Murder By Illusion E-Book

Giles Ekins

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Be careful what you wish for.

Stage illusionist Charlie Chilton's career is a failure. When the mysterious Asmodeus Tchort offers him a deal of a lifetime, it looks like he's on a fast track to become the most famous illusionist in the world.

The promised success soon follows, but something evil now stalks Charlie's path. He is haunted by savage nightmares, and gruesome murders dog his trail as he tours his controversial new act around the country.

Has the magician become a killer? And just who is Asmodeus Tchort?

Leseprobe

Murder By Illusion

A Tale of Possession

Giles Ekins

Copyright (C) 2020 Giles Ekins

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2020 Next Chapter

Published 2020 by Next Chapter

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

If anyone is convicted of having made a pact with Satan, the enemy of the human race, and having had any other commerce…if he has injured men or beasts with his sorcery or occasioned other damages by his evil art, it is decreed that he be burnt alive and driven from our midst in the avenging flames.

17thCentury Teutonic Law.

To Patricia, always.

Prologue

France 1792

'witches should die in agony, screaming out their torment to the Devil'

THE EXECUTION WAS NOT TO TAKE PLACE FOR MANY HOURS, but already the crowds were gathering in the old Market Square, pushing and shoving, jostling for position, striving to get as close as possible to the scaffold, laying claim to the best positions to revel and cheer as the condemned is broken on the wheel. For the execution was to be of a like few, if any, had ever seen before and perhaps would ever see again.

The scaffold has been erected in front of the courthouse, a shoulder height timber platform, shrouded in black cloth, surrounded by a low fence set back some 15 pied du roi (*Pied du roi – the foot of the King, a unit of measurement in France before the introduction of the metric system, roughly equivalent to an English foot i.e. 12”; however there was no standardised measure so that a pied du roi could vary considerably in length according to local usage.) from the scaffold, to keep the avid spectators from getting too close.

All the upper rooms of the Hôtel de Ville, adjacent to the courthouse, had been let at many times the usual rate and eager watchers peered avidly from the windows, florid faced from wine and expectation, the women already in a state of heighted sexual tension whilst in the packed square below a frisson, an excitement grew tangibly as the dread hour approached, the air electric as if a summer storm approached. The taverns across the square from the Hôtel de Ville were equally busy, upper rooms let, packed with raucous revelers, food and drink flowing freely.

The sun beat down from a cloudless sky, hard and brutal, shimmering off the stone or stucco painted walls of the square in pulsing waves.

Many years ago, in the last century, or even the century prior, a stone cross had been erected in the centre of the square, mounted on a stone pedestal, three steps high. Three young boys had scrambled to the top of the cross, one straddling each of the arms, the other perched atop of the upright, other bystanders and townsfolk crowded onto the steps below, giving them an advantage in height over those around them. But the boys vantage point is soon lost as bigger boys led by Pierre Dubois, the blacksmith's son and a known bully, drag them off, protesting wildly but to little avail.

The blacksmith's boy kicks them aside and using the strength of his muscular arms easily pulls himself up and claims the prime spot, the apex of the stone cross post and then decides not to allow anyone else to join him, smashing a heavy fist onto the head or fingers of any of his comrades who try to climb. He takes an apple from his pocket, eats it and then throws the core at the back of an old woman's head and laughs uproariously as she looks around for the offender. Dubois then shouts down to a crony to pass him a wine skin and after taking a drink, he then proceeds to spit wine onto the crush around him, filling his mouth to capacity with wine and squirting it out onto the heads of those below and around him, confident in his strength and reputation that no one would challenge him.

That is until a burly man, grizzled and battle scarred with the manner and bearing of an ex-soldier, annoyed with Dubois' boorish antics and spattered with spat-out red wine, seizes him by the back of his leather tabard and pulls him unceremoniously down from the cross and pitches him down onto his knees. 'Hey, you bastard,,' exclaims Dubois, bunching his fists, ready to use his strength to bully his way back to top of the stone cross, he is big and strong, used to using his size to get his own way, but the soldier simply backhands him across the face, splitting his lip.

'Keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to me, boy. Now piss off!' pointing a stubby black-nailed finger across the square. The boy bristles, but like all bullies, backs down when confronted and he slinks away to the jeers of the onlookers. From a safe distance he turns to make a defiant gesture but the soldier has already put him out of mind, lifting one of the original smaller boys up onto the cross.

From every window, balcony and rooftop of every building around the square; eager spectators crowded and pushed, straining for the best view of the scaffold, whilst in the square itself the mob packed together in a miasmic stench of unwashed bodies, sweat, garlic, urine and even excrement as, reluctant to give up positions, they relieved themselves as they stood, even the women, frequently unaware that they had done so in their rising excitement, the stench heightened by mounds of steaming dung from the horses hitched to a score of carriages and coaches drawn up in prominent positions, from the roof of which more fervent watchers swayed precariously, shouting to each other and raising glasses in salutation. One of the women, you'd hesitate to call them ladies, climbs down from the roof of one coach, lifts her skirts and squats beside the rear wheel of the carriage to the cheers and jeers of the crowds around her. She finishes, drops her skirts and is hauled back up onto the carriage roof again to take another swig from a bottle passed to her.

Slippery as eels, urchin pickpockets and cutpurses ease their way through the throng lifting kerchiefs and purses, pocketbooks and pouches. One of the urchins is caught trying to lift a purse and is savagely punched to the ground and stamped upon until he lies still, crushed like a cockroach beneath trampling feet, kicked aside and forgotten, the mass surging forwards again, pressed on by the crowds still arriving, anxious not to miss the execution. Small children perched on the shoulders of their parents so that they too would have a tale to tell their children and grandchildren in the years to come.

For the execution was to be that of the Comtesse Marie Josephine de Blacam, a hated member of the aristocracy, of the Noblesse d’ėpėe, the highest rank of nobility and condemned to die for heresy, for witchcraft, sorcery, for association with the Devil and child sacrifice, the catalogue of crimes increasing with each telling, each horrified whisper, passed from mouth to mouth.

'She bathed in the blood of virgins' they said, 'she sacrificed children to the Devil, danced naked under the full moon, was born of nightmare demons, fornicated with Satan, suckled a succubus, raised a demon and an imp, she is the Devil's spawn, she cast spells and demonic conjurations so that enemies perished, tormented to death by demons, so that cattle died and crops failed, she flew at night on the wings of a giant bat, witchcraft, evil sorcery, vile black magic, necromancy, the raising of storms, participation in sacrilegious Black Mass the dark arts, devil worship, sacrifices to Beelzebub, every salacious detail, real or imagined told and re-told with prurient horror and evident glee.

The Comtesse Marie Josephine is sentenced to be broken on the wheel, to be spread-eagled across the spokes of a cart wheel and her limbs systematically smashed with a hammer or iron bar, commencing at the 'bottom end,' at her feet and ankles, and working up along shins and knees and thighs, then hands and fingers, upper and lower arms and then the broken, marrow seeping, blood streaming broken torn limbs would be braided, twisted, about the spokes of the dread wheel. The wheel, with her screaming body entwined would then be hoisted up on a pole and she would be left to die in agony beneath the blazing sun. To linger for hours, maybe days, tormented by flies, her torn flesh to be pecked by birds, her eyes stabbed by the sharp beaks of crows and ravens, the soft flesh of her cheeks, breasts and stomach torn by talons and hooked bills. Once dead, her twisted broken corpse was to be burnt at the stake and her devil worshipping ashes scattered to the winds.

Some of the eager crowds had travelled for days from the outskirts of the town and surrounding district to get here, for who could wish to miss such glorious spectacle, such a famous show? The hour approaches, but a groundswell of unease ripples through the crowd. Where is the wheel, the cartwheel that should be set up on the scaffold, rotating about a spindle so that each limb in turn could be brought under the hammer to be broken but where was it, where was the hooded executioner, what is happening, who knows, had she been reprieved, escaped, already died from torture, had the Devil has spirited her away or killed her by sorcery to spare her agonies, a surge of anger and resentment coursing through the massed crowd.

All that could be seen on the scaffold was a shrouded structure, some 10 to 12 pied du roi high, a structure that had been delivered by cart the night before and set on the scaffold and then covered with the heavy tarpaulin as if ashamed to be seen in daylight.

Was this some new fiendish instrument of torture, perhaps, being a woman, she would be suspended from the frame and broken that way, was it a vertical rack to stretch her limbs to breaking point before the hammer did its fearful work?

Then an insidious whisper, a vicious rumour soughed around the square in an undulating groundswell, riffling the through the crowd like a summer breeze across a field of ripe corn, growing louder, a rumour spread from where, by whom, who knows? It was said that the hated King Louis XVI or maybe the Revolutionary National Assembly in distant Paris has banned the use of the breaking wheel and other gruesome, grisly and macabre methods of execution such as burning at the stake, boiling in oil, impalement on a stake, flaying alive, torn apart by horses or slow strangulation on the gallows and that all condemned to die, regardless of crime or class, were to be executed by a 'decapitation device'; a guillotine, swift, humane, without pain.

Anger spread through the crowd, a swift humane execution, who wanted that, without pain, witches should die in agony, screaming out their torment to the Devil. They felt cheated, betrayed, angry and resentful, the promised spectacle a fraud, a deceit but the anger slowly subsides as the executioner is seen to mount the steps of the scaffold to finalise his preparations for the execution. He is hooded; a black hood with eyeholes, his identity hidden in case there is trouble from the crowd; he is accompanied by an assistant, also hooded.

He is Gaston Poitrenaud, brought from outside the town, a travelling executioner, already familiar with this new decapitation machine, a portable guillotine and will be his eighth decapitation using the new device. Before the introduction of the decapitation machine he had been an expert with the sword, agonisingly proficient on the breaking wheel and an accomplished torturer. He does not like the guillotine, where is the skill in that? He was a headsman, an artist with the sword, the double edged two handed executioners sword, skilled at taking a head with a single stroke, unlike the goddamn English executioners, butchers with their block and brutal axe; the sword is poetic, elegiac. Where was the skill, the art in a decapitation device when all that was required was to pull a rope and release the blade but his fee is a weighty purse so why turn down good money, the wages of death.

Despite being unable to wrest a confession under torture from the sorceress, Poitrenaud is in good spirits, he had breakfasted well on a roast capon, a thick trencher of oven fresh bread, butter and slices of locally butchered ham, all washed down with a flagon of rough claret. He pats his ample paunch and belches, his hood redolent with the smell of garlic and wine, belches again and then he and his assistant, Henri Chassagne, strip away the tarpaulin covering the device and the crowds press closer to catch a first glimpse of the machine, the 'guillotine! Two stout posts with a cross beam from which suspends a weighted triangular blade; the bascule, a tilting table along which the condemned will lie face down, the lunette, two semicircular wooden yokes to enclose and hold the head steady as the blade descends with a wicker coffin to one side and a basket to receive the severed head.

The crowds strain forward to get a clearer view of the new 'decapitation machine.' A drunk, viewing from a balcony of a wealthy merchants house across the square, possibly the merchant himself, leans forward too far and with scream topples over and crashes to the ground, where he lies still and unmoving for several minutes, nobody giving him any mind, not even his friends and family, unwilling to give up their vantage points to attend to him. Nobody that is, apart from a pipe smoking, foul reeking, scrofulous, toothless beggar-woman who, hiding her actions behind her skirts, swiftly cuts his purse free and scuttles into a scabrous side alley to count her booty, almost tasting on her tongue the brandy that she will buy. Groggily, the faller gets to his knees, blood streaming from his nose and a cut on his head, his arm broken and useless hanging by his side, so drunk he barely notices his injuries and staggers into the doorway of the house to try and make his way back up to the balcony above.

The tension in the square is now electric, pulsing in waves as a single dreadbell tolls from the tower of the church across the corner of the square. The door of the courthouse opens and the execution party emerges, led by the court officials, the magistrat who passed sentence in his red robes, the procureur who prosecuted the Comtesse in black, and other functionaries including the town mayor. Then the condemned is brought up from the cells below the courthouse, escorted by a guard of eight soldiers in blue jackets and gleaming polished helmets which mirror and echo the shimmering brilliant rays of the noonday sun. Another file of blue coated soldiers take up station inside the fence line, much to the annoyance of people whose view is now blocked by broad backs and plumed helmets.

They mount the steps to the scaffold, the Comtesse Marie-Josephine is bare-footed and her hands are tied behind her but she climbs the steps without difficulty, her head held high, showing no sign of the torture, the extensive racking and burning with red hot irons to the soft flesh of her inner thighs inflicted by Poitrenaud in a vain attempt to secure a confession. Never before has Poitrenaud failed to secure a confession from a witch or sorcerer. He prided himself on his skills to bring a living body to such torments of unbearable agony whilst maintaining a sliver of life, but the Comtesse had barely raised a scream as he wrought his torturing skills upon her pale flesh and now she walks serenely to the scaffold as though she had not been racked and burnt almost to the point of death, by rights she should have had to be carried or dragged to the scaffold. The only explanation, thinks Poitrenaud, is that the Devil had spared her torments and that this foul creature, this witch, this spawn of Satan should burn at the stake in a slow fire and not receive a quick death by guillotine but that is what he is paid to do and that is what he will do, whatever his thoughts to the contrary. As is commanded in the Holy Bible, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'

There is no accompanying priest or confessor for the condemned sorceress, none to give her absolution, to shrive her sins, no prayers to be given to absolve her immortal soul. She had spat and cursed when Father Sanson visited her in her cell and offered her absolution, going so far as to hurl her toilet bucket at him and he had fled in terror, clutching his rosary and crossing himself.

As she comes into view of the crowd there a cascade of shouts and jeers of hatred, 'die screaming witch, break her, break her, burn in hell, to the Devil foul sorceress,' amongst many other calls. The Comtesse Marie-Josephine de Blacam takes no notice, almost as if she has not heard the screams of hate and bile, a rotten cabbage is hurled from the crowd to bounce at her feet, again she takes no heed. She is tall and regal, dressed in a simple white linen shift which clings to her body like second skin, her raven-black hair tied high above her head, adding to her height. She looks neither right nor left as she walks steadily towards the hooded executioners before she turns and faces the screaming crowds as they strain forward to see if she has cloven hoofs rather than feet, a sure sign of the mark of the Devil. She gazes down at them, her eyes blaze and a sneer of contempt flashes across her face, was that a whispered curse, and then she turns back as Gaston Poitrenaud takes her arm and pulls her towards the guillotine. She does not resist and with the aid of the assistant climbs onto the bascule and lies upon it face down; Poitrenaud locks the lunette in place about her slender neck and then releases the blade which hisses down almost too swiftly for the eye to see. There is a roar from the crowd as blood is seen to spurt from the severed neck and the executioner moves around to the front of the guillotine to lift her head from the basket to show the baying crowd. He reaches down and then lurches back, a gasp of strangled horror, before leaping from the scaffold and fleeing the scene.

One

A FEW YEARS AGO

The Promenade, Whitburn on Sea

I see the bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way.

DESOLATE SEAGULLS WHIRL AIMLESSLY AGAINST STEEL GREY AUTUMNAL SKY, damp and drizzly; it has been raining on and off all day, an insistent rain, not heavy but relentlessly miserable. A chill wind blows in from the dull grey sea, the colours of sea and sky so closely match it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

It is midafternoon in late September, but the darkening iron-hewed sky presages the oncoming evening sooner than the clocks might suggest. Daylight is fading, if the miserable grey murk could ever be considered as daylight. Grey and damp, Whitburn on Sea, huddled on the Yorkshire coast between Scarborough and Whitby is at best, on a bright summer's day, unprepossessing. On this day at the end of season, damp and grey, it is not even second or third cousin to the smarter, more successful seaside towns along the coast. Smart sophisticated Scarborough with its North and South bays, roughhewn Whitby with its Abbey, fishing fleet, the best fish and chips in the land and its Dracula connection, sensible Bridlington, genteel Filey, they all far outshine Whitburn on Sea as desirable east coast seaside holiday destinations.

The beaches are cold and windswept, all but deserted as lines of curling whitecaps march across the bay; a lone surfer in a black and red wetsuit out on the grey foam flecked waters of Whitburn Bay briefly rides a jagged curling wave before falling off – wipeout - and an elderly gentleman, well wrapped up, slowly walks back and forth with a metal detector in his gloved hand, searching for coins dropped by holiday makers. He gets a beeping signal, bends down to find his treasure and throws whatever he has found aside in disgust and moves on again. A few yards further on he gets anther beep and finds a ten pence piece, his total haul for four hours of cold and miserable metallic beach combing, fifty-seven pence, not much, but when you have to live on a state pension, every penny counts.

One or two hardy souls huddle into deckchairs on the promenade, determined to get their money's worth, whatever the weather, or maybe they have nowhere else to go, being unfortunate boarders at a seafront bed and breakfast where guests must vacate their rooms by ten and cannot return until five.

The bandstand in the meagre strip of grass and thin weedy flowerbeds that passes for the seafront park, (although there is a crazy golf course) is empty apart from a sodden heap of wind strewn rubbish, soft drink cans, three used condoms of assorted colours and a discarded syringe. Residents at the Oakleaf Retirement Home for the Elderly opposite the park on the seafront might recall the last time a brass band actually played in in the band stand, but it was surely many years ago – and probably out of tune.

The beach huts, paint peeling and sandblasted are all shut up, left to huddle together against the sea wall. Further along the promenade, a few amusement arcades are still open, a bingo caller half-heartedly calling out his numbers to the 10 or 11 women still hoping to land a win, 'Number 15 young and keen, and we all know what that means in nine months' time, don't we ladies? Number 44 droopy drawers; number 69 either way up; number 34 ask for more; number 3 cup of tea and we have a winner.'

Slot machines swallow endless coins and refuse to pay out, the crane claw grab drops but does not pick up a fluffy bunny, the mechanical clown in his glass cage still sways and laughs with an evil glint of eye, the money changer in her cubicle yawns and scratches her armpits, business was as dull as the weather outside.

Whirling screeching seagulls squabbling over a fallen chip; scraps of paper, a discarded crisp packet skitters along the pavement. The whelk stalls, kiss me quick hats and bucket and spade stalls, pink tooth rotting rock and candy floss stalls and hot dog stalls are all mostly still open, shutters raised, the stall holders wrapped in coats and scarves hoping to squeeze a last pound or two from the desultory holiday makers scurrying along the front to avoid a sudden sharp squall before the season finally crawls to an undignified halt.

Gypsy Rose Colangelo, (real name Martha Smith) Fortune Teller to the Stars, is still open for business, but her crystal ball obviously failed to advise that she would have no customers that day. Harry's Fish and Chip is still open, serving chips, cod and haddock, battered sausages, chicken pies, steak pies, kebabs and pickled onions but custom is slow. The Mayflower Tea Room is open, with tea and scones, cucumber sandwiches, Danish pastries and iced tea cakes on offer but apart from two old ladies who have spent more than an hour over one pot of tea with scones and strawberry jam, the café is empty.

Whitburn on Sea is dying on its feet and nobody gives a damn. No, it is already dead but nobody can be bothered to tell it so.

There are few cars parked on the promenade, nobody is going to the beach today and anyway there is nothing to look at out to sea apart from greyness and rain. A grey Ford Focus, an appropriate colour, is parked a bit further down the promenade. A young family from Leeds, the Elliott's on a day trip to the seaside are inside, Denise and Alan Elliott, sit in front eating fish and chips( from Harry's) directly from the paper, the air redolent with fish and vinegar, the car will stink for days afterwards. Behind, them Wayne and Beverly, aged 7 and 5 with a bag of chips between them. argue and bicker, pushing and shoving at each other, each claiming that the other started it, 'Mum, Wayne's got more chips than me,' 'Dad, Beverly kicked me,' 'Mum, Wayne pinched me,' 'Wayne…,' 'Dad, Beverly…,' 'Mum…Dad…'

Mum and Dad aren't talking to each other either, the atmosphere is frigid and brittle, and the outing has been a disaster. Alan didn't want to come in the first place but Denise insisted; he was out of work again and they could not now afford a new television set and so the kids had been placated with a trip to the seaside. Which everyone had hated.

In the distance fairground lights, a multi coloured coruscation, brighten the heavy leaden sky and faint snatches of a carousal organ drift across the choppy waves and the wooden pier, a relic of a Victorian golden age that never happened stretches out into the grey curling wind-flecked seas as heavy swells roll around the posts and cross bracing of the timber supports.

Irritated by all the arguing and squabbling Alan bundles up his chip papers into a ball, opens his window and throws it out, startling a wandering seagull, which squawks in indignation and flaps away. 'Alan,' Denise snaps, 'don't throw your chip papers out like that, it's littering, what if you were seen, you could get fined and how can we afford that, eh, get out and pick it up. Put it in a bin. Go on.'

'Aagh, fuck off, woman. Do it yourself'

'Mum, Dad said a rude word,' Beverly shouts, smirking, not quite sure why 'fuck' was a rude word, knowing only that it was.

'You can shut your trap an' all.' Alan snarls, he is in a foul temper, to think he gave up an afternoon in front of the (old) television for this fucking nightmare, racing from Kempton Park was on and he could have a bet, he fancied Blue Mountain Prince in the 3 o'clock race, odds at 7/ 1, not carrying too much weight, soft going, should be a walk up. Could have had a bet at a bookies here of course, but Denise wouldn't hear of it, I know you, once you get into a bookies you'll be there all afternoon, besides we got no money for betting,' but he had a fiver tucked away she didn't know about, a fiver on Blue Mountain Prince at 7/1, that's 35 quid, more than enough for a few drinks and another bet or two. Fuck! (As it turned out, Blue Mountain Prince finished fifth, several lengths behind the favourite, Moonshine Retreat at 4/1 on. He lost his fiver a few days later when a sure fire accumulator failed to produce a single winner.)

Reaching over, Alan switches on the car radio, turning the volume up high to shut out the sound of bickering and fighting from behind. 'And our classic blast from the past' a DJ announces in a bad imitation of an American accent, is Credence Clearwater Revival and, 'Bad Moon Rising' which made number one, back in 1969.'

The song echoes out from the open window of the car, to be snatched away by the wind to mingle with the raucous shrieks of the seagulls.

Two

The Seville Theatre, Whitburn on Sea

'Cut you in half, you little bleeder'

THE SEVILLE THEATRE, WHITBURN ON SEA, lies perched on the seafront close by the pier, squatting like a toad on the edge of a pond, it is sadly dilapidated and in dire need of maintenance, something that the elderly owners of the theatre seem reluctant to undertake. Some of the tubes in the flickering red neon façade sign occasionally short out so that the sign then reads 'eville heat.' Benny Marsden, the manager of the Seville Theatre has been meaning to get it repaired for ages but somehow he never round to it and now it is the end of the summer season so the repair can wait until just before the start of next year's season, along with the repaint of the peeling façade, assuming of course that he actually does get a budget for maintenance next year. He is not counting on it.

At one time they used to stage a Christmas pantomime, but even the Fairy Godmother could not wave her magic wand and bring in paying customers, some nights there were more cast members than audience and so the idea of a Christmas panto was finally abandoned about 6 years ago. So, no repairs or maintenance until next year. Perhaps.

Like the rest of the town, the Seville Theatre is dying on its feet, houses have steadily fallen over the years, revenue is down, costs are up and the overheads are now such that they can only afford to hire second or third rate acts for the summer season, mediocre virtual unknowns who are not going to bring in the paying customers, not going to put bums on seats.

Billboards around the town and a standing advert in the Whitburn Gazette read:

The Seville Theatre - Whitburn on Sea:

Proudly presents

A Grand Summer Extravaganza

followed by a list of names, second rate names, third rate names, no rate names

The bill is also to be found in glass fronted display cases at either side of the theatre entrance, the bill now slightly faded, the glass front spattered with rain drops and seagull droppings, obviously discerning avian critics. The headline act, Dickie Wallace, is a sad comedian who once appeared on a regional TV talent show and came second, his name and his photograph (taken several years ago when he still had all his hair) is displayed at the head of the bill, heralded as side-splittingly funny. Most holidaymakers have never heard of him, he is long past whatever prime he had and his jokes are even older.

Tony Bonnet, (Hilarious TV Comedy Star) the other comedian on the bill,( the term comedian used lightly), once had a single line appearance in 'The Last of the Summer Wine' followed by minor role in a desperately unfunny sit-com that lasted one season before being pulled, never to see the light of day again, not even on daytime re-runs. He has not worked on television since.

The International Cabaret Star is an unknown singer who once worked on a cruise ship, as for Mandy Sweet, Brought Back by Popular Demand, this was the only booking she could get, and lucky to get it at that. Alessya and Ayeasha, Exotic Dance Duo are no longer in the show and the juggler has lost his balls.

It's cold and blustery so we won't spend too much time looking at the rest of the bill, a magician, a dancing dog act, and a Romanian tumbling trio. Let's get inside, at least it is dry inside (except in the prop store where Benny Marsden has still to fix the leaking roof) It's the Tuesday afternoon matinee, the last but one act before the interval, so we might just catch that, it's the magic act, billed as THE GREAT SANTINI, Magician and Illusionist Extraordinaire. 'As seen on Tyne Tees Television.' It might be interesting but I would not hold your breath.

The theatre is half empty, no, let's be positive, the theatre is half full, in fact one of the best attendances they have had all season, but this owes nothing to the quality of the acts, it is simply due to fact that it is raining outside. Wet, damp and miserable. Like the exterior, the interior of the theatre is shabby and run down, the seat coverings are worn and stained, the aisle carpet has long since seen better days, whatever pattern it once held now a forgotten memory, the floral pattern gilt around the balcony and stage surround is cracked and peeling and back drops and scenery need re-painting – or scrapping. The stage curtains are dull and limp, lighting second rate, the orchestra in the pit are the pits, and it is a sad, desolate, run down and pathetic excuse for a theatre. Execrable. And the acts are no better.

On stage, Charlie Chilton aka The Great Santini is trying to hold his act together. The audience is apathetic and bored, restless, waiting for the interval so that they can head to the bar and Charlie has not got them, as he likes to put it, by the balls. In fact he has not got them by anything at all and he knows it. He is sweating heavily and his makeup is starting to run. He is queasy, stomach roiling; no lunch and three scotches hardly the ideal preparation for a magic act relying on slick timing and sleight of hand.

His assistant, Clarissa Manners, known as Clarrie, is endeavoring hard to energise the lacklustre audience, swanning around the stage, looking decorous, pouting, pushing out her chest, frequently pointing to The Great Santini to try and milk some applause, which is badly needed. She knows the show is a disaster, that Charlie is botching the routines badly, his timing is out and that he is losing it if not already lost it, but she is a professional, been on the stage for years and although she and Charlie have never been lovers, (unlike some, actually most, of his assistants) she cares for him as a workmate and friend, cares about the act and is doing all that she can to rescue the situation. A slim brunette, Clarrie is dressed in a skimpy red spangled leotard, cut high on the thigh, with a wired under bra to lift up and push out her breasts to reveal a lot of cleavage which does not go unnoticed by the males in the audience. She wears high heel silver shoes and fish net stockings clad her slender legs, she is proud of her shapely pins and knows how to display them on stage to good effect. A good magician's assistant is part of the misdirection, the men in the audience take their eye off the magician to look at her and the wives watch their husbands. However, Clarrie can see this audience no longer care, 'even flashing my fanny is not going to wake this lot up.'

The act had gone wrong almost from the start; Charlie called for a volunteer from the audience, for a child to come up on stage and Clarrie knew, just knew that it was going to be a mistake. You could smell the scotch on Charlie's breath from three feet away and he was mumbling to himself as they waited in the wings to go on.

'Go on, Shane,' a Mum said, pushing her son forward, 'You'll enjoy it, seeing a magician up on the stage'

'Don't wanna.'

'Come on son, I won't bite, well not much anyhow,' Charlie said, none too distinctly. Reluctantly, Shane mounted the steps and on to the stage. 'There's a good lad, give him a round of applause' Clarrie asks as she takes his hand and leads him over to The Great Santini, noticing that even though the lad was only about 7 or 8 he had a good look down her front as she bent over to greet him., 'yeah, bet your Dad has had a good look an' all while your Mum wasn't watching,'

'What's your name son?' Charlie asks.

'Shane. Your breath don't half stink.'

'Magic breath, son. Magic breath.'

'More like piss pot breath,' Shane mutters under his breath but Charlie doesn't hear. With a flourish and drum roll from the pits, he produces coins and then table tennis balls from Shane's ear and then from under his chin, but Shane is singularly unimpressed, even less so when Charlie attempts a card trick and spills the cards all over the stage, Charlie bluffs it out, making it seem as part of the trick but Shane isn't having it. The Floating Light Bulb trick went off without a hitch, but Shane remains apathetic, disinterested, as though he saw light bulbs floating in the air every day.

'You got a rabbit?' he asks, picking his nose and dropping the bogey onto the stage.

'A rabbit?'

Yeah, rabbit, you know fluffy thing wi' long ears.'

'Cheeky little sod! 'No why?'

'You supposed to pull a rabbit out of a hat, top hat, that's what magicians s'pose to do.'

'Not this magician.'

'I think you're dead crap.' Shane responded and turned away, ready to leave, before turning back to Charlie. 'You going to saw 'er in 'alf?' pointing at Clarrie. 'Wun't mind seeing that, if there's blood.'

'Saw you in half, you little bleeder,' Charlie said under his sodden breath, 'Nay, not this show, my saw's blunt from cutting through all the bones, like. I make her disappear, though, later on.'

'Boring,' Shane says as he makes his way down from the stage, Clarrie clapping him off enthusiastically, desperate to drum up some interest in the act which dying on it's not too steady feet.

The next trick went off without a hitch or cock up. not that there was much that can go wrong with the Chair Suspension Trick, nothing much for Charlie to screw up but his performance was lacklustre and lifeless, disinterested, as if he no longer cared. Two folding metal chairs have been on stage throughout his act. Whilst Clarrie pirouetted and postured, Charlie places the chairs back to back about three feet apart and then lays a thick board across the back of the chairs, like a trestle table. Prettily, Clarrie climbs on and lies down on the board and Charlie covers her body with a black cloth.

Drums roll, lights flash and Charlie removes one chair, leaving her suspended, balanced horizontally on the back of the remaining chair. More drums and lights and Charlie removes the board, so that there is nothing holding her up apart from the back of the chair under her shoulders. Charlie, feeling really nauseous, desultorily passes a hoop up and down Clarrie's body, to prove that there are no suspension wires holding her up.

He walks away, milking the muted applause, then replaces the board, not very steadily, then replaces the chair, removes the cloth before handing Clarrie down and they both take a bow. Not too shabby, but he has still not lit a spark with the audience, their balls as far as ever from his reach. A few claps, nothing to get too excited about, it a fairly uneventful trick anyway. Charlie, sweat running down his neck closes his eyes and forces down a rush of nausea. 'What have I come to,' he asks himself, 'I'm way better than this, was way better than this, played big theatres, the London Palladium, Leeds Variety, Glasgow Empire, summer season at Blackpool, what the fuck am I doing in this ratty, tatty shithole? Played with big stars, not like this tosspot Dickie Wallace, who the fuck has ever heard of him, played a summer season with Bob Monkhouse once. Once. Was good once…'

'You alright, Charlie?' Clarrie asks out of the corner of her mouth, taking another bow, 'you look like shit,' her voice seeping through the whisky fumes in his head.

He straightens up., 'Touch of flu, is all.'

'Distillers flu more like!'

'Medicinal Clarrie, purely medicinal.'

'Bullshit, you're pissed and you know it.'

Charlie stands there immobile, seemingly unable to move, rooted to the spot.

'Get on with it, pal,' a drunk shouts from the audience, 'we want to be out of here before the snow sets in for winter.'

Charlie grimaces at the unseen heckler, mutters to himself under his breath. 'You come and stand up here mate. See how you bloody well get on, eh? The great Tuesday matinee dead show; the dead playing to the dead!' He turns away, back to the audience and hisses through his teeth, 'Aye, you're right, Clarrie, fuck it, let's get this sodding farce wrapped up, we'll miss out on the swords in the box and go straight to the disappear. Right?'

'OK, Charlie, for the best I reckon.' 'Considering the state you're in.'

'Tell Bert in the pit, he'll need to change his music. I'll keep the buggers out there amused. Or at least awake 'til you can cue me in.'

'Right.' She walks about the stage, posing and pouting, mouths 'finale' to the wings and then to the conductor in the as Charlie draws the attention of the audience, or at least that section of the audience that can still be bothered to watch, creating thunder flash explosions by throwing magnesium powder onto a brazier, so that it appears as though his hurling thunderbolts from his fingertips. He fans out a deck of cards in each hand, shot from his cuffs, drops them into a top hat, more cards magically appear to be dropped into the hat, Charlie managing not to drop them although coming close to doing so with the third deck that he fanned.

A drum roll starts up from the pits as two stage assistants carry out a three sided clear plastic box, about 24” square in section and 2' 6” tall and place it on end, like a pillar, the open side to the rear. Next Clarrie brings a hinged black lacquered Chinese screen in three panels onto the stage, the screen large enough to go around the pillar and of the same height, placing it around the pillar so as to screen it form view. The drum roll continues as the stage assistants' next carry on a second box and place it on the stage in front of the screened pillar. It is a solid box, some 36” by 36” by 24”, brightly painted in spangley sparkling paint and decorated with cabalistic signs.

A clash of cymbals and Eddie Puttock, the MC resplendent in the red tail-coat, much like a circus MC, strides onto the stage, microphone in his hand.

'Ladies and Gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, the Seville Theatre is proud to present to you one of the most amazing feats of magic ever performed on any stage anywhere in the world. In the World! Here Tonight. Without the help of gadgetry, of trick camera work or any elaborate stage props, tonight ladies and gentlemen, BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES, The Great Santini will make his assistant, the very lovely Clarissa disappear. Vanish, As if in a puff of smoke'

Eddie stands back, well pleased with himself for remembering the intro at such short notice, he is another not averse to a sip or two of scotch at lunch and then forever after as the broken veins about his fleshy nose testify. 'Vanish,' he repeats, 'Disappear. As if in a puff of smoke'

'Can he do that to my old woman, then?' someone shouts from the audience, earning a sharp elbow to his ribs for his trouble.

'Now, now,' says Eddie, 'I'm sure your wife is a lovely woman.'

'Yeah, in the dark,' shouts another voice, with a nasal bray of laughter at his own wit.

'Get a move on,' someone else shouts, the audience is getting restless.

Eddie has been around too long to be fazed and spreads out his arms, making quieting gestures, letting the noise subside. 'Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends. I must ask for your cooperation. The Great Santini must, must have total concentration. FOR IT IS BY THE POWER OF HIS MAGIC, by the power of his mind alone, that this dangerous feat is performed. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I give you…The Great Santini and his amazing, fantabulous VANISHING LADY. I ask for your silence, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,' and at that he makes his way off stage.

The lights dim. A spotlight spears through the darkness, picking out the spangled box. Clarrie steps into the spotlight and demonstrates that the box is empty, that it has a hinged lid. She removes her high heels shoes and daintily steps into the box and kneels down waving out towards the audience. The circle of the spotlight expands; the stage lights come up again.

The stage hands come back on stage and pick up the box and lift it, with Clarrie still inside and place it carefully on top of the pillar as Charlie creates more distraction with thunder flashes. The lights dim once more, leaving the box transfixed in the white light spot. Clarrie waves once more and settles down into the box, the hinged lid still open. To a rising drum roll, the lid of the box slowly, oh so slowly, begins to descend and finally comes to a close. The Great Santini covers the box with a black velvet cloth and then, with a flourish pulls away the hinged lacquer screen, leaving the box perched atop the thin transparent pillar. Cymbals crash, one, two, three.

A second spot now picks out The Great Santini., drum rolls reach a climax, cymbals clash again, echoing around the half empty theatre like a Chinese dragon.

Sudden silence, as startling as a gunshot.

The Great Santini, tall, imperious, eyes closed as if in deep concentration begins to chant an incantation. Suddenly he swirls. A cymbal crash. He removes the black cloth, tossing it to one side, passes his cape over the spangled box whilst releasing a catch with the other. All four spring loaded sides and the lid of the box fall away.

To reveal Clarrie!

She is still on her knees, struggling to get through the hole in the base of the box, she should have been out and away long ago, waiting in the wings to be brought back on stage when summoned by Charlie.

The illusion is simple, as soon as she is lifted on top of the pillar she is supposed to slide head first through the hole in the base of the box and into the pillar, before the lacquer screen in removed, so that she has vanished before the audience even realise that the trick has commenced. She exits through the open side of the pillar and out through the rear curtains whilst the lights are still dimmed. Or at least, that is the idea.

The Great Santini stands there aghast; his mouth gapes, working like a goldfish. 'What the holy fuck has gone wrong?' Someone in the audience sniggers, 'Rubbish!' another shouts.

'Rubbish, bloody rubbish.'

The call is taken up, 'What a load of rubbish. What a load of rubbish,' in a sing song voice. Like a flash, the entire audience, take up the chant, stamping and clapping to the beat of the chant.

'WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH! - WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH! -WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH! - WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH! - WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH!

'Shut up. Shut up the lot of you' Charlie shouts, red faced and angry, sweat tracks gouging through his make-up, but this only serves to keep the chant going. Steaming waves of anger surge through him, he turns to Clarrie, still crouched on top of the box, backside pointing squarely towards the audience; he stomps over to her and slashes at her buttocks with his silver 'magic' wand. She yelps in pain and the wand snaps in two, the broken end spinning away, leaving Charlie with the stump in his hand, lashing away two or three more times before realising he has no wand left and throws the stump away in anger into the wings, narrowly missing Eddie Puttock who is standing there, enjoying the farce unfolding on stage.

The crowd howls even louder and begins to throw things, screwed up programmes, sweet packets, plastic drink cups, empty cigarette packets, anything, whilst the chanting and stamping go on.

'SHUT UP,' Charlie screams in fury, 'SHUT THE FUCK UP. SHUT THE FUCK UP.'

Clarrie slides off the box with all the grace of a stranded walrus, knocking over the box and pillar as she does so and lands heavily on her hands and knees, almost popping out of her tight bodice so that she has to suddenly clutch at her chest,, to even more jeers and derisive laughter, whilst to the wings Eddie Puttock is holding his sides, aching from laughter. The curtains drop to another round of jeers and whistles. Charlie stares at the curtains, unsure what has happened. How had the trick gone wrong, they had performed it a hundred times, a thousand times without a hitch, so what had gone wrong? It is simple enough misdirection, the audience look at the box and the slowly descending lid whilst Clarrie is already gone.

'Eddie, Eddie, get out there and try and keep them from tearing the place apart, at least until we can get Mandy on.' Benny Marsden, the theatre manager comes running over, flailing his arms about his head as though trying to prevent even more disaster crashing about his ears. One of his cuff links catches in his toupee and nearly rips it from his head and he clutches at it sudden panic, the worst catastrophe that could happen to him. 'Sam,' he calls to a stage hand, 'get Mandy up here toot sweet. Tell her to get her arse up here pronto. Eddie, what you waiting for, get the fuck out there.'

'Right boss, still, at least it's woken the buggers up.'

'Well send 'em back to sleep again, you're good at that.'

'Sarky bastard,' Eddie mutters, 'Hey, Charlie,' he says as he passes him, 'you should go into comedy, mate, that's the funniest routine I've seen in years, a real thigh-slapper. Fucking Magic!' seemingly unaware of the irony in those last words, but Charlie did not hear, still staring at the curtains.

Eddie, now audience side of the curtains, can be heard trying to calm down the raucous audience, striving to be heard above the chorus of whistles and jeers. The crowd is after blood, anybody's blood and Eddie's will do as well as the next.

'All right, all right, calm down, you not at home now you know, you know. Sorry about that …er…slight technical hitch, seems as though The Great Santini forgot to get his wand charged up last night. Story of my life is that, not getting my wand charged up at night, ta-da.' More boos and jeers. 'All right, like that is it, suit yourselves. Suit yourselves. Now then, did you hear about the little lad who took his Grand –dad out onto the South beach, right here in Whitburn, lovely Whitburn on Sea, ain't it grand, eh? Actually no, it's the arsehole of the Western World. – 'Anyhow, this little lad hands his Grand-dad his bucket, the one his Mum bought him for making sandcastles. 'What's this for then, son, eh?' Grand-dad asks, 'Well says the lad, 'Me Mam says that as soon as you kick it, I can 'ave a new bike. Ta-da. All right, all right, be like that; see if I give a tuppenny …furfurfur… fig.'

He gets the nod from the wings and can see Mandy Sweet, anxiously patting at her hair, nervous, apprehensive about having to face the baying crowd at such short notice. 'Now then,' continues Eddies, totally unperturbed by the hostile reaction to his feeble jokes, 'now then, have we got a real treat coming up for you? Straight from her record breaking engagement in Lost Wages, otherwise known as Las Vegas, back by popular demand, will you please give a big hand and welcome… Miss Mandy Sweet.'

A chorus of cat-calls and jeers ring out as Mandy takes the stage, as jittery as a Christian facing the lions. 'Come on, Mandy,' someone shouts, 'show us your tits.'

Meanwhile Charlie and Benny Marsden are at it, Benny dragging Charlie off into the wings and now giving full vent to his displeasure, spittle flying, spattering Charlie's shirt crumpled sweaty shirt. 'That's it Charlie. That's absolutely it, the last fucking time you ever work summer season in this theatre. Ever! Absolutely for fucking ever.'

Another chorus of jeers, the crowd are not to be placated, before she has even opened her mouth the audience are after Mandy, not prepared to give her a chance. Scenting blood. Benny anxiously glances across to Mandy on the stage before continuing his tirade against Charlie.' The last time. And if I had my way, I'd make sure you never work in any other place an' all, let alone here. A fucking disaster. A disaster and it's not the first time, neither, not by a long fucking chalk.'

Charlie has come out of his brown study, Benny shouting at him, the little twerp, has snapped him out of it. 'Come on Benny,' he snaps, 'It's that fat bitch as got it wrong,' pointing at Clarrie, 'She should've been out the box and over the hills and far away long before the lid even begun to close, you know how the trick works.'

'Don't you call me a fat bitch, you bastard,' she hisses at Charlie, her dander also well and truly up and turns to Benny. 'He hit me. The bastard hit me. Right there on stage in front of everybody, they saw it and now I'm going to sue him. And you and this poxy theatre, none of you will have a pot to piss in, time I'm done with you.'

'Calm down, Clarrie, eh?' wheedles Benny as more cat-calls, boos and jeers can be heard from the stage as Mandy sings, or at least tries to, she can no more hold a tune than next doors cat on heat. She once had a minor hit when a song she recorded was used in a deodorant commercial, but that was a while ago and her career –what career?- has gone downhill ever since. Although she did in fact appear one time on stage in Las Vegas, using some of her record earnings to fly there and attempt to fulfill her dream of becoming a hit on the Strip but only stage she trod was a night club stage and the only thing she did there was to strip. And what she had to do to get even that job didn't bear thinking about.

Benny glances nervously towards the stage as the cat-calls grow louder and Mandy flees in tears, jeers and boos following her off the stage. Eddie the MC, seeing Benny dithering about uselessly as usual takes it upon himself to announce the interval and the stage curtains drop once more. Benny turns back to Clarrie, 'Just try and calm down a bit, Clarrie eh? I'm sure it was an accident, Charlie I mean, with the wand. An accident, eh? These things happen all the time don't they, no point in getting all riled up over nowt, is there?' and he reaches over to pat her on the arm.

'You can get your sweaty paws off me an' all.'

'What you playing at anyway, Clarrie?' Charlie interjects. 'What's with all the pissing about, not getting out of the box? You tryin' to make a laughing stock of or what?'

'You don't need any help from me for that, you bastard. Just you wait 'til I tell my Frank what you've done. Hitting me on stage like that, he'll sort you out, no mistake.'

'Now, now, Clarrie' says Benny, trying to placate her again, being sued is the last thing the theatre –and Benny - need right now.

'Rearrange your smarmy face for you,' Clarrie continues, ignoring Benny. 'Just see if he doesn't. Bloody well hurt that did, I'm dead sure I'm marked,' peering down, pulling aside her leotard and tights to try to see her outraged backside. Charlie points at her buttocks.

'Look at it, look at all that extra lard. You been stuffing your face with cake and chips and bacon butties again, haven't you? I told you, when I took you on, you're only of any bloody use to me if you stay lithe and slim, don't put on any weight. Jesus Christ, woman, you must have put on about 10 stone.'

'Not one ounce. Not one single bloody ounce. Huh, as if anyone could afford to eat bacon on what you pay me, you tight arse shit.' Straining her head as far back as she can Clarrie catches sight of a scarlet weal on her buttock. 'Ooooooh, look at that. Look at that, you just wait 'til I show my Frank. He'll do you proper, see if he doesn't.'