Dead on Cue (11 page)

‘It must do,' Woodend agreed.

‘Then the performance is over, and by eleven o'clock they're sitting on the last bus home, worrying about where they're going to find the money to pay the rent for the crummy little bed-sits they live in. Do that for a while, and it's bound to have some effect on you, isn't it?'

‘Could you be more specific?'

‘Since drama is so much more rewarding than real life, they infuse real life
with
drama. So when they threaten to kill someone, they really believe that they mean it. But only for that moment. Then the scene changes, they're in a different play, and the former object of their hate becomes their dearest love.'

‘You're talkin' about strugglin' actors here, aren't you?' Woodend asked. ‘Actors whose only reward is the audience's applause. I would have thought your cast had other compensations. Aren't they quite well-paid?'

‘They're
very
well-paid,' Houseman said. ‘But they
have
all struggled in the past, and it's not a mantle they can easily shrug off easily.'

It's not a mantle you can shrug off easily, either, if I'm readin' you right, Woodend thought.

‘Val Farnsworth never even considered the possibility that she would end up a star,' Houseman continued. ‘She had the wrong accent, for a start. And then, suddenly, a star was what she was. But that doesn't mean she felt secure. None of them do, because part of their mind is always back in that tatty bed-sit.'

An' I bet you could describe yours in great detail, even now, Woodend thought.

‘So Val was never happy with what she had,' Houseman said. ‘She always wanted more. More lines, better lines. And she wanted the very faults and weaknesses which had made her character so popular written out of the script. If she'd had it all her own way, Liz Bowyer would have become a perfect being – and incredibly boring. But Val wasn't the only person suffering from actors'-disease. Every member of the cast, from the stars right down to the humblest walk-on, feel exactly the same way.'

‘But they don't all have the power to turn their wishes into reality,' Woodend said thoughtfully. ‘I imagine Val Farnsworth was popular enough with the audience to make things go pretty much the way she wanted them to.'

Houseman laughed, but without much evidence of genuine amusement. ‘If I may say so, you've completely misunderstood the situation. Actors are rather like children. Or perhaps dogs. Of course, they'd rather have things going entirely their own way, but I can't allow that. I treat them firmly, but kindly, and eventually they end up doing what
I
want them to do.'

‘So you're sayin' you had Val Farnsworth under control?'

‘I have everyone who's concerned with
Maddox Row
under control. That's my job.'

‘You don't seem to have had the murderer under control,' Woodend pointed out.

Houseman winced. ‘That was a little below the belt, wasn't it, Chief Inspector?' he asked.

‘Killers don't normally play by the Queensberry Rules – so I can't afford to, either,' Woodend replied. ‘There is one thing that's been puzzlin' me, Mr Houseman.'

‘And what might that be?'

‘I started out, if you remember, by askin' you if you knew of anybody who might have wished to see Val Farnsworth dead.'

‘And I thought I'd pretty much answered the question.'

‘That's just where you're wrong. You haven't at all. Because you immediately started talkin' about the
actors
in the series.'

‘I thought that's what you wanted me to—'

‘An' there were more people than just actors in this buildin' when Val Farnsworth was killed. A lot more. In fact, I'd guess that the majority of folk who work on
Maddox Row
aren't actors to all.'

‘You'd be right in your assumption.'

‘So why did you confine your answer to the actors?'

Houseman gave him a puzzled frown. ‘I suppose it was because, in drama, if a noble lord is killed, it's normally by one of his own kind, rather than by a member of the peasantry,' he said finally.

‘So you're comparin' the actors to aristocrats, an' everybody else involved to serfs?'

‘Essentially, I suppose I am.'

‘Do you see yourself as a serf?'

‘Of course not!'

‘An' the director?'

‘He might be an oaf, but he's certainly not a serf.' Houseman paused. ‘You're surely not suggesting that I could have killed Val, are you?' he demanded.

‘I'm not suggestin' that anybody in particular killed her at the moment, sir,' Woodend said. ‘I don't have anythin' like enough information to make that kind of judgement.'

‘But you're not ruling me out?'

‘I think we're gettin' a bit ahead of ourselves here, sir,' Woodend said, side-stepping the question. ‘If my investigation's goin' to make any progress at all, I need to get a better mental picture of the studio, an' how it works. An' that means I need to do some wanderin' around. I imagine that on my first wander you'd prefer it if I was accompanied by one of your staff.'

‘I'd prefer it if you were
always
accompanied by one of my staff,' Houseman said.

‘That's not the way I work.'

‘A television studio is a very complex and finely balanced set of structures,' Houseman said. ‘You wouldn't allow a layman to blunder around the scene of a crime, because of the damage he might inadvertently do. And I'm afraid I can't allow you to blunder around the studio for exactly the same reason.'

‘You seem to be missin' the point,' Woodend said. ‘This is both a television studio
an
' the scene of a crime. And as far as I'm concerned, it's the scene of a crime
first
.'

‘Naturally, when you're looking at it from your perspective—' Bill Houseman began.

‘My perspective's the only one that matters at the moment,' Woodend interrupted him. ‘There's somethin' else you should get clear, an' all. I wasn't askin' your permission for what I intend to do – I don't need it. What I was proposin' when I mentioned a guide was a compromise between what you want, an' what I want. If you knew me better, you'd realise compromisin's not somethin' I do very often – so if I was you I'd grab the chance while it's there.'

‘I don't think we're going to get along, Chief Inspector,' Houseman said coldly.

‘I don't give a bugger whether we do or not,' Woodend told him. ‘Are you goin' to give me a guide? Or should I just find my own way around?'

‘I'll give you a guide,' Houseman said, through gritted teeth. ‘But I shall also be writing to your superiors to complain about your attitude.'

‘Aye, well that'll be nothin' fresh for them,' Woodend said.

He leant back in his chair and lit up a Capstan Full Strength. So much for the new, improved Charlie Woodend, the policeman-diplomat, he thought.

T
he central concourse was not as busy as it had been earlier, but Woodend suspected it was no more than a temporary lull, and that by one thirty, when he was given his tour of the studio, it would be as hectic as it had been when he first arrived.

He was to be shown round by Jane Todd, Bill Houseman's personal assistant – the woman who had contacted the local police after Val Farnsworth's body had been discovered. In his mind, Woodend was already starting to build up a picture of her. She was the producer's gatekeeper, which probably meant that she was as hard as nails and as unyielding as an iron bar – the sort of woman who can make a slavering Dobermann seem like a cuddly toy.

The chief inspector checked his watch. He had over an hour to kill before he met Houseman's gorgon, which was more than enough time to give his brain cells their necessary infusion of best bitter.

He reached the end of the concourse, nodded to the vigilant commissionaire, and stepped cautiously into the car park. But caution was not necessary. The reporters' cars had all disappeared, and though the two outside-broadcast vans were still there, they looked empty and forlorn.

Woodend grinned. He should have known it would be like this. He might run on bitter, but journalists ran on whisky and soda, and it was already well past their filling up time.

Bob Rutter had left him the Humber, and Woodend climbed behind the wheel. There was a pub on the edge of the village, he remembered from the drive in that morning, but as it was the closest watering-hole to the studio, it would undoubtedly be the one the journalists had chosen themselves. If he wanted a bit of peace and quiet, he would be wise to go further afield.

He drove for four miles before he came a pub called the Green Man. He parked the Humber, headed straight for the bar and ordered himself a pint. It was only as the barman was pulling it that he noticed the woman with the jet-black hair sitting on a tall bar stool at the other end of the counter.

‘Hell an' damnation!' he said softly to himself.

‘I'll pay for that drink,' the woman called out to the barman as she reached into her purse.

The barman looked questioningly at Woodend, and when the chief inspector firmly shook his head, he said, ‘If it's all the same to you, madam, the gentleman would prefer to buy his own drink.'

The woman slid off her stool and edged up the bar so she was standing next to Woodend. The chief inspector sorted out some change, and slid it across the counter as if she wasn't there.

‘I wasn't trying to pick you up,' she said.

‘I didn't think you were,' Woodend replied, before taking a slow sip of his beer.

‘You don't remember me, do you?'

Woodend sighed. ‘Don't I?'

‘It's probably because my hair's a different colour from the last time you saw me. My name's Eliz—'

‘It'd take more than a change of colour that's come out of a bottle to make me forget a pain in the backside like you,' Woodend interrupted her. ‘Your name's Elizabeth Driver, an' the last time we talked you were a junior reporter on the
Maltham Guardian
.'

‘I don't work there any more,' Elizabeth Driver said, with an edge of reproach to her voice.

‘I'm not in the least surprised.'

‘No, you wouldn't be. After all the fuss you made to my editor, he really had no choice but to sack me.'

‘You brought it on yourself,' Woodend said indifferently. ‘An' I'll tell you somethin' else, Miss Driver – you were lucky just to lose your job. After the way you deliberately buggered about with my investigation at Westbury Park, you could have ended up in jail.'

‘You'd never have made the charges stick,' Elizabeth Driver said with a complete absence of remorse. ‘Anyway, I wasn't unemployed for long. I told you at the time I'd soon get another job. You remember that, don't you?'

‘Aye, I remember.'

‘And only three days after I'd picked up my cards from that tired little rag in Maltham, I was offered the plum post of northern crime correspondent for the
Daily Globe
.'

‘I'm sure you an' the paper are well suited to one another,' Woodend told her.

‘And just what do you mean by that?'

‘Given the choice, the
Globe
has always preferred makin' up the news to reportin' it. Well, that's a lot less effort, isn't it?'

‘The
Globe
is a serious national newspaper,' Elizabeth Driver said tightly.

‘No, it isn't. It's a sensationalisin' scandal sheet of the worst kind,' Woodend corrected her. ‘Always has been. Anyway, I take it that this meetin' isn't purely by chance.'

‘Very few things I do are by chance,' Elizabeth Driver said complacently. ‘I knew you'd want a pint, and I calculated you'd think that this pub was just far enough away from the studio to ensure you'd be safe from reporters.'

‘You always were a smart lass,' Woodend told her. ‘That's why it's such a pity to see you squanderin' your talents on a rag like the
Globe
.'

‘It's not just my job situation which has changed since the last time we met – yours has as well,' Elizabeth Driver pointed out, with a cutting edge to her tone. ‘You were a hot-shot from Scotland Yard back then. Now you're nothing but a country policeman.'

Woodend laughed with genuine amusement. ‘You've got it all wrong,' he said. ‘I've never been a hot-shot
anythin
', lass. I'm just a simple bobby whose job it is to catch criminals – when he can.'

‘You don't
have to
stay out in the sticks for ever,' Elizabeth Driver told him. ‘Scandal sheet or not, the
Globe
could do you a lot of good.'

‘Could it?'

‘Of course it could.'

‘But you'd want somethin' in return?'

‘Naturally I would.'

‘An' what might that somethin' be?'

‘If you were to make sure that I was told of new developments in the case a few hours before any of the other reporters, I could build you up into some kind of national hero.'

‘An' what if I don't want to be a national hero?'

‘
Everybody
wants fame,' Elizabeth Driver said dismissively. ‘Especially when you consider the alternative.'

‘Which is?'

‘Instead of portraying you as a hero, I could paint you as a complete buffoon – the sort of music-hall comic policeman who can't even find his own way home without a trained police dog to show him the way. Imagine six million people picking up the
Globe
and reading that!'

‘Aye,' Woodend said. ‘Just imagine it.'

‘So what's it to be?' Elizabeth Driver demanded impatiently. ‘Hero or buffoon? The choice is yours. Either of them will sell papers.'