As we sat down, he pulled off his sweatshirt, exposing a well-toned chest and shoulders that suggested a lot of time spent in the gym. There was something about him right then that reminded me of James Dean, who had become a cultural icon when he was just twenty-four and who had died the same year. Tirian had the same careless good looks combined with a sense of disengagement, the rebel without a cause. I was reminded that he had just been cast in a major Hollywood picture that might make him a household name and I could already see that he was halfway there. Star quality is hard to define, but I’ve met many young actors before they’ve become famous and they’ve all had it. It’s not exactly physical. It’s not even a force of personality. It’s just a sense of being different; the prescience that one day, quite soon, they’re going to be loved.

‘I couldn’t believe it when I heard about Harriet,’ he said. ‘It’s the most terrible thing to have happened. That poor woman …’

‘You feel sorry for her?’ Hawthorne sounded surprised.

‘Well, of course I do! She’s been killed!’ He stopped himself. ‘I know she said bad things about the play, and I have a suspicion she wasn’t exactly sweetness and light in real life either, but murder is murder and for what it’s worth, she was actually quite nice about me. She said I was one of the most promising actors of my generation.’ He couldn’t resist an approving glance in the make-up mirror. ‘You don’t think one of us did it, do you?’ he went on. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Hawthorne replied.

‘Well, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, if you don’t mind me saying so. I mean …’ he held up his hand and began to count the various names off on his thumb and four fingers ‘… Sky. She couldn’t have been kinder to me when I joined the company and she clearly doesn’t have a bad bone in her. Ahmet and Maureen. They’re just a joke. Do you think they’re having it away? I do. They really are the world’s worst producers, as witness those ridiculous daggers they gave us on the first night. I still have mine, by the way. The police came round to my place asking to see it. It was lucky I hadn’t put it in the skip. Funny, isn’t it. So many murder weapons. All identical.’

‘Not very funny,’ I muttered.

He touched another finger.

‘Ewan hated her. I get the feeling that the two of them have history, although he never talks about it. You saw how angry he was!’ This was addressed to me. ‘But I really can’t imagine him going round there and doing her in. He’s much too civilised. You should have seen him when he was having one of his hissy fits in rehearsals. Sometimes I was afraid he might stab me with his spectacles, but that’s about as far as it ever went.