Killings on Jubilee Terrace (9 page)

‘Wife and kidlets at home, Inspector?’

‘Wife Felicity. Children: Carola nearly five and Thomas six months.’

‘It sounds a real idyll. Pity: there are so many gay policemen these days, and soldiers too, that it’s a real bonus if uniforms turn you on. But it doesn’t sound as if I could possibly persuade you to “absent thee from Felicity awhile”.’

Charlie sighed.

‘If only you knew how often I’ve heard that joke.’

‘I’m sorry to bore you. You must live in cultured circles.’

‘I do. Felicity used to do teaching for Leeds University English Department. Every one of her colleagues tried the joke at one time or another, and every one of them thought they were being original.’

‘Sounds like the acting profession. We all spill over with quotations, usually from plays we’ve been in. Well, I’ll give up any thought of seducing you. It’s so long since I had a boyfriend it’s like an automatic response to try it on with anyone young and attractive. Fancy a coffee?’

He gestured towards a dispensing machine. Charlie flinched.

‘Couldn’t we run to a canteen cup from a percolator?’

‘The canteen will be full of cast who aren’t filming, discussing the second coming of Bet
Garrett. The coffee is vile from that machine, but there’s a nice little alcove round the corner with a view over the Burleigh Road and complete privacy. It takes your mind off the coffee.’

Charlie nodded, and in a couple of minutes he was sipping a cup of coffee that was every bit as nasty as the ones in the Millgarth Police Headquarters, and looking out on a view that was also not much better than the one there.

‘You wanted to talk to me, I’d guess,’ he said. Garry Kopps smiled, not at all ashamed or embarrassed.

‘Yes, I did. I guessed that underneath that cool and rather intimidating exterior there was a mind that was meeting with a crowd of actors for pretty much the first time and panicking at the newness of it all.’

Charlie didn’t readily admit to panic, so he just smiled neutrally.

‘And soap actors are a thing apart, or many of them are. If you went and talked to actors from any theatre company they could almost all make a fair fist at roles over a pretty wide spectrum – some would be roles they were made to play, some would be roles they could fit themselves quite comfortably into.’

‘So they could play King Lear and Sir Andrew Aguecheek and anything in the latest sitcom on telly?’

‘Exactly. You sound as if you have had some stage experience.’

‘
Twelfth Night
at school. I played Sir Toby, though I shared the role with a well-stuffed pillowcase. It was billed as the first all-black
Twelfth Night
, as if that excused it. The bookings were so bad we cancelled the public performances and just played to the school. They booed and threw things.’

‘Why all black?’

‘Because we were. Top to toe. Brixton.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Get on with the soap actors. Why are they so different?’

‘Because some of them aren’t exactly actors at all. They’ve played the working men’s clubs, they’ve done acts for children’s parties, they’ve even made good after being extras on stage or television. One way or another they’ve got the acting bug, but they aren’t really actors, and many of them can only play a tiny range of parts not very different from their actual selves.’

‘Any examples?’

‘Well, Vernon Watts was the best example from
Terrace
. He was a third-rate comedian in the music halls and clubs. When he got the job he used to play Bert Porter as a third-rate comic. Used to complain if any of his scenes didn’t have a joke in them. The scriptwriters usually
complied, because it was easy. The joke could be as bad as they liked, because the point about Bert Porter was that he thought he was hilarious and wasn’t.’

‘I get you. Who else could you say has this limited range?’

‘Well, Winnie Hey, and probably Les Crosby, who plays Harry Hornby.’

‘But someone like Hamish Fawley was much more of a real actor?’

‘Oh yes. To take an obvious point, he was playing a homosexual but he didn’t have a gay bone in his body, and he did it very well, in private sincere and straightforward, in public a bravura caricature of stereotypes especially when he was playing with homophobic characters. He could play competently a wide range of parts, but probably no one role would show any great depth or empathy.’

‘I think I get you. Who else would come under this heading: Bill Garrett?’

‘Oh yes. Like the rest of us he wonders whether he couldn’t have made it big in the real world of the theatre.’

‘But why don’t they – you – branch out?’

‘Children, for one thing. And Bill until recently had an expensive wife. But as often as not the real reason is timidity. They look at that comfortable bank balance and they ask themselves: “What
would I do without it?” It’s like being on the
Titanic
and instinctively keeping close to the lifeboats. Some of us made a big brave decision when we decided to be actors. Now we
are
actors, our native working-or lower-middle-class caution has come into play, and it tells us to stay in our cushy beds, safe and warm, and warns us that if we were professionally stretched, we might not stretch well.’

Charlie thought.

‘That means, I suppose, a lot of nervy, frustrated, neurotic actors, aghast at the lack of challenge in their work – pretty much like the rest of us.’

‘Pretty much, yes.’

‘Does it also mean that the most stable and contented ones are those who, by and large, are acting themselves?’

Garry shook his head.

‘Not really. They quite soon get the notion that they are actors, and get the notion too that they should be given bigger and bigger challenges. It’s like Fortinbras thinking he can play Hamlet.’

‘So the result is very much the same?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Or is this just you generalising out from yourself,’ said Charlie in his friendliest voice, ‘and making everyone else out to be as mixed up as you are?’

Garry Kopps shrugged.

‘You pays your money and you takes your choice.’

‘Well, I would not class Marjorie as a neurotic,’ said Charlie. ‘Nor Winnie, come to that. Verdicts on the rest will have to wait till I get to know them better.’

And he got up and, directed by Garry, went in the direction of the Chief Script Editor.

‘Sit you down,’ said Melvin Settle, gesturing Charlie towards an upright chair with arms on the other side of his desk. The office was papered with photographs, and also had a sort of map which seemed to be charting the present and future
plot-lines
of
Jubilee Terrace
, major and minor. Charlie, with another wave, was given permission to get up and examine it closely. When he sat down again he said:

‘I’m interested in why Hamish Fawley was asked back to play in
Jubilee Terrace
.’

Melvin Settle frowned.

‘This keeps coming up. What’s your problem? It was natural enough. We’d sent Cyril off to San Francisco – or was it LA? – anyway, to
somewhere appropriate. But it made sense to bring him back to die.’

‘Did it? You could just have said he’d died over there. Lady Wharton could have flown over for the funeral. Or he could just have been forgotten. Hamish was the sort of cast member who no one would want brought back, or so I’d have thought.’

‘Christ yes, you’re right about that. You saw him, didn’t you? If I’d had one more sneer at my scripts because they weren’t Ibsen or Strindberg or whatever he tried to convince us he was used to playing I would have – well kicked his arse.’

‘Most cast members seem to have felt like that. So who invited him back?’

‘Oh, Reggie… Wait, I’ve got it.’ He paused feeling there was need for an explanation. ‘There’s so much writing, rewriting, replotting, taking out sick actors, or ones accused of
drunk-driving
or indecent assault, that I get muddled. It’s not all regular, prearranged progress from A to B – sometimes plot-lines simply get forgotten, or get overtaken by events, including events in the outside world. That’s what happened then.’

‘What? Something got overtaken by events?’ asked Charlie. Settle nodded. ‘What event?’

‘The death of Vernon Watts. Bert Porter. That was back in June or July.’

‘I thought he was a – sort of – background
actor. Someone who’s around, and commenting on important storylines, rather than important himself.’

‘He was, but characters like that still have to be given a proper storyline now and then,’ said Melvin. ‘Often it’s something quite minor: a relative comes to stay and can’t be got rid of. Some minor character is suddenly given the conviction that she’s got cancer. But on occasion it can be something quite major.’

Charlie thought.

‘I’d guess Vernon Watts’s plot-line was minor,’ he said.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I’ve just heard Mr Kopps’s assessment of his talent as an actor.’

‘Well, that’s probably quite accurate. You can trust Garry’s judgements. Vernon couldn’t have coped with a strong storyline. This was just a side-issue to much stronger stuff: Vernon, or rather Bert, had taken on paper deliveries for Harry Hornby. We like to keep abreast of social changes. These days newsagents find it difficult to recruit paper boys and girls. Pay isn’t good enough for the greedy little buggers. So often pensioners are taking on the jobs.’

‘Yes, that’s happened in Slepton, where I live,’ said Charlie.

‘Right. Well the storyline was that Bert was
getting interested in one of the paper girls – not sexually, we wouldn’t touch anything like that. Leave that to the Australian soaps. She’s just standing in for the daughter he and Gladys never had. And she plays along with this, because she’s a kind kid – the kid in the plot-line, not the actress. This is the sort of plot you can close down any time you like: Bert has a heart-to-heart with someone who tells him what a fool he’s making of himself. End of story. End of part for young hopeful playing the girl.’

‘But the plot-line never got filmed?’

‘Exactly. Vernon fell under the bus.’

‘So what happened?’

Melvin shrugged.

‘Nothing much. It wasn’t urgent. The story was going to develop very slowly. It had just begun with a little solo conversation between Bert and the girl: “What are you doing at school?” stuff. It ended, I remember, with Bert saying: “I never did well at school, but it hasn’t done me any harm later in life.” A bit pathetic that, with Bert earning the odd quid delivering papers, and the girl knowing it… Come to think of it, that may have been the last time Bert spoke in
Jubilee Terrace
.’

‘So what happened when news of his death came?’

‘Well, we all knew we – the scriptwriters that is –
had to put on our thinking caps for something to take its place.’

‘Who came up with the solution?’

‘Reggie, actually. Not one of the scriptwriters. He just handed us the idea and told us to get writing.’

‘But why Hamish? Why bring back Cyril Wharton?’

‘All he said was that Hamish was available. He often was.’

‘But you’d never taken him up on it before? Brought him back for a fortnight’s holiday, visiting his old mum?’

‘No… You’d have to ask Reggie, but I think he’d seen that the cast needed a shake-up. They get slack and lacklustre doing the same thing over and over again, the same clichés, the same facial expressions, in the same settings. Another thing is that Reggie got very little cheek from Hamish. Far less than me, or the other actors. So he could have this shake-up for the rest without being disturbed by it himself.’

‘I see. But as far as plots were concerned it meant two disasters in a short time.’

‘We made very little of Bert’s death, just because the replacement stuff with Cyril might include a funeral as well. No scene by the grave, just Gladys and her mates in the Duke of York’s, discussing the service.’

‘I see,’ said Charlie thoughtfully. ‘I’m beginning to get an idea about the scriptwriting team. It sounds as if you have to negotiate with the actors, or at any rate field demands from them for storylines that feature them, or that they think would give them good opportunities.’

Melvin Settle roared with laughter, though he didn’t entirely convince Charlie he was wrong.

‘Then I’m afraid I’ve given you a very odd impression. Yes, they come along to us with bright plot-ideas, always featuring themselves. No, we don’t negotiate with them. We placate them and send them away with the idea that we’ll think about it. The older ones of course know that that’s the last they’ll hear of it. Occasionally they come up with a good idea. In the nature of things that’s bound to happen: they’ve lived with the character, often for years. In that event the actor will probably go on daytime television boasting about his brilliant idea. But in general we’ve got ideas and to spare with ten scriptwriters on the case, and the idea has to be
really
brilliant, and to fit easily into the
Jubilee Terrace
format and ethos, to be taken up.’

‘I see. And how would you describe the
Jubilee Terrace
ethos?’

‘Ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, which sometimes – more often now than in the past, because of the Australian soaps – get caught up in extraordinary events.’

Charlie considered this reply.

‘Can you tell me some examples of people trying to plump up their parts in the show – some storyline or incident that they’ve been pushing because it would make them more pivotal in the show?’

‘Oh well, we could take Bet Garrett – now, I’m told, risen from the dead. Black mark to you boys in blue there, eh? By the way, if she hadn’t risen from the dead I’d have done a quick rewrite so that her part in the shop scene could have been taken by Sylvia Cardew, the apprentice florist in the shop. It’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it?’

‘It is. But tell me about Bet Garrett.’

‘Oh, it was a couple of years ago. She’s been in (or rather in and out) of the show for almost as long as Bill has been in it. At one point she wanted to be shunted out of her florist’s shop and given something less
occasional
to do.’

‘She mostly comes in for births, marriages and Mother’s Days I gather.’

‘Exactly. And making-it-up-to-her days for the men, which have been fruitful stamping grounds for her. Anyway she fancied herself as landlady of the Duke of York’s, or one of the residents of the
Terrace
houses. No way was it going to happen.’

‘Why not?’

‘Not versatile enough, and not punchy enough. Odd that, because in real life she’s got punch and
to spare, but all her acting career, such as it is, has been playing fairly genteel, sensible
middle-class
women. Playing all the qualities she’s never had. Very odd, as I say.’

‘Did she offer her favours as a return for this promotion?’

‘A bit late for that. I’d had her years before – some time between her second and her third child. I remember because when I heard she was pregnant with the latter I had to do some fevered mathematics. She’s not mine. Anyway Bet hadn’t anything in that line left to offer, and apart from sex her cupboard was bare. Boy! She’d have to have offered a lot to be landlady of the Duke of York’s, even if we had wanted to be rid of Bill and Liza, which we didn’t. The landlady of any soap pub is the lynchpin.’

‘Of course she is,’ said Charlie. ‘Usually pub landlords and landladies last about five or six months in the real world these days, but that wouldn’t suit a soap, would it?’

‘Not at all,’ said Melvin cheerfully. ‘We’re selective about how far we catch up with the real world.’

Charlie shifted in his chair.

‘While we’re on the subject of recruitment and promotion of actors in
Jubilee Terrace
, there is the question of the dead girl.’

‘Oh yes. Well actually I’m not the person to
ask about casting. Occasionally they do ask me to look at two or three actors when there are auditions for a new character, and I go along and tell them what we scriptwriters have in mind, and which way the character will go. But mostly I stay out of that. Often I don’t see the new people until I watch the finished version of their first scene. I have no idea how this girl was picked out for the apprentice florist. I only know that when Reggie asked me to write one in – give her a line or two as well as an appearance, he winked and added: “Something nice for Hamish”. The florist shop scene – people ordering wreaths for Cyril – was actually filmed before the final shot of Cyril’s death was scheduled. As it is we’re having to make do with the practice shots for the death, which were actually very good.’

‘Well, I’ll have a talk with Mr Friedman about that,’ said Charlie. He decided to become confiding. ‘I’m needing to get a lot of background before I even feel able to understand this new world. There’s so much I don’t know. I cling to the fact that two very unpopular cast members are now dead, and in one case there’s no doubt it was murder.’

‘That’s true,’ said Melvin slowly. ‘By the by, I’ve never thought that Vernon Watts’s death was murder.’

‘Why not?’

‘He just wasn’t important enough.’

‘To the
Jubilee Terrace
people perhaps. What about the great viewing public?’

‘They rather liked Bert Porter, though maybe they were getting fed up with him. Too many terrible jokes. There was a fairly general degree of approval for Cyril Wharton. Too often homosexuals in soaps seem to take us back to the days of Kenneth Williams and Jules and Sandy. Hamish didn’t do that, except where he was deliberately guying that sort of gay. You can’t say he got into the part in any great depth, but at least he took the character seriously, and didn’t invite sneers or sniggers.’

‘And of course you in the script department don’t need to commit real life murder,’ said Charlie, to lighten the end of the interview.

‘Of course not. We can have a soap murder, or just a soap death. Or we can just have them move away. In Australian soaps they always seem to move to Perth or Brizzie.’

‘I’ve always heard well of Perth, at least,’ said Charlie. ‘Perhaps it’s a case of “’Tis a far far better place I go to now”. But I should go and look for Mr Friedman—’

But he was interrupted by the door opening and the man himself, knocking belatedly, coming in. Charlie could have sworn that at the sight of him Reggie’s face fell. Had he been aiming to
get at Melvin Settle first, Charlie wondered, and persuade him to keep quiet about something? That would make sense. About what then?

‘Ah, Melvin, I was wanting to talk something over, but it can wait. Good morning again, Inspector Peace. I’d heard you were back. Please feel free to come and ask me anything at any time – except when I’m directing in the studios.’

There was an orotundity about the voice and phrasing that had not been there on Charlie’s first visit, suggesting that Reggie could quite easily pull rank and get pompous. Or perhaps just that he was nervous.

‘That’s very kind of you, sir. I’ll take advantage of it at once if I may.’ Reggie tensed up a little, and it was a second before he nodded. ‘I wonder if you could tell me how Sylvia Cardew got her part as a florist’s assistant on
Jubilee Terrace
.’

‘Yes… Yes, I can. It wasn’t the usual way, but it was quite…let’s say it was quite an acceptable way. One that had happened before. I gave her the job on the recommendation of Hamish Fawley.’

‘I see,’ said Charlie. ‘Did you audition her?’

‘Good Lord, no. The part was hardly more than an extra’s part. I never even saw her, then or since. I won’t now, will I? Poor girl.’

‘I think, sir, you’d better tell me how it came about.’

‘Oh sure. But it can’t be important.’

‘The girl is dead, sir. Murdered.’

‘Oh yes, yes of course.’ His face fell. It was obvious Reggie felt rebuked and did not like the feeling. ‘Well, Hamish came to me a week or so ago and asked me if I could get a tiny part for someone. Hamish was of course finishing up his second spell of time with us, and in the nature of things was never likely to come back. I thought it was worthwhile keeping him sweet – keeping things in general sweet that meant, because Hamish was the only source of sour among the present cast, apart perhaps from the young lovers. Anyway, I said I could think something up, maybe make her one of Rita Somerville’s (that’s Bet Garrett’s) assistants in the florist’s. And Hamish said that would be fine, and even thanked me.’