Peter Lovesey - Stagestruck

‘As you wish, Mr Shearman,’ Basil said with dignity, as if he were Gielgud overlooked at an audition.

The eccentric Sergeant Dawkins entered Diamond’s office with a faint smile playing on his lips. ‘You sent for me.’

‘I did. Have a seat.’ Diamond already felt blighted. Whichever way he started with Dawkins, awkwardness took over. ‘You were at the theatre this morning checking on what happened last night. Would you give me a quick rundown?’

‘That depends,’ Dawkins said, looking at the back of his hand as if checking for liver spots.

‘Depends on what?’

‘How quick is quick.’

‘A summary, then. You don’t have to tell me every word.’

‘Nor shall I, ‘Dawkins said, settling into the chair. ‘First of all…’

‘Yes?’

‘First of all, may I be so bold as to ask the subtext.’

‘The what?’

‘The subtext.’

‘You’re losing me.’

‘The hidden agenda.’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

Dawkins gave a broader smile and said nothing.

‘You’re talking in riddles, man,’ Diamond told him. ‘Subtexts and hidden agendas. Explain.’

The sergeant turned to look out of the window, as if the answer might be in the car park below. ‘Powers of observation, analysis, deduction.’

‘You don’t have to make a meal of this. All I want is a short report on what was said. You spoke to the theatre director. Did anything emerge?’

‘Hey ho.’

‘I’m losing my patience, sergeant.’

‘Hey ho, I said.’

‘I heard you.’

‘Hey ho to your question: “Did anything emerge?”’

‘You’re talking like one of the Seven Dwarfs and you’re wasting my time.’

‘Not at all,’ Dawkins said. ‘It was a comment, sir, a compliment, in fact.’

‘I’m not looking for compliments.’

‘Quite so. The “hey ho” should have been silent, a tap of the cue on the snooker table.’

The man was round to snooker now. Diamond despaired of getting any plain statement. Without thinking, he put his hand to his head and tugged at the precious patches of hair he had left. What was the point in trying for straight answers?

‘The hidden agenda,’ Dawkins said, ‘so well disguised.’

Diamond reached into his in-tray, picked up the minutes of a Police Federation meeting and tried blocking out this pointless conversation.

But Dawkins had more to say, and he spoke the words slowly, as if they carried a momentous truth. ‘Put it this way: I can see where you’re coming from.’

‘I wish I could say the same.’

‘The place I’m coming from is the theatre.’

‘We can agree on that,’ Diamond said. ‘So why don’t you tell me in plain words what you found out there?’

‘Because of where you’re coming from.’

Diamond gripped his desk and made one more try. ‘Listen, sergeant. There’s no subtext, as you put it, no hidden agenda. I’m not coming from anywhere. I’m here, face to face with you.’

‘Not coming, but come?’

‘If that makes any difference, yes.’

‘And if my report is satisfactory, may I look forward to going there?’

‘Going where?’

‘Where you’re coming from.’

‘And where is that?’

‘CID.’

That was it. This pain in the arse thought he was being assessed for a plainclothes job. Hell would freeze over first. ‘No chance.’

Dawkins blinked in surprise.

‘You’ve got more front than the Abbey,’ Diamond told him. ‘Get on with your report.’

Finally Sergeant Dawkins appeared to accept the inevitable. ‘In plain words?’

‘Plain and to the point.’

He cleared his throat. ‘First I questioned the director, Mr Hedley Shearman. He was at pains to convey that the incident is being treated as an internal matter. They are dealing with it themselves, with a definite intention of carrying out an enquiry. It’s a family matter, to quote him. He didn’t see Miss Calhoun before the show, but he was in the audience and watched her on stage. When the curtain came down he went backstage and drove her to hospital himself.’

‘So he takes it to have been an accident?’

‘Indeed, preferring accident to incident.’

To stop Dawkins from starting on another tedious bout of wordplay, Diamond said, ‘You also spoke to the dresser.’

‘Ms Denise Pearsall, yes. Six years’ experience at the Theatre Royal. She made up Ms Calhoun. When I say “made up” I don’t mean – ’

‘What’s she like?’

‘As a dresser? I wouldn’t know.’

‘In interview, I mean. What impression did she make?’

‘Anxious, nervous, on her guard.’

Who wouldn’t be, faced with you? Diamond thought. ‘Suspiciously so?’

‘Difficult to tell. In her position, anyone would be entitled to feel vulnerable. If there is blame, she is the prime candidate.’

‘True.’

‘However…’ A finger went up.

Diamond had to wait. The man was like an actor playing to an audience of one.

‘However, one other thing of interest emerged.’

‘What’s that?’

‘On Sunday they had a dress rehearsal in full make-up. Nothing untoward was reported.’

‘Worth knowing,’ Diamond said, nodding.

Dawkins almost purred at the praise. ‘May I therefore…’

‘Therefore what?’

‘Look forward to a transfer?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Pardon me, but you appeared to approve of my report.’

‘When you finally got round to it, yes,’ Diamond said. ‘You were simply doing your job, a uniformed officer’s job. It wasn’t a secret test for CID, whatever you may have thought.’

Dawkins looked as if he’d walked into a punchbag. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I made myself clear. This isn’t a job interview. It’s routine.’

‘But you sent for me.’

‘To get your report, yes.’

‘The mere facts?’

‘Right. Have I got through to you?’

Dawkins shook his head. ‘If you had wanted the facts, you needn’t have asked me. You could have got them from PC Reed. She writes everything down.’

Diamond smouldered inside. How he wished he’d thought of that.

Backstage in the theatre, the male lead was the first to arrive for the next performance. Short for a leading actor and with a nose a pigeon could have perched on, he’d had to settle for character parts for most of his career. The role of Christopher Isherwood, a man of slight build and less than slight nose, presented a fine opportunity to get the name of Preston Barnes in lights, second only to Clarion Calhoun’s. The resemblance to Isherwood was striking, and he’d cultivated his hair to get the authentic parting and cowlick. ‘Has Basil been sacked?’

Hedley Shearman, on patrol in the dressing room area in case Denise Pearsall arrived, was thinking of other things. ‘Basil?’

‘The stage-door keeper. Some jobsworth is on the door. Very officious.’

‘I’ve installed a security man, for all our sakes. Basil will be back when the present emergency is over.’

‘Is that what it is – an emergency?’

‘It is for the management. Something went badly wrong last night, and we can’t risk a repeat.’

‘A repeat? God help us all if it happens a second time. Do you blame Basil, then?

‘I don’t blame anyone. It was unfortunate, that’s all.’

‘It was bloody unfortunate in performance, I can tell you. I’m pretty experienced at covering up when other actors miss their lines, but that was impossible. If you ask me, there was something dodgy with the make-up. The rest of us used our own and we were all right.’

‘Did Clarion say anything about it before you went on?’

‘I didn’t see her. I’m on stage when the play opens, as you know. The first I knew there was anything wrong was when she came on and missed her cue and started grimacing. I gave her the line again and she screamed in my face. How is she now?’