Murder Offstage (3 page)

She was, simply and inconveniently, madly in love with him.

He was totally unsuitable, and totally out of her league.
But he was a man with whom she felt a tense, thrilling crackle of electricity
every single time he looked her way. And she could have sworn he felt it too.

Dashingly handsome, Len was tall and loose-limbed with dark
curly hair and green eyes that crinkled up at the corners when he laughed,
which was often. Sometimes Posie couldn’t believe that the original Mr Irving,
that ferrety little man, and the magnificent Len, with whom she had the good
fortune to work with on a daily basis, were actually
related
to each
other.

When she had suspected she might be falling in love with
Len, right at the start, she had talked herself sternly out of it. It wouldn’t
do at all: Captain Harry Briskow, her fiancé, was newly dead, lying out on a
battlefield in northern France somewhere, buried with no name and no grave for
her to mourn at. Her only remembrance of kind, loyal Harry was one photo, and a
little gold-and-silver ring with six diamond chips which he had given her the
night before he had left.

A ring which she had now taken off and put to rest at the
back of a drawer in her bedside cabinet. Besides, it wasn’t just the memory of
Harry either. It was more complicated than that.

Len was attached. He had a girl he had been seeing down
Leytonstone way for years, a childhood sweetheart. An unnamed girl whom Posie had
never met and who wasn’t spoken about by Len, but whose presence could be felt
sometimes hanging between them like a hardy, unforgiving ghost: a new knitted
tie worn loyally just after Christmas; an unexplained bouquet of fresh freesias
bought at lunchtime in the market at Covent Garden. Bridges which had not yet
been burnt: which Posie could not
expect
to be burnt.

Posie leant casually in and looked at the photograph Len was
laughing at now. It showed a well-known and particularly odious Member of Parliament,
often in the newspapers, in a state of total undress. He was trying to
frantically close the curtains on a scene he would rather Len had not been
photographing. Posie couldn’t help but smile.

Len went out and made some tea. When he came back with it he
asked Posie about her day.

‘Something about a jewel robbery? Babe heard the
messenger-boy telling you.’

Posie nodded, noting to herself to be more discreet in the
future. She described her afternoon.

Len whistled. ‘Coo-ee! What are you going to do now?’ he
asked, curiously.

‘Well, I’m not going to let the grass grow under my feet,
that’s for sure. I’ll do everything possible. But a word of warning – you may
have to help me out in the next few days. Is that okay? I’m not sure I can do
it alone.’

Len nodded and his eyes twinkled in the light of the fire.
‘Anything, Po. Just let me know when you need me. You know I’d do anything for
you.’

If only
, Posie thought to herself, and cursed him for
being so totally and utterly lovely. She headed off to her freezing office to
collect her thoughts.

‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’ called out Len cheerfully.

****

It was almost dark. Posie sat motionless at her desk
in the failing light, her head in her hands. Mr Minks, the cream-and-brown
Siamese, rubbed himself purposefully around her ankles. He wanted feeding.

He was a spoilt cat, Posie knew. A terribly haughty cat,
too. And he really preferred the company of men to ladies, especially Len’s
company. But Posie loved him with all her heart and he was the only link to her
past, to her father’s Vicarage in Norfolk, where Mr Minks had spent his glory
days happily climbing the red velvet curtains in the Reverend Parker’s study.
Mr Minks had been her father’s pride and joy.

Since her father’s sudden death two years ago, when Posie and
Mr Minks had both found themselves unexpectedly homeless, Posie had felt
perpetually guilty at uprooting the Siamese and installing him in the dingy
London office. But Posie wasn’t allowed pets at her digs on the top floor of
the Mews House she lodged at in South Kensington, and so Mr Minks had to live
alone at Grape Street. Posie had tried to make it homely for him by installing
old velvet curtains for him to climb up in the tiny back kitchen, and by
spending far too much of her salary on fresh cuts of chicken for him, which she
cooked on the primus stove twice a day.

‘I know, I know. Dinner time. Come on, your Lordship.’

After retrieving a bit of chicken in greased paper from the
outside windowsill of the kitchen, she fried it absently, forgetting to turn it
half way and blackening it badly all down one side. Posie was miles away in her
thoughts, thinking about her busy evening ahead: she had three interviews lined
up for that night, and she realised that she was going to be slightly hampered
by limits of time.

Posie put down the burnt chicken for the cat, who sniffed at
it disdainfully in complaint. She hurried back into her office.

From a small locked cupboard by her desk she grabbed her
evening kit, which Len jokingly called ‘the glamour attack’, but which in
reality consisted rather boringly of a black velvet flapper dress, a feathered
headband, crimson lipstick and a small bottle of violet scent. In two seconds
flat, Posie had changed.

Posie could never be called a beauty, and she knew it. Her
face was just too square for a start, lending her a wholesome rather than a
romantic air, and her eyes were a rather commonplace English blue, but she knew
too that she scrubbed up rather well, and even drew a few wolf-whistles when
she tried her very best. She kicked around under her desk for a pair of heels
and flicked the buckles closed. She smudged her eyes with a dash of kohl pencil
and squirted herself liberally with perfume.

‘Night night, Mr Minks!’ she called. She could hear him
attacking the chicken with gusto now in the kitchen. Beggars couldn’t always be
choosers.

She snatched up some change from the office strong-box and
ran out, locking the door behind her. Too late she realised she should have
taken a coat or a stole, and she felt briefly nostalgic for her beautiful
silver fox fur, given to her by Harry years before and sold when the Grape
Street Bureau was just starting up.

‘Taxi!’ called Posie out on the street, trying not to shiver
too much, and a cab mercifully pulled up alongside her on the slushy pavement.

‘Where we off to then, Miss?’ asked the driver, setting his
timer.

‘The Athenaeum Theatre, please. Fast as you can. Stage
Door!’

****

Three

The show was due to start in half an hour.

Posie lingered for a minute outside the Stage Door of the
theatre, studying the brightly coloured posters, the reviews. She had seen this
show only one month previously with Rufus but she had totally forgotten its
title.

Yes, there it was:
Showtime Madness!
It was billed as
an ‘all-singing, all-dancing night of entertainment’, but all Posie could
remember were the girls dressed in their heavy, bulky caterpillar costumes,
legs and arms straining for freedom. So many girls, all in a green caterpillary
line.

Which one had been Lucy? Or Georgie, as Rufus had known her
as? Had she really been on stage at all? Perhaps she had been planted in the
bar specially to talk to Rufus after the show and knew as little about
Showtime
Madness!
as Posie did herself.

She slipped inside the Stage Door unobserved, heading down
the rickety stairs to the dark depths of the basement, on into the tunnels of
the dressing rooms and offices. Dressers and dancers were running to and fro
along the warren of gloomy, chalky-smelling passageways, lit up here and there
with bright white bulbs of light. Posie hugged the wall and shouldered her way
along slowly, part of the chaos.

Ahead of her, an extraordinary-looking small girl with
unnaturally bright blonde hair and a tape-measure looped around her neck was
ironing out an enormous fluffy feather boa, blocking the corridor with her
ironing board.

‘I’m the Wardrobe Mistress. Can I help yer, lovey?’ asked
the girl in a strong London twang, her eyes roaming up and down Posie as if
assessing her costume for defects, for last-minute repairs. The girl took a
drag on a long black cigarette, sending a perfect ‘O’ of smoke spiralling
expertly up into the air. Posie noticed the end of the cigarette was ringed in
a bright silver circle of theatrical lipstick. She dragged her eyes away from
the strange colour combination, which reminded her of a crescent moon on a
chilly night.

‘The Theatre Manager? Is his office along here? He’s
expecting me – I sent a telegram this afternoon.’

The girl looked at Posie strangely for a minute, then pulled
her ironing board aside grandly as if she were removing a much larger obstacle,
a boulder perhaps. She motioned further down the corridor.

‘Second on yer right, Miss. You can’t miss it, the smell of
drink will hit you before you get through the door. Fair knock you out, it will.
Like a distillery.’

Posie nodded and smiled. ‘Thank you. What’s his name please?
The Theatre Manager? Mister…?’

The girl licked her silver lips. ‘Blake,’ she said
disparagingly, ‘Samuel Blake. No “Mister” about him, though. He’s a buffoon.
Knows nothin’ about runnin’ this place.’

Up ahead of her the corridor seemed to get smaller and
lower. Here, there was no-one about. Posie found the office with Mr Blake’s
name written grandly in large capital letters above the door. She knocked on
the flimsy wooden door, which was a little ajar.

‘Anyone in? Hello! Mr Blake?’ she called cheerily, and then
when no-one responded, she slipped deftly inside. She needed a lucky break, and
her spirits lifted at the sight of the obviously empty room.

The office was a strange, smallish room, with a low curving
roof which reminded Posie of being in a cave, or being trapped inside a tunnel
underground. It was very dark, and even though she wasn’t overly tall, Posie
had to duck her head in order to move along. Blake’s desk was on the left-hand
side, and was illuminated by one reading lamp. The top of the desk, and the
chair, and the floor-space all around were covered in stacks of paper. The only
other furniture in the room was a hatstand near the door, and one grey metal
filing cabinet, also piled high with papers.

A steady drip-drip could be heard. In the dim glow from the
lamp Posie noticed that the office walls were completely damp, with horrible
sweating beads of moisture forming on every surface.
How on earth can he
work in here?
thought Posie, heading for the desk, and longing suddenly for
her cream-painted office with its sash window letting in lots of light, despite
the crowded office roofs it looked over. Never again would she complain she had
no real view: a window was a window, after all.

Posie moved the papers from the chair and sat herself at the
desk. She started to move her nimble fingers through the papers, opening the
drawers quickly. Nothing. She carried on.

All at once Posie jumped. A strange booming sound was shaking
the desk in front of her, papers spilling to the floor. The whole room was
vibrating.

BOOM. BOOM.

The desk-lamp started to flicker and the empty bottles of
whisky which Posie had found in every drawer of the desk started jangling
together furiously.

BOOM.

Her heart was beating madly, the sound was enormous. It was
like nothing she had ever heard before, and she had heard some terrible things
when she had been an ambulance driver on the Front at the end of the Great War
in France: the shells, the screaming. She had tried to forget it mostly,
otherwise she couldn’t sleep at night.

For a horrible moment Posie thought the cave-like roof was
about to collapse, and she remembered her old training in France and got down
on her knees and started to nudge herself over to the door, elbow by elbow,
making herself as small as possible.

‘You’re okay, Miss. You can get up. Don’t be scared.’

Posie looked up and saw the tiny girl who had been ironing
in the corridor. She was looking at Posie with some concern. Posie got to her
feet, heart still hammering.

‘It takes some gettin’ used to, this place. We’re right
under the Orchestra Pit here. They’re just startin’. Gettin’ tuned up. Drums
first, then the double basses. That’s why it’s so loud just now.’

Posie gulped in relief. ‘Thank you. And thank you for not
laughing at me. I must have looked quite a sight.’

The girl shrugged. ‘No problem. I recognise a former war
girl. I was in France too, nursin’ on the Western Front. I had to crawl out
several times when we took a hit from a shell, just like that. Dolly Price, by
the way,’ she said, extending silver-tipped fingers. Posie took her hand and
shook it warmly.

‘Posie Parker.’

‘By all accounts they’ve got a fine mess on their hands up
there tonight,’ said the girl, indicating upstairs with a raised eyebrow.

‘The First Violin’s gone missin’. He never turned up for
rehearsal this afternoon and he’s still not turned up tonight. It’s never
happened before. Still, it’ll give Mr Blake somethin’ to think about for once.
You’ll find him in the Circle Bar, by the way. Drinkin’ himself to oblivion.’

‘So you knew he wouldn’t be here? But you let me come in
anyway?’

‘That’s right. I don’t owe him no favours. You had a look
about you, like you were on the hunt for somethin’. Did you find it?’

Posie shook her head. ‘It’s such a mess in here.’

‘Whotcha lookin’ for?’ asked Dolly quickly.

‘A list of names. Chorus girls. Chorus girls who’ve been
employed here recently.’

‘I see.’ Dolly, quick as a flash, had gone over to the metal
filing cabinet and was rifling through the third drawer down. She quickly
brought out a thick manila file, stuffed full of bits of paper, receipts and
photos.

‘I can probably do better than just a list, a photo
maybe...who you lookin’ for exactly?’

Posie thought for a split-second. Could she really trust
this girl? She decided on the spur of the moment that she could.

‘I think her stage-name was Georgie le Pomme. But she may be
known as Lucy, too. Or anything else for that matter. To make things worse I
don’t even know
if
she ever worked here. I can’t describe her to you,
either, as I’ve never seen her before. But she was stunningly beautiful,
apparently. I’m sorry if I’m wasting your time.’

Dolly eyed her keenly. ‘No, no. You’re not.’

Dolly was down on her knees, tipping the contents of the
manila file over the floor. There were perhaps twenty stage photos of girls
posing for the camera. Posie thought they all looked the same. Dolly grouped
them together, and running her hands through her cropped bleached hair she
stared at them all for a minute.

‘This one!’ she declared triumphantly, and flipped the photo
over on its reverse, as if performing a clever magic trick, finding the right
card in the pack. She looked up at Posie, grinning.

‘Knew the one you meant straightaway. I get to know all the
girls here, bein’ the Wardrobe Mistress. She was a tiny girl, like me. Slippery
as a fish, but a rare beauty all right. Called herself Georgie. Gone now.’

Posie studied the photo quickly, and nodded. Dolly was
right, the girl in the snap had a wide-eyed childish beauty about her and
perhaps the loveliest face Posie had ever seen. No wonder poor old Rufus had
been taken in. She tucked the photo inside her bag.

‘Anything else in that folder you think will help me? An
address, a reference, even?’

Dolly was searching frantically again, but with no luck this
time. A loud bang in the corridor outside reminded them they shouldn’t be
snooping around in someone else’s office. Dolly thrust the file back in the
cabinet and they slipped out. The noise of the orchestra was less out there.
Dolly lit up another black cigarette.

‘Some sort of trouble she’s in, is she? Georgie?’

Posie shook her head apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t
tell you anymore just yet.’ She checked her wristwatch. ‘I’ve got to catch the
Manager just now, and then I’m off elsewhere. I’m on quite a tight schedule.’

‘Of course you are.’

Posie caught a flash of disappointment in the girl’s face as
she nodded her understanding.

‘But tell you what,’ Posie said earnestly, ‘meet me tomorrow.
How about eleven at Lyons Cornerhouse on the Strand? I’ll tell you more then.’

Dolly nodded eagerly. ‘Okay. Thanks. Now take these stairs
to the bar upstairs. Up two floors. Don’t expect to get any sense out of him
though.’

****

A nervous-looking barman was wiping glasses busily at
one end of the bar, keeping himself well out of the way. At the other end a
squat, angry-looking man in his early thirties in a velvet smoking jacket was
keeping a bottle of bourbon company.

Posie observed the man picking at his teeth with a small
wooden tooth-pick, and then replacing it, dirty, into the communal cut-glass
holder on the bar. She suppressed a shudder and walked forwards.

‘Mr Blake, I presume?’ Posie advanced at a confident, brisk
pace. Uninvited, she sat down quickly at the bar stool next to the Theatre
Manager. Experience told her there was no point in dragging out niceties with
men such as these.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Mr Blake asked rudely, looking at
Posie from small piggy eyes in a greasy, tired face. ‘You’re too old to
audition as a show-girl, I don’t take anyone over twenty-five. You’re too plain
too.’ The fumes of drink came off him strongly. Posie held her breath and
waited.

‘And you’re too fancily dressed to be looking for any other
work. So wad-daya want?’

Posie felt the stolen photograph burning a hole in her bag.

‘Well, that was certainly a memorable introduction, thank
you. But no, I’m not after work in your lovely establishment. I’m looking for
someone. Someone who’s disappeared.’

‘Lionel? Lionel Le Merle?’ asked Mr Blake suddenly, eagerly,
thrusting his face further forwards. ‘Related, are you? You missing him too?’

‘Sorry? I don’t know who you…’ But in a blink Posie
remembered the missing First Violin Dolly had spoken of. ‘…Ah, no. No. I can’t
help you there, I’m afraid.’

She looked at Mr Blake earnestly. ‘I’m looking for a friend.
She used to work here. Georgie le Pomme. She was a chorus girl, but I think
she’s left your employment. Do you have any idea where I might reach her? A
forwarding address, maybe? A contact?’

Was it Posie’s imagination or had a look of fear and barely
disguised panic entered the eyes of Mr Blake at the mention of Georgie’s name?
A thin sheen of sweat glistened on his oily brow and Mr Blake looked slightly
green beneath the bar lights. He downed what remained in his glass and poured
another.

‘Please, Mr Blake. I’m desperate. I’m worried for her
safety.’

‘I know nothing about it. One of my best dancers, Georgie
was. No idea what happened to her. Here one day, gone the next. Shame.’

He was hiding something.

‘How long had she been here exactly? I forget…’

He shrugged carelessly. ‘Not even a year. Came at the same
time as Le Merle.’

Posie nodded sweetly, innocently. Mr Blake avoided her eye.

‘And that forwarding address for Georgie…do you happen to
have it?’

‘No, I do not,’ Mr Blake snapped at Posie angrily. ‘And even
if I did, why should I give it to you? Who are you, anyway? What’s your name?
You still haven’t told me.’

Posie got down from her stool primly. There was nothing more
to be gained here.

‘Rosemary,’ she said, telling the real truth now. Her full
name. ‘Rosemary Parker. I sent you a telegram earlier, saying I would come and
see you tonight. Perhaps you have mislaid it in all your, er,
busyness
this evening?’

The barman sniggered. Unwisely.

‘You,’ shouted Mr Blake at the barman, ‘you watch your
manners. Otherwise you’ll find yourself out of a job. And you, Miss
Rosemary
.
No. I did not receive your telegram. As God is my witness I did not.’

****

Posie headed off down the stairs. She was puzzled.
He’s
just a hopeless drunk
, she thought to herself. But Mr Blake was a bad liar,
too. He knew more about the missing dancer Georgie le Pomme than he was giving
away.

And strangely, he had also seemed utterly convinced he had
never received her telegram…and somehow Posie believed him.