Murder in the Second Row (23 page)

She heard the
front door open.

The sound of
quiet voices drifted up the stairs. One voice sounded familiar.
Jessica leaped to her feet and bounded down the stairs.

‘Austin! I
thought it was you. Where the hell have you been?’

He was standing
in the corridor holding a young Korean woman by the hand, looking
oddly sheepish.

‘Hello,
Jessica. I’d like you to meet Joy Chung. Joy and I are getting
married.’ He looked down at Joy and simpered. She smiled back at
him and giggled.

‘That’s, ah,
lovely, Austin. Congratulations. Have you been out of the country
all this time? Is that why the police haven’t been able to find you
anywhere?’

‘What? Are they
still looking for me? I thought they’d have solved the case by now,
that’s why I came back.’ He ran a wrinkled hand through his sparse
grey hair and looked panicked. Joy Chung held his arm tightly.

‘They’ve got
Nick in custody at the moment, for what that’s worth, and yes, they
really want to talk to you, Austin. If I were you I’d go straight
down to the station and make contact with Senior Sergeant Jack
Matherson. He’s overseeing the case, and I promise he has enough
intelligence to hear your story without jumping to
conclusions.’

‘Oh God, I
should have stayed in Korea. All right, I’ll go. Come on my little
lotus flower, I’ll take you home first.’ He turned back to Jessica.
‘I suppose it’s no use asking you to say you haven’t seen me?’ He
read her expression correctly and answered his own question.
‘Thought not.’

‘Austin, please
try to convince them you’re innocent. We really do need you as
stage manager. And hey, if you succeed, you’ll be here in time for
the Technical tonight. You wouldn’t want to miss that!’ She gave
him a bright smile which he returned weakly.

‘Righto miss,
I’ll do me best. Come on petal, let’s go. Your big tiger man has to
go and see the policeman now.’

They left arm
in arm, with Jessica staring after them, faintly aghast.

She went back
up to her office and phoned Jack to let him know that Austin had
been sighted and was on his way to the station.

‘If you could
possibly let him out by this evening I’d be very grateful. Assuming
he didn’t actually do it, of course.’

Jack’s voice
deepened on the other end of the phone. ‘How grateful,
exactly?’

She smiled,
feeling her skin heat up as if he’d breathed on her. ‘I’ll leave
that to your imagination. I promise I’ll make it worth your while,
OK?’

‘And when can I
collect on this rash pledge, Jessica?’

She looked at
the calendar and groaned. ‘If it’s an evening you’re talking about,
I’ll be free in about two weeks. Want to pencil something in? Of
course, if I could have my promotions manager back that would help
too. Any progress there?’

‘Sorry, not
yet. The technical guys are working through the processing of the
evidence and it all takes time. Hang in there, Jessica. I’m
thinking of you.’

She spent the
rest of the day preparing for the Technical.. Cans of caffeine
drink went into the fridge, the coffee supply was topped up, and
plenty of fresh milk was on hand. Shane’s Mum had thoughtfully sent
in a couple of fruit loaves to keep the company going until her
duties started on opening night, so Jessica sliced them, filled a
couple of plates, and covered them with plastic wrap.

The props table
was covered with white paper and the outline of every item was
neatly labelled in Gert’s shaky capitals. Dressing rooms had been
allocated and there was a list of names on the door of each one.
Clara-Jane had already been in and hung the costumes ready for each
actor, clearly marked with their name on every hanger. The make-up
room had a row of chairs in front of the mirror so that the make-up
ladies could do the finishing touches on each actor’s face and
hair.

Jessica looked
round approvingly. She liked to have everything completely ready
for a Technical as though it was a Dress rehearsal, because even
though the actors weren’t in full costume there was no guarantee
that a director wouldn’t yell for a particular outfit to be worn to
check it under the lighting. She had done all she could to smooth
the path. The rest of the night was down to the director, the skill
of the crew and the patience of the actors.

At 6.45pm they
began to turn up. Everyone greeted each other politely and was on
their best behaviour, knowing that a smooth run depended on
cheerful co-operation. Even Simone had toned down her booming voice
and was being pleasant for once.

At 6.55pm
Austin arrived, red and sweating. The crew greeted him warmly and
he kept quietly in the background while Adam gathered the entire
company in the Green Room for a few words.

‘I can see from
your demeanour that most of you know what to expect tonight - thank
you for being prepared. This is the first time for you to perform
under the stage lights, so make sure you hit your marks and check
for the hot spots you should be standing in. We’ll do a cue-to-cue
run, which means that actors should be ready to jump ahead a few
lines from time to time. We will work on each cue until it’s right,
so there will be some repetition involved. Stage crew, I want to
see smooth scene changes and quick responses to cues. Austin, glad
you could make it. Jessica will fill you in on any changes you’ve
missed. I know you all want to make this show as polished and
professional as possible, so let’s get started and see how well we
can do.’

At 7pm
precisely, the curtain rose, the lights came up, and the show
began.

To Jessica’s
delight, it went like a dream. For the first time in all her
theatre experience, the process was virtually faultless. Apart from
a couple of changes to light levels, the entire show ran as
scripted and they finished astonishingly early for a Technical –
well before midnight. All cues were written into the cue script,
the lighting desk was fully programmed, and even the pre-show and
interval music was organised.

When the
curtain came down after the last line, Adam burst into genuine
applause, and gratefully sent everyone home with their
complimentary tickets for family or friends and pats on the back
for a job well done.

Before he left,
Jessica explained to him that there would be a couple of guys
sleeping on the premises to guard against possible threats to the
building, and he nodded approvingly. Howard and Jessica stayed long
enough to see that Matt and Paul from the football club were bedded
down safely, then they too went home for a well-deserved rest.

At 3am Jessica
woke suddenly. She sat up in bed, hot and sweaty with her mind
racing furiously. Had she sent the ticket to the newspaper for the
critic to attend opening night? No, she hadn’t. With Nick in
custody, the remainder of the publicity duties weighed heavily on
her shoulders and she wasn’t quite sure she’d remembered
everything. She got out of bed and found pen and paper so she could
list all the things that needed to be done. From long experience
she knew that if she didn’t make a list, she would lie in bed for
hours worrying about missing something vital. Once she’d covered
all aspects of advertising and promotion she felt better. She’d
have time to drop critic tickets in to the paper and the radio
station next morning, and the show programmes would be ready for
collection early on Friday. There was nothing to worry about.

She slept
soundly for the rest of the night.

In the morning
paper, beneath the dramatic headline, was a grim picture of the
smouldering husk of a building with fire crews hosing down the last
remaining hot spots.

Arsonist
Targets Mall Developers screamed the Whetford Press. Jessica
munched her toast and read the article carefully. The offices of
Bayldon Oliver had been set alight in the early hours of the
morning and apparently the police suspected a link to other recent
attacks on downtown buildings. She picked up her phone.

‘Jack? What’s
the story with Bayldon Oliver’s fire? I don’t suppose there’s a
chance this is serious enough to shut them down? I could do without
having them to worry about.’

‘Actually it
looks like you may have something in common with them after
all.’

‘What?’ She
sprayed toast across the table and hurriedly wiped it up.

‘There was a
note left outside the building. A purple note. Sound familiar?’

‘Not a
religious note, by any chance?’

‘Funny you
should ask. Hold on a second, I’ll read you the juicy bits. The
LORD is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and wrath. He takes
revenge on all who oppose him and furiously destroys his enemies!
The LORD is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never
lets the guilty go unpunished. Who can stand before his fierce
anger? Who can survive his burning fury? His rage blazes forth like
fire… Well, you get the picture. It looks like Bayldon Oliver has
done something to upset your nutter.’

‘Hey, if it
takes the heat off us, that’s great. Oops, didn’t mean that
literally, but you know what I mean. I’d much rather he set fire to
them than the theatre.’ She shuddered. ‘That would have been
catastrophic. Even with the sprinkler system and automatic callout,
the place would have been horribly damaged. Jack, could you please
catch this person soon? I’ve got enough to worry about for
now.’

‘Whatever you
say, Jessica. It’s not as if I’ve got anything else to do, of
course. Just organising staff on this little old homicide case I’m
working on and making sure that things get done. Running daily
meetings to check on progress and to ensure that all the team knows
what’s going on and what direction the case is going. And doing an
awful lot of reading to make sure that I’ve seen all the jobsheets
and reports submitted. Of course I’ll make time. I hear and obey,
oh mistress. He will not survive my burning fury.’

She chuckled
and hung up.

Heading down to
the theatre early to relieve Matt and Paul from their guard duty,
she drove past Bayldon Oliver’s office to see the damage for
herself. It looked serious enough to put their mall plans back for
quite a while – they’d have to rebuild their own offices first. She
couldn’t quite repress a grin.

Emma Sinclair
arrived at rehearsal hung over. The slim blonde actress playing
Ginevra, who was supposed to further the plot by appearing
volatile, emotional and enchanting, sat slumped with her head over
a bucket and groaned.

‘What’s up?’
Terence asked her solicitously. ‘A touch of the old food-poisoning?
That can be very nasty. I had the most dreadful gastro-enteritis
once, had to be hospitalised from the loss of bodily fluids. The
doctors said it was the worst case they’d seen, put me on an IV
drip to keep me alive. I was passing blood at one stage.’

Emma turned a
paler shade of green and waved him away.

Jessica brought
her a vitamin drink and some aspirin. ‘Get these into you and sit
quietly. What on earth have you been up to, Emma?’

Emma swallowed
as ordered. ‘Urgh. Got a promotion. The girls at work took me out
to celebrate. Sorry. Just as well it’s only a rehearsal, eh?’

‘Don’t let Adam
hear you say that! All right, just take it easy and do the best you
can. I’ll tell him you’ve got a headache – but you’re still going
to have to perform. Can you do it?’

Emma drew in a
shuddering breath. ‘Sure, no problem. I’ll be fine. Oh God.’

‘You’d better
give the make-up ladies a bit of extra time to make you look human
tonight – that’ll be a challenge for them.’

Jessica patted
her on the shoulder and went to find the next problem to deal
with.

Shane was
bouncing off the walls and she kept an eye on him as she was
wandering round. Excited young lads often caused mischief,
wittingly or not. She had already seen Gert shoo him away from the
props table with its tempting display of knives and
hypodermics.

Simone seemed
to be happy with her adjusted skirt, and was sitting talking to
Phil and Pippa. Jessica caught a few words as she passed by.

‘Of course most
are just rubbish. Imagine if wearing the colours blue and yellow
would really cause actors to forget lines. Perfectly absurd,
especially if you then include the one that says wearing green is
unlucky.’

‘It doesn’t
leave many colours for wardrobe to choose from,’ said Pippa.

Austin ambled
in and joined the conversation. ‘You’re missing some of the best
superstitions. I’ve heard them all in my time. There should be no
peacock feathers inside a theatre. No real flowers, mirrors or
jewellery should be used on stage.’ He turned. ‘Hey, you ladies in
the make-up room! I hope you’re using a rabbit’s foot to apply the
makeup! And never clean your makeup box or wear brand–new makeup on
opening night.’ He turned back to the wardrobe mistress.
‘Clara-Jane, don’t ever put shoes or hats on chairs or tables
inside the dressing rooms. And of course, all you actors will
always leave the dressing room left foot first.’

The actors
looked at each other in bewilderment.

‘How are we
supposed to remember all that?’ asked Phil. ‘That’s insane!’

‘Oh there’s
more. No matter how long your wait or how boring the play, there’s
to be absolutely no knitting in the wings. And never speak the last
line of a play before opening night.’

‘Austin, you’re
a fount of useless information,’ said Jessica lightly. ‘Thanks for
that history lesson, now shall we get back to the present day?’

‘Never speak
the last line?’ said Simone. ‘I never heard such silliness. How is
one supposed to rehearse a play if one can’t utter the last line?
Surely it would have to be a cue for the curtain and lights?’

Stewart came
and sat down with the group. ‘What about a death in the theatre? I
bet that breaks some rule, doesn’t it? Hey, maybe Tamara mentioned
the name of the Scottish Play and forgot to do the turn round and
spit bit?’