Elaine Bedell - About That Night

‘Ah, well you see, most of us don’t drink,’ the DI said, and the implication was clear.

Elizabeth shifted in her seat. She realised that the volunteering of some personal information by the detective must be a well-rehearsed ploy. She noticed DI Karen Watson’s body was taut, wired, finely tuned.

‘So, tell me, how long had you been working with Ricky Clough?’

‘On and off for seven years.’

‘Producing all his shows?’

‘Yes, this one and his Saturday night entertainment show…’

Elizabeth looked carefully at the DI to see how much of this television history she knew. Her face, however, was a perfect blank. But to her right, the sergeant said helpfully, ‘ Saturday Bonkers .’

DI Watson looked nonplussed.

‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth. ‘ Saturday Bonkers . Which was, well, a bonkers show! Partly a variety show but with other anarchic stuff going on in the studio, games and live OBs – um, outside broadcasts. And Ricky is – was – very good in it. You know, he’s probably best known for Shower ? The secret camera pranks on celebrities. And the song and dance finales every week with Ricky and guest stars. We had the Shadow Home Secretary on once, that caused quite a storm… Anyway, it’s been running for years and last year it won Best Entertainment Show at the National TV Awards.’ Elizabeth looked at the policewoman, hopeful of a congratulatory nod, but DI Watson remained expressionless.

‘But, well, we’ve had some difficulties over the last few months. The show’s not been doing so well and Ricky was reluctant to try out new ideas. He couldn’t believe it was losing its audience, he blamed the viewers, not the programme. He’d become quite difficult – a bit, well, bonkers himself.’ Elizabeth smiled half-heartedly, but the DI’s face was serious.

‘Bonkers? How?’

‘Well, you know, he could be very unpredictable.’ Elizabeth twisted in her chair. How could she begin to describe, in this soulless office, to this ramrod straight policewoman, the sort of daily mayhem that had for the last few years passed for her professional working life? ‘Um, well, let’s see. He’d bring live animals into the office – I seem to remember there was a serious incident with some rats. And he’d wear clown’s trousers to production meetings and then let them drop. He liked holding meetings in his underpants. There was an occasion when he went to a meeting with the network’s chief, carrying a water rifle… He quite regularly used a water pistol during script meetings. And there were the late-night phone calls…’

The DI frowned and Elizabeth rushed on. ‘But you know, people loved working with him. It was exciting. He had a loyal team. I liked working with him. That’s why I agreed to produce this new chat show with him as well. I mean, you had to dismiss half his ideas, but at least he had some. And he could be very generous – he used to take the entire team out for lunch and pick up the bill. And he was very entertaining when he was on form… It was exhilarating to try and harness that sort of creative energy.’

‘Tell me about the recent difficulties.’

‘Well, I’d had to have words with him about his behaviour with the team.’

DI Watson nodded and Elizabeth got the feeling that despite the professionally blank expression, she knew more than she was letting on. ‘Yes, tell me about that. His bad behaviour.’

‘Oh, you know, he’d get stressed and angry and take it out on the researchers. He reduced a couple of them to tears. Nothing was good enough. He’d find fault with the guest bookings, the scripts, the props. In a way, it came from the right place – his ambition for the show – but it got to the stage where he was never going to be satisfied unless we booked Barack Obama and preferably got him to sing a duet on the show. He’d lost perspective somehow. He couldn’t understand why he was having to work with reality show contestants instead of the leader of the free world.’

‘Did he reduce you to tears?’ The DI looked at the pad on her desk and Elizabeth realised she’d made quite a few jottings.

‘Not in his presence,’ Elizabeth said truthfully. ‘But I must admit, I’ve had quite a few nights where I’ve been awake at 3 a.m., eating Marks & Spencer custard.’ She looked at the policewoman’s lean, netball-toned figure and doubted that Karen Watson had any nights when she succumbed to a tub of crème anglaise. But the detective looked up and half a smile played across her lips. Her eyes were lively and bright.

‘And who’s your boss?’

‘Matthew Grayling, the Controller. The man you met last night.’

The DI’s smile vanished. ‘Ah yes, the man with the limp. So he runs the whole network? He’s in charge of all the programmes?’

‘Yes. He’s been there fifteen years. He knows Ricky of old. He got him to do Saturday Bonkers in the first place. He recently gave him the chat show to try and ease him into a new slot – you know, it’s not on Saturday nights, it’s not live, so we can always go into the edit and cut out the worst bits.’

‘And was Matthew in the studio all evening?’

‘No, I rang him, once Ricky… once he’d collapsed.’ Elizabeth felt suddenly tearful. She bent her head and DI Watson sat silently for a moment before saying more gently, ‘And now you’ve had time to think about that night, time to think over everything that happened, you can’t think of anything that was unusual? Nothing about Ricky Clough that struck you as strange or different? He didn’t seem ill?’

‘No.’ Elizabeth reached for a tissue from the box on DI Watson’s desk. ‘If anything, the thing that was unusual was that he was actually in a good mood. He seemed upbeat. I thought we were in for a good show. He didn’t seem in any discomfort, wasn’t complaining.’

‘And you’d actually started recording the show, I think, when he fell ill?’

‘Yes, that’s right. We’d done the introduction and we were about to do Paolo Culone.’

The DI look across at the sergeant. ‘We’re seeing all the guests from the show later, is that right?’ Ali Rafik nodded and listed the names of a few minor celebrities. Elizabeth winced at the poor quality of the bookings, but the DI appeared to register nothing. Eventually, she said, ‘I don’t watch much television. There never seems to be anything on that I want to watch.’ Elizabeth nodded. It was true. There was a criminal lack of coverage of women’s netball in primetime.

‘So tell me about the chef – Paolo Culone?’

‘Well, he’s young, very brash. He’s just opened his third London restaurant and it’s all about smell. He puts a different scent around the restaurant entrance because he says it influences your mood and he wants his guests to be happy when they come in. So the week it opened, he made sure it smelled like an old-fashioned sweet shop – sugary and lemony – so that people coming in would feel nostalgic for their childhoods.’ Elizabeth took a deep breath. She’d been to Culone’s new restaurant a few weeks back. She’d gone there with Hutch and it had smelled of Curly Wurlys. Later that night in bed, Hutch had said she smelled deliciously of caramel and he’d licked her agonisingly slowly, all over.

The sergeant made a sound that was half cough, half giggle. Elizabeth recovered herself and nodded at him. ‘Ricky thought it was all bollocks, too. He wanted to take the piss out of Paolo. We were going to bring on some of his restaurant dishes hidden in boxes and get Culone to guess what they were by their smell.’

The DI wrinkled her nose and frowned, as if trying to understand how such an idea might constitute primetime entertainment. ‘And so it’s likely Ricky Clough might have eaten something before or during the show?’