled extra rehearsal was going on, the show's star dissatisfied with the previous night's performance and wanting to give the play that last little extra polish to make it just so.

'A consummate perfectionist, our leading man,' said the manager.

'A complete pain in the arse, more like,' Provender muttered. 'So we can go into the auditorium, then? Have a look at what's happening?'

'But of course,' said the manager with an unctuous writhe. 'Allow me to escort you.'

'No. If you don't mind, I'd prefer it if we slipped quietly in. So as not to cause a fuss.'

'Very well.' The manager bit his lip with disappointment. 'Perhaps later, though, I could take you on a tour of the theatre. The Shortborn is one of London's most historic venues, substantially rebuilt after the war with funds from the Bannerjee Foundation, but still retaining --'

'Yes, maybe.' Provender turned to Moore and Is. 'Public place. Lots of witnesses around to see. This should be good.'

Rubbing his hands, he headed for the doors that led from the lobby to the stalls. Moore and Is filed after him.

Outside, at a bus stop across the street from the theatre, a figure who had been lying in wait made his move.

Damien had been standing at the bus stop for nigh on an hour. Buses had come and gone, passengers had stepped on and off, and Damien had stayed put, making it look each time as if the bus he was waiting for wasn't this one but the next. His air of long-suffering, barely-contained impatience was readily recognisable to anyone with experience of the vagaries of London's public transport system. His huffs and grimaces were taken by others to mean he was being badly let down by the RLA and its inability to run a bus service which was even on nodding acquaintance with the word efficiency.

It wasn't completely an act, but the real source of Damien's discontent was not, of course, buses. Every minute he spent at the stop had been a minute in which it seemed even more implausible that Provender Gleed and Is were going to turn up at the theatre. As long shots went, this one was inordinately, inconceivably long. It was, however, his only shot. He had no alternative, other than to sit at home and stew in his own frustration. Which he couldn't anyway do because there was the small matter of the body of a dead detective cluttering up his flat. His only option had been to come here and hope.

Hope that the detective had not lied.

Hope that Is had conferred with Provender and told him that Damien had collaborated with a Family insider.

Hope that Provender put two and two together and came to the same conclusion as the dead detective's partner.

Hope that Provender would choose to visit the Shortborn Theatre and confront his cousin.

A ragged patchwork quilt of hopes, threadbare and full of holes, but it was all Damien had to draw around him and take comfort from. Where else could he go to look for Provender? What other chance did he have of getting his hands on his hostage again? Circumstances forced him to be at the theatre. His choices were narrowed down to this tiny, mote-like, infinitesimal scrap of possibility.

And he had been close to giving up, on the point of going back to his parked Dragon Wind and driving dismally back to Needle Grove, when remarkably, astonishingly, his against-all-odds gamble paid off. A taxi pulled up in front of the theatre and three passengers disembarked from it: Provender Gleed, then Is, then a little man Damien did not recognise but, were he to hazard a guess, would have said was Merlin Milner's partner-in-crimebusting.

There was no time for Damien to catch them in the few seconds it took them to cross the pavement and disappear into the theatre lobby. The traffic was flowing thick and fast in the roadway and he wasn't able to reach the other side of the street for a full minute. When he got there, a glance through the lobby's glassed doors showed Provender surrounded by people and speaking to someone who was obviously the theatre manager. Damien considered barging in, but the lobby was too public a place. What with all the theatre employees, there were too many eyewitnesses, too many potential have-a-go heroes who could make his life difficult. Then Provender left the lobby, heading deeper into the building, and Damien knew he would have to find another way into the theatre.

Easily done. All theatres had stage doors, and the Shortborn's wasn't difficult to find. It was situated down an alley at the side. Damien walked up to it and jabbed the buzzer-button marked ENQUIRIES.

The person who answered the buzzer was not some wispy theatrical type as Damien had anticipated, but rather a stocky, thick-necked, short-back-and-sided individual whose bad suit and matching attitude said, unmistakably, bouncer. Which made sense, what with a Gleed in the play's cast.

Damien was unfazed. Not pausing, he shunted the man backwards with an outstretched hand, unsheathing his knife with the other hand. The bouncer, taken by surprise, staggered and collided with a plastic chair, sending it and the nudie mag that was lying on it skidding across the floor. He recovered his balance expertly and came back at Damien, adopting a boxer's stance, weight on the rear foot, fists loosely clasped at jaw height. The knife was still concealed behind Damien's back, so the bouncer had no reason not to feel confident that the fight would be his. This bloke who had pushed him was big but not that big, and a venue-security professional feared no one. A venue-security professional was trained for moments like this,
lived
for moments like this.

He swung. Damien parried. Huge equalled slow. The bouncer might as well have stopped and told him when the punch was coming and where he intended it to land.

He swung again, another hefty, lumbering roundhouse. Damien ducked in under it and brought the knife into play, whipping it in from the side and sinking it hilt-deep into the bouncer's flank.

By rights the knife-thrust ought to have settled the scuffle then and there. It was a mortal blow and the shock alone should have toppled the bouncer. Damien gave the deerhorn handle an extra twist, further ruining whichever vital organs the blade was embedded in, then stepped back, as if inviting his opponent to do the decent thing now and fall.

The bouncer teetered, looking down, exploring the knife handle with inquisitive fingers, feeling the shape of it, fathoming what it meant to have this thing protruding from his abdomen, this wetness leaking out. Then, to Damien's surprise, instead of having the good grace to keel over, he grunted and lunged, arms spread wide.

The strength with which the arms pincered around Damien's chest and began to squeeze was, literally, breathtaking. Damien's ribcage constricted; he all but heard bones creak. His lungs were suddenly straining for air but he could get none into them. Meanwhile the bouncer's own breath was gusting in his face, a series of rapid, meaty-smelling exhalations that added to the torture of being suffocated: even if he could inhale, there was nothing to inhale but
this
. Damien writhed and gasped but could not wrestle free. The pressure of the bouncer's bearhug intensified. Damien's head woozed. His backbone groaned. Something, surely, was on the point of snapping.

Then, at last, the knife-wound took effect. The bearhug relaxed. The bouncer seemed to crumble away. Suddenly he was supine on the floor. His heels were kicking the linoleum. His teeth were bared in a rictus of anguish and dismay. He started to choke, gagging gutturally.

Damien, reeling somewhat, bent down and yanked out the knife. He raised it and plunged it into the bouncer's chest, doing this much as he would have if the man had been a suffering animal - matter-of-factly, out of necessity, putting the creature out of its misery. The bouncer shuddered, spasmed, and went still. His eyes rolled and settled. A croak escaped his slack, gaping mouth. Gone.

Damien swabbed the blade clean on the bouncer's trouser-leg, then re-sheathed the knife. He stood up carefully. His chest throbbed, tender to the touch, and his head was swimmy, but otherwise he was unharmed.

He took stock of his surroundings. He was in a short corridor which terminated in a pair of swing doors inset with frosted-glass panes. A notice drew attention to the fact that no unauthorised persons were permitted beyond this point.

Damien barged both doors open and strode past dressing rooms, into the Shortborn's backstage area.

58

Arthur had not only demanded the additional rehearsal, he had insisted on it being conducted in full costume, props and all, with the lighting and sound technicians on hand to supply the necessary effects, the stagehands at work behind the scenes ... basically the entire cast and crew giving up their afternoon to put on a matinée to an empty house, for no extra pay.

Naturally there was disgruntlement, mutinous mutterings backstage, threats to sabotage the proceedings, but none of it amounted to anything. The scenery humpers and the follow-spot jockeys knew better than to put their jobs at risk by offending a Gleed. As for the actors, they were too jealous of Arthur's fame and renown to mind, truly, doing as he asked. Besides, if he remembered this favour, he might be inclined to invite them to take part in some future production. In the acting world you always had to think about your next job, and open resentment of somebody higher up the ladder than you was never a wise career move. Cross Arthur Gleed, and it would be a lifetime of amateur dramatics from hereon after.
Another
rehearsal? Well, if Arthur wanted it... And come to think of it, last night's show hadn't been
that
great.

The director, Sean Lockwood, was trapped somewhere between these two categories, as cowed as the backstage people and as career-covetous as the people onstage. He wasn't happy about the rehearsal, but what could he do? Lockwood, in fact, had all but surrendered control of the production to his leading man and was feeling much as the captain of a pirated ship must do, watching helpless as his vessel was steered on a course he never plotted.

And it had all started so well.

At the outset Lockwood and Arthur had been of one mind: this would be a traditional
Hamlet
, a
Hamlet
Shakespeare himself would not have been surprised to see. Period dress and setting? Absolutely. None of your needless updating. And no gratuitous nudity or excessive bloodletting either, nothing like that, nothing that would bait the critics and earn shock-value kudos. A classic, conventional production, free of tricks and shenanigans.

How that had changed. First of all, a fortnight into rehearsals, Arthur suggested they cut the text by a quarter, in particular trimming Hamlet's soliloquies, which he said were very long and difficult to memorise. Lockwood nearly asked why Arthur wanted to play Hamlet if he didn't fancy handling the soliloquies, but he held his tongue and did as requested.

It was the compromise which paved the way for a hundred further compromises. Most of them were relatively minor, but one wasn't, namely Arthur's sudden decision that the original Ophelia should be sacked. He had had a brief, torrid fling with her, it had got messy, he had broken her heart and now was running scared of her. You couldn't have a Hamlet who was afraid to look his Ophelia in the eye. Reluctantly Lockwood did the deed, braved a flood of weeping from the distraught actress, and then endured several long late-night phone calls from her as she tried to come to terms with the emotional and professional rejection. The new Ophelia was not as right for the part as the old one but had the advantage of being a lesbian and therefore immune to Arthur's amorous approaches.

Through it all Lockwood thought of just one thing: Gleed patronage. He was young, 22, and this was only his second professional directing gig. If it did well, the Gleeds would look kindly on him, put their name behind him, and he would be set up for life.