Untimely Death Read Online Free Page B

scattered around a concrete floor, but the area was empty. From somewhere off to her right came the muffled sound of voices. She turned toward them, pushed aside a couple of black curtains, and entered the wings. The actors were grouped together on the stage, some sitting on the floor, others standing.
    “What’s going on?” she asked in a cut-glass English accent. “An ambulance passed me in the drive. Is it Brian?”
    “I’m all right, darling,” Brian Prentice said, emerging from the shadows. “I’m fine. It’s Lauren Richmond. She’s poorly and been taken to hospital.”
    “Poorly? What on earth’s the matter with her?”
    “We don’t know, Lady Deborah,” Simon Dyer chimed in. “She didn’t turn up on time for rehearsal, so I sentsomeone to look for her, and she was discovered unwell in her room. And now, as Brian just said, she’s on her way to the hospital.”
    “If she’s that unwell, I expect that’s the best place for her,” said Lady Deborah, in that clipped, British, no-nonsense way. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.” Brian took a step toward her as she turned to go.
    “I’ll come with you.” He turned his gaze to Simon. “You’re finished with me for the afternoon, I take it?”
    Simon nodded. “If you’re not feeling up to it, we’ll just have to manage without you.” He took a step closer and said in a lower voice so the other cast members couldn’t hear him, “We need to talk again. And soon.”
    “If you’re coming with me, Brian, then you can make yourself useful and carry these.” Lady Deborah held out her carrier bags and, with an aggressive swipe, pulled the wings curtains aside, and the two left the stage, Brian trailing after her with a bag in each hand.
    Simon watched Prentice and his wife leave and then opened his script and addressed the rest of the cast.
    “Those of you not in the scene, clear the stage. The rest of you, places.”
    “What about me?” asked Aaron. “Do you need me anymore?”
    “No,” said Simon in a gentler tone. “Go back to whatever it is you were doing.”
    *
    Aaron opened the door to the costume department. The afternoon sun filtered through tall windows covered in a thin layer of winter dirt, casting long shadows and picking out the details of the worktable. Charlotte, her back to the door, was bent over her desk. She straightened at the sound of the door opening and turned slowly to see who it was.
    “Oh, it’s you. Good. Come in and tell me what’s happening.”
    Aaron set a mug of tea on her desk. “Here. Thought you could use this.”
    She smiled at him. “Very thoughtful. Thank you. We didn’t quite finish our office tour, but there’s a little, well, you couldn’t really call it a kitchen, but a cupboard with a sink and a kettle and a little fridge just through there.” She pointed to a door off the main room. “It gets too expensive getting drinks in from the canteen, so I usually make my own tea. I just sent you to get drinks from the canteen this morning to give you something to do whilst I had a private word with Lauren. Normally we don’t put our drinks on the account. That’s just for special occasions.”
    “I didn’t put these on the account, Charlotte. Paid for them myself.”
    “That was sweet of you. Thank you. But before you sit down, would you mind picking up that can Lauren left on the worktable and taking it into the kitchen? Ican’t believe I let it sit there all day. Too much going on, I suppose.”
    Aaron disappeared into the kitchenette with the can before returning and pulling up a chair beside Charlotte’s desk.
    “What are you working on?” he asked.
    “Trying to sort out the rest of the costumes for all three plays in production this season. When I have the list complete, we’ll have to check them. They’re put away dry-cleaned and mended, so we should be all right. Then we have to set up fittings for every actor, every costume, every scene, every play. It’s all very time