Dead on Cue (18 page)

But all that would be dealt with, given time. The dead wood would be cut out, and new people brought in as replacements. He had already begun the process by grabbing Charlie Woodend when Scotland Yard no longer wanted him.

For a while, he had even contemplated moving Cloggin'-it Charlie into administration as his right-hand man, but in the end he had reluctantly come to the conclusion that Woodend would never learn to adapt to sitting behind a desk. Still, he was glad he had taken on his old colleague while he had the chance – because that meant there was at least one man working out in the field who he could have absolute confidence in.

The pain in his chest was getting worse. Dinnage rubbed it again, and wondered whether it was too soon to take another indigestion tablet. Would it do him any good, anyway? They never seemed to work on him half as well as they worked on the sufferers in the television commercials.

The tablets were at the other end of his desk, just beyond his reach. He stretched over for them, and then instinctively pulled back as a sharp pain travelled the length of his arm.

This was ridiculous, he told himself. He was not as young as he used to be, but he was certainly not yet at the stage where he should be suffering from an old man's aches and pains. He stretched out again, and the biological time bomb which had been ticking away in his chest finally exploded.

B
en Drabble and Paddy Colligan sat opposite each other at a table in the studio cafeteria. They were noted for being the first customers of the day, and that morning was no exception. What was exceptional, however, was that instead of their normal intense conversation, during which pages of script were shuffled back and forth across the table, the two writers seemed to be barely aware of each other's existence. In fact, both men seemed to be totally absorbed in their own little worlds.

Ben Drabble was thinking about his agent. The novel needed a few changes, the bloody man had blithely said the previous day.

A few changes!

And what did he mean by that? A sentence here, a paragraph there? No! The changes he wanted would necessitate a completely new plot – and possibly a new set of characters, as well!

If only his agent knew the mental anguish which had gone into writing the book. If only he could even
begin
to comprehend how, once it was finally completed, it seemed to its author to be etched in stone.

Drabble lit up a cigarette and inhaled what, in his present mood, tasted like dried camel dung.

What if his agent was right? he asked himself gloomily. What if the bloody man was only
half
-right? Wasn't it possible that Valerie Farnsworth's death, rather than being good publicity for the book, would merely expose it as flimsy and insubstantial when contrasted with a real crime?

How he wished that when he'd started writing
The Shooting Script
he'd chosen to make one of the actresses the victim, rather than the producer. But that wasn't how the idea had come to him! That wasn't how his muse had dictated the book should be written! And now that treacherous muse could well be the cause of his getting his legs broken by men working for his increasingly impatient bookmaker.

Paddy Colligan, for his part, was indulging himself in a sweeping review of his life so far. It was a far-from-optimistic exercise. Looking at it as objectively as he could, it seemed to him that while he had made a few wise decisions, there had also been a long string of foolish ones.

Despite being so poor he'd had to live off little more than bread and margarine in a rat-trap bed-sit in the worst part of Dublin, he had dedicated himself to writing his play,
Troubled Times in the Old Country,
and had eventually finished it.

A wise decision.

He had taken the play to a small theatre company, and persuaded the manager to produce it.

A
very
wise decision.

Waiting for the reviews, he had been hoping that they would hail him as the new Brendan Behan, and when they had been merely
encouraging
, he had seen it as a crushing blow.

Foolish.

He had taken the job as a scriptwriter on
Maddox Row
.

Downright bloody stupid.

And he had stuck with the job, even when it had become clear to him that as long as characters like Jack Taylor and Madge Thornycroft filled his head, he would never write another word which was really worth a damn.

Cowardly!

But it was not just his professional and artistic life he'd buggered up, he reminded himself.

With eyes wide open, he had walked into the most obvious of emotional traps, and now, though escape should have been the easiest thing in the world, he seemed unable – or unwilling – to break free.

‘Mind if I join you, lads?' asked an intrusive voice from the wider world beyond the two men's own miseries.

The two scriptwriters looked up. Larry Coates, a mug of tea in his hand, was standing over them and smiling benignly.

The lack of an immediate response caused Coates's smile to fade a little. ‘If I'm interrupting anything important, you've only got to tip me the wink and I'll go elsewhere,' he said.

‘No . . . please, take a seat,' Paddy Colligan said, suddenly realising how his and Drabble's self-absorption might be interpreted as just plain rudeness. ‘Sorry if we seemed out of it. We were both thinking about the script.'

‘Ah, the script!' Coates said, sitting down. ‘That sacred book which rules all our lives.'

He's taking the reversals in his fortunes very well, Paddy Colligan thought. Why can't I be like that?

‘So what treats have you got in store for Jack Taylor, the Laughing Postman?' Coates asked, offering the two scriptwriters a cigarette. ‘Any chance of him falling down a manhole and breaking his neck?'

Paddy Colligan shook his head regretfully. ‘Jack's going to lead a charmed life, at least for the foreseeable future,' he said.

Coates sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose he is.'

‘You must be bitterly disappointed about not going to Hollywood,' Paddy Colligan said sympathetically.

‘I
was
,' Coates said.

‘But not any more?'

‘It comes and goes,' Coates admitted. ‘It's true that I'll probably never get such a big chance again, but while there's life there's hope. And so what if I have to stay on this show until I'm old enough to draw my pension? It's steady work, and at least it pays the mortgage.'

That's what they'll be putting on my tombstone, Paddy Colligan thought.
He did steady work and paid the mortgage
.

‘Besides, there are other compensations to working on
Madro
,' Larry Coates said.

‘Like what?' Paddy Colligan asked, with the sudden desperate air of a man clutching for a lifeline.

‘We bring a great deal of pleasure into a lot of people's lives,' Larry Coates told him.

‘Oh, that old chestnut!' Paddy Colligan said dismissively.

‘The fact that it's almost a cliché doesn't make it any less true,' Larry Coates countered, with a hint of reproach in his voice. ‘You only see the viewing figures, but
I
see the viewers. I've lost count of the number of times that some old dear has come up to me in a shop to say how much she enjoys the show. I wouldn't get that if I was in films, and I'd miss it – because however many times it happens, it always gives me a warm glow inside. So, by and large, I'm not
too
unhappy about staying on the show. When all's said and done, there are far
worse
places than Maddox Row, you know.'

Are there? Paddy Colligan asked himself. Are there really?

That's easy for Larry to say, Ben Drabble thought. He's stuck here now, so he's got to make the best of it. But I don't have to stay. If I'd got the guts do something about it, my book could take
me
away from all this.

T
he studio day was in full swing, and central concourse was as busy as any small town high street. But how many of those busy people would have noticed him turning down the alley which led to the front of the actors' dressing rooms? Woodend wondered. And of those who did notice him, how many would actually remember it later? Probably none at all!

That may well have been the murderer's calculation, too, when, two nights earlier, he made his way down the alley with a large electrical screwdriver concealed on his person. Or perhaps he didn't need to make that journey at all. Perhaps all he had to do to kill Valerie Farnsworth was step out of his dressing room and into hers!

He came to a halt at the dead woman's door. Larry Coates's dressing room was to the right of it, George Adams' to the left. He stepped to the side, raised his fist, and knocked on Adams's door.

‘It's not locked,' called a voice.

Woodend turned the handle and stepped inside.

George Adams was sitting on his couch, a large cigar in his mouth. When Woodend had seen Larry Coates for the first time, he'd immediately thought of him as the Laughing Postman, but there was no such confusion in his mind about Adams and the character
he
played on the screen, because without his make-up the man bore no more than a passing resemblance to Sam Fuller, the crotchety old-age pensioner of
Maddox Row
.

Adams puffed on his cigar, and blew a smoke ring up at the ceiling. ‘What do
you
want?' he demanded.

‘I've had warmer welcomes in my time,' Woodend replied.

‘Then they probably came from people who've got more time for rozzers than I have,' Adams said.

‘Got something against the police, have you?' Woodend asked.

Adams gave him an officious smile. ‘No,' he said. ‘It's usually them that have got something against me.'

Woodend was starting to feel on familiar ground. ‘Let me guess,' he said. ‘You've been inside.'

Adams nodded. ‘In my youth I was a guest at one of His Majesty's secure institutions for a couple of years.'

‘What were you in for? Robbery?'

Adams looked offended. ‘Of course not! Nothing so illegal! I merely hit someone who deserved it rather harder than I'd intended to. And let me tell you, by the time I came to trial I had a few bruises of my own, which your fellow so-called
police officers
had inflicted on me while I was in the cells.'

‘So now you don't like bobbies,' Woodend said.

‘So now I don't like bobbies,' Adams agreed.

‘But you wouldn't mind answerin' a few questions, would you?'

Adams shrugged. ‘I can see no objection to that – as long as it doesn't start to bore me.'

‘Where were you at the time Valerie Farnsworth was murdered?'

‘I certainly wasn't in her dressing room with a screwdriver in my hand, if that's what you're suggesting.'

‘I'm not suggestin' anythin',' Woodend said evenly. ‘All I'm doin' is askin' you a question.'

‘From six o'clock until fifteen minutes before the show went on air, I was here.'

‘An' you didn't hear any sound from next door?'

‘You mean, did I hear Val call out something like, “No, Jennifer, put that screwdriver down”?'

‘Well, did you?'

‘I'm afraid not. The walls are so well insulated that I didn't hear even a peep.'

Two can play the smart-arse game, Woodend decided, looking slowly and ostentatiously around the dressing room.

‘Seen enough?' Adams asked.

‘I must say, it's all very egalitarian,' Woodend mused.

‘Meaning?'

‘In Whitebridge Police Headquarters, you can pretty much tell how important somebody is from the size of his room.'

‘How fascinating,' Adams said sarcastically.

‘Aye, I thought you'd be interested,' Woodend said. ‘Take the chief constable's office as an example. You could throw a party in there. Whereas you'd be pushed to swing a cat in mine.'

‘So?'

‘It's not like that here. All the dressin' rooms are the same size, which seems to suggest that all the people who occupy them are of equal importance.'

‘And so they are.'

Woodend grinned. ‘Come off it, Mr Adams! You know that's crap. You're nowhere near as popular as Valerie Farnsworth was.'

Adams looked stung. ‘We have a very diverse audience, and different characters appeal to different viewers,' he said defensively.

‘As far as I can work out, Valerie Farnsworth appealed to all the men between the ages of thirty and sixty – an' a good proportion of the women as well,' Woodend said. ‘Who watches the show to see you? A few old-age pensioners?'

‘A
great many
old-age pensioners,' Adams said hotly. ‘And children, too. I'm everybody's favourite granddad.'

‘But you're not, are you?' Woodend asked.

‘Not what?'

‘Not a granddad. An' as far as I can tell, you're a long way from drawin' your pension yet.'

‘I'm forty-seven.'

‘So how did you get the job? Why didn't they give it to an old feller who wouldn't have needed much make-up?'

‘They did – originally. And he popped his clogs a week before they were due to broadcast the first episode. That's when Bill decided it would be safer to give the role to someone younger and healthier.'

‘Which is how you got your big break,' Woodend said. ‘Tell me about Valerie Farnsworth.'

Adams smiled again, as if he'd realised he'd lost control of the interview for a while, but was now firmly back in the driving seat again.

‘Why ask me?' he said. ‘Haven't you read her obituaries in all the newspapers?'

‘Yes, I have, as a matter of fact.'

‘Then you already know that not only was she a great actress, but also a very warm human being with a heart as big as a mountain.'