Killings on Jubilee Terrace

by Robert Barnard

  Charlie felt out of his depth and held up an open hand to stop her.

  ‘What exactly was the music hall, and why did it fade?’

  ‘Song and dance, conjurors, acrobats, even hypnotists. Comics like Vernon were its backbone. It faded because of radio and television. Hancock’s Half Hour, Round the Horne. Then television sitcoms like Steptoe and Dad’s Army. The music hall couldn’t cope with that class of competition. It became surplus to requirements. Vernon was enormously lucky to get the part of Bert Porter. Not that he ever showed any consciousness of his luck, let alone gratitude for it.’

  ‘I’m beginning to get the picture,’ said Charlie. ‘We’ve just heard one of your current actors throwing a hissy fit. Were there resemblances?’

  ‘Between Hamish and Vernon? Oh please – I wouldn’t want you to think Vernon was that bad. Hamish is a one-off. Vernon was vain, he was pushy, he tried to sleep with all the new girls in the series—’

  ‘Did he succeed?’

  ‘Not recently. All the new girls were tipped the wink that if they thought sleeping with Vernon might be a way of getting a permanent role in Terrace they should think again. Boys were warned too, because Vernon was not averse to a change of scenery.’

  ‘Boys like your handsome black friend over there?’

  ‘Oh, James wouldn’t need a warning. He’s got everything sized up and summed up. He’ll know exactly who’s worth cultivating, and how. There’s just one drawback for James.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He’s not interested in making it in a soap. He wants to be a great actor. He wants to make his mark in Jubilee Terrace, then move onwards and upwards.’

  ‘And will he?’

  Marjorie shrugged.

  ‘Who can say? He has the drive and the ego. But people suspect that everything he does acquires a little strain of James. And James is not nice. That’s a problem, if your nastiness is unsuppressible. It’s appropriate if you’re playing a young Hannibal Lecter, not appropriate at all if you’re playing Othello or some heroic goodie like John Proctor in The Crucible or Ibsen’s Enemy of the People.’

  ‘Not parts susceptible to a takeover by James’s real character, I take it,’ said Charlie, vowing to run all this over with his wife.

  ‘Not at all. Why don’t you go over and talk to him?’

  ‘I think I will. Is this dying scene in the can?’

  ‘It’s not a dying scene. That’s next week. No, there’ll probably be one final take – Jim’s preparing for it now.’

  But there was a change of plan. Jim Carrington came up to his two actors and put his hand on the curate’s shoulder.

  ‘I think that will do. Well done, both of you. What I have in mind now is to do a quick run-through of the death scene. Deaths are always big news in soaps, and we have to be careful to get it right. Are you up in the lines, Stephen?’

  ‘Pretty well,’ said the polite, almost prissy voice. ‘I’ll be near enough.’

  Jim turned to his problem actor.

  ‘You don’t have much, Hamish, but it’s very important. We’ll film, then we can go over the rushes to see what needs polishing up. Can we take it from “Have you thought about what we talked over last week?”.’

  Stephen the miracle recruit let the lines come out from his clerical lips as though they were coming from the infinitely patient lips of a teacher of a naughty child.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ said Hamish as Cyril. ‘What’s the point? I don’t believe, and that’s that.’

  ‘Many people feel, as the end approaches—’

  ‘Death. It’s called death.’

  ‘As death approaches, that the spiritual side of things becomes more important, and they have a quite different take on the afterlife.’

  ‘I don’t believe in an afterlife.’

  ‘Let’s just say “what comes after this one”.’

  ‘Nothing does. Zilch. If I was to start believing in God and an afterlife now, it would be like taking out an insurance policy on a house that’s already fallen down.’

  ‘Well, I won’t force anything on you. Let’s just sit and think for a moment.’ He put his hand on Cyril’s hand, lying on the embroidered eiderdown. ‘Do you feel any difference? Is it coming?’ There was silence, then Cyril said:

  ‘Yes. Yes – I do feel something coming.’

  ‘Try to help it. Welcome it.’

  The camera homed in on the hands on the bed. Slowly Cyril’s hand turned over, then it grasped the curate’s. For almost a minute it held it tight. Then suddenly relaxed.

  Jim let the cameras dwell on the two hands. Then he was ecstatic.

  ‘That was brilliant. Sometimes first rehearsals can be so much fresher than final takes.’

  ‘We’ll have to have a change in the dialogue,’ said Hamish, leaping out of bed and revealing jeans under his pyjama top. ‘We can’t have all this “Is it coming?” It sounds as if he’s reaching the end of a long spell of constipation.’

  ‘You both did it so beautifully I don’t think anyone will think that,’ said Jim.

  ‘We could perhaps alter it to “a change coming”,’ suggested Stephen Barrymore.

  ‘Oh great,’ sneered Hamish. ‘Make it sound as if homosexuals go through the menopause as well as women. Stick to acting, feller, which you’re least bad at.’

  ‘The trouble with the English language is that practically every word has an indecent connotation,’ said Jim. ‘Hence the dreadful puns in the tabloids. Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about it, if any change is needed. That about winds things up for this morning.’

  Charlie shifted his weight from foot to foot, having been deeply absorbed in this death scene. He raised his hand to Marjorie, then set off round the edge of the studio towards the far end. He was interrupted by a call from Jim Carrington, the director.

  ‘I say. You there. Do you have any right to be here?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Charlie, going over. He flipped out his ID and held it in front of Jim’s face. Jim looked extremely disconcerted.

  ‘But I say. Police. I mean, what—? Am I allowed to ask what it is you’re here on?’

  ‘Certainly you’re allowed to ask, and in this case I’ll tell you. I’m here to investigate a matter which has arisen as a consequence of an anonymous letter to the police. I’m talking to Mr Friedman and Mr Settle after their script conference. Now, if you don’t mind—’

  And he continued on his way. He was conscious of many eyes following him – not just Jim Carrington’s, but Hamish’s, Stephen Barrymore’s, the cameramen’s, and most intently of all James’s and Susan’s from the far wall of the studios.

  ‘What did you show Jim?’ demanded Susan when he reached them.

  ‘Show him?’

  ‘Flash at him,’ said James. ‘Like an identity card.’

  ‘It was an identity card,’ said Charlie, showing it to the pair of them. ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘Well, well,’ said James, stirring it as was his wont. ‘A black policeman. Wonders will never cease. What are you: a traitor or a stooge?’

  ‘Well, well, a black actor in a soap. I’ll hold back on the supplementary questions.’

  ‘If you’re a policeman you must be investigating something,’ said Susan.

  ‘If you only knew how much time I spend not doing that… But today’s not one of those times. Let me jump ahead and say it’s an investigation prompted by an anonymous letter we received at police headquarters. It made allegations that we thought needed looking into.’

  ‘What sort of allegations?’ demanded James.

  ‘Shall I ask the questions? How long have you been working on Jubilee Terrace, sir?’

  ‘Eighteen months, or a bit over.’

  ‘And you, madam?’

  Charlie gave their honorary titles a gently ironic tinge.

  ‘Nearly four years. I’ve been given bigger and better things to do since I finished at drama school.’

  ‘Who would you say has been most helpful
to you since you started?’

  The pair thought.

  ‘Melvin is very good,’ said Susan. ‘If I have trouble with a line, maybe think that a teenager wouldn’t say it, Melvin is—’

  ‘Yes, I’ve met Melvin Settle,’ said Charlie. ‘And you, sir?’

  James shrugged.

  ‘I’ve just got on with the job. It’s not—’

  ‘Rocket science. Yes, I get the point. What about the people who’ve been less helpful? The ones you wouldn’t think of going to if you had a problem. The ones that are a problem?’

  ‘Well,’ said Susan, ‘you’ve just seen Hamish, and what he can do to a newcomer. Crude, nasty, but depressing all the same, and confidence-robbing. Vernon Watts was the elderly groper in the cast. I gave him his marching orders on my first day. I had a sort of chaperone then, but she was surplus to requirements. I can take care of myself.’

  Charlie turned to James and waited.

  ‘Oh, I was approached by Vernon too. Could have guessed he was into Variety. I told him I wasn’t into being fucked by wrinklies. Hamish has tried a few sneers in the Vernon Watts mode. It’s all water off a duck’s back. I know where I’m going. Vernon must have known where he was going too, and now he’s gone.’

  ‘Don’t take any notice of him.’

  Charlie swivelled round and noticed a little band of actors and studio-hands gazing at them. The actors included Marjorie, the young curate, and a fresh-faced woman of an age somewhere between youth and middle-age.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘I’m Liza Croome. I play Sally Worseley in the Terrace. Wife of the landlord of the Duke of York’s.’

  ‘And you don’t like the way James is talking about Vernon Watts and Hamish Whatever?’

  ‘Fawley. I just think he’s giving a wrong impression. James is…still quite new here. On the whole this is a wonderful team. We all – nearly all – pull together extremely well. We’re actors, bumped-up extras, comedians, whatever. And we do play together, hide one another’s weaknesses, highlight their strengths. The tabloids say what a united and close-knit lot we are, and on the whole they’re right. In this case any rotten apple there may have been hasn’t affected the whole barrel.’

  ‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’ said James, getting up and walking eloquently away. Charlie watched the walk – all panther grace and glorious, self-conscious elegance. The boy would make a very high-class gigolo, he decided. Suddenly James stopped and turned round. ‘Liza, you didn’t mention that Bill Garrett, your mate, is letching after Susan, did you? Why not? Didn’t fit with your rosy picture, I suppose.’

  ‘Hello – making yourself at home I see. Excellent.’ The voice was Reggie Friedman’s, arriving with Melvin Settle and looking with raised eyebrows at the departing back of James. The welcoming note had got into Reggie’s bearing and stance, but Charlie noticed there was still an edge to his voice. ‘If you’ll come along we’ll give you all the help we can.’

  They led Charlie not to the office where they had talked earlier but to one of the Terrace’s hospitality suites, where they sat in light, clean, easy chairs, and where a coffee machine was already switched on and biscuits were neatly arranged on plates. Something had happened in the script conference, Charlie thought, or, more likely, they had thought things over and decided that nothing could be gained by stonewalling or offending a police officer. And perhaps particularly a black police officer, since the Terrace had not, over the years, been particularly welcoming to minorities. Maybe in this thinking the Inspector title had helped. It was always more impressive to outsiders than it was to other serving policemen who knew that inspectors usually got the rather boring cases.

  ‘So you’ve had an anonymous letter,’ said Reggie Friedman, sitting down and gesturing to another chair. ‘It was about Jubilee Terrace I take it?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Was it from a member of the public, do you think, or from one of our people here?’

  ‘From an insider, we thought, or someone close to an insider.’

  ‘Many of our fans are so well up in the series, from its start in 1976, that they can sound like insiders.’

  ‘Point taken. We’re keeping an open mind.’

  ‘Are we allowed to know what it said?’ asked Melvin Settle.

  ‘Yes. I’ve had it transcribed, and I’d like the copy back.’ Charlie fumbled in his briefcase and handed over a copy. ‘We don’t want it to go round from person to person so that people can prepare their response. It was very clearly written, so you can rely on the transcript.’

  The pair took the single page and looked at the computer text.

  ‘Why did the police take Vernon Watt’s death as natural causes? He was the most hated man on Jubilee Terrace. Pushing someone in front of a bus is the easiest way of killing him. The London police should have investigated all the people on the traffic island.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Melvin. ‘Gets the apostrophe wrong in Watts’.’

  ‘Nobody gets that right these days,’ said Reggie. ‘Except you, Melvin.’ He looked at Charlie. ‘Not much there I’d have said. Of course you know your job best, but…’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said Charlie, with easy candour. ‘Normally with an anonymous letter, very unspecific and ungrounded, we’d have done nothing. We might have paid some attention if it was signed, and we could question the writer. The unusual thing here, the reason we’re taking it up at all is, as I said earlier, that Watts was something of a national figure, partly from his early life on the music halls—’

  ‘But mainly because of Jubilee Terrace,’ said Reggie Friedman.

  ‘I was going to say that. The music halls and the variety shows are I gather a happy memory for older people. Even the working men’s clubs, which are a Northern phenomenon, are not what they were. So it’s for Jubilee Terrace he will be remembered. Tell me about the part he played, Bert Porter.’

  ‘Oh, Bert was a Terrace stalwart. He’d been in the cotton trade, with a sideline as a comic and a vocalist on the club circuit. That way we kept and capitalised on Vernon’s showbiz connection. Bert was now retired, with the occasional engagement in clubs or pubs. He and his wife, Gladys, were comfortable, apart from the odd row, and were founts of popular wisdom whenever there was any trouble on the Terrace.’

  ‘And there’s always trouble int’ Terrace,’ said Melvin, lapsing into a Northern dialect.

  ‘Is it true that pushing people under a bus or a car is a failsafe way of getting rid of them?’ asked Reggie. Charlie shrugged.

  ‘If it were that good a way of killing someone, the killing wouldn’t be in our records. If people are all around you it’s a lot more dangerous than our know-it-all letter writer admits. Anyone may see or feel the arm that does the pushing. If it was me I’d push him in front of an underground train in rush-hour. Ill-lit platform, great mass of surging humanity. A shove is part of life there.’

  ‘Vernon Watts hadn’t used the Underground since 7/7,’ said Melvin. ‘He was an asthmatic, and he didn’t want to die in a smoke-filled tunnel.’

  ‘Ah – thanks for the info. Now what about the statement that he was the most generally hated actor on the Terrace sets?’

  ‘I imagine that’s what you’ve been talking to people about,’ said Reggie. ‘Well yes – it was true until Hamish Fawley came into the show.’

  ‘That’s the one I’ve just seen on his deathbed – I guessed he was dying of AIDS but I was wrong.’

  ‘That’s the one. He’s dying of tuberculosis. We have to move with the times. British soaps have done AIDS over and over again. Tuberculosis is a new thing, except for the very old who remember how deadly it once was.’ He pulled himself up, obviously feeling this was becoming a lecture. ‘Still, AIDS was a good guess. And you’re spot on about Hamish’s nature. He’s a nasty piece of work and thrives on it. He’s just come back for a second stint. Vernon was less nasty, less confident in his brutality to others, but he was on the same lines. Just a bit le
ss sure of himself in his bitchery and malevolence. The fact that his first career had folded under him may explain the lack of confidence.’

  ‘Is Mr Fawley’s main base London?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Well yes’ – Reggie’s answer was palpably reluctant – ‘it is.’ Charlie waited. ‘Actually he has a flat in Hampstead, inherited from his parents. He lets it out when he’s playing or filming elsewhere, like now.’

  ‘And at the time of Watts’s death?’

  Reluctance again.

  ‘He was in London in School for Scandal at the Haymarket.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ said Charlie.

  ‘May we ask,’ said Melvin with his usual courtly diffidence, ‘whether there were signs of a hefty shove on Vernon’s back?’

  ‘No, there were not. Otherwise there would have been an inquest. The Metropolitan police autopsy showed he had a heart attack, but it could have happened either before or after he fell or was pushed into the road. Let me ask you one: was Mr Watts a dodderer, or becoming doddery?’

  Both men nodded vigorously.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Reggie. ‘Everyone says that back in the past he had limitless energy. When he was on the club circuit he could do half an hour, even three quarters, as a solo turn: jokes, songs, dance – even some conjuring tricks. You name it, he was in for it. I’m told he still had a lot of that energy when he joined Jubilee Terrace, but he’d lost most of it by the time he died. Perhaps that soured his temper. He and Marjorie who played his wife had many a slanging match, but that was the main outlet for the energy he had left.’

  ‘Not sex?’

  ‘Well, he was still up for it,’ said Reggie with a leer. ‘But everyone in the studio knew what he was after, and that he’d make promises about using his influence which he couldn’t keep because he had none. He was a shabby, comic figure.’

  ‘But physically he was doddery – no longer firm on his feet, unsure where he was going, what he was doing?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Melvin. ‘He was old, and like all but a few old people. What are you trying to say?’