Peter Lovesey: Stagestruck

‘Admirable,’ Dawkins said in a flat voice. It may have been meant as sarcastic, but it sounded like defeat.

‘Getting back to Clarion,’ Diamond said, ‘Bristol Police told you the hotel she was staying in.’

‘The Cedar of Lebanon. Nothing secret about that.’

‘Except that you decided to drive over there last night and find out what was going on. You called on her at the hotel, didn’t you?’

‘What makes you think I did?’

‘It’s the logical explanation. Clarion wanted to talk. She had a bad conscience about what she’d done on the first night, the caustic soda she’d smeared on her own face without fully realising how damaging it was. Denise was dead and the theatre faced a commercial disaster. She wanted to make amends, give money to the theatre. But the danger for you was that she was about to destroy the theory of Denise’s suicide you’d painstakingly built up. Denise didn’t use the caustic soda. Clarion did. Clarion was a chronic self-harmer. You learned that she was about to confess everything to the theatre management.’

‘What am I supposed to have done about it?’

‘You must have thought about murdering her in the hotel. It would have been simpler, but I guess something went wrong. Maybe you were seen on a security camera. Whatever it was, you could afford to wait for the next opportunity. You got back in your car and followed her limo to the theatre and murdered her there. Nobody suspected you because nobody knew you were in the building that night. You let yourself in through the side entrance while the first half was in progress, waited for the interval, entered the box and suffocated her with a plastic bag. You were out of there and away without anyone seeing you.’

‘Leaving no traces.’

‘I wouldn’t count on that. The scene of crime people have been through. As you and I know, DNA is a marvellous aid to detection, but getting a result takes time. The men in white coats can’t keep up with the pace in a fast-moving case like this one.’

‘So it’s down to you and me to sort things out,’ Dawkins said.

‘You, me and the armed police waiting at every exit. Waiting for Godot.’

‘Estragon, to be precise,’ Dawkins said. ‘I played Estragon.’

‘That’s good, because the only thing I know about the play is that Godot never arrived.’ Diamond paused. ‘Where are you?’

Dawkins had vanished.

Simple, of course, to do a disappearing act when all it needs is a step backwards into the box. And Diamond had no way of stopping him. The mobile would have been useful at this point, but he’d forgotten it existed.

With all exits sealed, Dawkins could hide, but he wouldn’t escape. Diamond’s mind was on a more disturbing duty.

He stepped to the front of the stage and let himself down to floor level, the orchestra pit. He tried the door to the understage area normally used by the musicians and found that it opened. There were steps down into the band room. The light from the auditorium allowed him to see a little way ahead and he found a light switch.

He discovered Dawn Reed lying on the floor towards the back. She was bound and gagged with duct tape, as George Pidgeon had been. Like him, she was still alive. Dawkins had conned and lied to the last.

Peter Diamond wasn’t a religious man, but he thanked God, just the same.

The final-night party for Sweeney Todd was held in September that year in the Garrick’s Head. No question: the show had been a resounding success. Every performance had sold out and the reviews were better than anyone could remember for a BLOG production. If some of the choreography had looked a little under-rehearsed, not one of the critics mentioned it. Allowance was made for the loss of the movement director before the rehearsals really got serious.

Georgina was triumphant. She’d reserved a whole row in the stalls for her colleagues in the police and they didn’t let her down. Paloma was there in her own right as costume consultant and she insisted that Diamond was present the same evening.

‘A good show?’ Paloma asked him after he’d downed a large beer.

‘Very good. Pretty graphic, I have to say, some of the throat-cutting.’

‘Don’t throw a wobbly, whatever you do. You’re over all that, I thought.’

‘Happily, yes.’

‘And the case? Is that all wrapped up now?’

‘It is.’

‘Georgina was telling everyone at the bar about young PC Pidgeon making the arrest on the staircase behind the boxes. Apparently he did a brilliant job, got an armlock on the guilty man and delivered him to the police van. He and Dawn Reed are both being recommended for promotion.’

‘So I heard.’

‘Well, the armed police weren’t needed after all.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Georgina is pissed off about the cost of the operation. It was all double-time, being at night, and we’re way over budget. I told her if she hadn’t insisted on Dawkins joining CID, none of this would have happened.’

‘You won’t get a commendation for tact.’

‘It was the truth.’

‘Are you certain of that?’

‘Well, I guess he would still have done the murders as a uniformed sergeant, but it would have been more difficult covering them up.’

‘When will the case go to trial?’

‘Not this year. The law works slowly.’

‘And then he’ll get life?’

‘That’s automatic, but don’t waste any sympathy on him. I feel sorry for the prison governor who gets him.’

Titus O’Driscoll joined them, a glass of wine in his hand. ‘Do you mind if I butt in? There’s something I’m anxious to know.’

‘What’s that?’ Briefly, Diamond wondered if it was about his relationship with Paloma, but it was not.

‘When you and I went backstage and looked at the number one dressing room, we found a tortoiseshell butterfly, dead, and to my embarrassment I passed out.’

‘I remember.’

‘Furthermore, I was informed that when you searched the box where Clarion was murdered, you found a second butterfly caught in a cobweb.’

‘That’s right.’

‘My question is this: did the murderer have anything to do with the butterflies?’

‘You mean did he place them there himself?’ Diamond paused for thought. ‘It’s one question he wasn’t asked. You’re thinking about the superstition, aren’t you? If you want my opinion, Titus, they found their own way there. It was a natural occurrence, or supernatural, depending on your point of view, and I think I know what yours is.’

Titus smiled.