Death in the Stars Read online

  Mr Brockett had still not finished his welcome. ‘Please accompany me to the bar. A cocktail is called for and I shall show you to your box in due course. We kept the royal box free.’

  ‘Please don’t on our account.’ Sykes stubbed his cigarette in the giant ashtray. ‘If it’s all the same to you I’d prefer to sit in the stalls.’ He felt rather than saw Rosie’s cringe of dismay.

  ‘Of course, of course, wherever you please. We do have a sell-out performance but always keep a couple of reserve seats for the press so we’re happy to oblige.’

  The penny dropped. Mrs Sugden must have said he was a journalist, or a theatre critic. She might have alerted him as to who he was supposed to be. Either that or this fussy man meant that although the seats were for the press, they were being reallocated to him and Rosie.

  Mr Brockett spoke to the box office attendant. ‘Elaine, tickets for Mr and Mrs Sykes, in the front stalls?’

  Elaine managed a smile and smoothed her brown hair. She fingered a narrow wooden box stuffed with tickets and brought out two. ‘Here we are.’

  Mr Brockett was supplied with two tickets which he passed to Sykes. ‘Now do please come with me to the bar for drinks on the house.’ He led them to the stairs. ‘Have you seen Miss Fellini perform before?’

  ‘Years ago,’ Rosie said. ‘She was wonderful then, long before she had such a big name for herself.’

  Mr Brockett continued to speak in a pleasant intimate way, as if they were his oldest friends. ‘So you saw Miss Fellini in the old days. Happy days, eh? Delightful family, the Fellinis. They thought it best to shorten their name to Fell, you know, so as to fit in I suppose. I insisted that Selina remain Fellini, much more appropriate for a lady who tops the bill. Talented, the whole family. They make the best ice cream, but of course you know that. It’s sold here in the theatre. The father grows grapes. Who else in this benighted county could find a way to grow grapes in a glasshouse in the back garden? Mr Fell is an artist too, etches on metal, pictures from nursery stories, and he paints flowers on glass. The whole family is so proud of Selina, so proud.’

  Sykes and Rosie followed him up the broad staircase into the softly lit bar with its dark wood, plush seats and carpeting now somewhat worn, and the highly polished bar with brass fittings. Sykes asked for a pint and Rosie for a glass of sweet sherry. Brockett ordered an Eclipse Cocktail. ‘I developed a taste for this last night at Miss Fellini’s party. Just dropped in, you know. I leave it to the youngsters to keep late nights.’

  They went to sit at one of the small round tables with cast-iron legs. Rosie and Sykes sat on the plush seat against the wall. Brockett perched on a stool as if he never sat anywhere for very long. The waiter brought their drinks in double-quick time.

  Brockett sipped his cocktail and chatted about the show and about the theatre, without really saying very much at all. Sykes guessed that he was used to being pleasant to any person who might be remotely useful. He had made a fine art of it.

  ‘I’m most grateful that Mrs Shackleton accompanied my star on her aeroplane journey this morning. It had me worried, I can tell you. I’m an ocean-going fellow myself when it comes to travel. Miss Fellini did a brief but highly successful tour of the eastern seaboard of the United States and we could have flown from New York to Boston but preferred to travel by rail.’

  It annoyed Sykes to be at a disadvantage. Mrs Shackleton had mentioned that Miss Fellini was driven to Headingley by her manager, and that was all she had told him about the chap. Then it dawned on Sykes that Trotter Brockett simply had the knack of knowing how to be a person’s intimate chum within moments. Well, two could play that game. Sykes, after confiding that he also preferred ocean travel but that he wouldn’t mind taking a turn in the air, asked questions about New York and Boston, based on items read in the Sunday papers.

  Rosie, sipping her sherry, was glad to think of a question. ‘Have you been a performer yourself, Mr Brockett?’

  ‘Oh no, not I. Born into the business of course but always behind the scenes and out of the limelight, organising, bringing on talent, that is my forte.’

  We’re here for a reason, Sykes told himself, and he wished he knew what that reason was. If he did he would be able to guide the conversation. Mrs Sugden had sent him a copy of the information about the accidental death of two performers from Mr Brockett’s company but the whole idea struck Sykes as entirely spurious.

  Why would anyone kill Douglas Dougan, a man who worked with hoops and leaping dogs? As for Floyd Lloyd, had the professional holder of conversations with a dummy made mortal enemies while moonlighting as a gangster? Perhaps the dummy was a secret copper’s nark.

  No coroner worth his salt would miss the stench of foul play in those situations.

  As it was, Sykes could do worse than let Mr Brockett talk, and go on talking. He asked him about his background, and what it was like to be born into the business of theatre.

  Trotter Brockett hinted at but brushed over hardships. He dropped the names of famous performers at a rate of ten a minute. Vesta Tilley. Little Tich. Nellie Wallace. Charlie Chaplin. Tom Major. Jenny Hill. John Bottle. Beryl Cooper.

  He had interests in two theatres and immediately this tour ended another tour was planned. He glanced about the bar. ‘I don’t let this be generally known. We keep much under wraps in this business, but since you are admirers of Miss Fellini I’ll let you into the secret. There is to be a new musical show, specially written for her.’

  Mr Brockett finished his cocktail, waylaid an usher, took a programme and presented it to Rosie. He then excused himself and with smiles and nods in several directions made his way to the stairs.

  ‘Rum chap,’ Sykes observed as Brockett slipped out of sight. ‘I wonder how many people he tells his “secret” to in order to stir up excitement about some future musical extravaganza?’

  ‘He’s rum? What about you? I wished the floor would open and swallow me up when you refused to sit in the royal box. What an honour. It’s where the Prince of Wales used to sit when he came to see Lillie Langtry. Why do you think there’s a coat of arms above the stage?’

  Sykes drained his pint. ‘Aye well, if you sit in a box you’ve a door behind you and you don’t know who might come in or why. I’d rather sit with my back to the wall or with people who are harmless looking at the top of my head.’

  ‘You’re mad. You take it all to the extremes.’

  ‘Perhaps I do. But I can’t change now.’

  The call came for people to take their seats.

  ‘Come on, our lass.’ Sykes stood, glad that Rosie had not taken him to task over his slight deception regarding their evening out. Not yet anyway.

  They followed the crowd, looking at the letters and numbers on the rows for guidance. Just too late they watched a family of four take the seats at the end of the row. They had to excuse themselves and tramp past, stepping over a handbag and squeezing by a large pair of knees.

  The place had a smell all its own, the luxury of plush combined with the whiff of camphor, orange peel and cigarette and pipe smoke.

  Sykes was on alert though he did not know for what. Roundabout him, people were chatting, leaning in close to each other, keeping their voices to that low level of intimacy that sometimes precedes a performance and is drowned by the rustle of paper bags as suckers of sweets and chewers on toffee make sure they have their necessaries handy.

  Sykes looked up at the royal box. It was empty. He thought that it did not give the very best view of the stage and yet good enough. What’s more, someone sitting in there might tuck him or herself a little way to the side and be able to see the door opening. Perhaps Rosie was right and he was a bit mad, though he liked to think of his little habits as cautiousness.

  The house lights lowered. An air of expectancy filled the auditorium as members of the orchestra tuned their instruments and the conductor took his place.

  Mr Trotter Brockett stepped from the wings and walked to centre stage in front of the safety c
urtain. He welcomed the audience as if every single one of them was his very best and oldest friend. He assured them that Miss Fellini was delighted to be once more appearing in her home town, treading the boards where she had first appeared as a child. His voice became sombre as he told them that he had an announcement to make. ‘I very much regret that our splendid and much-loved comedian Billy Moffatt will not be with us this evening.’ As he spoke, the safety curtain behind him was slowly raised. Mr Brockett waited for the collective ‘aww’ of disappointment at his announcement regarding Billy Moffatt’s non-appearance. He raised his voice, intimating great things as he said, ‘Billy’s place will be filled this evening, at very short notice, by that popular and brilliantly funny local man who promises to have you all in stitches: Mr Jimmy Diamond!’ To a low level of applause, the velvet curtains swished gently open.

  Rosie whispered to Jim, ‘Wasn’t it Billy Moffatt who went with them in the aeroplane?’

  ‘Shh,’ was Sykes’s reply. All he knew was gleaned from the hastily scrawled letter that Mrs Sugden had put through the door, saying Moffatt had been taken to hospital and that Miss Fellini had concerns about two accidental deaths at the time of the new moon, this January and last June. When Sykes had gone round to see Mrs Sugden, she was not much wiser than he was and had nothing to add.

  The sound of the orchestra grew, as more instruments came into play. Mr Brockett had to raise his voice to be heard above the music, but heard he was. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for our very own whirling twirling darlings, the Daisy Chain Dancing Troupe!’

  The stage lights went up, revealing a tableau of glamorous creatures, their costumes sparkling with sequins and decorated with coloured feathers. As the overture began the dancers sprang into vivid life, spinning and high kicking, swaying and tapping.

  ‘What legs!’ Rosie took out the toffees. ‘And did you ever see such kicking?’

  But Sykes had once more glanced towards the royal box. The door of the box opened. A tall figure dressed in black, with a white muffler, stood there for a few seconds, closed the door and left. It was as if he were checking that the box was empty.

  Sykes experienced an odd shiver. Rosie hadn’t noticed the man and Sykes was glad. He hoped that regardless of Trotter Brockett’s babbling, his wife would regard this evening as an unexpected treat and would forget the tenuous link it had with his work.

  A moment later, Sykes glanced up at the box again. Once more the door opened. This time Mr Brockett ushered in another person. It was Mrs Shackleton. Sykes was not usually given to moments of foreboding but as Mr Brockett closed the door on the box, Sykes experienced a distinct feeling of unease.

  Half a dozen dancers twirled off while the remainder tap danced at the front of the stage. The ones who had twirled off then danced back. They each carried two musical instruments that they placed on a table at the back of the stage. They repeated this until the table overflowed with instruments, banjo, accordion, bagpipes, flute, violin, cello, guitar, trumpet and some Sykes did not recognise. A tall man, dressed in a green and red satin coat and a skull cap with tassel, cartwheeled onto the stage, stood upright, swaying to a dance of his own invention with wild movements like a creature made of bendy rubber, craning his neck this way and that. The dancers took a bow to much applause for them and the eccentric dancer musician.

  Rosie glanced at the programme. ‘He’s Maurice Montague, master of music.’

  ‘Well he looks a right shower.’

  ‘He’s playing the fool. Red and green should not be seen except on fools.’

  Maurice Montague made an elaborate inspection of his instruments. He turned to the audience and gave a loud ‘phew’ of relief. ‘There they are. I thought they’d been half-inched again.’ He picked up a fiddle and began to play and sing ‘The Fiddle is My Sweetheart’. With every chorus he picked up a different instrument. By the time he reached the wind instruments, he had the audience singing along with him. Even Sykes sang a few words. It was always best to appear part of the scene, not the one who watches and whose attention and suspicions are everywhere, particularly on that royal box and Mrs Shackleton sitting there all alone. Once more, Maurice Montague picked up the fiddle. He played it as he took his bow and the dancers appeared and carried off the instruments.

  A prancing pony trotted onto the stage accompanied by a slight young man dressed in a velvet suit with gold braid that matched the pony’s trimmings.

  ‘God bless the poor pony,’ Rosie whispered. ‘That stage is on a terrible slope.’

  But the pony danced, leapt through a giant hoop and let its master ride bareback while juggling with six batons.

  When the magician took centre stage, Rosie nudged her husband. ‘The kids’ll have to see this show. I’ll get tickets for them in the gods.’

  Pip Potter, strongman, tore a London street directory in half. He lifted dumbbells that Sykes felt sure weren’t as heavy as the man made out. But when a BSA motorcycle was wheeled on and Pip Potter raised it with one hand, even Sykes felt obliged to applaud. Two much-spangled young acrobats, obviously sister and brother, stepped onto the bike. The brother held his sister aloft. When the strongman once more raised the bike, this time with two hands to balance the young acrobats, the audience went wild. The pair leaped from the bike as Pip Potter took his bow.

  Rosie consulted her programme. ‘They’re the Powolski twins.’

  The pair performed such daring high-wire feats as to leave the audience gasping.

  When the lights went up, Rosie made a dash for the door, expecting a queue in the ladies’ room. Sykes stayed put. He glanced up at the royal box, trying a bit of telepathy to make Mrs Shackleton look in his direction. Eventually, she did, or he thought she did.

  After the interval, a singer bounced onto the stage singing ‘Clap Hands! Here Comes Charley!’ followed by half a dozen popular songs. Sykes knew a good voice when he heard one and this chap was good, though French and making the most of his accent in the romantic songs. He was handsome too and knew it, winking, smiling and charming the ladies with his chatter between songs and his sentimental nonsense.

  It was all a little disappointing really. Sykes remembered the old days, when he was a lad. You could always rely on a bit of pelting with rotten fruit. Perhaps the replacement comic, Jimmy Diamond, would be a flop and attract a few boos and hisses. Sykes wondered about this replacement. Mrs Shackleton’s note had said Billy Moffatt was taken to hospital. The whole business seemed to Sykes a bit of a rum do. It would test his skills.

  What he liked about investigating insurance fraud was that you knew where you were with that kind of business. There were the insurers who made their brass from charging people for lots of events that might never happen and a few that did – including death. Then there were the cheats and twisters who made their brass from making something happen that shouldn’t have happened and following it up with a claim.

  He somehow knew that his dealing with show business people would not be quite so clear-cut and might edge towards the intricate.

  The replacement comic told a story of standing on Woodhouse Moor that morning with hopes of seeing the eclipse and staring at banks of grey clouds. He had his audience in stitches giving an account of his friend who set off in his car at midnight to find a good spot from which to observe, and then closing his eyes for a bit of shut eye. ‘He said it was the best eclipse he ever slept through.’

  Sykes, who had heard Billy Moffatt on the wireless, knew that if Billy had been there, he would have taken off his hat to the man, or hated him, or both.

  Next came Sandy Sechrest, the memory woman. Sandy Sechrest wore a dramatic black dress with bat-like wings, a choker of jet beads at her throat. She opened her arms to the audience. ‘Ask me anything, as long as it is connected with knowledge and your wish for enlightenment. I answer no questions about my personal history or by what blessing I came to have the most remarkable memory in the world.’

  His curiosity about the memory
woman increased. Now that she made a point of drawing a veil over her background, he very much wanted to know all about her. The first thing he wanted to know was this: is she a fraud?

  Sykes had seen a rather solemn memory man once, and knew that he had suffered some dreadful illness as a child. As a consequence, he passed his childhood years lying in bed, reading encyclopaedias. But this was the first time he had seen the memory woman.

  She won’t match up, Sykes thought. No woman would. It’s brave of her to try. Of course, the audience would be dotted with stooges, all primed to ask certain questions to which she knew the answers. It occurred to him that this was his opportunity to test the water. If there was some unease in the company regarding sudden deaths, as Mrs Shackleton’s hastily written PS had hinted, he could, in an anonymous fashion, ask a few questions.

  Hands shot up. Questions were called as she pointed. ‘The man in the third row.’ ‘The woman on the first row of the upper circle.’