A Comedian Dies

CHAPTER FIVE

COMIC: I say, I say, I say, why did the film-mad chicken cross the road?

FEED: I don’t know. Why did the road-mad chicken cross the road?

COMIC: To see Gregory Peck.

‘As you can imagine, Gerald, I felt quite a fool.’

‘Yes. Of course, if you are going to turn funny, you’re about the right age for it. I mean, if you do feel you want to start flashing in the park. It’s only to be expected.’

‘Ha, ha. You’re condemning yourself too. You’re the same age as me. And smooth solicitors aren’t immune from developing embarrassing habits. So watch it.’

Gerald chuckled uneasily down the phone. He was warned that his secretary Polly might be listening in. In spite of her obvious maturity and worldly eye, he had an old-fashioned view of what she should be allowed to hear or see.

Charles continued, ‘One thing was interesting. Even though he did think I was some kind of pervert, the information he gave me was true. Janine and her boy-friend have recently moved out of their flat. I’ve checked.’

‘Where did you get the address?’

‘Amazingly, from Maurice. You know, Maurice Skellern, my agent, the theatrical ‘Who’s Sleeping with Who’. He knew somebody who knew somebody who had once known Janine. Rang me back within half an hour. He’s impressively efficient about everything except being an agent.’

‘He didn’t know who Janine’s boy-friend was?’

‘No. Nobody seems to know that. But they’ve certainly both moved out.’

‘If you went to the flat, surely you could have checked with the landlord.’

‘I didn’t go to the flat. I just rang up and spoke to the new tenants. They didn’t know who had been living there before. But I got the landlord’s name and rang him. He was, to put it mildly, unhelpful. To put it less mildly, bloody abusive. That’s why I rang you.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘I thought maybe you could use your professional position. If you were to identify yourself and ask him, he’d probably tell you.’

‘Hmm.’

‘I mean, solicitors carry weight — and not just from all those lunches they have at their client’s expense.’

‘Ha, ha. You have a very puerile sense of humour, Charles. All right, I’ll try and ring you back.’

Gerald fulfilled his promise within ten minutes. ‘I understand what you mean about downright abusive.’

‘Ah. He didn’t tell you anything either?’

‘He told me all he knew, but it wasn’t very helpful. He didn’t even know Janine had been living there. Some bloke had a five-year lease on the place and it’s been through a long sequence of sublets — you know, the lease passed on with a payment euphemistically known as ‘fixtures and fittings’. Used to be known as ‘key money’. Illegal, but pretty common, particularly since the Rent Act. It was on the subject of this practice that the landlord became downright abusive.’

‘Hmm. So Janine’s trail has gone cold?’

‘Yes, Charles. For the time being, she’s disappeared.’

‘Right.’

‘Which must surely lend support to your theory that she killed Peaky.’

‘Yes. Except, since the inquest raised no suspicion of foul play and she doesn’t know that anyone disbelieves its findings, why does she need to disappear?’

‘See your point. What else could it mean, though?’

‘Well. . if someone else murdered Peaky and she found out, then she might know too much and. . I don’t know, it’s only conjecture, but the timing does seem odd. There must be some connection between Peaky’s death and her disappearance.’

‘Sure thing, buster.’

‘The main priority is still to find her. And to get as much background on the case as possible. I’ll pump Lennie Barber some more.’

‘Oh yes, of course, the show’s tomorrow. How was the rehearsal?’

‘I don’t really know. It’s more like army drill than rehearsal. Barber gives me my timing by numbers. “I say my line, you give it a count of two, then you come in. In the middle of the speech a count of four and at the end of the line give three before you move your head.” I think a computer could be programmed to do it instead of me. And probably better.’

‘Is the material funny?’

‘God knows. It seems pretty corny to me, but then I’m not an expert on comedy script. Also rehearsing it this way would take the humour out of anything. See how the audience reacts tomorrow night.’

‘I’ll be out front rooting for you, baby. And, incidentally, anything else I can do for you on the investigation front, just let me know.’

The Alexander Harvey Show was pre-recorded some four hours before its late-night Saturday transmission, so that any major technical cock-ups or offences against public decency could be edited out. Like most chat shows, it kept its guests in a well-stocked hospitality room until such time as they were fed out like gladiators into the arena with Alexander Harvey. The theory was that a drink would relax the guest into his most sparkling form. The danger was that the guests could become relaxed to the point of incoherence and occasionally even fall off their swivel chairs.

Charles was beginning to fear that this might be the case with Lennie Barber. The comedian had appropriated a whole bottle of whisky from the rather dishy researcher who was looking after them, and was working through it as if it were lemonade. Charles, who himself had a modest proficiency with a whisky bottle, was amazed at the speed with which it was going down. He was stinting himself for fear of forgetting the elaborate system of acting by numbers which he had just learned, but Lennie Barber seemed to be affected by no such inhibitions.

‘Bloody awful medium, television,’ the comedian mumbled disconsolately. ‘No atmosphere, you do everything a dozen times, keep stopping and starting. You can’t see the bloody audience and they can’t see you, for all the cameras and sound booms and bloody people. So many people around, just hanging around. Looks as if they’re gathering for a lynching.’

‘Didn’t you like it when you did the old Barber and Pole Shows?’

‘It was different then. Less sophisticated. Less bloody cameras. You just did your act. Now it’s all arty-farty. Still, you got to do it. Never turn up a telly. That’s what people watch these days. Got to be seen if you’re going to make it.’

‘Yes, and of course that’s where the money is,’ Charles contributed knowledgeably.

‘Not the real money. Sure, television’s good. But the real money for a comedian’s in cabaret. Those big cabaret joints, the clubs, they pay the comic all the door money, virtually. Make their dough on the drinks, and the chicken-in-the-basket. Yes, if you want to clean up, get on to one of the major cabaret circuits. Mind you, you need to do the telly for them to book you. Bleedin’ vicious circle.’ Lennie Barber morosely refilled his whisky. His hands were no longer bandaged, no doubt as a concession to the television camera, but he held the glass and bottle gingerly. As he put the bottle down, Charles saw on his palm the bright pink of new skin surrounded by yellowing flakes which were all that remained of the blisters.

Lennie Barber’s burns were genuine. Which, to Charles’ mind, made it very unlikely that the old comedian could have killed Bill Peaky.

‘Um, I think we’ll probably be going ahead in about ten minutes,’ said the dishy researcher, and added for the seventh time, ‘So it’ll just be about ten minutes’ chat along the lines Alex suggested and then straight into the sketch on the special set.’

‘Fine. Point me in the right direction when the time comes,’ Barber mumbled slackly.

‘Are you sure you, feel all right, Mr. Barber?’ Her pretty little face looked anxious. Good heavens, was this show going to be a MAJOR DISASTER to be talked about for weeks in the bar? Like all girls in their twenties in television, she took it TERRIBLY SERIOUSLY and she wasn’t sure that she could cope with an incapably drunk guest. Oh dear, would Alex blame her?

‘I’m on top of the world.’ Barber’s tones were even more slurred.

‘Oh, um. If you’ll excuse me, I must just have a word with the producer.’ And she scuttled out, all White Rabbit.

Charles, who had also been worried by the sudden deterioration in Barber’s condition, was relieved to receive a wink.

‘Get ’em worried. They love it in television. Feel lost without an atmosphere of panic.’

Charles laughed. ‘She’s a pretty little thing. Your type?’

‘My type?’

‘Your type of woman?’

‘I haven’t got a type of woman anymore. Just no interest in them. I’ve been through it all — affairs, marriage, divorce, one-night stands, little dancers, big landladies, the lot — and now I couldn’t give a damn. It’s as if all that bit of my life just doesn’t exist.’

‘But don’t you miss it?’

‘Never give it a thought. I find, getting older, lots of things that used to be important just don’t matter anymore. I look back and I think, why the hell did I waste all my time with that?’

‘Yes.’ Charles mused. In a strange way the moment seemed propitious to continue his inquiries into Bill Peaky’s death. With no apologies for the change of subject, he started. ‘Lennie, you know you told me about Bill Peaky having an affair with one of the girls in Hunstanton?’

‘With three of them, yes.’

‘But one in particular. Janine.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve no idea where she is, have you? I want to contact her.’

So far the comedian had not seemed to notice the change in direction of the conversation, but at this he looked up. ‘Now why do you want to contact her? Oh, just a minute, Walter told me something about you being a bit of an amateur detective on the quiet. Is that it? You think there may have been something funny about his death?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘The coroner didn’t seem to think so.’

‘No, but I happen to know that Peaky did test out his equipment as usual that day.’

Barber registered genuine surprise at that. ‘How on earth did you find that out?’

‘Norman del Rosa saw him. For reasons of his own he didn’t want to tell the police.’

‘I can guess the reasons of his own. He was off stealing the dancers’ knickers.’

‘Not far off.’

‘So, what. . you reckon someone fiddled with the electrics after Peaky had tested them?’

‘Again, it’s possible.’

‘But how?’

‘Haven’t got that far yet.’

‘Hmm. I think you may be on a wild goose chase. That theatre’s electrics were so ropey nothing would surprise me about them. I would imagine whatever the fault was just came and went.’

‘Maybe.’

‘But anyway, your suspicions are heading towards Janine at the moment?’

‘As she had been having an affair with him and had a major row on the day of his death, she would seem to have some sort of motive.’

‘Yes. Mind you, who didn’t? I don’t think there was a single person in that company whose back he hadn’t got up at some point. He was bloody rude to everyone — all the dancers, the pop group lot, that miserable little pianist. Even poor old Walter. He’d been hanging round for some time trying to get a telly show going, but Peaky treated him like dirt, kept saying he was getting better offers from the other companies, that sort of line.’

‘Oh, so Walter had been down to see the show before that day?’

‘Oh yeah, three or four times.’

‘I see. But going back to Janine. .’

‘Sorry. Don’t think I can help you. Never even knew her address.’

‘She’s moved anyway, but I thought you might know some of her friends or. .’

‘Don’t know she had any. You could try the rest of the group, I suppose. No, she was a funny little thing. Very quiet. Apparently lived with this boyfriend in London, but nobody never knew his name. I gather the entry of Prince Bloody Charming Bill Peaky into her life really confused her. Should she give up boy-friend? Should she even tell boy-friend? You know how screwed up kids get about that sort of thing.’

He spoke as if people who got upset about sexual matters belonged to an alien race. The whisky glass was filled again and emptied.

Charles was back where he started. Barber’s comments had told him nothing new about Janine. They had opened up possibilities for investigation of other characters involved in Sun ’n’ Funtime, but Charles found it difficult to concentrate on more than one suspect at a time. Until he had seen Janine, any other course of inquiry seemed a bit futile. Once she had been eliminated. . Even as he thought it, the word ‘eliminated’ took on sinister overtones. What had happened to Janine Bentley?

The producer of the show arrived with the dishy researcher. Lennie Barber slumped back into his posture of glazed incapacity.

‘All set?’ asked the producer with imposed joviality. (Incidentally, the producer was not Walter Proud, who, though responsible for the original idea of recreating the Barber and Pole routine, seemed since to have been pushed into the background.)

‘Set? I’m as set as a bloody blancmange, thank you.’ Lennie Barber rose to his feet expansively, then seemed to lose his balance and sank back, arms windmilling, onto the side of his chair. Chair and comedian collapsed in a sprawling heap on the floor. The producer and the dishy researcher hastened forward to scoop Barber up.

‘Are you going to be all right for the show?’ The acid in the producer’s tone was trickling straight down to his stomach to feed his incipient ulcer.

‘No problem.’ Lennie Barber oriented himself towards the door and got through it, hardly hitting the frame at all.

Ignoring Charles, the producer and the dishy researcher scuttled after. As they passed, he heard them muttering, ‘Thank God we keep that interview with Greg Robson in reserve. Just need a quick announcement from continuity about a change to the scheduled programme.’

Alexander Harvey’s high viewing figures did not exactly reflect his personal popularity. Indeed, many of the people who watched the programme did so merely to confirm how much they disliked him. Being the host on a chat-show is, by its nature, a thankless task, because everyone tunes in to see the guests rather than the presenter anyway, and the host has the options of either keeping a profile low to the point of anonymity or high to the point of irritation. Alexander Harvey had chosen the latter course.

Sometimes this paid handsome dividends. He was very good at stimulating the reticent and cutting short the long-winded, and often the guests, in sheer exasperation at the manner of his questioning, made newsworthy indiscretions. Also he was clever — no one denied that — and was quick at picking up nuances or spotting potentially interesting new directions for the conversation.

His approach also had disadvantages. Apart from the obvious one that the viewing public, who didn’t basically like him, were constantly having their attention drawn back to him, he sometimes tended to cut short an interviewee too early into an anecdote and not to allow his victims to pace the conversation to their own style.

He was also ‘very into’ The Arts and considered his guests on a sliding scale of esoteric snobbery. Opera stars he held in highest esteem, breathing adulation over them with every word. Other classical musicians got a fairly high rating. Theatrical knights and dames scored well, though the rest of the acting profession came rather lower down the scale. Authors and playwrights were OK, so long as they weren’t too successful with the public. Popular singers had to have unexpected sidelines to rate anything other than contempt. And comedians. . Well, comedians were there to be patronized with ill-disguised disgust.

Though that was the basic outline of his scale of values, there were other variables which made predictions of his treatment of a guest difficult. For instance, Hollywood cast a special glow. Any performer, however terrible, who had appeared in some black-and-white ‘B’ feature in the forties and who could drop the names of a couple of superannuated directors, immediately shot up the league. Being American also improved the credit rating. And being old was an enormous asset. The older the better. Old people gave Alexander Harvey the opportunity to show (a) How good he was with old people; (b) How well he (or in fact one of his researchers) had researched his guest’s career; and (c) How important Alexander Harvey was to have such venerable figures chatting to him in such a convivial manner.

So to receive optimum treatment on the Alexander Harvey Show a guest should be a hundred-year-old American opera singer who had made a lot of Hollywood films in the course of a long and anecdote-littered career.

Exactly where all this left Lennie Barber, Charles was not certain, but everything pointed to a patronizing roasting. The only plus point the comedian had on the Alexander Harvey scale was age, and he didn’t really have that in sufficient quantity. Lennie Barber was only sixty-two and Alexander Harvey came into his own with octogenarians and nonagenarians. And, Charles discovered from the dishy researcher, Barber also suffered a big minus — he had been someone else’s idea. It should have been mentioned that theideal hundred-year-old opera singer must have been suggested for the show by Alexander Harvey himself.

Charles lurked round the back of the set as the interview started and watched events on a black-and-white monitor. It was clear from his first words that Alexander Harvey was in a carving-up mood. His introduction was couched in a camp sneer. He gave exactly the sort of information that Barber would have hated. ‘. . whom you may remember from the forties and fifties when he was very successful in the apprentice days of television. Unfortunately, with the death of Wilkie Pole, the act was over and public taste seemed to change. However, we are delighted to say that he is still a working comedian and it’s a great privilege for me to welcome tonight — Mr. Lennie Barber!’

From his vantage point Charles could see both sides of Barber’s entry. The reeling approach behind the flats (for the benefit of the producer’s coronary and the dishy researcher’s hot flushes) and the upright dignified appearance on camera (for the benefit of the viewing public).

The studio audience’s applause was surprisingly warm. In spite of the changes time had wrought, they still found Lennie Barber comfortingly familiar, like cups of Ovaltine and ration books and tram tickets and suspender belts, a link with a simpler time.

But it was clear as Alexander Harvey came in over the applause that he was out for blood. ‘Now, Lennie, you’re a comedian, you have been one all your life, you must have thought a lot about the nature of comedy, so tell me. .’ He paused ingenuously. It was clever. He was going to get the comedian to talk about the nature of comedy, knowing that analysis of humour reduces intelligent people to incoherent wafflers and brilliant comedians to unfunny bores. This was an ideal start for the Alexander Harvey method. His victim was bound to go on at inordinate length, until an incisive interruption from Harvey would point up his long-windedness. The question was poised delicately in the air. ‘What makes a joke funny?’

‘An audience laughing at it,’ Lennie Barber replied immediately, and by doing so, proved that he had just made a joke. The audience laughed. The line itself wasn’t funny, but Barber’s speed of delivery and obvious contempt for the question, coupled with Harvey’s expression of surprise, made it a very funny moment.

Alexander Harvey was disconcerted to the point of looking at the notes on his clipboard (something which usually happened much later into one of his interviews). He had to come in quickly with another question. The longer the break after Barber’s reply, the longer the comedian’s triumph. But Harvey was a professional and he shaped his next question skilfully. He asked something which would make Barber define his own success or failure. ‘You’ve been a comedian all your life and comedy is a notoriously insecure profession. One day you’re on top, the next nobody wants to know about you. When in your career did you feel really confident that you had made it?’

‘Tuesday nights mostly.’ Again the response was perfectly timed and the audience picked up the sexual innuendo instantly.

Alexander Harvey’s mouth hardened into a little line of petulance. These short answers may have been to the audience’s taste, but they made it difficult for him to impose his own rhythm on the interview. He decided to slow the proceedings down and reassert control with a longer question.

‘One thing I must ask you — we hear constantly about the issues of censorship and permissiveness.’ (He was trying to steer Barber into an area of serious discussion where the comedian would show himself up as trivial.) ‘Now, the traditions of the music hall are very robust, even vulgar — I suppose I’m thinking of people like Marie Lloyd, Max Miller. When you were in the double act with Wilkie Pole, your material was very clean, but now that a lot of the taboos are down and you are still working in the comedy field, how do you view sex?’

‘Through binoculars.’ Prompt again, right on cue. Alexander Harvey was being reduced to the level of a feed and the more he tried to take control, the more he set himself up.

He laughed insincerely and pressed on with his next question as if this badinage was all very well, but not really what the public had switched on to see. ‘Now, Lennie, there’s a cliche around that comedians are pretty pathetic people offstage.’

‘Some of them are pretty pathetic on-stage.’ The audience roared again.

‘I mean that, as in the example of Pagliacci,’ (hoping to show Barber up by abstruse reference) ‘clowns are essentially tragic figures — do you subscribe to this view?’

‘I don’t know. What’s the subscription?’ (Laughter.)

‘What I mean is that comedians yearn to be taken seriously. For instance, they’re supposed to have aspirations towards the legitimate theatre. Do you want to play Hamlet?’

‘What at?’ (Laughter.)

‘Ha, ha, very good. Perhaps we could move on to television. I mean, here you are, a comedian brought up through the tough school of the music hall, which is now dead, and here we are on today’s medium, television. It has been said that music hall died and television was the box they put it in — do you agree with that?’

‘What, that people on television are dead?’ (Laughter.)

‘No, no.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ve been watching too many chat-shows.’ (Laughter and applause.)

‘Yes. I’m sorry. I was trying to ask a serious question.’ Harvey sounded as piqued as the local favourite beaten for the Women’s Institute Flower Arranging Trophy by a complete novice. ‘Let me try another tack. It always seems to me that it must be difficult for a comedian to have any dignity. I. . er. .’

Alexander Harvey paused for a second, apparently perplexed. He could see the Floor Manager beyond the circle of light gesturing at him. The man was circling his hand in the accepted ‘wind-up’ signal. Time to bring the chat to an end. What threw Alexander Harvey was that, though he had seen the signal any number of times, he had never actually seen it while he was talking. It was usually while some nonagenarian flautist was telling a rambling tale about Sir Thomas Beecham. But now it was being directed at him. His confusion came with the realization that he was the one who was being boring, that he was the one whom the director was no doubt vilifying in the control room. He stumbled in his sentence and then picked up momentum with an edge of bitchiness. ‘Um, Marty Feldman once said that comedy was an unnatural act — would you agree?’

‘Would I agree to an unnatural act? Is that a proposition?’ asked Lennie Barber coolly and perfectly. The audience erupted into laughter and applause. Barber’s riposte had struck a chord in all of them. Not only had it been rude to a man whom at bottom they hated; it had also reflected their own suspicions about his sexual identity.

Alexander Harvey, a fixedly indulgent smile on his face, hastily gestured at his guest, to make it look as if he was cueing the applause rather than letting it arise spontaneously. But the gesture was too late. There was no doubt that, at the end of the contest, Lennie Barber had won by a knockout.

Alexander Harvey linked ungraciously into the sketch, but he could no longer do any harm. Snide remarks about ‘the sort of comedy that used to be popular in the late thirties’ could not weaken Barber’s hold on his audience. And the omission of Charles Paris’ name from his introduction was unlikely to worry anyone except Frances (bound to be watching), Maurice Skellern (possibly ill with excitement at the thought of one of his clients actually being in work) and, of course, Charles himself.

After the interview, the sketch could not fail. The script was really pretty limp stuff, containing every old barbershop joke that ever groaned into life. But audiences like old jokes, and Lennie Barber was the hero of the hour. Apart from that, he rose above his material. Charles, as he went through his automation acting routine (Bepardon? — 1–2 — 3 — Bepardon?’) found his respect for the comedian soaring. Lennie Barber was right; he did know how comedy worked.

The set-up of the sketch was simple. Barber, in a hastily-assumed white coat, was the barber. Wilkie Pole was a gormless North Country youth who was about to meet his girl and wanted a quick hair-cut and shave ‘so’s I look me best, like, for me little girlie — 1–2 — (Bashful simper).’ Barber, having offered him ‘hair-cuts, hair-brushes, hair-combs, hair-oil, hair-tonic, hair-restorer — sounds like a German picnic, doesn’t it?’ sat him in the chair and proceeded to hack away at the special wig on his head, keeping up a running stream of gags the while. When the wig was reduced to a haystack he started on the shaving. He kept cutting his client’s chin (‘Only a little nick, sir’) and putting pieces of paper on the cuts. Pole left the shop with his face a mass of confetti and his hair in shreds.

The jokes were equally simple. For example, Barber would be stropping his razor. ‘Always get it very sharp, sir, got to be sharp. I test my razors by seeing if they can cut through a single hair. A single hair.’ (HE SUDDENLY WHIPS A PROP HARE OUT OF HIS. COAT AND SLASHED AT IT WITH THE RAZOR, WHICH HAS NO EFFECT.)

‘Not sharp enough.’ (HE CONTINUES STROPPING.)

Or again. .

BARBER: And now for the lather. . Only the finest shaving brush is used. Genuine ivory stem. Do you realize an elephant gave his life just so that you could look elegant for your girlie?

POLE: Ooh.

BARBER: Not to mention the badger.

POLE: The badger?

BARBER (PUSHING THE SHAVING BRUSH INTO HIS MOUTH): I told you not to mention the badger. And then of course there’s the shaving soap. I have a variety of shaving soaps. How would you like your shaving soap?

POLE: Oh, I’d like it scented.

BARBER: No, it’s much easier if you take it with you. But what you really need is my very own special soap. It’s a mixture of silver paint and sulphuric acid and it has two advantages — first, it means you can see your face in your chin so you don’t need a mirror. And second, you get some amazing dimples.

And third. . it make the lather go farther.

This last line was greeted by an enormous round of applause. It was one of the old Barber and Pole catch-phrases. That, along with ‘It helps the soap to cope,’ ‘Only a little nick, sir’ and ‘Bepardon?’ were all the trade-marks of the double act. And the audience clung to them like religion in an age of uncertainty. They responded ecstatically.

Even the hardware of a television studio failed to ruin the atmosphere. Because the moves and action of the sketch were so fixed, it had been possible to make the camera script very simple. The whole six minutes ran without break and no retakes were required.

There was no doubt about it. The show had been an enormous success.

Charles stood by the bar at the back of the scrum of television people getting drinks. He felt strange and needed the reassurance of a large Bell’s.

It was such a long time since he had felt that kind of warmth from an audience. Such a long time since he had appeared in anything more than modestly successful. To his annoyance, he felt rather emotional. It was a moving experience to feel the response of a wildly enthusiastic audience. It cut through all his layers of cynicism and left him exposed like a stage-struck teenager.

‘Drink, drink, old boy. Really terrific show. There’s the beginning of something here, or the old nose for success has got its sinuses blocked.’ Walter Proud’s bonhomous arm was flung round his shoulders. ‘Sid. Sid.’ The producer waved at the barman. ‘What’s it to be, Charles?’

‘Large Bell’s, please.’

‘Of course, of course. Should have remembered. That’s a large Bell’s, Sid, and my usual, a large gin with. .’ But the barman’s attention was elsewhere. ‘Look, I think I was first. Excuse me, Charles, I must just. .’ Walter dived into the melee.

‘Not bad. Thank you.’ Charles turned to see Lennie Barber behind him and took the brusque words as a great compliment. The comedian was not given to sycophancy.

‘I’m very grateful to you for all your help, Lennie. As I said, it’s a completely new field for me. I’ve found it fascinating. And may I say how marvellous I thought you were with Alexander Harvey. And in the sketch. . really great.’ Oh dear, is there nothing that one performer can say to another that doesn’t sound insincere?

‘He’s nothing, that Harvey, after you’ve played a second house in Liverpool.’

The subject of their conversation approached with a smile sculpted onto his face and a hand outstretched. ‘Lovely show. Delighted with it. I hope I set them all up for you all right,’ he added jocularly, as if his discomfiture had been part of a subtle master plan.

Lennie Barber looked at Alexander Harvey seriously before replying. Then, as if he had thought it out in some detail, he said, ‘You weren’t that good actually, lad. Tell you what, you do three or four years round the clubs and you might turn into a reasonable feed.’

A visible effort of will kept the smile in place on the face of the country’s most popular chat-show host. While he searched his mental quiver for a barb with sufficient poison on it to use in reply, he was interrupted by the arrival behind him of a neat forty-year-old man in a grey suit.

‘Very nice show, Alex,’ congratulated the newcomer. ‘Thought it went very well.’

‘Oh thanks,’ said a rather deflated Alexander Harvey.

At that moment Walter Proud bustled up with Charles’ Bell’s and his own gin. He greeted the man in the grey suit effusively. ‘Nigel, great to see you. How goes it?’

‘Fine, fine,’ said the man in the grey suit.

‘You haven’t got a drink. What is it? Still the Campari?’

‘That’d be very nice, thank you.’

‘What about you, Alex? Lennie? Actually, Nigel, when I’ve got the drinks, I’d like to bend your ear for a moment about a couple of ideas.’

‘Fine, line.’ The man grinned vaguely as Walter disappeared into the bar scrum, then turned sharply to Alexander Harvey. ‘Who is that?’

‘Walter Proud. Used to be at the BBC.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve met him somewhere. He’s not with us at the moment, is he?’

‘Yes, three months’ contract. Meant to be coming up with ideas. Tonight was one of his.’ Alexander Harvey grimaced.

‘I see. I’ve got to go and talk to Paul over there. Excuse me.’ The man in the grey suit flicked Charles and Barber a professional smile and moved away with Alexander Harvey in tow.

Charles looked at the comedian quizzically. ‘He’s Nigel Frisch, Director of Programmes here and one very important person.’

Walter emerged from the scrum of drinks. ‘Oh, where did they go to?’ He handed a very large Scotch to Barber, who pointed to the other side of the bar. ‘I’ll take the drinks over. You know, Lennie, I’m really excited by what happened tonight. I think we’re on to something. I think we can get a show going, built round the old Barber and Pole routines — I mean, not just old stuff, get in some young writers, you know, give it a bit of edge, kind of revue format — we’d be on to a winner. It wouldn’t be just the nostalgia appeal, though that’s there. I reckon if you can present the public with a package that’s got nostalgia and is modem at the same time, then you’ve got to be on to a winner. Lennie Barber, I think you could be on the verge of the biggest comeback there ever was. Well, what do you say?’

Lennie Barber shrugged without changing his expression. ‘I say “Oh yeah?”’

‘Yeah. Certainly.’

‘Show me the contract and I might believe you.’

‘Well, at least sound a bit excited about it.’

‘If I got excited every time I heard a producer say I was on the verge of a comeback, I’d have dropped dead years ago. Once you’ve been an overnight success more than a couple of dozen times the novelty wears off.’

‘This time it’s for real. This one’s going to be big.’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Barber spoke as to a child. ‘You go and take those drinks over to your important friends.’ As Walter moved away, the comedian downed his Scotch in a single gulp.

‘Get you another one, Lennie?’

‘No, Charles. I haven’t got the cash with me to buy you one.’

‘Well, I can get it now, or lend you the money or — ’

‘Don’t like being in debt, sorry. No, I’ll go and join that little group over there round the director. Since I’m going to appear on the bugger’s expense claim whether he buys me a drink or not, I think he can get me one.’

Charles stood alone and drank. His mind kept coming back to Janine Bentley. Pretty girl. Long golden hair. Not an intelligent face, but a sweet one. Appealing, childish really. Where was she?

‘Look, I do want to talk about the series potential in this thing, Charles old man.’ It was Walter back again. Nigel Frisch and Alexander Harvey had only required him as a waiter for their drinks and had not volunteered to include him in their conversation. Charles’ mind was not on series potential. ‘Walter, you know that show at Hunstanton. .?’

‘Yes.’

‘You saw it a few times, I gather?’

‘Yes.’ Walter looked at him blankly.

‘Did you meet one of the dancers called Janine?’

The producer’s look changed from blankness to slight suspicion. ‘Yes, I met her.’

‘Apparently she was having an affair with Bill Peaky.’

‘Yes, or he was with her, whichever way you like to put it. So what? Do you disapprove?’

‘No, no. It’s just. . I don’t know, they’re supposed to have had a quarrel on the afternoon he died.’

‘Yes, somebody mentioned that. She was serious about him; he wasn’t about her. Apparently Janine had been in touch with Peaky’s wife and told her what was going on, imagining, I think, that the wife would give up her claims and allow the course of true love to run smooth.’

‘Really. And that’s what annoyed Peaky?’

‘I gather so. It’d annoy most men. I’d have been pretty damned annoyed if any of my little bits on the side had told Angela.’ Somehow the sexual bravado in his tone didn’t carry conviction.

‘Hmm. Do you know what Peaky’s relationship with his wife was?’

‘Well, they were married. Sorry, being facetious. I don’t know. I think OK, but Bill used to put it about a bit.’

‘So I heard. Incidentally, Walter, do you know Peaky’s wife — widow, I should say?’

‘I’ve met her. Carla. Pretty girl. Lives out towards Epping Forest somewhere. Wouldn’t say I know her really.’ Walter Proud drained his gin reflectively. ‘Pity about Bill Peaky. Really talented boy. I thought I’d get some kind of show going there. Still, it’s an ill wind. If I hadn’t gone to Hunstanton to see him, I wouldn’t have made contact with old Lennie Barber again and tonight wouldn’t have happened.’

Gerald Venables, who had been ensconced in a corner of the bar with the head of the television company’s contract department, offered to drive Charles home. ‘So where do you go now, big boy?’ he asked as the Mercedes purred along.

‘I reckon finding Janine is still the first priority.’

‘Cherchez la femme.’

‘But since the trail seems to have gone cold there at the moment, I think I might cherchez the family instead for a bit.’

‘Whose family?’

‘Peaky’s family. I think I’ll get in touch with his widow.’