Dead on Cue (3 page)

The scriptwriter nodded. ‘Yes, the whole thing's been mapped out.'

The assistant director returned the nod. ‘Good! Excellent! I think we'll just run through the last scene one more time, shall we?'

Valerie Farnsworth snorted. ‘You can if you like,' she said, ‘but as far as I'm concerned it's as good as it's ever going to be – and I need some time on my own before the show.'

‘Now look here, Val—' the assistant director said, trying to keep his rising anger under control.

‘No,
you
look here,' Valerie Farnsworth interrupted. ‘I know you like standing there playing the boss, but when all's said and done, you're only one step up from the tea boy. And if you've think I'm going to tire myself out before the show, just so you can feel important, then you've got another think coming.'

She turned, and flounced towards the door.

‘Talk about your prima donnas,' Jennifer Brunton said in a quiet aside to George Adams.

‘Yes, she can be pretty bloody when she wants to be,' Adams agreed.

‘And it's not just that poor lad she's treating like dirt. She's the same with everybody – even her fellow actors. It's all about Liz – and bugger everybody else! She doesn't only want to be in all the best scenes, but she wants the best
lines
in them as well. Who do
you
think will come out best in this row between Liz Bowyer and Madge Thornycroft?'

Adams smiled cynically. ‘If I had to put money on it, I'd bet it would be Liz,' he said.

‘You're damn right it will be Liz Bowyer! Val's probably already had a word with the scriptwriters about it. And if they won't do what she wants, she'll go whining and complaining to Bill Houseman. Of course, I could do the same thing myself. But I won't. I've got far too much self-respect for that.'

‘Besides, it probably wouldn't get you anywhere,' George Adams said.

‘She thinks that just because she gets more fan mail than anybody else, she's the queen bee round here,' Jennifer Brunton railed. ‘But she bloody well isn't! There's a lot more to
Maddox Row
's success than just Valerie high-and-mighty Farnsworth. Madge Thornycroft's an important part of the show, too.'

‘And even Sam Fuller gets the occasional fan letter,' George Adams said sourly.

‘Of course you do, George,' Jennifer Brunton said hastily. ‘You're important, too. We all are. And it's about time Val learned that. In fact, if you ask me, it's more than time that somebody taught her a lesson she won't forget in a hurry.'

T
he first episode of
Maddox Row
had been broadcast on the same day as Fidel Castro had nationalised all private businesses in Cuba, but for the executives of NWTV there was soon little doubt about which of the two events would turn out to be more world-shattering. Even in its first few weeks it had become apparent that
Madro
was a television phenomenon, and that the cramped NWTV studios were placing too much of a limit on its potential. And so the company's top executives had decided, over one of their long expense-account lunches, that a new home had to be found for the programme.

The old Calcutta Mill on the outskirts of a village near Bolton had immediately suggested itself as the ideal choice. Not only was it large, but – since no one else was interested in buying it – it was also going cheap. There had been the inevitable objections to the change of usage, of course, most notably from the Lancashire Industrial Archaeological Society, which claimed the mill had great historic interest and should be retained for educational purposes. But since the members of the society were known to be cranks of no consequence, and since the local authority was tired of being responsible for a relic of a bygone age, the objections were brushed aside. Thus it was that, as the Society's members were writing impassioned letters to the local newspapers and even thinking about getting around to organising some kind of protest, a team of bricklayers was hard at work in the mill's weaving shed, transforming the vast, open space into a number of smaller, more manageable units. The past was dead. From now on, the mill would be dedicated to creating an image of a present reality which was already starting to slip away.

Bill Houseman wandered – apparently aimlessly – through the studio which had been constructed at the far end of the old mill. All around him there were signs of activity: the lighting technicians were carrying out last-minute adjustments to their lamps; the grips moving equipment and laying fresh cables; the set dressers stood in the middle of the interior sets, adjusting an ornament here and a picture frame there.

It was Bill Houseman's fancy – and as the man with overall control of the programme he was entitled to whatever fancy he cared to indulge – to see the team which worked inside the mill as one living entity, a single huge creature with its own pulse, heartbeat and moods.

‘And it's very much a creature of habit,' he said softly to himself.

At nine o'clock in the morning it was still only half-awake, yet looking forward to the day with some optimism. By one o'clock in the afternoon, having gone through countless repetitions of same routines – but also having endured periods when nothing much seemed to happening at all – the beast was ready for some food, even if that food was only the soggy sandwiches and lukewarm soup which the catering company provided. Most of the afternoon was conducted on autopilot – the beast accepting that certain things had be done, and stoically getting on with them. Then the big hand of the studio clock touched twelve, the small hand scraped against six – and the whole atmosphere changed.

Now, at five minutes past six, the beast was as alert as any hunter, knowing that its performance in the next two hours would determine whether or not it went home satisfied – or with a gnawing ache in its stomach.

It was always Houseman's favourite time of day, and no more so than when he needed a shot in the arm, as he did at that moment. For the last half-hour he'd been suffering the effects of the emotional battering he'd received at the hands of his wife, but now he was starting to feel like a god again. And not just
any
god. Not the petty god of some low-budget children's programme which centred on the moronic activities of glove puppets, but the mighty god of a roaring, runaway success of a peak-time drama.

‘A mighty god!' he repeated to himself.

And why shouldn't he feel like that? He was, when all was said and done, the creator of all he saw before him. Without him – without his inspiration – none of these people would be there, and something entirely different would be filling the six or seven million flickering television screens in an hour and twenty-five minutes time.

He was relieved to find that this feeling of divinity had finally returned with all its former force. For the previous few weeks, even as he'd watched the world from the top of his Olympian mountain, he had been hearing the low, menacing thunder of the viewing figures in the distance. The show had been losing some of its audience – not a significant portion, but enough to cause concern – and he had been living in fear that he would soon be cast out of his paradise by a younger, more virile god. But that fear had passed now. For a god to remain strong, he had to sustain himself on the sacrifice of human blood, and that process – thank Himself! – was already under way.

He glanced up at the central control room – the eyes of the beast he had created. There were two people in it at that moment. One of them was a man in his late thirties with foppish brown hair who, whatever the weather, always wore a short silk scarf around his neck. Jeremy Wilcox had been the show's director for only a few months, but already he was acting as if it were
his
show – as if any success it had came from his basic ability to order the right camera to be pointed in the right direction at roughly the right time. And Wilcox's ambitions didn't stop with directing, Houseman suspected. The fop in the scarf was already starting to see the words ‘executive producer' after his name.

The other occupant of the control room was a woman – or perhaps, more accurately, a girl. Lucy Smythe had blonde hair pulled tightly to her skull and heavy-framed glasses which she probably didn't even need. She had joined the series at the same time as the director, and followed at his heel like a too-eager-to-please puppy. Wilcox, for his part, took great pains to show that he took her for granted, in the hope that this would create the impression that he was used to such dogged devotion from his subordinates. Houseman wondered whether this devotion would be sustained once Wilcox was back to directing trailers for other people's creative work, which – once the human sacrifice had made him strong again – would not be long in coming.

The cast dressing rooms were at the other end of the weaving shed to the
Maddox Row
studio. From the outside, they looked like nothing more than low brick boxes constructed under the mill's tall roof. Inside, however, they were cosy little retreats where the actors could enjoy relaxing during their free time.

Most of the boxes were designed to be shared between two or three members of the cast. But there were some actors – the fortunate chosen few – who had a dressing room entirely to themselves, and Valerie Farnsworth was one of them.

At the moment, less than an hour and a quarter before the show was due to go out, Valerie was sitting at her dressing table and examining her reflection in the mirror. It was a slightly rounded face which gazed back at her, with full lips and big, dark eyes. An attractive enough face – certainly one which turned a few heads whenever she entered a pub – but not one which she had ever thought would be her fortune.

Yet that was just how things had turned out! After nearly twenty years on the stage, first in the music halls and then in provincial repertory theatre, she had finally made a name for herself. And what a name! She was Liz Bowyer, Maddox Row's resident divorcee – a bit of a trollop, if truth be told, but only in a sanitised, peak viewing hours sort of way, of course. She had risen from obscurity and was now an opener of village fêtes, bingo halls and self-service shops. At just a shade under forty she had become, if she believed the papers – and she did! – a national sex symbol.

The success of
Maddox Row
was due to many things, but no small part of it was due to her, and from the way she was treated by the people she worked with, it was obvious that they were as aware of that as she was herself.

She heard a soft noise behind her as her dressing-room door clicked open, and, moving her head slightly, she could see the reflection of the person who had entered the room.

‘Don't you ever knock?' she asked, not even trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.

‘I'm . . . I'm sorry,' her unexpected visitor said. ‘I thought you might be asleep, and if you were, I didn't want to disturb you.'

‘If I'd been taking a nap, I'd have locked the door – and you know that as well as I do,' Valerie said sharply. ‘Shall I tell you the real reason that you didn't knock?'

‘I—'

‘It was because if you had done, I'd have asked who it was, you'd have had to answer, and I'd have told you to go away. You probably worked out that by not knocking I'd get a chance to see just how pathetic you look, and might start to feel sorry for you.'

‘You can be very hard,' the visitor said sadly.

‘I'm as soft as anything,' Valerie replied. ‘But there has to come a point when even I've got to be firm. If I could make you happy just by snapping my fingers, I'd do it in a second. But what you're asking is really too much.'

‘Valerie . . . Val . . .'

‘Don't try using that wounded tone with me again, because it just won't wash. It's time you learned how to stand on your own two feet, like I've had to learn to stand on mine.'

‘If you'd only—'

‘Just go away!' Valerie said. ‘Go away and give me a bit of peace. I need my rest. I've got some big scenes to play tonight.'

She dropped her eyes so she was once again looking at her own reflection instead of her visitor's. She heard the door click closed, and automatically assumed that she was alone again.

It was only a second later that the soft footfalls behind her told her she'd been mistaken – but by then it was too late to do anything about it. It was even almost too late to scream.

D
etective Chief Inspector Charlie Woodend was sitting on the sofa in the living room of his recently acquired handloom weaver's stone cottage, a large mug of tea in one hand and a Capstan Full Strength cigarette dangling in the other. His eyes were on his new seventeen-inch television set, but his ears were listening to the sound of his wife, Joan, washing up the tea plates in the kitchen.

‘Do you want any help, lass?' he asked.

‘Now there's a worryin' question,' Joan called back cheerfully.

‘Worryin'? What's worryin' about it?'

‘When you offer to come into the kitchen, it always starts me thinkin' there must be somethin' wrong with you. You haven't got a fever, have you, Charlie? You're not feelin' delirious?'

Woodend grinned. ‘I'm fine. I just thought that if I gave you a hand, you'd be finished with the washin'-up by the time
Maddox Row
came on.'

‘I
might
be finished by the time the programme starts – but not if you help me,' Joan said tartly. ‘With you as my assistant, we'll still be doin' the dishes when the last show's finished, an' all there is to watch is that bubble in the centre of the screen.'

Woodend's grin widened. Joan might occasionally complain about having to do so much around the house herself, but she didn't
really
want him in her kitchen. She was typical of the northern women of her generation – like Dot Taylor on
Maddox Row
– and she wasn't about to stand for any interference in her preserve. As far as she was concerned, men brought home wages, lagged the cockloft and whitewashed the coalhouse – and they had absolutely no business sticking their big noses into anything else.