The corpse was holding the door shut with his heel.
On the other side Bev rattled the handle, stopped, and rattled it again in character.
“Good God, Travers. It's locked.”
“It's not,” said Mina.
“I know it's not. That's the line.”
“Rafi. Your foot.”
Rafi moved his right foot. The door opened an inch and caught his left.
Mina put down the mug she had been using to represent the inspector's hat. “Both of them. Toward the sofa.”
“Then I won't be in the light.”
“You're dead.”
“Yes, but I have to be visibly dead.”
At the back of the hall a woman was taking a camera out of a bag. Rafi had introduced himself to her twice, once in the foyer and once after putting on his waistcoat. She had nodded both times. Now she moved sideways into the aisle, looking through it at the stage.
Rafi raised his chin from the rug.
“You'll get my face from there.”
“I'll get the back of the sofa,” she said.
Mina crouched and took an ankle in each hand. Rafi was heavier to move than he had been when he was demonstrating how convincingly he could fall. She pulled him sideways. The rug came with him, folding against the sofa legs.
“Not the rug. Rafi, lift.”
He lifted his head.
“Your hips.”
“There isn't anything under this. It's straight onto the boards.”
“There are three cushions in the wings.”
“I mean in the theatre. For the performances. That needs sorting.”
Bev pushed through the door carrying a silver tray. The handle had caught the sleeve of her dressing gown. She turned once, winding herself more firmly onto it.
“Can somebody just...”
Rafi freed her sleeve.
“Thank you, darling. Good God, Travers. He's been murdered.”
“We've stopped,” Mina said.
“I know. I wanted to remember which one came next.” Bev put the tray on the sofa. “Where's Travers?”
“Taking his daughter to hockey. I'm Travers.”
“You were the maid.”
“I'm everybody who isn't here.”
The photographer came down the aisle. Her boots squeaked at each step, although the rest of the hall was dry. Rafi watched her feet until he remembered he was lying face down.
“How's this usually lit?” she asked.
Mina looked up at the row of lamps.
“Martin was going to do it. I rang him Tuesday. Or Wednesday. His ladder's at his son's, apparently.”
The photographer walked up the steps and shifted the lamp clipped to the scenery brace. A white circle moved from the sofa to Rafi's shoulder.
He edged his face into it.
“Hold there,” she said.
Mina looked at her. “We were going to get the entrance. The discovery.”
“I need something I can see.”
“Well. Yes.”
“Lena,” the woman added. “I didn't get your name.”
Mina gave it. Lena tested the circle on the rug with her hand, then lowered the camera until its strap brushed the boards.
Rafi turned his head the other way.
“You don't want that side.”
Lena waited.
“From there it looks like I haven't got a chin. My passport photograph...”
Lena shifted along the rug.
“Chin toward the skirting. A little more. No, you've gone too far.”
“I could show you the passport one. It's in my...”
“There. Stay there.”
He stopped with his mouth still open.
Behind them Bev was collecting the tray again. She had put her script on it and now couldn't lift it without the pages sliding toward the edge. Mina took the script. Bev gave her a distracted kiss on the top of the head and went back through the door.
“Ready when you are.”
“Give us a minute,” Mina called.
“Good God, Travers!”
“Not yet.”
Lena took two photographs. Rafi heard the clicks and settled more heavily onto the rug, arranging the fingers of his visible hand. There was a pale band around one finger where his signet ring had been. Mina had made him remove it because the murder victim was meant to be penniless. He thought that was a very narrow view of poverty, but she had the ring in her pocket.
“A bit more toward me,” Lena said.
He rolled his shoulder.
“The face. You can turn it.”
Rafi turned it. His cheek stuck briefly to the rug and came away with three pieces of fluff.
Mina reached down to brush them off. Lena caught her wrist without looking away from the viewfinder. Mina waited, bent over, until it became apparent that nobody was going to tell her when she could straighten up.
From behind the door Bev coughed. A cup rattled on her tray.
“You could take one of me standing up,” Rafi said. “Just for the programme. If there's room. Last year the photograph was mostly the horse.”
“You were inside the horse,” Mina said.
“I know where I was.”
Lena moved to his other side and knelt. The light was behind him now. She put the camera down, took off her coat, and folded it on the floor. Then she lay on it with one elbow propped against the sofa leg.
Rafi looked at her.
“No,” she said. “Eyes past me.”
Mina stepped back. From where she stood, the camera was hidden by Rafi's shoulder. Lena's arm and one bent leg stuck out beyond him.
Bev opened the door.
This time it came all the way round. The handle struck Mina's mug on the floor. It rolled under the sofa, shedding cold tea.
“Good God, Travers.”
Bev looked at Rafi. She looked at Lena. Her mouth remained open while she searched the tray, as though the next line might have been written among the cups.
“There's another one.”
Rafi made a noise through his nose.
“Don't,” Mina said, but she was already bending over.
Bev looked pleased and tried to put the tray down. She couldn't find the table behind her without taking her eyes off them. One saucer began a slow journey across the silver.
“Keep it up,” Lena said.
“The tray?”
Mina caught the saucer. The camera clicked. Rafi's shoulders shook. He pressed his forehead into the rug, which made the noise worse.
Bev still had the tray out in front of her and seemed unwilling to stop having discovered two bodies.
Lena sat up and turned the camera around.
“Oh, that's good.”
Rafi got onto his elbows. “Let me see.”
In the little screen Bev was staring down at him, genuinely horrified. Mina's hand entered from the edge, holding a saucer. The corpse lay in the middle of them with his eyes squeezed shut and every tooth showing.
“We can't use that,” Mina said.
Rafi reached for the camera. Lena held it out of his reach, still studying the picture.
“My face is in it,” he said.
“All of it,” said Bev.
Mina straightened the rug with her shoe. There were two dark crescents on the floor where Lena's boots had been.
“One more. A serious one. Bev, from the door.”
Bev backed out, holding the tray level. Rafi lay down again. He planted his heel against the bottom of the door.
“Rafi.”
“I know.”
He moved it just far enough.