The Understudy’s is a strange role, and never is he made more aware of its strangeness than on a first night. He is caught up in the communal excitement, without the prospect of release that performance gives. He cannot quite detach himself or even avoid nerves; he has to be eternally in readiness; only when the final curtain has fallen can he be sure he will not have to go on. During the ‘half’ before the curtain rises, he has his twitchiest moments. He has to watch the actor he would replace for signs of strain or imminent collapse and wonder nervously whether he could actually remember the lines if he had to go on. Sometimes the worst happens, and the actor does not appear for the ‘half’. Then the understudy goes through agonies of indecision before the Company Manager gives him the order to get into costume and make-up. And how often, as the understudy trembles in the wings awaiting the rise of the curtain, does the real actor appear, full of apologies about a power failure on the Underground or the traffic on the Westway.
It is almost impossible for the understudy to achieve mental equilibrium. His thoughts sway constantly between the desire to go on and the desire to settle down for a relaxed evening with a book in the secure knowledge that he won’t have to go on. (This at least is true of aspiring understudies, those who really wish they had parts. There is a breed of professional understudy, often, if female, actresses who have semi-retired to bring up families, for whom the job is all that they require. It gives them the contact with the theatre that they crave, without the total commitment which acting every night demands.)
Charles Paris was not a professional understudy. He still had dreams. And, though those dreams had taken something of a battering since the heady days of Taunton, they were resilient and survived in amended form. The image of suddenly being called in to take over from George Birkitt and astounding the critics with his unsung brilliance was one that would not go away, however hard he tried to suppress it.
He knew that that was one of the reasons why he went to see George Birkitt first on his back-stage round at the ‘half’. The vulture instinct would make him acutely observant for any signs of imminent cerebral haemorrhage in the actor.
George Birkitt, however, looked remarkably fit. He was gazing into his make-up mirror, playing the same game that he always did on the monitor screens in television studios — in other words, deciding which was his best profile.
‘Hello, George. Just dropped in to say all the best.’
‘Oh, thanks, Charles.’ He seemed completely to have forgotten that Charles had ever played the part. ‘I think the director and some of the cast of Fly-Buttons should be out front tonight.’
He couldn’t resist mentioning the television series, just in case anyone should forget he was in it.
‘Oh great. I’ll be out there.’
‘Good. Then you could do me a favour. You know in the dinner party scene, when I’m down-stage doing my incest speech. .’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, could you tell me what Micky’s up to during that? I’m sure he makes some sort of reaction I can’t see. Could you watch out for it? I mean, I know he’s the star and all that, but I’m damned if I’m going to be upstaged, even by him. .’
The Star Dressing Room was Charles’s next port of call. Its door was guarded by Cerberus in the form of Micky Banks’s dresser, Harve, a redoubtable old queen who had been with his master for years. Recognising the visitor, he said, ‘O.K., just a quick word. Don’t want him tired.’
‘Fine.’
In spite of his dresser’s cares, Michael Banks did look absolutely shattered through his heavy make-up.
‘All the best, Micky.’
‘Thanks, Charles old boy.’ The star smiled graciously.
‘Sure you’ll knock ’em dead tonight.’
‘Hope so, hope so.’
There was a tap at the door and Harve grudgingly admitted Lesley-Jane Decker. As at Taunton, she was bearing gifts. The shape of the parcel she put on Michael’s make-up table showed that, for him at least, she had graduated to full-size bottles of champagne.
She put her arms around his neck and said, ‘All you wish for yourself, darling.’
‘Thank you, love. Same to you.’ Michael Banks grinned indulgently. ‘Is the redoubtable Valerie Cass up in your dressing room ready to give you lots of tips?’
Lesley-Jane laughed. ‘She’s out front where she should be. With Daddy.’
‘She’ll be round before the evening’s out.’
Charles felt awkward, excluded from their scene. ‘Well, I’ll. . er. .’ He edged towards the door, which Harve obligingly — indeed, pointedly opened for him.
Outside stood Alex Household.
‘Break a leg, Micky,’ he said with a rather strained intonation. ‘I’ll be out there supporting you.’
‘Bless you.’ The star turned round to his understudy. ‘Couldn’t do it without you, you know.’
‘I know.’ Alex Household gave the words perhaps too much emphasis.
Lesley-Jane could not keep her back to the door indefinitely and turned. Charles noted how pale she looked, almost ill.
‘Bonne chance, Lesley-Jane,’ pronounced Alex formally. ‘See you’re doing your rounds with the first night presents.’
He said it deliberately to make her feel awkward. And succeeded.
‘Yes. . yes. I’m. . er. . afraid I didn’t get round to doing anything for the understudies.’
‘No,’ Alex Household snorted with laughter. ‘No, of course not.’
And, slamming the door, he left the Star Dressing Room.
Charles caught up with him in the Green Room. Alex’s strange position in the production must have been making all of the usual understudy agonies even worse. Charles wanted to say something to help, but all he could think of was ‘Break a leg’.
‘Oh, you think you should wish luck to people who merely feed lines, do you? People whose job could be equally well — and probably better done — by a tape recorder.’
‘We all need luck,’ said Charles gently.
Alex laughed. ‘Yes, we do, don’t we?’
Then he started trembling. His whole body shook uncontrollably. His teeth chattered and he whimpered.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m. . Yes, I’m. . Yes, I will be.’
And, sure enough, he soon had control of himself again. The shivering subsided.
‘Sure you’re O.K.? There’ll be St. John Ambulance people out front.’
‘No, I’m all right.’ But Alex’s eyes belied his words. They were wide with fear. ‘This is how it started last time.’
‘How what started?’
‘The breakdown.’ And he was seized by another spasm. The worst of it passed, but his teeth still chattered feebly.
‘Are you cold or. .’
‘Cold? No. Or if I am now, I won’t be later. I’ll be roasting. Have you any idea how hot it gets in my little solitary nest on the O.P. side? Don’t worry, I’ll be hot enough. In fact, I’ll take this off while I think.’
He hung his jacket on a hook in the Green Room. As it swung against the wall, there was a thud of something hard in the pocket.
Alex Household gave a twisted smile and announced ironically, ‘Right, here we go. Tonight will be the climax of my career. Twenty-three years in the business has all been the build-up for this, as I take on my most challenging role ever — bloody prompter!’
‘Come on, Alex. It’s not so bad, it’s — ’
‘Isn’t it? What do you know about how bad it is?’
Charles retreated under this assault. ‘I just meant. . Never mind. Back to what I said first — break a leg.’
‘I should think that will be the very least I will break,’ said Alex Household, and walked towards the stage.
Charles knew it would be unprofessional to use the pass-door from backstage to the auditorium once the house had started to fill, so he went out of the Stage Door to walk round.
The first thing he came across outside was Malcolm Harris being sick in the gutter.
‘Are you O.K.?’
‘Yes, I. . will be.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s going fine. And at least Micky’s deaf-aid thing guarantees that he does actually say the lines you wrote.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ The schoolmaster looked up at him pitifully. ‘I just don’t think I can sit out there and watch it all. I’m so jumpy, I’ll be sick again or. .’
‘Then don’t sit there. Stand at the back, go backstage, go out for a walk, do whatever makes you feel most relaxed.’
‘But if I don’t sit in my seat, I’ll be leaving my wife and my wife’s mother on their own.’
‘Well, you could do that, couldn’t you?’
‘Yes, I suppose I could.’ But obviously it was an idea that had never occurred to him before, and his mind would take a little while to accommodate it.
‘Frances, I’m sorry I’m late.’
‘When were you ever otherwise?’
‘I wasn’t late for that meal in Hampstead.’ Even as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. There was something about the memory of that evening that made him uneasy. He kissed her clumsily to change the subject.
‘Anyway, what is all this? Why aren’t you going to be on-stage? When we last met, you told me. .’
‘I’ll explain. Have we got time for a drink?’
They would have had, but there was such a crush in the bar, there was no prospect of getting served before the curtain went up. Which was annoying.
While they reconnoitred the bar and found their seats (on the aisle, so that, if his services as an understudy were required, Charles could be quickly extracted), he gave Frances a brief resume of how he had lost his part.
‘Well, I think that’s rotten,’ she said, with genuine annoyance. It cheered Charles, to hear her angry on his behalf. He took her hand and felt the scar on her thumb, legacy of an accident with a kitchen knife in the early days of their marriage. Accumulated emotion made him weak, needing her.
‘Charles!’
‘Well, if it isn’t that naughty Charles Paris. .’
‘With his lovely wife. .’
‘Frances, isn’t it? Oh, it’s been so long. .’
‘An absolute age. .’
This stereo assault on them came from two men in late middle age, bizarrely costumed in matching Victorian evening dress. Instantly Charles recognised William Bartlemas and Kevin O’Rourke, a pair of indefatigable first-nighters.
‘And how are you, Charles?’ demanded Bartlemas.
‘Yes, how are you?’ echoed O’Rourke.
Neither waited for a reply as they galloped on. ‘Are you still up to your naughty detective things we hear so much about?’
‘Yes, are you?’
‘No, not at the moment. I — ’ was all he managed to get out.
‘Another first night. I don’t know. .’
‘Not as glittering as it should be, is it, Bartlemas. .?’
‘No, not really glittering, no. .’
‘So few people dress up for first nights these days. .’
‘It is disgraceful. .’
‘Appalling. .’
‘That lot. .’ he gestured to a large block of seats full of people in evening dress, ‘have made the effort. .’
‘Yes, but they’re Micky Banks’s chums. .’
‘Oh well. .’
‘At least that generation knows how to behave at a first night. .’
‘That generation, dear? They’re our generation!’ This witticism reduced both of them to helpless laughter. But not for long enough for Charles or Frances to say anything.
‘Lot of paper in tonight, isn’t there?’ said Bartlemas, looking up to the Circle and Gallery.
‘Lot of paper, yes. .’
‘Paper?’ Frances managed to query.
‘Free seats, love. Often happens for a first night if it’s not selling. .’
‘Yes, blocks of tickets sent round the nurses’ homes, that sort of thing. .’
‘Believe me, love, if you go to as many first nights as we do, you get to recognise them. .’
‘Recognise individual nurses even. .’
‘There’s one with a wall-eye and a wart on her nose who I swear goes to more first nights than we do. .’
This also was apparently a joke. They roared with laughter.
‘Why is there so much paper?’ Charles managed to ask.
‘No publicity, dear. .’
‘And the theatres out of the way. .’
‘People’d flood to see Micky Banks. .’
‘Simply flood. .’
‘But they’ve got to know where he is. .’
‘As you say, no publicity. .’
‘By the way, who’s Dottie with tonight?’
‘Don’t know, but looks such a nice young man. .’
‘Joy-boy?’
‘Maybe. .’
‘Oh,’ said Charles. ‘You mean she and Micky don’t. .’
‘Now you don’t want us telling tales out of school, do you?’
‘Oh, you naughty Charles Paris, you. .’
They seemed set to continue talking forever, but the auditorium lights began to dim, so they scuttered off, giggling, to find their seats.
Charles and Frances sat down too. And with feelings too complex to itemise, he watched the curtain rise on the first official London performance of The Hooded Owl.
The applause at the interval was very generous. It almost always is on a first night, when the audience tends to be Mums, Dads, husbands, wives, lovers and friends-in-the-business. But, even allowing for that, Charles reckoned they were enjoying it.
Michael Banks was giving a performance of effortless authority. Some of the cognoscenti had recognised why he was wearing the deaf-aid, but for the majority, it just seemed to be part of the character, justified by a couple of new lines.
The performances were all up, with the possible exception of Lesley-Jane Decker, who seemed to be giving a little less than usual. Probably the result of nerves at her first West End opening.
But what also shone through was how good a play The Hooded Owl was. It was very conventional, even old-fashioned, but its tensions built up in just the right way, and it gripped like a strangler’s hand.
Charles looked round to where he knew Malcolm Harris should be, but the seat between the ferret-faced women was empty. The author had taken his advice and was presumably prowling around somewhere. His ferret-faced women looked unamused by his absence.
Charles and Frances joined the exodus to the bar and met another couple coming towards them. The man was unfamiliar, but there was no mistaking the woman with her subsidised red hair.
‘Charles, darling!’
‘Oh. Valerie. I don’t think you know my wife, Frances. .’
‘But of course I do. We met in Cheltenham.’
‘Did we?’ asked Frances, clueless as to whom she was addressing.
‘Yes, yes, all those years ago.’
‘Oh.’
‘And this. .’ said Valerie Cass, with no attempt to disguise her contempt, is my husband.’
He was twenty years older than his wife and looked meek and long-suffering. As indeed he would have to be. Either that or divorced. Or dead.
‘Oh God,’ Valerie Cass cooed. ‘I know what you must be feeling, Charles. I feel it myself. Just aching to be up there with them. Only we who have worked in the theatre can understand the ache.’
She raised one hand dramatically to her forehead. She was wearing long evening gloves, indeed seemed to be fully dressed for a ball.
‘Oh, it’s not so bad,’ Charles offered feebly.
‘And I’m so worried about Lesley-Jane,’ she emoted.
‘Why?’
‘The performance just isn’t there.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. She’s a bit subdued, but she’s — ’
‘No, it’s more than that. I know that girl, know her as only a mother can, and I know she’s not well. I think I’d better go backstage and see what’s the matter.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you should,’ her husband interposed mildly. ‘Wait till the end. I’m sure you shouldn’t go round in the middle of a performance. Not the thing at all.’
‘And what. .’ she withered him with a glance, ‘what do you know about it?’
And she stalked off to the foyer.
Mr. Decker grinned weakly, made a vague gesture with his hand and moved off down the aisle to buy an ice-cream.
The crush in the bar was worse than before the show, but this time Charles was luckier. Lucky to the extent of meeting a friend who had had the foresight to order a bottle of champagne for the interval.
‘Gerald!’
The solicitor looked immaculate as ever, in perfectly-tailored evening dress. His wife Kate also looked perfect. She and Frances fell on each other. They hadn’t met for years. Used to be great friends, before Charles walked out. Used to go around as a foursome. Guilt was added to the turmoil of Charles’s feelings.
Gerald fought to the bar for a couple more glasses and generously shared the bottle.
‘Doing any detective work, Charles?’ He had helped the actor on one or two cases and found an enthusiasm for investigation which he could never muster for his extremely lucrative solicitor’s practice.
‘No,’ Charles replied with satisfaction. It was pleasant not to have the complexities of crime on his mind for a change.
‘Pity.’
‘But why are you here, Gerald? Got money in it?’
Gerald was quite a frequent ‘angel’, though he kept his investments very secret, and winced at Charles’s question. ‘No, in a sense I’m here under false pretences. I was coming because a client was involved as a backer, but he’s no longer involved and. .’
‘Bobby Anscombe?’
‘Right.’
‘Yes. I gather he had an “artistic disagreement” with Paul Lexington.’
‘“Artistic disagreement” — my foot! You should have seen the contract Lexington tried to get him to sign.’
Charles was glad to have his surmise confirmed. ‘Yes, I shouldn’t think anyone steals a march on Bobby Anscombe.’
‘Or me, Charles. Or me.’
Just as he was returning to his seat, Charles met Malcolm Harris rushing up the aisle. The author had reported in to his ferret-faced women, but was now off again.
‘I should think you’re pleased, aren’t you?’ asked Charles genially.
‘Pleased?’ hissed the schoolmaster. ‘That bastard Banks is just making nonsense of it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean he’s cutting great chunks. Big speeches — just because he doesn’t like them, just cutting them out.’
‘But, Malcolm, he’s not making the cuts. They were made yesterday for — ’
But the author was already out of earshot.
Oh dear. Another black mark for Paul Lexington’s liaison and diplomacy.
The audience settled quickly after the interval and was soon once more caught up in the mounting dramatic tension of The Hooded Owl. Charles found himself swept along too. He realised that the cuts forced on the production had in fact helped it. By trimming down the first act, they kept the pace going, and the second act benefited.
And Michael Banks was growing in stature by the minute. Once again, Charles was aware of Alex Household’s contribution to the performance. With him timing the lines, the star could concentrate just on the emotional truth of his acting, and the result was very powerful.
The Hooded Owl speech approached, and Charles felt the excitement building inside him. As ever, it would be the climax; this time the climax of one of the finest performances he had ever witnessed.
The scene of father and daughter in the bedroom began. Lesley-Jane was still low-key, but it did not seem to matter. It almost helped. The pallor of her acting threw into relief the power of Michael’s.
‘But, Father,’ she said, ‘you will never be forgotten.’
‘Oh yes. Oh yes, I will.’
They stood facing each other. Maybe, over her shoulder, he could see his faithful feed in the wings. Probably not. He was too deeply into the part to see anything outside the stage.
The silence was so total that the auditorium might have been empty.
‘Three generations of us have lived in this house. Three generations have passed through this room, slept here, argued here, made love here, even died here. And the only marks of their passage have been obliterated by the next generation. New wallpaper, new furniture, new window frames. . the past is forgotten. Gone with no record. Unless you believe in some supernatural being, taking notes of our progress. A God, maybe — or, if you’d rather, a Hooded Owl. .”
As he mentioned the bird, he turned his back on Lesley-Jane to look at it in the glass case. Every eye in the audience followed him.
‘Why not? This stuffed bird has always been in the room. Imagine it had perception, a memory to retain our follies. Oh Lord!’
Something had gone wrong. The audience did not know yet, but Charles, so familiar with the script, knew.
Slowly Michael Banks wheeled round. He looked puzzled, and seemed to be looking beyond Lesley-Jane into the wings.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, put it down. You mustn’t do that to me. You daren’t. Please. Please I — ’
There was a gunshot. Michael Banks clutched at his chest and slowly tottered to his knees. Lesley-Jane turned to look into the wings, and screamed.
The tableau was held for a moment, and the curtain swiftly fell.
The audience didn’t know. Still they weren’t sure. Was this a bizarre new twist of the plot? What had happened? The darkened auditorium was filled with muttering.
Then the house-lights came up. The curtain twitched and the Company Manager, Wallas Ward, resplendent in midnight blue dinner jacket, appeared through the centre.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to have to inform you that, due to an accident to Mr. Banks, we will be unable to continue the performance.’
He did not say that the accident which had befallen Mr. Banks was death by shooting.
And he did not say that, even if they’d wished to finish the play with his understudy, they couldn’t, because Alex Household had run out of the theatre immediately after the shooting.
CHAPTER TEN
CHARLES GOT round to the Stage Door as quickly as he could. Frances followed silently. One of her good qualities was the ability to keep quiet when there was nothing appropriate to say.
They were there before the rush. There were a few people milling around, but not yet the main surge of puzzled well-wishers, police, press and sensation-seekers.
Charles found the Stage Doorman, who was already regaling a little circle of cast with what he had seen. The murder had only occurred ten minutes before, but the old man already saw himself in the role of vital witness, and was polishing the phrases in a story which he would tell many times.
‘I heard the shot over the loudspeaker. I knew there was something wrong. I’ve heard that play so many times in the past few days, I knew the lines wasn’t right. Mind you, then I didn’t know it was a shot. Could’ve been something falling over on-stage, or a light-bulb blowing but something inside me knew it was serious. I felt like a cold hand on my heart. .’ he paused dramatically, relishing the metaphor which he then spoiled by mixing it, ‘. . as if someone had walked over my grave.
‘Next thing I knew Mr. Household was rushing past me out of the door. It was so quick. I didn’t have time to stop him,’ he said, suggesting that under any other circumstances he would have downed the suspect with a flying tackle. ‘Not, of course, that I realised what he’d done then. I didn’t know he’d just shot Mr. Banks.’
‘Are you sure he had?’ asked Charles.
‘Well, of course he had.’
‘I mean, was the gun in his hand?’
‘No,’ the old man was forced to concede, ‘but — ’
‘Was he wearing a jacket?’
‘I think so. I didn’t notice. It was very quick, like I said.’ The old man sounded testy. Charles’s questions were spoiling his narrative flow.
‘Wait here a minute, Frances.’ He went through to the Green Room, hoping that he’d find Alex’s jacket still hanging there, with the gun still cold in its pocket, with all five shots still unfired.
Alex was a prickly person, an unbalanced person, sometimes an infuriating person, but Charles didn’t want to think of him as a murderer.
Various members of the cast were lolling about the Green Room, in various stages of shell-shock. George Birkitt was looking distinctly peeved, aware that Michael Banks had upstaged him in a way that was quite unanswerable. In a corner Malcolm Harris slumped on a chair, pale and whimpering.
The coat-hook was empty. Exonerating Alex wasn’t going to be that easy. And was exonerating him appropriate anyway? All the evidence so far pointed to the fact that he had done the killing.
Charles wandered through the door on to the stage, and found even more evidence. Clinching evidence.
Backstage the overhead working light gleamed on something metal that lay discarded by the door. Charles recognised it instantly.
It was the Smith and Wesson Chiefs Special revolver that he had first seen in the Number One dressing room of the Prince’s Theatre, Taunton.
He knelt down and, so as to avoid leaving fingerprints, felt the barrel with the back of his hand.
It was warm.
Depression flooded through him like fatigue. He didn’t quite know why he’d hoped that Alex could be cleared of the murder, but the confirmation of his friend’s guilt sapped him of all energy.
He left the gun where it was. The police would find it soon enough. Back at the Stage Door, Frances looked at him and, instantly reading his emotional state, took his hand.
‘Shall we go?’
‘I don’t know. I feel I should stay around, try and find out what’s happened and. .’
But the decision was made for him. The police had arrived while he had been on stage, and a uniformed constable was now clearing the growing crowd round the Stage Door.
‘All right, if you could move along, please. There’s nothing to see, and we’ve got a lot to do, so we’d be very grateful if you could just go home. Come on, move along, please.’
He came face to face with Charles and Frances. ‘On your way, please. On your way. Unless you’re connected with the show, could you go home, please.’
‘I’m a member of the cast,’ said Charles.
‘Oh. Were you backstage during the show?’
‘No, actually I was in the auditorium.’
‘Well, in that case, could you go home, please. You’ll hear anything there is to hear in the morning.’
Not only excluded from performing, the understudy was not even to be allowed to take part in the murder investigation.
‘Come along,’ said Frances. ‘Come home with me.’
Back at the house in Muswell Hill, they went upstairs and stood on the landing. ‘I think the spare room, Charles,’ she said.
He nodded. She hadn’t said it unkindly, and, in the state he was in, it seemed appropriate. And, in spite of it, he felt closer to her than he had for months.
The tensions of the week had taken their toll and he slept instantly. He had no dreams. But when he woke at quarter past six, his mind was full of ugly images, of Alex trembling, of the gun, and, most of all, of the expression of bewilderment and betrayal on Michael Banks’s face as he clutched at his chest and sank to the ground.
To frighten off these visions, and because further sleep was out of the question, he went downstairs to make some tea. It was strange being in the kitchen of the house they had shared. He was aware of the parts of it that remained unchanged and equally of the innovations. Nothing could he view without emotion. He saw Frances had bought a dishwasher. Yes, time was precious. She was a busy lady these days.
And she wanted to sell the house. That thought disturbed him almost more than the events of the previous night.
The kettle boiled. He warmed the pot, instinctively found the tea in the caddy Frances’s Auntie Pamela had given them as a wedding present, and brewed up. He arranged two mugs and a milk-bottle on a tray with the pot, and took them upstairs.
The door was ajar, and he pushed it gently open. Frances was still asleep. She lay firmly in the middle of their double bed, as he supposed she must do every night. In repose her face looked relaxed, but the fine network of wrinkles round the eyes showed her age.
He felt great warmth for her. Not desire at that moment, just warmth. He must never lose touch with her.
He put the tray down on the dressing table, and the noise woke her. She started, unaccustomed to anyone else in the house, but when she saw him, she smiled blearily.
‘Charles. Good gracious. A cup of tea in bed. I can’t think when you last did that for me.’
‘When you were pregnant with Juliet, maybe.’
‘Probably.’
He poured the tea. He felt slightly awkward, as though he were in a strange woman’s room. He passed a mug to her and she propped herself up on the pillows to accept it.
‘You feeling better this morning, Charles?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘You looked terrible last night.’
‘Yes, I felt it. Thank you for salvaging me.’
‘Any time.’
They were silent. There was still a restraint between them. Frances moved over positively to switch on the radio. ‘See what’s happening in the world,’ she said breezily.
‘Hmm.’ Radio Four murmured earnestly from the speaker. ‘Are you still thinking of selling the house?’ Charles blurted out.
‘Yes. It’s with the agents.’
‘Oh.’
‘Mind you, they say the market’s pretty slack at the moment. And the trouble is I’m only here in the evenings to show people around. So I think it may take some time.’
‘Yes.’ This information made Charles feel disproportionately cheerful, as though he had suddenly been reprieved from something.
He became aware that the radio was talking about Michael Banks. Someone was giving an appreciation of his career. They must have worked fast to get it together, Charles thought. A busy night for them.
And no doubt a busy night of police questioning for The Hooded Owl company at the Variety Theatre. A lot must have been happening while he had slept.
The appreciation of Michael Banks was made up of interviews with his friends in the business. It was remarkable how many eminent names had allowed themselves to be woken up in the middle of the night to talk about him. And remarkable with what unanimity of love they spoke.
But, as Charles knew, Michael Banks had been a person who inspired love. For the first time since the shooting, Charles felt, not shock, but a sense of the tragic waste of his death.
For Alex he felt nothing but pity. The killing had not been a rational act; when he did it, Alex Household had been mentally ill. Charles felt guilty for not having recognised the seriousness of the actor’s state. Maybe he could have done something to avert the tragedy.
‘But what of the show?’ asked the radio presenter. ‘Needless to say, no reviews of The Hooded Owl have appeared in the papers today, but from all accounts the play was being very well received when the tragedy occurred. But surely Michael Banks’s death must end the run before it had even started. Apparently not, according to the show’s producer, Paul Lexington.’
Paul’s familiar voice came on, tired but as confident as ever.‘No. Of course, we are all shattered by what has occurred, but we are professionals. It is our job to entertain the public and that is what we will continue to do. Don’t worry, the show will go on.’
‘How soon?’
‘Tonight. There will be a performance of The Hooded Owl tonight.’
‘Tonight? But can you replace Michael Banks at that sort of notice?’
‘Yes, we can.’
‘But I understood. .’ The interviewer picked his way carefully around the sub judice laws. ‘I understood that Mr. Banks’s understudy is. . nott available.’
‘That is true. The part will be taken by another member of the company.’
‘May I ask his name?’
‘Certainly. His name is Charles Paris.’
‘Who?’ asked the interviewer.
‘WHO?’ echoed Charles Paris.