Wrong Turnings

by John Burke

  One autumn evening while the Morgans were staying with them, Stuart ran over a cyclist, who lost one arm as a result and suffered severe brain damage from the impact. The police breathalyser and urine test showed him to be more than twice over the limit. Stuart pleaded guilty to driving dangerously while under the influence of drink. The only mitigation he offered, apart from that admission, was that he and his wife had been arguing and that he had allowed himself to take his eyes off the road. Carol Morgan confirmed this, though neither of them wished to go into any detail about the argument. Stuart expressed deep regret about the injuries to the young cyclist. He was sentenced to two years in prison, a fine of two thousand pounds, and banned from driving for five years.

  He was released from prison after eighteen months. In his absence from the furniture company he had been replaced, and it was made clear that he would not be welcome back.

  His old friend Peter insisted that of course he and Anna must come to the rescue.

  There was a workshop behind the craft shop in Balmuir village, and a flat above it. Peter had used the workshop mainly as a store-room for sorting out things for the shop and doing odd little deals to round up props for Balmuir Productions, based in the big house above its one-time farm. Now he was insistent that his old mate Stuart and Stuart’s wife should leave Edinburgh and move into the flat, and Stuart should have the use of the workshop.

  Through Peter’s father, Stuart was fed enough commissions for film and television set design and construction to support his own creative work. And Peter was only too glad to handle the business side of all this on his friend’s behalf.

  It was only later that Anna cringed at her own gullibility. Wasn’t Peter’s eagerness not just part of the old pals’ act but also had an element of guilt feeling? Guilt because in Stuart’s enforced absence, Peter had been going frequently to Edinburgh and having it off with poor, lonely Carol Morgan. Had it in fact all begun before that, and could that have been what Stuart and Carol were arguing about, the evening of the accident?

  And with Stuart temporarily out of the way, how tempting it had been to have her on her own in Edinburgh, needing sympathy.

  After Stuart’s release and their move into the workshop flat, Carol was conveniently even closer. Then came the second crash. Again Carol was involved, this time not in the car with her husband but with Peter. And this time there were no court appearances save for witnesses at the coroner’s inquest. Both had been killed outright when Peter’s Astra came off the road on the way back from Girvan.

  And what had they been doing in Girvan? In which sleazy hotel?

  The past was suddenly so vivid and immediate that Anna had to blink away the pictures that blurred her view of the road, and slow down while she dragged herself back into the present and headed for the solid reality of Balmuir Lodge.

  If Brunner really was going to leave, he was bound to take the indispensable Alec with him. But what about the rest of them?

  ‘If we’re going to get chucked out in the cold,’ Stuart was saying in the seat beside her, ‘we may as well keep each other warm.’

  *

  Anna swung in behind the wing allocated to Alec and Queenie. ‘Tradesmen’s entrance,’ she said, getting quickly out of the car and opening the side door of the house so that Stuart could lug his bits and pieces in.

  Lesley Torrance was in the small side lobby, chatting to Alec. She nodded politely and glanced at the items Stuart was taking out of his bag and lining up on the shelf just inside the door. Suddenly something caught her eye. She leaned over the small box with elaborate marquetry in its lid.

  ‘That’s a nice piece. It’s one of those trick cigarette boxes, isn’t it? Russian, beginning of the century?’

  ‘A copy,’ said Stuart. ‘All my own work,’ he added, his voice unusually shrill and would-be facetious.

  Anna wondered if he was sensitive about the quality of his craftsmanship, and sensing some sneer from an expert like Lesley Torrance, which she had surely never intended.

  ‘A copy? There aren’t many originals left.’

  ‘Chet saw one in an exhibition somewhere, and of course it was just what he wanted for some gimmick in one of his murder games. Fortunately I had a print of it from somewhere.’

  He snatched up the box and another small wooden carving, and hurried off through the connecting door into the hall. Anna followed, with Lesley on her heels. As if he had been waiting for an audience to appreciate his thunderous entrance, Chet Brunner stormed in on his way from the phone. He was wearing bright blue slacks and a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, one hairy brown arm displaying a gold torc, the other a Rolex watch.

  ‘Stupid bloody woman. She’s done it again. Pranged it again.’

  They waited, silent, for him to deliver his next line. ‘Jilly-Jo. Stupid bitch. Pranged the Merc again. But this time I’ve no intention of driving all the way to Glasgow to fetch her. I’ve told her to find her way to the station and catch a train.’ He looked past the two women, and bellowed over their shoulders. ‘Alec, you there? Look, take the Alfa and pick her up at Brawhill, there’s a good fellow.’

  ‘A train?’ said Anna. ‘On a Sunday?’

  Alec came through the door. ‘There are only the two now, I think.’

  ‘All right, check on it before you go. She’s got plenty of time to catch that one that gets to Brawhill around five o’clock. We’ve picked guests up there before now.’

  ‘But —’

  Brunner cut him short, and when Stuart came through to say he had brought the things required, Brunner waved him aside, too. ‘Oh, dump them somewhere, I’ll get round to them later.’

  There was a small knot of guests in the far corner of the hall, two of them sitting down and making desultory stabs at a Sunday crossword. A few others looked at a loose end, vaguely resentful. Georgina and an awkwardly worshipful middle-aged man were drinking after-lunch coffee which must be thoroughly chilled by now.

  Mr and Mrs Godolphin crossed the floor arm in arm, like partners about to embark on some old-time dancing the moment the music started.

  Felicity Godolphin said plaintively: ‘Mr Brunner, we did think you’d have another little mystery for us by now.’

  ‘What? Oh, of course. Look, let me have a look at a few props, and we’ll get down to another session just as soon as . . . well, let’s say half an hour from now.’

  Anna wondered how anyone could fail to see that he had completely lost interest in this particular line, and was now thrown off course by other ideas rolling across his mind. Had Stuart’s rumours been well founded?

  Suddenly it began to grow darker outside — a darkness that came seeping into the room like a black flood under and around the window frames. There was a distant roll of thunder, then a loud clap much closer. After a long moment’s gap of stillness there came a faint hiss which exploded into a wild lashing of rain against the window.

  ‘Oh, hell, that does it.’ Brunner looked almost cheerful. This was a perfect excuse for him to drop any idea of outdoor activities. ‘That really messes up what I had in mind. Quite impossible in this weather.’ Another great drum-roll of thunder hammered into the room. ‘That’s the trouble with Scotland, you know. Can’t rely on the weather. Mucked up more than one of my film projects.’

  ‘It’s a wonder you don’t pack up and leave.’ It was the dry resentful voice of young Harry Jardine, whose willingness to attend these games had baffled Anna from the start.

  ‘Love to see me out of the way, Harry?’ Brunner spread his arms as if to draw all his guests into a jolly embrace. ‘Well, this settles it. I tell you what we’ll do. I’ll show you a true crime story. The real thing. The video of one of my most successful campaigns. And I’d appreciate your comments afterwards.’

  Anna and Lesley Torrance exchanged glances. Anna was sure that the same thought had occurred to both of them. Having been told that Ronnie Waterman was on the loose, Brunner wanted to defy him, re-live his old triumph, reassure himself and a captive audience
that he was still top dog.

  ‘Lesley, you’ve never seen the sort of thing Nick and I used to produce together, have you?’ He spread his arms again to encompass the rest of the party. ‘Such distinguished guests to add to the distinguished guests I’ve already assembled, hey? I think they should have the privilege of sharing the memories of our collaboration, eh, Nick?’

  ‘If it’s the Waterman tape you’re going to show,’ said Nick Torrance, ‘I didn’t provide the backing music for that.’

  ‘Didn’t you? Oh, hell, so you didn’t. But anyway it gives a pretty good idea of the general shape of things we sewed together, between us.’

  Before anyone could object, he began shepherding them into the viewing room beyond the library.

  The video was one of a series. It reminded Anna of a successful TV real crime series which had run for years. But then, that was Brunner’s forte — like his Murdermind series on the screen and his adaptation of the format here for his paying guests, and a brief series he had recently produced about restoring antiques and faking them. Taking somebody else’s existing success and twisting it to his own ends. Never too close to risk any action for copyright infringement. There had been his Financial Boom and Bust series, spin-offs from which had been a big success in the States and in Germany. Alec had wearily told her of so many shabby operations of this kind.

  ‘Poor little Waterman,’ Brunner was booming. ‘Thought he was such a big shot in his day. Reckoned without me, though.’ As the room lights dimmed, he added: ‘I don’t think the poor little shit carries any clout any more.’

  Letters swirling on to the screen formed themselves into a name filling the entire space: BRUNNER PRODUCTIONS INTERNATIONAL. Another roll of thunder outside was over-powered by thundering drumbeats, and then a tattoo of gunshots.

  Chet Brunner looked proudly along the row of faces in his audience, silently exhorting them to be impressed by what they saw and heard.

  Chapter Seven

  Nick was aware of a faint sniffle of contempt every few minutes from Lesley, beside him. He would not have been surprised if she had interrupted the screening with a complaint about unethical procedures or downright implausibilities. He could sense every twitch of her professional outrage at trivial errors in Brunner’s behaviour and presentation. She would probably have been outraged even more if he had explained to her that the medium of television was designed not for presenting complex facts but for dramatic simplification and distortion to hammer home points the producer wanted to make.

  Not that there ought to have been any need for distortion in the Ronnie Waterman story. It was sensational enough in itself to satisfy the most bloodthirsty viewer.

  Ronnie Waterman had started out as a small-time crook in Birmingham but expanded his activities through contacts in Newcastle and Edinburgh. For a while he specialized in dodgy motor cars, and then took a step up in the world by providing getaway vehicles for bank and post office robbers, and heftier material for ram-raiders. In his programme, one of a series called Villains Versus Victims, whose concept owed a lot to a more soberly researched and presented BBC series, Brunner alternated dramatized, souped-up episodes with newsreel and specially filmed shots of Waterman and his cronies captured on film in different settings — some innocent on the surface, some as he was on his way towards a police court or emerging from one, grinning.

  It became clear that Waterman had a taste for violence. Footage of a warehouse blaze in Birmingham was linked with a battle with another rival. No accusations had stuck at the time, but evidence at Waterman’s later trial confirmed it as the work of two of his henchmen.

  A number of beatings up and two murders, heavily overdone in Brunner’s programme, were never pinned on Ronnie himself. But Brunner, sharing a Box-and-Cox commentary with a supposed detective, unravelled some threads and pulled others together. Suggestive vignettes of Ronnie in a notorious casino faded into a ‘talking head’ of Ronnie in a boastful interview, superimposed upon the scene of two battered corpses in a back alley. Without praising himself too crudely, Brunner’s slant on events made clear to the audience his courage and determination in following the crook, at grave risk to his own life, until the villain could be finally brought to justice.

  ‘And wait for this next shot.’ It was Brunner, live, in the room here and now, overriding his own voice from the screen. ‘Really hammers it home.’

  There was an interview with a woman whose face had been smashed in because her husband had set up as one of Ronnie’s rivals. The close-up gloated over the hideous injuries.

  ‘Caused a hell of a fuss, that shot. The station wanted it cut out. Scared of letters of complaint from the public. But I held my ground. By this time I was going to show him for what he was, and damn the consequences.’

  There was a swift montage of newsreel material about prostitutes in Leith, car chases up the Ml, and a mocked-up gunfight in a back alley, with close-ups of blood splashes up the wall. ‘But the net was closing in,’ intoned the actor playing a detective. Background music exploded through a swift crescendo to a blaring brass discord.

  At this halfway point, where there was obviously a break for a commercial, Brunner switched off and called out across the room: ‘Any questions?’

  There were a few self-conscious rustling and mutterings. At last Mrs Godolphin piped up: ‘What kept you going, taking all those risks? Weren’t you ever afraid you might be the next victim?’

  It was just the sort of question Brunner could have written into the script. He coughed modestly, and pretended to be reluctant to answer.

  ‘When you get your teeth into a story,’ he said at last, ‘you just have to keep going. You can think only of working it all out, getting at the truth, and the hell with any risks you may be taking.’

  No mention of Martine as the trigger, thought Nick.

  Beside him, his wife said: ‘The music. It’s far too intrusive. Far too loud.’

  It was only now that the sound track had stopped that Nick realized the steady background roar of the rain had also slackened, dwindling to a whispering trickle from the gutters, down the windows.

  ‘It’s that sort of thing that kept your husband in wine and caviare, Lady Torrance, before he became landed gentry.’

  ‘Not that sort of thing,’ said Nick. ‘And certainly not my handiwork in that programme. That was well after my time.’

  ‘So it was.’

  ‘And I never let my stuff be chopped up and recycled in over-amplified chunks like that.’

  Brunner laughed too loudly and was about to set the video off again when Queenie came in, bustling nervously towards him.

  ‘There’s word from Alec, Chet. At Brawhill. Says Mrs Brunner wasn’t on the train.’

  ‘Managed to miss that, as well as pranging the . . . oh, what the hell. Tell him to wait for the next one.’

  ‘Alec says he’s decided to do that anyway.’

  ‘No problem, then.’

  In the semi-darkness Georgina Campbell was heard laughing breathlessly for no apparent reason.

  Queenie had turned back towards the door when Brunner said: ‘Hold it, Queenie, love. I’ve just remembered, this next scene has you eating your heart out. Remember? Don’t go — sit yourself down. And everybody’ — he had put on the frenetic voice of a game show compère — ‘just watch this. Queenie at her most characteristic. What I always think of as one of her soubrette rôles. Such a lovely old-fashioned word, isn’t it?’

  Reluctantly, looking apprehensive, Queenie sat on the edge of a chair at the end of the nearest row.

  One of the dramatized sections, with a subtitle identifying it as a Reconstruction, included two young actors and Queenie as a bed-and-breakfast house proprietor in Stranraer whose son had fallen in with one of the Northern Irish lorry drivers. She was suspicious of the driver’s attempts to get the young man to give him some help with storing a fragile consignment he had been lumbered with at the last minute. Delivering it meant going miles off his usual route, bu
t one of his mates would be along next day, heading that way, and could pick it up for him. Perhaps the lad could collect it and keep it in, maybe, Mrs Black’s little storeroom.

  ‘We’d make it worth your while. Save us a lot of trouble.’

  Queenie played the dithering, suspicious yet susceptible mother. She fluttered across the screen, wept at one stage, and then laughed archly at the Irishman’s leg-pulling. And Brunner, off screen, laughed. ‘Nicely done, Queenie. See what I mean by a soubrette? Expecting you to do a song and dance any minute. One of your most characteristic performances. All that twitching and twittering. Type casting, eh?’

  The scene was unconvincing, mainly because it was so neatly acted and rounded off. Real life, shown in fits and starts, snippets from handheld news cameras and truncated interviews, was erratic and unrehearsed.

  ‘They say all roads lead to Rome,’ came the sonorous declamation on the sound track, ‘but it gradually became clear that these roads were leading towards Stranraer.’

  There was a display of graphics tilted at various angles, as supposedly seen from the cab of a lorry belting along the A66, falling in alongside one heading north on the M6, passing Carlisle and then heading for the A75 and the port of Stranraer.

  At the same time two lorries were coming off the boat for which the others were heading. The audience was left in the dark as to which movements were more relevant to the plot.

  Waterman, it turned out, was in personal charge of this operation. In the early stages he was tracked by one of Brunner’s hirelings with a concealed camera — one who really took risks, thought Nick. It was a protracted scam involving shipments of drugs to finance the Northern Irish gangs and fanatical religious cliques operating via Stranraer. Two Irish trucks coming off the ferry and heading for Newcastle were turned down a diversion swiftly set up off the A75. One of the truck drivers was in on the hijacking. The other and his mate weren’t, and put up a fight.