So Much Blood by Simon Brett Page A

questions . . . I don’t know. I got paranoid. I thought somehow if my things were searched and they found the poster that I’d be incriminated or . . . I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight.’
    It rang true. The brief mystery of the poster was explained. But there must be more to be found out from Pam. ‘What did you feel about Willy when he was dead?’
    â€˜Shock. I mean, I hadn’t seen a dead body before.’
    â€˜Nothing else?’
    â€˜No, I don’t think so.’
    â€˜No sense of loss?’
    â€˜Not really. I mean, it wasn’t real love, just something I’d built up in my mind. In a way his death got it out of my system, made me realise that I didn’t really feel a thing for him. Anyway, it had been fading ever since we came up here.’
    â€˜As you saw more of him?’
    â€˜Yes.’ She grinned ruefully. ‘He became more real. Just an ordinary man. And perhaps not a very nice one. Anyway, I didn’t really feel the same about him after that business with Lesley . . .’ Charles picked up the last few words as if they were the ash of a vital document in a murderer’s fireplace. ‘Business with Lesley?’
    â€˜Yes, I . . .’ well, I haven’t mentioned it to anyone, but . . . it may be nothing, just the way it seemed . . .’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜It was after we’d been up here about a week. Willy suddenly started to take an interest in Lesley—that’s Lesley Petter who—’
    â€˜I know about her. Go on.’
    â€˜I think he was probably after her, fancied her, I don’t know. Anyway, one evening, after we’d been rehearsing, we were all having coffee back at Coates Gardens and Willy said he was going for a walk up to the Castle and did anyone want to come with him. Well, I said yes sort of straight off, because, you know, I thought he was marvellous and . . . But then I realised that he’d only said that as a sort of prearranged signal to Lesley. It was meant to be just the two of them.
    â€˜I was awfully embarrassed, but I couldn’t say I wouldn’t go when I realised. So the three of us set off and I dawdled or went ahead or . . . wishing like anything I wasn’t there.
    â€˜We went up to the Castle Esplanade and wandered around, and I, feeling more and more of a gooseberry, went on ahead on the way back. I started off down the steps that go down to Johnstone Terrace.’
    â€˜Castle Wynd South.’
    â€˜Is that what it’s called, yes. Anyway, I was nearly at the bottom, and suddenly I heard this scream. I turned round and saw Lesley, with her arms and legs flailing, falling down the steps.’
    â€˜And that was how she broke her leg?’
    â€˜Yes. I rushed up to where she’d managed to stop herself, and Willy rushed down. She was in terrible pain and I shot off to phone for an ambulance. But just before I went, I heard her say something to Willy, or at least I think I did.’
    Charles felt the excitement prickling over his shoulders and neck. ‘What did she say?’
    â€˜She said, “Willy, you pushed me.”’

CHAPTER SEVEN
    â€œBe thou my park, and I will be thy dear,”
    (So he began at least to speak or quote;)
    â€œBe thou my bark, and I thy gondolier,”
    (For passion takes this figurative note;)
    â€œBe thou my light, and I thy chandelier;
    Be thou my dove, and I will be thy cote;
    My lily be, and I will be thy river;
    Be thou my life—and I will be thy liver.”
    BIANCA’ S DREAM
    THE SHOW BIZ RAZZMATAZZ of first nights was invented before the development of lunch time theatre. There is something incongruous about flowers and telegrams for a first lunch. Charles did not get any, anyway. There was no one to send them. Maurice Skellem was the only person outside Edinburgh who knew the show was happening and he was not the sort to spend his client’s money on fulsome gestures.