‘What we need is something light and humorous,’ Houseman continued. ‘Something that will leave the viewers with a smile on their faces.’ He turned to the writers. ‘That shouldn’t be any problem, should it?’
None at all, Paddy Colligan thought. At least, not for you. You’re the producer – the man who can demand results. You don’t have sit staring at a blank sheet of typing paper until your eyes start to bleed.
‘It’s going to be rather tricky coming up with several new incidents at such short notice—’ Ben Drabble said.
‘But it can be done?’ the producer interrupted.
‘Probably. If we don’t hit any snags.’
‘Then don’t hit any,’ Houseman said. ‘So that’s the medium term dealt with. Now let’s get on to the short term – Friday’s episode. How do we deal with Valerie’s – or should I say, Liz Bowyer’s – demise?’
‘We could simply ignore it,’ Paddy Colligan suggested.
‘Ignore it!’ Jeremy Wilcox repeated. ‘How, in God’s name, can we possibly bloody ignore it?’
Paddy Colligan shrugged. ‘It’s what people do in real life,’ he said. ‘You know how it goes. You meet somebody for the first time since they’ve lost a relative, and you say how sorry you are for their loss. But after that, everybody goes out of their way never to mention the deceased again.’
‘That may well happen in real life,’ Bill Houseman said, ‘but for some of our viewers the characters in Madro are more real than real life.’
That was true, Paddy Colligan thought. When they had plotted a pregnancy for Tilly Woods the previous year, the television studio had been deluged with toddlers’ clothes that eager viewers had knitted for the expected baby. There were people out there in television-land – a large number of them – who seemed unable to grasp the idea that what they saw on their screens was no more than a story. There were people out there for whom Liz Bowyer seemed to have more reality than their own next-door neighbours.
‘So what do you propose, Bill?’ Ben Drabble asked.
‘We kill Liz off on Friday’s show,’ Houseman said.
‘But she’s already dead!’
Houseman sighed exasperatedly. ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t go making the same mistake as the people you’re writing for. Valerie’s dead. We know that. But Liz isn’t. Yet! She isn’t dead until we say she is.’
‘What have you got in mind?’ Paddy Colligan asked. ‘A conversation in the corner shop between Sam Fuller and Madge Thornycroft, in which Madge says something like, “Terrible thing Liz having that unexpected heart attack, isn’t it, Sam?” And Sam answering, “Yes, she mustn’t have been feeling too well the other day. That’s probably why she turned back instead of havin’ a row with you, Madge.”?’
‘Is that the best you can come up with?’ Houseman demanded.
‘Well, it’s a bit crude at the moment,’ Paddy Colligan admitted, ‘but once we’ve polished up the lines—’
‘You could polish them all you liked, and it still wouldn’t do.’
‘Why not?’
‘If you’d just take the trouble to stop to think about it for a few seconds, you’d be able to work it out for yourself,’ Houseman said cuttingly. ‘The story of what’s really happened will be splashed over the front pages of all the papers tomorrow. Correct?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And after exposure like that, do you really think we kill Liz off with mere words?’
‘So what do you want?’
‘I want to see her die on screen. And so will the punters!’
Paddy Colligan wondered for a second if he was dreaming, and then decided that even his fertile imagination couldn’t come up with a dream as bizarre as this.
‘It’s a good idea, but the problem is, she’s already dead,’ he said. ‘Now if she’d thought to inform us last week that she was about to be murdered, we could already have had something in the can, but since she decided to spring it on us unexpectedly like this . . .’
Houseman glared at his scriptwriter. ‘I think you’re showing very poor taste to make a remark like that,’ he said.
I’m showing poor taste! Colligan thought. What the bloody hell have you been showing ever since we sat down?
‘I think you’re still one step ahead of us on this, Bill,’ Ben Drabble said. ‘If you could just spell it out a little more clearly . . .’
‘Why not?’ Houseman asked. ‘And then I’ll go and do the cleaner’s job for her, shall I?’
‘I think I’m starting to get the picture now,’ Paddy Colligan said, knowing he was making a mistake, and not giving a damn. ‘You want us to find a medium who can summon up Val’s ghost at precisely half past seven on Friday night.’
Houseman slammed the palm of his hand down hard on the tabletop. ‘I’ve just about had enough of this,’ he said. ‘I really bloody have! If all you can do is sit there and make snide comments, Colligan, you can just piss off right now – and I’ll hire a monkey to do your job.’
‘Paddy didn’t mean it,’ Ben Drabble said. ‘He’s just a bit tense. We all are. If you’d just explain what you’ve got in mind . . .’
‘I suppose that would save time,’ Houseman said wearily. ‘Look, we’ve been doing this show for two years now, haven’t we? We must have thousands of feet of film in the archive. Look through it. Find something we can use.’
‘Use?’ Ben Drabble repeated, mystified.
‘Something we can incorporate into the death scene.’ Houseman clicked his fingers, as if he’d had a sudden inspiration. ‘Ironing!’ he exclaimed.
‘Ironing?’
‘We’ve always gone out of our way to show our characters doing the same mundane household tasks as the viewers themselves. Surely we can find a few shots of Valerie doing the ironing.’
‘Probably,’ Drabble agreed. ‘But what good would that—?’
‘We show the old footage first: close-ups of Val doing the ironing. Then we cut to a live shot: a back view of a woman with the same build as Val – and wearing the same frock as she is in the clip – standing over the ironing board. She starts to writhe, and then, without turning her face to the camera, she falls on to the floor. And there we have it – the part of our audience which is so thick that it believes in Liz Bowyer as a real person will actually see her die.’ He turned to Jeremy Wilcox. ‘That’s all technically possible, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Wilcox agreed. ‘It’s technically possible.’
‘But sick!’ Paddy Colligan said.
‘Sick?’ Houseman demanded. ‘What’s sick about it? Valerie’s dead, isn’t she? There’s nothing we can do to hurt her now. And we have a responsibility to keep the show running as smoothly as possible. We owe it to our viewers. We owe it to our mortgages.’
‘But we’ve already got one death at the ironing board scripted,’ Ben Drabble protested. ‘We can’t have two in a matter of a couple of weeks.’
Bill Houseman sighed again, and wondered how he’d ever come to be lumbered with a pair of incompetents like Drabble and Colligan.
‘Of course we can’t have two characters die in the same way in just a couple of weeks,’ he said. ‘We can’t have two characters die in different ways in a couple of weeks. So Jack Taylor, the Laughing Postman, will just have to stay in the show for a while, won’t he?’
‘Yes, I suppose he will,’ Drabble agreed.
Houseman glanced down at his watch. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘you all know what you’ve got to do before Friday afternoon. Get on with it.’
‘Will you be attending the script conferences yourself, Mr Houseman?’ Ben Drabble asked.
‘No, I won’t,’ Houseman told him. ‘I’ve decided to give up keeping a dog and barking myself. Besides, I’ll have quite enough on my hands looking after the PC Plods who’ll be tramping all over the bloody studio trying to find out who killed Valerie.’
‘How long do you think they’ll be here?’ Jeremy Wilcox asked. He paused, as if he wished he’d never asked the q
uestion. ‘I mean . . . they’re going to be in the way, aren’t they?’
‘Undoubtedly they’ll be in the way,’ Houseman agreed. ‘As to how long they’ll be in the way, I really couldn’t say. My confidence in the boys in blue’s ability to do their job isn’t exactly overpowering at the best of times, and in a case like this, when they’ll be faced with more suspects than their befuddled little brains can handle, well, they could be here for the duration.’
Suspects! Paddy Colligan turned the word over in his mind. He hadn’t really thought about it in those terms before, but now he came to consider it, he supposed that that was what they all were – Suspects, with a capital S!
‘Why . . . why should you think they’ll have a lot of suspects?’ Ben Drabble asked uncertainly.
‘Isn’t that obvious?’ Houseman countered. ‘They’ll be looking for people who might have wanted Valerie dead – and there are enough of them around, aren’t there?’ He stood up. ‘Fancy a quick one before we call it a day, Jeremy?’ he asked the director.
Wilcox nodded, but without much enthusiasm, and the two men left the room. The secretary closed her notebook, dropped it and her pencil in her handbag, and followed them, leaving the scriptwriters alone.
For a few moments Colligan and Drabble sat in silence, then Drabble said, ‘You should watch your step, you know.’
‘Watch my step?’
‘With Bill Houseman. A couple of times back there I thought he was on the point of hitting you.’
‘If he had have done, he’d have got back as good as he gave.’
‘He’s the boss,’ Drabble said. ‘He’s the one who pays our wages.’
‘Bugger him!’ Paddy Colligan said. ‘And bugger his bloody money, too!’
‘That’s stupid talk,’ Drabble said. ‘You’re tired and upset. We all are. Things will look different in the morning.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ Paddy Colligan agreed.
‘Of course I’m right. And whatever your opinion of Bill Houseman, you have to admit he thinks quickly, don’t you?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘That idea he came up with about finding some footage of Val ironing and then matching it up with shots of another actress.’
‘Yes, it was quick thinking,’ Paddy Colligan said. ‘Perhaps just a little too quick.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s only a couple of hours since they found Val’s body. I hadn’t even got around to thinking that we might all be suspects. But he had. And he’d gone beyond that. He’d found time to think about what impact her death was going to have on the show.’
‘That’s his job,’ Ben Drabble said.
‘You don’t think there’s a chance that the reason he came up with a solution so quickly was because he’d had more time to work on it than we have?’
‘What are you saying? That he’s thought through the possibility that some key members of the cast might suddenly drop out of the series for one reason or another? That he’s gone on from that to work out what he’d do if such an eventuality did occur? I’m sure he’s done precisely that. He’d have been a fool not to.’ Drabble frowned. ‘That was what you meant, wasn’t it, Paddy?’
‘I suppose so,’ Paddy Colligan said grudgingly.
‘Because if it wasn’t – if you’re suggesting he knew something more specific – then you’re treading on very dangerous ground indeed. Nobody likes having the finger of suspicion pointed at them. And you’ve no reason to point it. So Houseman thought fast! That’s the kind of work he’s in. Producers aren’t like writers, pondering over every word. They thrive on making quick decisions. It’s the same with directors. Five seconds after it became obvious that Val wasn’t going to appear on the set, Jeremy Wilcox had already worked out what to do about it. It’s just the nature of the beast.’
‘He didn’t seem very fast on his feet in the meeting just now, though, did he?’ Paddy Colligan asked. ‘He hardly said a word all the time he was sitting there. And that’s not like him at all. Usually, if Houseman says “black”, he’ll say “white” as a matter of principle. Yet tonight all he did was agree that what Houseman wanted done could be done. That – and ask how long the police were likely to be here.’
‘So he was unusually quiet. That could easily be because of delayed shock or something.’
‘Yes,’ Paddy Colligan agreed. ‘Or something.’
Seven
It was half past nine in the evening when the two men and one woman entered the public bar of the Drum and Monkey, an unassuming little pub on the outskirts of Whitebridge where – if your face became known – it was possible to order a drink long after the more legally-minded establishments had put the towels over the pumps. Under the watchful eye of the landlord, the trio looked quickly around the room, and then selected a table in the corner, as far away from the rest of the customers as possible.
Once they were seated, the younger of the two men stood up again. He was obviously intending to go to the bar and order drinks, but the landlord caught his eye and waved him to sit down again.
‘Serve that table in the corner, will you, Phil,’ the landlord told his waiter. ‘Pint of best bitter, half a bitter an’ a double vodka.’
‘I didn’t know there was waiter service in the public bar,’ replied the other man, who was new to the job.
‘There isn’t usually,’ the landlord conceded. ‘But them three are bobbies, so, as far as I’m concerned, the normal rules don’t apply.’
The waiter took the drinks across to the table. The pint was for the large man in a hairy sports jacket. The half of bitter was for a much younger man who was wearing a smart suit and could easily have been a dynamic young businessman – but wasn’t. The double vodka was destined for the short-haired blonde woman who was pretty enough in her own way, though that way was not quite English.
Woodend picked up his pint and took a slurp that lowered the level by a good two inches.
‘There are cases I’d almost kill to get my hands on, an’ there are cases I wouldn’t give to my worst enemy as a Christmas present,’ he said. ‘This is, without doubt, one of the latter.’
‘Why’s that?’ Monika Paniatowski asked.
‘You mean, aside from the fact we’ll have the press breathin’ down our necks every inch of the way, just waitin’ for us to make a cock-up?’
Paniatowski smiled. ‘Yes, apart from that.’
‘Well, for a start, it involves actors.’
‘So?’
‘I don’t know much about them as a breed, but from what little I have seen I’d have to say that I’ve found them a pretty odd bunch who I’d rather keep away from if I had the choice. But I don’t have the choice, do I? Mr Ainsworth’s made sure of that. He’s better than anybody else I know at recognisin’ a hot potato when he sees it – an’ at passin’ it on again before it has a chance to burn him.’
‘Do we know much about this particular hot potato yet, sir?’ Bob Rutter asked in his usual businesslike manner.
Woodend shook his head in mock despair. ‘I sometimes think I’m wastin’ my breath talkin’ to you, lad,’ he said. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that until we get to the scene of the crime, we know bugger all!’
There’d been a time – not so very long ago – when such a dour comment from his boss would have intimidated Bob Rutter. Now that he knew Woodend better, it merely brought a grin to his face.
‘So you’re saying we have no details at all, are you, sir?’ he asked.
‘If you’re lookin’ for bare bones to chew on, I suppose I could throw you a couple,’ Woodend admitted reluctantly. ‘I don’t imagine, bein’ as how you’re a bloody Southerner – an’ a grammar-school lad at that – that you’ve ever actually watched Maddox Row, have you?’
‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ Rutter countered. ‘I’m using it as a learning aid to help me come to grips with the strange traditions and customs of the Northern tribes I find myself living in the mids
t of.’
Woodend chuckled, but noticed that Paniatowski did not seem in the least amused.
‘I know you only made that smart-arse remark to score points off me, lad,’ he told his inspector, ‘but there’s an element of truth in what you’ve just said. If you want to learn about the North, you could do a lot worse than watch Maddox Row. I’m not sayin’ it’s anythin’ like as accurate as one of them documentary programmes would be, but as a reflection of Northern workin’-class life, it’s not at all bad. Any road, if you’ve been watchin’ it, you’ll know that Liz Bowyer is one of the central characters. Or, at any rate, she was until tonight, when the actress who was playin’ her . . .’ He looked questioningly at Paniatowski.
‘Valerie Farnsworth,’ the sergeant supplied.
‘. . . Valerie Farnsworth, went an’ got herself stabbed to death. Now, from my own limited experience, it seems to me she couldn’t have been killed at a more inconvenient time – at least from our point of view.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Rutter asked.
‘When we were livin’ down in London, my Joan was involved in the local amateur dramatic societies, an’ one year she talked me into takin’ part in the production.’
‘You, sir?’ Rutter asked, unable to hide a smile as he pictured his boss standing self-consciously on the stage.
‘Aye, well, I wouldn’t normally have agreed to do it – but it was Dickens they were puttin’ on, an’ I couldn’t very well turn down a chance to speak the Great Man’s lines, now could I?’ Woodend said.
Rutter gave a stage groan. On almost every case they were involved in, Woodend managed to drag Dickens in somehow. If he had his way, the complete works would probably be required reading for the sergeants’ exam.
‘You can groan, but there’s a lot you can learn from Dickens,’ Woodend said, for perhaps the hundredth time.
‘I know I’m going to hate myself for asking this, but which book was it?’ Rutter said.
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