M.C. Beaton - Death of a Scriptwriter

But Fiona felt her job was going to be little more than a gofer, as Jamie fretted about camera angles and lighting. He had quarrelled not only with her, but with the production manager, Hal Forsyth, and with the director, Giles Brown.

Jamie had also tried to get Sheila Burford fired after he had tried to get into her room at the hotel. Sheila had phoned reception, and a couple of burly gamekeepers from the Tommel Castle Hotel estate had forcibly removed Jamie from outside her door.

But Harry Frame refused to be moved on the subject of Sheila. “That lassie has potential,” he said, meaning, thought ‘ Fiona bleakly, that he wanted to get into Sheila’s knickers as well.

Despite the blazing sunshine outside, the inside of the castle was cold and dark.

She sighed and ran over the budget again. If only Jamie would get well and truly drunk and fall into a peat bog and disappear forever.

♦

Hamish Macbeth, entering Drim Castle half an hour later, looked like a pointing gun dog, thought Sheila as she met him in the hall. His nose was in the air, and one leg was raised as he halted in midstride.

“What’s that smell?” he asked.

“I can’t smell anything,” said Sheila, blue eyes limpid with innocence. “Oh, maybe it’s the joss sticks. They’re starting with the commune scene in the first shot.”

“That’s pot,” said Hamish.

“Cannabis? Oh, I’m sure you are mistaken. We’re all drunks here.”

Nose sniffing busily, Hamish moved forward.

“You’re imagining things,” said Sheila as Hamish headed inexorably for Fiona’s office. She raised her voice and shouted, “You cannot possibly believe that any of us would smoke pot!”

Hamish opened the door of Fiona’s office and went inside. The window was wide open.

“Why, it’s Mr. Macbeth from Lochdubh,” said Fiona. Hamish went to the window, which was on the ground floor. He leaned out and picked up a roach from the flower bed and then held it up before Fiona. “Yours?”

“Look here, Constable,” said Fiona, “I’m under a lot of stress. It’s not cocaine. If you ask me, pot should be legalised. It’s a harmless, recreational drug.”

“I picked the pieces o’ a driver out from his car after it had gone over a cliff last year. He’d been smoking your recreational drug. I’m a policeman and it’s not legal, Miss King.”

“Call me Fiona.”

“Whether it’s Fiona or Miss King, you are breaking the law.”

Fiona saw her career falling in ruins before her eyes, and all because of one measly joint.

She reached for her handbag. “Perhaps this matter can be sorted out amicably, Officer.”

“Don’t even think of bribing me,” said Hamish. “You’re in bad enough trouble as it is.”

“I wasn’t going to bribe you,” said Fiona, near to tears, although that had been her intention. “I was just going to show you how little of the stuff I have.”

“Then show me.”

Fiona took out a packet and handed it over.

Hamish turned round and said to Sheila, “Close the door.”

Sheila closed the door and came to stand behind Fiona.

“It’s the people up here that could do with your money,” said Hamish. “I have no wish to disrupt the film. I’m giving you a warning. Don’t let me catch you or anyone else with this stuff again.” He put the packet in his pocket and threw the roach back out of the window.

Fiona sighed with relief after he had left. It was not as if she were addicted to the stuff. That was the great thing about pot. You could take it or leave it. Still, there was a little left in that roach. She climbed out of the window and began to look for it.

♦

In her caravan, Penelope put on her costume for the opening shots and thanked her stars that Josh was safely in Glasgow. It consisted of a gauzy, near-transparent Indian gown under which she was to wear nothing. The first scene was to be shot with the members of Lady Harriet’s commune on the shore of Loch Drim. Penelope had planned her future on the journey north. When the series was filmed and just about to be aired, she would take her final payments and put them in a new account in her name only. She would tell Josh that payments had been delayed to explain why the cheques did not appear in their remaining joint bank account. Then she would leave him and go to London, and with any luck he would drink himself to death before he found her.

A girl arrived to do her makeup, and then Sheila came to drive her down to the set. “I wonder what the locals are going to think of that getup,” said Sheila, “not to mention our famous author.”

“I won’t have to cope with it,” said Penelope. “That’s Fiona’s job.”

♦

There was quite a large audience on the waterfront to watch the first day of filming. Dressed in sixties Beatles style, the hippies wandered about, smoking and chatting. “What do you think of your leading man?” Sheila asked Penelope as they moved forward to join the others.

“He’s all right,” said Penelope, who privately thought that Gervase Hart, who played the part of the chief inspector, was painfully like Josh in drunkenness and bad temper. But she had learned quickly in her career never to criticise any actor. “He doesn’t appear in this scene, so I won’t be seeing him today.”

“Places,” called the director, Giles Brown, a thin, nervous man with a straggly beard.

Sheila helped Penelope out of her coat. There was a gasp from the assembled locals.

Her costume did not leave much to the imagination, thought Hamish as Penelope’s voluptuous curves were revealed by the thin gown.

The cast had rehearsed their lines over and over again in a cold, grimy church hall in Glasgow. The Highland day was sunny and warm, and there was an air of gaiety about the cast.

Then a voice cried, “Stop! This cannot go on!”

Everyone turned round. The little minister, Mr. Jessop, was thrusting his way to the front of the crowd.

“That woman is nearly naked!” he shouted.

Fiona moved quickly forward. “It’s only a film, Mr. Jessop,” she said placatingly.

The minister was red with anger. “I will not have such goings-on in my parish.”

Then Hamish saw Patricia’s car driving down the hill into Drim. More trouble, he thought.

Patricia got out of her car and edged her way to the front of the crowd, saying in her authoritative voice, “I am the writer. Let me through.”

Then she stopped, aghast at the sight of the hippies and the nearly naked Penelope, and all the joy of getting yet another book back in print fled from her mind. “What is this travesty?” she asked in a thin voice.

The minister swung round, sensing an ally. “Just look at that woman,” he cried, pointing a shaking finger at Penelope.

Patricia looked and quickly averted her eyes.

“It’s like this, Minister,” said Jamie Gallagher with a false smile and truculent eyes. “Lady Harriet is head of this commune in the Highlands, and – ”

“My Lady Harriet!” Patricia was now as white as she had been red a moment before. She had consoled herself on the road over with the thought that the naked Penelope Gates on the cover of her book had just been a publicity stunt. Had she not seen weird and wonderful covers on paperback editions of Dickens? But for this slut to play Lady Harriet, noble, gallant, intelligent Lady Harriet, was past bearing.

“I forbid it,” she said. “There is nothing in my book about any hippie commune.”

“There’s nothing in your book that’s filmable,” said Jamie. “Och, calm down, woman. It’s just a bit of poetic licence.”

“I shall have it stopped!”

“You can’t do anything about it,” said Jamie. “You signed the contract.”

Patricia stared at Fiona. “Is this true?”