The Old Silent

to the dress circle, where there seemed to be something rather nasty going on.

Wes Whelan was hugging his arm; the rest of the band was momentarily stunned at the appearance of this girl.

Come on, Mary Lee, do it!

She did it. Grabbed at a mike and shouted, 'Ladies and gentlemen! Staaaan KEELER!'

When Stan Keeler moved, he moved. He came out of the wings at such speed he covered the last several feet on his knees, sliding to a stop, and playing on his way up from the floor.

Near him, the ones in the worst state were now moving between fear and astonished delight.

All Keeler had to play was that famous chord progression to 'Main Line Lady' and he had them cold.

People had stopped moving for the exits, stopped crushing against each other, and when the woman screamed again, Jury saw a hand flash out and slap her down in her chair.

In the meantime, the band was backing up Stan.

Stan Keeler in person, in concert, and with Sirocco?

What sort of competition was a crazy killer with that?

41

The police ambulance sans siren had just left the alley with its cargo and left the faces of the limo driver and a few of the roadies open-mouthed, staring after it. Security police were in their element, although they weren't too sure what the element was: they seemed disappointed that there wasn't a crowd to be cordoned off and held back, that there wasn't a mob of funky punk rock fans all jostling for a front-row view. Aside from the single stretcher borne by two orderlies in plain clothes and a youngish man held up by two more, it was the slickest exit made from a stage door they had seen, slicker than the exit of the stars themselves.

… who were still performing. Jury, Plant, Macalvie, and Wiggins were sitting in one of the equipment vans on amps and crates, being brought mugs of tea and stale sandwiches by Mary Lee, who was also in her element. When one of the roadies kept after her, grabbing her to tell him what was going on, she strong-armed him and told him and the limo driver, Get out of my face, as she sashayed back in the stage door with the tin tray that had held the food.

She stopped, however, for a photo session with a young man who claimed to be the photographer from Kregarrand and who was actually Jury's Scene-of-Crimes man, enjoying his double role.

When Jury saw the police pathologist come out of the stage door, he jumped down from the lorry.

Dr. Phyllis Nancy was, in Jury's mind, the creme de la creme of doctors, the one he had searched out not only because she could work with lightning speed, but because she had an imaginative grasp of a situation that was lacking in her colleagues.

Phyllis Nancy was, on the other hand, a conflicted personality; she pretended to disdain her femininity and looks by wearing harshly cut suits and little string ties. On the other hand, she went all out when she was off-duty.

As she walked-or strolled-toward Jury, it was clear that she was definitely off-duty. Beneath a fur coat she wore a long gown, green and slit up the front. The conflict also extended to her having been called away.

'From a performance of La Boheme, Superintendent, Pavarotti singing. Box seat, bottle of superior Chablis-'

'I know. About the seat, I mean, not the wine.' He smiled.

Phyllis Nancy looked first to the right, then the left, then at the sky. Anywhere but at Jury, as she clutched the collar of her fur coat round her neck. In the other hand was her black bag. 'The victim is in critical condition. One of what I would imagine to be at least four broken ribs penetrated the lung and started hemorrhaging, with blood coming out of both the ear and the mouth. The right wrist is broken, compound fracture, you can see the bone protruding. One side of the skull endured a blow with a blunt object, bits of the cheekbone adhering to the blood…'

Jury listened patiently as Dr. Nancy went on. Ordinarily, her reports were like her no-nonsense, crisp suits: brief, staccato, atonal. Dismembered bodily parts were inspected and collected like shells. But for some reason, she seemed to enjoy whatever Grand Guignol touches she could bring into play when she gave Jury her reports. She ended hers now by asking Jury just what the hell was going on; at the same time, she extracted from her pocket a cigarette case, removed a cigarette, and snapped the little lighter before Jury could produce a match. She did not seem to notice she was standing in a drizzling rain that was matting her fur coat and taking the wave out of what looked like a pricey hairdo.

Before Jury could answer her, she exhaled a thin stream of smoke and said, 'That police photographer,'-she motioned to the young fellow at the stage door who was still taking photos of a couple of the road crew, who were enjoying it immensely-'was in the balcony popping his flashbulbs at the curious and telling them he was the photographer from Kregarrand.'

Jury smiled: 'A distraction, Phyllis. How's the member of the lighting crew? We found him in a storage room, tied up and out cold. Why he wasn't dead is beyond me.'

'I brought him round. He said about twenty or twenty-five minutes before the show, a woman came up to him when he was adjusting the spotlight, said she was from the supply equipment company and that the spot was defective. He said it wasn't-'

'And showed her, I take it.'

'His leather jacket gone, his cap gone, and she was gone. Well, we know where she was. She looked like she'd been set upon by a gang of punks. Those blows to the head weren't all caused by the spotlight falling-'

'Beer bottle, maybe?' asked Macalvie, who'd descended from the lorry.

Phyllis Nancy looked at him, mouth open, and when she didn't reply, he shrugged and offered, 'Couple of beer bottles?'

She dropped her cigarette on the pavement, scrubbed at it with a green satin shoe. 'Who are you?'

'Macalvie, Brian. Devon-Cornwall constabulary.' He flicked out his ID. 'I've been working on a case.'

She looked at him, looked back at Jury, squinted into the shadows of the lorry. 'Who else is in there?'

'You know how crazy fans get at these concerts,' said Macalvie. 'Anything can happen.'

As if to augment that statement, Sergeant Wiggins came out of the stage door in a rush as if he were being blown thither by the swell of music and thunder of applause. 'I got hold of Sanderson-'

Phyllis Nancy said, 'Well, if it isn't Sergeant Wiggins, our karate expert.'

'Kung fu,' he corrected her. 'And I'm not,' he said modestly, 'an expert.'

'Just enough to break a wrist or arm, I expect. What are you all sitting in that lorry for? Is that the getaway car?'

'Waiting for autographs,' said Jury. 'I'll tell you all about it later.'

'This should be one of the more interesting reports I've written up.' She checked her tiny watch. 'Well, I might be able to catch the final aria.' She collected her black bag and started toward the police car.

'You should have come to the concert, Phyllis,' called Jury after her. 'Better than listening to 'O Sole Mio.' '

She stopped, called back: 'I couldn't get tickets.' Dr. Nancy slammed the door and the car lurched toward the Hammersmith Road.

'What did Sanderson say?'

Wiggins was blowing on his hands. 'That he was sending someone from Wakefield headquarters. And that the coins from the call box matched the prints on the brandy decanter-Irene Citrine's. He added it didn't prove when the calls had been made.'

'He's as hard to convince as Commander Macalvie,' said Jury.

'Good for Sanderson. I take it this Citrine woman was one of Roger Healey's ladies?'

'It might have been pure greed and not love and greed. Rena's the poor Citrine. Everyone else in the family had