A Woman Unknown Page 0,59

and place: Joseph Barnard, weekend of 24th August at the Adelphi Hotel. I stroked Sookie, and then went to the dining room drawer where I had tucked away the Pirates of Penzance programme. It gave a list of other performances. Tonight’s performance, at eight o’clock, would be HMS Pinafore at Wakefield Opera House.

‘Mrs Sugden, do you fancy seeing a Gilbert & Sullivan opera this evening?’

‘Where?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Wakefield Opera House.’

‘No I do not. You dash about that much, you’ll take years off your life.’ She forced a piece of seedcake on me. ‘The City Varieties and the Empire are good enough for me.’

I bit into the cake. The inevitable seed lodged in a tooth. ‘Well I’m going. I want to take another look at Giuseppe Barnardini. He plays the George Grossmith parts so I expect he’ll be Sir Joseph, First Lord of the Admiralty.’

‘It’ll be dark when you come out. You’re not driving are you?’

‘Don’t worry. My trusty Jowett hasn’t let me down yet.’

It does not do to tempt fate. My sturdy 1913 motor should be in her prime. Perhaps she disapproved of my mission, mistrusted light opera, or the subversive lyrics of Mr Gilbert.

On a country road, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the motor began to lose power and choked out a rasp. I pressed on the accelerator. Something rattled. I de-clutched to a lower gear. The rattling increased. Whiffs of smoke rose from under the bonnet, giving off a burning smell. After half a mile of this, I slowed down, thinking a rest might do the trick. I got out and touched the bonnet; hot enough to cook a dinner. I tried to remember when the oil and water were checked.

‘Sorry, little Jowett.’

My sweet car looked very sorry for itself.

For a good ten minutes, I sat hopefully by the roadside, in expectation of rescue. A man on a slow horse-drawn cart offered me a lift. After another twenty minutes, I wished I had accepted. There must be an inn, or a house, or a garage nearby from where I could telephone. I tried to remember, from my previous drives in this direction, where the nearest human habitation would be. All I could recall was the pub, passed some miles back.

The engine cooled but came back to life with the same fearful rattle. Just as I was about to set off walking, another Jowett appeared, coming from the opposite direction. The driver stopped. He was a Bradford man with a neat moustache and greying hair. Together we examined the motor.

‘Your radiator hose has gone, Miss,’ he announced. ‘Where are you heading?’

‘Wakefield.’

‘Have you ever been towed?’

‘No.’

‘Keep the distance of the rope.’

My eternal gratitude to my fellow Jowetteer and the unnerving experience of being towed into Wakefield need not form part of this story. Suffice to say that HMS Pinafore had long set sail when, hungry, thirsty and upset about my poor motor, I gave the stage doorkeeper a note to be passed, urgently, to Giuseppe Barnardini, asking him to meet a lady from Leeds at the stage door after the performance.

By the time Barnardini’s rendition of “ruler of the Queen’s navee” had the house roaring with laughter, I wondered whether he might link the note to Deirdre, not wish to see her, and find another way out of the theatre.

After the performance, I sat on the hard bench in the stage door area, and waited. Members of the chorus hurried out first, calling their goodnights to the doorman, who studiously ignored me.

It was a good twenty minutes before Joseph Barnard appeared. He looked quite different out of costume and without make-up, but with that presence actors have, the art of filling a space, and of letting you know they are there. His cautious glance gave nothing away.

I stood up. ‘Mr Barnard.’

‘The lady from Leeds?’ If he had expected someone else, whatever disappointment or relief he felt was well hidden.

‘Sorry to be so mysterious.’ I handed him my card, the one that gives my name and the ominous words ‘private investigator’. He ran his tongue across his lips, but said nothing. ‘We have a mutual friend.’ I glanced, in what I hoped was a meaningful way, at the doorkeeper who was pretending great interest in the evening paper.

The singer nodded. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He did not say my name. ‘Perhaps you’ll …’ He took my arm, gently at the elbow, called good night to the doorman, who now looked up, and gave a cheerful reply.

Once we were outside, I