Stagestruck

‘Merely a warning to the unwary, guv,’ Dawkins said. ‘It’s Latin.’

‘What’s the use of that? We’re English.’

‘A rough translation would be: after this, therefore because of this. It articulates the fallacy that because one event follows another, it must be caused by the other. If, for example, a man eats some oysters and then gets indigestion, it may not be the oysters that were responsible. It may have been the rhubarb that he had as the dessert.’

‘I don’t what you’re on about.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t a perfect analogy.’

‘Better shut up, then.’

‘I was trying to inject a note of caution about assuming a link between the deaths of Denise and Clarion.’

‘We heard,’ Diamond said and went back to addressing the meeting. ‘I was starting to say that the investigation into Denise’s death won’t be pushed into the background just because Clarion was a star performer. It’s still high priority. The so-called suicide note has gone for analysis and we should find out if it was genuine. From what we now know about Clarion’s self-harming, it appears Denise wasn’t responsible for the scarring, so she had no reason to blame herself.’

‘A double murder looks likely,’ Halliwell said. ‘Stuff the Latin.’

‘One more thing,’ Diamond said. ‘With all the media interest, we’re all of us liable to be approached by the press, by Clarion’s army of fans and every kind of snoop. Keep it buttoned, okay?’

The briefing over, he followed Georgina from the room and tapped her arm. ‘About Sergeant Dawkins…’

‘I hope you’re not going to make an issue of this, Peter.’

‘Either he’s on the squad or he isn’t.’

‘You’re right, of course,’ she conceded. ‘I spoke out of turn. It’s obvious that you’re fully stretched. But if you can see your way to releasing him for a couple of hours tonight I’ll make it up to you in human resources. We have some bright young bobbies in uniform keen to get CID experience.’

‘I’ll take Dawn Reed and George Pidgeon,’ he said at once.

Georgina looked surprised that he knew any names outside his own little empire. ‘Agreed.’ She moved at speed towards the stairs to her eyrie. She hated being outmanoeuvred.

I Am a Camera was forced to end its run prematurely. The theatre would be dark for the next two nights. Even Hedley Shearman admitted that to have carried on would be insensitive. The actors and crew were asked not to leave Bath, to be available for more questioning if required.

Alone in his office, Diamond studied printouts of the statements made by theatre staff on the morning after Clarion’s face was damaged. Thanks to PC Reed’s speed writing and Fred Dawkins’ faultless typing, they were lucid accounts, but they didn’t yield anything new. Both Shearman and Denise had acted responsibly after the incident, losing no time in getting Clarion to hospital. As for their backgrounds, there was nothing on Shearman and not much on Denise. No doubt Fred Dawkins had done most of the talking. All he’d learned from Denise was that she had been with the theatre six years. More information about previous jobs had come later from Kate in wardrobe, a secondary source, not so dependable. A proper check was a high priority, and best left to Halliwell and his team. More would definitely emerge.

In the calm at the eye of the storm, Diamond’s thoughts returned to his own early life and what lurked there. He’d heard nothing back from any of the police authorities he’d contacted about Flakey White.

He knew the resources existed online to make an identity check. Still uncomfortable using the computer, he knuckled down and found how to search the death registers for White’s unusual set of names. Nothing came of it.

If alive, the man would be in his seventies. Was he known in cyberspace?

When he Googled the full name, it gave several hundred so-called ‘hits’ that he could tell straight away were nothing to do with Flakey. The entire resources of the internet were no help.

Disappointed, his prejudice against computers justified, he sat back and tried thinking of another way of tracing an ex-teacher with a prison record.

Then he remembered something Mike Glazebrook had said. It had barely sunk in at the time, such had been the shock of hearing about White’s court case.

He reached for the phone. Talking to a real person beat staring at a screen.

‘Mike? Peter Diamond here.’

‘Peter who?’

‘Your old schoolmate. The princes in the tower.’

‘I’m with you now.’

‘When we met and talked about Flakey White, you said something about him surfacing again as a book illustrator.’

There was a pause. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Actually, I do.’

‘Why? He’s a scumbag. Don’t have anything to do with him.’

He stretched the truth. ‘It’s a police enquiry.’

‘Is he still at it, then?’

‘We don’t know until we catch up with him.’