Simon Brett - Dead Giveaway

John Mantle was no fool. After the close call of the first pilot, he had summoned Sylvian de Beaune into his office and ordered the designer to fix the wheel so that any hat but the crown ended up on top.

Charles Paris was unaware of that trickery. Nor, at that moment, would he have been interested to hear about it. His mind was too full.

He knew who the intended victim had been on the previous pilot.

And he knew who the murderer was.

He went out into the corridor that led from the dressing rooms. By the lifts was a small Reception area, with a few uncomfortably low armchairs.

In one of them Roger Bruton was sitting.

He looked up at Charles with no particular pleasure.

‘Oh. Hello. I’m just waiting for Joanie.’ Charles sat down beside him.

‘I think I’ll wait for her too,’ he said.

‘I know what happened,’ said Charles after a long pause.

‘Sorry?’ Roger Bruton seemed miles away. Charles looked at the weak face, whose baby-like roundness was belied, on close inspection, by an elaborate map of tiny lines. Roger was older than one might at first think. Well over fifty, anyway. And his exquisitely-preserved wife was probably about the same age.

‘I know what happened on the last pilot.’

The faded brown eyes turned towards him, but still did not look very interested.

‘Oh?’

‘When Barrett Doran died.’

A minimal flicker of alarm came into the eyes, but the tone was still confident as Roger Bruton said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened?’

‘Do you think he was killed by the girl, Chippy?’

‘As I said when we last discussed it, that is what the police seem to think.’

Charles shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work that way. You know, at the end, after Barrett had fallen down, all the celebrities got up and tipped over their desk.’

‘Yes.’

‘Hard thing to do, overturn that desk.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. I’ve talked to its designer. It’s got a low centre of gravity.’

‘Nick Jeffries is a strong man.’

‘Hmm. And Joanie quite definitely said that Nick Jeffries was the one who overturned it. But, you see, it’s not strength that matters with that desk. It’s simple physics. . levers. . a matter of applying force at the right point.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘There’s a bar along the back. A good upward pull on that would tip the desk over. And it wouldn’t take a lot of strength. But you’d have to be the right height to do it unobtrusively. Anyone tall — anyone, say, Nick Jeffries’ height — would have to bend right down to the bar.’

Roger Bruton did not react, so Charles spelled it out. ‘Nick Jeffries couldn’t have done it. Even in all that confusion someone would have noticed. The only person who could have done it was Joanie.’

Roger Bruton attempted bluster. ‘So? So Joanie knocked the desk over. So what?’

‘So she had a reason to do it. She wanted to break all the glasses, create confusion, do anything that would disguise the fact that hers contained gin.’

The tired eyes stared hauntedly at Charles, but there were no words.

‘I’ve confirmed that this evening,’ Charles continued. ‘By a simple trick. I arranged that all the water-glasses tonight should contain gin. That’s why they were empty when the recording started. I didn’t want anyone to draw attention to it earlier. Once the show was under way — particularly under way late — I knew that no one would dare stop the recording. They’d all just press on. But I also knew that they’d react. It’s a shock when you pick up a glass which you believe to contain water and find it’s full of gin. No one, however professional a performer, could disguise that initial split-second of shock. No one, that is, who hadn’t been warned. . no one to whom it hadn’t happened before.’

Roger Bruton remained as still as a corpse.

‘The only person who gave no reaction when she discovered the glass contained gin was your wife.’

‘So. .’ The man’s lips hardly moved as he spoke. ‘What do you reckon that means?’

‘Joanie’s very quick-witted, isn’t she? Her mind moves fast. Quite fast enough on the first pilot to link the fact that Barrett had been poisoned with the fact that her glass contained gin. She knew he always had gin on the set, so it was a fair assumption that the two glasses had been changed round. She also knew that someone hated her enough to want to murder her. But because that person was someone very close to her, she tried to confuse the evidence, so that the truth would never come out.’

A long silence hung between them.

‘I’m right. Aren’t I, Roger?’

Slowly the tension drained out of him. Muscle by muscle, Roger Bruton’s body relaxed, till he lay slumped back on the low armchair.

With something that sounded like a little laugh, eventually he said, ‘Yes. You’re right.’

‘Why?’

The murderer looked at Charles and slowly, wryly, shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘No? But Joanie did. Joanie always understood, didn’t she? And that was why you hated her.’

The faded eyes looked at Charles with a new respect. ‘Yes,’ Roger said softly, ‘that’s why.’

He paused, gathering his thoughts, before continuing. ‘No one who hasn’t been through it can know what it’s like, how smothering, how emasculating it is, always to be understood. Oh, if the understanding is warm, if it’s sympathetic, that’s different. But when it’s clinical, when it treats you like a specimen, a case-history, that’s when the hatred builds up.

‘It was never a good marriage. The sex side was never. . Joanie just wasn’t interested. Oh, happy enough to give forthright, frank advice to others, but in our own bed. . nothing. That’s why we never had children. I wanted children, but if there’s no sex, well. .’ He shrugged. ‘At first I had a few affairs, but Joanie always understood. She was always so bloody understanding, welcomed me back, forgave me, patronised me, made me feel like a delinquent teenager. A couple of years of that, and it takes the fun out of extramarital sex.’

‘Why didn’t you leave her?’

Roger Bruton grimaced hopelessly. ‘Because I’m weak. Because she’s a stronger personality than I am. Maybe just because I’m a glutton for punishment. So I stayed with her, listening to her pontificating hour after hour, listening to her advise everyone and anyone about their lives, and feeling the hollowness within my own just growing and growing.’

‘When did you first think of murdering her?’

He let out a sharp little laugh. ‘On our honeymoon, I suppose. When it became clear that I could forget it as far as a sex-life was concerned. And it was always there, the idea of killing her, a pleasing fantasy, something I could retreat to when she became too intolerable. But I suppose it’s got worse over the last few years. As her career’s taken off, as she’s more and more omnipresent, as I can’t switch on a radio or television without hearing it, more and more bloody understanding.’

‘But was there any particular reason why suddenly two weeks ago. .’

Roger shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A feeling that I couldn’t stand it any longer. I don’t think the camel can say which is going to be the final straw, but he sure as hell recognises it when it’s put on his back.’

‘You hadn’t had a row?’

‘Not a major one. No more than usual. We don’t really have rows. For a long time now I’ve suppressed all my real feelings.’

‘I still don’t understand why you should suddenly try to kill her.’

‘No? Opportunity, I suppose. It was a spur of the moment thing. I’d just taken Joanie into Make-up and she’d said a very lovey-dovey farewell to me. It’s moments like that I hate her most, when I see a public display of sexuality from someone I know to be totally without sex. I was angry. I walked through Studio B. There was no one about. I saw the bottle of cyanide. I took it, went through to Studio A, emptied the water from her glass into the carafe on the lectern and filled the glass up with poison. I felt very rational and happy. I just couldn’t think why I hadn’t done it before.’