Merely Players

by J M Gregson

  ‘Nine point five for technique, ten for artistic impression,’ said Percy promptly. He looked sadly at the bowl of muesli in front of his new wife, then slid a slice of white bread provocatively on to the pan in which his bacon and egg was frying.

  Lucy tried to convey the correct distaste when he banged the cholesterol-laden plate down opposite her two minutes later, but feared that she had managed only envy. ‘This is how sausages should be, nearly black all round but not burnt,’ said Percy. The sausage disappeared down the chief inspectorial throat with a rapidity that was matched only by the consumer’s relish. ‘Nothing wrong with a bit of cereal, lass, but you need a fry-up to follow before you meet the rigours of the day.’ He dipped a piece of his fried bread in the yoke of his egg and downed it with a predictable sigh of satisfaction.

  ‘If I breakfasted like that, my bottom would look big even in a kaftan,’ Lucy informed him.

  ‘Tha’s got a gradely backside, lass. If tha’d been a cricketer, tha’d have needed a gradely backside. One of the requisites for a fast bowler, John Arlott always said.’

  ‘And who was John Arlott?’ said his wife innocently. She was ten years younger than Peach’s thirty-nine, and she liked to remind him of that occasionally.

  ‘Wash thi mouth out this instant, lass!’ Percy shook his head sadly. ‘If tha doesn’t behave thisen, I shall have to tell thi mother that tha didn’t know who John Arlott was. And then tha’ll get thi arse tanned. Delectable though it undoubtedly is,’ he reassured her, dropping his Lancashire dialect for the purpose. Unlike most newly married men, Percy found his recently acquired mother-in-law a pearl amongst women.

  Lucy thought it wisest to divert his thoughts to the subject of work. ‘I’ve got to go into the Muslim community again today. We’re still following up the associates of this terrorist suspect they arrested in London last week.’

  Lucy had been Percy’s detective sergeant until their marriage, learning much from his maverick style and his aggressive interviewing techniques. But police practice demands that couples with a close relationship do not work closely together. Only the fact that the head of CID, Chief Superintendent Tucker, was completely out of touch with the staff whom he nominally controlled had permitted them to work together for so long. Everyone else in the station except the man in control of CID had known for the last three years that Percy Peach and Lucy Blake were an item. But even Tucker could not miss marriage. DS Lucy Blake was now employed in different detective teams and on cases which were not the concern of her new husband.

  Percy missed her presence at his side more than he cared to admit, even to himself. She had counterbalanced his direct, confrontational style, often gaining cooperation from witnesses he would have challenged head-on, bringing a different sort of insight from his own to complex cases. ‘Have you found anything significant about this Akmal bloke?’

  ‘He was militant Muslim all right. And he was planning some sort of attack. But we knew that when we started. We need to find out who his associates were and how far the cell extended. They’ve got to be plotting more mischief. Probably suicide bombings, which we all know are such a sod to detect and prevent. I need to know more of the Muslim culture – more about how they think and feel. Most of the Asians we speak to are only too anxious to help us – they realize that the reputation of their whole community is in danger of being wrecked by this lunatic fringe.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  ‘They don’t really trust us, because we’re police. We need more Asian officers. We’ve got just three in Brunton, and two of them are new constables still wet behind the ears. None of them are women, of course. The only one with any service is a DS who’s working beside me. We’re supposed to be getting a couple of Asian DCs on temporary assignment from Manchester, but there’s a national shortage of Asian officers. The people I interview tell me just as much as they want to. I’m not able to sense if they’re holding anything back. I felt I could do that when I was working with you and dealing with people of a similar background to myself.’

  Percy had downed his fry-up and two slices of toast with amazing speed and was already washing the dishes. Lucy decided she must have been talking too much. She realized that she didn’t want to hear that he was getting on famously without her. Nevertheless, she downed her mug of tea and said dutifully, ‘How’s it going with you?’

  ‘Very dull, at the moment. All shop robberies and petty violence. We could do with a good juicy murder.’

  Adam Cassidy wasn’t required in the studio until two o’clock. They were filming some of the small takes with extras during the morning and the director had taken care to inform him of that. He didn’t want a star kicking his heels around the place; idle stars tended to make trouble, and no one wished to risk a confrontation.

  Adam allowed himself the luxury of a lie-in. He couldn’t sleep late, of course. The excited noises of young children preparing for a school day ensured that. But he lay contentedly, listening to the high-pitched tones of Damon and Kate and the responses of mother and nanny. He couldn’t catch a word of what anyone said beyond the close-fitting door of the bedroom, so he amused himself by imagining the tussles being conducted between adults and children. Five minutes of this was enough; it was like trying to follow a play without the dialogue. He switched on the radio and listened to John Humphrys making his latest political victim squirm in the ten past eight interview. It was like a brisk stage exchange, he thought, with Humphrys scarcely allowing the minister to complete a sentence before he refuted a statistic or provided a less favourable one of his own.

  He didn’t know why the politicians put up with it. But probably both Humphrys and his victim had agreed the main lines the interview was going to take before it started. Bit like improvised drama really, where they gave you a situation and invited you to improvise the dialogue. He’d never liked that very much; others had always been quicker thinking and more inventive than he was. But he couldn’t see the point of it. Written dialogue, with all the time for thought and revisions, was always going to be better, wasn’t it?

  His reflections were interrupted by the sudden shrill of the phone beside his bed. He waited for someone else in the house to answer it. When no one did, he switched off the radio, snatched up the receiver and rapped out his number.

  ‘Adam? Is that you?’

  He sighed, already irritated. His elder brother, by three years. The dutiful plodder of the family, whose rectitude felt to Adam like a constant rebuke to his own lifestyle. ‘Of course it’s me, Luke. You should know my voice, after forty-two years.’

  ‘I’m at Dad’s house, Adam. He’s not well. You should come and see him.’

  ‘I will, as soon as I can make the time.’

  ‘You said that last time. That was now five weeks ago.’

  ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘Five weeks yesterday, mate.’ An attempt at the old intimacy which had long since deserted them.

  ‘Trust you to be counting. You don’t seem to realize how busy my schedule—’

  ‘He’s ill, Adam, and he’s been waiting for you to come. He doesn’t complain, but you can see when he’s disappointed. Or you could if you were ever around.’

  ‘Look, if all you want to do is to—’

  ‘I think he’s had another heart attack. Only a small one, if indeed it is one at all. I’m waiting for the doctor to come now.’

  ‘All right. Give me a few minutes and I’ll see what I can do.’ He put the phone down before Luke could speak again. He had a free morning and he knew what he was going to do, but there was no reason to let his brother think it was easy. Luke might do the bulk of the caring, but he must realize that Adam had a lifestyle which didn’t allow the domestic complications that the less eminent had to cope with.

  He gave it seven minutes, heard in the sports news that another Premiership football manager had been sacked, then sat up and picked up the phone. ‘I’ve managed to reschedule this morning’s appointments. I hope you’re
not exaggerating, because it wasn’t easy.’

  ‘I think you’ll be glad you did it, when you see Dad.’

  Luke’s voice had restraint and dignity, and for a fleeting moment Adam envied those qualities. ‘I’ll be there by about half past ten. You can tell the old bugger I’m coming.’

  He levered himself out of bed, made for the bathroom and the power shower, then changed his mind. He slipped on his dressing gown, making sure that the cord was securely tied; you had to be more careful about your dress, now that there was a nanny permanently in the house. He went downstairs and found the children where he had calculated they would be, with coats on at the front door.

  ‘Give Dad a hug before you go!’ he called from the stairs. They turned and ran to him, flinging arms wide as they reached him. He swung each of them around him in turn, clasping them to his chest, feeling the smallness of the torsos beneath the clothes, envying them the spontaneity which would drop away from them for ever as they left their childhood.

  Jane Webster thrust aside the thought that he could have arrived earlier, rather than turning up belatedly for the rituals rather than the substance of love. She waved to him, then clutched a small hand in each of hers. She could have got nanny to take the children to school, but she enjoyed this morning walk, when her small charges confessed their fears and hopes for the day.

  Adam was finishing his breakfast when she returned home. She had planned a discussion about the children and their progress with him, but he said whilst she was still taking her coat off in the hall, ‘I’ve got to go and see Dad this morning. Luke thinks he’s taken a turn for the worse. He’s probably exaggerating, as usual, but I said I’d go.’

  You poor bloody martyr, thought Jane. Aloud, she said as she came into the kitchen, ‘Of course you must go.’

  The actress who had been the slight shape beneath the bedclothes in the scene shot on the previous day was Michelle Davies.

  In earlier scenes, she had caught the flavour of the series excellently, showing a capacity for comedy as well as romantic melodrama. The unwritten subtext beneath the unlikely plots in the Alec Dawson series was that it didn’t take itself too seriously, and Michelle had immediately struck the right notes. She had the looks and the talent to do well on stage and television. So far she had not enjoyed the third and most important thing you needed in an overcrowded profession: luck. Over the eight years since she had left RADA, she had managed to hone her craft by securing regular parts in the theatre. She had been almost continually employed, but it was precarious and not very well paid work.

  Playing opposite Adam Cassidy was her first big break. Anyone who did that was certain to be noticed. With the worldwide appeal of the Alec Dawson series, it was almost like becoming a James Bond girl in an earlier generation. One episode didn’t mean a lot, of course, but the plan now was that she would become Dawson’s regular girlfriend in the next series. Once she had a regular role like that, her fame and her fees would rocket in harness and the offers of stage and film work would pour in. Her agent said so. And whilst Michelle Davies knew that agents always promised jam tomorrow and never gave guarantees, in this case his optimism made good sense.

  The director professed himself pleased with her work; he had assured Michelle that she was part of the producer’s plans for the next series. This morning she had a meeting with that producer and she hoped that he was going to tie things up. Directors lived in the present and dealt with problems day by day, but the producers who provided the human and other resources to set up series had to plan well ahead.

  She hadn’t spoken to James Walton in the four months since he had taken her on to play the part of the damsel in distress in the episode they were currently filming. He was an erect, distinguished man of sixty, which in the ephemeral world of television was very old. He was also one of the few men in the Manchester television centre who wore a suit and tie. Michelle Davies felt a little like a sixth former summoned to an interview with the headmistress as she took a deep breath and knocked at his door.

  Walton had silver hair, keen grey eyes, and a confidence which emanated from age and experience. He stood and asked her to sit down when she came into his office. He would have offered the same courtesy to any woman, whether she was a theatrical dame or the newest recruit being accorded her first small part. He saw Michelle into her chair, then went back to the other side of the desk, sat down, and asked her whether she had been enjoying her work in the one episode undertaken so far.

  It was good to be treated like a lady, in a profession where most people were careless of such things, Michelle told herself. Yet she found Walton’s politeness inhibiting; she would have preferred a quick and informal confirmation of the offer she hoped desperately was coming to her. She said carefully, ‘Everyone’s been very friendly to me – they’ve made me feel as if I’d been one of the team from the start.’

  ‘That’s good. Sometimes it’s not easy coming into a team where everyone seems to know each other and know the form for the production. You don’t need me to tell you that acting is a very insecure profession; most people in it seem to have their fears and their hang-ups, so they can be suspicious of newcomers.’

  ‘There’s been nothing like that. They’ve made me feel one of the team from the start.’ It was broadly true, but she would have delivered the thought even if it hadn’t been. Producers didn’t want new people coming in who would rock the boat. She didn’t want anything raised against her at this stage; there were dozens of women with attributes similar to hers who would bite this man’s hand off for the offer he was going to make. Once she became a regular on the series, with a well-known television face, she would be much more difficult to dispense with. Until then, she must play her cards with care.

  ‘I’m glad you feel like that. We like to think we have a happy ensemble on the Call Alec Dawson series.’ Walton turned a sheet over on the desk in front of him, though she had the feeling that he knew exactly what he was going to say and was using the paper as a prop to add weight to his words. ‘Well, as you know, Ms Davies, it is my job to plan ahead and make sure that everything is ready to go when we begin the filming of the next series.’ He smiled a broad, genuine smile at her; things were always easier when you had good news to offer.

  ‘I understand that. And it’s Michelle, by the way.’ She answered his smile, feeling strangely coquettish, in a Jane Austen sort of way. She was sure this man had never employed the casting couch which she had been warned about all these years ago at RADA.

  ‘Well, Michelle, I have what I hope will be good news for you. Our director is eminently satisfied with your work in the episode currently being shot in the studio and on location. The rest of the cast are also happy, but you know as well as I do that it is the opinion of the director which counts most. Now: the details of storylines are not yet finalized, but we have already decided that Alec Dawson should have a permanent girlfriend in the next series, and, if that goes well, for the series which follows that. I cannot make you a formal offer this morning, but I wish to know whether you would be interested in undertaking this role.’

  What a splendid, old-fashioned, roundabout way of putting it, Michelle Davies thought. She wanted to fling herself across the executive desk and embrace the man. She did nothing of the sort, of course. She found it a test of her acting talents to keep the excitement out of her voice as she said, ‘I should certainly be interested. I’d be a fool not to be, wouldn’t I?’

  He smiled at her. For once he was at a loss for the polite phrase, now that she had stepped out of her part and become spontaneous. ‘It will mean a considerable rise in your remuneration, of course. Perhaps you would prefer that I discuss this in due course with your agent.’

  ‘Yes, I would. Make him earn his fees, eh?’ she gave a strangely brittle laugh, which told her how nervous she had been.

  ‘Is there anything you would like to ask me at this stage, Michelle?’

  She thought for a moment, feeling a vague wish to prolong thi
s moment of triumph. ‘Am I allowed to let the rest of the cast know about this?’

  He steepled his fingers and frowned briefly, enjoying the moment in his muted, courteous way. ‘I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t do that. They will no doubt find you a most welcome addition to the regular team. Have a word with your director first. If Joe Hartley has no objection, I certainly haven’t.’

  Walton stood up, signifying that their exchange was at an end, and came round his desk towards her. Michelle thought he was going to shake her hand, but he merely ushered her towards the door; perhaps the handshake was reserved for the formal contract. She was almost through the doorway when he said. ‘Our star has an ultimate veto over casting – that is the television way of things, I’m afraid. But I’m sure there won’t be any difficulties there.’

  FOUR

  The narrow street rose with increasing steepness towards the pewter sky. The terraced houses shut out the light, so that the eye was drawn naturally towards that rectangle of pale grey light and that invisible world beyond the grimy bricks of the frontages. When these tight little houses had been built in the nineteenth century, clogs had clattered through the noisy winter darkness to the mills at the bottoms of streets like this. The mills had been the focus of life for the folk who lived here. These cheap houses had often been rented from the mill-owners themselves, who wanted their workforce close to the looms which dominated their lives. The town of Brunton had been a jewel in the empire of King Cotton.

  The cobbles had gone and the street was tarmacked now: the tight houses had neither gardens nor garages. At weekends and overnight, there were unbroken lines of cars down the street, making it seem even narrower. At half past ten in the morning, there was ample room to park. Adam Cassidy locked the Mercedes carefully; it was by far the newest and most expensive car in the street. But he didn’t fear damage to it, as he would have done in a similar area in Manchester. This was still what its older residents deemed a ‘respectable’ area. That familiar word might be difficult to define, but everyone in old industrial towns like Brunton knew what it meant.