Cool Repentance (12 page)

'The end of Her return to the stage. No more attention for Her.' Ketty smacked her lips. The gesture appeared to remind her of the need for bodily sustenance in this difficult time. She helped herself most adroitly to a piece of toast from Christabel's tray and buttered it. Mrs Blagge frowned.

'Let Her sleep,' declared Ketty with confidence as she munched. 'Poor Nat. I remember his mother, Maisie Johnson; I was at school with her. We should have a Mass said for him, Rose, you talk to Father O'Brien about it. Father O'Brien's very interested in everything to do with the theatre - I'm sorry, Jim, I know your opinions, but it's true. They're not all bad people - you should have met some of the ones I met in London -perfect ladies and gentlemen.' Jim Blagge made no comment but looked unconvinced. 'Still, I'd like to see Her face when she hears the news that the production has been cancelled.' Ketty went on cheerfully.

Miss Kettering was however to be denied that satisfaction.

The verdict of the Larminster Festival Committee, as represented by Major Cartwright, on the subject of cancellation was clear enough. Major Cartwright's statement, for him, verged on the eloquent.

'Can't be done. Glad to be shot of the whole business, myself, police crawling all over the place, not as bad as those television johnnies of course, no, nothing could be as bad as that. At least you know where you are with the police, at least the police are doing a job of
work.'

Major Cartwright glared at Gregory Rowan, to whom these remarks were being addressed, as if he might disagree.

'Oh quite,' responded Gregory earnestly. 'Give me murder and the police over a straightforward television programme any day.'

'Absolutely, my dear boy, absolutely.' The Major was delighted by this unexpected support. 'You know where the police are, and they know where you are. Whereas television! Tripped over a damn camera myself, the other day, and went for a burton. Good as murder any day, show you the bruises if you like. At least the police never trip you up - it's not their job to do that. All the same' - the Major's expression became more melancholy - 'can't be done. Lots of bookings, local interest,
county
interest. Insurance wouldn't play for one thing. Have to get another director I suppose and face the music. Godawful play anyway, even with
this
director, and he was born in Larminster.'

'There are of course
two
plays to be considered,' Gregory suggested.

'That's right.
Two
godawful plays and we need a new director for both of them,' pondered the Major in a voice of exceptional bad temper. Some sense of Gregory's role in the Festival then appeared to penetrate his consciousness. 'Not yours, old boy,' he added graciously. 'No question of that. Always love your plays. Always have. No! It's all this French Revolutionary nonsense. Historical twaddle. Not my phrase, by the way, but Fitzwilliam's own. The last time I saw him he used that very expression to me - historical twaddle, he said, play only saved by his own first-class production.'

Gregory, with an air of unruffled good-humour, suggested that far too much twaddle was seen in Britain, both on the stage and above all on television. He pointed out that Boy Greville, a highly experienced director with a particular knowledge of his, Gregory's, work, and a real ability to hunt and destroy twaddle wherever he found it - notably and most urgently in Nat Fitzwilliam's productions - was actually present in Larminster. Might it not be a good idea to employ him? The Major agreed. They parted on terms of the utmost amiability.

Cy Fredericks, on the telephone to Jemima Shore, began like Major Cartwright by expressing a strong desire to be shot of the whole business - the business in this case being Megalith's involvement in the Larminster Festival.

'My dear Jem,' he roared indignantly down the telephone, 'they can't keep on dying like this.' Anything that seriously impeded a Megalith programme in the making - that is, one with large sums of money already invested in it - was apt to be regarded by Cy as a deliberate campaign against his own personal survival. Clearly the unscheduled demises of Filumena Lennox and Nat Fitzwilliam fell squarely into this unfortunate category. 'They can't keep on like this and not expect Megalith to pull out. We had a special meeting this afternoon to discuss it all - where were you, by the way Jem, canoodling in Bridset, helping the handsome Spike to despatch his film, if what I hear is correct?'

'On the contrary, I was helping the Bridset police with their enquiries,' replied Jemima in her coldest voice. 'And so was Spike. We're expecting to be arrested at any moment. Then you'll have to stand bail for us both for the sake of your programme - and as we shall then naturally elope, it could be a very expensive business.' Why was Cy's information service always so tiresomely up to date? She made a mental note to find out who had betrayed her and if it was Cherry, to condemn her to a lifetime of dating eighteen-year-olds.

'For you, Jem, nothing is too much!' Cy was heavily gallant. 'As for our friend Spike, nothing
has
been too much for him in the past - the sight of his expenses in Capri on that dreadful deep-sea-diving Axel Munthe film still floats before my eyes on sleepless nights - so I suppose his bail would be merely one more colossal down-payment.' His tone changed. 'Anyway, you will be pleased to know, my dear Jem, that we've decided to go ahead with the programme for the time being. Less emphasis on the production itself. More emphasis on Christabel Herrick's return to the stage on the one hand, colourful local pageantry on the other. In short, we've decided that it would look bad if we pulled out now. We are artistic patrons, Jem, never forget, as well as businessmen. We have hearts as well as pockets, and we are prepared to dip our hands into both.'

'I never do forget, Cy,' murmured Jemima. The image of Cy dipping his hand into his heart was an irresistible one; she hoped Cy might use it in his next application for a television franchise. 'I think you've made the right decisi
on,' she added more strongly. 'B
oy Greville's a perfectly competent director and he happens to be already on the spot.'

'Exactly.
I
made the same point to Guthrie: at least there's no need to fly him here from some expensive Greek island, which is what we had to do with Guthrie himself. But no more deaths, Jem please, no more deaths. The next time you ring me with the bad news that Christabel Herrick has fallen off a cliff or taken an overdose or been shot point-blank in her dressing-room, you and Spike must expect to interrupt your Bridset idyll. Permanently.'

'The next time!' exclaimed Jemima. 'What makes you think there will be a next time?' Her tone suggested she might be referring more to her relationship with Spike Thompson than to future tragedies involving the Larminster Festival. As soon as she rang off, however, Jemima's thoughts turned away from Cy's teasing to the sadder and more sinister topic of Nat's death.

The Bridset police had treated his death as murder from the start. An incident room had been set up at Beauport under the general command of the county's senior detectives at Bridchester: however the driving force behind this particular investigation was destined to be the Beauport-based Detective Inspector Matthew Harwood. The pathologist's postmortem report was one of the few concrete pieces of evidence available to him. It gave the cause of death as strangulation and when pressed for an opinion - in the nearest pub to the mortuary - the pathologist had placed the time of death between eleven p.m. and one a.m.

There were no signs of breaking into the theatre: the key to the Stage Door had therefore presumably been used, since the front doors were locked and the locks had not been forced. Since one key to the Stage Door was also missing from beneath the Lady May Cartwright Memorial stone drinking trough, where Mr Blagge had placed it, the inference was generally made by the public that this was the key which had been used.

Not, however, by the police. In the formidably bulky shape of Detective Inspector Harwood, the police were a great deal more cautious. In questioning his witnesses, Detective Inspector Harwood was very careful to give no opinion whatsoever as to which key might have been used to enter the Watchtower Theatre. There were, he pointed out, several other keys to the Stage Door. Nevertheless local gossip in Larminster continued to concentrate on that particular key placed by Mr Blagge under the stone on the night of the murder.

'Anyone could have seen him' - it was an echo of Miss Kettering's pious cry. 'The types you get about here in the summer
...
Vandals
...
Hippies . . . Layabouts.' It was comforting to be able to blame some casual criminal, drawn from the outside world: the very existence of a theatrical Festival was felt to have some sinister bearing on the crime. Theatre audiences, if not to be totally identified with hippies and layabouts in the local imagination, were not exactly held to exclude this category either. Robbery was widely suggested as the motive, the box office proceeds as the target. Larminster gossip thus ignored the inconvenient detail that no attempt to enter the box office, let alone rob it, had in fact been made. After all, if the murder had not been committed in this random manner for mercenary motives, it must have been deliberately planned. In Larminster. Possibly by a Larminster resident. This was a forbidden thought.

For precisely the same reasons, the distraught members of the King Charles Theatre Company preferred to believe in the notion of a Larminster murder - a local person of known bad character perhaps -whose identity would be uncovered as quickly as possible. Robbery remained an element in the story which the actors told themselves, although they were rather more cynical about the likely proceeds of the theatre box office.

'I mean, it's not exactly Shaftesbury Avenue, darling, is it?' Thus Anna Maria Packe to her husband Boy Greville.

'I hope no one thinks I
killed him to get the job,' Boy Greville spoke in a voice of acute anxiety. 'Nat was utterly ruthless. Everyone knows that. The way he got rid of us both when the lovely lady Christabel made her unexpected entrance - blackmail - nothing else. Yet in the end one forgave him.'

'Someone didn't,' Anna Maria said lightly: but she sounded reassuring. This was her habitual tone when addressing her husband just as his habitual tone when addressing anyone at all was one of acute anxiety. A mutual interest in the anxieties of Boy Greville was indeed the basis of their long and on the whole not unhappy marriage. From time to time a peculiarly tempestuous love affair - or a peculiarly demanding lover -would withdraw Anna Maria altogether from Boy's side; there had been several separations and even on one occasion (for who could resist Marty Bland?) a projected divorce. Physical separation from Boy did not however free Anna Maria from her responsibility as general consultant on his anxieties, a role he considered she could still carry out to his satisfaction so long as she remained at the end of the telephone.

Boy was not insensitive: all his consultations pertained entirely to his own problems and he was most scrupulous in not referring to Anna Maria's own situation. Nevertheless it was the persistent nature of these calls which had always persuaded Anna Maria so far that it was easier to live with Boy Greville than at the end of his telephone line.

'Someone had it in for him.' Detective Inspector Harwood, had he but known it, agreed with Anna Maria Packe. He made the remark quite casually to Jemima Shore in her sitting-room in the Royal Stag. 'We don't buy the idea of burglary, of course. No evidence for it whatsoever. Not a thing touched. Nor vandalism for that matter. I mean, think what a self-respecting vandal could have done to those seats! The mind boggles. And the glass. Frankly I'm always surprised that a glass theatre in Larminster doesn't suffer more. You sometimes get these young lads streaking up from Beauport on their motor-bikes. Still, it doesn't. One or two incidents, I believe, nothing very much. Quiet little place, Larminster. Even the Festival brings you a quiet sort of visitor. Quiet Americans. Quiet Germans. Quiet Japanese - well, that's only to be expected. Even the occasional quiet Italians. The noisy sort go to Stratford, I suppose.'

Detective Inspector Harwood had already interviewed Jemima officially, as indeed he had interviewed all those present in Flora's Kitchen on the evening of Nat Fitzwilliam's death. The time of Nat's departure from the restaurant was easily established as ten o'clock. He had then had a drink in the bar of the Royal Stag with Anna Maria and Vic Marcovich, before announcing his intention of returning to the theatre. He also mentioned to Vic Marcovich that he would use his own front-of-house key instead of picking up the key deposited by Mr Blagge, since he had forgotten where Julian Cartwright had suggested it should be hidden. He had said this in the full earshot of all those in the bar of the Royal Stag at the time.

Also in the full earshot of those same people in the bar, Vic Marcovich had criticized Christabel Herrick for demanding her shawl so capriciously in the first place: 'Lady of the Manor, First Lady of the Larminster Festival - which is it to be?' But that ungallant remark belonged to the whole area of background material relating to the case.

No one suggested Vic Marcovich had murdered Nat Fitzwilliam. For one thing he had an unimpeachable if slightly disreputable alibi: he had spent most of the night with Anna Maria Packe in his room 'discussing the production'; as if that was not alibi enough, they had received constant calls from Boy Greville on the house telephone throughout the night hours on the subject of Boy Greville's latest allergy, probably aroused by one of the house plants in the lounge of the Stag. For another thing, Vic Marcovich had no motive.