A Comedian Dies (7 page)

‘Back to her digs, yes. Got a taxi. Actually . . .' Norman dropped his voice for the great daring of an opinion, ‘I think it could have been caused by the emotional upset.'

Charles agreed, but didn't say so. ‘Do you happen to remember when she got the taxi home? Straight after their opening number, or what?'

She may have ordered it then. I don't think it arrived till the end of the interval.'

Giving her plenty of time to tamper with the amplifier extension. ‘Look, I want to get in touch with this Janine. Any idea where she lives?'

Anyone would have asked why Charles wanted to contact the girl, but Norman del Rosa wasn't going to get involved. ‘I don't know, Charles. I mean, I know where she was staying in Hunstanton, but she'll have gone from there.'

‘Give me the address anyway. She must have told the landlady where she lived.'

Norman gave the information, again making no concession to curiosity. Maybe he regarded this as the price of Charles' silence over his own sad little secret.

‘And if I don't get any joy there, do you know who the group's agent was?'

Again Norman obliged. Then, with ill-disguised relief, he put the phone down.

Janine's Hunstanton landlady had stepped straight out of
Your Favourite Seaside Landlady Jokes.
As she fulminated down the phone, Charles visualized a McGill postcard figure, arms folded righteously beneath her enormous bosom, bottom thrust backwards with rectitude, body swathed in a print overall and curlered hair scooped up into a red print handkerchief.

Basically she was offended by his call. And she let him know it. ‘I keep a respectable private hotel and I don't give the addresses of my clients to any Tom, Dick and Harry who phones up out of the blue. I'll have you know, I only allow in a very respectable type of client. I don't want you to think that I'm prepared to act as a mere convenience. I don't set up assignations for girls who come and stay here. You ought to be ashamed at your age – chasing after young girls. She's not been here for weeks, anyway. I know you dirty old men, pestering girls young enough to be your daughters. Well, I don't keep a licensed brothel and –'

‘Look, all I'm trying to do is to contact the girl to –'

‘Don't you come the heavy breather with me, my man. Oh, I know your sort. You think just because a girl's a dancer, because she's prepared, for her art, to show a little leg onstage that –'

The pips went. Charles decided it wasn't worth putting in more money.

He stood irresolute by the pay phone on the landing of the Hereford Road house where he lived. One thing the affronted landlady had told him was that he needed a cover. Unless he found some story to explain why he wanted to find the girl, all his inquiries were going to be met with the same suspicion. Maybe he even needed another identity to help him out. With a little bubble of school-boy excitement, he went into his bedsitter to look at his range of clothes.

The man who walked into the office of Alltalent Artistes in Berwick Street was wearing a trilby hat and a long beige mackintosh. The trilby dated from the days when men actually wore trilbies and the raincoat Charles had bought at a jumble sale during one of his economy drives and never worn because it was too big. He thought the image was not inappropriate to an insurance salesman. The potential shabbiness of the garb was offset, he felt, by a rather distinguished pair of silver-rimmed half-glasses and a slim black briefcase.

The girl in the hardboarded-off cupboard which served as reception was not impressed. She peered over her typewriter and the detritus of coffee-cups, publicity photographs and handouts that littered her desk. ‘What do you want? If it's Danielle, French Model, that's up two more floors.'

‘No, I wanted to come here,' said Charles in the precise tones of an insurance salesman, innocent of any activities of French Models other than modelling Parisian fashions. He had worked quite hard on the characterization. He was using the voice he had developed for
The Fireraisers
in Newcastle (‘Had I not known it to be a good play, this production would not have convinced me of its merit.'—
Hexham Courant
.) And if he ran out of motivation or vocabulary for his character, all he had to do was to focus his mind on his son-in-law, Miles Taylerson, who was a rising force in the insurance world and spent all of Charles' rare visits to his home trying to get his signature onto a policy.

Charles produced his carefully prepared identification routine. ‘I'm from the Eagle Crown Insurance Company.' He didn't give a name; there was always the danger he might forget it. ‘I'm trying to contact Miss Janine Bentley, whom I believe is a client of Alltalent Artistes.' Maybe the ‘whom' was a bit much. Still, the girl was not a discriminating audience.

‘Well, she doesn't live here. Why don't you try her home?'

‘I have tried, but had no success at the address where we previously had dealings.'

‘Hmm.' The girl still looked at him askance. ‘I'll go and tell Mr. Green you're here.'

She edged round her desk and through a door in the hardboard partition. Opposite Charles hung a publicity poster for These Foolish Things. As when he had seen them on-stage, he was struck that Janine Bentley was the prettiest one. She intrigued him. There was a quality of innocence in her face that seemed out of place in a murder investigation.

The thinness of the hardboard which separated off Mr. Green's office meant that Charles could hear exactly how the agent's secretary described him.

‘There's a funny sort of bloke outside trying to contact Janine.'

‘Oh yeah. Who is he?'

‘Says he's from some insurance company.'

‘Legit?'

‘Dunno. Looks a bit weird.'

Weird? It is the actor's lot to have his performances dissected by ill-informed critics.

‘You better show him in.'

The secretary came back into view and scuttled behind her desk as if Charles had rabies. ‘Mr. Green will see you. If you'd like to go in.'

Mr. Green was a thick-set man, whose nose appeared to have been the victim of cosmetic surgery. The disparity between it and the rest of his heavy features made it almost impossible to conduct a conversation with him without staring transfixedly at the little button in the middle of his face.'

Out came the identification routine again. Green looked at him in silence for a moment, assessing. ‘I gather you're trying to contact Janine Bentley.'

‘That is correct, yes.'

‘Why?'

Still on prepared ground. ‘A couple of years ago I sold Miss Bentley a life-insurance policy. Linked in fact to our property fund, which, I must say is doing very well at the moment with the current upturn in property values. Well, there has recently been a slight change in our company's manner of dealing with our clients' investments and I wanted to discuss the new options available with Miss Bentley.' Pretty damned good, Charles thought to himself.

Green still looked at him. ‘Janine never struck me as the sort of girl to go in for life-insurance.'

‘Oh really? We're talking about the same Janine, aren't we? The one who dances with These Foolish Things. She obviously behaves very differently with different people. I mean, she went into the whole business of insurance with me in great detail. Very mature, responsible young lady. You wouldn't think it when you see her on-stage, all flashing thighs and carefree bounce. But I find a lot of my clients are like that. Whatever they're like on the outside, sensible people do think about life-insurance . . . I don't suppose you yourself might be interested in any of the schemes that our company offers . . .' he added diffidently.

That was naughty. He shouldn't have got carried away. But fortunately Green reacted just as Charles always did when Miles got on to his favourite subject.

‘I wouldn't under normal circumstances give anyone the address of one of my clients. You know, there are a lot of strange people about.' The agent paused and appraised Charles. ‘Middle-aged men, possibly not very happy in their private lives, who are often anxious to get in touch with my girls. They are, after all, attractive girls.'

‘Oh, very attractive.'

‘Yes. And I have to protect them. But in the case of Janine any moral decision I might have to make about putting her in touch with you is made for me.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I can't put you in touch with her. I don't know where she is.'

‘But you must know where the group's working.'

‘Janine is no longer a member of the group.'

‘When did she leave?'

‘Rang me about a week ago. Said she had to get out “for personal reasons”. Bloody inconvenient for the group. They've just got a big telly spectacular coming up and I've got plenty on my plate without having to rush around auditioning new girls. Apart from anything else, all the ones I've seen so far have been terrible.'

‘So Janine left just at the end of the Hunstanton booking?'

‘Exactly.'

‘Could you give me her home address so that I can contact her there?'

‘Wouldn't do you a lot of good if I did. She's moved out. Used to live in a flat with a boy-friend, but I gather they've split up. Anyway, he's moved out too.'

‘You don't know the boy-friend's name?'

‘No. I spoke to him once or twice on the phone, but never got his name. Janine kept her private life very private.'

‘Oh.' Disappointing. A blind alley.

‘Incidentally, Mr . . . Don't tell me your name, because I'm as unlikely to believe that as I am your phoney cover as an insurance salesman . . . I find it rather strange that you know the Foolish Things have just been in Hunstanton.'

Charles smiled feebly. ‘Oh, I like to keep an interest in show business.'

‘I also find it strange that you asked me for Janine's private address when you told my secretary you'd tried her home. She's lived in the same place for three years.'

‘Ah.' The cover was definitely blown. Maybe try the truth. See how that went down. ‘Look, in fact I'm a kind of private detective.' Well, a heightened version of the truth. ‘I'm investigating a crime and I believe that Janine can help me with some information.'

It did sound melodramatic. Green looked at Charles for a long time, weighing the likelihood of this new story. He appeared to make up his mind. ‘I see. Well, I suppose society has a duty to help people like you, though yours is a rather unpleasant business.' He tore a piece of paper off a pad on his desk and wrote something on it. He sealed it in an envelope and wrote on that. ‘Go to this address. They may be able to give you what you're looking for.'

Green and his secretary's fascinated stares followed Charles out of the office.

The address was not far away. In Old Compton Street. It was a strip club. Photographs bulged either side of the curtained doorway. It didn't look a likely place to find a missing dancer, but that was where he had been directed.

Inside the doorway Charles was met by a stocky gentleman who looked very familiar. Mr. Green without a nose-job. Must be a brother.

‘Can I help you, sir?'

Charles handed over the note. The man tore it open and read it. ‘Fine, sir. Well, it may be rather expensive, but I'm sure you'll find it well worth the money. Now, in fact there isn't any film in the cameras, but I think that only adds to the excitement. The girls will move about and pose for you, but I'm afraid we do have to insist on the rule of no touching. Now if you'd like to –'

‘What the hell are you talking about? I'm just trying to find Janine.'

‘You can call the girls whatever you like. They won't mind. Call one Janine if you –'

‘What the hell did it say in that note?' Charles snatched it back and read:

DEAR JOE,

THIS KINK WAS COMING ROUND SNIFFING AFTER ONE OF MY DANCERS. SEEMS MORE YOUR LINE. WELL IT'S BUSINESS. LOVE TO MYRA AND THE KIDS. MIKE.

Oh dear. He shouldn't have worn that raincoat.

COMIC: I say, I say, I say, why did the film-mad chicken cross the road?

FEED: I don't know. Why did the road-mad chicken cross the road?

COMIC: To see Gregory Peck.

‘As you can imagine, Gerald, I felt quite a fool.'

‘Yes. Of course, if you are going to turn funny, you're about the right age for it. I mean, if you do feel you want to start flashing in the park. It's only to be expected.'

‘Ha, ha. You're condemning yourself too. You're the same age as me. And smooth solicitors aren't immune from developing embarrassing habits. So watch it.'

Gerald chuckled uneasily down the phone. He was warned that his secretary Polly might be listening in. In spite of her obvious maturity and worldly eye, he had an old-fashioned view of what she should be allowed to hear or see.

Charles continued, ‘One thing was interesting. Even though he did think I was some kind of pervert, the information he gave me was true. Janine and her boy-friend have recently moved out of their flat. I've checked.'

‘Where did you get the address?'

‘Amazingly, from Maurice. You know, Maurice Skellern, my agent, the theatrical ‘Who's Sleeping with Who'. He knew somebody who knew somebody who had once known Janine. Rang me back within half an hour. He's impressively efficient about everything except being an agent.'

‘He didn't know who Janine's boy-friend was?'

‘No. Nobody seems to know that. But they've certainly both moved out.'

‘If you went to the flat, surely you could have checked with the landlord.'

‘I didn't go to the flat. I just rang up and spoke to the new tenants. They didn't know who had been living there before. But I got the landlord's name and rang him. He was, to put it mildly, unhelpful. To put it less mildly, bloody abusive. That's why I rang you.'