Dead Giveaway

another dimension to him, he wouldn’t be one hundred per cent boring. But I’m afraid, in his case, no, it really is work.’

‘Oh,’ said Charles. Trish seemed closer to him now on the sofa, her shoulder brushing against his. He sat forward. ‘Really should be off. I’m very grateful to you for. .’

‘There’s no hurry. Have another drink.’

‘Oh no, I shouldn’t, well, just a small one.’

It wasn’t a small one. Trish’s refill wasn’t small, either. She suddenly giggled as she bounced down on to the sofa beside him. ‘Awfully embarrassing, wasn’t it, in the studio, that business about my blouse? I bet you didn’t know where to look.’

‘Oh, it was. . all right. I’m sure you were more embarrassed than anyone else was. I’ve seen that sort of thing happen a lot before.’

‘Oh?’ She arched an eyebrow.

‘Well, I mean, I’ve been to lots of costume calls and photo calls where that kind of thing arises — I mean, happens.’ He didn’t think he was doing this very well. ‘There are always problems like that. Men have to be told to put jock-straps under their tights and ladies. . well. .’ He found his eyes were ineluctably drawn to the objects of discussion. ‘Happens all the time in the theatre,’ he babbled. ‘Always has. Dr Johnson told David Garrick he’d have to stop going backstage because the actresses’ breasts unsettled him.’

Trish Osborne did not seem over-interested in this snippet of literary anecdote. Instead, she looked down at her cleavage. ‘Barrett Doran was wrong, actually.’

‘Oh. What about?’

‘Well, he said they’d gone like that because I was panting for it.’

‘Oh yes, so he did. I remember vaguely.’

‘That wasn’t the reason. It was just nerves, you know, being in the studio and all that.’

‘Oh. Well, there you go.’

‘I mean, the effect is the same, but it was nerves.’

‘Ah.’

‘It’s not nerves now,’ she said.

Charles felt bad as he entered the restaurant in Hampstead. In spite of her apparent sophistication, it turned out that he was the first man with whom Trish had cheated on her husband, and that had led to a few tears. Also the brazenness of her approach, and the fact that he was clearly not an individual but some rite of passage into her fifth decade, left him feeling soiled.

And he was late. Twenty to nine.

There was no softness in Frances’s face as she demanded, ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Billericay.’

Chapter Ten

Bob Garston’s career was on an upward spiral. His early success as an on-screen researcher for a pop consumer programme had given him public recognition. People stopped him in the streets, turned their heads as he passed, pointed to him in restaurants. He loved all the attention.

And he got more of it when he started his own series. A shrewd producer, recognizing how readily people identified with Bob Garston, had devised a format which used his populist qualities to the full. The show was called Joe Soap and its piously avowed intention was to explain the workings of bureaucracy to the general public. Each week Bob Garston in his faux-naif role as Joe Soap would attempt some enterprise — to have a house extension built, to take the Gas Board to court, to set up his own minicab business — and go through the necessary bureaucratic hoops to realise that ambition.

His interviews with the various officials were filmed, and these film inserts linked in the studio by Bob, whose wry commentary was interspersed with recollections and horror stories from ‘ordinary people’ who had been through the same processes. As ever in television programmes dealing with members of the public, their contribution was edited with professional cunning to extract the maximum humour and, almost always, to leave them looking stupid.

The series was an instant success. Its format skilfully provided the audience with a justification for laughing at their fellow human beings. Like an investigative television sex programme, and with the same degree of calculation on the part of its makers, Joe Soap was watched by most of its viewers for the wrong reasons.

The series, like the earlier consumer programme, was made by the B.B.C. Bob Garston’s only work for I.T.V. had hitherto been a few guest appearances on quiz show panels. His assumption of Barrett Doran’s mantle on If The Cap Fits would be an important stepping-stone towards the big money and wider audience of commercial television.

These thoughts went through Charles Paris’s head as he sat with Sydnee watching the recording of the latest Joe Soap. She had had a legitimate excuse for contacting Bob Garston, since John Mantle had delegated her to check through the format of If The Cap Fits with its new host. Long circular harangues from Aaron Greenberg and Dirk van Henke had led the Executive Producer to make a few revisions in the proposed presentation of the show. Patience and his customary diplomacy had ensured that these changes were minimal and cosmetic, but he had given straight-faced assurances to the copyright-holders that every detail would be communicated to the new host.

(The Americans had not been convinced that Bob Garston was the right man for the job. They saw little evidence that he possessed the ‘pazazz’ which, to their minds, Barrett Doran had lacked. Once again, John Mantle had had to spend many hours of cajoling and apparent concession over expensive food before he got his own way. At least one good thing had emerged out of the first pilot, however; the Americans had been so concerned about other details that they put up no further objections to the English title for the show. On that point, John Mantle’s slow, wait-and-see diplomacy had paid off, and he felt confident that, given time and patience, it would pay off on the other details too.)

Though Sydnee had a perfectly legitimate reason for going to see Bob Garston, explaining Charles’s presence at the recording was going to be more difficult. Bob had suggested a meal after the show to Sydnee, secure in the glamour of his television persona (and not realizing that her long exposure to the medium had left her a little more cynical than most women about that glamour). Charles had, needless to say, not been included in the invitation, and he had a feeling his being there would cast him in the unwelcome role of gooseberry. Whether or not Bob Garston had sexual designs on Sydnee, he was the kind of man whose ego would be massaged by dining alone with any attractive girl.

On the other hand, the way their investigation into Barrett Doran’s death was pointing made both determined that they should confront their suspect together.

Sydnee reckoned their best approach would be an edited version of the truth. They should voice their suspicions that Chippy had not killed Barrett and say that they were trying desperately to clear her. For that reason, they were talking to all those who had been involved in the show, trying to find out if anyone had seen anything that might help their case. They would not make any direct accusation to Bob, but hope that something he said might confirm their suspicions.

Charles thought this was pretty risky. If Bob Garston were guilty, it would only alert him to his danger and lead him into evasion. But, try as he could, Charles couldn’t come up with another, safer approach, so he had been forced to accept Sydnee’s suggestion, unsatisfactory though it was.

He sat back and watched the show. Bob Garston, with the mock-innocence of Joe Soap, was on film, applying to a Local Council Planner for permission to build a greenhouse in his back garden. ‘But suppose I just put the thing up, I’m sure you wouldn’t really mind. . You’d turn a blind eye. Don’t you think?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that.’

Charles, who knew a lot about vocal inflections, could recognise that the Planner had been going to say more, but had been cut short by the edit. The effect was exactly as the programme-makers intended. The man sounded as if the thing he ‘couldn’t do’ was ‘to think’. The audience duly roared their approval of this ambiguity.