by Simon Brett
That was the state in which he spent the Thursday, trying to pretend he wasn’t infected by the same prurient interest as the other nine million who were waiting to watch Public Enemies.
His television was of a piece with the rest of the bedsitter – an old portable dating from the days before beige plastic had been appropriated exclusively for computer monitors. To its top was attached a ring aerial, which needed constant realignment to minimise the snowstorms that flurried across the screen.
By the time nine o’clock arrived, Charles found he had got through nearly half a bottle of Bell’s, which was bad, even by his standards. Still, it’s justified, he thought. I deserve a bit of a celebration. I am, after all, about to watch myself on television. But even he wasn’t convinced by such sophistry.
As the applause for the preceding sofa-bound sitcom gave way to a teaser for Public Enemies and commercials, Charles realised that once again he’d omitted to tell Frances he was about to be on television. But he didn’t feel inclined to do so now. Instead, he poured himself another substantial Bell’s.
The credits for Public Enemies combined urgency and threat. Crime scenes of mounting violence were superimposed on each other against insistent background music in which jangling guitars mixed with electronic sirens and gunshots. In each of the scenes the criminal appeared as a black void, an evil outline punching, stabbing or slashing at a blurred victim. These outlines froze in place until they all conjoined and blacked out the screen. Over this the blood-red Public Enemies logo suddenly appeared.
The blackness melted to blue and fragmented into new outlines, this time of anonymous policemen and women. Out of the middle of this montage a new image took shape and, just as the blood-red words ‘with BOB GARSTON’ appeared at the bottom of the screen, revealed itself to be a stylised picture of the presenter at his most no-nonsense, hard-bitten and journalistic. It was the gritty face of a man working at the coalface of real life.
The message of the credits was undoubtedly the one that Bob’s Your Uncle Productions intended – only one man can find a solution to the rising tide of violent crime in this country, and that man is Bob Garston.
Charles Paris took a long cynical swallow of Bell’s, as the image dissolved to zoom in on the real Bob Garston, live in the W.E.T. studio. He sat perched grittily on a high stool, wearing glasses for extra gravitas. His light double-breasted suit was beautifully tailored, in a way that eschewed dandyism and maintained the necessary grittiness quotient. It was certainly – and literally – a cut above the square-shouldered suits of the plainclothes men who were part of the presenter’s backdrop.
Behind Bob Garston the W.E.T. designer had created a simulacrum of a police incident room, full of telephones, computers, maps and wall charts. Throughout the programme this area was criss-crossed by policemen and women, some in uniform, some not, but all possessed by a desperate urgency to fulfil some unknown mission. The constant, purposeless movement would have been extremely irritating if the viewer saw too much of it, but that was not a problem in a Bob Garston production. Characteristically, the presenter saw to it that he was held in tight close-up for all of his links.
Garston began the programme with even more concerned dramatic urgency than usual. ‘Good evening. Tonight on Public Enemies we bring you exclusive news on a case that has had the country holding its breath for the past few weeks – the disappearance of Martin Eamshaw. In what is a first for a non-News television programme, Public Enemies will bring you information which Scotland Yard have kept secret from all other media until now. We will also get a reaction from Martin Earnshaw’s wife to the new breakthrough. That’s in a moment, but first a follow-up on last week’s report about the security van robbery in Ilford.’
The hook had been baited, the promised revelation cunningly designed to keep millions of hands from straying to their remote controls for the next half-hour. No doubt Roger Parkes hoped that all over the country, extra viewers were being called in from the kitchen. ‘Hey, Public Enemies’s got something new on the Martin Earnshaw case – and they’re going to have that dishy wife of his on again. Bet they’ve found the body. Come on, love, come and see what’s happening.’
The intervening items in the programme seemed particularly dull that week. Bob Garston had even allowed in Roger Parkes’s survey of automatic security lights. But the relative tedium was calculated. Between each insert, the presenter wound up the expectation a little more, professionally controlling his revelations with all the skill of a strip-tease artiste.
At last the moment came. Turning with hitherto unplumbed depths of grittiness to another camera, Bob Garston announced, ‘And now we come to the latest news on the disappearance of Martin Earnshaw.’ But he didn’t go straight to the bombshell; still he extended his titillation of the viewing millions. ‘We’ve had a great many very useful calls from members of the public offering new information – and don’t forget, our phone lines are open now and continue to be open twenty-four hours a day. The number’s on your screen, so if you know anything – anything at all – get in touch. Remember, even what seems to you an insignificant detail could be vitally important to the police investigations – so please pick up your phone.
‘We’ve had one very useful call from a lady who saw Martin Earnshaw leaving the Brighton pub where the previous last sighting of him occurred. She’s given us invaluable information for which we’re very grateful, but we would urge her to make contact again to . . .’ And he went into his predictable routine before introducing the reconstruction.
Charles Paris watched his own performance dispassionately. The only emotion it aroused in him was mild distaste. Was it really for this that I became an actor? The world is full of wonderful parts in brilliant plays and I end up imitating the walk of a vanished property developer. Have I no pride? Is there no job I wouldn’t do for money?
Uncomfortably suspecting that he knew the answers to the last two questions, Charles Paris refilled his whisky glass, which seemed unaccountably to have emptied itself.
At the end of the insert, Bob Garston still prolonged the agony. There were repeated pleas for anyone with information to come forward, further specific pleas to the woman who had seen Martin Earnshaw going to the Palace Pier. Then there was a reminder about the challenge between Ted Faraday and the police from the previous week’s programme, and the news that the private investigator had faxed in an update on his progress. ‘He’s gone undercover, but is very optimistic that he’s getting somewhere with his investigations.’
Bob Garston paused and held the silence for a long time. Then, turning to yet another camera, he produced his coup de théatre.
‘However, Ted Faraday is probably not yet aware of the dramatic new development in the case. I am able to tell you – here, exclusively, live on Public Enemies – that a body has been found, which is believed to be that of Martin Earnshaw. Or to be more accurate, parts of a body have been found.’
He left another long pause for the gruesome impact of his words to sink in even to the slowest viewing intellect. ‘Over to Detective Inspector Sam Noakes for the details.’
The camera found her at the front of the busy incident-room set. She sat, sternly pretty in her uniform, at a functional desk. The camera homed in to exclude the meaningless bustle behind her.
‘Acting on an underworld tip-off,’ Sam Noakes, with effortless mastery of the autocue, announced, ‘police went to a graveyard in the village of Colmer five miles north of Brighton, where there had been apparent desecration of two recent graves. This kind of crime is all too common at the moment, and is frequently thought to be related to black magic practices . . .’
My God, this story’s got everything, thought Charles. All we need now is a coven of naked witches. But his attempt at wry detachment didn’t work. He was as surely ensnared by Sam Noakes’s narrative as the rest of the silent millions.
‘It was found on examination that two recently buried coffins had been tampered with. When opened, police did not
discover any harm or desecration to the bodies inside. However . . .’ The detective inspector may have claimed the show business element of her work was merely a means to an end, but she could still hold a pause like a theatrical dame ‘. . . they did discover that something else had been placed inside the coffins.’ Another silence Edith Evans would have killed for. ‘In each coffin they found a human arm.’
Millions of pins, in sitting rooms around the country, could have been heard to drop. Bob Garston gave them time to descend, before he again picked up the narrative.
‘Preliminary tests on those severed limbs suggest strongly that they belonged to Martin Eamshaw. His wife has very bravely been to try to identify them and is also of the view that they belonged to her husband. Chloe Earnshaw is obviously deeply traumatised by the experience, but has still agreed to appear – here, live – on tonight’s programme. Her reason is a belief in human justice. Her husband has been murdered, and Chloe Earnshaw is determined to help find the “Public Enemies” responsible for the crime!’
The grieving wife – now officially the grieving widow – appeared on a separate set, looking frailer than ever between two huge villainous black cut-outs like those in the credits. She was still an elegant figure, in black polo-neck sweater and trousers, the colour now justified by her new status.
Her thin face, again with pale hair scoured back, bore witness to the strain she was under. It seemed even thinner and the highly developed skills of television make-up could not hide – or had perhaps been under instructions from the production team not to hide – the deep circles beneath Chloe’s eyes and the redness that surrounded them.
This evidence of her distress made even more unworthy Charles Paris’s thought that she still looked fanciable. His guilt was only alleviated by the knowledge that the same unworthy thought had sprung up in a few million other male minds across the country.
‘My husband has been murdered,’ Chloe Earnshaw began simply. ‘That is a terrible truth for any wife to come to terms with, and I don’t think it’s yet sunk in for me. The reason I feel strong enough to be here tonight talking about Martin is probably that the truth hasn’t sunk in yet.
‘But the reason that I am here talking to you is that I’m angry. Somebody has taken away the life of the man I love. They’ve taken him away from me forever. I’ll never see Martin again.’
Her voice wavered as the reality of this hit her for the first time. She gulped and recovered herself. ‘But I don’t believe anyone should be allowed to get away with a crime like that. There still is justice in this country and I want the people who killed my husband to face that justice. They must have friends. They must have wives, girlfriends. There must be someone out there who knows who they are. Please, please, if you know anything . . . just . . . get . . . in . . . touch . . .’
The last words struggled out against a mounting tide of tears and, as they finished, Chloe Earnshaw slumped, her head in her hands, weeping bitterly.
The camera, which had closed in on her suffering face, drew back very slowly, till her tiny body dwindled and the two huge cut-outs of ‘Public Enemies’ seemed to fill the screen.
Then there was a surprise. Across that stricken image, with no signature tune, the credits started to roll. This was unprecedented. Never before had a production involving Bob Garston ended without a return to the presenter for a closing remark and reminder whose show it was. But in this instance, recognising the strength of the final image, he must have put dramatic television above personal aggrandisement.
It was a surprising decision, given its source, but the right one. As the end credit, ‘A W.E.T. PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH BOB’S YOUR UNCLE PRODUCTIONS FOR ITV’, rolled off the top of the screen and Chloe Earnshaw’s tiny white face was lost in black, no one could deny the power of the image.
Nor could anyone deny the power of Chloe Earnshaw’s performance. The actor in Charles had to admit, with purely professional admiration, ‘She’s bloody good.’
Chapter Seven
ROGER PARKES’s hopeful prognostications were gratifyingly realised. Public Enemies’ revelations achieved all the reaction he had hoped for. The Friday’s tabloids wallowed in the gruesomeness of the Colmer graveyard find, as ever appealing to that instinct in their readers which forms queues near motorway pile-ups, and as ever dressing up this prurience with ‘the-public-must-be-told-the-truth’ sanctimoniousness.
There even developed a race between the papers to find a perfect nickname for the crime’s perpetrator. The Mirror led off with ‘The Deadly Dissector’; Today offered ‘The Sick Surgeon’; while the Sun kept things characteristically simple with ‘The Bloody Butcher’. Having made their pitches, they sat back and waited to see which name the public would latch on to, each paper hoping that its coining might attain the mythic status of a ‘Black Panther’, a ‘Moors Murderer’ or a ‘Yorkshire Ripper’.
The sensational Sunday papers, given more time, were able to come up with elaborate features on the story. The People brought forward a stomach-turning serialisation of a forensic pathologist’s memoirs; while the News of the World included a pull-out supplement on other murders involving dismemberment – which no doubt led to many tasteless jokes over Sunday joints.
Far more gratifying, however, to the Public Enemies team than this news-inspired coverage was the media reaction to the way the revelation had been made. As Roger Parkes had hoped, there was an explosion of affront from the ‘quality’ press and television news departments.
ITN attempted through the courts to put an injunction on Public Enemies, prohibiting any further ‘exclusive revelations’. The Times, in a leader headed ‘THE TAIL WAGGING THE DOG’, waxed lyrical about ‘the sanctity of objective factual reporting’ which must be protected from ‘the iconoclastic vandalism of thrill-seeking entertainment programmes’.
To complete Roger Parkes’s happiness, a question was actually asked in the House. A self-important Labour member from South Wales asked whether ‘the Government condones the usurpation of journalistic values by televisual sensationalism.’ Unfortunately the question received no meaningful answer, since it was asked at one of those moments when the chamber was virtually empty, but nonetheless a point of principle had been established.
Best of all, from the point of view of W.E.T. and Bob’s Your Uncle Productions, that Thursday’s edition of Public Enemies got wonderful ‘overnights’. These were the first indications of audience share, ratings which would be confirmed by fuller research a week later, but which indicated that all the elaborately teasing trails running up to the programme had done their stuff. ‘The BBC News,’ as Bob Garston announced with relish, ‘was bloody nowhere – hardly on the map. We bloody stuffed them!’
And, given the amount of publicity that week’s programme had generated, the next week’s Public Enemies looked set fair to stuff the BBC even more comprehensively.
Which was, after all, the whole aim of the exercise.
Charles Paris found it odd being dead. Previously his rendering of Martin Eamshaw had been an impersonation of someone who might or might not have suffered a dreadful fate; now suddenly he was playing a murder VICTIM.
It wasn’t of course the first time he’d done that. He’d been killed off early in many creaky stage thrillers, notably one called The Message is Murder at the Regent Theatre, Rugland Spa. For another, whose title he had mercifully forgotten, he received a notice which claimed: ‘Charles Paris dead was infinitely more convincing than the rest of the cast alive.’
Nor had his defunct performances been confined only to potboilers; he’d also given of himself in the classics. Indeed, his Ghost in a Chichester production of Hamlet had been greeted by the West Sussex Gazette with the following: ‘Charles Paris, as the Prince’s father, looked surprisingly corporeal. His too, too solid flesh certainly showed no signs of melting.’
But all these experiences were different from playing the part of a real person who had, until very recently, been breathing, walking and talking
. And had now suffered dismemberment. Being Martin Eamshaw did give Charles a bit of a frisson.
But it’s an ill wind . . . Martin Earnshaw’s murder offered Charles Paris the prospect of continuing employment – at least until the perpetrator of the crime was uncovered. The Public Enemies production team had come up with a winning formula, in which the heart-rending Chloe Earnshaw and her late husband were essential ingredients. They weren’t about to change that in a hurry. Charles Paris, as the dead man, had become a running character in this soap opera of murder.
Briefly he even contemplated getting on to Maurice Skellern and demanding more money now he was such an integral part of the show, but he decided against it. Instead he – and some bottles of Bell’s – passed the weekend around Hereford Road in empty-glove-puppet mode, waiting for the next summons to W.E.T. House.
It came on the Monday morning. Louise Denning, earnestly humourless. announced that he was required for a briefing meeting at eleven the following day. There was no enquiry as to whether he was available. It was again assumed that nothing would impede the ultimate imperative of television.
W.E.T. Reception was expecting him and Charles Paris was speedily and efficiently escorted upstairs by one of the programme secretaries. Once in the Public Enemies outer office, he was asked to wait. He was offered a cup of coffee, though no explanation for the delay. He accepted the coffee, which the secretary quickly brought before disappearing on some unspecified errand to another part of the building.
Charles was left alone, wishing he’d thought to bring his Times, so that he could have a crack at the crossword. But he hadn’t. He looked around the office for other reading matter. There weren’t even any programme files. The conspiratorial secrecy which surrounded Public Enemies ensured that all its records were kept under lock and key in an inner office.
Nope, he could see nothing that contained words except for the telephone directories and, compulsive reader though he was, Charles Paris wasn’t about to start reading them.
