A Series of Murders (3 page)

It was clearly going to be some time before anything got rehearsed, let alone recorded. And Charles wasn't even in that scene. Definitely be time for a drink. Just so long as he told someone where he was.

He moved away quietly. No need to draw attention to himself; someone might think of something he was needed for. He went around the edge of the study set into the corridor between the studio wall and the backs of the flats. The smell of canvas warmed by strong lights was achingly familiar from the backstages of a thousand theatres. Ahead of him he saw a familiar back view kneeling down at the foot of a flat. Good, someone he could tell where he was going.

‘Tony.'

The A.S.M. whirled around at the sound of Charles's voice. He looked flushed. ‘Goodness, you startled me.'

‘Sorry. Just wanted to say, nothing seems to be happening on the set. I'm going to nip to the bar for a quick drink, okay? Get me paged up there if I'm needed.'

‘Yes, fine, okay,' said Tony Rees.

One of the advantages of having worked for the company a few times was that Charles knew the quickest way to the bar from almost every part of W.E.T. House. From this end of Studio A the best route was out through a dark little storage room used for props, into the scenery dock, up the stairs to the first floor, and through the Casting Department.

Cheered by the anticipation of soon having a large Bell's in his hand, Charles started on his way.

The scene that met his eyes in the murky props room was one of total chaos.

The room, probably not more than ten feet wide, was flanked with tall shelves to store props, and because of the large number required to give period flavour to
Stanislas Braid
, these were loaded. Unfortunately, no doubt because of the weight of their burden, one set of shelves must have become top-heavy and fallen forward.

The result was an amazing pile of debris, as if a bomb had gone off in a junk shop. Old cash registers lay on the floor beside elephant's foot umbrella stands; the shards of chamber pots mingled with crushed cigar boxes; billiard balls dotted their colours over a heap of smashed crockery and dented tankards.

Charles briefly contemplated telling someone about the accident. On the other hand, a selfish instinct urged, it wasn't really his job. Someone else, whose job it might well be, would soon come through. And now the idea of an imminent drink had taken hold in his mind, Charles Paris didn't want to put it off that much longer. No, probably better all around if he just went straight to the bar.

And that is where he would have gone if he hadn't seen, protruding from the bottom of the pile of debris, something that couldn't, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, be a prop for the
Stanislas Braid
series.

It was a human hand.

A human hand that Charles had a horrible feeling he recognised.

A human hand attached to a human arm that, when Charles tried to move it from beneath the weight of the shelves, appeared to be very firmly attached to a human body.

A human hand, what's more, that was still warm. Warm but very still.

He scrabbled away at the pile of debris, and each object he moved revealed to him more of what he somehow already knew. When he saw the dress, it confirmed the message given by the hand. And the glistening blood on the dress confirmed the message of the body's stillness.

When he uncovered the head, it was, though crushed and battered, still easily recognisable as that of Sippy Stokes.

CHARLES COMMUNICATED the news of Sippy's death as discreetly as he could. He reckoned that since the producer is the person with overall responsibility for a production, Ben Docherty should be informed first. Fortunately, because it was still before lunch, Ben was able to take the news with appropriate sobriety. He informed the W.E.T. in-house security, who sealed off the props room and called the police.

The Producer urged Charles to keep quiet about his discovery and decreed that recording should continue for as long as possible. This was avowedly to avoid panic and anxiety among the cast, but Charles knew it was also Ben fulfilling his professional role. The producer is responsible for the budgeting of a television series, and even a half day of studio time wasted is ruinously expensive. Already, so early into production, thanks to Russell Bentley's difficulties in homing in on the character of Russell Bentley and W. T. Wintergreen's objections that Russell Bentley was nothing like the character of Stanislas Braid that she had created, the show was slipping behind schedule. The thought of that kind of time slippage escalating through a series is the stuff of which producers' nightmares are made.

The decision to continue recording, however, did not get the production much further advanced. As Charles discovered when he got back to the studio, trying to hide the state of shock he was in (and without even having had his promised large Bell's to alleviate that shock), the argument he had witnessed between star and producer had arisen because Russell Bentley still wasn't happy with the way the scene in Little Breckington Police station had gone. Retaking the cutaway shot had cleared up one problem, but now he had a new cavil with something that had happened at the beginning of the recording.

Rick Landor had fought hard against the proposed retake and had enlisted Ben Docherty's support in his argument but been let down by the Producer's instant capitulation. Ben Docherty, Charles was beginning to realise, was a vacillating character, and Russell Bentley was quickly getting the Producer exactly where he wanted him. This did not augur well for the series. For Rick Landor to give in to the star was one thing; he was only going to be directing two of the episodes. But Ben Docherty was Producer for the whole series. If he started caving in to Russell Bentley at such an early stage, it was going to be very difficult for him ever to reassert his authority.

These, however, were not Charles's problems, and he was in no condition to worry about anything except his reaction to the discovery of Sippy Stokes's body. Like most shocks, it came in little waves, suddenly weakening and unnerving him. And the words of Will Parton circled, with uncomfortable irony, around his head. ‘As an actress, Sippy Stokes was absolute death.'

Once the production team had conceded that the police-station scene would be retaken, there was further delay, because Russell Bentley had by now changed out of the relevant costume and would have to change back again. Charles Paris waited nervously behind his counter, his mind a mess of ugly thoughts. He was hardly aware of the two policemen with whom he had had coffee jostling for position with their fellow background artistes so that they would be prominently in shot, thus staking their doomed claims to be rebooked for the rest of the series.

However much discretion Ben Docherty and the W.E.T. security men had deployed, it all went for nothing when the real police arrived. Two uniformed men and two in plain clothes marched into the studio before Russell Bentley had completed his costume change, and loudly demanded to speak to the Producer. As the plainclothesmen went into a huddle with Ben Docherty, the two in uniform looked on contemptuously at the proceedings.

‘Who're those two, Bob?' whispered the first background artiste with whom Charles had had coffee.

‘Don't know,' his friend whispered back. ‘Never seen them before.'

‘No.' The first one sounded thoughtful. ‘I thought I knew practically everyone in the “background” business.'

‘There's a new agency started up. Perhaps they're from there.'

‘Well, they'd better be Equity, that's all I can say.'

‘Yes, and why is Rick putting more in this scene, anyway? More than twelve aren't going to register in the shot, are they?'

‘No. Well, just watch it when those two come in. See they don't push to the front.'

‘Don't worry. I'm not going to lose my position.'

‘Nor me.' The first background artiste looked across at the two newcomers in disparagement. ‘Must say, I don't think they're very good.'

‘No. I mean, at least we look like policemen. Those two –'

‘Could be postmen.'

‘Traffic wardens . . .'

‘Anything. They look so out of place in those uniforms, don't they?'

‘People just don't think when they're casting these days, do they?'

‘No.'

Charles was prevented from hearing further background artiste bitchery by a gesture from Ben Docherty, who beckoned him over. He obeyed and was met by the hard stare of one of the plainclothesmen. ‘You're the one who found the body?'

Charles nodded.

‘We'll be needing to talk to you in a minute. Stay around.'

‘Yes.'

‘Just going to have a look for ourselves. Then we'll call you.'

‘Okay.'

At that moment, Russell Bentley appeared on the scene, once again dressed in his floppy hat, cloak, and monocle. He swept up toward the group surrounding Ben Docherty.

‘Here I am,' he announced with a flamboyant flourish of his hat, ‘ready once again to prove that the plodding British policeman is no match for the gifted amateur.'

‘Oh, really?' said the plainclothesman in a voice as dry as a water biscuit.

The Little Breckington Police Station scene was retaken twice more, and at the end of the proceedings, when he went off once again to make his costume change, Russell Bentley had the gall to say that he thought perhaps the original take had been best, after all. The two background artistes, who lived in hope of a series booking, looked confused as they tried to remember how prominent they had been in the original take.

Charles still hadn't mentioned what lay in the props room to anyone other than Ben Docherty, but the arrival of the policemen alerted everyone on the set to the fact that something was going on. There was much whispering and curious conjecture in Studio A, but though people tried to draw him out, Charles kept his knowledge to himself.

More real policemen arrived in the studio. There was a confusion of constables as the background artistes milled and gossiped around the fringes of the set. One of the plainclothesmen bustled across to Charles. ‘We'll be wanting to speak to you in just a minute,' he said in passing.

Charles nodded and drifted across toward the props-room door. It was dark behind the flats in this corner of the set. The outline of a uniformed policeman standing guard on the door nodded to Charles. ‘Hello, Sarge,' it said, seeing the gleam of the stripes and unaware in the dim light of the anachronism of Sergeant Clump's uniform.

‘Hello there,' said Charles, seeing no reason to disillusion the constable. His actor's instinct stopped him from using his own voice. If people were going to think he was a policeman, then it was a point of honour for him to sound like a policeman. He automatically homed in on the unimpressed voice he had used as the inspector arriving in Act Three of any number of dire stage thrillers, including the one he had once played in at Colchester, whose title he had mercifully forgotten, though its review from the local paper was burned ineradicably into his memory: ‘I have been more thrilled by an attack of shingles than I was at any point during last night's performance.'

At that moment, the props-room door opened, and a harassed-looking face peered out. ‘Could you give me a hand?' it appealed.

‘Sorry, Doctor. Got to stay on guard,' said the constable.

‘What about you, Sergeant?'

‘Oh, all right,' said Charles Paris equably, and followed the doctor to the scene of the crime.

‘Just need some help moving the shelves out of the way.'

Amid the debris, the heavy shelves still pinioned the late Sippy Stokes to the ground. Charles tried not to look at the crumpled body, but even if he'd closed his eyes, he knew its disturbing imprint would still be on his mind.

‘Should we be moving anything, though?' he asked, mindful of the minimal knowledge he had of scene-of-the-crime procedure.

‘It's all right. The photographers have been,' said the doctor.

They took one side each and heaved the wooden frame back up into position with difficulty.

‘God, no one would stand much chance with this lot landing on top of them, would they?'

‘No,' the doctor agreed grimly. ‘Mind you, I don't think it was the shelves that did the damage.'

‘What, you mean she was dead before they fell?' In his excitement Charles used his own voice, but fortunately the doctor did not seem to notice the lapse.

‘Seconds before, maybe,' he replied. ‘It looks as if it was a blow to the back of the head that killed her. The weight of the shelves just made sure.'

‘So . . . you reckon someone hit her?' the sergeant asked, safely back in his sergeant's voice.

The doctor gave Charles a sardonic look. ‘I wouldn't say that, no. Sorry to puncture your fantasies of a nice juicy murder, Sergeant. No, I think it's more likely that some
thing
hit her.'

‘What kind of thing?'

The doctor gave a shrug that encompassed all the confusion of props that lay around. ‘Take your pick. A lot of these items would have been heavy enough. Look, there's blood on the corner of that cash register . . . and on that fire screen . . . and on those kitchen scales . . . Just a matter of finding the piece whose outline matches the dent in the poor kid's head.'

‘So what you're saying is that you reckon something fell off the shelves before the shelves themselves fell down?'

‘As I said, seconds before. No, I should think the shelves were loaded so as to be top-heavy. They started to topple . . . As they did so, various items slipped off . . . and it was one of those items that hit her on the head a split second before she got the full weight of the shelves on her.'

‘But what would have made the shelves fall down?'

This prompted another shrug from the doctor. ‘Who can say? Maybe they were just badly stacked. Maybe the girl was fingering something, trying to pull something out . . . I don't know. All I do know is that West End Television is going to face a very big claim for compensation.'