‘Exactly who are you?’ he asked.
‘Belinda Craigie. I work here.’
‘What’s in the box?’
‘Talc.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Positive.’
‘Hand it across.’
‘But I need it for later.’
He opened the box and sniffed. Tentatively he touched the powder with his little finger. There was no reaction. He wetted another finger and made a light contact. Nothing happened. ‘Where did you get this, Belinda?’
‘The wardrobe department. It’s a fresh box, opened this afternoon. I took the wrapper off myself.’
‘So you know why I’m asking?’
‘Clarion Calhoun?’ Alarm showed in her eyes. ‘I had nothing to do with that.’
‘Is it your job to touch up the actors’ make-up before they go on?’
‘One of my jobs. I help out in the box office and take phone calls. ’
‘And were you here Monday evening?’
She nodded.
‘Checking the actors’ faces?’
‘Not all of them. Only those who needed it.’
‘Clarion?’
A vigorous shake of the head. ‘Her dresser looked after her. Denise.’
‘Are you certain of that?’
‘Hundred per cent. I watched her.’
‘Denise putting powder on Clarion’s face while she was waiting in the wings?’ This was dynamite if it was true.
‘Yes.’
‘Was she using the same stuff as you?’
‘I don’t know. She had her own powder box.’
‘From the wardrobe department, like yours?’
She spread her hands. She didn’t know.
‘Did it look the same?’
‘I can’t say for sure. There wasn’t much light.’
He checked the tip of his little finger again. The skin was unharmed. ‘You just said you opened a new box today.’
Belinda nodded. ‘Strict orders from Mr Shearman: start with fresh powder every performance.’
‘But was that the rule on Monday, before the incident happened?’
She blushed. ‘No, I used the box I’d opened for the dress rehearsal. I didn’t want to waste it.’
‘And where had it been kept overnight? In the wardrobe department?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was there a second box beside it – the one Denise used?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. She brought her own.’
‘In a bag, or what?’
‘I don’t think she had a bag. I just saw her working on Clarion before she went on.’
‘Did you speak at all?’
‘We’re supposed to keep quiet.’
This young girl came across as a convincing witness. More and more, suspicion was returning to Denise as the cause of Clarion’s scarring. Diamond could see how impressed Ingeborg was. His hypothesis that Denise was innocent and a murder victim was unravelling by the second.
He asked about Belinda’s background, something he should have started with. ‘Did you know Clarion before you started working here?’
‘I knew about her. Everyone does. Well, everyone with an interest in music.’
‘Personally?’
She sighed. ‘I should be so lucky. I don’t mix with pop stars.’
‘Would you call yourself a fan?’
‘To be honest, she’s more for people over thirty.’
‘Not cool, then?’
‘Not any more.’
‘And you. Where are you from?’
‘Twickenham.’
He perked up. ‘I know Twickenham. I played rugby there for the Metropolitan Police.’
Ingeborg smiled at Belinda in a sisterly way and said, ‘That’s all some people know about Twickenham.’
Diamond gave Ingeborg a sharp look. ‘How much do you know about it?’
‘Eel Pie Island, Alexander Pope – ’
‘Okay, I shouldn’t have asked.’
Belinda said, ‘I was named after a character in a poem by Pope.’
‘It crossed my mind. It’s an unusual name,’ Ingeborg said.
It hadn’t crossed Diamond’s. He wasn’t going to ask which poem. There were times when he found himself in agreement with the CID gripe that Inge was too clever by half. ‘So what brought you to Bath?’
‘The job. After drama school, I applied everywhere. I want to act, but when you’re starting out you take anything you’re offered, front-of-house, part-time, anything. Mr Shearman saw me helping in the box office and said he’d do his best to find me something backstage. I got lucky.’
Shearman no doubt thought he’d got lucky, too. Before long he’d be offering something more backstage. ‘It’s tough for young actors, I’ve heard. How did you feel when you heard about Clarion walking into a starring role?’
A catch question she dealt with. ‘I was told she went to drama school.’
‘But not one of the better ones,’ Ingeborg said.
‘All I’m hoping is to be picked as a spear-carrier or something. I can’t be jealous of someone getting the lead.’
‘Not many spear-carriers in this play,’ Diamond said.
Belinda smiled.
‘You’d better get back to your duties,’ he said.
‘May I have my talc back?’
He handed it across and she took off fast.
‘Not a serious suspect, but a useful witness,’ he told Ingeborg.
‘Agreed.’
‘It’s pretty obvious Denise was brushing caustic soda on Clarion’s face while she was waiting to go on. One mystery solved.’
‘The delay?’
‘Yes, and if we can find the box she was using we’ll get the contents analysed.’
‘Is it worth searching wardrobe?’ she asked.
‘We’ll have to – but my guess is that if Denise knew what she was doing she wouldn’t be so careless as to leave it lying about.’
‘We could look now.’
He passed a hand thoughtfully over his head. ‘Should be okay by now.’ He told her about the scene of passion he’d stumbled into.
‘What an old goat,’ Ingeborg said. ‘I thought he fancied Gisella.’
‘He fancies anyone willing to have him.’
11
An alert policeman spotted Denise’s Vauxhall Corsa late the same evening when the huge Charlotte Street car park was just about empty. It was in the top section near the path linking with Royal Avenue, below the Crescent.
Bath Central phoned Diamond at home. He hadn’t been in for long and was microwaving a TV dinner. He turned it off and said he’d come at once. ‘You can never relax,’ he told Raffles, who had just been fed and was actually quite relaxed. ‘You know the real reason I’m going hungry tonight? Because Georgina wants to tread the boards in Sweeney Todd. That’s the hidden agenda here.’
It was dark when he arrived. Keith Halliwell was there with a torch and so was the young constable credited with the find.
‘Nice work,’ Diamond said, trying to raise his own spirits. ‘Have you looked inside?’
Halliwell shone his torch over the interior. ‘Nothing to see.’
‘Let’s have the boot open. Got the tools?’
Halliwell unfurled a cloth containing a set that had belonged to a housebreaker. He selected a jemmy.
With the job under way, Diamond told the constable they could manage without him now. ‘Top result,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘Thanks, sir.’ But the young officer lingered, shuffling. ‘Would you like my torch?’
‘Don’t you need it? You’re still on patrol, aren’t you?’
‘I can easily get a spare.’
‘All right, then.’
‘I was thinking…’
‘No harm in that.’
‘Well, wondering, actually, if there are any openings in CID.’
‘You what?’
‘That’s my ambition, sir, to do plainclothes work.’
‘Bloody hell. Another one. What’s your name?’
‘Pidgeon, sir. PC George Pidgeon.’
‘Well, Pidgeon, I’ll bear you in mind, but right now we’re trying out Sergeant Dawkins. Do you know him?’
‘I’ve worked for him, yes.’ From the tone, the experience hadn’t been a rip-roaring success.