Situation Tragedy

But Peter Lipscombe must have been happy with the scripts or he wouldn’t have issued them. Though it seemed to Charles that the producer was so much under the writers’ spell that he would never dare find any fault with their scripts.

Episode Eight was, for those trained to spot such things, a version of a plot that Willy and Sam Tennison had used in an episode of Oh, What a Pair of Au Pairs! In that, a Japanese family had moved in next door to the au pair-owning young couple and, after a lot of misunderstandings, jokes about tiny transistorised instruments and the line ‘There’s a nip in the air’, a kind of peaceful coexistence had been achieved, symbolised by the Japanese family’s gift of a geisha girl as a third au pair (an hilarious consequence if ever there was one).

The Strutters version of this saga of racial stereotypes had a Japanese family moving next door to Colonel and Mrs Strutter. The same misunderstandings, jokes about tiny transistorised instruments and the line ‘There’s a nip in the air’ ensued, but a less total rapprochement resulted. In a pay-off which was, by Willy and Sam Tennison’s standards, satirical, the Japanese family presented Colonel Strutter with a samurai sword and, when he asked what it was for, told him that it was for committing hara-kiri when he got too depressed about Japanese car imports.

Charles predicted that George Birkitt wouldn’t like that either. But he paid scant attention to the scripts, because by the same post arrived a much more interesting communication. It came from his agent, Maurice Skellern, which already made it a rarity, and it contained a very large cheque, which made it rarer still. It was in fact the money owing to him for the first batch of Strutters, which Maurice, as was his wont, had sat on for some weeks. But also, as was his wont, he had not forgotten to deduct his commission.

Even so, it really was rather a gratifying amount of money. So long as he didn’t consider paying tax bills or anything like that (which he didn’t), he felt quite well off.

The day before the next read-through, he started to worry about what Barton Rivers was going to do next, and to doubt his capacity to avert it. He couldn’t really watch the man all the time; it would be simpler if he had someone to help him.

He rang Gerald Venables. Polly, the solicitor’s secretary, whose sexy voice always gave Charles erotic fantasies, put him through.

‘Hello, Charles, how are things going?’

‘Not so bad. I think I may have a line on the deaths.’

‘Good, good,’ said Gerald breezily. But he didn’t sound very interested. Not his usual panting schoolboy reaction to talk of murder.

‘Perhaps we could meet and talk about it.’

‘Love to. Trouble is, I’m a bit tied up at the moment. In a couple of days I’m — ’

‘Thing is, I think you could help me.’ This appeal shouldn’t fail. Gerald was usually delighted to get involved in a murder investigation. Real crime had so much more to offer than sorting out show-biz contracts.

‘Love to, love to. Trouble is, we’re off on holiday day after tomorrow.’

‘Ah.’

‘School holidays just started, you see.’

‘Going far?’

‘Have to go some way these days to get away from the crowds.’

‘Where?’ asked Charles with jealous resignation.

‘Seychelles.’

‘Just the Seychelles?’

‘Mmm. Well, if you only get one holiday a year, you like to be able to guarantee the weather.’

‘But you don’t only get one holiday a year.’

‘No, that’s true.’

‘You’re always off on bloody holiday.’

‘Have to have the odd break, you know. Recharge the batteries. I do work for it,’ Gerald added in an aggrieved voice.

‘Hmm.’

‘You ought to have a holiday. Go off with Frances somewhere. Are you speaking to her at the moment?’

‘Haven’t for some time.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘No great rift. Just haven’t got round to it.’

‘Well, you should.’

‘I will.’

‘Anyway, about these deaths. . are you going to bring me up to date?’

‘No. It’ll keep. I’ll tell you when you get back. Probably be a few more by then.’

‘Good. I’m only away the fortnight.’

‘Just the fortnight?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. I must say, as a Dr Watson, you’re hopeless. Sherlock Holmes never had this trouble. He didn’t have his faithful acolyte zooming off to the Seychelles whenever his assistance was needed.’

‘No, but on the other hand, he solved crimes.’

Charles thought about what Gerald had said when he put the phone down. Not the final gibe, that hadn’t hurt, such rudeness was well established between them; no, he thought about what Gerald had said about Frances.

It would be rather good to go on holiday with her. He was already getting bored with Jay Lewis. The sex was all right, but there was a limit to how much quotation from the luminaries of West End Television he could take.

Frances, though. . They’d always said, in the old days, that when they could afford it, they’d go to Greece. Just the two of them, without Juliet. Thanks to the cheque from Maurice, he now reckoned he could afford it. And Juliet, in her late twenties with a husband and twin sons, no longer presented a problem.

He rang Frances’s number. There was no reply. He’d try again.

He was just going back to his bedsitter when the payphone rang. The Swedes all being out, he returned to answer it. Some cock-eyed logic suggested it might be Frances ringing him back.

It wasn’t. It was a man s voice he didn’t recognise. ‘Hello, could I speak to Charles Paris?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Oh, hello, my name’s Gregory Watts. .’

‘Oh yes.’ It didn’t ring any bells for Charles.

‘I’m a bookdealer specialising in detective fiction.’

‘Oh yes.’ With more understanding.

‘Just talking to a friend of mine who runs a bookshop in Charing Cross Road and he said you’d been looking for an R. Q. Wilberforce. .’

‘Yes, I was. In a vague sort of way.’

‘Well, look, I’ve got this first edition of Death Takes A Short Cut. Very Good Condition. 1938 it is, but of course you’d know that.’

‘Um, oh, er, yes.’

‘If you do want it, I’m asking five pounds.’

‘Ah.’

‘I’ve got other collectors who might be interested, But I rang you first, because my friend said you only collected R. Q. Wilberforce.’

‘Well. .’ It rather appealed, the idea of being the nation’s specialist in Wilberforciana. Even if it wasn’t true.

‘Have you met the old boy, by the way?’

‘Which old boy?’

‘R. Q. Wilberforce. He’s still about. Must be in his eighties. I wrote to him to see if he’d got any old editions he wanted to get rid of.’

‘Ah.’