‘Did you keep up with any of the others?’ Diamond asked, to move on. He couldn’t take any more of this.
They talked for another ten minutes, exchanging memories, but Diamond’s heart wasn’t in it. He was reeling from the shock. After he’d settled the bill, they shook hands and went their separate ways.
This time, he paused and stood with the crowd watching the unicyclists performing in front of the Pump Room. In fact he saw nothing. All of his perceptions were directed inwards. His brain was surfing incomplete memories of that time as a boy. He wanted the truth, however sickening it was, but it was elusive. Everything connected with school and that play took on a new and sinister significance. Yet he was finding it difficult to pinpoint any one incident. The brain has ways of blocking traumatic experiences, particularly from childhood. He understood that. The one certainty was that he couldn’t enter the theatre without fear. The whole truth wasn’t revealed yet. He could still only guess at what happened, but the guessing was more informed and more unpleasant.
A shout from the crowd brought him out of this purgatory. Time was going on and he needed to get his head straight, somehow put the conversation with Glazebrook to the back of his mind. He was required back inside the theatre, expected to function as a detective. He watched the buskers juggling with fire, keeping their balance. Then he moved on.
Francis Melmot was outside the stage door, chatting to some front-of-house people who must have thought they’d escaped for a smoke. He hailed Diamond with his usual bonhomie. ‘What a pleasure this is, inspector.’
Not for Diamond.
And ‘inspector’ was a demotion, but the matter wasn’t worth pointing out. Diamond touched his grey trilby and said he hadn’t expected an official welcome from the chairman of the board.
‘I just looked in to share some wonderful news with our loyal and much valued staff,’ Melmot said, at the same time despatching the much valued staff with a flap of the hand.
‘What it it?’ Diamond said with an effort to be civil. ‘A five-star review?’
‘Actually, no, even though we’ve had some excellent ones.’ Melmot drew his shoulders back and seemed to grow even taller. ‘I was advised an hour ago that Clarion has withdrawn her threat to sue.’
‘Who by?’
‘Her lawyers.’
‘That is good,’ Diamond said, and meant it, his mind speeding through possibilities. He could see this whole investigation coming to a swift end. ‘What happened? An out-of-court settlement?’
‘No, we’re not paying a penny. It’s unconditional.’
‘What a turnaround. When I saw the lady yesterday her mind was made up.’
‘Yesterday she was still in shock,’ Melmot said. ‘She’s had time to reflect since then. There’s even better news. She will be making a substantial private donation to the theatre.’
‘Did you talk her round, then?’
‘I haven’t spoken to her.’
Mystified, Diamond refused to believe him. ‘You’re on close terms. I thought a word in her ear may have worked this magic.’
Melmot blinked. ‘I’m not sure what you mean by close terms.’
‘She stayed with you in Melmot Hall.’
‘As a house guest. She didn’t sleep with me, inspector, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘Dream on, eh?’
‘What?’ Melmot reddened.
‘You said you were a fan. Didn’t sex cross your mind when you invited her to stay?’
‘That’s downright offensive.’
‘I can’t think why. Personally, I’d take it as a compliment. Anyway, what happened in the bedroom isn’t my concern, except I just wondered if there was a falling out, something that made her leave Melmot Hall in a hurry.’
‘Absolutely not.’ His cheek muscles twitched. ‘Just to put the record straight, inspector, there are twenty-two bedrooms and mine is in another wing. When the rehearsals started in earnest, Clarion wanted to be nearer to the theatre, so she moved into the Royal Crescent. Pure convenience.’
‘Thanks for putting me right,’ Diamond said and trailed a warning. ‘I was going to ask the lady herself and now there’s no need, but I’ll visit her just the same. I’d still like to know why she’s changed her mind about suing.’
The triumphant manner had gone. Melmot tried to sound more conciliatory. ‘I daresay her lawyers talked some sense into her. I understand she’s left the hospital.’
‘I did hear. It doesn’t mean her face will ever be the same again. She’ll have to go back for treatment.’
‘Believe me, inspector, she has the heartfelt sympathy of everyone in the Theatre Royal. Now that the threat of legal action is removed, we sent her some more flowers and our wishes for a full recovery and she’ll be listed in the programmes as a patron.’ He seesawed from largesse to a lament. ‘Of course the saddest thing of all is that the dresser took personal responsibility and did what she did. I’ve no doubt she killed herself because she feared for our future, as we all did. She was deeply committed to this wonderful old theatre.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard that,’ Diamond said.
‘Will you draw a line under the investigation?’ Melmot asked, sounding as casual as he could. ‘I believe some of your people are backstage at this minute.’
‘Enquiring into Denise Pearsall’s death,’ Diamond said, conceding nothing. ‘That continues until we find out exactly what happened.’
‘It’s academic, isn’t it? Nothing can bring her back.’
‘But I’ll be giving evidence to a coroner. I need all the facts.’ He took a step towards the stage door. ‘I’d better see what progress they’ve made.’
‘I don’t know how you get inside the mind of a suicide victim.’
‘We can’t and we won’t.’ Diamond nodded and moved on and into the building.
Clarion’s decision baffled him. Her career was in ruins but she could still afford a lawsuit and she had a strong chance of winning. If Melmot hadn’t persuaded her to drop the case, who had?
The back stairs to dressing room eleven were testing for a man of his bulk, yet easier than the iron ladder in the fly tower. He paused at the top to draw breath. He could hear voices ahead. Pleasing to know that the crime scene people were at work in number eleven; less pleasing when he saw who was in charge, an old antagonist called Duckett.
‘What’s the story so far?’ Diamond asked as he raised the tape across the door to duck under it.
‘Stop right there, squire,’ Duckett called across the room through his mask. He looked risible in the white zip-suit and bonnet that was de rigeur for crime scene investigators. Two others, a man and a woman, were similarly dressed and on hands and knees under the dressing tables. ‘Don’t take another step. You’ll contaminate the evidence.’
Diamond chose not to disclose that he’d been in here with Titus at lunchtime. He waited for Duckett to come to the doorway by the least obvious route, hugging the walls. ‘You may not know this, but it was me who called you in.’
‘I guessed as much,’ Duckett said with a superior tone. ‘A dressing room as large as this and filled with trace evidence from I don’t know how many people is about the most complicated scene any investigator can have to examine. Thanks for that.’
‘I won’t need to know its entire history,’ Diamond said. ‘If you can tell me who was here most recently, that would help.’
‘Apart from two lumbering detectives in size ten shoes, you mean?’
One detective and one dramaturge, Diamond was tempted to point out, but it wasn’t worth saying.
‘It’s true there’s about three weeks of dust over every surface,’ Duckett said. ‘You asked who was here and I can’t tell you, of course. All I’m able to say at this stage is that within the last few days two people were in here and one at least had long reddish hair.’
Two people, one of them Denise. This had huge potential importance. ‘The dead woman had long red hair.’