by Amy Myers
‘Not today.’
‘How’s he coping with the filming?’
‘It’s the only thing keeping him going, I reckon. If he keeps centred on the film, he doesn’t have to think about Angie and police,’ he said quietly.
‘Are there any police here?’ I asked. It was possible that Brandon would have posted someone here – just in case – but I hadn’t identified anyone as yet.
‘I thought you were the police,’ Louise joked.
‘Don’t let DI Brandon hear you say that,’ I said hastily. His goodwill to me would only stretch so far. ‘Is Shotsworth Security in sole charge here?’
‘I think so,’ Justin answered. ‘They seem pretty good.’
I didn’t like to point out that one major car theft, a series of petty crimes and a murder wouldn’t count in my book as ‘pretty good’ – but if Justin thought it so, best leave it that way. He and Louise must be used to being hemmed in by guards. I made a mental note, however, to keep my eye on Shotsworth Security as far as I could.
I’d spotted Tom and Joan at another table, and so mindful of my role here, I decided to make my excuses (with deep regret) to Louise and Justin.
‘See you at close of play, Jack?’ Louise asked.
‘Done,’ I said happily.
Justin looked interested. ‘I thought I had your undivided love, Louise,’ he joked.
‘Job-share,’ I quipped.
Louise blushed and I loved her even more. How could this woman play a scheming seductress on screen and set and be such an angel off it, when Eleanor Richey played a sweet American on-screen and came over as a prize bitch off it. The acting profession is an interesting one: does the role hide the truth or reveal it?
When I joined Tom and Joan, Joan was already in costume and told me she had to leave because she was due at Make-Up. ‘Are you employed again?’ I asked Tom cautiously, when we were alone.
Tom ostentatiously looked around for possible spies. ‘I re-employed myself at Roger’s suggestion.’
‘Deputy assistant DOP again?’
‘No. Roger thought Bill could do with more practical support. He suggested I brought my hand-drawn storyboards back. Usually they’re a pre-production tool for the director and cinematographer but Bill likes them around all the time, so I’ve stuck them up in the ops caravan. We know it’s a risk. With Angie’s death so close, it could go either way, but Bill hasn’t objected yet. Roger thinks they might help draw the company together by opening up discussion. We’re gambling that Bill won’t think it’s an insult to Angie. Want a look?’
I did, and we walked over to the ops caravan which was out on its own, away from the day caravans allotted to the stars. I noticed a couple of security guards prominently patrolling the area – necessary, I supposed, as fans could easily evade gate checks by climbing over walls or fences. And so, it occurred to me, could anyone bent on mischief.
There were no guards around the ops caravan. It was open to all comers. I followed Tom up the steps and into the world of Dark Harvest.
On one side were neat small sketches, on a series of what looked like computer printed templates. ‘These are the thumbnails for the rest of the week, including Car Day,’ Tom told me. ‘Bill uses them to either stick up in front of him or scribble notes on. But these,’ he said with pride, pointing to the much larger hand-drawn charcoaled sketches, ‘are the real thing. Today’s and tomorrow’s detailed storyboards.’
I had looked at the Car Day thumbnails with interest but it was clear that to Tom a car was a car, even if it was a precious classic. On the other hand, the hand-drawn dramatic sketches of the cast in a series of situations and emotions came across with power and with what I imagine Bill had meant by ‘mood’. There was Julia Danby – not the Louise I knew, but a sultry, vengeful woman. There was the innocent American heiress, the beleaguered Lord Charing, his son Robert Steed, and a dark-haired Italianate man whom I imagined must be Charles Danby. All of these sketches brought across a brooding sense of what was to come. I wasn’t sure if I liked the result, but it was certainly a winner.
‘How’s Bill with these?’ I asked.
‘Hasn’t seen them yet,’ Tom said awkwardly. ‘Roger suggested I just put them up and hope that Bill would . . . Ah.’
His eyes slipped past me and I turned round to see Bill standing in the doorway. Tom and I stood there like naughty schoolboys, as he marched in and surveyed the storyboards. We held our breath waiting for Nemesis.
‘Saw them earlier, Tom,’ Bill said at last. ‘Good work. We’ll go with these. Got the rest?’
Tom nodded, stunned.
Then it was my turn. ‘Jack, seven this evening after shooting if everything goes OK. You too, Tom. We’re showing Running Tides in the Manor. There’s a home cinema down in the basement. Everyone to be there. No exceptions.’
Bang went my quiet evening alone with Louise, and I wondered why Bill was so keen for everyone to see it, even me.
Syndale Manor was to be used chiefly for external shots, although according to the storyboards I’d seen the staircase and entrance hall were also being used this week. The Manor was not open to the public and when I went inside it seemed very much still a home, albeit one that had both benefited and suffered from conversions over the years. Large rooms had been divided into smaller ones, and there was no longer a ballroom. The cinema in the basement had apparently been the idea of Sir John’s grandfather who had a passion for Gloria Swanson and for Charlie Chaplin, and set it up in the 1920s. It held about sixty people at a guess, not everyone as Bill had said, but tonight I could see that included the cast, a few lesser acting mortals, department chiefs – and me.
I could see no sign of Bill as I took my place in the back row. This wasn’t modesty on my part, but because I wanted an overall squint at the audience. Nigel was in the front row and I thought I saw Louise next to him. I was wrong, because she appeared a few minutes later, scoured the audience and then made her way to me. I sat there with an idiot’s grin on my face, especially when she kissed me on the cheek. Nothing like the back row of a cinema for sweethearts. Well, that used to be the case, although now any row will do. The back row held a special place in my heart, however, so Louise and I held hands. For the rest, I could wait. Just about.
Running Tides was set in the First World War around the Folkestone and Dover area and Lille in northern France. It was based loosely on a real story about a French agent, a girl code-named Ramble, a British RFC pilot flying fighters on the Ypres front with whom she fell in love, a Belgian spy and a British agent working out of Folkestone. After the war one of the heads of British Intelligence wrote a novel loosely based on Ramble’s story, in which Ramble survived the war and became a nun. In real life her story was different. She was captured and died miserably in prison a month or two later. Running Tides was closer to the latter scenario. The theme sounds fairly run of the mill, and so it might have proved in its execution had it not been for two factors. The first was Margot Croft playing Ramble, and the second was its director, Bill Wade. I could see now why Bill wanted us to see it. Its mood said that it was not just a film about three or four people in wartime, but a film about all time. Country against country, betrayal, love, and danger, and more importantly a warning for the future, a theme that Dark Harvest would continue.
I’d seen some of Margot Croft’s films before – she was only twenty-nine when she died, so there weren’t that many featuring her mature work, but they were outstanding. In Running Tides she was mesmerizing. With her dark hair and eyes, and her steady expression, there was something about her that reminded me of Louise. I wondered if Louise reminded Bill too of Margot Croft? And whether Angie had noticed?
I could see Bill now. He was standing in the doorway of the cinema, eyes fixed on the screen during a close-up of his former lover. Even from here I could see the agony in his eyes.
SEVEN
Dinner with Louise on a summer’s night under the stars. The only hitch in this paradise was that we were
sharing it with fifty or so other people at plastic tables in a field with utilitarian-looking catering vans. The velvety sky, kindly provided by providence on what might be the year’s only day of true summer in this volatile-weathered country was an inducement to drink and talk – except that I had to pass on the drinking. Nothing wrong with talking, I supposed. I had no choice, short of sweeping Louise off in my Alfa, and there was no way I could do that. There had been something about Running Tides that made it fitting for those who had been part of its success to be together, and even those who had not been so involved seemed to have their place here tonight. A community spirit? There was certainly that, although the talk was muted, as though everyone had been affected one way or another by seeing the film again. Perhaps, it occurred to me, that was why Bill had wanted us all to watch it.
Maybe he had personal reasons for that, as Angie had been an extra in the film. No, that didn’t fit, because there was his relationship with Margot Croft. It was not until after the film and after Margot’s suicide that Angie had entered his life. Moreover Bill struck me as someone who was guided by instinct in his creative work, but by logic outside it. An interesting combination.
The food was even better in the evening than it had been at lunchtime, and both evening and diners became mellow. Joan, Chris, Graham and Brian joined their table up with ours, so it was a companionable occasion. A middle-aged housekeeper in Dark Harvest, in the earlier film Joan had been a snappy young woman at Folkestone intelligence HQ. The intervening years had added a whole generation to her two small roles. In any case, she was the pleasantest period housekeeper I’d ever seen.
I hadn’t spotted Chris in Running Tides and put my foot in it by saying so. He didn’t look pleased. ‘I was there all right,’ he told me. ‘Just wasn’t playing the fighter pilot – tried for it, but too much competition. Even in those days a Wade film was something special and the world and his wife were lining up for it. I landed up as a pilot taking off on the same mission as the hero.’
‘And now you’re Chris von Ribbentrop,’ Joan laughed. ‘You get a taste of both sides in our profession. You too, Brian, first a German soldier, now Lord Charing.’
‘A rich and varied career,’ Brian agreed gravely. ‘I remember playing a gorilla way back in my youth in some sci-fi film. Pretty hairy job that. At least I’ve risen to having a peerage and a stately home.’
‘Not to mention having me as an ex-lover,’ Louise joked.
‘Pity about the ex,’ Brian said.
At which Graham chimed in with a reference to his male partner, and the atmosphere grew temporarily cooler. I remembered that the partnership was going through a bad patch. Time, I thought, to bring matters back to the present.
‘I didn’t see Angie in the film either,’ I said. ‘What scene was she in?’
‘A French peasant in the market. Easy to miss,’ Chris said promptly, then made a face. ‘Sorry.’
‘She didn’t go out of her way to make friends,’ Louise said comfortingly.
‘That’s what I told the police. They’d heard about our spat with her in the canteen,’ Chris said.
‘She went much too far,’ Joan said fairly. ‘Did the police grill you over it?’
‘To a cinder,’ Chris admitted. ‘But I told them that if I’d been planning to murder her I’d hardly have had a stand-up row with her in front of half the company.’
‘What did they say to that?’ Louise asked.
‘What the police always do. Nothing. Then they turned to other matters, such as where I was on the night of Thursday the third when the Auburn disappeared. Most of us seem to have been through that line with them. I told them we were shooting late that day. Graham and I had something to eat, then left about ten thirty or so.’
‘We drove back to the hotel in my car,’ Graham took over, ‘for which I am truly grateful because otherwise I might have a starring role at the top of the suspects’ list. Luckily CCTV showed us signing out of the security barrier. Then they started asking about last Wednesday, and I told them we all got the bus to the studios like good little boys.’
‘They had a go at me because I arrived early that morning,’ Joan said. ‘They pointed out I wasn’t on call until nine o’clock so apparently I had plenty of time to nip over in my housekeeper’s best black to murder Angie and exit unnoticed by the side gate. When I asked why I would want to murder Angie, they told me the same as you, Chris. Nothing.’
‘Me too,’ Brian said. ‘My guess is that I’m right after Tom on the suspects’ list. Angie was pretty vocal about my shortcomings as Lord Charing and was eager to put the matter right in her own sweet way. The bus arrived at six, but I didn’t think to get a witness to where I was every minute before I went on set.’
‘Difficult situation,’ I sympathized. ‘But unless there’s forensic evidence the police have a long haul on their hands.’
‘Do they have any?’ Louise asked uneasily.
‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. ‘I’m not in Brandon’s confidence – but humour me. If there are a hundred or so background cast, surely the odd one is not missed even if supposed be on the set?’
All four stared at me as though I was a quaint old dinosaur who hadn’t waddled over a film set in his life.
‘The odd one is always missed,’ Joan explained kindly. ‘Especially on one of Bill’s films. Even if the casting department misses one or two, he has a sixth or even seventh sense – he somehow knows if the grouping doesn’t look or feel exactly as he remembers it from the last take or his plan for the scene.’
‘How?’ I asked curiously. I knew directors stood in for God, but this seemed remarkable.
‘Overall feel for costume, height, expression . . .’ Joan answered vaguely.
‘Anyway, there’s a discipline to it,’ Chris added. ‘Not only do we check in on arrival, but if we didn’t do so for costuming and make-up that too would be noticed, so would incomplete call sheets.’
‘Were the call sheets OK last Wednesday morning?’
Chris looked blank. ‘I don’t remember. Do you, Graham?’
‘We did ten takes of the Berlin scene – that was an exterior. I don’t remember any problems. There were long intervals between takes though. It would be on record if there were any absentees.’
I was sure that Brandon would have that covered. ‘What about consultants and outsiders like me? Do they always get here at the crack of dawn?’
Louise was not fooled. She knew I didn’t mean myself. ‘If you’re thinking of Tom and even,’ she added lightly, ‘Nigel, the answer’s no. You don’t have to check in with anyone except at the security barrier. Tom was around that morning, and so was Nigel. He’d come in to sort out a quibble on the insurance on Car Day.’
I offered to drive Louise back to the Buckhurst Hotel, and to my disappointment she accepted. I’d no real hope that she’d seize the opportunity to come to Frogs Hill with me – a four thirty or so dawn rise to be at the studio at six is not conducive to relaxed sex, so I was not surprised at her decision. Just these few moments alone with her were precious, however. The hotel was way off even what passed on the Downs for the beaten track. It was guarded by high walls, massive iron gates and no doubt a couple of pit bulls and Rottweilers.
I parked outside and as we were walking up to the hotel entrance the thought of guard dogs reminded me of the one tenuous link so far between the dirty tricks campaign and the theft of the Auburn. The guard dog had been poisoned that day. And if they were linked, then Angie’s death must surely have been the end target for the campaign.
‘I take it that wasn’t the first time you’d seen Running Tides?’ I asked Louise. It was still dusk, and the stars weren’t yet out for their nightly display but it felt as though they were beaming their approval anyway.
‘I watched it on DVD when I first knew I’d got this role last year. That doesn’t have the same effect as watching it on a large screen like tonight. It came at us head-on, didn’t it? Margot Croft was a great
actor.’
‘She was inspiring,’ I said sincerely. ‘Does Bill ever talk about her?’
‘Never. And not, I think, just because Angie would have screamed blue murder. Oh damn,’ she said softly, ‘the things one says.’
‘Inevitable. You’re in Margot Croft’s mould, Louise. You’re heading for greatness. Oscars looming.’
I meant this seriously and she took it that way. ‘Not like Margot, though. She was a natural. I’ve had to work at it – I might get there one day, but I’m not certain. This film . . .’
‘Might get you there?’ I finished, as she paused.
‘I told you I was a wandering star, Jack. That’s what the ancient Greeks called the planets that shoot across the sky. That’s the excitement of this profession – you never know where it will take you. It could spin me up to the top or it could drop me down amongst the has-beens and never-made-its. All of us start out thinking we’ll hit the heights. There’s a moment – a tide in the affairs of men that taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Shakespeare was right, as usual. There are turning points in life and in careers.’
‘Doesn’t luck play a part too, if the right part comes at the right time?
‘Yes, but I don’t think it’s the major part; something within oneself decrees whether one can see and then grasp what the wandering star offers. Commitment, luck, the sheer ability to recognize it. Mostly our chances at fame and fortune pass before we’ve grabbed them. Now I am in a film for Oxley Productions that follows a success like Running Tides. I feel that star’s right above me, Jack.’
‘Is fortune what you want? Or fame, or both?’
She considered this seriously. ‘I’m not sure one can balance fame and fortune with the flame within.’ She laughed self-consciously. ‘Flame – that sounds precious, doesn’t it? But that’s what it boils down to. If it burns brightly enough to light the way ahead, you have to take it. Either one chooses regular work at any cost, or one has to go out on a limb and satisfy the need within.’ She turned to smile at me. ‘So on I go.’
