A Series of Murders

by Simon Brett

  Charles still hadn’t mentioned what lay in the props room to anyone other than Ben Docherty, but the arrival of the policemen alerted everyone on the set to the fact that something was going on. There was much whispering and curious conjecture in Studio A, but though people tried to draw him out, Charles kept his knowledge to himself.

  More real policemen arrived in the studio. There was a confusion of constables as the background artistes milled and gossiped around the fringes of the set. One of the plainclothesmen bustled across to Charles. ‘We’ll be wanting to speak to you in just a minute,’ he said in passing.

  Charles nodded and drifted across toward the props-room door. It was dark behind the flats in this corner of the set. The outline of a uniformed policeman standing guard on the door nodded to Charles. ‘Hello, Sarge,’ it said, seeing the gleam of the stripes and unaware in the dim light of the anachronism of Sergeant Clump’s uniform.

  ‘Hello there,’ said Charles, seeing no reason to disillusion the constable. His actor’s instinct stopped him from using his own voice. If people were going to think he was a policeman, then it was a point of honour for him to sound like a policeman. He automatically homed in on the unimpressed voice he had used as the inspector arriving in Act Three of any number of dire stage thrillers, including the one he had once played in at Colchester, whose title he had mercifully forgotten, though its review from the local paper was burned ineradicably into his memory: ‘I have been more thrilled by an attack of shingles than I was at any point during last night’s performance.’

  At that moment, the props-room door opened, and a harassed-looking face peered out. ‘Could you give me a hand?’ it appealed.

  ‘Sorry, Doctor. Got to stay on guard,’ said the constable.

  ‘What about you, Sergeant?’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Charles Paris equably, and followed the doctor to the scene of the crime.

  ‘Just need some help moving the shelves out of the way.’

  Amid the debris, the heavy shelves still pinioned the late Sippy Stokes to the ground. Charles tried not to look at the crumpled body, but even if he’d closed his eyes, he knew its disturbing imprint would still be on his mind.

  ‘Should we be moving anything, though?’ he asked, mindful of the minimal knowledge he had of scene-of-the-crime procedure.

  ‘It’s all right. The photographers have been,’ said the doctor.

  They took one side each and heaved the wooden frame back up into position with difficulty.

  ‘God, no one would stand much chance with this lot landing on top of them, would they?’

  ‘No,’ the doctor agreed grimly. ‘Mind you, I don’t think it was the shelves that did the damage.’

  ‘What, you mean she was dead before they fell?’ In his excitement Charles used his own voice, but fortunately the doctor did not seem to notice the lapse.

  ‘Seconds before, maybe,’ he replied. ‘It looks as if it was a blow to the back of the head that killed her. The weight of the shelves just made sure.’

  ‘So . . . you reckon someone hit her?’ the sergeant asked, safely back in his sergeant’s voice.

  The doctor gave Charles a sardonic look. ‘I wouldn’t say that, no. Sorry to puncture your fantasies of a nice juicy murder, Sergeant. No, I think it’s more likely that some thing hit her.’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  The doctor gave a shrug that encompassed all the confusion of props that lay around. ‘Take your pick. A lot of these items would have been heavy enough. Look, there’s blood on the corner of that cash register . . . and on that fire screen . . . and on those kitchen scales . . . Just a matter of finding the piece whose outline matches the dent in the poor kid’s head.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that you reckon something fell off the shelves before the shelves themselves fell down?’

  ‘As I said, seconds before. No, I should think the shelves were loaded so as to be top-heavy. They started to topple . . . As they did so, various items slipped off . . . and it was one of those items that hit her on the head a split second before she got the full weight of the shelves on her.’

  ‘But what would have made the shelves fall down?’

  This prompted another shrug from the doctor. ‘Who can say? Maybe they were just badly stacked. Maybe the girl was fingering something, trying to pull something out . . . I don’t know. All I do know is that West End Television is going to face a very big claim for compensation.’

  ‘And you really don’t think there’s any suspicion of foul play?’

  ‘Come on, Sergeant. Accidents happen. I don’t know, I haven’t done a detailed examination yet, but I’d have thought foul play was extremely unlikely.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charles, and the disappointment must have showed in his voice, because the doctor went on: ‘For heaven’s sake, man, stop being so ridiculous. You sound as if you wish there was a murder. You don’t sound like a professional policeman at all.’

  ‘Good heavens. Don’t I?’ asked Sergeant Clump of the Little Breckington Police Station.

  Chapter Four

  WHEN, ON THE DOT of six, the plugs were pulled in Studio A, everyone felt that it had been a long day. During the lunch break, the news of Sippy Stokes’s death had spread throughout the Stanislas Braid production team, then throughout W.E.T. House, and finally, through the medium of the press and radio, to the outside world.

  Ben Docherty, having had his customary alcoholic top-up at lunch-time, insisted belligerently on continuing recording through the afternoon, though it might have been more appropriate to cancel out of respect for the dead. Or respect for the living, come to that. Everyone on the set was upset by the fact of a death in the studio, though some seemed to be taking it worse than others. Rick Landor, in particular, looked shattered when he heard the news, and though he struggled gamely through the afternoon’s recording, he went through the motions like an automaton.

  It wasn’t an easy afternoon’s recording, anyway. They kept starting to rehearse scenes, only to grind to a halt when someone realised that Stanislas Braid’s daughter, Christina, should have made an appearance in them. And Russell Bentley kept averring that there was no point in recording any more, anyway, because everything they’d already done would have to be scrapped when Sippy’s part was recast. Charles couldn’t help noticing that the star made these pronouncements with considerable relish. For Russell Bentley, Sippy Stokes’s death was unadulterated good news.

  In fact, it was striking how, throughout all the ranks of the production team, though everyone was suffering from shock, no one showed much sign of grief or regret. In her brief time working on Stanislas Braid, Sippy Stokes had not made many friends.

  Charles Paris’s name would never appear in The Guinness Book of Records, but that was only because there is no section in that work for the event called ‘Getting out of Costume and into the Nearest Bar’. At the end of that studio day, however, he performed another Personal Best and was draped over a large Bell’s before most of his fellow artistes had even made it to their dressing rooms.

  Of course, he couldn’t expect to compete with the production crew, who did not have the handicap of costumes and were halfway down their first pints of lager before he arrived in the W. E.T. bar.

  Nor could he compete with a writer. Will Parton had already downed his first glass of dry white and willingly accepted Charles’s offer of a refill.

  ‘So,’ said Will, raising his glass, ‘farewell, then, Sippy Stokes.’

  ‘Farewell indeed,’ Charles responded, shuddering slightly as the image of her body once again flashed up on the screen of his mind.

  ‘One more unwanted person vanished into the Great Void. Prompting once again the Universal Question: What does it all mean?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what it means, Charles. It means what it always means in television – more bloody rewrites!’

  ‘Oh, but surely they won’t need to change the scripts?’

  ‘
They always need to change the scripts – first rule of television. At least they don’t always need to change the scripts, but they always insist on changing the scripts. Producers and script editors would feel they were failing in their God-given mission if they accepted a script in its original form. I tell you, if I delivered Hamlet to this lot, they’d come back to me with a great pile of notes. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if he was a bit more decisive? And there aren’t really many laughs, are there? And couldn’t you combine the parts of Rosencrantz and Guildernstern? Seems rather a waste to have two of them, doesn’t it, because they both serve the same function? And could we cut the scene in the graveyard? Well, you know how expensive film is, and it doesn’t really seem to add much. And as for that ending – well, talk about downbeat. Can’t you liven it up a bit?’

  Charles chuckled. ‘I take your point. Was that the sort of meeting you had this morning?’ Will looked at him, uncomprehending. ‘This morning, when Ben and Dilly dragged you out of the canteen?’

  ‘Oh, then. No, actually that one didn’t materialise. Soon as we got outside the canteen, Ben, with typical resolution, remembered there was something else he should be doing. But don’t worry, the meeting is only postponed. More rewrites will still be wanted.’

  ‘I still don’t see why you’ll have to rewrite just because someone new’s taking over the part of Christina.’

  ‘I’m sure I will have to, though. The new person they get will be totally different from Sippy, that I can guarantee.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, this time I should think they’d get an actress.’

  ‘God, I set that up for you perfectly, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, Charles. Thank you very much – feed lines always appreciated.’

  Charles grinned. But he felt uncomfortable. He had some atavistic inhibition about speaking ill of the dead. Though his opinion of Sippy Stokes’s acting abilities hadn’t changed from that morning, it seemed somehow wrong to be making such comments now.

  ‘Anyway,’ Will went on moodily, ‘even if they don’t want the later scripts totally rewritten – which they almost definitely will – I’ve still got a lot to do on the first one, particularly now.’

  ‘What, the one we’ve been doing today?’

  ‘Yes. “The Brass Candlestick Murder”.’ The writer put a world of contempt into his enunciation of W. T. Wintergreen’s title.

  ‘But surely we’ll just scrap everything that Sippy recorded and redo those scenes with a new actress?’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. Oh, no, if Ben Docherty can see a way of saving a few bob, then who cares how much extra work the mere writer has to do?’

  ‘You mean he’s intending to use the scenes with Sippy in them?’

  ‘Yes. Not a business famous for its sentimentality, television. No, dear warm-hearted Ben will salvage every last inch of tape he can. Anything rather than retaking the lot. So my latest directive this afternoon is to assemble a new jigsaw from the scenes we’ve already recorded and find some “really plausible explanation” – I quote Dilly Muirfield’s words – for the fact that Stanislas Braid’s adored and irreproachable daughter, Christina, suddenly vanishes out of the second half of the story.’

  ‘But that’ll cock up the continuity into the next episode, surely? I mean, you can’t have a completely different actress suddenly appearing as the same character.’

  ‘Don’t worry, the superbrains of the Stanislas Braid production team have come up with a way round that. In episode two, “The Italian Stiletto Murder”, because Christina is still away, Stanislas Braid’s other daughter, Elvira, suddenly returns from her finishing school in Switzerland.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Not really. Not by the standards of the medium. Remember, Charles, we are working in television.’

  ‘But what would W. T. Wintergreen say to her precious hero suddenly developing another daughter?’

  ‘She has not as yet been consulted on this point. And when she is, scream and kick though she may – and scream and kick though her loopy sister Louisa may – W.E.T. will have their way with them. Stanislas Braid will sprout a second daughter.’

  ‘Writers must have more control of what happens to their books than that.’

  ‘Depends what it says in the contract. And knowing W.E.T.’s Contracts Department, I should think they’ve sewn up the Stanislas Braid property in every way, right down to the merchandising of Stanislas Braid “His ‘n’ Her” Bath Mats.’

  Charles shook his head in what he would have liked to be disbelief. But it wasn’t – oh no, he found Will’s words all too believable.

  ‘Charles, in television and film the concept of writers having “control” just does not exist. Never forget the old Hollywood story of the starlet who was so dumb she slept with the writer.’

  Charles laughed and accepted Will’s offer of another drink. He felt like quite a few drinks that evening. He wanted to go to bed with a mind anaesthetised to images of crushed and crumpled bodies.

  After a long swallow of Bell’s, he asked, ‘And is that really for real? The business about Elvira? They really want you to do it?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to end up writing one-liners for David Frost. Yes, it really is true.’

  ‘But how on earth can you do it?’

  ‘I’m a television writer,’ Will asserted with a deep cynicism. ‘They pay me, I do it.’

  ‘Well, I don’t envy you that task.’

  ‘Introducing Elvira in ep. two?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve already done it.’

  ‘Done it? But Sippy only died this morning. You couldn’t have had time.’

  ‘I may not be the greatest writer on earth,’ said Will Parton, affecting an American Drawl, ‘but I sure is the quickest.’ Then, in response to Charles’s continuing expression of puzzlement, he went on: ‘No, actually, I did those rewrites a few days back.’

  ‘But what . . .? Why?’ Charles was at a loss. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Then I will explain it to you. I was sworn to secrecy over this, but quite honestly, now that Sippy’s dead, I don’t see that any harm can be done by telling you. The fact is, as we have all observed, to call Sippy Stokes an actress was an offence under the Trades Description Act.’

  Once again Charles winced inwardly at this attack on the dead girl.

  ‘Well, even Ben Docherty, through his post-meridian alcoholic haze, couldn’t help noticing that she had about as much talent as a bar of soap. In fact, when he saw the rushes of the first few days’ filming, he knew a monumental blunder had been made. It was then that he made the decision she would have to be replaced, so Dilly Muirfield summoned me to a meeting, which witnessed the birth of Elvira and her wonderful finishing school.’

  ‘But just a minute – if Sippy was that bad, why didn’t Ben just sack her and recast for the first episode?’

  ‘What, and waste three days’ filming? Anyway, all the rest of the cast were contracted. It’d be an expensive write-off. And then they’d have to find dates to make another episode, and Russell Bentley’s availability gets sticky after the end of this contract.’

  ‘Ah . . . So did Sippy know she was about to be dumped?’

  ‘Oh, no. Ben’s thinking was that if she knew, there was a danger she might think, Stuff this lot, and not turn up for the remaining studio days.’

  ‘No professional actress would do that. She might be seething with fury, but she’d still turn up.’

  ‘Well, that was Ben Docherty’s estimate of the situation.’

  ‘So when was she going to be told?’

  ‘Ah, this was to be the masterpiece of television diplomacy. At the end of the final studio day on this episode.’

  ‘The day after tomorrow?’

  ‘Right. At the end of the day, when Sippy fell, utterly knackered, into her dressingroom, she would be confronted by the show’s CastingDirector.’

  ‘Ben not even d
oing his own dirty work?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. Anyway, the Casting Director would then tell the poor kid that in spite of the fact that she’d been contracted for all six episodes, she was being paid off then and there.’

  ‘Quite a substantial payoff. She’d get everything she’d been contracted for, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, it’d be a decent lump sum. Still peanuts, though, from Ben’s point of view, compared with writing off the whole episode.’

  ‘Yes,’ Charles mused aloud. Then a new thought struck him. ‘But lots of people round the production must’ve known. I mean, the read-through for the next episode’s on Monday. They must have cast the part of Elvira by now.’

  ‘Oh, yes. They have.’

  ‘So that poor kid would have been busting a gut, trying to act for three whole days, without knowing that she’d already been written off?’

  ‘That would have been the situation, yes. Oh, indeedy, if it’s humanity you’re after, why not join the wacky world of television?’

  ‘Shit. Well, at least she was spared the interview with the Casting Director.’

  ‘Yes, I should think the Casting Director’s feeling pretty relieved, too.’

  ‘Hmm. And you’re sure she didn’t have an inkling of what was going on?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘What about Rick? Did he know?’

  ‘I’m fairly sure he didn’t, either.’

  ‘But he must have got a copy of the new script for episode two, mustn’t he?’

  ‘No. Different director for that one. Remember, Rick’s only directing alternate episodes so that he can catch up on post-production.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Charles was silent for a moment before saying thoughtfully, ‘The one question all this does raise is how on earth Sippy was ever given the part in the first place.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Will Parton. ‘Now that’s something I think Rick Landor might know.’