A Deadly Habit

by Simon Brett

  ‘I don’t remember his name. I remember what he looked like.’

  ‘So do I! Beautiful blond hair. Natural too, not a bottle job like Larry Olivier in the movie. Looked properly Nordic, as Hamlet should. Richard Frail, that was the boy’s name. I thought he really had potential. His Hamlet was the perfect mix of the introvert and the extrovert. I thought he’d go all the way. Last thing I heard he was selling insurance in Salford. Dame Theatre can be a cruel mistress.’ Damian turned his bright eyes on Charles. ‘And you gave your Rosencrantz, didn’t you, you clever boy?’

  ‘Or was it Guildenstern?’

  ‘No, you were definitely Rosencrantz. The Guildenstern was a boy I regard as the luckiest actor in the world. Justin Grover.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Mind you, he wasn’t bad-looking back then. I wouldn’t have kicked either of you out of bed. Even nurtured these daydreams – a threesome with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But I suppose every director of Hamlet has fantasies like that, don’t they?’

  Charles didn’t take issue with this arguable assertion. Instead, he said, ‘Going back to Justin …’

  ‘Yes. Strange who the gods pick out for special treatment, isn’t it? Justin Grover, perfectly adequate actor, a bit too technical for my taste. And with a few rather annoying quirks.’

  ‘Do you remember the Buddhist chanting?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Oh, God, yes. What a poseur he was! And probably still is.’

  ‘I can confirm that.’

  ‘Are you in touch with the dear boy?’

  ‘I’m working with him.’

  ‘Well, heavens to Betsy! In an ensemble?’

  ‘Justin keeps referring to it as an ensemble, but of course it’s nothing of the sort. Anything Justin’s involved in is basically all about him.’

  ‘I know the show you’re talking about, read the reviews. The monkfest! A lot of men in habits wanking about at the Duke of Kent’s?’

  ‘Exactly that, Damian. And there’s another cast member who worked with you at Bridport. Tod Singer.’

  ‘God, I remember him. The piss artist to end all piss artists.’

  ‘Now completely dry. A devotee of Alcoholics Anonymous.’

  The old man cupped his hands around his face in mock-horror. ‘How ghastly! In a changing world, there are so few certainties one can cling on to. Mind you, Charles, as I recall, you were not an enemy of the bottle. I hope you haven’t joined Tod on that oh-so-dispiriting wagon.’

  It wasn’t the moment to chronicle his own journey on the road to abstinence, so Charles just said, ‘I still enjoy a drink.’ Which remained distressingly true.

  ‘Thank the Lord for that. Strange how the theatre works, though, isn’t it? From the production of Hamlet, I wouldn’t have said any of the cast was going to make it at any major level—’ Charles did not allow himself to be put down by the implied insult – ‘except for that boy Richard Frail. I thought he was destined to go right to the top. Which just goes to show how little I know. Hamlet is now selling insurance in Salford, and Guildenstern – an actor of minimal talent and some rather unwholesome habits – becomes a global superstar. I think anyone entering the theatre should be firmly told that it is not a business in which fairness plays any part at all.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Charles agreed glumly.

  ‘All the observations, incidentally, Charles, are in my book.’

  ‘Which book is this?’

  ‘I’ve written a memoir. Called Beginners, Please. Lots in it about my time at the Imperial.’

  ‘Great. Where can I get hold of a copy?’

  ‘Ah. Sadly, you may have to wait awhile for that. The book is not yet in print. It has done the rounds of the publishing houses, but none of them is interested in the reminiscences of a theatre director of the third rank.’ Charles felt that he ought to perhaps remonstrate, but, then again, Damian Grantchester’s self-assessment was probably accurate. ‘If I were a star – or if I’d slept with enough stars – no doubt the reaction would be different. Beginners, Please would even now be storming the bestsellers’ lists. In my current situation, though, I can’t give myself away with soap.

  ‘I have a friend who comes to visit me. She works in publishing, and she’s going to see if she can place the book somewhere. But she’s my last hope. If she can’t get a publishing deal, then I’m afraid all my carefully collected dirt will go to the grave with me. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes”, not forgetting “dirt to dirt”.’ The old man sighed. ‘Sorry, I’ve gone all “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought”.’

  Charles respected a moment of silence, before moving on. ‘You said Justin had … “some rather unwholesome habits”?’

  ‘Yes. I’m surprised you weren’t aware of them. You two shared a dressing room, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Though I spent as little time there as I could politely get away with.’

  ‘The Buddhist chanting got on your nerves?’

  ‘Yes, and a few other irritating habits. When I was offstage – which, if you’re playing Rosencrantz, is most of the evening – I generally hung around the Green Room.’

  ‘No, you didn’t, Charles. We’ve covered this already. You know full well that you spent all your time offstage inside the knickers of our Gertrude. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Well …’ The monosyllable contained equal measures of shame and pride. Oh, Damian would know the name of the actress playing Gertrude.

  But before Charles had a chance to ask the question, the director went on, ‘By not being in the dressing room, you were probably doing Justin a favour.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Allowing him to pursue his little hobby.’

  ‘Little hobby?’

  ‘After the Hamlet production finished, there was some maintenance work scheduled for all the Imperial dressing rooms. And in the one you shared with Justin, the workmen found a hole had been drilled through the wall. They called me to have a look. I remember, I was giving the guy who’d written the next show a guided tour of the theatre, and we went though and had a look. The hole had been drilled through into the next dressing room.’

  ‘I can’t remember who would have been in—’

  ‘Ophelia.’

  ‘Very pretty girl, whose name escapes me.’

  ‘Eve Blanche. Anyway, there was a spy-hole from your dressing room, through which the poor kid could be watched, presumably when she was changing into costume … or doing whatever else she got up to in the privacy of her dressing room. Well, I knew you wouldn’t be responsible for drilling that hole, Charles.’

  ‘Thank you.’ It was a kind of compliment.

  ‘You were too busy, up to no good inside Gertrude’s knickers.’ Perhaps not such a compliment, after all.

  ‘No, it was Justin Grover. I rang him straight after the hole had been found. He denied it, of course. But I followed up with a call to our Ophelia. She said Justin had come on to her and said things about her body which suggested he’d seen her naked. Which, so far as she knew, he hadn’t.

  ‘There’s no doubt about it, Charles. Justin Grover was a Peeping Tom.’

  NINETEEN

  Charles cornered Grant Yeoell in his dressing room between the matinee and the evening performances. The tall actor seemed deeply involved in communing with his tablet.

  ‘Sorry, have you got a moment, Grant?’

  ‘Yes. Could do with a break. It’s a full-time job keeping up with my Twitter followers.’

  Charles wasn’t entirely sure he knew what that meant, but he did know it was not a problem that he had.

  ‘It’s going back to Liddy Max …’

  Grant let out an exasperated sigh. ‘We’ve talked about this already, Charles. Yes, we made love, dressed in monks’ habits. And that would have been the end of it … but for the fact that Liddy fell down the stairs and died the same evening.’

  ‘So, it was going to be a one-off? No plans for an ongoing relationship?’

  ‘No,’ said Grant,
as if the idea were completely incongruous.

  ‘And did Liddy know that was the deal too?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I assumed so.’

  ‘You didn’t think that she might have been in love with you?’

  A grimace crossed the perfect features. ‘It wasn’t something I thought about. I think love is a woman’s construct. Men feel differently. My view is that, if someone wants me to make love to them, assuming they’re attractive – well, I’m up for it.’

  ‘I spoke to Liddy’s husband …’

  ‘I didn’t know she had a husband.’

  ‘Well, she did. Called Derek. He said she was obsessed with her career.’

  ‘True of a lot of actors.’

  ‘He also said she was hoping being in Habit might lead to her getting a part in a Vandals and Visigoths movie.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that was very likely to happen.’

  ‘No, but clearly she thought it was. Being in a play with Justin Grover, and with you – well, she thought it might raise her chances.’

  ‘As I say, I wouldn’t have thought it likely. Justin does sometimes recommend actors to the Vandals producers, but I’ve never heard him mention Liddy in that context.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘What about me? I wasn’t in the movies on Justin’s say-so. The casting directors picked me out from some modelling shoots I’d done.’

  Charles couldn’t have imagined Grant would have been spotted doing anything that involved acting. But he went on, ‘No, what I meant was: do you think Liddy thought you might have some influence with the producers? Do you think that was why she was so ready to have sex with you?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible.’ He didn’t sound that interested. ‘I thought it was just because she fancied me.’ Once again, he spoke as though being fatally attractive to women was a rather tiresome occupational hazard. ‘But if she did think I had any influence with the producers, then she was barking up the wrong tree. Justin’s the one who can make things happen there, not me. The whole production now works completely on his say-so. Everyone always does what Justin wants.’

  Charles suddenly had a new idea. ‘Including you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you always do what Justin wants?’

  ‘I work with him a lot. Obviously on the Vandals and Visigoths movies, now on this. He’s the star. Nobody argues about that. But he can be surprisingly generous to other cast members.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant. If Justin asked you to do something, would you do it?’

  ‘It depends what it—’

  ‘Because presumably he has the power to fire as well as hire? So, it would pay to keep on the right side of him?’

  Grant Yeoell conceded that that was the case.

  ‘And has Justin ever suggested that you should come on to some woman?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘You know, said, “That one definitely fancies you. You’d be well in there”, that kind of thing?’

  ‘He may have said things like that. But it’s just – what’s the current expression? – “locker room talk”.’

  ‘And did Justin suggest to you that Liddy Max might be … susceptible to your charms? That she might be a potential target for you?’

  Grant Yeoell turned his beautiful, expressionless eyes on Charles, and said, ‘Yes.’

  Kell handed the spy camera across without asking any questions.

  ‘Is Justin about?’ asked Charles. ‘Or does he go out between the shows?’

  ‘He’s in his dressing room. Tends to put his feet up, after the emotional strain of giving of himself in the matinee.’ She caught in the two words some essence of the star’s preciousness, the quality he had displayed when, all those weeks before, he’d asked the company to ‘breathe in the atmosphere’ of the Duke of Kent’s Theatre.

  Kell looked straight at Charles. Her eyes had all the acuteness that Grant Yeoell’s lacked. ‘So, you reckon the spy camera was for Justin’s benefit?’

  ‘Beginning to look that way.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘That would figure.’

  ‘What do you mean? Do you know something?’

  ‘You hear a lot round the stage management grapevine.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘Some of it’s just spiteful gossip, but if you hear the same thing enough times …’

  ‘No smoke without …?’

  ‘Exactly, Charles. So, let’s say your suspicions prove to be true – well, there might be people around who could provide corroborating evidence.’

  ‘People you could contact?’

  Kell nodded.

  There was a long silence after Charles’s knock. He thought Justin might be asleep, and was about to go back to his own dressing room when the door opened. Justin looked alert. He had removed his habit, and was dressed in jeans and a casual cardigan.

  ‘Charles. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I hope I’m not disturbing …’ Though, of course, the purpose of his visit was very definitely to disturb.

  ‘No, please. Come in.’

  Justin stood back. Charles hadn’t been in this particular Number One dressing room before. It was not only considerably bigger, but also much better decorated and equipped than those of the lowlier company members.

  ‘Take a seat.’ Justin Grover gestured broadly. ‘Can I get you a coffee or something?’

  There was a state-of-the-art Italian machine on a shelf, but Charles demurred.

  ‘So,’ said Justin, sitting in an armchair set at an angle to his make-up mirror, ‘what can I do for you?’

  Charles put the eyeball-shaped spy camera on the low table between them. ‘Do you know what that is?’

  ‘No,’ Justin replied.

  ‘It’s a spy camera.’

  ‘Really? Are you into espionage, Charles?’

  ‘I’m not, no.’

  ‘Well, thank you so much for showing me that. Absolutely fascinating. And now …’ He pointed to the door. ‘I do have another performance today, and Abbot Ambrose is not an untaxing role.’

  ‘Sorry to take up more of your time, Justin,’ Charles insisted, ‘but I do have more to say about this spy camera.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It was set up by Gideon, our late lamented stage doorman.’

  ‘I know who Gideon was. I met him when I was doing a previous show here. Anyway, I always know everyone backstage.’

  If Justin was hoping to receive commendation for his magnanimous common touch, he didn’t get it. ‘Gideon set up the camera to spy on Liddy Max.’

  ‘How he got his sexual gratification is not really of much interest to me, Charles. Particularly now the poor man’s dead.’

  ‘It’s my view that, when Gideon set up the spy camera, he didn’t do it for his own pleasure. He was obeying orders.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘Someone in the company.’

  Justin Grover shrugged. ‘So, we have a voyeur in our midst. Is that really such a surprise in this day and age?’

  ‘After Gideon found Liddy’s body … you know, the night she died … he removed this camera from her dressing room.’

  ‘A very wise precaution, I would imagine, since the police would inevitably be crawling all over the place.’

  ‘The output from this camera could have been viewed by anyone who linked up to it on their computer or tablet or smartphone.’

  ‘How very useful for people who get their kicks from watching actresses change into their costumes.’

  ‘The camera recorded a lot more than that.’

  ‘Oh, did it?’

  ‘It recorded, that same evening, Grant Yeoell making love to Liddy Max.’

  There was a silence. For the first time, Charles felt he’d got an unprepared reaction from Justin Grover.

  But the moment didn’t last long. The customary detached irony was back in the response, ‘Well, perhaps we should be grateful that the poor girl’s last few
hours on earth included some pleasurable activity.’

  ‘I’ve talked to Grant.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. I like to feel we’re a happy company, in which everyone talks to everyone else.’

  Charles was not going to be put off by this nonchalant stonewalling. ‘Grant has told me that on occasions you have suggested women for him to come on to.’

  Justin spread his hands wide. ‘One likes to help one’s co-workers when one can.’

  ‘Grant doesn’t need your help in getting women.’

  ‘No, they do rather throw themselves at the poor boy, don’t they?’

  Charles tried a different tack. ‘From the start of this production, I found it interesting how many people involved in The Habit of Faith have a connection to the theatre in Bridport.’

  ‘You and me, obviously, doing our immortal double act as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Or was it the other way round?’

  ‘Also Tod Singer. And Seamus Milligan, come to that. Don’t you find that rather a coincidence?’

  A shrug. ‘If an actor can’t help out an old chum, what has the world of theatre come to, eh?’ It was, word for word, exactly the same line which had made Charles feel so patronized at the read-through. Justin looked at him shrewdly, as he went on, ‘Why, you don’t have a more sinister explanation for my generosity, do you?’

  ‘Interesting times we live in,’ Charles observed. ‘Particularly in the theatre. Sexual misdemeanours from long ago being brought to light on a daily basis. What’s that catch-all expression that keeps coming up? “Inappropriate behaviour.” If every time a director had groped a pretty young actress, or an actor had goosed an ASM in the prop store … if all of those incidents become retrospectively actionable, where will it all end?’

  ‘Where indeed?’ asked Justin. But there was a new caution in his voice.

  ‘I just wondered,’ said Charles casually, ‘whether getting so many “old chums” from Bridport together in The Habit of Faith might be a way of buying our silence.’

  ‘“Buying your silence”? Silence about what?’