6

DAVID SYDEHAM did not look like the kind of man to whom a woman of Joanna Ellacourt’s fame and reputation would have stayed married for nearly two decades. Lynley knew the fairy-tale version of their relationship, the sort of romantic drivel that tabloids feed up for their customers to read on the underground during rush-hour commutes. It was fairly standard stuff, how a twenty-nine-year-old midland booking agent-the son of a country cleric-with little more than good looks and unshakeable self-confidence to recommend him, had discovered a nineteen-year-old Nottingham girl doing a tousle-haired Celia in a back-alley theatre; how he persuaded her to throw her lot in with his, rescuing her from the grim working-class environment into which she had been born; how he provided her with drama coaches and voice lessons; how he nurtured her career every step of the way until she emerged, as he had long known she would, the most sought-after actress in the country.

Twenty years later, Sydeham was still handsome enough in a sensual way, but it was a handsomeness gone to seed, a sensuality given sway too often with unfortunate consequences. His skin showed the inchoate signs of dissipation. There was rather too much flesh under his chin and a decided puffiness to his hands and face. Like the other men at Wester-brae, Sydeham had not been given the opportunity to shave that morning, and he looked even the worse for wear because of this. A substantial growth of beard shadowed his face, accenting the deep circles under his heavily lidded eyes. Still, he dressed with a remarkable instinct for making the best of what he had. Although his was the body of a bull, he encased it in jacket, shirt, and trousers that were obviously cut specifically to fit him. They had the look of money, as did his wristwatch and signet ring which fl ashed gold in the fi relight as he took a seat in the sitting room. Not a hard-backed chair, Lynley noted, but a comfortable armchair in the semi-darkness of the room’s periphery.

“I’m not entirely certain that I understand your function here this weekend,” Lynley said as Sergeant Havers closed the door and took her seat at the table.

“Or my function at all?” Sydeham’s face was bland.

It was an interesting point. “If you wish.”

“I manage my wife’s career. I see to her contracts, book her engagements, run interference for her when the pressure mounts. I read her scripts, coach her with her lines, manage her money.” Sydeham appeared to perceive a change in Lynley’s expression. “Yes,” he repeated, “I manage her money. All of it. And there’s quite a bit. She makes it, I invest it. So I’m a kept man, Inspector.” Upon this last remark, he smiled without the slightest trace of humour. His skin seemed thin enough when it came to the superficial inequities in his relationship with his wife.

“How well did you know Joy Sinclair?” Lynley asked.

“Do you mean did I kill her? I’d only met the woman at half past seven. And while Joanna wasn’t altogether happy with the manner in which Joy had taken to revising her play, I generally negotiate improvements with playwrights. I don’t kill them if I don’t like what they’ve written.”

“Why wasn’t your wife happy with the script?”

“All along, Joanna had been suspicious that Joy was attempting to create a vehicle to bring her sister back to the stage. At Joanna’s expense. Joanna’s would be the name that would bring in the audience and the critics, but Irene Sinclair’s performance would be spotlighted for them to see. At least, that was Jo’s fear. And when she saw the revised script, she jumped to conclusions and felt the worst had actually come true.” Sydeham slowly lifted both arms and shoulders. It was a curious, Gallic shrug. “I…we had quite a row about it after the read-through, in fact.”

“What sort of row?”

“The sort of row married couples always have. A look-at-what-you-got-me-into row. Joanna was determined not to go on with the play.”

“And that’s been taken care of rather nicely for her, hasn’t it?” Lynley remarked.

Sydeham’s nostrils flared. “My wife didn’t kill Joy Sinclair, Inspector. Nor, for that matter, did I. Killing Joy would hardly have put an end to our real problem.” He moved his head abruptly from Lynley and Havers, focussing on the table that stood under the sitting-room window and on the silver-framed photographs arrayed on it.

Lynley saw the other man’s remark for the fishing line it was and decided to take the bait. “Your real problem?”

Sydeham’s head swivelled back to them. “Robert Gabriel,” he said broodingly. “Robert bleeding Gabriel.”

Lynley had learned years before that silence was as useful a tool of interrogation as any question he might ask. The attendant tension it nearly always caused was a form of appanage, one of the few benefits to carrying a warrant card from the police. So he said nothing, letting Sydeham simmer himself into further disclosure. Which he did, almost immediately.

“Gabriel’s been after Joanna for years. He fancies himself some kind of cross between Casanova and Lothario, only it never worked with Jo, in spite of all his efforts. She can’t stand the bloke. Never has.”

Lynley was amazed to hear this revelation, considering the reputation Ellacourt and Gabriel had for sizzling across the stage. Evidently, Sydeham recognised this reaction, for he smiled as if in acknowledgement and went on.

“My wife is one hell of an actress, Inspector. She always was. But the truth of the matter is that Gabriel put his hands up her skirt one time too many during Othello last season, and she was through with him. Unfortunately, she didn’t tell me how determined she was never to perform with him again until it was too late. I’d already negotiated the deal with Stinhurst for this new production. And I saw to it personally that Gabriel had a part in it as well.”

“Why?”

“Simple business. Gabriel and Ellacourt have chemistry. People pay to see chemistry. And I thought Joanna could take care of herself well enough if she had to appear with Gabriel again. She did it in Othello, bit him like a shark when he went for tongue during a stage kiss, and laughed like hell about it afterwards. So I didn’t think that one more play with Gabriel would set her off the way it did. Then like a fool, when I found out how absolutely dead set against him she was, I lied to her, told her that Stinhurst had insisted that Gabriel be in the new production. But unfortunately, last night, Gabriel let it out of the bag that I was the one who had wanted him in the play. And that was part of what set Joanna off.”

“And now that it’s certain there’s to be no play?”

Sydeham spoke with ill-concealed impatience. “Joy’s death does nothing to change the fact that Joanna’s still under contract to do a play for Stinhurst. So is Gabriel. And Irene Sinclair, for that matter. So Jo’s working with both of them whether she likes it or not. My guess is that Stinhurst will take them back to London and start putting together another production as soon as he can. So if I wanted to help Joanna-or at least put an end to the anger between us-I’d be orchestrating a quick end to either Stinhurst or Gabriel. Joy’s death put a stop to Joy’s play. Believe me, it didn’t really do a thing to benefi t Joanna.”

“To benefit yourself, perhaps?”

Sydeham gave Lynley a long look of evaluation. “I don’t see how anything that hurts Jo might benefit me, Inspector.”

There was certainly truth to that, Lynley admitted to himself. “When did you last have your gloves with you?”

Sydeham appeared to want to continue their previous discussion. Nonetheless, he answered cooperatively enough. “Yesterday afternoon when we arrived, I think. Francesca asked me to sign the register, and I would have taken my gloves off to do so. Frankly, I don’t know what I did with them after that. I don’t remember putting them back on, but I might have shoved them in the pocket of my coat.”