Page 7 of A Village Theatre Murder

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 uponce, when I was working on the television programmeHot 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 inafterMr 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.

---