‘So you were right, in a way. It was about the assassination of theatre gods—just not the ones you thought. Mind your head.’ The corridor was lower now. They passed several rusted iron-rung ladders leading to the star traps, segmented doors through which an actor could be catapulted onto the stage under cover of smoke. At the downstage centre point stood the grave trap. Light from the spots above the dancers shone down through the grille.
‘I don’t like this, Arthur. He could be hiding anywhere.’
Bryant pulled something metallic from his pocket. The click of a ratchet sounded.
‘Are you armed?’ asked May.
‘It’s a service revolver that belonged to my brother.’
‘I didn’t know you had a brother. Do you know how to use it?’
‘The principle’s not hard to grasp. Trigger here, bullets come out of the end. It’s my understanding that he kept it loaded. I don’t think the boy is on this level.’ Bryant peered over the side of the rickety balustrade and shone his torch into the darkness below. ‘We’re going to have to go further down.’
‘I don’t like this at all,’ May complained, feeling for the steps ahead. From the stage above their heads came the sound of the orchestra launching into the show’s grand finale set piece, the cancan.
The stamping of the dancers dislodged showers of dirt. Sawdust sifted past their faces. Bryant pulled out a handkerchief and discreetly coughed into it.
‘Are you sure he’s down here?’ May shifted uncomfortably. He was starting to feel shut in.
‘Listen.’ They stopped as they reached the middle of the three floors constructed beneath the theatre. The music was distorted by the gurgling steam pipes that ran all around them. Bryant shone his torch beam over the walls. The shadows of the stage props, a dozen twisted demon heads, stretched and fell away. The giant eyes of Cerberus, the watchdog of Hell, gleamed wetly at them from a corner. Spiders and mice scuttled from the light. Ahead, just out of the beam, something moved.
‘I think that’s him.’ Bryant’s eyes widened. ‘Stone the crows.’
The boy caught in the torchlight seemed more frightened than angry. His pale, fleshy face was cicatrized with the marks of a badly healed infection, the skin pulled taut and shiny across his skull, his right eye milky with cataracts. His chin was sunk into the bulky mass of his chest, so that he appeared to have no neck at all. Having never left the confines of the theatre, he had the typical deficiencies of a human deprived of sunlight and nutrition. His bones were twisted with the effects of rickets.
‘The light’s hurting his eyes, keep the torch trained on him,’ Bryant called over his shoulder as they advanced.
‘Go away from me. I know she sent you,’ cried Todd suddenly, throwing his hands across his eyes and edging from the circle of brilliance cast by May’s torch. The voice was as dry and dead as the air in the theatre, no louder than the rasp of a scrim sliding in its oiled wooden groove, and yet its tone was clear and cultured. He had spent his life listening to actors’ declamations.
‘Todd, we don’t mean you any harm, we want to help you, but you’ll have to come with us.’ Bryant took a step closer.
‘She intends to leave me here, all alone here.’ The boy backed away with his arms still raised.
‘No, she doesn’t, your mother is going to take you with her,’ Bryant promised.
‘I’ve seen you, both of you. I did it for her, so we can get out. But I know she’s not taking me.’
‘Where did he get this idea from?’ whispered May.
‘I hear everything through the grilles and traps. I heard her telling you.’ Todd thrust an accusing finger. ‘You, the short one.’
‘I’m not short,’ said Bryant indignantly.
Todd suddenly broke free from the light and dropped down the wooden staircase leading to the lowest level of the theatre. The detectives were forced to move forward over the narrow footbridge, one behind the other. Far above them, thirty dancers bared their thighs and hammered out the steps of the cancan.
Beneath the three great turbine engines, the steam pipes and oiled cables that led to the flies, Todd darted along the open corridors, loping from side to side like an ape, dislodging props and items of clothing that hung along the walls, a half-wild creature at home in a penumbral world of brick and iron.
‘Keep away from me.’ They heard him before May could shift the torchlight onto his face. He was on the far side of the understage. The ground beneath the detectives’ feet had turned from planks to stone and earth.
‘Keep the torch trained on him, John.’