Curtain Call Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Previous Titles by Graham Hurley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Previous Titles by Graham Hurley

  The Faraday and Winter Series

  TURNSTONE

  THE TAKE

  ANGELS PASSING

  DEADLIGHT

  CUT TO BLACK

  BLOOD AND HONEY

  ONE UNDER

  THE PRICE OF DARKNESS

  NO LOVELIER DEATH

  BEYOND REACH

  BORROWED LIGHT

  HAPPY DAYS

  BACKSTORY

  The Jimmy Suttle Series

  WESTERN APPROACHES

  TOUCHING DISTANCE

  SINS OF THE FATHER

  THE ORDER OF THINGS

  The Wars Within Series

  FINISTERRE

  AURORE

  ESTOCADA

  The Enora Andresson Series

  CURTAIN CALL *

  * available from Severn House

  CURTAIN CALL

  Graham Hurley

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2018 by Graham Hurley.

  The right of Graham Hurley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8861-7 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-989-4 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0201-7 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  To

  Lara, Harri, Enya, and Cormac

  Tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée

  Ring down the curtain, the farce is over

  —the last words of François Rabelais

  ONE

  The neurosurgeon has a fondness for metaphor.

  ‘The Reaper comes knocking at every door,’ he says. ‘I’m afraid yours might be one of them.’

  I’m staring at him. Pale face. Pale eyes behind the rimless glasses. Pale everything. Half-dead already, he could be an apprentice ghost. Another metaphor.

  ‘Should I lock the door? Hide? Pretend I’m not in?’

  ‘Any of the above.’ The eyes drift to the PC screen. ‘Next of kin? A husband maybe?’

  ‘He’s in Stockholm.’

  ‘On business?’

  ‘He’s about to re-marry. It might be the same thing.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I. The last thing the poor woman needs is Berndt.’

  He reaches for his keyboard and taps a line I can’t read. Is he making notes about some drug or other, some brave attempt to stay the Reaper at the corner of the street? Or is he having trouble spelling Berndt? I did once, so I wouldn’t blame him.

  With a tiny sigh he glances up, as if to check I’m still there. Then he half-turns to consult a calendar on the wall behind him. The calendar features a child’s painting, stick figures in crayon, mainly red and yellow. There’s a football, and birds, and a big whiskery sun. I rather like it.

  ‘Do you have enough Percocet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. No more than one tablet every six hours and lay off the booze. Before we make any decisions, I’m afraid I’ll need to see you again.’ His finger has settled on the end of next week. ‘Would Friday be convenient?’

  ‘Friday would be perfect.’ I manage a smile. ‘My place or yours?’

  Crying in public is something I try to avoid, in this case without success. This is a bar I’ve never been to before. It helps that everyone is a stranger. Moist-eyed, I order a large vodka and stare at my own image in the mirror behind the optics. In truth I feel undone, a parcel ripped apart by unseen hands inside me, but that’s a complicated thought to share with anyone and thankfully no one seems very interested.

  Less than two weeks ago I went to the doctor with a persistent headache and a problem with the vision in my left eye. Now, it seems, I ought to be thinking hard about a hospice. Private medical insurance definitely has its blessings but no one tells you how to cope with news this sudden and this final.

  The neurosurgeon I’ve just left showed me the MRI scan they did on Thursday, tracing the outline of the tumour the way you might explain a new route home. I followed his thick forefinger as best I could, trying to imagine the cluttered spaces of my own throbbing head, but none of it made much sense. At the end, when I asked what next, he came up with the line about the Reaper. Now I leave my glass untouched and head for the street. Coping is something I’ve done all my life. Until now.

  Home is a sixteen-pound cab ride to Holland Park. I live on the fourth floor of a 1930s block of flats with a sunny view south and the constant assurance from local estate agents that serious cash buyers are only a phone call away. The place is safe and beautifully maintained. I’ve spent the best years of my life here, even with Berndt, and until this morning it’s never occurred to me that one day I might have to leave.

  My immediate neighbour has lived here even longer than me. Her name is Evelyn. She’s West Country, from a small village outside Okehampton. She’s wise and kindly and Berndt always said she belonged in a homestead in frontier America with a rugged husband and an army of kids. Berndt was wrong about that because she’s never married, probably never had a man, and maybe as a consequence she puts a great deal of thought into nurturing relationships she values. I flatter myself that I count as one of her friends.

  Evelyn has sharp ears for the arrival of the lift but always waits until I’ve s
ettled myself in before knocking lightly on the door. These calls are always for a purpose, another reason we get on so well. Since I’ve known her, she’s worked as an editor for one of the smaller London publishing houses. People I know in the business tell me she’s become a legend and I tend to believe them. She certainly knows that less is more, an editorial rule she applies unfailingly to her own life. She stands at the open door, a thick Jiffy bag in her arms. The pencil behind her ear is a signal that she’s busy.

  ‘I took this in,’ she says. ‘I think it’s from your agent.’

  She gives me the Jiffy bag and then pauses before stepping back into the hall.

  ‘Is everything OK, my lovely?’

  ‘No, if you want the truth.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘No.’ I force a smile. ‘But thanks.’

  She nods, says nothing. She’ll be there if I need her, I know she will. But not now.

  I put the kettle on and toy with making a cup of tea but give up, overwhelmed yet again by what’s happened. I’m thirty-nine, shading forty. I’m in my prime. I jog round Kensington Gardens three times a week. My serious drinking days are long gone and I can’t remember when I last had a cigarette. Only a week ago, a casting director swore he’d never seen me looking better. Now this.

  Shit. Shit. Normally, I’m good at self-analysis. I can distinguish at once between a sulk and something more worthwhile, but this ability to read myself appears to have gone. Is this anger I’m feeling? Or bewilderment? Or, God help me, simple fear? The fact that I don’t know only makes things worse. Helpless is a word I’ve never had much time for. It smacks of giving up, of surrender, of weakness. And yet that’s as close as I can get. Helpless? Me?

  I open the Jiffy bag. Evelyn’s right, it’s from my agent. It’s a French-Canadian script and she rates it highly. The producers are still looking for finance, and despite everything it’s good to know that my name attached might help them find the right kind of backer. So what do I do here? Do I lift the phone and tell my agent to hold all calls? Do I fess up and say I’ve joined the walking dead? Or do I just breeze on and hope that I can somehow make it through? In certain kinds of script we call that denial. Denial, under the current circumstances, sounds perfect. And so I pop another Percocet and curl up on the sofa.

  My agent’s right. Even with my mind still wandering up cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac, I give the script enough attention to know that it’s very, very good. I play a French academic on a one-year sabbatical in Montréal. I fall in love with a handsome campus drunk who turns out to be already married. Life gets very difficult, and then impossible, but a clever plot gives me the chance to exact a little revenge in the final act.

  The writing is serious and comic by turns, and the dialogue alone has won me over. By the time I’ve given the script a second read, I’ve already made that strange alchemical step into someone else’s head. I am the woman on the page. I cut my bastard suitor far too much slack and I’m punished in subtle and inventive ways that bring a smile, albeit rueful, to my face. But Fate, thanks to the gods of the cinema, comes to my rescue. My jilted beau ends the movie on the very edge of Niagara Falls, contemplating a messy suicide, while I accept the applause of my peers for simply surviving. If only, I think.

  Another knock on the door. It’s Evelyn again, this time with a bottle in her hand. Very unusual.

  ‘Good?’ She’s nodding at the script.

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Tempted?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  She’s brought whisky. I pour two measures, adding ice, aware of Evelyn monitoring my every move. On occasions, she can be very direct.

  ‘So what’s happened?’ she asks.

  I tell her everything. It doesn’t take long. I’m sharing my brain space with a tumour. Soon it will kill me.

  To my relief, she doesn’t move. No arms around me, no whispered consolations, no invitation to share the pain. Just a simple question.

  ‘And do you believe this man?’

  ‘Believe him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You think he’s kidding me? Some kind of joke? You think the guy’s a sadist?’

  ‘I’m just asking exactly what he said.’

  I do my best to remember, word for word. Mention of the Reaper brings a scowl to her face.

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘He did.’

  She nods. She clearly thinks it’s unforgivably crass, even cruel, but she’s also wondering whether he’d recognized me. I tell her my medical records are in my married name, Enora Andressen, but she doesn’t think that’s a factor. My last movie, a screen adaptation of a decent novel, has been doing good business in London art-house cinemas.

  ‘Men can be funny around fame,’ she says. ‘Especially alpha males. I see it in the office sometimes. When we stoop to celebrity biogs, and the lady concerned pays us a visit, the Head of Sales always makes a fool of himself. It’s primal behaviour. It belongs in the jungle. If I were you I’d ignore it.’

  ‘That’s a hard thing to do when he tells me I’m going to die.’

  ‘He said might.’

  ‘He did. You’re right.’

  ‘So hang on to that.’

  A silence settles between us. It feels companionable. Warm. I think I love this woman. When things got really tough with Berndt and he started throwing the furniture around, she offered nothing but good sense. Change the locks. Get yourself another man. Preferably someone bigger. As it happens, I did neither but just now Evelyn is offering just a glimpse of something that might resemble hope.

  ‘Did he talk about treatment at all?’

  ‘No. I’ve got to see him again on Friday.’

  ‘No mention of an operation?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Radiotherapy? Chemo?’

  ‘No.’

  Another silence. I gulp the whisky, draining the glass. I haven’t touched Scotch for years but I’m glad she’s brought the bottle. The fierceness of the burn in my throat creeps slowly south. I’m alive. Everything’s still working. Fuck the tumour.

  ‘More?’ She refills my glass, not waiting for an answer.

  I nod. I’m gazing at her. My eyes are moist. I very badly don’t want to cry. Not in front of Evelyn.

  ‘And Malo?’ she says softly. ‘You think you ought to tell him?’

  Malo.

  I hold her gaze as long as I can and then I duck my head, holding myself tight, rocking on the sofa, letting the hot tears course down my face, howling with the pain of my grief.

  Malo is my son. He’s seventeen years old, impossibly handsome, impossibly difficult, and impossibly remote. I can forgive Berndt most of the stuff that went on between us, but not for stealing Malo. By the time he eventually left, far too late, I finally realized what he’d been doing with our son’s affections. My ex-husband was always clever. He had a way with words. As a successful scriptwriter, he understood the magic of language. His move into direction taught him how to ramp up the pressure. His obsession with noir gave him the meanest of streaks. My poor Malo was putty in his hands. Given any kind of choice, what seventeen-year-old wouldn’t opt for a penthouse apartment in Stockholm and the company of a blonde starlet with a huge Scandi fan base? Drunk, towards the end, Berndt had talked of trading me in, one washed-up actress for a younger model, but in my darker moments I wondered whether Malo hadn’t shared the same thought. From what I can gather, Annaliese makes perfect cheesecake. Job done.

  Enough. Evelyn is sitting beside me on the sofa. Practical as ever, she’s found some tissues. I tell her that I’ve no intention of sharing my news with anyone, least of all Malo or my ex-bloody-husband.

  ‘A secret, then? Just you and me? Until you’re better?’ Evelyn is smiling. I can tell she’s pleased. She puts the cap on the bottle and suggests I go to bed. Anytime, day or night, all I have to do is lift the phone. I do my best to thank her, to apologize for the tears, but already she’s on her feet.

  At the door, struck
by a sudden thought, she turns back.

  ‘I forgot,’ she says. ‘You had another caller this afternoon. He knocked on my door as well. Mitch, he said. Mitch Culligan. Ring any bells?’

  I shake my head. The name means nothing.

  ‘He said he’ll give you a ring. He must have your number.’ She nods towards the bedroom door. ‘Sweet dreams, my lovely.’

  Sweet dreams? It’s eighteen years ago. For the second time running, a picture of mine is up for a major award. My mum and stepdad have trained it down from Brittany in case my movie makes the Palme d’Or. Expecting me to meet them at the station in Cannes, they take a taxi to the Carlton in time to catch me deep in conversation with Berndt Andressen. Berndt is hot just now. He’s just penned a script which will – in time – open the floodgates to a torrent of Scandi crime noir and he’s in town to court some of the international finance people who might make his script happen.

  Like everyone else in Cannes, I’ve read about Berndt in the weightier trade magazines, but in person he comes as a bit of a surprise. He’s a decade older than me but it hardly shows. He’s slim, quiet, and decidedly opaque. He has a thatch of blond hair and the good taste to wear a carefully rumpled suit instead of the designer jeans and collarless linen shirts that have become standard combat issue in certain corners of the media world. We’ve been talking non-stop for hours by the time my parents show up, which is a weak excuse for not meeting their train. I’ve never been able to fool my mum, no matter how hard I try. Berndt is courteous and attentive to them both, and insists on buying a bottle of champagne to toast their arrival. ‘You’ll marry that man,’ my mum tells me later when Berndt has left for yet another interview. And she’s right.

  We slept together that night. My movie didn’t win the Palme d’Or but I was way past caring. If Berndt’s noir script measured up to his talents in the sack then he was heading for stardom. The second time we made love, in the way that only a woman can sense, I knew that Berndt and I had made a baby. As it happens, I was wrong but that – as they say in La La Land – doesn’t play well on the page.