Under other circumstances, Charles might have questioned the assurance with which Joe Soap admitted destroying the credibility of his victims, but it wasn’t the moment for moral debate. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re aware of the stakes,’ he said. ‘So now perhaps you realise that the only way for you to keep the police off your doorstep is to prove to our satisfaction that you are innocent.’
‘Oh, I am.’
‘Good. Tell us why, and then perhaps you can help us find out who did kill Barrett Doran.’
‘Right.’ Bob Garston was clearly ill at ease as the subject of interrogation, and made a bid to take over the interview himself. In his best hectoring manner, he demanded, ‘You want to know what I was doing between six- thirty and six-thirty-five that evening?’
‘Yes. We know you went into Studio A.’
‘All right, all right. I did. I’m not denying it.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t rush me. I’m about to bloody tell you, aren’t I?’ He paused, as if composing his next sentence into the most palatable form. ‘The fact is, I wanted to get on to that set. I wanted to stand by Barrett’s lectern. I just wanted to get the feel of it. . to know what it felt like to be in charge of that kind of show. You know, just like a little lad trying on his Dad’s overalls. .’
This winsome simile would have gone down well with the
‘Well, it happens to be the bloody truth!’ Bob Garston snapped petulantly. ‘I can’t help it if the truth isn’t convincing, can I?’
‘I’m only thinking of you, Bob,’ said Charles with needling magnanimity. ‘You’re the one who wants to keep the police off your doorstep. Of course, they may be convinced by this story of whimsical role-playing, but I doubt — ’
‘Look!’ Bob Garston pointed an angry finger in his antagonist’s face. ‘You just asked me why I went in. I told you. What happened when I got there is a different question. There was no way that I could have fiddled around with Barrett’s glass. I’d have been seen.’
‘There was someone else in there?’
‘Of course there bloody was!’
‘Who? The contestant, Tim Dyer? Hadn’t he left?’
‘No. Not him. It was the designer, wasn’t it? Him with the bloody stupid haircut. He was there, fiddling with his precious set.’
‘Sylvian,’ murmured Sydnee, breaking her long silence.
‘So what did you do?’ asked Charles.
‘Well, I wasn’t going to start prancing round, pretending to be the host, was I? Not with him there. I turned straight round and walked out again.’
Charles’s mind was racing as he voiced a formal thanks.
‘Don’t think I told you because I wanted to. But just bloody see that when you do go to the police, you tell them I’m out of the bloody reckoning. I haven’t worked this hard on my career to have it shot to pieces by some half-baked rumour.’ Without waiting for any response, he turned round to Sydnee. ‘Right, with that out of the way, perhaps we’d better go and talk about this bloody game show.’ He leant across Charles and clicked open the passenger door. ‘You can get out and walk.’
Charles got out. And, as he walked the three miles back to Hereford Road, he thought again and again of what Barrett Doran had said about Sylvian de Beaune’s first television set design.
Chapter Eleven
Sylvian De Beaune’s flat was at the top of an old converted warehouse in what used to be London’s Dockland. It was up four flights of stairs and there was no Entryphone, so a long gap ensued between their ring on the bell and his appearance at the front door.
He looked surprised to see them, recognizing Sydnee, but apparently never having seen Charles before in his life. He had put in further work on his appearance. The black Mohican strip on his head now had orange tufts at the front, and clusters of orange feathers depended from his ears. His face was covered with white make-up, relieved only by a dab of orange on lips and eyelids. He was out of the leather gear now, and dressed in a kind of pyjamas of off-white sackcloth, joined at the seams by beige leather thongs. The effect was, to Charles, reminiscent of a line- drawing of medieval underwear from a school textbook with a title like
It was clear, when they got upstairs, that he was his own interior designer as well. The flat was really one long room, whose exposed rafters under a pitched roof should have given it the appearance of a Saxon mead-hall. And would have given it the appearance of a Saxon mead-hall if every surface had not been painted silver. The floor had been painted the same colour, and what must have been lovely views over the Thames were excluded by silver paint over the panes of the high windows. The area was lit by theatrical spotlights, the harshness of whose glare was subdued by gels of red and blue. Their beams were trained on to matt-black rectangular boxes, which, by a process of elimination, Charles deduced to be furniture (though which was a table and which a chair he would not like to have had to specify).
Sydnee showed no surprise at the surroundings, which must mean either that she had been there before, or that all her colleagues lived in similar environments. (If the second were the case, it was not surprising that the three researchers had found the Hereford Road bedsitter a little unusual.)
On one of the matt-black shapes a sheet of paper was pinned, and the selection of pens, templates and rulers nearby suggested that Sylvian had been working on his latest design when interrupted by the doorbell. Charles did not dare to contemplate what it might be.
As they entered, music, which could either have been South American flutes or a team of asthmatics competitively blowing blockages out of hose-pipes, sounded loudly. Sylvian de Beaune went across to a matt-black box with an array of matt-black buttons on the front, and moderated the volume. He gestured to them to sit. Charles had almost fully descended when he heard the words, ‘No. That’s a table’, and moved accordingly to a smaller matt-black box.
Sylvian remained standing. ‘What is it, Sydnee?’
‘
‘Don’t tell me — John Mantle wants more bloody changes?’
‘No. It’s harking back to the first pilot.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Barrett Doran’s death.’
Had there been any natural colour in Sylvian de Beaune’s face, that would have bleached it out. He gaped, stupefied.
‘Chippy didn’t kill him,’ Sydnee continued. Because he still seemed incapable of speech, she persisted, ‘Charles here drank from Barrett’s glass at about six-thirty. At that point it definitely contained gin.’
‘Oh, my God.’ The words were hardly audible.
Charles picked up the initiative. ‘So the cyanide was put in the glass after that time. You were seen m the studio just after six-thirty by Bob Garston.’
The orange lips moved, but this time no sound came out.
‘It was your first major set, isn’t that right, Sylvian? You were very proud of it, very worried about it. We know what Barrett Doran said when he saw it for the first time. Not very appreciative of your efforts, was he?’
Still no words came, but the designer shook his head, as if in disbelief. Slowly, he subsided on to one of the matt-black rectangular boxes. It was the one he had said was a table, but Charles didn’t think it was the moment to say anything. He and Sydnee maintained the silence.
Finally, Sylvian de Beaune spoke. His voice was dull, as if he were repeating something learned by rote. ‘I
