Dead Giveaway

Chapter Ten

Bob Garston’s career was on an upward spiral. His early success as an on-screen researcher for a pop consumer programme had given him public recognition. People stopped him in the streets, turned their heads as he passed, pointed to him in restaurants. He loved all the attention.

And he got more of it when he started his own series. A shrewd producer, recognizing how readily people identified with Bob Garston, had devised a format which used his populist qualities to the full. The show was called Joe Soap and its piously avowed intention was to explain the workings of bureaucracy to the general public. Each week Bob Garston in his faux-naif role as Joe Soap would attempt some enterprise — to have a house extension built, to take the Gas Board to court, to set up his own minicab business — and go through the necessary bureaucratic hoops to realise that ambition.

His interviews with the various officials were filmed, and these film inserts linked in the studio by Bob, whose wry commentary was interspersed with recollections and horror stories from ‘ordinary people’ who had been through the same processes. As ever in television programmes dealing with members of the public, their contribution was edited with professional cunning to extract the maximum humour and, almost always, to leave them looking stupid.

The series was an instant success. Its format skilfully provided the audience with a justification for laughing at their fellow human beings. Like an investigative television sex programme, and with the same degree of calculation on the part of its makers, Joe Soap was watched by most of its viewers for the wrong reasons.

The series, like the earlier consumer programme, was made by the B.B.C. Bob Garston’s only work for I.T.V. had hitherto been a few guest appearances on quiz show panels. His assumption of Barrett Doran’s mantle on If The Cap Fits would be an important stepping-stone towards the big money and wider audience of commercial television.

These thoughts went through Charles Paris’s head as he sat with Sydnee watching the recording of the latest Joe Soap. She had had a legitimate excuse for contacting Bob Garston, since John Mantle had delegated her to check through the format of If The Cap Fits with its new host. Long circular harangues from Aaron Greenberg and Dirk van Henke had led the Executive Producer to make a few revisions in the proposed presentation of the show. Patience and his customary diplomacy had ensured that these changes were minimal and cosmetic, but he had given straight-faced assurances to the copyright-holders that every detail would be communicated to the new host.

(The Americans had not been convinced that Bob Garston was the right man for the job. They saw little evidence that he possessed the ‘pazazz’ which, to their minds, Barrett Doran had lacked. Once again, John Mantle had had to spend many hours of cajoling and apparent concession over expensive food before he got his own way. At least one good thing had emerged out of the first pilot, however; the Americans had been so concerned about other details that they put up no further objections to the English title for the show. On that point, John Mantle’s slow, wait-and-see diplomacy had paid off, and he felt confident that, given time and patience, it would pay off on the other details too.)

Though Sydnee had a perfectly legitimate reason for going to see Bob Garston, explaining Charles’s presence at the recording was going to be more difficult. Bob had suggested a meal after the show to Sydnee, secure in the glamour of his television persona (and not realizing that her long exposure to the medium had left her a little more cynical than most women about that glamour). Charles had, needless to say, not been included in the invitation, and he had a feeling his being there would cast him in the unwelcome role of gooseberry. Whether or not Bob Garston had sexual designs on Sydnee, he was the kind of man whose ego would be massaged by dining alone with any attractive girl.

On the other hand, the way their investigation into Barrett Doran’s death was pointing made both determined that they should confront their suspect together.

Sydnee reckoned their best approach would be an edited version of the truth. They should voice their suspicions that Chippy had not killed Barrett and say that they were trying desperately to clear her. For that reason, they were talking to all those who had been involved in the show, trying to find out if anyone had seen anything that might help their case. They would not make any direct accusation to Bob, but hope that something he said might confirm their suspicions.

Charles thought this was pretty risky. If Bob Garston were guilty, it would only alert him to his danger and lead him into evasion. But, try as he could, Charles couldn’t come up with another, safer approach, so he had been forced to accept Sydnee’s suggestion, unsatisfactory though it was.

He sat back and watched the show. Bob Garston, with the mock-innocence of Joe Soap, was on film, applying to a Local Council Planner for permission to build a greenhouse in his back garden. ‘But suppose I just put the thing up, I’m sure you wouldn’t really mind. . You’d turn a blind eye. Don’t you think?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that.’

Charles, who knew a lot about vocal inflections, could recognise that the Planner had been going to say more, but had been cut short by the edit. The effect was exactly as the programme-makers intended. The man sounded as if the thing he ‘couldn’t do’ was ‘to think’. The audience duly roared their approval of this ambiguity.

Cut back to Bob Garston in the studio. ‘Well,’ he said with a wolfish grin, rubbing in the joke for those too slow to understand first time round, ‘he said it!’

The audience around Charles again roared sycophantically.

Getting ‘a television person’ on his own is never easy. Programme-making always involves a lot of people and those who work in the medium tend to hunt in packs. To see a single person, or even just a couple, in a television bar is a rarity; instead there are clusters, large groups representing different production teams.

There was a large Joe Soap group round Bob Garston in the B.B.C. Television Centre bar that evening after the recording. Sydnee and Charles were the exception, just two people, drinking respectively white wine and Bell’s whisky. Bob had waved recognition at Sydnee through the crowd in his dressing room, led her up with the crowd to the bar, and joined the crowd at the entrance to sign her in. Charles had taken advantage of the crowd to sidle in without benefit of signature. Bob had shown no sign of recognizing him. The problem of explaining his presence remained.

Beyond buying her a drink, Bob Garston had made no attempt to include Sydnee in his group. As a television person, she understood this completely. She knew the wild laughter and gesticulation around him was part of that mutual release of tension that came at the end of a long studio day. She knew that all the conversation would be of late cues, shadows from microphone booms, recalcitrant interviewees, references and in-jokes that could have no meaning for those who had not lived through the same day.

Charles had no expectation of being included. His dominant worry remained how to explain himself, how to make sure that he and Sydnee got a chance to talk to Bob alone. He looked around the bar, and saw a couple of actors he knew buying drinks for Light Entertainment producers. He felt the recurrent wave of despair that came over him whenever he thought about his career. He knew actors should keep a high profile, be seen by the people who mattered, the people who controlled that arcane magic of employment. On the rare occasions when his agent ceased to think of him as a lost cause and proffered advice, Maurice Skellem always said, ‘Put yourself about, Charles, get yourself seen. Got to be up front as an actor, you know. Remind people you exist. Actors got to let their light be seen, shine upon producers, dazzle them. Whereas all you seem to do is find thicker and thicker bushels to hide yours under.’

He knew partly it was true. Some of his failure in his chosen career could be attributed to the eternal problem of too many actors chasing too few parts, some perhaps to only an average talent, but within him there was also the fatal flaw of diffidence, a kind of laziness that kept him from hustling as hard as he knew he should.

Sounds of an argument at the bar shook him out of this orbit of self-pity. Time had been called, but one of the Light Entertainment producers was vigorously asserting that he needed another drink. People were starting to look around for abandoned handbags and briefcases. The party was breaking up.

With many good-humoured waves and shoulder-slappings, Bob Garston detached himself from the Joe Soap group and came across towards them. ‘Sydnee, hi. You set?’

‘Sure.’ She indicated her companion. ‘This is Charles Paris.’

‘Oh yes?’ There was no interest and no recognition in his glance.

‘You remember, he was one of the “professions” in the first If The Cap Fits pilot.’

Bob gave a nod which recognised this fact without giving it any importance. With a perfunctory grin at Charles, he reached out an arm to Sydnee. ‘Shall we be off then?’

She looked at Charles with an expression that told him he had to get out of this one. ‘Bob,’ he said. ‘We want to talk to you.’

‘Sydnee and I are just going off to talk. I don’t see where you fit in.’

‘We want to talk about Barrett Doran’s murder.’

Bob Garston’s eyes narrowed. The hearty public face slipped away, to be replaced by something more furtive.

‘You’d better come along then,’ he said.

Bob Garston’s car was directly in front of Television Centre, where only the highly privileged were allowed to park. It was a new Jaguar. Bob and Charles sat in the front, Sydnee in the back.

‘Right, what is this?’ The voice was unrecognisable from the confident, insinuating tones of Joe Soap. It was breathier, tighter; and the note of tension could have been fear.

Charles explained evenly, without specifying their reasons, that they didn’t think Chippy had killed Barrett.

‘Are you going to make your suspicions public? Are you going to the police?’

‘We will eventually, yes. We’d rather go with the name of the person who did kill him and some evidence to prove it. But if we can’t get that fairly soon, we’ll just have to go and tell them why we know Chippy’s innocent.’

‘Why is that?’

‘We have our reasons,’ Charles replied infuriatingly.

Bob Garston was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘You realise that, if the girl’s eliminated, I become the obvious suspect?’

This was too easy. ‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘That’s the conclusion we were coming to.’

‘I wanted the host job from the start. I never made much secret of the fact. I don’t believe in disguising ambition. I think if you say what you want, you stand a damned sight better chance of getting it.’ The forthright Joe Soap quality came back briefly into his voice. ‘So I suppose that could look like a motive. .’

‘Not the only one,’ said Charles gently.

A light that had not been switched off in an office above them filtered through the windscreen, illuminating one side of Bob Garston’s face. Charles saw bewilderment, then understanding, quickly followed by fury. ‘How the hell did you hear about that?’

Charles protected his source. ‘Let’s just say I heard.’

‘Did my wife tell you?’

‘No. I’ve never met your wife.’

‘Look, if this gets out to the gossip columns I’ll bloody murder you.’ Realisation of what he had said came into Bob Garston’s face. It was followed by a twisted smile. ‘Unfortunate remark perhaps, in the circumstances. So. . you think I killed Barrett. May I ask how I’m supposed to have done it?’

‘Anyone who was round the studio area between six-thirty and six-fifty could have done it. They only needed to take the cyanide from Studio B into Studio A and put it in the glass. Would have taken two minutes, maximum.’

Bob Garston nodded grimly.

‘You were seen at about twenty-five to seven — coming out of Studio A.’

‘Yes.’ He lost his temper. ‘Dammit! Why the hell did I go in there?’

‘You tell me,’ said Charles.

Bob Garston let out a long sigh. ‘I didn’t do it, you know. I didn’t kill Barrett.’

‘No?’

‘No, I bloody didn’t!’

‘Then why are you getting so upset?’

‘Because, as I said, I’m the obvious suspect. The same day you tell the police Chippy didn’t do it, they’re going to be round knocking on my door, asking questions. It’ll be down the station, “helping with enquiries”. . they might even bloody arrest me.’

‘But if you can prove you’re innocent — ’

‘Doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. Look, my career’s at an important stage, could take off quite dramatically in the next couple of months. The last thing I need now is my name over the papers.’

‘But, as I said, if you can prove you’re innocent — ’

‘Listen. If there’s one thing doing my sort of programme has taught me, it’s that mud sticks. I make some allegation on the show, however oblique it is, about some official, and that bloke never lives it down. He’s lost credibility. . his colleagues don’t trust him any more. I know, I’ve got plenty of letters to prove it. I’ve even been sued a few times. Once the allegation’s been made, no amount of public denial can make it go away completely. Look at the newspapers — thousands read the scandalous headline — how many read the little printed apology for getting the facts wrong that comes out the next week?’

Under other circumstances, Charles might have questioned the assurance with which Joe Soap admitted destroying the credibility of his victims, but it wasn’t the moment for moral debate. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re aware of the stakes,’ he said. ‘So now perhaps you realise that the only way for you to keep the police off your doorstep is to prove to our satisfaction that you are innocent.’

‘Oh, I am.’

‘Good. Tell us why, and then perhaps you can help us find out who did kill Barrett Doran.’

‘Right.’ Bob Garston was clearly ill at ease as the subject of interrogation, and made a bid to take over the interview himself. In his best hectoring manner, he demanded, ‘You want to know what I was doing between six-thirty and six-thirty-five that evening?’

‘Yes. We know you went into Studio A.’

‘All right, all right. I did. I’m not denying it.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t rush me. I’m about to bloody tell you, aren’t I?’ He paused, as if composing his next sentence into the most palatable form. ‘The fact is, I wanted to get on to that set. I wanted to stand by Barrett’s lectern. I just wanted to get the feel of it. . to know what it felt like to be in charge of that kind of show. You know, just like a little lad trying on his Dad’s overalls. .’

This winsome simile would have gone down well with the Joe Soap audience, but it failed to charm Charles. ‘That doesn’t sound very convincing to me. And I’m not sure that the police would be that convinced either.’

‘Well, it happens to be the bloody truth!’ Bob Garston snapped petulantly. ‘I can’t help it if the truth isn’t convincing, can I?’

‘I’m only thinking of you, Bob,’ said Charles with needling magnanimity. ‘You’re the one who wants to keep the police off your doorstep. Of course, they may be convinced by this story of whimsical role-playing, but I doubt — ’

‘Look!’ Bob Garston pointed an angry finger in his antagonist’s face. ‘You just asked me why I went in. I told you. What happened when I got there is a different question. There was no way that I could have fiddled around with Barrett’s glass. I’d have been seen.’

‘There was someone else in there?’

‘Of course there bloody was!’

‘Who? The contestant, Tim Dyer? Hadn’t he left?’

‘No. Not him. It was the designer, wasn’t it? Him with the bloody stupid haircut. He was there, fiddling with his precious set.’

‘Sylvian,’ murmured Sydnee, breaking her long silence.

‘So what did you do?’ asked Charles.

‘Well, I wasn’t going to start prancing round, pretending to be the host, was I? Not with him there. I turned straight round and walked out again.’

Charles’s mind was racing as he voiced a formal thanks.

‘Don’t think I told you because I wanted to. But just bloody see that when you do go to the police, you tell them I’m out of the bloody reckoning. I haven’t worked this hard on my career to have it shot to pieces by some half-baked rumour.’ Without waiting for any response, he turned round to Sydnee. ‘Right, with that out of the way, perhaps we’d better go and talk about this bloody game show.’ He leant across Charles and clicked open the passenger door. ‘You can get out and walk.’

Charles got out. And, as he walked the three miles back to Hereford Road, he thought again and again of what Barrett Doran had said about Sylvian de Beaune’s first television set design.