Nicola Upson - An Expert in Murder

‘That’s good, Bill, thank you. Of course, the world and his wife have walked past that decanter tonight, but McCracken had plenty of time alone with it.’

‘I don’t quite see why she’d kill the Simmons girl, though.’

Penrose thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes, Aubrey’s murder is much easier to understand because he was in a position to make enemies, but Elspeth’s death made a mockery of Richard of Bordeaux and we have all the evidence we need in those letters that McCracken resented that play and despised Josephine. I think we can also safely say that she’s not the most stable of people: I can imagine the person who writes notes like this being so full of spite that it could send her over the edge. There’s an arrogance about them, a vanity that we’ve seen in a lot of criminals. Before this happened, it occurred to me that Elspeth’s death might have been a mistake, that whoever did it had meant to kill Josephine.

Now, I can’t help feeling that what links these murders is more deep-rooted than professional jealousy, but it’s still a possibility that whoever is doing this is doing it to destroy the play. But we’re 146

getting away from this locked door business. Have you spoken to the stage doorman yet?’

‘Yes, and he swears that no one went up or down those stairs except Aubrey, Miss Beaumont and you. By the time the body was found, everyone else – actors and staff alike – had gone out through stage door or were waiting there with you. I gather that’s not unusual. He says no one ever hangs around for long and Aubrey is invariably the last person left in the building.’

‘Then nobody else should know about the murder, at least.

Except one person, of course. So how did that door get locked?’

‘Come with me, Sir, and I’ll show you.’

Penrose looked bewildered as Fallowfield led him out of Aubrey’s office and down the corridor. ‘Have you been reading John Dickson Carr again, Bill?’ he asked.

Fallowfield smiled. ‘It’s not as clever as that, Sir, I’m afraid.

Have you ever noticed that bridge that runs across St Martin’s Court?’

Penrose visualised the passage and immediately realised what Fallowfield was talking about. ‘Of course. It links the New to Wyndham’s. I’d never thought about it before.’

‘Go through that door, Sir, and you’ll be on it. Apparently Aubrey had it built as an extra fire exit for both theatres. We’d have found it soon enough – it’s no secret – but the stage doorman mentioned it and saved us a bit of time.’

Penrose did as he was told and found himself at one end of a small walkway. Moving to the centre of the bridge, he looked down into St Martin’s Court. The rain had started again and the crowds were long gone; stripped of its glitter, the passage that had buzzed with excitement just an hour earlier now looked squalid and depressing. ‘So it’s possible to get up here from Wyndham’s without going anywhere near stage door?’

‘Exactly. Not for every Tom, Dick and Harry, of course, because it goes through to private areas in both theatres, so the general public could only use it in an emergency.’

‘But the people we’re interested in would know about it.’

‘Yes they would. McCracken and White and the rest of the stage 147

crew work in both theatres anyway, so they’d be familiar with the layout and people would expect to see them there. But according to matey on stage door, there’s a lot of mingling among the actors as well. Aubrey employed both casts and they hang around together a lot, have a drink in each other’s dressing rooms – that sort of thing.’

Penrose thought about it. The play at Wyndham’s had run for around another fifteen minutes after the curtain fell on Richard of Bordeaux so, by the time the staff were leaving the New, the passage would have been at its busiest with audiences spilling out to go home or hanging around for autographs. Nobody would find it easy to get through those crowds, particularly actors waylaid by fans, but he had watched most of the Richard cast leave while he was waiting for Aubrey at the stage door, and they had not hung about. It would have been possible for them to get into Wyndham’s and up to this bridge, and so to the door of Aubrey’s office.

Whoever it was stood a chance of being seen through the glass on the walkway, but most people were either looking out for a famous face or walking head-down against the cold; it wasn’t much of a risk, compared with everything else. ‘God, it’s just hopeless,’ he said to Fallowfield. ‘The list is getting longer rather than shorter, and we can’t necessarily eliminate them from Elspeth’s murder, either. Her death occurred just before any of them would have been expected at the theatre last night. Lydia met Josephine and got back to the theatre in good time, so any of the people we’ve got here could feasibly have been at King’s Cross and not been missed.’

Fallowfield nodded. ‘Any of them could have passed through the scene dock and tampered with the whisky, and any of them could have come up here later on.’

‘But why do both, I wonder? If the whisky was in the decanter, from which only Aubrey was going to drink, he was already as good as dead. What would be the point of taking an extra chance to go to his office, assuming that the same person did both?’

‘To make sure he couldn’t get out and call for help, I suppose, Sir.’

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‘I would have thought the choice of poison made certain of that.

It must have acted immediately on entering his system. From what I’ve seen of his body, no one could have helped him, even if they’d found him alive.’

‘But what else could it be?’

‘I would have said to incriminate him with Elspeth’s murder weapon if it weren’t for the locked door. If somebody wanted to set Aubrey up, that would explain why the knife was swapped for the hatpin but the door instantly undermines the suicide theory and I don’t think we’re dealing with someone who would have panicked and locked it by mistake. No, those other things on the desk are central. The flower again, and the tin; they’re like the dolls in that railway carriage. It’s almost as if he or she is leaving an explanation at each scene – a message for us, or some sort of justification.’

‘I suppose whoever it was could have come here to fetch something, as well, something that might have been incriminating.’

‘Yes, Bill – that could easily be it, in which case McCracken’s ruled out because those letters would never have been left in the desk.’ He sighed heavily. ‘We’d better get back – the lads will have arrived by now. I need to talk to Lydia, and then I’ll pay a call on Mrs Aubrey while you bring McCracken in for questioning.’ He handed Fallowfield a piece of paper. ‘That’s a list of the phone numbers from Aubrey’s blotter – I want to know who they all are as soon as possible, so get someone back at the Yard onto that right away. And can you have a look at the Wyndham’s side of this bridge? Find out exactly where it goes and how easy it is to get to from the other side.’

‘Right-o, Sir, I’ll do it now. I just hope I don’t end up on stage in the middle of a performance.’

‘I can’t help feeling that the performance has been up here tonight – and we’ve missed it. I’ll see you in a bit.’

Penrose went back down the corridor and found that the disquieting calm of Aubrey’s room had been dispelled by forensics at work. By the desk, a couple of officers were carefully packing the empty whisky bottle and tumbler, preserving them for analysis.

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Another was perched on a set of steps, leaning out over the body to photograph it from above. Unexpectedly, the flash from the camera illuminated Aubrey’s face, and the image of death that it framed in that momentary explosion of light was so intensely familiar and so suddenly thrust upon him that he had to blink to rid himself of it, and to anchor himself firmly in the present.