Murder in the Second Row (15 page)

‘Have you got
enough light to see what you’re doing?’ asked Jessica. ‘I can rig
up a work-light to make this dark corner less shadowy if you
like.’

‘Yeah, that
might help, ta,’ was Gazza’s offhand reply. She smiled to herself
and fetched a halogen light on a stand from the workshop.

Once all the
seats had been removed, Jessica called Clara-Jane who busied
herself lighting candles in readiness for her cleansing
ceremony.

‘What is it
that you do, exactly?’ asked Jessica. ‘Have you had to perform this
sort of thing before?’

‘Not
personally, but my mother used to. I called her last night and she
talked me through it. It’s all to do with satisfying the spirits
that reside here. If they’re upset, like by violence or extreme
unhappiness, then the whole vibe of the building changes. We need
to reassure them and let them know that their home is a safe place
to be.’

‘Wow. How would
they cope if the theatre was pulled down and they had to live in a
shopping mall?’

‘Jessica!’ said
Clara-Jane, horrified. ‘Don’t say that, even as a joke. That’s just
the sort of thing that would upset them even more. Just stay quiet
and let me cleanse the theatre’s aura, will you?’

‘Don’t you
think you’d be more use cleansing the place with the carpet
cleaner?’ Jessica saw the look on her friend’s face and mimed
zipping her lips shut.

Clara-Jane
placed the candles in the four corners of the auditorium, then lit
some incense sticks. Starting from the stage, she walked back and
forth across the room, wafting the smoke ahead of her. When she
reached the far corner of the back wall where the body had been
found, she paused, muttering words that Jessica couldn’t quite
hear. She made sweeping gestures that seemed to gather the smoke
and guide it towards the rear door of the auditorium. With her long
purple skirts brushing across the floor, she made her exit through
the door and out into the foyer. Once there, she threw open the
double doors and cast the smoke outside.

With perfect
timing, Howard pulled up in his van and unloaded the steam
cleaner.

‘Thanks for
getting the doors open, Clara-Jane. It would be a heck of a job to
get this thing in through the side door. Cheers.’

She inclined
her head gracefully and allowed him inside.

By
mid-afternoon the whole auditorium was physically and spiritually
immaculate, the carpet looking several shades lighter as it dried.
Howard and Gazza showed Stewart and Nathan how to fill the screw
holes, and by the end of a long and tiring day all the seats were
back in position.

Howard leaned
backwards, easing his aching spine.

‘Who needs to
join a gym when we’re getting this sort of exercise?’ He wiped a
gleaming forehead on the sleeve of his faded Les Miserables
t-shirt. ‘Considering we’re all too tired to go partying tonight,
do you want to come round to my place for a quick barbeque? I think
I can get MaryAnn to cook so we can all just flop out and
relax.’

There was a
muted and grateful chorus of approval.

‘I’ll bring
those beers I promised,’ said Jessica, earning herself a ragged
cheer. ‘We’ve done great things today, team. From tomorrow, we’ll
be back to the schedule and on track for the show. Now let’s get
going – last one to Howard’s place gets the low-alcohol beer!’

There was a mad
dash for the door.

Once flagging
energy had been restored by a generous application of sausages and
salad, the members of the Regent Theatre society, sprawling in
Howard’s backyard, began discussing the murder.

‘Look at it
logically,’ said Howard. ‘Assuming it wasn’t just a random attack,
who would have wanted Tamara dead?’

‘Most of the
people who knew her,’ said Gazza.

‘Gazza! That’s
a terrible thing to say!’ Clara-Jane was appalled. ‘She wasn’t a
truly bad person, just young and misguided.’

‘Misguided like
a missile, more like. Did you not see the damage she was doing to
Phil and Pippa? If either of them did it, I’d say it was
justified.’

Jessica saw her
friend about to explode and swiftly interceded.

‘Of course it
wasn’t them, Gazza. Stop making mischief. If you’re just going to
wind people up then go inside and do the dishes.’

‘Oh you don’t
need to do that,’ exclaimed MaryAnn. ‘But you could put the kettle
on while you’re in there.’

Overwhelmed by
superior forces, Gazza levered himself up and beat a retreat to the
kitchen.

‘Before anyone
suggests it, it wasn’t me,’ said Stewart quietly. ‘She made my life
pretty unpleasant at times but I would never have thought of doing
anything about it.’

‘Good for you,
Stewart. That shows what a nice person you are.’ Clara-Jane patted
him on the back.

‘I thought
about it,’ admitted Nathan. ‘Oh, not killing her or anything, just
getting her to shut up about Stewart somehow. But I hadn’t figured
out how. I’m not sorry she’s gone but it was someone else who
managed it.’

‘Wasn’t there
some fuss with Austin at that last rehearsal?’ asked Howard. ‘What
was all that about?’

‘He offered her
a costume for her role as Nadine the nurse,’ said Jessica.
‘Understandably, Tamara took offence when she saw it.’

‘Ah. The
Naughty Nurse outfit, was it?’ Howard grinned. ‘I can imagine her
wearing it in her, um, professional capacity, but only if she was
getting paid for it. And having Austin suggest it would definitely
have made her mad. Did she yell?’

‘Oh yes! Tore
strips off him in front of the whole cast, made him look about two
inches tall. She’d probably still be telling him off if some woman
in the auditorium hadn’t reined her in sharply.’

‘Yeah, real
sour-looking old bat. Who was that?’

‘Don’t know,’
said Jessica. ‘I told the police about her but couldn’t give them
any details. Maybe Adam knows who she was.’

‘So Austin
might possibly have felt humiliated enough to retaliate, do you
think?’

They all
pondered the idea for a while.

‘Can’t see it
myself, but who knows how his mind works,’ said Howard finally. ‘Is
there anyone else in the frame? Who haven’t we thought of?’

Stewart cleared
his throat hesitantly.

‘Wasn’t she
going out with Nick? Maybe they had a quarrel of some kind?’

Jessica
remembered Nick’s garbled words as he turned up drunk on her
doorstep. She stayed silent, uneasily questioning herself about
times and dates.

Gazza ambled
back from the kitchen and flopped down in a deckchair.

‘OK, dishes are
done and the kettle’s boiled. Where are we up to? Has anyone
accused me yet?’

‘Did you have a
reason to kill her?’ asked Howard.

‘Only the fact
that she was a total pain in the arse. But there are plenty of
other people I consider pains in the arse and I haven’t topped them
yet, so that’s not going to fly. What about you, mate? Did you do
her in?’

Jessica saw the
merest flicker of a wink pass between Howard and MaryAnn.

‘Yes! But only
because she was trying to blackmail him!’ said MaryAnn
dramatically. ‘Howard had been having a stupid affair and Tamara
found out about it. She insisted that Howard had to buy her
silence. Thank God he had the good sense to come to me and admit it
all, otherwise we’d have been fleeced out of everything we
own.’

‘WHAT?’

‘So I killed
her myself before she could tell anyone else. I wouldn’t have
Howard’s good name dragged through the mud by that little
tramp.’

‘WHAT?’

Too late, Gazza
realised the joke.

‘Aw Christ, I
must be bloody tired for you to have put that one over. You
bastards, you deserve each other.’

Beer and
exhaustion combined to send them all into hysterical giggles. The
logical approach had given way to lunacy.

‘Why did you
kill her, Jessica?’ asked Howard. ‘Let’s hear your reason.’

‘Easy,’ said
Jessica promptly. ‘I was insanely jealous because Austin was paying
more attention to her than he was to me. When he gave her that
erotic vinyl Naughty Nurse outfit, it was the final straw. It
should have been mine, all mine!’

The prospect of
Nurse Jessica in fur-trimmed panties seducing a panting Austin had
them howling in protest. Howard wiped tears from his eyes and
looked at Clara-Jane.

‘Your turn. Why
did you kill her, Clara-Jane?’

‘I recognised
her from one of my previous lives. In her last reincarnation she
was an evil demon who caused terrible destruction in the world. She
escaped from me back then, so when I saw her again I knew I had to
release her satanic energy back into the underworld.’

‘Jeez,
somebody’s been watching too many episodes of Twilight.’

‘All right
Gazza,’ she retorted. ‘Let’s hear why you had to kill her after
all.’

‘National
security.’

‘OK, go on. We
need more than that.’

‘If I told you
I’d have to kill you too.’

‘Not good
enough, Gazza. Give us a reason or you lose the game.’

‘All right, but
you’ll have to swear to keep this secret.’

‘Yes, get on
with it!’ said Howard. ‘You’re just dragging this out till you can
think of something!’

‘She would have
blown my cover. As soon as she walked into the theatre, I compared
her to the picture in my top secret briefing papers and knew she
was a spy who turned traitor two years ago. She would have
recognised me, eventually, and given me away to the enemy, so she
had to be silenced.’

The group was
quiet for a moment while they processed this piece of information,
then Jessica intoned solemnly, ‘The name’s Bond. Gazza Bond.’

They all
cracked up.

‘Bloody hell,’
gasped Howard. ‘You’ve certainly been in deep cover. Nobody would
ever imagine you in an immaculate dinner suit ordering cocktails!
Hell of a disguise mate, well done!’

Gazza doffed
his battered leather cap and bowed, a grin creasing his stubbled
features.

‘I’ve got one,’
said Stewart eagerly. ‘Why did Adam kill her?’

‘Ooh, that’s a
good one,’ said Jessica. ‘What reason could Adam possibly have to
want Tamara dead?’

Their brains,
muzzy with alcohol and tiredness, trawled for ideas.

‘Got it!’ said
Clara-Jane eventually. ‘She approached him with faked paperwork
proving that she was his daughter from an illicit liaison with an
actress years ago. She demanded money to set up her own business
but he could see that she would keep coming back with more and more
demands for years to come. She’d follow him round the country,
auditioning for every show he was directing, and he’d never be rid
of her. Finally he snapped, and so did her neck. The end.’

There was a
round of applause.

Nathan raised
his hand. His dreadlocks quivered with suppressed giggles.

‘I think Simone
tripped up and fell on her, and she suffocated!’

Clara-Jane,
herself no lightweight, fixed him with a steely gaze but couldn’t
keep from laughing with the rest of them.

‘You’re a
cheeky little sod, Nathan. You wait till you’re a bit older and
have plenty of cash for beer and food. If you’re that skinny when
you’re thirty, I’ll eat rice wafers for a week. I tell you what
though,’ Clara-Jane added thoughtfully, ‘as far as solving this
murder goes, there is a likely candidate on the crew who could do
that.’

‘There is?’
Howard looked puzzled.

‘Yes, right
under our noses. Haven’t you noticed how Gert looks just like Miss
Marple? She may not hail from St Mary’s Mead but I bet she has a
shrewd grasp of human nature.’

‘Better her
than that bloody little Belgian git. Hercule Poirot always annoyed
the hell out of me,’ said Gazza. ‘Such a smug, self-righteous
windbag.’

‘I always
wondered why Hastings put up with him,’ said Howard. ‘Perhaps there
was some kind of unspoken homoerotic subtext there.’

‘What!’
Clara-Jane looked mildly disapproving. ‘You guys think everything’s
about sex, don’t you?’

Jessica stole a
quick glance at Stewart but he appeared untroubled.

‘Well, most of
the old girl’s murders were motivated by sex or passion, weren’t
they?’ said Howard. ‘Human nature hasn’t changed much since she
wrote her novels, just the world around us. Fewer servants, for one
thing.’

‘That’s true.
Not many subservient butlers lurking unnoticed round the theatre to
quietly slip cyanide into the champagne,’ said Clara-Jane.

‘Talking of
butlers, does one of you want to pass me another beer?’ asked
Gazza. ‘I’m parched over here. You can skip the cyanide
though.’

‘Here you go,
mate.’ Howard handed him a bottle. ‘So when we’re back in the
theatre tomorrow, should we tell Gert she’s our great white hope
for solving the mystery – or will she figure that part out as
well?’

‘Oh, let’s
allow the plods to have a crack at it first, just to be sporting,’
said Jessica. ‘Some of them seem reasonably bright.’

Something in
her voice caught Clara-Jane’s attention.

‘Oh yes? Who
have you been talking to, Jessica? The interviewing officer I spoke
to was nothing to write home about. Did you get someone more
exciting?’

‘No! I only got
to see Detective Senior Sergeant Matherson. Nobody special. Oh, and
the officer who took my prints down at the station. Like you said,
nothing to get excited about.’

‘It took me
ages to get that damned ink off my fingers,’ said Gazza. ‘Bloody
nuisance. They seemed to take a special interest just because I was
last out of the building on Saturday.’

‘Hey, Gazza,’
said Jessica, sounding concerned. ‘What happens when they run your
prints through the database and discover your secret?’

‘Eh?’

‘Your
under-cover alter-ego top spy secret. It’ll blow your cover wide
open!’