Murder Dancing by Lesley Cookman

happened?’
    Phillip looked at her sideways. ‘Why do you want to know?’
    â€˜She’s nosy,’ said Fran. ‘Always has been.’
    â€˜Our beloved leader will tell you. You’re friendly with him, aren’t you?’ Phillip picked up his bag from the floor. ‘I’m off to have a shower.’
    Will watched him weave his way through the other dancers and pause to have a word with Stan Willis.
    â€˜I don’t know why he was like that,’ he said. ‘He’s one of the biggest gossips in the company.’
    â€˜Doesn’t matter,’ said Libby. ‘I don’t suppose many of you want to talk about it.’
    â€˜Why wouldn’t we?’ Will looked surprised. ‘We all talked about it all the time. Especially when Paddy and Gerry left.’
    â€˜Was one of them the original Demdike?’ asked Fran.
    â€˜Yes – Paddy. He was very good. I’ve worked with him before. Well,’ he gave a shrug, ‘I’ve worked with most of them before, either in Max’s company or in the West End.’
    â€˜Which do you prefer?’ asked Libby. ‘This is more straight ballet, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Nearer to it, anyway,’ said Will. ‘And of course I prefer this sort of thing, but it doesn’t pay as well. I expect I’ll be doing panto by Christmas.’
    â€˜Why?’ said Fran. ‘It’s nearly the end of October. You’d know by now, wouldn’t you?’
    Will shrugged again. ‘Normally, yes. But this production was supposed to run right up to and past Christmas, and none of us thought we’d need panto.’
    â€˜Then what’s changed?’ asked Libby.
    â€˜The atmosphere. It’s just too tense. It’s a good show, but it’s looking – I don’t know – fated.’
    â€˜Had you got a theatre?’ said Fran.
    â€˜Off Broadway.’ Will grinned. ‘If you know what I mean. But yes, we have. If we go in.’
    â€˜But what on earth could be nasty enough to stop the show?’ asked Libby. ‘I got the impression from Max that the cockerel was the worst event.’
    â€˜Physically, yes.’ Will perched on the arm of a chair and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘It was the letters.’
    â€˜Letters?’ said the women together.
    â€˜We all got at least one.’
    â€˜ All ?’ gasped Libby.
    â€˜Most of them were just nasty little digs about being gay, which is a laugh because half the company aren’t gay. Then a couple of people got second letters accusing them of all sorts of things, and finally Paddy and Gerry both got really threatening letters.’
    â€˜Threatening to do what?’ asked Fran.
    â€˜Burn them.’
    â€˜ Burn them?’ said Fran.
    Libby burst out laughing. ‘That’s absurd. You can’t burn people these days.’
    â€˜It quoted quite graphic examples,’ said Will. ‘True ones.’
    â€˜And they would be burnt why?’
    â€˜It was more or less along the lines of “if you carry on pretending to be witches you’ll be treated like them.” Only worse, if you know what I mean.’
    â€˜So the complaint seems to be against – what? The portrayal of the witches by men, or the portrayal of them at all?’ said Libby.
    â€˜There was a lot of balls about it being against nature.’ Will shook his head. ‘I didn’t see Paddy’s and Gerry’s, but that’s what it said in some of the earlier ones.’
    â€˜Seems rather odd,’ said Fran, staring fixedly at nothing in particular.
    â€˜That’s an understatement,’ said Libby.
    â€˜No, odd in that none of it seems coherent. It looks as though someone is trying to stop the production and doesn’t really care how.’
    Libby and Will looked at her in surprise.
    â€˜Actually stop the production?’ echoed Will.
    â€˜Well, what other reason is