The glint became a gleam. “If you step out, you’ll catch her before she goes to lunch. The studio is at the far end of the annexe. As far as you can along the corridor and you’ll see it in front of you.”
“Did you get the impression I did?” Diamond asked Ingeborg as they made their way past a row of classroom doors.
“That Trixie isn’t the flavour of the month?”
“You did.”
The drama studio was circular and glass-sided, giving a view of the music and movement session for about fifteen senior girls in black leotards led by a woman in a white spandex suit. A red headband kept the sweat from her eyes and allowed her blonde ponytail to swing freely. She would have made a striking Caitlin Swift.
“Seems confident,” Diamond said.
“Teachers need to be.”
“Difficult to square with what we’ve heard about her.”
“She’s in charge here,” Ingeborg said. “Altogether different from a TV studio where she’s being directed.”
But Diamond was already asking himself whether Trixie’s reason for quitting Swift had been something other than the TV equivalent of stage fright.
“Are we going in?” Ingeborg asked.
He looked through the glass again at all those leggy schoolgirls. “Better wait.”
She smiled faintly and didn’t comment.
Only after the session ended and the last girl had disappeared through a door on the left did they enter.
Trixie must have heard the door open, yet she didn’t turn her head. She hadn’t lost her dramatic timing. She removed the headband and freed the hair. It fell lightly against her neck and shoulders as if it had just been brushed. “Yes?”
“I sent a text earlier,” Ingeborg said. “DI Smith and DS Diamond of Bath Police.”
Trixie still chose not to look at them. As if reading from an autocue, she said, “Didn’t you get my reply? It’s not convenient. I’m about to shower. You have no right to be here.”
“We checked in at the office and were sent here,” Diamond said to the back of her head. “You’re not in trouble, Miss Playfair. We’re looking into events connected with the TV company that makes Swift. You auditioned for the part and got it.”
“That’s over and done with,” she said. “Years ago. I didn’t go through with it.”
“And we need to know why,” Ingeborg said. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the article in the Post.”
“Nothing to do with me.”
“But you’re in it.”
“I don’t think so.”
“They don’t print your name, but the jinx is supposed to have started with the actor originally cast as Swift having to be replaced. Unless we’re mistaken, that’s you.”
Finally, she turned her head. “Piss off, will you?”
Diamond blinked. Sane people don’t speak to the police like that.
The hostility contrasted with Sabine’s eagerness to please when she had been interviewed. Sabine with the fearsome reputation had disarmed them with charm. Trixie, supposedly a victim of nerves, was a spitting cobra.
“Was there pressure from anyone else for you to pull out?”
“Was I fired? No.”
“I don’t mean that. I’m talking about heavy persuasion.”
She shook her head. “I made my own decision.”
“You walked away from a part most actors would give an arm and a leg to get?”
“So?”
“You must have known the damage you were doing your reputation. No casting director would want to use you in a main role after that.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I knew what I was doing. I didn’t just quit the show, I finished with professional acting.”
“Why?”
She gave a sigh that was more impatient than regretful. “You’re going to push and push, aren’t you?”
“I have to. We heard you had a crisis of confidence.”
“There’s no more to be said, then.”
“It’s true, is it?”
“Broadly.”
Sensing an opening, he said, “But not the whole truth?”
She was silent for a tense interval before saying, “I don’t speak about it because most people aren’t capable of understanding.”
He waited through another period of non-communication.
Finally, she said, “It wasn’t stage fright. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told about brave souls like Stephen Fry and Michael Gambon who battled through stage fright. Even Laurence Olivier. But I wasn’t facing an audience. I was rehearsing in a TV studio, for Christ’s sake, in front of a camera, a director and a crew and I couldn’t hack it. Is that what you want to hear me say?”
“All we want, Trixie, is the truth of what happened.”
“And I’m giving it to you. Until you’ve experienced it, you can’t know the terror I felt. It came from nowhere, like a computer crashing. One day I was in command, the next I was shot to pieces.”
“A stress attack?”
“Call it what you like. It felt like an out-of-body experience. I watched myself trying to be the character I was playing and I knew I couldn’t do it. Heard myself speaking the lines and that’s fatal. I was never going to make it. To succeed as an actor, you have to become whoever you’re trying to play. If you don’t believe, you’re screwed.”
Ingeborg said, “You were gutsy to admit it.”
“It was screamingly obvious.”
“But not to everyone else. Who did you tell?”
“My agent, obviously.”
“Who is that?”
“Moore and Moore Talent.” She glared at them, daring them to laugh.
They didn’t.
“It’s a company. Several different people did their best to get me back on track, but no amount of persuasion was going to work.”
“Were they sympathetic?” Diamond said.
“No.” She immediately corrected herself. “At first they were and then, when they realised I wasn’t going to budge, it was more like pull yourself together, woman, because we all stand to lose a fortune.”
“Unhelpful.”
“Nothing was going to help.”
“So the agents informed the TV people?”
“They did and had a lot of trouble convincing them. I went in to see the producer later.” She paused. “She was lovely. Very understanding.”
“Mary Wroxeter?”
She nodded, her expression softening at the mention of the name.
“Had you given Mary any hint of your decision?”
“She’d been there when I flipped. She understood how devastating it was. She had amazing empathy.”
“Did she try and talk you round?”
“When I went to see her? No. She knew it was over. She listened and believed. At the end, she hugged me.”
For all the aggro she’d shown, her account had come across as genuine. The decision to quit had been her own. Even at this distance in time, Diamond could feel her humiliation. And although he’d never met Mary Wroxeter, he could picture her giving comfort. “Did you have to return a lot of money?”
“A settlement was agreed.”
“I expect the lawyers came out the winners.”
“Tell me about it!”
“No regrets?”
“I’d be stupid if I didn’t wonder sometimes how things might have turned out. None of us knew the show would win awards and run for years. Now can I get my shower?”
“Sabine, the actor who replaced you—” Ingeborg started to say.
“I don’t give a toss about Sabine.” But the eyes said otherwise. The name was a needle plunged into her flesh.
“We’ve spoken to her,” Diamond said to wind her up, quick to pick up on the reaction. “We found her easy to get on with. She’s in a good place, one of the highest earners on TV. She can name her terms. Have you met her since you left?”
“Why would I? I don’t need favours from her.”