Hospital Corners

by William Stafford

  Stevens jumped out at him from the shadows.

  “Wanker,” said Pattimore. “Stop fucking about; we’ve got work to do.”

  ***

  Robert Bean breathed out. He dared not inhale while visiting the men. They were beginning to stink to high heaven by this point. He took them food and water twice a day and would have to do something about providing buckets but he’d be buggered if he was going to empty them. And Jessica wouldn’t do it. She’d scream the place down.

  He checked the doors were locked. They were good, sturdy doors. Fine examples of Victorian workmanship. Several inches thick and fashioned from iron, the doors ensured the cells behind them were soundproof - no one wanted to hear the screams of those old loonies as they were subjected to whatever the ‘treatment’ in ‘treatment rooms’ referred to. Water, he imagined, and rubber tubing. And later, electricity. It was supposedly a step up from the old medieval idea of demonic possession and exorcisms, but it was all potato-potahto in his view.

  Distracted by these musings, he did not hear their approach. He winced, flinching from the harsh light they shone in his face.

  “Hello,” said Detective Sergeant Miller. “What are you doing down here?”

  Rob pulled his hoodie over his head and barged past the woman and the black man, winding the latter in the process. The detectives gave chase, calling Stop, Police! But that only served to make the fugitive flee faster.

  Miller and Henry gave chase. The corridors were a warren of twists and turns. Within seconds, they lost sight of their quarry. They stopped. Harry Henry’s panting reverberated off the walls.

  Rob kept running. He glanced over his shoulder and laughed. He had lost the cops almost as quickly as they had found him. He slowed a little, thinking fast. They knew nothing - and as long as he had the keys, they would find nothing. If they catch me, he decided, I’ll tell them I got lost. I’ll say I’m an extra. Sis will back me up.

  He laughed. He was far too clever for any copper.

  He turned a corner and collided with a tall man with a porn star moustache.

  “Watch where you’m fucking going,” said Stevens, seizing him by the front of his hoody.

  “Soz,” muttered Rob, not looking up, “Got lost looking for the bog.”

  “Oh, well, it’s through there and... ”

  “Ben!” Pattimore interrupted. He had his phone to his ear. “It’s Miller. Be on the lookout for a bloke in a hoody.”

  “Uh?” said Stevens. Then he swore as the bloke in a hoody stamped on his foot and pushed him against the wall.

  Rob tore along the passage. Pattimore gave chase with Stevens limping along behind.

  Around a corner came Harry Henry and Miller. Rob ducked away and took another turn. He burst into the gift shop set, colliding with display units of Get Well cards. Scrambling to his feet, he ran into the magazine stand as four detectives appeared on the scene, shouting and swearing.

  “There’s the bastard!” cried Stevens, throwing himself at the fleeing figure and tackling him to the floor. Rob wriggled, kicking at Stevens’s underbelly. He got free and tore around the set. He dodged Pattimore and Harry Henry before plunging into the stupefied onlookers, shoving them out of the way in his desperation to escape.

  Stevens grabbed a large tin of toffees from a shelf and hurled it at the fugitive’s head. It felled him at once. Everyone gathered around until the detectives made them stand aside, warding them off with their i.d. cards.

  “What the fuck is going on?” roared one of the producers.

  “That ain’t in the script!” complained the other.

  They glanced at each other. “But it could be... ” they said at once. One resolved to call Monty right away and fuck the time difference. The other approached Stevens and asked if he’d ever considered a career in the movies.

  Miller stepped between them before Stevens could respond.

  “Gentlemen, we have a suspect to question,” she said. “Meanwhile, I suggest you halt production until we get to the bottom of this.”

  “Here,” said Pattimore. He’d rifled the unconscious man’s pockets and found a bunch of large and old-looking keys.

  “I don’t get it,” said the first producer.

  “Me either,” said the other.

  “Gentlemen,” said Miller, “I have an inkling we’re about to find out what happened to Bernard Brody and Dabney Dorridge.”

  “And Julian Farrow,” added Harry Henry.

  “Yes; thank you, Harry.”

  10

  Robert Bean held his head in his hands. His elbows were on the table in the main interview room down at Serious.

  “Look, I’ve told you,” he sounded exhausted. “Yes, we locked up the writer. Yes, we locked up Dabney bloody Dorridge. Yes, we locked up that traitor Julian fucking Farrow. But no! I swear by everything I hold sacred, we did not lay a finger on the assistant director, Simon Whatsisname. I swear!”

  Across the table, Detective Inspector Stevens breathed out through his nose. “Why did you say that?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “No, why did you call Julian fucking Farrow a traitor?”

  “Because that’s true as well.”

  Rob sighed. With a shaking hand he reached for a drink of water.

  “Take your time,” said Pattimore.

  “But don’t take all fucking day,” said Stevens.

  Bean began by stating that unless they were into the show themselves, they probably wouldn’t understand how important it is to its devoted fans. People all over the world had been campaigning for decades for the series’s resurrection but, with its star Bunny Slippers not as young as she was, a one-off film version had seemed the most likely prospect. A fundraising campaign had brought in money - more than anyone could have envisaged. People wanted their names in the credits of the Hospital Corners movie. They wanted to appear on screen as background artistes. They wanted some creative input into the storyline.

  And that’s where conflict had arisen. Some wanted to rehash old storylines - the programme’s greatest hits, if you will - reimagined for the twenty-first century. Others wanted an all-new plot. New characters alongside the old - those cast members who hadn’t popped their clogs since the show’s cancellation, that is.

  Pattimore interrupted to ask which side Rob was on. Bean looked at the detective constable with utter contempt.

  “The traditional side, of course. Only a fuckwit would want to tamper with the format.”

  Pattimore grimaced in a sorry-I-asked manner and gestured to Bean to continue.

  The film was rapidly becoming a reality. A writer was commissioned - Bernard Brody, who’d penned many of the show’s most memorable episodes - but (Bean’s face clouded) when the Americans came on board. Brody had been seduced by the Yankee dollar.

  “He wrote in an American doctor,” Bean shook his head. “Hospital Corners was always a Black Country soap for Black Country people. We don’t want Americans muscling in.”

  “So you shut Bernard Brody in a disused treatment room.”

  “A hospital corner!” Stevens was amusing himself, if no one else.

  “Not at first. We tried to talk him round. Make him see reason. But he blathered on about the money being too good to pass up, and he has gambling debts. So then we shut him away.”

  “And the producers got another writer. An American writer... ”

  Bean scowled. “We approached Dabney, tried to get him to play down the American influence, but he was adamant the Hospital Corners he was making would be his version of Hospital Corners.”

  “The director’s cut?” said Pattimore.

  “No, we just roughed him up a bit.”

  Pattimore consulted his notes. “And then this Julian Farrow was provisionally put in charge?”
r />   Bean looked ready to spit on the floor. “Traitor!” he snarled. “There he was, in prime position to give the fans what they want and he goes and substitutes the screenplay with one of his own!” Bean was aghast with the temerity of the man.

  “Hold up,” said Stevens, “You mean the screenplay you had already substituted instead of the one faxed over from America?”

  “Well, yes, if you’re going to split hairs... ”

  “So, who was next?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who was next to be removed from the picture? The make-up lady? The best boy? The dolly grip?”

  Bean frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Stevens sighed. “They’re all movie jobs. I’ve seen them on the list after every fucking film.”

  “No,” said Bean. “That was it. With Farrow out of commission, we were in a position to step up and take over.”

  “We?” said Pattimore.

  Bean’s mouth clamped shut.

  “Who’s we?” said Stevens.

  “If you mean your sister,” Pattimore glanced at the notes, “-ah, Jessica, we’ve already brought her in. We’ll see how closely her storyline tallies with yours.”

  “She’s fucking fit,” said Stevens. “Wouldn’t mind giving her a grilling.”

  Bean’s eyes flashed with fury. “Fools!” he roared. “You don’t know what you’ve done! The Americans! They’ll ruin everything!”

  “I don’t give a shit,” said Stevens. “You can’t go locking people up because you don’t approve of what they’re doing.”

  Bean blinked. “Isn’t that what you do?”

  “Fair fucking point,” said Stevens. “Only, I’m paid to do it. In the interests of the public good. Not on account of some poxy piece of shit television programme.”

  Outraged, Bean launched himself across the table and tried to throttle the detective inspector. Stevens evaded the assault with ease. With a smirk, he punched Robert Bean in the belly and helped him back to his chair.

  “You saw that, didn’t you, Jase?” Stevens appealed to Pattimore. “Mad bastard went for me. I thought my time was up.”

  “Yes, I saw,” said Pattimore.

  “He hit me!” cried Bean, in-between great gulps of air. “He fucking thumped me. You saw that!”

  Pattimore sniffed. “Didn’t see a thing, mate.”

  He terminated the interview and he and Stevens left Bean to get his breath back.

  “What do you make of all that, then” Pattimore ran a hand down his face. “All because of a telly programme.”

  “Sounds like a massive cult,” said Stevens - or words to that effect.

  Chief Inspector Wheeler came striding along the corridor like a miniature juggernaut.

  “Never mind all this buggery tit-wank about locking people up and swapping fucking screenplays. Ask him about the fucking murder!”

  “Who?” said Stevens.

  “Simon fucking Popper! Results are back. He was dead before the belt went around his neck.”

  “Oh,” Stevens looked disappointed. “So it wasn’t an asphyxi-wank then?”

  “You’re obsessed,” said Wheeler. “I’ve just been in with the sister. She’s coughed for the lot apart from Simon Popper.”

  “That’s what he says,” Pattimore nodded at the interview room door.

  “Well, they would fucking say that, wouldn’t they?” Wheeler was exasperated. “Get back in there and make him talk. By using questions, Benny-boy, not thumping.”

  She pointed a warning finger at D. I. Stevens who smirked and feigned innocence.

  “But if they didn’t do it, they didn’t do it,” said Pattimore.

  “Hark at the fucking legal expert. If they didn’t fucking do it then it means we still have a fucking murderer out there. And that fucking film and all the fuckers who work on it are still in fucking danger.”

  ***

  Harry Henry and Miller were trawling through the available information on the members of the cast and crew.

  “Now, her,” said Harry Henry, pulling up a picture of Delia Cartwright, “She is very nice.”

  “Don’t let your Mrs hear you saying such lustful things,” Miller teased him. A panicked look flashed on Harry’s features. Miller promised not to tell tales out of school.

  “Yes, I like her,” she admired the actress’s beautiful features. “She was in that one with whojimmyflop - him with the floppy hair.”

  “The wife’s favourite,” said Harry Henry. “She’ll watch anything with him in. No matter what I do to my hair, I can’t get it to flop like his. Tried all sorts of relaxers and what-not but all it does is frizz.”

  “Harry, you’re practically bald.”

  “And now you know why.”

  “So... Miss Cartwright... ”

  “What about her?”

  “You going to bring her in for questioning?”

  Harry Henry would have blushed if he could. “Um... I don’t think she’s involved in any of this.”

  “Oh, Harry! It’s your big chance. Besides, Wheeler says we have to talk to everybody.”

  “Oh. Oh well then.” Harry’s eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of his spectacles, blinked innocently. “If the chief says so.”

  “We could fetch her now, if you like,” Miller offered. “I’ve got my car.”

  “Um... ” Harry seemed to chicken out. “I’m not sure... ”

  “Or we could visit her in situ, like,” said Miller. “Do you think you could manage that?”

  Harry pushed his glasses up his nose and patted his forehead with his handkerchief. “Um, I think so - No! I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  “Christ, Harry; it’s a murder investigation not a blind date. I’ll be there as well.”

  “Um... okay then.” He bundled things together into a battered briefcase. Miller tried to remain patient.

  You get none of this fannying around with Detective Inspector David Brough.

  11

  In the back of the limousine, Delia Cartwright reached for Oscar Buzz’s hand. When he didn’t reciprocate the squeeze she gave it, she pulled her hand away.

  Too early! She felt foolish. Maybe later, when he’s tanked up on free champagne...

  She looked out of the window, not seeing the streets of Dedley passing by. Damn it; you’re a beautiful woman. Men the world over would love to get a leg over you. Why do you think he needs to be pissed as a fart to see that?

  She forced herself not to cry - a much more valuable skill than being able to cry on demand, she’d found. She didn’t want to ruin her face when there’d be paps waiting as soon as the car pulled up at the venue. She began practicing her smile.

  At her side, Oscar Buzz was lost in thought. He hadn’t heard from Dan all day and it concerned him. He cursed himself for agreeing to accompany the doe-eyed actress to this whatever-the-hell-it-was they were going to, when he could be spending the evening with Dan. Ah, Dan... For all the similarities, there was something different about Dan. Different from all the other hangers-on, the fan boys and the star-fuckers. Not that there had been many of those for a long time. Pinkie always saw them off.

  Pinkie!

  Oscar chuckled to himself. He’d left Pinkie waiting for him in his trailer. He was most probably still there now, filling the place with dream catchers, scented candles and incantations. What a jerk.

  It served Pinkie right. Flying over here uninvited.

  Perhaps I can duck out of this fashion thing early, Oscar thought. I can develop a headache. I can make some excuse - Hell, I am an actor, aren’t I? I’ll do the minimum, show my face, up the charity’s profile - whatever the fuck it is they’re supporting. And then I’ll tell Delia I’ve got to go. Heavy scene tomorrow and a
ll that. Need my rest. Alone.

  Feeling a good deal better about the evening ahead, Oscar broke into a grin. The car glided to a halt. The driver got out and opened the door. Oscar stepped out into camera flashes and thrusting microphones. Graciously, he took Delia’s hand and helped her from the limo. The crowd of fans cordoned off by hired muscle oohed and ahhed.

  Oscar and Delia stood close, still holding hands, and beamed for the photographers. Delia leant her head against his shoulder. The crowd gasped: this was as good as the beautiful couple having full-on sexual intercourse in front of them.

  Oscar escorted Delia up the red carpet, waving and grinning at a sea of camera phones.

  “Miss Cartwright! Mr Buzz!” reporters clamoured for their attention. “Have you any statement to make at this time?”

  “It’s all for a great cause,” said Oscar Buzz.

  “We’re very happy,” said Delia Cartwright. “To be here,” she added with a wink.

  They entered the foyer where a champagne reception was underway. The great and good from Birmingham were there. The weather presenter from local television. Some radio djs, who no one recognised until they spoke. The manager of a football club. The Mayor of Dedley.

  And Bunny Slippers.

  “Darlings, darlings!” she swept across the foyer in a sparkling evening gown. “Isn’t this marvellous! Do you know, I haven’t been invited to one of these shindigs for years?”

  “Hello, Bunny,” said Delia, airkissing near Bunny’s cheeks.

  “Shindig?” said Oscar.

  “Oh, I don’t think there’ll be dancing,” said Delia. “This is a fashion show, remember.”

  “There will if I have anything to do with it,” laughed Bunny. She shuffled off to get a refill.

  “Dear old Bunny,” said Delia. She risked hooking her arm through Oscar’s. More flashes went off around them.