by Simon Brett
And had he had the same motivation for the other crimes? Were they all born of some perverted sense of honour? Or was there perhaps no continuing logic to them at all? Were they just random blows from a madman?
Because there was no doubt that Barton Rivers was mad, but whether there was any method in his madness, Charles could not yet work out. The only consistent thread in the deaths was that they were all directed against people connected with The Strutters (though, as yet, no member of the cast had been injured). Maybe that fact supplied logic; maybe this massacre was the actor’s revenge on all the production staff he had ever worked with. It seemed far-fetched.
But if a madman were stage-managing all the deaths, that did at least explain their random nature. Rod Tisdale’s was the only one aimed at a specific target. All the others could have struck at a variety of people, or could have misfired and injured nobody.
But was Barton just gleefully playing the role of an unselective god of destruction, or was there somewhere in his fuddled mind a pattern to the killings?
Another question that worried Charles was the unavoidable one of how much Aurelia knew of her husband’s activities. Obviously she wasn’t an accomplice, but, as the deaths mounted, she must have come to suspect something. If Barton had stopped and slipped back to move the urn at Bernard’s place, even if she didn’t think it odd at the time, subsequent events must have made her suspicious. Equally, she must have known that he was out in the car at the time of Rod Tisdale’s death.
And yet she seemed to want the business sorted out and ended. Charles could not forget her appeal to him which had filled him with such crusading fervour. ‘And I do appreciate what you’re doing for us. If there is a solution to all this, then I’m sure you’re the one to find it.’
In the light of his recent thinking, her words took on a different emphasis. The important word became ‘us’. I appreciate what you’re doing for us. Was she tacitly admitting that the problem was one that she and her husband shared? That she knew what he was doing, but was powerless to stop him?
Another thought followed hard on that. He remembered when he had asked whether Cocky had been poisoned, Aurelia’s face had registered shock. Perhaps the dog had been killed, and perhaps Barton had done it, as a threat to buy his wife’s continuing silence. Maybe he had threatened her own life too. Charles knew that many things happened inside marriages which were invisible to outsiders. Was it fear that kept Aurelia Howarth so tightly bound to her lunatic husband?
He didn’t think he was going to find out any answers to these questions until The Strutters got back into production again. Three of the deaths had taken place on production days, and the fourth, Rod Tisdale’s, had been right in the middle of a very busy rehearsal schedule. Charles somehow didn’t think much would happen until they started work on the next batch of shows. And then he was determined to watch Barton Rivers like a hawk whenever he came near the production. There was still no real evidence to trap the madman. But Charles was determined to find some before there was another ‘accident’.
He got a batch of new scripts through the post a couple of days before the next read-through. Willy and Sam Tennison had made predictable changes in the show’s direction. Not only, as anticipated, had they brought in a semi-permanent girlfriend for the Nick Coxhill figure, they had even got the Colonel and Mrs Strutter exchanging darlings like newly-weds. This softening of their relationship weakened the aggressive crustiness of the Colonel’s character and, since that was the main basis of the series’ comedy, Charles thought George Birkitt might have something to say about it at the next read-through.
But Peter Lipscombe must have been happy with the scripts or he wouldn’t have issued them. Though it seemed to Charles that the producer was so much under the writers’ spell that he would never dare find any fault with their scripts.
Episode Eight was, for those trained to spot such things, a version of a plot that Willy and Sam Tennison had used in an episode of Oh, What a Pair of Au Pairs! In that, a Japanese family had moved in next door to the au pair-owning young couple and, after a lot of misunderstandings, jokes about tiny transistorised instruments and the line ‘There’s a nip in the air’, a kind of peaceful coexistence had been achieved, symbolised by the Japanese family’s gift of a geisha girl as a third au pair (an hilarious consequence if ever there was one).
The Strutters version of this saga of racial stereotypes had a Japanese family moving next door to Colonel and Mrs Strutter. The same misunderstandings, jokes about tiny transistorised instruments and the line ‘There’s a nip in the air’ ensued, but a less total rapprochement resulted. In a pay-off which was, by Willy and Sam Tennison’s standards, satirical, the Japanese family presented Colonel Strutter with a samurai sword and, when he asked what it was for, told him that it was for committing hara-kiri when he got too depressed about Japanese car imports.
Charles predicted that George Birkitt wouldn’t like that either. But he paid scant attention to the scripts, because by the same post arrived a much more interesting communication. It came from his agent, Maurice Skellern, which already made it a rarity, and it contained a very large cheque, which made it rarer still. It was in fact the money owing to him for the first batch of Strutters, which Maurice, as was his wont, had sat on for some weeks. But also, as was his wont, he had not forgotten to deduct his commission.
Even so, it really was rather a gratifying amount of money. So long as he didn’t consider paying tax bills or anything like that (which he didn’t), he felt quite well off.
The day before the next read-through, he started to worry about what Barton Rivers was going to do next, and to doubt his capacity to avert it. He couldn’t really watch the man all the time; it would be simpler if he had someone to help him.
He rang Gerald Venables. Polly, the solicitor’s secretary, whose sexy voice always gave Charles erotic fantasies, put him through.
‘Hello, Charles, how are things going?’
‘Not so bad. I think I may have a line on the deaths.’
‘Good, good,’ said Gerald breezily. But he didn’t sound very interested. Not his usual panting schoolboy reaction to talk of murder.
‘Perhaps we could meet and talk about it.’
‘Love to. Trouble is, I’m a bit tied up at the moment. In a couple of days I’m — ’
‘Thing is, I think you could help me.’ This appeal shouldn’t fail. Gerald was usually delighted to get involved in a murder investigation. Real crime had so much more to offer than sorting out show-biz contracts.
‘Love to, love to. Trouble is, we’re off on holiday day after tomorrow.’
‘Ah.’
‘School holidays just started, you see.’
‘Going far?’
‘Have to go some way these days to get away from the crowds.’
‘Where?’ asked Charles with jealous resignation.
‘Seychelles.’
‘Just the Seychelles?’
‘Mmm. Well, if you only get one holiday a year, you like to be able to guarantee the weather.’
‘But you don’t only get one holiday a year.’
‘No, that’s true.’
‘You’re always off on bloody holiday.’
‘Have to have the odd break, you know. Recharge the batteries. I do work for it,’ Gerald added in an aggrieved voice.
‘Hmm.’
‘You ought to have a holiday. Go off with Frances somewhere. Are you speaking to her at the moment?’
‘Haven’t for some time.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘No great rift. Just haven’t got round to it.’
‘Well, you should.’
‘I will.’
‘Anyway, about these deaths. . are you going to bring me up to date?’
‘No. It’ll keep. I’ll tell you when you get back. Probably be a few more by then.’
‘Good. I’m only away the fortnight.’
‘Just the fortnight?’
‘Yes.’
> ‘Right. I must say, as a Dr Watson, you’re hopeless. Sherlock Holmes never had this trouble. He didn’t have his faithful acolyte zooming off to the Seychelles whenever his assistance was needed.’
‘No, but on the other hand, he solved crimes.’
Charles thought about what Gerald had said when he put the phone down. Not the final gibe, that hadn’t hurt, such rudeness was well established between them; no, he thought about what Gerald had said about Frances.
It would be rather good to go on holiday with her. He was already getting bored with Jay Lewis. The sex was all right, but there was a limit to how much quotation from the luminaries of West End Television he could take.
Frances, though. . They’d always said, in the old days, that when they could afford it, they’d go to Greece. Just the two of them, without Juliet. Thanks to the cheque from Maurice, he now reckoned he could afford it. And Juliet, in her late twenties with a husband and twin sons, no longer presented a problem.
He rang Frances’s number. There was no reply. He’d try again.
He was just going back to his bedsitter when the payphone rang. The Swedes all being out, he returned to answer it. Some cock-eyed logic suggested it might be Frances ringing him back.
It wasn’t. It was a man s voice he didn’t recognise. ‘Hello, could I speak to Charles Paris?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Oh, hello, my name’s Gregory Watts. .’
‘Oh yes.’ It didn’t ring any bells for Charles.
‘I’m a bookdealer specialising in detective fiction.’
‘Oh yes.’ With more understanding.
‘Just talking to a friend of mine who runs a bookshop in Charing Cross Road and he said you’d been looking for an R. Q. Wilberforce. .’
‘Yes, I was. In a vague sort of way.’
‘Well, look, I’ve got this first edition of Death Takes A Short Cut. Very Good Condition. 1938 it is, but of course you’d know that.’
‘Um, oh, er, yes.’
‘If you do want it, I’m asking five pounds.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’ve got other collectors who might be interested, But I rang you first, because my friend said you only collected R. Q. Wilberforce.’
‘Well. .’ It rather appealed, the idea of being the nation’s specialist in Wilberforciana. Even if it wasn’t true.
‘Have you met the old boy, by the way?’
‘Which old boy?’
‘R. Q. Wilberforce. He’s still about. Must be in his eighties. I wrote to him to see if he’d got any old editions he wanted to get rid of.’
‘Ah.’
‘He said he’d got rid of them all. I didn’t believe him. Not many of these authors want to part with their private copies of their own works. Mind you, the widows often don’t care so much, if you come in with a reasonable offer.’
‘Really? No, no, I haven’t met him. Don’t know much about him.’ Anything about him, in fact.
‘Well, do you want to buy it?’
Charles couldn’t remember exactly why he had thought the book important. It was part of some train of thought that had been shunted off into a siding to make way for the Intercity express conviction of Barton Rivers’ guilt. On the other hand, he did feel fairly flush and this bloke had taken the trouble to ring up.
‘Yes, please, I would like it.’
‘Okay, well, if you can send me a cheque for?5.32 — that’s with postage — I’ll send the book as soon as I receive the money.’
‘Fine.’
Be nice to have something to read while he watched to see who Barton Rivers tried to eliminate next.
He felt a chill. Of course it was possible that the old madman might start on members of The Strutters cast.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Now please don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay,’ Peter Lipscombe assured the cast at the read-through on the 27th July, ‘but I should just put you in the picture about the news on the industrial front. You’ll have heard that there was a one-day strike last Monday, and there have also been one or two other go-slows and things happening, but I think the atmosphere’s clearing now, and I don’t think we need worry about our recording next Friday. You may find odd things happening in the W.E.T. building — I mean, for instance there may not be any canteen service and the bar may suddenly be closed.’
A communal groan broke from the cast.
‘But I think basically everything’s going to be okay. We’ll get the show made, don’t you worry about that. Now one thing I should tell you — I don’t think it’s likely to happen, but we should be prepared for any eventuality — when we get into the studio, we may have to rehearse/record the show during the day. You see, at the moment — and I’m sure this will have changed by next Friday — at the moment the security men have got an overtime ban on, which means that they won’t work evenings, which means we can’t have an audience in the studio because of safety regulations. So if that ban hasn’t been lifted — and I’m sure it will have been — we’ll get the schedule changed and do the show during the day.’
‘And dub the laughs on afterwards?’ asked Bob Tomlinson.
‘Yes,’ replied the producer with distaste.
‘Good,’ said Bob Tomlinson.
‘Okay, sure it won’t happen, but thought you’d like to know. Oh, one other thing about the studio. We’re not in Studio A this week, we’re in B.’
‘The small one?’ asked George Birkitt, affronted.
‘Smaller,’ conceded the producer.
‘Why?’
‘Well, Wragg and Bowen are in the big studio.’
‘Why?’
‘It is a big prestige show.’
‘And what about us? Aren’t we a big prestige show?’
‘Of course, of course. But not quite as big a prestige show as Wragg and Bowen.’
‘Just because of the bloody money they’re being paid. .’ George Birkitt muttered darkly.
‘You finished?’ asked Bob Tomlinson, with his customary lack of grace.
‘More or less,’ said Peter Lipscombe.
‘Right, let’s get this rubbish read. You ready on the watch, girl?’
Jay Lewis was ready for the read-through, but George Birkitt wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry, before we start, there are a few things in this script we’ve got to change.’
‘Why?’ asked Bob Tomlinson belligerently.
‘Because they’re just wrong. I mean I’ve spent seven episodes of this series — not to mention all the What’ll the Neighbours before it — building up Colonel Strutter into a recognisable, rounded comic character, and now I’m handed a script in which not only does he have considerably less lines than in previous episodes, but the ones he does have are unfunny and out of character.’
‘Oh, but we’ve worked so hard to maintain the character,’ wailed Sam Tennison, dressed today in a Mister Men T-shirt and strawberry coloured jeans. ‘Haven’t we, darling?’
‘Yes, indeed, darling,’ concurred Willy Tennison, also dressed today in a Mister Men T-shirt and strawberry coloured jeans.
‘Then obviously you just haven’t worked hard enough,’ said George Birkitt. ‘I mean, I know Colonel Strutter, and these lines aren’t Colonel Strutter. I can’t learn lines that are out of character.’
‘You can’t learn lines that are in character,’ was the thought that went through every mind in the room. But nobody said it.
‘I mean, for a start, since when has Colonel Strutter called Mrs Strutter ‘darling’?’
‘Oh, but all married couples call each other “darling”. Don’t they, darling?’
‘They certainly do, darling.’
‘Not Colonel Strutter. He wouldn’t go in for that sort of sentimental nonsense. He never calls his wife anything.’
‘But he has to call her something,’ complained Sam Tennison.
‘Well, he doesn’t.’
‘But everyone calls everyone something. Don’t they, darling?’
‘They most ce
rtainly do, darling.’
‘Anyway, that’s only a detail,’ George Birkitt steamrollered on. ‘The plot is full of silly things too, which are just out of keeping with the rest of the series that we’ve already made. I mean, that business at the end with the samurai sword. Have you ever met a Japanese with a samurai sword?’ He turned to the Japanese actor who was playing the Strutters new neighbour. ‘I mean, have you got any samurai swords?’
‘Yes, many,’ replied the Japanese with a polite smile.
‘Well, that’s neither here nor there. As a pay-off for an episode of The Strutters it’s just hopelessly out of keeping.’
‘Oh no,’ murmured Mort Verdon, who was sitting by Charles. ‘Don’t cut the samurai sword. I spent most of last week finding somewhere that would hire the thing to us. They’re about as easy to come by as a banana in a convent.’
‘Now come on,’ Peter Lipscombe was saying bonhomously. ‘I’m sure everything’s really okay with this script. Just change the odd word here and there and. .’
Charles relaxed. Barton Rivers had delivered Aurelia to the rehearsal and then driven away. If anything was going to happen, it wouldn’t be yet a while.
Idly he wondered what form the next attack would take. Shooting? Stabbing? Bombing?
He also wondered idly who would be its target.
But the week passed very quietly at the Paddington Jewish Boys’ Club. Those whose work took them into W.E.T. House, like Mort Verdon, came back speaking of strikes and rumours of strikes, but the atmosphere in the rehearsal room remained peaceful. All of the Strutters team had benefited from the few days’ rest and seemed relaxed. George Birkitt, whose objections to the script had really only been a way of asserting himself, was content with a few minor word-changes. The offending ‘darlings’ were excised, which made the script a revolutionary new departure in the literary careers of Willy and Sam Tennison, and George became quite mellow. He didn’t really mind about having less lines than usual; if the truth were told, he was quite relieved — there was now a chance he might be able to learn them. But the tantrum had been necessary to him. As he said to Charles, ‘Well, you know I’m the last person on earth to throw a scene, but occasionally one does have to put one’s foot down and remind them who one is, or they trample all over you. . er, one.’
