Chapter Text
Sandra had an arm round Annie as she talked to the police, tears welling in her eyes again as she tried to relay what had happened. They were sat in one of the dressing rooms with the door open, the show relay crackling quietly to itself. Max was holding a tray of mismatched mugs from the green room, awkwardly shuffling down the dressing room corridor, trying to hand them out to anyone who would take them. Trevor was stood in the corridor, watching everything with a sort of glazed expression, unconsciously picking at the dried blood under his nails as he absentmindedly wondered if there was any Swarfega onsite.
‘Trevor?’ He looked down as he felt a hand on his arm, following it up to the owner who was smiling nervously back at him.
‘You okay?’
He didn’t really know how to answer the question, mainly because he felt the furthest away from okay he’d felt in a long time. Even after the disaster that was the drama festival when he’d managed to accidentally tranquilise the entire cast apart from Chris and Jonathan, he’d felt better than he currently did.
‘Mr. Watson?’ Trevor started at the formal greeting, dragging his eyes away from Ness’ worried face to that of the police officer who seemed to take up the whole doorway of the girls’ dressing room.
‘Aye?’
‘Shall we take a seat and you can tell me what happened from your point of view?’ The police officer was gesturing to the dressing room opposite. Trevor’s eyes went to the sign on the door that listed the names Jonathan Harris, Christopher Bean and Robert Grove.
‘Eh, yeah, let’s go to the stage management office.’ Trevor turned away, not looking to see if the officer was following. The door to the cupboard he’d been occupying for the last week was propped open with a stage weight, and Max had left a mug of tea on his desk. The mug proclaimed I’m sorry what I said during tech week. Trevor had ended up having a strange affinity with it when he’d found it in the green room on opening night. Max had clearly remembered seeing him drinking from it all week.
‘Miss Twilloil said that there’d been a mix up with the props. Can you shed any light on that?’
Trevor wished he could. That moment he’d reset the props table earlier in the afternoon had been playing on a loop in his head for the last half hour.
‘Will you pass us that box?’
Trevor was vaguely gesturing to a box by the prompt desk as he tried to juggle a tray full of plastic wine glasses. He almost managed to place them back onto the props table before the poor student stagehand he and Chris had managed to rope into helping with this year’s Christmas production, bumped his elbow. There was a clatter followed by the hollow sound of plastic bouncing before Trevor let out a sigh in frustration.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled before she dived under the table to help retrieve the glasses.
‘Just put them back on the tray and I’ll do the rest of the box if you can go make sure the battery packs for the mics are charged.’
She scampered away a moment later, leaving Trevor to a second of peace as he started laying everything back out neatly on the table, removing the empty coffee cups that had no part in the play but were just Robert’s way of annoying him. It was this brief moment of order that Trevor enjoyed on an evening before the inevitable chaos that followed.
He’d almost reached the end of resetting the table when Chris crossed the stage towards him. ‘Trevor, did you get this email from the BBC?’
‘What email?’
‘About the risk assessments for the new series of play of the week? I thought we’d already sent them in?’ There was a beat where Chris looked up sharply at Trevor, and Trevor, knowing full well he hadn’t sent in the risk assessments, panicked.
‘We did send them in last week, yes?’
Trevor had one last prop to reset. The murder weapon from Act II that was now clutched in his right hand. He dramatically plunged the knife into his chest, falling into the DSM’s chair at prompt corner, hoping that his limited acting skills were enough to get him out of his current predicament.
Chris sighed. ‘I’ll take that as a no.’
Trevor opened one eye before he pulled the spring-loaded knife away from his chest, wishing he’d finished re-making the blood squibs already and as a result he might have managed to sell his death better. ‘Chris, man, you asked me to do a lot that day. I did everything else.’
‘Be that as it may, the risk assessments still need doing. Preferably before curtain up.’
‘Fine,’ he huffed. ‘Give us it here.’ Trevor put the prop knife back onto the table before taking the laptop from Chris and following him out of side of stage.
‘And you’re sure it was the prop knife you put back on the table?’
‘Certain.’ Trevor nodded. ‘We don’t have anything sharp on that table. Not after the scissors incident.’
‘Who else has access to that table?’
‘Everyone. It’s the prop table. Everyone just grabs what they need when they need it, and-‘ Trevor stopped talking. He felt the colour drain from his face and he was suddenly very glad he was sat down as something terrifying occurred to him.
‘And?’
‘Well, sometimes people leave stuff on the table that ain’t props.’
The police officer raised his eyebrow. ‘Like sharp knives?’
‘No, well maybe, mostly it’s empty coffee cups, and one-time Dennis left his house keys, but I guess someone could have left a sharp knife.’
‘Do you think that’s likely?’
‘It’s possible.’ Trevor felt sick with the thought, but it was the only logically explanation as to what had happened.
‘Intentionally?’
Trevor considered this for a moment. He didn’t think any of the cast would ever intentionally hurt each other, but then he thought about the Christmas that Robert had tried to ‘incapacitate’ Chris, or there was also the time when Annie had tried to sabotage Sandra so she could carry on playing her part, or when Robert had knocked Chris down the stairs, or when Robert had thrown the fire extinguisher at Chris…
‘Some of ‘em get a bit carried away sometimes.’
‘Can you give me an example?’
Trevor really didn’t want to give any of the examples that had come to mind, because it would paint them all as absolute psychopaths, which if Trevor was honest with himself he wasn’t convinced some of them weren’t. ‘We’ve had a few accidents over the years with props and things where people have accidentally hit each other, but nothing like this.’
‘No one has ever tried to murder a member of your cast before?’
Trevor swallowed. He could still hear the ring of the gunshot from the Drama Festival as he started rubbing at the knuckles of his left hand, watching dried blood flake off onto the carpet. But that had turned out to be a BB gun, and Chris had argued with Robert all the way to the hospital about how irresponsible it was to have a working gun onstage. He’d even still been muttering angrily to himself through gritted teeth as they pulled the BB from his shoulder.
‘No. There’s been some serious injuries, but nothing this bad.’ Trevor glanced down to his knees that had two large dark patches on his black jeans where he’d knelt in a puddle of blood, desperately trying to save his friend’s life. He could still hear Annie sobbing beside him as she tried to make sense of what had happened.
‘Annie wouldn’t murder anyone, no matter how much of an annoying prick they are.’
‘Is that how you would describe the victim?’
Victim. That word made Trevor’s blood run cold, his mouth suddenly dry as he felt the pressure building behind his eyes. He reached out a shaking hand to take a sip of the lukewarm tea Max had left him.
‘Sometimes he can be. He wasn’t any more of a prick than usual on this production.’
The police officer nodded. ‘Can you tell me what happened when the stabbing occurred?’
‘Dinner’s almost ready!’
Trevor wished dinner was almost ready. They had eighteen minutes left of Act II and that was if everything ran smoothly. In Trevor’s experience, the final eighteen minutes of Act II could run from anywhere between twenty-two minutes – as long as Sandra didn’t break the fourth wall, the audience didn’t fall about laughing at Max’s final entrance and Jonathan didn’t manage to get stuck in the trunk – to a full thirty-six minutes on that one memorable evening when Dennis got caught in a loop with his lines and Chris had an absolute meltdown when he ended up in an argument with a heckler sat in the front row. Trevor hoped it was nearer to the twenty-two minute mark this evening, as he tried to decide what he was going to eat when he got home.
He was stood on side of stage watching as Annie waved around the prop-knife before his eyes slid to Max in the wings on the opposite side, who was too busy watching Sandra with heart eyes to realise he hadn’t changed into his costume for the final scene. Trevor sighed, rolling his eyes before he started heading towards the crossover behind the stage.
He’d made it halfway along the backwall when there was a blood curdling scream from stage. It wasn’t Sandra’s usual dramatic fake scream of surprise, though – this one sounded far too real. He rounded the backcloth so he could see onto stage again past the desk he and Annie had found in a charity shop one afternoon, trying to take in what was unusual about the scene.
He moved a step forward as if it would make a difference to what he could see. He watched as Annie dropped the prop knife with a look of horror on her face, only there was no dull sound as plastic hit wood, there was a much heavier thud. There was also a surprising amount of blood – far more than a couple of squibs worth. Trevor wondered briefly if his student stagehand had accidentally overfilled them, but the blood also didn’t look the usual texture of corn syrup that the cast always complained got stuck in their hair, nor was it the same colour of food dye that Trevor used.
Trevor caught Sandra’s eyes that were wide with panic, and it was at that moment that Trevor put everything together, realising that no one was acting anymore.
Sandra’s face was one of pure terror as she took a half step forward, unsure what to do.
Annie’s whispered, ‘What have I done?’ was so genuine it felt like a punch to Trevor’s gut.
The knife that was now glinting in the light from the spotlight was as real as the blood that was slowly making its way across the stage, and the choked coughs and wheezes that were coming from the man lying centre stage were not the greatest bit of acting Trevor had seen.
Chris Bean was dying.
‘So, you didn’t see when Miss Twilloil stabbed Mr Bean?’
‘No, I were behind the backcloth when it happened. Max would have seen it though.’ Trevor could remember the confused crease of Max’s brow as Trevor shoved past him, trying to fumble the first aid kit from the top of the prompt desk. He remembered asking someone to drop the curtain. He also vaguely remembered hearing the pre-recorded show stop announcement, but everything else was just an adrenalin filled blur.
‘Max Bennet?’ The police officer asked, consulting his notes. ‘He was the one who made the 999 call?’
‘I think so, yeah.’ Trevor couldn’t rightly remember really, he’d been too preoccupied with stopping the bleeding. He remembered asking frequently if the ambulance was on its way. Max had told him that it had only taken eight minutes to arrive, but it had felt like the longest eight minutes of Trevor’s life.
‘I just have one more question for the moment. Can you tell me what your relationship is like with Mr Bean?’
Trevor blinked, his gaze falling on Chris’ laptop that was perched on the edge of Trevor’s desk where he’d left it after finishing off the risk assessments. He knew the password to it was SadlersWells1931 which was a nod to ballet in some way. He also knew that the desktop background was a picture of the company bows from the closing night of The Murder at Haversham Manor – Chris’ directorial debut. They’d all spent several hours in A&E together after the show, and Chris had even given Trevor a lift home afterwards. Chris and he had then sat on the sofa of Trevor’s flat share together eating chicken nuggets at four am. It felt like a lifetime ago now.
‘He’s probably one of my best friends.’
‘And yet you described him as an “annoying prick”.’
‘Yeah, wouldn’t you describe your best friend that way sometimes?’
The police officer seemed to consider this a moment before he nodded, closing over his notebook with the flicker of a smile. ‘That’s all for now.’
‘What happens next?’
‘What do you mean?’
Trevor didn’t know. He had a million questions, but he was unsure where to start. He wanted to do so many things simultaneously as well – he wanted a drink, wanted to eat, wanted to clean the stage, wanted to hug Annie, wanted to see Chris, make sure he was still alive, because he wasn’t even sure of the answer to that at the moment.
‘I mean, is the stage still a crime scene?’ He knew it was a stupid question the moment he asked it, but he still waited for an answer.
‘It depends what happens to your friend. There’s the possibility it could become a murder investigation.’
Trevor felt sick with the thought of that. The police officer must have caught sight of Trevor’s face, because he quickly added, ‘I’ve had no news from the hospital, though. Which usually means it’s good news.’
Trevor managed a shaky nod, ‘ Am I- can one of us go and see him?’
‘You and Miss Twilloil can go, I still have some questions for the rest of the cast and crew. I’ll be in touch if I need to ask you anything else.’
Trevor managed another nod as he tried to think about what he needed to get him to the hospital to make sure Chris was still alive. Keys seemed a good place to start. As he reached out to start lifting things from his desk in search of his keys he caught sight of his hands again, deciding he needed to wash them for a third time before he did anything else.