eighteen

“Any luck finding your bicycle?” Rex asked Timothy Holden, who was standing at the back of the hall finishing off a piece of layered sponge cake.

“Nah, gone for a burton,” he replied, wiping cream from his mouth with one of Penny’s paper napkins. The pronounced underbite and thick lenses magnifying his eyes gave him the look of an insect, further enhanced by the greying brown hair, spare and bristly, cut close to his head. A moth, Rex decided.

“Did you report it stolen?”

Holden’s frown deepened. “Not worth it. It’s a piece of junk. I just asked Jensen to keep an eye out in case it turned up, but it’s prob’ly been cannibalized for parts by now.”

“The caretaker said it went missing sometime on Friday evening.”

“Why you asking?” Holden, maintaining his perpetually puzzled expression, proceeded to lick his fingers. “Have you tried Ada’s cake?” Red jam filling had dribbled onto his wide, brown suede tie, worn over a pastel blue rayon shirt.

“Not yet. You have jam on your tie. Allow me.” Rex took the napkin and dabbed the raspberry off as best he could. “As you may have heard, I’m working on the case, but privately. There, that’s better.” He handed back the napkin, which Holden stuffed into the black, beltless trousers nipping into his expansive waist.

“You’re not required to speak to me if you choose not to,” Rex said. “I simply wanted to know what time you got here on Friday afternoon. I’m trying to create a timeline.”

“Five forty, it was, or thereabouts.”

This roughly coincided with what Holden had told the caretaker, and yet Penny had been sure she had seen him approaching the building on foot almost an hour earlier. “And you came on your bike?”

“Right. I don’t have a car. I went in early to rehearse before the others arrived. I hadn’t had the part very long and was nervous I’d forget my lines. I can’t always hear Ron when he’s prompting.”

“I watched the entire play on DVD. Father Brown doesn’t have many lines.”

“True, but my memory’s not that fantastic. I really can’t fathom how actors manage to remember reams of script. I had trouble at school reciting from memory just one verse of poetry. Added to which, I had to do an Essex accent. Rodney helped with that as he’s from Essex, same as Father Brown.”

“Those setbacks didn’t prevent you from taking on the role,” Rex pointed out with an encouraging smile.

“Oh, I’ve always loved the theatre, and Mr. Reddit asked me as a favour, like.”

“How did you get into the building?”

“Ron dropped the key off at my work. His office is close by, same as Mr. Reddit’s. Said he might be running late from a meeting, but he’d get there by six thirty, so I was to unlock the front door for the rest of the cast.”

“Did you change here?”

Holden gave a snorting laugh. “Well, yeah. I could hardly bike in my bleeding costume, now could I? It’s like a dress. Imagine the stares I’d get!”

“It would certainly draw some attention,” Rex agreed, sharing in Holden’s amusement. “So, you arrived at twenty to six, and then what did you do?”

“I parked the bike around the side, same as I always do. Did,” Holden corrected himself. “I let myself in the front entrance and went to change. Then I went through my lines onstage. Tony had taped out my marks for me.”

“Were the theatre curtains closed?”

Holden nodded and glanced towards them. “And it was quite dark. I could just make out the crosses.”

“And you never left the building?”

“Not until I went home that night.”

“Who was the next person to arrive, and when?”

“Tony, at around six. The actors began coming in ten minutes later.”

“Did anything unusual happen that you can remember?”

“Not until the shooting. I was in the lav when I heard the shot go off.”

“You heard it, even though your hearing is impaired?”

“It’s not that bad. I have trouble hearing whispers, like when Ron prompts. But I heard the bang through the wall. I wondered what it was, but I wasn’t alarmed, exactly. Ada and Susan caught up with me in the corridor. They’d heard it too. When we got backstage we found out Cassie’d been shot. Mr. Reddit, his niece, and the stagehands, they came in a few minutes after us. We none of us could believe it. I still can’t.”

“Any ideas how it might have happened?”

Holden blinked behind the lenses of his glasses. “How should I know? I wasn’t there, was I? You should ask them as were.”

“I have. At least most of them. How well do you know Christopher Ells?”

“Better than the others. He’s single, same as me, so we hang out in our free time. He gave me a lift here this afternoon, since I’m without transportation.”

“What exactly is it that Ells does at the hospital?”

“He works in a pathology lab, cleaning tubes and instruments. Says there’s a special kind of oven to sterilize the equipment in. An autoclave, or something.”

“And how do you get on with the others?”

Holden gave a small shrug. “Ben and Bill are okay. They mostly stick together. Mr. Reddit is a nice man, but he’s a solicitor. Not stuck up, though, not like Rodney or Andrew, who’s a bit of a poser. I don’t know Dennis Caldwell that well, but I’d never buy a policy off him, and I don’t really know the women well, neither. Women tend to ignore me. Not Cassie, though.”

“And Trey Atkins?”

“He’s all right. A quiet, serious sort of lad. I heard today they’d got engaged. Makes her death that much worse, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“Look, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get some more food. Talking always gives me the munchies.”

“By all means.” Rex watched as Holden went over to a table and piled a paper plate with salmon paste sandwiches.

Rex looked about the hall and through the open double doors to the lobby, where a few of the mourners had migrated. Others stood outside the building’s entrance, taking advantage of the fine evening. He would have liked to talk to Ells, but he was nowhere in sight. Had he left without Holden? Apparently, Holden was wondering the same thing as he meandered about with his laden plate.

Through the forest of people still occupying the space between the double doors and the tables of refreshments, which Ada Card was beginning to clear with a handful of volunteers, Rex spotted Trey standing alone. He made a beeline for him while Ada was occupied, and was greeted by a wan smile of recognition.

“How are you bearing up, lad?”

“So-so.” Trey paused and looked at him through tired hazel eyes. “Inspector Fiske asked if I had rung you yesterday. I wondered what that was about.”

“I got a call from someone I thought might be you. He didn’t give a name, simply implied he was responsible for Cassie’s suicide.”

“Suicide?” Trey asked in shock. “Responsible how?”

“For refusing to marry her.”

“That’s nonsense,” Trey exclaimed, his face taking on more colour. “Why would I have broken off our engagement?” He looked for a moment as though he might cry bitter tears, and then he stared at Rex. “She wasn’t seeing anyone else.”

Rex thought he glimpsed just a shadow of doubt. “I’ve pretty much concluded it was a prank call, possibly from a pupil at Penny’s school.”

Trey’s face tensed up, anger replacing consternation. “I’ll thrash him! Who is he?”

“We don’t know, but Penny will look into it. Are you still at Ada’s?”

“No, I’m headed to Little Eaton to collect my sister from her friend’s. We’ll be staying at my parents’ house. My mother is flying back from a business trip. I really should get going.”

“Trey, you seen Chris?” Holden asked, approaching them, having rid himself of his plate and holding a half-eaten chocolate wafer. In the background, the caretaker was going around the hall removing debris left on chairs and disposing of the items in a large black plastic bag.

“Chris Ells? I don’t think so. Do you need a lift home? I’m leaving right now.”

“Nice one.” Holden turned to Rex. “Let me know if you find my bike, ta. You can get my number through Penny.”

Trey called out to Ada and waved in farewell, and he and Holden left. Rex could not help but feel that the young man had used the excuse of his sister to make a quick exit. He tailed the two men from a distance and, standing by Helen’s car beneath the chestnut tree, watched as a shiny blue BMW turned out of the gateposts. More vehicles followed as the community centre began to clear out in waves. Andrew Forsythe, top hat and cane in hand, walked out arm in arm with a woman in lilac silk tulle and a matching hat, an outfit more appropriate for a garden party, in Rex’s opinion. They certainly made a flamboyant pair. Forsythe’s wife, if such she was, had apparently recovered from whatever ailment had prevented her from attending opening night.

“Thinking of leaving without me?” Helen asked behind him, giving him a start. “You keep disappearing.”

A flood of people poured into the car park at that moment, among them Tony, who left in his old red estate car.

Rex leant against the front passenger door of his wife’s Renault. “I wasn’t thinking of leaving at all, but I’m running out of people to interview. Trey Atkins had to collect his sister in Little Eaton, wherever that is.”

“It’s a village northeast of Derby.”

Rex fixed his eyes on her. “Would the petrol station we received the call from yesterday be on the way to Little Eaton, by any chance? The man said it was on the ring road north of the city.” Rex unlocked the car and reached into the door pocket for a road map of Derbyshire. He unfolded it and located the A6/A38 ring road with his finger. “Aye, Little Eaton is up that way.”

“Trey’s parents live at the Old Rectory, a lovely property with stables, according to Ada. His father, who’s American, is something big in computer chips. Trey’s fifteen-year-old sister attends a private school and his younger brother is at Durham University.”

Rex smiled at his wife. “Been sleuthing?”

“Absolutely. I complimented Ada on the catering and gave her a hand packing up. I don’t think she realized I was your better half, I just said I knew Penny. We got to talking about Trey, whom I said was a credit to his parents. Ada told me she knew them well from charity events. They’re an extremely close family, apparently.”

“How did they feel about Cassie?”

“They adored her. They were a bit surprised by the quick engagement, but fully supportive.”

“Did Ada say anything else?”

“Only that Trey is very cut up over Cassie and is not eating or sleeping. She’s worried about his health. He did look extremely pale.”

“Aye, poor lad. It’s not surprising.”

Trey Atkins appeared to have had everything going for him, until his beautiful fiancée was brutally taken away before they could publicly announce their engagement.