‘You must have seen lots of new cast members in your time. Why were you so annoyed about this one?’
‘Why do you think? Because it was all due to bloody Hamish. I’d sweated blood to try and get this bloody jerk to give me a part worth playing, a real flesh-and-blood woman, preferably mostly flesh, and all the time he says “maybe” and makes a little gesture with his hand like he was waving me aside and saying “forget it”. And this little slut has him just where she wants him, over a period of months or years, and she gets landed with these nice roles, and the powers that be wink at all the difficulties involved in having her as an eager schoolgirl one week and an enthusiastic young apprentice the next. Oh, it makes me mad, I can tell you.’
But you’re not holding back on it now, thought Charlie.
‘Aren’t you missing something out?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Hamish didn’t allot roles in Jubilee Terrace.’
‘No, of course he didn’t. I don’t know how he went about getting his whore roles, but the proof is in the results. She did get them.’
‘Then he must have used somebody.’
‘Oh, he did that all right.’
‘Who would you put your money on?’
She thought for a moment.
‘It’s got to be Reggie, hasn’t it? There’s Melvin too, I suppose: he is sometimes called in about casting. But really that’s not his interest. He’s wholly intent on getting a good script together: one full of one-liners, piquant situations, interesting confrontations. He knows Northern Television has a great storehouse of potential performers and they won’t let him down by getting a no-hoper for any role, however small. I’d go for Reggie.’
‘Right. Here we have the most unpopular man in the cast, loathed by all – much more than the young people are loathed, or Vernon Watts was. And yet someone, maybe Mr Friedman, caves in and agrees when he comes up with a suggestion for a new role.’
‘She said her ten words perfectly adequately in our scene together,’ said Bet, unusually gracious, which interested Charlie. ‘I heard good reports of her in the role of the pre-teenager. That’s a special gift. Maybe Reggie respected Hamish’s judgement where actors and roles are concerned.’
‘And pigs may fly and cats hate cream,’ said Charlie. ‘You’ve changed your tune, but it won’t wash. Hamish had a weapon he could use. Call it blackmail, call it vigorous negotiation, he knew something, had power over somebody, that he could use: maybe it was Friedman, or Settle, or maybe someone I haven’t been introduced to yet.’
Bet shrugged.
‘Maybe. I wouldn’t know.’
Charlie exploded. He knew when he was being played with.
‘You wouldn’t know? You were engaged to the man, you were living with him periodically, you were pressing him to get you a better part in Terrace and yet you had no idea who he had to influence to get it for you, or what he would use on that person to get his way. Do you think that makes sense?’
‘Makes sense to me. That was how it was. Take it or leave it.’
Charlie’s eyes narrowed.
‘I’ll find out, don’t you doubt that. Two more questions: how did your engagement to Hamish break up?’
‘Just naturally. I told you what the engagement was for – to scare the shit out of Bill. We’d done that, we’d had all the fun we could have out of a pretty unlikely pairing that nobody but Bill really believed would come to anything. So we brought it to an end.’
‘Without any rancour or rows?’
‘Absolutely amicably.’
‘And what were you doing on the night that Fawley and Cardew died?’
‘I was here in the hotel. There’s no bar here (it’s what they call no frills, but you can find frills if you have a nose for them). Freddie runs a sort of impromptu bar down in the basement. I was there all evening, till midnight or later. We had fun. He’s a mate.’
Charlie said nothing, of acceptance or nonacceptance, merely nodding and leaving her bedroom. He aimed first for the breakfast room, down in the basement. It was a large room, much larger than was needed for the number of bedrooms. It was dismal, as all such rooms are except at rise-and-shine times. There was room for a bar, especially an impromptu one, but no sign of it, not there or in the attached kitchen. Bet’s friend Freddie was nowhere to be seen, nor did Charlie find him in the dingy office that served as Reception when there was anybody to receive. The heavily curtained TV room, which called itself a lounge, was also empty. The hotel was looking after itself, and seemed to have gone so long without a spring clean that Charlie felt he would be in need of a shower when he got back to police headquarters. He let himself out of the guest house and walked slowly to his car.
Most interviews of suspects left him with questions to be answered, and the talk with Bet had left him with more than usual. Her pride in herself as one who made things (mostly nasty things) happen led him to the thought that she was a much more likely target for a murderer than Sylvia Cardew. Maybe she was joint target: her point about Hamish being by far the most hated member of the Jubilee Terrace team was fair enough – but they made a perfect pair: not either/or but both. And there was the important point that Bet had been around, acquiring and discarding lovers and enemies, for a long time: fifteen years. Hamish had had one period when he was high-profile in the series (one year) and now a brief return (about six weeks). Hamish was hated, but he had had less time to arouse detestation and fear. On the other side of the scales could be put the fact that Hamish did not waste time when he was bent on making enemies. But then there was the surely vital fact that he was about to leave the cast again, this time for good. Why kill him then? The thought struck him in passing that it was extremely lucky that there had been a run-through of his death scene, and that it had been recorded.
There was another oddity about the interview. Why had Bet been so notably unforthcoming about how Hamish had wangled jobs for his protégée, a girl with almost no training or experience, and only the faculty of being able to look much younger than she was to recommend her?
Come to that, Charlie thought: how had Hamish got a return engagement himself? There had been talk about shaking the company up, that they had got slack. But surely the downside of his return heavily outweighed the upside? Everyone hated him, he caused rows and unpleasantness, and that surely was not the sort of atmosphere that benefited the cast of a family soap. Cyril could very easily have been left to die in California – if, indeed, he needed to die at all. Why did he come back? Why, to put the matter more precisely, was he brought back?
If he was using some knowledge, perhaps some skill he possessed, to bring pressure on the powers that be, or one of them, most likely Reggie, to employ him again, then his murder could have been undertaken to rid that person of the incubus of this man’s knowledge. Bet had denied being privy to the knowledge that gave Hamish his power. Well, she would, wouldn’t she? And if she had somehow got that knowledge it was easy to guess that she was silent on the matter because she was aiming to use the knowledge to advance her career.
Very tempting that. Very dangerous too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On Location
Things were looking black for Colin Cook. Colin was seven, and had not attended the marriage of his soap mother with Arthur Bradley officially because Maureen had been worried about how her former partner would take her marriage. For the same reason she had made no moves to alter her son’s last name. Maureen had responded well to marrying into the corner shop trade, being a cool but obliging presence, knowing where everything was, and responding to requests to ‘put it on the slate’ with the absolute authority of ‘There is no slate’. She was always nervous, however, when her ex-partner Brian Whiteley’s name came up. As any faithful viewer would suspect she had a few good reasons to fear her ex. It’s tough being a child in a soap, and particularly so in Jubilee Terrace. Few babies in the cast had got through their early years without the experience of a kidnap attempt. C
olin was lucky to have got as far as seven, but there were reasons why it had not been scheduled earlier.
Usually the kidnap involved a high place, with anxious faces watching from the darkness below. The high place this time was St Aidan’s, a church the soap had never used before, due to the hostility of its vicar to any attempts to go downmarket. That vicar had died, however, and the new one was eager for any publicity he and his church could get. So now, in the cold night of an October Friday, the tower was floodlit and up in the tower (how he had got in was one of those inconvenient details usually skated over by soaps) was to be seen by glaring lights the figure of Brian Whiteley, Maureen’s ex, looking suitably demented, clutching in his arms a large child with his face concealed (he was enjoying himself enormously) and occasionally shaking his fist at heaven in a manner that many thought had gone out with the late Henry Irving.
Down below Shirley Merritt and Garry Kopps, the Bradleys, were emphasised by the positioning of the crowd. Their faces registered every shade of apprehension and concern. Mingling in the crowd around them were Bill Garrett, Philip Marston, Carol Chilsolm, Susan Fyldes and James Selcott, and quite prominent was Stephen Barrymore, the Terrace’s new man of the church. Also quite prominent, though he didn’t want to be, was Charlie Peace.
He had picked up talk of the evening filming when he went back to the TV studios after his rather frustrating interview with Bet Garrett. He knew the filming would be policed, but he thought he could probably mingle and learn what people were talking about between takes. On the way there he dropped in at Police Headquarters and collected PC Hargreaves who was just going off duty and was dressed in civvies. He was delighted to get the job, which would provide talk in the pub after the next Leeds Rhinos match. Charlie was used to not taking into account his own colour, which was just how he liked it, but there were some circumstances where that was unwise. A white, middle-aged policeman in jeans and anorak was much more likely to be able to stand casually near Jubilee Terrace actors and pick up on the conversation than a young black one – who in any case was by now known to most of them.
They arrived during a lull. They saw Maureen Bradley’s former partner put down the stalwart child who was immediately pulled away from the parapet’s edge by a safety expert. The partner, Brian (‘Call me Bry’) Whiteley, was played by a New Zealander, but he was exhausted by the run-through and he walked up and down the narrow space shaking his arms and clenching and unclenching his hands. He seemed to lack the inexhaustible energy of most young people from Down Under.
‘Went well,’ Charlie heard Philip Marston saying to Garry Kopps.
‘Not bad. This is my third hostage-taking but the first time Arthur has been closely involved. I’ve learnt by watching the others. I suppose you’ve done the same. People in soaps know there’s nothing new under the sun.’
Charlie was about to send Hargreaves to mingle with the crowd when he realised that he needed to be told who in the mass of Leeds humanity were the actors, who the extras and who the fans roped-in unpaid. He had just got to Marjorie as Gladys Porter when he stopped.
‘What’s the matter, guv?’Hargreaves asked.
‘That’s Bet Garrett who plays the flower shop manageress.’
‘Wife of Bill, who plays the pub landlord – and the one who was announced by that prat Birnley as being one of the victims.’
‘Good – you’re getting it. She and her husband are separated, and she’d been sleeping with Hamish Fawley, who died.’
‘So? Why did you stop?’
‘It’s just that I wouldn’t have expected her to be one of the crowd. She exists to sell flowers for weddings and funerals. She’s not a fully fledged Terrace star by any means. Make her your first priority.’
That was easier said than done. Bet was on her own, watching the goings-on with a half-smile on her face. She seemed not to want to be talked to, and those around her seemed to be happy to leave her unapproached. One or two of them, in fact, looked at her askance, as if she were responsible indirectly for the two recent deaths. One person, who Hargreaves had been told was Liza Croome, looked at her as if she regarded her as directly responsible. He dallied, waiting, thinking Bet might take out a mobile and give him something meaty, but she stood, relaxed, that little smile on her face, and before long Hargreaves felt he should move on.
He came to rest some minutes later beside Peter Kerridge and Gladys Porter – Philip Marston and Marjorie Harcourt-Smith, he had been told. Bloody up-market name for a Jubilee Terrace actress, Hargreaves thought. Hargreaves’ patchy experience of the Terrace told him that the Kerridges and the Porters were the Terrace’s oldest families, backbone of the series, though sometimes shoved aside for a bit when the action shifted to the new, less central, characters. They embodied the fine traditions of the soap, or so publicity would have said.
Then Hargreaves said ‘Hold on’ to himself. He had remembered something. He had read about another of the actors, Vernon Something-or-other, and thought there had been some question about his death. At the time he’d thought that he might have seen him in the distant past, on one of those occasions when his parents took him to their working-men’s club in Bramley on a Saturday night.
‘He’ll want to go up the tower, to set up the next scene,’ said Philip Marston.
‘Oh yes. He’ll want to get it right,’ said Marjorie.
Hargreaves was alerted not by the words, but by the studied neutrality of the tones in which those words were said. Nothing that could be objected to, said in a manner which itself said nothing. He committed the words to memory, using techniques from a memory-improvement course he had taken years ago, before going on to the Advanced Computer and the How To Win Friends courses. Hargreaves always felt better for his courses, and was uneasy if for any reason he did not have one on the go.
‘It is the climax to the month’s episodes,’ said Kerridge. ‘And it’s difficult, with the child. He has to get it just so.’
‘Oh yes, that’s what I meant. He’ll probably do several takes, and take the best of each one.’
‘Rather them than me,’ said Kerridge. ‘I’m glad to be just a face in the crowd.’
Hargreaves tried to see if they had their eyes on anybody. It was quite obvious that they didn’t. In the darkness of the churchyard their eyes shifted from person to person as the conversation went on. Then Hargreaves changed tack. He tried to note who in the little crowd round the base of the church tower the two actors didn’t look at. That would be the natural equivalent to the studied neutrality of their words and voices. He soon realised that the person they did not look at was just the one they would have been expected to be most aware of.
They never looked at Reggie Friedman.
Reggie was wearing heavy black glasses, a chunky brown pullover and weathered jeans. He was going here and there in the knot of people closest to – but not very close to – the church itself. The fans and ordinary people who had been hauled in to make up the numbers were given the more obscure placings; the characters who had words to speak, important reactions to be filmed, were moved to within the scope of the street lighting. When he had everyone and everything to his liking he turned and strode theatrically towards the church.
‘There he goes,’ said Marjorie, but in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper. Hargreaves looked around. Charlie was wandering through the crowd, noticing everything but talking to nobody beyond a nod or a good evening. He obviously was keeping his eye on his sergeant, and the next time their eyes met Hargreaves jerked his head in the direction of the deserted part of the churchyard.
‘Quick,’ said Charlie when they met up. ‘I want to see what’s going on up that tower.’
‘So you should,’ said Hargreaves, ‘but I doubt you’ll be able to. The studio’s heavies are keeping everyone this side of it.’
‘So I’ve noticed. I thought of saying “Police” and flashing ID but that would make me more conspicuous than I want to be. Why did you say I should be watching the towe
r?’
‘This Kerridge man and the Porter woman—’
‘I’ve noticed you listening in to them.’
‘—they’ve been talking about Friedman, how he will be sure to go up the tower, and so on. They’ve been saying it in voices so totally drained of meaning or individuality that it seemed suspicious in itself. Do you get me?’
‘I think so. Gossip and innuendo, but sounding like a speaking clock.’
‘Less informative than a speaking clock. I’ll give you the details later. See you after the filming.’
Charlie was surprised at Hargreaves’ enthusiasm for the job. He had only ever known him get excited about Leeds Rhinos and their Saturday results. Charlie looked around him. All the Jubilee cast members and the extras were looking fixedly at the east side of the church tower, the side nearest the street and the lichgate, a disconcerting appendage to the church thought up by its Victorian architect, R. Prentice Prendergast. The parapets on the other three sides of the tower were almost entirely invisible and tape and security guards kept the crowd to one side of the churchyard. Charlie sighed. To go and ask permission of the security guards to enter the forbidden area of the churchyard would make him the most looked-at man at ground level. He grimaced. Nothing to be done. Looking around he saw that Hargreaves was listening in to James Selcott, who was on his mobile. Charlie was willing to bet he was speaking to Susan Fyldes, who was on her mobile in the other corner of the churchyard.
Killings on Jubilee Terrace Page 15