Paul Magrs - Mystery Lady

I’m relieved that Dodie is so well-spoken and matter-of-fact. The police are called from a phone box on the corner of the next street, and she calmly gives them the basic details. She politely declines to identify herself. She tells them what they need to know and says she is merely a concerned neighbour who has made a shocking discovery.

When she replaces the handset and steps back into the snowy street she clutches her coat collar tight about her throat to keep out the stinging cold.The two of us hurry through snow-laden streets, retracing our steps to the nearest main road. ‘We have to fetch Timothy from Television Centre, once he’s done with this foolish game show of his. Then we can sit down together, as a team, and decide what we must do next. Henry Duke will have to be informed, of course…’

Suddenly I experience one of my rare flashes of inspiration. ‘We have to warn them! All of them! All the authors in the book! If this is a mad person coming after them all…I think we should phone up everyone on the list and tell them…’

Dodie doesn’t look so sure. ‘Would they listen? Would you listen? If someone you didn’t know rang you up and raved about some unseen force coming after you..?’

She has a point. ‘What should we do then, Dodie?’

She thinks hard, just as we turn the corner onto the high street. The mundane sight of glowing shop windows and a queue at a bus stop are so reassuring I could weep. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘I think the first person we need to go and see is Helen Spedding. We need to find out who she really is, if she isn’t a copy editor after all. We need to know how she even managed to get hold of the book… And who scribbled those strange runes on the contents page…’

‘Did you pick up her letter?’ I ask. ‘From the table before we left?’

Dodie looks alarmed. ‘Balls! No! I forgot! We hurried out of there so quickly…’ And then she swears, floridly, just as the bus pulls up at our stop.

‘Spin the Bottle’ was a very silly kind of television programme with a gurning host in a shiny tuxedo making suggestive remarks and manipulating a gigantic bottle-shaped prop. The guests were set various demeaning and farcical tasks to perform and, naturally, the live studio audience, and presumably the viewers at home, lapped it all up. Cassie and I were in the front row in Studio 1 . Because of the elaborate nature of the props and stunts there were quite a lot of things that went wrong. The audience members around us were whooping and had tears of laughter streaming down their faces. After the events in Vaughan’s flat, Cassie and I weren’t in the mood for laughing.

It was then that Cassie saw the maggots in the brim of my hat.

And, quite forgetting that we were live on air, she gave out the most piercing scream.

‘Shush, Cassie!’ I gasped, reaching for my brim and feeling the nasty things squirming under my fingers.

But Cassie kept on screeching. It had been a long couple of days and her nerves were stretched taut.

We’ll be thrown out! I thought. We’ll get into awful hot water, and spoil the show for Timothy…

But I looked then and saw that no one was taking the slightest bit of notice of Cassandra and her hysterics. The raucous audience kept on laughing at the host’s and guests’ antics. The silly fun was continuing unabated.

Cassandra had managed to regain control of herself. I flicked the maggots from my hat onto the floor of the aisle beside us and squished them under my shoe.

‘Look,’ I hissed. ‘It’s Timothy’s turn.’

It was true. This was the tricky bit that he had been rehearsing all afternoon. It was an old-fashioned disappearing act involving an elaborate mirrored box. Tim’s apparently spontaneous forfeit was to attempt an impressive stage illusion usually performed by famed magician Carswell Hobbs, who’d been forced to pull out of the show due to ill health.

‘Go on, Tim…’ I urged him on, under my breath. This afternoon he had been nervous because the trick involved several hidden doors, cunning sleight of hand and a magician’s assistant called Doris, who was Carswell Hobbs’ second wife. She was wearing a bikini of green sequins and was standing between Timothy and the host right now. Oh, poor Timothy looked nervous as the band gave a drum roll. The audience went ‘oooh!’ as the lady stepped into the box. Then the host made suggestive remarks as Timothy stepped in after her and closed the door from within. The band struck up a spooky tune as the box revolved and smoke obscured our view of the magic unfolding on stage.

‘Remember, folks!’ bellowed the show’s host. ‘Timothy Bold is a completely untrained and inexperienced practitioner of stage magic! Who knows what terrible, deadly mistakes he might make?’

A chill of foreboding went right through me at this point.

And with good cause, it turns out.

For, when the music stopped and the box stopped revolving and the stage lights focused on its door as it opened, something rather awful happened.

For a split second I thought it was a part of the act.

But it clearly wasn’t, judging by the expressions on the faces of everyone on that stage.

That girl in the sequined bikini – Doris Hobbs – came toppling out of the magician’s magic box with her feather boa tied rather too tightly around her throat. With a flourish that wasn’t very elegant at all, she slumped heavily to the studio floor. Utterly dead.

And that’s when the real screaming started.

It takes me a while to cotton on to what’s going on, to be honest. I’m still horrified by seeing those bloomin’ maggots in Dodie’s hat , b ut suddenly there’s all this hullaballoo . The director and stage manager are down on the floor, the cameras are pulling away and the guests are being ushered off the stage. Someone announces that we are no longer live on air, and that the police are on their way.

And there is a dead girl lying in the middle of the shiny floor.

Panic ripples through the audience. People are getting up and trying to leave, but the studio staff are attempting to reassure them, telling them that no one should exit the building just yet.

Timothy Bold stands stock still beside the magic box from which he and the victim have just emerged. He has gone into shock. It’s plain to see, as he stands there, simply staring at the girl’s glittering body. I long to dash over and comfort him.Medics are already clustered around the girl. They obscure her from everyone’s view, fussing expertly.

Dodie Golightly isn’t prepared to stay where she’s seated. She’s on her feet and leaving the audience, pushing past the floor manager towards the scene of the crime. As her assistant I have no choice but to follow her.

‘Stand aside, Miss! This is a crime scene!’ says a little man pompously. Dodie ignores him and sweeps straight up to Timothy.

‘Did you see what happened?’ he gasps. ‘It was so dark inside there. I couldn’t see anything. She was wriggling about and then she was choking, and I thought at first she was having a funny turn. And then…then…! She collapsed and the door flew open… I didn’t do anything, Dodie! You know that, don’t you..?’

‘Of course I do,’ she snaps, and puts her arms around him.

Burly security guards have arrived on the scene. All at once they’re seizing hold of our Tim and dragging him away.

‘Where are you taking him?’ Dodie demands to know, but no one answers her.

Studio One is quite chaotic at this point. The audience is rebelling against its orders to stay put. If there’s a murderer in the place, might they not strike again? The very thought is enough to start a stampede toward the exit. ‘Please, wait!’ cries a stressed floor manager. ‘We need witnesses!’