She had turned the corner long before Jerri came out, in a panic, to look for her. The quiet, suburban street was empty.
Derek Fenn, who played the wise old desk sergeant in the series, was smoking his first cigarette of the day and coughing, hunched in his blue serge uniform.
‘That cough is getting worse. Why don’t you stop smoking before it kills you?’ Annie asked and got one of his morose looks.
‘It isn’t smoking that will kill me. It’s getting up at this hour and having to stand about in weather like this.’
He was beginning to look old, his face thinner than ever, lined and wrinkled like a monkey’s from his long holidays in sunnier places, his flesh fallen in on the elegant bones, leaving him haggard, gaunt, so that only his melancholy eyes still reminded you that he had once been the best-looking actor of his generation. Now he was grateful for a small but regular part in The Force. He had been out of work for months before he joined the cast.
Annie had worked with him in his own children’s series for a year before moving on to a part in a new play which toured the provinces before going into London and doing quite well. After that she had done a year with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon; she knew she needed to improve her technical grasp of acting. She had played small parts and learnt a lot; she didn’t become a star overnight. Her career had been a slow and steady rise. But she knew she owed the start of it to Derek. So did he.
Hearing from a mutual acquaintance that Annie had got the lead in a new police series, Derek had rung her and asked, ‘Would there be a part for me? Anything, darling. I need a break. I’d do it for you, you know that.’
She had heard the unspoken reminder that he had given her the first job she ever had. He wasn’t the first to ring her, pleading for a job, but she owed Derek, and she knew that the part of the sergeant hadn’t been cast yet. It was a key role, although it wasn’t a lead.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised. ‘It wouldn’t be a big part, though, they’re all cast. And I don’t have enough clout to get them to change their minds at this stage!’
‘Anything, darling,’ he repeated. ‘So long as I’m working.’ Then he laughed. ‘And getting paid, of course.’
‘The money won’t be wonderful.’
‘It’s got to pay better than social security!’
Harriet hadn’t been keen to give Derek a chance because he had a name as a drunk, and hadn’t done any work for months, had been written off as finished, far too high a risk even on TV.
‘I haven’t seen him in anything for a couple of years. He’s not reliable, Annie. Drunks never are.’
Annie had pleaded. ‘I’ll see he keeps off the booze! And he is good, Harriet. He’s a pro. Put him in front of a camera and he doesn’t even need to act; he’s so damned natural. He’s got that special quality – you watch him, whenever he’s on screen – know what I mean?’
Harriet had nodded. ‘I do remember that, you’re right.’ Then she had given Annie a shrewd look. ‘Why are you so keen for him to have the part?’
Annie had known what she was asking – had she had an affair with Derek? Theirs was a world of sudden emotions, brief romances, passionate affairs which faded just as fast – Harriet wouldn’t have been surprised to hear she had had a fling with Derek.
She’d met Harriet’s eyes. ‘I owe him. He gave me my first job, and he needs a break.’
Then Harriet had given her that comradely grin and patted her on her shoulder, a response Annie was going to find very familiar in the months to come. Harriet’s little pats covered a multitude of comments: sympathy, encouragement, congratulation, coaxing. That time it had been a pat which respected Annie’s loyalty.
Harriet herself was always loyal to anyone who worked with her and she was pleased when she got the same loyalty back. For her teamwork was a way of life. You had to trust the people you worked with; a chain was only as strong as the weakest link and Harriet liked to be sure of every tiny link in their chain.
‘Ok, we’ll risk it,’ she’d told Annie. ‘But if he lets us down you get the blame!’
Annie had talked a blue streak to Derek, made him swear to stay off drink if he was working next day, and always be on time.
He had promised faithfully, and he had kept his word. No doubt he still drank, but he never let it interfere with his work – and he had been perfect for that role. In fact, he’d discovered a new celebrity since the series began. He was one of the most popular characters.
It was a different sort of stardom for Derek; he wasn’t a sex symbol these days, he was a father figure who got a lot of fan mail from older women and teenagers who could have a safe crush from a distance. But at least he was in the public eye again, his face showing up in magazine and newspaper articles, people recognising him wherever he went.
Annie was glad she had got him the part. She looked at him now, and, dropping his cigarette end he trod on it, hunching himself against the chilly wind. ‘Annie, I’m sorry to ask you again, but …’
She knew what was coming at once and frowned. ‘Not another loan, Derek! I told you last time I wasn’t lending you any more money. You owe me hundreds already – and we both know you’ll never pay it back!’
Head bent, he muttered, ‘I’m going to, one day, I just never seem to have the spare money to do it, but I will, Annie.’ He barely even bothered to make the lie convincing, and she angrily said, ‘No, Derek! You know you won’t because whenever you get any money you gamble it away! I’m not going to help you dig yourself a deeper hole. I won’t lend you any more. Why are you such a fool?’
‘Born one, darling,’ he said, trying one of his charming, faintly sad now, smiles on her. It had once made women faint. Now it made his haggard face briefly almost young again. But with Annie it didn’t work; it never had. He had once made a pass at her during the year she worked on his TV series; Annie had gone white and staggered away to throw up in her dressing-room. Derek couldn’t fail to hear her. When she came out of the lavatory he had vanished, and he had never tried to lay a hand on her again.
She looked at him levelly now. ‘It isn’t funny! You promised never to gamble again.’
‘I kept away from the clubs for months, for God’s sake,’ he said, becoming petulant. ‘Then last Wednesday it was my birthday, and I suddenly realised I was forty-nine. Annie, I’m going to be fifty next year.’ He shuddered. ‘Fifty! Christ, I might as well be dead.’
She looked at him then with wry sympathy. Fifty seemed a long, long way off to her, but she was already dreading reaching thirty.
He saw her expression and eagerly said, ‘You see what I mean? Fifty. I couldn’t bear thinking about it, I had to have a few drinks, and then … somehow I ended up in a club and even the bloody cards were against me.’
‘How much did you lose?’ she asked in a softer tone.
‘Three hundred,’ he quickly said, and she groaned.
‘Oh, Derek! Another three hundred! Do you think I’m made of money?’
Harriet was a hundred yards away, she couldn’t have heard from that distance, surely – yet at that instant she abruptly swivelled to stare at them, frowning.
Derek caught her glance, too, and hissed out of the corner of his mouth, ‘For God’s sake, keep your voice down! Especially when Harriet’s around – she’s got ears like a bat. And I don’t want the whole bloody world to know.’
Annie turned her back on Harriet discreetly, got her chequebook out of her bag, scribbled down the amount, signed the cheque, held it out without another word.
‘Thanks,’ Derek said, reading the figures before pushing it hurriedly inside his jacket pocket with a little sigh of relief. ‘I won’t ask again. Promise.’
‘I meant what I said, Derek,’ she warned him. ‘Try again, and you’ll regret it.’
‘No need to be nasty, darling,’ he said, buoyant again now he had the money, and walked off.
‘How about that angle?’ Frank asked Harriet, who turned back towar
ds him and looked into the camera.
‘Hmm … better …’ she said, face hidden by a fall of sleek, straight brown hair. ‘I’d like to keep the corner of that street in shot, all those Indian stalls. What do you think, Pete?’
‘Lots of colour,’ agreed Pete.
Harriet stepped back, nodding. Well, it wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. ‘Yes, we’ll have the camera here for this first scene.’
Pete looked up at the sky. ‘Hope it isn’t going to rain; where’s that umbrella?’
‘I’ve got it ready,’ his assistant assured him. If it began to rain they would hurriedly protect the camera without even thinking about themselves; they gave it the loving care a mother gave a delicate child.
A sound man wandered past eating hot, newly cooked doughnuts, crunchy with sugar.
‘Breakfast, Adam?’ teased Harriet and he grinned, winking.
‘They’re brilliant – I watched her cook them. Want one?’ He held out a paper bag with several other doughnuts in it, rustling invitingly.
‘Have to watch my diet,’ Harriet absently said.
‘You?’ he scoffed. ‘Thin as a twig.’
She always had been, but not because she dieted so much as because she burned up every calorie she ate. From the minute she opened her eyes at crack of dawn until the second she finally fell asleep again well after midnight, Harriet never stopped. She needed all that energy, too; she was the powerhouse of the series.
‘Which scene are we starting with if Mike doesn’t get here?’ Annie asked, joining her. She hated the long gaps between actual filming – it sometimes took hours to get two minutes of film in the can.
Harriet looked into her face, trying to read it, but Annie gave nothing away. Whatever had been going on between her and Derek was well and truly hidden. They’d known each other for many years, of course, if there had been an affair neither of them had ever talked about it, and clearly it was long over, but Harriet did not believe in platonic friendships between a man like Derek and a woman as attractive as Annie.
She wasn’t pretty, thought Harriet, staring at her, especially first thing in the morning, when her face was pale from lack of sleep, her eyes smudged in with bluish shadows. She was much smaller than you imagined on screen, she could look almost childlike in some clothes, especially if she wasn’t wearing make-up. Harriet hadn’t missed the way men reacted to her – there was something about her that made them feel she needed protection. She could look frail and helpless, a bit like a lost kid.
What exactly was going on between her and Derek, though? If any media hound sniffed it out it could hurt the series. Harriet glanced over at Derek again and Annie’s gaze followed.
‘Who’s that with Derek?’ she asked Harriet who shrugged.
‘She started in wardrobe this week. Good references, she’s been working at the National.’
Annie pulled a face. ‘Oh, the theatagh …’ she said in a superior drawl. ‘Come slumming, has she? What made her switch to TV?’
Harriet grinned at her. ‘We pay better.’ They were both touchy on the subject of television’s image, resenting the attention paid to theatre by the critics who mocked their own drama simply because it counted its audience in millions instead of hundreds.
‘Her hair is unbelievable,’ Annie said.
It exploded in a wild confusion of orange curls above a heavily made-up face. The woman wouldn’t see forty again; might be over fifty, thought Harriet. Small and skinny; she wore purple jeans and a blood-red sweater, and the hands waving about as she talked excitedly to Derek had blood-red talons at the end of the fingers.
‘Yes, Marty’s quite a sight, isn’t she?’ agreed Harriet.
At that moment the other woman looked over towards them, as if picking up on the fact that they were talking about her, and gave Annie a poisonous look, her eyes like little black stones.
Annie was taken aback. Why that look? ‘Marty?’ she repeated, frowning. ‘Marty what?’
‘Keats,’ Harriet said, and Annie did a double-take, turning pale.
‘Keats?’
Harriet laughed. ‘No relation to John – I asked! She didn’t laugh, so I guess everyone does!’
Keats? thought Annie. It had to be a coincidence; Keats was not an uncommon name.
A black Porsche shot round the corner at the far end of Middlesex Street and was waved down at once by a policeman there to control the traffic and make sure the TV company didn’t cause any problems.
‘Here’s Sean now!’ Harriet said with satisfaction. ‘That didn’t take him long, I only rang him half an hour ago, and he was still in bed. He’s such a pro. He’ll probably have to rewrite if Mike doesn’t show up at all, or we’d have to abandon this morning’s shoot.’
‘I wish he’d rewrite to leave him out of the series!’ spat Annie, but Harriet merely laughed, watching Sean leap out of his Porsche.
He was big and muscular, with cold grey eyes, straight, short-cut blond hair and an aggressive chin. Harriet found his combination of threat and good looks irresistible. She did not like pretty men, or weak ones. She liked her men to be a challenge, and Sean Halifax had been that, from their first meeting.
Most of the TV companies had their own police series – it wasn’t easy to come up with something different, but Harriet had managed it when she was a guest lecturer at a weekend conference on working in TV, and met up with Sean, then a very young detective inspector with a drawer full of scripts about the City of London police force, in which he had been working for twelve years.
She had been instantly attracted, had let him take her out to dinner, had agreed to look at one of his scripts, not expecting much, but wanting to see more of him alone. As she read that first one, though, she had got more and more excited. Harriet had a passion for her job which was deeper than any passion she had ever felt for a man. She had had a couple of relationships but her job had always wrecked them; both the men she had been in love with had resented her obsession with work, had wanted her to be more interested in them, but no man she met had ever driven the job from her head. That was what set her adrenalin going every morning, the job and her desire to be the best at doing it.
Sean’s script was crisp, well-written, fast-moving, but most of all the ideas were original, and the writer really knew what he was writing about. Harriet had had an instant hunch that this could be a hit.
She had taken that first script to Billy Grenaby, who ran the TV production company, and read some of it to him. Billy never read scripts himself; it wasn’t even known if he could read – you had to act scripts out for him, sketch characters, scenes, a storyline, in as few words as possible.
As soon as she had Billy’s approval, Harriet had assembled a strong, solid cast of actors she trusted. She wanted ensemble playing; no stars, no big names, just teamwork among equals, and Billy liked that, too. No stars, no big salaries. Even for the lead role she wanted someone who wasn’t too well known. She had her eye on Annie from the start; she’d seen her in several good TV productions. Annie had acquired a reputation as a good character actress already.
‘This will make you famous, if it takes off,’ Harriet had told her. ‘And it will, believe me! This series is going to be terrific.’
She had been a hundred per cent right. Always am, she thought complacently. That’s my great knack – knowing what will work, and what won’t.
The pilot had been a huge hit and Sean had been asked to write six more scripts – he had resigned from the City police then, and had worked on the scripts with Harriet until they were the way she wanted them.
He had taken a big gamble, risking failure, but he wasn’t married and had only himself to worry about. Sean liked his freedom too much to want to commit to anyone, Harriet suspected, and he was fiercely ambitious. She understood that, because so was she, and Sean was also extraordinarily talented; so far Harriet was convinced he hadn’t even begun to stretch himself, but he knew people inside out, and created immediately recognisable characters
every week. He had an original mind, hard, cool, logical, and yet with a lot of instinctive understanding of human nature.
The viewers took to the series from the first episode. Every episode ran at least two subplots; they were busy scripts, never a dull moment.
Normally when a series was up and running the original scriptwriter who had come up with the idea moved on, and less expensive, less well-known people took over, but Sean had insisted on continuing to write the series. He didn’t want to hand his brain child over to anyone else. No doubt he would one day, thought Harriet, when he felt he’d worked out the mine of storylines he had, but so far there was no sign of him tiring of the series.
But he had soon learnt to value his services, and had rapidly developed a good grasp of negotiating with a cheeseparing company. Billy hated parting with money unless you had a knife to his throat.
Other TV companies were beginning to approach Sean’s agent to ask if Sean would work for them. Harriet was terrified that he would take one of these offers and she would lose him for good, both from the series and from her life. They were friends, nothing more, she was afraid they never would be more, but she would miss him if he moved on, and even though The Force was well established and other writers could carry on, the series would never be the same without him.
The actors would do a good job with their characters, but the originality wouldn’t be there any more, that sharp, funny, sad spark of life wouldn’t survive. It would turn into just another series, like all the rest.
Not that she showed how she felt as he joined her and Annie. ‘Thanks for getting here so quickly.’ She gave him one of her comradely pats on the shoulders and he grinned.
‘He’s not here yet, then?’
Sean had once had a run-in with a drunk holding a broken bottle; his face had a faint white scar down the edge of his left cheek which showed livid in daylight and gave him a faintly piratical air.
In the Still of the Night Page 7