The Cinderella Killer (23 page)

‘Everyone in the
Cinderella
company?'

‘Everyone in the theatre. And he reserved special venom for some of the guests he's had staying in his B&B. Astonishing how messy and destructive people can be when they're away from their own homes. He sees some really weird behaviour. They range from the predictable dirty weekenders who rattle the bedposts all night to one woman he mentioned who just spends all the time in her bedroom crying.'

‘I don't envy him the job,' said Charles. The idea of letting strangers into anywhere he lived and then acting like a servant to them held no appeal.

‘No.' Felix looked a little awkward as he said, ‘And then Danny invited me back to his place for a nightcap … and I'm afraid I realized I had completely misinterpreted his intentions.'

‘You mean he came on to you?'

‘Yes, and how! He seemed to think that my agreeing to go back to his place for a nightcap meant I was agreeing to a whole lot more.'

‘Oh dear.'

‘It was acutely embarrassing because, you see …' The stand-up was quiet for a moment, weighing up what he was about to say. ‘Oh hell, I can tell you, Charles. The fact is, I've got to tell somebody.'

‘Well, fine, if you want to. What is it?'

‘The fact is, Charles … I am not gay.'

‘Oh.' That did come as quite a shock, and Charles floundered a little for the proper response. ‘Well, I mean, obviously that's up to you, but …'

‘The trouble was when I was at university and started doing comedy I developed this gay persona and it went down really well. When I did straight stuff it didn't work. So then I take a show to Edinburgh and it's shortlisted for awards and stuff. And the more success I have, the more I'm kind of pushed into this gay ghetto. And it's fine because, though there are plenty of other gay stand-ups out there, the public can't seem to get enough of us. So there's plenty of work. I'd be daft to chuck up something that's really making me a very good living.

‘But giving up the pretence and coming out as straight becomes more and more difficult. Because there's kind of a political element now involved. It's all right for Jews to do Jewish jokes, or Pakistanis to do Paki jokes. If someone else did them, that'd be racist. It's the same with the gay thing. I can do jokes about being a screaming queen because everyone thinks I am one. A straight man doing the same shtick would almost definitely be seen as homophobic. So I have got myself into a bit of a bind.'

‘I can see that,' said Charles. ‘And what about actual relationships? Does it mean you can't have any?'

Felix grinned ruefully. ‘It means I have to be very discreet. Fortunately when I take off the make-up and the silly costumes nobody recognizes me, so I can have a kind of private life, if I'm careful. In fact …' He paused for a moment. ‘Well, I've told you everything else, so I may as well tell you this too. I'm actually married with two small children.'

‘Wow! A secret marriage. Very Wilkie Collins.'

‘Exactly. Isn't it ridiculous, Charles?'

‘It's odd, certainly. The exact reverse of how it used to be. I grew up with a generation of actors who had to keep their gay relationships secret, who had to pass off their partners as “flatmates” or “managers” or “chauffeurs”. Yours is the first I've heard of working the other way round.'

‘I just don't know how much longer I can keep it up, though,' said Felix glumly. ‘The pressure gets worse and worse. I have to be so careful in interviews, in all dealings with the media. And I'm not sure that it really is fair on my wife, or the kids. I wouldn't mind getting out of the business completely, but the trouble is I make so much more money from stand-up than I could from anything else.'

‘Hm.' There was a silence, then Charles asked, ‘Why have you suddenly told me this?'

‘Because I get the impression you're the kind of man who can keep a secret.'

‘I hope that's true.'

‘And because the pressure's getting worse and worse. That little scene with Danny last night was so embarrassing. I just had to tell someone. Also …' He ran out of words.

‘What?'

‘Well, this'll sound daft, Charles, but Danny was so furious last night … you know, because I wouldn't do what he wanted, that I got quite scared of him.'

‘Did he attack you?'

‘No. But he's a big man and I was afraid he was going to beat me up. He was threatening me with all kinds of things. Said I should watch my back if I was ever walking round Eastbourne after dark. And then he said something strange.'

‘Oh?'

‘He said: “Don't forget what happened to Kenny Polizzi, Felix. Something like that could easily happen to you too.”'

‘Did he?' said Charles Paris.

BUTTONS: The food in my B&B's terrible. Not very generous portions either. Last night at dinner my landlady asked, ‘How did you find your steak?' I said to her, ‘I moved a chip and there it was.'

F
ollowing the instructions Felix had given him, Charles had no difficulty finding Danny Fitz's house. It was in a small street off the landward side of Seaside Road, but not as far along as the squalid building where he'd found Vinnie McCree's body earlier that morning. Danny's was a red-brick cottage with windows and doors outlined in white stone. Probably late Victorian, possibly early Edwardian and considerably neater in appearance than its neighbours. Though no plants grew in them, the earth in the window-boxes on the ground floor sills was neatly raked, ready for the next season's planting. The front door's brass knocker, finger plate and surround of the bell-push had been polished to a high gloss.

A freshly painted sign beside the door read: ‘DANMARK – Bed & Breakfast – All Rooms En Suite'. Charles wondered whether the house was just named after the Danish for ‘Denmark', or if it was one of those composite words based on the owners' names. He had never thought before whether Danny Fitz might have a permanent partner. If such a person existed, it seemed a reasonable bet that he might be called Mark.

Charles hadn't planned what he was going to say to Danny, but he was too caught up in the excitement of his investigation to worry about that. Something, he felt sublimely confident, would come to him. He pressed his finger on the white centre of the bell-push.

Danny was mildly surprised, but not thrown to see him. He stepped back from the open doorway and said, ‘Come in, Charles.'

There was just time for an impression of a hall lined with glass cases in which hung a meticulously arranged selection of pantomime dames' costumes before Danny said, ‘I'm sure she's expecting you.'

‘Oh yes, I'm expecting him,' said the voice of someone coming down the stairs.

Charles looked up to take in the unexpected sight of Gloria van der Groot. Behind thick glasses the skin around her eyes was puffy with much weeping.

And in her right hand she held a small automatic pistol.

BUTTONS: First day I was in the B&B one of the chickens died and we had chicken soup. Next day one of the pigs died and we had pork chops. Third day the landlady's old man was taken ill, so we went back home.

F
ortunately the actual threat of being shot didn't last very long.

Danny Fitz stepped towards the stairs, announcing. ‘There are very few rules at the Danmark B&B, but there are some things not allowed on the premises under any circumstances. They include whores, rent boys, inflatable women, copies of the
Daily Mail
and, I'm afraid … guns.'

As he spoke the word he neatly picked the pistol out of Gloria's hand. She offered little resistance.

‘Anyway, where did you get this?'

‘You got money, you can get anything. I learned that a long time ago.'

Danny grunted. ‘Well, I think I should make some coffee and you two should go into the sitting room and have a little chat.'

He ushered them through. Gloria seemed numbed into obedience. Danny disappeared to the kitchen while the other two sat down opposite each other.

Charles noticed that the sitting room too was a shrine to pantomime memorabilia. Old programmes were displayed behind glass. A giant rolling pin from some long-forgotten slapstick kitchen scene stood in its own case. And pride of place was given to a tall golden oriental headdress which Charles reckoned must have been part of the Walkdown costume for Widow Twankey in an
Aladdin
of many years before.

But these were momentary impressions. In his current predicament Charles couldn't take much notice of his surroundings. He was, after all, facing a woman who had recently threatened him with a gun.

‘I presume, Gloria,' he said, ‘that it's you I have to thank for the texts saying I shouldn't be playing Baron Hardup.'

‘Of course,' she said. ‘That was Kenny's part.' Her voice wavered slightly, but there was no faltering in the confidence of her logic.

‘I didn't take over the part out of any disrespect for him. I don't even think I would play it as well as Kenny would have done.' (This was a lie. Nearly every actor who takes over a part thinks they'll do it better than the previous incumbent.) ‘But it's just the old showbiz thing – “The show must go on.”'

‘Why should it go on without Kenny? Nothing should go on without Kenny.'

Charles spoke gently. ‘When did you originally' – he carefully avoided the words ‘become obsessed with' – ‘get interested in Kenny Polizzi?'

‘When I saw the first episode of
The Dwight House
. I was just a teenager then, but I knew instinctively that I had to be near to him, in some way involved in his life.'

Charles did a quick mental calculation. If Gloria had been in her teens when the sitcom started, she must be a lot younger than he'd thought when he first saw her. He assumed she'd been round the fifty mark, her oddity perhaps exacerbated by menopausal symptoms. But now he had to revise that age to her late twenties.

‘Did you tell anyone else how you felt, Gloria? Your parents?'

‘What interest would it have been to them?' she asked sharply.

‘They weren't people you could confide in?'

‘God, no. If I had any problems, they only had one solution – give me more money. So pretty soon I stopped telling them if I had any problems.'

‘Had they always had money?'

‘My real father didn't have that much. They were comfortable, I guess, but no more than that. But then he died of a heart attack when I was, like, four.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘So was I. And then a few years later my mom goes and marries this total asshole who's got money coming out of every orifice. And she wants me to start calling him “Pop” or “Daddy”, and there's no way I'm going to do that.'

Their conversation was interrupted at this point by the arrival of Danny with a tray of coffee. As Charles found frequently when watching actors in domestic roles, Danny seemed to be giving a performance as a solicitous B&B owner.

‘Gloria,' he said, ‘I've put your gun in the house safe. I'm sorry, but those are my rules. I'll let you have it back when you leave – OK?'

Without much interest, Gloria agreed to these conditions. Then Danny said to Charles, ‘I've been called for two this afternoon. What about you?'

‘Same, but I wouldn't be surprised if we were to get a text telling us Bix is running late. I do think it's bloody daft rehearsing out of sequence when we're as close to opening as this.'

‘Doesn't bother me too much. At least I know my routines with Arthur are rock solid. Anyway, I've got to do some shopping. So when you're done, if I'm not back the front door shuts on the latch. Just make sure it clicks to.'

‘Will do.'

When Danny had gone, Charles said softly to Gloria, ‘And when you first watched
The Dwight House
did you see a kind of relaxed family life totally unlike what you were experiencing at home?'

‘Maybe,' Gloria replied shortly. ‘I've never had much time for all that psychological garbage. I just saw a guy who was always going to be part of my life.'

‘And since that time you tried to be wherever he was?'

‘Yes. It's fairly easy to work out his schedule from stuff on his website and a lot of other showbiz and celebrity sites.'

‘And you've never posed a threat to him?'

‘Of course not, Charles. I love the guy.'

‘Mm.' He was finding their conversation odd. Though Gloria was by most definitions a crackpot, when she spoke there was a compelling logic which seemed entirely natural. ‘And now Kenny's dead …' That prompted a sparkle of tears behind the thick lenses ‘… what do you do now?'

‘I don't know, Charles. That's what I don't know. I've thought of so many things.'

‘Was shooting me one of those things?'

‘Yes,' she replied with disarming frankness. ‘I wanted revenge on someone, for what'd happened to Kenny. And when I heard from Danny that you were taking over the part of Baron Hardup, well, that seemed like it might be a start.'

Charles felt distinctly uncomfortable. Gloria was a crank, but not just a harmless crank. Shooting him would have seemed logical to her, and something she was quite capable of doing. He felt relieved to know that her pistol was safely locked away.

‘So,' he asked, ‘when did you first hear that Kenny Polizzi had been shot?'

‘I didn't hear it,' she replied. ‘I virtually saw it happen.'

FAIRY GODMOTHER: I'll give my magic wand a tap and
Then you'll hear what really happened.

T
his was the breakthrough Charles had been waiting for. He had spent so much of the last few days trying to piece together what had happened on the Friday night, and now he was in the presence of someone who might have witnessed all of it.