Situation Tragedy

by Simon Brett

  I do hope that everything is OK with you, and that you’re going to be able to fit this new very exciting project into your already busy schedule. I very much look forward to seeing you for our preliminary read-through, probably in mid-May, when we hope to assemble as many of the people who worked on the pilot as we can for the start of what I’m sure you’ll agree is going to be a very exciting series.

  With the warmest good wishes,

  Yours sincerely,

  Peter

  PETER LIPSCOMBE

  Producer The Strutters

  Charles Paris had six reactions after reading the producer’s letter.

  1. No, he hadn’t already heard from his agent, but since his agent was Maurice Skellern, possibly (and this was a bold claim, but one he believed he could substantiate) the least efficient of the breed in existence, that did not surprise him.

  2. Yes, it was good news. The Inland Revenue had recently developed an unhealthy interest in his affairs and made the laughable demand that he should supply them with accounts for the last seven years. He felt betrayed by this. How did they know he had earned anything over that period? He certainly hadn’t told them. He was left with the unavoidable conclusion that the people who had actually paid him the money must have ratted on him. He reckoned it rather cheapened the magnanimous gesture of paying someone if you then went and told the tax authorities what you’d done.

  3. Try as he might, he couldn’t find the news as exciting as Peter Lipscombe evidently did. Financially encouraging, yes; good, because being in work was better than being out of work, yes; but he had great difficulty in viewing the prospect of doing fourteen lines and two moves twelve times over with anything approaching excitement.

  4. If Peter Lipscombe could seriously describe what Charles had done on the pilot as ‘hard work’, then he needed his head examined.

  5. On the other hand, if Peter Lipscombe dared to refer to Charles’s ‘already busy schedule’, he must be either very ignorant or capable of irony. So perhaps the ‘hard work’ reference was also a dig.

  6. However keen the producer was to assemble everyone who had worked on the pilot, there was one person whose services he would have to forego. And that was the PA, Sadie Wainwright.

  The letter made Charles think about her death again. Straight after the pilot he had thought about it quite a lot, and in the eight weeks since it had nagged occasionally at his mind.

  Because of his interest in detection and the tendency, that seemed to increase with age, to find himself repeatedly involved in criminal cases, his first instinct was that Sadie Wainwright had been murdered. Falls, he reasoned, are always murders disguised. In detective fiction the next most popular question, after ‘Whodunnit?’, is ‘Did he fall or was he pushed?’

  It could have been an accident. On the evening of her death, Charles himself had noticed the rickety nature of the fire escape, and he heard later that the railing that had given way had been eaten through to nothing with rust. On the other hand, Sadie Wainwright, whatever one thought of her character, had seemed to be a supremely efficient woman. Not the sort to make silly mistakes.

  Nor, from her surface behaviour, the sort to take her own life.

  And, given a theory of murder, one didn’t have to look far for people with a motive. Charles knew nothing of her personal circumstances, but it seemed likely that if she behaved at home anything like she did in public, she could well foment considerable resentment in a husband or lover. She had worn a chunky gold wedding ring, but that didn’t mean a lot in television; Charles often thought that a broken marriage was one of the qualifications for a job in the medium.

  But putting domestic fury, the most common cause of murder, to one side, the studio day had supplied an ample sufficiency of people with reasons to want her out of the way. Indeed, Charles wondered whether there was anyone working on the pilot of The Strutters whom she hadn’t insulted.

  And almost all of them could, in theory, have had the opportunity to get rid of her. He didn’t know how many knew of the fire escape short cut. Presumably members of W.E.T. staff were more likely to have the information, but any one of the actors or actresses could have been told, just as he had been.

  He had tried many times to reconstruct the events of that evening. He felt fairly confident that Sadie Wainwright had died after he had gone up to the bar. Though he had not actually looked down into the car park, he would surely have noticed the collapsed railing. Anyway, his natural talent for getting to bars quickly had put him ahead of most of the field of suspects.

  He remembered that when he reached the bar, the only person present from The Strutters recording had been Peter Lipscombe, realising the full potential of his job. That seemed to rule the Producer out of any conjectural list of suspects, but all the others whom Sadie had insulted remained in with a good chance. The fact that Mort Verdon, the discoverer of the body, was the only one who had appeared from the fire escape, did not mean he was the only one who had gone out there. Any murderer worth his salt would have taken the elementary precaution of returning from his crime to the bar via the more conventional lift.

  And many of the potential suspects had appeared to be in a highly emotional state. High emotion does not necessarily indicate a recent act of murder, but it can be a pointer.

  Bernard Walton had looked unnaturally tense, though that could be put down to anxiety about the future of his series. Walter Proud, too, seemed to be suffering, and admitted a recent altercation with the victim of the ‘accident’. And Scott Newton, the young man whose authority his PA had systematically undermined, had been a very late arrival in the bar, and had entered in a terrible nervous state. Any one of those might have had sufficient motive to kill Sadie Wainwright.

  But then so might anyone else. That was what really made Charles think the death had been an accident after all. The PA had been so rude to everyone, had antagonised so many people, that it seemed invidious to attribute her death to any one individual. It was more as if the communal will had been so unanimously hostile that an indulgent God had given her a little nudge on the fire escape as a gesture of magnanimous serendipity.

  Apparently, an inquest had brought in a verdict of accidental death. No doubt the police had done their customary efficient enquiries. Why should Charles Paris question their findings?

  It was all a long time ago, he decided, and he needed a drink. He had been feeling very poor and made firm resolves to cut down his expenditure.

  Also, as often happened when he was feeling at his most abject, he had resolved to make contact with his estranged wife, Frances.

  But Peter Lipscombe’s letter had shifted the mood. Though it didn’t contain money, it contained the prospect of money. It gave him the confidence to risk bouncing another cheque on the way to his favourite drinking club, the tatty little Montrose round the back of the Haymarket.

  And he could always ring Frances another day.

  ‘First let me say what a pleasure it is to see you all here, and all looking so well. I get that sort of bubbly feeling that everything’s going to be okay with The Strutters. We’ve got a wonderful cast, a good team, some terrific scripts, and I think the whole project’s going to be jolly exciting.

  ‘Now what I plan to do today – I’m sorry, what Scott and I plan to do today –’ the producer inclined his head graciously towards his Director, who acknowledged the gesture with a grin, ‘– is to have a leisurely read-through of the first five scripts – Number Six will be with us soon – which wonderboy Rod Tisdale has provided for us . . .’

  The wonderboy in question maintained his customary façade of a man on a bus counting the lamp-posts.

  ‘Now this read-through is just so’s we get a feeling of the shows – we’ll deal with any problems that may come up later. Since we start the filming in a couple of days, I think it’s just as well that you should understand the context in which your scenes occur.’

  This was a concession that didn’t always happen. Charles had frequent
ly been involved in the pre-filming of scenes which were totally meaningless to him as he acted them (and often equally meaningless when he saw the completed product on the screen).

  ‘Now we’ve got some really exciting locations for the series, so I think the filming should be a lot of fun.’

  First time it ever has been, thought Charles sourly. His memories of filming were all of interminable waits, often in vile conditions, usually in the company of huge numbers of people with whom he had nothing in common. But he knew that directors loved it; practically every television director he’d ever met said how much he’d rather be working on film and then started the traditional moan about the demise of the British film industry. He even knew actors who enjoyed it.

  ‘One location in particular, which we are awfully excited to have, is the one we’re using for the Strutters’ own house exteriors. As you know, that didn’t come up in the pilot, but it was pretty well described – a large expensive house with a lot of grounds, conveniently placed on the edge of a golf course. Well, our Location Manager spent a lot of time trying to find just the right place and then – what a stroke of luck – we had the ideal house offered to us, just like that, out of the blue. And offered by someone we all know very well. Yes, good old Bernard, Bernard Walton . . . he’s said we can use his place. Which just happens to fit the bill exactly . . .’

  Peter Lipscombe paused for impressed reaction and got a rather apathetic murmur of appreciation. Like Charles, most of those present had come to distrust Bernard Walton’s magnanimous gestures. There was usually an ulterior motive – in this case, no doubt. just to show how big-hearted he was, or to keep a kind of proprietary interest in the series, or to make sure he appeared in any publicity shots that might be taken on his premises or, thought Charles cynically, just to pocket the substantial facility fee which W.E.T. would inevitably pay for the location.

  After the producer had said a few more times how exciting everything was, the read-throughs started. At first there was a certain amount of cosy laughter, but this diminished. It wasn’t that the scripts got less funny – they maintained unswervingly that level of mediocrity which Peter Lipscombe had hailed as Wildean – but everyone present began to realise the sheer volume of material they had to get through. Five half-hours – even ITV half-hours which read out at twenty minutes (Rod Tisdale’s work was always the right length) – was a hell of a lot of reading.

  Charles got very bored as he waited for his fourteen lines per episode. However old he got, he never lost the actor’s adolescent habit of counting his lines. And, though his realistic view of his status prevented him from aspiring to starring roles, it didn’t stop him from finding small parts boring.

  He looked around the assembly, wondering idly whether he was in the same room as the murderer of Sadie Wainwright. The little trainee, Janey Lewis, now sat in the PA’s chair to the director’s right, and clutched the PA’s symbol of authority, a stopwatch. So she had benefited directly from Sadie’s demise. Another person with a strong motive?

  But then they all had strong motives. Or none of them had. Charles decided in a lazy way that he might try to find out a bit more about Sadie’s background.

  In the meantime, he couldn’t help noticing again how attractive Janey Lewis was. She had had her hair cut shorter and more fashionably, and her clothes, too, looked newer and sharper. And there was an indefinable air of increased confidence about her. Maybe this had come with her elevation from trainee status to the full bossing rights of a real PA.

  She caught his eye and smiled. Yes, she was attractive. Not mentally, really; conversation with her was like reading a manual of television technique. But physically . . . And the older Charles got, the less he thought one should dismiss the physical.

  At ten to one they finished reading the third script and a folding wall of the conference room in which they sat was pulled back to reveal a lavish buffet and – yippee! – lots of bottles of wine.

  Once he was armed with a plate of chicken and Scotch egg and a large glass of red wine, it wasn’t difficult to buttonhole the PA. She didn’t seem to mind. Charles wondered what else she might not mind. But there was a problem. Had he got the energy to mug up all the vocabulary of television – VTR and MCU and OOV and POV and all that rubbish – which would be essential in this particular seduction? He rather doubted it.

  ‘Hello, Janey, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With an E-Y.’ He showed off his memory.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Janie with an I-E.’

  ‘Oh, but I could have sworn you told me that . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, I was going to have it with an E-Y, but then I noticed there’s a PA at Thames who gets a credit with an E-Y, and I didn’t think it looked very good on the screen – you know, a bit ordinary – so I’ve changed it to I-E.’

  ‘Oh well, at least it sounds the same,’ said Charles, and then, with a tiny attempt at humour, added, ‘Next thing you’ll be spelling it J-A-Y-N-I.”

  ‘That’s a thought,’ said Janie seriously. ‘I’ll have to see how it looks written down.’

  ‘Anyway, congratulations. I see you’ve got the Queen Bee’s job now.’

  ‘Yes, I was so lucky. You know, it was because I’d worked on the pilot, I got made up specially.’

  ‘Made up specially?’ Charles repeated, looking with mystification at her lightly freckled face which, except for a blur of green about the eyes, seemed remarkably free of cosmetics.

  ‘Made up to PA. A lot of the girls who started as trainees with me still haven’t been made up.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Though actually Dinky’s got the second PA’s job on the big Wragg and Bowen show, but I reckon that’s not as good as being the only PA, even if it is on a smaller show.’

  ‘Yes, or do I mean no?’

  ‘Anyway, Phil Middleton says he reckons sit com’s the best way of learning because you do see the whole thing through, you know, with filming and studio and going right through to the VTR editing.’

  Charles agreed randomly.

  ‘The filming’s going to be very exciting. Do you know who we’ve got as cameraman?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Midge Trumper,’ Janie pronounced dramatically.

  ‘Really? Midge Trumper, eh?’ said Charles, weighing the name.

  ‘Yes. I mean, and right after Rainbows Don’t Grow On Graves. I could hardly believe it when I heard.’

  ‘I’m still finding it a bit difficult to take in. Midge Trumper, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good Lord.’

  Charles didn’t want to spend the whole of his lunch extolling the virtues of Midge Trumper, whoever he might be, so he asked if Janie would like another drink.

  ‘Hock-A.’

  ‘Hock? I’m not sure. There is a dryish white. I think it’s a Muscadet or –’

  ‘No. Hock-A. Hock . . . A.’

  ‘Hock . . . A?’

  ‘O . . . K. Okay. It’s how the Japanese say okay.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’

  When he returned with their drinks, he managed to steer the conversation round to Janie’s predecessor. ‘Quite a hard act you have to follow. Though I must say the atmosphere seems a lot more relaxed without her.’

  ‘Oh, you mean Sadie. Yes, wasn’t that terrible. I mean, it’s an awful way for me to get a job. I’m not complaining, but it is an awful way to get a job.’

  Charles nodded and was rewarded by Janie’s continuing, ‘Yes, it was awful. Ernie Franklyn Junior says he reckoned anyone could’ve seen it coming.’

  ‘Really?’ said Charles, unwilling to break Janie’s flow by asking who the hell Ernie Franklyn Junior was.

  ‘Yes, he reckons she’d been under a lot of pressure.’

  ‘What, at work?’

  ‘No, no, nothing upset her at work. She could manage the job standing on her head. No . . .’ She lowered her voice mysteriously. ‘A man.’

  ‘Really?
’

  ‘Yes, Ernie Franklyn Junior reckoned she’d just had a big bust-up, you know, end of some long-standing affair.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I think it’s daft to get yourself involved in that sort of thing. I believe in short flings, not getting involved.’

  Charles quickly invested in the future by saying that he fully agreed, before going on to ask if Janie had any idea who the man in Sadie Wainwright’s life had been.

  But no. it seemed that Ernie Franklyn Junior’s information service could not supply this answer.

  ‘But he reckons it was suicide?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘In spite of the findings of the inquest?’

  ‘Oh yes. Ernie Franklyn Junior says inquests always try to avoid suicide verdicts.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, so that people can collect on the insurance.’

  ‘Oh. You wouldn’t happen to know who was likely to collect on Sadie’s insurance?’

  ‘No. Mind you, Ernie Franklyn Junior says –’

  But the Ernie Franklyn Junior Report on the British Legal System was interrupted by the approach of Scott Newton with the Casting Director, Tilly Lake. ‘Janie,’ asked the director, ‘could you get some copies of Script Number Five. You know, the one with the old Army friend of Colonel Strutter’s in it. Tilly’s got some interesting ideas on casting and wants to send some scripts out for it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tilly Lake trilled, identifying herself (for anyone who missed the hint of the Indian silk shawl and feathered cloche hat) as an ex-actress, ‘you see I’m so terribly anti conventional casting. I mean, especially in sit com. All directors always seem to end up using the same repertory of actors who do their job awfully well, but with no . . . depth. I mean, like this part of Colonel Strutter’s army friend. I mean most sit com directors would go for someone like . . . I don’t know, say, Toby Root, who’s a perfectly good actor – lovely actor, lovely person – but I’m sure we can aim higher.’