Staging Death (31 page)

Hang the reading aloud. I hadn’t got much slap in my handbag, but I had enough to show her what she could do. I went back next day with my complete kit and taught her as much as I could about foundation and blusher. Another day it was lips and eyes. She might still loathe her naked face, but soon she had the skills to disguise it even from herself and left hospital with her head held high. As for her hands, she worked so hard on her physio, the doctors were telling her she’d be back at work by Christmas.

Gradually there was less crime to talk about in the evenings, not least because the date for the trial had been fixed and I must not be corrupted. There’d even been desultory talk of my moving out for the duration. Secretly I was terrified. What if, as in Scheherazade’s case, once the tale was told, the relationship ended?

But Martin and I found other ways to pass the time and other things to talk about.

One of them was Greg. The mortgage situation meant that the demand for top-of-the-range properties had dried up. If things didn’t improve soon he’d be down to his last ten million. But he cheered himself up by putting his own house on the market, a modern and highly marketable place, and offering for the Old Barn. His was
sold, subject to contract, within a week, and the Old Barn vendor not surprisingly jumped at Greg’s offer. He took me to see it the very same day.

‘Mine, my wench. Isn’t it a beauty?’

‘It is indeed, Greg. And you fell in love with it the first time you saw it, didn’t you?’

‘I did. I really did. You know, it’s a funny thing, but houses have always been just so much bricks and mortar. I couldn’t understand you getting all worked up about them. But this…’ He spread his arms expansively, for all the world as if he wanted to hug it. ‘Now, you said you could do the decor. Are you still up for it?’

‘Am I just.’

‘Mo’ll want to put in her three ha’pence worth, mind.’

‘Of course she will,’ I said cheerfully. So long as I could go home every night to Martin and scream with frustration at her stupidity, I had no problem working with Mo at all. And a job was a job.

The Thorpes were so delighted with the forthcoming auction and the probability of wealth beyond their imagination that they were at long last considering taking offers for their cottage below their original asking price. Only considering, as yet. They also invited Martin
and the two young men whom they saw as their saviours round for a cup of tea. All three survived the experience.

The insurance company had decided that my house would have to be pulled down and rebuilt. Even if I wanted to live in the same area, it would be months before I could do so, and had the circumstances been different, I suppose I’d have carried on living in the Kenilworth police flat. In fact, of course, I was living with Martin. I sometimes felt unsettled, however, as if I were really a guest. I’d always had my own place, and the fact that the property was rented seemed to make me feel even more temporary. I never spelt out this unease to Martin, because it would force the issue of our relationship, something I was still reluctant to do. I also feared being totally dependent on him – I’d always had my own bank account, even when it had been empty. There wasn’t a problem as long as I was living on police money, but I really needed a career. So what would I do next?

The obvious option was to continue with my interior design work. There was, Allyn assured me, still work to be done on Aldred House, for which she had some vague ideas. She also had a steady stream of American friends who’d like to employ me. That would be excellent when they got round to firming up what seemed to be really
jelly-like plans. But in the meantime, I came close to twiddling my thumbs. But suddenly something else turned up.

One day Greg came over to the Old Barn – where I was in discussions with a garden designer – huffing and puffing with delight. ‘I’ve only found a buyer for Sloe Cottage,’ he said, ‘and at not much below their original asking price, would you believe?’

I think I must have gasped, it hurt so much.

‘Tell me all about it!’ I said, trying to strap an eager smile to my face.

‘That’s just what I can’t do, my wench. It’s all hush-hush, see.’

‘Oh, Greg. Not more Russians.’

‘Not that I know of. It’s all kosher, though, I can tell you that. The lawyers say it is, anyway. Both lots.’

No one must know, he insisted, except the two solicitors. No, not even Claire or me. The irritation was softened a little, however, by a request from the new purchaser. Greg was to recommend an interior designer to strip every trace of the Thorpes from the building, and decorate it in a tasteful way from bathroom to kitchen. Money didn’t seem to be much of an object, but even given carte blanche I found I couldn’t exploit the owner. I just chose what was needful, and although everything was good
quality, Allyn, who invited herself over several times to pass her own long hours, sneered that it was cheap.

‘It’s right, though, for this place,’ I insisted. ‘It never belonged to the lord of the manor, just to a decent hard-working artisan or farmer. The sort of stuff that looks perfect in your bedroom, for instance, would crowd this out.’

I don’t think she was convinced, but she did like my colour schemes and my suggestions for a cottage garden.

‘Say,’ she began as she made her way back to her car, ‘have they thought about your furnishing it too? Because I’ve got all that old stuff in the Elizabethan wing. Maybe you could pick some out and your friend Ambrose could value it.’

I suppressed a grin. Allyn was undoubtedly still grieving for Toby, but it seemed to me that she and Am were getting on remarkably well, not just on the tennis court, and I wished them both luck. I floated the idea of the furniture to Greg so that he could consult the mystery buyer, and ended up doing a deal.

Finally every last drop of paint had been applied, every curtain hung and every piece of furniture put in place, and I had to hand the keys back to Greg.

He pushed my drooping mouth into a grin.
‘Come on, my wench, it isn’t the end of the world.’

I looked him straight in the eye. ‘And how would you have felt if you’d had to sell the Old Barn to someone else?’

To my amazement, he gave me a hug. ‘Ah, you’re right there. It’s the home I’ve always wanted.’ He looked surprised by his own confession. ‘And I have to say, between you, you and Mo have made it a palace. I
reelly
like them big fridges…’

So what of my career as an actor?

Who would have thought that Vena Burford would decline a chance to be centre stage, holding everyone’s attention? That’s exactly what I did do, at the trial, which was held at Birmingham Crown Court. Because the police couldn’t be sure they’d mopped up every last member of a very extended gang, and because of the various attempts on my life, it was suggested that I should give my evidence anonymously, behind a screen. If anyone had suggested such a thing a year ago I’d have laughed in their face. As it was, I jumped at the offer, not least because it would help protect Martin, too. So there were no studied pauses, no clever changes of posture – just a straight, direct narrative. Defence counsel did their best to ruffle me, and one even tried to suggest that I’d been responsible for Kenneth Carter’s fall. But I was
allowed to stand down pretty well unscathed. And at long last the verdicts came in on all the defendants. If Carter ever emerged from his coma, he’d have found he had a life sentence, just like Frederick, who turned out not to be Frederick – or even Fryderyk – at all. He was in fact Jaroslav Czarnecki, a Pole with several other eye-chart aliases, and exactly what Greta and Interpol had suggested he was – a mastermind of much of the nastiness in Europe. So much for my stereotyping all nasty Europeans as Albanians, though there were a couple of them, plus three Bulgarians and a couple of Serbs, in his entourage. He was sentenced to thirty years, with deportation at the end of his sentence. Greta was found not guilty.

So what about my long-cherished hopes of a return to the boards?

Sandra and her colleagues had carefully logged all the flowers and cards sent to me as I lay in my fictitious bed of sickness. Some were very touching, many very generous. Caddie’s flowers to what she had thought of as a dying client were decidedly low-key. Perhaps she’d intended to be more effusive with a funeral wreath. Had she known about Johann Rusch’s suggestion and the fate of his card, I think she might have descended upon me like an avenging Fury. Of course, I could easily have got his contact details from Allyn, or indeed from most of the starry cast who
had watched my last performance. Even being considered by him would have raised my profile beyond my wildest imaginings; actually to be cast – especially as Cleopatra – would have given me professional and financial security for years. Or at least till the public found another star to gawp at, and then I’d have come home from Hollywood, my tail between my legs, back in weekly rep, in miserable digs, and again badgering Caddie to find me character parts.

I’d told Johann that I used to be an actress. Perhaps that was the simple truth.
Used to be
.

I looked at myself in Martin’s bathroom mirror. ‘If I’m no longer Vena Burford, the distinguished actress, and I don’t even care I’m not, who am I? Connie George?’

‘You’re Constance,’ Martin declared, making me jump. ‘Con I won’t have. Too many criminal associations. Connie is something Greg calls you to irritate you. Constance, however old-fashioned it might be, suits you.’

I turned to face him. ‘Constance Burford… Hmm. A bit dot-dash, dot-dash.’

His face fell. ‘So it is. So you wouldn’t like another name I was going to suggest.’

There was something about the timbre of his voice that made me look more closely at his eyes.

I managed a light shrug. ‘I’m always open to suggestions.’

‘No. Humpage is a horrible name. I’ve always hated it.’

‘Martin Humpage sounds very good,’ I objected, my heart beginning to sing.

‘Hmm. But what about Constance Humpage?’

Reader, I married him, very quietly and indeed by special licence at St Jude’s, Ginnie officiating. Allyn and a round-eyed Karen were witnesses. We returned to Martin’s house to find a removal van outside and a huge pile of cardboard boxes by the front door. Three or four burly men were emptying his house. I was sick with horror. But a glance at his face showed me that I need not worry.

Within an hour he had carried me across the threshold of Sloe Cottage.

Thanks to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for its help and inspiration, and to Keith Bassett for his usual brilliant input.

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Prize-winning short-story writer J
UDITH
C
UTLER
is the author of nearly thirty novels. She taught Creative Writing at Birmingham University, and has run writing courses elsewhere, including a maximum-security prison and an idyllic Greek island. She now lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, fellow author Edward Marston.

www.judithcutler.com