‘Don’t you think you owe her something, Helena?’ asked Benjamin. ‘Suppose somebody has a grudge against the performers? What about the safety of the rest of the cast? The safety of the audience?’
‘You know as well as I do that the audience is always separated from the stage.’
‘Is that really true?’ asked May.
‘Backstage and front of house are two entirely different worlds. You can get from one to the other only by going through the ground-level pass doors. There are just two of those, and one has been locked for so many years I don’t think anyone knows where the keys are.’ She ground out her cigarette. ‘It was probably someone from the cast of No, No, Nanette, driven insane by Jessie Matthews.’
‘I can make a case for press restriction if you really think the play is in the interests of the city’s morale,’ Bryant offered.
‘It’ll be tough keeping things quiet this end. So long as an actor’s near a telephone, word always gets out. Death poisons the atmosphere in a place like this.’ Helena knew that performers were sensitive to the slightest undercurrents rippling the still air of an auditorium.
‘How are we going to explain that our dancer has disappeared?’
‘She had no friends.’ Helena stole another cigarette. ‘Nobody who pushes that hard ever does. She told me she was getting weird letters, Mr May. Sex-crazed men wanting her to walk on them with stilettos, that sort of thing. People were drawn to her aggression. It could be any one of them. They follow the movements of performers in the papers and turn up in the front row every night applauding in the wrong places, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘There is something,’ said May. ‘The telephone bookings for which you mail out tickets, we can cross-check the addresses of all the reservations so far.’
‘And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?’ asked Benjamin.
‘Resume rehearsals,’ said Bryant, taking his partner’s cue. ‘Behave as if nothing untoward has happened.’
‘You could make an announcement to the effect that Capistrania has been taken ill and has been placed in quarantine,’ added May. ‘Scarlet fever perhaps.’
‘Thank heaven someone around here is ready to take charge.’ Helena gave May a reassuring smile. ‘I already feel safer in your capable hands.’
Bryant made a face behind Helena’s back, and was caught in the act when she turned round. He transformed his grimace into a cough as, somewhere far below, an oboe hit a warning note.
‘I thought you were jolly impressive with La Parole back there,’ said Bryant, bouncing along the corridor to the box office as they left. ‘We make a bloody good double act. Perhaps we should take to the stage: Bryant and May, detective duo, some juggling, a patter song and a sand dance, what do you think?’
‘I think you’re completely loopy,’ answered May truthfully. ‘It’s a murder investigation. I don’t have the training for this.’
‘You’re young enough still to have an open mind,’ said Bryant, laughing. ‘That’s all the training you need.’
15
SOMETHING POISONOUS
‘Hello, Oswald, something’s different in here, have you had the place decorated? I’m rather partial to the smell of new paint.’
‘Very funny, Mr Bryant.’
Oswald Finch, the pathologist, sat back from his desk notes and cracked the bones in his wrists. His team had been forced to disinfect the department at West End Central after Arthur had presented him with a cadaver so slippery with infesting bacteria that it had reacted with their usual chemical neutralizers, causing the entire floor to reek of ammonia and rotting fish. This was no problem for Finch, who had the occupational advantage of being born without a sense of smell, but Westminster’s health officer had threatened to shut them down unless they did something about it.
Apart from the nuisance factor of dealing with council officials, Finch couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. He found the process of bodily decay fascinating. Bryant had suggested that, as a longtime supporter of Tottenham Hotspur, he was used to seeing things slowly fall apart.
‘At least we got you a nice fresh one this time,’ May pointed out cheerfully. There was something so depressing about being in Finch’s presence that people adopted an air of forced jollity around him. He had the suicidal expression of a Norwegian painter and the posture of a unstuffed rag doll. No one in the unit had been surprised when Oswald’s glamorous wife had left him for a dashing RAF officer. Rather, they were amazed that he had managed to marry anyone at all.