A Reconstructed Corpse

Table of Contents

The Charles Paris Mystery Series

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

CAST, IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE

SO MUCH BLOOD

STAR TRAP

AN AMATEUR CORPSE

A COMEDIAN DIES

THE DEAD SIDE OF THE MIKE

SITUATION TRAGEDY

MURDER UNPROMPTED

MURDER IN THE TITLE

NOT DEAD, ONLY RESTING

DEAD GIVEAWAY

WHAT BLOODY MAN IS THAT?

A SERIES OF MURDERS

CORPORATE BODIES

A RECONSTRUCTED CORPSE

SICKEN AND SO DIE

DEAD ROOM FARCE

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

This title first published in Great Britain in 1993 by Victor Gollancz

eBook edition first published in 2012 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 1993 Simon Brett.

The right of Simon Brett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0018-1 (epub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This eBook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

To Ian and Penny
,
with thanks for the idea

CHARLES PARIS had never thought that he looked like a murder victim. And for most of his life he didn't. But then someone who looked a little like the actor apparently got himself murdered, and Charles Paris was faced with the unusual prospect of employment.

It was for a programme called
Public Enemies,
one of the rash of ‘True Crime' series which had suddenly appeared on British television. Like the others in the genre, the hour-long
Public Enemies
programmes used a worthy, pious, together-we-can-beat-crime approach to pander to its audience's worst instincts of prurience and ghoulishness.

The programme was presented with straight-faced grittiness by self-appointed ‘man of the people' Bob Garston who, after lucrative excursions into the lighter areas of television game shows, had returned to what he continuously described as his ‘no-nonsense hard-bitten journalistic roots'. (Usually he also managed to get a reference to ‘working at the coalface of real life' into the same sentence.)

Public Enemies
was produced for ITV by West End Television, in association with ‘Bob's Your Uncle Productions'. Bob Garston had, in common with many other successful presenters and writers, formed his own production company to secure a bigger slice of profits and greater control over the shows he worked on. The company's name reflected his game-show identity rather than his serious crime-fighter image, but was retained because its on-screen credit had already appeared on a good few programmes. That put ‘Bob's Your Uncle' into an exclusive minority, way ahead of the recent proliferation of other independent production companies which had never made a programme.

Charles Paris had worked for W.E.T. before, but never through an independent producer, and from his first interview for the job, one morning early in November, he was aware of tensions between Roger Parkes, executive producer for the parent company, and Bob's Your Uncle Productions, represented by Bob Garston himself. The presenter had always regarded shows he worked on as private adventure playgrounds for his ego. The involvement of his own production company seemed to him completely to vindicate this attitude, and justify the inexorable imposition of his will on every aspect of the proceedings.

In common with most megalomaniacs, Bob Garston totally lacked the ability to delegate. His management style depended on personally monitoring all details of the production process. The workload this entailed might from time to time threaten to drive him into the ground, but at least doing everything himself allayed Bob Garston's increasingly paranoid fears that somebody might be doing something behind his back.

So he was present even at the interviews to find an actor who resembled the missing Martin Earnshaw, the kind of chore that most producers would have delegated to a casting director. Because Garston was there, so was Roger Parkes. The executive producer had caught on to the presenter's penchant for making decisions behind his back, and now tried to cover every move.

A casting director was present as well, Dana Wilson, fastidiously groomed and languid to the point of torpor. Letting Bob Garston run all the interviews and make all the decisions perfectly suited Dana's inert approach to her job.

Charles Paris had met the casting director before. He'd had a general interview with her some years earlier. Come to that, he'd met Bob Garston too, worked with him on the pilot of
If the Cap Fits!,
the mindless entertainment whose long run had been the foundation of all the presenter's subsequent game show successes. But Charles didn't expect either of them to remember him. The peremptory phone call from the programme's researcher Louise Denning announcing the time of his call had reminded him of the low priority held by good manners in television.

He was proved right. Neither his name nor his face produced the tiniest flicker of recognition from Bob Garston or Dana Wilson.

Charles did sometimes wonder whether he actually looked anonymous. He hoped not. Though actors pride themselves on their versatility, they still like to feel they have a core of individualism, which separates them from the other faces that beam – or more frequently these days scowl – from the pages of
Spotlight
.

But Charles's positive sense of his own identity was frequently undermined. Like most actors, he had the knack of remembering none of the good, but all of his bad notices, and one that rankled particularly had come from the
East Kent Mercury.
‘Charles Paris was apparently in the play too, though he made so little impression that it was easy to overlook the fact.' He would have minded less if he hadn't been playing Hamlet.

Nor was his sense of identity much bolstered by his agent. Maurice Skellern, in a rare moment of analysing his client's strengths and weaknesses, had once said, ‘Thing about you, Charles, is you're one of those actors who blends in anywhere. You can play anything.'

‘Except major parts, it seems,' the actor had responded bitterly.

‘But that's your
strength,
Charles. Stars may do very well when they're on top, but when they run out of star parts they're finished. Whereas actors like you
never
need to be out of work.'

‘If that's the case, Maurice, why is it that I'm
always
out of work?'

‘Ah, well . . .' But the agent was never thrown for long. He always had the same excuse at the ready. ‘Thing is, Charles, things are very
quiet
at the moment.'

‘Been
quiet
for rather a long time, haven't they?'

‘Well, yes . . . that is in the nature of the business, of your chosen profession. And also, Charles . . .' Maurice had paused, trying to shape his next words in the least harmful way possible. ‘The fact is you don't always help yourself . . .'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well, actors do have to
get out there,
you know. See people . . . hustle a bit . . .
network,
know what I mean . . .?'

The only response to this had been a grunt.

‘Thing is, with the best will in the world, Charles . . .' Why is it that people always start like that when they're about to demonstrate lavish amounts of ill will? ‘With the best will in the world, I have to say that you do tend to be rather
passive
in your approach to your career.'

‘Well, I'm not sure that I'd say –'

‘I mean, I do everything I can,
I work my butt off
on your behalf, but you do have to take the occasional initiative yourself, you know.'

The conversation had left Charles, as all conversations with his agent left him, fuming and furious. For Maurice Skellern, an agent who had raised inactivity to the level of an art form, to claim he ‘worked his butt off' on behalf of a client was . . . It made Charles so angry he couldn't finish the thought. And what made him even angrier was the knowledge that there was a lot of truth in what his agent had said.

It actually was through Maurice that he'd been contacted for the
Public Enemies
job. Not that any effort on the agent's part had been required. The programme's researcher Louise Denning had trawled through
Spotlight
looking for faces which resembled the missing – presumed murdered – Martin Earnshaw, had found Charles's in the back section of quarter-page photographs, and simply phoned the agent listed.

No one would have known this, however, from the way Maurice presented the situation to his client. ‘You know how I'm always beavering away on your behalf, Charles, never letting any potential opening slip by. Well, some of my groundwork at W.E.T.'s beginning to pay off. After my relentless bombardment of them with reminders about you, they've finally come back to me with something.'

‘What is it?' Charles had asked, as ever unable to flatten out the instinctive surge of excitement any chance of work prompted.
This time,
he always thought, this time maybe it'll happen. This time my talent'll be taken seriously, this time I'll be offered something meaty at the National or a major telly series.

But this time was, as ever, another disappointment. To rub salt in the wound, this time the approach had no connection at all with his acting talent. Charles Paris had been short-listed simply because his face fitted. God, it was so humiliating.

Even so, when he went to the interview, he desperately wanted to get the job.

To call the encounter an ‘interview' was over-flattering. It was more like a police line-up, which, given the nature of the programme, was perhaps appropriate.

Five potential Martin Earnshaws had been called, and they were told to parade in front of a screen with height-lines marked on it. Charles found the selection process mystifying. Though a couple of the candidates looked vaguely like each other, none of them seemed to bear the slightest resemblance to him. And since he couldn't see the photographs which Bob Garston, Roger Parkes and Dana Wilson so assiduously pored over, he couldn't judge whether any of them looked at all like the missing Martin Earnshaw.

During the selection no attempt was made to treat the aspirants like human beings. Their physical attributes and oddities were anatomised without restraint. They were there simply as set-dressing and the winner would be the one who most closely fitted the preconceived design.