A Comedian Dies

by Simon Brett

  ‘And you thought your boy-friend had sent me to duff you up some more?’

  ‘He said he’d kill me.’ In her fear she forgot to deny that the beating-up was her boy-friend’s work.

  ‘When he found out about you and Peaky?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, it was all such a mess. I had been with him for two years and, I don’t know, I suppose I thought all relationships were like that, all the anger and the silences, seeing no one else when we were together, all that. Then when I met Bill, he was nice to me, sort of jolly, didn’t seem to take life seriously. And I thought it’d work.’

  Poor kid. She was one of those girls doomed from the cradle only to get mixed up with men who were bastards. Gently Charles asked, ‘How old are you, Janine?’

  ‘Nineteen.’ As she said it, she looked ten years younger, a child who had fallen over in the playground.

  He felt a surge of anger. ‘Good God. What kind of bastard does that to a girl?’

  ‘You don’t know him. He can be so kind, so gentle. He gets these black moods, though, and, well, he’s got problems.’

  ‘He certainly has.’

  She looked at him, puzzled, then seemed suddenly to see an implication of his remark that worried her. ‘Mr. Paris, are you sure Bill was murdered?’

  ‘Pretty sure.’

  ‘I see. I think you’d better go.’ She rose painfully to her feet.

  Charles’ reasoning was a few seconds behind her’s, but now he understood what had caused her anxiety. ‘I suppose,’ he began casually, ‘that your boyfriend’s revenge might not have stopped with you.’

  ‘I said I think you had better go.’

  ‘He might see Peaky as equally guilty. Possibly more guilty.’

  ‘My mother will be back soon.’

  ‘And the kind of guy who would beat you up like that’s not going to be too squeamish about murder.’

  ‘I said go.’

  ‘No. You tell me who he is. Who is your boy-friend?’

  She stood before him, battered but defiant. ‘I’ll never tell you. And you won’t find out from anyone else, because nobody knew.’

  The second part of her assertion he doubted. If they had lived together for two years, even in the anonymous world of London flatland, someone must have seen them together.

  But the first part he accepted. She wouldn’t tell him. In spite of her injuries, she had an indomitable will. And Charles was feeling so depressed by the waste of her beauty that he could not bring himself to try to bully it out of her.

  He left.

  On the bus back to East Croydon Station, his mind worked slowly and logically through all she had said. And its conclusions were encouraging. Although Janine had not told him her boy-friend’s name, she had narrowed down the possibilities dramatically.

  Her sudden change of mood and subsequent shielding of his identity had shown that she believed in her boy-friend’s guilt. Which meant that he must have had the opportunity to commit the crime. Which meant he must have been down at Hunstanton on the relevant afternoon. And must have been backstage during the interval.

  It couldn’t be anyone in the company. There was no way that he wouldn’t have found out about the affair between Janine and Peaky when it started. Anyway her boy-friend was reported never to have gone on tour with her.

  Charles thought back. Four people had gone backstage at the interval. Dickie Peck. Miffy Turtle. Paul Royce. And Walter Proud.

  Dickie Peck Charles discounted as having nothing to do with the case. (For rather unprofessional reasons, as it happened. He had once suspected Peck in another case and been proved wrong.)

  Miffy Turtle and Paul Royce, Charles knew little about. But anyway his thoughts leaped past them as a new suspicion took hold of him.

  Walter Proud had divorced his wife a year before. How many middle-aged men before him had chucked up their settled, life for a last fling with a young girl? Walter Proud used to be moody and was now drinking heavily. In a drunken fit he would be capable of acts of violence.

  What was more, Walter Proud had started life as a sound technician. He understood the mysteries of electrics and wiring.

  From every point of view, he seemed to be the likeliest person to have murdered Bill Peaky.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  COMIC: An agent’s trying to sell one of his acts to a night club owner.

  ‘You gotta see this girl. She’s got an amazing body. Her vital statistics are 75-23-36. And what an act!’

  ‘What does she do,’ asks the owner, ‘dance?’

  ‘No. She just crawls onto the stage and tries to stand up.’

  Fate seemed to read his thoughts and when Charles got back to his Hereford Road home he found a note, scrawled by a Swedish girl from one of the other bedsitters, that ‘Moritz Skollen’ had phoned and, when he rang Maurice Skellern, he was given a message to contact Walter Proud at the television company which made The Alexander Harvey Show. Fate seemed to be setting up a confrontation.

  After a bit of trouble with the switchboard, who didn’t appear to have heard of Walter Proud, Charles got through. He found his prospective murderer in a buoyant mood.

  ‘I’ve pulled it off, old boy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A pilot of a show with Lennie Barber. Nigel Frisch saw the interview with Alex and he thinks we may be on to a winner. May have just judged the nostalgia cycle right. So it’s all systems go.’

  ‘When does it happen? The year after next?’ asked Charles, familiar with television scheduling.

  ‘No, it’s a real rush job. In the studio in six weeks.’

  ‘Phew.’

  ‘The studio date was reserved for a special with Bill Peaky.’

  ‘What? The thing you were seeing him about?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Walter brushed the idea aside and pressed on. ‘But it’s really great news, isn’t it? I mean, it won’t just be recreating Barber and Pole routines, though there’ll be a bit of that. Lots of new material, really make it a kind of sketch show, with variety acts, of course. Pop singer guesting, maybe, a few dancers.’

  ‘These Foolish Things,’ Charles threw in, to see if the name prompted any betraying reaction.

  It didn’t. ‘Shouldn’t think so. Should be one of the bigger names. Well, what do you say? Great, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, certainly,’ said Charles with guarded enthusiasm. Guarded because, though it was possible that Walter was ringing to say that, after his initial success in the role of Wilkie Pole, he would play the part again in the new show, Charles had been in the business too long to make that assumption. It was just as likely that Walter was ringing to tell him, thank you very much, thought you were super, love, but I’m afraid the part’s going to the Dagenham Girl Pipers.

  Fortunately this uncertainty was settled by the producer’s next words. ‘Of course you must come back and do your Pole, but it won’t just be the two of you. We’re going to open it out quite a lot, bring in a few other younger character boys and girls for the sketches. I think it’s going to be very big. Look, as I say, the pilot’s in the studio in six weeks, so we’ll want you available for filming from about the third of next month. I checked availability with Maurice and he didn’t seem to think there was a lot in the book, unless it was something you had set up and not told him about.’

  ‘Well . . .’ At such moments Charles was always tempted to play hard to get, mumble mysteriously about talk of a film, possibility of a telly series and so on. Nobly he restrained himself. ‘No, that should be fine.’

  ‘OK. Well, I’ll put the booking through and my casting director will be in touch with Maurice. Listen, as it’s such a rush job, I want to get talking about it as soon as possible. Now Lennie Barber’s doing his act at a club this week. Booking he got after The Alexander Harvey Show. The Leaky Bucket in Sutton, don’t know if you know it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I was thinking of going, sort of to see what kind of a night-club act he’s doing these days, talk through some ideas
for the show. Also getting a couple of writers along who I think could be the right combination for the show. Steve Clinton and Paul Royce, do you know them?’

  ‘I’ve met Paul Royce. Never heard of Steve Clinton.’

  ‘Dear oh dear, where do you hide yourself? Steve’s one of the biggest, names in the comedy field. Writer for Phil O’Neill, for a start. And he did that sit-com for Thames, the one set on a cross-Channel ferry, called A Bit on Each Side.’

  ‘Sorry, I’ve never heard of it. And what’s a sit-com? Is it one of these chairs with a chamber-pot incorporated?’

  ‘No, you’re having me on, Charles. Sit-com – situation comedy. Anyway, do you fancy joining us for the trip? Lennie’s on about eleven, so it could be a late night. I’m meeting up with the boys and their agent, Virginia Moult, in the bar here at about nine, so’s we can have a few drinks and then get a car down. Could be a good evening.’ Beneath the big-time image, there was a lonely appeal in Walter’s voice.

  ‘Sounds interesting. I’d like to come.’

  ‘Great. It’ll continue your education. Don’t you worry, Charles, we’ll soon have you understanding how comedy works.’

  After the conversation, Charles was conscious of the opposing pulls of his two careers, as an actor and as a detective. He knew that the mild elation he felt was because Walter had offered him a job, not because his suspicions about the producer as a murderer were hardening into certainties. Oh well, time enough to check out his theories of Bill Peaky’s death. The main thing was, it was work.

  The Leaky Bucket in Sutton was one of those little clubs which closes and re-opens every six months or so under a different name. Its existence was based on the fallacy that people in the London suburbs won’t make the effort to go up to town and want a night spot on their doorstep. A relay of new owners and managers discovered for themselves the falsity of this premise, in their own time, with their own money.

  In its recent incarnations it had been The Horseshoe, a drinking club, Kickers, a discotheque, The Closet, a gay club (much to the fury of the local residents), The Safety-Pin, a punk-rock club, and The 39 Steppes, a club with an emphasis on vodka and Russian cuisine. This last venture had only survived a fortnight, which was short even by the standards of the premises.

  But now a new owner of unfailing (and unjustified) optimism had reopened it as a cabaret club, with a resident live group for dancing and ‘the best of the world’s entertainers’ (to quote from the club’s literature) for entertainment. The people of Sutton greeted the new incarnation with the same apathy they had lavished on its previous manifestations and the new owner started to lose money in exactly the same way as his predecessors.

  However, it was a Friday night when Walter Proud and party entered the premises and there was a reasonably good turn-out. As they swam down into the smoky and red-lit interior, most of those present were dancing vigorously to the pounding of the live group which, to Charles’ surprise, turned out to be none other than those stars of the Hunstanton bill, Mixed Bathing.

  The intervening weeks had given them nothing more in the way of style, though their trade-mark, volume, was more noticeable in the confined space.

  The club was not so full that a table could not be found for them and the club’s new (and soon to be impoverished) owner, who had been, tipped off about their coming by a phone-call from Walter, greeted them and presented a bottle of indifferent champagne ‘with the compliments of the management’. At least Charles gathered from his fulsome face that that was what he was saying; the noise of the group made the words completely inaudible.

  It also precluded the possibility of much conversation among the new arrivals and, to Charles’ relief, even silenced Steve Clinton. It had become apparent in the television company bar and in the car on the way down that he was one of those writers who is a performer manqué and makes up for this by telling jokes all the time. Steve Clinton could be guaranteed to be the life and soul of any party, a characteristic which Charles found about as appealing as a slug in a salad.

  Paul Royce, by contrast, was very quiet. All the ideas went on in his head and were only given life by being written down. This, Walter Proud had confided in Charles, was why he thought they were going to be very big writing together. All the great writing teams, he asserted, were made up of an extrovert and an introvert. Walter also had theories about the combination of experience and youth, which he thought would be ideal to produce the right material for Lennie Barber. Virginia Moult, the agent who represented both writers (Clinton for some years, Royce as of very recently), also thought it would make a good team and was confident that the coupling would pull up Paul Royce from beginner’s rates to a much more reasonable level of script payment. In fact, she announced, she always tried to start new writers in tandem with more experienced ones because this confused the television companies’ Copyright Departments in discussions of money.

  Charles found Virginia Moult interesting He looked at her as they sat silent amid the thundering music of the club. Short hair, had been all black, now streaked with grey. Prominent, determined nose. Hard set of mouth belied by unexpectedly full lips. Shortish, large bust, probably just turned forty. Wedding ring, Very tough, but not unfeminine. Interesting.

  Walter Proud had entered the club with a self-important air and looked around as if he expected to be recognized all the time. He liked the big showbiz bit, television producer appearing in little-known venue, researching entertainment at grassroots level. The manager’s obsequious gesture with the champagne coincided exactly with his self-image.

  Walter’s craning round was eventually rewarded by the sight of someone he knew. At a small table near the group’s speakers sat Miffy Turtle, deep in conversation with an emaciated figure whom Charles recognized with some shock. It was Chox Morton from the Hunstanton inquest.

  The initial reaction of amazement at this coincidence was tempered when Charles considered that, as the group’s manager and roadie respectively, Miffy and Chox were quite likely to be seen at Mixed Bathing’s venues. And also, when he thought about it, since Miffy also handled Lennie Barber’s bookings, it made sense that here, as at Hunstanton, the comedian and the group should appear on the same bill. No doubt Miffy Turtle had arranged some sort of package deal with the club.

  The ager caught Walter Proud’s eye and waved vaguely. The producer sat back with satisfaction at having registered his identity and looked round for others to impress.

  But the boppers of the Leaky Bucket manifested no interest in the media mogul; they were far too involved in their partners on the dance floor. This space was so small that, though most of Mixed Bathing’s music was up-tempo, the only possible dance was a close-contact pelvic wiggle. The dancers had all been there drinking for some time and their only interests were carnal. Their plans for the rest of the evening appeared to be to dance a bit more and then get their partners as quickly as possible on to beds, sofas or back seats of cars (according to domestic circumstances).

  It was on to this schedule that Lennie Barber was imposed. Not ideal circumstances. Introducing cabaret (particularly comedy) into an evening’s entertainment is a difficult skill to master, but a comedian starts at a disadvantage if his appearance interferes with the customers’ eating, conversation or (in this case) foreplay. There was an old threat that used to be used by compères of nude girlie shows to rowdy audiences, ‘If you don’t keep quiet, I’ll bring the comic back on again,’ and it was with this kind of resentment that Lennie Barber’s appearance was greeted.

  Mixed Bathing concluded another of their musical demolition jobs and, while the room still shuddered in the shock-waves, the manager came to the microphone. After blowing into it and tapping it to see that it was working, he made an announcement. Over the grumbling of the couples who had to prise themselves apart, the noisy exit of the group and the vocal rush to the bar, the words ‘cabaret’, ‘great old comedian’ and ‘Barber’ could be heard by those who were trying hard. Without further ceremony, Lenn
ie Barber came to the microphone.

  He was wearing a dark blue dinner jacket with satin lapels and a light blue frilled shirt. A large navy velvet butterfly had settled on his throat. The image seemed wrong, an old mutton joint dressed as a Crown of Lamb. It gave no impression of the sharpness of his wit; he was just another gift-wrapped entertainer, with all the individuality of a stereo music centre.

  ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ he bawled over the chaos. A diluted spotlight picked him out in the prevailing red murk. ‘I must say, before tonight I had never been to Sutton, but I’d heard about it. And I still came. Actually, as I came into the club tonight, I said to the doorman, I hear that Sutton is the arsehole of the world. Oh, says the doorman, and you’re just passing through?

  ‘Actually, I got here a bit early, had some time to kill. Feeling a bit randy I was. Met this old girl in the street. I said, hey, darling, where’s the night life of Sutton? She said, I am.

  ‘Mind you, the tarts here are nothing. Best tarts I know are in Manchester. Up there they crossed a tart with a gorilla. Got one who swings from lampposts and does it for peanuts.

  ‘Talking of tarts, bloke went to a prostitute and he said, look, I’m not going to pay you unless you guarantee that you’re going to give me a dose of clap. It’s all right, says the prostitute, you’re bound to get it – why, though? Are you trying to get even with your wife? No, says the bloke, but if she catches it, the milkman will catch it, which means that Mrs. Brown at Number 47 will catch it, which means that the grocer will catch it, which means that girl in the off license will catch it, which means Fred Smith’ll catch it – he’s the one I’m trying to get even with . . .’

  It was rapidly becoming apparent that, like most comedians, Lennie Barber kept a special blue act for the clubs. It was also apparent to Charles that the style suited him as badly as the costume. The individuality was gone and Lennie Barber was reduced to a stereotype of a club comedian.