A Staged Death (A Brock & Poole Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “I’ve told everyone who was on stage that they need to stay there for now, which is why I want the curtain down. They’re not happy about it, and that jumped up idiot Mike Hart was trying to get me to let them go back to their hotel.”

  “Sam,” Ronald Smith said. His small ferrety face stared up at Brock as though pleading with him to save him from this mess.

  “So, Ron,” Brock said, his mood brightening at his discomfort. “A right little mess we’ve got here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Ronald said, staring down at his feet. “I just don’t know how it could have happened!”

  “Well, from where I was sitting it looked like the whole lot of you had planned for Jarvis Alvarado to be murdered tonight.”

  Ronald’s round head jerked upward. “You knew it wasn’t real?” he said, his small eyes wide.

  “Of course I bloody did. What I didn’t know was that you were actually going to let the bloke get killed.”

  “I don’t understand how it happened!” Ronald said again, wringing his hands as he glanced back to the body.

  A movement made them turn back out to the audience where uniformed officers were now moving down the aisles.

  “Go and give them their instructions, Poole. I’m going to see what’s taking so long with this bloody curtain, and then we’re going to go through what happened here before we start properly talking to people.”

  “Yes, sir,” Poole said, hopping down from the edge of the stage.

  The first officer he met was Constable Sanita Sanders. Her slightly lopsided smile flashed at him. “What trouble have you and the inspector caused now?” she said, putting her hands on her hips.

  Poole put his hands up in mock protest. “Nothing to do with us, we were just in the audience.”

  She was a good foot shorter than Poole’s six feet, and her frame was slight with it. Her brown eyes flashed at him. “So, what’s the situation?”

  He filled her in on the details, slightly disappointed that the conversation had turned professional so quickly.

  “Right.” She nodded curtly, turning away and getting to her task as he made his way back to the stage. Poole realised as he did so that the curtain had finally come down and so lifted its heavy edging to duck under it.

  The scene on the stage was pretty much as he had left it, apart from the white-suited figure of Sheila Hopkins from crime scene who was talking to the inspector next to the body.

  He headed toward them, but his path was cut off by Ronald Smith.

  “Poole,” he said, his eyes darting left and right. “I hope I can trust you to be honest in this investigation?”

  Poole frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Ronald edged closer, his voice low. “Everyone knows Sam and I don’t see eye to eye. If he’s in charge of this investigation, I want to make sure he doesn’t find some way of pinning it on me.”

  Poole’s frown turned into a smile before he burst out laughing. Stopping short when he realised that others on the stage were looking at him, he wiped the smile from his face quickly as he caught Brock’s eye. It really wasn’t OK to be laughing at a murder scene. He turned back to Ronald.

  “You have to be kidding?” he said. “If you knew the inspector at all, you’d know he’d never do anything that wasn’t above board. Anyway, why do you think you’ve got any reason to worry?”

  Ronald blinked and then turned and walked away.

  Poole walked over to Sheila and the inspector and stared down at the body with them.

  “Hit over the head, no murder weapon in sight,” Brock said to him. “What was Ron’s big joke?”

  “He was worried you were going to frame him for the murder I think,” Poole answered.

  “Was he now?” Brock said, grinning. “Well I think we’ll start with everyone getting to their positions when the lights went out, but then I think Ron should be our first little chat.”

  “How did Sheila get here so quickly?” Poole asked, watching her move toward the body.

  “She was doing some open day at Bexford School down the road.” Brock smiled. “She was already suited and booted and so came straight here.” He turned and looked at Mike Hart and the small group of actors he was stood with. “What do you make of that, Poole?” he said quietly.

  Poole looked up at the group and frowned. All of them were looking at their phones, looking more bored than upset.

  “They don’t look very cut up about it, sir,” Poole said.

  “No they don’t,” Brock replied before calling Mike Hart over.

  “Inspector,” he said when he reached them. “This really is too much. You can’t expect us all to just stand around here with a colleague dead in front of us all evening!”

  “Funny that,” Brock said eyeballing him. “I’ve noticed that no one seems overly upset at this man’s death.”

  Hart opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “We are all, of course, very sad. It’s been a great shock. Which is why everyone needs to get back to the hotel to properly grieve.”

  Brock shook his head, amazed at Hart’s ability to wriggle a situation around to suit his own purpose.

  “Once the coroner has arrived and taken the body away, I want ten minutes, no more. Then we can see about people going back to their hotel,” Brock said gruffly.

  “Well isn’t Ronald Smith the coroner here? Can’t he get to work now?” Hart asked, looking around for the man in question.

  “Of course he bloody can’t,” Brock answered. “He was right here when it happened and he’s part of this whole thing. This is a murder enquiry, Mr Hart—we take these things seriously.”

  Hart’s face paled at Brock’s booming voice as he nodded and turned away, heading back to the cast.

  It was another twenty minutes before the replacement coroner arrived.

  “Todd Peel,” he said, extending a hand to both Brock and Poole.

  “Thanks for coming in at short notice,” Poole said, deciding that the inspector wasn’t going to offer these pleasantries and so he should.

  “No problem,” the man said, smiling as he glanced across at Ronald Smith, who was glaring at him from the other side of the stage. “I hear Ronald’s got himself in a little spot of bother?”

  “Mr Smith was just here when the incident occurred, that’s all,” Brock said. “Now if you could hurry up, we’re in a rush here.”

  The man nodded looking slightly hurt and moved away to the body.

  Poole glanced at Brock inquiringly.

  “Oh, come on, Poole. Ron Smith is a bloody pain but he’s still one of ours. I’ll not have some outsider suggesting he’s part of a murder.”

  Poole nodded, his eyes remaining fixed on the inspector for a moment.

  He sometimes felt that the more time he spent with Sam Brock, the less he knew about him.

  “Listen up, everyone,” Brock bellowed, his large frame turning slowly. “I want everyone to move to the positions they were in when the lights went out.”

  There was a low grumble from around the stage, but people then began shuffling to their places.

  Most of them left the stage, moving into the shadows of the wings. The cast of Foul Murder moved forward and took their places on the stools.

  “Why didn’t Jarvis Alvarado have a stool?” Brock said as Mike Hart, the producer, approached them.

  “Jarvis was going to be the presenter. They were going to take questions from the audience and he would move the microphone round.”

  “And who knew about this little stunt beforehand?”

  “Well the cast obviously, and the crew I told just tonight. I didn’t want anyone to panic or anything, but I couldn’t risk them knowing beforehand and it getting out somehow. The whole thing relied on surprise.”

  “Well you definitely got that,” Brock said, pulling the waistband of his trousers up. “And where were you standing exactly?”

  “I was on a phone call out the back. I didn’t know anything was wrong until
one of the people working here came and told me.”

  Brock nodded. “If you weren’t on the stage, you can get off for now.”

  The man looked as though he was going to protest for a moment. Instead, he swept his hair back with his hand and strode off with his nose in the air.

  Brock turned his attention to the stars of the show.

  “Here we go then, Poole,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth. “Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?”

  They moved across to stand next to where Sheila was bent over the stage, scraping the floor with a small blunt blade.

  Brock glanced down at her but decided to let her continue uninterrupted.

  “Good evening. I’m Inspector Brock and this is Sergeant Poole.”

  There was no answer from the four people in front of them, just a mixture of eye rolling, bright white smiles and examining nails in boredom.

  “Can I ask if any of you got up from your stools once the lights had gone out?”

  “Of course we bloody didn’t,” a young man with a quiff of brown, sleek hair said. “It was pitch black! We’re hardly going to go stumbling around in the dark, are we?”

  Brock turned to him and the corner of his mouth rose slightly.

  “Mr Turnbull, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” the man said with an annoyed tone.

  “Well, how about this Mr Turnbull,” Brock said, moving across to him. “I think that all four of you—” he pointed to the end of the row and spoke as his finger moved down the line: “—Miss Glover there, Mr Patrick, Miss Lennon, and of course yourself—all knew exactly where Mr Alvarado would be stood when the lights went out, and you all knew he’d then be laying on the floor pretending to be dead.”

  He had their attention now. They all stared at him from their stools like a class waiting for the teacher.

  “I would imagine it would only be a matter of seconds for one of you to jump up and…” He stopped suddenly, his eyes cast downward.

  “Sheila, please can you remove Miss Lennon’s right shoe immediately?”

  They all turned to the slim brunette who sat in the middle right of the four stools. She looked down at her feet and let out a yelp as she jumped from the stool to the ground.

  “Don’t move!” Brock shouted and she froze instantly.

  Sheila moved quickly to her and bent down to look at the sparkling blue shoe whose tip had a dark red stain across it.

  “I must have stepped in it!” the actress shrieked as Sheila removed it carefully and held the end up to the light.

  “I want all of their clothes bagged for evidence,” Brock said to Poole next to him. “And can you make sure Sheila checks all the stools carefully for blood.”

  “The stools, sir?” Poole said, still transfixed by the celebrities in front of him.

  “Well, they look like they’d make a handy weapon in the dark to me,” Brock said with a grunt.

  He looked around until his eyes landed on Ronald Smith, who was talking to a young woman he hadn’t spoken to yet.

  “Ron?” he said as he approached.

  Ronald turned to him, his small round head creased with worry.

  “I don’t want you leaving until I’ve spoken to you properly, OK?”

  “Of course, Sam,” he said, his hands wringing in front of him. “This is Jane Marx, by the way—she’s the stage manager here at the theatre.”

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Marx. And where were you when the incident occurred?”

  “I was in the wings, the opposite side to Ronald here. I was the one who turned off the lights, from a main switch over there.”

  “And did you notice anything unusual when the lights were out?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I mean, I couldn’t see a thing. When I turned them back on I stayed where I was. I thought everything was fine until I saw Ronald’s reaction. Then I ran back to get Mr Hart, who was on the phone in the back corridor.”

  “OK, thank you. We’ll need you to make a formal statement sometime tomorrow, but for now you can go home.”

  She nodded her thanks and Brock and Poole walked off to where the curtain hung at the front of the stage.

  “I’m guessing the cast are staying at the Sinton next door?” Brock asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then let’s get them back there and we’ll take a brief statement from each of them while it’s fresh in their minds.”

  Chapter Three

  The Sinton Hotel was Bexford’s most luxurious establishment. Its thick stone walls stood in an imposing fashion just off the main town square on a smaller side street. The lobby of the Sinton had tax but narrow windows and was dimly lit from Victorian lamps which hung from the walls.

  “Why’s it so bloody dark in here?” Brock muttered as they moved across the lobby.

  “I think it’s to set the mood, sir,” Poole answered.

  “And what sort of mood is that? One where you’re bloody angry that you’ve stubbed your toe because you can’t see where you’re going?!”

  They reached the front desk and the young man stationed there directed them toward the bar area where the cast of Foul Murder was apparently gathered.

  “Inspector,” Mike Hart said, rushing to meet them as soon as they had passed through the brightly glazed door which led through to the bar area. “I think it would be best if the interviews could be conducted here. We’ve made sure we have full use of the room for this evening anyway.” He saw their questioning eyes. “For the after-show party. Naturally, that’s not going to happen now.”

  Poole glanced across at the group in the corner and thought it looked like it was indeed happening. They were lounging on the deep red sofas, drinking from tall flutes which contained something bubbly. Somebody had clearly said something funny as they all suddenly burst into laughter.

  “I can see they’re all still very upset,” Brock said, his eyebrows raised. “We’ll talk to them on the other side of the room. I want to speak with Isabella Lennon first.” He turned and marched to the far side of the room and chose a table that was slightly obscured from the cast members by the edge of the dark mahogany bar.

  “Something that’s been bothering me, sir,” Poole said as he sat next to him and pulled his black notebook from his jacket pocket.

  “Yes, Poole?”

  “Well, back at the theatre I noticed that you knew the names of all the cast members.” He glanced to his right and saw a slight flicker in the inspector’s expression before it landed back to its normal, inscrutable gruffness.

  “Research, Poole. You should always do your research on a case.”

  Poole was about to point out that they hadn’t known it was going to be a case until Jarvis Alvarado had been killed in front of them but was distracted by the slender frame of Isabella Lennon moving toward them.

  Brock stood as she arrived, catching Poole off-guard. He clattered his pen down and stood up just as both Isabella and Brock sat down again.

  “So, Miss Lennon,” Brock began, glancing with annoyance at Poole as he sat down again. “Can you tell us exactly what happened tonight when the lights went out?”

  She shook her head sadly, causing two ringlets of sleek brown hair to shift across her forehead. “Oh, it was terrible! Poor Jarvis.” She pulled a small handkerchief from the pocket of her skinny jeans and dabbed at her eyes.

  Poole felt Brock sigh next to him, clearly seeing it, as he did, as a performance by an actress.

  Poole studied her for a moment. She was beautiful, but in a strange, alien way. Her face was rounded like a doll, her eyes were small and dark. Poole had always quite admired her on the show, but now she was up close she seemed overly thin and her eyes were hard and cold.

  “The moment when the lights went out, Miss Lennon,” Brock said. Poole could hear the patience wearing thin in his voice.

  “Well,’ Isabella said, placing the handkerchief back in her pocket, the performance clearly over for now. “I was sat on my stool; the lights went out. W
hen they came back on, Jarvis was lying on the floor just where he was supposed to be. I didn’t think anything had gone wrong at first.”

  “And you didn’t get up from your stool at any time when the lights were out?”

  “No.”

  “And did you hear anyone else move?”

  “No, all I heard was Jarvis landing on the floor.”

  “Landing? What do you mean by that?”

  “Well I guessed it was Jarvis messing about. He was like that—always messing about.”

  “What did you hear?” Brock asked.

  “I heard him throw himself on the floor!” she said, annoyed. “What difference does it make?!”

  Poole and Brock glanced at each other.

  “You do realise Jarvis was murdered tonight?” Brock said, speaking slowly.

  “Oh yes, just terrible,” Isabella said, the handkerchief reappearing and dabbing at her dry eyes as though she was on autopilot.

  “And did you go near Jarvis once the lights had come up?” Brock continued.

  “God no! Once I realised what was going on I got the hell away from it.”

  It, thought Poole.

  “If you didn’t go near Jarvis, then how did you step in the pool of blood around his head?”

  She blinked her small, dark eyes. “I must have just stood in it as I got up from my stool.”

  “It was a good few feet away from your stool.” Brock’s voice was quiet and low.

  “I…” She blinked again furiously. “I remember now. I did go over when that little man was looking at Jarvis and then I got away quick when I realised what had happened. Look, is this going to take much longer?”

  “What was your relationship with Jarvis like?”

  “Oh, he was all right. Quite funny,” she said, shrugging.

  “And do you know if he had any enemies at all?”

  A smile flashed across her thin lips before she resumed her blank expression. “No. Everybody loved Jarvis. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill him. Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”