Murder Takes the Stage by Amy Myers Page A

song and different ways of life were his métier, with a huge circle of friends of both sexes worldwide. Girlfriends had come and gone; he wasn’t gay, he wasn’t asexual, so far as she could tell, but nothing ever seemed to happen. Gwen was despairing, so bringing a girlfriend to Sunday lunch with Mum and Stepdad was a big advance.
    â€˜Who is she?’ she asked.
    â€˜No idea. Not sure Gwen knows either. You know what Charlie’s like.’
    She did. This girl must be spectacular to have managed to pin Charlie down to any date, let alone this one. ‘Casual,’ she replied.
    â€˜Not this time, apparently. Anyway, it sounds like a good opportunity to slip something in about Rick without making a point of it through a special visit or phone call. Gwen and Terry might have some ideas. We won’t broadcast the news to Charlie and lady-friend yet though.’ A pause, then an airy, ‘Janie’s coming too, by the way.’
    â€˜To a family gathering?’ Georgia was taken aback. Was Peter making a statement by carting Janie along too? She’d no objection, but if Peter specifically wanted to talk to Gwen about Rick, Janie’s presence was going to make an awkward addition. True, Terry was relatively new to the family too. He and Gwen had been married two years, but Janie was surely a somewhat different case.
    â€˜Why not?’ Peter answered, somewhat defensively. ‘Anyway, I’ve nothing dramatic to report on Rick. Have you?’
    â€˜No,’ she was forced to admit. The fact that their enquiries were going nowhere was tearing at both herself and Peter, however much they tried to conceal it.
    â€˜Then it will only be a negative situation report to Gwen.’
    â€˜Did you check Glyndebourne?’
    â€˜Yes. They were presenting The Marriage of Figaro that season.’
    Georgia wrestled hard to believe that a possibility but had to face defeat. ‘No good, is it? Rick would have let us know he was back in England, even if he wasn’t staying in Haden Shaw, and,’ she added bravely, since it was better to get it in the open, ‘we don’t know it was Mozart he and Miss Blondie were going to hear. Even less that it would have been The Magic Flute , even if it were an opera.’
    â€˜No, but we have to narrow the search down little by little.’
    â€˜What about Salzburg?’
    â€˜No to that as well. Their Mozart week was in the winter of 1994, and the only Mozart opera I can trace is La Clemenza di Tito, which was during their Easter Festival, not the July one. So if Rick and lady friend were heading for Salzburg, it can’t have been for a Mozart opera. There was a major event with Carreras in the Requiem in Sarajevo, which would have had Rick scurrying off to hear it, but that was in April. But we can’t ignore the big obstacle. Even if he was rushing off to a special do, why not telephone us?’
    She had to say it. ‘Perhaps he was madly in love and everything else went out of his head?’ Love, marriage, grandchildren – they were all left to her and Luke now, and time was rapidly passing. If Rick had lived, how different it might have been. No, don’t think that way, Georgia disciplined herself. Think forward. Think positive leads.
    Peter seemed to be thinking the same, for all he said was, ‘So it’s back to the drawing board.’
    â€˜Phone call for you,’ Luke said, coming with Medlars to summon her. ‘On my office phone. One Matthew Trent. Mean anything to you?’
    So her letter had done the trick. Georgia had only posted it to Pamela Trent on Saturday, and this was Monday. A very prompt reply. But why to Frost & Co’s phone and not her own? This did not bode well.
    â€˜I told him you would call him back,’ Luke continued. ‘He doesn’t sound a happy gentleman.’
    Georgia debated whether to leave it until she was in the office the next day, thus making a