A Comedian Dies (20 page)

‘How are the writers reacting?'

‘Pretty badly. Steve Clinton roars with laughter and cracks fatuous jokes; Paul Royce wanders around like Hamlet and keeps staging dramatic walkouts. The trouble is that Barber has no respect for writers at all. He comes from a tradition where you didn't have them, or, if you did, they were something you didn't mention, like bad breath. All in all, it doesn't make for the easiest working atmosphere.'

‘Can't wait to see the show. I'll be there.'

‘It'll probably all be marvellous. From what I've seen of him, Barber's instincts about material are usually right.'

‘How's the director coping?'

‘Oh, he walks around composing Rembrandts in his mind's eye and saying how he doesn't get on with Aquarians. The whole thing's a riot.'

‘Sounds it.'

‘Yes, I'm glad I've got a murder investigation to think about. Keeps my mind off the show.'

Rehearsals in the RNVR Drill Hall had broken down again. This time it had been over the line, ‘It's like a quack doctor charging for worthless advice – a duck-billed platitude,' which Lennie Barber felt (with, to Charles' mind, some justification) was neither very funny nor suited to his style of performance.

In the course of the row, Paul Royce walked out again, Steve Clinton said ‘Keep your hair on – as the Commissioner said to Kojak' and laughed a lot, Wayland Ogilvie decided he had to go and have a conference with the designer about a rococo mirror and the PA Theresa told two of the support characters that they should go and have wardrobe fittings.

The rehearsal being effectively over, Lennie Barber and Charles Paris went round to the pub (having first hidden behind a hedge until Steve Clinton had left the vicinity – a precaution which was becoming routine for everyone on the production).

The new Barber and Pole started in a determined way with large whiskies. ‘How'd you reckon it's going, Lennie?'

‘Death.'

‘You don't think it's got a chance?'

‘God knows. Depends how it goes on the night. And how many actual jokes we can get in instead of bloody university revue lines.'

‘Do you want it to work?'

The old comedian looked at Charles in amazement. ‘Of course I want it to work. What do you take me for?'

‘I'm sorry. It's just that sometimes you seem so cynical, it's hard to believe that you have any real ambition.'

Lennie Barber's eyes flickered as he assessed this remark. ‘Do I? Do I really do that, Charles? Yeah, I suppose I do.' He rubbed his thumb against the point of his chin reflectively. ‘And if I do, my boy, it's very simply what a psychologist would call a defence mechanism. I don't want to tempt providence, but of course I want the bloody show to work, of course I want to be a star. What do you think it's been like for me, having been at the top, to slide slowly downwards? Every time I watched the bloody telly I'd see some new comic. At first it was blokes who'd been on the same bill as me when I'd toured the Number Ones – except they'd been way down the bill and I'd been the top. I think that was the worst bit really, when it was people I recognized, people I knew weren't as good as me. After a bit they were just faces that come on. I'd never seen any of them before and, as far as I was concerned, they all looked exactly the same. Styles changed a bit, different jokes came round, but it was all the same really, and I knew I could do better. Comedians nowadays, they're nothing . . . Did you hear that great line Arthur Askey come up with when Granada started that
Comedians
series? ‘I see they've opened a new tin of Irish comics,' he said. That's what they all are now – pre-packaged, inoffensive, characterless. OK, I sound like an old man wittering on about things being better when I was young. Well, I am an old man and, what's more, things bloody were better when I was young. Comedy certainly was better, Variety was. Television has taken the guts out of everything. No rough edges, no . . . nothing.' He was silent, then emptied his glass with a positive movement. ‘But I want to come back, even if it means television. Yes, I want this show to be a thumping great, enormous, copper-bottomed success.'

Charles felt closer to Lennie Barber at that moment than he had since they had first met. Gone was the mask of cynicism and the disquieting obsession with his bowels; it was the real man who had been talking.

Barber looked at his watch. ‘Better be off, I suppose.'

‘Aren't we going to have another drink?' Charles was reluctant to break the new mood between them.

‘No, I don't think that I . . . Well . . .' The comedian looked embarrassed. ‘The fact is, I haven't got any money with me. It's my round and I like to pay my bit. Better be off, I think.'

‘No. I'll get them.'

‘But you got the last lot.'

‘Don't be silly. Come on, while we're still both flush with telly money.'

‘Huh.' Barber seemed to be about to pass an opinion on what he thought of telly money but decided against it. ‘Look, tell you what . . . how about you lend me a fiver and I get them and pay you back?'

‘Fine.' Charles handed over the money and their glasses were refilled. Barber took the change.

‘Pay you back when I get to a bank.'

They sat companionably with their whisky. Charles began to feel a glimmer of enthusiasm for the project. He liked the idea of working with Lennie Barber. And, if the show were anything like a success, it could be a very profitable partnership. His brief experience had taught him that Light Entertainment fees were considerably fatter than Drama ones. And then there were all the extras that that sort of work led to – club bookings, businessmen's lunches where large piles of notes were handed over in payment, commercials. Charles had always said that that sort of show business was not for him, but then he had never been offered it. Given the opportunities it could bring he might not take such a high moral tone.

Lennie Barber broke into his speculations. ‘You got anywhere about Bill Peaky?'

‘You mean the murder?'

‘Yes. Last time you mentioned it you were trying to track down that girl Janine.'

‘I found her. She didn't kill him.'

‘Any idea who did then, Monsewer Poirot?'

Charles hesitated. He had to be careful to whom he confided his suspicions. On the other hand, he did need to find out more about Chox Morton, and Lennie Barber had been in the same company right through the summer. Besides, Charles trusted the comedian completely. He took the plunge and mentioned Chox's name.

‘Really? Well, he certainly had the technical knowledge.' Lennie Barber screwed up his face and reviewed the suggestion. ‘Yeah, but why?'

‘Did you know he was on drugs?'

‘Yes, I did actually. Silly little bugger. Good God, there are enough natural things around to shorten your life without adding to them. I used to drink – I mean really drink – so I suppose I know a bit what it's about. What, you reckon he just got high and didn't know what he was doing?'

‘No. Bill Peaky found out the drugs thing and threatened to shop him.'

‘Did he? Well, surprise, surprise. Yes, that's true to form. Whoever did kill him, you know, did the world a great service.'

‘I reckon Chox is highest on the list of possible at the moment. If only I could get some sort of evidence, if only someone had seen him on the stage during the interval . . . Lennie, you know that theatre. Do you reckon he could've fixed the wiring without anyone seeing him?'

‘Yes, I'm sure he could. For a start, the first thing anyone on-stage does when the first-half curtain comes down is get off. Go to their dressing rooms, cup of tea in the Green Room, whatever. So it was very unlikely anyone would be around to see him.'

‘Except Norman del Rosa doing his Peeping Tom act.'

‘But surely he'd have mentioned if he had seen anyone apart from Peaky?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘And even if anyone had seen Chox, I don't reckon they'd have thought twice about it, Charles. He was always wandering about the place with cables under his arm. Part of the furniture. Added to which nobody'd be looking for anything suspicious, anyway. You forget that you're the only person who thinks of this thing as murder.'

‘Well, me and about half of the cast of the show who I've so far accused of doing it.'

‘Yeah, but nobody suspected murder at the time. By now they'd have forgotten what happened a month ago.' The comedian's forehead wrinkled, then cleared. ‘I have thought of something, though. If he did want to be onstage unnoticed while he sorted the wiring out, he could have gone into the lighting store.'

‘That was actually on-stage?'

‘Yeah, everything all higgledy-piggledy in that place. It was just in the wings. That's where the faulty cable come from anyway. Also, thing about that was it had a lock on the door, 'cause of the expensive gear they kept there. I used to reckon Chox sometimes went in there to give himself a fix.'

‘Yes,' Charles interpolated, excitedly, ‘that must have been it. Because I remember now, Miffy Turtle said the lock had gone on the Gents that day. So if Chox wanted to hide away, he'd have had to go to the lighting store.'

‘Right. Yeah, I reckon that's what he must've done. Not that we can prove it. So it doesn't really help much.'

‘Mmm.' The inevitable was looming large in front of Charles. ‘So, if there's no likelihood of my finding any evidence, I guess that means another confrontation.'

‘Maybe. I wonder.'

‘You have another idea?'

‘I don't know. Just a thought. You see, I got to know Chox quite well while we was down in Hunstanton. I don't mean I got close to him – I don't think anyone did that, but I think he kind of trusted me. I wonder if we were to talk to him together . . . I've a feeling he might be more forthcoming that way, relax a bit, you know. What do you say?'

‘Sounds a great idea to me.' Anything rather than steeling himself to another solo encounter with a supposed murderer.

‘Well, look – What's the time? Hmm. I got to go back to see Walter, try and get some more of this bloody script sorted out. So that'll take . . . I don't know, three bloody years to get it anything like respectable. But let's say till seven. Can you meet me round Chox's place about eight?'

‘Sure. Where's he live?'

Barber gave an address in North Kensington. ‘I'll ring him first to check he's going to be in. You ring Walter's office in a couple of hours and I'll be able to confirm that. Otherwise, see you there at eight.'

Charles arrived shortly after eight. The road in North Kensington had been built for prosperous Victorians, but now the trees which lined it were scraped and scabby and the tall façades of the houses diseased by neglect. Paint flaked from porticoes, toothless balcony railings gaped, overflow pipes scored green smears down walls and the doorsteps were littered with dustbins and old magazines. A dusty cortège of outmoded Fords, some wheel-less, some lividly splodged with aerosol paint, lined the gutter. The aerosol artist had also left his blurred testimony on the trees and every bit of wall that he could reach.

The large front door out of which Lennie Barber emerged had been slashed with lines of spray paint, silver mocking the dirty blue beneath.

‘I was waiting just inside the hall, Charles. Not the sort of area to hang about in. Lot of muggings round here. Also not too many friendly white faces, know what I mean?'

Charles nodded and followed Barber into the dimly-lit hall. The outline of what had once been an impressive sweep of stairs emerged from the gloom ahead. But its classical proportions had been distorted by the random juttings of hardboard walls with which the fine old house had been converted into bedsitters.

‘Like I said, Charles, when you rang, he's expecting us. I said you was coming. He didn't sound suspicious or anything. I think he may have just had a fix. Didn't sound all there. If he's still in the state, it might be good for us. He'll be relaxed and talk. Then we'll find out what really did happen.'

‘Let's hope so.'

The push-button time-switch in the hall produced no more light. Either the bulbs had been nicked or just not replaced by absentee landlords. As Charles and Barber groped their way up the banister, they became aware of the smell of the house – a compound of used cooking oil, beer and wet cardboard. Reggae music and softly accented voices issued from behind the doors of the other bedsitters they passed.

On the second landing Charles paused to let Barber catch up with him. The comedian was breathing heavily, suddenly an old man. Struggling for his breath, he leaned against the banister and gestured straight ahead through the murk. ‘It's that one,' he gasped.

The door was slightly ajar, but no light showed through the crack. Charles knocked softly. Then harder. Harder again. Nothing.

Struck by an abrupt sense of panic, he pushed the door open with his left hand and with the right reached round for the light switch.

He felt its outline and the pain hit him. As his fingers stung with the snapping flash of electricity, he had a vision of Bill Peaky's wild face as he had grasped the microphone in Hunstanton. At the same time the impact of the shock slammed him, backwards against the banister.

FEED: There's a man outside with a nasty look on his face.

COMIC: Tell him you've already got one.

Charles felt as if some demonic barman had mixed him with ice and fire and was determined to shake him into the cocktail of all time.

Lennie Barber was crouching over him, his face old and anxious in the half-light. ‘You all right? What happened?' he kept repeating.

After a bit, Charles decided that he wasn't that badly hurt. His fingers still stung and his arm felt numb. The impact with which he had met the banisters was going to leave a great bruised line across his back. But basically, he would survive.