A Series of Murders

by Simon Brett

‘Well, you know I found his body.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. Seem to be making rather a habit of that at the moment, don’t you?’

  ‘Mm. Mort, I shouldn’t have done this, but before I went to get help, I checked through Tony’s pockets.’

  ‘Macabre thing to do.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it was a bit. Anyway, your schedule wasn’t there.’

  ‘Oh, well, as I say, I’m not about to make a great fuss.’

  ‘No. I also looked through Tony’s bag on the coach . . . You know, before the police came to take it away.’

  ‘Quite the little Sergeant Clump, aren’t we?’ murmured Mort, echoing Will’s words.

  ‘Yes. Thing is, your schedule wasn’t in his bag either.’

  ‘Well, Charles, boofle, I don’t think we have to alert Interpol straightaway, do we? It is, after all, only a few photocopied sheets we’re talking about. Tony might have dropped it, he might have shoved it in a litter bin, could be anywhere. Don’t worry, I’ll get another one before we start rehearsing that episode.’

  ‘Yes, yes, fine. Well, thanks, Mort.’

  ‘No problem. And don’t forget, Charles, if you wake up in the night feeling a little queer, you’ve got my room number.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll bear it in mind.’

  Charles put the phone down and looked out pensively into the murk beyond the windowpane.

  The telephone trilled, and he picked it up again.

  ‘It’s Will. I’ve finished the sodding thing. Let’s have that drink. Pick me up on the way.

  ‘Come in. It’s on the latch.’

  Charles obeyed Will’s instructions and went into his room. The writer was scribbling a note on a blank sheet of paper. His portable printer was rattling out the rewritten scene. It stopped. With practised ease, Will Parton tore off the perforated strips on the sheets and shuffled them neatly into order.

  ‘This one’s for Russell, since he’s the one who, in theory, has to learn the stuff. I’ll do copies for Ben and Rick later. I’m parched.’

  With satisfaction he put the note on top of the pile of sheets.

  ‘DEAR RUSSELL,’ Charles read, ‘HERE’S THE REWRITE. YOU CANT COMPLAIN NOW. ALL CLEANED UP. NO ONE COULD IMAGINE IN THEIR WILDEST FANTASIES THAT THERE WAS ANYTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STANISLAS BRAID AND CHRISTINA. YOURS, WILL.’

  ‘Are you going to give it to him now?’

  ‘No,’ said Will. ‘I’ll drop it into his room later. Don’t want to get involved in discussions about how the part of Russell Bentley should be played at this precise moment. My first priority is a drink. Come on.’ At the door he asked, ‘And you’re certain you’re not going to be drinking tonight?’

  ‘Certain,’ said Charles.

  They stayed in the bar most of the evening. Charles survived one round on Perrier, but then he reasoned that he really did need a large Bell’s. That afternoon a sudden death had once again stopped him when he was about to have a drink. And he was in a serious state of shock after finding Tony Rees’s body.

  There was only one interruption in his evening’s drinking. After they had been in the bar for about an hour, he was paged by Reception. There was a telephone call for him.

  It was Maurice. Calling back with the dirt. Charles spent ten minutes in the phone booth by Reception scribbling furiously in a notebook. All interesting stuff. Then he went back to continue drinking.

  ‘Really must get that script to Russell,’ said Will at the end of the evening as they tottered toward his room.

  He fumbled with the key, but as he leaned against the door, it gave and opened inward. ‘Stupid twit. Must have forgotten to lock it.’

  They stumbled into the room. Will looked at the empty table with an expression of puzzlement.

  ‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘Someone’s taken my rewrite.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE NEXT MORNING the weather seemed little improved, so there was no chance of picking up the summery scenes in Corfe Castle. But since the precedent of a misty seascape had already been established the previous afternoon, the decision was made to shoot as much of the seashore stuff as possible on Durlston Head. The W.E.T. coaches therefore drove through Swanage and up out of the town to the location. Tony Rees’s death had put a damper on everyone’s spirits; there was no sign of the hilarity of previous coach trips.

  The location caterers were already set up in the car park when the coaches arrived, and many of the crew, who had only half an hour before finished large hotel breakfasts, immediately tucked into their first bacon sandwiches of the day.

  By this time the weather did look rather more promising. Every now and then the clouds parted to admit a few frames of watery sunshine. The cameraman began to look as optimistic as the lugubrious traditions of his trade allowed.

  Ben Docherty urged Rick Landor on to get the morning’s filming finished as quickly as possible. If they could have all the Durlston Head stuff in the can before lunch and if the weather continued its promising trend, there would be a reasonable chance of getting the outstanding Corfe Castle scenes done in the afternoon. In spite of deaths and climatic disasters, the Producer was still determined to get his series made in time. The thought of having to spend another day in Dorset was too awful to contemplate. The next day’s rest day was obligatory by union rules, so if that got moved on, all the studio bookings would have to be shifted. The cumulative effects over the series didn’t bear thinking of. Even overrunning on that day’s schedule offered the direful prospect of overtime payments. The Producer tried, unsuccessfully, to disguise his panic as efficiency.

  The disappearing rewrite of the night before had not been explained, but fortunately the text was on the memory of Will’s lap-top, and he had been just sober enough to get it to print up other copies. Everyone seemed happy with the changes. Russell Bentley, in particular, was effusive in his praise of the writer’s efforts. He still couldn’t remember Will’s name, but he did enthuse, ‘You’ve done frightfully well, old boy. Must get you writing something else for me.’

  The scene that had caused all the fuss was a tense little moment of drama in which Stanislas Braid and Christina appeared to be trapped on a cliff-top ledge with no hope of escape. In the W. T. Wintergreen version they took this as an opportunity to tell the depth of their feelings for each other. Will Parton’s rewrite had changed it to something altogether more jokey. The affection was still there, but masked in a kind of flippant bravado.

  The new scene, however, was not scheduled for shooting till later in the morning. First, a few laborious moments of Sergeant Clump and Blodd had to be filmed as they wandered in panic along the cliff path, looking for the missing detective and his daughter. These scenes were very short – Blodd rushing into shot and saying something like ‘No sign of them,’ then rushing out of shot, to be followed seconds later by a ponderously puffing Sergeant Clump – but there were long pauses between them as Rick Landor and the cameraman tried to find new vantage points and angles along the cliff path.

  In one of these breaks Charles took the opportunity of checking Jimmy Sheet’s reaction to the death of Tony Rees. ‘Dreadful business yesterday, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What’s that, then?’ asked the former pop star.

  ‘Tony.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Jimmy Sheet grinned unpleasantly. ‘Don’t think anyone’ll miss him.’

  ‘No, I gather he had his less pleasant qualities,’ Charles prompted.

  ‘Huh. You can say that again. Nasty bit of work. No secret was safe when you got someone like that around.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Still, he isn’t around, so that’s no longer a problem, is it?’

  ‘Did you find it a problem?’

  Jimmy Sheet gave Charles a hard look. ‘What’s that to you?’

  ‘Just wondered.’

  ‘Well, I’d advise you to stop wondering. Tony Rees is dead, and from my point of view that’s the best thing that could have happened to him.’
<
br />   ‘How do you think it did happen?’

  Jimmy Sheet looked Charles straight in the eyes with insolent self-assurance. ‘He fell, didn’t he?’

  They got the searching of the cliff path filmed, and Charles’s scenes were finished. Needless to say, Sergeant Clump was not bright enough actually to find the missing detective. No, as ever, he was baffled. It was Stanislas Braid’s own ingenuity that got him out of this particular fix. As it did out of every other fix in which he found himself.

  But although his work was done, Charles had no alternative but to stay around the location. No transport would be going back into Swanage until the Durlston Head scenes were finished, and he didn’t fancy walking five miles.

  So he sat on one of the stone benches thoughtfully placed for sightseers to look out over Durlston Bay. The weather was continuing to improve and, although leaden clouds hung like a Roman blind over the horizon, he could get some impression of the beauties of the Isle of Purbeck’s coastline.

  He looked up to see Ben Docherty approaching. The Producer sat down beside him and said with a nervous grin, ‘All done?’

  Charles nodded. He reached into his raincoat pocket and pulled out the half bottle of Bell’s. Though its seal had been broken, the contents were still intact. ‘Fancy a drop?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say no,’ said Ben. ‘Bit nippy.’

  Charles wondered how he could broach the subject of Tony Rees’s death but was saved the trouble, because Ben Docherty did it for him. ‘That business yesterday, Charles . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The A.S.M..’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘You found him, didn’t you?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I mean, you found him? He was there when you got there? You didn’t see him fall?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  The answer seemed to please Ben Docherty, who nodded slowly. ‘The police talked to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t gather from them what they thought had happened?’

  ‘Police never give much away, do they?’

  ‘No, no,’ the Producer agreed slowly. But his mind was still not at rest. ‘And there’s no talk round the cast?’ he asked diffidently.

  ‘Talk about what?’

  ‘Well, about Tony’s death.’

  ‘Obviously everyone’s talking about it, but’ – time for a bit of tactical obtuseness – ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what you mean.’

  ‘I just mean, Charles, nobody’s sort of suggesting, you know, like maybe the death wasn’t an accident?’

  ‘I haven’t heard anyone say that,’ said Charles. Which was true enough. Present company, of course, excepted.

  ‘Good,’ said Ben Docherty. ‘Good.’

  Thermoses of coffee were brought from the caterers’ van. ‘Can we make it a short break?’ Rick Landor pleaded. ‘Just ten minutes. We’re doing well, but we’ve still got a lot to do.’

  Charles, feeling rather dozy after his whisky with Ben Docherty, accepted a cup of coffee. Rick also had one, which he downed in three nervous gulps. ‘Getting there, getting there,’ the Director said.

  ‘The studio stuff’s relatively straightforward this week, isn’t it?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Not too bad. Should be simpler than the last one I did, anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on, Charles, you remember what it was like. I’m glad I wasn’t the one to have to do the dirty deed, but it’s a great relief to have had W. T. Wintergreen banned from the premises. She didn’t make that week easy for me.’

  ‘And then, of course,’ said Charles casually, ‘there was Sippy Stokes.’

  ‘Yes, yes, there was.’ The director was silent for a moment. ‘Sounds dreadful to say it, but I’m afraid this episode’ll be a lot easier without her around.’

  ‘Oh, but I thought she was your casting.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she was. I mean, I put through the booking, but I was under pressure.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Sippy herself. Doesn’t do to speak ill of the dead, but I’m afraid she was a nasty bit of work.’

  ‘Weren’t you lovers, though?’

  ‘Yes, we were. But I’d tried to break it off many times. She wouldn’t let me. The trouble was, she knew things about me which – well, things that could have got me into quite a bit of bother.’

  Yes, thought Charles, remembering the information that Maurice had supplied him with the night before. Something to do with your cocaine habit, perhaps?

  But he said nothing as Rick Landor continued, ‘Anyway, giving Sippy the part of Christina was a kind of once-and-for-all payoff.’

  ‘She blackmailed you into casting her?’

  ‘That’s what it amounted to, yes. It was a habit she had, one of her less endearing habits.’

  ‘Hmm. Do you think she tried the same trick with Jimmy Sheet? You know, threatened to tell his wife after they’d been out together?’

  ‘Let’s say it wouldn’t have been out of character if she had.’

  ‘I see.’

  They gazed out over the sea. It was almost blue. The dark clouds were moving away to the west. It looked as though they would get all the Corfe Castle summer scenes safely done that afternoon.

  ‘Bad luck, really,’ said Charles, ‘having two blackmailers in the same production.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was a bit of a sideline for Tony Rees, too, I gather.’

  Rick Landor abruptly looked at his watch. ‘Got to get on,’ he mumbled. ‘Check out the eyelines we’ve got on the next set-up.’ And he moved away.

  Charles stayed looking out over the sea. He didn’t seem to have progressed far in his search for the killer of Sippy Stokes. Or the killer of Tony Rees, come to that. He felt certain that the two deaths were linked, almost certain that the same person had perpetrated both.

  Jimmy Sheet . . . Ben Docherty . . . Rick Landor . . . Each one of them had a secret to hide. A secret Tony Rees might easily have found out about. Each one of them was a potential suspect.

  And of course there was one other potential suspect involved in that morning’s filming on Durlston Head.

  He found Russell Bentley sitting in a folding chair, a white towel tucked bib-like around his neck, while a makeup girl tried to make him look like a man who has just fallen off a cliff and clawed his way back up to it to find his beloved daughter stranded on a ledge.

  The makeup girl’s job was not an easy one. While Russell wanted to look authentically battered, he didn’t want any marks on him that might be deemed disfiguring. A discreet scratch along the temple was fine, so was a bruise on the cheekbone, but he wouldn’t tolerate anything that spoiled the shape of his nose or the outline of his jaw.

  The makeup girl did her best to meet these exacting conditions. She had the tools of her trade on a little tray propped up on a stand beside her. Bottles and cakes of various flesh tones. Liner pencils. Spirit gum. Brushes and sponges. A bottle of Arterial Blood to authenticate the scratches. She did not look up from her task as Charles approached.

  ‘Russell . . .’ he began.

  The star squinted up into the sun. ‘Oh, hello, er . . .’ Once again the name escaped him.

  ‘Pity about Tony Rees, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Who?’ But the star knew; Charles could see it in his eyes. Russell Bentley was just using his notorious amnesia for names to play for time.

  ‘You know. The one who died up at the castle yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Tragic business.’ The sentiment was automatic; there was no hint of real emotion in his voice.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Charles. ‘It seems he was a nasty piece of work, though.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know him at all.’

  ‘Apparently he was the kind of person who would find out secrets about people, secrets they very definitely wanted kept quiet, and then he would make the people pay for his silence.’

  ‘W
ould he? I don’t really see what this has to do with me.’

  ‘No.’ Charles allowed a few seconds’ silence. ‘You got your way over the rewrite, then?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The scene with Christina. The one you’re about to film.’

  ‘Yes. Well, it does make the whole relationship much more relaxed. And less emotionally charged. I mean, they are father and daughter, after all.’

  ‘Yes, and you have your reputation in television to consider.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Wouldn’t do for the public to think Russell Bentley was the kind of man to be involved in incest.’

  ‘No.’ The star held up a cautionary hand to the makeup girl, who was poised with her brush and bottle of Arterial Blood at the ready. ‘Not too much of that stuff. Don’t want to look like Rocky IV.’

  ‘Or,’ Charles persisted, ‘the kind of man to be involved with underage girls.’

  A new light came into Russell Bentley’s eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Some parties back in the early sixties. Involving people working on a film called The Hawk’s Prey.’

  From the expression on Russell Bentley’s face Charles knew that, as ever, Maurice Skellern’s information had been correct.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the star lied, trying to bluster his way out.

  ‘Oh, I think you do. And I think Tony Rees also knew what I was talking about.’

  ‘Nonsense. I’m certainly not going to –’

  But the star never said what he was certainly not going to do. There was the sound of a gunshot from somewhere behind Charles. He saw the shock on Russell Bentley’s face at the sight of the red stain spreading over the towel that covered his throat; there was more expression there at the moment than the star had ever shown in his portrayal of Stanislas Braid.

  As Russell Bentley slumped back in his chair and the makeup girl screamed, Charles turned and started up the hillside toward the clump of trees where the gunshot had come from. Brambles snatched at the blue serge of Sergeant Clump’s uniform; branches of shrubs slashed at him as he thundered forward. He pushed aside the branches of a tree and suddenly stopped dead.

  In front of him stood someone with a bewildered look and a gun.