by J M Gregson
He was exhilarated by the work, but surprised how tired he felt when he climbed back into his caravan. He’d have recovered quickly at one time, but it took longer and longer nowadays. That was understandable, in view of what he knew and no one else here knew. He’d keep working, though. It was part of the image, that. He’d said several times in television interviews that he proposed to work until he dropped dead on stage or in a studio, and each time the studio audience had applauded enthusiastically. There would come a time, perhaps quite soon now, when he would no longer be offered parts; that would have ended it all anyway. But he was never going to confess that to the public and for a lot of the time he was reluctant to confess it to himself. Permanence was part of his persona, part of the aura which had converted him over the years from competent character actor into national treasure.
He was feeling better and fully relaxed by the time his visitor arrived. That owed something to the brandy bottle. He’d had a preliminary snifter himself before pouring two generous measures for himself and his new producer. It was longer than he expected before the man arrived, but that didn’t matter to Brad; he’d nothing to do for the rest of the day, now that his scene was safely in the can. He’d have a couple more brandies and sodas, but he wouldn’t get drunk. He’d never been one of those actors who became unreliable because they were lushes. The work eventually dried up for them as the word got round. It was all right if you were Richard Burton or Peter O’Toole, but lesser mortals simply disappeared. Brad wouldn’t have dreamed of admitting it publicly, but he knew he’d never been good enough to indulge himself like that.
Ernie Clark knocked tentatively when he eventually arrived. He responded to Sir Bradley’s imperious command to ‘Come!’ by entering diffidently and casting a look back over his shoulder at the world he was shutting out. The very action that would excite the suspicion of that world – but then Clark wasn’t an actor but an assistant producer, Brad thought. Well, a producer perhaps, now, and as far as this enterprise was concerned the producer. Morton gave him a welcoming smile and held out the drink to him as if it were a chalice.
‘Cut glass tumblers,’ said Clark, rolling the brandy round the bowl and adding a generous measure of soda. ‘You look after yourself and your guests, Sir Bradley, even on location.’
‘Especially on location,’ said Bradley, with a wide wave of the knightly arm. ‘One needs whatever comforts one can muster, when one is cast out into a hostile world.’ He sipped his brandy contemplatively, raised his glass towards the light to study it, and ran the healing fluid expertly round the wide bowl of the glass which contained it.
‘You asked me to come here,’ said Clark. ‘What is it you want to discuss?’ He had a shrewd idea what it was, but he preferred to let the older man make the running. You were always in a stronger position dealing with a request than arguing in support of your own suggestion; it put the other party in the position of supplicant.
Sir Bradley looked anything but a beggar. He was forced to voice his plea, but he would take his time over it. He prefaced it with a review of the situation. ‘I was with senior members of the cast last night. Buckets of crocodile tears were being shed.’
‘They owe a lot to Sam Jackson. He put up the money which made all of this possible,’ said Ernie Clark sententiously.
Morton raised a bushy and expressive eyebrow. ‘That is why we all deferred to the bugger whilst he was around. But he didn’t like actors. He treated the men like shit and the women like his personal concubines. That is why everyone around here is glad to see him gone.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Everyone!’ The voice which had effortlessly reached the rear stalls and circle for so many years boomed with conviction. ‘I don’t see the police getting a lot of help round here. I shan’t ask if you killed Jackson, Ernie. It is much easier to maintain a disciplined ignorance if one is innocent of all knowledge.’
‘Then I shan’t ask you either, Brad. I might feel it my duty to tell the police, if I had genuine knowledge.’ Ernie felt like a poker player resolutely maintaining the appropriate face.
‘I imagine you’re going to do very well out of this.’
For a moment Clark thought the old rascal knew more than he did. Then he realized he was probably merely probing. ‘I’ve no notion what’s going to happen. Have you?’
‘I’ve a shrewd idea. The Loxton series will go on. There will be sensational headlines for a few days. There may even be a sensational arrest. None of that will do the series any harm at all, either here or in the rest of the curious world which forms its audience. For a crime series, all of this will constitute helpful publicity. The person to benefit most of all from this death and its aftermath will be the man who was Sam Jackson’s faithful deputy, the assistant producer who has now fallen on his feet in a big way – I imagine that’s the sort of cliché our late controller would have used.’
Sir Bradley Morton smiled on that thought and broke wind exuberantly. It was a function he obviously enjoyed, despite his instant assertion that: ‘I really must stop doing that!’
Ernie wondered how much the old ham knew about the arrangements which would now be implemented. Morton might be more dangerous to him than he had anticipated. ‘We shall have to wait and see what happens next, won’t we?’
‘“Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’, like the poor cat in the adage?” I prefer to shape my own fate whenever possible.’
‘It was Macbeth who was taunted like that and reacted with action, wasn’t it? I seem to recall that things didn’t turn out very well for him.’ Clark was pleased to have spotted the allusion.
‘Very good, Ernie. But I can’t see how this can turn out badly for you – unless you’re arrested for murder, of course.’
Clark looked at him hard, then summoned up a sickly smile. ‘Someone will be arrested, I suppose. I wonder who. Not you, I hope, Brad.’
Morton gave him a quizzical smile. Ernie had tried to come back at him about the murder, but it had been a pretty feeble attempt. ‘Amongst all of us, you’re the one with most to gain, I should think. You’ll take over the series, won’t you? Even if you haven’t got enough money in your own pocket, you’ll have no difficulty getting finance for the next series. But I imagine the profits from this one and the money that’s still pouring in from around the world for the previous ones will take care of that.’
‘I haven’t even thought about the implications of this for me yet.’
That was patently untrue. Everyone had thought about the personal implications of Jackson’s death, and Clark more than most, because he was most immediately affected.
Morton said calmly, ‘Things will move forward in a positive manner. You will take over the Inspector Loxton series. You will make good profits from it and be hugely more prosperous than you were. You will have an infinitely more agreeable lifestyle than when you were chased about and insulted by that ogre Jackson. The actors will carry on without the stream of insults that most disagreeable of men brought to our sets. Even I shall be able to expand as I should not have done if he were still around.’
Ernie Clark was immediately curious, though he affected nonchalance. ‘How is that, Brad?’
‘I shall be able to look forward to taking a greater and happier part in the series. I should not have accepted more than this one-off role in Herefordshire Horrors if Samuel Jackson had remained in charge of the project. Now I shall feel free to expand, to develop my involvement and commitment to the series.’
He was behaving in character and enjoying it, despite the fact that he knew these things wouldn’t be possible. It was a blatant bid for more roles, or a development of the one he was playing in this episode. Morton spoke as if it were he himself and not Sam Jackson who had restricted his involvement to this single episode. Everyone in the business knew Sir Bradley had been glad of the work in a popular series, though no one had had the temerity to voice the thought.
Ernie said, ‘I don’t know what the plans are af
ter this one is completed. I haven’t spoken with the writer recently. I’ll need to discuss things with her, with Sam gone.’
‘You will indeed,’ said Sir Bradley affably. ‘And no doubt you’ll wish her to build in a bigger role for me.’
Sir Bradley wasn’t looking at Clark. He was staring ahead and slightly upwards, as if seeing the vision of his life ahead and the myriad things it now had to offer him. Ernie said uneasily, ‘I can’t make any promises, Brad. There are all kinds of things to consider about what happens now and the future to the Loxton series. But if it proves that—’
‘It will prove that you need me, Ernie,’ said Morton evenly. He looked full at Clark now, his pale blue eyes bright, his bushy eyebrows seeming suddenly larger. ‘Believe me, it is much in your interests that I have an important part in your future plans.’
This was virtually blackmail, Ernie Clark thought. Morton was claiming he knew more than he could possibly know, surely. He didn’t voice that thought; he needed time to think about this. He stared at the aged knight for a moment, then said awkwardly, ‘I must get back to the set. I’ll be needed out there.’
They parted with both of them wondering how much the other knew. Sir Bradley had thoroughly enjoyed playing his little game, empty as he knew it was.
Sandra Rokeby did not disappoint. She had been one of Bert Hook’s fantasies when he was a young man, oozing physicality in her photographs and quotations for the ex-Barnardo’s boy in the year when his hormones had begun to dance.
She eased into the murder room and looked around, displaying her voluptuous contours effortlessly and to maximum advantage. ‘DI Rushton told me you wanted to see me. It’s only natural that you should, in view of what’s happened here.’ She was perfectly affable, more understanding than some of their other clients had been, but she contrived to make it sound like a sexual invitation. Or perhaps she did not contrive it, thought Bert. Perhaps such things came naturally and unthinkingly to her after all these years.
He’d checked her age before she came here. She was forty-eight now, but she carried her age easily because she took no great pains to disguise it. Her clothes were expertly cut to display her figure, but they had not the tightness which would have made her seem brazen. She had the bright blue eyes and blonde hair which had always been her feature; bottle-blonde, Bert fancied, but so expertly applied that he could not be sure. There were not the telltale dark roots which he saw on most such heads. Rokeby sat down easily opposite them, crossing her legs to display fine denier nylon, but not as much of her thighs as he had expected. ‘Pretty kettle of fish this is!’ she said, exuberantly rather than sadly.
Bert had the impression that she was confident with policemen, that she had handled the species before and was perfectly at ease with them. He said as sternly as he could, ‘We need to ask you some questions about what happened yesterday. We need you to be as honest as possible and to hold nothing back.’
‘I wasn’t intending to do that. It’s not my habit to hold things back.’ She said it quite soberly, yet she made it sound like a sexual assertion.
Lambert had never seen the sturdy and reliable Hook look so like an inexperienced young constable. He took over the questioning himself. ‘You’re a principal player in this drama, Ms Rokeby. No doubt you will be able to make us aware of what was going on before yesterday’s killing and what took place after it among your fellow professionals.’
She smiled at him, apparently weighing his merits. ‘I’m a principal player in a fictional drama. I have no experience of the type of real-life drama which was played out a hundred yards from here yesterday. You are the experts in that. We are merely players, waiting upon your expertise in such matters.’
‘You are not “merely” players or merely anything else. It is entirely possible that one of the actors committed murder yesterday. You among others are a leading figure in a major crime, unless and until it can be proved otherwise.’
She looked at him steadily for a moment, the lines around her eyes more visible as they narrowed. ‘I take your point. I shall do all I can to help you. It will not be much.’
‘Someone we saw yesterday or today will almost certainly be attempting to deceive us. If you are to convince us that this person is not you, we need you to be as frank and as full as possible in your replies, as DS Hook suggested.’
‘I don’t go in for deception.’ She uncrossed her legs and inspected her spotless blue shoes. ‘Ask away, chief superintendent.’
‘How long had you known Samuel Jackson?’
‘Must be the best part of twenty years, off and on. More off than on, though. I hadn’t seen him for several years before he offered me the part in Hertfordshire Horrors.’
‘He interviewed you personally for the role?’
‘He always did, when he was casting females. One of the perks of the job, he called it. He always hoped it would lead on to other and more steamy perks.’
‘Did you resent that?’
‘I’ve been around this business and this life too long to bother myself with resentment. Men try it on with you. Even women try it on, occasionally. It’s a fact of life. I can handle it. I can’t remember when I last allowed it to upset me. It’s a long time ago.’
‘But your rejection didn’t prevent Jackson from giving you the part?’
‘I knew he wanted me for it when he sent for me. I might be a limited actress, but I’m not stupid, and you get better with practice over the years. I can do everything required of me here. I know I can and Sam knew it. He was a shrewd businessman as well as a lecher, you know. He and I both knew I was value for money in the role he wanted me to fill.’
Lambert looked at her hard. It unnerved many people, who were not used to being studied in the social contexts in which they usually operated. Sandra Rokeby merely stared back at him, with no visible sign of annoyance; she was well used to being stared at.
He said, ‘With petty criminals, we are able to make some assessment of their characters and motivation ourselves. We have to discover the characters of murder victims through other people. Everyone tells us that Samuel Jackson was churlish and coarse and that he exploited his money and power to obtain things he would not have gained without them. He must have been a man who made a lot of enemies.’
Sandra gathered her thoughts. ‘Isn’t that just a caricature of your victim? You fasten on the obvious fact that he could be boorish and take everything else from that. People can be more than the face they present.’
‘You think so?’
‘I do.’ The monosyllables were emitted with a quiet certainty. A few seconds passed before she said, ‘I am not what I present to the world. I am not the Rokeby Venus, though that did influence my choice of stage name all those years ago. I am a lot more than what I choose to present to the world. I suspect Sam Jackson was too.’
‘I take your point and I thank you for it. We want to know as much about our victim as we can, because it will probably suggest who killed him. But I would point out that the image he chose to present – that of the bullying producer who held the power and wanted to remind everyone of that – was the one which seems to have dominated his final days. He had no children, but for all we know he might have been generous and loving to his nephews and nieces. He might have been an absolute poppet to puppies and kittens, but that isn’t what characterizes his final days. He was more interested in being a bastard to his cast and his technical staff. And it was in the midst of these people he had deliberately antagonized that he was killed. Do you agree with that view?’
She shrugged her shoulders, causing her famous bust to produce an involuntary blink from Bert Hook’s experienced eyes. ‘I have to accept it. The facts support it. I just wanted to point out that I’ve known Sam to be kind, in the past. Even considerate, when he thought his image wasn’t at stake. But he generally played the bastard pretty effectively.’
Lambert wondered if she was trying to distance herself from this killing by recalling the human side of the
victim. Or was she obliquely concerned to point out that she was much more than one-dimensional herself, that an intelligent, perhaps compassionate, woman lurked beneath the curves? He said gruffly, ‘Did you visit Jackson’s caravan yesterday morning?’
‘Yes. Not to kill him though.’ If she thought her admission was a bombshell, she gave no visible sign of it.
‘When and why did you go there?’
‘Not long after he arrived here. After my first scene on set. It would be about eleven o’clock, I think. I went to give him some publicity shots. They were to be used to promote this episode in the series and Sam had requested them from me. Normally I’d have handed them to the woman who handles publicity, but I thought I’d let Sam have a quiet leer over them – not that they’re anything very scandalous. I don’t reveal acres of flesh any more. I have to work by suggestion. But I thought presenting them to Sam himself would help to keep up good relations with him; you have to look after yourself in this job.’
‘What did Jackson do with the pictures?’
‘I don’t know. He had them on the table in front of him when I left.’
‘The scene of crime team found the photographs. They were in his inside pocket. Was he wearing a tie when you visited him?’
‘Yes. A pretty lurid one, as usual. He had it knotted round his neck. But it was a very loose knot. That was the way he usually wore it.’
‘Did you see anyone else visit him, or have you heard of any such visit from the people you have spoken with?’
‘No. Most people had the opportunity at one time or another, but I don’t know of anyone else who went to that caravan. His attitude to actors in particular didn’t encourage it.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I expect Ernie Clark might have gone there. As assistant producer, he had most reason to do so. And if I’d been him, I’d have preferred to receive any criticism from Sam Jackson in private than in public. An audience always brought out the worst in Sam.’