A Reconstructed Corpse (8 page)

The intervening items in the programme seemed particularly dull that week. Bob Garston had even allowed in Roger Parkes's survey of automatic security lights. But the relative tedium was calculated. Between each insert, the presenter wound up the expectation a little more, professionally controlling his revelations with all the skill of a strip-tease artiste.

At last the moment came. Turning with hitherto unplumbed depths of grittiness to another camera, Bob Garston announced, ‘And now we come to the latest news on the disappearance of Martin Earnshaw.' But he didn't go straight to the bombshell; still he extended his titillation of the viewing millions. ‘We've had a great many very useful calls from members of the public offering new information – and don't forget, our phone lines are open now and continue to be open twenty-four hours a day. The number's on your screen, so if you know anything – anything at all – get in touch. Remember, even what seems to you an insignificant detail could be vitally important to the police investigations – so please pick up your phone.

‘We've had one very useful call from a lady who saw Martin Earnshaw leaving the Brighton pub where the previous last sighting of him occurred. She's given us invaluable information for which we're very grateful, but we would urge her to make contact again to . . .' And he went into his predictable routine before introducing the reconstruction.

Charles Paris watched his own performance dispassionately. The only emotion it aroused in him was mild distaste. Was it really for this that I became an actor? The world is full of wonderful parts in brilliant plays and I end up imitating the walk of a vanished property developer. Have I no pride? Is there no job I wouldn't do for money?

Uncomfortably suspecting that he knew the answers to the last two questions, Charles Paris refilled his whisky glass, which seemed unaccountably to have emptied itself.

At the end of the insert, Bob Garston still prolonged the agony. There were repeated pleas for anyone with information to come forward, further specific pleas to the woman who had seen Martin Earnshaw going to the Palace Pier. Then there was a reminder about the challenge between Ted Faraday and the police from the previous week's programme, and the news that the private investigator had faxed in an update on his progress. ‘He's gone undercover, but is very optimistic that he's getting somewhere with his investigations.'

Bob Garston paused and held the silence for a long time. Then, turning to yet another camera, he produced his
coup de théatre
.

‘However, Ted Faraday is probably not yet aware of the dramatic new development in the case. I am able to tell you – here, exclusively, live on
Public Enemies
– that a body has been found, which is believed to be that of Martin Earnshaw. Or to be more accurate,
parts
of a body have been found.'

He left another long pause for the gruesome impact of his words to sink in even to the slowest viewing intellect. ‘Over to Detective Inspector Sam Noakes for the details.'

The camera found her at the front of the busy incident-room set. She sat, sternly pretty in her uniform, at a functional desk. The camera homed in to exclude the meaningless bustle behind her.

‘Acting on an underworld tip-off,' Sam Noakes, with effortless mastery of the autocue, announced, ‘police went to a graveyard in the village of Colmer five miles north of Brighton, where there had been apparent desecration of two recent graves. This kind of crime is all too common at the moment, and is frequently thought to be related to black magic practices . . .'

My God, this story's got everything, thought Charles. All we need now is a coven of naked witches. But his attempt at wry detachment didn't work. He was as surely ensnared by Sam Noakes's narrative as the rest of the silent millions.

‘It was found on examination that two recently buried coffins had been tampered with. When opened, police did not discover any harm or desecration to the bodies inside. However . . .' The detective inspector may have claimed the show business element of her work was merely a means to an end, but she could still hold a pause like a theatrical dame ‘. . . they did discover that something else had been placed inside the coffins.' Another silence Edith Evans would have killed for. ‘In each coffin they found a human arm.'

Millions of pins, in sitting rooms around the country, could have been heard to drop. Bob Garston gave them time to descend, before he again picked up the narrative.

‘Preliminary tests on those severed limbs suggest strongly that they belonged to Martin Eamshaw. His wife has very bravely been to try to identify them and is also of the view that they belonged to her husband. Chloe Earnshaw is obviously deeply traumatised by the experience, but has still agreed to appear – here, live – on tonight's programme. Her reason is a belief in human justice. Her husband has been murdered, and Chloe Earnshaw is determined to help find the
“Public Enemies”
responsible for the crime!'

The grieving wife – now officially the grieving widow – appeared on a separate set, looking frailer than ever between two huge villainous black cut-outs like those in the credits. She was still an elegant figure, in black polo-neck sweater and trousers, the colour now justified by her new status.

Her thin face, again with pale hair scoured back, bore witness to the strain she was under. It seemed even thinner and the highly developed skills of television make-up could not hide – or had perhaps been under instructions from the production team not to hide – the deep circles beneath Chloe's eyes and the redness that surrounded them.

This evidence of her distress made even more unworthy Charles Paris's thought that she still looked fanciable. His guilt was only alleviated by the knowledge that the same unworthy thought had sprung up in a few million other male minds across the country.

‘My husband has been murdered,' Chloe Earnshaw began simply. ‘That is a terrible truth for any wife to come to terms with, and I don't think it's yet sunk in for me. The reason I feel strong enough to be here tonight talking about Martin is probably that the truth hasn't sunk in yet.

‘But the reason that I am here talking to you is that I'm angry. Somebody has taken away the life of the man I love. They've taken him away from me forever. I'll never see Martin again.'

Her voice wavered as the reality of this hit her for the first time. She gulped and recovered herself. ‘But I don't believe anyone should be allowed to get away with a crime like that. There still is justice in this country and I want the people who killed my husband to face that justice. They must have friends. They must have wives, girlfriends. There must be someone out there who knows who they are. Please, please, if you know anything . . . just . . . get . . . in . . . touch . . .'

The last words struggled out against a mounting tide of tears and, as they finished, Chloe Earnshaw slumped, her head in her hands, weeping bitterly.

The camera, which had closed in on her suffering face, drew back very slowly, till her tiny body dwindled and the two huge cut-outs of
‘Public Enemies'
seemed to fill the screen.

Then there was a surprise. Across that stricken image, with no signature tune, the credits started to roll. This was unprecedented. Never before had a production involving Bob Garston ended without a return to the presenter for a closing remark and reminder whose show it was. But in this instance, recognising the strength of the final image, he must have put dramatic television above personal aggrandisement.

It was a surprising decision, given its source, but the right one. As the end credit, ‘A W.E.T. PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH BOB'S YOUR UNCLE PRODUCTIONS FOR ITV', rolled off the top of the screen and Chloe Earnshaw's tiny white face was lost in black, no one could deny the power of the image.

Nor could anyone deny the power of Chloe Earnshaw's performance. The actor in Charles had to admit, with purely professional admiration, ‘She's bloody good.'

ROGER PARKES's hopeful prognostications were gratifyingly realised.
Public Enemies
' revelations achieved all the reaction he had hoped for. The Friday's tabloids wallowed in the gruesomeness of the Colmer graveyard find, as ever appealing to that instinct in their readers which forms queues near motorway pile-ups, and as ever dressing up this prurience with ‘the-public-must-be-told-the-truth' sanctimoniousness.

There even developed a race between the papers to find a perfect nickname for the crime's perpetrator. The
Mirror
led off with ‘The Deadly Dissector';
Today
offered ‘The Sick Surgeon'; while the
Sun
kept things characteristically simple with ‘The Bloody Butcher'. Having made their pitches, they sat back and waited to see which name the public would latch on to, each paper hoping that its coining might attain the mythic status of a ‘Black Panther', a ‘Moors Murderer' or a ‘Yorkshire Ripper'.

The sensational Sunday papers, given more time, were able to come up with elaborate features on the story.
The People
brought forward a stomach-turning serialisation of a forensic pathologist's memoirs; while the
News of the World
included a pull-out supplement on other murders involving dismemberment – which no doubt led to many tasteless jokes over Sunday joints.

Far more gratifying, however, to the
Public Enemies
team than this news-inspired coverage was the media reaction to the way the revelation had been made. As Roger Parkes had hoped, there was an explosion of affront from the ‘quality' press and television news departments.

ITN attempted through the courts to put an injunction on
Public Enemies
, prohibiting any further ‘exclusive revelations'.
The Times
, in a leader headed ‘THE TAIL WAGGING THE DOG', waxed lyrical about ‘the sanctity of objective factual reporting' which must be protected from ‘the iconoclastic vandalism of thrill-seeking entertainment programmes'.

To complete Roger Parkes's happiness, a question was actually asked in the House. A self-important Labour member from South Wales asked whether ‘the Government condones the usurpation of journalistic values by televisual sensationalism.' Unfortunately the question received no meaningful answer, since it was asked at one of those moments when the chamber was virtually empty, but nonetheless a point of principle had been established.

Best of all, from the point of view of W.E.T. and Bob's Your Uncle Productions, that Thursday's edition of
Public Enemies
got wonderful ‘overnights'. These were the first indications of audience share, ratings which would be confirmed by fuller research a week later, but which indicated that all the elaborately teasing trails running up to the programme had done their stuff. ‘The BBC News,' as Bob Garston announced with relish, ‘was bloody nowhere – hardly on the map. We bloody stuffed them!'

And, given the amount of publicity that week's programme had generated, the next week's
Public Enemies
looked set fair to stuff the BBC even more comprehensively.

Which was, after all, the whole aim of the exercise.

Charles Paris found it odd being dead. Previously his rendering of Martin Eamshaw had been an impersonation of someone who might or might not have suffered a dreadful fate; now suddenly he was playing a murder VICTIM.

It wasn't of course the first time he'd done that. He'd been killed off early in many creaky stage thrillers, notably one called
The Message is Murder
at the Regent Theatre, Rugland Spa. For another, whose title he had mercifully forgotten, he received a notice which claimed: ‘Charles Paris dead was infinitely more convincing than the rest of the cast alive.'

Nor had his defunct performances been confined only to potboilers; he'd also given of himself in the classics. Indeed, his Ghost in a Chichester production of
Hamlet
had been greeted by the
West Sussex Gazette
with the following: ‘Charles Paris, as the Prince's father, looked surprisingly corporeal. His too, too solid flesh certainly showed no signs of melting.'

But all these experiences were different from playing the part of a real person who had, until very recently, been breathing, walking and talking. And had now suffered dismemberment. Being Martin Eamshaw did give Charles a bit of a
frisson
.

But it's an ill wind . . . Martin Earnshaw's murder offered Charles Paris the prospect of continuing employment – at least until the perpetrator of the crime was uncovered. The
Public Enemies
production team had come up with a winning formula, in which the heart-rending Chloe Earnshaw and her late husband were essential ingredients. They weren't about to change that in a hurry. Charles Paris, as the dead man, had become a running character in this soap opera of murder.

Briefly he even contemplated getting on to Maurice Skellern and demanding more money now he was such an integral part of the show, but he decided against it. Instead he – and some bottles of Bell's – passed the weekend around Hereford Road in empty-glove-puppet mode, waiting for the next summons to W.E.T. House.

It came on the Monday morning. Louise Denning, earnestly humourless. announced that he was required for a briefing meeting at eleven the following day. There was no enquiry as to whether he was available. It was again assumed that nothing would impede the ultimate imperative of television.

W.E.T. Reception was expecting him and Charles Paris was speedily and efficiently escorted upstairs by one of the programme secretaries. Once in the
Public Enemies
outer office, he was asked to wait. He was offered a cup of coffee, though no explanation for the delay. He accepted the coffee, which the secretary quickly brought before disappearing on some unspecified errand to another part of the building.