Star Trap (24 page)

He climbed out of the Underground station and walked along Upper Regent Street into Portland Place. He walked on the left, the British Council side rather than the Broadcasting House one. His pace was still even. Nothing in his behaviour betrayed any suspicion. And equally nothing in his behaviour would make any passer-by think of him as anything but a professional businessman on his way to work.

He turned left at New Cavendish Street, then right up Wimpole Street and left on to Devonshire Street. After two hours of tailing, Charles was becoming mesmerised and he almost overshot the man when he stopped.

Though they were only feet apart, the bald man still did not notice his pursuer. He walked in through the yellow-painted front door of a white Georgian house.

Charles, in a panic over nearly bumping into his quarry, walked on a little so as not to make his behaviour too obvious, then turned back and walked slowly past the house. It was expensive. Net curtains prevented snooping inside. A worn brass plate on the door – ‘D. M. Martin'. No initials after the name, no indication of professional qualifications.

Charles paused, undecided. It was an expensive area of London. Contract killing must be a lucrative business, if the man lived there. All around were expensive private doctors and architects. He looked up and down the road. A policeman about fifty yards away was watching him curiously.

That decided him. The Law was there to back him up if need be, and the thing had to be done. He couldn't stand the strain of being under sentence of death any longer. It was time to take the bull by the horns.

The door gave easily when he turned the handle and he found himself in a carpeted hall. The smartly suited girl behind the desk looked up at him, surprised. ‘Can I help you?'

It was all too ridiculous. He had seen films about organised crime where the whole operation was run like big business with secretaries and receptionists, but he never expected to see it with his own eyes.

He was no longer afraid. Somehow here in the centre of London he felt safe. There was a policeman just outside. He could manage. ‘Did a bald man just come in here?' he asked brusquely.

‘Mr Martin just arrived, but –'

‘Where is he?'

‘He's in his room, but do you have an appointment?'

‘No. I just want to see him.'

The girl treated him warily, as if he might be important.

‘Look, if you like to take a seat in the waiting-room, I'll speak to Mr Martin and see what we can do. He's got someone coming to see him at twelve, but I'll –'

‘Waiting-room!' It was farcical. Charles started to laugh in a tight, hysterical way. ‘No, I'm not going to sit in any waiting-room. I haven't come along with a list of names of people I want killed. I –'

The noise he was making must have been audible from the next room, because the door opened and Charles found himself face to face with the assassin. ‘What's going on, Miss Pelham?'

‘I'm not sure. This gentleman –'

‘I've come to tell you I know all about what you've been doing, Mr Martin. There's a policeman outside and I have proof of what's been going on, so I think you'd better come clean.' Somehow the denunciation lacked the punch it should have had. The bald-headed man looked at him gravely. ‘I'm sorry. I've no idea what you're talking about.'

‘Oh really. Well, I'm talking about Christopher Milton and the instructions he gave you.'

The name had an instantaneous effect. Mr Martin's face clouded and he said coldly, ‘You'd better come in. Ask the twelve o'clock appointment to wait if necessary, Miss Pelham.'

When they were inside, he closed the door, but Charles had now gone too far to feel fear. He was going to expose the whole shabby business, whatever it cost him.

‘Now what is all this?'

‘I know all about what you and Christopher Milton have been doing.'

‘I see.' The bald man looked very displeased. ‘And I suppose you intend to make it all public?'

‘I certainly do.'

‘And I suppose you have come here to name a price for keeping your mouth shut?'

‘Huh?' That was typical, the feeling that money can solve anything. ‘No, I intend to let everyone know what's been going on. You won't buy me off.'

‘I see. You realise what this could do to Christopher Milton?'

‘Nothing that he doesn't fully deserve. He may think he's a god, but he's not above the law. He is a public danger and should be put away.'

‘It's that sort of small-minded thinking that delays progress. If you –

‘Small-minded thinking! I don't regard disapproving of murder as small-minded. What, do you subscribe to the theory that the artist is above the law, the artist must be cosseted, the artist –?'

‘What the hell are you talking about? Who are you?'

‘Charles Paris.' This was no time for pretence.

The name certainly registered with Mr Martin.

‘Yes, I'm Charles Paris. I'm in the company with Christopher Milton. You know all about me.'

‘Oh yes. I know about you. So it was you all the time. And now, blackmail.'

It was Charles' turn to be flabbergasted. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘Christopher Milton mentioned that a lot of sabotage had been going on in the show, that someone was trying to get at him. It was you. And now you want to expose what he does with me.'

The voice was sad, almost pitying. It checked the impetus of Charles' attack. “What do you mean? It's Christopher Milton who's been responsible for the sabotage and you're the one who's done the dirty work for him. And this morning he gave you orders to kill me. Don't try to pretend otherwise, Mr Martin.'

The bald man gazed at him in blank amazement. ‘What?'

‘I know. I saw you in Leeds, and in Bristol, and in Brighton. I know you did it. All those early morning meetings when he gave you instructions. You are Christopher Milton's hit-man.'

‘Mr Paris,' the words came out tonelessly, as if through heavy sedation, ‘I am not Christopher Milton's hit-man. I am his psychotherapist.'

Charles felt the ground slowly crumbling away beneath his feet. ‘What?'

‘As you may or may not know, Christopher Milton has been prone in the past to a form of mental illness. He has had three or four major breakdowns, and has been undergoing treatment by me for about seven years. His is a particularly stressful career and at the moment the only way he can support the pressures it places on him is by having an hour of psychotherapy every day of his life.'

‘And that's why he always has his call at ten-thirty?'

‘Exactly. The hour between nine and ten is our session.'

‘I see. And so you travel round wherever he goes?'

‘He doesn't leave London much. Under normal circumstances he comes to me. This tour is exceptional.'

‘And what happens to your other patients or subjects or whatever they're called?'

‘It was only the week in Leeds when I had to he away. I commuted to Bristol and Brighton. Mr Milton is a wealthy man.'

‘I see.' Money could buy anything. Even a portable psychiatrist. ‘Needless to say, the fact that Mr Milton is undergoing treatment is a closely-guarded secret. He believes that if it got out it would ruin his career. I've argued with him on this point, because I feel this need for secrecy doubles the pressure on him. But at the moment he doesn't see it that way and is desperately afraid of anyone knowing. I only tell you because of the outrageousness of your accusations, which suggest that you have completely – and I may say – dangerously misinterpreted the situation.'

‘I see.' Charles let the information sink in. It made sense. It explained many things. Not only the late morning calls, but also the obsessive privacy which surrounded the star. Even little things like Christopher Milton's non-drinking and unwillingness to eat cheese would be explained if he were on some form of tranquillisers as part of his treatment.

‘I take it, Mr Paris, from what you said, that you overheard part of our session this morning and leapt to a grotesquely wrong conclusion?'

‘Yes. I may as well put my cards on the table. I was brought into the show by the management to investigate this sabotage business.'

‘If that's the case then I apologise for suggesting that you were responsible for the trouble. It seems that both of us have been victims of delusions. But, Mr Paris, why did your investigations lead you to eavesdrop on our session this morning?'

‘The fact is, Mr Martin, that my investigations so far have led me to the unfortunate conclusion that Christopher Milton is himself responsible, either directly or indirectly, for all of these incidents.'

The psychotherapist did not reject the suggestion out of hand. ‘I can understand what you mean – that all of the . . . accidents have in fact benefited him, that they disposed of people he wanted out of the way.'

‘Exactly.'

‘Yes. The same thought had crossed my mind.' He spoke the words sadly.

‘You know his mental condition better than anyone. What do you think?'

‘I don't know.' He sighed. ‘I don't think so.'

‘Having heard the violence of what he said about me this morning.'

‘Yes, but that is a feature of the analysis situation. You mustn't take it literally. The idea of analysis is – in part – that he should purge his emotions. He says the most extreme things, but I don't think they should be taken as expressions of actual intent.'

‘You don't sound sure.'

‘No.'

‘I mean, at the time of his first breakdown he attacked people with a knife.'

‘I see you've done your homework, Mr Paris. Yes, there is violence in him. He's obsessed by his career and he is slightly paranoid about it. He does turn against anyone who seems to threaten him in even the tiniest way. I mean, I gather that the crime which provoked this morning's outburst was your falling over and getting a laugh during one of his songs.'

‘An accident.'

‘Oh yes, I'm sure, but he's not very logical about that sort of thing.'

‘But he has expressed antagonism to most of the other people who've been hurt.'

‘Yes, I'm afraid so. And a strange bewildered relief after they've disappeared from the scene. I suppose it is just possible that he could have done the crimes. You say you have evidence?'

‘Some. Nothing absolutely conclusive, but it seems to point towards him.'

‘Hmm. I hope you're wrong. It would be tragic if it were true.'

‘Tragic because it would ruin his career?'

‘No, tragic because it would mean the ruin of a human being.'

‘But you do think it's possible?'

‘Mr Paris, I think it's extremely unlikely. Behaviour of that sort would be totally inconsistent with what I know of him from the past and with all that I have ever encountered in other cases. But I suppose, if you force me to say yea or nay, it is just possible.'

Charles Paris looked at his watch. It was a quarter to one. In two and a quarter hours Christopher Milton had a meeting arranged on the stage of Queen's Theatre, Brighton, with the girl who had stolen the show from him the night before.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THERE IS no stillness like the stillness of an empty theatre. As Charles stepped on to the stage, he could almost touch the silence. And the fact that the building wasn't completely empty seemed to intensify the loneliness. Somewhere behind the circle people were busy in the general manager's office. In a distant workshop someone was using an electric drill. Traffic noise was filtered and reduced by the ventilation system. But onstage there was a deep pool of silence.

Len the stage doorman had not been in his little room, though he had left his radio on and was presumably somewhere around in the silent building. But he didn't see Charles enter.

It was ten to three. The stage had been preset for the evening performance after the morning's rehearsal. One light in the prompt corner alleviated the gloom. Charles stood behind a flat down right in a position from which he could see the entire stage. He looked up to the fly gallery. If sabotage were planned, the easiest way would be to drop a piece of scenery or a bar loaded with lights from above. But the shadows closed over and it was impossible to distinguish anything in the gloom.

The old theatre had an almost human identity. The darkness was heavy with history, strange scenes both on- and offstage that those walls had witnessed. Charles would not have been surprised to see a ghost walk, a flamboyant Victorian actor stride across the stage and boom out lines of mannered blank verse. He had in his bed-sitter a souvenir photograph of Sir Herbert Tree as Macbeth from a 1911
Playgoer and Society Illustrated
, which showed the great actor posed in dramatic chain mail, long wig and moustache beneath a winged helmet, fierce wide eyes burning. If that apparition had walked onstage at that moment, it would have seemed completely natural and right.

There was a footfall from the far corner near the pass door. Charles peered into the shadows, trying to prise them apart and see who was approaching. Agonisingly slowly the gloom revealed Lizzie Dark. She came to the centre of the stage, looked around and then sat on a rostrum, one leg over the other swinging nervously. She looked flushed and expectant, but a little frightened.

She hummed one of the tunes from the show, in fact the song with which Christopher Milton had promised to help her. It was five past three, but there was no sign of her mentor.

As Charles watched, she stiffened and looked off into the shadows of the opposite wings. She must have heard something. He strained his ears and heard a slight creak. Wood or rope taking strain maybe.

Lizzie apparently dismissed it as one of the unexplained sounds of the old building and looked round front again. Then she rose from her seat and started to move gently round the stage in the steps of the dance which accompanied the song she was humming. It was not a flamboyant performance, just a slow reminder of the steps, the physical counterpart to repeating lines in one's head.