A Deadly Habit

by Simon Brett

  Their session ended within the hour. Erica was clearly a skilled practitioner who had done this kind of interview many times before.

  She explained to Charles that TAUT was a charity, which currently had no government funding. Its sessions were free to any clients who sought them out or were referred by other bodies. They had no residential facilities, but were in touch with other organizations should hospitalization become necessary. In the same way, while there were no doctors in the building, they were in regular contact with medical practitioners, should their services be required.

  The only rules on which TAUT insisted were that no drugs or alcohol were allowed on the premises, and that a rule of confidentiality was observed about anything that was said in any of their sessions.

  At the end of the assessment, Erica gave Charles two photocopied sheets. On the ‘Drink Diary’ he should enter his daily intake of alcohol and put answers in columns headed ‘Did You Drink?’, ‘What Did You Drink?’ and ‘How Do You Feel Now?’ On the ‘Reduction Plan’, he was meant to list his ‘Current Amount’, the amount he intended to reduce that by and the ‘Amount Achieved’. Charles somehow couldn’t see himself doing all that paperwork every time he reached for the Bell’s bottle.

  Erica also gave him a sheet listing the weekly timetable at Gower House. There was a very full programme, with sessions of an hour or hour and a half continuing between ten a.m. and eight p.m. every weekday. The titles of these sessions contained a lot of off-putting words like ‘Community’, ‘Grounding’ and ‘Development’.

  Her recommendation for Charles was that he should try the ‘Growing Out’ meeting at noon on Thursdays and see how he got on with it. If that proved to be useful, then perhaps he should consider attending the ‘Weekend Group’ on Fridays at four in the afternoon. For a lot of the participants, Erica explained, the weekend was the most dangerous time, when the temptations of social alcohol and substance abuse were at their strongest. The Friday sessions were more free-form than the others. Though they were led by a member of the TAUT staff, he or she tended to sit back and let the participants guide their own discussion.

  Charles was interested by her careful use of words. Like ‘participant’. Other possibilities that occurred to him were ‘addict’, or even ‘patient’. But no, the people attending the TAUT programme were ‘participants’. Though Charles had a natural scepticism about woolly New Age concepts like ‘sharing’, he respected the use of the word.

  In spite of himself, on the tube back into Central London, he was intrigued. And in his meeting with Erica there had not been a whiff of the religiosity which had so put him off Alcoholics Anonymous.

  He also wondered again what the acronym ‘TAUT’ stood for.

  Though cynical about his chances of changing the habits of a lifetime, at least he was prepared to take the next step.

  When he went in through the stage door, Gideon pointed out to him an envelope tucked into the lattice of ribbon on the corkboard for the cast’s mail.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Charles, taking it.

  ‘And we’ll have that drink after the show one night?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I could do this evening.’

  ‘Erm … No, something I’ve got to do this evening,’ Charles lied. He probably would want to pick Gideon’s brains again at some point, but his visit to Gower House was too recent. He remembered something Erica had said about ‘avoiding situations that lead to drinking’.

  At the top landing, he looked along to what had been Liddy Max’s dressing room. Now Imogen Whittaker’s. The understudy had had no qualms about taking it over. She wasn’t spooked by using a dead woman’s dressing room. Now she’d got the part of The Girl, she wanted all the benefits that came with the job.

  As he had this thought, Imogen herself came hurrying out. ‘Oh, hi, Charles. Just going out to get a sandwich for later. See you.’ And she scampered off down the stairs.

  He had no control, as his feet took him ineluctably into the dressing room.

  What surprised him was how familiar it was. Though the make-up laid out in front of the mirror was Imogen’s, though the good-luck cards Blu-Tacked on to the mirror were Imogen’s, the room still felt exactly as it had when Liddy was in residence.

  But how did he know that? Charles had no recollection of ever going into Liddy Max’s dressing room. He would have had no reason to. He’d often dropped into the dressing rooms of other male cast members for a bit of pre-show banter, but he hadn’t known Liddy that well. And when he’d met her on the landing the day she died, he’d seen her go towards the door with her key at the ready, but he’d been off down the stairs before she’d opened it.

  He looked around the room. Yes, he had been there before. He recognized the old moulded plasterwork, its outlines smoothed away by many coats of paint. The most recent colour was a deep apricot. He recognized the vertical pipes in the corner of the room, again much painted, something to do with the theatre’s deeply inefficient heating system. He moved closer to them. There were tenacious blobs of Blu-Tack and a shred of painted-over gaffer tape on the pipes, no doubt fixatives for the First Night cards of a previous occupant.

  He heard footsteps coming up the stairs and moved out, on the way to his own dressing room.

  And as he mounted the second flight of stairs, he realized that the only time he could have gone into Liddy Max’s dressing room was during the evening of her death, the night whose details had been obliterated from his memory by Bell’s whisky.

  He sat down in front of his mirror, and tried to focus, but further details remained elusive. All he knew was that he had been into Liddy’s dressing room that night.

  Why he went there, and what he did there, were questions that remained resolutely unanswered. It was very frustrating. But the door to those memories had opened a tiny crack. Perhaps in time more recollection would come to him.

  He realized that he hadn’t opened the envelope he’d picked up at the stage door. It was hand-written.

  Dear Charles,

  I am Liddy Max’s husband and I’m trying to establish the circumstances of her death. The police will tell me nothing, so I am contacting other people who might be able to shed some light on the tragedy. Please contact me by phone or email. I am desperate to find out what happened.

  Derek Litwood

  Charles rang the mobile. He fixed to meet the young widower the next day at the Patisserie Valerie near the Duke of Kent’s. Five o’clock, before Tuesday evening’s performance.

  The note he had been left was interesting, but also slightly unnerving. Charles’s had been the only envelope on the stage door corkboard, which suggested that Derek Litwood had not made a blanket appeal to all the cast. So why had he picked on Charles Paris as a source of information? Did that mean he knew Charles had been in the theatre on the night in question?

  The possibility was troubling. As was the tiny glimmer of recollection he had had in Liddy Max’s dressing room, suggesting as it did that he might in time recover the memory of the whole evening.

  And what revelations would that bring? Was it possible that Charles had been in some kind of alcohol-induced fugue state? That he could have behaved in a manner that was completely out of character?

  Was it possible, at the worst, that it was he who had pushed Liddy Max to her death?

  He cursed the inadequacy of his memory. And he cursed the alcohol that caused that inadequacy.

  TWELVE

  Derek Litwood was as smartly and conventionally dressed as he had been when Charles saw him out of the coffee shop window the Monday before. He established very quickly that he was a solicitor by profession, and that he had been given compassionate leave from work since his wife’s death.

  ‘Though, in fact,’ he said, ‘I’m not so much grieving as furiously angry. I want to know the truth about how Liddy died, and all I encounter is obstruction.’

  ‘Obstruction from the police?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Obstruction from everyo
ne, but yes, mostly from the police. They’re obviously deep into their own investigations, but they won’t give me any information. I’ve still no idea whether they reckon her death was an accident, or something more sinister. So, as I said in my note, I’m desperate to talk to anyone who can shed any light on what really happened.’

  Charles knew he had to be cautious. Unless Derek Litwood had actually witnessed his presence at the Duke of Kent’s that night, he would stick to the story he had told the police. That he hadn’t been there. That he hadn’t seen Liddy’s broken body at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘I’m very happy to tell you anything I know,’ he said carefully, ‘but I’m afraid that doesn’t amount to very much.’

  ‘Well, the first thing I should make clear,’ said Derek, ‘is that my marriage to Liddy was going through a rough patch.’

  Charles had got that impression from the scene he’d witnessed outside the coffee shop, but he made no comment.

  ‘The fact is, her getting a part in a West End show made me think it was really over.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that was like a statement of the direction in which her life was going, the direction in which she wanted it to go.’

  ‘Sorry, you’ll have to explain that to me.’

  ‘Liddy and I met when we were at school. Then I did a Law degree, she did English, both at Nottingham Uni. We’d been together so long, it seemed logical to get married soon after we graduated.

  ‘Liddy had always been keen on theatre, played lead roles in school productions, did lots of stuff at Nottingham. That didn’t worry me. Law students had lots more lectures than people doing English, a much heavier workload, so it suited me fine that Liddy had an interest to keep her occupied when I was studying. Same thing when I was doing my Graduate Diploma and Legal Practice Course, right up until I was fully qualified.

  ‘By then, Liddy was getting more involved in professional theatre – well, semi-professional, fringe stuff. And I was loyal. Theatre had never really been my thing, but I’ve lost count of the number of smelly upstairs rooms in pubs where I’ve been to watch Liddy in “experimental” – and, it has to be said, usually pretty dreadful – plays. She still had a day job round that time, teaching in a primary school, but she gradually cut down the hours she was putting in there to do more theatre. Still fine by me, because we’d always had this understanding that when I qualified, we’d start a family.

  ‘So, when I did qualify, I assumed it would all be straightforward. We were late twenties, a lot of our contemporaries from school and uni were starting to have babies. It seemed logical that we should do the same.

  ‘It was only when I raised the subject with Liddy that I realized how far our ambitions had drawn apart. She said her acting career was beginning to take off, and the last thing she wanted to do was to interrupt that progress by having a baby.

  ‘I’d also told her that I was getting to the stage of my career when I was getting invitations to formal dinners and stuff, the kind of occasions which one should attend with one’s wife. Liddy said she’d rather stick needles in her eyes than go to some “stuffed-shirt solicitors’ event”. I’ve done my best to keep the marriage going, but …’

  Derek Litwood’s narrative eventually trailed away to silence. Charles had only himself to blame. He was the one who’d asked for an explanation.

  ‘So, when … I mean up until …’ He tried to avoid mentioning the death, but couldn’t. ‘Up until Liddy died, what was the state of the marriage? Were you living together?’

  ‘No. Nearly a year ago, we’d bought this lovely house in Muswell Hill, perfect for a family, and Liddy hardly stepped inside it.’

  ‘Where was she living then?’

  ‘With friends.’ Derek shrugged. ‘That’s all she’d ever say. “With friends.” I never knew where she was.’

  ‘Didn’t you know her friends? Couldn’t you contact them?’

  ‘I knew our mutual friends, obviously. You know, people in Muswell Hill. But her actor friends … Of course, I met some of them at First Nights and things, but I didn’t know them. I didn’t have any means of contacting them. So far as I was concerned, they were all interchangeable poseurs.’

  Derek was unaware of the potential insult to the person he was sitting with. Charles was beginning to understand why Derek and Liddy’s relationship had foundered. It was a syndrome he’d encountered many times before, where one member of a couple was ‘in the business’ and the other wasn’t. One would arrive home, exhausted by a day’s work, to find the other full of energy as they were about to go and give of themselves on stage. Then there were the different problems caused by touring and location filming. Charles didn’t have to look a lot further than his own marriage. But he kept these thoughts to himself, just saying, ‘Surely these days you can contact people through social media and stuff?’

  ‘Yes, but at first, after Liddy walked out, I didn’t want to contact her. Let her stew in her own juice for a while, I thought, and then she’ll come back with her tail between her legs.’ Derek was clearly unaware of mixed metaphors too. ‘Then I did need to contact her. There were invitations addressed to both of us, local things and professional stuff, too. People at the office were starting to ask questions. When I did want to contact Liddy, she wouldn’t answer the phone to me, though she did reply to texts about practical things. But I never knew where she was texting from. What she never seemed to realize,’ he said bitterly, ‘was how much a broken marriage could harm my career.’

  A rather old-fashioned attitude, thought Charles. And then he realized that that was what defined Derek Litwood. He was deeply old-fashioned. All he wanted was a nice suburban house in Muswell Hill, with a wife who produced neat little children and scrubbed up well for solicitorial dinners. If that was a future Liddy Max had ever relished, working in the theatre had killed her appetite for it.

  ‘So, had you talked about divorce?’

  ‘No. She didn’t think it was important, whether we actually ended the marriage officially or not. She said there was no point in getting divorced until one of us wanted to marry anyone else. I was quite pleased about that, because I genuinely thought that at some stage we would get back together.’

  ‘Well, Liddy still wore a wedding ring, all the time we were rehearsing,’ said Charles, hoping his words brought encouragement.

  ‘Did she? Well, that doesn’t mean anything with Liddy. Last time I saw her, she said she’d wear the ring in situations where there was a danger of some old lech coming on to her.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charles, awkwardly remembering the thoughts that had gone through his head at The Habit of Faith read-through. He moved the conversation along. ‘How long had you and Liddy been living apart?’

  ‘Nearly a year now.’ The abandoned husband looked gloomily into the residual foam of his cappuccino.

  Charles made a connection. ‘And am I right – the reason you came to the Duke of Kent’s, you know, the afternoon of that Monday, was that you knew your wife would be there?’

  Derek nodded. ‘I’d seen publicity for the show in the paper, yes, and saw that Liddy was in it. I wanted to talk to her face to face, and finally I knew where I could find her.’

  ‘So, had you been hanging round the theatre all that morning?’

  ‘No, I’d only just arrived from the office. I asked the guy at the stage door if Liddy was in, and he said she’d just left for the coffee shop over the road.’

  ‘I was in the coffee shop at the same time.’

  ‘I know you were. I recognized you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Charles couldn’t suppress the actor’s kneejerk warm reaction to those words. He only just prevented himself from asking, ‘What had you seen me in?’

  Which was just as well, because Derek Litwood went on, ‘I’d got the full cast list from the production company’s website. Then I googled all the actors, and I saw a photo of you.’

  Not quite as good as having been seen in a performance, but still quite che
ering, just the fact that an image of Charles Paris was available online. He decided he must google himself as soon as he got back to his laptop. (Charles’s mobile wasn’t smart enough to access the internet – or, perhaps to put it more accurately, Charles wasn’t smart enough to access the internet from his mobile.)

  ‘Derek, can I ask about what was actually said between you, you know, that afternoon outside the coffee shop?’

  ‘Oh, we went over a lot of old ground. I was hoping that she might have changed her mind a bit, but no. She was more determined than ever that her career was the only thing that mattered. She said she was just on the verge of a lot of exciting things happening in her life. She’d got a new agent, who wanted her to focus on work in the States. And she seemed to think that working with Justin Grover might help her to get a part in Vandals and Visigoths.’

  ‘Was she specific about that? I mean, did she actually say she’d been offered a part?’

  ‘No, she just thought working with him might lead to something. I should have realized when I first met her just how ambitious Liddy was. Success in acting was the only thing she cared about. Relationships, family, other people: none of them even registered with her.’

  Charles made no comment. He’d met plenty of people in the theatre whom that description would fit, but he wouldn’t have counted Liddy Max in their number. She had been devoted to her work, yes, but he had interpreted that as a desire to improve her skills, rather than to gain fame and money. Mind you, he hadn’t really known her that well. Certainly not as well as her husband had. And Charles knew how distorted the views of partners in a failing marriage could be. He didn’t really want to go there, because he felt sure Derek Litwood had an extensive further supply of recrimination to draw on.

  So, rather tentatively, all he asked was: ‘After you’d talked to Liddy, what did you do for the rest of the day?’ If Derek had continued his surveillance of the stage door, there was no way he could have missed seeing Charles’s arrival after the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.