nine

The next morning after breakfast, Rex was able, after several tries, to make contact with Inspector Fiske who, albeit sounding weary, was as cordial as before. In answer to Rex’s enquiry, he said the replica gun had not yet been retrieved. The one used in Cassie Chase’s death had been shown to Tony Wade in its evidence bag the previous evening, and the producer was adamant it was not the one he had bid for on eBay and which had been used in the rehearsals. The prop, although similar, had been made of plastic, according to Wade.

Inspector Fiske told Rex that the police were conducting a search of the Chase residence, not only for the missing prop but for any indication at all of Cassie’s frame of mind.

“Such as a suicide note?” Rex asked.

“That would certainly be helpful, but any leads pointing to what happened last night would be welcome.” The inspector concluded by reminding Rex to keep all information he had passed on as confidential.

Rex assured him he would and asked if he had seen the DVD of the dress rehearsal. “My wife and I watched it last night,” he explained. “I can’t say that anything really leapt out at me, but it was useful as context.”

“Penny Spencer mentioned such a recording to my sergeant. Did she give you her only copy?”

“I’m not sure, but you’re welcome to it.”

“If there’s any way you can return it to her in the course of the morning,” Fiske requested, “I’ll be visiting her after lunch.”

Rex agreed to do just that, glad of the opportunity to speak to Penny again. He was about to broach the question of Tony Giovanni when Fiske said he had to get off the phone and attend to a witness. Rex reluctantly ended the call, wondering who the witness might be and how much further ahead than himself the inspector was in the case.

Tapping the mobile phone against his beard, he contemplated the fate of the replica gun. The police would presumably comb the roads radiating out from the community centre, in case the killer had thrown it out of a car window. However, Rex doubted the person who had managed to avoid detection thus far would have been so careless as to get rid of evidence close to the scene of the crime. More probably, it had been disposed of in a body of water, or else smashed to smithereens and scattered to the four winds. But how had it been smuggled out of the building? All cast and crew members would have been searched before they left.

“More coffee?” Helen asked, poking her head into the sitting room.

“Thanks, but I’ve already had two mugs.” Rex heaved himself out of the cushy armchair and stretched his arms in front of him. “Inspector Fiske asked me to return the DVD to Penny. Are you coming?”

Helen hesitated. “I should really carry on with the packing. I’m in the process of wrapping up some small items.” She had agreed to leave the less important boxes in the bedroom until their next visit rather than try to arrange for a moving van over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend.

“I can drop off the two crates at Oxfam. Anything else I can do while I’m at it?”

“If I give you a list, can you be a love and take care of the shopping? And I’d better give you Penny’s address.”

Rex decided to go there first and leave the errands for later. Once the car was loaded with the charity donations, he set off for the neighbourhood where Penny lived, close to the community centre in a residential street filled with newer two-storey homes clad in white wood and enclosed by tall hedges. A red estate wagon was parked in the driveway. Rex somehow doubted the lacklustre vehicle belonged to the sophisticated Penny Spencer. If she had a visitor, he would have to just drop off the DVD and leave, more the pity. He rang the doorbell.

Within seconds he heard clicking footsteps approaching from inside and Penny answered the door, dressed in a light, oatmeal-coloured jumper and slacks, the same look of chic about her as before, due in part to the silk scarf in shades of brown and amber flowing from her neck. She appeared more composed than the previous night and had a bit of colour in her cheeks. “Oh, hello, Rex.” She glanced around him. “Is Helen not with you?”

“She’s busy packing. I came to return the DVD.” Rex handed it to her. “We couldn’t wait to watch it and enjoyed it immensely.”

“I’m glad. Do come in.” Penny stepped back from the doorway.

“I don’t want to impose if you have company.”

“Nonsense. You can meet Tony, the director of the play. You might find it helpful to talk to him, and I just made tea.”

What excellent timing, Rex thought, closing the front door behind him. “Did you need a lift to the community centre to get your car?” he asked, following Penny as her mules clacked back through the stone-tiled hall.

“It’s in the garage. It was sweet of Helen to offer last night, but Tony drove me over this morning.”

Bully for Tony. Rex felt a bit of a let-down. It would have been a convenient excuse to go back to the community centre and see if the police were still milling about looking for clues in broad daylight. However, this minor setback was far outweighed by the opportunity to speak with the play’s director.

“We’re through here.” Penny led him into a stylish and sparely furnished sitting room where Tony Giovanni occupied one end of a low trestle settee, his long legs almost folded to his chin. Gone were the gabardine suit and bow-tie, replaced by a light denim shirt worn over a pair of beige khakis and loafers.

Penny introduced Rex as the husband of an ex-colleague at her school, and the two men shook hands. She urged Rex to sit down and he smiled pleasantly at Tony a few feet away, waiting for him to open the conversation.

Despite the director’s fifty years, he projected a certain boyishness, which Rex attributed to the barely greying mop of dark hair and widely set brown eyes. Above these grew a pair of thick eyebrows with a few stray white hairs straggling at the outer edges.

Penny filled the silence by asking Rex if he would like milk and sugar in his tea, and then left to fetch another cup for herself. Rex explained that he had stopped by to return the DVD of the dress rehearsal.

“How was it?” Tony asked, balancing his teacup and saucer on raised knees. “I haven’t seen it yet.”

“Very professional, but rather poignant under the circumstances. Cassie looked so vibrant, as though she had the whole world at her feet.”

Penny went to sit beside Tony on the low sofa.

“She had an aura about her,” Tony agreed. “Cassie was one of those people you just enjoy being around.”

“Hard to believe that only two days later the lass would be dead, let alone through suicide.”

“You just never know,” Tony murmured, contemplating his teacup.

At this rather enigmatic statement, Rex glanced at Penny, who gave him a tiny shake of her head as though in warning.

“Mr. Graves is helping the police,” she said in the awkward pause that ensued. “He’s a private detective when he’s not prosecuting criminals at the High Court in Edinburgh.”

“I’m not acting in any official capacity,” Rex hastened to add. “I just happened to be attending the opening night with my wife.”

“Helen kindly drove me home last night.” Penny turned to Rex. “We’re all going to miss her so much at the school.”

Meanwhile, Tony had been nodding mutely at his teacup. Rex despaired that he was going to get anything out of him. The director acted as though he was the only person affected by Cassie’s death. In fact, he had been the only one involved in the play not to stay behind the previous evening, having been sedated by a paramedic and taken home.

“Was it you who recorded the dress rehearsal, Tony?” Rex asked politely.

Tony looked up in surprise. “No, I was watching with Penny from the front row. It was probably Bill or Ben.”

“Ben gave me the DVD,” Penny said. “I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. The actual rehearsal went off without a hitch and we all went off to the pub to celebrate.” Her face crumpled and she looked as though she might cry. She grabbed a tissue from a box on the coffee table and quickly dabbed under her eyes.

Tony started to reach out to her but changed his mind, returning his hand to his lap. Rex was getting the distinct impression he was in the way, and he deposited his teacup in preparation to leave. First, though, there was something else he needed to ask the director.

“Regarding the stage curtains, do you know who closed them last night at the end of the first act?”

“That would have been Bill.”

“And you were where at the time, if I might ask?”

“Backstage, sitting at the table in the cubbyhole under the stairs. I was working on some lesson plans in an effort to distract myself. I was probably as jittery as the actors. When they all came offstage and gave me the thumbs-up, I breathed a sigh of relief. Act One was almost over, and Cassie didn’t have any more lines. I really thought it would be plain sailing from there.” Tony bit down on his lip, staring morosely at his cup.

“Was Ron Wade among the actors coming offstage?”

“I think so. His job was over for the first act.”

“Is it possible you might have missed any unusual comings and goings while you were preparing your lessons?” Rex pursued.

Tony sat back on the settee and stared over Rex’s head, his symmetrical face skewed in an expression of concentration. “I was facing the back of the stage keeping an ear cocked for any pauses in the dialogue. Ron was prompting, but he’s not always very quick off the mark. Usually one of the actors improvises if someone freezes up. But it all seemed to be going well. No, I didn’t hear or see anyone go up the steps, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“And at the time of the shooting, were you still at the table?”

The director bent double over his cup, as though afflicted by physical pain. Penny grasped his hand, and he answered hoarsely, “Yes, and I heard the shot, of course, but I had no idea what it was. I thought maybe one of the speakers in the fly space had crashed to the floor. At that point, I looked around for Ben, but remembered he had left with Bill for a smoke. Oh! So maybe Bill didn’t operate the curtains after all. Anyway, I opened the dressing room door. Trey was there fixing his stage makeup and I asked if he had heard the noise, and he said he had. That’s when he went up to the stage and found Cassie.”

“Who else was backstage with you when the shot rang out?”

“The male detectives,” Tony replied, straightening up again. “Except for Timothy Holden, who plays Father Brown. A couple of them were on their phones making it difficult to concentrate on my work. And Christopher, the butler, was on the steps, knocking back gin from a flask. I wasn’t too worried at that point because he didn’t have much to do in Acts Two and Three. By the time I spoke to Trey, Christopher and the others had already gone up the stairs to investigate. Trey pushed past them, and I followed. The rest of the cast and crew returned in dribs and drabs after that. That’s all I can remember, really. It’s almost word for word what I told Inspector Fiske.”

Rex nodded in thanks and smiled at Penny. “I should really get going. I have to drop some stuff off at Oxfam. Incidentally, I don’t suppose either of you have any use for an old VCR Helen is getting rid of ?”

They shook their heads. Penny rose from the settee. “Such a hassle, moving; isn’t it? I had a lot of stuff to bring over from Paris.”

“At least most of the furniture is staying.” Rex got up too, and Tony noticeably relaxed as they exchanged farewell greetings.

“Did you get the information you wanted?” Penny asked in a low voice when she and Rex reached the hall.

“Not sure,” he replied truthfully.

She accompanied him out the front door and into the soft morning sunshine. “Tony lost a sister to suicide,” she confided. “That’s what I was trying to signal to you. It’s a touchy subject.”

“No wonder he was so upset last night.”

“Yes, it must have brought it all back. And I was afraid he would suffer another anxiety attack just now.”

“When did it happen? The sister’s suicide, I mean.”

Penny walked him to Helen’s car. “When she was eighteen. It was just before her A Levels. A long time ago, but, still.”

“The pressure of exams?”

“Tony didn’t say. Only that she took an overdose of sleeping pills and no one found her in time. Tony had to break the news to their parents who were away in Spain. He felt responsible because he was supposed to be looking after her.”

Rex gave a low whistle. “I see.”

“He told me this morning. I think Cassie reminded him of Gisella, and that’s why he took her death so hard.” Penny gazed at the gravel at her feet. “I thought he was smitten by Cassie. Now I know it was something else.” She looked wistful, almost hopeful, and Rex understood better the feeling he’d had in the sitting room of interrupting something between her and Tony.

“Cassie’s death may not have been a suicide,” he pointed out. “You said so yourself.”

“I think, either way, Tony feels he should have been better able to protect her. I suppose we all feel that way. She was the youngest member of the cast. Not that she wasn’t mature for her age. She was. But if she didn’t shoot herself, who did? I almost find the idea of murder harder to contemplate. I mean, who would do such a thing? I’ve been thinking about it all night.”

“Were you able to come to any conclusions?”

Penny tilted her head, causing her loose knot of dark hair to slip to one side. She raised her hands to secure it. “It has to have been someone with ready access to the stage, someone who would not have alerted suspicion, don’t you think?”

Rex smiled at her. “I’d almost forgotten you’d written a murder mystery play. Aye, I agree, and I’d go so far as to say the perpetrator would have had to have acted with a cool head and perfect timing. Let me know if anyone comes to mind.”

“Well, not Tony, for starters. You can see for yourself he could never do anything like that.”

Rex could not quite agree with Penny there. Tony might not say boo to a goose, perhaps, but a man with a sensitive nature could murder a woman if he’d had his feelings hurt badly enough. Tony may have treated Cassie with brotherly regard, or he may have wanted something more.

“I should be getting back,” Penny said, rousing herself to action. “He’ll be wondering where I am.” She gently touched Rex’s arm. “Thank you for helping.”

“Of course. Well, goodbye,” he said, opening the driver’s-side door of the Renault.

“Drop by again with Helen if you have time before you leave for Edinburgh.”

He said he would and lowered himself into the car seat, turning the key in the ignition as Penny began walking back to the house, her silk scarf billowing lightly behind her. A nice woman, he thought, reversing out of the driveway. Perhaps if her budding relationship with Tony bloomed into love, something positive could come out of the tragedy.

His mind then switched to the more practical matters at hand. Oxfam first, and then Sainsbury’s, he decided, only wishing he had as good an idea of where he was going next in his investigation. Inspiration struck as he pulled out onto the road. He would buy Helen some flowers. He knew just the place.