Dead Giveaway

by Brett, Simon

  The murderer looked at Charles and slowly, wryly, shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘No? But Joanie did. Joanie always understood, didn’t she? And that was why you hated her.’

  The faded eyes looked at Charles with a new respect. ‘Yes,’ Roger said softly, ‘that’s why.’

  He paused, gathering his thoughts, before continuing. ‘No one who hasn’t been through it can know what it’s like, how smothering, how emasculating it is, always to be understood. Oh, if the understanding is warm, if it’s sympathetic, that’s different. But when it’s clinical, when it treats you like a specimen, a case-history, that’s when the hatred builds up.

  ‘It was never a good marriage. The sex side was never . . . Joanie just wasn’t interested. Oh, happy enough to give forthright, frank advice to others, but in our own bed . . . nothing. That’s why we never had children. I wanted children, but if there’s no sex, well . . .’ He shrugged. ‘At first I had a few affairs, but Joanie always understood. She was always so bloody understanding, welcomed me back, forgave me, patronised me, made me feel like a delinquent teenager. A couple of years of that, and it takes the fun out of extramarital sex.’

  ‘Why didn’t you leave her?’

  Roger Bruton grimaced hopelessly. ‘Because I’m weak. Because she’s a stronger personality than I am. Maybe just because I’m a glutton for punishment. So I stayed with her, listening to her pontificating hour after hour, listening to her advise everyone and anyone about their lives, and feeling the hollowness within my own just growing and growing.’

  ‘When did you first think of murdering her?’

  He let out a sharp little laugh. ‘On our honeymoon, I suppose. When it became clear that I could forget it as far as a sex-life was concerned. And it was always there, the idea of killing her, a pleasing fantasy, something I could retreat to when she became too intolerable. But I suppose it’s got worse over the last few years. As her career’s taken off, as she’s more and more omnipresent, as I can’t switch on a radio or television without hearing it, more and more bloody understanding.’

  ‘But was there any particular reason why suddenly two weeks ago . . .’

  Roger shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A feeling that I couldn’t stand it any longer. I don’t think the camel can say which is going to be the final straw, but he sure as hell recognises it when it’s put on his back.’

  ‘You hadn’t had a row?’

  ‘Not a major one. No more than usual. We don’t really have rows. For a long time now I’ve suppressed all my real feelings.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why you should suddenly try to kill her.’

  ‘No? Opportunity, I suppose. It was a spur of the moment thing. I’d just taken Joanie into Make-up and she’d said a very lovey-dovey farewell to me. It’s moments like that I hate her most, when I see a public display of sexuality from someone I know to be totally without sex. I was angry. I walked through Studio B. There was no one about. I saw the bottle of cyanide. I took it, went through to Studio A, emptied the water from her glass into the carafe on the lectern and filled the glass up with poison. I felt very rational and happy. I just couldn’t think why I hadn’t done it before.’

  ‘But you’d never have got away with it. If she had been killed.’

  The murderer gave another little shrug. ‘I don’t honestly think I’d have cared that much. I’d have been shot of her, that’s all that mattered to me. And I’d have been spared what happened afterwards.’

  ‘After Barrett’s death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Joanie knew what you’d done?’

  ‘Oh yes. Instantly. She worked it out. And guess what . . .’

  ‘She was very understanding about it.’

  Roger Bruton grinned bitterly as he nodded.

  There was another silence.

  ‘So what do I do now?’

  ‘The police have to be told the truth. Chippy’s got to be released.’

  ‘Yes.’ Roger looked pensive.

  ‘It might only be manslaughter,’ said Charles encouragingly. ‘I don’t know the law well enough, but maybe when you try to kill one person and ending up killing someone else . . . I don’t know, but . . .’

  The murderer shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter a lot. I don’t see myself enjoying prison, somehow.’

  ‘What, losing your freedom, you mean?’

  ‘God, no.’ This he seemed to find really funny. ‘You can’t talk to me about losing my freedom. I lost that the minute I got married. No, what I couldn’t face about prison is the visiting.’

  ‘Joanie?’

  ‘Understanding me again. No, thank you.’ He shuddered. Then, in a new, calm voice, he said, ‘I’ll write to the police and tell them exactly what happened. They’ll get the letter tomorrow.’

  ‘Roger.’

  They both looked up towards the sound. Joanie, tiny, beautiful, her fur-coat around her, was hurrying along the passage with arms outstretched. ‘Roger, darling.’

  He let her get close before he stood up. Then, after giving her a look of such paralysing contempt that it stopped her dead in her tracks, Roger Bruton walked away from his wife in silence, free of her at last.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ROGER BRUTON’S SUICIDE was announced on the radio two days later. He had cut his wrists in a hot bath in a hotel room. Neatly on the bedside table he had left a letter addressed to the police.

  As a result of this, a day later, Caroline Postgate, known to her friends as Chippy, was released from custody and, although the news got little press coverage, the police closed their file of investigation into the murder of Barrett Doran. Few of the public ever noticed that the case did not come to trial. Barrett Doran’s popularity at the time of his death had been enormous, but television reputations are as disposable as used tissues. The shows which had brought him to prominence were of the ephemeral sort which never get repeated, so he was quickly forgotten.

  The press coverage of Joanie Bruton was considerably more extensive. The irony of an Agony Aunt’s husband committing suicide was not lost on the tabloids, but they were quickly made to change their tune. Joanie mounted her own vigorous press campaign, being interviewed whenever possible, describing her reactions to her husband’s death. She particularly stressed the tragedy of depressive illness, whose insidious attacks on the mind can be resistant to any amount of love and understanding. Within a week she was once again the darling of the public, her status enriched by suffering. In descriptions of her, to the words ‘sensible’, ‘bright’ and ‘forthright’, the word ‘plucky’ was quickly added.

  Her career continued to blossom. She added depression, bereavement and suicide to the special subjects on which she so readily gave advice to anyone and everyone. She presented the pilot of a new television series on sexual problems, which quickly became a series. Its large viewing public explained away their prurient interest by saying it was ‘good to get these things out in the open’. Everyone agreed that Joanie Bruton was the perfect presenter for such a series, ‘because she was so understanding’.

  Charles Paris signed on again at the Lisson Grove Unemployment Office the following Monday. As had become a ritual with him, he rang Maurice Skellern before setting out on this mission, just in case there was any prospect of an acting job coming up. There wasn’t. His agent assured him that things were still ‘very quiet’, so Charles kept his appointment. He needed some cash. He was taking his wife out to dinner two days later. Must be careful not to drink it all away before then.

  It was about half-past eleven on the Wednesday morning when Sydnee phoned, asking if she could buy him a drink ‘to say thank you’. He said he was busy later in the evening, but it would fit in very well if he dropped by W.E.T. House for a drink about half-past six.

  At first he couldn’t see her in the bar, but then identified a new yellow flying-suit in the middle of a group in the corner. Tentatively, he went across and tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘C
harles. Great. We’re celebrating.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Just heard this afternoon. We’ve got a series!’

  ‘Of If The Cap Fits?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was quick.’

  ‘A gap in the schedule. John Mantle got it edited and shown to the powers-that-be as quickly as possible. We’ve got the go-ahead for a series of thirteen.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘First studio in four weeks, which means we’ve got to work like hell.’

  ‘Getting all the contestants together?’

  ‘Yes. That and a million other things. Finding fifty-two professions who can be identified by their hats is going to be a bit of a headache, for a start.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Let me get you a drink, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, are you sure I can’t –’

  ‘No. My idea. My thank you. What is it?’

  ‘Whisky’d be great. Bell’s.’

  ‘Chita and Quentin are here. And Sylvian.’ She pointed into the crowd.

  Sylvian heard his name and turned to give Charles a little nod of uninterested recognition. His Mohican strip was all orange now. Chita and Quentin also saw Charles and gave little waves. But they turned back quickly. They were deeply involved in the series, planning, thinking ahead with relish to all the crises which would inevitably arise.

  Jim Trace-Smith was in the centre of the group, and Charles could hear him saying, ‘What really excites me about this project is that it’s so much more intelligent than the average game show. I mean, a lot of them are, quite frankly, mindless shit, but If The Cap Fits has got so many elements. There’s an educational content . . . and a bit of lateral thinking . . . and that all-important factor of pure luck. And then there’s the prize element, which ensures healthy competition. No, some of the other giveaway shows I’d quite honestly be ashamed to have my credit on, but this one I really think is going to break new ground in television . . .’

  The group around him nodded their agreement.

  ‘One large Bell’s.’

  ‘Bless you, Sydnee.’

  ‘Well, thanks for all you’ve done. Really been great.’ Somehow her words sounded formal. She was back to the professional researcher thanking a contestant for taking part in the show. The real Sydnee Charles had glimpsed from time to time seemed to have gone back into hiding.

  ‘Has Chippy come back to work yet?’

  ‘Sure. And because this series has got to get put together in such a hurry, she’s going to be an Assistant Stage Manager on it. You see, they brought in someone else on Method in Their Murders while she was . . . away, and that girl’s staying there, so it’s all worked out very well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Actually, she was in the bar earlier. I’m sure she’d like to thank you personally for what you’ve done.’

  The pale-blue eyes flickered round until they saw the familiar blond head. It was bent over a drink close to a darker head. The darker head belonged to Bob Garston, who seemed to be taking a very intense interest in his companion.

  ‘Oh. Yes,’ said Sydnee. ‘John got Bob to come in this afternoon as soon as he heard about the series. Quite a few things to talk about . . . with the first studio coming up so soon.’

  Charles looked across at the couple, and wondered if he was seeing Chippy’s unerring instinct for unsuitable men coming into play once again.

  ‘I’m sure you could go and interrupt them, Charles. I mean, as I said, she’s dying to say a personal thank you.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no hurry . . .’

  Sydnee didn’t press it.

  They talked in a desultory fashion, but there didn’t seem that much to talk about. Charles recognised what was happening. He’d experienced it before at the end of television series. For three months, or longer, you work intensely closely with a group of people, their concerns become your concerns, you are bound together by the overriding imperative of the programme. You spend all your time with them. You work with them, eat with them, not uncommonly sleep with them.

  Then suddenly the series ends, and you’re back to being a selection of disparate individuals. Without the link of a mutual project, you realise that you never really had that much in common.

  With the murder solved, that was what had happened to him and Sydnee.

  He offered her another drink, but Jim Trace-Smith had just bought around, and a hand snaked out of the If The Cap Fits group to pass her one. She asked if Charles was going to have another, but he looked at his watch and said, no, he’d better be going. She kissed him on the lips without passion, thanked him again for everything, and with something like relief coalesced once again with her group.

  It was not yet seven, but Charles moved purposefully towards the exit. Just as he got there, though, he encountered a fellow-actor who had just emerged from ‘the most dreadful, but the most dreadful day in the studio on this bloody bomb disposal soap opera’. He was in desperate need of a transfusion of alcohol. Surely Charles had time for one little drink with him.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Charles, looking at his watch again. ‘Just one.’

  It was nearly ten to nine when he got to the Italian restaurant in Hampstead. There was no sign of Frances.

  ‘Hasn’t she arrived?’ he asked the proprietor. ‘She would have asked for a table in the name of Paris.’

  ‘Oh yes, signor. The lady was here. She left about five minutes ago.’

  ‘Did she leave any message?’

  ‘No, signor. No message.’