head and the little party that were carrying it away?’
‘They will be taken to the local station, where the head will be deposited. Then they will give statements, after which they will be driven home. Why are you so interested?’
‘I believe I know the boy. He hangs around the theatre, I think he’s stage-struck.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Older than he looks, like all of us pro’s.’
‘You aren’t suggesting he knows anything about the head?’ It was, after all, a highly theatrical discovery.
‘No, of course not. But I can’t think of anyone who will get more out of it than he will.’ Stella picked up the bottle. ‘Let’s finish the champagne.’
Theatricals have a notoriously strong tolerance for drink, and so do policemen, it goes with the job, but what with not having eaten and the closeness of Stella, John Coffin began to feel as if he was floating.
Stella started again.
‘And what about the head? Where will that go?’
‘An inquiry will start to establish whose head and where it came from. I expect they will begin by asking questions at the funeral parlour.’
‘I don’t like it. The poor chap who’s lost his head! Was he dead when it was cut off?’
She had a point there.
‘That will be one of the questions asked. I think it was probably cut off after death.’
Either way it was nasty.
Stella shivered. ‘Well, I hope it’s no one I know.’
‘That’s not likely, is it?’
‘No, none of my friends are missing,’ Stella agreed. ‘But some of them would have to be gone a very long time before I noticed … And then, where is the rest of him?’
‘I expect we will find him,’ said Coffin. Bodies had a way of turning up.
‘Supposing you found two bodies, and both were headless, how would you know to whom the head belonged?’
‘Stella, how much champagne have you had?’
She put her glass down on the table. ‘Far too much. Would you like to take me out to dinner? I’m interested in crime at the moment.’
‘We can go to the Indian place round the corner, I suppose.’
‘Oh, how keen you sound.’
‘I am keen. Why are you interested in crime?’
‘I’m producing Hedda Gabler. She was a criminal, a delinquent soul if there ever was one. I don’t see her as a tragic heroine but as a criminal.’
‘Poor Ibsen. Well, come on, let’s go and eat curry. And tomorrow, if you are still interested in crime, you can come to a reception for some foreign policemen in our Black Museum and take a look round.’
The Indian restaurant, the Empress of India, was a friendly place, quiet and dark, where Stella seemed fully as well known as John Coffin, if not better.
‘We often eat here after rehearsal. This is my first play as director, but I had a part in Trelawney of the Wells, which opened the Workshop.’
‘What part was that?’
Stella grimaced. ‘Not Trelawney. I’m a year or two too old for that, alas. No, I was Mrs Mossop. I had to pad, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Coffin loyally.
‘But not as much as all that,’ went on the ever honest Stella. ‘So I’ve been on a diet ever since. Not tonight, though.’
Over the curried chicken and poppadoms they gossiped about the Theatre Workshop. The boy was mentioned.
‘What did you say his name was?’
‘Well, we call him Little Billy. What did he tell you?’
‘William Larger.’
‘There you are, then.’
Not for the first time, Coffin registered the sometimes simple jokes that satisfied theatre folk.
Over a last glass of wine, Stella leaned forward. She had been making up her mind to speak and the wine helped.
‘Didn’t tell you quite all the truth.’
‘No?’
‘Someone has gone missing from my circle.’
‘Who?’ Coffin asked.
‘A girl. One of the group at the Workshop. She just went off and never came back. She had had a quarrel with some of the cast about the costumes.’ Stella leaned back and looked at him. There was a lot more to tell, but she would get it all out by degrees. ‘Could the head have been hers?’
‘What was she like?’
‘Very young. Pretty face, blonde hair and big blue eyes. Strong-boned. Quite a big girl.’
‘I don’t think it was her.’
‘No?’
‘No. Anyway, she must have had friends and family who would be missing her.’
‘I don’t know.’ Stella was doubtful. ‘She came from New Zealand. It might be some time before they noticed.’
Coffin thought about the teeth he had seen. The teeth had looked big and old. Stained and irregular. One or two missing.
‘I think it was a man,’ he said. ‘Probably a man.’
But you could never be sure. Teeth in a dead head always looked bigger than they were.
Little Billy felt he was not getting the attention he deserved from his parents. His arrival home in a police car had caused some concern, but now they seemed more preoccupied with a fierce discussion about selling their time-share villa in Spain. His father had recently started his own business in Leathergate and wanted every penny, whereas his mother was thinking about her suntan.
‘Let me get Rowanworks off the ground and we can afford a villa in Tuscany,’ pleaded his father. ‘Spain’s getting too crowded now, we’d be better off making a move.’
He had judged his wife aright. Tuscany was assuredly more chic. Her opposition softened.
‘I do prefer Italian fashion to Spanish,’ she said, giving a considered, judicial verdict.
‘There you are, then. You can shop in Rome.’
‘Milan is the place.’
‘You shall shop in Milan, then.’
‘Or Florence,’ she said musingly. ‘Florence may be best after all.’
‘Florence, then,’ said Keith.
Little Billy managed to get his voice in. ‘Mum, Dad, you aren’t listening to me.’
‘Don’t call us that,’ said his mother automatically, ‘it’s so vulgar.’
He ignored this. ‘Mum, you don’t seem interested in what I found, the head in the urn.’
‘I think it’s horrible. You shouldn’t dwell on it any more. Put it out of your mind.’ She turned back to her husband. ‘All right then, sell the place in Lasada.’
‘Dad, there’s something I want to tell you.’
‘Don’t encourage him, Keith.’
‘Haven’t you got some lines to learn?’ Keith Larger paid the fees at the well-known school for young performers attended by his son and he was a man who liked to get value for his money. The boy had talent, fine, but you had to work as well. He always had.
‘Word