by Simon Brett
Table of Contents
The Charles Paris Mystery Series
Title Page
Copyright
Dediaction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
The Charles Paris Mystery Series
CAST, IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE
SO MUCH BLOOD
STAR TRAP
AN AMATEUR CORPSE
A COMEDIAN DIES
THE DEAD SIDE OF THE MIKE
SITUATION TRAGEDY
MURDER UNPROMPTED
MURDER IN THE TITLE
NOT DEAD, ONLY RESTING
DEAD GIVEAWAY
WHAT BLOODY MAN IS THAT?
A SERIES OF MURDERS
CORPORATE BODIES
A RECONSTRUCTED CORPSE
SICKEN AND SO DIE
DEAD ROOM FARCE
A SERIES OF MURDERS
A Charles Paris Mystery
Simon Brett
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This title first published in Great Britain in 1989 by Victor Gollancz
eBook edition first published in 2012 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 1989 Simon Brett.
The right of Simon Brett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0014-3 (epub)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
To Alan and Peta
(not forgetting Petra)
Chapter One
‘NOW LISTEN, LADS, we’re dealing with a cold-blooded murderer who will stop at nothing.’
Sergeant Clump stared belligerently over the counter of Little Breckington Police Station at the dozen constables facing him. ‘And that is why you’ve been gathered here from all corners of the county to see that his evil plans are foiled.’ He leaned forward as he warmed to his task. ‘Now, there’s only one thing that’s going to defeat a criminal of such cunning, and that is –’
‘Superior cunning,’ a voice from the doorway coolly interrupted.
The thirteen policemen turned as one to look at the newcomer. They saw a tall figure in a dark floppy hat and cloak. A monocle graced one eye; from it a dark cord snaked down to the buttonhole of an immaculately tailored suit. A pale cravat frothed at the stranger’s neck; white spats gleamed above the shine of his black shoes.
‘Mr. Braid,’ said Sergeant Clump in a voice that combined admiration and resentment in equal parts. ‘I wondered when you was going to turn up. But don’t you worry, sir. Everything’s in hand. We shall catch this devil without needing your assistance.’
‘Really?’ Stanislas Braid wafted across the room and came to rest in a chair by the counter. He looked up at the sergeant; his expression was quizzical, challenging, almost insolent. ‘Well, I suppose there has to be a first time for everything.’
The sergeant’s face contorted into frustration. He looked, as the police always should when faced by the coruscating brilliance of an amateur sleuth, baffled.
They held each other’s gaze for a long time. Much longer, indeed, than would have been expected in the normal course of events. Then, mercifully, a new voice released them. ‘Okay, we’ve got that.’
At the Floor Manager’s words the assembled policemen on the set relaxed, broke their formal stances, and turned to chatter and giggle with each other. Charles Paris eased his finger around the neck of Sergeant Clump’s jacket. Uncomfortable, those pre-war high-collared uniforms. And hot under the television lights.
Russell Bentley, the actor playing Stanislas Braid, shook his head with dissatisfaction. There was clearly something in the scene he hadn’t felt happy with.
The Floor Manager held up a finger, indicating that the cast should stay in position, while he listened to his earpiece for instructions from the gallery. He nodded as he took in his orders, no doubt already tactfully rephrasing the Director’s words.
One final vigorous nod. ‘Yes, we’re okay on that. Got the scene. Extras won’t be wanted again till after lunch. Russell, you’ve got a costume change.’
At this signal, the dozen policemen broke ranks. Though they would rather have been called background artistes than extras, they weren’t going to argue. Their more immediate priority was to get to the canteen before the rush. They were a docile breed, content to spend long days over endless cups of coffee waiting for their two minutes of anonymous performance.
Charles Paris looked at where his watch should be and remembered with annoyance that the one provided by Wardrobe didn’t work. His own had been thought too modern for the vaguely thirties setting of the Stanislas Braid series. Still, Charles reckoned the West End Television bar must be open by now. Time for a quick one, surely.
Russell Bentley, however, was set to frustrate such intentions. ‘Oh, come on,’ he complained. ‘We can’t take that scene like that.’
Everyone on the set froze truculently. The star, with the instincts of long experience in television, addressed his remarks to the one camera on whose top a red light glowed, knowing that its output could be seen in the gallery. ‘It was terrible.’
Though he was speaking to the camera, the reply from the Director was relayed through the floor manager’s earpiece. ‘Rick said it was fine, Russell.’
‘But it wasn’t. Camera three certainly wasn’t tight enough on me at the end.’
‘It was fine, and we are rather pushed for time,’ the floor manager assured him, bowdlerising the words that burned in his earpiece.
‘That’s not the point,’ Russell Bentley objected. ‘Look, if the schedule’s too tight, that’s not my problem. All I know is that I’ve got a professional reputation and I’m not going to have it destroyed by slapdash direction.’
The Floor Manager’s long training in keeping a straight face could not totally suppress a wince at the gallery’s reaction to that. He smothered it in a conciliatory smile. ‘Rick says it was really great, and we must move on.’
‘Just take a cutaway of my reaction,’ Russell Bentley bargained, knowing that his suggestion should be quicker than retaking the whole scene. The cutaway would mean recording just the one shot and slotting it in when the scene was edited.
The Floor Manager’s smile was diluted by more vitriol in his earpiece. ‘Rick said it really did look fine,’ he paraphrased inadequately.
‘No, I’m sorry. I refuse to do
the costume change until we get this right.’ The background artistes stirred with uneasy fascination as Russell Bentley became more ‘difficult’.
‘Look, this is the first episode of the series. Already some of the filming has been pretty unsatisfactory, though perhaps it can be tidied up in editing. But you’ve got to understand, the performances we lay down now are the ones we’re going to be stuck with for five more episodes – more, if we go to a second series. So I’m afraid no bloody schedule is going to get in the way of my playing Stanislas Braid as I think he should be played!’
To Charles this sounded a bit rich. If there was one thing Russell Bentley was known for throughout the business, it was the fact that he played every part in exactly the same way – as Russell Bentley. He had started to play Russell Bentley when he was developed as a film star by the Rank ‘Charm School’ and had seen no reason to change the formula when his career developed into television. The idea that it took him time to home in on a new characterisation was incongruous.
But at the same time Charles knew that what was going on was not really a discussion of the character of Stanislas Braid. It was a power struggle between Russell Bentley and the Director, Rick Landor. The star wanted the guidelines for his treatment during the series to be established early on and was prepared to use his considerable experience in manipulation to get his own way. Rick Landor was a relatively new Director, and Russell was determined to break the young man in. They’d already had a set-to on Monday, the first day of filming, and now, on Wednesday, Russell was trying to assert his authority over the studio part of the production, too.
Still, Charles thought, mustn’t complain, just take anything that comes along. After all, he was working, actually contracted till the end of June for a whole television series of six programmes, three months’ highly paid work – when was the last time that had happened to Charles Paris?
Russell Bentley won this round of the struggle. Rick Landor, no doubt deciding that the loss of time promised by further argument was greater than the loss of time involved in taking the single shot, capitulated.
‘Okay, we’ll do the cutaway,’ the Floor Manager relayed, failing to disguise his relief at the end of the skirmish.
As always, such things take longer than they should. The continuity of the characters’ positions and eyelines had to be checked on the recorded tape and the background artistes regrouped exactly as they had been on the first take. Charles Paris had to be moved by millimetres back and forth along his counter. Then Russell Bentley was not happy with his expression in the first two takes of the cutaway. By the time the shot was finally in the can, it would have been quicker to retake the whole scene.
‘Okay, break for coffee there,’ the Floor Manager shouted. He consulted his watch. ‘Back at twenty past eleven.’
Oh, damn, thought Charles, it’s earlier than I thought. Have to wait a while for that drink.
He grinned across to a girl standing at the edge of the set. She, too, was dressed in thirties style: a pastel summer dress, a neat little hat perched on the back of her head, hair corrugated by a perm. But the girlish costume seemed at odds with her dark, almost Italian colouring and the thick sensuality of her lips.
‘Going for a coffee?’ asked Charles, who hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to her much during the previous week of rehearsal and two days of filming and thought he might make up for lost time.
‘Maybe in a while,’ Sippy Stokes replied diffidently.
So Charles went off to the canteen on his own.
The scene in the W.E.T. canteen might have looked bizarre to an outsider, but the people there were used to seeing tables filled with thirties policemen and bright young things in striped blazers from the Stanislas Braid set, exotically crested and mini-skirted dancers from a pop programme in Studio B, along with the usual makeup girls in nylon tabards, PAs in designer leisurewear, shirt-sleeved cameramen, T-shirted scene shifters, and the occasional sharp executive suit.
Charles bought his subsidised cup of coffee and Eccles cake and reflected, not for the first time, on how much he always found himself eating when working in television. It’s all those breaks, he thought, all those oh-so-available subsidised canteens. Even worse when doing the filming – location caterers providing lavish spreads, people who would never normally eat between meals cramming every spare moment with a bacon sandwich. He sometimes wondered whether Wardrobe had problems with long series, constantly having to let out the stars’ waistbands. Though the stars were probably working so hard that they burned it all off. It was the supporting artistes who faced the real hazard of obesity, he concluded as his stomach strained against Sergeant Clump’s belt.
The table he joined was, predictably enough, a theatrical one. A couple of the policeman-extras, who still thought of themselves as actors and were not yet reconciled to a lifetime of ‘background’ work, were sitting there.
Also in uniform, though in his case a grey chauffeur’s uniform, was Jimmy Sheet, who played Stanislas Braid’s faithful driver, Blodd. Though Sheet was now concentrating on acting, the admiring glances of a few secretaries in the canteen reminded Charles that the young man had only recently given up his career as a pop singer.
The others at the table were Will Parton, Mort Verdon, and Tony Rees, the last two Stage Manager and Assistant Stage Manager, respectively. Charles had worked with Mort on a previous W.E.T. series, The Strutters, and appreciated the willowy man’s outrageously camp humour. Tony Rees he didn’t know well, but he had a lot of time for Will Parton, the writer who had adapted most of the Stanislas Braid scripts from the crime novels of W. T. Wintergreen. Will had a good line in cynical repartee, which was responding well to Mort’s contrasting style as Charles joined them.
‘Right, tell me, who’s this an impression of?’ Mort demanded, suddenly erasing all expression from his face and freezing.
‘A zombie?’ Will hazarded.
‘Close, close.’ Mort relaxed. ‘No, that was Russell Bentley looking happy.’
‘Ah, of course.’
‘And this one?’ Mort recomposed his face into exactly the same anonymous pose.
This time Will caught on. ‘Russell Bentley looking sad!’
‘Exactly, boofle,’ Mort agreed. ‘And this morning, of course, we saw Russell Bentley stamping her little foot, didn’t we?’
‘Missed that,’ said Will. ‘I wasn’t in the studio.’
With relish in the telling, Mort supplied the details of the recent conflict.
‘I don’t blame him,’ Will said at the end of the narration, ‘if he’s having problems finding the character. I’ve read every one of the bloody books of W. T. Wintergreen, and dear Stanislas Braid still seems completely cardboard to me.’
‘But then dear Russell is a completely cardboard actor,’ Mort observed judiciously, ‘so it’s actually very good casting.’
‘Which is more than can be said for some of the other casting,’ Jimmy Sheet announced.
Mort cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him. ‘Now who could you mean?’
‘Are you not feeling at home in the role of Blodd yet?’ asked Will.
‘What?’ Jimmy Sheet was instantly on the defensive. ‘Don’t you worry, I can manage it fine. All right, I know I done the singing for a few years, but I started out as an actor. Italia Conti School, all that.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ Will reassured Jimmy. But Charles wondered. Will was very good at needling people in an ambiguous way; he had an infallible knack of homing in on someone’s insecurities.
‘All I was saying,’ Will continued soothingly, ‘is that the lovely W. T. Wintergreen has put almost exactly as much reality into the character of Blodd as she has into dear old Stanislas himself. I don’t envy you playing the part.’
‘Oh, I reckon it’s all right,’ said Jimmy. ‘Not too hard. Way I see him, Blodd’s a sort of fairly chirpy cockney type, you know, good to have around, keeps everyone cheerful. Bit of an eye for the girls, too.’
&nbs
p; Will Parton nodded gravely. ‘I’m glad you see it that way. Because that’s exactly how I’ve written the part.’
Charles caught Will’s eye, and both of them had to look away to avoid giggling. Jimmy Sheet didn’t realise he was being sent up. The character he had described had very little to do with the character of Blodd as written, but it was a very good portrait of how Jimmy Sheet saw himself. Just as Russell Bentley was playing Russell Bentley, so Jimmy Sheet clearly intended to play Jimmy Sheet.
‘Has W.T.W. herself been around today?’ asked Charles diffidently, shifting the subject.
‘She was in the gallery this morning,’ Mort confirmed. ‘With her dear loopy sister.’
‘And they were both poking round the set first thing,’ added Tony Rees in his truculent Welsh voice. ‘Disapproving of all the props and that.’
Will laughed bitterly. ‘How’s Rick bearing up to them?’
‘With difficulty.’
‘I can imagine. I make a solemn vow’ – the writer laid his hand on his heart – ‘that in future I will only adapt the works of dead authors. I cannot stand any more of the genteel interference of people like W.T.W. and Louisa. Why can’t they do what all other writers involved in television do – just take the money, do as they’re told, and shut up?’
The deep cynicism of this reminded Charles of Will’s unsuccessful attempts to be an original playwright and the contempt in which he held his lucrative television contracts.
‘Anyway, I think there’ll be tears before bedtime,’ said Mort Verdon piously. ‘Poor young Rick is not finding life easy between the demands of his ageing star and his extremely aged crime writer.’
‘Not to mention his rather less aged starlet,’ Will threw in casually.
‘Who do you mean?’ asked Charles.
But Jimmy Sheet knew straightaway. With a smile of complicity to Will, he said, ‘That was what I meant about casting.’
‘Ah.’
‘Not the greatest little actress in the world, I’d say.’
‘As an actress, Sippy Stokes is absolute death.’ Then Will added mischievously, ‘And she hasn’t even got the excuse of having been a pop star for the last five years.’
