solemn conversation.
The designer, overdressed as usual and apparently oblivious to their mood, pointed to the engagement ring on the girl’s finger and 120
Tey smiled her congratulations, while Aubrey turned and went back upstairs. McCracken watched as the author signed the programme which was tentatively held out to her. All that cringing self-effacement made her sick – it was so affected – and she knew then that whatever had darkened Aubrey’s mood, it wasn’t the prospect of having to replace a successful author: this one loved her glory far too much to relinquish it. Trust the smug bitch to spoil even this ritual for her. Already late for the half, McCracken turned round and headed bitterly for the dark anonymity of backstage, pushing the last few stragglers roughly aside as she went.
Josephine was about to take her seat in the royal circle when she felt a tap on the shoulder. She turned round, the practised smile already in place, but took an involuntary step back when she found Frank Simmons looking intently back at her. He was soaked to the skin and, as he removed his hat, the water fell in a steady drip from its brim, creating a patch of deeper crimson in the foyer’s carpet.
‘Mr Simmons – Frank – what are you doing here?’ she asked, torn between sympathy for his grief and unease at seeing him so unexpectedly. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, miss, I’m fine but I had to get out for a bit. The flat felt so empty with Betty gone up north, and all I could think about was my Elspeth lying alone somewhere, so I came here. I know it sounds strange, but this is where I feel closest to her.’
He looked at the floor, tears threatening to join forces with the rain. Josephine struggled to find something to say which would bring this excruciating scene to an end without sounding too callous or too encouraging, but nothing came to her and she remained locked in an uncomfortable silence with him, conscious that everyone left in the foyer was beginning to stare. When Archie appeared at her side, seemingly out of nowhere, she had never been more pleased to see him.
‘It’s a terrible night, Sir, can we give you a lift anywhere?’ he asked, his natural courtesy tinged with a firmness that was not lost on Simmons, who released Josephine’s hand and appeared to get a 121
grip on himself. ‘That’s very kind of you, Inspector, but a walk does me good and I can’t get much wetter than I am already. I just wanted to see Miss Tey again and to thank her for this afternoon,’
he said, turning to her, although his voice was so low and uncertain that she could barely make out the words. ‘I’ll let you go in now – you don’t want to miss the start.’
‘Oh I think I know how it goes by now,’ said Josephine with a nervous laugh, and bid him goodnight. Gratefully, she allowed Archie to lead her away and Simmons watched them go, continuing to stare long after they had disappeared into the auditorium.
122
Nine
Penrose had not intended to use his ticket for the performance but, with his cousins seated in another part of the theatre and Josephine visibly shaken by her encounter in the foyer, he was reluctant to leave her on her own immediately. Their seats at the side of the royal circle afforded a splendid view of the stage, but neither of them seemed particularly inclined to look in that direction. More often than not, Josephine’s gaze was fixed on the relief figures of Music and Peace which hovered optimistically above the proscenium arch, and he doubted that the world in which she was absorbed belonged to the fourteenth century. His own attention, meanwhile, was focused on the auditorium. His eyes followed the line of the three balconies, sinuously curved and decorated with painted panels, lamps and sconces, but nowhere could he see the two empty seats which he had expected to stand out as a poignant reminder of yesterday’s events. He would have to check in the rear stalls and balcony, which were currently hidden from his view, but every row seemed full; certainly the coveted top-price seats – of which Hedley White was supposed to have had two – were all taken. So what had happened to those tickets? Had he got rid of them, or asked someone else to do it for him? Is that why Frank Simmons had appeared so unexpectedly downstairs? Or had White never actually bought the tickets, knowing that Elspeth would be dead by the time the performance began?
Impatiently, Penrose glanced at his watch and was frustrated to see that the interval was still half an hour away. Almost as restless as he was, Josephine touched his arm and nodded to the exit, urg-ing him to leave her and get on with what he needed to do, but he 123
shook his head – he hoped reassuringly – and tried to settle back in his seat. It was irrational, this feeling he had that she was in danger, but it carried the force of conviction and he was not prepared to take a chance for the sake of thirty minutes, not when someone had already been killed just yards away from a crowd. Trying not to fidget, he was relieved to note that no one else was likely to be disturbed by his irreverent disregard for the play. Every other head was turned towards the stage and held there as if by force, and the silence in the auditorium was of a quality rarely found in London outside of its sacred spaces. In the last year John Terry had acquired the authority and presence of a truly great actor but tonight there was a nervous brilliance about his performance which surpassed everything he had achieved up to now. The audience, many of whom were regulars and had several performances to compare it to, realised they were watching something special.
Terry was only slight in build but he dominated the stage, determined, it seemed, to prove that it was his. In scene after scene he extracted every ounce of opportunity from Josephine’s lightly drawn portrait, seeming to relish the King’s strengths and weaknesses in equal measure and moving effortlessly from the airy carelessness of Richard’s early scenes to the disillusionment of someone in whom the poison of suspicion has begun to work.
Eventually, even Penrose was drawn in and he marvelled at the way in which the actor’s movements took on a morbid, feline elegance as he responded to the treachery against him. ‘To become an expert in murder’, he whispered bitterly to his queen as the first act drew to a close, ‘cannot be so difficult,’ and the intensity in his voice held the audience – Penrose included – spellbound.
He thought back to the first time he had seen Terry, playing the very same role but in Shakespeare’s version at the Old Vic. It was five years ago now, but he remembered it vividly because the production’s brief run had coincided with one of Josephine’s then rare visits to London. They had gone together and, if he recalled the evening more for the pleasure of her company than the power of Terry’s acting, it was no less poignant to him now. It had been one of those hot summer evenings which occasionally graced the city 124
with a leisurely decadence. As they walked back down the Waterloo Road, still laughing at one of the more eccentric patrons, whose cracked but resounding rendition of ‘God Save the King’
rang out from the front of the gallery at the end of the performance, he had seen in Josephine a willingness to engage with the future which had been absent since Jack’s death. Since then, she had often referred to that night as the inspiration for
Leaving Josephine safely in the bar with Lettice and Ronnie, Penrose walked round to stage door to look for Bernard Aubrey.
