Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose

by Peter Lovesey

  So I became a tourist again, instead of a snoop. I lounged by the hotel pool in the morning and later took a trip to the coral reef in a glass-bottomed boat. I spent an hour in the cemetery. Morbid, you may think, but the gravestones are on the tourist trail. I found the famous epitaph “I told you I was sick.” It didn’t seem funny when I saw it.

  Late in the afternoon, I had a quiet drink in one of the smaller bars on Duval Street watching the movement of people towards Mallory Square. There’s a tradition in Key West that people converge on the dock to celebrate the sunset. When I’d finished my drink, I joined them.

  I didn’t expect to meet Merle there. As a resident, she’d regard the sunset spectacle as a sideshow for tourists. Even so, as I sidled through the good-natured crowd I caught myself looking more than once at women who resembled her and the men they were with. I still wanted keenly to catch a glimpse of Mr Finch, the new husband.

  The sky became pastel blue and the sun dipped towards the sea, becoming ever more red. The heads of some of the crowd were in silhouette. At one end a tightrope was slung between tripod posts and the performer was teasing his audience, keeping them in suspense with patter and juggling. I ambled on, past a guitarist and a dog-trainer. Ahead, someone else had drawn a fair crowd. A fire-eater, I guessed.

  There’s something hypnotic about the sight of a flame, particularly in the fading light. But I decided the aerialist would be better value and I turned back. I was actually retracing my steps when I heard a scratchy sound that froze my blood, an old 78 record of a band playing some song from way back. It was coming from behind the crowd at the end.

  I returned, fast.

  I couldn’t see for the tightly packed people. I circled the crowd in frustration while that infernal tune blared out. Unable to contain my feelings I scythed through the crowd saying, “I’m sorry, I have to get through”—until I had a view.

  Danny was wowing them in his straw hat, blazer and flannels, hoofing it just as smoothly as he had in the old days. Far from dead, he had a better colour than most of his audience. The old gramophone was behind him on the ledge, grinding out “Let’s Face the Music.”

  He saw me and winked. I stared back, stunned. Maybe I should have rejoiced, but I’d grieved for this fraudster. I was more angry than relieved. It was a kind of betrayal.

  Coward that I am, afterwards, when the sun had set and the crowds had dispersed I sat tamely with Danny on a ledge of the sea wall at the south end of the dock, our backs to the sea. He had a six-pack of Coors that he systematically emptied. Dancing, he explained, was thirsty work. He offered me some, and I declined.

  “Merle told me she met you,” he admitted. “She didn’t want me to come out tonight, but I’m a performer, damnit. The show goes on. She doesn’t understand that you and I go back a long way. You wouldn’t blow the whistle on your old RAF buddy.”

  I didn’t rise to that. “You’ve played some cool poker hands in your time, Danny, but this beats everything. I don’t know how you managed it.”

  He grinned. “No problem. My stepbrother Ben is my doctor. He signed the death certificate. Merle picked up the life insurance and here we are—Mr and Mrs Finch. The fake passports cost us a packet, but we could afford them. Isn’t this a great place to retire?”

  “But there was a funeral.”

  “That didn’t cost much.”

  “Too true.”

  “A lot of them were in on this,” he confessed. “My cousin Jerry runs an undertaking business in the next village. He supplied the coffin.”

  “And a corpse?” I said, appalled.

  “A couple of sandbags.”

  “You’re a prize bastard, Danny Fox.”

  He chuckled at that. “Aren’t I just? And the prize is in the bank.”

  “What you did is sick.”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “Who loses out? Only the insurance company. I had to pay huge premiums.”

  “There were people in that church who genuinely grieved for you.”

  That hurt. “I grieved.”

  “Jesus—what for?” His eyebrows jutted in genuine puzzlement.

  I started to say, “If you don’t remember—”

  Danny cut me off with, “All that was thirty years ago. And then it was only—”

  “Night exercises,” I completed the statement for him.

  “What?”

  “Night exercises. That’s what you thought of me, didn’t you?” I stood up and faced him. “Admit it. Say it to my face, you skunk.”

  There was a pause. The night had virtually closed in. Danny up-ended his last can of beer. “All right, if that’s what you heard from Merle, it must be true.” He laughed. “Let’s face it, Susan—that’s what you were. P.O. didn’t stand for Pilot Officer in your case, it stood for pushover.”

  I said, “That’s unbelievably cruel.”

  Unmoved, Danny told me, “If you really want to know, I couldn’t even remember your name that day we met in Brighton. I remembered your car, though.”

  That was one injury too many—even for a coward like me. The precious flame I’d guarded for thirty years was out. Our relationship had been the one experience in my life that I thought I could call truly romantic. Nothing since had compared to it. Danny had made me feel beautiful, desired, a woman fulfilled.

  He knew the pain he had just inflicted. He must have known.

  “Danny.”

  “Yes?” He looked up.

  By that time Mallory Dock was deserted except for us. The water there is deep enough to moor a cruise liner.

  The body of the middle-aged male washed up on Key West Bight a week or so later was identified as that of the man who sometimes danced on the dock at sunset. Nobody knew his name and nobody claimed the body for burial.

  QUIET PLEASE—WE’RE ROLLING

  A naked man on a tropical beach was chasing a small white dog that had just run off with his swimming trunks. The scene was shot from the rear. Once in a while, a bare bum is acceptable for early evening viewing.

  Albert Challis, in his bedsit in Reading, reached for another can of lager, his eyes never leaving the screen of the small portable TV. “Jesus! I don’t know how they get away with this. It’s bloody obvious most of it is faked.”

  His wife Karen continued mending the jumper on her lap, oblivious to Albert’s ranting. She didn’t enjoy the programme, and she had a long evening in prospect, repairing clothes. There was no escape from the TV when you lived in a bedsit.

  Albert continued, after a belch, “When this show first went out, I reckon most of the clips were genuine. Then they started offering a few hundred quid for new material. Stands to reason people are going to fake the incidents. They set up someone making a fool of himself, roll the camera and cash in.”

  He watched in cynical expectation as a grey man in a grey room began painting a door frame. A second later the door opened and the hapless decorator was dowsed in red.

  “Well, knock me down with a feather,” said Albert with heavy sarcasm. “I never saw that one coming. It’s like I say, Karen. The whole thing’s a set-up.”

  Karen folded the jumper and placed it on her ‘done’ pile, then turned her attention to a black woollen sock. It was one of Albert’s, the survivor of a pair he had worn so proudly on their wedding day, eighteen years ago. Now it contained as much darning wool as original thread, but Albert insisted it wasn’t ready for the rag-box yet.

  On the screen a well-dressed woman in a stable yard started walking beside the half-doors where the horses were kept.

  “Ay up!” said Albert. “Watch what happens to her big straw hat. There it goes!”

  Sure enough, a horse’s head appeared suddenly from one of the stables and got the woman’s hat between its teeth and whipped it off her head and out of reach.

  “I bet they rehearsed it three times.”

  Karen had looked up and watched the clip, prompted by Albert’s “Ay up!”

  “If they did,” she said, “they must have
got through more than one hat. It’s very destructive. I’ve never had a hat as nice as that.”

  Albert said, “It seems to me all you have to do is buy one of these bloody camcorders and the money’s yours. They’ll take anything, slipping on some ice, falling into a pond, being hit on the head by a football, any bloody thing. You could make one a week, I reckon. Shoot it on Saturday, send it to the television people on the Monday, and, bingo, the cheque arrives on Wednesday. We could live like kings on that sort of money, Karen.”

  Karen looked down at her darning again. “Well why not, if it’s so simple? Why not get one of those cameras and try it?”

  Albert had no immediate answer. He placed his can on the aged carpet and folded both arms across his ample beer-belly. The best he could manage in response was a smile that was meant to be superior.

  Karen said, “You’re all mouth and trousers, Albert Challis. You say it’s all a con, but you don’t have the bottle to prove it.”

  Albert found his voice. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly, my sweet,” he said. “You did just suggest buying one of those cam-corders, didn’t you? When was the last time you looked in the bloody shop window? Have you any idea of the price of those things?”

  Karen shook her head. They didn’t have the sort of money most other people seemed to have. Nothing in their household had been bought new. They got it all secondhand. Whatever broke, burst or wore out had to be repaired.

  “They cost a bloody fortune, woman,” Albert ranted. “Hundreds of pounds. Can you imagine that, a little piece of black plastic costing five hundred quid?”

  Karen shook her head, returning to the rhythmical comfort of needle and thread.

  Albert finished his lager, watching a fat woman being chased across a field by a goat while the studio audience guffawed. “The point is,” he said in support of his apparent caution, “I’m not prepared to splash out five hundred on a camcorder when we only stand to make two hundred and fifty back.”

  “But you just said you could make one a week and we could live like royalty,” Karen reminded him. “Soon as I call your bluff, you back off.”

  Albert shot her a filthy look. “Don’t you provoke me.”

  “It’s not as if we haven’t got the money,” Karen persisted. “We must have more than five hundred in the bank.”

  “Never you mind what we have or haven’t got in the bank, Karen.”

  “I do mind,” she said. “It’s mine as much as yours. I work to keep us going, same as you. The cooking, the cleaning, the mending. I think we ought to have a joint account and then I’d know how much we’re worth.”

  “You’d spend it in a week,” said Albert. “Look, if anything happened to me, God forbid, that money goes to you, right? All my worldly goods. Satisfied?”

  The programme was coming to an end. The grinning host was saying, “. . . be sure to keep your home-movie clips coming in, because you could be the winner of our clip of the series prize, and that’s worth a cool ten thousand pounds.”

  “Ten grand!” said Albert, deeply impressed. “Now that might be worth lashing out for. The clip of the series. We’d have to think of something really brilliant. Get me a pen and paper, quick. I’m taking down the address.”

  * * *

  In bed, Karen was trying her best to sleep, drawing the thin blankets tightly around her, thinking of continental quilts, double glazing and central heating. She wondered how much they really had in that bank account.

  Albert’s voice broke into her fantasies. “It would have to be a really great caper. Something completely fantastic. They wouldn’t give the money for one more silly kid messing about with a hosepipe.”

  Karen said, “Are you still on about that programme?”

  “I’m on about ten grand.”

  There was an interval of silence before Karen spoke again. “It would have to be believable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She raised herself onto her elbows, any hope of sleep impossible as long as Albert was preoccupied with the big prize. “Well,” she said, “when you see most of those clips, the situation is just unreal. You couldn’t believe in it.”

  The bed creaked and Albert rolled towards her. “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “Tonight, for instance,” Karen said. “The chap who ended covered in paint. You yourself said it was probably all set up for the programme. I mean, who would want to film a door being painted?”

  Albert clutched her arm. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s hardly a prime home-movie subject.”

  Karen explained, “That’s why the ones they show at weddings work so well. You know, when they can’t get the knife into the cake and they knock it off the stand. Or a breeze gets under the bride’s gown and lifts it up to her waist. Stuff like that. People accept them as genuine accidents because a wedding is the place where you take your video camera.”

  “But you can’t mess up someone’s wedding just to get a laugh on video,” Albert said, misreading the plot.

  “That’s just an example,” said Karen. “All I’m telling you is that to win the big prize you’d have to find a situation when it would be perfectly normal to be filming. Then it looks genuine, and it’s funnier, too.”

  Albert pondered the matter further. “Weddings, kiddies’ parties, barbecues, village fetes. Where else do people take these little cameras?”

  “Holidays,” Karen dreamily replied. She yawned. “Night, night.”

  She turned over, trying to find a comfortable spot between the thinly-covered mattress springs.

  Albert’s eyes were gleaming in the dark. He reached out and fondled Karen’s rump. “You’re brilliant.”

  “Shove off,” she said, pushing his hand away.

  “What I have, I hold,” said Albert, replacing it. “You and I are going to take a holiday, my sweet. A caravan holiday.”

  “A caravan, did you say?”

  “And I know where to get one. That bloke across the street who keeps it on his drive.”

  “Mr Tinker? He wouldn’t let us borrow his caravan.”

  “I bet he will. He doesn’t use it himself. Since the divorce, it’s been stuck on that drive for two years. He’ll be glad to be rid of it.”

  “Rid of it?” said Karen, failing to understand.

  “We’ll be doing him a favour,” said Albert. “What does he want with a caravan? He’ll make a few quid on the insurance. I’ll speak to him tomorrow.”

  * * *

  When Albert returned from his chat with Joe Tinker, he was practically turning cartwheels of joy. “He couldn’t be more helpful,” he told Karen. “Like I said, he’s got no more use for the caravan. We’re welcome to do just whatever we like with it.”

  “Take it on holiday?”

  “We’re doing him a favour,” said Albert. “He won’t have to park his car on the street any more. But that isn’t all. I told him what this is about.”

  “You told him?” said Karen, horrified.

  “Everything. To get his co-operation,” said Albert. “He’s seen the programme and he thinks the same as us. He says this is one hell of a stunt and he reckons we can’t fail to win the big money. I’ve told him I’ll give him a couple of hundred if we do. Fair enough, eh?”

  “I suppose so,” said Karen, “but can we trust him to stay quiet about it?”

  “That’s why he gets a cut. He’s part of the conspiracy, then,” said Albert. “But I haven’t told you the best part. Joe Tinker also owns a camcorder. Yes, I’m not kidding. He’s going to lend it to us for nothing. For nothing, Karen! What’s more, he’ll show you how to use it.”

  “Me?” said Karen.

  “Unless you want to be making an idiot of yourself on television, you’ve got to be holding the camera, pointing it at me. And it’s got to be done properly. Good focusing. No shaking. You only get one take, remember. It’s got to be right first time, and it’s got to be up to professional standard to win the ten grand.”

  She said nervo
usly, “I don’t think I can do it, Albert.”

  “Course you can! They’re simple, these camcorders, dead simple. I told Joe you’ll be over for some instruction this afternoon. He’s a good bloke, and he fancies you anyway. He’ll give you all the confidence in the world.”

  “What is this stunt, anyway?” said Karen.

  “We take a holiday, like I said, towing Joe’s caravan.”

  “Where to?”

  “Some remote part of Wales. I’m going to study the map this afternoon while you’re learning to be an ace camerawoman. If you get your certificate of competence we can drive down there next Saturday for the shoot.”

  “The shoot?”

  “Of the film,” Albert explained. “Get with it, love. We’re shooting a film, remember? Like I say, we hook the caravan to my old Cortina. Joe’s lending me his towbar as well. He’s great.”

  “Is it strong enough?”

  “The towbar?”

  “Your car. Those caravans are big things to tow.”

  “No problem,” said Albert. “We can take it gently, just tootling along. We’ll be stopping every few miles filming bits and pieces of our journey.”

  “What for?”

  Albert sighed. Everything always had to be explained to Karen. “Because it has to look like we’re on a proper holiday. We need about twenty minutes of boring holiday stuff to divert suspicion from our real intentions. Can’t you see how phony it will look if the only thing on the tape is the caravan going over the cliff?”

  Karen gasped in horror. “Over the cliff? Mr Tinker’s caravan?”

  Albert smiled. “With only the seagulls as witnesses—apart from the camera and fifteen million viewers.”

  “It’s insane!”

  “That’s why it’s going to win ten grand. What a spectacle! I’m going to look at the Ordnance Survey and find a bit of the coast with a gentle slope leading to the cliff edge, and a good long drop to the rocks below. We park the caravan thirty yards up the slope. That way I have time to get out.”

  “Get out?”

  “Before it rolls over. It’s going to be sensational. You’ll be outside filming the scenery from the cliff top. You pan around to me at the window of the caravan. I’ll hold up a bit of metal and say, ‘What’s this, love?’ The caravan will start to move. I’ll shout something the TV people will have to bleep out—the audience always loves that—then I leap from the door holding the broken hand-brake of the caravan, to watch the thing roll over the edge.” He laughed out loud and raised his arms like a boxer who has just heard his opponent counted out.