The Dead Side of the Mike

by Simon Brett

‘Well, we still have to pay for it. We’ve recently done a survey on the amount of tape we actually used in the last year and, let me tell you, the findings are pretty shocking. Pretty shocking. Just on normal usage. I mean, setting aside the amount that gets spoiled and the still distressing amount which gets stolen, we –’

  Winkler came in again forcibly. ‘Look, I’m not concerned zat your staff are a bunch off crooks who keep valking off viz reels of tape –’

  ‘Now that’s not true! There have been very few cases where SMs have been found to be guilty of –’

  ‘Now, gentlemen, gentlemen,’ John Christie came in, trimming as ever, ‘don’t let’s lose sight of the main issues.’

  ‘But zis is vun off ze main issues. How can ye produce excellent features yen ye are hampered by incompetent studio staff?’

  ‘They are not incompetent! You won’t find a more highly trained group of –’

  ‘If they are so good, vy vas it zat my feature on Ze Metaphor off Similitude vas massacred in ze editing channel? Mein Gott, I could haf killed ze girl who did zat. Zat blonde girl, Andrea, I could haf killed her.’

  Everyone else in the room went cold, but Winkler was unaware of the implications of what he had said, and continued with his diatribe. Charles did a quick mental check. Yes, Winkler had arrived late for the meeting on the evening of Andrea’s death, so he could in theory have had time to murder her. Certainly he was mad enough to do anything to someone who didn’t share his view of ‘ze philosophy off audio’ and who threatened his precious programmes. On the other hand, it did seem pretty unlikely that this loony would set up such an elaborately disguised crime. Still, it was all food for thought.

  John Christie managed to defuse the argument between Winkler and Barron, but unfortunately surrendered the floor to Harry Bassett from Leeds. ‘I think it may be that I have a, as it were, solution to what can only be defined as the problem which we are, in a sense, talking about. It’s something that most of us – and I hope I’m not being ungallant to any of the weaker sex amongst us –’

  ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ seethed the girl with Shredded Wheat hair.

  ‘Pardon me, I’m sure.’ Bassett wiped his moustache. ‘As I say, it’s something many of us grew up on and something that we, out in what I hope are not the backwoods of regional broadcasting, are still not averse to the practice of. I refer, as those of you who have anticipated me will realise, to Live Broadcasting. We didn’t use so much tape back in the halcyon days when everything was, as it were, live. Just the broadcaster there was, with the old apple-and-biscuit microphone . . .’

  He droned on. Charles stifled a yawn. Not over the jet lag yet. His mind wandered.

  He came back to life when he heard his name mentioned. John Christie was looking at him. ‘Do you think that’s the sort of thing you’d be interested in doing, Charles?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it’d really be your scene,’ bubbled Nita Lawson enthusiastically. ‘I mean, with your experience of writing features and a subject like Dave Sheridan, I think it could really be a knockout.’

  ‘Er . . . yes.’

  ‘And you think it should be pitched at Radio Three, Nita?’

  ‘Yes, I do, John, quite definitely. I figure one of the big hassles in this media – and all the others – and one of the reasons why things like this whole features scene get so heavy is that there isn’t any cross-fertilisation between the different arts. I mean, particularly in music. Like I’m not saying the LSO and ELO are exactly the same, but they are in the same bag. I think we all gotta get less uptight about the differences between the arts and really get it together on the similarities. Radios One and Two are very big in the national culture and are going to be even bigger when twenty-four-hour broadcasting really gets away. And I think that for Radio Three heads to get into what Radio Two or Radio One heads dig has gotta be good news, hasn’t it? And I mean, Dave Sheridan is a really great guy. I mean, like the public have got this really wrong image of what disc jockeys are about. They seem to think they’re just mindless jerks who talk nonsense all the time. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Maybe they’ve listened to them,’ murmured Nick Monckton.

  ‘So I think a feature like this could really get everyone into the same groove, a bit of an eye-opener all round.’

  John Christie gave an Olympian smile. ‘Well, that’s terrific. Our first positive proposal for a feature, and I must say it sounds a most interesting one. The idea of a mix of cultures is exactly the sort of lateral thinking that a creative umbrella unit like the Features Action Committee should be coming up with. A programme about a Radio Two personality, written by someone with a background of writing poetry features and aimed at a Radio Three audience cannot fail to be a stimulating departure.’

  Or a total disaster, thought Charles. He saw Steve Kennett was looking at him. She smiled. He looked away.

  ‘Charles, Charles.’ She caught up with him as he hurried along the Sixth Floor corridor.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Don’t rush off like that, please. There’s something I’ve got to explain to you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. It struck me, after I left you last time, you must have thought I meant that Mark had spent the night with me.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you said.’

  ‘Yes, but what I meant was – yes, he did spend the night at my flat, but no, he didn’t spend the night with me. Do I make myself clear?’

  Charles felt the beginning of a warmth within him. ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘I would just hate you to have got the wrong impression.’

  It really seemed to concern her. The warmth grew. She continued, ‘I’ll explain. Do you fancy a drink?’

  ‘What, in the club?’

  ‘No, I’m sick of this place, been here all day. We can have one back at the flat. It’s on your way. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Charles positively glowed with warmth.

  ‘He is such a sod. He claimed he just wanted to come round to talk about Andrea, but of course he was trying to get into bed with me. I was meant to be all sympathetic and fall for his vulnerability and boyish charm. Well, I’m afraid the magic didn’t work.’

  ‘So he left in the small hours?’ Charles’s mind was making quick calculations. If Mark had left even at three o’clock, he would still in theory have had time to drive down to Woodcote, meet up with Klinger and . . .

  But that idea was soon quashed. ‘No, he was here all night. Gave me some pathetic line about being afraid to go back to his empty house, where he would just lie awake, haunted by the memory of Andrea. God, he was so spineless. So I let him spend the night in here. I think in his devious little mind he thought I might soften and come rushing in, begging him to honour my bed with his presence. Mark is one of those awful men who was told by someone – probably his mother – at a very early age that he was irresistibly attractive to women, and no amount of evidence to the contrary can shift that conviction.’ She added ruefully, ‘That seems to be the only sort of men I meet.’

  ‘Do I gather from your tone that there’s another of them on the scene at the moment?’

  ‘There was. A young man called Robin. Also convinced he’s God’s gift to the female race. Works in the Beeb, inevitably. News reporter – travels a lot. We were quite – what should I say? close? thick? – until a couple of months ago. But now I think I can finally say it is over. Yes, I am an unattached bachelor girl, footloose and fancy-free.’ There was more irony than insouciance in her words.

  ‘I see.’ Charles stored the information and tried to sound businesslike. ‘Anyway, it seems that Mark is ruled out of any connection with Klinger’s death.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘What about Andrea’s, though? Did you find out any more about his movements on the evening she died?’ he asked.

  ‘You mean, when he left the meeting for the booze?’ Charles nodded. ‘Yes. He told me that he did talk to her.’


  ‘You mean he went into the channel where she was working?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Charles sat up, nearly spilling his wine. ‘Good God. That changes everything, doesn’t it?’

  Steve sighed. ‘I don’t know whether it does really. Certainly not if you are still thinking it may have been murder. I mean, if he’d killed her and kept his visit to the channel a secret all this time, surely he wouldn’t tell me about it.’

  ‘I suppose not. Mind you, he has got a streak of exhibitionism in him.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Steve screwed up her face with dissatisfaction. ‘On the other hand, his seeing Andrea that evening does give support to the suicide theory.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We were looking for something that could have changed her mood from one of euphoria to self-destruction. I would imagine a visit from lover-boy, treading with his usual sensitivity, could have done the trick.’

  ‘Yes.’ Charles mused. ‘Oh, incidentally, you know our theory about Andrea having had an affair with Danny Klinger? I’m afraid that’s fallen apart too.’ And he filled her in on his visit to New York and conversation with Fat Otto.

  When he finished, there was a silence. Then Steve said, ‘It’s very odd. Everything now seems to point towards suicide in Andrea’s case and I think I’d accept that, but for one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The cassette. That’s the one piece that doesn’t fit. For a start, that Andrea, with her love of classical music, should possess such a thing. God, to think of the things she used to say about those terrible Radio Two music sessions she had to do, and yet the music on the cassette seems, to my untutored ear, to be virtually indistinguishable. Then one couples that with the fact that apparently something is rotten in the state of Musimotive, something bad enough to cause the normally ebullient Mr Klinger to kill himself. And she had Klinger’s name written on the cassette.’

  ‘And, we know from Fat Otto, she did actually put in an appearance at Musimotive.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But didn’t meet Klinger.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t suppose . . .’ Charles said slowly, ‘that she had found out what it was that was wrong at Musimotive. I’m thinking of all those strange things she said on the night of her death about investigative journalism, about the truth having to come out. Previously, I had only thought of that in relation to her telling Vinnie Lear about Mark’s infidelity, but really it’s much more likely that it referred to some major crime she had stumbled on. There seems strong evidence that something criminal was happening at Musimotive, and we know that she went there only a few days before her death. Isn’t the most likely thing that she had found out the details of Klinger’s dirty deeds and had to be silenced before she told anyone?’

  Steve Kennett’s huge eyes sparkled. ‘Yes, now that does make sense. I mean, it’s quite possible that she passed on whatever she knew to the New York cops and that is why the company was raided and closed down.’

  ‘So the damage was done. In that case, why should anyone bother to silence her?’

  ‘Klinger was so furious that he killed her out of revenge for ruining his operation . . .?’ She didn’t sound very convinced.

  ‘Hmm. And then a few days later killed himself? Out of remorse for having killed her?’ Back to bloody remorse. ‘I don’t like cases where the murderer kills himself. They are unsatisfying. You can’t prove anything.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On the other hand, it is the most likely solution we’ve come up with so far. Andrea shops Klinger, he kills her, then kills himself out of guilt – or because his business has fallen apart. Open and shut case. Dull, though. I don’t like it. Let’s pretend we haven’t thought of it. Let’s concentrate on someone else. Back to Mark – how about that?’ he suggested randomly. ‘Mark at least saw her on the night of her death. Did he tell you what he said to her?’

  ‘According to him, he just went into the channel because he was passing – though going down to the Fifth Floor is a strange route from John Christie’s office to the club. Anyway, he says he just offered to get her a coffee. They got talking, he got the strong impression that she no longer wanted anything to do with him, and left.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘Mind you, that’s a translation of what he actually said. It didn’t come out in those words. I had to read between the lines of his ego. He presented the case as that of the poor misunderstood lover trying to explain himself to the woman who had so capriciously rejected him. And of course he was also angling everything so that I should take pity on him and offer half my bed. He has an extremely devious mind, your friend.’

  ‘I don’t know him that well,’ Charles offered in conciliation. ‘Tell me, did Andrea accept the offer of a cup of coffee from Mark?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘There was a cup of coffee in the channel. It contained traces of Mogadon. An unscrupulous person, who wanted her too dopey to object to the idea of committing suicide – or at least appearing to commit suicide – could easily bring her the coffee with the Mogadon already crumbled into it.’

  Steve nodded in admiration. ‘Yes, I like that. But I’m afraid the answer’s no. Andrea refused Mark’s offer of coffee – at least according to him. She already had one.’

  ‘Which someone else could have supplied.’

  ‘Yes. Or which she could have got herself.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘At that time of night, either from the Eighth Floor canteen or one of the machines.’

  ‘Coffee from machines doesn’t come in those polystyrene cups, does it?’

  ‘No, that’s true. It comes in thin white plastic.’

  ‘So the coffee came from the canteen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would she have had time to get it herself before she started recording the football?’

  ‘Depends when she left the club. I talked to some of the people she was with, actually, and they said she had to rush off to get to the channel in time.’

  ‘And she wouldn’t have gone to the canteen once the match had started?’

  ‘Not Andrea. She was meant to be there monitoring the recording to see that nothing went wrong. She may have complained a lot about the job being boring, but she was very conscientious.’

  Charles smiled. ‘So it looks as if we may have found out something new. Someone did bring a cup of coffee to her in the channel.’

  ‘And that person could have been the murderer.’

  ‘Could have been. If it’s a murderer we’re after.’

  ‘Klinger?’

  ‘I suppose that’s the most obvious solution, but it does mean Klinger must have done his homework very well. To know that that was where she would be, to know where to get coffee in Broadcasting House, even to get inside the building at that time of night . . . I don’t know, it strains my credulity.’

  Steve shrugged. ‘He’s the only one we know with a Musimotive connection.’

  ‘Yes. I just wish there was someone else, someone inside the BBC – that’d make so much more sense. Is there nobody else in the Features Action lot who has any connection with New York?’

  ‘Possibly. I’ve been there and I dare say a lot of the others have, but that’s not what you’d call a connection.’

  ‘No.’ He grimaced. ‘Why did Andrea go?’

  ‘To New York? For a holiday . . . To get away from Mark . . . To assert herself.’

  ‘What do you mean – assert herself?’

  ‘Well, to show she could do things on her own, that she was independent. I think she went particularly because Keith had gone.’

  ‘Her discontented husband?’

  ‘Yes, he went over some time last year, and I think she wanted to prove she was quite as capable of doing it as he was. They were terribly competitive, even after they split up – I think in Andrea’s case, especially after they split up. She wanted to prove not only that she
wasn’t dependent on him emotionally, but also that she could do just as well as he could in her career. I think that professional jealousy was as much a reason why they split up as his infidelities. It was okay when they were both on the same level as SMs, but when he got his attachment and became Kelly Nicholls the Producer, she really felt she had to do something to assert herself.’

  ‘I thought his name was Keith.’

  ‘Oh yes, when he was an SM. But he didn’t think that sounded impressive enough for a producer. So he started to call himself Kelly.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘KELLY?’ CHARLES REPEATED the name, but did not explain what it meant to him. Previous cases had suggested that one could be too lavish with murder allegations.

  ‘Yes,’ said Steve. ‘A lot of people get dissatisfied with their names when they know they are going to be broadcast at the end of programmes.’

  ‘To the listening millions.’

  ‘Oh, come on, this is radio. To the listening thousands. Yes, you find a lot of people sprouting middle initials and hyphens and second barrels. Or, like Keith, having complete name-transplants.’

  ‘Hmm. One of the oldest forms of cosmetic surgery. Favoured by the immigrant, the social climber and the criminal.’ Steve smiled and poured him some more wine as he continued, ‘Tell me, what’s Keith like? I’ve only met him once.’

  She grimaced with the effort of encapsulating his character. ‘Well . . . he seems to think the world owes him a living, that what he is doing is beneath him.’

  ‘Is that true only of his current job or of whatever he’s doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I sometimes think it’s everything. Even sex. I think he feels all the little girls he screws so avidly are beneath him in more senses than one.’

  Charles grinned. ‘Tell me, has Keith, or Kelly, ever been in any trouble?’

  ‘Trouble? How do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. Financial trouble, trouble with the law, trouble with BBC Management . . .’

  ‘Hmm. He hasn’t always been universally popular within the Beeb. He can be very bloody-minded when he wants to be.’

  ‘I can imagine it.’