another fat facility fee going into the old couple’s coffers. Once he understood this, the old man was less accommodating. ‘What the bleeding hell d’you want then?’
‘I’m looking for someone who was around on the night of the filming. The black youth called John Odange. I wondered if you knew where I might find him.’
‘I don’t know nothing about that scum! We’re respectable people. We got a right to live in this house. We ain’t going to move on till the council comes up with what we think’s proper accommodation. Are we, Rita?’
‘No, Lionel.’
‘We’re quiet, respectable people,’ the old man shouted. ‘This used to be a nice road. Now we’ve got all these bloody squatters, living ten to a house, drinking, taking drugs, playing music! Bloody foreigners, and all! They aren’t even house-trained, a lot of them. They’re all. .’
He continued in the same vein for some time. Under this splenetic fusillade, Charles retreated and went to ask someone else where he might find John Odange.
He knocked on one of the doors from which the council’s padlock had been unscrewed and was answered by a pretty and very clean young mum with a baby. Yes, John Odange lived three houses down. She didn’t know whether he was likely to be in, but it was worth trying.
He was in. His tall frame filled the doorway. He wore a faded mauve T-shirt and black jeans. There was no sign of recognition when he asked what he could do for Charles.
He sounded wary, but not, as Charles had expected, deliberately aggressive.
‘I was involved in that filming which West End Television was doing a couple of weeks back.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Still no overt hostility.
‘I was one of the actors in the show and I. . I wanted to talk about it.’ To his annoyance, Charles found he was speaking in his own voice. Also he had difficulty in getting round to his prepared speeches about actors being workers as much as anyone else and the need for education and the vital role of the entertainer in spreading the Marxist message. He was daunted by John Odange, not by the man’s size and vouched militancy, but by the sharp intelligence in his eyes. He was not going to be easy to fool.
‘Come in.’ The tall youth moved to one side and Charles went into the house. Inside it was spotless. The old man up the road wouldn’t have believed how clean and sweet-smelling it was.
John Odange indicated a room to the right. It was a bedsitter lined with books. It too was immaculately tidy. By the window was a desk piled with more books and files. A portable electric typewriter still hummed, suggesting Charles had interrupted composition.
‘Are you a writer?’ he asked.
The black youth shook his head. ‘Only incidentally. I’m a student really. An unaffiliated student.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I was at the London School of Economics, and I got involved in certain political activities, and suddenly there was trouble over my grant, and I found I was no longer at the London School of Economics. So I continue my studies here.’
He spoke without bitterness. There was no doubting his commitment, but the violent resentment which had been evident on the night of the filming had gone.
‘You want coffee?’
‘Love some.’
While John Odange went to fill the kettle, Charles wondered how to proceed. Faced with the young man’s quiet sincerity, his pose as a member of the Red Theatre Co-operative diminished to an insulting charade. But he had to get the information somehow.
John Odange returned, plugged the kettle in, sat down in his typing chair and looked straight at Charles. ‘So, you were an actor in the West End Television filming and you want to talk to me about it.’
‘Yes.’ Charles hesitated.
‘Hmm. So why would you want to come and talk to me? To tell me I’m a naughty boy to disrupt your precious show? To tell me I should allow other people the right to work? Well, if that’s your line, I can argue it through with you point by point. Okay, the evening degenerated. All that fighting with the food was pretty childish. And the fact that someone got killed, no one wanted that. But the basic point we were making, that remains valid. The filming was set up to make fun of the way we live.’
‘I don’t know exactly that that was the — ’
‘Now, come on, man. All those Sixties hippies around in the kaftans, they were meant to be funny, right?’
‘Well. I suppose so.’
‘Right. And the places they live got to be funny too. Okay, let’s find somewhere really run down, somewhere really bad, that’ll get a good laugh.’
‘That wasn’t the intention in — ’
‘Listen, man, I found a script lying about in the road. I read it, man.’ In that case, there was not much point in Charles continuing his enfeebled defence. It was probably the first time one of Rod Tisdale’s masterpieces had been subjected to serious political scrutiny, and he didn’t think it would have come through the test well.
‘It said in the Stage Directions, ‘Film of grotty, condemned street. Establish till audience laughs, then zoom in to shot of Colonel.’ Now, okay, that’s very funny if you don’t happen to live here. If you do, it gets kind of insulting.’
‘I can see that. I didn’t actually come here to — ’
‘No, no, that’s clear. So why did you come here? Now let me see. Have you come here as a politically- committed actor to say how much you support my actions over stopping the filming and how we’re all brothers working for the same glorious revolutionary cause. .?’
Here, if ever, was the cue. ‘Well, I — ’
But John Odange answered his own question. ‘No, you don’t look the sort for that. Under the sloppiness, man, you’re really bourgeois.’
It wasn’t said offensively, but with a note of pity. And Charles had an uncomfortable feeling that it was probably an accurate assessment of him. He didn’t feel encouraged to proceed with his cover story and start extolling the virtues of solidarity and the coming revolution.
‘So what is it?’ mused John Odange. But he still preferred to supply his own answers to his questions. ‘Perhaps your watch disappeared on the night of the filming and you think I stole it. .’
‘Good Lord, no. Nothing like that.’
‘Don’t sound so surprised, man. That’s what a lot of people would think. And if you went to the local police station, they’d believe you. In fact, they’d welcome you with open arms. They’re just longing to pin something on me, man, and a nice stolen watch could fit the bill nicely.’
‘You’ve had a lot of trouble with them?’
‘Always hassles. They think I spend all my time here building bombs, you know. Yes, I’ve had more than a bellyfull of the pigs recently.’
‘Since that Floor Manager died, you mean?’
‘Yes. That was a gift for them. If they could pin that on me — wow! they’d all go home happy. They dragged me in and talked to me for a long time about that. They were very sorry to have to let me go. Unfortunately, every witness they could rustle up said the same thing — I didn’t go near that light at any time during the evening. I didn’t arrive till late and then I made such an exhibition of myself, my every movement was watched. Were they disappointed? Be a long time before they get another chance like that.’
‘Actually, it was about — ’
‘Oh, I think I get it now.’ The large brown eyes opened wide and a huge grin irradiated the face. ‘You the little amateur detective investigating the crime? You think you’ve got new evidence that can really pin it on me?’
‘No. Well, yes and no.’
‘Which answer to which question? Kind of important to me, you know.’
‘It’s okay. Yes; I am investigating the murder. No, I have no suspicions of you.’
‘Nice to hear that, man. And interesting to hear you call it a murder.’
‘I meant “death”.’
‘Not what you said, man. Classic example of Freudian slip.’
