Dead on Cue (14 page)

‘Disappointed?' Woodend repeated, puzzled.

‘You are a fan of the show, aren't you?' Jane Todd asked. ‘I can usually spot them.'

‘Yes, I'm a fan,' Woodend admitted.

‘Then I would say disappointment's pretty much inevitable.'

Woodend began to understand what she'd meant the moment they entered the studio and he saw the set for the house exteriors. The street looked so convincing on television, but close up it was revealed to be a shoddy plywood structure on which the slightly crumbled brickwork was merely painted, and the brass doorknockers were obviously made out of plastic. It looked narrower and shorter than it did on the screen, too.

‘Clever camera angles – that's how they do it,' said Jane Todd, reading his mind.

The familiar
Maddox Row
living rooms were even more disillusioning. If he'd thought about it, Woodend would have realised that, for practical reasons, they would only have three walls – but he
hadn't
thought about it, and it came as something of a shock. And even the walls that
were
there ended at a point which must have been only inches above the top of the taller characters' heads.

‘What's the reason for that?' Woodend asked, touching the top of the wall gingerly with his fingertips. ‘Do they build them so low to save money?'

‘No, it's more to do with lighting,' Jane Todd told him. ‘The higher the overhead lights have to be, the steeper the angle and the coarser the portraiture which results.'

‘I see,' Woodend said unconvincingly.

More disappointments lay in store for him. The door at the back of Madge Thornycroft's living room led not a kitchen, but out on to the studio floor, only a few steps from Sam Fuller's living room – even though their houses were located at opposite ends of the Row. Dot Taylor had been standing on these stairs when she'd fallen down and broken her leg, but there seemed to have been no point in her being on them at all, since they didn't lead anywhere.

‘Is this all there is?' Woodend asked, when they'd finished their tour.

‘What makes you ask that?' Jane Todd wondered.

‘I don't remember seein' Tilly Woods' livin' room,' Woodend explained.

‘Even in a studio this size, there's not room to have all the sets erected,' Jane Todd said. ‘The Tinker's Bucket and the corner shop are permanent fixtures, because they're in nearly every episode, but the rest of the sets are kept in storage when they're not being used.'

‘I see,' Woodend said.

Jane Todd laughed.

‘What's so funny?' Woodend asked.

‘You are,' Jane said, with a complete lack of inhibition.

‘Me?'

‘Oh, not
just
you, but everybody we ever show around the studio. I told you you'd be disappointed, didn't I? You all know before you come in here that
Maddox Row
is nothing but make-believe, yet you still end up looking like kids who've just been told there's no such thing as Santa Claus.'

Woodend grinned ruefully. ‘You're right. That's just how I feel.'

‘Well, now you've had all your illusions well and truly shattered, shall I take you to see the rest of the place?' Jane suggested.

‘Aye, we might as well have the full two-bob tour while we're about it,' Woodend agreed, following her to the studio door.

The world on the other side of the dividing wall was very different to the one they were leaving. If he'd chosen to glance upwards, Woodend would have seen the high mill ceiling, but looking straight ahead he once again had the feeling that he was in the open air, walking through a village.

‘We just had dividing walls between the various departments at first,' Jane Todd said, following his gaze, ‘but it didn't take us long to discover that that simply wouldn't work.'

‘Why not?'

‘The noise, mostly. We couldn't hear ourselves think, what with the carpenters banging away from one end of the building and the typists pounding away on their machines from the other. The actors didn't like it either – said they couldn't “compose” themselves before the show with all that racket going on. So Mr Houseman had the flat roofs put on, and now I can sit in his office and hardly hear any of the work going on around me.'

‘He seems like a thoughtful man, your Mr Houseman,' Woodend said.

‘Does he?' Jane Todd said enigmatically. ‘That's the office block on your right. You've already been in there, haven't you?'

‘That's right, I have,' Woodend agreed. ‘Who else works in that particular block, apart from Houseman?'

‘Well, it's where Mr Wilcox has his office, then there's the conference rooms, the typing pool, the finance and ordering department, the public relations office and the entertainment suite. It takes quite a lot of people who never have anything to do with lights and cameras to put on a television show, you know.'

‘Aye, that's the picture I was already beginnin' to build up,' Woodend said.

‘On the other side of the central concourse, we have the various technical departments,' Jane Todd continued, pointing out several more buildings-within-a-building. ‘That's the scenery workshop, where the chippies build and maintain all the sets, and next to it is the scenery store. Beyond that is where we keep the technical equipment we're not actually using in the studio, and there's a repair shop attached to it. The last part of the technical department is the . . .' – her voice cracked a little– ‘. . . is the . . .'

‘Is the tool store that the murderer got the screwdriver from,' Woodend supplied, noticing the police seal on the door.

‘That's right,' Jane Todd agreed. ‘It was a horrible way to be killed, wasn't it?'

‘There aren't that many nice ways to be violently murdered,' Woodend pointed out.

They passed the café alcove, and Woodend averted his gaze from the blonde sergeant who appeared to be deep in conversation with three young women who were probably from the typing pool.

‘Refectory and kitchen,' Jane Todd said, unnecessarily. ‘And on the other side are the various departments with the responsibility for getting the actors ready to appear.'

‘Like what?' Woodend asked.

‘The props department – walking sticks, spectacles, anything the actors might need for a particular scene. Next to that is the costume department – which is pretty self-explanatory. Finally, there's the make-up department. A lot of their work is done on the set, of course, but if they have a particularly challenging job on their hands, they like to do it in there.'

‘You seem to know a lot about everythin' that's goin' on in the studio,' Woodend said.

Jane Todd smiled. ‘I work for Mr Houseman, and Mr Houseman likes to keep a finger in every pie. More often than not, that finger is me.'

From their table in the cafeteria, George Adams and Jennifer Brunton watched Jane Todd and the man in the hairy sports jacket walk past.

‘He doesn't look much like a hot-shot policeman, does he?' George Adams asked.

‘You can't judge a book by its cover,' Jennifer Brunton replied. ‘And you should know that better than most people.'

That was true enough, Adams agreed silently. Whenever he opened a village féte – forty pounds in used notes in his back pocket, and no questions asked – he met dozens of people who seemed to feel almost cheated that instead of meeting the shuffling pensioner, Sam Fuller, from
Maddox Row
, they ended up talking to the vigorous actor who played him.

‘Yes, to look at you now, nobody would ever guess you once had to get up at seven o'clock in the morning to slop out,' Jennifer Brunton continued.

So that was it! George Adams thought. She wasn't talking about him as an
actor
at all – she was talking about him as a man with a past. What a bitch she could be when she put her mind to it – and sometimes even when she didn't!

‘Well, your fairy godmother must certainly have been working overtime for you yesterday,' he said casually, beginning his counter-attack.

‘What exactly do you mean by that?'

Adams shrugged. ‘Nothing much – just that you got your wish.'

Jennifer Brunton frowned. ‘I don't know what you're talking about. What wish?'

‘Don't you remember?' Adams asked, feigning surprise. ‘We were all in rehearsal, and Val threw a tantrum. You called her – I think I've got the words right – “a bloody prima donna”, and said it was about time somebody taught her a lesson she wouldn't forget in a hurry. Well, somebody
did
teach her a lesson, though she's never going to have the chance to learn from it now, is she?'

‘I . . . I never meant I wanted to see her dead!' Jennifer Brunton protested. ‘How can you even suggest such a thing?'

‘I didn't actually
suggest
it,' George Adams countered. ‘But you must admit that you're not exactly heartbroken now that she is, are you?'

‘I'm very, very sorry that—'

‘You're very, very sorry that the murderer didn't wait until after Larry Coates had left the show before he did the dirty deed.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Oh yes, you do. Somebody has to step into the spotlight now that Val's gone, and if Larry hadn't been available, it would probably have been you.'

‘Or you,' Jennifer Brunton said hotly. ‘Neither of us can say for certain who Bill Houseman would have decided to make the big star if Larry hadn't been around. But I do know
one thing
for certain.'

‘And what's that?'

‘As much as I'd like to take Val's place, I don't care about it half as much as you do, George. You want to be the star so badly, you'd kill for it.'

Even without seeing the look which her remarks brought to George Adams' face, she would have realised she'd made a mistake the moment the words were out of her mouth.

‘I was . . . er . . . only speaking metaphorically,' she added lamely.

‘Perhaps you were, but you should still choose your words more carefully,' George Adams said. ‘After all, an old friend like me isn't going to misinterpret what you said, but there are others who might – and that could be as dangerous for you as it would be for me – because neither of us are above suspicion.'

‘Are you saying that
I'm
a suspect?' Jennifer Brunton demanded.

‘You know you are. Both of us will benefit from Val's death, even if all it amounts to is a few extra lines each episode – and it won't do either of us any good to go pointing the finger at the other.'

He was right, Jennifer Brunton thought, and though she was loath to abandon the exchange when he was so far ahead on points, it was probably the wisest thing to do in the circumstances. She looked around her for some distraction, and found it in the shape of a platinum blonde who was just walking past the cafeteria.

‘I wonder what's made the Queen Consort favour us with her presence again,' she said sourly, watching the blonde's buttocks roll in leopardskin trousers like two dwarfs fighting in a sack.

‘Could be our revered leader is taking her out to dinner somewhere once his day of creative genius is done,' George Adams suggested.

‘Perhaps he is,' Jennifer Brunton agreed. ‘But I'd be willing to bet that before she sits down at the table with her husband, she'll be
lying
down with someone else entirely.' She paused. ‘Do you think Bill
knows
that his wife's got a fancy man?'

‘I can't make up my mind about that,' Adams replied. ‘On the one hand, if he did know, you'd expect him to blow his top. But on the other, if he knew but thought that
we
didn't know, he might have decided his best course of action was just to keep quiet about the whole thing.'

‘I don't think Bill
does
know,' Jennifer Brunton said. ‘If he did, then surely he'd get rid of the bugger. I mean, it's not as if Diana's bit-on-the-side is anybody important, is it? Bill could find a replacement for him before he'd even had time to leave the building.'

‘That's true,' George Adams said. ‘It'd be easy enough to replace most of the people involved with the show. One electrician's pretty much like another. You never really notice when a new scriptwriter takes over. Any fool can tell the cameramen which direction to point their cameras in. And as for actresses, well, how hard is it play a one-dimensional character like the
Maddox Row
battleaxe, when you come to think about it?' He clapped his hand over his mouth in mock horror, then quickly removed it again. ‘I'm sorry about that, Jennifer. I didn't mean to say it, but it just slipped out. Habit, I suppose.'

A dangerous gleam appeared in Jennifer Brunton's eyes as she abandoned their temporary truce.

‘A very
bad
habit,' she said stonily. ‘Like your habit of drinking with the hacks from the scandal sheets until all hours of the night. Of course, that particular habit shouldn't be too hard to break, now.'

‘What do you mean – now?'

‘There's more than one way to skin a cat,' Jennifer Brunton said reflectively. ‘If the journalists had been prepared to print all those libellous stories you were feeding them about Val's sex life, she'd probably have lost her job. But they weren't prepared to print them, were they? Your little plan didn't work out. And now it doesn't need to.'

T
he building-within-a-building that Woodend and Jane Todd were standing in front of was quite unlike any of the ones the chief inspector had seen thus far. It was built in an L shape. The shorter arm of the L was at right angles to the main concourse, the longer one some distance away from it, much closer to the side wall of the mill. There were no doors in the long arm, but there were windows which looked out on to an area containing a number of shrubs and potted plants and park benches. The whole complex reminded Woodend of the chalets at a holiday camp where he'd once investigated a particularly macabre murder.