Dead on Cue (12 page)

‘I'll tell you the way I see it,' Woodend said softly.

Elizabeth Driver favoured him with a smile which was not yet
quite
triumphant. ‘Yes?' she said.

‘I think you should do your job in the way you see fit, an' I'll do the same thing with mine.'

‘If that's a “no”, you'll live to regret it,' Elizabeth Driver cautioned him.

‘Not as much as I'd regret it if I allowed myself to slip down to your level,' Woodend replied.

‘You'll never learn, will you?' Elizabeth Driver demanded angrily. ‘You've already lost one job through refusing to play the game like everyone else – and if you're not careful, you'll soon be losing another.'

W
hen the phone rang on the desk he shared with Ben Drabble, Paddy Colligan made a dive for it, and once it was in his hand, he clamped the receiver tight against the side of his head.

‘Colligan,' he said. ‘Yes, I . . . No, it really isn't very convenient.'

Sitting opposite him, Ben Drabble wondered why Colligan seemed so concerned that even a hint of his caller's voice should not be allowed to seep out into the room.

‘Yes, I was expecting you to ring just like you said you would,' Colligan mumbled. ‘And of course I still . . . It's not that easy . . . There are a lot of things going on here right now.'

Drabble recognised the tone in his partner's voice as just like the one he himself used when he was talking to his bookmaker. But Paddy didn't gamble. As far as he knew, Paddy had no vices at all.

‘I can't now,' Colligan said, ‘. . . because I just can't, that's why . . . you must understand the pressures.' He listened to his caller for perhaps thirty seconds without interruption, then sighed heavily. ‘All right!' he said resignedly. ‘Fifteen minutes – but no longer than that.'

Colligan slammed the phone back on its cradle. ‘I have to go out,' he told his partner.

‘Now?'

‘Now! I won't be long. I told . . . I said I couldn't be away for more than fifteen minutes.'

‘So it's somebody in the studio you have to meet?'

‘I don't think that's really any of your business, is it, Ben?' Colligan asked coldly.

‘Isn't it?' Drabble countered. ‘We're working to a deadline here. You do realise we're still missing seven and a half minutes dialogue from Friday's show, don't you?'

‘We'll probably work better after a short break,' Colligan said defensively. ‘Anyway,' he continued, suddenly shifting into attack mode, ‘I don't complain about all the time you spend on the phone placing bets on the horses, so what right have you got to start bitching when I want to slip out for a few minutes?'

It was not a good time to have an argument, Ben Drabble realised – not with seven and a half minutes of script still left to write.

‘Sorry, I didn't mean to poke my nose in your affairs,' he said.

For some reason, the words seemed to make Paddy Colligan wince, then the Irishman forced a smile to his face and said, ‘Don't worry about it. These things happen. With all the pressure we're under, it's actually a bit of miracle we haven't killed each other.'

Bad choice of words, given the circumstances, Drabble thought – but he knew what his partner meant.

Paddy Colligan had been gone from the office for less than five minutes when the phone rang again.

Ben Drabble, wrestling with the script, tried to ignore it, but the bloody thing kept on ringing. Finally, when it was plain it was not going to go away, he snatched up the receiver.

‘Yes?' he said irritably.

The man on the other end of the line chuckled. ‘Is that any way to talk to the person who's going to make your fortune for you?'

‘Sorry, Vince,' Drabble said. ‘Things are pretty tense in the office at the moment.'

‘I imagine they are – for most people,' his agent said. ‘But they shouldn't be for you. Hell, you should be cracking open a bottle of champagne after the stroke of luck you've had.'

‘Stroke of luck?' Drabble repeated, mystified. ‘What stroke of luck?'

‘The murder! It couldn't have come at a better time, could it?'

‘Couldn't it?'

‘I'll say it couldn't,' his agent said cheerfully. ‘Is that life imitating art – or what?'

‘You're talking about my manuscript,' Drabble said, finally catching his agent's drift.

‘Of course I'm talking about your manuscript. I've got
The Shooting Script
on my desk in front of me, right now. I was going to start submitting it last week – but am I glad I waited?! The murder should at least triple the advance we can expect to be paid. And as for sales – they'll go through the roof! When the publishers reveal that the writer of a book about a murder in a television studio was actually working in a
real
television studio where a
real
murder was committed, the public will be queuing up to buy copies.'

A vision of sudden wealth swam before Ben Drabble's eyes – but unlike many other people's visions in similar circumstances, it did not centre on what he could buy. Or perhaps, in a way, it did. The money would buy him peace of mind. The money would help him to escape from the fear which periodically gnawed at his innards. There would be no more menacing late-night phone calls. He would be able to walk down a dark alley without wondering whether there were two large men at the end of it, waiting to break his legs. He could pay off all his gambling debts. He would be free to start life again.

‘Well, aren't you going to say anything?' his agent asked.

Words seemed inadequate to describe the feeling of well-being which had swept over him, Drabble thought.

‘I suppose you're right,' he said weakly.

‘You
suppose
!' his agent repeated, incredulously. ‘Don't try to tell me that you haven't been worrying about your book sinking without trace – just like so many others do.'

‘I—'

‘And don't try to tell me you haven't already worked out for yourself that this murder is the best possible publicity you could have got.'

‘I may have thought about it in vague terms,' Drabble confessed, ‘but I certainly wouldn't have put it as strongly as you have. And if I can make a suggestion, Vince?'

‘Yes?'

‘When you start negotiating with the publishers, it might be a good idea if you didn't sound quite so enthusiastic about the fact that Valerie Farnsworth has been murdered.'

‘Oh sure, I get it,' the agent said – and Drabble could almost see him giving a broad wink.

‘Anyway, thanks for calling,' the scriptwriter said, eager to put the phone down and revel in his new-found freedom in private.

‘Hang on a minute. I haven't quite finished what I rang up to say to you,' his agent told him.

There was a new edge to the man's tone – a wheedling, yet commanding edge – which made Drabble's stomach suddenly turn over.

‘Go on,' he said cautiously.

‘The thing is, I know that all you writers are a mite touchy about changing anything once you've actually written it down . . .'

‘Touchy?' Drabble repeated.

‘Sure. And I can understand it. You think you've finished the job, and you'd rather go out and have a good time than plough through the same material all over again.'

‘What are you suggesting?' Drabble demanded angrily. ‘That our unwillingness to change things is no more than laziness?'

‘Hey, kid, don't get so tense,' the agent said.

‘We don't
just
write it down, you know,' Drabble said passionately. ‘We agonise over every word. We sweat blood. And when we do finally manage to come up with the exact expression we've been searching so hard for—'

‘Yeah, I know you work very hard,' the agent said, trying not to sound indifferent. ‘And it's because I know it's such hard work that I don't want to see it all go to waste. That's why – just to make
absolutely
sure we've got a rip-roaring success on our hands – I'd like you to make just a few adjustments to the plot.'

‘Writing's not like painting a wall!' Drabble protested. ‘When you've finished, you can't just step back and look at the finished result, then touch up the odd spot here and the odd spot there. A book is an organic whole in which everything relates to everything else.'

‘Well,
I
know that,' the agent said. ‘Of course I do. But the changes I want you to make are very minor.'

‘How minor?' Drabble asked suspiciously.

‘This is only a suggestion. Right?'

‘Right.'

‘I think the book would have a lot more punch – publicity-wise – if you changed the victim?'

‘If I
what
?'

‘Changed the victim. See, in the light of the murder,
The Shooting Script
would make more of an impact if the person who got killed was one of the actresses, rather than the show's producer.'

M
aria Rutter heard the front door of her new detached home click open and she shifted her weight as a preliminary manoeuvre in the complicated process of getting out of her armchair.

She would be glad when her pregnancy finally came to full term, she thought, because however difficult it might turn out to be for a blind woman to look after her baby, it would be nothing less than a blessed relief after all this backache and general discomfort.

There were heavy male footsteps in the hallway.

‘Is that you, Bob?' Maria asked.

‘It's me,' Rutter answered – and from the sound of his voice she could tell that something or other was not quite right with his world.

‘I didn't really expect you to be coming home for lunch, sweetheart,' Maria said.

‘I didn't expect to be home myself,' Rutter replied, almost gruffly.

Maria waited for him to expand on the comment, but when it became plain that he wasn't about to, she said, ‘I thought you were working somewhere near Bolton.'

‘Not me. Just Cloggin'-it Charlie and Paniatowski. It turned out I wasn't really necessary.'

Maria frowned. In the previous few months, as she had grown accustomed to her blindness, she had become much better at imagining people's expressions from the sound of their voices – but she still wished that she could see her husband's face.

‘I'll make you some food,' she said.

There was an awkward pause, then Bob said, ‘Actually, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I'll fix it myself.'

She had to get quicker at doing things, she told herself. She had to learn to perform tasks around the house almost as well as if she could see.

Rutter walked into the kitchen, and Maria forced herself out of her chair and followed him. She heard the sound of a cupboard door being opened, and the noise of several tins being banged together.

‘Baked beans on toast?' she guessed.

‘That's right,' Rutter agreed.

For the first time since he had entered the house, she could detect a smile in his voice. Well, whatever had happened that morning, at least he could still summon up the energy to smile!

She reached out with her hand, and was pleased to discover the back of the kitchen chair was exactly where she'd thought it would be. She pulled the chair out and lowered herself carefully into it.

‘Are you going to tell me what it's all about?' she asked.

‘What what's all about?' Rutter said brusquely, as he clamped the tin-opener over the can and began to turn.

‘I may be blind, but I'm not stupid,' Maria said angrily.

The tin-opener stopped turning. Rutter walked over to her and began softly stroking her hair.

‘I know you're not stupid,' he said apologetically. ‘And I'm so sorry for taking my mood out on you.'

‘Why are you in the mood in the first place?'

‘The boss has sent me back to Whitebridge because he thinks that he and Paniatowski can handle the investigation in the studio by themselves,' Rutter told her, bitterly.

‘I'm sure Charlie Woodend would never have phrased it quite like that,' Maria said.

‘No, he didn't,' Rutter admitted. ‘What he actually said was that I could be most useful supervising the team which was checking the statements for inconsistencies, and that if I did it from headquarters rather than from the studio, it would help to keep DCS Ainsworth – or Dick the Prick, as he's affectionately known – happy.'

‘Well, then? What's your problem?'

Rutter sighed. ‘Well, it's just sugaring the pill, isn't it? What he really means is that he'd rather work with Paniatowski.'

Maria shook her head. ‘How can you even think that?' she asked. ‘You know as well as I do that the reason Charlie stuck his neck out to get you an early promotion was because he didn't want to leave you behind in London – because he didn't want to break up the team.'

‘That was then,' Rutter said. ‘That was before he started working with the wonderful Sergeant Paniatowski.'

‘This has nothing to do with Monika,' Maria said quietly.

‘Doesn't it?'

‘No.'

‘Then what has it got to do with?'

‘With Charlie finally coming to realise that things have to change – and your refusal to see it yourself.'

‘You sound as if you always knew that this kind of thing was going to happen,' Rutter said.

‘Well, of course I knew. It was practically
bound
to happen.'

‘Would you care to explain why?'

‘Because you're what Charlie Woodend would call “a very bright lad”. You're an inspector now, and in a few years' time, you'll be a chief inspector – his equal.'

‘Unless he's been promoted to superintendent by then.'