Death Of A Hollow Man Read online

  “How did she react to what had happened?”

  “She was terribly angry. Furious. She … well, she cursed a lot. Then she said, ‘If he touches me again, I’ll—’ ” Deidre broke off. She looked around the room at the bottles and jars and showy bouquets and at a good-luck card sporting a large black cat who had obviously completely failed to get the hang of its required function. “Sorry, Tom. I don’t remember what she said after that.”

  “Deidre.” Deidre made eye contact with a coffee jar, a jar of artificial sweetener, and one of powdered milk. “Look at me.” She managed a quick glance, timorous almost pleading. “This isn’t a practical joke we’re investigating.”

  “No.”

  “So what did Mrs. Carmichael say?”

  Deidre swallowed and took a deep breath. “‘If he touches me again … ” The rest of the sentence was smothered in a whisper.

  “Speak up.”

  “‘I’ll kill him.’ But she didn’t mean it,” Deidre rushed on. “I know she didn’t. People say that all the time, don’t they? Mothers to their children in the street. You’re always hearing them. It doesn’t mean anything, Tom. And she was probably worried about the baby. She hit the pros arch with a terrible smack.”

  “Where did she go when she left the toilet?”

  “Back to the wings. Joycey was standing by to put her padding on. And I followed. She didn’t go near the table again, I’m positive.”

  “Do you have any idea why Esslyn should have acted the way he did?”

  “No—I can’t understand it. He was perfectly all right till the interval.”

  “You haven’t heard any gossip?”

  “Gossip? About what?”

  “Perhaps … another man?”

  “Oh, no, I shouldn’t think so. Kitty was pregnant, you see.”

  He was certainly meeting them tonight, thought Sergeant Troy, resting his ball-point against the pad borrowed from the constable on pavement duty. First the old gaffer upstairs singing his cracked old song halfway up Delilah Street, now the droopy-bottomed daughter who apparently believed that once you’d got one in the oven you hung a no-trespassing sign around your neck. In fact, as Troy knew to his philandering benefit, it was the one time you could hold open house with nobody having to foot the bill. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand to conceal an involuntary twitch of derision.

  “Now you know the tape was deliberately removed, do you have any idea how this could have been done?” Deidre’s features seemed to gather themselves together in the center of her face, so great were her efforts at concentration. Barnaby said, “No hurry.”

  “I just can’t think, Tom. The risk. It was so sharp.” Suddenly she saw David’s fingers, quick and deft, wrapping the razor.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Before he could persist, Deidre improvised. “I mean—it was so dangerous, it couldn’t have been done in the dark. And although the wings and stage were brightly lit till curtain up, it couldn’t have been done then, either, because of the chance they might have been seen.”

  “Who was the first to arrive after you?”

  “Colin and David.”

  “Did you tell them you’d done the check?”

  “I told Colin.”

  “But if they were together, that means you told them both.” Deidre’s gaze reconnected with the powdered milk. “Do you remember who came next?”

  “Not really, Tom. Half a dozen people arrived together. Rosa and the Everards … and Boris. All the ASMs were in on the half.”

  “Did anyone ask if you’d done your check?” Barnaby knew this question to be rather futile. The last thing the person who doctored the razor would wish to do was draw attention to himself. But he felt it still had to be put. Deidre shook her head. “Did you leave the stage area at any time?”

  “Yes. I went to the dressing rooms to call the quarter. Then I fetched my ASMs from the clubroom and I went to meet my father. This was just before eight o’clock. He was late.” Reminded, she half rose, saying, “Is that all, Tom? He’s waiting, you see.”

  “In a moment.” Reluctantly, Deidre reseated herself. “Did you like Esslyn, Deidre?” She hesitated for a minute, then said, “No.”

  “Do you have any idea at all who might have done this?”

  This time there was no hesitation. “Not at all, Tom. To be honest, I don’t think anyone liked him very much, but you don’t kill someone just because of that. Do you?”

  The question was not lightly put. It was flooded with such intense appeal that Deidre seemed to be seeking reassurance that the police had perpetrated a shocking misconstruction and that the tape had managed to fly away of its own accord. Barnaby’s unconsoling reply was never made. There was a knock at the door, and the constable who had been sitting with the body popped his head round the door and said, “Dr. Bullard’s arrived, sir.”

  Meanwhile, next door in the scene dock, the company, while still shocked, was starting to bounce back. Some more than others, naturally. But hushed whispers had already gone the way of solemn looks and reverential head shakings. Now ideas and suggestions were being mooted, but in tones of bashful solemnity out of respect for Kitty’s grief.

  Not that this was much in evidence. She sat on a workbench staring crossly at Rosa and tapping her foot with irritation. The first Mrs. Carmichael, her mouth loose and frilly, wept continuously. Her makeup now resembled a Turner sunset. You would have thought that she, not Kitty, was the widow. Earnest, who could have gone home ages ago, remained by her side. Joyce, her blood-soaked clothes hidden behind a screen with Cully’s ruined dress, sat holding her daughter’s hand and wearing her husband’s topcoat. Cully was wrapped in several yards of butter muslin that she had found in a basket. Nicholas, who could not take his eyes off her, thought she looked like an exquisite reincarnation of Nefertiti.

  All of them had been searched quickly and efficiently, and although it had been no more than the brisk, impersonal going-over anyone gets at an airport, Harold had taken umbrage and threatened to write to his member of Parliament.

  “If a man’s been stupid enough to cut his own throat,” he had cried indignantly, “I don’t know what on earth the police expect to gain by subjecting my people to this humiliating procedure.”

  None of his people had really minded, but they had all been equally puzzled by the need for such a step.

  “I really don’t see,” said Bill Last, lately Van Swieten, “why they’ve locked up the men’s dressing room. My car keys are in there. And my wallet. Everything.”

  “Right,” said Boris, who chain-smoked and was desperate for a drag.

  “I don’t see why they want to talk to us at all,” complained Clive Everard. “We’re not responsible for checking the props. It’s obviously Dreary’s fault. Took the tape off for some reason. Forgot to put it back again.”

  “Typical,” said his brother.

  “It is not at all typical,” said David Smy angrily. “Deidre’s very capable.”

  “Hear, hear,” from Nicholas.

  Kitty, who had caught sight of Deidre being escorted by Troy, said, “She’s been in there a hell of a time, though. I’d say it looks quite promising.”

  “What an unkind thing to say,” protested Avery. “Honestly. I thought adversity was supposed to bring out the best in us.”

  “You can’t bring out what isn’t there,” said an Everard.

  “Bastard,” said Kitty.

  Still, the same thought had struck them all, save one. It would be nice if Deidre had just been careless. Problem solved. And in a not too uncomfortable manner. Quite neat and tidy, really. Then they could all get changed and go home to bed.

  But it was not to be. Harold bustled in, quite unsubdued by his forced incarceration, all asimmer with tendentious self-esteem. “I’ve just been questioning the uniformed halfwit in the foyer,” he began, “as to why we are all being treated in this tyrannical fashion and why half my theater seems to be out of bounds, and he was
totally unforthcoming. Mumbled something about protecting the scene in a case like this, and when I said, ‘a case like what?’ he said I should have a word with the DCI. ‘Easier said than done, my man,’ I replied. Tom is on the stage at the moment,” he continued, looking accusingly at the chief inspector’s wife, “with a complete and utter stranger who is cutting away—cutting away at that magnificent blue brocade coat. What with that and Joyce messing up her costume, you can imagine what my bill will be like.” “That’s show business,” murmured Tim. “Start the evening with Mozart, end up with Gotterdammerung.”

  “And when I tried to ask Tom what he thought he was playing at, he told me to come down here and wait with the others. And an obnoxious youth with red hair practically strongarmed me down the stairs. If there is one thing I cannot stand it’s high-handedness.”

  Harold gazed at the ring of incredulous faces and was struck by one showing a remarkably uncontrolled use of color. “And what on earth, ” he concluded, “is the matter with Rosa?”

  Above their heads Jim Bullard crouched beside the body, and Barnaby watched him as he had done more times than he cared to remember.

  “Cause of death’s plain enough. Don’t need a pathologist for this one.”

  “Quite.”

  “Extraordinary thing to do. Slash your throat in front of a theater full of people. I know actors are exhibitionists, but you’d think there’d be some limits. At least there’s no argument as to the time of death. Was he on anything?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Well, the PM’ll show that up. Right.” He rose, dusted his knees, and repacked his bag. “You can get him shifted. No scene-of-crime people yet?”

  “I’m scratching round. Davidson’s at his Masonic dinner. Fenton’s gone to the Seychelles …”

  “Coo. Well, I’m off back to the U.S. of A. If there’s any Dallas left . .

  “Before you go, Jim, I wonder if you’d have a look at Mr. Tibbs. He’s the father of the girl who just went through. Upstairs in the clubroom.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “He’s mentally ill. I think what happened tonight might’ve, well, pushed him just that bit nearer the edge. He looked very ill.”

  “I will, of course, Tom, but I haven’t got anything with me to give him. You’d be better getting in touch with his own— God! What on earth is that?”

  A terrible cry. An awful, keening cry shot through with desolation and woe. Then rapid running and, through the open doors at the top of the aisle, they saw Deidre fly past and disappear into the foyer below.

  Outside it was still raining. Freezing needles of rain that could burrow through the wannest cloth, never mind a thin summer shirt and cotton trousers. (He had left his linen jacket behind.) Rushing blindly onto the pavement carrying the abandoned jacket over her arm, Deidre bumped into a young policeman, caped and helmeted, getting soaked in the pursuance of his duty. He caught her arm.

  “I’m sorry. No one’s allowed to leave.”

  “Tom’s finished with me—the chief inspector, that is. Have you seen an old man?” A little crowd opposite glumly standing beneath a cluster of bright umbrellas perked up at this sign of activity. “He’s got white hair … please. ” She clutched at the constable frantically, rain and tears intermingling on her cheeks. “He’s ill.”

  “Slipped through my fingers a few minutes ago. Racing he was. No coat or anything.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “He went up Carradine Road. Wait, if you hold on, I’ll get in touch …”

  But he spoke to the night air, for Deidre had run away.

  He saw her a moment later racing across the shining wet tarmac, her dress already soaked, her face a livid green-blue in the glow from the traffic lights. Then she was gone.

  Rosa was interviewed next. Supported by Earnest as far as the dressing-room door, she subsided opposite Barnaby in an excitation of cerise fluff.

  “You must ask me anything, Tom,” she cried, and her voice, though brave, was a rill of sorrows. “Anything at all.”

  “Thank you,” said the chief inspector, who fully intended to. “Can you think of anyone who might have wished to harm your ex-husband?”

  “Absolutely not,” Rosa replied promptly. But the look that followed implied that the speed with which her interlocutor had approached the nub of the matter might be considered a bit short on finesse. “Everyone liked Esslyn.”

  Barnaby raised his shaggy eyebrows. His eyes shone with a gleam at once caustic and humorous. The gleam implied that he quite understood she felt she had to say things like that, and now she’d said them, perhaps they could cut the obsequies and get down to the nitty-gritty. Maybe even flirt with the truth a little. “That is,” continued Rosa, acknowledging the proposition, “on the whole. Of course, he was terribly unhappy.”

  “Oh?”

  “Kitty, you see.” She gave him a slightly suggestive yet shaded look, as if she were acknowledging Kitty’s guilt from behind a veil. “A shotgun wedding is never a good start, is it? And of course once she’d got him safely hooked, she started to play around.”

  “Who with?”

  “That’s not really for me to say.”

  “I quite understand.”

  “David Smy.”

  “Goodness.”

  “Of course it might just be a rumor.”

  “It was Esslyn’s child, though?”

  “We all assumed so.” The verb’s emphasis was beautifully judged. “Poor little mite.”

  Barnaby changed tack, deliberately hardening his voice. “How did you feel, Rosa? After your divorce?”

  Rosa’s pose fell away. Her naked face showed plain through its rioting complexion. She looked cornered. And older. “I … really don’t see … what that has … has to do with anything, Tom.” She took a deep breath and seemed to be fighting for control.

  “Just background.”

  “Background to what?”

  “One never knows what might be helpful.”

  Rosa hesitated and her feathers trembled. Barnaby appreciated her predicament. It was one that every person he interviewed would be in right up to their neck. For the first time in his life all the people connected with the case (for case he was sure there would prove to be) were known to him, and the history of their present and past relationships even better known to his wife. Which made all the usual subterfuges, evasions, white lies, black lies, half-truths, and deliberate attempts to lead him astray rather futile. Advantage Barnaby. For once.

  “To be absolutely honest, Tom …” She paused, resting a crimson nail against her nose as if checking it for rapid growth.

  “Yes?” murmured Barnaby/Gepetto.

  “I was angry at first. Very angry. I thought he was making a terrible mistake. But by the time the decree nisi came through, I had changed. I realized that, for the first time in years, I was free.” She flung her arms wide, narrowly missing Harold’s flowers. Her sailor’s gaze raked the far horizon. “Free!”

  “And yet you remarried so quickly.”

  “Ah.” The gaze became wary, contracted from the hemispheric, and swept the floor. “Love conquers all.”

  They were back in fantasy land, observed Barnaby to himself, but he let it ride. For now. And fantasies were not entirely unrevealing. He repeated his first question.

  “Well, Tom, I don’t know about anyone wanting to kill Esslyn, but Nicholas came down here just before the final curtain with a splinter in his thumb and said that Esslyn had tried to kill him!” Barnaby received this dramatic pronouncement with irritating self-control. “Under the table,” continued Rosa. “In the requiem scene. And he’d already damaged Nicholas’s hand.”

  “Oh,” said Barnaby. Then, disappointing her: “If we could return to the razor. Did you see anyone touching it or handling the tray who shouldn’t have been?”

  “No. And I’ll tell you why.” She looked with deep solemnity at both men. “When I’m acting … when I’m in that state of high concen
tration that we in the profession must be able to summon if the performance is going to work, I see nothing—but nothing—that isn’t measurably relevant to my part.”

  “Even when you’ve no lines?” asked Barnaby.

  “Especially then. Sans words, there’s only the action of the drama to anchor the emotions.”

  “I understand.” Barnaby nodded, matching her gravity. Troy, unimpressed, wrote on his borrowed pad, “Saw nothing suspicious at props table.”

  “What time did you arrive this evening, Rosa?”

  “On the half. I went straight to my dressing room and didn’t come out till my first entrance. About ten minutes into Act One.”

  Barnaby nodded again, then sat, silent, drumming his fingers absently against the arm of his chair. As the moments passed, Rosa shifted uneasily. Troy, long familiar with the chief’s technique, simply anticipated.

  “Rosa.” Barnaby gathered himself and leaned forward. “It is my belief that, far from welcoming your freedom at the time of your divorce and wishing Esslyn well in his second marriage, you fought to keep your own going and have hated him ever since he left you.”

  Rosa cried out then, and covered her clown’s mouth with her fingers. Her hands shook, and sweat rolled down her face. Barnaby sat back and watched the actorish deceit evaporate, leaving, oddly now that truth was present, doubt and childlike bewilderment.

  ‘‘You’re right.” Having said this she sounded almost relieved. She paused for a long time, then started to speak, stopping and starting. Feeling her way. “I thought it would fade, especially after I remarried. And Earnest is so good. But it persisted, eating at me. I wanted a child, you see. He knew that. He denied me. Persuaded me against it. And then to give one to Kitty.” She produced a handkerchief and rubbed at her face. “But the amazing thing, Tom— and I do mean this, I really do—is that all the hatred’s gone. Isn’t that extraordinary? Just as if someone somewhere pulled a plug and let it drain away. It doesn’t seem possible, does it? That something so strong it was poisoning your life could simply disappear. Like magic.”

  After a few moment’s silence, during which Barnaby mulled over Rosa’s excellent motive for murder, he indicated that she was free to go. She stood for a moment at the door, looking, in spite of her cheap flamboyant robe and rampaging complexion, not entirely ridiculous. She seemed to be searching for some concluding remark, perhaps with the idea of ameliorating her former harshness. Eventually, almost as if memory had caught her by surprise, she said, “We were young together once.” Barnaby next interviewed Boris, who twitched and shook his way through the questions until Sergeant Troy, from pure pity, offered him a cigarette. Boris insisted that he had seen no one handle the razor all evening, and could not imagine why anyone would want to kill Esslyn. All the other bit-part actors came and went, saying the same thing. As each one left the scene dock, they were followed by a cry of fury as Harold protested against this disgraceful reversal of the natural order of precedence.