Secret Story (24 page)

“I thought Walt only hired the best.”

“We’re all proof of that, aren’t we?” Patricia intervened. “Look at it this way. If whoever you choose had a familiar face, people would see that and not your character.”

Dudley grudged acknowledging this when she’d presumed to class him with herself and Vincent. “Let’s get on with choosing,” he told Vincent.

“I’ll start them off,” Patricia said.

He resented how she was trying to involve herself, returning with the first of the actors. He saw little reason why she should feel entitled to sit next to him and Vincent, and might have said so except for concentrating on the hopeful. “Bob Nolan,” the bony sharp-faced actor said.

“Whenever you’re ready,” said Vincent.

“You don’t know me, but you will. I’m a writer. Murder stories, they’re my meat. Want to hear something funny? They’re all real. How do I know? Because I did them . . .”

His voice was too high and his face too eager to please. He looked ready to break into a grin, but the wrong sort—not the way a predator might bare his teeth when he saw his kill. By the time the actor completed the opening voice-over Dudley was almost sure that he’d been poking fun at the character. He could hardly wait for Nolan to leave so that he could turn on Vincent. “Do you think it’s funny?” he demanded.

“Wouldn’t Mr Killogram think so?”

“I’d say witty.”

“Try and make him if you like.”

Dudley strove to think of ways while he observed the procession of men who wanted to be him. One had too booming a voice to be unobtrusive, or could the point be that he was so noticeable that nobody would ever suspect him? Another crouched as if he didn’t think he was already small enough to go unnoticed, but he was so nondescript that Dudley felt insulted. The next actor watched his audience sidelong throughout his speech as if he was ashamed to admit to being Mr Killogram. By contrast, the fourth man entered the room with an imperfectly restrained swagger. “Colin Holmes,” he announced.

For once Dudley managed to head Vincent off from speaking. “In your own time.”

As the actor stepped forward he seemed to increase more in stature than his approach quite accounted for. He halted halfway
up the room and held Patricia with his gaze. “You don’t know me, but you will . . .”

His originally somewhat harsh voice had grown soft and penetrating. If he or Mr Killogram was concealing any amusement, there was no question that it was deepest black. As soon as he’d finished speaking he swung around and stalked from the room. Patricia shivered or returned to herself. “That was convincing,” she murmured. “I’d say he wanted the job.”

Her assumption that she was entitled to comment would have angered Dudley more if he hadn’t shared her view. He contained his impatience as he watched the final candidate, who rested his hands on his stomach as though praying or to cover up its prominence. The gesture was enough without his uneasily fluctuating voice to put Dudley against him. He didn’t bother to let the man out of earshot before saying “I know who I want.”

“Let me guess,” Patricia said, but only that until they and Vincent were alone. “The one I spoke up for.”

Just in time not to betray his indignation Dudley saw that by siding with her he would be demonstrating one more reason why he could never have harmed her. “Shall we have him back in and send the rest off?” Vincent said.

Patricia was on his way before Dudley had time to dispatch her. “Thank you all for coming,” he heard her say, and “We’d like you to rejoin us.” A sudden snigger overtook him, to be disguised as a cough. If she was so anxious to present herself as important to his work, she was bound to get her wish. He had to grin at her, and perhaps Colin Holmes thought the renewed greeting was aimed at him as well, because he widened his eyes and mouth. “We think you’re it,” Vincent informed him.

The actor’s face was as strong as Dudley’s reflection, as sharply defined and angular, with an expressively mobile mouth and nostrils that seemed to flare with eagerness. “I must say I’m flattered,” he said in his softened voice.

“Colin, this is Dudley Smith. The man behind Mr Killogram.”

“Then he’s the man I was hoping to meet,” Colin Holmes said.

Dudley stood up and stuck his hand out. “Call me Dudley,” he offered.

The actor strode forward to grip his hand fiercely enough to hurt. Dudley clasped his throbbing fist with his other hand and lifted them to signal victory. “And I’ll call you Mr Killogram. What else have you been in?”

“Soaps mostly. I shouldn’t think you watch that kind of thing. Too ordinary for you.”

Was there a hint of pique in his wide blue eyes? “They are but you aren’t,” Dudley said.

“I won’t be,” Mr Killogram said as the receptionist leaned into the room to announce “The rest of the actors are here.”

“We don’t need any,” Dudley called. “We’ve got him. Meet Mr Killogram.”

She responded with a frown so small he assumed it was meant to be charming, though it wasn’t directed especially at him. “Who?”

“The hero. He’s the only man we need just now, isn’t he, Vincent?”

“I wasn’t talking about men,” the receptionist said.

Neither Patricia nor Vincent seemed disposed to contradict her. Only Mr Killogram allowed him to glimpse some amusement, enough to convince him that they had more in common than the others might have guessed. When the first victim—a tall slim creature named Jane Bancroft—applied for his and Mr Killogram’s approval, he felt as if he spoke for both of them by remarking “That’s a good name for an actress.”

“Can we try some of the train scene?” Vincent directed her. “It’s just to see how you and Colin work together. It won’t be in the film.”

Mr Killogram gazed into Dudley’s face. “Will that be a problem?”

“It’s just some family’s making a stink. They keep saying it’s like how some girl died years and years ago.”

Before Dudley finished sensing that Mr Killogram felt as outraged as he did, the actor took his script to the end of the room and waited for Jane Bancroft to join him. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he said.

She straightened herself a last inch until she was almost as tall as the actor, and Dudley imagined Patricia straining to be taller than his own shoulder. “Why shouldn’t I be?” Jane Bancroft said.

His voice grew even softer yet no less audible. “I don’t mean you. That’s where I’m starting from.”

“Sorry. Sorry,” she told the audience as well.

“Whenever you’re ready. Go again? Are you sure you’re all right?”

She peered at him as if to determine who he thought he was. “I told you once.”

That was Dudley’s line, and he felt as if he was throwing his voice. “I’m guessing you haven’t got a boyfriend,” Mr Killogram said.

While Vincent had cut some of the dialogue, Dudley relished the urgency this lent to Mr Killogram. “Maybe,” Jane Bancroft said with a wariness that sounded coy to him.

“Are you looking for one?”

“I don’t need to look.”

“How about one that’s shown he can take care of you?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Two can twice as well.”

Mr Killogram was pacing her, boxing her in as she followed the wall back and forth. “This isn’t the way,” she said abruptly. “I’ve gone wrong.”

“You can’t with me.”

Was that Vincent’s line? No, it was Mr Killogram’s own. It and the way he was trapping the girl with his deft manoeuvres made
Dudley’s stomach deliciously tight with anticipation, and so did her struggle not to appear nervous as she tried to dodge. “What’s the matter with you?” she gasped.

“We shouldn’t part like this after all we’ve been through. At least let me give you my number.”

“No thank you.”

“Or give me yours.”

“Thanks even less,” Jane Bancroft said and trotted a few sidelong steps that she seemed to want to be comical. “Look, I was pretending I was lost before.”

It might have been a mating dance if Mr Killogram had gone in for that sort of nonsense. Warmth and tightness spread down from Dudley’s stomach as Mr Killogram said “I’ll escort you just the same.”

Throughout the dialogue Mr Killogram had kept his back to the audience, a stance that helped Dudley feel the other was performing his secret thoughts. He didn’t see what expression Mr Killogram turned on her to make her stiffen in order, he was certain, not to flinch. “Sorry. Sorry,” she said, more to Vincent than to him. “I didn’t realise it was meant to be this serious.”

“What did you think it was meant to be?” Dudley asked through some kind of a grin.

“More fun. A nice acting job. I hope I didn’t waste too much of your time. I don’t suppose you’ll keep me in mind for your next film,” she said entirely to Vincent, and had barely finished when she fled.

Vincent threw up his hands and then snatched off his glasses to embellish a second take of the gesticulation. “Let’s try not to scare anyone else away,” he said.

As the pleasurable ache faded from his middle Dudley said “Who are you saying did?”

“You might want to stop suggesting you don’t think they’re actors,” Patricia said.

He mustn’t draw attention to their disagreement. “You can tell me if I am.”

“Who’s next?” Mr Killogram was eager to know. “Don’t say they’ve all bolted.”

“Better tone it down a notch or they might,” Vincent said, “and can we see your face this time?”

Mr Killogram swung around to display a grin Dudley would have been proud to sport. “Here it is,” he said as his next victim ventured into the room.

Did she think he was referring to her? Mr Killogram might have. “Lorna Major,” she announced, frowning at him.

“That’s Mr Killogram,” Dudley said.

“He means Colin’s playing him,” Vincent quite unnecessarily explained. “He’ll take you through the train scene.”

Mr Killogram faced her at once, presenting his profile to the audience. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I told you once.”

The swiftness of her retort came close to throwing Dudley, but not Mr Killogram. As they enacted the scene he prowled back and forth, hemming the girl in while he showed her and the watchers an expression of wide-eyed rationality that he kept appearing to strengthen by lifting his upturned outstretched hands. The girl refused to look away, and her determination to confront him prevented her escape. Dudley was so sure he could invent a suitable fate for her that when Vincent asked him for his thoughts he had to restrain them. “She’ll be good,” he said. “I’d have her.”

“We’ll definitely be in touch.”

Lorna Major seemed slightly less delighted to be chosen than Dudley had every right to expect, another reason why he would enjoy her lingering demise. The same was the case with the other applicants, one of whom kept trying to dart past Mr Killogram only to retreat almost to the wall, while the last had the habit of
adding various forms of the same short word—adjective, adverb, directive—in a thick Scouse accent to her dialogue, a trait that failed to rescue her from Mr Killogram. By the end of the auditions Dudley was crouching forward, inflamed by the spectacle of Mr Killogram and his parade of victims, and had some difficulty in sitting up straight until he’d subsided. “You’re pleased, then,” Vincent said.

For a moment Dudley wondered guiltily how visible that was. “I wouldn’t have been without Mr Killogram.”

Mr Killogram widened his eyes with eagerness or pleasure. “You won’t be.”

“Shall we let you go away and think what you want to do with them?” said Vincent.

Dudley had to grasp that the question was addressed to him, not Mr Killogram. “I’d better,” he said to Patricia, and wondered why he sounded apologetic. He had nothing to apologise for. However tempting the girls were, they had to be preserved for the film. She was the girl who was going to stir his imagination back into life, and he wasn’t about to betray her with them. She was still his choice.

Patricia did her best to put up with Dudley’s silence, but by the time they reached the road past the Albert Dock she found it too uncomfortable. “Can I ask what you were thinking?” she said over the rumble of traffic.

Dudley extended a hand to the button at the crossing and belatedly pushed it. As the red man lit up like a brand he said “I’ll let you know later.”

“I was just wondering what you made of our performers.”

“I haven’t made anything of them yet.”

“I meant how you thought they shaped up,” Patricia said, not quite concealing some impatience.

“He’s perfect and they ought to be.”

The stampede of traffic trundled to a reluctant halt as the red man’s companion intensified his innocent colour. Patricia crossed the road that smelled of petrol and hot metal so fast that Dudley
didn’t catch up with her until she was climbing the street to the station. “Are you heading for home?” she said.

“I’m going your way, that’s right.”

He was assuming too much for her liking, which was why she said “Not now you aren’t, Dudley. I’m off into town.”

“I’ll walk along with you if you want. I’ll let you ask me some more questions.”

Far from winning her over, this disconcerted her with its childishness. He might almost have been trying to resemble the earliest description of him in Kathy’s tale: “a cherub’s golden curls that were heavenly in their untidiness, blue eyes that were twin mirrors of the world, a face that would disown its chubbiness too soon”. Patricia halted outside the station, next to a news-stand piled with headlines about the reconstruction of a girl’s death, to tell him “Don’t worry, there’s no urgency.”

“You can’t say how urgent it is. I’ve got to get on with my writing.”

“I’m sure there’ll be time for both.”

“Maybe I won’t be able to write till I’ve got you out of the way.”

“Not literally, I hope.” Since his mouth seemed unsure what expression this deserved, she said “Please don’t feel under any pressure from me. I’m certain you’ve told me enough.”

“You haven’t seen me at work yet.”

“Don’t you think that might make it harder for you? Has anybody ever been there while you’re working?”

He hadn’t answered that—his mouth was still considering what shape to adopt—when his mobile struck up its October theme. As he dragged it out of his pocket he bared his teeth at it rather than, Patricia hoped, at her for edging away. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said.