Screen Savers

Chapter 49

Movie work may not be the most secure way to earn a living, but the top people are paid well and hired pretty well full-time; Pep Newton was one of the best. He was so good in fact that he had picked up, at an hour’s notice, an extra four days’ work on a music video, as we discovered when his fresh-faced blonde wife answered the door of their distinguished-looking apartment in Dolphin Square, not far from the Palace of Westminster.

Rather than get into a pointless discussion with her on the doorstep, I told her that it was nothing important, but that we’d come back in a couple of hours, at around seven. We killed the time in the Red Lion pub in Whitehall, playing Spot the Politician and listening to the sotto voce sounds of medicinal spin.

Pep was at home when we went back to the Square. He was surprised to see me, but pleased nonetheless, and he made just the right amount of fuss of Prim.

‘Come eat with us, Oz,’ he insisted. ‘Jenny’s done a pasta sauce and there’s always plenty. It’s just ready. Hey Jen,’ he called through to the kitchen. ‘Two more plates, okay, and stick some extra linguini in the pot; we got honoured guests. This is the guy I told you about; the actor who spread that fat bleedin’ Yank all over the control room wall.’

Mrs Newton’s face appeared round the kitchen door, smiling. ‘You’re the wrestling man? I didn’t realise that before. I read about you in the Mail on Sunday magazine. Didn’t you win the lottery as well?’

‘No,’ I answered, putting a hand on Prim’s shoulder. ‘We won the lottery; we picked three numbers each.’

Jenny whistled. ‘Life’s a bitch and then you’re rich, eh.’

‘That’s how it was for us, right enough.’

We joined them in their small dining room, at a round table. ‘Pep,’ I said, rolling strands of linguini on to my fork, ‘this is a trivial call, really. Gerrie’s away for a couple of days or she’d be doing this, but we were handy so Miles sent us. We need your mate, Stu Queen the sparks, back at the studio. He was stood down too quick last night; there’s some wiring work needs doing on the big set.

‘We’ve tried the only contact number we have for him, but no joy. D’you know where we can find him?’

The dark Spanish eyes looked at me, a little curiously. ‘I haven’t a bleedin’ clue, mate,’ he said. ‘The fact is, I hardly know the guy. I’ve never worked with him before, and I’d never even heard of him, until he turned up on the production team up in Scotland.’

He stirred his pasta around on his plate, mixing the sauce through it. ‘What’s all this about, Oz?’ he asked, quietly.

‘Nothing,’ I said, with as much wide-eyed innocence as I could manage. ‘Like I said, we’re just Miles’ errand people.’

‘No I don’t mean this, I mean the whole thing. I saw Dawn on set yesterday afternoon; she looked as fit as a fiddle. Virus my bum. What’s up? Have she and Miles had an up-and-downer? I’ve worked with them before. I was there when they met in fact, on that project up in the Highlands a few years back. She’s nice, but she can be a fiery little thing from time to time.’

‘She’s the quiet one of the family, mate. She’s Prim’s sister.’

‘Of course,’ Jenny exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten that. It said that in the Mail on Sunday, too.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Dawn,’ said Primavera. ‘Or with her and Miles. She’s just found out that she’s pregnant. It’ll be a first for both of them, and Miles is over the moon. When she told him last night, he insisted that she was taking a week off. The virus thing was a cover story to keep the press at bay. That’s what’s really behind it all.’

Nice one, girl, I said to myself, as the sound man’s face split into a wide grin.

‘Ahhh,’ he exclaimed, as he swallowed hook, line and sinker, ‘I knew it was something big. I know how much a week’s delay costs. I’m part of it.’

‘Going back to the boy Queen,’ I ventured, a little later. ‘Do you think he might have picked up some extra work on the fly? We checked with his agency; they haven’t placed him anywhere.’

‘Like I said, mate,’ Pep replied. ‘I wouldn’t know. The guy never says much about himself. That’s unusual, for our world’s a bit of a co-operative. We exchange information all the time about projects coming up and stuff, and where there might be work going. He doesn’t. It’s as if he’s only interested in this one job and that’s it.’

‘Real mystery man, eh.’

‘That’s right. He’s a good enough sparks though. Used to all sorts; high voltage work and everything. He’s worked in the Middle East; he did tell me that, and out of Rotterdam, and Singapore.’

‘Where’s he from?’

‘Haven’t a clue about that either. You can’t tell from listening to him, that’s for sure. I thought he might have been Scottish like you, then I thought there might be some European in there.’

‘How did he get on the project if he’s such an unknown quantity?’

Pep finished off his linguini. ‘It was a last minute thing. Originally, it was Zoltan Szabo who was booked in for the job; I know ’cause he told me the week before. I work with Zoltan a lot of the time. But he had to pull out, and Stu was handy so the agency slotted him in.’

‘What happened to Zoltan?’ Prim asked.

The sound man frowned, his black brows forming a hairy ridge. ‘Bad, that was. There he was going home from the pub the very night before we was due to go up north to start work on the project, when. . Bang.’ The word sounded round the small room.

‘He was hit by a car; broke both his legs. And you know what? Bleedin’ driver didn’t even stop.’