The police wanted to stop the show. For a while I wondered if Peregrine would let them and if he really had done away with Tiffany to collect the insurance money. But no, Peregrine was adamant the production would go ahead. We could hear him in the corridor saying urgently, “ ‘The show must go on.’ That’s not a cliché, Inspector Humphries, it’s the simple truth. It really cannot be cancelled.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” came the policeman’s reply. “I can’t allow…”
“There’s a full house out there,” Peregrine persisted. “If we don’t proceed, the financial loss will break the company. As it is I’ve had to remortgage my house to cover our debts. An awful lot of jobs are dependent on this production’s success. I beg of you. Please reconsider.”
There was a long pause but eventually Inspector Humphries said, “Very well. You can go ahead. I’ll take statements after the show.”
Dizzy with shock and sick with nerves, we took our places.
Cynthia had been right, I noticed. Without her Goth make-up, Hannah – who’d had to get costumed up in five minutes flat – was very pretty. Very pretty and faintly familiar – I had the vague feeling that I might have seen her face somewhere before. And I wasn’t the only one. When Jason – fingers shaking, lip trembling – tried to pin a microphone to her dress, she turned away and muttered, “I can manage without amplification, thanks.”
She put a hand up as if to shield her face, but the movement just focused Jason’s attention more closely on her. He stared, frowned and said, “Katie…?”
But he didn’t get a chance to say any more because it turned out that Hannah was sick with nerves too. Literally. At that moment she spun round and threw up into the fire bucket, which brought their conversation to a sudden halt.
As for me, I was shaking so much that my petals were rustling like I was caught in a stiff breeze. I was deeply regretting having had anything at all to do with the production. I wanted to go home. Go to bed. Hide under the duvet and not come out until spring. I felt cold inside, as if I’d swallowed a ghost. Graham had lost the power to talk. He was swaying like his knees were about to give way.
But Hannah looked worse than both of us. I really couldn’t see how she would be able to perform. Why was Peregrine putting us through it? Why hadn’t he cancelled the show? What kind of sadist was he?
Peregrine made an announcement telling the packed theatre that Tiffany Webb was unable to perform and that the part of Dorothy would be taken by her understudy. This was answered by a howl of disappointment from the audience. Hannah was sick again.
But then something weird happened.
I’d read about actors whose fear disappears the moment they step out into the spotlight. As soon as the overture struck up, Hannah was suddenly transformed.
She stood up straight, flicked one of her plaits across her shoulder and smiled the kind of smile that fills everyone who sees it with a warm glow. She looked positively radiant. Star-like. When the curtains opened, she filled the stage with her magical presence.
Of course we’d never rehearsed with Hannah, but she was so good it wasn’t a problem. It was like she picked up the whole cast in her arms and carried them along. You could feel the audience’s love for her like great waves of warmth washing over the stage. She sang “Over the Rainbow” with the same familiar sad longing that we’d heard from Tiffany, but Hannah’s voice seemed richer and fuller somehow. Maybe it was the difference between a recorded voice and a live one, I thought.
I was mesmerized. Captivated. Bewitched, just like everyone else. Even Graham wiped a tear from his eye. My brain was completely incapable of rational thought. So it wasn’t until we got to the flying monkey bit that I realized who she was. We were holding her by the arms and were just taking off when the stage light caught the side of her face and lit up her profile. Suddenly I remembered the photograph of Tiffany’s school production. Dorothy. Played by Katie somebody. It was her!
We soared up onto the platform. Down below us the non-flying monkeys were terrorizing the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man, and beating up the Scarecrow while Toto yapped his head off. They were making so much noise that I knew no one in the audience would hear me if I spoke.
“You were at school with them!” I said. “Your name’s not Hannah. It’s Katie.”
Which was possibly not the cleverest thing to say to a suspected murderess when you’re wobbling on a narrow ledge ten metres above the stage. But Graham and I were both over-excited.
“The girl from the photo!” Graham pointed at her too. “No wonder you wore so much make-up – you’ve been in disguise, haven’t you?”
“You tampered with Tiffany’s microphone!” I accused her.
Graham gasped. “It was you, wasn’t it? It was all you. You killed Tiffany!”
Hannah hadn’t said a word but Graham and I started to back away because her pretty face was suddenly contorted with rage and hate.
“Tiffany deserved it!” Hannah spat. “I’m glad she’s dead! She took everything from me!”
We were right on the edge of the platform and Hannah looked evil. She took a step towards us, and at that moment Graham and I turned and fled. There was nowhere to go but up the ladder and into the lighting grid.
We climbed through it with Hannah in pursuit. Or so we thought. We couldn’t really see much to be honest. She could have been escaping in the other direction for all we knew. I suppose we panicked. We were right in the middle of the grid when there was a lighting change. The big lanterns either side of us suddenly flared into life. They were hot as well as blinding and the shock made Graham lose his balance. He slipped. I tried to grab him and we both fell.
I thought we were done for: that we’d be splattered on the stage in front of a live audience. Our mums would never forgive us. But I forgot we were still in our harnesses.
We curved through the air in an elegant arc, kicking the Tin Man clean off his feet and knocking the straw out of the Scarecrow. The Cowardly Lion was sent spinning and poor little Toto weed all over the floor.
We were left dangling helplessly a metre above the stage in the full glare of the spotlights. The audience was in a confused uproar.
The Wizard of Oz had come to a sudden and dramatic end.