Death of a Dancer Read online

  DEATH OF A DANCER

  Anthony Litton

  ©Anthony Litton 2017

  Anthony Litton has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  ‘Eleanor? Is that you?’ the voice bellowed.

  ‘Indeed it is, Eddy,’ replied Eleanor, smiling a little as, recognising the voice, she moved the phone away from her ear, her grey eyes alight with fond amusement. Her phone number and her voice, surely limited any other option, she thought, wryly. It was however, the unchangeable first question whenever Eddy Jebson phoned. She wished now that she’d looked at the caller display before answering the instrument.

  ‘That lad of yours and his mate, are they still something to do with theatres and such?’

  She smiled again as she glanced over at her ‘lad and his mate’, co-owners of the immensely successful Maximian Productions, who were having dinner with her.

  ‘Indeed they are,’ she replied. ‘They’re here with me now, actually. Do you want to talk to them?’

  ‘Aye, I do. I’ve got something that might interest them,’ he added.

  ‘It’s Eddy Jebson, the builder,’ she whispered, gesturing for Desmond to take the phone. ‘Peter’s father,’ she added, seeing his momentary confusion.

  ‘Ah!’ he nodded, as he recalled a big, heavy-set man with the reddest face and most belligerent manner he and Gwilym had ever come across. It had taken a Jebson family crisis for them to discover that the hard manner and ‘bruiser’ looks hid one of the kindest hearts they’d ever encountered.

  ‘Hi, Eddy, Desmond here. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Desmond? Oh, it was your mate I really wanted, but you’ll do, I suppose,’ the voice at the other end of the phone muttered. ‘Yes, you’ll do. It’s just that I thought you might be interested. I’ve found a theatre,’ he added baldly.

  Chapter 2

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Desmond said, caught totally unawares and, like his mother, moving the phone away from his ear.

  ‘I said, I’ve found a theatre,’ Eddy repeated, even more loudly, thinking the other man hadn’t heard.

  ‘Good God!’ Desmond muttered, moving the handset even further away, as he realised why he was second choice. Both he and his partner were interested in old theatres and spent considerable sums rescuing and renovating half-forgotten gems before they were destroyed, either by time or rapacious development. It was, though, one of the areas of the business that was very much Gwilym’s baby and it was Gwilym who was the company ‘face’. ‘Hang on, I’ll put you on speaker, so Gwilym can hear. ‘Eddy’s found a theatre,’ he explained as he switched to ‘conference’.

  ‘Hi Eddy. Where is it?’ asked the Welshman quickly, his eyes already bright with enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s over in Estwich. It must be the old Dolphin. We’re demolishing warehouses on where it used to stand; still does, seemingly,’ the builder added.

  ‘Good heavens!’ Eleanor ejaculated. ‘But wasn’t it destroyed fifty years ago when they built those warehouses on the site? Before you were born, darling,’ she added, seeing her son’s puzzled look.

  ‘Just,’ murmured Gwilym, knowing how sensitive his partner was at his rapidly approaching half-century.

  ‘That’s what everyone thought,’ said Eddy. ‘After old what’s-his-name ran off with that dancer. It seems, though, it was just sort of built round.’

  ‘It must be in one helluva state after so long; much of the interior rotted away, I’d have thought, even if the outside was protected by the warehousing itself,’ said Gwilym doubtfully, his initial enthusiasm starting to ebb.

  Desmond nodded. He knew that, committed as his partner was to saving and renovating old theatres, his emphasis was very much on renovation and restoring, not rebuilding. He’d walked away from more than one project where the fabric and fittings of an old theatre had been beyond saving. He had no interest in ripping out every vestige of the original, leaving an echoing, empty shell to be rebuilt and then presented as that original.

  ‘Aye, that’s what I’d have thought,’ said Eddy. ‘But, it’s queer: we broke through one of the back walls of the biggest warehouse and we saw some of the old seating, and it all looks as though it was being used only yesterday, not fifty years ago. Bloody spooked us, I can tell you,’ he added feelingly. ‘Expected old bloody what’s-his-name to come striding down the bloody aisle. Wondered for a moment whether those old ghost stories might be true!’ he added, only half-jokingly.

  Could it be? An old theatre almost perfectly preserved? The three knew it was extremely unlikely, but even the possibility set their pulses racing.

  ‘What about the rest of it? Have you opened it up yet?’ Gwilym asked.

  ‘No. Once I saw how well preserved it seemed to be, I had the lads put the panelling back in place, until I’d had a chance to speak to you.’

  Gwilym thought quickly. ‘Can you keep your guys out another day or so, until we can get over?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Aye, I can that. I thought you’d want to see it, so I’ll keep it closed,’ Eddy reassured him.

  ‘Is your mobile number still the same? It is? Great. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can arrange to get there and Eddy – we can’t thank you enough,’ Gwilym added.

  ‘Aye well, I owe you, don’t I?’ the builder said gruffly. ‘So it’s the least I could do. Anyway, see you when you can get here. Bye.’

  ‘DeLancy. Gerald DeLancy!’ said Eleanor suddenly, as Gwilym replaced the handset. ‘It’s coming back to me now. He was the last owner of the theatre. It had been in his family for over a hundred years. I think they built it, so it caused something of a stir when he suddenly left as he did.’

  ‘I vaguely remember some talk when I was a child,’ Desmond cut in. ‘Not much, obviously, as it all happened before I was born,’ he added, tartly, looking across at his partner, who merely grinned. ‘Wasn’t the gi
rl he ran off with much younger than him? And wasn’t he already married?’ Desmond asked, starting to recall long forgotten fragments.

  ‘Indeed she was and yes, he was already married. He had three children, too, I believe. He’d married very young, so the three children were similar in age to the girl herself,’ she replied. ‘He was forty, I think, and she was only about seventeen,’ Eleanor added, her brow furrowing, her eyes distant, as she tried to recall events of half a century previously. ‘It all happened very suddenly: the closure, I mean. One minute the theatre was putting on shows, the next it was closed and the warehouses were being built.’

  ‘How odd!’ Desmond murmured, turning to his partner. ‘When do you plan on going?’

  ‘Oh, tomorrow, definitely,’ the Welshman replied, his dark brown eyes flashing with enthusiasm. ‘Abigail can run the pub for the day,’ he continued, referring to the young woman who’d started as a receptionist when he’d taken over the lease of the village pub. She’d turned out to have had such an aptitude that he’d recently promoted her to Assistant Manager and she was already taking much of the day-to-day running of the old hostelry from his shoulders. ‘Can you get away?’ he asked Desmond.

  ‘For this? Most definitely!’ the other man said emphatically, his thick fair hair falling into his eyes as he nodded vigorously. ‘Isabel can manage very well without me, as she’s always telling me!’ he laughed. His mother had given them the lease of the Dower House, which stood next to The Plovers, her other house, on the village green, some months previously. This had enabled them to recruit the local staff needed to allow them to stay in Beldon Magna and run their large London office from a suite of rooms in the big house.

  His new PA and Office Manager had swiftly got up to speed on everything that was needed and she already ran the local office of four people with smiling but total efficiency. So much so, Desmond and Gwilym were debating whether to give her control of the London office as well. They were, though, keenly aware, that should that happen, Adam, their waspish, but also ultra-efficient, London lynch-pin, would throw one of his famous hissy fits.

  ‘What about you, Eleanor? Do you want to come?’ Gwilym asked.

  ‘I’d love to, darling. It sounds fascinating; but Mollie’s coming up tomorrow in time for lunch, and we’ve some business to discuss afterwards,’ she replied regretfully. ‘And I think we’re both a little past the age to be clambering over a building site!’ she added, with rueful humour.

  ‘Mollie! I hope she’s still here when we get back,’ exclaimed Desmond. ‘I’d hate to miss her.’ Gwilym nodded in agreement. The elderly woman, a distant relative of Eleanor’s and a lifelong friend from when she’d lived in the village, was also a firm favourite of both men.

  ‘She’s planning on staying a day or two, so she’ll still be here when you get back,’ Eleanor replied.

  Reassured, Gwilym’s mind went back to Eddy’s phone call. ‘What I can’t get my head round is how an entire theatre could suddenly disappear and no one notice!’ he said suddenly. His dark features reflected his puzzlement and his Welsh accent was more pronounced, as it always was when his emotions were aroused which, thanks to a mercurial nature, happened frequently.

  ‘It does sound odd, but, from what I remember, it was built on a slope and only one storey was actually visible at the front, I think, so perhaps that made it a lot easier to hide quickly,’ Eleanor mused, her quick mind already coming to terms with the unexpected discovery.

  Gwilym nodded, ‘Possibly,’ he agreed, as he made a quick phone call back to Eddy who gave them the OK to go along the next lunchtime. The three of them then excitedly spent the rest of the evening searching the internet for any references they could find. Its technological magic meant that they quickly came across a flood of information about both the theatre and the DeLancy family. All of it was fascinating – and none of it entirely explained what had caused the sudden closure of what, despite falling receipts, had still been a popular and profitable venue.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Doesn’t look very promising, does it?’ remarked Gwilym, as they pulled into the car park of the semi-derelict complex. Desmond, looking through drizzling rain out across the desolate, empty space, agreed. It was almost impossible to imagine it alive with the throaty roar of heavy lorries, the raucous laughter of a vibrant workforce and the warning klaxons of scurrying fork-lift trucks. Now the only sights were disused fast-food wrappers swirling in the cold wind before coming to grief in one of the numerous puddles dotting the pockmarked tarmac. Many of these held the tell-tale multi-coloured slicks of iridescent petrol and diesel swirling across their surfaces. The bleakness was only compounded by the backdrop of the half-demolished walls of the main building.

  ‘Bloody cold, too,’ Desmond muttered as they got out of the car, his fair features screwed up, his grey eyes half shut and his stocky figure hunched up against the cold, as he held his briefcase over his head against the wind and rain.

  Both men thought back to Mollie’s warm coat with growing envy. She’d arrived just as they were leaving and Desmond laughed, as he helped her alight from the aged Rolls Royce she always travelled in. ‘Bloody hell, Mollie! You look like you’ve got half a mink farm on!’ he teased, as he bent to kiss her, having greeted her equally elderly driver.

  Mollie, laughed, her pink, round face turned up for the kiss, as she replied. ‘It’s my favourite coat. It cost a bloody bomb and at my age I want to be sure of getting my money’s worth before I go!’ she’d retorted.

  Eddy was waiting for the two men in the comparative shelter of the main doorway and, after shaking hands with them both, he ushered them quickly inside, his huge size dwarfing the other two men, they themselves well over medium height. Though the old walls sheltered them from most of the wind, the temperature didn’t change much even when they were actually inside the cavernous space.

  ‘The spot my men broke through’s at the back,’ the burly builder said, his usually ruddy face made even redder by the scything wind. Wasting no time and handing them each a hard-hat, he led them, their feet echoing across the concrete flooring, towards the back of the huge building. ‘I had them close it off before we left last night. Fortunately, we had security on-site anyway, as we’ve had a few of the local lads trying to get in. Little buggers,’ he added, with no ill-will, well remembering his own attitude to the locked up and forbidden when he was a similar age.

  ‘Ruddy hell! You weren’t exaggerating, Eddy,’ murmured Gwilym, a few moments later, as he leant forward and peered into the recess exposed when the boarding was removed. His excitement mounted as his eyes adjusted and, in the light of the torch mounted onto his helmet, he could see clearly a few rows of seating. Incredibly, given the age and the amount of time the building had been unused, they looked, under their covering of dust, remarkably preserved and, crucially, damp-free.

  ‘Let’s get our bearings,’ said Desmond, straightening up after his own quick look through the gap. He opened his case and got out one of the printouts they’d downloaded during their trawl of the internet. It was an old black and white photograph of the theatre, taken from the front. Though faded and of poor quality, it nonetheless showed not only the white frontage, with its name proudly emblazoned across the top, along with its famous statue of a leaping dolphin, but also the paved forecourt that had fronted the building. They could see from the picture, plainly taken during the summer months, that the space had been used as an open-air café, a startling innovation for the times.

  ‘From what Mum said, this area,’ he pointed to the courtyard, ‘was right alongside the road we just came in on and, as the photograph shows, was screened by lots of trees and plants in white-painted stone tubs. So that must have been the actual forecourt,’ he continued, as he stared back at the cracked and discoloured cement flooring they’d just walked across.

  *

  ‘We went there!’ Mollie suddenly said. Eleanor had just finished telling her of the surprising phone-call of the previous evening. �
�Sat over there,’ she added, holding a copy of the same photograph that Desmond was showing Eddy, and pointing to one of the small tables set in a secluded corner. ‘Like everyone else, we’d gone to see Ariana. She was a sensation, she really was,’ she murmured, her mind going back five decades and conjuring up a memory of a superb dancer decked out in a silver ballet costume that glittered in its covering of hundreds of tiny crystals. ‘When she moved, it was like being close to an actual star; her dancing, as she raced across that stage, was stunning,’ she murmured, shaking her head. ‘Even then, we felt privileged to have seen her,’ she ended sadly.

  ‘Yes, we did. I was trying to recall when it was,’ Eleanor replied, handing her old friend a second cup of coffee.

  ‘It was between Tamsin and Desmond,’ responded Mollie succinctly. ‘Tamsin was about a year old and you’d just found out Desmond was on the way, so I came up from Bath and we went there to celebrate.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember! What a lovely evening we had. Didn’t we see Gerald DeLancy as we left?’

  ‘We did. He was just getting out of that wicked little sports car he drove around in, and looking far more rakish and handsome than any man his age had any right to be!’ Mollie, always an appreciator of the male form, replied laughing. ‘Until, that is, he let out his breath and you saw his paunch. And the lighting of the lobby showed up how his face was falling into loose folds, even then,’ she added waspishly.

  ‘Mollie!’ laughed Eleanor. ‘That’s unkind!’

  ‘True, though,’ the elderly lady responded, unrepentantly. ‘Only he couldn’t see it, poor fool. How he got that beautiful girl to run off with him, I’ll never know. His money, I suppose,’ she added, shrugging.

  ‘She may well have loved him. It would explain her giving everything up and eloping with him,’ demurred Eleanor.

  ‘Possibly. She must have, I suppose,’ Mollie replied, a shade dubiously. ‘She certainly gave up a lot. Dancing like that, she had the world at her feet and some provincial backwater like Estwich wouldn’t have kept her long. Her talent was too great. To give up all that! And so young!’ she sighed.