Stagestruck (11 page)

Tilda Box pursed her lips. ‘There’s no need to be facetious. She’s suffering from third degree burns and severe shock. She’s been through a traumatic experience and she’s far too distressed to have visitors.’

‘We’re not visitors,’ he said. ‘We’re on an investigation.’

‘That’s being taken care of.’

‘Who by?’

‘Private inquiry agents employed by her insurance people. You’re not needed here.’

Staying civil with this lady wasn’t easy. ‘It’s not a private matter, Ms Box. It appears a criminal offence was committed Monday evening and we have a duty to investigate.’

She folded her arms. ‘Speak to me, then. I’m aware of all the facts.’

‘We’ll speak to Miss Calhoun.’

‘I told you. She’s not speaking to anyone.’

‘She’s spoken to you, apparently, or you wouldn’t be aware of all the facts. Are you going to step aside, or do we charge you with obstructing the police?’

‘That’s blatant intimidation,’ she said, and then, as the last words sank in, capitulated. ‘For God’s sake. Wait here. I’ll see what state she’s in.’

‘No need,’ Diamond said. ‘We’re going straight in. Inge, you go first.’

Tilda Box was incandescent, but stopped short of wrestling with them. Inge went through two sets of swing doors, turned and gestured to Diamond and he followed her into a large room and got his first sight of Clarion Calhoun. He was prepared to find a figure swathed in bandages with apertures for the eyes and mouth. Not so. The patient wasn’t bandaged and wasn’t in bed. Dressed in a white bathrobe, she was in an armchair looking at television. Her face, neck and what was visible of her chest appeared to be coated in a yellowish ointment or healing agent. To be fair, the damage to her skin was evident, flakes of tissue hanging from raw burns. She tugged at her long, blonde hair to screen her face from the intruders. ‘Who are you?’

Diamond showed the ID and introduced Ingeborg.

‘I’m not speaking to the police,’ Clarion said. ‘Tell them, Tilda.’

The agent had come into the room behind them. Diamond swung around and said, ‘Out.’

‘I absolutely refuse to leave you alone with her,’ Tilda Box said.

‘You can absolutely get lost, or I’ll absolutely do you for wilfully obstructing a police officer.’

He had Tilda’s measure. She quit the room without another word.

‘Now, Clarion,’ he said. ‘I take it you didn’t do this to yourself, so it’s our job to find who is responsible.’

She appeared to think about playing dumb. There was a lengthy pause. Then she couldn’t resist saying from behind the hair, ‘The theatre is responsible and we intend to sue.’ The voice was easy on the ear. She would have got by as Sally Bowles.

‘It may not be so simple,’ he said.

‘Explain.’

‘If someone wanted to harm you, they’re mainly to blame.’

Startled, she let go of the hair and turned, giving them a front view of her damaged face and neck. Skin has a marvellous capacity for healing, but it was hard to imagine that the scarring would ever disappear. ‘Nobody wants to harm me. That’s ridiculous. This is a clear case of negligence. They used some defective product that ruined my skin. These are chemical burns.’

‘I doubt if any cosmetics firm would sell a product as harmful as that.’

‘In case you’re not aware of it, the doctors here are world experts and they’re treating me for burns.’

‘I’m not arguing with that. I’m saying we don’t know how the make-up got to be so dangerous. Was something added to it? That’s what we need to find out.’

‘Added by mistake, you mean?’ She frowned and it was obvious that the flexing of her skin caused pain.

‘Or intention. Do you have any enemies, Clarion?’

‘No.’ The denial was total. As soon as she’d made it, uncertainty showed in her eyes.

Ingeborg said, ‘Someone as mega-famous as you is going to have enemies. You don’t get to the top without making people jealous.’

She enjoyed the flattery. It showed in her voice. ‘Envious, perhaps, but I can’t accept what you’re saying. No one could hate me that much. This is the end of my career.’

‘Has anyone threatened you recently or in the past?’

‘I’d remember, wouldn’t I? Of course they haven’t.’

‘Crazy fans? Someone else’s fans?’

‘I’m coming up to thirty. My last album was two years ago.’

‘Three, I think,’ Ingeborg said, and got a glare for her accuracy.

‘I was about to say my fans have grown up with me,’ Clarion said. ‘People of my age don’t do crazy. They’ve grown out of all that hormonal silliness.’

‘How did the theatre people treat you in rehearsal?’ Diamond asked, moving it on, but not confident of shaking the self-esteem of someone who’d basked in admiration for years. She couldn’t believe anyone would want to harm her. ‘You’re an outsider, in a way.’

‘I was at drama college, a good one. I’m not a total novice.’

‘Yes, but you’re not known for your acting and you walked into a starring role. How did they take it?’

‘With good grace. They’re professionals. My name sells tickets. Few of them would pull in an audience. That’s how it is in the commercial theatre and they accept it.’

‘Jobbing actors,’ Ingeborg said.

‘I wouldn’t say so in their presence, but yes.’

‘So do you recall any hostility while you were rehearsing?’ Diamond asked. ‘I’m thinking of others besides the actors. Anyone from the management down to the stage hands?’

‘If there was any bad feeling, I didn’t pick it up.’

‘Let’s talk about Monday evening,’ he said. ‘You arrived at the theatre at what time?’

‘Before five. I went to my dressing room and sat going over my lines until about a quarter to six. Then I changed into my first costume.’

‘Was the dresser there?’

‘Denise? She came later with the clothes. She had to collect them from wardrobe. There are six changes between scenes.’

‘What time did she turn up?’

‘When she said she would. About forty-five minutes before curtain up.’

‘Did anyone else come in?’

‘There were two or three interruptions from call boys delivering bouquets from well-wishers.’

‘Certain flowers can cause allergic reactions, can’t they?’ Diamond said, more to Ingeborg than Clarion.

‘Oh, come on, I didn’t bury my face in them,’ Clarion said. ‘I think I’d know if they were responsible.’

Ingeborg showed by her expression that she, too, thought the flower theory was garbage, so Diamond abandoned it. ‘You’d met Denise before?’

‘Never.’

‘In rehearsal.’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘She made you up for the dress rehearsal the previous day?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did your face react then? Any discomfort?’

‘None whatsoever. And I didn’t notice her doing any different on the opening night. She brought her box of colours and brushes with her. She cleansed my face of day make-up and then put on a thin layer of moisturiser followed by the foundation and the highlights and the liners for the eyes and mouth and so on. I felt no discomfort.’

‘What cleanser did she use?’ Ingeborg asked.

‘Cold cream and astringent, she told me. It all felt normal.’

‘What make was it?’

‘How would I know that, for Christ’s sake? I was thinking about my lines.’

‘Then what? The moisturiser?’

‘Didn’t I just tell you? The stage make-up feels dry without it.’

‘And the foundation? Cream or pancake?’

‘Cream in cake form. She applied it with a sponge. She told me she was experienced and I’m sure she was.’

‘So there was this delay before you felt your face burning,’ Diamond said. ‘How long?’

‘Between twenty minutes and half an hour.’

‘You were all right until you got on stage?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘This is the mystery,’ he said. ‘If we’re right in assuming the make-up damaged your skin, why didn’t it happen in the dressing room when it was being applied?’

‘Slow-acting,’ Clarion said.

‘We’ll get advice on that, but I’ve got my doubts.’

Her glare could have drilled a hole through his head. ‘You can doubt all you want. I’m left with a face like a fire victim and there’s no doubting that. I’m suing for loss of earnings and disfigurement and you won’t stop me.’

7

G
larion hadn’t endeared herself to Diamond. He sympathised with her injury and understood her anger at the probable loss of her looks and career. He also knew no member of the public welcomes being questioned by the police. Even allowing for that, she’d come across as hostile and unappreciative of the need to get to the truth. She obviously thought her lawyers and her private security people were better placed to take care of her interests. Almost every statement she’d made had been barbed with reproach. But it’s impossible to put yourself in the place of someone who’s had such a shock, he told himself, trying to be charitable. Easier to feel sorry for the dead victims he usually dealt with. They weren’t capable of striking attitudes.

‘Back to Bath now?’ Inge said, to jog him out of his silence.

‘Not yet. Call Bristol police and ask them to supply a roundthe-clock guard for her.’

‘She has her own guard, guv.’

He gave her a look that said all she needed to know about the competence of private security guards.

She took out her phone.

‘And now we’ll find the pathology lab,’ he said.

‘We’d better ask.’ She stopped a porter wheeling an oxygen cylinder along the main pathway and they were soon heading in the right direction.

The technician who greeted them inside the door was clearly a junior, but he showed them in to the scientist in charge, a large, bearded man called Pinch, who was sitting on a bench eating a banana. He eyed them as if they’d come to ask for money. When they showed their IDs he jumped to attention, tossed the peel into a bin, wiped his hands and offered them coffee.

All Diamond wanted was the test result, but Ingeborg accepted for them both. The kettle was hot and the coffee was instant, so it shouldn’t delay them long.

Pinch explained that his staff supplied their own mugs and there weren’t any spares. ‘Hope you don’t mind drinking from a glass beaker. I promise you, they’re clean. Haven’t contained anything of human origin. Not today, anyway.’

Diamond wouldn’t touch his, he decided.

‘So how can I help?’

They asked about Clarion’s towel.

‘That’s been tested, yes.’

‘With what result?’

‘Traces of glycerine-based make-up, for sure, and face powder, but also a corrosive I wouldn’t recommend putting anywhere near your face.’

‘Acid?’

‘Alkali, in fact, but no less dangerous. Sodium hydroxide.’

‘Caustic soda,’ Ingeborg said with a sharp intake of breath.

A shocked silence followed.

Finally Diamond, appalled, said, ‘Isn’t that what they use to unblock drains?’

‘Right. We didn’t believe it at first, so we repeated the tests. That’s why we took so long.’ Pinch poured the coffee. ‘Help yourselves to sugar.’

Neither reached for the spoon. Ingeborg’s face had drained of colour.

‘There’s no question, then?’ Diamond said.

‘It’s caustic soda for sure, available from your friendly, neighbourhood hardware store. As you doubtless know, it comes in powder form as tiny flakes or granules. Add a solvent such as water and you’ll remove most blockages.’

‘And most of your skin.’

‘If you come in contact with it. In these safety-conscious times it’s a wonder the public is still allowed to buy the stuff.’

‘How does it work?’

‘It’s inert until added to water.’

‘So it could be mixed with something dry, such as face powder, and it wouldn’t react?’

‘Correct.’

‘And being white in colour it would blend in with powder,’ Ingeborg added. Horrible as it was, the presence of caustic soda on the towel had to be fitted into a scenario.

‘What would have activated it?’ Diamond asked.

‘Assuming it was applied to her skin?’ Pinch said. ‘The surface moisture may have been enough. If she was wearing a moisturiser, that would certainly have done it.’

‘She had another layer over that, the glycerine-based cream you mentioned,’ Ingeborg said. ‘If it was mixed with that –’

‘I’m not sure it was,’ the scientist said. ‘We recovered a number of dry particles from the towel. Actors powder their faces, don’t they?’

‘If they do, it’s over some layers of make-up.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I understand it gets warm under the theatre lights. If she started sweating, the process would begin for sure and she might not be aware at first. It forms a slime on the surface and the action can take out the nerve endings as well as the skin tissue. By the time she became aware, it would already have been well advanced.’

‘This may explain the delay we’ve all been puzzling over,’ Diamond said. ‘Nasty.’

‘Worse than nasty,’ Ingeborg said. ‘It’s fiendish.’

‘Does she know yet?’ Diamond asked.

Pinch shook his head. ‘We needed to confirm the results. This is tricky territory. We report to the medics, not the patient or her representatives. We informed the doctor treating her after we ran the first tests, but when there’s likely to be legal action, you have to be certain.’

‘The medics will tell her?’

‘Have to.’

‘And it can’t have been an accident,’ Diamond said. ‘The lawyers will be aware of that. You don’t add caustic soda to face powder through carelessness. This was deliberate.’

‘And vicious,’ Ingeborg added, her voice thick with emotion.

When they left, they took the towel with them in a sterile box that served as an evidence bag. It would go to the forensics lab at Chepstow for them to run their own tests.

In the car, Diamond said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘I thought I was going to throw up when he told us,’ Ingeborg said. ‘I can handle a murder scene, but this is worse, considering we just spoke to the victim. What a thing to come to terms with, learning you were hated this much by somebody.’

‘I know. It’s repulsive and impossible to justify. But our job is to find out why it was done and who is responsible.’

‘Okay, guv. I won’t let it do my head in. What do we do about this?’