Killings on Jubilee Terrace

by Robert Barnard

  ‘I see. And how would you describe the Jubilee Terrace ethos?’

  ‘Ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, which sometimes – more often now than in the past, because of the Australian soaps – get caught up in extraordinary events.’

  Charlie considered this reply.

  ‘Can you tell me some examples of people trying to plump up their parts in the show – some storyline or incident that they’ve been pushing because it would make them more pivotal in the show?’

  ‘Oh well, we could take Bet Garrett – now, I’m told, risen from the dead. Black mark to you boys in blue there, eh? By the way, if she hadn’t risen from the dead I’d have done a quick rewrite so that her part in the shop scene could have been taken by Sylvia Cardew, the apprentice florist in the shop. It’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is. But tell me about Bet Garrett.’

  ‘Oh, it was a couple of years ago. She’s been in (or rather in and out) of the show for almost as long as Bill has been in it. At one point she wanted to be shunted out of her florist’s shop and given something less occasional to do.’

  ‘She mostly comes in for births, marriages and Mother’s Days I gather.’

  ‘Exactly. And making-it-up-to-her days for the men, which have been fruitful stamping grounds for her. Anyway she fancied herself as landlady of the Duke of York’s, or one of the residents of the Terrace houses. No way was it going to happen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Not versatile enough, and not punchy enough. Odd that, because in real life she’s got punch and to spare, but all her acting career, such as it is, has been playing fairly genteel, sensible middle-class women. Playing all the qualities she’s never had. Very odd, as I say.’

  ‘Did she offer her favours as a return for this promotion?’

  ‘A bit late for that. I’d had her years before – some time between her second and her third child. I remember because when I heard she was pregnant with the latter I had to do some fevered mathematics. She’s not mine. Anyway Bet hadn’t anything in that line left to offer, and apart from sex her cupboard was bare. Boy! She’d have to have offered a lot to be landlady of the Duke of York’s, even if we had wanted to be rid of Bill and Liza, which we didn’t. The landlady of any soap pub is the lynchpin.’

  ‘Of course she is,’ said Charlie. ‘Usually pub landlords and landladies last about five or six months in the real world these days, but that wouldn’t suit a soap, would it?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Melvin cheerfully. ‘We’re selective about how far we catch up with the real world.’

  Charlie shifted in his chair.

  ‘While we’re on the subject of recruitment and promotion of actors in Jubilee Terrace, there is the question of the dead girl.’

  ‘Oh yes. Well actually I’m not the person to ask about casting. Occasionally they do ask me to look at two or three actors when there are auditions for a new character, and I go along and tell them what we scriptwriters have in mind, and which way the character will go. But mostly I stay out of that. Often I don’t see the new people until I watch the finished version of their first scene. I have no idea how this girl was picked out for the apprentice florist. I only know that when Reggie asked me to write one in – give her a line or two as well as an appearance, he winked and added: “Something nice for Hamish”. The florist shop scene – people ordering wreaths for Cyril – was actually filmed before the final shot of Cyril’s death was scheduled. As it is we’re having to make do with the practice shots for the death, which were actually very good.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have a talk with Mr Friedman about that,’ said Charlie. He decided to become confiding. ‘I’m needing to get a lot of background before I even feel able to understand this new world. There’s so much I don’t know. I cling to the fact that two very unpopular cast members are now dead, and in one case there’s no doubt it was murder.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Melvin slowly. ‘By the by, I’ve never thought that Vernon Watts’s death was murder.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He just wasn’t important enough.’

  ‘To the Jubilee Terrace people perhaps. What about the great viewing public?’

  ‘They rather liked Bert Porter, though maybe they were getting fed up with him. Too many terrible jokes. There was a fairly general degree of approval for Cyril Wharton. Too often homosexuals in soaps seem to take us back to the days of Kenneth Williams and Jules and Sandy. Hamish didn’t do that, except where he was deliberately guying that sort of gay. You can’t say he got into the part in any great depth, but at least he took the character seriously, and didn’t invite sneers or sniggers.’

  ‘And of course you in the script department don’t need to commit real life murder,’ said Charlie, to lighten the end of the interview.

  ‘Of course not. We can have a soap murder, or just a soap death. Or we can just have them move away. In Australian soaps they always seem to move to Perth or Brizzie.’

  ‘I’ve always heard well of Perth, at least,’ said Charlie. ‘Perhaps it’s a case of “’Tis a far far better place I go to now”. But I should go and look for Mr Friedman—’

  But he was interrupted by the door opening and the man himself, knocking belatedly, coming in. Charlie could have sworn that at the sight of him Reggie’s face fell. Had he been aiming to get at Melvin Settle first, Charlie wondered, and persuade him to keep quiet about something? That would make sense. About what then?

  ‘Ah, Melvin, I was wanting to talk something over, but it can wait. Good morning again, Inspector Peace. I’d heard you were back. Please feel free to come and ask me anything at any time – except when I’m directing in the studios.’

  There was an orotundity about the voice and phrasing that had not been there on Charlie’s first visit, suggesting that Reggie could quite easily pull rank and get pompous. Or perhaps just that he was nervous.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, sir. I’ll take advantage of it at once if I may.’ Reggie tensed up a little, and it was a second before he nodded. ‘I wonder if you could tell me how Sylvia Cardew got her part as a florist’s assistant on Jubilee Terrace.’

  ‘Yes… Yes, I can. It wasn’t the usual way, but it was quite…let’s say it was quite an acceptable way. One that had happened before. I gave her the job on the recommendation of Hamish Fawley.’

  ‘I see,’ said Charlie. ‘Did you audition her?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. The part was hardly more than an extra’s part. I never even saw her, then or since. I won’t now, will I? Poor girl.’

  ‘I think, sir, you’d better tell me how it came about.’

  ‘Oh sure. But it can’t be important.’

  ‘The girl is dead, sir. Murdered.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes of course.’ His face fell. It was obvious Reggie felt rebuked and did not like the feeling. ‘Well, Hamish came to me a week or so ago and asked me if I could get a tiny part for someone. Hamish was of course finishing up his second spell of time with us, and in the nature of things was never likely to come back. I thought it was worthwhile keeping him sweet – keeping things in general sweet that meant, because Hamish was the only source of sour among the present cast, apart perhaps from the young lovers. Anyway, I said I could think something up, maybe make her one of Rita Somerville’s (that’s Bet Garrett’s) assistants in the florist’s. And Hamish said that would be fine, and even thanked me.’

  ‘Was that rare?’

  ‘Almost unprecedented.’

  ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘I told the script team, then I wrote a little note to the Finance Department saying that whatsername – Sylvia Cardew – was to be put on the payroll for one week, this week, for the part of florist’s assistant. I signed it and gave it to Hamish.’

  ‘I see…’ said Charlie, his voice charged with significance. ‘I’m grateful to you for telling it so fully. But if you could have kept quiet about it you would, wouldn’t you?’

  Reggie dropped his eyes, then
seemed to decide on a course of action.

  ‘Well, wouldn’t you, Inspector? There was something a bit sleazy about the whole transaction. Hamish, after all, never did anyone a good turn.’

  ‘You mean he’d got her a part, and would be demanding what I believe is called a quid pro quo?’

  ‘I think you know perfectly well what a quid pro quo is, Inspector, and yes: that is exactly what Hamish would demand. I don’t think I’m being over-sensitive on this one, but I felt it almost put me in the position of a pimp.’

  ‘Then why did you do it, sir?’

  ‘I told you, I wanted to keep Hamish sweet… I also recognised the name, thought she’d probably been an extra or had a small part of some kind – you know the kind of thing: customer in the Duke of York’s, a patient at the medical centre. So I thought she’d have had some experience, knew our ways… What I mean is, I suppose, that I thought Hamish hadn’t just picked her up on a street corner and promised her a part in Terrace. It may sound silly, but that is the sort of thing he could have done, in a spirit of pure mischief. But I felt pretty sure that wasn’t the case this time… Poor cow: I wish now I’d turned her down flat.’

  Charlie was about to thank him when Melvin Settle spoke.

  ‘You know, now I’ve heard the name I’m beginning to think I’ve heard it before too. Reggie, wasn’t she the girl who delivered papers, the one Bert Porter was to get a pure sort of crush on?’

  ‘Search me. I didn’t direct the scene they did together, though I saw the rushes.’

  Charlie felt mystified.

  ‘But that was a schoolgirl, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes. But as I recollect it, the part wasn’t played by a schoolgirl.’

  ‘Going by the skirt I saw in the bedroom, Sylvia Cardew certainly wasn’t one.’

  ‘I think I’d better explain,’ said Reggie. ‘There is a certain sort of young woman who, with a little help from the make-up department, and costumes, can be made to look like an early or pre-adolescent girl. That’s how Sarah-Louise in Coronation Street, when she became pregnant at twelve, could be played by an eighteen-year-old actress.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Exactly. With boys of course that’s much more unlikely because of the voice breaking. That’s why in Benjamin Britten’s operas the boys are always played by boys, but the girls are often played by a young adult woman who can be made to seem girl-like.’

  ‘Quite apart from other reasons,’ said Charlie.

  ‘All right, all right. Anyway I assume this Sylvia Cardew was of the same type as Sarah-Louise, and could quite simply be made to look twelve or thirteen.’

  ‘Which might have given added piquancy to Hamish’s designs on her.’

  ‘Possibly. Though you mentioned a mini-skirt in the bedroom that—’

  ‘True. But it was just the sort that a preadolescent might wear when pretending to be a fully grown whore.’

  ‘Well, that’s how Sylvia Cardew could first be engaged for an adolescent then as a much older girl. And unless they scanned the cast-lists no one would have noticed.’

  Charlie thought for a moment, not getting up as he thought was expected of him.

  ‘I’m still thinking of the little-girl aspect, the special thrill that could have been part of Hamish’s designs on her, if he was that way inclined.’

  ‘I’ve never seen any signs of that,’ said Reggie.

  ‘Nor I,’ said Melvin. ‘Quite the reverse. His engagement to Bet Garrett suggested he was really attracted to very experienced sexual operators.’

  ‘The engagement was a red herring,’ said Charlie. ‘I gather there was hardly a soul who thought it was a genuine result of mutual attraction. In a sense the piquancy of a pre-teen is a red herring too.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Reggie. ‘You’re the one who floated the idea.’

  ‘I mean it’s irrelevant whether he felt a special sexual excitement at the thought of bedding young girls. He was the victim, after all. The important thing is whether anybody else might have guessed that his taste was for young girls.’

  The two men looked at him.

  ‘You’re thinking of Bill Garrett,’ said Melvin.

  ‘I’m not thinking of anyone in particular,’ said Charlie. But in fact he was thinking of Bill, of his three daughters and of his protective instincts towards them. The fact that he could have thought his victims would also include his wife made him doubly interesting to Charlie.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Private Lives

  ‘Dying like that!’ said Maggie Cardew. ‘The pain! The terror!’

  ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ said her husband. But he looked as if he could think of nothing else.

  ‘She were a lovely little girl,’ his wife went on, dabbing at her eyes and looking as if she was in another world. ‘The sweetest and kindest thing imaginable when she were four.’

  ‘Aye. And what was she when she were thirteen?’ said Danny Cardew bitterly. His words provoked a storm of tears, and he regretted them. ‘I’m sorry, love. I shouldn’t have said that. There’s nowt to be done about all that now.’

  ‘But what shall we tell the policeman when he comes? We can’t tell him we haven’t seen her in the last eighteen months. She living in the same town an’ all.’

  Her husband considered until the tears had died down. Then he said: ‘Them’s difficult years. Our Fiona were a handful when she were that age. Most girls are. But Fiona came through – look at her today. And worse girls come through, often. Something, we don’t know what, meant that Sylvia just went off the rails.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Danny?’

  ‘I’m trying to say there’s no earthly good to be had from hiding things from the Inspector. He’ll find out what she’s been these last years. He might as well find out from us. If it helps him to catch the coward as done this, we’ll have done Sylvia the last service we could do her. God knows, we tried.’

  His wife thought.

  ‘Do you mean that Sylvia was known to the police?’

  ‘Must have been, I’d say. Probably got a record. If it had been int’paper no one would have told us. If she were clever about it and kept out of that sort of trouble, there’s still plenty of men who could tell the police what she were and what she did.’

  ‘But do we tell him everything, then? It’s like a sort of betrayal.’

  ‘It’s no betrayal when Sylvia never hid owt. We tell him all we know. It’s little enough, God knows. But at the very least we’ll save the man’s time.’

  So when Charlie knocked on their door prompt on two, after walking round the neighbourhood and savouring the atmosphere of nicely ageing semi-detacheds with neat gardens of roses and peonies and the odd dated lavatera, he was welcomed, invited to sit down and was showered from the beginning with information.

  It was a sad enough tale. Sylvia had been a late addition to the family of three children but one who, once arrived, was loved and probably spoilt by her older siblings and by her parents. She was, they assured Charlie, the loveliest and most biddable of children until she reached about twelve, and then she went off the rails in ways that twelve-year-olds never knew about in Cardew’s younger days, leaving them at a loss how to impose a discipline and set of standards that had been missing till then.

  ‘It was alcohol, drugs, and sex – sex at twelve!’ said Maggie. ‘And the more we tried to tie her down, rein her in, the more she deceived us, wriggled out, flaunted curfews – just really, like we said, went off the rails. She were so lovely, everyone said so. And then she were so impossible – wanting all the most dangerous things going, and screaming blue murder if she were thwarted.’

  ‘Which wasn’t very often,’ said Danny Cardew grimly. ‘We knew how to say “no”, but we’d no idea how to enforce it.’

  ‘That must have been horrible for you,’ said Charlie.

  ‘It were. In the end she moved out, or just disappeared rather.’

  ‘When w
as this? How old was she?’

  ‘She were fifteen. That’s four year sin’.’

  ‘It was terrible,’ said Maggie. ‘Like the end of the world, our world. She couldn’t even be discreet about it – not her. You’d go into the bathroom and the evidence would be left everywhere. I’d gather it up, though I hated doing it, touching it, and I’d dump it in her bedroom. But it would be straight back in everyone’s view, like she was trying to rub our noses in what she was doing.’

  ‘Do you have other children?’

  ‘Three, all older. Fiona, the next youngest, moved out as soon as Sylvia started going wild. Fiona said she’d been through all that herself, but she could see that Sylvia was going to be something else again.’

  ‘Didn’t you try to get one of her siblings to talk to her?’

  ‘Oh, we did. You can take it, Mr Peace, that we tried everything. Fiona it were who had a talk with her. She were that shocked when she came out she just said: “I’d get rid of her, Mum. It’s the only thing you can do and stay sane”.’

  ‘Is that what you did?’

  ‘In the end when we told her we were at the end of our tether she just vanished, like I said.’

  ‘Did you keep up any sort of connection with her?’

  ‘She rang now and then. She called maybe once a year, always with something to boast about, usually things most decent folk would die to have hidden. After a time she didn’t think us worth her while, and visits and calls stopped.’

  Charlie thought.

  ‘You’re saying she was a prostitute, aren’t you?’