Simon Brett - Star Trap

‘And if you do find out anything… untoward or criminal, let me know first.’

‘Before the police?’

‘If possible. We have to watch the publicity angle on this.’

‘I see.’

‘We don’t want the fuzz queering our pitch.’

Charles smiled. It was reassuring to hear Gerald dropping into his thriller slang. The solicitor had always had the sneaking suspicion that crime held more exciting dimensions than the minor infringements of contracts which occupied his working life. His thirst for criminal glamour had to be satisfied by thrillers and, in moments of excitement, his language showed it. Gerald was excited now. He thought they were on to a case.

Charles didn’t. He felt certain that the whole idea of saboteurs had been dreamt up by nervy managements suddenly counting up the amount of money that they had invested in one stage show and one star. They were scared and they had to give what frightened them a tangible form. Sabotage was as good an all-purpose threat as any other.

Still, he wasn’t complaining. Nine months’ work, however boring it might be, was nine months’ work. It could sort out the taxman and one or two other pressing problems.

‘I’ll be very discreet, Gerald, and tell you everything.’

‘Good.’

‘Now let me buy you a brandy.’

‘I wouldn’t worry. It’s all on Arthur Balcombe. You didn’t really think I was taking you out on my own money?’

‘No, Gerald, I know you never do anything on your own money. Still, let’s have another brandy on Arthur Balcombe and imagine that I’ve bought it to thank you for the job.’

‘Okay. There is one thing, though.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve offered you the job, you’ve accepted it, but in a way it isn’t mine to offer.’

‘Now he tells me.’

‘I mean, I don’t think there’ll be any problem, but it’s just that you’ll have to go and see Dickie Peck before it’s all definite.’

‘Oh.’

‘Just to check details of your contract.’

‘Just to check details of my contract.’

‘Well, it’s also… sort of… to get in know you, to see if you are the kind of person who’s likely to get on with Christopher Milton, if you see what I — ’

‘What you mean by that formula of words is that Christopher Milton has an Approval of Cast clause in his contract and I’ve got to go and see Dickie Peck to be vetted.’

Gerald tried to find another formula of words, but eventually was forced to admit that that was exactly what he meant.

‘I get it. When do I see Peck?’

‘You’ve got an appointment at four o’clock.’

Dickie Peck worked for Creative Artists Ltd, one of the biggest film and theatre agencies in the country, and he was big. His clients were said to be managed by ‘Dickie Peck at Creative Artists’ rather than just by ‘Creative Artists’. In the agency world this designation often preceded a split from the parent company when an individual member of the staff would set up on his own (usually taking his best clients with him). But Dickie Peck had had his individual billing ever since anyone could remember and showed no signs of leaving the Creative Artists umbrella. There was no point in his making the break; he was a director of the company and worked within it in his own way at his own pace.

It was the pace which was annoying Charles as he sat waiting in the Creative Artists Reception in Bond Street. He had been informed by the over-made-up girl on the switchboard that Mr Peck was not yet back from lunch and as the clock ticked round to half past four, Charles felt all the resentment of someone who has finished lunch at half past three.

He was not alone in Reception. A young actress with carefully highlighted cheek-bones was reading The Stage and sighing dramatically from time to time; an actor whose old, hollow eyes betrayed his startlingly golden hair gave a performance of nonchalance by staring at his buckled patent leather shoes. The girl on the switchboard kept up a low monologue of ‘A call for you…,’ ‘I’m sorry, he’s tied up at the moment…’ and ‘Would you mind hanging on?’ She deftly snapped plugs in and out like a weaver at her loom.

It was nearly a quarter to five when Dickie Peck came through Reception. The girl on the switchboard stage-whispered, ‘Mr Peck, there’ve been a couple of calls and there’s a gentleman waiting to see you.’

He half-turned and Charles got an impression of a cigar with a long column of ash defying gravity at its end. Ignoring his visitor, the agent disappeared into his office. Five minutes later a summons came through on the receptionist’s intercom.

The office was high over Bond Street and Dickie Peck’s chair backed on to a bow-window. Cupboards and dusty glass-fronted book-cases lined the walls. The paint-work must once have been cream, but had yellowed with age. The dark red carpet smelt of dust. Nothing much on the desk. A current Spotlight, Actors L-Z (to check what Charles Paris looked like) and a circular ash-tray in the centre of which was a decorative half golf-ball. The channel around this was full of lengths of cigar ash, long and obscene, like turds.

The ash was long on the cigar that still drooped from the agent’s lips. It was an expensive one, but the end was so chewed and worried that it looked like the cheap brown-wrapping-paper sort.

The face which the cigar dwarfed was grey and lined, crowned by a long tongue of hair brushed inadequately over baldness. The head was disproportionately small and accentuated the stocky bulk of body below it. Dickie Peck was dressed in a dark grey suit with thin lapels. A plain blue tie askew across a grubby white shirt. Tie and jacket dusted with cigar ash. It was not the traditional image of the big show business agent; more like a Town Hall clerk.

‘Charles Paris, isn’t it? Take a chair.’ He gestured expansively, but the ash at the end of his cigar miraculously stayed intact.

Charles sat on a low gilt chair whose red plush upholstery was as hard as wood.

‘Now, Mr Paris, I gather you’ve seen a representative of Amulet Productions about this part.’

‘Yes.’ So Gerald wasn’t just acting as solicitor for Arthur Balcombe.

‘And he explained what it was about?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. As you gather, the part became vacant due to an accident to one of the cast.’

‘I know.’ Charles didn’t volunteer any comment. Gerald had been uncertain whether Dickie Peck shared his suspicions of sabotage or not and had asked Charles to play it carefully. The fewer people knew that there was an investigator in the company, the better.

Dickie Peck gave no sign of suspicion. He took a long draw at his cigar, extending the column of ash to an even more precarious length. He leant back and blew a slow jet of smoke to the ceiling. ‘This show, Mr Paris, is a very big one.’

‘So I gather.’ Charles was getting tired of being told about the size of the operation.

‘It’s likely to be a very big success.’

‘Good,’ said Charles, feeling that some sort of comment was required.

‘And so it’s important that everything about it should be right.’

Again Charles helped out the pause with a ‘Yes’.

‘Because what we have here is a show with a very big star. Christopher Milton, no less.’

Here a longer pause was left for some comment of amazed approbation. Charles produced a grunt which he hoped was appropriate.

‘Yes, Christopher Milton. Let me tell you, Mr Paris, I have been in this business a very long time and I have never before seen someone who had so much star quality written all over him.’

‘Ah.’ Charles found it difficult to get interested in the idea of stardom. It was not the end of show business in which he was involved.