Page 26 of A Village Theatre Murder

Julia felt her own laughter rising, and quickly looked down at her hands again. She was a woman over sixty, which meant that the sight of the backs of her hands was guaranteed to wipe the smile off her face. Good heavens, if the skin wasn’t exactly like that of the Galápagos tortoise she’d seen on the Nature Channel, the oldest living animal in the world, encased in deep, dusty-grey wrinkles. It was the gardening that did it. That and the washing-up. No matter how regularly she rubbed in the hand cream, they still looked ancient. The laugh was now thankfully under control.

But then she heard Nicky cough, a cough that Julia felt sure was covering an emerging bubble of laughter. This wasn’t good. Julia could feel her own bubble struggling to emerge. The important thing was not to look up. Julia pulled herself together, staring fixedly at her hands, thinking resolutely of ageing tortoises, and breathing evenly.

Hector was still at it: ‘We are alike,youand I. In your heart beatsafireyetunfulfilled…’

‘Thank you, Hector,’ Roger said, cutting him off, to the relief of all. ‘I think I’ve seen enough.’

Troilus clapped energetically. ‘Bravo, Papa. Encore.’

Definitelynotan encore, hoped Julia.

‘I mean to say, I have what I need to make some decisions about the casting, and get back to you all, if you don’t mind.’ Roger looked drained by the morning’s activities, not to mention the previous days’ events, and the prospect of rejigging the cast list again, and – presumably – disappointing Hector. There was absolutely no way he could give the man more than three or four consecutive words to say.

‘Thank you, everyone. I’m sorry to take up more of your time, but hopefully we’ll be ready to rehearse with the new cast shortly.’ The group was already on the move, picking up handbags, scraping chairs across the floor. Roger spoke above the noise: ‘Could the props people stay behind, please? I just want to make sure everything is good to go once we’ve sorted out the roles.’

Roger Grave looked a bit more relaxed once the cast had left, and it was just him, Tabitha and Julia in the village hall. He exhaled audibly, and said, ‘Goodness, who would have thought amateur dramatics would be so…fraught?’

‘Not me, that’s for sure,’ said Tabitha. ‘But don’t worry about the props. It should all be there except for what, um, Graham was wearing. The police have those. We’ll sort out wardrobe for Graham’s replacement. It shouldn’t be too much trouble.’

‘And we’ll need a substitution for Oscar’s jacket, too,’ said Julia. ‘I think the police still have that. If we’re lucky, whoever plays that role will have something suitable.’

‘Let’s go and check what’s what.’ Roger led the way backstage, to the props cupboard. It was strange being back there. So much had changed since Julia and Tabitha had done the pre-dress performance check. Julia could still see it in her mind’seye, the gun, lying in the props box. She’d held it, and not enjoyed the feeling – the heft of it, the hard metallic chill, had felt dangerous, even ominous. She’d told herself she was being silly, it wasn’t loaded, it was just a harmless lump of metal. But look what had happened.

‘Shall we get started?’ Tabitha said, breaking Julia’s reverie.

‘Of course.’ Julia pulled out the box of props. The clothes were hung on hangers on a rail next to the cupboard. There were two or three empty hangers, where Graham’s costume and Oscar’s jacket had hung.

Roger had the wardrobe list and the props list, and they went through them. It was all there, except for Oscar’s jacket, everything Graham had been wearing, and, of course, the gun.

Julia started packing things back in the box. The sunglasses, the yellow pillbox hat, the hairy caterpillar of a fake moustache.

‘Graham’s moustache!’ Tabitha said, holding the thing rather distastefully. ‘Odd that that’s here. Graham was wearing it on the night, remember?’

‘How could I forget?’ said Roger, with a shudder. ‘It had come unstuck and was making its way down his face.’

Tabitha looked at the moustache with a thoughtful frown. ‘I would have thought the police would have it.’

‘I expect that they do. But remember, Graham was wearing the cheap replacement that we found. That’s the one the police will have,’ said Julia. ‘Turned out Graham left the original at home after the dress rehearsal. Jane found it. She brought it over that afternoon and put it in the props cupboard. She told me it was there, but it slipped my mind. In fact, we laughed about it – her finding the horrible thing on his bedside table.’

‘You’re right. That’s what happened,’ said Tabitha. ‘Jane put this one back in the props cupboard on Saturday afternoon, and Graham must have picked up the cheap stick-on one we’d found as back-up. That’s why the moustache slipped on the night.’

‘Oh God,’ said Roger. ‘Remember how ridiculous it looked. To think that I thought thatthatwas going to be the worst thing that went wrong that night.’ He looked quite distressed, but before Julia could say anything to comfort him, his phone rang. He glanced at it. ‘Hayley Gibson,’ he said. ‘I better take it, she promised to let me know when the forensics came back.’

He answered the call, and took some steps away from Julia and Tabitha, as if this would prevent them hearing his rather loud, carrying voice. After greeting Hayley, he made some grunting noises of agreement, and then said, ‘Strange. Oscar’s and mine and Tabitha’s you say. But not Julia’s. Interesting.’

He took another step away from the two women, and carried on speaking, “Uh huh… yes, quite… indeed… thank you.’

He ended the call and turned to find Tabitha and Julia staring at him.

‘That was about the gun,’ Julia said, after a pause.‘It had your fingerprints, Tabitha. And Oscar’s.’

‘You weren’t really supposed to hear that,’ said Roger, blushing.

‘You’ve got a voice like a foghorn, Roger,’ said Tabitha.

‘That’s not true,’ said Roger. Loudly.

But Julia carried on thinking aloud, undistracted. ‘But I also handled the gun that day. I put it in the cupboard. My prints should have been on it, too.’

---