by Simon Brett
Charles remembered something Kenny had said when they first met. ‘Are you talking about the Mafia?’
The American chuckled. ‘Well, I might be. But people who know about these things tell me you shouldn’t talk about the Mafia. Safer not to.’
After that enigmatic reply he sighed. ‘But that’s just how I am. Bad with money. And yet people are always trying to squeeze more out of me. More of what I don’t have.’
Having met Lilith, Charles could imagine just the kind of pressure she had put on her soon to be ex-husband. It really was no surprise that he’d fallen so dramatically off the wagon.
Kenny Polizzi’s rant had spiralled down to melancholy silence. Then suddenly he looked at his drinking companion and demanded, ‘Do you do drugs, Charles?’
‘No. Tried pot … cannabis … whatever you want to call it … a couple of times in my twenties. Just gave me a splitting headache.’
‘And never anything stronger?’
Charles Paris shook his head, feeling almost apologetic for his lack of experimentation. His hadn’t been such a wild life, really. He hadn’t got any vices … well, except for the Bell’s. And maybe young actresses … though it had been a while since one of them had been around.
‘No problemo,’ said Kenny Polizzi. His mobile phone rang. He checked the display and said, ‘Well, there’s synchronicity for you.’ He pressed the green button. ‘Hi, Lefty. That’s good. I knew I could rely on you. Where are you? OK, I got that. I’ll find him.’
He picked up his coat, from whose pocket a vodka bottle poked out, and looked at his companion. ‘Night’s only just starting, Charlie boy. You going to join me for the rest of it?’
‘You mean you’re going to continue drinking somewhere else?’
‘You could say that. Yes, that is my plan. One of my plans, anyway. You going to join me?’
Charles was tempted. He’d got to that point of drunkenness where continuing to drink was a very attractive option. But he was also in the rare situation (for him) of being in work. He was called for Cinderella rehearsals the following morning. He had spent the whole afternoon drinking with Lilith Greenstone. And he was getting to the stage of his life when he didn’t bounce back from hangovers with the Wobbly Man resilience he had once possessed.
‘I think I’d better say no, Kenny.’
‘Oh.’ Baron Hardup looked a little put out. He wasn’t used to people not going along with his suggestions. ‘Party pooper,’ he said, but he didn’t bother to muster any other arguments. Instead, saying, ‘See you soon,’ Kenny tightened his hold on the neck of his vodka bottle and walked out of the pub.
SEVEN
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Come, Cinders, you must take my hand, For there is evil in this land.
The television at Charles Paris’s digs offered disappointingly thin fare that evening. As it did most evenings. In Charles’s view the worst thing that ever happened to television was when it started letting ordinary people onto its programmes. Ordinary people were ordinary for a very good reason – because they weren’t very interesting. To feature them in quiz games and make documentaries about them seemed to him the surest way of making dull programmes. It also meant there were fewer outlets for professionals … in other words actors like Charles. Not to mention writers and … so in his mind the whole cycle of grievance began again.
That evening he found himself watching some tedious fly-on-the-wall documentary about bakers – how early they had to get up in the morning, how proud they were of their work, how merrily they joshed with their fellow workers. Who cared anything about bakers? What they did did not come under the definition of ‘interesting’.
But then nor did so many other subjects that television programmes were made about. Cooking … gardening … to Charles these were seriously dull activities. And now they even made programmes about the dullest and most frustrating of all human activities – house purchase.
With a few drinks inside him, he could wax quite eloquent at the shortcomings of television. Charles knew he was getting to the age where he was in danger of sounding crusty, but dammit, at his age he’d earned the right to be crusty.
Such thoughts recycled through his brain as he sat in his digs that evening, watching a baker demonstrating how he plaited dough, and sipping Bell’s from the bottle.
Maybe he’d even dropped off to sleep again. Certainly he felt a bit disoriented when he heard his mobile ring.
‘Hello?’
‘Charles, it’s Kenny.’ The voice was slurred and also slightly panicky.
‘What’s up?’
‘I need you to help me, Charles. I need you here.’
‘Where’s here?’
‘I’m under the pier.’
‘Under the pier?’
‘Yes. Come here quickly!’
Charles mumbled that he would. He looked at his watch. God, he had been asleep. It was after one o’clock in the morning. At least, thank God, he hadn’t undressed for bed.
He had a pee, took a long swallow of Bell’s to brace him for whatever lay ahead, and went out into the darkness. It had got a lot colder since he had returned to his digs, so after a couple of hundred yards he went back to fetch his ancient duffel coat (the one that made him look like some plucky naval officer in a British movie almost definitely featuring John Mills – and probably Jack Hawkins as well).
Eastbourne was almost eerily empty at that time of night. Against the sighing background of sea the silence was broken by the sound of individual cars, but Charles didn’t see any as he made his way towards the pier. He gathered his duffel coat around him, realizing with a slight shock that it was now the first of December.
There was still nobody about when he got to the entrance. A deep throbbing from the Atlantis Club’s Friday Nighter at the far end of the pier showed that there were young people out there dancing to local DJs. But the more insistent sound was the sea washing restlessly and relentlessly, shifting the shingle some way below him. Charles did not see a living soul at street level.
Nor did he see a living soul when he went down the steps and looked underneath the pier.
No living soul, no. But Kenny Polizzi lay there, half-propped against one of the pier supports.
His wig was crooked. There wasn’t much blood, but there was a neat bullet hole in the centre of his forehead.
EIGHT
FIRST BROKER’S MAN: Have you heard the news? Would you like a bulletin?
SECOND BROKER’S MAN: No, I think I’d rather have a bullet out.
Charles felt three things. First, he felt immediately sober. Second, he felt a degree of guilt. If he’d arrived at the pier quicker, if he hadn’t gone back to get his duffel coat, he might have been in time to save Kenny from his fate.
But his third feeling was the strongest – an overpowering urge to run away from the scene of the crime. He didn’t want the complications of suspicion and police enquiries. He wanted to be back in his digs, curled up under his duvet, fast asleep.
But a little rational thought told him that he couldn’t escape so easily. There was no getting away from the fact that he was the person who had found Kenny’s body. And there was almost definitely evidence somewhere that would prove that fact. He’d probably been recorded on CCTV cameras during the walk from his digs to the pier. And his mobile number would be one of the last that had been called from Kenny’s phone. There was no way round it. He would have to face the music.
Reluctantly, but resigned to his situation, Charles Paris rang 999.
As he had anticipated, it was a long night. A panda car arrived at the pier entrance level less than ten minutes after his call. But that was just the start of a procession of more police vehicles. Soon the pier was illuminated by blue flashing lights. The two uniformed cops who had first arrived were quickly joined by a lot of plain-clothes officers, all with different tasks to complete. And the task for two of them, one male and one female, was to question Charles Paris. Once they had looked over the scene of crime with him, t
hey took him into a police van for questioning.
Meanwhile the wild night of the youngsters in the Atlantis Club was curtailed prematurely by the arrival of the police. Names were taken and they were all sent on their way home. Most of the young people assumed it was a raid searching for drugs and dealers. None of them realized the significance of the police tape shutting off the steps down to sea level.
Though extremely courteous, there was no doubt that there was a level of suspicion in the manner of the cops who interrogated Charles. This came as no surprise to him. He, after all, was probably the first person to discover Kenny’s body, and the shallowest familiarity with crime fiction would tell anyone that the person who finds the body is always high on the list of suspects.
So, very patiently, he went through the minutiae of his evening’s encounters with Kenny. Though he no longer felt drunk – shock had shaken that out of him – the blinding headache had returned and Charles just felt incredibly tired. He still longed for the embrace of the duvet back at his digs.
But there was a lot more questioning to go. And of course they wanted him to provide contacts for the Empire Theatre management, for Bix Rogers and anyone else connected to Kenny. Charles mentioned Lefty Rubenstein, apologizing that he didn’t have a phone number for him. He also said that he thought Lilith was staying at the Grand Hotel. The detectives made notes and passed no comments on his answers. He hadn’t really taken in the names of his interrogators, but at some point they were joined by a small Asian woman called Detective Inspector Malik. She wore a trim charcoal-grey trouser suit and was evidently senior to the others. Hers was the card he was given with contact numbers, and she it was who urged him to get in touch if he remembered any further details, however apparently trivial.
A pale uncertain dawn was coming up over the grey Eastbourne sea when Charles was finally allowed to leave the van. He was also told by Detective Inspector Malik to inform the police if he was likely to leave Eastbourne – and he was pretty clearly discouraged from doing so. All of his contact with the police had been polite and temperate, but he was left in no doubt that suspicions would automatically attach themselves to anyone connected with the crime scene.
Checking his watch, Charles realized that his interrogation had lasted nearly four hours. And during his incarceration in the police van television crews had arrived. They were kept on the upper level of the pier entrance by swathes of yellow and black tape, but the fact that they had appeared at all suggested that the news of the crime had got out and the media vultures were gathering.
Charles reckoned they must have somehow discovered the identity of the victim.
The news that Kenny Polizzi had been shot was going to be a huge international story.
Charles was so exhausted that he just passed out as soon as he lay on his bed. No time to take his clothes off. He didn’t even have the energy to get under the warmth of the duvet that he’d been promising himself.
He was meant to be called at ten for a Cinderella rehearsal, but after the events of the night, he didn’t even know whether the show would still be going on. And he was too tired to set an alarm.
As a result, he woke at half-past twelve with an aching brain too big for his cranium and a mouth as dry as the Gobi desert. He felt totally wiped out and insanely hungry. But before he went out to satisfy his hunger and rehydrate himself, he switched on the television for the BBC News.
And yes, the death of Kenny Polizzi was a very big story indeed. Clips were shown from The Dwight House, there were photos of his wives including Lilith Greenstone, and there was even an extract from his recent appearance on The Johnny Martin Show.
No mention was made of how he had met his end, just the news that his body had been found on the seafront at Eastbourne. The police were clearly trying to control the amount of information they released. Once it was publicly known that he had been shot, a whole new media frenzy would be unleashed.
Charles Paris wasn’t very good at checking his mobile for messages, and it wasn’t until he had reached the Sea Dog and ordered an irrigating pint that he looked at the phone. He knew he probably should have gone first to the St Asaph’s Church Halls to check whether rehearsals for Cinderella were continuing that day, but a beer and something to eat were greater priorities. He ordered fish and chips to go with his pint.
To his relief he found there was no message from the police. He felt sure they would be wanting to question him further, but at least that hadn’t happened yet.
There was a message, however, from Bix Rogers, asking him to call as soon as possible. So after he’d finished his first pint – which didn’t seem to touch the sides – and armed himself with a second one, he rang the director.
‘Charles, presumably you’ve heard the news about Kenny?’
‘Hard to avoid it.’ No need yet to reveal that he was the one who had found the body.
‘Well, look, obviously this puts us in a spot about the show.’
‘I can believe that.’
‘I’ve cancelled rehearsals for today.’
‘Yes,’ said Charles in a way that implied he already knew that.
‘But the fact remains that we open in less than a week and we currently don’t have a Baron Hardup.’
‘No.’
‘Now Kenny was a very big name, but I’m not trying to replace him with another big name. He’s already got lots of publicity for our Cinderella, and the fact that he’s dead is going to get us a whole lot more. So he’s served his purpose and there’s no need to replace like with like. It doesn’t matter who plays Baron Hardup now. So I’d like you to take the part, Charles.’
It wasn’t the most gracious job offer Charles had ever received, but it was still a perverse kind of good news. ‘Thanks very much, Bix. I’ll do my best. In fact, I have played the part before.’
‘Oh?’ The director didn’t sound very interested in this piece of information. ‘Anyway, if you could have a look at the lines before rehearsal on Monday …?’
‘Sure. Presumably I won’t be doing Kenny’s routine about The Dwight House and the song based on its signature tune?’
‘No, of course you won’t.’
‘What, you’ll replace it with something?’
‘No, we’ll cut it.’
‘Won’t that make the show short?’
‘We’ll fill in with another song from Tilly Marcus’s album,’ replied Bix, once again confirming just how far down the theatrical food chain Charles Paris was.
In spite of the reason why he’d got the job and the demeaning way that he had been offered it, Charles was quite chuffed about his elevation to the role of Baron Hardup. Even with substantial routines cut, it was still a better part than a Broker’s Man. And the big bonus was that he’d be spared the Sisyphean task of trying to get some comic rhythm going with Mick ‘The Cobra’ Mesquito. So it was good news.
The arrival of the fish and chips rather dampened his mood. The chips had been cooked in an oven, but it was a long time since they had had any contact with their parent potatoes. And the fish itself was dry like a cardboard inner tube from a toilet roll encased in sandpaper. It seemed ironic that a pub within sight of the English Channel was serving fish which had probably spent as much of its life in a freezer as it had in the sea. And the peas were like the peas he remembered from school, hard as bullets.
‘Hello, Charles. How’re you doing?’ He looked up to see Felix Fisher with a glass of red wine. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Be my guest.’
The comedian sat down opposite and raised his glass. He wore an outlandish red diamanté jacket and his full street make-up. ‘Congratulations, Charles.’
‘On what?’
‘I gather you were the one who discovered Kenny’s body.’
‘News travels fast.’
‘Sure does. And of course in crime fiction the person who discovers the body—’
‘Is the first suspect for the murder. Yes, I know all that. But are we actually talking
about a murder?’
‘I’d say there wasn’t much doubt about that. People don’t often get bullet holes in their foreheads by accident.’
News had certainly been travelling fast. ‘Where have you got your information from, Felix?’
‘There’s been a lot on Twitter about it.’
‘Ah,’ said Charles, in a manner which he hoped suggested he was conversant with the ways of Twitter. Which of course he wasn’t. ‘Did it say there that I found the body?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any other references to me?’
‘Oh, a few people are being very rude.’ Felix’s mouth formed into a camp moue of disapproval. ‘Some were suggesting that you topped him.’
‘What? Why would I have done that?’
‘Because you wanted to play Baron Hardup.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And now you are playing Baron Hardup.’
Felix seemed to know everything. ‘I agree,’ said Charles. ‘But if you really think that I would go to the lengths of murder to—’
‘No, I don’t think that.’
‘Oh, good.’
‘It’s just that some people do.’
‘People on Twitter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can they be stopped from disseminating wild theories like that?’
‘Oh no, you can’t stop people saying whatever they want to on Twitter. I suppose you could tweet yourself and enter the discussion, put your side of the story.’
Even if he knew how to, Charles couldn’t see himself following that instruction. ‘And are there other theories on Twitter about who killed Kenny?’