The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(72)

“I-I can’t believe it. Are you sure?”

Phillips held back any smart comments and simply nodded.

“Aye, we are.”

Pepper held his head in his hands.

“I can’t—Stephanie? Was there some kind of accident?”

Ryan side-stepped the question.

“If you could just tell us, in your own words, what happened after the show finished last night. We’re going to take a note you can check over at the end.”

Pepper nodded.

“Okay. Do you mind—can I get some water?”

“Sure.”

They waited while he gulped down a pint of water, then filled another glass and brought it back with him.

“The performance finished around ten-forty-five,” he said. “Stephanie usually takes…took fifteen or twenty minutes to get changed and ready to go back to her aparthotel but she was a bit quicker last night. I usually try to meet her at the stage door on the dot of eleven, but she was there at five-to.”

“That’s very helpful,” Ryan said. “Go on.”

“Okay. Um, she’d finished signing programmes and chatting to the people at the stage door and she was waiting for me. I’d been held up a bit by some old bloke,” he remembered.

“Did you see anybody at the stage door when you joined her there?”

Pepper tapped his fingers against the glass.

“Yeah, there was a woman in her fifties with someone—I guess he was her husband. They were telling her how much they’d enjoyed the show, but they headed off straight away.”

“Nobody else that you could see?”

“No. Well, I mean, obviously, there were people passing by, but I can’t remember exactly. It was raining, and people were rushing to get indoors.”

“Okay. Then what happened?”

“Well, the company liked me to make sure she got back to her hotel safely. They didn’t spring for the Rolls Royce service, so she had to make do with me,” he said, with a shrug.

Tears filled his eyes.

“She was lovely,” he said, suddenly. “A real class act, you know?”

Ryan nodded.

“She never complained about anything and never had a bad word to say when things went wrong. She just got on with it, like a true professional. I thought she was amazing.”

He looked down at his glass and took another sip.

“I feel—um, I feel awful. Last night, I asked her out for a drink. Don’t know what I was thinking,” he said. “Must have had a rush of blood to the head or something. Anyway, I gave it a go and asked her.”

“What did she say?” Phillips murmured.

“Oh, she knocked me back. But she did it in the nicest way,” he said. “Like I said, she had class.”

He looked up at their sombre faces.

“Somebody hurt her, didn’t they? You wouldn’t be here, if they hadn’t.”

They said nothing, but their silence was confirmation enough.

“Carry on telling us what happened,” Ryan advised. “It’s the most helpful thing you can do.”

Pepper nodded.

“We chatted on the way to her aparthotel. It’s only a few minutes away from the theatre, down on Dean Street…although, I guess you know that,” he said. “I don’t really know what else to tell you. I dropped her off as usual and made a fool of myself, asking her out, then said ‘goodnight’ around twenty-past-eleven.”

“Did she give you any indication that she was worried, or that anybody had frightened her?”

“No. Yes,” he remembered suddenly. “She told me that the reason she never likes to go home alone when it’s dark is because she had this fan a couple of years ago who had freaked her out, or something like that. She wasn’t exactly the nervy type, especially not on stage, but she was quiet in real life, y’ know? Sort of…gentle.”

“I don’t suppose she ever mentioned a name or a physical description of this fan? Male or female?”

“Definitely male,” he said. “But I don’t know anything else about him. Sorry.”

They stayed a few minutes longer covering the same ground to make sure they had his best recollection, then left Mark Pepper to his hangover and his grief.

Outside, Ryan turned to Phillips with blazing eyes.

“It was him. The fan, two years ago. I know it was him, the man who killed her.”

Phillips had the same feeling, deep in his gut.

“Aye. I think you might be right.”

“He couldn’t have known two years ago that she’d be in Newcastle right now, so it has to be a case of opportunism. He must have been delighted.”

“He needed to do his research quickly,” Phillips said. “The company were only here for a week and he needed to find out where she was staying, whether she was alone, whether there was a camera on the door and all that.”

“And he’ll have wanted to see the production,” Ryan said. “It was a juggling act, considering he had Nicola Cassidy to manage alongside his regular work, but there’s no way he would have missed the show. Question is, which one did he go to?”

“He probably paid for his ticket in cash, if he did go, but I’ll check with the box office.”