A chill lifted the hairs on May’s arms as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Arthur?’ he called, searching the shadows.
‘He can’t speak, poor man, he’s dead. His injuries are terrible to behold. I can barely bring myself to look. He’s put on quite a bit of weight. There is something he must communicate, but it’s so difficult, so painful . . .’
I must be daft, thought May, sitting in darkness above a London pub, listening to the ramblings of a mad old woman. This is doing neither of us any good.
‘He wants to show you what he feels, but to do so he must cross the divide between the spiritual and physical worlds.’ Maggie raised her arms in a creaky gesture of prestidigitation, like an elderly magician’s assistant. May had started to rise from his armchair when, to the surprise of both, a low rumble shook the room. There was a sheen of metal in the kitchenette, and something shiny shot between them. When May glanced down, he realized he was looking at a kitchen knife, and that it was sticking out of his calf. He sat down sharply in shock.
‘Why on earth would he become violent?’ asked Maggie, examining the cut on May’s leg. ‘That’s not like him at all.’ She found a length of crêpe bandage and unrolled it over the cut. ‘It’s not deep,’ she consoled, ‘but I’m surprised by his behaviour. It’s rare for spirits to react so violently.’
‘It was the underground,’ said May, wincing. ‘Just a passing train. The vibration made your breadboard fall over and it flipped the knife from your drying rack, that’s all. This bandage isn’t very clean.’
‘Well, you can choose a rational explanation if it makes you more comfortable.’ Maggie poured herself a generous tot of Scotch. ‘You never were much of a believer.’
‘Not when the alternative is believing that my dead partner just tried to kill me. This is crazy. I’m being trailed by a man with werewolf fangs, and now this.’ May rose and collected his coat. He saw what a mistake it had been to come here. ‘Thanks for the drink.’
‘But how are you going to find Arthur’s killer?’ Standing in the middle of the faded rug she suddenly looked lost and frail. This was how it would end for her, he realized, alone and bewildered, stranded by the world racing ever faster past her window.
‘I’ll think of a way,’ he promised, taking a card from his wallet and handing it to her. ‘That’s my new address. If you need me, please call.’
It was the least Arthur would have done, he thought as he headed back down the stairs to daylight.
48
FALLING INTO HADES
‘Hymn to Bacchus, we’re missing someone, who’s late?’ Helena Parole checked behind her as she strained to hear the commentary on the backstage speaker. Pluto’s party girls were arriving onstage in a hail of artificial flowers while the gods of Olympus and Hades caroused around them in various stages of undress.
‘Goddesses are all on, Helena.’ Harry checked the clipboard he kept on a string round his neck. ‘The rest of the chorus are at the traps.’ There were five narrow iron staircases on the first understage level leading to hatches on the stage, the centre of which was known as the grave trap because Hamlet had jumped into it during his graveyard scene. ‘Everyone’s present, they’re just bunched up,’ he explained.
‘It’s going to look awkward if the ends of UR and UL have to duck their heads exiting.’ Helena checked the peephole at the rear of the stage, but the image it presented was so confusing that she could not tell who to move.
‘Why didn’t we see that in the technical?’ she whispered over her shoulder to Madeline Penn, the ASM, who was trailing behind her with a pad and pencil, keeping notes on all the changes that would have to be made after the first night. ‘Go and see if they’ve got the same problem over the other side, because there are a lot of flats coming down in a minute.’
The final tableau was long, and the full cast remained onstage throughout. Before they reached the cancan, additional chunks of scenery were to be brought up from under the stage and flown down from the flies. This left only a narrow strip for the girls to dance in, but the cancan was performed in a series of lines, with the girls yelling and pushing through each other, their ruffled dresses covering any awkward motions. It was a highly disciplined routine that was designed to give a look of wild, spontaneous sexuality.
Helena knew which of her dancers were weak, and had placed them in the second line. She was hoping that the attention of the audience would be focused on the bare white thighs of the girls and the high-cut French knickers they were wearing instead of traditional British bloomers. She knew that the reception accorded Offenbach’s finale at the Gaîté-Lyrique in 1874 had never been topped, but she was hoping to beat it tonight.