Peter Lovesey - Stagestruck

‘It is now. I damn near throw up when I approach the entrance.’

‘But the first time it happened, you didn’t. I was thinking this over last night. You told me your theatre phobia – you don’t call it that, I know, but let’s give it a name for clarity’s sake – you said it didn’t affect you some time later when you were taken to the Mermaid Theatre.’

‘For Treasure Island . I was fine. Loved it. Can’t tell you why.’

‘Yet Julius Caesar at the Old Vic made you ill.’

‘I walked out before it started. My teacher only found out later. Are you going to tell me the choice of play makes all the difference?’

‘No, I’m not. It’s obvious that the theatre does.’

He stared unseeing across the empty CID room. ‘But why?’ Paloma’s reasoning seemed to be circular. He had no expectation of a breakthrough.

‘Can you remember any other theatre where you weren’t aware of the phobia and just enjoyed the show?’

He didn’t have to dig deeply in his memory. His theatre-going didn’t amount to much. ‘Once when I was in Chichester with Steph we saw a comedy by some guy from somewhere up north, Scarborough, I think.’

‘Ayckbourn.’

‘Was it? You know better than me. Anyway, there were no alarms for me. It was very funny.’

‘Chichester,’ Paloma said. ‘Now that’s interesting. Chichester has a thrust stage. It projects out into the audience, with the seating around it. And the Mermaid was open stage as well.’

‘Does that make a difference?’

‘You’re the one who can answer that. There’s no curtain in an open-stage theatre.’

‘True.’

‘No curtain, Peter, and no problems for you. Do you follow me?’

‘Are you saying I have a fear of curtains? I’d never go anywhere if I did.’

‘Theatre curtains. Bath has curtains. So does the Old Vic. And no doubt the Arcadia at Llandudno. As soon as your family were seated, you couldn’t get out fast enough. Am I onto something?’

‘Search me. Curtains.’ But he tried to give it more serious thought. He couldn’t deny that he’d gone to some lengths to avoid looking at the Theatre Royal curtain – the treasured house drapes donated by the Chaplin family. ‘That would narrow it down for sure.’

‘Did something unpleasant happen with the curtain in that play you were in as a child?’

‘Nothing I can remember. I’ve no memory of the curtain. I suppose they had one. It was just a church hall.’

‘They surely would. Give it some thought. It may yet come back to you.’

Enlightened? In truth, no. He’d said the right things to please her. She cared about him, and he appreciated that.

After putting down the phone he picked up the notes Dawkins had made on Charlie Binns, the security man. As a piece of research, it was all he could have asked for. Fred was a pain in many ways, but give him a job like this and he was as reliable as anyone on the team. Binns, aged thirty-six, was a Londoner, born in Stepney to a couple who managed a dry-cleaning shop, a poor scholar who failed most of his GCSEs, joined the army as an apprentice and served until 1996, ending as a corporal. He’d had a series of jobs in the building trade, followed by two years as an assistant undertaker. He had then started in the security business as a part-time bouncer for various pubs and nightclubs. Twice divorced, he had a child by the first marriage and had defaulted a number of times on the maintenance payments. Over the last three years he’d held down a regular job with his current security firm and resumed the payments. He was living alone in a rented flat in Twerton, to the west of Bath. He belonged to a martial arts club and was a black belt in judo.

Below, Dawkins had written:

FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Possible links to Denise

1. Army experience. Bosnian War? Check if his regiment was there when she was touring.

2. Employment in undertaker’s. A long shot, but where did she work?

Possible links to Clarion

Bouncer at clubs. Pop concerts? Protection?

This was better than a solid piece of research, in Diamond’s estimation. There was enough in the end notes alone to show Dawkins was thinking outside the box. Even if none of these potential links matched up, the analysis was intelligent and thorough.

Was Charlie Binns rising up the scale as a suspect? The motive wasn’t clear, but there was enough to keep him in the frame. If he and Denise had crossed paths in Bosnia or even some funeral parlour, and got into a spat and then chance brought them together again at the theatre, maybe there was a motive. Old enmities could have triggered the violence.

He decided to take another look at Denise’s original statement about the Clarion scarring episode. Fred Dawkins had put it on the computer, but Diamond liked reading things on paper and he’d got the printed version in a folder along with the pages of speed-writing from Dawn Reed’s notebook. Did Denise mention the trip to Bosnia, or had that come up later? He thought he’d heard it first from Kate. And now, on checking, he confirmed he was right. Nothing about the previous work experience was there in Denise’s words.

How reliable was Kate’s memory?

A sound in the office outside disturbed him. He got up and opened the door. Fred Dawkins had walked in looking untypically svelte in his rehearsal gear of black top, trousers and black trainers.

‘How did the walk-through go?’ Diamond asked.

‘You gave me a shock, guv,’ he said, clapping a hand to his brow as if still in theatrical mode. ‘I was starting to think CID had closed down, at least for tonight. The walk-through? Pedestrian, in more than one sense of the word. However, we’ll persevere. I keep reminding myself that they are all amateurs, even the Assistant Chief Constable. Do you mind if I check my voicemail? I’m hoping for an answer to an enquiry I made about Mr Binns.’

‘Go ahead. I was trying to understand Dawn Reed’s speed-reading. I’m getting good at it.’ He returned to his desk. He hadn’t been there long when Dawkins reappeared, as pleased as if he’d just hoofed the umbrella dance from Singin’ in the Rain.

‘A development, guv.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I asked Alert Security, Binns’s employers, how he came to be assigned to the Theatre Royal and they said he volunteered. They have the contract for the security system and he’s been on duty in and around the theatre before. After all the publicity over the first night he pointed out that the stage door was the one weak point, relying on human control, rather than the digital locks everywhere else. He offered to man it and was accepted.’

Diamond nodded. ‘So he volunteered. This is getting interesting.’

‘There is more. I asked my contact at Alert about Binns’s other duties in recent months and was informed that he is often on nightclub duty.’

‘As a bouncer?’

‘Indeed. I enquired what their duties consist of, and it seems they are there to deter undesirables, gatecrashers and any under the obvious influence of drink or drugs. In some cases they won’t admit people unless they submit to a search.’

Diamond’s patience was wearing thin. ‘Fred, I know what a bouncer does.’

‘Ah, but on a number of occasions they seize drugs.’

He raised his thumb. ‘Okay, I’m with you. I think I see where this is going.’

‘I asked for chapter and verse and that was the voicemail I just got back. They confirm that on two occasions in the past six months Binns confiscated a quantity of Rohypnol.’

‘Now you’re talking.’ And his own pulse was quickening. ‘They should have handed the stuff to us.’

‘I’m sure they did, or they wouldn’t have told me,’ Dawkins said. ‘But it’s not beyond the wit of a bent security man to pocket some pills himself and hand in a smaller quantity.’