Situation Tragedy (15 page)

There was no one Charles Paris recognised at the inquest, so he left little the wiser. The death could just have been an accident. On the other hand, if the potential murderer were someone Rod Tisdale knew, the murder would have been fairly easy to set up. He had only to ring the writer, fix a meeting-place which would involve his crossing the road, and sit and wait for him to come out.

So, just another death, and apparently an accidental one. Every attempt at a pattern Charles started was soon frustrated. He had been on very promising lines with Bernard Walton cast as villain, but that approach had been mined by the latest incident. Rod Tisdale's death would do nothing to halt the progress of
The Strutters,
and was, on the contrary, a positive loss to Bernard, who had looked to the writer to come up with a new star vehicle for him.

So, even if Bernard Walton hadn't got the one alibi Charles could never crack, his motivation was gone, and, with it, fantasies of the star bringing in hired killers to do his dirty deeds.

Charles tried to contact Bernard a few days later with a view to checking a few facts about Scott Newton's death, but the housekeeper said Mr Walton had gone for a month's holiday to his villa in Sardinia. Since this was supported the next day by a photograph of the star beaming farewells at Heathrow Airport, there was no reason to disbelieve it. (Charles's first cynical reaction to the news had been that Bernard's Publicity Manager had packed him off to Sardinia in the hope that a well timed kidnap might bring his client back to public attention.)

So, if any further accidents hit
The Strutters
team during the next month, it was pretty unlikely that Bernard Walton had anything to do with them.

But for the next couple of weeks there was no sign of any sort of accident. Charles began to think that the first three must after all be just unfortunate coincidences.

All that happened was that
The Strutters
continued to be made, and that was quite a tiring process for all concerned. The basic pattern for the first burst of the series had been for Tuesday evening recordings, with a read-through for the next episode the following morning. Six weeks of this was already a heavy schedule, but the need to fit in extra filming days to replace those lost after Scott's death made it very heavy indeed. Saturday rehearsals crept in, then Sunday ones. Even Charles, on whom the demands of fourteen lines and two moves a week were not onerous, began to get tired. The strain on the principals must have been enormous.

George Birkitt reacted by occasional bouts of temperament. He was not used to learning so many lines every week and was often still to be seen with script in hand at the Dress Run on recording day. He got very cross when the poor little Assistant Stage Manager charged with the task prompted him, and kept complaining that he found the lines difficult to remember because they were so badly written.

Aurelia Howarth, on the other hand, always knew her lines after a couple of days and generally showed professionalism and stamina which would have been remarkable in an actress half her age. She still appeared very anxious, no doubt worried about Cocky's health, but did not let this interfere with her work. She lived up to the theatrical standard of a ‘trouper' and, by contrast, showed up George Birkitt's relative immaturity.

In spite of her worn looks, she did not seem to have lost any of her enthusiasm for the business. Indeed, a couple of days after Rod Tisdale's death, Charles was amused to hear her asking Peter Lipscombe whether he'd yet read the books she'd lent him. She was sure there was series potential there.

Peter apologised, promised they were next on his list, really. Charles had heard that from too many producers to take it too seriously. Though many television producers can read scripts, it's a very rare one who can manage a whole book.

So there didn't seem much prospect for Aurelia's idea. But Charles was impressed that at her age and in the middle of such a tight schedule she was still on the look-out for a new project.

With all the pressures, a kind of peace and community spirit came over the production. They all spent so much time together that they had to choose between constant arguments or conviviality and fortunately most opted for the latter. Even Charles began to see the advantages of television. It was almost like having a regular job.

The audience reaction to the recordings didn't change much, but everyone seemed quite happy about it, and Charles came to share the indifference to, or even contempt of audiences, which is common to most people who work in television. Bob Tomlinson was all set to come in with his electronic hilarity in the dubbing suite, so it hardly mattered what the people shovelled out of coaches into the studio seats thought of the show. The only function of their reaction was to tell the viewing audience at home where the jokes were intended to be.

Charles also got closer to Jay Lewis. The young PA seemed to have ended her relationship with Nick Coxhill and to be more or less available. She seemed to enjoy Charles's company and, though he got a little sick of the received wisdom of Phil Middleton and Ernie Franklyn Junior, news of the progress of VTR editing and the doings of Jay's flatmate who worked in Film Research, he enjoyed hers. She really was very pretty.

Sometimes Charles wondered if his continuing attraction to girls young enough to be his daughter arose from his incomplete relationship with his real daughter, Juliet. But, since it didn't change facts or get him anywhere, he never indulged such speculation for long.

He didn't make any move with Jay for the time being. They were working too closely together for him to risk a rebuff or any awkwardness. But he made his interest clear, and planned in a vague way for some sort of advance just before the break in recording sequence in mid-July.

Thoughts of crime receded. When he spoke to Gerald Venables after one of the recordings, he said he'd decided there was nothing to be investigated, except for a sequence of coincidences. The only thing that had ever made him think differently was the words of Sadie which he had overheard. And there was no chance of finding out any more about them.

After the recording before the overnight filming, the usual group of cast (including Toby Root, who'd played the part of Colonel Strutter's friend) and camp followers (very camp, in some cases) gathered in the bar for a quick drink, because the week ahead was busy. Read-through the following morning and rehearsal all day. Then, because of Union regulations covering the Thursday night's shoot, no rehearsal on the Thursday or Friday. Pick up again Saturday morning, rehearse Sunday, somehow be ready for the Crew Run Monday at noon, and into the studio on the Tuesday. It wasn't long to get a half-hour of television together.

With this in mind, neither Dame Aurelia Howarth nor George Birkitt went up for a drink. Both no doubt (though the latter would never admit it) had gone back to do a bit of work on the week's lines.

The absence of his idol left Aurelia's Number One Fan at something of a loose end. Since his first contested appearance, Romney Kirkstall had come to every recording and hung around on the fringe of Aurelia's circle in the bar afterwards. He never had a drink, neither buying for himself nor accepting anyone else's offer.

He looked so helpless that once he had got a large Bell's (very skilfully bought by Peter Lipscombe), Charles went across to him.

‘Dob not coming up?' asked Romney Kirkstall anxiously.

‘Don't think so. Busy schedule this week. I expect she's gone back to catch up on some sleep.'

‘Oh dear.' The little man looked very upset. The focus of his whole week had been removed.

‘I'm sure she'll come up for a drink next time,' Charles comforted. ‘It's just that we've got an overnight shoot on Thursday, so it's a tight week.'

Romney Kirkstall still looked distraught. ‘I wanted to see her. I've got a book I wanted her to autograph.'

‘Oh. Well, next week.'

‘I suppose so,' Romney Kirkstall conceded dismally. ‘I was so excited to find it, though. It's a biography of Dab that I've been looking for for ages. Found it on a barrow outside a second-hand bookshop in Putney.'

‘Oh, really.'

‘It's very rare, you know. Called
I Dream of Dancing.
You know, after the song.'

‘Oh yes. I've heard of it.' It was difficult not to have done. The song had been a big hit in a revue in the early Thirties and had virtually become Aurelia Howarth's signature tune.

‘Oh, I did want to get her signature today.' Romney Kirkstall still sounded desolated.

‘You'll get it in a week.'

‘Anything can happen in a week.'

Charles looked up sharply, his dormant detective instinct aroused. But no, there was no threat in Romney Kirkstall's words. He was a little man with an obsession, but that obsession wasn't murder.

Charles thought perhaps showing an interest would cheer him up, so asked Romney if he might look at the book.

It was the right question. There was a scurry into the duffle bag and the precious trophy was presented to him.

The book was a battered little blue volume. Presumably it had had a decorative dust jacket, but that was long gone. Charles turned instinctively to the date of publication – 1940. It was not surprising that Romney Kirkstall had had difficulty in finding it. Most books vanish pretty quickly, but show business biographies must be the most quickly dated and evanescent forms of literature.

The name of the book's author was Max de Pouray, which meant nothing to Charles. He glanced at the text as he flicked through and recognised the breathless sycophancy of the genre.

There was a lot more in similar vein, but Charles found the photographs more interesting. They were brownish, and many had the posed quality of publicity stills. What they revealed most forcibly was Aurelia Howarth's natural beauty. At fifteen, while she was a humble member of the chorus, she already had a remarkable purity of line and, maturing through the photographs, she retained the softness of youth. In spite of the vagaries of hair-styling and the ridiculous nature of some of her revue costumes, her quality shone through. And the soft studio lighting of the period gave her outline that blurred indistinction which she somehow still retained.

There were a few less posed shots, though they still looked pretty formal. Over dinner at the Café Royal. In a deck chair on a transatlantic liner. Relaxing on the beach at Nice with a handsome young man . . . It was with shock that Charles realised that her escort must be her husband. A photograph of their wedding confirmed it.

It was hard to imagine from the grinning skeleton he now was that Barton Rivers had once been such a dashing figure. With his body fleshed out and a thick crop of dark hair sleeked back on his head, he looked very much the matinée idol.

But the photographs did not offer much evidence of his career. After all, the book's subject was Aurelia, and it seemed that they had rarely worked together. There was one shot of them with two other couples dancing in front of a backdrop of a desert island. The caption read
‘In the Palm of My Hand with a Palm Overhead
from
Careless Feet.'
And there was a picture of the pair sitting in a Bentley over the legend, ‘Husband and Wife – from
Death Takes A Short Cut.'
The photograph looked like a film still.

What was remarkable about it was that they looked so familiar. The photograph was only a half-page and the whole of the Bentley was in shot, so it was difficult to see much detail of their faces. Aurelia wore one of her floating gowns, and a hat tied on with a scarf. Barton wore a blazer and cravat, and his hair was obscured by a large white flat cap. The car, which must have been a lot newer when the photograph was taken, was identical to the one they now drove around in.

In fact, to the casual eye, the photograph could have been taken a few weeks before, when the couple drove away from Bernard Walton's house after the day's filming.

‘Do you know anything about this film?' Charles asked.

Romney Kirkstall shook his head. ‘Never heard of it. But then I've always concentrated on Dab's theatrical work. That is, until she stopped doing theatre and started television.'

Charles looked again at the photograph, but was aware of Romney Kirkstall's hands reaching out for the book. ‘If you don't mind . . .'

There was a note of paranoia in the little man's voice, as if he were genuinely afraid Charles was going to appropriate his prize.

‘Okay, thank you very much for letting me look at it.' He handed the book back and, without another word, Romney Kirkstall stuffed it into his duffle bag and scuttled off.

Jay Lewis was chattering to some other young PAs. She turned round angrily when he ran a finger down her spine, but softened when she saw who it was. Which was nice.

‘Hello, Charles.'

‘Hi. I wondered if you fancied coming out for a meal.'

‘Now?'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘I've just fixed to go and eat with Dinky and Lucretia.' She indicated the other girls. ‘You could come with us, I suppose.'

‘Not really what I had in mind.'

She grinned a grin that suggested she knew what he did have in mind. And didn't object too much.

‘Another time, maybe,' he proposed.

‘Hock – A.'

‘And do you think your flatmate in Film Research could find out something for me?'