‘You asked.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘We have a mass of trace evidence to examine in the lab. I can see this taking two to three weeks.’
‘
Duckett was equally outraged. ‘This dust, as you call it, is made up of millions of particles and they may include skin and hair capable of giving DNA evidence, fibres from clothing, soil brought in on people’s shoes, each with potential to establish who was here and what happened. I don’t know if you appreciate how much work is involved. Each specimen has to be put through a battery of tests from simple magnification to infrared spectrophotometry.’
Science never intimidated Diamond. ‘Three weeks, though. It’s not as if you have a corpse in here. It’s an empty room. All right, there’s dust. Don’t start on me again. Just get on with it. I’ve got other fish to fry.’
Crime scene types were like that, he reflected as he started down the stairs. They feed you one titbit and then keep you waiting for weeks. The news that two people had definitely been in there fitted his theory, but the absence of violence did not. He couldn’t reconcile the wine-drinking with the death leap. Had Denise become suicidal after a couple of glasses of wine with a friend? Who was the friend? No one had come forward to say they were the last to see her alive.
For now, he turned his thoughts to the search downstairs.
His people weren’t in the wings. He found them on the stage behind the closed curtain, Ingeborg in Isherwood’s writing chair and Dawkins horizontal, on the sofa. Ingeborg got up guiltily, but Dawkins remained where he was.
‘Didn’t know you were in the building, guv,’ Ingeborg said. ‘We were just deciding what to do next.’
‘I can see. Are you comfortable, Fred?’
‘We completed the search, your worship,’ Dawkins said without turning his head, ‘and I proposed a pause for rest and recuperation. Union rules.’
‘Which union is that – the layabouts? What did the search produce?’
‘Diddley squat, I’m sorry to tell you,’ Ingeborg said. ‘We looked everywhere, guv. Only stopped a few minutes ago.’
‘Do we now admit that the theory of the extra powder box was mistaken?’
‘It looks that way,’ she said.
Dawkins, whose theory it had been, said nothing.
Diamond crossed the stage and sank in the high-backed chair beside the tiled stove. He, too, had earned a break. ‘There’s news,’ he told them. ‘I saw the chairman of the trust, Francis Melmot, and he told me Clarion has withdrawn her threat to sue. What is more, she’s making a donation to the theatre.’
‘Praise the Lord,’ Dawkins said. ‘Our ship is saved, and all who sail in her.’
‘You took a message on the phone this morning,’ Diamond said to him. ‘Did she say anything about this?’
‘The message was from Bristol police, who were guarding her. They informed me she was leaving the hospital for a private hotel in Clifton.’
‘The Cedar of Lebanon. Good thing I happened to check my in-box. In future, Fred, speak to me.’ He mimed jaw action with thumb and fingers. ‘Is that clear?’
‘Clear and duly noted.’
In an obvious attempt to improve the atmosphere, Ingeborg said, ‘What changed Clarion’s mind, I wonder? Do you think the damage to her face is not as bad as it first appeared?’
‘It wasn’t mentioned.’
‘She’d look silly trying to sue if she made a full recovery before the case came to court.’
‘Which would make a sad mockery of Denise’s suicide, if suicide it was,’ Dawkins said.
‘Speaking of which,’ Diamond said, ‘I’ve just been up to dressing room eleven.’ He told them about the evidence of two people drinking wine there, one a redhead, like Denise.
‘Then suicide it wasn’t,’ Ingeborg said.
‘Why not?’
‘Two people, and one ended up dead.’
‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Suppose the other person agreed to meet her for a drink and said something that so upset her that she went straight over to the gallery and took her own life.’
‘Her lover,’ Dawkins said from the sofa.
‘Did she have one?’ Diamond asked, thrown by the suggestion.
Before Dawkins could respond, Ingeborg said, ‘Now you’re talking, Fred. I reckon she was dumped. Hedley Shearman seems to have been everyone’s lover and, if he wasn’t, it wasn’t for want of trying,’
‘Don’t get carried away, Inge,’ Diamond said. ‘Shearman likes the ladies, agreed, but is he that much of a catch? Gisella is unimpressed and she told me Clarion gave him the elbow as well. There’s no evidence Denise or any other woman liked him enough to kill herself for him.’
Dawkins had another theory. ‘Here’s a more down-to-earth scenario. She was told her services were no longer required.’
