too late at night.”
“No, that’s all right,” said Gran. “You get along home. I’ve got your phone number, and we’ll meet up and have a coffee. Lovely to see you, Olive,” she added, but was already looking back at the open doors of the auditorium. Left alone, she decided to ask for help.
The part-time volunteer manager was in his office, and came out to see her. At first he was dismissive. “Oh, yes, madam? I’m sure she’ll be with you any minute. Probably gone to the Ladies.”
Gran said she had checked the toilets, and Lois was not there. “I’ve not seen her since that man brought me the message,” she said.
“What message?” said the manager, curious now.
“About her meeting one of her cleaners and having to have an urgent chat. Then he said they’d give her another seat and Olive could sit next to me. I never saw her after that, and now I’m worried. What can have happened to her? She’d never leave me stranded like this.”
The manager looked at her, and saw a nicely dressed, elderly woman, clearly in her right mind, and with reason to be worried. He took up a bunch of keys and said, “Right, Mrs er…We’ll do the rounds straight away. I always check on everything after a performance, but usually a bit later on. Won’t do any harm to do it now. Come along, this way.”
Under any other circumstances, Gran would have been fascinated by being backstage at the theatre. They went through what the manager called the Green Room, where a few actors were still lingering. “Anyone seen a lady called Lois Meade?” said the manager, but they all shook their heads. Gran saw Gary, and waved to him. He did not wave back, and his face was unsmiling. Funny, thought Gran, but dismissed him straight away.
Then the manager opened a door and looked down a stone-floored, echoing passage. “Mmm, we needn’t go down there,” he said. “It’s only the props room, and that’ll be locked until we put on a new production, or need a replacement.” He began to shut the door again, but Gary Needham walked swiftly across the room.
“Excuse me,” he said.
“Yes?” said the manager sharply. Now was not the time for a complaint from a discontented actor.
“Um, I think we should have a look down there,” he said.
Gran was on to him in a minute. “Why?” she said. “What d’you know about it, Gary?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled, “but I thought I heard some noises coming from down there a while ago. Perhaps it’d be worth a check.”
The manager shrugged. “Oh, very well,” he said, and all three walked rapidly down the passage.
Lois heard them coming, and redoubled her shouting. It was seconds before the door was unlocked and she saw the three of them. “What the bloody hell’s going on?” said Gran, not mincing her words. She rounded on the manager. “Are you supposed to be in charge of this place?” she said. Then added, “Come on, Lois, let’s get out of here. I’m gettin’ claustrophic. We can sort it out upstairs.”
The manager, with Gary and Lois, followed Gran upstairs and into the foyer. Now Lois took charge, and hissed at Gary that she wanted to see him first thing in the morning. Then she calmed down her mother and placated the affronted manager, who wanted to know what she was doing down there in the first place. She convinced him that it had all been an accident and there was nothing more to be said.
She drove home fast, saying little. Gran kept up a monologue, describing the plot of the second half of the play, and then going over her anxiety and the strange behaviour of Gary Needham, until they reached Long Farnden.
“You have a cup of tea, Mum,” Lois said, as they walked into the kitchen. “I just have to make a call. Something for the cleaners tomorrow. Shan’t be long.”
Derek settled down with Gran to listen to an embroidered account of the evening’s events, and Lois shut herself in her office. She dialled Cowgill’s number, and waited impatiently for him to answer.
“Hello? Yes, it’s Lois. Just listen until I’ve finished and don’t interrupt. I think it’s urgent.” She gave him the whole story, and followed it up with a guess as to where Betts might be going. “No, I don’t know why,” she said, “I think he was going to tell me when they yelled for him to repair something on stage…and no, I don’t know when he was planning to go. That’s why I think it’s urgent. He knows it all, I reckon, the whole rotten mess.”
Cowgill was calm and decisive. He took everything she said very seriously, and when she had finally finished speaking, he told her to be within call for the next twenty-four hours. He might need her. And then he added, “Not hurt in any way, are you, Lois?”
There was real concern in his voice, and she was reassured.
“Nope,” she said. “I’m fine. Cheerio.” She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and went to join Gran and Derek in the kitchen.
¦
Gary Needham walked slowly out of the theatre and along the shadowy street towards his car. He was in trouble, deep trouble, and had no idea how to get out of it. If only he’d never met that Joanne Murphy with her hideous henchman. He had gone along to the theatre one idle evening, and met a friend who was a member of the company. Persuaded to join them, he’d discovered he had a natural talent for performing on stage, particularly in comedy parts. Even with a mass of faces watching him, somehow he found a freedom to open up in a way he could never manage in his family life or even with close friends. Acting was wearing a mask. It wasn’t Gary Needham who had to account for himself. It was someone else, a character he could bring to life and then dispose of until he chose to resurrect him.
Oh my God. Thoughts of life and resurrection brought him rapidly back to the present. Old Betts and Hazel’s dad had recruited him for their rotten little plan at a time when, for once, he’d found a job he liked to do, with a boss – Lois – he respected and who inspired him to do his best. And now, back there in the theatre, he’d been so scared of Betts that he’d nearly left her to rot in the props room! Why had he found it so difficult to tell them where she was? Because he was a weak no-good, and he’d certainly blown it with Lois now. He thought back. He’d never have agreed to help those two vengeful old buggers if he’d been in his right mind. If only he hadn’t been half-stoned on one of Joanne’s little handouts. And then it had gone so wrong. That had been the beginning; and then Dick Reading’s death had plunged him into a worse nightmare.
Just as he’d got into his car, a familiar voice broke his reverie. “Out of it again?” said Joanne Murphy as she slid into the passenger seat beside him.
“Get out!” he yelled at her, suddenly frantic.
“Now, now,” she said. “Calm down, sonny boy. I’ll go when I’m ready. But first you have some talking to do. I need to know exactly what happened tonight, and where old Betts has gone. If he’s done a runner, then we have to stop him, don’t we? So fire away. Plenty of time,” she added, and Gary saw her glance at the big shape of her minder leaning nonchalantly against the lamp post a few yards ahead.
“After all,” continued Joanne, “this car’s not going anywhere, is it? Let’s have a nice little talk, and then we can see what’s to be done.”
? Terror on Tuesday ?
Forty-Five
Hazel Reading was now almost certain she knew who had killed her father, but had told no one. She was waiting, knowing that the culprit would be caught very soon. She wanted it to be a well-planned discovery, causing as much terror to the killer as possible. Quite often lately she had thought about her violent, tyrannical father, and instead of remembering the frequent family rows, the terrified Bridie cowering in the corner of the kitchen, with herself standing defiantly between the two of them, she recalled scenes of family accord. She saw again the long-awaited visit to the London Zoo, with her father taking photographs of her and her mum talking to the chimps, and the picnic lunch afterwards on the grass in Regent’s Park. She felt a stab of pain as she had a quick picture of him, laughing with his head thrown back, as a passing dog stole their ball and disappeared.
Her childhood had been punctuated far too often with tears and blows, but Bridie had stuck to Dick, and Hazel realized now that her mother had never ceased to love him, always hoping that things would improve. Although Hazel could neither love nor forgive, she hoped that his murderer would suffer as much as her father must have done, faced with a knife that was about to end his life.
It was getting late, and as she and her friend came out of the Tresham Odeon cinema, they went quickly
