Stagestruck (29 page)

Diamond asked Shearman if anyone was missing.

‘I think not,’ the manager said. ‘There’s a spare programme here. If you go through the names you’ll find all the cast and crew are accounted for. How long will this take?’

This was brushed aside. ‘So where’s the big man?’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘Melmot.’

‘Francis? He’s not in the play.’

‘I’m not asking who’s in it. Was he in the theatre tonight?’

Shearman pressed a hand to his mouth as if the thought had just dawned. ‘He was, yes, doing the hospitality bit with our special guests. It was Francis who told me Clarion wanted to come. We decided between us that a seat in the box was the best way to keep her hidden.’

‘But has anyone seen him since the play ended?’

Nobody spoke.

Then Gisella said, ‘Did I hear right? Clarion was here?’

Titus O’Driscoll, seated next to Shearman, gave a gasp. ‘I knew it, we’ve been duped.’

Diamond glared. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The sighting.’

‘You’re not making sense.’

‘There was a sighting of the theatre ghost this evening, the same grey lady you and I discussed the other day. A manifestation would be a sensational event by any stretch of the imagination. That’s why I’m here. A reliable witness saw her in the Arnold Haskell box, the one with the drawn curtains.’

All the conversations around them had stopped.

‘This evening?’ Diamond said.

‘During the play. She was all in grey. Where’s Fräulein Schneider?’

‘Here,’ a voice answered from the front row. The big woman turned a stricken look on Titus.

‘Don’t be nervous,’ he urged her. ‘Tell them what you saw.’

‘They won’t believe me.’

‘Out with it, ma’am,’ Diamond said.

Her words soared melodramatically. ‘She was here tonight, I swear, staring at me from the upper box where she is known to materialise.’

‘Dressed in grey?’

‘Totally. In a hooded gown of exactly the sort a lady of fashion wore to the theatre two hundred years ago. Most of her face was veiled in some shroud-like material.’

‘She’s round the twist,’ a voice from the back said.

‘You see?’ she appealed, hands outspread.

‘What time was this?’ Diamond asked.

‘I don’t know. I was on the stage in performance. Before the interval.’

‘Was she there after?’

‘I can’t say. I was too petrified to look.’

‘She was not,’ Titus said. ‘I observed the box for the whole of the second half.’

‘Are you doubting me as well?’ Fräulein Schneider said in the voice of a martyr.

‘Not at all, madam. I hate to say this, but I fear that my friend Mr Diamond can account for what you saw.’

‘The dead woman everyone is talking about?’

‘Get with it, love,’ someone shouted from the third row. By now almost everyone knew why they were there.

Diamond didn’t want this potentially vital witness driven into silence or hysteria. ‘What you’ve told us, ma’am, could be important, and I want to hear more from you in a moment.’ While he had full attention from everyone he announced what he could about Clarion, stressing that she’d been wearing a grey scarf and dressed in a grey hooded jacket that if seen from the waist up could conceivably have been taken for a cloak.

Fräulein Schneider gave vent to a great theatrical sigh.

Diamond said he expected a number of witnesses had seen Clarion and he would need statements from all of them.

‘What the hell was Clarion doing here?’ Preston Barnes asked.

He got a dusty answer from Shearman. ‘She wanted to see the play. Perfectly understandable considering she was in it until Monday night.’

To avoid this descending into a free-for-all, Diamond said his officers would start taking statements directly.

‘Did someone murder her?’ Barnes asked.

‘It’s an unexplained death. We have a duty to investigate.’

‘Most of us can’t help you at all.’

‘We’ll be the judges of that. Everyone will be interviewed.’

‘We’ll be here all bloody night, then.’

This prompted quite a hubbub of alarm over personal arrangements.

Diamond ignored that and briefed his team. The key points to discover, he told them, were whether anyone had seen or heard anything about Clarion’s visit. Those unaware of it would be allowed to leave.

‘If one of them killed her, he’s not going to put up his hand and tell all,’ the hard-headed John Leaman said.

‘I’m not expecting a confession tonight,’ Diamond said. ‘We’re collecting facts.’ He named his interviewers and sent them to various parts of the auditorium. He was left with one lost sheep, Fred Dawkins.

‘Am I not to be trusted, guv?’

‘Far from it, Fred. Have you heard of Wyatt Earp?’

He frowned. ‘The sheriff?’

‘I think you’ll find he was a marshal, and so are you, for one night only. Marshal this lot in an orderly way, keep them sweet and send them one by one to whoever is ready to see them. Can you handle that?’

‘Only if I get a badge and a gun.’

The man had a glimmer of humour. Given time, he might fit in.

A massive gap in the sequence of events needed explaining. Diamond took Shearman on one side. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do. You told me you went to the box at the end of the play and found the body.’

The manager had turned pale. ‘That is correct and I called 999 and got the ambulance here.’

‘I’m more interested in what you didn’t tell me. At which point of the evening did you know she was dead?’

His mouth moved without any words being spoken.

‘You heard what O’Driscoll said. No one was visible in the box during the second half. She was already dead, wasn’t she?’

Still he didn’t answer.

‘There she was, your VIP guest. It would be extraordinary if you didn’t look in during the interval to see if she was comfortable. The truth,’ Diamond said.

Shearman sighed and finally found some words. ‘Unless you’ve been in my position you couldn’t possibly understand the pressure I was under. I had a theatre full of people, a performance in progress. To interrupt it would have created mayhem.’

‘You haven’t answered my question. When did you find out? In the interval?’

‘Shortly before the second half started. I knew she’d prefer to remain hidden, so I took her a glass of champagne. I tapped on the door and looked inside and had the shock of my life.’

‘Think hard before you answer this. Are you certain she was dead?’

‘Definitely. I spoke her name several times, and felt for a pulse. Absolutely nothing. I was petrified. The four-minute bell had gone for the second half to begin again.’

‘So you let it run. The show must go on. That’s the mantra, isn’t it? You had a dead woman lying in the box –’

‘No one could see her. She’d fallen on the floor. It looked like an empty box to anyone who didn’t know.’

‘How long is the second half?’

‘About an hour and a quarter.’

Diamond was appalled. ‘You left her lying dead for all that time and did nothing?’

‘What could I do? Empty the theatre? I couldn’t get her out without disturbing the audience. I was in a terrible dilemma. I’m responsible for all those people. She wasn’t visible to anyone, as Titus told you.’

‘You could have got her down the back stairs.’

‘Not without being noticed. You heard what Titus said. He was watching the box and no doubt others would have seen us moving her.’

‘When this leaks out, as it’s bound to, the press are going to hang you out to dry.’

‘I had to reach a decision. It seemed the best thing to do. It was all down to me. Francis wasn’t about.’

‘He’d already left, had he?’

‘I’ve no idea, but he wasn’t taking much interest in Clarion at that stage.’

‘Did you tell anyone? Kate, the wardrobe mistress?’

‘I kept it to myself, I swear. And as soon as the show was over I dialled 999.’

‘If Clarion was murdered – and it’s quite possible she was – we’ll need to know where everyone was during the interval.’

‘I can tell you what I was doing for most of it. I was trying to speak sense into Schneider.’

‘Schneider?’

‘It’s the part she plays. Everyone calls her that. She was ranting on hysterically about the grey lady and not being able to continue. I told her flatly she was a professional actor with a duty to the rest of the cast. She’d obviously noticed Clarion in the box before the interval, but I couldn’t tell her who it was.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’s a blabbermouth. She wouldn’t keep it to herself. Clarion wanted privacy.’

‘Wasn’t she visible from the audience?’

‘She was sitting well back. Only someone on stage would catch a glimpse.’

‘Any one of the actors could have spotted her, then?’

‘They may have seen a figure there. Hard to recognise who it was.’

It was clear to Diamond that anyone in the cast or crew might have learned that Clarion had been in the theatre. Melmot and Shearman knew for certain, and so did the security man, Binns. For a would-be murderer, the opportunity had been there: Clarion alone in the box during the twenty-minute interval.

He’d heard as much as he wanted from Shearman. Binns was next up, all silver buttons and defiant, staring eyes, expecting an attack on his professional competence.

‘How did you learn about Clarion’s secret visit?’ Diamond asked.

‘Mr Melmot.’

‘How exactly – a note, a phone call?’ ‘Personally. He came to the stage door and told me himself.’ ‘This was hot news.’ Binns shrugged in contempt at the obvious. ‘Tell anyone else, did you?’ He didn’t like that. ‘What do you take me for? It’s more than my job is worth to go blurting it out.’ ‘So what happened?’ ‘I carried out his instructions to the letter. Waited out front for her to come in her black limo. Escorted her round to the side door and up the back stairs to the top box. Mr Melmot was already up there and greeted her and my job was done.’

‘She arrived by limo, you said?’ ‘Chauffeur-driven Mercedes, like I was told to look out for.’ ‘Was anything said when she first got out?’ ‘Not by her. She had a scarf across her face like one of them Arab women and the hood of her jacket was over her head. I told her to come with me and she did.’ ‘Did she appear nervous?’ ‘How would I know when all I could see was her eyes?’ ‘You’re in the security business. You can tell a lot from a person’s behaviour, or you ought to.’ ‘She was in control of herself, if that’s what you’re asking.’ ‘Was it busy outside the theatre?’ ‘It was past the time when they’re hanging about outside.

The show was almost starting. No one took any notice of her.’ ‘Was anyone lurking around the stairs to the box?’ ‘No.’ ‘After taking her upstairs, where did you go?’ ‘Back down and round to the stage door. I was there for the rest of the evening.’ Just a functionary. That was his defence, anyway. If anyone had a case to answer, it wasn’t Charlie Binns. Diamond kept an open mind. If Binns and Shearman could be believed, the people ‘in’ on the secret visit amounted only to three. But at the interval Fräulein Schneider was mouthing off to Gisella and Preston and everyone who happened to be in the wings that she’d seen the grey lady in the upper box. Anyone who guessed the truth or simply went to investigate could have attacked Clarion. Her death had taken place in that twenty-minute slot.

Was it murder?

He returned upstairs, fixed on dragging some definite information out of Dr Sealy. The stairs didn’t do anything to lower his blood pressure.

‘What killed her, then?’ he said when he’d got his breath back.

Sealy was still crouched over the body. ‘I told you –’ he barely managed to say before Diamond cut him off.

‘You told me nothing. You’ve been studying the body for

– what? – forty minutes and given me no help at all. I’ve got all of fifty people down there wanting to get off home. I can’t hold them indefinitely.’

‘Your call, old boy, not mine,’ Sealy said without looking away from the body.

‘Is there anything I should be told?’

‘About her death? Nothing I can tell you.’

‘Are you saying it was natural?’

‘No.’

‘Unnatural?’

‘I reserve judgement. I’ll do the PM tomorrow. Do you want to be there?’ He knew what to do with a knife, how to twist as well as dissect.

‘Not even a suspicion?’

‘I’m a scientist, my dear fellow. Suspicion is speculative and I don’t have any truck with it.’

‘Put it this way, then. Is it possible she was killed and no mark was left?’

‘Entirely possible, but don’t ask me to list the possible causes or we’ll be here all night.’ He stood up. ‘It gets to your knees, all this stooping. Pity she didn’t die sitting up in the chair.’

‘Just for your comfort?’ ‘Well, if she had, she’d have been visible to the audience and I imagine someone would have spotted something was wrong.’

‘I don’t know. People fall asleep watching dull plays.’

The first glimmer of concern crossed Sealy’s features. ‘Is it dull? I was given tickets for Saturday.’

‘I haven’t seen it. Look, if you’re not going to tell me anything, I might as well be off.’

‘There’s something I can tell you,’ Sealy said.

‘About the cause of death?’

‘No. About the victim. Take a look at her arms.’ He crouched again and rolled back one of the sleeves of the grey jacket as far as the elbow.

Diamond leaned over his shoulder for a better look. There were scars on the inner side of the forearm. ‘She was a druggie?’

‘No. These old injuries are not the same as you get from shooting up. She’s cut her wrists more than once. Clarion Calhoun was a self-harmer.’

17

A
n event as sensational as the sudden death of a major pop star becomes international news in a short time. Well before midnight on Thursday the police switchboard was jammed with media enquiries. Diamond issued a statement confirming that a woman had been found dead in a box at the Theatre Royal and that a post-mortem would be conducted next morning and a press conference would follow.

Early Friday he phoned Ingeborg at home and confided what the press didn’t yet know.

He heard her intake of breath.

The shock was still with him too, and gave more bite to his words than he intended. ‘When I asked you to bone up on Clarion’s life you didn’t tell me anything about self-inflicted injuries.’