HE WOKE WITH a head like a hornet’s nest, a mouth like a blocked drain, and a desperate need to pee.
For a moment he didn’t know where he was. The darkness was total. Then, remembering, he felt along the table towards a light switch.
The sudden blaze drove red-hot nails into his eyes. He blinked in agony. Not time to get to the Gents along the passage. He used the wash-basin noisily, comforting himself with the thought that some of the old actor-laddies reckoned that brought good luck.
He swayed erratically until he had overcome the apparently insuperable problem of doing up his zip. Then he looked at his watch.
Ten to three. Ugh. He must get back to his digs.
There was no light in the passage outside. Oh no, the Stage Doorman must have thought the theatre was empty, and locked up. God, he might be stuck in there till the morning. That’d give the rest of the company a good laugh, he thought ruefully.
He found a switch in the passage and deluged himself with more scalding light. He made his way gingerly towards the Stage Door, hoping against hope that it might just be secured on a latch that could be opened from the inside.
As he edged along, he noticed that the door to Norman’s store-room was open. Curious, he moved closer.
The padlock had not been unlocked, but one of the rings to which it was attached had been wrenched away from the door-frame. The screws still stuck forlornly out of the metal plate.
There was no light in the store-room, so he found the switch and once again light seared his eyeballs.
When he had stopped blinking, he stepped down into the room and looked at the scene that greeted his aching eyes.
The padlock on the spirits cupboard had also been forced, and one or two bottles had crashed on to the floor. Also, a couple of the tubes which ran from the kegs to the ceiling had been pulled down.
And on the floor, in the middle of this chaos, face-down, lay Warnock Belvedere.
Beside him was his walking stick. Ragged scrapings on its shiny surface suggested that it had been used to force the padlocks.
In Warnock’s hand the bottle of Courvoisier was still clasped. It was empty. Beer from one of the broken plastic pipes bubbled fitfully over the thick tweed of his suit and into his stained beard.
God, the old soak must have been desperate. Finished the brandy bottle and still needed more. So he’d broken into the store-room, tried first to get some beer, and then attacked the spirits cupboard.
As Charles Paris looked down at the crumpled, sodden heap on the floor, and as his own head throbbed like an old dishwasher in its final cycle, he swore that he would never touch another drop.
Oh well, better wake the old bugger up, he thought. See if we’re both going to be locked in here for the night.
He reached down to shake the prostrate actor’s shoulder, but got no response.
He shook harder; then turned Warnock over on to his back.
The face revealed was grotesquely more purple and congested than usual.
Nobody was going to wake up Wamock Belvedere.
Ever again.