An Expert in Murder (18 page)

Terry was only slight in build but he dominated the stage, determined, it seemed, to prove that it was his. In scene after scene he extracted every ounce of opportunity from Josephine’s lightly drawn portrait, seeming to relish the King’s strengths and weaknesses in equal measure and moving effortlessly from the airy carelessness of Richard’s early scenes to the disillusionment of someone in whom the poison of suspicion has begun to work.

Eventually, even Penrose was drawn in and he marvelled at the way in which the actor’s movements took on a morbid, feline elegance as he responded to the treachery against him. ‘To become an expert in murder’, he whispered bitterly to his queen as the first act drew to a close, ‘cannot be so difficult,’ and the intensity in his voice held the audience – Penrose included – spellbound.

He thought back to the first time he had seen Terry, playing the very same role but in Shakespeare’s version at the Old Vic. It was five years ago now, but he remembered it vividly because the production’s brief run had coincided with one of Josephine’s then rare visits to London. They had gone together and, if he recalled the evening more for the pleasure of her company than the power of Terry’s acting, it was no less poignant to him now. It had been one of those hot summer evenings which occasionally graced the city 124

with a leisurely decadence. As they walked back down the Waterloo Road, still laughing at one of the more eccentric patrons, whose cracked but resounding rendition of ‘God Save the King’

rang out from the front of the gallery at the end of the performance, he had seen in Josephine a willingness to engage with the future which had been absent since Jack’s death. Since then, she had often referred to that night as the inspiration for
Richard of
Bordeaux,
but it had been less fondly of late and, if he really wanted to torment himself, he could curse the impulse that had made him buy those tickets. Fortunately, before he could dwell too long in the past, the dusty-pink brocade and velvet curtains fell, drawing a jarring air of opulence over the simple lines of the Motleys’ stage designs.

Leaving Josephine safely in the bar with Lettice and Ronnie, Penrose walked round to stage door to look for Bernard Aubrey.

The rain which had fallen so fiercely in the early part of the evening had finally relented, but it was impossible to avoid the puddles, and the light from the Salisbury’s solid Victorian coach lamps blurred and splintered as his feet disturbed its perfect reflection. He had met Aubrey a few times, mostly at opening nights but more recently during that vicious court case, when Elliott Vintner had accused Josephine of plagiarism in the writing of
Richard of
Bordeaux
, claiming that it echoed the events of his own novel,
The
White Heart
, published twelve years earlier. Aubrey, as the play’s producer, had given evidence on Josephine’s behalf and Penrose had been impressed with his intelligence and sense of justice. His opinion of White’s character would, no doubt, be worth listening to and he might even be able to help the police find the boy. There were men posted wherever White was likely to appear and a description would be out by now in the evening paper, but Elspeth’s young man had so far proved elusive and any other suggestions would be gratefully received.

He announced who he was and the stage doorkeeper – a burly, red-faced man in his late fifties – wasted no time in telephoning up to Bernard Aubrey’s office and handing over the receiver. Penrose came to the point quickly and discreetly, aware that the doorman 125

was giving a display of nonchalance which would never get him a job on the other side of the footlights.

‘Bernard? It’s Archie Penrose. I’m sorry to interrupt you on a Saturday night but I need to talk to you, and the sooner the better.

Is now convenient? It shouldn’t take too long.’

There was a second’s pause while Aubrey blew a lungful of smoke into the air, then Penrose heard his voice, thick and guttural from a lifetime’s devotion to cigarettes. ‘Actually, Archie, it might take longer than you think. I’m glad you’re here because there’s something I need to talk to you about, as well. I was going to come and see you on Monday, but after this terrible business it can’t wait until then. As it is, I’ve got to live with the fact that I’ve left it this long.’ He exhaled again, then continued. ‘I’ve got to be on stage in the second half and I can’t get out of that – there’s no one else here to do it – but I’ll meet you downstairs as soon as we finish. I’m supposed to be taking everyone for a drink, but we can talk privately first. What I have to say might help you. In any case, it will help me.’

‘Then perhaps we could at least make a start now?’ Penrose said, but the line was dead even before he had finished the sentence. Frustrated, but daring to hope that he might at last be getting somewhere, he resigned himself to another agonising wait and walked back down St Martin’s Court.

The Grand Circle Bar was always packed on a sold-out Saturday night. Ronnie, who never allowed even the densest of crowds to stand between her and a large gin, returned triumphant from the bar and passed two tall glasses to Lettice and Josephine before falling heavily into the third herself. ‘Fuck, it’s Fitch,’ she said, as she came up for air. ‘Don’t look round.’

But it was too late. ‘A hundred thousand in a year at the box office!’ cried the critic from the
Evening Standard
, forcing his way over. ‘Aubrey can afford to go dark for a month and I dare say Inverness has seen a few corks popped of late?’

‘Oh, it’s been nothing but fizz and fun since last February,’ said Josephine, brushing the comment skilfully aside and trying to hide 126

her dislike. ‘I can’t thank you enough for all the reviews, and I do so appreciate it when you include a list of criticisms.’

Over Lettice’s head, Josephine saw Marta appear at the door and make her way through the crowd, drawing some appreciative glances as she did so. ‘I’ve been sent to offer you the chance of some peace and quiet backstage if you don’t want to go back in after the interval,’ she said. ‘Come down to the dressing room.

Once Lydia’s died, we can all have a drink.’

Gratefully, Josephine took the lifeline she was offered. ‘I’ll see you at stage door afterwards,’ she called back over her shoulder, and felt a brief stab of guilt as she saw Fitch take a deep breath, ready to continue.

‘You came just at the right moment,’ she said as they went downstairs. ‘Grovelling really doesn’t suit me, and it’s so hard to fake it well.’

‘Tell me about it. The only row I’ve had with Lydia was when I told her to stop fawning round producers and have faith in her own talent. She looked at me as though I were two days out of a lunatic asylum, then asked me how far that approach had got me in publishing.’ She smiled, and her eyes were filled with a warmth which transformed the dark beauty of her face into something more approachable. ‘That friend of yours has a
wicked
tongue. It’s one of the things I love most about her.’

Wryly, Josephine raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure she’d say much the same about you. She’s right, of course – about the fawning, I mean; I can’t speak for the tongue. Actresses live on goodwill.’

By the time they reached the dressing room, Lydia had returned to the wings ready for her brief appearance in the second act but Josephine felt none of the awkwardness that often comes when mutual friends are thrown together in the absence of the common link. In contrast to their first brief meeting, Marta made conversation easily, avoiding the small change to which strangers often limit themselves and talking animatedly about the last couple of months, but her concerns about Lydia’s future were never far away and Josephine realised that she was genuinely troubled.

‘Is her work a problem for you?’ she asked almost brutally, real-127

ising that Lydia would be back with them in a few moments’ time and the opportunity for confidences would be lost.

‘No, it’s not that. It’s been her life and I’d never ask her to give that up – just the opposite, in fact. What worries me is how she’ll cope if – when – it all dries up. She’s had a couple of knock-backs lately and the harder she pretends to take it all in her stride, the more I know it’s hurting her.’

‘She’s bound to feel unsettled when something like this comes to an end. Long runs are a luxury, but they lull you into a false sense of security and get you out of the habit of moving on. It’ll pass as soon as she gets out on tour and into rehearsals for something new.’

‘Perhaps.’ Marta looked at her as if assessing how direct she could be. ‘Tell me – would you have written a play about Mary Queen of Scots if Lydia hadn’t asked you to?’

‘No, I don’t think I would. I can see why the idea of playing her on stage is attractive, but I’ve never had any real sympathy for the woman.’

Marta nodded. ‘You know, I almost wish you hadn’t done it. We all need something to work towards, and the idea that someone could bring that creature to life has been a dream of hers for years.

Now it’s become a reality and she’ll have done it before the year’s out, and I’m not sure that leaves her anywhere to go. As it is, I keep catching her looking over her shoulder, thinking that the best is behind her.’

Josephine said nothing, wondering if she should warn Marta that another blow was coming Lydia’s way if Aubrey’s film ever got off the ground. She decided against it. There was enough unrest for everyone at the moment and it might never happen but, if it did, the more time they had to cement their relationship against outside anxieties the better. ‘Of course, Lydia’s never had anything meaningful outside the theatre until now,’ she said instead. ‘Having a life with you must count as something to look forward to, surely?’

‘Oh come off it,’ Marta said scornfully. ‘Women need both –

love and work – and these days they can have it. Lydia’s got a right to
expect
both. Would you seriously put your pen down if you fell 128

in love?’ Josephine was silent, taken aback by the question. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude and I shouldn’t be speaking like this to someone I don’t know,’ Marta continued, ‘but I can see so much sorrow ahead for Lydia and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. You won’t tell her I’m worried, will you? I’ve spent all this time being so bloody reassuring.’

‘No, I won’t say anything. But in answer to your question: yes, I think there are times when I would give all this up for a different life. Or, at least, there are times when having someone in particular would make this life a little less lonely, so don’t underestimate what you mean to her.’

Marta was silent, seeming to consider how much of what Josephine said was sincere and how much was designed to make her feel better. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said eventually. ‘Thank you.’

‘And perhaps
you’re
right about
Queen of Scots
. I think what you meant but were too polite to say is that my indifference to the woman has made for rather an average play?’ Marta blushed a little and Josephine continued. ‘It’s all right – you can be honest, and it’s nothing I don’t already know. My affection for Lydia made me say yes when I should have said no. You can’t write to order – at least I can’t. I neither love nor loathe Mary Stuart, so she’s a character rather than a person. The best we can hope for, I suppose, is that she’ll be popular.’

‘It’s funny how our ideas of people change. I was telling Lydia earlier today – the people I valued when I was younger and the stories I wrote about them bear no resemblance to what I feel now.’

‘Have you always written, then?’

‘On and off. Actually, more off than on until a year or so ago. I started during the war when my husband was away. My mother-in-law was a friend of May Gaskell – have you heard of her?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Well, she started a war library for soldiers abroad. Her son-in-law was wounded in the South African War and she sent him books and magazines in hospital to distract him from the misery of it all. Apparently, it’s what got him through, so May decided on 129

the first day of war that British soldiers in France would never be without stories to take their minds off the suffering. She was in her sixties by then, but she was a remarkable woman and well connected enough to make it happen. She persuaded somebody to lend her a house in Marble Arch and turned it into a book ware-house. People sent things in from all over the country. One day we’d get dirty packets of rubbish from Finchley; the next, thirty thousand volumes from a country estate would turn up.’

‘How extraordinary! And you worked there?’

‘Yes, for a couple of years before the Red Cross took it over. The response was better than May could have hoped for, so she needed volunteers. People were donating entire libraries. On a good day, the vans bringing in the books blocked the traffic all around Marble Arch. We sent them to hospitals all over the world, not just France, but whenever I knew there was a consignment going to my husband’s regiment, I’d send stories of my own to make it more personal. You couldn’t always rely on their getting to the right person, but it was a way of keeping some sort of connection alive.’

‘And your husband?’

‘He died.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It wasn’t the happiest of marriages and it seems a lifetime away now.’ The sound of applause drifted down from the stage and Marta stood up to look for a corkscrew. ‘Talking of dying, it sounds like she’s gone again. That’s our cue for a drink.’

By now, Josephine had revised her earlier opinion of Lydia’s lover, not dropping the ‘nice’ which had so disappointed Ronnie but adding some more interesting qualities, passionate and engag-ing being top of the list. Instead of trying to avoid the subject of Marta’s own book, she found herself rather intrigued at the prospect of reading it.

‘Lydia says you’ve finished the first draft of your novel, and she asked me to look at it,’ she said, accepting the glass that Marta held out to her. ‘There’s nothing worse than someone chipping in with helpful advice you don’t need, but I’d be happy to read it if you want an outside opinion.’

130

‘That’s very sweet of you both but you really don’t have to, you know. You must get hundreds of people asking for your time and it’s hideous to have to be tactful to someone you know.’