Death of a Dancer Page 4

  Wordlessly, Bulmer bagged it for later, very careful handling by a specialist team. He could still recall, with painful clarity, one of his first cases. They had stumbled upon a cache of arms, drugs, lots of cash and an old can similar to the one he was now holding. In the excitement of the moment, an equally inexperienced colleague had opened the can and, too quickly, lifted out the reel of celluloid – only for the team to see the old film disintegrate in front of their eyes. They were never sure, but gangland rumour subsequently claimed that it had been footage showing a particularly vicious killing committed several years previously. With it, the force came to believe, they would have had, at last, sufficient evidence to arrest the gang’s leader. Without it, they tried but, due to witness intimidation, they failed and it was six more blood-soaked years before she herself was gunned down.

  ‘The word “obsession” springs to mind,’ he murmured, looking around the small room.

  Calderwood nodded. Whoever had posted these had feelings which had tipped beyond affection, admiration, or even love. His DS was right, obsession underpinned the whole display. His phone rang, breaking the moment. Excusing himself, he answered quickly, recognising the number.

  ‘Hello... What’s it looking like? Have you...? Oh, yes, I see. Go on.’ Conscious of being watched with some interest by the young PC who’d followed them into the little office, the Inspector moved out and walked backstage. Keeping his features carefully neutral, he listened as the caller spoke quickly into his ear.

  ‘Many thanks,’ was all Calderwood said as he hung up and stood for a moment looking quietly round the large space, now brightly lit by the powerful arc lights. His gaze rested briefly on the scenery flats propped against the back wall. He looked up into the heights and saw large rolls of painted canvas hanging high above the stage, ready, at a moment’s notice, to drop down and instantly transport the audience to anywhere and anything from a fairy wonderland to the deck of a pirate’s galleon.

  As he looked, everything was plunged into sombre shadow as the bulb on one of the big lamps flared suddenly and died due to an electrical fault. At least, he hoped that was the cause, as he also hoped that the faint breeze suddenly rippling the canvas of the stacked flats, and stirring the chains holding the rolls, was caused by a door being opened somewhere; anywhere.

  Ignoring, with an effort, the sudden cooling of the air around him, the young detective moved slightly and looked into a large workshop where some of his team were sifting through the mass of half-finished props and scenery. One or two of the pieces were still actually clamped into vices fixed onto the long workbenches. He saw a papier mâché camel with only three legs, leaning drunkenly against the far wall; the skeletal remains of what looked like a beanstalk, propped against a bench and a huge giant’s head lying next to it. There was still, incredibly, even the faintest hint of paint still lingering in the air and a scattering of old sawdust still covering the floor; all of it, he thought, a little sadly, silent testimony to the magic once created on its benches and within its walls.

  Shaking himself slightly, he moved through the old curtaining onto the stage itself and stood looking down at two squares cut into its floor through which, he knew, performers could either be shot up onto stage, or disappear equally suddenly, under the astonished gaze of the audience. Looking up, he saw that two of the spotlights above the stage were angled down onto the precise spot where the figure had been suspended. Interesting, he thought, as he called one of the team over to investigate further.

  He then moved to the front of the stage and stood pensively looking out into the auditorium. What an incredibly beautiful space, he thought, his dark features impassive, but his eyes warm with appreciation. Whoever, whatever, the DeLancys were, whatever they’d become, it was obvious that their love of theatre, certainly at the beginning, had been both deep and genuine.

  Time had leached the once deep crimson of both the wall panels and the seating into pale shadows of their previous, vibrant glory. Cobwebs covered the faded gold, silver and imperial purple gilding the cherubs and other allegorical figures that adorned the pillars and ceiling. Yet the space still held strong echoes of its previous grandeur. The power to thrill still almost poured from the walls, he thought, and, in that moment, he saw what a magical setting had been created more than a century and a half previously.

  Looking up, his artistic eye appreciated the way the circle swept round in an elegant horseshoe, which ended, right at the stage itself, with a curtained and lacquered box on either side. As with many theatres, their prominence and proximity to the stage made it easy for their occupants to see the performance itself, whilst, of course, being seen themselves. What was less common, he knew, was that immediately below each of the two boxes, at stalls level, was an identical gilded box. Each, being on a level with the stage, gave an even more intimate view of what was happening.

  He drew his mind back to the present and watched as the members of the team erected even more lighting and ran power cables across the dusty carpeting covering the floor. All an expensive waste of time, he thought, if the analysis being fast-tracked came back full of plaster, or something similar, and not human DNA.

  Curious, he thought suddenly. His mind which, as ever, was almost unconsciously processing information, even as his surface attention was elsewhere, noticed that the curtains on all the boxes were drawn back, except for the one at stalls level on the left side of the stage. Idly, he walked across and reached out to peer through. Just as he did so, he heard a rattling sound and a muffled oath. Startled for a moment, he realised it was one of the interim team trying to get into the door set in the back of the small box. Which was also curious, he mused, aware that the rear doors to the other boxes hadn’t been locked. With sharpened interest, he moved the curtain aside.

  Chapter 9

  ‘They’ve found two bodies,’ said the elderly, stoop-shouldered man baldly, as he stepped into the old, low-ceilinged and panelled bar of the Rose and Sceptre, eager to spread the hottest of hot news to the lunchtime gathering of his cronies.

  The jumble of different conversations juddered to a halt, to be replaced by a stunned silence. ‘In the old Dolphin,’ he added, pleased at the response to his bombshell. ‘Yers, appears it’s old Gerald DeLancy ’imself!’ he said, with all the ghoulish relish of the true gossip.

  ‘You sure, Jacob?’ asked Gwilym, frozen in the act of pulling a pint, no less stunned than his customers.

  ‘Yers, absolutely. I ’ave it on the best authority; ’e was found behind the stage. And ’er body was found right in the middle of it.’

  Bloody hell! thought the Welshman, swiftly reaching for the phone. He knew Desmond far too well to relish his response should he hear about this bombshell later and from another source.

  Fortunately for Gwilym’s credibility, however, although he couldn’t multi-task, he was able to do two things at once, so was still listening to the old man as he pressed the button for Desmond’s number.

  ‘Committed suicide, apparently. Right after killing ’er. ’Orrible sight, it was, apparently, ’im dead. Yers, ’e’d hung ’imself and they found his body all crumpled on the floor, backstage. No ’ead. That’d come orf, see, afterwards, and was separate like. And ’er, lying all beautiful, in a huge pool of dried blood on the stage itself. The whole floor would’ve been swimmin’ in it, it seems,’ he added, in case his audience hadn’t already pictured the horror he was conjuring up.

  Gwilym silently replaced the phone a moment before it started to ring.

  ‘Where’d you hear this, Jacob?’ he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

  ‘Ah! Can’t say too much. My... source... asked me to keep ’er… or ’is...’ he amended hastily, ‘name out of it. Very sensitive stuff this, you know, this sort of information,’ he added, belatedly attempting to cloak himself in some sort of moral authority.

  ‘When did this happen, the finding of the two bodies?’ the Welshman asked carefully.

  ‘This very mornin’,’ repli
ed the grizzled herald.

  ‘How’d you hear about it so quickly, then?’ asked Dennis Hickwell, not a fan of Jacob, even on a good day. And today, having been beaten to the punch on such a morsel, was most definitely not a good day.

  ‘I ’ave my contacts, Mr Hickwell, I ’ave my contacts,’ his old adversary retorted grandly over his skinny shoulder, not deigning to turn round.

  Well, that’s true enough, mused Gwilym. Jacob and his brother Elias had, between them, one of the most extensive intelligence networks in the county, which sometimes even got a story right.

  ‘I didn’t know you knew much about the DeLancys,’ he remarked aloud, curious.

  ‘Oh aye, I knew ’em; a rum lot and no mistake. Some said they had charm, but to me it was more like smarm: you know, too oily to be real. The men, anyway.’ This damning indictment was said in the loud, no-nonsense tones habitually used by Jacob Hobson on the very frequent occasions he offered an opinion, whether sought or unsought.

  ‘Granddad! Keep your voice down!’ pleaded Ellen, the barmaid, as she served him his pint.

  ‘Why, lass? Say it ’ow it is ’as always been my motto. Fewer misunderstandin’s, in my experience,’ he added.

  A lot more arguments, though, she thought, in long-suffering silence, particularly if anyone was unwary enough, or daft enough, to actually do the same to Jacob.

  ‘How come you knew them, Jacob? A bit out of your way, I’d have thought,’ asked Gwilym curiously, as he served another customer. He was well aware of the elderly villager’s dislike of being anywhere but the village in which he’d been born.

  ‘An auntie of mine needed some work done on her ’ouse in Estwich, years ago. I used to travel over most days, for a while, but often stayed over if the weather were bad. She worked part-time at the old theatre, and could get me in free. So, if I had nothing interestin’ to do of an evenin’ I’d go and see whatever it was they were putting on. A lot of old rubbish, mostly,’ he added, dismissively, slurping his pint.

  ‘I thought they had a good reputation for the shows they put on?’ exclaimed the Welshman in surprise.

  ‘Depends what you wanted to see, don’t it,’ responded Jacob unanswerably. ‘Too arty tarty for me. I liked the old Music Hall stuff, I did, but there weren’t many places doin’ it by then,’ he continued sadly. ‘Mind you, that young girl were good,’ he added, his voice warming noticeably.

  ‘Young girl? You mean Ariana?’ asked Gwilym, his interest quickening.

  ‘Aye. Think that were her name. It were foreign anyway.’

  ‘Did you see her dance?’

  ‘Aye, I did. I almost didn’t, when I heard it was going to be an evenin’ of ballet and other stuff like that. I wasn’t going to go and told Auntie May.’

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘The girl I was going with at the time,’ he answered simply. ‘I ’adn’t been going with ’er for long, but I knew ’er well enough to know that if I didn’t go to the dancin’ early on I stood no chance later for...’ He trailed off, belatedly remembering the presence of his granddaughter.

  ‘Was she as good as they say she was?’ asked Gwilym quietly.

  ‘Better,’ the old man replied, simply, after a moment’s reflection made him realise that Gwilym wasn’t talking about his girlfriend. ‘Never saw anythin’ like it before. Or since, come to that. Don’t know what the dances was from,’ he continued after a moment, his mouth unusually closed and his eyes unusually warm, ‘or whether they were from anythin’ else, come to think of it,’ he added and then paused.

  ‘Go on,’ pressed Gwilym, gently.

  ‘It were out of this world, simple as that. The best one was some sort of woodland scene and she came dancin’ on in a sorta headdress. And do you know what? She didn’t need the scenery, nor the costume, not really. She fluttered and raced across that stage in and out of lightin’ set like patches of sunlight, just like I’d seen frightened does do in the woods.’ He shook his head in remembered wonder and then sagged tiredly.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, though,’ he said, rousing suddenly, his voice now savage. ‘It’s a good job the bastard who did her in is already dead. ‘Cos, even now, if I came across him, he’d get what was comin’ – and it would be a helluva lot more painful than what ’e did to ’imself!’

  Gwilym said nothing, moved both by the old man’s real emotion and the picture he evoked with such simple, unconscious, and unusual, elegance. He sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that his present, neatly tied up, ending to the case was very unlikely to be its actual finale; very unlikely indeed.

  Chapter 10

  ‘Bloody hell!’ The exclamation from the young PC, who’d managed at last to get into the box, brought Calderwood, his hand still on the curtain he’d just opened, back into the present.

  ‘Better get the team in here, Adam,’ he said quietly. ‘Adam?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes, sir!’ said the young policeman. Jerked out of his stunned immobility, he raced off with a last, backward look at the scene in the ornate little box.

  ‘Colin!’ called Calderwood, turning slightly, but keeping his eyes fixed on the box’s centre seat – and the skeletal body slumped in it.

  There were two things which made the scene even more bizarre than it would otherwise have been. The first was the unusually high back of the centre chair – and the second was the fact that the body had been securely tied to it and, at an angle facing the stage, the head had been tied so it was held against its back.

  ‘Well, well,’ murmured Bulmer, joining him. ‘This explains that odd smell, anyway. Do you reckon it’s DeLancy?’

  ‘Difficult to say. It could be. Judging by the clothes it’s almost certainly male.’

  Bulmer nodded. ‘Whoever it is, someone was taking no chances he’d escape,’ he added.

  Calderwood nodded, looking at the ropes tied around the chest and legs of the skeletal shape; now holding it in position, but once stopping either movement – or escape.

  ‘Whoever did it, clearly wanted him to see whatever was on the stage, but, why the gag?’ he wondered, looking at the frayed cloth hanging off the body’s skull-like features.

  Both policemen looked impassively down at the skeletal figure. Despite the passage of time, it still possessed remnants of skin and hair. The latter still retained much of its black colouring, though the skin of the face had tautened and dried to an almost parchment like colour and consistency. Ominously the frayed clothing and exposed facial and other bones, all showed the extensive shredding and gnawing which could have come only from the teeth of rats. Whether the damage had occurred before or after death, they couldn’t yet be sure; nor did they want to dwell on the horror it would have been, had it started while the victim was still alive.

  There certainly would not now be a problem in getting a quick DNA analysis for the figure from the stage, the stocky DS thought, as he watched the team, now certain to be upgraded to full SOCO strength, move in. They’d first photograph and video the whole scene and then make a painstaking search of the whole box.

  ‘Right, we’d best get back to the station and start interviewing the family. I’d like to get as much of that done as possible, before word starts getting out about this one,’ Calderwood said, gesturing to the body. ‘I doubt, though, that some sort of word hasn’t already started to leak out about yesterday’s discovery,’ he added, grimly, weary experience telling him how quickly information that shouldn’t get out, actually did so.

  ‘Sir! Something down here you should see!’ called out one of the team, popping her head out from the small orchestra pit at the front of the stage. ‘It’s over there, right in the far corner,’ she said, handing them each a torch. Stooping to fit into the claustrophobically low space and taking care to avoid banging into, or tripping over, old boxes and other rat-gnawed packaging littering the floor, they followed her carefully.

  ‘That is interesting,’ murmured Calderwood, as they saw the outline of a small doo
r, almost invisible, even in the strong light from their torches. It was firmly closed, but unlike the rest of the cluttered under-stage area, the space in front of it was entirely clear.

  ‘It could be linked to the case or not, but have them find where it comes out on the other side. Then have the whole area, on both sides, gone over, with special attention for any prints in the immediate vicinity. Well done for spotting it,’ he added, as he and Bulmer turned, thankfully, to make their way back out into the main body of the theatre.

  *

  ‘Thank you for coming in so promptly,’ Calderwood said courteously to the elderly man sitting opposite him. Reed-thin though he was and with thinning grey hair, the new arrival was still instantly recognisable as kin to Gerald DeLancy. Most of the darkness of both features and hair had long gone, and the blackness of the eyes was now somewhat faded, but a strong air of amused theatricality still remained; as much a part of Edmund DeLancy’s birthright as the name itself.

  ‘That’s no problem, although I must confess to being more than a little perplexed as to what lies behind your... invitation.’ His light, well-bred voice paused just enough before the final word to imbue it with a certain delicate mockery.

  ‘You’re aware, Mr DeLancy, that the warehousing on the site of the old Dolphin theatre is being demolished?’ queried Calderwood.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s public knowledge; as is the fact that, somewhat surprisingly, the theatre itself seems to be largely intact inside it. Even more dramatically, those same rumour-mongers have it that anywhere between three and six bodies have been found! Amazing and fascinating, but I don’t see why it needs a visit by me to the police station.’

  ‘You may recall, sir, that the suggestion we interview you here was yours. We were quite willing to come to your house,’ responded Calderwood, mildly.

  ‘No. My wife is both an invalid and highly strung. Your visit would merely have upset her. But that wasn’t what I meant.’