by Simon Brett
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘No? I am right, am I not, in saying that Lord Kitestone put you up for Blake’s Club?’
‘Yes, but . . .’ The Councillor looked very angry again. ‘That was just a friendly gesture on his part, because we got on so well. Good God, can’t friends do each other favours nowadays without everyone getting suspicious?’
‘Of course they can. And what favour did you do him in return?’
‘Nothing. Well, I mean, hardly anything. He just gave me some advice and I took it. Wasn’t even a favour to him, as it happened. Favour to someone else, another example of Willie’s generosity. Turned out to be a favour to me too, as things worked out.’
‘But, nonetheless, he didn’t put you up for the club until you’d agreed to accept his advice?’
‘God, you make it sound so cold-blooded. It was just two friends helping each other out, that’s all.’
‘You scratch my back . . .’
‘Exactly . . .’
‘Okay, I know how Lord Kitestone scratched your back. How did you scratch his?’
‘It was nothing. It was just . . .’
And Herbie Inchbald told him.
As he finished, he smiled weakly and said, ‘And if you can find any corruption in that, good luck to you. It’s been a positive benefit to the theatre, and without Lord Kitestone it wouldn’t have happened. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree with all your talk of sabotage, Mr Paris. You certainly are if you’re trying to point the finger at me.’ Herbie Inchbald sat down and tried to regain some composure behind his desk. ‘I am a devoted supporter of the Regent Theatre. And so is Willie Kitestone.’
Charles gave the Councillor the benefit of the doubt and believed his first assertion.
But not the second.
Chapter Seventeen
CHARLES’ MIND WAS now working well. He hadn’t slept much the night before, but the tiredness heightened his efficiency rather than diminished it. He was on a high, feeling good, and his mind responded, making sudden new connections in the case.
After his interview with Herbie Inchbald he returned to Mimi’s and, ignoring her curiosity as to what he was doing there at that time of day, went straight up to his bedroom. There he got out the file Martha Wensleigh had given him and took another look at its contents.
The brainwave came quickly. He looked at his watch. Quarter to one. Might just make it. Clutching some of the papers in his hand, he ran downstairs to the telephone and, oblivious of Mimi’s eavesdropping, dialled.
‘Gerald.’
‘Charles? Look, this is rather inconvenient. I said –’
‘I know. You’re just about to go out for a long, good lunch. Where?’
‘Langan’s, as it happens.’
‘Of course. Well, you can spare me two minutes. Listen, is Bill still with you?’
‘Right beside me.’
‘Put him on. I want a word.’
‘Very well, but . . .’
‘Hello?’
‘Bill, hi. This is Charles Paris.’
‘Oh. Good to hear you. What can I –’
‘I want to pick your brains.’
‘You’re welcome to anything you can find there.’
‘Right. You’ve just come back from Australia, where you’ve been directing . . .’
‘For the last five years, yeah.’
‘So you know the theatrical scene out there pretty well?’
‘Such as it is. Yes, I guess I do.’
‘Right.’ Charles consulted the sheets in his hand. ‘Do you know the Theatre Royal, Adelaide?’
‘Sure. Nice old building.’
‘And the Artistic Director, Ralph Johnson.’
‘Ralph who?’
‘Johnson.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘This’d be back in . . .’
‘Before my time. I’d have thought I’d have heard the name, though.’
‘Okay. Try another. The Dominion, Perth?’
‘Know it well.’
‘Artistic Director, Rich Coleman?’
‘Never heard of him. Jed Spencer had the job all the time I was out there.’
‘What about the Hippodrome, Melbourne?’
‘Know that too.’
‘And the Artistic Director there in ’79 was . . .?’
‘Bruce Wade.’
‘Not Greg Avon?’
‘Never heard the name. What is this – a Mastermind special subject on the theatres of Australia?’
‘No. I will explain. I haven’t got time at the moment. There’s only one more. Do you know the Kelly Theatre in Sydney?’
‘Should do.’
‘And you’re going to tell me the Artistic Director there last year was not Jim Vasilis.’
‘That one, Charles, I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt. For the last five years I have been Artistic Director of the Kelly Theatre in Sydney. That’s the job I’ve just finished.’
Charles sighed with relief. ‘Thank you very much, Bill.’
‘No problem. I wish I knew what the hell it was about.’
‘One day, Bill, over a very long and very drunken lunch, I will tell you.’
‘I look forward to that, Charles.’
‘Could you put me back to Gerald, just for a sec?’
‘Okay.’
‘Gerald, listen, have you got a copy of The British Theatre Directory there?’ The solicitor grunted assent. ‘Could you look up the Pavilion Theatre, Darlington for me?’
‘Okay just a sec. I wish you’d explain, Charles.’
‘If I did it might make you late for your lunch.’
‘Oh, that’s true. Some other time then. Right . . . the Pavilion, you said. It’s owned by . . . ah, the site was bought up quite recently.’
‘By whom, Gerald?’
‘Schlenter Estates. Is that significant?’
‘Yes, Gerald. It is.’
So all the references were quite meaningless. The Australian ones were forged, and the Darlington one presumably dictated by Schlenter Estates. No, more likely it was genuine. After all, that one could be checked easily, and Donald Mason must have spent some time finding out about theatre administration. Six months as Assistant Front of House Manager at Darlington would have given enough background to someone with a genuine flair for organization. And Schlenter had presumably arranged for him to take the job.
They had also assumed, correctly, that the average provincial rep theatre would know nothing about the Australian scene, and be too mean to ring up the other side of the world to check the references.
Charles now knew what Donald Mason’s career hadn’t been and, his memory working well, thought he might be able to find out what it had been.
The old lady was in her usual niche in the pub behind the theatre and accepted another bottle of Guinness gratefully.
‘I do know you,’ she said. ‘Seen you before, you know.’
‘In here. Just the once.’
‘That’s right,’ she said, raising his hopes that she would prove to be a reliable witness. ‘Your name’s Lionel,’ she continued, dashing them.
‘Charles.’
‘That’s right, Charles.’ She nodded her head, which seemed loose on her shoulders. ‘Charles, I knew another Charles once. Had this nasty habit in the park. He used to –’
Charles didn’t want to get too involved in irrelevant reminiscence, so he nudged the conversation on by asking, ‘Was this in Islington?’
‘Round the Angel, yes.’
‘Where you used to live?’
‘That’s right, yes. Don’t live there no more. Had this nice little flat. Now I live with my daughter. She wouldn’t let me go to the Old People’s, not my daughter. She’s got this bird, my daughter has. Canary, it is. I don’t care for canaries . . .’
Once again Charles had to stop the conversation from straying too far off course.
‘Your flat was in Blenley Terrace, wasn’t it?’ he asked, memory working
overtime.
‘Blenley Terrace, that’s right.’ Again she started the unnerving nodding. ‘Nice place it was, round there. Nice people, like a village. Not now. All been tarted up now.’
‘Yes. Listen, I want you to try and remember something.’
‘You come to the right person.’ She stopped nodding and fixed her faded eyes on him seriously. ‘I got one of them photographic memories. Never forget a face. Nor a name, Lionel.’
‘Charles.’
‘That’s right. Charles.’
‘Listen, when I last came in here, week or so ago, someone else came in, someone you said you recognized from Islington.
She looked at him blankly. Her mouth sagged. Charles feared he had hoped for too much. Her mind had really gone.
‘Man about thirty. Tall, pin-striped suit. Blond hair.’ Something in this description struck a chord in her memory, because her expression changed suddenly. ‘Oh, I remember him,’ she spat out venomously. ‘He was why I left my flat.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He said he come from the estate agents. Offered me money to move out. But I didn’t want to. I liked it there. All my friends there. Didn’t care how much money, I told him, I didn’t want to move. He kept coming back and I kept saying no. Then he started coming strange times, very late at night, six in the morning. But I still said no.
‘Then I didn’t see him no more, but . . . things started happening.’
‘What sort of things?’ Charles asked softly.
‘Be knocking on my door in the middle of the night. Then someone bunged a brick through my window. Plumbing started going funny. Bath overflowed and soaked the people downstairs. I never left it on, I know, but they got in the social worker. And then there was the gas.’
‘Gas?’
‘Yes. Gas was left on on all my rings. Nearly a big explosion. They said I wasn’t safe living on my own. But I ask you, would I leave all of them on? Anyone could leave one on by mistake, but not all of them.’ She sniffed. ‘Anyway, the social worker got on to my daughter and she come, and the social worker said I couldn’t manage alone, and I’d have to go to the Old People’s. And my daughter, bless her, says no, and brought me up here.’
‘So you never went back to the flat?’
‘No.’
‘And you think the man you saw in here was behind it?’
‘Bloody sure. I remember, the estate agents was called Spielberg, Pugh and Fosco. And his name was Mr Mason.’
Charles bought the old lady another Guinness. She had earned it.
As he stood at the bar, he pieced it together. So Donald Mason had started out as a ‘winkler’ for one of the estate agents the Schlenters took over. Then he probably had gone to Australia as the property company expanded in the early 1970s. Back to England, brief spell in Darlington to learn the new business, then, with Lord Kitestone leaning discreetly on Herbie Inchbald, he got the Rugland Spa job. Winkling again.
Just the same, but on a larger scale. Instead of getting rid of one old lady to clear a house, his job was to get rid of a theatre to clear a town centre site for development.
He was going to have to go and talk to Donald Mason.
He ordered himself a large Bell’s as a bracer.
Chapter Eighteen
LESLIE BLATT WAS coming out of the administrative office as Charles reached the top of the stairs. The elderly playwright looked extremely pleased with himself.
‘Hello, Charles,’ be said, rubbing his hands together. ‘We’re going to be working together.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Donald’s just asked me and I’ve said yes. It’s a few years since I’ve done it, but I’m sure I’ll manage. It’s a real challenge.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Shove It. Donald’s just asked me to take over as director.’
‘What!’
‘Well, don’t sound like that. I used to direct, you know. Still got a lot of ideas, and I’ve been following most of the rehearsals. I’d really like to get my hands on a play like this.’
Not just on the play, either. Charles visualized the chaos that would be caused among the naked actresses by Leslie Blatt’s wandering hands as he ‘directed’ them.
‘Well, aren’t you going to congratulate me, Charles?’
‘What? Oh yes. Congratulations.’
‘We’re hoping to get ready for an opening on Friday. Only two days late.’
‘I see.’
‘Rehearsal ten sharp tomorrow morning. See you then.’ The old goat pranced downstairs, chuckling to himself.
Charles knocked on the office door, and was bidden to enter.
Donald Mason sat behind his desk, every bit the smart executive in another pin-striped suit. Too smart, really, for the theatre. Charles felt he should have smelt a rat earlier. But no, he – presumably like everyone else – had been just relieved to see someone who appeared to be efficient in the role of General Manager.
‘Charles. What can I do for you?’
‘I just met Leslie. Gather he’s going to take over directing Shove It.’
‘That’s right. Seems ideal. Difficult to get in someone from outside at this stage, and at least he’s been following the production.’
‘He’d follow anything where he knew women were going to take their clothes off.’
Donald Mason looked up sharply, surprised by Charles’ change of tone. ‘Have you been drinking?’
The actor shook his head. ‘Not enough to affect my judgement.’
‘Oh. Well, Leslie is going to be directing. I’ve made the decision.’
‘Yes. I’m sure you have. Yet another in a skilfully composed sequence of wrong decisions.’
The General Manager was stung by this. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I think it was almost a compliment, Donald. You’ve managed the whole thing very well. Constantly talking about the importance of right decisions and ensuring that the wrong ones are made. Constantly stressing the need for company loyalty and spreading divisive rumours behind people’s backs. Constantly saying how much you want the Regent to survive and all the time undermining it.’
‘Are you going to explain what you’re on about, or do I have to listen to more of this abusive rhetoric?’
‘I’ll explain.’ Charles took a deep breath. ‘I’ve blown your cover, Donald.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I know that all the references you produced to get this job were forgeries. I know that you never worked in the theatre in Australia. I know that you started working for an estate agency called Spielberg, Pugh and Fosco and I reckon that you’re still in the pay of Schlenter Estates!’
There was a silence. Charles tensed. He didn’t know what to expect after his outburst, but was ready for some form of physical assault.
To his amazement, he heard Donald Mason laughing. ‘Very good, Charles, very good. I heard you had a bit of a reputation as a detective, and I’m most impressed by this demonstration of your skill.’
With the wind momentarily taken out of his sails, Charles blustered. ‘Do you deny that you were put into this job to bring the theatre to its knees?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Pretty easy, too, wasn’t it? You could run circles round Tony Wensleigh. So vague he was, so abstracted, so trusting . . . Always out at a rehearsal, so that you could do what you liked here. Spread rumours about his inefficiency, libel him – always with an expression of deep regret that you had to do it.
‘The sabotage went deep. The choice of plays . . . you contrived that very well. You knew Herbie was totally ignorant about art, and you knew Leslie would agree with anything so long as his dire little thriller was included. So you lumbered Tony with this awful programme, and then had the nerve to tell everyone that he had chosen them, and that his judgement was going.’
Donald Mason shrugged. ‘Yes,’ he said with an air of indifference.
‘You’re not making any attempt to d
eny it.’
‘Why should I? It’s all true.’
‘But . . .’ Charles found himself blustering again. It was like trying to get satisfaction out of punching a sponge. ‘I mean, the way you played us all along, making us believe you were the long-suffering one, constantly clearing up after Tony. Little calculated touches of humanity – like when you didn’t sack me, like when you offered me the part in Shove It . .’
Donald smiled with something approaching insolence. ‘Yes. Of course that was not just magnanimity.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I thought keeping a piss-artist like you around in the company was another good method of disruption.’
‘Good God.’ Charles was almost lost for words. He found himself getting angry. This was not at all how he had intended the interview to turn out. ‘So that’s why you went against Tony’s advice and kept me on.’
‘Oh I didn’t go against Tony’s advice. He wanted to give you a second chance.’
‘But you said . . .’
‘Yes. And you believed me. I’ve often been told that one of my great strengths is my plausibility.’
‘But . . . but how can you be so bloody cool about it all?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be cool? I was put into this job to see that the theatre closed within a year, and I reckon I’ve pretty well achieved that.’
‘But what’s going to happen when I expose you?’
‘Expose what? Have you proof of any crime that I’ve committed?’
‘Well . . . That accident to Gordon Tremlett – I bet you were behind that.’
‘Proof I said, Charles, proof. Even if I did fix it – and I’m not saying I did, in case you have some tape recorder hidden away – how could you prove it?’
‘Well . . .’ Charles felt momentarily lost. ‘What about Tony? You hounded him so much, confused him, accused him . . . you drove him to kill himself.’
The General Manager smiled again, infuriatingly. ‘That I think you’d find even more difficult to prove, Charles.’
The actor gaped.
‘You see, it’s so easy to fool people. They set themselves up. They want to be conned. I mean, someone like Tony was just a sitting target. So trusting, as you said. So incapable of fighting back, assuming he could ever identify his enemy. Ultimately so stupid.’
