London Noir

PERFECT CASTING by CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

It was the season of sulphur. The autumn air already held a sharp smell of fireworks. Just beyond the edge of Regent’s Park, the keepers were raking a bonfire. Peter Tipping noticed spirals of sparks above a sore amber glow of dead leaves just before he turned into the north end of Baker Street. Night had fallen before five. For the next few months darkness would achromatize the days. London was a private city in winter. People remained hidden inside, leaving the buildings to come alive in damp air.

The curving cream stone of the apartment block drew close, and then he was standing below the entrance. Reluctantly withdrawing his hand from the warmth of his overcoat pocket, he pressed the brass stud and bent close to the intercom, waiting for the familiar sound of Jonathan’s voice.

‘You’re late, Peter.’ A hurt tone filtered through. The buzzer sounded, and he stepped up into a marble hall. Beyond that, rich crimson carpet and a trellis lift. Chalfont Court was not at home to the twentieth century. There was still a porter’s lodge beside the main entrance, still a mahogany box affixed to the wall for the placement of calling cards. The building lodged liverish retired colonels, ancient widows with tiny hyperactive dogs, a couple of discreet escort agencies and a few old show business types.

Jonathan belonged to the last group. His apartment on the fifth floor had been his combined office and home for the past thirty years, during which time business and leisure had lived in easy symbiosis. It would have been impossible to imagine any other arrangement, as the elderly theatrical agent was attuned to receiving lengthy telephone calls near the midnight hour. At this time he would calm his nervous charges, soothe their fears of thespian inadequacy, listen to their analytical appraisals of the night’s performance, always reassuring, calming and cajoling. He wouldn’t be doing that for Peter tonight. Peter had let him down again.

‘So, you finally made it.’ Jonathan pursed his lips and stepped back in the doorway, allowing him to enter, a balloon-shaped figure balancing on tiny feet. The passage was lined with posters for shows misbegotten and forgotten, the disco Ibsen, the reggae Strindberg, a musical version of Bleak House called ‘Jarndyce!’ starring Noelle Gordon, fading signatures from faded stars. Jonathan’s fat right fist contained a tumbler filled with gin and irregular chunks of ice, and there were telephones trilling in the distance. Peter was always comforted by the changeless disarray of the flat. This was a place where actors were cushioned and cosseted, heard out and then fed with alcohol. Jonathan puffed past, rings glittering in the dim hall, ready to make Peter a drink even though – ‘Even though I’m terribly, terribly angry with you.’ He entered the kitchen, chipped off an ice-chunk and dropped it into a tumbler, pausing to push his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. Jonathan was constantly in a sweat. It leaked from beneath the auburn wig that fooled no one, and trickled beneath his bulging eyes so that his clients were misdirected into believing that news of their backstage woes had moved him to tears. ‘One should always be grateful of an audition, Peter, bitterly grateful, and you do yourself no favours by acting otherwise.’

Peter had thought the job beneath him anyway, but he hadn’t had a decent audition in nearly three months. Playing a jolly dad in a commercial for frozen lasagne wouldn’t have been the zenith of his performing career, but it would at least have brought in steady residuals.

‘The director was a complete arsehole, John.’ He accepted the drink and followed the agent through to his desk. There was parkland below the windows of the semicircular lounge, but even during the day it was barely visible through winter mist and traffic fumes. ‘I was kept waiting for over an hour, and then asked questions about my motivation by some adspeaking agency slimeball,’ Peter complained. ‘I answered him back a little sharply, nothing more, and they told me I wasn’t needed any longer.’

Jonathan waved the explanation aside. ‘I know, I had them on the phone for half an hour warning me never to send you there again. You’re going to be blacklisted by the agency, Peter, the third largest advertising agency in London.’ He pushed back-issues of The Stage from a leather sofa and sat, daintily crossing his legs at the ankle. ‘What have I always said is your biggest stumbling block?’

‘Arrogance,’ Peter admitted, knowing he was about to receive the usual lecture.

‘You’ve been with me for nearly a year now, and you’ve hardly worked. You come back with the same story after every audition. You’ve had three – it is three, isn’t it? – agents before me. You can’t go on blaming your representation. It’s a matter of learning to handle authority.’

He felt the need to explain himself. ‘I couldn’t see that there was much authority coming from -’

‘Authority is anyone who employs you, Peter, and you simply can’t afford to alienate them. At least you could wait until you’ve got the job and you’ve established a working relationship. Christ, even Larry managed to do that.’

‘But you’re sending me along for rubbishy little parts directed by ignorant children.’ He could feel the gin and the heat of the apartment forcing colour into his face. ‘Half of these brats are barely out of film school.’

‘You want me to change the system for you? I can’t help it if the industry is getting younger around you. That’s all there is, you either take it or leave it.’

‘Perhaps if I had some new shots done…’ He had been considering an image change for some time. A new haircut, sharper clothes.

‘Photographs aren’t going to make any difference, Peter. Let’s be honest, you don’t look like a classic leading male. You nose is too long, your eyes are too small and your weight fluctuates. You’d make a good villain, but you’re never going to get juve leads. You won’t take serious theatrical roles -

‘I can’t remember long speeches,’ he admitted. ‘Lots of actors get by without classical theatre.’

‘You’re not prepared to do panto, so what does that leave? There’s no British film industry any more and the network franchises are carving each other up, so you should face the fact that if there’s an audition - any audition – you have to go for it.’ He wiped the sweat from the edge of his wig. ‘That’s if you want to work. You’re too old to have tantrums, and there’s always someone else willing to take the part. As Coward used to sing: “There’s another generation knock-knock-knocking at the door.’”

Even though he realized that Jonathan was trying to help him, he wanted to punch the smug little man squatting opposite with his empty tumbler balanced on his paunch. He knew the agent meant to shock him into better behaviour but he wasn’t prepared to waste his career behaving like a sheep, being pushed about by some snotty MTV kid turned commercials director. Hadn’t Hitchcock said that actors were cattle? Had nothing changed since then? It was fine for the pretty teenagers flitting in and out of the office on casting calls, busy enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame, happy to do what they were told, but he was an adult with opinions of his own. He looked across at Jonathan, who was waving his hands as if acting out part of some wailing chorus. ‘Oh, I don’t know what more I can say to you, Peter. I’ve always had a lot of working people on my books, some of them very successful -’

‘If you’re referring to the little queen you placed in the Channel 4 presenter’s job…’

‘That’s uncharitable and you know it. He got the part because he was young and he looked right. I mean people like Marc Ford.’

Peter knew all about Marc Ford. Among actors, it was a famous success story. The young player hadn’t worked for almost a year. He was down to his last penny, and his wife was pregnant. He’d been offered a small speaking role as a Nazi storm-trooper in a low-budget German film being shot in London. As there was hardly any money left to pay the actors, the producer had offered him points at two and half per cent, and he had accepted. Three weeks’ work, standing in a tank of freezing filthy water, then he’d forgotten about all it. The damned thing had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, and subsequently played to packed houses throughout the world. Marc had retired, a millionaire. Marc had been advised to take the part by his agent, Jonathan.

‘Actually, something did come in today. Not terribly interesting, but worth a bit of money.’ Jonathan was a practical man. Having delivered his standard speech he would now attempt to perform some kind of positive deed that would help his boy. They were all his boys and girls. He hadn’t much hope for Peter, though. He’d pegged him as one of the bitter ones, an actor who resented success in others and bore the fatal flaw of being unable to acknowledge his own faults. Actors were supposed to see things more clearly. You couldn’t trip blindly through life always blaming the director.

He moved back to his desk and undipped sheets of fax paper from a chrome letter rack, checking through them. ‘I had a call from a company called VideoArts. They make corporate promos, and they’re looking for featured extras. The first call is Hampstead Heath on Friday morning, early start, dress in your own clothes.’

That means 6.00 a.m., thought Peter, have to book a cab there, stand around freezing in the pitch dark waiting for the director to show up.

Jonathan was watching him, waiting for his reaction. It was a test to see if he would show willing.

‘Well, do you want it?’

Time to be a good boy. Reluctantly, he agreed to go along. ‘Good, now we’re getting somewhere.’ Jonathan’s smile only affected the lower part of his face. He waved the sheet of paper, ineffectually fanning himself. ‘The company produces ten promos for the same client every year, and they like to keep their cast consistent. It’s just extra-work, but they might take you on permanently, which would mean a regular monthly cheque.’

And a regular percentage for you, thought Peter. Another dead-end job that would advance him nowhere. He’d see how it went, but after this perhaps he wouldn’t need an agent at all. He had recently heard of a more interesting proposition, a casting call which hadn’t come through his agent and had far greater possibilities than a god-awful boring sales promo.

At the Fulham Road gym the following morning Peter checked out the details with Fanny, who worked in the coffee bar. As far as she knew, the rumour she had heard a few days ago was true. One of the actors using the free-weight room had told her – she couldn’t remember who. He’d casually mentioned a feature film that was due to start shooting in less than a week. It was being produced by a Dutch, or perhaps a Belgian company, a thriller set in present-day London, but she hadn’t been able to understand the title. Filming would take place in central locations for a minimum six week period, and because of casting problems a number of male speaking roles were still to be cast. She remembered the name of the contact, but had no telephone number. It would take a bit of sleuthing to find that out.

Fanny was happy to pass on a professional tip, partly because she still hoped that Peter might find her attractive. She was an actress, but had been disabled by a childhood illness, and only took roles that allowed her to appear in her wheelchair. The rest of the time she worked at the gym, running the bar, strengthening the upper half of her body with weights and waiting for a man like Peter to ask her out. She had once thought that working here would make her more independent, but the male patrons arrived with inflated egos that pushed her own flimsy sense of courage back into her wheelchair.

Peter tried not to look too excited about the tip. The gym was full of actors who might overhear and get there first. ‘You mean it’s being shot in English?’ he asked, lowering his voice.

‘I suppose so. A lot of these people dub or subtitle according to the territory, don’t they?’

‘Was this guy up for one of the parts? Did he have a script?’

‘God, Peter, I don’t know. I’ve only ever seen him a couple of times before. I imagine they’ll give the script out to anyone who auditions.’ Fanny reached her hand along the counter, hoping he would absently take it. No such luck. She could tell he was already planning his audition piece. She wrote down the name of the production company for him, and Peter headed for the phone booth. At least the kiss of thanks he blew her seemed genuine enough.

Directory enquiries failed to find the name listed, and suggested that he wasn’t looking for a company but a specific building. Had he tried the Yellow Pages? He was surprised to find the address registered to a fruit and vegetable market. The woman who answered the number explained that they were indeed auditioning in rooms above the stores. She had an unplaceable European accent, admitted that the film was soon to start production, and agreed to check out his Spotlight photograph. If she was interested, she would bypass his agent and call him at home to discuss his c.v. before making an appointment.

She rang him at seven o’clock that evening and they talked for a full half-hour. Peter exaggerated a little about his recent work, and was officially invited to audition on Friday afternoon. Fighting to contain his excitement, he wrote down the address and agreed to be there. For the first time, he could feel the spotlight shifting toward him through the darkness.

As he entered the southern corner of the park, Peter spotted the other extras. They were standing huddled together in the gloom, like sheep preparing to be attacked. Instantly he wished he hadn’t accepted Jonathan’s proposal. In a few hour’s time he would be auditioning for a real film. He walked over to the nondescript group and stood a little way off. Actors, that is those performers with speaking parts, do not mix easily with extras, whom they consider to be little more than unskilled fans. He knew that they would be forced to speak to each other, though, as there seemed to be no one else around. In the distance bare elms stood on the brow of a hill, thrusting up blackened bones like the spine of some half-buried animal. A sour pink glow edged the sky, the first intimation of dawn.

‘Where is everyone?’ he asked, breath clouding around him.

‘The director’s gone with the first AD to sort out payment with the park-keeper,’ said a small man in a brown raincoat. Shooting on the heath cost two hundred pounds an hour, and had to be paid in advance. ‘They’ve already had us rehearsing. There’s a lot of mud about. I’ve already ruined a pair of trousers. Make sure you put in a dry-cleaning bill.’

This was typical extra conversation. They were obsessed with dry-cleaning. Too bad he’d lost the frozen lasagne commercial. At least he’d have had some national exposure in that. Corporate videos never really saw the light of day. Perhaps that was a good thing, though. He wouldn’t want some embarrassing early performance turning up to hamper a successful film career.

After a few minutes the director appeared and explained how he wanted them to move. Lack of enthusiasm dulled his instructions, as if he was being forced to describe the least interesting part of the day’s filming. He simply wanted them to move this way and that. Peter’s questions were cut short. If actors were cattle, the director made it clear that extras were plants.

Half an hour later, Peter could no longer feel his feet. The temperature was hovering around zero. He and the other extras had been running back and forth along the ridge of the hill while the camera recorded their movements from a hollow two hundred yards below them. He was taller than the rest of the group and deliberately hung back a little, so that he would at least stand out. Occasionally a microphone would crackle and the first AD would warn him to keep up with the others. Apart from commands to go again, there was no other way of telling that they were even being filmed.

‘I hate early starts,’ said one of the extras suddenly, as if Peter had shown signs of valuing his opinion. ‘I live in Barnet, and the travelling does me in. There aren’t many showbiz people where I live. You can’t buy The Stage in Barnet.’ Then they were off again, running up and running back down. No one had told them why they were running, or where they were supposed to be running to. None of the extras had seen a script. Only the main actors were given copies, and they were waiting inside a warm pavilion at the bottom of the hill. Peter could feel resentment building within him. How could the director see them if they couldn’t see him?

‘Could we go again, quickly please,’ called a disembodied voice, as if their movements were being orchestrated by the trees themselves. He broke away from the group as it prepared to run once more, and set off down the hill holding his arms high, like a surrendering Indian.

‘Wait a minute,’ he called, ‘I have a question. Why are we doing this over and over? You can’t possibly see us from down there.’

A bearded man rose from behind the camera and stood with his hands against his thighs. The rest of the crew impatiently dropped their arms to their sides, siding with the director.

‘I’m trying to get you lot silhouetted against the rising sun, Mr Who ever-You-Are. Can you go back up at once please.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘I appreciate that,’ called Peter, continuing nearer, determined to make his reasoning understood. ‘You could bring the camera a lot nearer and still have the sun rising in the background. At least that way you’d be able to see us a bit better, give us a bit of identity.’

‘I don’t want to see you any better.’ The director separated himself from his assistants and walked up to meet him, ready for a fight. ‘You’re just a group of generic running people. You don’t have identities. You could be anyone. That’s the whole point.’

‘Well, nobody explained that

‘Because the sun rises fast and we wanted to get the shot quickly.’ He looked up at the hill. ‘But that was our last possible take, and now the sun is too high. I think you’d better go, don’t you?’

It was humiliating, having to walk away from a group of people who were so obviously angry with him. Upsetting the extras didn’t matter, but he hated falling out with the crew in case he found himself working with them again. Clapper loaders, first assistants and sound men freelanced in each other’s crews, and turned up all over the place. Sound crews were usually men because of the weight of their microphone booms, which had to be constantly held aloft. Peter liked crews and got on well with them. They were professionals, like him. Extras were nothing, starstruck spear-carriers who got paid a tenner a night for standing behind a throne through two acts.

He hoped Jonathan wouldn’t hear of this latest fiasco too quickly. The misunderstanding could jeopardize his film audition. It would be easy for someone to put in a call and spoil his chances. All work was supposed to go through the agent. Peter was expected to call at the end of the morning shoot, so he went to the public library at Hampstead and hung around until lunchtime, then rang from a pub callbox. He assured Jonathan that everything had gone well, and the agent’s replies were relaxed and pleasant, as though the day’s first bottle of gin was already improving his view of the world.

Back out in the street it had begun to rain hard. Shoppers loitered disconsolately beneath shop awnings, waiting for the downpour to ease. Peter kept a beret in his pocket, and pulled it on to keep his hair dry. It would have helped to know something about the role he was going for. He checked the address he had written down, and headed for the tube station.

The afternoon was already darkening when he arrived in the Edgware Road, skirting filthy puddles to locate a small turning between the kebab shops and falafel bars. Walking to the far end of the street, he found himself in the remains of a cobbled road facing an old Victorian warehouse of the kind beloved by film location managers. Heavy steel shutters sealed what had once been entranceways for horses and carts. The base of the graffiti-stained building was steeped in rubbish and chunks of rotting vegetable matter, swept in from the market which operated inside during the day. Several small windows had been shattered, but all were barred and topped with spikes. For any normal job interview, the building would have sparked feelings of anxiety and revulsion. Peter knew better than to be alarmed. He could see the fierce yellow light shining behind the broad first floor windows, light that could only be thrown by the 10K lamps of a film set.

As he searched for a door, he marvelled at the extraordinary manner in which film business was run. A pretty girl could be picked from the pages of Spotlight, her agent called and an appointment made. She could then be sent along to an abandoned farm, a lunatic asylum, a den of rapists, and she would happily go along in the hope of landing a film part. It seemed so obviously dangerous he was surprised no one had put a stop to the practice. But that was the way the system had always run. Casting agents were tucked above tube stations. Rehearsal rooms sat behind strip clubs and chip shops. Dressing rooms were converted toilets. But not for the ones at the top. And not, he hoped, for him.

Peter found the notice pinned across a narrow doorway set in the end wall. It read, simply; AUDITIONS 1ST FL. As he climbed to the top of the unlit stairs, he passed a man of his own age coming down. The other actor threw him a cold smile before passing back into the street, a sure sign that auditions had started. Pushing open the landing door, he found himself in a vast wood-planked room that ran the entire length of the building. At one end the windows had been whitewashed over, and a simple screen-test area had been constructed. Before it, half a dozen people sat in plastic chairs softly questioning a nervous-looking young man. Peter approached, and was waved to a bench against the wall. After a few minutes the actor ahead of him was dismissed, and the team made notes, consulting with each other. Then he was beckoned to the vacated seat, like a patient customer about to receive a haircut. One of the men rose, shook his hand and introduced himself as Mr Ostendorf. Behind him stood a collapsible plywood table with a single sheet of paper on it. He consulted the typed list. ‘You must be Mr Tipping.’ His voice bore the trace of an accent.

‘That’s right.’ Peter beamed a smile at the assembled group and shifted in his chair. It was hard to tell which one was the director. Ostendorf ticked his name on the sheet before reseating himself.

‘Allow me to introduce everyone. Miss Deitch I think spoke to you on the telephone.’ He gestured along the line of chairs, starting first with an attractive young woman who turned out to be the producer’s assistant, then pointing to the director (why did all directors have little beards?), the cinematographer, the writer and an arrestingly beautiful woman of middle years, the costume designer. ‘I myself,’ Ostendorf explained, tapping his chest, ‘am merely the producer.’ Everyone laughed politely. ‘In my own country I have much experience in casting, but here it is more difficult, and you must be patient with me. So -’ He gestured about himself with a friendly shrug. ‘We are casting now only one role, and we shall perhaps tell you a little of this character and his story. Then we have you read a page from the script, yes?’

‘Fine,’ agreed Peter, trying to see how many other names there were on the page Ostendorf had consulted. Christ, it looked like they had seen fifteen people already. All eyes turned to the director. He was an elderly tanned figure in an immaculate Italian suit, and reminded Peter of photographs he had seen featuring Bertolucci’s cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro. Could it even be him? But no, the old man introduced himself as Joachim Luserke, and had a strong, almost comic German accent. As he spoke, he paused to draw on a heavy, wet cigar that appeared to have burnt itself out.

‘We are a Netherlands company,’ he began slowly, ‘releasing feature films through Columbia Tri-Star in Europe. This film is a modern-day thriller entitled – in your language – Hour Of The -’ he looked around for help, unable to translate. ‘Jackals’ said the writer, an exhausted-looking man in his late twenties.

‘There is already a film called Day Of The Jackal,’ Peter interrupted, then stopped himself from saying more. Better to take Jonathan’s advice and get the job first before offering his opinions.

‘This was long ago, yes?’ Luserke waved the problem aside with his cigar. ‘It does not concern us. People go to the cinema for only seven years of their lives, that is the average, and the film you mention is more than seven years old I think.’ Peter was impressed. He was not used to having someone listen to what he had to say.

‘I explain the plot to you now because not all of the script is translated to our satisfaction. It concerns a wealthy businessman whose son, Jack, is kidnapped one night while working late in his office. He searches for the young man – here, there – but he does not find him.’

The others were watching the elderly director’s gestures with amusement. They clearly enjoyed seeing him act out the story. It was probably the sixteenth time he had done so this afternoon. ‘Then he discovers the truth. Jack has been taken by -’ He checked with the others for the approved designation of the phrase. ‘Social terrorists – who plan to keep him imprisoned as an example to the complacent business world. They will use his capture as a propaganda weapon that will bring them great power. The police – pooh! they do not believe our hero. He alone must come to the rescue. He finds out where Jack is being held, but it is too late. One of the terrorists argues with the young man about his privileged position in life, secured for him by his father, and kills him in a fit of fury before he can be rescued. Now they will come after our hero’s wife, and he must convince the police of the conspiracy -’

‘Wait, wait.’ Ostendorf raised his hand. ‘I think this part is not necessary to tell. Wait until we have the new translation.’

‘When could I see a fully translated version of the script?’ asked Peter. The project sounded interesting, the plot uncompromising. This was the kind of subject matter European film-makers handled so well. It was probably a metaphor for the human condition, very profound.

‘We will not give you the complete script unless you win the part, but you may read the pages which feature your role.’

‘Which part is on offer?’ he asked. Was it too much to hope for the lead?

‘I hope you won’t be offended when I tell you it is the part of the evil terrorist,’ laughed Ostendorf.

‘Not at all.’ Peter smiled back. Jonathan had thought him perfect for a meaty villainous role. He was handed half a dozen pages on which the character of DR EMIL was scored through with a yellow highlighter. In order to provide him with some interaction the producer’s assistant read the role of Jack, the hero’s captive offspring. The tone of the piece was sombre and oblique, the exchanges awkward, as though English was not the author’s first language. After the read-through, Peter raised his hand. ‘There’s a problem with the English translation,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s very stilted. I could paraphrase my lines and get a better reading out of it.’

‘I think for now it would be better if you stay with the words you have,’ replied Luserke firmly.

He could take a hint. Tidying the pages, he sat back and waited for a response. The group talked quietly amongst themselves. Heads were nodding. Only the art director seemed to be in dissent. Finally Ostendorf rose and turned to him with an outstretched hand. ‘We believe we have found our evil doctor,’ he said, smiling warmly. ‘You are happy?’

Peter thrust his hands in his pockets and beamed his thanks back at the group. ‘I am very happy.’

‘Good. Now we take some test pictures of you to show our backers.’

‘What do you mean, they’re shooting before signing your contract?’ asked Fanny. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing. Your agent certainly wouldn’t allow it.’

‘My agent is never going to find out about it.’ He reached across the counter and emptied a container of apple juice into his cup. The gym was empty and about to close. Rain pattered against the skylight far above them.

‘The guy playing Jack is a big-deal star in Holland and they only have him for four days. It’s not a large part but it’s the key to the film. I’m going to be playing my lines with a stand-in. Obviously I have to do it before the set is struck, so they’ll film my performance at the same time.’

‘Then why not put the two of you together in shot?’

‘For Jack’s scene with me he’s tied to a chair with a bag on his head. He doesn’t need to be there.’

‘Just make sure you get the contract signed as soon as possible.’ Fanny was growing bored with all this talk of Peter’s success. He never asked her how she was doing, why she still spent her evenings serving sandwiches to walking lumps of muscle tissue when she could be pursuing her dream, running a course for disabled actors. She had known all along that she would never be much of a stage success, but she was sure she could teach. She was prepared to settle for something more satisfying than pouring coffee. What she needed now was advice.

‘But you’d advise me to do it even though the contract’s not through, wouldn’t you? I mean, they seem like pretty trustworthy people. It’s a big company. They’re not going to run off without paying me.’ He was looking at her intently, waiting for a opinion. She threw up her hands, knowing that he would only hear what suited him. So many actors were like that. ‘Sure, take the job, it’s what you want.’

‘I knew I could rely on you to steer me to stardom. He reached down and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’d better go. Big day tomorrow.’ He swung his gym bag onto his shoulder and headed for the door. She could have killed him. It was the forehead kiss that made her most angry, as if he didn’t see her as a woman, or the possessor of any kind of sexual identity. Grunting furiously, she wheeled her way back behind the counter and began turning out the lights. Peter was a typical bloody actor, completely closed to the real needs and purposes of other people. She hadn’t seen it in him before, or perhaps she’d hoped that he would be the one to break the mould, but he was the same as all the rest. She didn’t mind them lying, but it was boring when they lied to themselves. No wonder his girlfriends never stayed around for long. She certainly wouldn’t be there for him after tonight. Far too much acting, she decided grimly.

Rain blanketed the city, sheathing the rooftops behind a grey shower-curtain of mist. It flooded the gutters, coarsed over pavements, breached the drains and ruined Peter’s chances of making a decent impression with his new shoes. Filming was about to commence in another old warehouse. This particularly run-down specimen was tucked behind the tube station in Tufnell Park, hidden by a row of shops that were either covered in For Sale signs or were already derelict, and seemed to be spouting water from a thousand broken pipes.

Peter looked for the tell-tale glare of the spotlights, but found none. Studio lighting was always turned off between takes because of the intense heat it generated. Besides, the set was supposed to be low-lit, so he doubted that anything could be seen from the road. He found the producers waiting on the second floor with a small crew (below British union requirements, certainly) and a simple set of rubble and straw, in the centre of which was a single wooden chair. Bound to it with ropes around the torso and legs was a rather unrealistic dummy, intended to represent the young hostage. Luserke came over and greeted him warmly.

‘I hope the late hour does not upset you, Mr Tipping,’ he said apologetically, ‘but we have been having some trouble with the lights.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ Peter looked over at the single cable trailing behind the set. There didn’t seem to be enough lighting here to go wrong. But then, the scene they were about to film was an intense one, and every element had to be exactly right.

‘You will be pleased to know that our “Jack” is so far very good,’ the director continued, anxious to please. ‘He finished his part of the scene today. I would have liked him to stay here for your lines, but he is a big star in his country because of a television show, how you say “sitcom”, and he will not sit with the bag like so.’ He indicated the linen sack gracing the head of the mannequin, whose left leg looked as if it was about to detach itself completely. Wherever the money was being spent on this production, thought Peter, it certainly wasn’t going into the props.

‘The dummy doesn’t look very convincing,’ he complained. ‘Couldn’t you make the scene more realistic by getting someone to take its place while we film?’

‘I think we will not need to do so. Watch please.’ He gestured to one of the crew and the set lights came on, throwing a dingy blue haze across the chair and its occupant. With the figure half buried in indigo shadow, its imperfections were lost to the darkness. ‘I am more concerned with your close-ups tonight, and your speech, which we will do in one take. I think we will not need to feature our Jack in clear focus. If you would like to take your mark on the set -’

‘I haven’t been made up yet.’

‘Made up.’ The phrase seemed new to him. Luserke looked over to his producer, who said something in German. ‘Now I see. This was not made clear to you before I think. No make-up for this scene. The light, the blue light will be on your face.’ Peter looked back at the low glow of the set and hoped it would be bright enough for his facial expressions to register. This was to be an emotionally draining moment. He didn’t want his performance to be lost in the gloom, like it had been with the extras on the hill.

He made his way past the shattered-looking writer who was sitting with his head in his hands, nodded to Ostendorf, who was whispering into his mobile phone, and found the gaffer-taped cross on the floor of the set. Ostendorf had told him that he only needed to learn two pages of dialogue for this first night’s shoot, which involved the end of his scene with the hostage, and the moment of fury in which he kills him. The producer felt that as he would be addressing a plastic dummy rather than a live actor, it would help to start with the least interactive part of the sequence.

Peter studied the lolling strapped-up figure and rolled the handle of the carving knife between his fingers. Although to his eyes the set appeared absurdly unrealistic, he knew that through the camera lens it would take on a strange reality so that even the luminous turquoise lighting would somehow be appropriate. The lengthy scene was divided into sections, the last part involving a ranted monologue from Peter which culminated in him stepping forward and thrusting the knife into the mannequin’s chest.

By the fourth rehearsed take of his ‘fury’ speech, the crew were egging him on and applauding. Encouraged by Luserke, who sat forward on a stool beside the camera studying Peter’s every movement with glittering eyes, he grabbed the chair-back with one hand and with a despairing scream thrust the knife deep into the gut of the dummy, splintering the plastic shell to bury his fist deep within the kapok and foam interior. The director wanted his inner rage to surface, to slam against the floor and walls until it exploded into unstoppable violence.

During the final rehearsal Peter caught himself thinking; this is what it’s really about, to be in the centre and in control, to reach inside and draw emotion from the heart, to feel the sheer naked power of performance. He had reached this point by his own efforts, not through some agent looking to cream off a percentage. This was just the start, the tip of the future making itself clear to him, a fabled city appearing through a calming sea. Enjoy the moment, he told himself. Make it last.

They took a short break and the film magazine was loaded for the first take. Peter returned to his mark and stared across at the battered dummy strapped to its chair, chunks of torn rubber clinging to its cream plastic chest.

‘Peter, could you come here a moment please?’ Luserke called him over to query an inflection at the end of the monologue, tapping the speech with a nicotine-stained finger.

‘I can handle it that way if you like,’ he conceded, ‘but it’s a long speech, and by the time I get to the end my voice has risen so high it’s hard to control.’ Peter promised to try his best, but he knew that he’d do it his way. The matter was out of his control. He could only give his talent full rein and shape the power as it grew within him.

‘Your mark, please. Quiet everybody.’ The crew quickly returned to their places. Peter reached his spot and looked up. Rain still blurred across the skylight. The knife handle was warm in his hands. The lights dimmed even lower than in the rehearsals, and the room fell silent, so that the only sounds came from the rain above and the breath catching in his chest. He could see nothing beyond the shadow of the dummy and the straw-lined edge of the set.

Slowly, carefully, he began the speech.

The anger flowed from him as he accused the captive young man of having all the things he could never have, of squandering his inherited power, of wasting a life that paid service to truth and decency while perpetuating an immoral, divisive society. He felt the bile rise within him, felt real hatred for this golden boy who knew nothing of the real world, who had never tasted the hard lives of working men and women, and forward he ran with the knife at his waist, thrusting it out into the bound ribcage of his captive in an explosion of bare rage.

The first spray of warm liquid jetted into his face, blinding him as the next boiled hotly over the fist which still clutched the knife. He tried to pull his hand free from the dummy’s chest but it was trapped, caught between the flesh and bone of the hostage’s ribcage. There were no lights at all now, only the scuffling of feet and the slamming of a distant door. As he fell to his knees he knew he had cut into a real, living body with the foot-long blade, and that even now the roped-up figure was sinking fast within the coils of death, leather-soled shoes drumming madly on the floorboards until the chair toppled onto its side and the form bound to it lay still and silent, but for the steady decanting of its blood.

The crawl across the room in darkness seemed to last a lifetime. When he finally found a light switch he was frightened to turn it on. Two bare bulbs served to illuminate his blindness. He looked down at his shirt, his hands, his trousers, at the gouts of blood, as if someone had emptied the stuff over him in a bucket. The camera, if that was what it had been, had gone. There was nothing left in the room except the ‘set’, a pile of bricks and straw, a pair of gel-covered standard lamps set on the floor in either corner, a wooden chair and the cooling corpse of a young man, bound at the hands and feet, and taped at the mouth.

It took him a moment to realize that the room wasn’t quite empty. Something else was over everything. His fingerprints – on the body, the chair-back, the floor, the walls, the knife.

And even as his confusion lifted to be replaced with mounting fury, he wanted to know not why but how, how had they come to choose him, of all people? Because even now he could not see the blindness in himself.

And then what hurt most of all, what really cut into his heart and burrowed into the little soul he had, to lie there stinging and burning in a wormcast of purest agony, was the disappearance of the audience who had witnessed his greatest performance, and the knowledge that his moment had not been captured.

It was a pain he had only just begun to nurse when the police broke in the door.