Again, Susan thought she heard a noise like something being dragged across a wood floor. She stood still and listened. It stopped, and all she could hear was her own heart beating. Not even a mouse stirred. She shrugged and went on poking about the room. It was no use. She would pick up nothing about Caroline Hartley here by osmosis.

The door creaked open slowly behind her. She turned, ready to defend herself, and saw a uniformed policeman silhouetted in the doorway. What the hell? As far as she knew, they hadn’t put a guard inside the place. She couldn’t make out who it was; his helmet was too low over his brow and its strap covered his chin. The light behind her in the store room was too dim to be much help.

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and bent his knees. ‘Hello, hello, hello! What have we here?’

It was an assumed voice, she could tell that. Pretentiously deep and portentous. For a moment she didn’t know what to do or say. Then he walked into the room and closed the door.

‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the Crooked Billet for a drink, and if you don’t come clean there, we’ll proceed to Mario’s for dinner.’

Susan squinted in the poor light and saw that under the ridiculous helmet stood James Conran himself. Out of angry relief, she said, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, taking off the helmet. ‘Couldn’t resist playing a little joke. I saw you when you peeked into the auditorium. I’d just dropped by to check out some blocking angles from the floor.’

‘But the uniform,’ Susan said. ‘I thought the costumes had all been destroyed.’

‘This? I found it under the stage with a lot more old stuff. Been there for years. I suppose our previous incarnation must have left it all behind.’

Susan laughed. ‘Do you always dress the part when you ask someone out to dinner?’

Conran smiled shyly. ‘I’m not the most direct or confident person in the world,’ he said, unbuttoning the high-collared police jacket. ‘Especially when I’m talking to an ex-pupil. You may be grown-up now, but you weren’t the last time I saw you. Maybe I need a mask to hide behind. But I did mean what I said. Would you consider at least having a drink with me?’

‘I don’t know.’ Susan had nothing to do, nowhere to go but home, but she felt she couldn’t just say yes. It was partly because he made her feel like that sixteen-year-old schoolgirl with a crush on the teacher again, and partly because he was connected, albeit peripherally, with a case she was working on.

‘I think I should arrest you for impersonating a police officer,’ she said.

He looked disappointed, and a faint flush touched his cheeks. ‘At least grant the condemned man his last wish, then. Surely you can’t be so cruel?’

Still Susan deliberated. She wanted to say yes, but she felt as if a great stone had lodged in her chest and wouldn’t let out the air to form the words.

‘Some other time, perhaps, then?’ Conran said. ‘When you’re not so busy.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Susan said, laughing. ‘I’ve got time for a quick one at the Crooked Billet at least.’ To hell with it, she thought. Why not? It was about time she had some fun.

He brightened. ‘Good. Just a minute then. Let me change back into my civvies.’

‘One thing first,’ Susan said. ‘Did Caroline or any of the cast keep any of their private things here? I can’t seem to find any lockers or changing areas.’

‘We just have to make do with what we have,’ Conran said. ‘It’s all right at the moment, but at dress rehearsal and after… well, we’ll see what we can do about some of those little cubby-holes off the main corridor.’

‘So there’s not likely to be anything?’

‘Afraid not. If people brought their handbags or briefcases to rehearsal, we just left them in here while we were on stage. The back door was locked, so nobody could sneak in and steal anything. Don’t go away,’ he said, and backed out of the room.

Susan put her hand over her mouth and laughed when he had gone. How shy and clumsy he seemed. But he did have charm and a sense of humour.

‘Right,’ he said, peeping around the door a couple of minutes later. ‘Ready.’

They left the community centre by the back door, locked up and made their way down the alley to York Road. There, midway between the bus station and the preRoman site, stood the Crooked Billet. Luckily it wasn’t too busy. They found a table by a whitewashed wall adorned with military emblems, and Conran went to fetch the drinks.

Susan watched him. His shirt hung out of the back of his trousers, under his sweater, he had rather round shoulders and his hair could have done with a trim at the back. Apart from that he was presentable enough. Slim, though more from lack of proper diet than exercise, she guessed; tall, and if not straight at least endearingly stooped. Very artistic, really. His eyes, she noticed as he came back, were two slightly different shades of blue-grey, one paler than the other. Funny, she had never noticed that at school.

‘Here,’ he said, putting a half of mild in front of her and holding out his pint. ‘Cheers.’ They clinked glasses.

‘How’s the investigation going?’ he asked.

Susan told him there was nothing to report on the vandalism. ‘I’m sorry about Caroline Hartley,’ she went on. ‘I noticed how upset you were when the Chief Inspector mentioned her death.’

Conran looked down and swirled the beer in his glass. ‘Yes. As I told you on Christmas Eve, I can’t say we were great friends. This was her first role with the company. I hadn’t known her very long. Obviously, I didn’t know her at all, really. But she was a joy to have around. Such childlike enthusiasm. And what talent! Untrained, but very talented. We’ve lost an important member of the cast. Not that that’s why I was upset. A Maria can easily be replaced.’

‘But not a Caroline Hartley?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Are you sure you weren’t in love with her?’

Conran started as if he’d been stung. ‘What? What on earth makes you ask that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Susan said. And she didn’t. The question had just risen, unbidden, to her lips. ‘Just that everyone says she was so attractive. After all, you are a bachelor, aren’t you?’

He smiled. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. It’s just that, well, here we are, having a drink together for the first time – our first date, so to speak – and you ask me if I was in love with another woman. Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?’

‘Maybe. But were you?’

Conran smiled from the corner of his mouth and looked at her. ‘You’re very persistent. I’d guess that’s something to do with your job. One day you must tell me all about it, all about your last ten years, why you joined the police.’

‘And the answer to my question?’

He held his hands out, as if for handcuffs, and said in a Cockney voice, ‘All right, all right, guv! Enough’s enough! I’ll come clean.’

The people at the next table looked over. Susan felt embarrassed, but she couldn’t help smiling. She leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. ‘Well?’ she whispered.

‘I suppose every man’s a little bit in love with every beautiful woman,’ Conran said quietly.

Susan blushed and reached for her drink. She didn’t consider herself beautiful, but did he mean to imply that she was? ‘That’s a very evasive answer,’ she said. ‘And besides, it sounds like a quote.’

Conran grinned. ‘But it’s true, isn’t it? Depending on one’s sexual preference, I suppose.’

‘I think it’s disgusting, the way she lived,’ Susan said. It’s abnormal. Not that I mean to speak ill of the dead,’ she blustered on, reddening, ‘but the thought of it gives me the creeps.’

‘Well, that was her business,’ Conran said.

‘But don’t you think it’s perverted?’

‘I can think of worse things to be.’

‘I suppose so,’ Susan said, feeling she’d let too much out. What was wrong with her? She had been so hesitant about going out with him in the first place, and now here she was, exposing her fears. And to him, of all people. Surely, being in the arts, he must have come across all kinds of perverts. But she hadn’t been able to help herself. The image of the two women in bed together still tormented her. And it was especially vivid as she had just come from talking to the cool, elegant Veronica Shildon. Slow down, Susan, she warned herself.