Page 5

5

The stage was heaving with people. The coroner’s van had arrived, as had the forensic team. DI Hayley Gibson was in charge, and she’d got straight to work.

‘Your attention please,’ she shouted over the hubbub. ‘As you know, there has been a fatal shooting accident. I need everyone connected with the production, cast and crew, on stage and backstage, to stay, please. No one can leave until Detective Constable Walter Farmer or I have spoken to you.’

There were one or two hands up already, and some murmured questions, but Hayley held her palm up to silence them. She turned to Walter: ‘DC Farmer, clear the hall of everyone not connected to the production and come straight back.’

As Walter went off to shepherd the stragglers out of the door, she addressed the group again. ‘DC Farmer will be coming round to take your name and contact details, and how you are connected to the play. We will be taking brief statements this evening, and some of you with more direct information will have to come into the station for more detailed discussions. ’

Everyone’s eyes turned to Oscar, the man who had pulled the trigger, and the one who doubtless would be first in line for extended interviews.

Oscar looked stricken. ‘I don’t know how it happened. It wasn’t loaded. It’s just a prop.’ He pointed at the pistol, which had been put into an evidence bag, now firmly in DI Gibson’s hand.

‘He’s right!’ said Gina. Julia noticed that she’d thrown a shawl over her shoulders, covering the plunging neckline of the barmaid costume she’d been wearing so enthusiastically. Her hair was done up in a golden pile atop her head. ‘It was just a prop gun. Roger sorted it out. Got all the right permissions.’

‘It was a prop gun,’ Roger confirmed. ‘But I still checked it. As an officer of the law, I am always extremely careful about firearms, prop or otherwise. I’m sure you would have done the same, DI Gibson.’

‘Well, maybe you didn’t check well enough, because I think we can all agree that there was a bullet in there,’ said Nicky, who was not one to mince her words. Or swallow them. Or even think about them too much. She was one to let them run freely out of her mouth and into the world, unchecked. ‘Poor Graham, what a tragic accident. I saw something like it on this television programme, Crime or Accident? You Decide! I think it was called. Anyway, there was this one episode where they had exactly this happen. Only it wasn’t a play, just someone showing people the gun and the bullet was in the chamber. Or was it in the…What do you call that other bit? The nozzle? No, it’s not a nozzle.’

‘Muzzle,’ Hector prompted her helpfully, just as he did the actors on stage. He always had the right word for any occasion and was never shy to proffer it.

‘Muzzle. Isn’t that for dogs?’

‘It is from the same root. Latin, I do believe. I looked it up once, when I was working on the television programme Hot Press …’

Nicky caught Julia’s eye and gave a twitch of a smile. Hector had had a long early career in the popular soap. Julia hadn’t seen him act. In fact she’d never watched the soap. But Hector never missed an opportunity to drop his past acting success into conversation. He and his adult son lived in the same road as Nicky, and Nicky had previously told Julia that he was remarkably adept at bringing his career into conversation, to the extent that he had once managed to slip it into a brief exchange about which day the recycling was being collected. Julia felt a bit sorry for him. An actor’s lot was a precarious one, and being the prompt, and the understudy for the Postman role, must have been a bitter pill.

Hector went on, ‘There was an episode with a pit bull terrier and…’

The rest of the anecdote would remain forever a mystery, because Roger Grave cut in with force. ‘I’m a police officer of twenty years standing and I can assure you that there was no bullet in that prop gun!’ He had turned a worrying shade of puce.

Hayley Gibson didn’t look much calmer. ‘That’s enough. Everyone, please be quiet. Now, if you could all give your names to…’

‘Maybe someone put the bullet in after Mr Grave checked the gun,’ said Dylan. He spoke quietly, as was his way, but he had a certain presence and his words carried through the assembled cast.

There was an audible gasp, and then a pause, whereafter the group threatened to degenerate into a knot of speculation. Julia felt sorry for Hayley, who was not generally overwhelmed, but this group of amateur dramatists seemed to stretch the limits of her control.

‘Oh, come on, now,’ said Guy, still in his postman hat. ‘It was clearly an accident.’

‘Of course it was,’ said Hector. ‘The bullet must have been lodged in the chamber.’

‘Pffft!’ said Nicky. ‘Accident, my foot. Prop guns don’t have bullets lodged in their chambers unless someone puts them there.’

Julia couldn’t help but agree with the logic of Nicky’s statement.

‘What do you mean?’ countered Gina. ‘You don’t believe it was an accident?’

A babble of interjections ensued:

‘How else…?’

‘But what…?’

‘No one would want…’

Julia was pleased that Jane wasn’t there to hear the opinions and conjecture. Sean had attended calmly and kindly to Jane, and was now sitting backstage in the little dressing room with her. He’d been trying to get hold of her daughter, Hannah. Julia remembered that Hannah had had a baby not six months ago – Jane and Graham’s first grandchild – and now the poor girl had lost her father. It was a terribly sad state of affairs.

‘That’s enough. We don’t know what happened, but we are going to find out,’ said Hayley Gibson firmly, keen to regain control of the motley group. Walter Farmer stood at her side, having cleared the hall and closed the doors, his notebook at the ready. ‘Now. While I have you all here, can we confirm the basics of what happened tonight? Oscar, you fired the gun, is that correct?’

He nodded. His lips moved in the shape of the word ‘yes’, but his answer was inaudible.

‘You have done that previously? At rehearsals, I presume?’

‘Yes. At the dress rehearsal.’

‘And where did you find the gun this evening? ’

His eyes glistened with tears. He pointed.

‘Tabitha?’ Hayley didn’t keep the surprise from her voice.

‘Yes,’ said Tabitha. ‘It was me. Julia and I were in charge of props and accessories and such. Roger Grave sourced the prop gun, which we kept in the store cupboard backstage along with all of the other items. Julia put it there this afternoon. I took it out of the cupboard and put the gun in Oscar’s jacket pocket before the show. Then I hung up the jacket, with the gun in its pocket, on the hatstand backstage.’

‘All right, we need proper interviews with each of you. Let’s get names and contact details, and Farmer will quickly take your fingerprints now. Tomorrow, we’ll start with Oscar and Superintendent Grave at ten. Tabitha and Julia, you next. Be at the station at eleven. We will be in touch with everyone else. Make sure DC Farmer has your details, and then you’re free to go. For now. I would prefer it if none of you leave the village without letting DC Farmer or me know.’

After having her fingerprints taken, Julia didn’t join the queue waiting to give their details to one of the officers. The Berrywick police knew full well who she was and where to find her, and besides, she’d be on their doorstep at eleven as requested. Leaving the scrum, she went backstage. Sean and Jane were where she’d left them. Jane was on her phone, speaking quietly, her face damp with tears. She had the dull, dazed look that Julia had seen on many survivors and bereaved people in her time as a social worker. When the world has changed suddenly, permanently, and horribly, it’s impossible for the brain to absorb it.

‘The police said we can all leave now,’ Julia said softly to Sean. ‘What are we going to do about Jane? Did you get hold of Hannah?’

‘Yes, eventually. Jane’s on the phone with her now. Hannah had fallen asleep with the little one and her phone was off, and the poor young woman woke to multiple missed calls from her mum, and then this terrible news about her father.’ He shook his head. ‘Hannah was all ready to come and fetch her, but with the little baby and all, I said I’d drive Jane.’

‘That’s kind of you.’

‘It’s no trouble.’

‘Do you think you could…’ Julia hesitated. She had an aversion to being needy, and generally found it easier to give help and support than ask for it. ‘I was thinking, perhaps, you might stay over at my house?’

He put an arm around her shoulders. ‘I was thinking the same. It would be good to be together after all this shock and sadness, and tomorrow’s Sunday, so I don’t have anywhere to be. I’ll drop Jane at Hannah’s, pick up Leo from home, and come back to your place to sleep.’

‘Thank you. I would like that.’

Jane turned and caught Sean’s eye. ‘Dr O’Connor said he will give me a lift to your house,’ she said into the phone. ‘There, there. I’ll be there in a few minutes, love. There, there.’