Murder Unprompted

Michael Banks’s death niggled away at Charles like a hole in the tooth. He had done all the sums, and he knew only one answer fitted, but still something snagged. There seemed little doubt that Alex was the murderer, but Charles felt somehow he owed it to his friend to isolate the element about the case that was worrying him.

So, just before the ‘half’ on the Thursday night, he knocked on Lesley-Jane Decker’s dressing room door.

She was dressed in a silk kimono and lying on the daybed when he went in. Her face was scoured of street make-up, prior to the application of her stage make-up. The result was pale and sickly, stress lines showing how much she would look like her mother in a few years’ time. It was brought home to Charles for the first time how much of a strain the last weeks must have been for a girl of her age. To have broken off one affair and started another, then to have witnessed the shooting of her new lover by the old one, was quite a lot to take. He knew some actresses, hard-boiled as eight-minute eggs, who would have revelled in the situation, casting themselves as femmes fatales with enormous relish. But Lesley-Jane didn’t seem the type. Her sophistication was paper-thin, and underneath she was just a very young, and probably over-protected, girl.

She made no attempt to move when he came in, just lay there looking vulnerable. Nor did she say anything beyond ‘Hello, Charles.’ Her champagne bubble was distinctly flat.

‘Tired out?’ he asked solicitously.

‘Shattered.’

‘Yes, it’s been tough for all of us. Doing eight shows a week is enough, without all this other business.’

‘Yes.’ She looked at him, curious as to why he was there. But not that curious; she seemed too tired to be very interested.

‘I wanted to talk about Michael’s death,’ he began bluntly.

‘Ah.’ Even this didn’t animate her much.

‘I’m sorry to go through it all again, but there’s something about it that seems odd to me.’

‘What?’

‘You see I don’t know. There’s just something that doesn’t seem right about it.’

‘I don’t think murder’s often right,’ she observed with a touch more spirit.

‘No. By definition it isn’t. But listen, we both witnessed that murder. I was out front, and it was pretty horrible from there. From where you were standing, it must have been. .’

She gulped, forcing back nausea, and nodded.

‘But what interests me, what I wanted to ask you, is about how you reacted.’

‘I screamed, didn’t I? I can’t remember very well, but I thought I. .’

‘Yes, you screamed all right. It was when you screamed that interests me.’

‘When?’

‘Yes. What happened was this: Micky stopped getting the lines, turned round in confusion, then presumably saw someone in the wings pointing a gun at him. He said ‘Put it down. You mustn’t do that to me’ or something and then he was shot.’

Lesley-Jane nodded. She wasn’t enjoying the re-creation of the shock.

‘But you didn’t scream then.’

‘Didn’t I? I can’t remember. It was all confused. .’

‘No, you didn’t scream until you looked off into the wings.’

‘Delayed shock, I suppose. I couldn’t believe what had happened to Micky straight away, I didn’t even know what had happened to him.’

‘But when you looked into the wings you did know. And you also knew who had done it. And then you screamed.’

‘Yes. I suppose it brought it home to me.’

‘And who did you see in the wings?’

She looked at him as if he were daft. ‘Well, Alex, of course.’ He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but he felt very disappointed. Something inside had been hoping against all logic for a different answer. He didn’t know what, just anything that would settle the unease he felt about the death.

‘What exactly did you see?’

‘I’ve been through all this with the police.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just. . I wasn’t backstage for all the police inquiries, and I really would like to know,’ he appealed pathetically.

‘All right. I saw Alex. He was very near the edge of the set. .’

Must have been. He knew how impenetrable the shadows were in the wings.

‘He looked over his shoulder at me, our eyes met for a split-second, then he rushed off and I screamed. I suppose it was the expression on his face that made me scream.’

‘Because it made you realise what he’d done?’

‘Yes, I think he’d only just realised himself. His face was. . I don’t know. . it was full of fear.’

‘Was the gun in his hand?’

‘The police asked me that, too, and honestly, I just can’t remember. I didn’t notice his hands.’

‘Was he wearing his jacket?’

‘Again I just don’t know. All I seemed to see was his face — or maybe just his eyes. I can’t get them out of my mind even now. Those eyes full of terror. I felt awful, as if I had hurt him. He was always very unstable, you know.’

‘Yes.’ Charles reckoned he could take advantage of her lethargic state to push a bit further. ‘I suppose, of course, you had hurt him.’

‘You mean by going off with Micky?’

Charles nodded.

‘Yes. I suppose so. It didn’t really seem like that at the time. I mean Micky just seemed so nice, so friendly and, in a strange way, so lonely. Going and having a few meals with him didn’t seem evil or furtive in any way. Somehow it was difficult to feel anything was wrong with Micky around.’

He knew what she meant. Michael Banks’s effortless charm no doubt carried through into his romantic life.

‘And it was just a few meals. .?

He had hoped she wouldn’t notice the impertinence, but she coloured and began angrily, ‘I don’t see that that’s any business of yours. . but yes, it was.’

‘Whereas with Alex. .?’

‘That again is no business of yours. .’

‘Come on, we were all in Taunton together. . It certainly had the look, to the impartial observer, of a full- blown affair.’

‘All right, yes. But I had wanted to break it off after Taunton. It was getting awkward, even before I met Micky.’

‘Awkward?’ Charles fed gently.

‘Alex was so strange. The more time I spent with him, the stranger he seemed to be. All his mystical religion thing, his faddishness about food, his belief in being close to nature, following nature. . all that appealed to me at first. It was so unlike anything I had come across before. He was so unlike any of the people I had met before. .’

Certainly unlike the nice middle-class friends of Mr. and Mrs. Decker, Charles imagined.

‘But, after a time, I began to see all his ideas as sort of odd, not charming eccentricities, but. . you know, symptoms.’

‘Symptoms of what?’

‘Of his mental state. I knew he had had the breakdown and at first I didn’t mind. I thought, oh, he just needs someone who really loves him and will look after him. .’

‘And you thought you could supply that want?’

She nodded. ‘I thought we really would make a new start, that I would sort of. . make him blossom.’

She blushed as if aware of the cliche she was using. Charles wondered how many naive young girls had got caught in messy affairs with older men from the belief that they could bring new love into their lives and ‘make them blossom’.