by Simon Brett
‘You said he dumped some stuff, Baz. What kind of stuff?’
‘I don’t know.’ He seemed to be losing interest in their conversation; he was becoming consumed with jealousy about his friend’s behaviour.
‘Where did he put the stuff?’
‘Over there.’ A vague gesture towards the metal boxes in the corner. Then Baz took another substantial swig from the vodka bottle and, holding it like a baseball bat, moved forward, full of anger. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at, Gid?’
The raised voices and the imminent threat of violence roused the other drinkers in the cellar. They didn’t want any scenes in their private club. Nothing that might draw unwanted attention to them. They moved forward to separate and pacify the combatants. Within a few moments, all three men – Baz, Gideon and Morry – had been persuaded to leave.
Charles hoped he wouldn’t be turned out as well, now that he was without his escort, but nobody seemed that interested in him. He drifted across towards the metal boxes.
Apart from Baz’s equipment, there was an incredible jumble of stuff piled on top of them. Much of it was covered with the dust of years, but shinier surfaces told of more recent arrivals.
It was the colour that drew his attention. Deep apricot. Like the interior of Liddy Max’s dressing room. It had been painted over the black gaffer tape.
Charles picked up the object, feeling the stickiness of the tape, which told him it hadn’t been there long. He moved into the light. What was revealed, with the apricot-painted gaffer tape attached, was a black metal object about the shape and the size of an eyeball.
Charles Paris had never seen one before, but he felt pretty certain he knew what it was.
FOURTEEN
On the Wednesday, he got in earlier than he needed to have done for the matinee. Before the rest of the cast.
Gideon wasn’t in his cubby-hole. This was unusual. Charles wondered if the stage doorman’s drinking (and who knew what else) session with Morry the night before had taken its toll.
Anyway, Gideon’s absence was good news for Charles. He nipped into the cubby-hole and removed two keys from the board of hooks where they were kept.
On the first landing, he didn’t go up the next flight to his own dressing room. Instead he turned towards the one that was now Imogen Whittaker’s, but had belonged to Liddy Max.
When he opened the door, he knew exactly what he had to do. He took out of his pocket the object he had found in the Techie’s Drinking Club and moved towards the apricot-painted pipes.
Yes, as he had speculated and hoped, the edges of the ripped and overpainted gaffer tape fitted exactly with the shreds which remained. The object had once been fixed to those pipes.
But he hardly had time to feel a glow of satisfaction before a voice behind him said, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Charles?’
It was Kell. He moved guiltily back towards the door. ‘Since when has this been your dressing room?’ she demanded.
‘I just took the key. Gideon wasn’t in his cubby-hole.’
‘That’s hardly the point. This is still Imogen’s dressing room. I hadn’t got you down, Charles, as the kind of man who gets off on rooting through women’s possessions.’
‘And I am certainly not that kind of man.’
‘Then what the hell are you doing here?’
He held out the small plastic object in his hand. ‘I have reason to believe that, until quite recently, this was fixed up in here.’ He held it up against the pipes, to show where it had been torn away.
‘And have you just ripped it off?’
‘No. Gideon did.’
‘How do you know?’
‘That’ll take a bit of explaining. I went with him—’
‘Yes, I’m sure it will,’ Kell cut in. ‘When did he remove it?’
‘If what I’m thinking’s right, he did it after he’d found Liddy’s body.’
‘Ah. You know what it is, don’t you, Charles?’
‘I’m assuming it’s some kind of spy camera.’
Kell nodded. ‘Yes, the bloody things are getting so miniaturized now.’
‘Would there be a way of finding out what it was recording?’
‘I think we could probably guess, but, yes, I’ve got leads and things at home with which I could access the footage.’ Of course. Charles had forgotten about Kell’s computer science degree. ‘I’ll check it out when I get home tonight. That is, if you’re prepared to let me take it …’
She held out her hand. It never occurring to him not to trust her, Charles handed the tiny camera across. ‘You reckon we’re dealing with a Peeping Tom?’
‘That would certainly be one explanation.’
‘Gideon?’
‘If what you say is correct, and he did remove the camera after Liddy’s death, then the finger would seem to point at him, yes.’
‘Have you had any message from him, about when he’s going to be in?’
‘Nothing. I’ve been on to the theatre management. They’re sending someone over as a stand-in.’
‘Do you reckon he’s done a runner?’
‘It certainly looks that way,’ said Kell.
‘Now, for those of you who haven’t been here before … Charles … I should start with a quick word about confidentiality. Whatever is said in Gower House stays in Gower House. Are you all clear about that?’ The disparate group in the room mumbled assent. ‘These meetings only work if you all feel absolutely confident that you can talk freely, and that no one’s going to shop you to employers, family members or the cops? OK?’
Another mumbled agreement. The walls of this room were unadorned, just painted white. The floorboards were stripped and varnished. Tall windows opened out on to a well-maintained garden, whose end fence was the boundary of the garden of an equally grand mansion in a mirror-image row of grand mansions on the parallel street. Charles wondered whether the other residents of this genteel, well-heeled North London location knew what went on in Gower House.
The answer was probably yes. There were few secrets in suburbia. It was quite possible that, when the locals found out what use the premises were going to be put to, they had protested to the local authorities. They hadn’t invested their millions in Finchley properties to have their privacy invaded by swarms of alcoholics and drug addicts. They didn’t want their front gardens peed on. They didn’t want their streets littered with empty bottles and used syringes. They didn’t want their houses burgled by crazed losers desperate for their next fix.
But Charles was conjecturing, when he knew he should be concentrating on the matter in hand. He had arrived in good time at a quarter to twelve on the Thursday for his first ‘Growing Out’ meeting, and he had felt disproportionately nervous. It was like being about to go on stage for the first night of an iffy new play, of whose lines he had only a very precarious grasp.
He had managed to get through the two shows on the Wednesday and make it back to Hereford Road without having a drink. When he woke on the Thursday, he would have observed how much better he felt than he did most mornings, had not the anxiety about his forthcoming session at Gower House blanked out all other emotions.
He had encountered the same guarded friendliness in the waiting room, and again refused offers of a hot drink. A coffee might have helped to ease his nerves but, even though he hadn’t drunk the night before, he still didn’t feel sure he could hold a mug without spilling it.
The conversation about him was predictable male banter, a lot of ‘How’re you doing?’ and mild discussion of the previous night’s football. He didn’t feel confident enough to join in, just made sure he was smiling when anyone looked at him. Somebody remembered that they needed to switch off their mobile phones before the meeting started. Charles followed suit.
He’d kind of supposed that Erica would be leading the ‘Growing Out’ session, but they were asked to go upstairs by a man who identified himself as ‘Ricky’. Probably fifteen years younger than Charles, h
e wore jeans, Converse sneakers and a T-shirt featuring some band Charles had never heard of. It was clear that the other participants all knew Ricky well.
‘Have you all signed in?’ he asked. There was a clipboard with a ruled sheet on it, and two columns, one to enter your name and the other to put in a tick or cross, according to whether you intended to be at the next week’s session. Charles put in a dutiful tick, but was by no means certain that he would attend more than once. His attitude remained one of detached scepticism. He was there because he looked forward to getting a brownie point from Frances when he told her, but he wasn’t convinced that this regime – or any kind of regime – was for him. It wasn’t as though he had a serious problem. He was attending TAUT rather in the way he might have attended a Speeding Awareness Course, to avoid getting more penalty points from Frances.
As the session progressed, and he heard more about the dire situations which had brought the other participants to Gower House, the more the conviction grew that his problem was not a very serious one.
The meeting started with a check-in. Each person present would say their first name, then select a number between one and ten to define their current state of mind or mood, and assess how the past week had been for them. Then they had to say what they thought they could bring to the session, and what they hoped to get out of it.
Charles, as the newest arrival in the group, waited till all the others had checked in. He assessed his state of mind as ‘five’, but didn’t answer the question about his last week. He reckoned that one was more for the regulars, who could make comparisons with previous statements. He had heard them in their individual check-ins, marking themselves for their days of total abstinence, their progress in cutting down or, in some cases, serious backsliding. These revelations were greeted by commendation or sympathy from the other participants, but not with the manic glad-handing that Charles had found so deterrent at the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Continuing to follow the unwritten questionnaire, Charles confessed that he wasn’t sure what he could bring to the meeting, and, as to what he wanted to get out of it, produced some woolly phrases about ‘hoping to get a better understanding of his behaviour’. Nobody questioned what he had said, so he reckoned he’d come through the first test all right.
Ricky then wrote a single word in green felt pen on the flipchart. It was ‘TRIGGERS’. And he said he wanted the group to talk about what triggered their recourse – though he didn’t use the word ‘recourse’ – to drink or drugs. (Charles noticed that the session addressed both addictions, and some of the participants clearly had problems with both.)
As the group discussed their ‘triggers’, certain patterns emerged. The predominant reason was a reaction to stress. Whether it was an overly demanding job, a failing relationship, money worries or a thousand other aggravations, the oblivion offered by drink or drugs was instantly appealing. Ricky suggested that this arose from ‘an unwillingness to face reality’, and no one argued against that. But the way he said the words was not critical.
Charles also observed that, in almost all cases, the group members pointed back to some major ‘trigger’, some traumatic event that had started their abuse. A couple cited divorce, one man had lost his job, a marathon fanatic had sustained a knee injury that had put an end to his running career, and a woman cited the cot death of her first child.
When Charles asked himself if there was some similar shock in his own life that had pushed him towards the drink, he couldn’t think of one. He’d just always liked the stuff.
But, faced with a direct question from Ricky about his ‘triggers’, the situations in which he would find himself reaching for the bottle, Charles replied, ‘Well, it often happens after a period of intense concentration. You know, you’ve been doing some work and that’s been your complete focus, and then you finish it, and having a drink makes you relax quicker. It helps the unwinding process.’
What he was referring to, of course, was the state of heightened adrenaline experienced at the end of a performance, but for some reason he didn’t want to tell the rest of the group that he was an actor. He knew that some people felt a lot of prejudice against his profession.
‘So, if that’s the trigger,’ Ricky responded gently, ‘might there be a way of not putting yourself in that situation?’
‘How do you mean? Not getting pumped up about the … the piece of work that I’ve been doing?’ It was going to be difficult to keep the details of that work secret for any length of time. ‘I’m afraid it just wouldn’t be possible.’
‘No, I’m not saying you shouldn’t put so much energy into your work. I’m saying that you could maybe avoid the situation you find yourself in when you’ve finished, which means you’re going to have a drink straight away.’
‘Not going straight down the pub when you’ve clocked off,’ suggested the one who’d lost his job.
‘Yes,’ Ricky agreed. ‘Something like that. Make sure, when you’ve finished your work, you’re not in a place where there’s any alcohol available.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Charles, unconvinced. He knew himself too well. If a show went down after the pubs were closed, he’d always make sure he’d got a bottle of Bell’s in his dressing room. And then he came up with the lame excuse that: ‘There tend to be other people involved, people you’ve been working with and, you know, not to go round the pub with them … well, it can look a bit antisocial.’
‘It is possible,’ suggested one of the divorcees, ‘to go round the pub and not have an alcoholic drink.’
This concept was totally alien to Charles. As he struggled to regain his composure, the other divorcee said, ‘And doing that can make you feel really good – you know, you’ve faced the temptation and you’ve resisted it.’
This sounded, for Charles’s taste, far too like Tod Singer’s comments in the pub after The Habit of Faith read-through. He wondered how long he was going to be able to survive the TAUT regime.
He was still wondering, as he left Gower House and started off towards the tube. Though the easy camaraderie had been maintained while they were inside the building, once outside, the participants all acted as if they had never seen each other before. Though some of them had the same destination, there was no attempt to walk together or chat to anyone. Charles could understand how there might be a reluctance to recognize other addicts in a public situation.
He was also struck by how many of the group lit up cigarettes the moment they got outside. Clearly, dealing with one addiction at a time.
Charles assessed the hour he had just spent. Though some of the things said had been statements of the bleeding obvious, there were other comments which had made an impression on him. He had also respected the openness and honesty with which the group members had contributed to the discussion. He had said virtually nothing, except when asked direct questions, but he could see how he might be emboldened to offer more of his own opinions on another occasion.
If, of course, there was another occasion. He hadn’t yet made up his mind about that. Though he had found the atmosphere considerably less cloying than the religiosity of Alcoholics Anonymous, Charles was still not certain it was for him. The one thing about the set-up that did appeal was the thought of the check-in, of appearing the following week to announce he’d had a couple of days off the booze. There was a competitive element in that which appealed to him.
He also couldn’t repress a slight smugness. Yes, he drank too much, but the consequences of his drinking had not been as devastating as those described by some of the other participants. He hadn’t had his house repossessed, he hadn’t had his children taken into care, he hadn’t been hospitalized or imprisoned as a result of his drinking. He wasn’t as bad as they were.
But, even as he had the thought, he knew it was a dangerous one.
Anyway, there was a whole week ahead in which to decide whether he ever went back to Gower House. In the meantime, he should, as soon as possible, tell Frances that he’d been there t
hat morning. Hopefully, a first step in rehabilitating himself in her eyes. He switched his mobile back on.
It was a school day, so he didn’t call her. Texting was probably the answer, just to make her aware of his considerable achievement. Then, he could phone her after she’d got back from school, just before the evening’s performance of The Habit of Faith started.
But, as his mobile came back to life, a tone informed him that there was a text waiting.
‘Charles, I’ve accessed the footage on the spy camera. Very interesting. If you come to the theatre round five this evening, I’ll have time to show you. Kx.’
So, he’d got an ‘x’ that time.
FIFTEEN
‘You were right, Charles,’ said Kell grimly.
They were in her office, one of the basement dressing rooms that had been allocated to the stage management. Dark flowerings of damp were coming through the paint on the walls. There were no personal touches in the room beyond her zip-up waterproof coat hanging on the back of the door. There was a couch, piled up with boxes of copy paper and other stationery, which didn’t give the impression that she got much chance to lie on it and relax. In fact, there was nothing to suggest she spent much time there. The only other furniture was a wooden chair and a table on which sat a laptop and a printer.
She pointed at the screen, then touched something on the metal eyeball Charles had found. It was now connected by a lead to her computer. She moved the eyeball around, and on the screen appeared images of the parts of the room it pointed at.
‘So, it is a camera?’
‘Spy camera, yes,’ Kell confirmed.
‘And does it just show live action?’ he asked, though he knew what the answer would be.
‘No. It records too,’ replied Kell wearily.
‘But someone could still watch a live relay?’
‘Oh yes.’