Written Out - A Falconer File Christmas Short Story

by Andrea Frazer

  WRITTEN OUT

  A Falconer Files Brief Case: #7

  Andrea Frazer

  NB: This story takes place between All Hallows and Death of a Pantomime Cow.

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  ONE

  Emily Jarvis sat in her favourite battered armchair in front of the fire grinding her dentures together. She was watching her favourite afternoon programme, Get One Over. It was a simple formula. Four antiques buffs were filmed visiting three locations to locate bargains. The venues could be jumble sales, car boot sales, even junk shops, and the point of the whole show was to decide who had got the best bargain, having thus ‘got one over’ on the other three.

  The real twist came at the end of the show. The amateur experts were only allowed to spend a certain sum of money and, when all their purchases had been made, a professional antiques dealer was called in to value the items and work out what the amount of profit per expert should be. The items were then auctioned, and only after the profits from that had been calculated was the winner declared. When one of the amateurs had won five shows, the profits accrued from those editions were donated to a charity of their choice.

  The show was very popular because it was so easy to identify with and emulate. Anyone watching could easily go treasure hunting themselves and make a profit if they so desired, but the point of the show itself was not profiteering but friendly competition, with regular sums paid to charity. Also, the ‘experts’ were changed twice a year, so there was plenty of opportunity to pick a new ‘favourite’. Being such a popular yet low-budget production and in such a popular genre, it wasn’t long before it was broadcast nationally instead of regionally, and the experts travelled to different parts of the country every week, so everybody – the antiques trade, the experts, and the happy viewers – was a winner.

  Get One Over had been high on Emily Jarvis’ list of favourite television shows since it had begun a few years ago, but there was one fly in her ointment. It was made by her regional TV company and so she had recognised many of the locations. She had also liked the amateur dealers that had been contracted to hunt for the best buys. What she didn’t love was the narrator, a terribly irritating and over-the-top chap caller Peter Potter-Porter. His wordy and pun-laden scripts made her cringe and, lately, had been slowly but surely leeching out her pleasure in the little bits of one-upmanship that the show filmed by the inanity of his jolly, joking voice, and she had begun to hate him. Her dearest wish for Christmas was a button where she could mute the narrator and just watch the show for what it was.

  Since she had put up the Christmas decorations and little tree that she always decorated in December, she had taken to sipping a small sherry with the programme, but this man was becoming the bane of her life. He was ruining one of the little pleasures left to her in her old age, and she found that difficult to forgive. She knew that the Christmas special was to be filmed soon in Market Darley, and had decided to go into the market town that day to see if she could see any of her favourite amateur experts – but the thought of what that idiotic narrator would make of it didn’t bear thinking about.

  As the show finished on a flurry of dreadful puns, some so bad they made her wince, she did something she had never done before and went over to the sideboard to refill her sherry glass. Really, this irritating young man was going to turn her into an alcoholic if he carried on behaving like this, and she didn’t think she could stand it much longer.

  The narrator’s voice was one that seemed to talk down to the viewers, as if he considered them of very little intelligence, while simultaneously sneering at the ‘experts’ and putting them down too. She was so cross that she swallowed her second sherry in one gulp, and spent the rest of the afternoon muttering under her breath, ‘Peter Potter-Porter picked a peck of pickled pepper …’ over and over again, and fighting her rage at how this superior young man was ruining her enjoyment of such a simple pastime.

  That evening, she had three friends over for a few rubbers of bridge, and got them all talking about how this programme was being spoilt by being so patronising to both those who liked to watch it and those who took part in it.

  ‘Fellow needs horsewhipping,’ commented Theodore Matthews from a few doors down. ‘Simply not cricket. Should be drummed out of the regiment.’

  Emily Jarvis smiled in agreement, but reminded him that the war had been over for some time, and he had been out of the army for a couple of decades, a fact that he often forgot in his daily life. He may be a bit hazy about everyday details, but he was a devil with the cards, and could seem to memorise every one played in a hand, damn him.

  ‘I used to like Going for a Song,’ added Camilla Smethurst. ‘Such a nice programme, except for that man with the terribly common voice.’

  ‘Come along, chaps,’ interjected Emily. ‘Let’s have another drink and a last rubber before we pack up. Theo, will you shuffle the cards please, and then pass them to Veronica, because I just don’t trust you enough not to be able to ”fix” them whilst you’re shuffling them.’

  As she went upstairs to bed that night she remembered with pleasure that tomorrow the crew of

  Get One Over was filming in Market Darley for the Christmas Special. She had promised herself that she would go into town and wander round likely locations, popping into the old people’s day centre at midday to have a decent and inexpensive lunch. She could then recharge her batteries before having another prowl around in the afternoon, hoping to catch a glimpse of them at work. Wiping the sound of the young man’s patronising voice from her mind, she went to sleep with a smile on her face, hoping that she might bump into her favourite experts and have a little chat with them.

  TWO

  In the police station in Market Darley, Detective Inspector Harry Falconer was having a bit of a rant. ‘The beginning of December, trees and blasted coloured lights already all over the place, shoppers out in force, and tomorrow we’ve got a damned camera crew filming in the town. That’s going to bring in extra crowds since they mentioned on the local news that the programme was being filmed here. That’s all we need to give a little encouragement to pick-pockets, muggers, and shop-lifters. How could they have been so irresponsible as to have given permission for this to happen in the midst of Christmas shopping?’

  Detective Sergeant ‘Davey’ Carmichael was chewing the cud in the form of a piece of bubble gum, which he lazily made protrude from between his lips, and blew. As the large pink bubble burst all over his face, he managed to mumble a reply. ‘Is that for that Get One Over programme? I like that. The bloke who does the voice-over makes me laugh.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t do that to me. He’s an arrogant little swine, and I personally would like to punch him in the mouth.’ This may have seemed strange, for two men who worked such long hours to be discussing a daytime programme on the television, but, so popular had it become that it was now shown in the evening the day after it aired in the afternoon, and Falconer was interested in antiques and collectables. The unlikely programme was making inroads into public popularity as far as rummaging in junk shops went, and would soon air for the first time during peak viewing time when a new series started in the New Year.

  ‘Kerry can’t stand him,’ replied Carmichael, trying to remove some strings of sticky pink from his eyebrows. ‘She says he’s too big for his own boots.’

  ‘Carmichael, will you please peel that horrible stuff off your face and deposit it in the bin. I’m d
amned if I’m going out on a call with a DS with pink eyebrows.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Carmichael, sheepishly, putting the wad of brightly coloured stretchy stuff in a piece of paper, preparatory to throwing it into the waste paper bin. He had some more in his pocket, and would be able to indulge again at lunchtime, in private. Carrying on where he had left off, he said, ‘Kerry says that sometimes she could strangle the bloke for the contemptible way he talks about the people in the show who do all the work finding little treasures, whilst he tells a lot of terrible jokes.’

  ‘And they’re always at someone else’s expense,’ added Falconer. ‘I find him very irritating. It’s just the way these people find things that you wouldn’t look at twice and then show us how they come up with a bit of TLC that fascinates me.’

  ‘Kerry will watch anything these days that means she doesn’t have to drag her bump around with her. She’s getting really tired, even though the twins aren’t due for a few months yet.’

  ‘Well, Carmichael, it was your choice to have even more children. Do you fancy having a bit of a walk round the streets, just to see if we can spot any of the filming?’ asked Falconer, who was secretly excited about seeing some of the corners of his adopted home town shown on the television.

  ‘Yes, please. I wonder if we can get any autographs. I’d love one of that narrator.’

  ‘Carmichael, you are an enigma.’

  THREE

  Emily Jarvis had woken up in a good mood, definitely looking forward to her little jaunt into Market Darley. She did her hair with especial attention and even put on a little pale lipstick and powder and her best day dress, in case she had the chance to shake hands with one – or more – of her heroes, and had decided that she would do a little rooting around herself in some of the junk shops, in search of little presents for her acquaintances.

  She packed her large handbag carefully with her knitting, just begun, as she would need something to occupy her as she digested her lunch at the old folks’ centre, and set off for the bus stop just as the shops were opening. She was prepared for a long day on the off chance that she might rub shoulders with ‘celebrities’, and planned to husband her energy carefully. She wouldn’t go haring off from one shop to another, as she might miss the filming crews at every visit. She would just mooch around in one or two that she knew had more interesting ‘junk’ in them until lunchtime, then try a different area of the town during the afternoon.

  She began in The Shambles, a very untidy and overcrowded shop in an alleyway just off the Market Square, and became quite engrossed in rummaging through boxes and under tables. It really was a fun way to pass some time, and she made a pact with herself to carry on with this pastime after this particular day. Some of the items she came across brought back such memories for her, of her parents, grandparents, and even of her own childhood.

  This interest in bygone things had been something that had only sprung up in the last few years, as her spry early old age had given way to a rather frailer second phase, and she had started doing the unthinkable: watching daytime television. It had opened up new worlds to her, however, as there seemed to be quite a lot of programmes on collectables and what she considered was just junk; like Clarice Cliff, which used to be sold in Woolworths – all gaudy colours and inept hand-painting, in her opinion. Get One Over, however, was her definite favourite, if only it hadn’t been for that dreadful narrator.

  By lunchtime she had made several inexpensive finds which would serve well as presents for her friends, and she headed for the old people’s centre with quite an appetite. It turned out to be steak and kidney pie, one of her favourites, on the day’s menu, and she cleared her plate in quite a short time. Then, it was time for a little rest with her knitting on her lap and, perhaps, a surreptitious nap in one of the wing-backed armchairs; it was more private in one of those, with its full sides that were made to support and keep draughts away from the head.

  As she slept fitfully, her dreams were full of that voice that so irritated her and she woke up feeling quite disorientated and cross. It was in this mood that she shoved her knitting into her bag and set off again into the streets of Market Darley in search of the film crews. She knew there would be one for each location, because little treasures didn’t just float into the air in front of one, and there was quite a bit of searching involved, playing to the camera the whole time. She had decided that she would head for another quarter of the town where she might have more luck, then, possibly, get a bus out to a table sale that had been advertised in the local paper as taking place that afternoon.

  FOUR

  Falconer and Carmichael had made a short foray out into the town without telling anyone what they were up to; it would have been too embarrassing to say that they were chasing the filming of a television programme. They struck lucky, however, at the first destination they tried. It was a small shop stuck between two discount shops on the main square, called ‘Times Past’.

  In front of the shop they saw a camera crew talking to a face they knew only too well, that of Charlie Huggins, amateur antique dealer and one of the series’ stars. He was speaking to camera while another man helped out what looked like one of Carmichael’s little dogs on the end of a stick, but which was, on closer inspection, a microphone. There seemed to be some sort of director there as well, who called ‘Cut’ and asked them to go again on the last piece, with a bit more ‘thrill of the chase’ attitude on the part of Huggins.

  ‘I’ve visited this little gem of a shop on one or two occasions in the past,’ he almost leered to camera, as if he were contemplating a night with a beautiful woman, ‘and I’m certain I shall come up with a show-stopper within its walls.’

  As the action was cut again, the leer disappeared to be replaced by a rather angry scowl. ‘Can’t we just get on with it?’ he asked in a thoroughly fed-up voice. ‘I could do with a large, stiff drink.’

  ‘It’s only five to twelve,’ said the man who appeared to be running the action.

  ‘I had to get up at half past four this morning to get down here, you know,’ he replied, crossly.

  ‘Yes, but you did have a driver all the way down, and he told me you snored like a drain the whole journey,’ replied the offended man who wielded the clapperboard. And it’ll soon be your turn to be replaced, he thought with a great wave of schadenfreude. Let’s see how you fare when your face has been replaced by a newer and fresher one.

  ‘I still need a drink. I can’t stand these provincial little towns. I’m a celebrity now, you know, and I go to a lot of parties.’

  ‘Which you will continue to get invited to if you start co-operating and stop going on like a damned diva.’

  Falconer coughed from just along the street, then he and Carmichael waited while the scene was finished to the satisfaction of the fussy little director, then they stepped forward and Falconer was the first to speak. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt you while you’re working …’ He then went on to introduce them and ask if they’d like them to accompany them on their filming visits, in case there was any interference from an over-enthusiastic public.

  Carmichael found himself incapable of speech, but nodded his head in agreement at everything Falconer said, then held out his notebook for an autograph from the nouveau celebrity. Their offer was accepted, as they were now drawing quite a crowd, and if there was one thing the director realised, it was how quickly these two new additions to their crew could call for uniformed back-up if anything got out of hand, which wasn’t pushing things too far given the current popularity of the programme.

  ‘You can’t collect autographs in your official notebook,’ Falconer informed the sergeant. ‘They have to be filed away in case they’re ever needed for evidence.’

  ‘Blast,’ replied the sergeant, rummaging through his pockets until he came up with a tiny notebook which he kept to note down anything that Kerry needed him to bring home. ‘I’ll have to use this. By the way, sir, are you still up for that pantomime in Carsfold over Christm
as?’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Falconer, in a resigned voice. He knew it was a treat for the Carmichael family, but he just wished he had a twin that he could send with them instead of going himself. He really felt uncomfortable in the company of children, and there were now three of them with another two on the way. Carmichael, meanwhile, had gone back for his second autograph, which was duly signed albeit with a sigh and much rolling of eyes by the author.

  When the filming broke for lunch, the two detectives found themselves accompanying the little party off to a catering van that was parked just outside the town centre on the outskirts of a small industrial estate, where the other three new celebrities and other filming crews were filling their faces before things got underway again during the afternoon.

  Even Peter Potter-Porter was there, looking very superior and condescending, and Falconer suddenly remembered that the man always did a piece to camera before the show was broadcast, the rest of his voice-over being recorded in some studio or other, the supercilious script written by him after he had been shown the first rushes. The inspector ignored him, being more anxious to speak to the assembled experts on one of his new interests, but Carmichael headed straight for the man himself, and held out his tiny notebook this time.

  With almost a sneer of contempt, the narrator scrawled his name, then said something curt and dismissive to his admirer, but Carmichael was totally immune to his rudeness. He had actually told the man that he thought he was very funny and, although this had not been very well received, the sergeant was walking on air. Just wait until he got home and told Kerry that he had got the man’s autograph and had actually had a conversation with him, if you could call being dismissed as having a conversation.

  A few minutes later, it became evident that there was some sort of disagreement, as angry voices sounded clearly above the low level hubbub. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that,’ shouted Charlie Huggins, his normally jovial face now bright red with temper, ‘you jumped-up little voice-over man.’