Peter Lovesey - Stagestruck

‘Bully for you and I understand why, but it doesn’t alter the feeling I get each time I go there.’

‘How are you going to head this investigation, then?’

He laughed. ‘With difficulty.’

‘Would you like to overcome your problem?’

Now he exhaled sharply. He was wary. ‘I’m not sure. What do you have in mind?’

‘I know someone who helps people with phobias – ’

‘I wouldn’t call it a phobia,’ he said at once, ‘and I certainly don’t want to see a shrink.’

‘Raelene isn’t a shrink. She’s an earthy Australian, probably the wisest person I know. She can help you, I feel sure, but you have to be willing to unblock whatever it is that your brain is hiding from you.’

‘I don’t want to do this.’

‘Fair enough. Think it over.’ She looked away, across the canal, and changed the subject. ‘I may be stating the obvious, but could the Clarion incident be a case of stage fright?’

He shook his head. ‘The burns must be genuine, or she wouldn’t have been moved to Frenchay.’

‘I mean if she was terrified of appearing, really terrified, she could have induced the burns herself. How’s this for a theory? She makes her entrance, does the screaming fit, gets off the stage and covers her face with the towel, giving her the chance to apply some chemical that burns.’

‘There must be less painful ways.’

‘It would explain the delay in her reaction. You said the make-up was thought to be the cause, but if that was the case, she’d have been hurting before she got on stage.’

‘You’re quite a sleuth yourself,’ he said. ‘Yes, the delay has to be explained, but until we get the make-up analysed we won’t know for sure.’

‘You must be champing at the bit.’

‘We’re ready to go, yes.’ They had almost reached Candy’s footbridge, spanning the canal and the railway. ‘Shall we change the subject?’ he said. ‘What’s the project that’s taking up so much of your time?’

‘Oh, it’s a costume piece. Sweeney Todd .’

Outside the Theatre Royal was a Morris column, one of those cylindrical billboards common in Paris and beloved of Proust. It was plastered with posters of I Am a Camera showing Clarion smoking a cigarette in a holder. Leaning nonchalantly against it, waiting for Ingeborg, was Keith Halliwell. He had borrowed a camera from one of the police photographers and was carrying a professional-looking shoulder bag that was supposed to be filled with camera equipment. In reality it contained his raincoat and the camera. He wouldn’t know how to change a lens or what to do with a light meter.

‘Yoo-hoo.’ Ingeborg stood only a pace away from him, making a circling movement with her hand.

He hadn’t spotted her in the crowd in front of the theatre. She had her hair pinned up and was wearing a black velvet skirt, the first time he’d seen her in anything but jeans.

‘Did you get the tickets?’ She sometimes forgot she was the DC and he the DCI, but it was obvious that on the present mission she would have to take the lead.

‘Royal circle, back row.’

‘Shall we do the biz first? I’ve brought my old press-card.’

‘Will I need one?’

‘Not if you tag behind me with the camera in your hand. Where is it?’

‘In the bag.’

‘No use there. The whole point is to have it on view. Let’s check the notices in the foyer.’

Halliwell wasn’t sure why. He thought they were supposed to try and get backstage before the show. But Ingeborg found what she was looking for, a board with an announcement that for this performance the part of Sally Bowles would be played by Gisella Watling.

They left the foyer. Outside again, they turned right, past the drinkers outside the Garrick’s Head. The stage door stood open, but didn’t look like an invitation to go in. They went up some stairs to the point where you had to declare yourself or turn back. Ingeborg tapped on the window and a heavy-jowled, unfriendly face appeared. ‘Press,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone, allowing a glimpse of her card. ‘May we go in?’

‘Who are you?’ the doorkeeper asked.

‘Ingeborg, independent.’ She made it sound as if Borg was her surname and the Independent was her employer. A national paper had to be treated with respect by any provincial theatre.

‘The press night was yesterday.’ Not a lot of respect there.

‘I know, but yesterday the story was all about Clarion,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Tonight it’s Gisella.’

‘Who?’

‘The understudy playing Sally Bowles.’

‘The curtain goes up shortly. She won’t want to do an interview now.’

‘Not an interview. We’re taking some pictures backstage for an exclusive. It’s all been cleared. We won’t get in the way.’

‘No one cleared it with me.’ The voice was deeply discouraging, and it added, ‘I’m not the regular man, you know. I work for the security team. Everything has to authorised with us.’

‘Didn’t she let you know? So much on her mind, poor lamb. It’s been that sort of day for us, too. We were only given the job this afternoon.’

Halliwell had to admire Inge’s sales pitch, and some of it was the truth. She must have learned how to blag in her days as a hack.

She then excelled herself by asking this plonker if they could get a picture of him in uniform to go with the feature she was writing.

‘You don’t want me in your paper,’ he said in a tone disclosing he wouldn’t mind at all.

‘Keith, why don’t you get the picture of – what’s your name, sir?’

‘Charlie Binns.’

‘Of Charlie Binns, while I go ahead and let Gisella know we’re here. We don’t want her panicking tonight, of all nights.’

The man had bought it. He was fastening his silver buttons. ‘I’d better put my cap on.’

And now it was up to Halliwell to work the camera. He wasn’t even sure which button to press. He was struggling to get the thing out of its case.

‘I’ll leave you guys to it,’ Ingeborg said, ‘if you wouldn’t mind letting me through, Charlie.’

The man adjusted his peaked cap, the door was unfastened and Ingeborg went backstage.

Halliwell touched each button he could see and one of them produced a flash. ‘All in order,’ he managed to say and pointed the lens at Charlie Binns and pressed the same button again. ‘Nice one.’

‘So when will it appear?’ Binns asked.

‘Could be in the magazine this weekend. The editor decides.’ Halliwell was improvising quite well himself. ‘May I go through now?’

He was admitted to a passageway with several noticeboards. At the far end Ingeborg was talking to a large-bosomed woman who didn’t look as if she was about to go on stage. She had a modern hairstyle with blonde highlights and was in a low-cut top and jeans. She was holding a dress on a hanger.

‘This is my photographer,’ Inge said as he approached. ‘Keith, this is Kate, who runs the wardrobe department. I was asking which dressing room Gisella uses now, and she’s still in number eight upstairs. I thought we might get a picture of the number one room first.’

‘That’s stage left, on the prompt side,’ Kate from wardrobe told them, pointing. ‘Are you sure you have permission to be here?’

‘Yes, we have clearance from Mr Binns on the stage door.’

‘Keep your voices down, then, and don’t go anywhere near the stage.’ She headed off in the other direction.

‘Do we really want a picture?’ Halliwell asked Ingeborg as they made their way up the corridor. ‘I’m not even sure if there’s film in the camera.’

People mostly dressed in black were moving about with a sense of urgency as curtain up approached.

‘We only need to get in there. Instructions from the guv’nor.