The Dead Side of the Mike

by Simon Brett

  And what was the past that needed to be hidden? Fat Otto had spoken of some financial scandal which had led to the disappearance of both Klinger and Fergus from their radio station. Nothing was proved, but they were both reckoned to have had their hands in the till. So they were joined by crime.

  Charles’s mind raced on. Suppose the two had parted after that, lost touch, then remet in London, where Klinger found Fergus doing very nicely thank you in his new identity. Successful agent in one of London’s biggest agencies. What would be more in character than for Klinger to apply a little pressure, to work out an ingenious system of payment for his silence about past misdemeanours? Oakley, with his contacts in the BBC, could provide tapes of music sessions in exchange for Klinger’s silence. That at last would explain the elaborate system of clues and hiding of the tapes. They needed the secrecy and reverted to the code they had used in their radio-station days.

  And the relationship could have stayed balanced like that indefinitely . . . if Andrea Gower hadn’t had such a trained musical ear. She started the investigation which was to put paid to the Musimotive operation. Klinger heard about the arrival of the police from Fat Otto while he was in London, contacted Oakley and maybe suggested that the blackmail payments should be made some other way. His demands were too high, so Oakley decided he was too much of a threat and would have to be eliminated.

  Then he heard of another danger. His client Dave Sheridan mentioned a story which Andrea Gower had told him during a music session on the afternoon of her return from New York. It was about an elaborate musical fraud and, as Sheridan unfolded it, Oakley realised that Klinger was not the only threat to his safety. The girl had to go too.

  He had tried to mop up both threats on the same night, Andrea directly and Klinger indirectly. He would have done it too, if Klinger’s radio hadn’t cut out when his car got delayed under a road bridge on the M23. So he had to try again. The second time he succeeded.

  Charles tried to slow his brain down. It was all too fast, too manic.

  And yet he couldn’t help being excited by it. If Klinger’s contact in England were his old friend Mike Fergus under a new identity, the whole case made sense in a way it hadn’t begun to previously.

  And he was going to see Michael Oakley that evening in the Dave Sheridan Late Night Show studio.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE SHOWBIZ QUIZ was what its name implied, a quiz about showbiz. (There was a fad at that time in the Light Entertainment Department for descriptive rather than wacky titles.) A jovial personality chairman posed questions about famous showbiz personalities to a panel of famous showbiz personalities (or less famous showbiz personalities or whoever happened to be available and didn’t think the fee for recording two shows in three hours too derisory).

  The questions were devised by a senior Light Entertainment producer, who made a tidy packet from payments called Staff Contributions for this work. At one stage there had been grumblings that he was doing rather too well out of this little racket, so the Head of Light Entertainment had clamped down and controlled him by putting another producer in charge of the show. Since the other producer was the young, nervous and amiable Nick Monckton, the older producer was even better placed. He still got paid as much for devising the questions, he still had artistic control (because Nick was too deferential to his experience to argue), and he was relieved of the tedious responsibility of actually producing the show.

  Most of the questions were merely pegs for anecdotes. (‘Tell me, Arthur, do you recognise this voice?’ ‘Why, yes, it’s Robb Wilton.’ AUDIENCE APPLAUSE. ‘Tell me, did you ever work with Robb Wilton?’ ‘Well, as a matter of fact I did. I remember a show we did for the Forces in . . .’ INTO LONG, TEDIOUS ANECDOTE ENDING IN MORE AUDIENCE APPLAUSE, AND ON TO THE NEXT RIGGED QUESTION.) However, there were some rounds where the answers required actual knowledge, and it was for these that Charles had been booked as Mystery Voice. His presence was the one innovation which Nick Monckton had managed to graft on to the established show. The young producer felt that these rounds would gain extra piquancy if the audience knew the correct answers while the panellists groped towards them. The older producer did not see any way in which this departure could affect the amount he was paid for devising the questions and so raised no objection.

  Nick Monckton appeared more relaxed on this programme than he had on Dad’s the Word, perhaps because The Showbiz Quiz had been going for so long that it ran itself. And also because the team were semi-regulars whom he knew and wasn’t afraid of.

  Rehearsal was simply a matter of arranging the order of the cued anecdotes and working out some ad libs, before adjourning to the pub for a good few drinks to ensure that they sounded spontaneous. All Charles had to do was to say a few words into his microphone so that the Studio Manager could adjust his level. Being a Mystery Voice, he did not appear on the stage in front of the audience. He was tucked away in the Narrator’s Cubicle, where the first read-through of Dad’s the Word had been held. This had distinct advantages. First, he could think without the distraction of listening to comedians trying to be funny, and, second, there was a telephone there.

  His mind was still racing. New details fell into place.

  Oakley’s keen interest in his client’s work, so rare in an agent, was suddenly explained. He needed always to be hanging round the BBC, getting to know the personnel, so that he could maintain the supply of pirate tapes. And he needed to hang around Sheridan to influence his programme’s running orders when necessary.

  Keith must have been the source of the tapes. Charles thought back to their conversation of the afternoon, when the SM had virtually admitted to illicit copying. If Keith could be persuaded to admit his part in the crime, then Charles thought Oakley could be nailed. An arrest for pirating tapes would lead to an investigation, which would reveal the greater depths of his villainy. Charles wished he had had longer to talk to Keith. The flurry of concern which their arrival in the Surgery had prompted had made further conversation impossible.

  Still, it might be possible to make contact. It was quarter to seven. He rang through to Steve to get Keith’s home number.

  She sounded glad to hear from him, which in itself was flattering, and even disappointed when she heard his request. Maybe she had hoped that he was going to suggest a meeting. He almost did, but held back. Get the case solved first. Anyway, he wouldn’t lose anything by delay. Don’t push it, let it happen naturally. To him who waits . . .

  There was no reply from Keith’s number. Perhaps his injury had landed him in hospital. Oh well, try again later. In the meantime, round to The Captain’s Cabin with the facetious panellists of The Showbiz Quiz for a few preparatory drinks . . .

  They were into the recording for the second show before Charles got through to Keith. He had been ringing the number at five-minute intervals since their return from the pub, every now and then breaking off on the orders of a green cue-light to intone some new revelation from the Mystery Voice.

  It was a good time when he did finally get through. He had just given some answers and had a long break while the panellists went through their tired saga of Noel Coward anecdotes. His next cue was to give the answers in a ‘What are the Names by which These People are Better Known?’ round, which wasn’t going to tax his intellect too much.

  Keith sounded weak, but there was a more positive note in his voice than Charles had ever heard. The petulant scorn had been replaced by determination. After answering Charles’s enquiries about his well-being, number of stitches, etc., he said, ‘I’ve been thinking a lot, putting two and two together. I’m glad you called, because you can explain a few things to me. From what you were saying, I gather you think Oakley sabotaged that spool.’

  ‘Seems most likely.’

  ‘And also killed Andrea?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘The bastard.’ Keith’s voice was low and intense. ‘You’ve no idea what I’ve felt like since she died. Okay, it hadn’t worked out with us
, but there was still a lot there. And I’ve been blaming myself for her death, as if it was my fault. God, the bastard.’

  ‘Would you be prepared to help me get him convicted?’

  ‘I’d do anything.’

  ‘Even if it meant admitting your illicit tape-copying and moonlighting in studios in Berwick Street?’

  ‘Anything. Okay, I might get sacked, but I’ve been thinking of getting out into commercial recording anyway.’

  ‘Good. Well, listen, there are a few details you can help me out on and then we must decide how to proceed.’

  ‘Okay. Ask away.’

  ‘Right, first, a few things about that night down at Brassie’s. Oakley says you all left Broadcasting House straight after the show finished and came back as soon as Dave’s two-hour stint was over.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So did you see Oakley there all the time? Or did he go out at any point?’

  ‘Oh, he was out most of the time. I assumed he’d picked up some totty and was having it away with her in the car. He has rather a taste for young girls.’

  ‘Excellent. That gave him plenty of time to get to Klinger’s car and sort him out.’

  ‘He killed Danny Klinger too, did he?’

  ‘I think so.’

  The bastard,’ Keith hissed again. ‘God, I’d like to get my hands on him. Yes, I’ll admit anything I’ve done just to nail that swine. When are you going to see him?’

  ‘Tonight. He’s going to be along at the Dave Sheridan show and I said I might pop in.’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said Keith quickly.

  ‘But you can’t. Your arm . . .’

  ‘Sod that. It’s all right. Bandaged up, but I can manage. I was scheduled to do the show anyway. Alick’s been called in on stand-by, but I’ll give him a buzz and say I’m okay.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You bet. I want to see that bastard Oakley squirm. He nearly killed me. I should have realised he was up to something that night down at Brassie’s. He arrived back in the disco in the middle of the Non-Stop Smooch Session, looking as guilty as a dog that’s just shat on the carpet. I assumed he’d just been doing something disgusting to a little girl in the car park. Never thought he’d been committing a murder.’

  Charles was intrigued by the expression ‘Non-Stop Smooch Session’. He had wondered what it meant when he’d first heard it from Jude, the punk waitress down at Brassie’s. He asked Keith.

  ‘Oh, it’s rather a good idea. Dave always does it when he’s doing a late disco. Towards the end, when most of the kids have formed couples, he just does a long sequence of slow, sexy numbers, so they can dance real close, you know.’

  ‘And he chats away to them in his sexy voice?’

  ‘No, straight segue.’

  ‘What’s a segue?’

  ‘Record to record, no chat.’

  ‘So he just puts the discs on?’

  ‘Used to. But then he didn’t see the point in that, so he got me to make up a tape of a really good Smooch Session, which he uses all the time. Works a treat. And, what’s more, it gives him half an hour’s break in the middle of the session.’

  ‘Half an hour?’

  ‘Yes.’

  But Charles did not have time to evaluate the implications of this new information. The green light in the cubicle was flashing frenetically. Oh, shit, he thought, and quickly put on the headphones which gave him a feed of studio output.

  The chairman’s jovial voice came over, slightly less jovial than usual. ‘No, not yet, my friends, not yet. We appear to have something wrong with our Mystery Voice. Don’t know what, it’s a complete Mystery. AUDIENCE LAUGHTER. Still, I’ll try the question again. By what name is Reg Dwight better known? That’s Reg Dwight?’

  ‘Elton John,’ Charles read from his script sepulchrally. ‘Elton – John.’

  ‘Margaret Thatcher?’ suggested one of the panellists waggishly. Other, equally fatuous suggestions were put forward until, at a prearranged moment, someone got the right answer.

  ‘Right, the next one – by what name is Marion Morrison better known?’

  ‘John Wayne,’ read Charles. ‘John – Wayne.’

  ‘Raquel Welch,’ said one of the panellists and got the prescribed laugh.

  The panel squabbled round the answer in simulated confusion. Charles turned the page of his script and looked at the next question. For a moment he could hardly breathe.

  ‘Funny name for a feller, isn’t it – Marion? On to the next one. Be surprised if you get this one, though it’s someone you all know. He’s even been a guest on this programme. Right, by what name is Mike Fergus better known? That’s Mike Fergus.’

  ‘Dave Sheridan,’ gasped the Mystery Voice. ‘Dave – Sheridan.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DAVE SHERIDAN HAD quite an audience for his Late Night Show in the Basement Studio B15 that evening. Apart from the BBC personnel, his new producer Simon, his former producer Keith Nicholls (now relegated to Studio Manager), and two other SMs, his agent, Michael Oakley was there with a new vacuous dolly-bird. Also present were the actor Charles Paris (researching a feature on the disc jockey for Radio Three) with a solicitor friend, Gerald Venables.

  Dave Sheridan was unaffected by their presence. Long experience, stretching back to working for a small New York radio station in the Sixties, had made him into a deeply professional performer. He manipulated the disc jockey’s hardware of turntables and cartridge players with grace and skill, keeping up between the items continuous talk of great charm and warmth. It was small wonder that his career was doing so well, that he was increasingly in demand for personal appearances and that the television companies were beginning to realise his potential as a quiz-programme host.

  Apart from the larger gallery of watchers, the regular observer of the scene would have noticed nothing unusual about that evening. True, one of the Studio Managers looked pale and his right arm was bound round with a crepe bandage. The actor, Charles Paris, also looked rather strained. But these were details, there was nothing to suggest that this was not just one more programme in a successful sequence, and that there were many more such to come.

  Charles had talked further to Keith after the revelation of Sheridan’s earlier identity on The Showbiz Quiz. Not only had they been able to confirm certain details of how the three crimes had been perpetrated, but they had also worked out a plan of campaign to expose their perpetrator. Keith was determined to make his revelations about copying tapes at Sheridan’s request as soon as the time was right, but they thought their first approach should be a shock tactic, which might well precipitate a confession or crisis of some other sort.

  The ingredients in the Dave Sheridan Late Night Show, apart from the geniality of its host, were single and LP records, tapes, jingles on cartridge and occasional phone calls from listeners. These last focused particularly on a competition called Ten for a Tune, in which members of the public stood the chance of winning ten pounds if they could identify the title and the singer of a snatch of music which had been distorted and speeded up. The phone calls were routed into the studio by one of the Studio Managers.

  Charles stood in the adjacent editing channel. The glass between that and the studio was masked by a venetian blind, but through the slit he could see Dave Sheridan smiling into the microphone, wooing it, seducing it.

  For a moment he had a clear vision of Mrs Moxon sitting at home in her demented dignity, listening to the voice of her long-dead lover.

  Yes, it was a fine voice. As an actor, he should have analysed it before, broken it down into its components of Scots and American, should have realised that its owner must have spent a lot of time in the States and understood the clue. But he had been too intricately involved in details of half-truths and timetables to see the obvious. And the answer was in the voice all the time.

  ‘Well, right after the next piece of music, we’ll be playing our music game, “Ten for a Tune”, and tonight’s contestant, the card in f
ront of me tells me, is a Mr Kevin Piggott from Birmingham. Hang on just a few more moments, Mr Piggott, and we’ll see if we can win you ten pounds for identifying our mystery tune. But first, Bobbie Gentry says, rather disappointingly for us chaps, “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”. Aah . . .’

  The voice-over was perfectly timed and the vocal came in just after his ‘Aah . . .’ Dave Sheridan sat back and relaxed.

  The telephone beside Charles Paris rang, just as Keith had told him it would. He picked it up and said, ‘Hello,’ in the voice he had used for a production of The Caretaker in Cardiff (‘Take care to miss this’—South Wales Argus).

  ‘Ah, hello. Mr Piggott?’ asked Keith’s voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m calling from the BBC. The Dave Sheridan Late Night Show.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Piggott, properly impressed.

  ‘I believe one of our production secretaries rang you earlier in the day to ask if you’d like to take part in our Ten for a Tune competition.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. I sent in a card a few weeks back.’

  ‘Well, Mr Piggott, you’ll be talking to Dave Sheridan in about two minutes, just when this piece of music’s finished.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘If you’ve got your radio on, can I ask you to keep the volume down and keep it away from the telephone? Otherwise we can get technical problems.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. My wife’s listening in the next room.’

  ‘Good. Right, if you’d like to hang on for a minute, the next person you speak to will be Dave Sheridan.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Mr Piggott waited. The receiver in his hand was damp with sweat. Anyone looking at him would have thought that the prospect of winning ten pounds for identifying a piece of music meant a great deal to him.

  ‘Mmm, I love that one from Bobbie Gentry. Very sexy voice, I always think. Right, now it’s competition time. Yes, it’s. . . .’

  TEN FOR A TUNE JINGLE