Simon Brett - Situation Tragedy

Charles shrugged. ‘I’m an actor.’

‘Yes, of course, so you know all about it. But at least you’ve had practice. I find it’s a bit late in life for me to learn how to cope with it.’

‘But Sadie,’ Charles insisted mildly, ‘couldn’t help?’

‘Wouldn’t help certainly. Probably couldn’t either.’ He looked very doleful. ‘Oh, she was probably right.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That I was past it. Past everything, she said. Certainly washed up as a television producer.’

‘Oh, come on. You did some terrific stuff in the past.’

‘In the past, yes. And what have I got to show for it? A few press clippings, some stills, cassettes of the later stuff — though that’s ironical; I can’t afford to keep up the rental of my video cassette recorder, so that’s gone back. So I’ve got nothing. Not even Angela. She’s dying quietly in Datchet and here am I drinking gin I can’t afford and. .’

Walter Proud seemed to be on the verge of tears, which Charles didn’t think he could cope with. He wrenched the conversation brutally on to another tack. ‘That evening of the pilot, when you came to see Sadie, when did you arrive?’

‘When did I arrive?’ the producer repeated blankly.

‘Yes.’

Suddenly Walter started to laugh. It was a weak and not a jovial sound. ‘Oh, Charles, I don’t believe it.’

‘What?’

‘You’re off on one of your bloody detective trips, aren’t you?’

‘Well. .’

‘Now you think Sadie was murdered and — ’

‘I think there may have been something strange about the death. I mean, she was a grown woman, she hadn’t been drinking, why should she suddenly fall off the fire escape?’

‘The railing gave way.’

‘Or was helped to give way.’

‘Oh really.’

‘I’m not the only person who said that.’

‘What, you mean all those self-dramatising fools at West End Television think someone gave her a shove?’

‘Not that, necessarily. She might have done it herself.’

‘Suicide?’

‘Possible.’

‘Not if you knew Sadie.’ Realisation dawned on Walter. ‘You mean, you thought she might have. . because of me? Because we’d broken up, you thought she might. . oh, Charles. It’s so wrong it’s almost flattering. No, I’m afraid I didn’t rate that highly on her list of priorities. I was a few bouts of sex before she decided I was. . what was her expression. . past it? I don’t think I was bloody past it, I think anyone would have found the same with her. I really think she was a nymphomaniac. I don’t mean the kind of avid partner one dreams of, but the real thing, someone with a pathological and insatiable desire for sex. It’s not very pleasant when you encounter it.’

Charles, who never had, agreed uncertainly. And, since any cover he might have had had been thoroughly blown, asked, ‘And you didn’t kill her?’

‘No, no, sorry. There were times when it might not have been a bad idea, but I’m afraid I never thought of it.’

‘So what time did you arrive at W.E.T., that evening?’

‘Oh, I see, the full interrogation. I don’t get off the hook so easily. Right, I got there about nine. I have cause to remember that, because the doorman wouldn’t let me in. Good God, I’ve produced two or three series for the company, and he wouldn’t let me in to the building. Said I had to be vouched for by a member of staff. I got him to page practically every name I could remember ever having met there before I found someone who’d vouch for me and let me in to get a drink. That’s the sort of thing that destroys you, Charles. You don’t think about it when you’ve got a job, but, God, it tears you up when you find yourself crawling to doormen like some unwanted alien.’

Charles felt relief. He hadn’t wanted to suspect his friend, but he had had to check it. If Walter really had arrived at nine in the evening, and that could be confirmed, then he could not possibly have been the person whose death threat Sadie Wainwright had treated with such contempt. And since those few overheard words were the only real reason why Charles had any suspicions about the accident, Walter seemed effectively to have left the list of suspects.

‘So you saw Sadie after the pilot recording finished at ten?’

‘That’s right. I met someone in the bar who told me what she was doing that evening and waylaid her as she came out of the studio. I suggested a drink and got my head bitten off, so I said what I really wanted to ask her and. .

‘Had your other head bitten off?’

‘Exactly.’

‘So you didn’t see her for long?’

‘No, she was very short with me. Said she had other fish to fry. And from the tone of her voice I could have believed she meant it literally. I knew the signs well enough to recognise them. She was spoiling for a row with someone.’

‘You don’t know who?’

‘I know where. She didn’t even stop to talk to me. I had to tag along by her side while she marched ahead to sort out the next poor sod. She just marched into his dressing room and I heard her say before the door closed, “Right, what is all this, you bastard?”’

‘Who was in the dressing room?’

‘Ah, I don’t know.’

‘Which number was it?’

‘Number Three.’

Number Three, the dressing room whose allocation to him had caused such affront to Bernard Walton.

Filming days always start uncomfortably early. Charles had had a make-up call at seven o’clock. A car had been sent to fetch him, which he might have thought was a flattering recognition of his raised status as an actor if he hadn’t seen the prodigality with which television companies send out cars to deliver scripts, pick up cassettes or collect take-away meals. Needless to say, at six-thirty in the morning the driver’s tattoo on the front door at Hereford Road had failed to wake Charles, but had disturbed the hive of lumpish Swedish girls who occupied the other bedsitters. With their singsong remonstrances and the driver’s belligerent complaints at being kept waiting, he had left the house in some confusion.

But as he was made up, he relaxed. He always found it a pleasant experience. In the theatre he was used to doing it himself, and to have someone doing it for him was a great luxury. Besides, make-up girls are by tradition extraordinarily attractive. And to sit half-asleep in a comfortable chair while a sweet-smelling girl caresses your face must be the definition of one sort of minor bliss.

Its only disadvantage is that, like all blisses, it is too short. Only seconds after he had sat down, it seemed, the gentle facial massage stopped, a discreet tap on the shoulder made him open his eyes, he had another second to gaze deeply into the brown eyes of the make-up girl, and then it was time to go and join the rest of the cast in the coach which would take them to the location. Sic transit gloria mundi . (So it is that transport brings us from the glorious to the mundane.)

On the coach, Charles saw that George Birkitt had an empty seat beside him and made towards it, but the actor indicated a pile of scripts and said, ‘Sorry, old boy, lot of studying to do. I seem to have a damned lot of lines to learn for this bloody filming.’

So Charles went and sat by Debbi Hartley, the actress who played the Strutters’ au pair . She was a pretty little blonde of about twenty-five, but he had never fancied her. She was the clone of too many other pretty little actresses of twenty-five, and her self-absorption was so great that it was almost impossible to think of her in a sexual context.

She did not seem to object to his company, and started animatedly into a monologue about the wisdom of having her hair cut short once the Strutters series was over. Whereas her agent thought it would make her look younger, certain of her friends were of the opinion that it might make her look older. This was obviously of enormous relevance because when one went up for an interview (Charles had noticed how the new generation of actors never used the word ‘audition’), first impressions were vital and if the director thought of one as too old, one wouldn’t stand a chance for ingenue roles, or if he thought of one as too young, then one wouldn’t get the sort of femme fatale parts, because no one ever realised how versatile one was and it was so difficult to avoid getting typecast, but she, Debbi, thought she was just at the stage in her career to do something a bit different, so showing she could do other things as well as the little-bit-of-fluff parts, what did Charles think?