by Simon Brett
‘’Ere, what do you think you’re –?’
‘I was joking, Jimmy. Just joking.’
Jimmy Sheet subsided with a grin, but he didn’t look totally reassured. Once again, Will’s attack – if attack it was – had been ambiguous.
Sippy Stokes, the object of their bitchery, had been cast for the series in the role of Stanislas Braid’s beloved daughter, Christina. This was another character who worked better for enthusiasts of the crime novels of W. T. Wintergreen than for Will Parton. He had had considerable difficulties in making the part even vaguely playable, though he was quite pleased with the lines he had eventually come up with. Played by an actress of real skill and energy, he reckoned they would just about work.
On the evidence of the rehearsal of the previous week and of that week’s filming, Sippy Stokes was not such an actress. Even Russell Bentley, usually far too absorbed in giving his performance as Russell Bentley to notice what any of the rest of the cast did, had been heard to comment on her incompetence.
‘No, some people are born actresses,’ Will Parton mused aloud, ‘some achieve actressness, but I’m afraid you could thrust everything you liked upon Sippy Stokes and you’d never make her into one.’
‘She speaks well of you, too,’ said Mort.
‘Well, quite honestly,’ Will persisted, ‘I would have thought the basic minimum requirement for an actress is the ability to act.’
‘Don’t you believe it, boofle. Lots of actresses have made very good careers from completely different “minimum requirements”.’
‘Nell Gwynne, for example,’ Charles suggested.
‘Yes, very good example. I mean, she did all right. Now there was a girl who knew her onions.’
‘Or her oranges.’
‘Thank you, Charles – always rely on you for a cheap line, can’t we? Point I’m making, boofle, is that you never hear much about what old Nellie was like as an actress, do you. Never read any notices . . . “Nell Gwynne made an enchanting Ophelia . . .”’
‘Or even “I would have enjoyed the evening more without Nell Gwynne’s Juliet”.’
‘Yes. Mind you, Charles, I don’t think any critic would be quite that vicious.’
‘Ah.’ Charles grimaced apologetically.
‘Oh, really? Who?’
‘Surrey Advertiser. And I’m afraid the actual line was “I would have enjoyed the evening more without Charles Paris’s Romeo”.’
‘Oh, bad luck. Anyway, point I’m making, boofle, is –’
But Mort Verdon never got on to the point he was making, for they were interrupted at that moment by the arrival of Ben Docherty, the Producer, and Dilly Muirfield, the script editor, of Stanislas Braid. Will Parton greeted their appearance with a groan. He knew it would be him they wanted to see, and he knew it would be about more rewrites that they wanted to see him. ‘As someone once said,’ he had growled at Charles a few evenings before, ‘you don’t write for television, you rewrite for television.’
Sure enough, there were ‘a couple of points’ on the next week’s script that Ben and Dilly wanted to ‘just have another look at,’ so Will allowed himself to be dragged away, protesting that he was sure Shakespeare didn’t have this trouble.
Though the coffee break had another five minutes to run, the taciturn A.S.M., Tony Rees, also reckoned it was time he was getting back to the studio, and Jimmy Sheet wanted to check some lines in his dressing room.
Mort Verdon regaled Charles with a few scurrilous stories about Ben Docherty’s drinking, mostly along the lines of ‘My dear, he was once so pissed he contracted a whole cast for a series one afternoon, completely forgot he’d done it, and contracted a completely different lot the next morning,’ but then he, too, had to return to check through some props for the next scene.
That left Charles with his two policemen, the background artistes.
‘This is the first episode, isn’t it?’ asked one of them. Charles confirmed that that was indeed the case.
‘And that police station is a regular set?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And you’re a running character?’
‘Yes,’ said Charles, still having a bit of difficulty in accepting his unusual good fortune. ‘In every episode.’
‘Ah.’The background artiste nodded with satisfaction. ‘That’s good.’
Charles was curious. Why?’
‘Well, you’re always going to need policemen on a police-station set, aren’t you?’
‘Um.’
The background artiste winked at his companion. ‘And got to keep familiar faces, haven’t you? Can’t keep changing the personnel in a village police station, can you? I think we could be in for a series here, Bob.’
They both looked so pleased at the idea that Charles hadn’t the heart to disillusion them, to tell them that the whole point of Little Breckington Police Station, as created by the inimitable W. T. Wintergreen, was that it only had one policeman. Sergeant Clump was the village bobby; he did everything on his own; it was only in this one episode that he enlisted the help of police from other areas.
But there was no need to tell the two background artistes that. Charles knew too much about theatrical dreams and hopes to crush them so gratuitously.
Chapter Two
HE WANDERED BACK to the studio shortly after half past eleven. Better just check what they were moving on to next. He still quite fancied a drink, but he didn’t want to look desperate. Of course, there was the half bottle of Bell’s back in his dressing room, but no, he should resist that. Drinking in secret always made him feel a bit like a secret drinker. Whereas having a drink in the W.E.T. bar had a more open, honest – almost virtuous – feel to it.
The rehearsal light rather than the recording light showed outside the double doors of Studio A, so Charles was not worried about slipping inside. He looked out across the five sets cunningly angled by the designer to fit into the studio space. Cameras and mobile sound booms on long cables prowled between the different locations.
Apart from the Little Breckington Police Station set, there were the hall, sitting room, and billiard room of Breckington Manor, the stately home of Stanislas Braid (who of course had aristocratic parentage and for whom money had never been a problem).
There was also the set of the great man’s study, whose bookshelves were meant to reflect his polymathic knowledge. The ornaments in the room attested to his extensive travels and the gratitude of wealthy – in many cases, regal – clients all over the world. No doubt the silver elephants expressed the thanks of some maharaja whose daughter’s kidnapping Stanislas Braid had solved when the entire police force of India had been baffled. The fine decanter and glasses were no doubt the gift of a Viennese countess whose husband’s murderer Stanislas Braid had unmasked when the entire police force of Austria had been baffled. The fine brass candlesticks on the mantelpiece probably bore witness to the relief of a Greek shipping magnate after Stanislas Braid had defused the bomb whose whereabouts had had the police of twelve nations baffled.
And so on, and so on. At least, thought Charles Paris, whose role as Sergeant Clump was to express the continuing bafflement of the police on a weekly basis, W.E.T. hasn’t stinted on the set dressing. Everything looked very solid and real. The prop buyers must have had their work cut out to find that lot. Charles didn’t think he’d ever been in a television production with so many props.
No, Stanislas Braid would look good. But, as so often in television, Charles worried about the difference between the look of the product and the product itself. With no discredit to Will Parton, who had worked miracles with what he had been given, the scripts did have a dated feel. Not a period feel, which, Charles suspected, was what W.E.T. was really striving for, but a dated feel. There is all the difference in the world between a loving re-creation of a past period and something that just looks old-fashioned. And though it was early on in the series to form judgements, Charles had a nasty suspicion that Stanislas Braid would achieve the second e
ffect.
Nothing was actually being rehearsed when Charles came into the studio, but there was a huddle of activity over in front of the sitting-room set. He moved toward it, but as he drew closer, he realised that the activity was just another argument between Russell Bentley and his Director. This time it must have been more serious, because Rick Landor had actually come down on to the studio floor and was speaking to his star without the mediation of a floor manager. Also on the scene were the thin, faded figures of W. T. Wintergreen and her sister, Louisa, no doubt contributing their own objections to the argument.
It was clearly going to be some time before anything got rehearsed, let alone recorded. And Charles wasn’t even in that scene. Definitely be time for a drink. Just so long as he told someone where he was.
He moved away quietly. No need to draw attention to himself; someone might think of something he was needed for. He went around the edge of the study set into the corridor between the studio wall and the backs of the flats. The smell of canvas warmed by strong lights was achingly familiar from the backstages of a thousand theatres. Ahead of him he saw a familiar back view kneeling down at the foot of a flat. Good, someone he could tell where he was going.
‘Tony.’
The A.S.M. whirled around at the sound of Charles’s voice. He looked flushed. ‘Goodness, you startled me.’
‘Sorry. Just wanted to say, nothing seems to be happening on the set. I’m going to nip to the bar for a quick drink, okay? Get me paged up there if I’m needed.’
‘Yes, fine, okay,’ said Tony Rees.
One of the advantages of having worked for the company a few times was that Charles knew the quickest way to the bar from almost every part of W.E.T. House. From this end of Studio A the best route was out through a dark little storage room used for props, into the scenery dock, up the stairs to the first floor, and through the Casting Department.
Cheered by the anticipation of soon having a large Bell’s in his hand, Charles started on his way.
The scene that met his eyes in the murky props room was one of total chaos.
The room, probably not more than ten feet wide, was flanked with tall shelves to store props, and because of the large number required to give period flavour to Stanislas Braid, these were loaded. Unfortunately, no doubt because of the weight of their burden, one set of shelves must have become top-heavy and fallen forward.
The result was an amazing pile of debris, as if a bomb had gone off in a junk shop. Old cash registers lay on the floor beside elephant’s foot umbrella stands; the shards of chamber pots mingled with crushed cigar boxes; billiard balls dotted their colours over a heap of smashed crockery and dented tankards.
Charles briefly contemplated telling someone about the accident. On the other hand, a selfish instinct urged, it wasn’t really his job. Someone else, whose job it might well be, would soon come through. And now the idea of an imminent drink had taken hold in his mind, Charles Paris didn’t want to put it off that much longer. No, probably better all around if he just went straight to the bar.
And that is where he would have gone if he hadn’t seen, protruding from the bottom of the pile of debris, something that couldn’t, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, be a prop for the Stanislas Braid series.
It was a human hand.
A human hand that Charles had a horrible feeling he recognised.
A human hand attached to a human arm that, when Charles tried to move it from beneath the weight of the shelves, appeared to be very firmly attached to a human body.
A human hand, what’s more, that was still warm. Warm but very still.
He scrabbled away at the pile of debris, and each object he moved revealed to him more of what he somehow already knew. When he saw the dress, it confirmed the message given by the hand. And the glistening blood on the dress confirmed the message of the body’s stillness.
When he uncovered the head, it was, though crushed and battered, still easily recognisable as that of Sippy Stokes.
Chapter Three
CHARLES COMMUNICATED the news of Sippy’s death as discreetly as he could. He reckoned that since the producer is the person with overall responsibility for a production, Ben Docherty should be informed first. Fortunately, because it was still before lunch, Ben was able to take the news with appropriate sobriety. He informed the W.E.T. in-house security, who sealed off the props room and called the police.
The Producer urged Charles to keep quiet about his discovery and decreed that recording should continue for as long as possible. This was avowedly to avoid panic and anxiety among the cast, but Charles knew it was also Ben fulfilling his professional role. The producer is responsible for the budgeting of a television series, and even a half day of studio time wasted is ruinously expensive. Already, so early into production, thanks to Russell Bentley’s difficulties in homing in on the character of Russell Bentley and W. T. Wintergreen’s objections that Russell Bentley was nothing like the character of Stanislas Braid that she had created, the show was slipping behind schedule. The thought of that kind of time slippage escalating through a series is the stuff of which producers’ nightmares are made.
The decision to continue recording, however, did not get the production much further advanced. As Charles discovered when he got back to the studio, trying to hide the state of shock he was in (and without even having had his promised large Bell’s to alleviate that shock), the argument he had witnessed between star and producer had arisen because Russell Bentley still wasn’t happy with the way the scene in Little Breckington Police station had gone. Retaking the cutaway shot had cleared up one problem, but now he had a new cavil with something that had happened at the beginning of the recording.
Rick Landor had fought hard against the proposed retake and had enlisted Ben Docherty’s support in his argument but been let down by the Producer’s instant capitulation. Ben Docherty, Charles was beginning to realise, was a vacillating character, and Russell Bentley was quickly getting the Producer exactly where he wanted him. This did not augur well for the series. For Rick Landor to give in to the star was one thing; he was only going to be directing two of the episodes. But Ben Docherty was Producer for the whole series. If he started caving in to Russell Bentley at such an early stage, it was going to be very difficult for him ever to reassert his authority.
These, however, were not Charles’s problems, and he was in no condition to worry about anything except his reaction to the discovery of Sippy Stokes’s body. Like most shocks, it came in little waves, suddenly weakening and unnerving him. And the words of Will Parton circled, with uncomfortable irony, around his head. ‘As an actress, Sippy Stokes was absolute death.’
Once the production team had conceded that the police-station scene would be retaken, there was further delay, because Russell Bentley had by now changed out of the relevant costume and would have to change back again. Charles Paris waited nervously behind his counter, his mind a mess of ugly thoughts. He was hardly aware of the two policemen with whom he had had coffee jostling for position with their fellow background artistes so that they would be prominently in shot, thus staking their doomed claims to be rebooked for the rest of the series.
However much discretion Ben Docherty and the W.E.T. security men had deployed, it all went for nothing when the real police arrived. Two uniformed men and two in plain clothes marched into the studio before Russell Bentley had completed his costume change, and loudly demanded to speak to the Producer. As the plainclothesmen went into a huddle with Ben Docherty, the two in uniform looked on contemptuously at the proceedings.
‘Who’re those two, Bob?’ whispered the first background artiste with whom Charles had had coffee.
‘Don’t know,’ his friend whispered back. ‘Never seen them before.’
‘No.’ The first one sounded thoughtful. ‘I thought I knew practically everyone in the “background” business.’
‘There’s a new agency started up. Perhaps they’re from there.’
‘Well, they’d better be Equity, that’s all I can say.’
‘Yes, and why is Rick putting more in this scene, anyway? More than twelve aren’t going to register in the shot, are they?’
‘No. Well, just watch it when those two come in. See they don’t push to the front.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to lose my position.’
‘Nor me.’ The first background artiste looked across at the two newcomers in disparagement. ‘Must say, I don’t think they’re very good.’
‘No. I mean, at least we look like policemen. Those two –’
‘Could be postmen.’
‘Traffic wardens . . .’
‘Anything. They look so out of place in those uniforms, don’t they?’
‘People just don’t think when they’re casting these days, do they?’
‘No.’
Charles was prevented from hearing further background artiste bitchery by a gesture from Ben Docherty, who beckoned him over. He obeyed and was met by the hard stare of one of the plainclothesmen. ‘You’re the one who found the body?’
Charles nodded.
‘We’ll be needing to talk to you in a minute. Stay around.’
‘Yes.’
‘Just going to have a look for ourselves. Then we’ll call you.’
‘Okay.’
At that moment, Russell Bentley appeared on the scene, once again dressed in his floppy hat, cloak, and monocle. He swept up toward the group surrounding Ben Docherty.
‘Here I am,’ he announced with a flamboyant flourish of his hat, ‘ready once again to prove that the plodding British policeman is no match for the gifted amateur.’
‘Oh, really?’ said the plainclothesman in a voice as dry as a water biscuit.
The Little Breckington Police Station scene was retaken twice more, and at the end of the proceedings, when he went off once again to make his costume change, Russell Bentley had the gall to say that he thought perhaps the original take had been best, after all. The two background artistes, who lived in hope of a series booking, looked confused as they tried to remember how prominent they had been in the original take.