There were plenty of police on duty around the theatre after Geoff’s death, so no one saw anything of the mysterious stalker and no death threats arrived. Inspector Humphries seemed convinced that the stalker had been scared off, at least temporarily. But I still wasn’t sure it was an outside job. There were so many odd things going on in the theatre that I suspected anyone could be behind it.
Rex and Hannah had been avoiding each other since I’d seen them having that snatched conversation. But I felt Rex’s eyes on me a lot of the time, as if he was watching my every move. Hannah had stopped trying to hide how much she hated Tiffany: she just spent her time glaring at the star from the wings. Peregrine on the other hand seemed utterly besotted. He couldn’t praise Tiffany enough.
“He seems to be really obsessed with her,” I said to Graham at one rehearsal. “Do you reckon he might be her stalker?”
“No… It wouldn’t make sense,” he objected.
“But you said yourself stalking is a bonkers thing to do. Peregrine’s worried about money, isn’t he, according to Rex and that lot? Might that be enough to unhinge him?”
Neither of us could come up with a good answer to that question.
Then there were Timothy, Rex and Brad to keep an eye on. Not to mention Walter Roberts who played the part of the Wizard and Uncle Henry. OK, so they were each old enough to be Tiffany’s dad but they’d all been at the receiving end of her smile: any one of them might be secretly in love with her.
Christmas was looming. The shops were full of tinselly displays and tinnily piped carols, and the high street’s fairy lights had been officially switched on by the mayor. It was late November and we had about two weeks to go before opening night.
Graham and I were kept pretty busy watching everyone while rehearsals progressed. Once the actors had learnt their lines and knew their moves, Peregrine started working on the finer details like pace and rhythm. It was then that things began to get tricky.
We were practising the bit where the tornado has blown the farmhouse over the rainbow (a neat piece of theatrical engineering involving a load of wires and pulleys). In the blackout we’d all rushed on to the stage to take our places before it landed with a thud, squishing the Wicked Witch of the East flat as a cowpat. The “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” routine went smoothly. To Peregrine’s enormous relief the singing–dancing Munchkins had stopped trying to outdo each other and were working nicely as a team.
But during “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” we got into difficulties.
“The pace is a little slow,” said Peregrine, cutting in after the first verse. “The piece needs a lift at this point. Tiffany, darling, your performance is exquisite but I wonder if you’d mind speeding up just a fraction?”
Tiffany nodded obediently. Everyone took their places for the beginning of the number and then Tiffany did it exactly the way she’d done it before.
Peregrine interrupted halfway through. “That’s lovely, darling. But we need to shift it along here with just a touch more energy. A little more zest, please, OK?”
“Of course,” she said. Everyone got into position. And then she did it again. And again it was just the same as before.
After his seventh interruption Peregrine gave up because each time Tiffany made us go back to the beginning of the song, and took ages and ages to get going again. She stood there taking deep breaths, composing herself. She said she was feeling the part, getting into character.
I’d read somewhere that lots of actors have weird routines to ward off bad luck. They’re a really superstitious bunch. They wear lucky socks, or turn around three times before they go on, or walk through the stage door backwards with their fingers crossed. Tiffany had this funny habit of glancing up and twitching her little finger just before she started singing. It was quite interesting to start with, but as the day wore on even I was beginning to find watching Tiffany tedious.
The rest of the cast were getting short-tempered and some of the kids were tired and starting to make mistakes.
About an hour before home time the Mayor of Munchkinland lost it completely, tying his feet in knots and tripping over Glinda’s skirt. Tiffany ground to a halt. Peregrine sighed and said, “Let’s just skip ahead to the last verse shall we?”
It was only for a moment. I don’t think anyone else even noticed. Peregrine certainly didn’t. But in a tiny flash I saw more fear in Tiffany’s eyes than I’d seen when Geoff had dropped dead and she knew for certain her stalker wanted to kill her. Something had really terrified her.
Then she threw one of her zillion-volt smiles at Peregrine and said smoothly, “I’d prefer to go back to the beginning, Peregrine. I do so want to get the flow of the piece right. It’s terribly important, don’t you agree?”
He was powerless to resist – he went all still and frozen like a rabbit caught in the headlights. “Oh yes,” he said, nodding so fervently that the hair brushed across his bald patch came adrift and hung down the side of his face like a shower curtain.
This time we managed to get through the whole song – at Tiffany’s pace – but by the end of it we were exhausted.
“We’re never going to get to the Emerald City at this rate,” Graham complained as we left.
I was so wiped out that I forgot my lunchbox. We were halfway to the bus stop before I remembered and we had to turn back.
Empty theatres are spooky places. It must be to do with all that highly charged emotion seeping into the walls with every performance. You could almost believe they’re haunted.
I was glad Graham was with me when Maggie let us in through the stage door. We had to go along the echoing corridors past the kids’ dressing rooms and then the grown-ups’ ones, where someone was having a shower and singing their head off. We couldn’t quite make out where the noise was coming from but it was tuneless. Awful.
“They sound worse than you do,” said Graham, flashing one of his blink-and-you-miss-it grins.
“Thanks a lot.”
We walked on, the caterwauling following us as we climbed a flight of stairs and on to the stage. My lunchbox was at the back where I’d left it. As I retrieved it, I heard a faint click high above me and peered up.
Directly overhead was the grid from which hundreds of massive theatre lights were suspended. During rehearsals when they were switched on you were blinded if you so much as glanced heavenwards. But now they were off and when I looked up I glimpsed a shadowy figure.
Like I said, empty theatres are spooky places. For a moment I thought it was the stalker and I was so terrified I dropped my lunchbox. But when the figure called down to us I realized it was only Jason.
“What are you two doing here?” he demanded rudely.
“I forgot this,” I replied, picking the box back up and waving it about as proof. The distant sound of the terrible singing echoed eerily across the stage.
“Oh right,” he snapped angrily. “You had better go now. Go on, get out. You shouldn’t be here after hours. Health and safety would have a fit.”
We turned to leave but before I entirely disappeared into the wings I peeked over my shoulder. Jason hadn’t moved. He was watching to make sure we left.
I couldn’t see his expression, but I couldn’t help wondering why he was so keen to see the back of us.