The Dead Side of the Mike

by Simon Brett

  ‘What were you expecting?’

  ‘Drugs, maybe?’

  ‘Might be stuck between the layers.’

  ‘Might be.’ He split one of the sheets. ‘Looks just like glue to me.’ Inspection of the others was equally unrewarding.

  ‘What do you make of it, Charles?’

  ‘I can’t be sure, Frances, but I think we could have unearthed an international cardboard-smuggling ring.’

  Though it was sunny, Frances had put on the car heater in an attempt to dry Charles out a bit. Radio Four purred urbanely from the speakers, discussing new provisions being made for single-parent families.

  ‘I’m sorry, love, I’m afraid I’m making rather a mess of your swish upholstery.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. It’ll sponge off; it said so in the brochure. Are you very uncomfortable?’

  ‘Not too bad. It’s probably useful acclimatisation for the incontinence which will no doubt strike me in later life.’

  ‘Charming.’ A pause. ‘Do you think a lot about getting old, Charles?’

  ‘I am old.’

  ‘I mean old old.’

  ‘Yes, I think about it.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Does it worry you?’

  ‘Not really. It seems pretty logical. Menopause sorted out, it’s the natural next step.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The only thing that worries me about it is being alone, completely alone.’

  ‘You won’t be alone, Frances.’ He could feel her waiting for him to elaborate. As always, he evaded the issue. ‘You’re not the sort of person to be alone.’

  They were silent. Radio Four talked earnestly about the social problems of the handicapped.

  Charles broke the silence. Inevitably with a change of subject. ‘The only thing I can think, Frances, is that the parcel was a dummy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That the would-be murderer made up that bundle of cardboard to look like whatever it was Klinger was expecting. Shrewd idea. Klinger would reach for it and be caught in the trap, and if anyone else found it, it wouldn’t be incriminating evidence. They’d be as puzzled by it as we are.’

  ‘That sounds logical. Yes, I accept that.’

  ‘Good. The thing I can’t work out, though, is why Klinger never got there. He must have known the signals, and yet I’m sure he never arrived at that shed. If he had done, he would have either gone through the floor or taken the package.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe he got lost with the clues. Some of them were pretty obscure. Hands Across the Sea, I mean, really.’

  ‘Yes, but it was a game he was used to playing. I’d have thought, if we could get it right first time . . .’

  ‘He was in a foreign country.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Charles, why did you put the parcel back?’

  ‘It’s evidence. I wanted to leave it all as far as possible as it was, so that if it ever gets to the point of bringing the police in –’

  ‘Why don’t you go to the police now?’

  ‘I’ve nothing to offer them. And I have some experience of how they react to fanciful theories expounded by enthusiastic amateurs.’

  ‘Yes, but you could have been killed by that booby-trap. I mean –’

  ‘But I wasn’t killed by it,’ he said firmly.

  ‘You mean you’re going on investigating?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Next time you might really be killed.’

  ‘Save me from getting old and incontinent.’

  Frances sighed with resignation. ‘What do you do next?’

  ‘Well, I’ve checked out the trail Danny Klinger should have taken the night he didn’t die; I suppose the next thing is to check out his route the night he did die.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I still wish I could sort out why it didn’t work the first time. Where did he lose the trail?’

  ‘We turn off at this junction, don’t we, Charles?’

  ‘Yes, we want the M23 towards Sutton.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t fancy doing that spaghetti junction bit.’

  ‘You don’t have to this way, only in the other direction. And, incidentally, Frances, you are allowed to go at above forty on motorways.’

  ‘I’m driving, Charles. I choose the speed.’

  ‘Fine.’

  She negotiated the South London suburbs well. Charles, full of beer, dozed. Radio Four earnestly discussed the difficulties of Senior Citizens in supermarkets.

  He awoke with a start to hear Frances swearing.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ He peered blearily round him. They were in slow-moving traffic under Hammersmith flyover.

  ‘The bloody radio’s packed in. I don’t know, I’ve only had the thing three days and . . .’

  Charles turned up the volume knob. Nothing. ‘No, it seems completely gone.’

  The car in front of Frances moved ahead and she jerked the Renault forward in annoyance. As she did so, the radio suddenly blared forth its concern with huge volume. Charles hastened to turn it down.

  ‘Oh, thank God it’s working.’

  ‘Yes, Frances, not only that, you have also told me why Danny Klinger never got to the first rendezvous.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The radio only stopped because the flyover cut out the signal. We weren’t aware of that problem on the way down, because we were listening on cassette. But Klinger was listening to a live broadcast. So if he got held up under a bridge or something – like, say, under the spaghetti junction between the M23 and M25 because of road works – then he could easily have missed one of the clues. Couldn’t he?’

  ‘Who’s a clever boy then?’ said Frances.

  Charles began to think that the Swedish girls’ spelling was deliberately perverse. No one could abuse the English language so consistently without conscious effort. The latest offering, which was affixed to the telephone when he got back, read:

  YOUR AJINT SKOLLIN RINK RINK HIM.

  He deduced from this that his agent Maurice Skellern had rung and, though still in his damp clothes, could not resist the reflex to ring back straight away. The actor’s motto rang through his head – ‘It might be work’.

  ‘Maurice Skellern Artistes,’ said a bad impression of Noel Coward.

  ‘Oh come on, Maurice. It’s one thing pretending you have hundreds of people to answer your telephone, but claiming Noel Coward’s one of them comes under the heading of false pretences.’

  ‘Charles. Sorry you don’t like it. Next time I answer the phone, I’ll do my Jimmy Cagney.’

  ‘I can’t wait. What is it, Maurice? Work?’

  ‘Yes, yes, all in good time . . . “you dirty rat”. Recognise it? Cagney to the life, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sounds nothing like him.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You can’t see what I’m doing with my hands.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Probably just as well, eh?’ Maurice went into a spasm of his gasping laugh.

  ‘Maurice, Maurice, what is it? I am standing here in wet clothes, I have incipient gangrene in my right leg and I want to have a bath. What is it?’

  ‘All right, all right, don’t lose your sense of humour. It’s good news. It’s a booking. My policy’s paying off.’

  ‘Policy?’

  ‘You know, keeping your presence more in the vanguard of the public eye. This is another radio booking.’

  ‘What, a return to Dad’s the Word by popular demand?’

  ‘No, no, this is a quiz programme. Same producer, though, Monckton? Thing called The Showbiz Quiz. I’ve never heard of it.’

  Charles felt a little flutter of excitement. Was this the moment when he became recognised as Personality rather than just as an actor? Would he soon be invited to open supermarkets and describe his bathroom to the TV Times? ‘You mean, they want me as a panellist?’

  ‘No, no. They want you to be the Mystery Voice.’

  ‘The Mystery Voice?
What, you mean “And the next object is Queen Mary’s Umbrella. Queen – Mary’s – Umbrella.” That sort of thing?’

  ‘That sort of thing, yes.’

  No, not the big breakthrough into personality broadcasting. Just another benefit of Nick Monckton’s shyness and desperate habit of booking people he knew.

  Nita Lawson wasn’t in her office later on that afternoon, but the ever-efficient Brenda was more than happy to supply Charles with the information he required. To have found someone as interested in P as Bs as she was herself was more than she had dared hope from life. She became quite frisky, even coquettish. For a ghastly moment, Charles feared that she thought the motive of his visit to be ulterior. Oh well, there was nothing he could do about it. He remained resolutely charming, though the various aches of his body, particularly of his right shin, were beginning to nag.

  With another deft demonstration of her filing efficiency, Brenda produced the P as B for the night of Klinger’s death.

  The first item was an immediate disappointment. Island in the Sun – Harry Belafonte.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ said Charles involuntarily.

  ‘Pdn?’ Brenda had perfected a way of saying ‘Pardon’ which completely eliminated vowels.

  ‘Well, I just . . . I mean, it seems unlikely that that could have been the opening number.’

  ‘But it’s on the P as B,’ she objected devoutly, as if he were questioning the authenticity of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  ‘Yes, but isn’t it possible that they changed the number after the running order had been arranged?’

  She shook her blonde head. ‘But then I’d have done an amendment. Like I did on the last one you were talking about.’

  ‘But mightn’t they have changed it and then not told you?’

  ‘Oh no, there’d have to be an amendment. The P as B has a very wide distribution list.’ Again she chided his heresy.

  Charles saw his rather finely constructed theories begin to topple. ‘But did you actually hear the programme go out?’

  ‘Oh no, I do go out some nights, you know. Not every night, though,’ she added, simpering.

  Oh dear, she did fancy him. Charles put on his most debonair smile. ‘No, have to fight off the boyfriends sometimes and wash your hair, eh?’ She simpered further. ‘Tell me, who would be responsible for telling you if the number was changed?’

  ‘Pdn?’

  ‘Who would tell you about the change?’

  ‘Look, there wasn’t any change. If there were, there would be an amendment on the P as B and there is no amendment on the P as B.’ She was now talking to him with impatient precision, as she did to the least intelligent trainee production secretaries.

  ‘Yes, but in general terms – I mean, not in this specific instance – if a number were changed, who would give the information to you?’

  ‘The producer.’

  ‘Who on that date was . . .?’

  ‘Kelly Nicholls.’

  Good. The one person who would not want to draw attention to the substitution. ‘Tell me, is your filing system for listeners’ letters as efficient as the one you have for the P as Bs?’

  Brenda preened herself. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you remember, when I was last in here, Nita mentioned a letter from a man complaining about the constant use of The Londonderry Air on the programme?’

  ‘Of course.’ She reached down a file with studied efficiency and opened it with a flourish at the right page.

  Charles read the letter and looked at the date. Exactly right. 12th July. The day after Klinger’s death. In other words, the listener wrote it the day after hearing the music on the programme. Charles flicked through the P as Bs for the rest of that week. No, no sign of Danny Boy, unless he went right back to the night of Andrea’s death. And surely no one would wait a whole week to register that kind of complaint. Anyway, the objection was to the ‘continued’ use of the tune.

  Ah well, it could all be checked with Mrs Moxon’s personal archive.

  ‘Brenda, you’ve been wonderful. Full marks. Immediate nomination for Secretary of the Year.’

  ‘Only too happy to have been of service. Call any time, day or night, if I can help again.’

  Yes, he felt sure she meant it. He shrugged ingenuously. ‘“Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.”’

  ‘Pdn?’

  Mrs Moxon did not appear surprised by his visit, but she seemed to him changed, vaguer. The grooming was still immaculate, but he was more aware of her real age. He felt perhaps she had not much longer to live, that soon she would leave the confusion of her hallucinations and go to join Teddy.

  Neither did she seem surprised by his request to hear another specific tape. She found it more slowly than she had the previous one and when she sat down after switching it on, looked abstracted and old.

  The signature tune started and dipped in the prescribed place.

  ‘Good evening, one and all. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Dave Sheridan welcoming you to my Late Night Show. I hope you’ll stay with me for the next two hours, when you’ll hear all kinds of good sounds and fun things. There’s the Vintage Spot, there’s our Ten for a Tune Competition on the telephone, there’s a Bouquet of records from one of our listeners – and of course the very best of music. Like this from Mr – Harry – Belafonte!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Charles.

  But then the lyric started.

  Oh, Danny Boy,

  The pipes, the pipes are ca-alling . . .

  Charles Paris smiled. Sacrilege though the idea would seem to Brenda, even P as Bs could lie.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘COULD I SPEAK to Mr Venables, please? This is Charles Paris.’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Paris,’ said Polly, the solicitor’s secretary, and put him through.

  ‘Charles. What a pleasure to hear from you.’

  ‘Nice to hear you too. How’s crime?’

  ‘As I have told you many times before, Charles, I have very few dealings with the criminal side of the Law. Most of my work is in –’

  ‘No, I just meant your own crime, the regular solicitor’s crimes of procrastination, misrepresentation and extortion.’

  ‘Mustn’t grumble,’ Gerald Venables replied smugly. ‘But what about you? How’s crime with you? Are you on to another case?’

  ‘Yes, I think I may be.’

  ‘Can I help? Gimme the low-down.’ At the mention of a possible criminal investigation, Gerald regressed from solicitor to eager schoolboy.

  ‘There is something you could do for me, if you’ve got a free day and a car.’

  ‘Of course I’ve got a car, Charles. And a free day can be organised. Polly, what’s in the diary for tomorrow? Oh well, cancel that, move Margolis to Thursday and tell Lady Harker I have to be in court. Yes, I’m free tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. I was going to ask Frances, but she’s off staying with some school friend for a couple of days.’

  ‘Are you and Frances back together again?’

  ‘Occasionally. Not very often.’

  ‘Oh really. I wish you’d get that sorted out. It’s very difficult for Kate and me always having to send two Christmas cards.’

  ‘Knock me off the list. I don’t mind.’

  ‘I might just do that. Well, are you going to fill me in on the action?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in the car tomorrow. Pick me up here, can you? We’ve got to start from the Kensington Hilton.’

  ‘Kensington Hilton? What is all this about, Charles?’

  ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow. Actually, lucky I’ve remembered. I must go down to the Kensington Hilton now to check something out.’

  ‘Oh, very well. Perhaps it’s better if you don’t tell me over the phone. I’ll pick you up at – I say, do you still live in that awful hole in Bayswater?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up there . . . what, about ten?’

  ‘Fine. Have you still got the same car? The Mercedes?’
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br />   ‘Charles, that was three years ago. No,’ he confided complacently, ‘I’ve just taken delivery of a new one.’

  ‘Has it got a cassette player?’

  ‘Oh, really, Charles, what do you take me for? Of course it has.’

  Not only did it have a cassette player, it also had a telephone, air conditioning and a fridge. It was in fact a brand new Rolls Royce, discreetly dark blue, which looked in Hereford Road like the Queen going walkabout in the slums.

  ‘Why on earth did you get this?’ asked Charles, as he sank into the upholstery.

  ‘Oh, there are certain tax reasons,’ replied Gerald vaguely. ‘And of course it’s an investment.’

  ‘So soliciting really is doing well, is it?’

  ‘Charles, soliciting is what loose women do in small rooms, extorting money from and denying satisfaction to the ignorant and the innocent. Whereas what I do . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Gerald asked abruptly.

  ‘Kensington Hilton, for a start.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘If my hunch is right, out along the M4 towards Wallingford.’

  ‘Oh excellent.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A client of mine, Sir Arnold Fleishman, lives near Henley. That means I can put the day in my books as a visit to him.’

  ‘Does it also mean we actually have to go and see him?’

  ‘Oh Charles, don’t be childish. Of course not.’

  They started from the Kensington Hilton and the clues did lead to the M4. Having followed the previous tape, Charles found the directions much easier to recognise this time. He explained the system with glee, indicating how Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding must inevitably lead them to Reading, and so on. In the gaps between the clues he filled in the background to the case.

  Gerald got boyishly excited about it all and that, coupled with his transparent pride in his new car, made him a very giggly and good companion.

  It was only when the final musical clue, A Walk in the Black Forest, led them into the dark little wood off Greenmoor Hill near Woodcote that their mood of adolescent euphoria was dampened. There is always something desolate about the scene of a murder.