A Deadly Habit

by Simon Brett

  Then his mind moved on to the crimes at the Duke of Kent’s Theatre.

  Grant Yeoell’s openness about being Liddy Max’s sexual partner had rather thrown him. Charles had expected some form of denial or cover-up, but had got neither. Grant had seemed to regard the encounter as just another notch on wherever he cut his many notches. Another significant fact was that he hadn’t asked how Charles knew about him and Liddy. That suggested the information was common knowledge in The Habit of Faith company. Charles had just missed out on the news.

  The other question that kept recurring to him was the identity of the voyeur for whom the spy camera had been set up in Liddy’s dressing room. There was no doubt that Gideon had planted the device, but had it been for his own benefit? He was the kind of person who would fit the popular Daily Mail profile of a voyeur. And when he and Charles had met in the pub the day after Liddy’s death, Gideon had spoken of having ‘very secret secrets’. It must have been him.

  And yet Charles’s doubt persisted. He was still drawn to the idea that Gideon had been following someone else’s orders.

  And he also suspected that that someone had helped Gideon consume all the vodka that caused his death. In fact, that Gideon had been murdered.

  A conversation with Kell confirmed that most of the Habit company did now know about Gideon and Liddy’s encounter. But nobody else knew – or had admitted to knowing – that the action had been filmed.

  Each night on his walk from the tube to the Duke of Kent’s, Charles looked out for Baz. But Gideon’s companion seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth as effectively as Gideon himself.

  The following Thursday, the word on the flipchart at Gower House was ‘Obstacles’, and Ricky led a discussion about the hurdles that lay across the route to freedom from addiction. At the beginning of the session he had introduced a tall, grey-haired man to the group. ‘This is Trevor, who’s going to sit in this afternoon as an observer. He fully understands about the confidentiality issues here at Gower House, so don’t worry about talking freely.’

  Charles thought the man looked vaguely familiar, but soon forgot his presence as the discussion developed.

  After all the participants had done their ‘check-outs’, assessing their moods at the end of the session, there were a few ‘See you tomorrows’ as they all set off in their different directions. But just as he was leaving the room, Charles was stopped by the tall newcomer.

  ‘You’re Charles Paris, aren’t you?’

  As soon as Trevor mentioned the movie, Charles knew exactly who he was. In fact, given how small his contributions had been to the film industry, he should have got there quicker. Trevor Race had directed one of Charles’s few appearances on the silver screen. The film had been one of those ‘state of the nation’ pieces of the 1980s. Overtly political, Doorstep Sandwiches had been an excoriating attack on the devastation wreaked by the Thatcher government, seen through the travails of a young couple in Doncaster. Charles Paris had taken on the minuscule role of the second bailiff, whose impact had been too minor to garner any press reviews.

  Indeed, very little of his film work had ever been reviewed. The only notice he recollected was for an experimental movie called Onion Braids, written and directed by an Oxford contemporary soon after they left the university. (‘Charles Paris wandered through the action with the shell-shocked expression of someone who hadn’t yet recovered from reading the script for the first time.’ Sight and Sound.) The director, recognizing the wrong direction he had taken in life, quickly joined the civil service, where he was still in the Department of Work and Pensions, accumulating a very large pension of his own and likely soon to receive a knighthood. Less shrewd, Charles Paris had continued to pursue a career in the theatre.

  Trevor Race had led Charles up to a well-appointed flat on the top floor of Gower House. From the kitchen, where he was tending the coffee-maker, could be seen the wealthy roofs of Finchley.

  ‘So, Trevor,’ asked Charles, ‘how do you come to be involved in TAUT? Are you on the staff?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. I’m still making movies.’

  Charles gave himself a black mark. He should have known that.

  ‘No,’ Trevor went on, ‘I started TAUT.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I set up the charity.’ He gestured round the room. ‘This is my house.’

  ‘Gower House is yours?’

  ‘Yes. I used to live here. Still use this flat sometimes when I’m in London. Which isn’t very often.’

  ‘Where are you the rest of the time?’

  ‘Wherever the current movie’s being shot. I do have a villa on Mykonos, where I go between projects. But I never spend long there.’

  ‘So why did you set up TAUT?’

  ‘Ah. You don’t know what it stands for, do you?’

  ‘No. I keep meaning to ask one of the staff here, but never get round to it.’

  ‘Right. Did you know an actor called Alan Unsworth?’

  ‘I may have heard the name.’

  ‘Alan was in Doorstep Sandwiches.’ There was a note of reproof in the voice.

  ‘Well, perhaps I wasn’t in any scenes with him.’

  ‘You were.’ The tartness was now unmistakable. ‘Alan played the neighbour who tried to stop you and the other bailiff from breaking down the door.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, I remember,’ Charles lied.

  ‘He was a very good actor, Alan.’

  ‘I remember being impressed,’ Charles lied further.

  ‘He was also the love of my life.’

  There was a silence. Charles wasn’t quite sure of the correct response to a statement like that.

  ‘But Alan,’ Trevor went on, ‘had a kamikaze element in his personality. He kept doing stupid things. That was all right when he was on his own, bouncing in and out of relationships, never knowing what he really wanted in life. But after we got together … we had stability, we loved each other, we had no money worries … and he still had this urge to break it all.’

  ‘Drink?’ Charles suggested.

  ‘Oh yes. Drink.’ Trevor Race again gestured around the room. ‘Hence TAUT. The Alan Unsworth Trust, that’s what it stands for. A memorial to him. Not the memorial I would wish for, but … maybe better than nothing.’

  ‘I’m certainly appreciating what’s going on here.’

  ‘Good. The staff are brilliant. When I decided to set TAUT up, I wanted to do it properly. Everyone fully qualified. I did a lot of research to get the right people. I didn’t know much about the mechanics of addiction, until it was too late. But after Alan died, I made it my business to find out stuff. I did a lot of research into various different approaches, and hired the people who seemed to be getting the best results. I know the TAUT system doesn’t work for everyone, but if it does for even one person, then I guess my efforts haven’t been wasted.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that TAUT deals with all kinds of addictions. Was Alan also into drugs?’

  ‘Alan never did drugs,’ came the sharp response.

  ‘And you finance the whole thing yourself, do you, Trevor?’

  The tall man shrugged. ‘Yes. There’s a lot of money to be made in the film industry. I’ve made a great deal. And there’s nothing I want to spend it on. I travel all the time for work, so there’s not much pleasure for me in exotic holidays. I’ve got as much property as I need. Flashy cars, ridiculously priced watches, I don’t want them.’ He was expressing the familiar dilemma of the ‘champagne Socialist’. Trevor Race had set out on an artistic course which defended the interests of the ‘have-nots’ against the depredations of the ‘haves’. And by doing so, he had accumulated so much money that he could no longer pretend not to be a ‘have’.

  ‘It would be different, of course, if Alan was still alive. Travelling with him was something else. I never knew what was going to happen next. But travelling on my own … doing anything on my own …’ His eyes misted over. ‘Things have changed so much. There are changes that
Alan will never see. The two of us could actually be married now, for God’s sake! But that’ll never happen. So much’ll never happen.

  ‘I still keep asking myself what more I could have done. Towards the end I stopped working – I gave up a couple of very lucrative movies just to look after Alan. I tried to monitor him every hour of the day and night, see that no booze got into the house. But alcoholics are devious – I don’t need to tell you that, Charles. Whatever precautions I took, he still managed to smuggle the stuff in. Alan really did have a death wish. So, I suppose … he got what he wanted.’

  There was a long pause before Trevor pulled himself together, and asked, ‘Is it the booze with you, Charles? Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No drugs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good. And how’re you going on the road to total abstinence?’

  Charles still wasn’t entirely convinced that was the road he wanted to be on, but he just said, ‘OK.’

  ‘When did you last work?’

  Unusually, he was able to reply, ‘I’m working at the moment.’

  ‘Good. I’m sorry, I’d kind of assumed that you couldn’t get any work, because of your problem with the booze.’

  Before he’d started attending Gower House, Charles’s instant reaction would have been, ‘I’m not that bad!’ He would have separated himself from the people who lost jobs and houses and had their children taken into care, but now he was less condemning. He and the others, they all had the same problem. It was just a matter of degree.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Trevor.

  ‘Play at the Duke of Kent’s. The Habit of Faith.’

  Trevor Race shook his head. ‘Sorry, I’ve been away so much, I’m not up with West End theatre. Don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘New play set in a monastery.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘Vehicle for Justin Grover.’

  ‘Really? One of those actors who works it all out himself, doesn’t like the intervention of a director.’

  ‘You’ve described him perfectly.’

  ‘God, I can’t stand working with people like that! Fortunately, I very rarely have to. Got to the point in my career where I have a veto on casting. But making movies is such a technical exercise, the actors must respect the director’s skills, or the whole thing implodes.’

  ‘So, when did you work with him?’

  ‘I never have, thank the Lord. But I’ve heard a lot about him. One of my oldest friends worked with Justin Grover right at the beginning of his career. When he was just one of any number of interchangeable actors, fresh out of drama school. Long before he would bestride the world as Sigismund the Strong.’

  ‘What was your friend’s name?’

  ‘Damian Grantchester. He used to run the theatre in Bridport.’

  EIGHTEEN

  The most famous retirement home for members of the acting profession is Denville Hall in Northwood, Middlesex. Damian Grantchester wasn’t in that one, but it was clear from the way Charles was greeted by the garrulous lady on reception that the home in Dorking also had strong theatrical ties.

  ‘Yes, we got your message, Mr Paris. Damian will be delighted to see you. He loves talking over old times with his theatre chums. And the weekends can be quite long for him if he has no visitors.’

  ‘I can’t stay long, I’m afraid. Saturday matinee.’

  ‘Yes, of course. You’re in the play at the Duke of Kent’s, aren’t you?’ She was clearly well informed about current theatre. ‘I recognized your name when I got the message.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Charles, with the actor’s hunger for validation.

  But the receptionist didn’t go on to praise his performances. She just asked, ‘Did you work with Damian?’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘Everything’s a long time ago when you get to our age, Mr Paris,’ she said, prompting him to wonder if he did actually look as old as she did. ‘Oh, and I can’t keep on calling you “Mr Paris”. May I call you “Charles”?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Damian’s in the conservatory, Charles. You get a lovely view of the garden from there.’

  It was a lovely view. The double-glazed conservatory was toasty warm like the rest of the building, insulated from the frosted world outside.

  If he hadn’t known who it was, Charles would not have recognized Damian Grantchester. Back in Bridport days, the director had been pencil-thin and sharp-featured, with shoulder-length black hair, a coiled-up spring of nervous energy. He had the kind of body you could never imagine turning to fat.

  And yet that is what time had achieved. Damian was not fat on the scale of Gideon, but his flesh did seem to be spilling out from the wicker armchair in which he sat. He was dressed in burgundy elephant-cord trousers, a thick navy-blue cardigan done up with leather toggles, and his signature paisley cravat at the neck. His swollen feet were almost contained in ugly black shoes with Velcro strapping. The hair was still worn long, but now white and very sparse. The shape of his shining cranium was clear through the wisps.

  Yet, the longer he spent with him, the more Charles recognized of the old Damian Grantchester. The eyes still flashed with the same fire. The characteristic hand gestures, though now slower, hadn’t changed. And the familiar waspish wit had not lost its sting.

  Charles had forgotten how much Damian Grantchester relished gossip. And gossip of a particularly vicious kind. It soon became clear that, although tucked away in a care home in Dorking, Damian kept up with his theatrical contacts. His talk was constantly punctuated with sentences beginning, ‘I was on the phone only yesterday to so-and-so and he told me this amazing rumour about …’ The telephone was clearly his main lifeline. He was of too old a generation to have embraced email.

  ‘And I got your message, Charles, but I can’t remember who it was who put you in touch with me.’

  ‘Trevor Race.’

  ‘Oh yes. Dear Trevor. Always comes to see me when he’s in the country. Came down here for lunch last Sunday. Still in pretty good nick, isn’t he?’

  ‘Looks very well, yes.’

  ‘You cannot believe how beautiful Trev was as a young man. Not just attractive – beautiful. He and I had a little flurry of fun way back then. Nothing too serious, though I think that was always what he was looking for. And then, of course, later he met Alan. Did you ever know Alan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lovely boy too. But very naughty.’

  ‘The booze?’

  ‘Well, the booze was part of it, but there was lots of other stuff. Drugs, certainly.’

  ‘Trevor told me that Alan never used drugs.’

  ‘Well, maybe that’s what dear Trev wanted to believe. I think he knew. He must’ve known. Everyone else in the business knew.

  ‘The other thing, of course, was that Alan was pathologically unfaithful. Always getting inside other people’s trousers. And some pretty unsavoury trousers, too. Rent boys, real riff-raff. Trev was always digging him out of some mess or another, paying off yet another debt Alan had incurred. He tried to keep an eye on Alan by casting him in every movie he made, but the boy usually found someone to be unfaithful with on location. Trev had this fantasy of the two of them settling down as a couple, but that was never going to be Alan’s way.’

  Charles reflected that maybe Trevor Race had posthumously beatified his lover. His regret at Alan not having lived long enough for them to be legally married may not have taken into account the personality he had been dealing with.

  It was as if Damian Grantchester was reading his thoughts, because he said, ‘Trevor made a very big deal of it when Alan died. Kept going on about how it was the great love of his life, turned this rather shifty character, only one step up from a rent boy, into a plaster saint. If my sources are correct – and they usually are – Trev hasn’t been to bed with anyone else since Alan died. Story goes he’s even rejected the offers of sexual favours from aspiring actors
, which is frankly amazing, because those are reckoned to be one of the perks of being a director.’ The old man chuckled in fond recollection. ‘And Trev’s turned that lovely house of his in Finchley to some sort of shrine to Alan. A therapy centre, is it?’

  ‘Something like that, I believe,’ said Charles, unaccountably unwilling to admit how he and Trevor Race had met.

  ‘Of course,’ Damian went on, ‘you were quite good-looking back in the Bridport days, Charles. I could have fancied you back then, you know. But men were never your thing, were they?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oh, Charles.’ The old man sighed. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  Here was an opportunity to close in on the reason for his visit to Dorking. Charles said, ‘I was thinking back to when I worked for you in Bridport.’

  ‘Oh, surely, love, you don’t say that. You didn’t work for me. We worked together. At the Imperial we were part of an ensemble, weren’t we?’ His emphasis pointed up the pretentiousness of the word. ‘Or had we got beyond all that ensemble nonsense by then?’

  ‘Well, we weren’t an ensemble in the sense that we started every morning with an hour of improvisation to home in on our characters.’

  ‘Too right we weren’t. No time for that sort of farting about. We had shows to put on.’

  ‘Yes, I was thinking back to your production of Hamlet …’

  ‘Ah yes. A bit highbrow for the good burghers of Bridport. They always preferred a good old Agatha Christie to your Shakespeare. Thank God Hamlet was an A-level set text that year. Without the school parties we wouldn’t have broken even.’ A glow of nostalgia suffused the old director’s features. ‘And do you remember that lovely boy who played Hamlet?’