Corporate Bodies

by Simon Brett

  Will Parton looked pained. ‘Got to go where the work is, Charles love.’

  ‘Oh yes. You don’t have to tell me that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And of course, if there is a role in the presentation for a speaking forklift truck operator . . . or indeed anything else . . . I’m a very versatile actor, you know . . . Forty-eight, but play younger . . .?’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind, see if there is anything,’ said Will loftily. He was rather enjoying the impresario role. His dismissiveness of Charles was revenge for years and years of working as a journeyman in television, endlessly rewriting, doing exactly what directors told him all the time. Through his involvement in Parton Parcel and the corporate videos, Will Parton was achieving a taste of that magic possession so rarely granted to writers – power.

  ‘Are you going to the station, Charles?’

  ‘Will be shortly. When’s the next train?’

  The writer, in his new hyper-efficient producer mode, had such facts at his fingertips. ‘Two thirty-seven.’

  ‘Oh, well, we’ve got a bit of time. Just someone I want to have a word with, so . . . see you on the platform?’

  Will Parton looked at his friend wryly. ‘You’re not still off on this murder investigation routine, are you?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Charles shrugged awkwardly and made a hasty change of subject. ‘What is this new product Robin Pritchard’s launching?’

  ‘Oh, couldn’t tell you that, Charles. Bound to secrecy.’ Will dropped into the earnest tones of the Product Manager. ‘But I can tell you it’s going to be very big.’

  ‘Look, I’m not going to pass it on to anyone. No one I know gives a damn about new departures in the wonderful world of foodstuffs.’

  ‘Ah, you may think that, Charles, but can’t be too careful.’

  ‘What you’re actually saying, Will, is that you don’t know what it is yet, do you?’

  The writer was only momentarily discomfitted. ‘That I’m afraid I can’t reveal. But if the information had been kept from me, there would be good reasons for it.’ He looked around elaborately and hissed, ‘Industrial espionage – their spies are everywhere.’

  ‘Come off it.’

  ‘True. Lot of other companies desperate to increase their market share. If they found out about the new launch at this stage, it’d give them time to develop their own rival products.’

  ‘Does it really work like that?’

  ‘You betcha.’ Will Parton winked conspiratorially. ‘Biscuits and Cereals is a crumby business, Charles.’

  The forklifts in the warehouse were plying their endless trade, loading up with pallets from the shelves and carrying them across to the insatiable lorries.

  No one seemed to notice Charles’s entrance. The Delmoleen overalls had been shed, so perhaps his ‘Trevor’ costume helped him melt into the scenery. More likely, the operators on their trucks were concentrating too hard on their work to see the newcomer.

  He cast a quick glance at the outer office, but it was empty. Heather was either in the back room or, more likely, still suffering her mother’s monody of irrelevancies.

  The aisle where Dayna had died was empty. At its end once again there was a pile of empty pallets, though probably the original stack had been removed and another accumulated in the weeks since the incident.

  Charles moved softly down the aisle. He knew it was ridiculous to hope that anything might still remain in the cavity between the pallets and the wall, but he was now fully psyched up and had to prove it by the evidence of his own eyes.

  The hum of the forklifts and the occasional raucous shout from their operators sounded very distant.

  He came to the end of the aisle and, with a quick look to either side, moved forward to the pallets.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  Charles whirled round and found himself face to face with Trevor, who had just emerged from the end of the adjacent aisle. Whether he had been monitoring Charles’s progress since the actor came into the warehouse or had just appeared at that moment by coincidence was impossible to know.

  But the operator looked very mean. From his hand dangled one of the crowbars that was used for raising the lids of crates.

  Charles said nothing as Trevor advanced towards him.

  ‘Why’re you snooping around?’

  ‘We’re here doing some more work on the video,’ Charles’s dry mouth managed to reply.

  ‘That’s in the canteen. No reason why you should be in here.’

  ‘No. I just wanted to have a look around.’

  Trevor tapped the crowbar on his open palm. ‘Well, nobody wants people like you looking around.’

  Charles tried to brazen it out. ‘Perhaps not, but I want to do it. I still want to know what happened to Dayna Richman.’

  ‘She died. There was an accident with a forklift truck and she died. If you hadn’t left the truck switched on, she’d still be alive.’

  ‘I didn’t leave the truck switched on.’

  ‘Don’t try and be clever with me.’ Trevor moved closer, close enough for Charles to smell the stale cigarette smoke on his breath. ‘Just mind your own bloody business and get out of here – otherwise you’re going to get hurt.’ The crowbar was menacingly half-raised.

  ‘You wouldn’t dare hurt me in here. I’d shout. Someone’d hear me.’

  Trevor let out a short bark of laughter. He jerked his head back towards the other forklifts. ‘Everyone here’s a mate of mine. None of them have got much time for bleeding wankers like actors. If I want to hurt you, nobody’s going to stop me.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Charles, sounding calmer than he felt, ‘I want some information from you.’

  ‘Oh yes? And what makes you think I’m going to give you any information?’

  ‘To clear your name.’

  ‘My name doesn’t need clearing. Dayna’s death was an accident, unfortunate combination of circumstances, the enquiry said. No individual to blame.’

  ‘But the enquiry was just a cover-up.’

  Trevor shrugged. ‘Prove it.’

  ‘Listen,’ Charles said again, trying to assert himself, ‘I don’t think Dayna’s death was an accident.’

  ‘Oh no? What was it then?’

  ‘Murder.’

  ‘Really? Well, as I just said – you just try and prove it.’

  ‘What’s more,’ Charles went on recklessly, ‘I think you are the one who killed her.’

  The attack came so quickly he had no time to defend himself. He felt the neck of his T-shirt grabbed so that the collar closed round his neck like a noose. At the same moment Trevor’s knee smashed up into Charles’s balls.

  He supposed he should have been grateful that the crowbar hadn’t been used, but, in the eye-watering agony of that moment, he thought he would have preferred it.

  Trevor’s smoky breath was right up against Charles’s face as the voice hissed, ‘Don’t you dare ever say that again! You repeat that and there will be a murder done! And you’ll be the one whose body never gets found! You breathe another word about –’

  ‘Trevor,’ said an authoritative voice from behind Charles, ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Charles had forgotten just how much a knee in the balls could hurt. His life, though shadowed by alcohol, had included surprisingly little drunken brawling, and he had to think back to playground fights of his schooldays for comparable injuries. But he had no problem in recognising the pain.

  The trouble was, the way it made him walk instantly identified the cause of his problem, and he’d found the short trip from the warehouse to the office of his saviour, Ken Coleboume, extremely embarrassing. Delmoleen workers – both male and, to his surprise and mortification, female – provided a range of ready, if unoriginal, witticisms as he passed.

  In the office – thank God – the Marketing Director kept a secret supply of liquor, and a couple of medicinal brandies slightly dulled the grinding agony in Charles’s testicles
– so long as he didn’t try to do anything clever, like moving. He felt a sudden, totally irrational desire to sneeze, and prayed that he would be able to control it.

  On the other side of the desk, Ken Colebourne looked serious. ‘I’m extremely sorry about what’s happened, Charles, but I’d really be grateful if you could keep quiet about it.’

  Yes, of course. The Delmoleen name mustn’t be tarnished by any adverse publicity. The company must be kept smelling of roses, just as it had been after Dayna’s death.

  As it happened, Charles didn’t want any enquiries into what he had been doing to provoke Trevor’s attack, so he had no intention of making a fuss. He told Ken as much.

  The Marketing Director didn’t look totally reassured. ‘It really is very important that this is kept quiet.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It will be.’

  ‘Good.’ But a note of doubt remained in his voice. ‘Why did you want to talk to Trevor?’

  ‘I didn’t. I was just down there, and he started talking to me.’

  ‘I’d keep well away from him if I were you. He’s a nasty piece of work. Can be quite violent.’

  Charles made the mistake of moving. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he agreed through gritted teeth.

  ‘No.’ Ken still seemed uncertain, as if there was something else, some further reassurance, he wanted from Charles. ‘If you had been thinking of having any dealings with Trevor,’ he went on awkwardly, ‘I’d give up the idea. It won’t do you any good. You won’t get anything out of him. He’s trouble, you know.’

  ‘I do know.’

  ‘Hm.’ But the Marketing Director couldn’t leave the subject alone. ‘You weren’t asking him about what he and Dayna got up to, were you?’

  ‘No. As I say, he just came up to me and started getting aggressive. I think he was probably still miffed that I was substituted for him in the video.’

  Ken Colebourne nodded, not believing the explanation any more than Charles did. ‘Yes, that was probably it. Anyway, as I say, Charles, I’d leave it. Difficult for an outsider to understand quite how things work in a place like Delmoleen. I’d just steer clear of Trevor and forget the whole business, if I were you.’

  Charles nodded. That was unwise; the movement jolted right through his body and ripples of pain lapped outwards from his groin.

  The Marketing Director looked at his watch. ‘You going to be all right to get back on the train? I could lay on a car for you if you like.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be fine.’ Then Charles thought of the gleeful pleasantries with which Will Parton was likely to greet his affliction. The prospect of the writer’s wit working overtime all the way to St Pancras was more than he could face. He winced. ‘Well, actually, if you wouldn’t mind . . .’

  Ken Colebourne got on the phone to his secretary and organised transport. He proffered more brandy. Charles was at first inclined to refuse, but then thought, what the hell, I’m not going to be in any state to do anything else today, may as well succumb. He allowed his glass to be generously filled, without worrying about the fact that he’d almost definitely move on to the whisky when he got back to Hereford Road. He’d cross that hangover when he came to it.

  ‘So I have your word that you won’t mention this to anyone?’ Ken insisted.

  ‘No problem. Forgotten all about it already.’

  Charles was intrigued by the man’s over-reaction. Again it suggested some involvement in the affairs of Trevor and Dayna, and stimulated rather than allayed suspicion.

  What the Marketing Director said next stimulated it even more. ‘And if there’s any favour I can do for you that’ll help you forget the whole business, well, you only have to say the word . . .’

  This was so unexpected that it took Charles a moment to realise he was being offered a bribe. ‘Favour?’ he echoed stupidly.

  ‘Yes.’ Ken Colebourne wasn’t finding these negotiations particularly easy, but he was managing without total embarrassment, which suggested it wasn’t the first time he’d made such offers.

  ‘I wasn’t talking money, of course, though it might be possible for some kind of arrangement to be made on those lines. But I was thinking more of . . . well, maybe some kind of event you’d like to attend . . . ?’

  ‘Event?’

  ‘I have a lot of dealings with public relations companies. Most things can be arranged these days. The unobtainable has become very obtainable if you know who to ask.’

  ‘What kind of unobtainable?’

  ‘Well, concerts, theatre, opera tickets, those’d be no problem, whatever show you wanted to see. I can pick up that phone now and get you seats for tonight at the hottest show in the West End.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Or, of course, if it’s sport that interests you . . . well, you name it. Test matches, rugby internationals, Ascot, golf, Wimbledon, Henley, whatever you fancy . . . And I’m not just talking tickets here, I’m talking executive hospitality – you know, the full package. A really good day out.’

  ‘Ah.’ Charles, so unused to being courted in this way, was lost for the right response.

  ‘I mean, what I’m saying is that I do very much appreciate the way you’ve taken this incident . . .’ Ken Colebourne spelled out the deal, ‘you know, saying you’ll forget all about it, not take it any further . . . so I’d like to say a little thank-you to you in some appropriate way. Bit of a quid pro quo if you like.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So what do you say? Anything in the little lot I’ve mentioned that might maybe appeal to you . . .?’

  Charles had never had to ask himself before whether or not he was corruptible. By custom, the subjects of bribery are people who wield power and influence. There’s never been much percentage in trying to corrupt a predominantly out-of-work actor.

  So the ethical dilemma that faced him was unfamiliar.

  He certainly had no intention of abandoning his murder investigation. But Ken Colebourne had talked in such veiled terms that it wasn’t at all certain that that was what was being asked.

  On balance, Charles decided that accepting one of the offers would not be compromising himself at all. At the very least, he deserved some compensation for his bruised testicles.

  And, besides, there was one entertainment on Ken’s list that did appeal a great deal.

  It didn’t actually appeal much to Charles Paris himself.

  But he knew someone it really would appeal to.

  He asked Ken Colebourne to make the arrangements.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘FRANCES, it’s me.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘We’re getting predictable.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I keep ringing up and saying “Frances, it’s me” and you keep saying “Ah”.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So nothing. I just mention it in passing.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘There’s another one.’

  ‘Mm. How are you then? All right?’

  ‘Well, I am suffering a bit because someone kneed me in the balls.’

  ‘Perhaps that’ll teach you to stop chasing young girls.’

  ‘It wasn’t anything like that. It was . . . oh, never mind. Look, Frances, you remember when we last spoke . . .’

  ‘How could I forget it? You rang up and said “Frances, it’s me” and I said “Ah”.’

  ‘Yes. But on that occasion we also agreed that when I next rang up it should be with an invitation to something nice that you might like to do.’

  ‘I’m not sure that we agreed it. I said it’d be nice. I don’t recall you being that enthusiastic.’

  ‘Well, be that as it may. The thing is, I am now ringing to invite you out to something nice that I think you’ll enjoy.’

  ‘Oh yes? When?’

  ‘Saturday week.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Late morning till early evening.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘That’s another “Ah”, Frances. And, you know, the into
nation of your “Ahs” is getting increasingly deterrent.’

  ‘Yes. The thing is, Charles, that that Saturday is the middle Saturday of Wimbledon.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, if you know that, then you should also know that I get totally hooked during the Wimbledon fortnight and spend every spare moment glued to the television.’

  ‘I do know that. That’s the point.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘The point is that I want to drag you away from watching Wimbledon on the television . . .’

  ‘But it’s one of the things I really enjoy!’

  ‘. . . and take you to watch Wimbledon in the flesh.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At Wimbledon.’

  ‘Oh. Charles, you’re not suggesting that you and I, at our age, drag ourselves over to Wimbledon in the early morning and queue for hours to –?’

  ‘No, Frances, I am saying I have two tickets to an executive hospitality suite at Wimbledon for that Saturday, and I am asking whether you would do me the honour of accompanying me there as my guest?’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Now that’s a much nicer “Ah”, Frances.’

  ‘Charles, bit of a crisis.’

  ‘What kind of crisis, Will?’

  ‘Got a meeting with Robin Pritchard at eleven-thirty tomorrow morning. About this new product. With him and the account executive from the ad agency. Thing is, Seb Ormond was going to go along with me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As set-dressing, really. Told you I don’t want them to get the impression that Parton Parcel is just a one-man band.’

  ‘But it is just a one-man band, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it is, but that’s not the point. Having Seb sitting there looking dourly executive in his suit gives the set-up a bit of . . . I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Gravitas.’

  ‘The very word. Anyway, Seb’s cried off. Bugger’s going to Manila for a new washing machine.’

  ‘Seems a long way to go for a washing machine.’

  ‘Don’t be deliberately obtuse, Charles. He’s presenting the launch of a new washing machine out there . . . you know, standing up, reading from an autocue and getting paid a fortune for his pains.’

  ‘All right for some.’