Classic Calls the Shots (2 page)

Already I felt there was a touch of film noir about the situation, and I pressed ahead into the office, even more curious as to what I might be walking into. There were indeed two men there, and wearing my Philip Marlowe hat I quickly appraised the scene. Marlowe would have recognized it. Man sitting behind impressive and uncluttered antique desk, a man I recognized as Bill Wade from press photos. The other man was pacing up and down by the window and from the ‘Roger' I'd just heard, it wasn't rocket science to deduce that this was Roger Ford, co-owner and producer of
Dark Harvest.
I had done some speedy Internet homework before I left home.

Bill Wade was quite something. Give him a field cap and he could have passed for Field Marshal Montgomery, wiry, pent-up energy, fifties, lined face, and ready to shoot on sight, and not just film. Whoever Angie was, I'd back Bill in a fight. Probably. His chair partly swivelled round as Roger Ford, currently staring grimly out of the window, as in all the best office scenes, said:

‘He'll have to go, Bill.'

Time to introduce myself. ‘Jack Colby. Here about your Auburn, Mr Wade.'

Instant attention from both men, and Bill Wade's gimlet eyes focused entirely on me.

‘You've found it?' he barked at me.

‘Sorry, not yet. You asked to see me.'

‘We did.' It was Roger who answered. ‘We need that Auburn back and quick.'

Roger Ford's co-owner of Oxley Productions and Stour Studios was his wife, Maisie, who came from some multi-billion-pound manufacturing company in the States. Ford was a big man in all senses. He was about my height, six feet, but a lot bigger where the hamburgers lodge. He too must have been in his fifties, grey-haired and with that assured companionable look that comes with success. A look that in my experience can quickly change to steel when matters go awry. As now, it seemed. I addressed Montgomery, however. ‘I understood it was your personal car, Mr Wade?'

I knew it was. I'd seen articles about it. The car he'd owned for twenty years or so. A left-hand drive, one of the dozen or so hand-built 1935 Auburn Speedsters out of a total of just under a hundred styled by Gordon Buehrig. With its flamboyant body design and advanced technical specifications, this Auburn was truly a car for kings and film stars, among them Clark Gable. And his choice was Bill Wade's too. There were iconic photos of him driving around in it during the making of
Running Tides
ten or eleven years ago, in which he was often with the star with whom his name was ‘linked', as they say: Margot Croft, my Dad's pin-up.

‘Right,' Bill replied, eyes briskly gorging out my innermost secrets, ‘but it's appearing in the movie. Which is why it was here and not locked up at my place.' If Oxley Productions had been found wanting, there was no suggestion of that in his voice.

Dave had emailed me a briefing, so I now knew Bill Wade lived in Mayden Manor, which was buried in the countryside near Sissinghurst. The Auburn however had disappeared from the studios complex three days earlier during the night of the third to fourth of June. As Bill's eyes bored into me, I could see just why Dave had called me in. I braced myself.

‘What's your security like?' I asked.

‘Good,' Roger Ford leapt in quickly. ‘Magnetic pass needed to get in after ten. Anyone trying to get out of the gate without a pass brings the guards here in minutes. CCTV, which shows no sign of the car, security lights, no permanent guard between eleven p.m. and five forty-five a.m., but the grounds are patrolled every two hours. Nothing suspicious reported.'

Bill was pacing round the room like a leopard on the prowl, but he wasn't saying anything. I found that odd. If I'd had an Auburn pinched, and there was the slightest flaw in security, I'd have been screaming blue murder, but he wasn't. Even Roger Ford was relatively low key.

Dave had briefed me on the theft and security, but there's nothing like speaking to the horse's mouth for picking up any bad breath that might be around. ‘Garage then: forced locks? Any stolen passes reported?'

‘Neither,' Roger told me.

‘So our car chum had both a pass and access to the keys.'

Bill Wade stopped pacing and fixed me with a look that made me glad I wasn't on one of his sets. ‘A lot of people work here late, Jack.'

‘Do they sign in or out, regardless of whether there's a guard on duty?'

‘They're supposed to,' Roger growled, ‘but don't always bother.'

‘How many passes?'

‘Around a hundred and fifty,' Roger shot at me in defensive mode. ‘That's the permanent crew and staff. The cast and background – extras – sign for temporary ones. It's high at present. So double that.'

Great. ‘And the car keys?'

‘Master keys in the security booth. Locked,' Bill added drily, then came in for the quiet kill. ‘You're not some Poirot, Colby. Forget how and who. Just get that Auburn back by next Monday.'

Seven days? Just like that? I goggled at him, struggling for sanity. ‘You must know what you're asking.'

Roger Ford weighed in. ‘We do. We need it. It's too expensive to reshoot scenes we've already shot in London. What are the chances? Dave Jennings said you had contacts.'

‘I do, but not to produce stolen Auburns out of a hat. What about one of the new replicas?'

‘At Oxley we only use the real McCoy,' Bill snapped.

I bit back the words ‘let McCoy find one then' and asked, ‘Why's it so important? Cars are usually kept in the background in films.' Not if I had anything to do with it, of course, but then usually I'm not consulted.

‘Not for
Dark Harvest.
Believe me, if I could do without that car, I would. There's no way,' Roger said. ‘Agree with that, Bill?'

Bill studied me for a moment or two and must have decided I was worthy of his full attention, because he stopped playing Montgomery and became reasonably human.

‘One hundred per cent, I agree.' He sounded almost buddy to buddy. ‘I do stories, Jack. Film's the only medium that can show them the way I want: the
whole
story. That's why I've been in love with movies since I was a kid. In my films you don't just see
what
happens; you see
why
and
how
without even being consciously aware of it. But it's there all right and it comes over if I strike the right mood. We use sound and lighting to get that mood and I layer one story over another story. The Auburn's in the second story. Background if you like, but vital.
That's
why I need it back. It's part of the movie. See?'

I didn't, not completely anyway. What I could see was why Bill was a great director. He knew where he was going.

‘
Dark Harvest
is all about revenge, Jack. It lurks in the shadows,' Bill continued. ‘The movie's set in 1935, around the time of your George V's Silver Jubilee, a time when everything looked reasonably hunky dory for Britain. Right?'

‘Yes.' I knew the Jubilee had been a rave success – rather unexpectedly so, even for the King himself.

‘It wasn't hunky dory. Waiting in the wings were Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Oswald Mosley, all gearing up for fascism and in Adolf's case revenge for Germany's humiliation over the 1918 Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles. Add to that mix, by May 1935 the Prince of Wales' affair with Wallace Simpson was well under way and he was beginning to cosy up to Germany. Ahead lay deep trouble. He became King, then abdicated, all within a year of his succession. So all seems jolly rejoicing in May 1935 but in fact the past is catching up and is ready to explode into the future. That's the second layer. Understand?'

Not hard. I could manage so far.

‘The cars are chosen for the second layer. Every time the audience sees one of them they're reminded of that. That's why we have a car adviser.'

Car adviser? Not Jack Colby, I noticed. Why didn't I ever get cushy jobs like that? ‘What part does the Auburn play?'

‘It's a bright new sleek American car, and it's seen with the formidable German Horch, Cabriolet Type 670, an Italian Fiat Tipo 508S, and the good old English Bentley, a 1933 Silent Sports Car. All reflecting the political situation.'

If Bill had set his mind to this weird theme, it was going to work. I was sure of that.

‘That's why we need that Auburn,' Bill continued. ‘Plus, as Roger says, we've shot several scenes with it. We already have a line on a replica but that doesn't interest me. Not one bit, Jack. We start filming on location next Monday with
my
Auburn.'

Director and producer aimed the full force of their considerable will at me, as if expecting me to produce it out of a hat. I only hoped I could. ‘Not much time, eh?' Roger said grudgingly.

‘No,' I agreed, poleaxed at this understatement.

‘You'll do it, Jack. Want to see the scene of the crime? I'll get Tom to give you the tour.' Bill's lined face cracked into a grin, but it wasn't meant for me. Nor was it meant to be jovial. ‘Keep him busy, eh, Roger?' He picked up his phone.

Whatever Dave had meant by his ‘something wrong somewhere', I agreed with it. For all Bill Wade's undoubted leadership skills, so far this didn't strike me as a happy company. There could be trouble in store. The term ‘film noir' might acquire a whole new meaning.

Tom proved to be the man I'd seen at reception. He seemed friendly enough, but abstracted, which was hardly surprising if, as seemed likely, his job was under threat. He introduced himself as Tom Hopkins, deputy assistant director. ‘And before you ask me what that means,' he added gloomily, ‘I'll tell you. Nothing. Assistant director is a big deal. Deputy doesn't exist in the deal stakes.'

‘Power without responsibility?' I quipped as we set off. I was still brooding about this car adviser, and wondering whom they had chosen.

‘Power?' He considered this. ‘You could say that,' he said at last, as we walked over to the garages where the Auburn had been stored. ‘You know what I was before I got this nothing job? Storyboarder. Now that's responsibility. Each one drawn by me after consultation with Bill.'

I knew about storyboards, the translation of a script into a series of artist's drawings to capture the proposed mood, continuity and action of the film and spot potential problems ahead. They are or were the great standby of the director and production designer. ‘Aren't they digitalized now?'

‘Can be, but not for Bill, they're not. We've worked together too long. He still uses film and hand-drawn storyboards. Trouble with computers is that they tell you something, but stop right there. No mood. My sketches fire Bill's imagination, and that's what he wants.'

‘So what went wrong with that job?'

‘Angie did. His blooming wife. You probably heard her in full force when you came in. So-called script supervisor, script editor and historical adviser. She's all for computers, got some kid wet behind the ears to rework
my
drawings.'

‘You're very frank.' Extraordinarily so, I thought. I hadn't exactly sought this confidence, even though it was another useful indication that all was far from well at Stour Studios. Bill might well only want me to get the Auburn back and no questions asked, but my success with that might well depend on what was going on right here.

‘Nothing to lose,' Tom replied. ‘Everyone feels the same about our Angie. She got me sacked as storyboarder, while we were shooting in London, on the grounds that she was script supervisor and Madam objected to the way I conveyed the mood. Too much emphasis on Louise Shaw's role, she said, which according to her threw the other relationships in the story out of kilter. I wouldn't change it, and she got me sacked.'

‘It sounds like something that should have been sorted out.'

‘Not when Madam falls out with Louise Shaw – the whole plot centres on her role. Besides, Bill was busy fighting with Madam over the time he was spending with Miss Shaw.'

Now that made sense. I like situations boiling down to straight human failings. I'd heard of Louise Shaw – who hadn't? – and she was a terrific actor. Is that why Angie disliked her? I wondered. Did she hanker after playing lead herself?

‘So what are you still doing here?' I asked.

‘Roger, Bill and I go back a long way, so they gave me a non-job to compensate. You'll see what it's like here. Shooting only began in Kent last week, after two weeks in London, but down here it seems different. We're cooped up together too much. We're at each other's throats, all of us, not just me and her. The chap playing Lord Charing, Brian Tegg, is fighting for his job too. Only one of his scenes has been shot as yet, and Madam didn't like it.'

‘Isn't it always like that on film sets?'

‘No,' he said simply. ‘There's a lot of real nastiness here, but we don't know where it's coming from. Now this garage you wanted to see.' He stopped at one of the red-brick buildings that had been converted into a garage. ‘Used to be the milking parlour, this lot,' he told me. ‘Now we milk the Fords.'

I dutifully managed a laugh and he chuckled. All good-natured fun, perhaps, but perhaps not. Perhaps he too was embroiled in the ‘real nastiness'.

The garage Tom led me to was the second last in a row of six, adjoining the canteen I'd already seen. They were obviously converted from stables, and at first glance they looked solid enough. Certainly the Auburn one was very firmly locked now with a large secure-looking padlock and security lights.

‘Bill said there were four classics. Are the other three cars here?' I asked.

‘Not yet. They arrive Monday.'

‘It seems a given that someone got access to the key left at the security booth,' I said as Tom struggled with the padlock.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. Could have gone out the other door. Here you are.' He flung the door open to reveal a now-empty garage.