Dead Giveaway

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you go there?’

‘He’d invited me for a drink.’ The words were dragged out truculently.

‘And you agreed to have a drink with him? Even after the way he had humiliated you in the afternoon?’

Her blush spread down her neck. Charles’s eyes, unwillingly following it, were uncomfortably aware, through the thin material of the flying-suit, of the unmentioned subject of their conversation.

‘Yes, I suppose he had humiliated me. But I overreacted. I shouldn’t have burst into tears on the set. I know you’ve got to be tough if you’re going to get anywhere in television.’ She repeated this last line devoutly, like an article of faith.

‘Presumably, when you agreed to go and have a drink with him, you were aware of Barrett Doran’s reputation as a womaniser?’

‘That’s why I agreed,’ she almost snapped at him. Charles gaped. ‘God, have you any idea how boring life is in Billericay? I want my life to start, I want to catch up on all the things I missed while I was having babies and polishing furniture. No, I didn’t like Barrett Doran, he’d upset me a lot during the rehearsal, but I knew that he fancied me. I wasn’t going to miss a chance. I know you have to sleep around if you’re going to get anywhere in television.’

This again was spoken like part of a creed, received wisdom which she had picked up and was determined to believe. Charles found himself shocked by her strange mixture of outrageousness and naivete, and a little frightened by the desperation that accompanied it.

‘So can I enquire what happened when you got into his dressing room?’

‘Don’t see why not.’ Her attempt at brazen insouciance was not coming off. There was something engagingly pathetic about it, like a teenager adding a couple of years to her age at a party. ‘Fairly predictable, really. He poured me a drink, then he put his arms round me and started to kiss me. That was what I had expected, so it wasn’t such a big deal. .’

‘But. .’ Charles voiced the unspoken conjunction.

‘But he was a bit too. . He rushed me. I wasn’t quite ready for. . I hadn’t expected him to. .’ All the skin above her neckline was now deep red. ‘. . to want to do it so quickly,’ she pronounced finally.

‘He hadn’t got long. Only time for a quickie,’ said Charles without much emphasis.

‘Anyway, he was scrabbling at my clothes, trying to undress me — not all of me, just the bits he needed, and I was sort of holding him back, but not quite holding him back and. . and then the door opened.’

She sat back in her chair, relieved, as if the worst part of the narrative was over.

‘It was a girl. Blonde girl. Pretty, I suppose. I didn’t recognise her.’

‘Had she got on a light-grey sort of all-in-one suit. . cut like the one you’re wearing?’ Trish nodded. ‘That was Chippy, the one who’s been charged with his murder.’

‘Good heavens. Was it? I didn’t really look at her. You know, I was flustered, pulling my clothes around me. It was. . well, it was embarrassing.’

‘And was that what made you cry?’

‘No. It was what Barrett said to me.’ She looked once again tearful at the recollection.

‘Can I ask. .?’

‘I won’t tell you exactly what he said, but he dismissed me, as if I were. . I don’t know, a waiter, a taxi- driver. . no one. . as if I wasn’t a person at all.’

‘I’m rather afraid that’s how he treated most people.’

‘Yes.’ She seemed listless, tired out by her account.

‘So you left the dressing room and went out into the corridor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where you met Roger Bruton.’

‘I saw him. I turned away. I didn’t want him to see I was crying.’

‘Any particular reason, or wouldn’t you have wanted anyone to see you crying?’

‘I wouldn’t want anyone to, but. .’ She let out a little cough of laughter. ‘. . I particularly didn’t want him to. I was afraid he’d get Joanie to come along and ask what the matter was. I couldn’t have faced her understanding me. God knows how he’s stuck it all these years. What hell it must be for a man whose wife really understands him.’

‘Most men complain of the opposite.

‘Do you?’ Her brown eyes found his.

‘Complain that my wife doesn’t understand me? No, I’m rather afraid she does. But, since we’ve been separated for fifteen years or so, the point’s really academic.’ He needed to break the link between their eyes, so he looked away and moved briskly on. ‘You left Barrett’s dressing room at about twenty-five past six. You weren’t back up in the Conference Room till twenty to seven.’

‘No.’

‘What did you do? Can you account for that quarter of an hour?’

‘I went to the Ladies, the one near Make-up. I was crying. I didn’t want people to see me crying. I went to sort of pull myself together.’

It was a fairly shaky alibi, but she said it so ingenuously Charles felt inclined to believe her. ‘Did you see anyone apart from Roger Bruton before you got back to the Conference Room?’

‘I saw Bob Garston.’

‘Oh?’

‘After I’d come out of the Ladies. While I was waiting for the lift. It took ages to come. Bob came and waited too.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘Commented on how inefficient the lifts were, that sort of thing. I was still trying to hide the fact that I’d been crying, so I didn’t want to make conversation.’

‘No. And this’d be. . what? Round twenty to seven?’

‘Must’ve been by then, yes.’

‘And when the lift finally came, did you both travel up to the fifth floor together?’

She nodded.

‘I don’t suppose you saw where Bob came from? Did he walk all the way along the corridor to the lifts?’

‘Oh no. He came out of one of the doors half-way along.’

‘Do you remember which one?’

‘Yes, certainly. The door from Studio A.’

‘Ah,’ said Charles, as non-committally as he could, smothering the surge of excitement inside him.

Trish Osborne did not seem aware of the portent of her words. She stretched her arms behind her neck and yawned.

The movement emphasised what Barrett Doran had thought unsuitable for family viewing. ‘That’s really tired me out, going through all that again. Let’s have a real drink now.’

Charles didn’t refuse, and was soon equipped with a large glass of Chivas Regal. Trish had a schooner of sherry. She sat down on the sofa beside him and looked at her watch. ‘That’s not bad. Kept off the booze till half- past five today.’

This remark, like some of her earlier ones, seemed designed only to shock. Charles did not react. He reckoned he had got what he came for. Bob Garston had been seen coming out of Studio A at exactly the right time. The investigation was proceeding.

‘Nothing else you can remember struck you as odd during the studio day? Nothing that happened just before his actual death or. .?’

‘I wouldn’t have seen it if there had been anything. I was eliminated, remember.’

‘Oh yes, of course. Well, did your husband see anything from the audience?’

She let out a short, bitter laugh. ‘He wasn’t there. He’s not interested in any of my activities.’

‘Oh.’

‘The only thing that interests him is his work. That’s why he gets home at ten every night. “Working late at the office.” Classic cover-up for an affair. I sometimes think I wouldn’t mind if it was an affair. At least that’d give