An Expert in Murder (16 page)

and it would not take them long to find out who he was. They were probably at his digs now, waiting for him to come home, but he would not risk that, no matter how tempting it was to collect a change of clothes and the small amount of money that he had managed to save each week from his wages, carefully stored in a tin under the bed.

A coin fell to the ground in front of him. Instinctively, he picked it up and stood, ready to return it to its owner, to explain that he was not one of the beggars who lined the West End streets on a Saturday night and that the shilling should go to someone who really needed it. Instead, he just watched as the man disappeared into the crowd, suddenly aware that he faced a stark choice: he could give himself up and take what was coming to him, or he could run – and for that he needed money, not a conscience. As the dreaded ‘House Full’ sign was placed on the pavement outside, the queue began to disperse. Before he could change his mind, Hedley pulled his collar up and strode quickly across the road after a couple who were walking away in disappointment.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, touching the young man’s arm. ‘I was supposed to be going to the play tonight with my friend but she . . .

she can’t be here.’ From his coat, he took the tickets that Aubrey had given him, two front-row dress-circle seats, the most expensive that money could buy. ‘It’d be a shame to let these go to waste.

I’ll sell them to you if you like, just for the cost price.’

The boy looked at him in disbelief. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

Hedley nodded and took the money, embarrassed as the girl gave him a spontaneous hug. ‘We’ve just got engaged,’ she said, smiling in delight, ‘and we so wanted to celebrate at the theatre.

Everybody’s talking about it. You’ve no idea how much this means to us.’

The money weighed heavy in his pocket as Hedley turned away, knowing more certainly than the couple could have realised exactly just how much it meant.

For an actress in a hit West End play, Saturday was usually the most gratifying day of the week but, by five o’clock, Lydia 110

Beaumont had had enough. An unsettled air hung over the theatre as the tension which already existed among cast and crew was intensified by the shocking events of the day before; everyone seemed out of sorts because of it, herself and Marta included. As a rule, Lydia enjoyed the occasions when Lewis Fleming stood in for Terry because he brought a strained anger to the role of Richard, a rawness which gave her something different to respond to. This afternoon, however, she felt that both their performances had been distinctly below par and would not have blamed the audience for reflecting this at the end of the show. But matinee crowds were always the easiest to please and the applause was as rapturous as ever. One day they would be found out, but not today.

‘Come on, let’s go for a walk,’ Marta said, watching as Lydia wiped the last of the make-up from her eyes. ‘We both need some air and it’ll do you good to get away from this lot, if only for an hour. If you’re lucky, I’ll even buy you a sausage roll from that coffee stall on the Embankment. You need to keep your strength up –

the plague can take it out of a girl.’

Lydia smiled and took her coat from the back of the door, needing no further persuasion to indulge in a little normal living before she had to return to the stage to die all over again. ‘You know, I’ll actually be quite glad to leave this behind after next week and get out into the country for a bit,’ she said, as they climbed the narrow stairs to ground level and came out into the scene dock.

‘I see, can’t wait to get away from me already,’ Marta said in mock offence, but her playful tone was not reciprocated as Lydia stopped and looked at her.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, gently stroking her hair. ‘You know how badly I’ll miss you, but I still haven’t given up hope of talking you into coming with me, at least for some of the time.

What do you say? We could find a little guest house by the sea . . .’

‘In Manchester?’

‘All right, perhaps you’d better skip that week, but how about Brighton? We can walk on the pier if it’s nice or stay in bed all day if it’s not, then smile over dinner as the landlady frowns her 111

disapproval on us in spite of the fact that she’s only got one set of sheets to wash at the end of the week.’ Marta laughed as Lydia warmed to her theme and lapsed into melodrama. ‘Then, as the day dwindles, I’ll show you all the glamour of life on tour,’ she continued. ‘Scratchy grey blankets and shared bathrooms with no hot water, smelly dressing rooms, half-empty theatres and restaurants that close five minutes before the performance ends, leaving you no choice but to go home to cocoa from an old chipped mug. Are you really going to let me go through all that on my own? It’s tantamount to abuse, particularly for a queen of delicate disposition.’

Marta took her arm as they joined the throng of playgoers in St Martin’s Lane and headed south towards the river, taking the sight-seeing circuit which they always enjoyed whenever she met Lydia from the theatre between shows. ‘Don’t make me doubt my decision on this one,’ she said, more seriously this time. ‘I could easily be persuaded to come with you because I don’t want us to be apart any more than you do, but I’ll just be in the way.’ She held her fingers to Lydia’s lips as they started to protest. ‘You know I’m right. It’s your world, and I can skate around the edges and drag you up for air occasionally, but it’s better for both of us if we keep you and me separate from all that. At least that way you have some sanity to come home to, and thank God nobody’s thought of opening the theatres on a Sunday yet: we’ll have a lot of time to make up for on your days off.’

Lydia smiled wickedly back at her and, sensing that the crisis had passed, at least for now, Marta changed the subject. ‘Talking of delicate queens, has your lord and director found you a Bothwell to return to yet?’

‘I don’t know for sure but we’ll find out from Josephine later –

she went to the meeting with them. However, judging by the mood he was in when he came out, I don’t think he got his way so we’re probably safe in assuming that it’ll be Lewis rather than Swinburne.’

‘How miserable for you! From what I saw of him at lunchtime, he’s not exactly going to be a laugh a minute in rehearsals, and 112

there was a gaggle of adolescent girls panting over the other chap’s photograph as I came past Wyndham’s. Wouldn’t he have been a bigger draw?’

‘Possibly, but I’m hardly in a position to argue at the moment.

Bernie made it quite clear the other day that I’m lucky to have a job at all at my advanced age, let alone a leading role.’

‘Don’t be daft. Look at the success you’ve had this last year –

he’d be mad to drop you. You’ve always said before that he values your opinion. He must have been having an off day.’

‘Yes, I know. He has been acting strangely recently and I’m sure he wouldn’t normally have been as blunt in the way he put it, but even I have to face up to the fact that what he said is absolutely right. I might be able to talk Josephine into writing me another role or two, but make the most of these weeks of peace without me

– you’ll be seeing a lot more of me until I’m of character age.’

‘Well I’m hardly likely to complain about that,’ Marta replied affectionately, opening an umbrella to protect them from the strengthening rain. ‘You never know – I may even scribble something for you myself one of these days, and I’m slightly more ancient than you.’

‘It’s all right for you writers, though: you can start as late as you like and go on until you drop, and no one thinks anything of it. In fact, we don’t even chide you for being lazy in not getting around to it sooner. I don’t know how you get away with it. I’ve been doing this since I was fifteen – no wonder I’m exhausted!’

‘Oh I started on and off a long time ago but if I read now what I wrote then, I’d probably be horrified. When you’re young, you only ever write romantic nonsense.’

‘And now you’re so cynical and worldly wise, I suppose? How does that tally with the woman whose idea of a first date is to take me tobogganing on Hampstead Heath to seduce me in the snow, or the one who leaves a single flower at stage door before every performance even though I’ve told her it’s bad luck, or . . .’

‘All right, all right – you win. I’m a different woman since I met you and I’ll probably never write another word because of it.

Books aren’t built on happiness, but I know what I’d rather have.’

113

‘Then we shall be old and poor and illiterate together,’ said Lydia, turning to give her a kiss. ‘Now, what about that sausage roll?’

The Salisbury public house was known to its advocates for liveli-ness and companionship, and to its detractors for noise and interference. Rafe Swinburne was not bothered enough to subscribe to either party, but Terry had suggested the Salisbury as a meeting place convenient for both of them before their evening shows and he had willingly agreed, eager to discover what the future held for him. He bitterly regretted having arrived on the scene too late to make his mark in the biggest success of the year, but his debut in
Sheppey –
which Terry was directing at the same time as he starred in
Richard –
had been moderately praised by the critics and keenly welcomed by the audience, and his hopes for
Queen of Scots
, should he get the part, were high. He had known from the moment he met him that Terry was the future of theatre while Aubrey was the past. Always blessed with a remarkable nose for his own advantage, Swinburne had watched with interest the cooling of their part-nership, which – or so rumour had it – had been particularly tense of late. If a parting of the ways was on the horizon, he had decided very early on which horse he was going to back, and what his stage presence could not get him with Terry, he suspected his face could.

He was ten minutes late for his rendezvous, but there was no sign of Terry in the crowds that lined the long, curved bar. The Salisbury’s clientele was made up almost exclusively of actors, playwrights and the odd agent or two touting for talent, and a dramatic heritage of sorts could no doubt be traced through the various owners of the heavy pewter tankards that hung from the ceiling. Early evening was always one of the busiest times: as the half approached, glasses would be collectively drained and three-quarters of the trade would disperse to one stage or another, gradually drifting back in twos and threes to resume where they had left off. By last orders, the bar would be full again, triumphs mixing leisurely with disasters amid the warm fog of smoke and beer but, at this earlier hour, with the most important performance of the week still to come, the 114

atmosphere was one of nervy expectation. Swinburne bought a glass of beer and found room on the end of one of the hard, horse-hair settees that bordered the room, casually taking in the conversations that came and went around him. He counted seven copies of the evening paper lying around on the brass-topped tables and, for once, none of them were open at the situations vacant pages, but rather at the latest account of the King’s Cross killing. It never ceased to amaze him that the murder of a complete stranger could be so tirelessly fascinating to so many. What difference could the loss of some girl they had never met possibly make to the ponder-ous old man in the corner or the powdery-faced redhead behind the bar? Sensation might be the public face of grief, but Londoners were a fickle bunch: there’d be a new headline along tomorrow and the world would carry on as normal through it all.

As he finished his beer, still on his own, Swinburne began to worry that Terry had been and gone without waiting for him.

Perhaps he should go and look for him? If he walked straight to the New Theatre there was no chance of their missing each other, so he gave up his seat to a pretty but excessively grateful young girl who had spotted an agent she needed to charm at his table, and headed out. He arrived at stage door without encountering anyone he knew on the way, gave a cheery greeting to the chap on duty and went downstairs. Even before he reached Terry’s dressing room he could hear raised voices behind the closed door.

Carefully, he went a little nearer until he was close enough to make out the words beneath the anger. It was Lewis Fleming speaking –

there was no mistaking that dour northern bravado – and he listened intently, confident that both men were too absorbed in the row to think about leaving the room. No one in the business would have been surprised to find the actors at each other’s throats

– their mutual hatred was common knowledge in the West End –

but this particular exchange ran deeper than professional differences. Swinburne was loath to tear himself away but, by the time Fleming began to shout again, he had heard enough. He left as quietly as he had arrived, a faint smile playing on his lips.

*

115

Fleming waited until Terry was on his way out of the theatre before making his move. He was deathly tired, but the rain and the cool evening air that ran through St Martin’s Court refreshed him a little and helped to focus his thoughts. It was all for her, he reminded himself, fixing her image – well and happy, as she used to be and as she would be again – firmly in his mind’s eye so that by the time the familiar figure emerged from stage door and moved briskly, head down, towards St Martin’s Lane, he was ready. When he stepped defiantly in Terry’s path, that famously sensitive face looked up at him impatiently, then, at the realisation that he was not merely a clumsy passer-by, the impatience turned to anger.

Noticing, in spite of Terry’s defiance, that the anger was tinged with fear, Fleming felt a surge of power that sickened him to the stomach, but he continued nonetheless.

‘Isn’t there a little something you’ve been meaning to give me?’

he asked, refusing to let the other man pass. ‘It’s a couple of days late, but everyone deserves a second chance.’

Terry looked at him and then beyond him down the passage, as if weighing up his options. ‘I told you on the telephone: you’ve had all there is to have at the moment. You can threaten me as much as you like, but it’ll get you nowhere.’