Dead Giveaway (16 page)

He knew partly it was true. Some of his failure in his chosen career could be attributed to the eternal problem of too many actors chasing too few parts, some perhaps to only an average talent, but within him there was also the fatal flaw of diffidence, a kind of laziness that kept him from hustling as hard as he knew he should.

Sounds of an argument at the bar shook him out of this orbit of self-pity. Time had been called, but one of the Light Entertainment producers was vigorously asserting that he needed another drink. People were starting to look around for abandoned handbags and briefcases. The party was breaking up.

With many good-humoured waves and shoulder-slappings, Bob Garston detached himself from the
Joe Soap
group and came across towards them. ‘Sydnee, hi. You set?’

‘Sure.’ She indicated her companion. ‘This is Charles Paris.’

‘Oh yes?’ There was no interest and no recognition in his glance.

‘You remember, he was one of the “professions” in the first
If The Cap Fits
pilot.’

Bob gave a nod which recognised this fact without giving it any importance. With a perfunctory grin at Charles, he reached out an arm to Sydnee. ‘Shall we be off then?’

She looked at Charles with an expression that told him he had to get out of this one. ‘Bob,’ he said. ‘We want to talk to you.’

‘Sydnee and I are just going off to talk. I don’t see where you fit in.’

‘We want to talk about Barrett Doran’s murder.’

Bob Garston’s eyes narrowed. The hearty public face slipped away, to be replaced by something more furtive.

‘You’d better come along then,’ he said.

Bob Garston’s car was directly in front of Television Centre, where only the highly privileged were allowed to park. It was a new Jaguar. Bob and Charles sat in the front, Sydnee in the back.

‘Right, what is this?’ The voice was unrecognisable from the confident, insinuating tones of Joe Soap. It was breathier, tighter; and the note of tension could have been fear.

Charles explained evenly, without specifying their reasons, that they didn’t think Chippy had killed Barrett.

‘Are you going to make your suspicions public? Are you going to the police?’

‘We will eventually, yes. We’d rather go with the name of the person who did kill him and some evidence to prove it. But if we can’t get that fairly soon, we’ll just have to go and tell them why we know Chippy’s innocent.’

‘Why is that?’

‘We have our reasons,’ Charles replied infuriatingly.

Bob Garston was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘You realise that, if the girl’s eliminated, I become the obvious suspect?’

This was too easy. ‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘That’s the conclusion we were coming to.’

‘I wanted the host job from the start. I never made much secret of the fact. I don’t believe in disguising ambition. I think if you say what you want, you stand a damned sight better chance of getting it.’ The forthright Joe Soap quality came back briefly into his voice. ‘So I suppose that could look like a motive . . .’

‘Not the only one,’ said Charles gently.

A light that had not been switched off in an office above them filtered through the windscreen, illuminating one side of Bob Garston’s face. Charles saw bewilderment, then understanding, quickly followed by fury. ‘How the hell did you hear about that?’

Charles protected his source. ‘Let’s just say I heard.’

‘Did my wife tell you?’

‘No. I’ve never met your wife.’

‘Look, if this gets out to the gossip columns I’ll bloody murder you.’ Realisation of what he had said came into Bob Garston’s face. It was followed by a twisted smile. ‘Unfortunate remark perhaps, in the circumstances. So . . . you think I killed Barrett. May I ask how I’m supposed to have done it?’

‘Anyone who was round the studio area between six-thirty and six-fifty could have done it. They only needed to take the cyanide from Studio B into Studio A and put it in the glass. Would have taken two minutes, maximum.’

Bob Garston nodded grimly.

‘You were seen at about twenty-five to seven – coming out of Studio A.’

‘Yes.’ He lost his temper. ‘Dammit! Why the hell did I go in there?’

‘You tell me,’ said Charles.

Bob Garston let out a long sigh. ‘I didn’t do it, you know. I didn’t kill Barrett.’

‘No?’

‘No, I bloody didn’t!’

‘Then why are you getting so upset?’

‘Because, as I said, I’m the obvious suspect. The same day you tell the police Chippy didn’t do it, they’re going to be round knocking on my door, asking questions. It’ll be down the station, “helping with enquiries” . . . they might even bloody arrest me.’

‘But if you can prove you’re innocent –’

‘Doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. Look, my career’s at an important stage, could take off quite dramatically in the next couple of months. The last thing I need now is my name over the papers.’

‘But, as I said, if you can prove you’re innocent –’

‘Listen. If there’s one thing doing my sort of programme has taught me, it’s that mud sticks. I make some allegation on the show, however oblique it is, about some official, and that bloke never lives it down. He’s lost credibility . . . his colleagues don’t trust him any more. I know, I’ve got plenty of letters to prove it. I’ve even been sued a few times. Once the allegation’s been made, no amount of public denial can make it go away completely. Look at the newspapers – thousands read the scandalous headline – how many read the little printed apology for getting the facts wrong that comes out the next week?’

Under other circumstances, Charles might have questioned the assurance with which Joe Soap admitted destroying the credibility of his victims, but it wasn’t the moment for moral debate. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re aware of the stakes,’ he said. ‘So now perhaps you realise that the only way for you to keep the police off your doorstep is to prove to our satisfaction that you are innocent.’

‘Oh, I am.’

‘Good. Tell us why, and then perhaps you can help us find out who did kill Barrett Doran.’

‘Right.’ Bob Garston was clearly ill at ease as the subject of interrogation, and made a bid to take over the interview himself. In his best hectoring manner, he demanded, ‘You want to know what I was doing between six-thirty and six-thirty-five that evening?’

‘Yes. We know you went into Studio A.’

‘All right, all right. I did. I’m not denying it.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t rush me. I’m about to bloody tell you, aren’t I?’ He paused, as if composing his next sentence into the most palatable form. ‘The fact is, I wanted to get on to that set. I wanted to stand by Barrett’s lectern. I just wanted to get the feel of it . . . to know what it felt like to be in charge of that kind of show. You know, just like a little lad trying on his Dad’s overalls . . .’

This winsome simile would have gone down well with the
Joe Soap
audience, but it failed to charm Charles. ‘That doesn’t sound very convincing to me. And I’m not sure that the police would be that convinced either.’

‘Well, it happens to be the bloody truth!’ Bob Garston snapped petulantly. ‘I can’t help it if the truth isn’t convincing, can I?’

‘I’m only thinking of you, Bob,’ said Charles with needling magnanimity. ‘You’re the one who wants to keep the police off your doorstep. Of course, they may be convinced by this story of whimsical role-playing, but I doubt –’

‘Look!’ Bob Garston pointed an angry finger in his antagonist’s face. ‘You just asked me why I went in. I told you. What happened when I got there is a different question. There was no way that I could have fiddled around with Barrett’s glass. I’d have been seen.’

‘There was someone else in there?’

‘Of course there bloody was!’

‘Who? The contestant, Tim Dyer? Hadn’t he left?’

‘No. Not him. It was the designer, wasn’t it? Him with the bloody stupid haircut. He was there, fiddling with his precious set.’

‘Sylvian,’ murmured Sydnee, breaking her long silence.

‘So what did you do?’ asked Charles.

‘Well, I wasn’t going to start prancing round, pretending to be the host, was I? Not with him there. I turned straight round and walked out again.’

Charles’s mind was racing as he voiced a formal thanks.

‘Don’t think I told you because I wanted to. But just bloody see that when you do go to the police, you tell them I’m out of the bloody reckoning. I haven’t worked this hard on my career to have it shot to pieces by some half-baked rumour.’ Without waiting for any response, he turned round to Sydnee. ‘Right, with that out of the way, perhaps we’d better go and talk about this bloody game show.’ He leant across Charles and clicked open the passenger door. ‘You can get out and walk.’

Charles got out. And, as he walked the three miles back to Hereford Road, he thought again and again of what Barrett Doran had said about Sylvian de Beaune’s first television set design.

SYLVIAN DE BEAUNE’S flat was at the top of an old converted warehouse in what used to be London’s Dockland. It was up four flights of stairs and there was no Entryphone, so a long gap ensued between their ring on the bell and his appearance at the front door.

He looked surprised to see them, recognizing Sydnee, but apparently never having seen Charles before in his life. He had put in further work on his appearance. The black Mohican strip on his head now had orange tufts at the front, and clusters of orange feathers depended from his ears. His face was covered with white make-up, relieved only by a dab of orange on lips and eyelids. He was out of the leather gear now, and dressed in a kind of pyjamas of off-white sackcloth, joined at the seams by beige leather thongs. The effect was, to Charles, reminiscent of a line-drawing of medieval underwear from a school textbook with a title like
Social Life in the Middle Ages
. He was coming to the conclusion that, amongst other things, Sylvian de Beaune designed his own clothes.

It was clear, when they got upstairs, that he was his own interior designer as well. The flat was really one long room, whose exposed rafters under a pitched roof should have given it the appearance of a Saxon mead-hall. And would have given it the appearance of a Saxon mead-hall if every surface had not been painted silver. The floor had been painted the same colour, and what must have been lovely views over the Thames were excluded by silver paint over the panes of the high windows. The area was lit by theatrical spotlights, the harshness of whose glare was subdued by gels of red and blue. Their beams were trained on to matt-black rectangular boxes, which, by a process of elimination, Charles deduced to be furniture (though which was a table and which a chair he would not like to have had to specify).

Sydnee showed no surprise at the surroundings, which must mean either that she had been there before, or that all her colleagues lived in similar environments. (If the second were the case, it was not surprising that the three researchers had found the Hereford Road bedsitter a little unusual.)

On one of the matt-black shapes a sheet of paper was pinned, and the selection of pens, templates and rulers nearby suggested that Sylvian had been working on his latest design when interrupted by the doorbell. Charles did not dare to contemplate what it might be.

As they entered, music, which could either have been South American flutes or a team of asthmatics competitively blowing blockages out of hose-pipes, sounded loudly. Sylvian de Beaune went across to a matt-black box with an array of matt-black buttons on the front, and moderated the volume. He gestured to them to sit. Charles had almost fully descended when he heard the words, ‘No. That’s a table’, and moved accordingly to a smaller matt-black box.

Sylvian remained standing. ‘What is it, Sydnee?’

‘
If The Cap Fits
.’

‘Don’t tell me – John Mantle wants more bloody changes?’

‘No. It’s harking back to the first pilot.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Barrett Doran’s death.’

Had there been any natural colour in Sylvian de Beaune’s face, that would have bleached it out. He gaped, stupefied.

‘Chippy didn’t kill him,’ Sydnee continued. Because he still seemed incapable of speech, she persisted, ‘Charles here drank from Barrett’s glass at about six-thirty. At that point it definitely contained gin.’

‘Oh, my God.’ The words were hardly audible.

Charles picked up the initiative. ‘So the cyanide was put in the glass after that time. You were seen m the studio just after six-thirty by Bob Garston.’

The orange lips moved, but this time no sound came out.

‘It was your first major set, isn’t that right, Sylvian? You were very proud of it, very worried about it. We know what Barrett Doran said when he saw it for the first time. Not very appreciative of your efforts, was he?’

Still no words came, but the designer shook his head, as if in disbelief. Slowly, he subsided on to one of the matt-black rectangular boxes. It was the one he had said was a table, but Charles didn’t think it was the moment to say anything. He and Sydnee maintained the silence.

Finally, Sylvian de Beaune spoke. His voice was dull, as if he were repeating something learned by rote. ‘I hoped it hadn’t happened. I went into a terrible state of panic when he died and I heard it was cyanide. But then when Chippy was arrested, and I heard about how she had a motive to kill him and the opportunity to get the poison, I thought it was all right. I thought he’d got the right glass.’

‘The right glass? Did you put the cyanide in it?’

The black and orange tufted head shook. ‘No. Why on earth should I do that? No, that’s not what I did.’

‘Then what did you do?’

The voice retained its monotone as he told them. ‘As you say, it was my first major set. As you say, I was worried about it. I kept looking at it from different angles, kept trying to see things that didn’t work. That’s why I went back into the studio during the meal-break. I was worried that something had looked wrong, so I went in to check.’

‘What were you worried about – the wheel?’ asked Charles, remembering what Tim Dyer had done to that part of the set.

‘No. There was just something in the colours that had looked wrong. Something wrong with the balance between the lectern and the celebrities’ desk. I’d looked and looked at it, and eventually the only thing I could think of was the glasses – the four on the desk and the one on the lectern.’