A Series of Murders

by Simon Brett

  ‘You’ve been reading too many of the works of W. T. Wintergreen,’ said Ben Docherty flatly.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a load of cobblers, what you’re saying,’ Jimmy Sheet agreed. ‘I mean, that could never have happened, anyway. And even if it had happened, it’s the kind of thing you could never prove.’

  ‘You could prove it if there had been an eyewitness.’

  ‘But there wasn’t no eyewitness,’ Jimmy Sheet persisted. ‘Which is just as well, because there wasn’t anything for an eyewitness to see.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Charles.

  There was a new coldness in the former pop star’s eyes as he enunciated, ‘Because Sippy Stokes died by an accident. And if anyone had witnessed an accident, they’d have bloody well come forward and told the police.’

  ‘They might not have done.’ Charles knew he was becoming irritatingly tenacious to his idea but reckoned an irritation factor might be useful in drawing reactions out of the assembled group.

  ‘Are you saying,’ asked Ben Docherty, ‘that you witnessed Sippy Stokes being murdered?’

  ‘No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that if she was murdered, then someone – not me but someone else – could have witnessed her being murdered.’

  ‘Any suggestions who?’ asked Jimmy Sheet.

  It was around then that Charles realised just how drunk he was. He also realised the insane risk that he was taking. If, as was possible, Sippy Stokes’s murderer was sitting in that restaurant, then he was issuing a challenge. Almost, it could be said, issuing an invitation to the killer to see that Charles Paris was somehow prevented from making comparable suggestions again.

  ‘No, none at all,’ he replied, caving in and trying to cover up his indiscretion. ‘No, I was only joking. Of course it was an accident, and of course no one saw it happen.’

  The conversation moved on smoothly to the prospects for the next day’s filming, given the atrocious weather conditions. Charles felt foolish. He also felt uncomfortable and, for the rest of the meal, conscious that Jimmy Sheet, Rick Landor, and Ben Docherty were all looking at him with more than usual interest.

  So, partly to dispel his unnerving awareness of their scrutiny, he went on drinking. And continued when the W.E.T. party moved into the bar at the end of the meal.

  The rest of the evening passed in something of a haze. Charles remembered being, to his way of thinking, rather scintillating in conversation with Joanne Rhymer in the bar. He remembered how achingly like her mother she looked at close range.

  He couldn’t quite remember the sequence of words that led to her telling him her room number and asking him to give her ten minutes. He could remember the excitement of anticipation and the unwise decision to have another drink to steel himself for the encounter ahead.

  Then he remembered being awakened sometime later by Joanne and finding himself lying fully clothed on her bed. And he remembered all too well the dialogue that followed.

  ‘I think you’d better be going back to your room, Charles.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Um . . . did anything happen?’

  ‘No. No, nothing happened, Granddad.’

  And as the bed in his own room did aerobics beneath him, he remembered wondering whether Frances would consider that impotence made him technically innocent of the charge of making love to another woman.

  And he remembered feeling fairly certain that she wouldn’t see it that way.

  And feeling that it wasn’t a very good record, really. He’d promised Frances a year’s abstinence from another woman. And – unless she’d excuse him on a doubtful technicality – he’d so far failed to achieve forty-eight hours.

  Chapter Thirteen

  CORFE CASTLE is very properly a favourite spot for tourists. Apart from the castle itself – or rather its remains – which dominate the area from its hilltop setting, the village itself has a charm that has changed little from the beginning of the century. This obviously made it an ideal location for filming in the Stanislas Braid series. The cottages, built of fudge-like local stone and topped with slates of similar colour, looked perfect with the Great Detective’s vintage Lagonda drawn up in front of them. The sight of figures in thirties costumes pottering along the narrow streets struck no note of incongruity. True, double yellow lines had to be covered and shop fronts dressed up a bit, but the problems, compared to those presented by a London location, were minimal.

  At last Rick Landor, as Director, had the opportunity to take a few long shots, confident that his perspective would not be marred by anachronisms.

  Or at least he would have had the opportunity if the weather had not been so atrocious.

  Though the visibility was slightly better than the evening before, rain still fell with a dispiriting evenness, and at times the cloud cover dropped low enough to obliterate the huge outline of the castle from the horizon. Cameramen and sound operators, wardrobe and makeup girls, cast and design staff, all clustered under bright umbrellas. The location caterers, whose van was stationed in a nearby car park, were kept busy producing bacon sandwiches to warm up sodden members of the production team. There were a lot of wet anoraks about.

  And not just among the W.E.T. contingent. Even on a damp Monday morning in April a good few visitors had made the pilgrimage to Corfe Castle. Perhaps because the weather denied them the spectacular views they had hoped for or simply because they were mesmerised by anything to do with television, they seemed more than happy to regard the filming as a bonus tourist attraction. They clustered, unrecognisable and shapeless in anoraks of blue, yellow, and orange, behind the barrier that the location managers had erected, and followed the proceedings with great interest.

  Charles Paris was not feeling at his best. He had been too preoccupied the previous evening to order a room-service continental breakfast and that morning had resisted the lavish spread offered in the hotel dining room. Anyway, all he really wanted was coffee, which he got from the caterers’ van as soon as the brain-jolting coach trip from Swanage to Corfe Castle was over. He also, optimistically, asked for a bacon sandwich, but its salty smell and the greasy tentacles of fat creeping out of the bread made him shove it hastily into a litter bin before he threw up.

  He felt wretched and awful, and his wretchedness and awfulness were compounded by the fact that he knew he had no one to blame but himself for feeling wretched and awful. Joanne Rhymer was on the set, but he kept clear of her, unwilling to confront that mock-innocent, sardonic smile.

  What he really felt like was a hair of the dog. But he knew that was the way of disaster. He shouldn’t. Better to punish himself by abstinence. Mind you, he couldn’t erase from his mind the recollection that he had noticed an off-licence just up the road.

  The dreadful weather and the sepulchral light couldn’t be allowed to stop the filming. Ben Docherty was footing the bill for a large number of people to spend two days on the Isle of Purbeck, and he was determined to get his money’s worth, so Rick Landor started to galvanise his sodden team into action.

  The set-up of ‘The Seashore Murder’ was that Stanislas Braid and his beloved daughter, Christina, together with Blodd, of course, were spending a few days’ holiday in a quiet seaside town (whose calm was soon to be disturbed by a series of inexplicable murders along the seashore). The Braids had rented a small cottage in the seaside town (impersonated, needless to say, by the inland village of Corfe Castle), and by one of those coincidences beloved of W. T. Wintergreen, dear old Sergeant Clump was also taking his annual leave in a nearby boarding house, thus enabling him, even off his home patch of Little Breckington, to be appropriately baffled.

  Charles had hoped the fact that the sergeant was on holiday might open out the possibilities of his wardrobe a bit, but no. One of W. T. Wintergreen’s little jokes about the character was that his pride in his uniform meant that he took it off only to sleep (and in one of the books Stanislas Braid was even waggish enough to express his doubts over that).

  The first scene to be fil
med that morning was the detective’s farewell to his daughter outside their rented cottage. Three of the seashore murders had already taken place, and Stanislas Braid’s intuition told him that he now had to go to Limehouse and consult what, with the insouciant anti-Semitism of the thirties, W. T. Wintergreen’s original book had described as ‘a slimy Jewboy of a moneylender’. (This had been cleaned up in Will Parton’s script to ‘a rather dubious moneylender’.)

  The detective was therefore to be driven off to London by the faithful Blodd, leaving Christina to ‘enjoy the beauties of this wonderful summer, my dearest angel’ (and, incidentally, to be put at risk of becoming the seashore murderer’s fourth victim – a fate only averted by the timely return of Stanislas Braid with the solution to the crimes and an exciting cliff-top rescue).

  They rehearsed the scene in the disheartening mizzle. The film cameraman fiddled with his lenses and lights but eventually told Rick Landor there was no way he could make it look like a nice day.

  ‘Will! Will!’ the Director shouted. ‘We’re going to have to adjust the lines here.’

  ‘Why?’ asked the writer belligerently as he emerged from under an umbrella. He looked nearly as wrung out as Charles felt.

  ‘We can’t talk about “enjoying the beauties of this wonderful summer” on a day like this, can we?’

  ‘Don’t see why not. It’s no less realistic than everything else in the series.’ Will was evidently in a truculent mood.

  ‘Oh, come on. You’ve got to think of something.’

  ‘Um . . .’

  Russell Bentley got out of the Lagonda and scurried for the shelter of an umbrella. ‘God, what a shitty, piss-awful day,’ he muttered.

  ‘Rick, how’s about Stanislas tells Christina to “enjoy the beauties of this shitty, piss-awful day”?’ Will suggested innocently.

  ‘Don’t be bloody stupid!’

  ‘Why not? In every other speech Stanislas Braid says what Russell feels like saying rather than what I wrote.’

  ‘Will, we’re wasting time,’ Rick complained.

  ‘Yes, come on, for Christ’s sake!’ said Ben Docherty, converting the bile of his hangover into professional anger. ‘We’re slipping behind schedule. Think of a line for the bugger to say.’

  ‘Which bugger’s this?’ asked Russell Bentley, who Ben Docherty hadn’t realised was in earshot.

  ‘Er, um, Stanislas Braid,’ the producer replied hopefully.

  ‘Oh, him.’ Russell Bentley was satisfied. The insult had nothing to do with Russell Bentley.

  ‘How about’ – Will Parton winced at the crassness of the cliché he was about to bring out – ‘“Enjoy yourself, Christina, my angel. Never mind the weather. Every cloud has a silver lining, and soon the sun will shine again for you, my precious one”?’

  ‘Terrific,’ said Ben Docherty.

  ‘Like it,’ said Rick Landor.

  ‘Could you give me that exact text?’ said the P.A., standing with pencil poised over her script. ‘What was it? “Enjoy yourself, Christina, my . . .?”’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Russell Bentley decided it was time to make his contribution to the discussion. ‘I think there are a few too many of these “my angels” and “my precious ones”. I mean, she is his daughter, after all. It’s not as if they were lovers.’

  ‘You never know,’ murmured Mort Verdon, as ever magically materialising when sexual innuendo entered the conversation. ‘Might be a smutty old cow, that W. T. Wintergreen. Maybe we should play up the soft-porn element in this series. Do wonders for the video sales.’

  ‘Anyway, we certainly don’t want any hint of that,’ Russell Bentley continued. ‘I mean, I have a reputation in television, and let me tell you, any suggestion that I was involved in anything incestuous would –’

  ‘There is no suggestion of that,’ Will Parton snapped. ‘It’s just the way they talk. It’s an idealised relationship. Honestly, in the period setting, nobody’s going to think it sounds at all odd.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Russell Bentley niggled on. ‘And I think it’s something we should be very careful about. It’s even worse in that scene we’re scheduled to be doing tomorrow. You know, the one when I come back, the cliff-top one. The affection between father and daughter in that does seem a bit over the top to me.’

  ‘Look, if you’re finding the lines too difficult to play –’ Will Parton began.

  ‘Not a matter of that, dear boy.’ Russell Bentley as ever avoided using people’s names. Which was just as well since he didn’t know any of them. ‘I can play them fine, and dear, young’ – he indicated Joanne Rhymer with a vague gesture – ‘is playing them fine, too. It’s just, I think they’re a bit too much.’

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’ asked Will with withering irony. ‘That I should do a complete rewrite on tomorrow’s scene?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it exactly,’ replied Russell Bentley, glad to have got his point across.

  ‘I am not going to do any more bloody rewrites on this script!’ shouted the writer.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to do that scene tomorrow unless it’s rewritten!’ shouted the star.

  Ben Docherty stepped between them. He was faced with a common producer’s dilemma – a conflict of interest between the writer and the star. He had to take sides. But then he was a producer, so there was never any question about which side he would take.

  ‘Actually, Will, I think Russell’s got a point. Could you do us a rewrite on that scene by the end of today, please?’

  The weather limited the amount of filming they could do in the village. Some lines could be adjusted to make reference to the rain, but scenes like the one in which Christina Braid was meant to set off from the cottage wearing a sun hat and carrying a deck chair just had to be postponed. The Stanislas Braid production team could only pray for better weather the next day.

  Rick Landor did have one good time-saving idea, though. The script called for a lot of action on the cliffs overlooking the seashore where the murders had taken place. These were scheduled to be shot the following day on the nearby promontory of Durlston Head. But, given the misty conditions, Rick realised that some of them could be shot on the Corfe Castle hill. Over the far side of the ruins the land dropped away very steeply, and filming against that outline in a swirling mist would give a satisfactory illusion of the sea below. W.E.T. had already got permission to shoot a couple of other short scenes inside the National Trust property of the castle’s grounds, so there would be no problem about doing a little extra. And it would save the time-consuming business of moving to another location that afternoon.

  This was the kind of budget-saving thinking of which Ben Docherty heartily approved. As the Director announced that they’d done all they could in the village that morning and they’d have an early lunch break before picking up again on the hill, the Producer went across to congratulate Rick on his prudent housekeeping.

  Charles could put it off no longer. He went to the off-licence to buy a half bottle of Bell’s. But once it was safely installed in his raincoat pocket, he decided that his fragile condition required something less ferocious than whisky. A pint of bitter would be more gentle therapy; that’d sort him out.

  Walking across to the pub, Charles saw Tony Rees chatting to some of the anorak-shrouded tourists who had been watching the morning’s activities. The A.S.M. moved away as he saw Charles approach and called out to the crowd, ‘No more excitement here today, I’m afraid. Fun’s over. We’ll be filming up at the castle this afternoon, but you’ll have to pay your entrance fee to see that.’

  The tourists walked quickly away, and Tony gave Charles a slightly anxious grin. ‘Not still thinking of going to the police, are you?’

  Charles shook his head, an unwise thing to do to a head in its condition.

  Two pints later there seemed to be a possibility of life continuing. As often happened, the beer had rediluted the residue of the previous night’s alcohol, and he felt drunker than two pints should justify. S
till, he did also feel better. It really was dreadful how another drink always made him feel better.

  And he was suddenly ravenously hungry. He hurried across to the car park and loaded a plate up with sausages, eggs, and chips from the location caterers van. Then, rather than having his lunch diluted by the rain, he took it into one of the coaches. A sheepish look around as he got in confirmed, to his relief, that Joanne Rhymer wasn’t there. He sat in a vacant seat next to Mort Verdon.

  ‘How’re things, boofle?’

  ‘Better for a drink.’

  The Stage Manager nodded. ‘Rumour has it you were up to the old bed-hopping again last night.’

  ‘Untrustworthy source of information, rumour.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ They were silent for a moment. ‘Nice, was it?’

  ‘Not one of my greatest triumphs.’

  ‘Dear, oh, dear.’ Mort Verdon shook his head in pity. ‘Perhaps you’d do better with a man, you know.’

  ‘Who can say?’ said Charles. ‘Trouble is, I’m afraid it’s never appealed that much.’

  ‘Ah, well . . . Don’t know what you’re missing, boofle.’

  ‘So I’m told.’

  At that moment Tony Rees’s face appeared over the top of the seat in front. ‘Mort, have you got the schedule for the next episode?’

  ‘Yes, it’s in my little duffel bag. Front of the coach.’

  ‘Do you mind if I have a look at it? Something I want to check.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  The A.S.M. moved down to the front of the coach.

  Mort Verdon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Wonder what he’s up to?’

  ‘Why should he be up to anything?’ asked Charles innocently.

  ‘Because he always is, that’s why.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Fiddles, little deals, anything that gives his W.E.T. salary a bit of a lift.’