Murder in the Second Row (27 page)

Jack’s pager
beeped and he checked it, looking suddenly concerned. ‘Sorry,
Jessica, something’s come up and I’m going to have to leave you
here. Have you got enough cash for a taxi home?’

‘Don’t worry.
I’ll call Gazza or Howard to give me a ride once they’ve fixed my
poor toe. You take off if duty calls.’ She smiled up at him.
‘Thanks for dashing to my rescue.’

He bent down
and kissed her lightly. ‘Any time. I’ll call you later to hear what
the doctor has to say.’

Once Jessica
had finally been seen by the emergency doctor and patched up, she
called Howard.

‘Hey, remember
last year when you cut yourself on the saw and I took you to
emergency? I’m there myself right now and calling in the favour.
Would you possibly pick me up here and give me a ride home
please?’

Howard
cheerfully collected her, drove her home and helped her inside. Her
broken toe had been set and taped firmly to the one next to it so
she didn’t need a cast, but she couldn’t put any weight on it. He
settled her on the couch and put ice cubes wrapped in a tea towel
onto her foot to keep the swelling down. At her insistence, he set
up the radio to record the Arts programme before making them both a
restorative cup of tea.

‘Nice flowers,
Jessica. Who’s your secret admirer? That policeman chappie again,
is it?’

She couldn’t
help blushing. ‘Yeah, Jack Matherson, just one of the cops on the
investigation. Hey look Howard, it’s almost noon. The Arts review
will be on any minute.’

The song that
was playing at 11.58am finished, there was a brief station
identification, then another song started. Jessica frowned.

‘That’s odd. My
clock’s right, isn’t it? That song won’t finish by 12, they’ll have
to cut it off.’

They listened,
checking their watches. Noon passed with no pause in the music. The
song finished, but there was no time check, just a station ID again
and a new song. Howard and Jessica looked at each other.

‘That is odd,’
said Howard. ‘I’ve never heard that happen before. I might just
give them a ring and find out what’s going on.’ He checked the
number in the local directory and punched it in. While he waited,
he pulled faces at Jessica, pretending to respond to unheard
conversation. After a few minutes he gave up.

‘Nothing. No
answer at all. Not even an answer machine, which is really strange.
I might just drive down there and check it out, if it’s OK to leave
you like this?’

‘Yeah, sure, go
ahead. Just call me and let me know as soon as you find anything
out. If they can’t broadcast for some reason, could you ask if you
can get a transcript of the review at least – it might help.’

Howard drove
away with the promise of reporting back with whatever news he
found.

He phoned
twenty minutes later.

‘You’re not
going to believe this, Jessica. There’s been a bomb threat at the
radio station and the whole place is evacuated and cordoned off.
Your friend Jack Matherson is here overseeing a whole squad of
police chaps and they’re checking out a suspicious package that was
left in the foyer.’

‘Holy shit,
really? No wonder normal programming was interrupted! Hey, Jack’s
not being heroic and doing anything dangerous, is he?’

‘No, there’s
some chap in heavy protective gear standing here with a bunch of
equipment and a little wheeled robot. Hang on a sec.’

There was a
pause while she heard a muffled conversation, then he was back on
the line.

‘Sounds like
they’re going to get the package out in the open and blow it up as
a precaution. We’re all being moved back to halfway up Church
Street. I’ll call you back.’

Jessica waited
in a fury of impatience. She would have paced if she’d been able.
After ten more minutes she was ready to attempt to drive with one
foot just to find out what was happening. Her phone rang and she
snatched it up.

‘Jessica , Jack
here. How are you? Did you get back from the emergency room all
right?’

‘Yes yes, I’m
fine.’ She yelled into the phone. ‘What’s happened at the radio
station? Has anything blown up? You haven’t lost any vital parts,
have you? Will they get back on air any time soon?’

‘Everything is
under control,’ he said calmly, ‘except you. Sit back and I’ll tell
you what’s going on so you don’t blow a gasket.’

She sat on her
sofa, all her attention focused on his warm voice in her ear.

‘The station
got a phone call at 9.30 this morning warning them that there was a
bomb on the premises. They evacuated and called us. A bomb squad
guy flew in with a small robot which he sent in to check out a
laptop bag that had been left beside a couch in the foyer. It
brought it out to detonate in a cleared area. The bag blew open,
there was no explosive inside.’

‘So it was just
a hoax?’

‘Not exactly.’
Something in his voice raised goosebumps on her neck.

‘It was
something relevant, wasn’t it Jack? What was in the bag?’

‘Rather a lot
of confetti, now. But before we blew it up it would have been a
number of sheets of religious quotes on purple notepaper.’

‘Oh my
God.’

‘Exactly. I
think, Jessica, that your nutter is expanding his sphere of
influence. I hope to hell we can get enough evidence from this
incident to track him down and prevent any more like it.’

‘Amen to
that.’

Shortly after
she’d finished the call with Jack, her phone rang again. Howard was
on the line with a smile in his voice.

‘Did your
policeman friend just call you, by any chance?’

‘Yeah, how did
you know?’

‘I was watching
his face from across the road here. He went all soft instead of
being The Man in Authority controlling the scene. I could tell it
wasn’t an official call.’

‘Did he
really?’

‘Yes he really
did!’ he said, mimicking her delighted tone. ‘I think he likes you!
Ooh, Jessie, perhaps he’ll ask you to the senior prom!’

‘Shut up,
Howard! Don’t make me report you to MaryAnn. What’s going on at the
radio station now? Are they going back inside yet? Will they get
back on air?’

‘Just as soon
as they get the all clear and that should be pretty much right
away. But I’m afraid they’re going to carry on with their scheduled
programming. The Arts programme won’t play. I spoke to the head guy
and he said they’d try to play the review on next Saturday’s
show.’

‘AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! That’s no freaking use at all! Did you
tell him that?’

‘Jessica, the
poor guy had just stared death in the face and almost had his
entire workplace explode around him. The problems of the Regent
Theatre don’t amount to a hill of beans as far as he’s
concerned.’

‘Well they
should,’ she said sulkily. ‘We’re his customers, aren’t we? Oh all
right, you have a point. I’ll just try to figure out some other way
of getting publicity. I could do a media release about how
successful opening night was and send it to the paper, I suppose.
They ought to have the decency to print it after dumping all over
us with the crit. Did you get the radio station transcript at
least? Is it better than that crap in the paper? Cool, bring it in
tonight. Ooh, I just thought, we should probably put Matt and Paul
on full security alert if this mad zealot’s going round threatening
to blow things up. I’ll give them a call. Bye.’

For the rest of
the day she lay on the sofa, foot elevated as in the approved
R.I.C.E. treatment, racking her brain for other ways to boost the
show’s publicity. She managed to write a brief spiel about opening
night and emailed it to the paper, signing herself as promotions
manager in the hopes of sounding authoritative. After that she was
stumped.

By the time she
was due to head for the theatre late in the afternoon, she had a
full jotter page of suggestions, but most were heavily crossed out.
Her swollen toe had subsided enough for her to slip on a canvas
sneaker, but she was relieved when Howard showed up to give her a
ride. He passed her the radio review transcript and she grabbed it
eagerly.

‘Right, let’s
see how Mr Brad The Man Bannerman liked our show.

For any
performer, there’s just nothing like the excitement of a live show
in front of an audience. Whether you’re in a radio studio or on a
stage, everything you say is heard instantly, no second chances, no
re-takes. It gives live theatre an edge that movies and TV shows
lack – the chance for an audience to be almost a part of the
action.

I attended the
Regent Theatre’s opening night of Appointment with Death last
night, and it was electric. From the moment the curtain went up on
the hotel in Jerusalem to when it went down on the rose-red rocks
of Petra, the audience was kept in suspense by a classic Agatha
Christie whodunit. Veteran director Adam Bryant drew a masterful
performance from the whole cast, with the standout role being
Simone Duchaine playing Ada Boynton – I wanted to kill her myself.
You’ll have to go to the show to find out who did, though, I’m not
going to spoil the suspense by telling you. Unless you send an
envelope of used notes to Brad Bannerman, care of Whetford Classic
Radio.

You know
folks, when global warming has hit and the oil’s all gone, there’s
a fair chance we’ll be left in the dark without our TV and our DVDs
and even – shock, horror – even radio. Our entertainment will have
to go back to the olden days of real human beings on a stage. If
you don’t want to get stuck watching your Uncle Arthur do charades,
you’d better keep supporting the Regent Theatre.

Appointment
with Death is playing all this week at the Regent so dust off your
detective deerstalkers and make a night of it. If you miss this
then you haven’t got a clue.

‘Oh, that’s
great!’ She turned to Howard and beamed. ‘I want to kiss that man
and bear his children!’

‘Steady on
girl, dinner and a movie should thank him enough. Don’t go
overboard.’

They pulled up
at the theatre and he let her out at the door. She keyed in the
code and opened up, limping inside to sniff the air. The usual mix
of paint and rope had perfume traces from last night’s crowd
mingled with it, and just a hint of damp carpet from the bar.

‘What time did
it break up here last night?’ she asked Howard when he caught up
with her after parking the van.

‘About 1.30am,
I think. I pushed the last few out to let Matt and Paul get some
sleep. I expect a couple of the crew will have sore heads today but
the cast all behaved themselves.’

‘That’s good. I
don’t think I’d want to see Simone with a hangover.’

‘No, nor
Terence. Imagine what gruesome symptoms he’d come up with.’

Chortling, they
went backstage where Jessica set the season clock to “second night”
and taped up the radio review for all to read. Then she mentally
braced herself for the fallout from the newspaper crit.

As she had
expected, as soon as the cast arrived they went straight into a
major grouch session about the newspaper piece.

‘Did you see
what they said? “Amateur cast”. That’s as bad as “amateurish” to
anyone reading it.’

‘And what about
“SOME strong performances”? Does that mean the rest of us were
crap?’

‘How can you
stage an Agatha Christie without it being “dated”? The old trout
died over thirty years ago and most of her plays are set in the
early half of last century. What does he expect us to do – re-write
it in the present day?’

‘Take it easy,
guys,’ said Jessica. ‘The radio review was much better. Go take a
look; I’ve put it up by the clock.’

There was a
scramble to get close enough to read the typed page.

‘Now that’s
more like it,’ said Pippa with satisfaction.

‘Shouldn’t
there be two Ns in “whodunit”?’ said Phil.

‘Ha, “veteran
director” – Adam’s not going to like that!’

‘Hey this
Bannerman guy’s OK. We should invite him to the Final Night
party.’

‘When did this
go out, Jessica?’

She winced
inwardly. Just when she’d turned their mood around to positive,
someone had to ask the awkward question.

‘It hasn’t been
broadcast yet. There was a bomb scare at the radio station as you
probably know, so the Arts programme was cancelled. But they did
promise to play it before the end of our run.’ She mentally crossed
her fingers.

‘Hope they do
it sooner rather than later, then.’ Phil looked over to the door.
‘Hi Simone, you must be feeling pretty happy with the review? Looks
like you were the only person the critic liked.’

Simone frowned.
‘I wasn’t at all pleased with his comments. Quite apart from his
abysmally ignorant remarks about the show in general, I felt that
“kept the audience’s attention with her performance” was wide open
to misinterpretation. They might have been watching to see what
mistake was made next.’

‘Come on guys,
let’s just focus on the good points, shall we?’ said Jessica. ‘It
was “an above average production” with “some strong performances”.
And the radio guy was really enthusiastic. “It was electric.” “A
masterful performance from the whole cast”. Keep those words in
your head when you go on tonight, and give this audience their
money’s worth, just like you did yesterday.’

‘What’s the
house tonight, Jessica?’

‘I haven’t
checked yet, Phil. I’ll go and have a look.’ She stood up and took
a few steps, discreetly trying to keep her weight on the heel of
her injured foot, but sharp-eyed Stewart spotted it
immediately.

‘Are you hurt,
Jessica? What have you done?’

‘Nothing, it’s
just a sore toe.’ She waved it away as inconsequential.

‘You have to be
careful with toes. I had an ingrown toenail once that needed
surgery. It got a very nasty fungal infection under the nail, right
in the corner, and the doctor had to remove the whole thing.’