People mostly dressed in black were moving about with a sense of urgency as curtain up approached.
‘We only need to get in there. Instructions from the guv’nor.
He called me on the way here. You wear specs sometimes,
don’t you?’
He didn’t follow her thread. ‘For distance, yes.’
‘Did you bring them?’
He patted his pocket. ‘I manage pretty well without them, but I thought I might need them for the play.’
‘Are they in a case?’
He nodded, still mystified.
‘Not one of those soft ones?’
‘Metal.’
‘Ideal. Well done.’
He didn’t ask why.
Quicker than expected, they were approaching the back of the stage itself. There was no other way forward, so they crossed behind the scenery, trying to look as if they had a function in the production. Above them was the cavernous fly tower with its complicated system of grids and catwalks. They turned right towards the wings where someone was perched on a higher level looking at a screen and working a console. Stagehands hurried past.
Praise be: a sign pointed to dressing rooms 1-7. Ingeborg gave a thumb up.
She was off again like the White Rabbit. When he caught up with her she had opened the door of number one and gone in. No one was inside. Some clothes were on a hanger beside the dressing table. ‘We’re looking for a dead butterfly.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Them’s the orders.’
Halliwell said no more. If the boss had asked them to find a dead butterfly, so be it. He had faith in Diamond’s decisions.
‘It should be on the sill, or the floor, if it’s blown off, so look where you’re treading,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Voila.’ She pointed to the window. A small, speckled butterfly was lying on the sill. ‘Definitely dead, I’d say. This is where your specs case comes in useful.’
‘Yes?’ He took it from his pocket and removed the glasses.
‘A perfect little coffin,’ Ingeborg said as she gently slid the tortoiseshell off the sill and into the case and snapped it shut. ‘Keep it level at the bottom of your bag and it shouldn’t get too shaken up.’
Then a voice shocked them both by saying, ‘Beginners, please.’ It came from a loudspeaker attached to the wall.
‘Should we get to our seats?’
‘Still got a couple of things to check,’ Inge said.
‘What things?’
She crossed to the door and looked out. Other dressing-room doors were opening and actors emerging dressed in thirties’ costumes. ‘Let’s hang back a moment,’ she said. ‘I’d like to meet Clarion’s dresser if possible.’
‘Is that another request from the guv’nor?’ Halliwell asked. He had a suspicion Ingeborg was acting on her own initiative here.
‘The one who did the make-up.’
‘I know who you mean, but is that a good idea? She’s the main suspect and we’re not acting officially.’
‘He asked us to check if she turns up.’
‘That isn’t the same as meeting her. We could blow the investigation doing that.’
She saw sense. ‘Let’s find out from someone else, then.’
‘After the show has started.’
They waited in the dressing room with the door ajar. The passageway went quiet and the only sound was the voice over the tannoy giving the countdown as curtain up approached and came. The play itself began to be broadcast, a man talking about Berlin.
‘Time to move,’ Ingeborg said.
She seemed to have an inbuilt compass as well as a strong impulse to get results and Halliwell found himself trailing behind her, avoiding eye contact with everyone else who came by. Everyone backstage had a job to do, a sense of purpose. Any intruder would stand out.
Dialogue was being spoken and it wasn’t over the sound system. Halliwell was alarmed to find himself on the prompt side of the wings only a few yards from the actors speaking on stage. Several people were standing in the shadows, watchful and waiting. He recognized one of the actors he’d seen leaving a dressing room. A young woman of elfin size was facing the man, using a soft brush on his face. She looked too young to be the dresser, Denise – but then this was territory peopled by the young. Anyone over forty, as Halliwell was, stood out.
He touched Inge’s arm and gestured to her to move back a few yards. Any closer and they’d get in the way of the performance.
