Peter Lovesey: Stagestruck

Diamond nodded. ‘Mr Charlie Binns has some questions to answer. Where would he be right now?’

Dawkins glanced at his watch. ‘Normally, he’d still be at the theatre, but as the performances are cancelled I expect he’s at home in Twerton.’

‘A dawn raid might be timely.’

‘I can lead it if you wish.’

‘Thanks, but one of the older hands had better be in charge. Get a night’s sleep.’ He raised a finger. ‘One thing before you go, Fred. You were there yesterday with Ingeborg when we found the suicide note on the stage. Have you mentioned it to anyone in the theatre?’

‘No, guv. You asked us not to.’

‘Good. The killer will be getting nervous about that note, not knowing it was found. He or she will think it’s still tucked away in the German stove and doing no good there. In fact now that we’re saying openly that Denise was murdered, it’s a liability. The killer needs to go back and remove it before the set is broken up tomorrow. I’ve laid a trap in case this happens tonight.’

‘May I help?’

Diamond smiled. ‘Keeno, always volunteering. You’ll learn. No, two officers are there already waiting to pounce. You know them both: Dawn Reed and George Pidgeon. Anyone gets inside the theatre, he’s nicked.’

‘If I may put it succinctly, guv, that’s neat.’

‘I wish you’d put it succinctly more often.’

After Dawkins left, Diamond remained in his office until after midnight dissecting the case, every statement, each report the investigation had prompted. This was a useful time to be at work, when the phones were silent, the press had gone away and he could deal with the information in his own way, circling, underlining and adding question marks, all on paper, rather than a screen.

Methodically he went through the process of sorting fact from mere suspicion. Between documents, he paused and stared at the wall, deep in thought. Until recently the killing of Denise had seemed like a direct consequence of Clarion’s scarring. Now he was considering it in isolation.

He returned to the statement made by Denise about the scarring incident and read the opening words for the umpteenth time:

I’ve worked here six years and never experienced anything as awful as this.

Later developments had given this apparently innocuous document an importance he hadn’t grasped until now. Thanks to Dawn Reed’s speed-writing and Fred Dawkins’ thoroughness it was a virtual transcript of the words Denise had used, ranging over her admission that she’d applied the make-up using her own kit, on the instructions of the director, Sandy Block-Swell, who had flown to America – which had led into a typical Dawkins red herring about double-barrelled names, leading on to a discussion about Clarion’s stage name and other showbiz examples. Not all the conversational asides in the speed-written version were in the printed statement, but her testimony about the Clarion incident was entirely accurate.

‘Bloody hell.’

He held the witness statement closer and stared at it. He had the answer in his hand. He reached for the fake suicide note and re-examined that.

He was stunned, but there was only one conclusion. Both documents had been printed on the same machine.

He knew what he must do. He went back to the computer and accessed the personal files of his own CID team. Then he turned to the brief notes he had on Denise’s early career, the assortment of jobs she’d had, from undertaker’s assistant to touring Bosnia.

Manchester Prison interested him most. He phoned there and asked for the duty governor. The man on the end of the line had obviously been asleep. He sounded peeved to get a call at this late hour, but he soon understood the urgency and promised to check for the information Diamond was requesting.

Meanwhile there was more to check. Flying in the face of his prejudice against the internet Diamond went online to search for names on the death registers. Next he phoned the National Identification Service at Scotland Yard and challenged another unfortunate on night duty to come up with information. He was getting close to a result and the indications couldn’t have been worse. His reasoning was taking him into territory he hadn’t visited until tonight, moving from disbelief to inescapable fact to near horror.

A mass of information was faxed from Manchester. He leafed through it rapidly and with a heavy heart.

Then his mobile rang. It came as a shock at this hour. He delved into his pocket for it. ‘Yes?’

‘Guv, this is Dawn Reed, in the theatre.’

‘Speak up. It’s a poor line.’

‘Dawn Reed. I’m worried. Someone has got into the building. George and I heard noises. We separated, to cover both sides of the place. We arranged to stay in contact on our personal radios. Now his has gone silent. I can’t raise him.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘The front stalls, crouching down between the seats.’

‘Don’t move from there, whatever happens, do you hear me? I’m coming at once.’

The timing had brought its own problems. The key members of Diamond’s team were all off duty, settling into deep sleep by now. He could rouse them, tell them he needed them at the theatre in the shortest possible time, but for what? He didn’t know yet, so there was no way of briefing them. They would come ready for action, expecting an emergency. Experience told him it was a huge error to go in with all guns blazing. Lives could be at stake here. Better, surely, for him to make a recce, assess the dangers, take the crucial decisions at the scene. But he would still need back-up.

All of this went through his head as he hurried downstairs. He paused at the front desk to tell a startled duty sergeant a major incident was taking place. Armed police were needed immediately at the Theatre Royal, enough to cover every exit. They were to stand guard outside the building pending further instructions. No one except himself was to be allowed in or out. Then he dashed to his car and headed for Saw Close.

He blamed himself for the cock-up. When he’d asked PCs Pidgeon and Reed to patrol the theatre at night it had seemed a smart idea, a baited trap. The killer would surely want to retrieve that so-called suicide note. Huge mistake. The note was not bait at all. What he’d done was set up the young officers as targets and now they were in danger of becoming the next victims.

They could be dead already.

He drove through the quiet streets at a speed that by his standards was death-defying, ignoring traffic lights, burning rubber at the turns.

The square three-storey façade with its balustrade skyline loomed over Saw Close, a sinister grey-black monolith deprived of any of the magic of theatre. All the lighting at the front of the old building was off at this hour. Diamond glimpsed the outline as he entered the forecourt from Upper Borough Walls and shuddered so strongly that it showed in the steering. He tightened his grip on the wheel, looked away from the theatre, brought the car to a screeching halt in front of the entrance and resolved that this was no time to let his hang-ups get to him. He was going in, come what may.

He’d made good time. He stepped out and looked around. He could hear a siren wailing not far off, but no response cars had arrived.

This was it, then. He was going in, alone and in darkness.

A side entrance would be best. This side of the Garrick’s Head in the paved alley were two doorways with the Victorian signs for “Pit” and “Gallery” still engraved above them. Hell or heaven? He chose hell. He fished in his pocket and – after a galling moment of doubt whether he’d brought it with him

– took out the card with the door codes. He stepped back from the shadow to catch some faint illumination from the streetlamps in Saw Close. He could just read the combination.