Simon Brett - So Much Blood

But the figure did not stop. It turned right at the bottom of the steps and Charles saw the beard and glasses. It was not Martin.

He awoke on his camp-bed at about five with the worst sort of afternoon hangover. The urgent rehearsal schedule he had promised himself had petered out rather quickly. He hoped that he had not been seen lying there by too many of the group. A middle-aged man asleep in the afternoon. No doubt snoring. The monotone of the piano upstairs indicated a revue rehearsal. He hoped Anna had not seen him.

A cup of coffee might help. He eased himself downstairs to the kitchen. The day’s cook, a large girl with corkscrew curls, was chopping up more of the inevitable cabbage.

‘Where’s the coffee?’

‘Over there, behind the cornflakes.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘I’ll make you some…’

‘Thanks.’ He made to sit on a chair by the table.

‘… if you don’t mind doing something for me.’

‘What?’

‘Just empty that, would you?’

‘That’ was a large cardboard box full of rubbish-papers, sweepings, cigarette ends, kitchen refuse. The bottom felt unwholesomely soggy on his hands. Charles Paris, haulage contractors. Amplifiers, refuse-distance no object. He negotiated the load through the kitchen door and made his way to the dustbins.

There was a little room at the top of one of them. He balanced the box on the edge and tried to let the contents slip gently in.

They all came with a rush, covering his hands with tea leaves and a yellow slime that had been food. Little scraps of paper scattered all around the bin.

He pushed down the smelly pile and bent to pick up some of the litter. A lot of the paper appeared to have been torn from a big poster photograph. He picked up a piece which had printing on it.

WI

PU

He scrabbled among the other bits until he found the adjacent one which spelled out the title.

WILLY MARIELLO

PUCE

It was ax publicity poster of Willy that someone had shredded into a thousand pieces.

From biblical times the restorative properties of a young woman’s body have been acknowledged, and Charles felt better after another night with Anna. He was amazed how much she affected him. She was beautiful, and she was knowledgeable in bed, but it was not just that. There was something about the honesty of her responses. No extravagant protestations of love, no questions about the future, just an acceptance that what was happening was good. Most people reveal their weaknesses in a close relationship and endear themselves by failure. But the nearer Charles got to Anna the more complete and integrated she seemed. And she made him feel complete too. Not two lost souls leaning against each other for support, but two independent people who complemented each other.

The alarm woke them at nine. Charles reached his hand round to the small of her back and kissed the elastic skin of her breasts. Anna smiled. ‘Got to get up.’

‘Saturday.’

‘No weekend for us. The revue opens on Monday. We’ve got a tech. run at ten.’

‘Yes, the show must go on.’ She got up. Charles squatted ruefully on the bed with his elbows on his knees. Anna paused in the bathroom doorway and grinned. ‘You look like a dog that’s had its bone taken away.’

‘Yes, I fancied a nice bit of marrow-bone jelly. Isn’t that what Prolongs Active Life?’

‘You needn’t worry.’ She closed the bathroom door. Charles smiled, gratified. He spoke up over the sound of running water. ‘Hey, look, I’ve got a lot of rehearsal to do, too. Can I use the flat? It’s so difficult to find anywhere quiet at Coates Gardens.’

A gurgle from the bathroom gave him permission. ‘What are the technical lot like, Anna? All the sound and lighting people?’ Another gurgle said they were fine, there was a good course in the Department of Drama. ‘I hope so. I’m only getting a few hours’ rehearsal in the hall-Sunday and Monday morning is all I’m allowed.’

The bathroom door slid open and Anna appeared, naked, her hair spiked with damp. ‘Not fair, is it, you poor old thing?’ she said as she crossed to her clothes on the chair.

He grabbed at her ankle as she passed and she flopped on to the bed. ‘Got to go and rehearse, Charles.’

‘Rehearse and become a big star.’

‘Yes.’

‘Even stars have five minutes.’

The rehearsal went well too. Given somewhere to work on his own, Charles concentrated and put more subtlety into his readings. He was very organised. Once straight through, then a laborious line-by-line analysis of what had gone wrong. Another run-improvements in individual items but too uniform a pace overall. More detailed work, and finally a run that he would not have been ashamed to show to an audience. ‘There are many pleasures to be had at the Edinburgh Festival, and the greatest of these is Charles Paris’ So Much Comic, So Much Blood.’ Silly, however old and cynical he got, there were times when his mind raced and fantasies of success made him deliciously nervy and excited.

After rehearsal he found the pubs were shut and that made him feel virtuous. A brisk walk was called for. He popped into a little cafe aptly called the Poppin and bought a couple of floury ham rolls. Then started a leisurely stroll up to the Castle.

The Esplanade was flanked with tiers of seats ready for the Military Tattoo. The head of a statue and the point of an obelisk came up through the disciplined rows to be capped incongruously by green tarpaulin covers. But the Castle itself still looked impressive as Charles mounted the gentle incline to its heraldic gateway. ‘Nemo me impune lacessit.’ The motto’s translation came to his mind in the accent of a Glasgow thug- ‘No one provokes me and gets away with it.’

It was like a pilgrimage. Every time he came up to Edinburgh, he had to look round the Castle. Climb up to Mons Meg, maybe look inside St Margaret’s Chapel. Then on the level below he would lean against the ramparts and gaze down over the city, whose greys merged to distant greens which were lost in the gleam of the Firth of Forth.

It was a clear, sparkling day. He had a beautiful girl and he felt confident about his show. And yet…

And yet there was a nagging unease in his mind. Willy Mariello’s murder. Each time he tried to dismiss it, he saw the fear in those brown eyes. And he knew that the pleasures of Edinburgh could only allay his unrest temporarily. Peace would not come until he knew the full facts.

The facts he had found out did not take him far. There were still some forty suspects who had had equal opportunity to switch the knives. Of those two had had greater opportunities than the others to stage-manage the murder-Martin Warburton and Pam Northcliffe. Martin had struck the fatal blow and he was an unstable character with strange obsessions about violence. But it seemed too obvious, and Charles felt an understanding, even an affinity with the boy’s tormented mind. He could not think of him as a murderer.

The same applied to Pam. However, it was she who had actually issued the murder weapon and there were other strange features of her behaviour. He had a strong suspicion that she was responsible for the torn poster. The pieces that he had found had burst out of a paper bag full of crepe paper scraps which Pam had been using to make props. He had not challenged her with it, but he was fairly certain. So she had something to hide.