A Coffin for Charley (25 page)

The meeting was quiet and serious; they had picked up rumours of financial stringency. Almost all managements ran into problems of this sort these days but they had trusted Stella Pinero and Letty Bingham. No one mentioned the word bankruptcy so they avoided each other's worried faces.

And what could she say to them? My partner in this enterprise, Letty Bingham, has skipped off with most of the money in our joint theatre account. We are in trouble.

The murders didn't help. They had all known Didi, who had hung around both the main theatre and the Theatre Workshop picking up odd pieces of employment as she could, all temporary and all poorly paid, but it hadn't mattered to Didi, what had counted to her was to be in contact with the theatre world she loved. And that chance of getting a place at the Drama School.

Alison had seen most of her, since stage managers always need extra help especially if they get it for almost no pay. ‘The sad thing is she would never have been a success, she had no talent.'

‘You can't be sure about that,' said Frederico, who had a kind heart. ‘She was so young, people do develop, you know.' He was all of twenty-one himself.

‘She was so naïve,' said Rebecca. ‘She would take up with anyone who offered an opportunity to act or work in the theatre.'

There was a mutter of assent from round the table. Stella felt both sad and amused, this bunch was not as sophisticated as they thought. Oh, granted there was a surface slickness, but every one of them would do almost anything to hang on to work in the theatre. They had as many illusions and dreams as Didi ever had, their worldliness was one thin layer deep; if it had not been they would never have entered a profession where their chances of being unemployed were infinitely greater than their chances of being a star.

Take her own life. Stella was a success, could call herself
a star figure, was a household name, but she had known the feeling that came to every out of work performer and would come to all those in the room in their turn: that this was the end and they would never get another part, and would join the ranks of the permanently, terminally resting.

Every one of the group now sitting round the table and drinking Coke had been questioned by the police and not found it enjoyable. ‘Not like a Miss Marple movie,' Rebecca had said. ‘Great fat man who smoked all the time.' Rebecca was very Clean Air and Stella could see that Sergeant Fish, who had also questioned her while still smoking, had not made a good impression. ‘Sharp, too, acted as if he didn't believe a word I said.'

‘That's just manner,' said Frederico. ‘You know, being professional.' He was the only one who had enjoyed the experience; he had mingled with the police team, spoken to uniformed as well plain clothes men and had, as he said, ‘picked up a new mate'. Frederico picked up mates rather often, probably too often for his own safety, and was a worry to them all.

‘Who?' said Rebecca quickly; she had constituted herself his guardian, or, as Frederico put it, his Maiden Aunt.

‘Ask no questions,' he said.

Although the group had had no connection with the amateur production of
Witness for the Prosecution,
they knew most of the ladies of Feather Street who made up the Friends of St Luke's Theatre and they had seen a lot of what was going on. They knew the crucial part that it was meant to play in the birth of the Drama School. There was a general feeling that the murder of Didi could be blamed for a lot of their financial troubles, and that the amateur production could be blamed for the murder.

‘It did bring in a lot of weirdies,' said Rebecca. ‘Look at some of those who auditioned. The Creeley man, for one. I mean, he comes from a family of killers, I suppose he thought that gave him a chance. He couldn't act, couldn't even speak a line, I don't suppose.'

‘He was in love with Didi, that's why he came,' said Alison. ‘But she wasn't in love with him.' She frowned. ‘I
sat in on some of the auditions, just for the experience.' She hoped to get into producing, she knew she was not ace at acting. ‘And I agree with you, I certainly saw some unexpected faces, the people who turned up.'

‘Perhaps you saw the murderer,' said Frederico.

‘I hope they catch him,' said someone. ‘Or her. Or them. Might be a group.'

‘No, this is a serial murderer and that's always singular.'

For a moment it looked as though the meeting would descend into an argument about semantics or capital punishment but Stella called it to order.

‘That's enough now. I'm going to talk and you're going to listen.' They turned attentive faces towards her. Stella put the facts to them, suitably edited, and gave them her usual pep talk. She did not say: I have the money to pay wages for this week and next but nothing beyond.

The group drifted away, talking among themselves in half way to cheerful voices because Stella hadn't made it sound too bad.

Afterwards Alison, who had more financial savvy than the others, came up. ‘It's tight, isn't it? Tighter than you said.' Although Alison never talked about it, Stella knew that her father was a distinguished economist.

She looked with trust at Alison with whom she had a good working relationship, without being close. She liked Alison, who was large, strong and reliable, all of which a stage manager needs to be.

Stella said: ‘Well, you know how it is, I didn't want to cast gloom on the others.' Or not too much.

‘I think they know, really … I might get my father to put some money in.'

‘Let's see how things go.' It was not wise to accept investment from one of the company even if their father was a wealthy man. If it came off and you pulled through, then you might be saddled with that person for life; she had seen it happen. She liked Alison, but she would not want to work with her forever.

‘Of course, he wouldn't expect a profit.' Or even to get his money back. Alison repressed her father's expressed
opinion that the theatre was a financial
Titanic.
It would be her money anyway, out of her trust fund.

Stella laughed. No other comment was necessary. She didn't even have to make it a bitter or a noisy laugh, one short hoot was enough.

‘Yes, well,' said Alison. ‘Have we got a future?' Has the company, has the Drama School (in which a lot of her own hopes for future work rested) got a life to come, was what she meant.

‘Yes, oh yes,' said Stella. She would see they had somehow. Alison nodded. ‘Good, I hoped you would say that … It's not why I hung back, though.' She dug into the huge soft bag which hung from her shoulder and which looked as though it could carry her to New York and back with several changes of clothes and make-up. All the girls had such bags and Stella had, on occasion, seen hair dryers, cats and even one baby extracted from them.

‘You know Didi did odd jobs for me? She was a great one for leaving her possessions about, and she left this behind among other things. It's not a diary, in a way more personal than that, a book, but full of private things, I meant to remind her when we met again …' Alison stopped, then went on: ‘But we never did, she never came back.'

Alison put on the table in front of Stella a notebook which seemed thick with odd papers and letters, all bound up with an elastic band.

‘She used to make notes in it and that sort of thing … I haven't looked … Well, I have,' she added honestly, ‘but I didn't read it, I could see it was personal stuff. The letters are from boyfriends, all ages old. I didn't know what to do with it.'

‘Perhaps you should give it to the police. Or to her sister.'

‘I wondered if you would?'

Stella hesitated, and Alison hurried on: ‘Or if it was necessary to do anything with it at all … I mean, I know she's dead but it was private to Didi.'

‘I thought you said there was nothing much in it?'

‘No, but it's about dates, and notes about dates and
letters from boyfriends … It's the sort of thing I would hate to go public if I was dead.'

But the murdered have no privacy.

Stella stretched out her hand for the book. ‘All right, I'll do something with it.'

Stella carried the notebook round with her in her handbag for the rest of the day, not looking at it.

Her husband had telephoned her to say that he was still in Birmingham. ‘I've found Letty,' he had said. ‘It was not very hard to do. I think she wanted me to find her.'

Beyond that he had not said very much. She had no telephone number to reach him, from which she supposed he did not want a call. ‘How is Letty? Anything I can do?'

‘She's all right and being looked after. Leave it at that for the moment, Stella.'

Stella liked her sister-in-law, whom she admired and respected, but she had reservations about Elissa. Too beautiful, too spoilt, and most dangerous of all, not so clever as her brilliant mother. Poor Letty.

Finally, at the end of the day, she took the notebook which Alison had produced, opened the book and let the bundle of letters and photographs fall on to the table. Should she take what she had to Annie?

She avoided reading the letters but could not help seeing the signatures on one or two. Eddie Creeley, of course, several times, complaining about Didi seeing other men. Stella did read that bit: Call him a man, Eddie had written. It sounded more like a threat than a question.

At the back was a list of addresses and telephone numbers which included her own. The girl got around, she saw with surprise.

She would visit Annie, tell her what she had, but not give anything to her, not the shoes, nor the woolly sweater, nor the comb and lipstick, she knew these ought to go to the investigating team. At the same time, she felt a sympathy for Annie.

Keep away from Annie, Coffin had said, she may be wicked.

Annie had realized that what she called Didi's ‘little book' was missing. She had tidied Didi's room when the police unsealed it, cleaned away all the mess they had left, and arranged Didi's books and papers. Stanislavsky and a book on Edith Evans were there but the little notebook was not.

There were several programmes from St Luke's Theatre, even more from the Theatre Workshop which Didi had attended regularly, like a church; there was the prospectus of the Drama School, and several photographs of Didi's favourite performers which included one of Stella Pinero.

Annie now had mixed feelings about Stella. She loved her still but was fearful. Love was a dangerous commodity, dangerous to the giver, dangerous to her who received it.

She had given up wearing her masculine clothing but she knew she was still the same inside. What's on the outside, is not what I am inside, she told herself. I am packaged one way, but exist in another. This made her fractious, difficult and unpredictable, with something wilder underneath: what Coffin had called wicked.

She was puzzled that Didi's notebook, which had been such a prominent part of her life (carried everywhere, always in use: ‘I must write it down' being daily words with her), was not around where she might have expected to find it. Silly to mind, but she did, because it was part of Didi that was missing.

Had the police taken it?

She had the nerve to ring them up and ask them. No, they hadn't.

She was alone in the house, her daughter still with her grandparents. The police had stopped visiting, but the neighbours had been kind, calling with messages of help, although showing caution: after all, a woman whom murder had touched twice was dangerous company and better kept at a distance.

It was sad having no friends, she knew she had none, although she had several enemies and was herself an enemy to some: the Creeleys being the most prominent, and who-soever had killed Didi.

She had one professional friend: Tom Ashworth, Tash, and him she called daily, because you had to talk to someone. He was not always at the end of his telephone, but he had an answering machine and he was good about calling back. Annie wanted to ring him now to tell him she was puzzled about Didi's notebook, but she teased herself by not dialling, like not eating a cream bun when your mouth is watering. He was her luxury.

But she did ring.

‘I shouldn't worry,' he said, sounding uninterested, ‘it can't be lost. It'll turn up.'

‘I don't know where.'

‘Want me to come and look?'

‘No.' Another day perhaps. You had to stagger luxuries, take little bites.

‘Let me know if it turns up.'

‘She wrote everything in it.'

‘Did she? Dangerous girl.'

Annie was silent. Cream buns were not meant to bite back, cream buns were for comfort.

Didi wasn't killed because she had secrets, she was killed because she was my sister, Eddie Creeley killed her.
She stuck to that thought, certainly Eddie had done it.

Creeley. Saying the name always gave her a thrill, it was like sex.

When she saw the Creeleys in her mind, two dead old people had shuffled behind, wrapped in bandages, earth-stained. Now when she thought of them, Didi walked behind them.

She was seeing the trio as she listened to Tash.

‘I really hate what you are doing to yourself, Annie,' he said, his voice sounding warm and sympathetic, which is exactly what Didi always said he was and Annie never quite believed, because there must always be a bill.

What was she doing to herself? Still holding the telephone she looked at her face in a wall mirror. She had lost weight, and she hadn't washed her hair lately, so it must be that what she was doing was not eating and not washing.

When she returned her attention to the telephone, Tash
had stopped speaking and gone away, the line was dead. It was early evening; she went into the kitchen to make some tea, or coffee, they both tasted the same to her now. Didi had been dead and unburied for days, the police still retaining her body, for what services she dare not think. There had been an inquest which had been adjourned.