Star Trap (7 page)

And then he began to realise the power of Christopher Milton's personality. From his own over-reactions Charles understood the intensity of resentment that the man could inspire. Which made him think that perhaps there were people who felt sufficiently strongly to sabotage any show Christopher Milton was in.

Charles decided that he would make a belated start to the business of investigation for which Gerald Venables had engaged him. Since he had no rehearsals the following morning, he would go and see Everard Austick.

CHAPTER FIVE

EVERARD AUSTICK'S ADDRESS was a block of flats in Eton College Road, near Chalk Farm Underground Station. Charles found it in the phone book and went along on the off-chance that its owner would be out of hospital. He could have rung to check, but felt disinclined to explain his enquiries on the telephone. Also there was a chance that the dry agony of his hangover might have receded by the time he got there.

In fact the tube journey didn't help much and, as he stood in the old lift gazing ahead at its lattice-work metal door, he felt in need of a red-hot poker to burn out the rotten bits of his brain. The only coherent thought he could piece together was the eternal, ‘Must drink less'.

The block of flats was old, with long gloomy corridors interrupted by the stranded doormats of unwelcoming doorways. Number 108 was indistinguishable from the others, the same blue gloss paint, the same glass peep-hole to warn the inmate of approaching burglars, rapists, etc.

Charles' pressure on the door-bell produced no reaction. Perhaps it wasn't working. He pressed again, his ear to the door, and caught the distant rustle of its ring. Oh well, maybe Everard was still in hospital, or away convalescing. One more try.

This time there was a distant sound of a door opening, a muttered curse and the heavy approach of a plaster-cased foot. The door opened and Everard Austick peered blearily out into the shadows of the corridor. He looked a mess. His grey hair stuck out in a series of Brylcreemed sheaves as he had slept on it. He had only shaved sketchily for a few days and the areas he had missed sprouted long bristles. A dilapidated camel dressing-gown was bunched around his large frame. His right leg was grotesquely inflated by its plaster. He was probably only in his fifties, but he looked an old man.

‘Can I help you?' he asked in a public school voice furred with alcohol.

‘Yes. I'm sorry to trouble you. My name's Charles Paris.'

Fuddled incomprehension.

‘We worked together once for a season in Glasgow.'

‘Ah. Ah yes, of course.' But he didn't remember.

‘Look, I've taken over the part you were playing in
Lumpkin!
'

‘Oh. Do you want to come in?'

‘Thank you.' Everard Austick backed away and Charles moved past him into the dim hall. A door gave off on to a large sitting-room and he made towards it. ‘Er, not in there if you don't mind.'

Charles had seen the smart decor of the room and looked back quizzically at Everard. ‘Fact is, old boy, I don't use all the flat. No point in using it all when I'm away so much . . . I . . . er, there's a young couple who also live here. Just on a temporary basis. Helps out with the old rent, what?' The jovial tone could not hide the facts. Everard Austick was so hard up that he had to rent out almost all his flat to keep his head above water.

This impression was confirmed when Charles was led into Everard's bedroom, obviously the smallest in the flat. The air tasted as if it hadn't been changed for a fortnight. A pile of dusty magazines against them showed that the windows hadn't been opened for months, and the bed was rumpled not just by one night's occupation, but by long days and nights of simply lying and staring at the ceiling rose.

A half-empty bottle of vodka on the dressing-table was evidence of the only activity the room had seen for some time. ‘Sorry it's a bit of a tip,' said Everard, attempting to play the line with light comedy insouciance. ‘Can I offer you a drink? There's only the vodka, I'm afraid. Well, I suppose I could make some coffee, but . . .' His mind was unable to cope with the incongruity of the idea.

‘A little vodka would be fine.' A hair of the dog might possibly loosen the nutcrackers on Charles' head.

He received a clouded tooth mug half-full of vodka. Everard Austick's hand shook as he passed it over and topped up his own tumbler. ‘Down the hatch, old boy.' The long swallow he took was not an action of relish, but of dependence. He grimaced, shuddered and looked at Charles. ‘Now, what can I do for you, old man? Want a bit of help in your interpretation of the part, eh?' Again the cheerfulness sounded forced.

‘No, actually I just wanted to pick your brains about something.' Charles paused. It was difficult. He did not want to reveal his rôle as an investigator into the show. He realised that he had not done enough preparation for the encounter; he should have worked out some specious story to explain his interest, or even made the approach in some other identity. Still, too late now. Better to try the direct question and hope that Everard's bemused condition would prevent him from being suspicious. ‘You know when you broke your leg – what happened?'

‘I fell down the stairs.'

‘Just an accident?'

‘Oh, God knows. I'd had quite a skinful the night before, met a few chums, celebrating actually being in work, it had been a long time. And I had a few more in the morning, you know, to pull me round, and I managed to leave late, so I was hurrying, so I suppose I could have just fallen.'

‘Or?'

‘Well, there was this chap on the stairs, ran down from behind me, I thought he sort of jostled me. I don't know though.'

‘And that's what caused you to fall?'

‘Could have been. I don't know.'

‘Did he stop to help you when you fell?'

‘No, he seemed to be in a hurry.'

‘Hmm. Did you see what he looked like?'

‘No.'

‘Not even an impression?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Did you tell the police?'

‘No. Who's going to believe me? I'm not even sure it happened myself. Could just have fallen.'

‘Yes.' The interrogation did not seem to be getting anywhere. Everard Austick was so fogged with alcohol that he didn't even trust his own memory. No one was going to get anything else out of him. Charles drained his glass and rose to leave.

‘You're off?' Everard seemed to accept the departure with as little surprise as he had the arrival. Nothing seemed strange in his half-real world. ‘Actually, there is one thing, old boy.'

‘Yes?'

‘This damned leg, I find it so difficult to get about, you know, get to the bank and so on, a bit short of cash, for the . . . er . . . you know, basic necessities of life.'

The expansive gesture which accompanied the last four words was meant to signify a whole range of food and domestic essentials, but it ended up pointing at the nearly-empty vodka bottle.

Out of guilt or something, Charles gave him a fiver. Then a thought struck him. ‘Everard, why didn't you use the lift that morning?'

‘Wasn't working.'

‘Sure?'

‘I pushed the button for it and it didn't come for a long time. I told you I was in a hurry.'

‘Yes. Thank you.'

Charles walked slowly along the dim corridor until he came to the lifts. He looked at them closely. Both were the old sort with sliding doors. A notice requested users to close both doors firmly. Otherwise the lifts would not function. So it would be possible to immobilise both by calling them to another floor and leaving them with their doors ajar. It would then be possible to linger in the gloomy corridor until Everard Austick staggered out of his flat, watch him call unsuccessfully for the lift and then help him on his way when he started downstairs. Unlikely, but possible.

‘Hello, Gerald, it's Charles. I got your message at the rehearsal rooms and I'm afraid this is the first chance I've had to call.'

‘Okay. How's it going?'

‘Nothing to report really. Nothing else has happened.'

‘No tension in the company?'

‘No more than in any show with Christopher Milton in it which starts its pre-London tour in a week.'

‘Hmm. Maybe I was being alarmist'

‘Maybe. Anyway, thanks for the job.'

‘Any time. Keep your eyes skinned.'

‘Okay. Though I don't know what for. There's nothing to see.'

‘Unless something else happens.'

‘Hello, is that Ruth?'

‘Yes. Who's speaking?'

‘Charles Paris.'

‘Good God. I thought the earth had swallowed you up long ago.'

‘No. Still large as life and twice as seedy.'

‘Well, to what do I owe this pleasure? Tidying out your room and just found a seven-year-old diary?'

‘No.'

‘Joined Divorcees Anonymous have you, and they gave you my number?'

‘Actually I'm still not divorced.'

‘Separated though?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘And you just phoned for the Recipe-of-the-Day, did you? It's stew.'

‘No, the fact is, I'm in a show that's about to start a pre-London tour and our first week's in Leeds and, with true actor's instinct, I thought, well, before I fix up any digs, I'll see if I've got any old friends in Leeds . . .'

‘You've got a nerve.'

‘Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I'll –'

‘No. It might be quite entertaining to see you after all these years. At least a change from the sort of men who hang around divorcees in Leeds. When do you arrive?'

‘Sunday.'

As Charles put the phone down, Ruth's voice still rang, ominously familiar, in his ears and he had the feeling that he had done something stupid.

If all went well on the tour,
Lumpkin!
was to take over the King's Theatre from a show called
Sex of One and Half a Dozen of the Other
, which had long outstayed its welcome. It had been put on in 1971 by Marius Steen and had celebrated a thousand performances just before the impresario's mysterious death in which Charles Paris had become involved. As the Steen empire was slowly dismantled, the show had continued under different managements with increasingly diluted casts until even the coach party trade began to dwindle. It limped through the summer of 1975 on tourists, but had no chance of surviving the pre-Christmas slump. The theatre-going public had been too depressed by rising ticket prices and the fear that the terrorist bombs might return with the dark evenings to make the effort to see a tired old show.
Sex of One
. . . had made its London killing and was now off to pick up the residuals of national tours, the depredations of provincial theatre companies and finally the indignities perpetrated by amateur dramatic societies. On Saturday, October 25th, the last day of London rehearsals, the
Lumpkin!
cast assembled for a pre-tour run-through in the King's. The idea was to gain familiarity with the place before the ceremonial entry on November 27th.

The call was for nine o'clock, so that everything should be ready when Christopher Milton arrived at his contractual ten-thirty. Time was tight.
Sex of One
. . . had a three o'clock matinée and their set (most of which had been dismantled and piled up against the naked brick walls at the back of the stage) had to be reassembled by two-thirty. This meant that an eleven o'clock start would just allow a full run, with only half an hour allowed for cock-ups.

The run was not to be with costume or props. Everything had been packed up into skips and was already on its way to Leeds. The set was in lorries on the Ml, scheduled to arrive for the get-in at ten-thirty that night when the current show at the Palace Theatre (a second-rate touring revival of
When We Are Married
) finished its run. Spike, the stage manager, was going to see the run-through, then leap on to the five-to-four train to Leeds and maybe grab a little sleep in anticipation of the all-night and all-day job of getting the set erected and dressed. The actors' schedule was more leisurely. After the run, their next call was at seven o'clock on the Sunday evening for a technical rehearsal. At eleven the next morning there was a press conference in the bar of the Palace Theatre, a dress rehearsal at one, and at seven-thirty on Monday, October 27th,
Lumpkin!
was to meet a paying audience for the first time.

The audience in the King's Theatre on the Saturday morning had not paid. They were all in the circle. David Meldrum, with a rare display of personality, had taken over all of the stalls and set up a little table in the middle. A Camping Gaz lamp was ready to illuminate his interleaved script and notes when the lights went down. Two chairs were set there, one for him and one for Gwyneth, ever efficient, never passing comment.

Up in the circle were some of the backers, who joked nervously like racehorse owners, frightened of coughs, lameness and nobbling. Dickie Peck was there, salivating over his cigar until it looked like a rope-end. There was a representative of Amulet Productions, who looked as if he had gone to a fancy-dress ball as a merchant banker. Gerald Venables was too cool to turn up himself and reveal his anxiety, but a junior member of the office was there representing the interests of Arthur Balcombe. Some other seats were occupied by press representatives and a few girl and boy friends who had been smuggled in.

The stage manager had imposed dress rehearsal discipline and the cast were not allowed out front. Nor were they encouraged to make themselves at home in the dressing-rooms, so there was a lot of hanging around in the green room and the wings. Charles decided that once the run started he would adjourn to the nearest pub. Even with a totally trouble-free run, Sir Charles Marlow could not possibly be required onstage until one o'clock. He knew he should really hang about the green room listening to the gossip and trying to cadge a lift up to Leeds. But he hated cadging and would rather actually spend the travel allowance he had received on a train ticket than try it.