The Strangling on the Stage (21 page)

‘He asked me what I'd thought of his escaping death by inches on the gallows. I had to confess that I hadn't seen the demonstration, and so he insisted that I must have a private showing of it. Ritchie was just a show-off, really. Like a little boy who won't allow anyone to miss the new conjuring trick he's just learnt.

‘I thought it was a bit silly, but it couldn't do any harm to humour him. So Ritchie got himself up on stage and climbed on to the wooden cart underneath the gallows. And he put the noose round his neck – and told me to pull the cart away.

‘He was being all silly and melodramatic, saying, “You can be the one, Hester! You can be the person who sends me to my death!” But I'm sure he didn't mean it, he was just joking, just playing the scene for all it was worth, “showing off” again, I suppose I mean.

‘So, anyway, I did as he told me to – I pulled away the cart. And there was quite a thump as he fell and the noose tightened around his neck. He was kicking out and gasping – and I thought that was just Ritchie playing up the drama and about to free himself. And his hands were up at his neck, trying to get a purchase on the rope, but it was too tight.

‘Then finally I realized he wasn't play-acting, that he was being strangled for real. And I put the cart back and tried to get his feet on to it, but they were just hanging loose, with no strength in them. And I got up on the cart and tried to loosen the noose around his neck. But I couldn't, it was too tight.

‘And then I realized that Ritchie was dead.'

‘A
nd what the hell are you doing here?'

Neither of them had noticed the door open, but they both looked up at the sound of Mike Winstone's voice. He was standing in the doorway, blazered and more red-faced than ever.

‘I just came to visit Hester,' replied Jude, sounding cooler than she felt as she rose from her chair.

‘Oh yes? And aren't you aware that she's meant to be having a course of rest and recuperation?'

‘I don't think my presence will have delayed either her rest or her recuperation.'

‘I'll have a strong word with the people downstairs. They shouldn't just let anyone wander in to a place like this.'

‘I spoke to the Director. I'm here with his blessing.'

‘Well, you're not here with my blessing.' As he spoke Mike Winstone's face grew redder still. He sat himself down with a proprietorial manner in the chair that Jude had just vacated.

‘I'll be leaving shortly,' Jude said.

‘I'm glad to hear it. And you're involved with that “Saddoes” lot, are you?' He deliberately used the diminishing mispronunciation.

‘Yes.'

‘Well, if you value your life, don't you dare mention to any of them that Hester's in here, will you?'

‘I had no plans to mention it.'

‘Keep it that way.'

‘So officially she's still “staying with a friend”, is she?'

‘Yes. And it's bloody inconvenient having her away from the house. There are only so many takeaways and pub meals I can put up with.'

‘I'm sorry, Mike.' It was the first time Hester had spoken since his arrival.

‘So you bloody should be. Have the quacks here given any indication of when they're going to let you out?'

‘I'm afraid not.' Hester sounded very down. ‘The psychiatrist says he can definitely see some improvement.' She offered this tentatively, a sop to her husband's anger.

He rolled his eyes in exasperation. ‘Huh, it's all so bloody vague, isn't it? The whole business of “mental illness”. Because ultimately, at some point the patient has to make the effort themselves. You know, snap out of it, stand on their own two feet, start to take responsibility for their life again.'

‘I am trying to get better, Mike. Really.'

Hester sounded so reduced that Jude was tempted to say something in her defence, but it wasn't the moment to step in between husband and wife. Though she couldn't envisage much improvement in Hester's condition until Mike acknowledged that she was genuinely ill.

‘Well, I hope you get sorted by the end of next week. The boys have got an exeat from school, and subjecting them to a whole weekend of my cooking comes under the definition of child abuse.'

‘I'll do my best,' said Hester in a very thin voice.

‘None of this would have happened,' Mike grumbled, ‘if you hadn't got involved with that bunch of “Saddoes”. God, what a load of posturing toss-pots they are. When I saw that idiot showing off his hanging on that gallows contraption …'

‘Were you actually in Saint Mary's Hall for the demonstration?' asked Jude.

‘Yes, came in to hurry Hest along a bit. She said the rehearsal finished at six, and it was easily ten past before—'

‘And,' Jude interrupted, ‘you knew that Ritchie Good was later strangled by the apparatus?'

‘Oh certainly, I heard. Serve the bugger right, I thought. So end all show-offs, if I had my way. Good riddance. As I say, except for his bloody stupidity, my wife wouldn't have been traumatized – or whatever other fancy word the shrinks use for it – and she wouldn't be locked up here in a loony bin.' Clearly Mike Winstone was never going to score any points for political correctness. His bluff cricketing bonhomie had completely evaporated.

Jude didn't think there was a lot more she could do. She didn't want to create any further cause of discord between Hester and her husband. Sorting out what was already wrong with their relationship would involve going back many years into the past – and might only serve to make things worse – so she said she'd better be on her way. ‘But I've got your mobile number, Hester, so I'll give you a call when—'

‘My wife doesn't have her mobile phone with her,' Mike Winstone announced.

‘Oh? Don't the authorities here at Casements allow clients to—'

‘I don't allow it. Hest is here for rest and recuperation, not for chattering endlessly to all her women friends.'

‘But surely talking to her friends—'

‘Will you allow me to know what is right for my own wife!' The words were almost shouted.

Jude left. In spite of Mike Winstone's clear disapproval, she gave Hester a hug and a kiss. Then she went downstairs to Rob's office. He was interested to hear that Jude had done some healing on the patient, and wanted to know how it had gone. ‘Maybe you could try some more with her?' he suggested.

Jude grimaced. ‘I don't think I'd better until it's been cleared with her husband.'

‘Ah yes. I saw him coming in. Apparently he was just passing. Maybe I should try to persuade him of the efficacy of another healing session?'

‘Good luck,' said Jude.

‘Well, we have made one big advance,' said Carole when Jude had finished reporting her encounter with Hester Winstone.

‘Hm?'

‘Assuming that Hester was telling the truth – and there doesn't seem to be any reason why she shouldn't be – we know that Ritchie Good caused his own death. He just wanted to show off the gallows to her.'

‘Yes.'

‘Which is quite a relief, in a way.'

‘In what way?'

‘Well, trying to create a scenario in which someone actually persuaded him to put the noose round his neck, or manhandled him into doing it or made him do it at gunpoint … well, none of those ever sounded very convincing, did they? But the idea that he put his head in the noose of his own volition, that makes a lot more sense.'

Jude nodded. ‘And then there's only one thing we have to find out. Who switched the Velcroed noose for the real one.'

‘Exactly.'

‘And why they did it.'

I
t was clear to Carole and Jude the moment they were admitted by Elizaveta Dalrymple on the Saturday evening that the seafront house in Smalting was a shrine to her late husband Freddie. The hall was dominated by a top-lit large portrait of him in the purple velvet doublet of some (undoubtedly Shakespearean) character. The pearl earring and the pointed goatee beard were presumably period props.

Except, as Elizaveta led them up a staircase lined with photographs of Freddie, it became clear that the beard at least was a permanent fixture. Whatever part he was playing, the presence of the goatee was a non-negotiable.

His wife's hair was the same. Jude remembered the scene reported by Storm Lavelle of Elizaveta not wanting to have her head covered by a shawl when she was still going to play Mrs Dudgeon. In some of the earlier photographs on the wall, before she'd needed recourse to dying, her natural hair did look wonderful, though not always of the same period as the costume that she was wearing. The flamenco dancer look was fine for proud Iberian peasants, but it didn't look quite so good with Regency dresses or crinolines.

But clearly that was another unwritten law of SADOS. Freddie and Elizaveta Dalrymple had set up the society, so it was as if everyone else was playing with their ball. Whatever the play, Freddie and Elizaveta would play the leads, he with his pointed goatee and she with her long black hair.

There was further proof of this at the top of the stairs, in one of those large framed photographs which are textured to look like paintings on canvas. Their crowns, Freddie's dagger and the tartan scarf fixed by a brooch across Elizaveta's substantial bosom, left no doubt they were playing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. With, of course, the goatee and the long black hair.

The space into which Carole and Jude were led showed exactly why the house's sitting room was on the first floor. It was still light that April evening and the floor-to-ceiling windows commanded a wonderful view over Smalting Beach to the far horizon of the sea.

The sitting room demonstrated the same decorative motif as the hall and stairs. Every surface, except for the wall with the windows in it, bore yet more stills from SADOS productions, again with the goatee and the black hair much in evidence. Presumably the plays in which Freddie and Elizaveta Dalrymple took part featured other actors in minor roles, but you'd never have known it from the photographs.

‘Welcome,' Elizaveta said lavishly as she ushered Carole and Jude into the sitting room, ‘to your first – but I hope not your last – visit to one of my “drinkies things”. Now I'm sure you know everyone here …'

They did know everyone, except for a couple of elderly ladies who had ‘retired from the stage, but as founder members were still massive supporters of SADOS'. Otherwise Carole and Jude greeted Olly Pinto, Storm Lavelle, Gordon Blaine and Mimi Lassiter. All had glasses of champagne in their hands. Storm's hair was now black and shoulder-length (hair extensions at work – there was no way it had had time to grow naturally to that length).

‘Now,' said Elizaveta. ‘Olly's in charge of drinks this evening, so you just tell him what you'd like.' On the wall facing the sea, space had been made among the encroaching photographs for a well-stocked bar. Olly apologized that there was no Chilean Chardonnay – he knew their tastes from the Cricketers – but wondered if they could force themselves to drink champagne. They could.

A lot of glass-raising and clinking went on, then Elizaveta said, ‘Now, Carole and Jude, the agenda we have for my “drinkies things” is that we have no agenda. We're just a group of friends who talk about whatever we want to talk about … though more often than not we do end up talking about the theatre.'

‘In fact just before you arrived,' volunteered Olly Pinto, ‘we were discussing the wonderful
Private Lives
the SADOS did a few years back, with Freddie and Elizaveta in the leads.'

‘Oh, we're talking a horribly long time ago,' said Elizaveta coyly.

‘Sadly I never saw it,' said Olly, ‘but I did hear your Amanda was marvellous.'

‘One did one's best.' This line was accompanied by an insouciant shrug. ‘And of course I was so well supported by Freddie. So sad that Noel Coward was never able to see the SADOS production. He would have seen the absolutely perfect Elyot. The part could have been written for Freddie.'

‘I think it was actually written for Noel Coward,' Carole ventured to point out. The information was something that had come up in a
Times
crossword clue. ‘He played the part himself.'

Elizaveta Dalrymple was only a little put out by this. ‘Yes, but Noel Coward was always so mannered. I'm sure Freddie brought more nuance to the role.'

Not to mention a goatee beard, thought Jude. And a barrel-load of impregnable self-esteem.

‘It was a very fine performance,' said Gordon Blaine, as if he wanted to gain a few brownie points. ‘And of course your Amanda was stunning.'

‘Thank you, kind sir,' said Elizaveta with a little curtsy. ‘Freddie always had such a touch as a director too. Very subtle, he was. Not one of those bossy egotists. He let a play have space, let it evolve with the help of the actors. “A gentle hand on the tiller” – that's how Freddie described the business of directing.'

‘Did he always direct the plays he was in?' asked Jude.

‘Invariably. Freddie was always very diffident about it, said he'd be very happy for someone better to take on the role. But there never was anyone better, so yes, he directed all the shows we did together.'

Carole and Jude exchanged the most imperceptible of looks. Both of them were realizing to what extent the SADOS was the Dalrymples' private train set. Other children were allowed to play with it, but only under the owners' strict supervision. They also realized how painful relinquishing total control of the society must have been for Elizaveta.

‘Freddie often designed the shows too,' Gordon chipped in. ‘I mean, he didn't do elaborate drawings of what he wanted, but his ideas were very clear. I was more involved in building the sets when Freddie was around.' This was said in a slightly accusatory tone, as though there might be someone present who had caused the limiting of his involvement. ‘And Freddie would always say to me, “I have this image in my mind, Gordon, and I'm sure you can turn that image into reality.”'