1 Murder Offstage Read online

  ‘What? Don’t be so ridiculous,’ Posie exploded at him. ‘I’ve never heard you talk such rot before. Why on earth would Caspian della Rosa want to bring his fabulous house of cards crashing down on him with a raid from Scotland Yard? Of course I trust Dolly. She’s one hundred per cent loyal. I always follow my gut instinct and it’s never let me down so far. Unlike yours...’

  By now Posie was really worried about Dolly. She was halfway to turning back towards the main clubroom when the lights went off again. She froze in the total blackout, as did Len ahead of her.

  A sharp volley of gunfire close by punctured the darkness. People dived for cover. Silence followed. Then a further stream of bullets came frighteningly close, whizzing down the corridor and ricocheting off the metal walls in a dangerous flurry, as if whoever was shooting was purposefully clearing the tunnel up ahead of them.

  ‘Quick, get inside.’

  Posie felt an arm pushing her urgently and a slamming sound. Len had shoved her through one of the small metal doors with the moon-shaped windows, and they waited hunched up together in what was a very small space indeed. A store cupboard really. Outside the window everything was dark and silent. They peered out and held their breath.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ Len whispered.

  Two men were whispering to each other as they walked along, guided by the light of a burning match, and as they passed the store cupboard Posie recognised the honeyed foreign burr of Caspian della Rosa’s melodious voice, even if she couldn’t see his face. Her stomach lurched. Were they looking for her? Were they going to hunt her down? Did they know she was here?

  ‘Everything is out, thank God,’ an unidentified second man muttered, also in a slightly foreign accent.

  ‘Yes, it is. And those fools Blake and Reggie won’t talk. The police can clear this mess up – it’s no great loss anyhow. We needed a new location anyway: this one was getting stale. We’ll open up somewhere else next time. We’ve got the prize anyway.’

  ‘You stored it out of harm’s way?’

  ‘Of course I did! I’m a professional! Not like that fool of a girl.’

  ‘Shh.Be careful what you say,’ hissed the other voice petulantly.

  ‘Why should I be? At least we got a little extra prize into the bargain too. Shall we keep it up our sleeves for now, save it as a reserve?’

  And then their voices tailed away. After a few minutes people could be heard picking themselves up off the floor and running for the exit.

  Len exhaled loudly. They both felt nervous, sick and claustrophobic. They had had enough of feeling like they were trapped in a closed, pitch-black submarine. Len struck a match.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go,’ Posie insisted. ‘I’m sure Inspector Lovelace has sorted things out by now. He’ll be wondering where we are.’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing,’ said Len softly, moving his light around carefully. ‘I’m wondering where on earth we are...’

  His voice took on a panicked note:

  ‘I just reached out and touched a stone-cold leg, complete with a high-heeled shoe stuffed on the end of it. I thought at first it must be my imagination so I felt again. Then I thought it must be a mannequin, or some sort of prop for the stage. But now I’m not so sure.’

  By the light of the match, he illuminated the tiny cupboard space and they both gasped in horror as the body of a girl was revealed to them, a girl they were familiar with from only one photograph.

  It was unmistakeably Lucy Gibson: shot through at the temple, vacant eyes staring, a gun clasped loosely in her right hand, a pale blue colour spread patchily over her face and lips.

  As beautiful in death as in life, perhaps. But certainly not as lucky.

  ****

  Ten

  ‘Come on. Really look. It’s the size of a quail’s egg. You can’t miss it. Whoever finds it will get a reward.’

  Posie was trying her best to encourage Inspector Lovelace’s men to search the whole club for the Maharajah diamond, but they were tired and wanting to go home. The Inspector had given her ten minutes of their precious time. It was now up.

  ‘It’s a mare’s nest, Posie,’ he said, running his hands through his gingery hair. ‘Lucky Lucy has been killed in cold blood, probably for that diamond. The last place the killer would have left it would be here. Accept that.’

  Len, who never agreed with the police on principle, nodded wholeheartedly.

  ‘Fine,’ she said in defeat, knowing in her heart of hearts that both spoke the truth.

  The nightclub was flooded with the bright electric light again, and there was a sense of disappointment and failure hanging palpably in the air. The raid had not gone well: despite having finally prised the plate-glass mirror behind the bar open and found a series of empty rooms and a warren of many twisting corridors, the police had recovered little other than a few empty instrument cases, oboe cases mainly, hastily abandoned by their fleeing owners. And the body of Lucy Gibson, of course.

  Posie stared down at the body of the girl, which had been moved out of the cupboard into the garish light of the corridor, and she felt a giddying rush of tiredness and sadness. Poor creature: whatever her faults, of which she supposed there were many, Lucky Lucy hadn’t deserved to die like that – shot and dumped in a store cupboard. All for the sake of this one wretched diamond. Or was there more to this than met the eye? Who had wanted to kill such a lovely creature?

  Inspector Lovelace looked tired, and was giving muttered instructions to Sergeant Rainbird who wrote frantically in a notepad. Sergeant Binny was directing a team of police photographers who were dancing around the body, jumping in and out for a better picture. The pale blue-flushed face of Lucy Gibson, a faint touch of grey greasy glitter still visible on her eyelids, was brought into sharp focus again and again by their flashbulbs, and the smell of what Posie now knew to be zirconium, sulphury-sweet, hung in the air.

  Len was interested in the photographer’s methods, and he leant in carefully to observe, paying little interest in the team of forensic scene-of-crime officers who had also appeared. They were scraping inside the cupboard for clues, spraying a fine inky powder on Lucy’s hands and pressing her poor dead fingers up against carbon paper to retrieve prints. A police pathologist was staring through a magnifying glass at the gunshot wound.

  ‘Here, photographer! This is odd, but important.’

  ‘How close do you want the picture, doc?’

  All of that technical blarney was very good, but Posie needed real clues. She needed the body to tell her a story: the dead could only speak through the clues they left behind. Posie scanned Lucy, taking in the details. Posie sank down on her high heels, squatting next to the body.

  She observed the strange blue flush across the face. Hadn’t she heard somewhere that that was usually caused by poison, but which one exactly? She studied the vivid purple bruising on the ring-finger of Lucy’s left hand, and the badly scratched crimson nail-polish on the fingers.

  She noted too the expensive but surprisingly demure black woollen dress paired with smart leather day shoes. So then, she could be pretty sure that Lucy hadn’t been dressed for a night out dancing at the club; the other girls at La Luna had all been wearing a uniform of short spangled dancing-dresses, and heaps of jewellery. Instead, Lucy was dressed respectably for an afternoon in smart London society; primly really, considering she was an actress and a glamorous gangster’s moll.

  Posie was just struggling to her feet when she thought she heard it again: the second voice which had accompanied Caspian della Rosa earlier along the dark corridor, when she and Len had been hiding out in the metal cupboard. She reeled, momentarily dizzy, searching all around her for the speaker’s face, but the bright lights flashed in and out of focus and the world seemed to tilt. A darkness threatened to engulf her. Was she going crazy? Hearing imaginary voices? She decided she must be: those men would be long gone by now.

  ‘Posie? You all right?’ she heard Inspector Lovelace saying, as if from a distanc
e of two hundred miles away. She felt two sets of strong arms hauling her up.

  ‘Maybe she’s not so great with dead bodies, guv?’ said Sergeant Binny, helping her to her feet, together with a photographer.

  ‘No. That’s not it. I bet she hasn’t eaten anything all day, have you Posie? You can’t live your life on just biscuits, you know. You need to eat dinner now and then. Len!’

  Len darted through the crowd.

  ‘Take Posie for a good square meal somewhere. I’m sure you’ll know a place open at one-thirty in the morning. I’d love to join you, I’m starving actually, but I’ve got to sign off on all of this. Oh, hello! Here comes trouble. I had to call him in. Technically, it is his body, after all.’

  Through the corridor swung the familiar, unwelcome figure of Inspector Oats. He looked at the body of Lucky Lucy Gibson for a brief second, before sniffing disdainfully and indicating it could be covered up and carried off. He looked around with a distinctly scornful expression:

  ‘Quite a mess on your hands here, Lovelace,’ he muttered towards the Inspector. ‘What’s all this? A failed raid?’

  ‘And who’s this?’ he nodded at Posie with a deeply suspicious air. She suddenly remembered her disguise and whipped off her black wig, shaking her own shingled bob out carefully.

  ‘Oh, no. Not you again,’ Oats growled. ‘The proverbial bad penny. And where’s your pal, Lord Hoity-Toity? Is he here as well?’

  ‘Rufus?’ Posie exclaimed in surprise. ‘No, of course he’s not here. He’s at his father’s club in St James.’

  ‘Aha! Well, that’s where I’m heading to now then,’ Oats snapped angrily, making to turn on his heel. ‘Now your pal’s got two unexplained deaths on his hands, and bail or no bail I’ll have him back in for questioning before the hour’s up.’

  ‘Hang on a minute…’ cut in Len as Posie gasped in horror at the sheer stupidity of Oat’s reasoning.

  ‘I say!’ shouted Inspector Lovelace at Inspector Oats’ retreating back. ‘You’ve got this all wrong, old fellow. Don’t make a blundering fool of yourself. The person who murdered Lucky Lucy has probably got something to do with this wretched underground nightclub we’re all standing in. The answer lies here, not with Rufus Cardigeon!’

  But Oats had disappeared out into the dark night, trudging along with a clear, if misguided, purpose.

  ****

  Posie ate two fried eggs, several rashers of bacon, a sausage and a side portion of potato cakes. When the waitress came around to refill her mug from the big metal tea-pot, she ordered the same again.

  She ate in silence, and Len watched her quietly. He smoked a Turkish cigarette and leant back against the grease-smeared red plastic banquette, discreetly seeing if he knew anyone in the place.

  It was a dive of a caff really, he supposed. It was nestled between Fleet Street and the Inner Temple, tucked into a side alley which the law clerks used as a lazy shortcut. Open twenty-four hours a day, it was frequented by nervy journalists, late-night printers, and a whole raft of people who didn’t seem to fit in anywhere else, but needed to kill time for one reason or another. There was no sign or advert outside the caff, just a white-painted scrawl on the sooty window, which had been there forever, announcing NO KIPPERS TODAY – SORRY.

  Sal ran the place. And Len had spent many hours there over the last few years, waiting for a punter to emerge so he could begin tailing him, or waiting for a tip-off from one of his lawyer clients. But there was no-one he knew in tonight: just a couple of poor souls who looked like they had served in the trenches, and in the far corner a young journalist, his half-moon spectacles pushed down low on his nose, hurriedly writing copy for his newspaper. As Len watched, the journalist rubbed his ink-stained hands over his forehead in worry, smearing his pimply face. He looked new to the job.

  Sal appeared beside their table, huge and resplendent in an oil-cloth overall.

  ‘Thought yer might enjoy this, Mister Irving,’ she announced grandly, and placed a steaming spotted dick pudding in front of Len, who smiled gratefully. It looked magnificent and Sal dolloped a ladle of custard over the plate, giving Posie just a flicker of interest before stomping off.

  ‘Don’t eat it,’ hissed Posie suddenly, as Len moved to pick up his fork.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘I need it.’

  Quick as a flash she had grabbed the pudding and moved to the table in the corner where the young journalist was fretting with his copy. She put the pudding down carefully next to him.

  ‘Hello!’ she said cheerfully, and placed one of her business cards next to the pudding. She looked at him expectantly. He squinted up at her, as if surprised to see another living breathing soul awake at this time of night.

  ‘Hmm?’ he said, nervously, inky fingers ruining her card.

  ‘Which paper do you work for?’

  ‘Associated Press. Why do you want to know? Miss, er…Parker?’

  ‘Spotted dick? Here, have it. It’s all yours. What’s your name?’

  ‘Sam Stubbs, junior journalist. Here’s my press badge.’

  Sam Stubbs eyed the cake eagerly, as if just remembering his hunger. He took up a fork and ate greedily. Posie watched in satisfaction: she was always secretly amused at how easy it was to win over some men, particularly with old-fashioned puddings which reminded them of their childhoods.

  ‘I’ve a scoop for you, Mr Stubbs. And no, I don’t want money. I’m certain this will blow whatever you’re writing there right out of the water. It might just make your career. But it must go to press tomorrow. It should make the lunchtime edition. And you must name me as your source.’

  Sam Stubbs gasped, and pushed his spectacles back up onto his nose.

  ‘Go on,’ he nodded, chewing the end of his pen.

  Posie outlined the details of the evening’s events: the discovery of the infamous La Luna club; the police raid; the discovery of the body of Lucky Lucy. She spelled out Caspian della Rosa’s name carefully. Sam Stubbs wrote everything down in a nervous shorthand which looked nothing like Babe Sinclair’s.

  ‘Are we done here?’ she asked after a few minutes. Sam scanned his notepad, checking the detail. He nodded and looked up:

  ‘One thing I’m not clear on, Miss Parker,’ he asked, frowning, as he gathered up a cheap-looking tweed overcoat and hat. ‘What’s in this for you, if not money?’

  Posie smiled sweetly.

  ‘Let’s just say I’m hoping for a particular outcome. And also, I’m hoping that you may be able to help me out in the next couple of days. The Associated Press is one of the best papers in town: it must have a very good archive of clippings. I think I’m going to need access to them. And I think you are just the man to help me.’

  ****

  ‘What did you go and do that for?’ said Len angrily, kicking the snow. They were walking along the Strand together, taking care to avoid a man and his little boy leading a horse and trap, liberally sprinkling the road with salt from a bucket at the back of the cart.

  ‘Inspector Lovelace will be mad at you, you idiot! The raid was supposed to be hush-hush. It didn’t exactly go very well, either. Now all of London will know about it! And why choose that spotty nincompoop, just out of school? I have loads of contacts at newspapers if you wanted to blow the thing right up in our faces. Good grief, Po! I almost wonder if you haven’t lost your wits!’

  Posie smiled, taking his arm and crossing over to the Aldwych. The bell of St Clement Danes Church was just tolling three a.m.

  ‘I know you have contacts, Len. But none of them happened to be right there, tonight. So much in life comes down to timing, doesn’t it? Sam Stubbs was the right man for the job, at just the right time. I need this news to break tomorrow, in the lunchtime edition, latest.’

  ‘Why, might I ask?’ Len said, his tone heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘We need to flush out Caspian della Rosa. Expose him. So far he’s managed to remain under the radar. No-one even knows about him. Not even the police! But all that w
ill change. He needs to know we’ve got him cornered.’

  ‘Jeepers. I know he might be up to his neck in all manner of dodgy goings-on, but so far you have no direct evidence linking him to anything, let alone two murders or stealing that wretched diamond. What do you hope to achieve?’

  ‘We’ll just have to wait and see,’ Posie said with conviction. ‘But sure as bread is bread I’m not going to let Rufus hang for this. I’m going to solve this.’

  Len looked at her and decided he had said enough.

  A cold wind was blowing along the dark street. He groaned inwardly to think of the long and expensive cab ride back to Leytonstone. As if she could read his mind Posie turned to him and smiled:

  ‘I thought we could sleep over at the office tonight. It’s so close by. Besides, it’s only five hours until we need to start work again. No point trekking home, is there? I can’t think why I haven’t done it more often!’

  Len gasped. ‘What will people say? We can’t both stay over!’

  ‘What people?’ scoffed Posie. ‘Mr Minks?’

  Len muttered into his coat collar and flushed a dark red, but continued walking.

  They walked back to Grape Street with no real further conversation, still awkwardly arm-in-arm, but with Posie feeling she had crossed some invisible boundary between them, and Len feeling he had been made to look a prude. When they reached the Detective Agency they were both glad to take to their own offices, light their own small fires, and close their own doors on what had been a very long and complicated day.

  As Posie was settling down to sleep on the small cream rug in front of her fireplace, with her brown tweed coat over her as a blanket, she couldn’t help but think that in among all the strange, wonderful and terrible things she had experienced that day, something closer to home wasn’t quite right.

  She was so tired…so very, very tired.

  She blinked in an effort to keep her eyes open. Something was missing.