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She wrung her hands like a caricature spook, but he guessed that was just silent picture acting style.
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Richard had heard her described as 'a cross between Miss Piggy and Charles Manson', but she was more frail than he expected.
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The Serial Murders
by Kim Newman
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VI
After lunch—Richard had taken the precaution of bringing a Fortnum's hamper for Barbara and himself, thus avoiding the O'D-S "hostilities" table—Lionel took them onto the studio floor, where the seduction scene discussed at the script meeting was already being rehearsed in front of bulky television cameras. Lionel told them the pages had been typed over the break. If a stenogs couldn't read her own shorthand, she was empowered to make up whatever she thought would fit. It usually wasn't any worse than what came out of the writing pack.
There was quite a bit of excitement at the entrance of Lovely Legs. Stage-hands, camera assistants, makeup people, and cast members not in this scene all crowded around to get a look.
"See," said Lionel. "Star is born."
Lovely Legs wore only a shortie bathrobe and stockings. She did indeed have lovely legs.
"Odd stage name," Lionel admitted. "She's really called Victoria Plant."
The alias had been Fred's idea. Vanessa was a plant, so she might as well be called one.
"That girl knows you," Barbara said to Richard, perceptively. "She looked over here, then away. Really fast."
"What's that, ducks?" asked Lionel.
"Nothing that matters," said Richard. "She's a very pretty girl."
"Just watch what happens when Mavis Upstairs clocks her. She'll be out of that nightie and into floor-length winceyette with mud on her face and her hair in curlers for the next scene. It's always the way. Still, enjoy the view while it lasts, eh?"
Richard had an insight. "You're not even slightly homosexual are you, Lionel?"
"Shush, luv, think of my position if talk like that gets out. For shame. You can't get a job in telly PR unless you're bent as a twelve-bob note. 'sides, I like the frocks."
He pantomimed another wrist slap.
Richard shook his head.
"Look, this really is how I talk, dearie. Can't help that. Blame Round the Horne."
Another victim of the media. When he'd first seen Barbara, Lionel hadn't been envying her blouse but trying to peer down it.
"If you need a proper poof for some reason, apply to Dudley Finn over there, aka Beefy Ben Barstow. Forget all those stories about him in nightclubs with models and pin-up girls. I planted them all personally. When those long legs wrap round his middle, he's not going to enjoy this scene one bit. Dud the Dud and Geordie the Security Guard make a lovely couple. Oh, slap my wrist and call me Mabel, I've done it again. Talking out of school."
Richard had learned a valuable lesson. No one around here was who they pretended to be, and most of them weren't even the people they seemed to be behind the obvious pretence at being someone else again. The onion layers peeled off, and there were sour little cores in the middle.
As it turned out, watching The Northern Barstows be made was even duller than watching it on television. Even the rapid pace of twice-a-week production meant an enormous amount of waiting around for things to happen, while tedious tasks were repeated ad infinitum. Barbara, of course, was rapt—like a historian with a personal time machine rubbernecking at the first read-through of Hamlet at the Globe or the huddle of commanders around Alexander as he scratched out battle plans in Assyrian dirt.
He found a quiet space behind some flats—painted backdrops of Bleeds which hung outside windows on several different sets as if every home and workplace in the city had the same view—and let down his guard, extending mental feelers, opening himself to the ebb and flow of immeasurable energies. This could be dangerous, but he had to do a full psychic recce. It wasn't an exact science. The emotional turmoil around regular humans at the studio was complicated enough to blot obvious traces of the supernatural. Many paraphenomena were overspill from ordinary people's heads, anyway. No ghosts, demons, or extradimensional entities were required to whip up a mindstorm of maelstrom proportions. Maybe a little ritual, conscious or unconscious, to unlock the potential, but it could just be a crack in the skull, allowing boiling steam to jet into the aether.
Of course, Haslemere Studios were haunted. If you knew how to look, everywhere was haunted. Richard had already noticed three separate discarnates on the premises. Tattered flags planted long ago, incapable of doing harm in the immediate vicinity, let alone reaching across distances and forcing others to do their bidding. In an arclight pool, he came across a faded wraith who had been a film actress in the 1920s, almost a star when talking pictures came in and her mangle-worzel accent disqualified her from costume siren roles. Pulled from a historical film begun silent but revamped as a talkie, losing the role of Lady Hamilton to a posher actress, she'd drowned herself in the studio tank, waterlogged crinolines floating like a giant lily among miniature vessels ready to refight the Battle of Trafalgar. All this he gathered from letting her flutter against his face, but the only name he could pick up for her was "Emma," and he didn't know if it was hers or Lady Hamilton's.
He tried to ask about the Barstows curse, but Emma was too caught up in her own long-ago troubles to care. Typical suicide. She chattered in his skull, Mummerset still thick enough to render her wailing barely comprehensible. The only spectral revenge Emma might have wreaked would be on Al Jolson—and he had never shot a film at Haslemere. Richard asked if any other presences were here, recent and ambitiously malevolent. It was often a profitable line of questioning, like a copper squeezing underworld informants. No joy. If anything floated around capable of hurt on that scale, Emma would have known at once what he was asking about. Communing with the ghost left his face damp and slightly oily. When he moved on, she scarcely noticed and went back to exaggerated gestures no one else here could see. She wrung her hands like a caricature spook, but he guessed that was just silent-picture acting style.
On set, Vanessa was giving the hot-and-cold treatment to Dudley Finn. It was textbook slap-and-kiss, come-here-but-go-away wrapping-around-the-little-finger business. Richard saw Vanessa was enjoying herself as Lovely Legs, not so much the acting but the pretending. As she made faces, she let the whirring wheels show, daring anyone to call her a fake. Barbara was watching critically. Having picked up the connection between Richard and Vanessa, she was looking for more clues. He should let the two clever women know they were on the same side or else they'd waste time suspecting each other.
He looked at the faces watching from darker corners. Squiers stood between the director, Gerard Loss, a toothbrush-moustached military type, and the floor manager, Jeanne Treece, an untidy blond woman with a folder full of script pages and notes. Squiers wore a stained flat cap that failed to match his guru threads. At the script conference, Squiers had several times used the expression "with my producer's hat on," and now—swallowing a bark of laughter—Richard realised there really was such a garment and it served an actual purpose in demarcating his functions on the show.
A great many other people watched, most with reasons to be there, none with a mark of Cain obvious on their foreheads. Richard picked up many emotions, all within the usual range. Jealousy from Geordie the Security Guard as "Ben" clinched with "Lovely Legs." Boredom from seen-it-all grips and minders. Frustration from a cameraman with ambitions to art, shackled to an outdated camera with three lenses that could be revolved with all the ease and grace of rusty nineteenth century agricultural equipment. Severe cramps from Jeanne Treece. Concern from a wardrobe assistant who knew there was only one dupe of Vanessa's top and that if what she was wearing got torn in the tussle, she'd have to match the rip on the back-up. Quite a few people in the room idly thought of killing quite a few of the rest, but that too wasn't exactly unusual.
So, how did the Barstows reach out and possess people?
It was possible that someone here at the studio was a human lens, a focus for energies summoned in script conferences and unleashed during production, who could channel malignancies into the actual broadcast. A talent like that might slip by without disturbing a ghost, like a light which isn't switched on—but would flare as bright as a studio filament when in use, probably burning out quickly. Raw psychic ability, perhaps not even recognised by its possessor, amplified and sent out to every switched-on television set in the land. Even if people weren't dying, Richard would have been troubled by the concept. If there was a person behind this, they needed to be shut down. Richard dreaded to consider what might happen if the advertising industry discovered this possible psychic anomaly and tried to replicate the process of affecting reality via cathode rays.
There was a slap, a rip, and a clinch. Richard felt the wardrobe assistant's inner groan and the security guard's spasm of hate.
There was no shortage of suspects.
"That's a wrap for the day," said Loss, though not before getting a nod of the producer's hat from Squiers. "The talent are released. The rest of you strike the boardroom and throw up …" (Squiers whispered in the director's ear) "… Mavis' lounge for tomorrow."
Squiers clapped, and the orders were followed. Television was not a director's medium.
Vanessa threw Richard a look, then slipped out with the other dismissed persons. Her co-star had a quiet, hissy row with Geordie. Lionel shrugged and angled his head, tossing off a "told-you-so" flounce, sneaking a gander under his shades at Vanessa's departing legs. Richard was amused but not yet ready to write off the PR as comedy relief. In this soap, anyone could be anything. No rule said killers couldn't be amusing.
He stood by Barbara.
"Is it all you expected? Or are you faintly disappointed?"
She smiled. "You're sharp, but try not to be too clever. I'm interested in The Northern Barstows and what it means, in why it's popular, why so many people find it important. Whether it's, in objective terms, 'any good' is beside the point."
"So these people aren't the new Dickens or Shakespeare."
"No, though Dickens and Shakespeare might have been the old 'these people.' Come back in a century and we'll decide whether the Marcus Squiers method counts as art or not."
"Method?"
"Crowd control is a method, Richard."
"Is he in control?"
"Not completely. He knows that, you can tell. June O'Dell—who, you'll note, hasn't been around all day—has more say, if only negatively, in what goes out on the show. In the end, the audience has the conductor's baton. If they switch off a storyline, it gets dropped. If they tune in, it's extended. This is all about showing people what they want to see and telling them what they want to hear."
"Wonderful. Fifteen million suspects."
Barbara laughed, pretty lines taut around her mouth and eyes. "If it were an easy puzzle, it wouldn't be a Diogenes Club case."
"You pick up a lot."
"So do you. Tell me, is this place really haunted?"
"Of course. Want to meet a ghost?"
She laughed again, then realised he meant it.
"There's a ghost?"
"Several."
He led her to Emma's arc-light patch. The lamp was off, but she was still tethered to her spot.
"I don't see anything."
"I'm not surprised. Hold out your hand."
He took her wrist, easing back filigree bracelets and her sleeve, enjoying the warmth of her skin, and puppeteered her arm. She stretched her fingers, which slid into the ghost's wet dress.
"Feel that?" he asked.
"Cold … damp?"
She took her hand back, shivering, somewhere between fear and delight.
"A frisson. I've always wondered what that meant. It really was a frisson. Tell me, what should I see?"
"You don't have to see anything. I can't see anything, though I have an image in my mind."
"Like a recording?"
Richard realised Emma was in black and white. She had been around before films were in colour.
"That's one type of ghost," he said. "Empty, but going through the motions. A record stuck in a groove. This is a presence, with the trace of a personality. Very faint. She probably won't last much longer."
"Then where will she go?"
"Good question. Search me for an answer though. We have to let some Eternal Mysteries stand."
"You know more than you're letting on."
He really didn't want to answer that. But he had reasons other that shutting off this line of questioning for kissing Barbara Corri.
She had reasons for kissing him back, but he didn't feel the need to pry.
"You two, watch out, or the fire marshal will bung a bucket of sand over you," shrilled Lionel. "Come away and exeunt studio left. Pardon me for mentioning it, but you're an unprofessional pair of ghost-hunters. It's a wonder you can find so much as a tipsy pixie the way you carry on."
Richard and Barbara held hands, fingers winding together.
The studio was dark now, floor treacherous with cables and layers of sticky tape. Lionel led them toward the open door to the car park.
As they stepped outside, Richard felt a crackle nearby, like a lightning strike. He flinched, and Barbara felt his involuntary clutch. She squeezed his hand and touched his lapel.
"Nothing serious," he said.
She lifted aside his hair and whispered "You are such a poor liar" into his ear.
· · · · ·
VII
They had two rooms at a guest house near the studio. As it happens, they only had use for one room.
Richard decided the unnecessary expense wouldn't trouble the accountants of the Diogenes Club. After an "It's not just the precious metal, it's the workmanship" argument over a bill for silver bullets, his chits tended to get rubber-stamped without query.
He let Barbara sleep on, primping a little at her early morning smile, and went down for his full English. Framed pictures of supporting players who'd stayed here while making forgotten films were stuck up on the dining-room wall. The landlady fussed a little but lost interest when he told her he wasn't an actor.
The third pot of tea was on the table and he was well into toast and jam when Fred arrived. He had come down from London on his old Norton and wore a leather jacket over his Fred Perry. The landlady frowned at his heavy boots but became more indulgent when Richard introduced him as a stuntman who had worked on Where Eagles Dare. More toast arrived.
Fred had new information. He was fairly hopping with it.
"Guv, this is so far off your beat that it has got to be a false trail," he said, "but I've tripped over it more times than is likely, and in so many places I'd usually rule out coincidence."
Barbara appeared, light blue chiffon scarf matching her top, tiny row of sequin buttons down the side of her navy skirt. Her hair was up again, fashioned into the shape of a seashell. She joined them at the breakfast table.
Fred, quietly impressed, waited for an introduction.
"This is Professor Corri, Fred. Barbara, this is Fred Regent. He's a policeman, but don't hold it against him. Continue with your input, Fred. We keep no secrets from the professor."
Fred hesitated. Barbara signalled for the "continental breakfast": grapefruit juice, croissants, black coffee.
"I'm all ears," she announced, nipping at a croissant with white, even, freshly brushed teeth whose imprint Richard suspected was still apparent on his shoulder. "Input away."
Fred cleared his throat with tea and talked.
"I've been calling in favours on the force and the crook grapevine, asking about as requested. I started with Jamie the Jockey, since he's our most recent case. Then I looked into Sir Joseph and Prince Ali. Plus a few we didn't think about, Queenie Tolliver and Buck D. Garrison."
Richard furrowed his brow.
"Queenie Tolliver ran nightclubs in Manchester," put in Barbara.
"That's one way of putting it," said Fred.
"Very well. She was, what would you call her, a gang boss? The Godmother, the press said in her obits. Choked on a fishbone at her sixtieth birthday party. Just when …"
"I can guess," said Richard. "The same thing happened on The Northern Barstows to a character based on her."
"'Lady Gulliver,' Cousin Dodgy Morrie's backer and Mavis Barstow's deadly enemy last year," said Barbara. "Garrison I've never heard of. But there was a Texas tycoon called 'Chuck J. Gatling' on the Barstows. Drowned in a grain elevator just after he tried to buy up a controlling interest in Barstow and Company."
Fred flipped his notebook. "I was iffy about listing Garrison as a curse victim. He died just like Gatling, but on his own spread in Texas. He'd never visited Britain. He'd probably never heard there was a character like him on some English TV show. But he's where I first tripped over the Thing."
"The Thing?" prompted Richard
"The Strange Thing. Actually, the Non-Strange Thing. Professor, we don't do regular police work. We look for the unbelievable. What happened to Buck D. is all too believable. He annoyed some business rivals, and the FBI say he was hit."
"Hit? I really must frown upon this Yankee slang, Frederick."
"Sorry, guv. You know what I mean. Hit. Assassinated. Killed. By a professional. High-priced, smooth, hard to catch. In, out, and dead."
"He was rubbed out by a torpedo?" blurted Barbara. "Don't look so aghast, Richard. I teach a course on Hollywood Gangster Cinema."
Richard shrugged.
"I like her," said Fred. "Can we keep her?"
"Entirely her decision," said Richard. "After much more of this, she may not want to keep us."
Barbara sipped coffee, enigmatic but adorable.
"I put Garrison to one side and came back at the others. The Thing is … whisper has it that they were hit too."
This was not what Richard expected.
"Jamie Hepplethwaites was in hot water with almost everyone he ever met," said Fred. "He was under investigation for race fixing, and rumour was that he was on the point of telling all. Which would have been inconvenient for certain followers of the turf. The sort of enthusiasts who'd have no scruple about laying out cold cash to put Jamie in a morgue drawer."
"Della Devyne is not a 'tarpaulin,'" said Richard.
"A torpedo, guv. No, I'm not saying she is. I'm just saying some big crims are puffing cigars and bragging that they did for Jamie. Ditto Prince Ali, Queenie, and Sir Joe. The prince can't talk any more with his vocal cords slashed, which is dead convenient for his uncle the king, who was not a big fan of Ali's international playboy act. Queenie's Mancunian empire is being carved up by her old competition, which mostly consists of her daughters."
"How Lear."
"Manchester CID say they hope the war of succession thins out the herd a bit. Unofficially."
"What about Keats? He's the only one of the victims who had any prior connection with the people who make the show. He was on the board of Amalgamated Rediffusion."
"The more that comes up, the more the show looks like a complete blind alley. It's not just Sir Joe who went missing but his secretary. Between them, they had ten months' worth of work on the Factories Regulation Bill in their heads which is all out the window and back to the drawing board now. That means very happy proprietors of Unregulated Factories. Guess what's being said about them?"
"That they paid to get the job done?"
Fred snapped his fingers. "Got it in one."
Richard whistled and sat back to think.
"I reckon it's a smokescreen," said Fred. "Our Mystery Murder-to-Order Limited is twisting the Barstows to put a spin on their business, keeping the fuzz off their case while advertising a service to potential clients. Jobs like Prince Ali, Queenie, and Sir Joe do not come cheap. This is not an envelope full of fivers to a couple of washed-up boxers to do over a builder who put the bathroom taps in the wrong way. This is serious money for a serious business."
Richard waved his friend quiet.
"It won't do," he said. "It's still too … weird."
"You don't want to let it go, guv. But if it's just killers with a gimmick, then this goes back to Inspector Price. We're surplus to requirements."
"I mean weird in the strictest sense, Fred. Not merely bizarre and freakish, but occult—concealed and supernatural. I'm tingling with an awareness of it."
"Don't you reckon the professor might have something to do with that?"
"Cheek," said Barbara, smiling and sloshing Fred with a napkin.
"Very well," said Richard. "Fred, hie thee back to town and share this with Euan Price. Start the Yard moving on this from the other end. Go after the putative clients of your phantom assassination bureau. See if the urge to boast about getting away with it leads to indiscretion."
"What about you two? You'll continue the canoodling holiday?"
"We'll stay here, with the Barstows. There's something or someone we've not seen yet. Some big piece which will fill in the jigsaw."
Richard's tea was cold.
· · · · ·
VIII
June O'Dell knew how to make an entrance.
The company made an early start. Dudley Finn was pressed up against a wallpapered backdrop by a single camera. He held a phone to his ear, though the dangling cord didn't attach to anything. Jeanne Treece hoisted a large sheet of card ("an idiot board") on which one side of a phone conversation was written in magic marker. Ben Barstow was getting news about Delia Delyght.
"We're tying off plot ends," Lionel whispered to Richard as Finn took one of many breaks—the actor wasn't as good at reading off the card as he had been yesterday at instantly memorising his lines. "Viewers have written in asking what happened after the murder, so Mucus whipped up this bit overnight to reveal all. It's how this show always goes. Big build-up, over months and months, nation on the edges of their three-piece suites, a shattering sensational climax Ö then we drop the whole thing and move on. Once your plot is over, there's no hanging around. No trial scene with an expensive courtroom set and guest actors in those ducky wigs, no twelve extras on the jury. Just one side of a call. 'So, she's copped an insanity plea, eh … fancy that … well, never mind … you're telling me she's going to be locked up in a loony bin for t' rest of her natural life? Fancy that. We'll remember Delia Delyght for a long time in Bleeds.' Like fork, we will. That's all over, and we're onto something else. Makes your head spin."
Finally, Finn got the speech down. As Lionel indicated, the actor had to repeat what had supposedly been said to him by the non-person on the line, with interjected expressions of astonishment.
"It's the famous Phantom Phoner," said Barbara.
Richard knew the show had a habit of cutting into the middle of telephone conversations, without identifying the unseen party, to get over plot developments while avoiding potentially costly scenes ("Morrie's Boom-Boom Room Hot Spot has burned down to t' ground? In a mysterious fire t' police say might well be arson? Eeh, I'm right astonished!") or to repeat the last week's bombshell for viewers who might have missed an episode ("Brenda's up t' duff? By that coloured bloke who plays t' drums? Well, I'll be blowed!"). At the end of the call, Finn had to hang the phone up out of frame. Since there was no cradle for the receiver, a stagehand stood by with a weird little gadget that made the click sound (and was surely more expensive and harder to come by than an actual phone).
Gerard Loss insisted Finn hasten over pauses where, logically, the Phantom Phoner should be speaking. Finn had an actory spat about believability but was reminded which show this was and agreed just to read the board. His last line, crammed close to the bottom of the card, was a cipher scrawl, "t'll be H to P w/ M h a't t—BH!" Richard was worried that he knew instantly what that was about. Every Phantom Phoner scene in the episodes he had watched concluded with Ben Barstow looking straight into the camera, shaking his head and musing, "There'll be hell to pay when Mavis hears about this! Bloody hell!"
Loss called for quiet. Finn took a deep breath and began.
Three sentences in, the big studio door slid noisily open, admitting blinding light and a cloud of Lalique.
Outside the stage building was a red box which lit up the word "Recording." June O'Dell must have waited for it to go on before commanding her entourage to open the door and make way for the Queen of Northshire.
Finn grimly carried on with the "take." Loss chewed his moustache. Jeanne Treece hit herself over the head with the idiot board.
Marcus Squiers hopped to and danced attendance on his ex-wife. He had to negotiate a way past two tall young men who flanked the star. They had mullet haircuts, sideburns like the cheek-pieces of Roman helmets, and had overdone their daily splash of Früt aftershave. Their knitted rainbow tank-tops showed off muscular arms.
In person, June O'Dell was tiny—though enormous hair took her height a little over five feet. She had hard, sharp, glittering eyes, and her skin was shinily tight across the cheekbones and under her chin. Richard had heard her described as "a cross between Miss Piggy and Charles Manson," but she was more frail than he expected. The Tank-Top Twins might well be there to rush in and prop her up if a stiff wind blew.
Ignored by everyone, including a dead camera, Dudley Finn finished his scene. Without the board, he was word-perfect.
"There'll be hell to pay when Mavis hears about this," he said flatly. "Bloody hell."
Jeanne Treece whipped the crew into shifting the cameras to the lounge set and getting it lit properly.
"Madame Moo is prepared to work today," said Lionel. "Lesser morts have to strike while the icon is hot."
"What about the Phantom Phoner?" asked Barbara.
Lionel shrugged. "Scene's scrubberood. Not that many people wrote in. Delia Delyght is in TV limbo now. Make up your own ending, luv."
"Delia escapes from Broadmoor and comes back chained to an axe-murderer? Then they chop up as many Barstows as they can get to?"
"Pitch it to Mucus, luv. In a year or two, he'll do it. Folk are always coming back to Northshire to get their own back. I shouldn't be surprised if British Rail do a Revenge Special Awayday fare to Bleeds."
One of the Twins handed Squiers a thin script, heavily scrawled on in what looked like pink neon. June pointed a long fingernail at a particular passage and tapped the paper.
"I see the star writes her own lines?" observed Richard.
"Never touches 'em. The pack know how to write Mavis the way Junie likes her. No, she always scribbles over everyone else's sides. Loves to give the supporting artistes a hard time. She'd force them to run their lines backwards and on their heads if she could. Eventually she will. Knows all the tricks, that one. How to cut the heart out of someone else's scene. How to take it all away with a single nasty look. What to wear to blind the other actors. Of course, Mavis on the show is an evil domineering cow, so Junie's approach might be method acting."
Squiers looked over June's suggested changes, agreeing with every one out of his mouth, appalled fury spitting out of his eyes.
Loss had to chivvy Finn onto the lounge set while jamming June's line changes into him. The actor didn't complain. Squiers, who literally took off his producer's hat when talking with June, diplomatically made a few suggestions.
The lights came up on Mavis Barstow's Lounge, the most-used Barstows set. Its two walls had shaggy purple paper that matched the carpet. At least once an episode, the camera would overshoot while panning to follow the action and afford glimpses of studio blackness and the odd crew member where the other walls ought to be. Inflatable plastic chairs leaked slowly around a glass-and-chrome coffee table loaded with mocked-up fictional glossy magazines. A drinks trolley held rattling bottles of cold tea and dyed water. On The Northern Barstows, no actual products were shown (that was saved for the commercial breaks); everyone drank "Funzino," "Bopsi-Coolah" and "Griddles Ale." Mavis' mother's old mangle stood in a corner like an industrial art piece, to remind her where she came from: she would often tell relatives at length about the way her Mam flattened her hands in a washing accident that threw the whole family into the poorhouse when she were a lass.
An idealised portrait of the very late Da Barstow, in Day-Glo on velvet, cap on his head and miner's pick over his shoulder, had pride of place above a shaped fibreglass marble mantelpiece where his ashes supposedly sat in a silver urn to which many of Mavis' most vehement or nostalgic speeches were addressed. The cremains had once been "kidnapped" by Cousin Dodgy Morrie and held to ransom. Since their return, Mavis often got close to the polished urn to talk to the departed, usually after one too many Funzinos, and the camera had to focus on her distorted, wobbly reflection as she reminisced about how much happier everyone was when they were dirt poor. Jeanne Treece stalked the set, putting odd little folded cards like place-markers in ashtrays, on the magazines, hanging out of Finn's blazer pocket, around the mantel, and under light fittings.
When the floor manager had finished distributing the cards, she gave Dudley Finn a once-over as if checking for dandruff and nodded to Squiers, who signalled to Loss, who made a gun gesture at the Twins, who lifted June O'Dell up by her arms as if she were part of their circus acrobatic act. The actress was propped on two eight-inch blocks with wheels. One Twin steadied her while the other knelt and fixed clamps from the blocks to her calves.
"The Mavis Glide," exclaimed Barbara. "That's how she does it. Platform roller skates."
While her undercarriage was checked and fiddled with, a makeup girl made last-minute adjustments to June's white mask. Then her pit crew stood back. Suddenly, with a girlish giggle, she set off at a wheeled stride and did a figure eight around the set, skirts billowing. Applause was mandatory, but Richard conceded that it was a good act. She lifted one heavy skate off the floor and rolled on elegantly, leg out like a ballerina, then twirled and came to a dead stop.
She was next to Dudley Finn. Thanks to the platforms, June O'Dell was now taller than him.
"If a word of the risers leaks out, you'll be killed," Lionel told them. "No question about it."
The recording light went on again, and June and Finn—Mavis and Ben—went through a scene which had evolved from yesterday's script meeting. June floated about the set as she spoke, picking up phrases or single-word cues from the tiny cards Jeanne Treece had distributed, skating through speeches with the aid of these prompts. The scene built up to the revelation that Mavis knew all along that Priscilla was the Bogus Brenda returned. Richard accepted the sad inevitability that he was now a follower of The Northern Barstows like everybody else in the country. He knew who all these people were and how they related to each other, and suffered a nagging itchy need to know what they would get up to next. This must be what it was like to be a newly body-snatched vegetable duplicate and click in sync with the collective consciousness of the pod people.
"She's an old ghost, Ben," said June, in a line Richard hadn't heard yesterday. "There've bin too many bloody old ghosts round hereabouts lately. Spectre horses, headless spooks, all manner o' witchcraft and bogeyness. I'm beginning to think this family's bloody haunted. An' somethin' should be done about it or my name's not Mavis Barstow."
Ben weakly put in a line about what was to be done.
"Get me a bloody ghost-hunter," said Mavis. "Someone to put a stop to t' haunting. Or else someone t' haunting will put a stop to."
June's face froze. Richard had assumed the effect was a camera trick, but she really did just stop still and stare at the lens for long seconds.
Loss called "cut" and June was applauded again.
"What was that about?" Barbara asked Richard. "The ghost-hunter bit?"
"I wouldn't say it came out of nowhere," he replied. "I'm rather afraid we've been noticed."
June, who had perspired through her pancake, was wheeled off the set by the Tank-Top Twins and repaired by the makeup girl, who applied what looked like Number Two gloss from a bucket with a brush. Then June was trundled toward Richard and Barbara, with Squiers hopping along in her wake. From her artificial height, June O'Dell looked Richard in the eye.
"So, you've come about the mystery?"
Her natural voice would have suited her to play Lady Bracknell if she could ever be persuaded to admit she was old enough. It was nasal, aristocratic, reedy with that Anglo-Irish affectation known as "West Brit." Richard wondered if she had ever met Lady Damaris Gideon. If so, Lady Dee would probably have come second in a peering-down-the-nose-with-disdain contest. Richard had previously reckoned the MP a likely British champion in the event.
"The haunting?" he prompted. "Very topical."
June tittered, a tiny hand over her mouth. She fluttered long, feathery eyelashes.
"Must remain abreast of current events. It's part of the format. Keeps us all on our toes. Or, in my case, wheels."
"Am I to have a writer tagging along as I work? Taking notes on my ghost-hunting activities."
"Not one of our writers, I trust. You wouldn't want any of those oiks about. I don't understand why we have to have them. Some of us are quite capable of making it up as we go along."
"June has the utmost respect for our writing staff," put in Squiers. "She is being amusing. The poltergeist plot has been thoroughly worked out by trained professionals."
June flicked a glance at her ex-husband, and he withered. Then she noticed Barbara.
"Professor Corri, how nice to see you again. Peachy."
Barbara had not mentioned that she'd met June O'Dell. She nodded in acknowledgement of peachiness but did not attempt a curtsey.
"This curse has become infinitely tiresome and makes our blessed calling far more difficult than it need be. We have a duty to our viewers. They depend on us to take them out of their drab, wretched lives for two brief half-hours a week. Half-hours of entertainment, of education, of magic. It's a terrible responsibility. Many say that the Northern Barstows are more real to them than their wives, husbands, and children. And for some who live alone, the elderly and the loveless, we are the only family they have. It's for them that we do this, undertake the endless struggle of the business we call show. I trust you will bring your investigation to a swift and happy conclusion. Rid us of all ghosts, ghoulies, and ghastliness. You are, I understand, supported by taxpayers' money."
"To an extent."
"Excellent. You are accountable, then. You will come to me tomorrow at tea-time and give a report of your progress."
Richard kissed June's hand. "Of course."
"Alone," she said, eyes swivelling to Barbara.
He felt again the crackle he had experienced yesterday. This was a very powerful woman, perhaps a conduit for a higher, greedier power. He tried to let June's hand go, but she pinched his fingers for a moment, hanging on, then released him when she decided to.
"Now, I must rest. It's fearfully exhausting, you know. Being Mavis."
June pushed off and skated away, independent of the Twins, making Squiers cringe. She did a circuit of the studio, whooshing through the shadowed areas away from the brightly lit lounge.
Richard watched her brush past Emma's cold, damp spot.
There was a sound in his head like a bubble being popped and June sped back, puffed out a little like a cat with a mouthful of feathers. She zoomed across the set toward the door, which the Twins got open in time, and whizzed out onto the car park.
Richard walked toward Emma's spot.
"What happened?" Barbara asked.
Richard opened himself up, trying to find yesterday's presence. Emma was gone, completely. Her psychic substance had been consumed.
"That woman's a sponge," he told Barbara. "She just ate a ghost."
· · · · ·
IX
The Daily Comet, Britain's best-selling tabloid, led with the headline "TERROR STALKS BARSTOWS"—bumping England's failure to qualify for the World Cup and another oil crisis to the inside pages. The popular press had been filling their middles with trivial showbiz stories since the days of Marie Lloyd sitting among the cabbages and peas and Lillie Langtry snaring the Prince of Wales, but now ephemera like this made Page One. Richard sensed another trend in the making, another step downstairs. From now on, Coronation Street would get more newspaper coverage than coronations, Harold Steptoe would be more newsworthy than Harold Wilson, and the doings of Barstow and Company would be followed more intently than those of Barclay's Bank. Eventually, there would only be television. More and more of it, expanding to fill the unused spaces in the general consciousness.
The Barstows weren't taping this afternoon, so before-cameras talent had time off. Squiers and the writing pack were conjuring up the next script. June was in her caravan with a nervous ghostwriter, one of a string employed on her much-delayed autobiography; it seems she ate them up, just as she consumed real ghosts. Finn, suitably equipped with a dolly bird as "arm ornament," was opening a supermarket in Bradford; "Victoria Plant" had turned down an offer of £15 to play the lucky girl, diminishing her chances of getting ahead in the business. Lionel was working on a futile press release to deny all these silly curse rumours.
Richard and Barbara met Vanessa in the Grand Old Duke of North.
Vanessa was perched on a barstool not designed with modern female fashions in mind. Unless she fixed her tangerine-and-lemon minidress firmly over her hips, it rode up and turned into a vest. She looked down, with an unjustly critical eye, at her officially lovely legs.
Richard sipped Earl Grey from one of the silver thermos cups in today's Fortnum's hamper and took a psychic temperature reading. Vanessa and Barbara had hit it off at once, which was a positive. Otherwise, the Grand Old Duke was a chill place.
The pub, another Barstows standing set, was in the studio's smallest stage. Here, many a "pint of Griddles" had been called for and swallowed by a Barstow who needed a drink before spitting out the latest news, usually some bombshell lobbed just before the adverts to keep viewers transfixed as they were mind-controlled to hire-purchase fridge-freezers, terrorised by the catastrophe of hard-to-shift understains, warned of things their best friends wouldn't tell them, and urged to buy the world a Coke. Here Ben Barstow had enjoyed (or perhaps not) a liaison with Blodwyn, the Welsh barmaid who broke up his third marriage and then died in a plane crash two episodes before his fourth wedding. Here, for weeks and weeks, Da's kidnapped urn had been hidden in plain sight, in the display case along with clog-dancing, whippet-racing, and brass-band trophies. There had been a nationwide contest to "spot the ashes," with viewers writing in to suggest where they might be and newspapers running stories about urns seen in surprising real-life locales from the Crown Jewel case in the Tower of London to an Olde Junke Shoppe in Margate. Some even sent in ashes of their own, in homemade or shop-bought urns: most were just from the grates of open fires, but some contained authentic human bone fragments. It was no wonder the show wound up cursed.
"I think the culprit is the Phantom Phoner," said Vanessa, breaking into his prophetic gloom.
"You think there's a culprit?" asked Barbara.
Vanessa deferred to Richard.
"Sometimes, a curse—by which I mean an infestation of malign extranormal phenomena—is like weather or a bad cold. No one's fault, but hard to do anything about except wait for it to blow over. This happens in more cases than you hear of. Sometimes, it really is a ghost or a spirit—a discarnate, spiteful entity, making mischief or bearing a grudge, acting on its own accord or directed by a houngan who has summoned or tapped into a power and is using it for his or her own ends."
"A houngan?" quizzed Barbara.
"Voodoo sorcerer," shuddered Vanessa. "Like Mama Cartouche, remember?"
"It doesn't have to be voodoo," said Richard. "That's an Afro-Caribbean tradition. Europe has more than enough witchery to go round. Australasia and the Americas too. Everywhere except Antarctica, and that's only because the Sphinx of the Ice won't allow it. In this case, however, I think we are dealing with something vaguely voodoo."
"So there is a culprit?"
"I definitely suspect a suspect," said Richard. "Someone is deliberately shaping events, channelling a force, and, as it happens, charging money for it. What we have here is a hit man, as Fred suggested, but one with an unusual m.o. Working with The Northern Barstows, through the psychic energy generated by the machinery of the show, and directing it, essentially, to kill people. To order, for cash. So, yes, there's a culprit. One who either needs or wants money for their services. In my experience, that tends to rule out ghosts and demons. Some miserly spirits cling to the idea of worldly goods even when they're beyond a plane in which they'd be any good to them. You've heard of the ghost who collects bright trinkets—coins and jewels—like a magpie. A nuisance, but not serious, especially since you usually get the pleasant surprise of finding the hoard of goodies at the end of the day. This isn't like that. This is large sums transferred to Swiss bank accounts. This is organised crime."
Barbara, intent on what he was saying, put down her salmon sandwich.
"But how is it done? How can something that happens on a television programme, which boils down to actors pretending, lead to something happening to real people out there in the real world? When Delia rode Jockie to death, what happened to make Della do the same thing to Jamie? Or am I getting the order wrong?"
"I have ideas about that. Vanessa, what was the most significant thing Della told us about the case?"
Vanessa shrugged.
"Think 'Penny for the Guy.'"
"Old clothes," said Vanessa, tumbling to it at once. "We were told that Jamie fired a groom who was supposed to have stolen some of their clothes. Jamie thought the actors' costumes included items filched from him and Della."
"And not just clothes, but other things, personal things."
Vanessa snapped her fingers. "It's pins! Pins in dolls!"
Barbara shook her head. She hadn't caught up.
"What do you think the personal things were?" Vanessa asked. "We can find out from Della, but what do you think …"
"Anything really. Combs, with hair. Makeup. Cigarette-ends. Rings. Things impregnated with sweat, skin, hair. Clothes should do it alone, but the rest would put the pink bow on it."
"Voodoo dolls," said Barbara, catching on. "On the Barstows, Mama Cartouche made a doll of Brenda, with nail-clippings and hair pressed in, and stuck pins through it. Brenda had twinges."
"Probably where our culprit got the idea," said Richard.
"You have to admit this is a new one," said Vanessa. "Fashioning characters on a television programme into voodoo dolls, then torturing or killing them in front of fifteen million people …"
"… some of whom believe in the characters. June said the Barstows were more real to viewers than their own families. All that belief has to mean something, has to do something, has to go somewhere!"
"God, there's a paper in this," said Barbara.
Richard and Vanessa looked at her.
"But there is," she said. "This is what I've been saying all along. TV soaps matter. They shape reality. I'm not saying it's a good thing, I'm saying it's a thing thing."
Richard slipped an arm around the professor and kissed her ear.
"Hold off on publication for a while, Barbara. Let's at least nab the killer first."
"I have a name," said Fred.
They looked at the stage door. Fred had come in, motorcycle helmet under his arm. Richard knew he had heard enough to be up to speed.
"I went after the gambling syndicate, the ones who hired Jamie's murder," said Fred. "Price hauled in some minor faces, put the squeeze on … and someone coughed up a name. Our hit man."
Fred let the pause run.
"Do tell," prompted Richard.
"Stop faffing about, Regent," said Vanessa. "This isn't the end of an episode and we can pick up on Thursday."
"'Darius,'" said Fred. "That's the name he uses. 'Darius Barstow.'"
Richard was sure he had turned to where the camera would be and frozen his face long enough for the credits to start rolling.
He shivered as he heard the Barstows theme in his head.
· · · · ·
X
Head of Wardrobe at O'Dell-Squiers was Madame Louise sperance d'Ailly-Guin ("Mama-Lou"), a tall, slender woman, graphite-black, with large, lively eyes and a bewitching islands accent. Her office ensemble ran to a red mushroom-shaped turban, white silk strapless evening dress with artfully ragged hems, and matching PVC go-go boots. Behind her desk was an altar to Erzulie Freda and a framed snapshot of a younger Mama-Lou frozen in the middle of a snake-waving dance under a Haitian waterfall.
Richard, inclined by instinct to look gift horses in the mouth, felt the same way about a gift houngan.
Tara, the wardrobe assistant Richard had seen on set, was showing Mama-Lou a range of designs for Priscilla's future dresses. Mama-Lou pencilled crosses on the rejects, flicking away hours of work.
Richard did not insist on being attended to. It was more useful to observe.
Last night, in the TV room at the guest house, Richard had for the first time watched The Northern Barstows as it went out to the nation, even though there was an interesting-sounding programme about cane toads on BBC2. Barbara, Vanessa, and Fred helped him through it. He turned the sound down during the adverts and covered the screen with a sheet of grease-proof paper to shield his senses from mind-altering subliminals in the baked-bean-and-gravy commercials. It was the episode he had followed from script to shooting, so there shouldn't have been surprises. Vanessa thought they hadn't used her best "takes" and detected the hand of June O'Dell in the editing suite. A few interesting bits and pieces were slipped in that hadn't come up at the script meeting, which must have been shot when he wasn't looking—a shadow stalking through the fogs of Bleeds, hobnail boots clumping on the cobbles; a mysterious wind blowing through the Grand Old Duke, giving Bev, the new barmaid, horrors; objects wobbling slowly (on visible strings) around the boardroom, indicating a poltergeist problem. The curse was being worked into the show, which set up Mavis' speech about calling a ghost-hunter.
"In trut,' nix to ahll these," Mama-Lou said to Tara, returning the last design.
The girl was exasperated, dreading the work of going back to the beginning.
"They won' be needed," said the Head of Wardrobe. "Word come from on high."
Mama-Lou thumbed upward, at the ceiling. The Wardrobe Department was a windowless bunker beneath the writers' den. Multiples of costumes hung in cellophane shrouds, continuity notes pinned to them, indicating when they had last been worn on air. Shoes, hats, coats, gloves, scarfs, and belts had their own racks. Principle characters had niches, where their two or three outfits were looked after. There was a separate room, temperature-controlled and with a combination lock, for June O'Dell's wardrobe, which was twice the size of the rest of the cast's put together.
"We can't keep Lovely Legs in that fruit-punch frock," said Tara. "It goes fuzzy in transmission and looks like she's wearing a swarm of bees. Technical have sent several memos about it. Sound on vision. And the poor cow at least needs a new pair of tights."
Mama-Lou drew a finger across her throat.
Tara was sobered. Mama-Lou put the finger up to her mouth.
"Hush-hush, chile," she said. "Don't nobody know outside of you, me, and the loas."
Mama-Lou's eyes flashed at Richard.
Whatever it was nobody knew, he didn't know it either. Unless he did.
"Now, run off and see to Dudley's latest split trews, while I converse wit' this gentlemahn."
Tara's head bobbed and she withdrew.
"Now, Mist' Jeperson …"
"Richard."
"Reechar.'"
Mama-Lou reached out and touched his chest, appreciatively feeling the nap of his velvet collar.
"I like a mahn who knows how to dress."
She left his jacket alone.
"Now, what can I do for you?"
"I'm interested in how you costume some of your characters. You can guess the ones I mean."
"Jockie and Della. Prince Abu. Sir Josiah and Falmingworth. Lady Gulliver. Masterman and Dr. Laurinz. Mr. Gatling. Pieter Bierack."
She had obviously been waiting for someone to ask.
"You have a few more on your list than I do."
"I've been workin' here long-time, Reechar.' I'm firs' to know who's comin' and who's goin.' When word comes down from on high, I have to dress the word, send it out decent to the studio floor. You dig?"
"I think so."
"A costume is more than jus' clothes. It's the t'ings in the pockets, the pins under the lapels, the dirt in the soles of the shoes, weathering and aging …"
She led him to the "Ben" rack, raised cellophane from a jacket, showed the fray of the sleeve-cuffs, a loose button, a stitched-over stab-mark. From the pocket, like a stage magician, she pulled out a stream of items: a bus ticket, a paper bag of lemon-drops, an item of female underwear, a tied fishing-fly in the form of a water boatman.
She smiled, showing sharp, very white teeth.
He laughed as she flourished an artificial flower.
"I'm not so interested in Ben Barstow," said Richard.
"Wouldn't surprise me if he be interested in you," said Mama-Lou.
Richard wondered if he was exuding psychic pheromones. Since he and Barbara had happened, people treated him differently. Mama-Lou was closer to him than decorum would advise. And she was right—Dudley Finn had been giving him glances. And so had June O'Dell.
"Very flattering," he said, "but not the field I wish to explore. Where are the racks for Jockie and Della?"
Mama-Lou made a fist, then opened it suddenly.
"Gone. To the 'cinerator. No room roun' here. New come, so old gotta go. Policy directive."
She looked to the ceiling.
"And all the others. Gone too?"
She made an up-in-smoke gesture.
"I'd have been interested to know how you costumed them?"
"Carefully," she said. "We go to great lengths to procure the … suitable items, to give them the proper … treatment."
"You don't make the costumes yourselves? You buy them in."
"Some t'ings we run up here. Got an award for it. Mavis Barstow wears only original Mama-Lou designs. She insists. Not'ing June O'Dell puts on has been roun' a human body before. Some of the other women's t'ings we do the same. Had a Carnaby Street designer under contract for this new girl's clothes. He'll be gone, now. Change of policy. For the ones you'll be interested in, we procure. We copy sometimes, but we make the copy good. You understand what I'm tellin'?"
"Indeed."
"Good. You put a stop to it?"
She stood back and folded her arms. He didn't try to pretend he didn't know what she meant.
"I'll certainly try."
Mama-Lou nodded, once. "Good. A sacrilege is no good to anyone. If a blessing is put to an evil end, evil comes to everyone, even the mos' blessed. Maybe the idea comes from my island, but none of the conjuring comes from me. Dig?"
"Dug."
"I follow Erzulie Freda, loa of love. This be the path of the Saturday Man. Know him?"
"Baron Samedi?"
"Hush-hush, Reechar,'" she said, laying a finger on his lips. "Say not his name, lest he come to your house. Caution agains' the Saturday Man. And come this way."
With beckoning finger, Mama-Lou lured him deeper into the bunker, past more and more racks. Finally, she came to two new racks, which held only hangers and cellophane. No clothes yet.
"I said I know firs' when new people come. They get a rack, even before the role is cast. These are the ghost-hunters' racks."
Character names were stuck to the racks. An invisible fist thumped against Richard's chest.
ROGET MASTERMAN. DR. CANBERRA LAURINZ.
"Sound familiar?" asked Mama-Lou.
While Richard was calming, Mama-Lou placed something soft on his head. She looked at him sideways.
"Not your style, but you'll need it."
He took off the headwear and looked at it. It was an old flat cap.
Mama-Lou stroked his coat again, more wistful than flirtatious.
"Now you go think what has to be done. Then come back to Mama-Lou, give blessings to Erzulie Freda, and we make a conjuring. Dig?"
"The most."
· · · · ·
XI
"Did Mama-Lou dispense any useful wisdom?" Vanessa asked him.
"Yes, dear. You're being written out."
She swore, elegantly. "You got this from the wardrobe mistress?"
"No more dresses for Lovely Legs, ergo … no more Lovely Legs."
Richard was holding council of war in the boarding-house sitting room. Fred had used his best "intimidating skinhead" glower to scare off a commercial traveller who had been settling down to ogle Vanessa and Barbara through slits cut in the Evening Mail. Now, they had privacy.
"Have they tumbled that she's a plant?" asked Fred.
Richard wondered about that.
"I think not," he concluded. "They want shot of Lovely Legs to make room for new developments."
"The poltergeist plot?" prompted Barbara, who had sat in with the writing pack all day. "It's come out of nowhere and isn't really the Barstows style. No matter how unlikely things have got before, with plastic surgery or unknown twins coming back from Australia, they've stayed within the bounds of possibility. No ghosts or UFOs."
Realising the others were giving her hard looks, Barbara wondered what she had said wrong, then caught up with herself.
"Sorry," she said. "It's not easy to get used to. This is new ground for me. Of course, there are ghosts and UFOs. That's what you're here for."
"No UFOs," said Fred. "That's rubbish. There aren't any little green men from outer space."
"Yet," said Richard.
"There are ghosts," said Vanessa. "And other things."
"Vampires?"
"Yes," said Richard and Vanessa.
"Werewolves?"
"More than you'd think," said Richard. "And all manner of shapeshifters. There are were-amoebae, which need to be strictly regulated."
"Possession, like in The Exorcist?"
"God, yes," shuddered Vanessa. "Not a favourite."
Barbara shook her head and sighed.
"Welcome to the club, Prof," said Fred. "I know how you feel. This isn't natural for me either."
"The poltergeist plot?" prompted Richard.
"Yes, that," said Barbara, drawn back to her original thought train. "For most normal people, which—strangely—includes the O'Dell-Squiers writing staff, there's a line between barely plausible and outright unbelievable. With the Bleeds Bogey—that's what they're calling the poltergeist—the line has been crossed. At today's conference, the girl with the big glasses was summarily sacked for questioning whether the programme should go down that street."
Richard wasn't surprised by that. It suggested their quarry knew how close they were to catching up.
"The rest of the pack are frothing," continued Barbara. "It's Hallowe'en come early. With his producer's hat on, Marcus Squiers wants to retain you as technical advisor."
"That means they'll make up what they want anyway but pay you to put your name in the end credits," said Fred.
"My understanding is that they want to give me more than a name-check. Barbara, did Squiers mention the ghost-hunters who're showing up on the programme?"
"There's a buzz about them, though the pack got secretive when the subject came up. They suddenly remembered I was in the circle."
"The character names have been decided," Richard told them. "I've seen their racks in Wardrobe. Masterman and Dr. Laurinz. Roget Masterman and Dr. Canberra Laurinz."
"Canberra!" blurted Barbara, appalled. "I must say, this crosses the line. I'm supposed to engage critically with the subject, not be swallowed by it."
Richard had a pang about involving an outside party in the investigation. It did not do to get civilians turned into frogs.
"Who's playing you, guv?"
"I assume someone called Peter Wyngarde has been approached," said Richard. "The supposed resemblance keeps being mentioned."
Vanessa looked at him, thought about it, then ventured, "I wonder how Peter Cushing would look in a multi-coloured Nehru jacket and moon boots?"
"It'll be someone from provincial rep or Früt adverts," said Fred. "No one you've ever heard of gets on the Barstows. No offence, 'Ness."
"None taken. It's true. The Moo is Reigning Star and doesn't like pretenders to the throne. 'Victoria Plant' found that out in about two minutes."
"In some instances, they cast for physical likeness, not talent," said Richard. "They'll be poring over Spotlight for lookalikes. A wig and a 'tache will do for me, but I imagine Barbara will be harder to match."
"Don't you believe it," said Professor Corri, trying not to be frightened. "I'm always being mistaken for some woman who wears fangs in Hammer Films."
"Will you get script approval?" asked Fred. "They could make you look a proper nana if they wanted. Like they did Jamie Hepplethwaites. We work in the shadows, guv. If you get famous for being lampooned on telly, the Ruling Cabal will Not Be Best Pleased."
"That had occurred to me."
Richard reached across the sofa and held Barbara's hand. She returned his grip firmly.
"Something occurs to me," said Vanessa. "You should be careful about giving away old clothes to War on Want."
"A little late for that," Richard admitted.
They all looked at him.
"Today, while we were out, our rooms here were broken into. Not so you'd notice, but I take precautions and I can tell."
"Don't tell me, your closets are empty?"
"No, Fred, they're full. Exactly as they were this morning."
"I don't get it."
"Barbara and I have brand new clothes. The same styles as the old ones, but different. I'm not sure, technically, what crime has been committed."
"They can't think you wouldn't notice," said Fred.
"The new outfits have been aged to match the old. By Tara, the wardrobe assistant, if the faint trace of Coty's Imprevu I whiffed around the counterfeit of my Emelio Pucci shirt is a significant clue. I understand Tara's specialty is scrounging up dupes for established costumes. Mama-Lou will not be pleased by the girl's involvement."
"They're after you, guv. You and the prof."
"Yes, Fred. They are."
"Barstards!"
The landlady came in, like a hurry-the-plot-along bit player, and told Vanessa she had a call.
"The Phantom Phoner," she said and left the room.
Richard pulled Barbara toward him. The professor was not used to being in supernatural crosshairs, and her mind was racing to keep up. A few weeks ago, she hadn't even known there were such things as curses, and now she was at the sharp end of one.
"I should have specialised in nineteenth century woman novelists," she said. "My post-graduate thesis was on George Eliot. But the field was so crowded. The bloody structuralists were moving in, throwing their weight about. No one was thinking hard about television. So, here I am … I suppose I brought this on myself. You might have mentioned this was dangerous, though. If I'd stayed on campus, the worst that could happen was … well, getting burned at the stake during the next student demo … but being cursed is fairly bloody drastic."
Vanessa came back.
"That was my agent," she said. "The one Della set us up with. Your scoop was on the money. Priscilla of the Lovely Legs is off to Nepal to find her missing father in a lamasery. She's left a note for Ben, which will make matters worse. I don't even get an exit scene. My pay packet is waiting at the studio, and I can swap my entry lozenge for it any time in the next two days. My digs are no longer being paid for by O'Dell-Squiers. She tells me, if it's any consolation, that 'Victoria Plant' has had a ton of fan mail, plus a film offer."
"Exciting?" asked Fred.
"Not really. Sexploits of a Suburban Housewife. More in your lady friend's line than mine."
Zarana, Fred's girlfriend, was an "exotic dancer" who cheerfully admitted to being a stripper and did occasional modelling and actress jobs. She had been gruesomely murdered in several movies.
Vanessa looked glum at the sudden end of her brief television career.
"Knock knock?" said Fred.
"Who's there?" asked Barbara, trying to cheer up.
"Victoria …"
"Victoria who?"
Fred spread his hands. "That's showbiz!"
Vanessa laughed but chucked a newspaper at him too. Which made him concentrate on business again.
"If the assistant's working against us, is this wardrobe woman behind the scam?" he asked. "The voodoo princess?"
"No," said Richard, "Mama-Lou is sympathetic to our cause. She knows or at least suspects what's going on and sees it as a transgression of her religion. She gave me a hat."
Fred whistled.
"Not a very nice hat," Richard admitted. "But a significant hat. We've seen its like about the place."
He pulled the flat cap out of his pocket and set it on his head.
"'Ey oop, there's trooble at t'mill," said Fred, in a Londoner's impression of a Northshire accent. "What do you look like?"
"Anyone?" asked Richard.
"You've got a producer's hat on," said Barbara. "Now I remember where Squiers got it. There's one exactly like it on the set. It's been on a hook since the programme started. Mavis left it there where her husband hung it just before his fatal stroke."
"Da Barstow," said Fred. "Our hit man."
"Da Barstow used to be married to Mavis," said Richard.
"And Marcus Squiers used to be married to June," said Vanessa. "He's put himself right in the frame."
"Literally," said Richard, taking off the cap. "Da's wearing this in his portrait."
"So this little bald git is diabolical mastermind of the month?" said Fred, who only knew Squiers from press cuttings. "Can't say I'm surprised. He's a dead ringer for Donald Pleasence."
"Is that a dupe?" asked Vanessa.
Richard looked at the stained lining-band. He had noticed how much Squiers sweated. He fingered the cap.
"It may be a dupe of the cap on the set, but it's the original 'producer's hat.' I imagine Mama-Lou's slipped Squiers another dupe, which he's been wearing without noticing. Are you following this, Frederick?"
"The Barstards have got your clothes and you've got his cap."
"Very good, Fred."
"But what help is that to us?" asked Barbara.
"Level playing field, Prof," said Fred.
"Two can do voodoo," said Vanessa.
"Ah," said Barbara, catching up.
Richard was thrilled. He recognised this was the most dangerous phase of the case. When he became excited by the problem and had a solution in mind, he was tempted to be let down his guard and take silly risks. With a volunteer along for the ride, he needed to remember that when black magic got out of hand, people tended to get horribly hurt.
"I will not let you be harmed," he told Barbara.
She smiled, showing grit. He was pleased with her.
"We'll need to call in favours," he told them, "and work fast. Squiers is ahead on points and is setting us up for a knockout before the end of the round."
Fred shivered. "It gives me chills when you talk like Frank Bough. It only happens when we're on a sticky wicket, up against the ropes, down to the last man, and facing a penalty in injury time."
"How many episodes does a hit take?" asked Vanessa.
"I defer to Barbara's expertise," said Richard.
"Typically," she began, "it's been done over six to ten weeks, twelve to twenty shows. To get the audience involved, I suspect. You said emotional investment in the characters was a key ingredient. I imagine it's important to get all fifteen million viewers on the hook. Of course, Squiers can usually afford to take the time to build slowly, work the relevant plot into the other things going on. None of the earlier, ah, commissions have taken over the programme completely. There've always been other stories running, about Mavis, Ben, and the rest. Now, since we're close to exposing him, there's urgency. The ghost-hunters—us!—were set up on last night's episode and will be introduced at the end of next Tuesday's show. They're due to turn up for the cliffhanger, as all hell breaks loose in the lounge. In the programme, by the way, the Bleeds Bogey is Da Barstow's angry ghost. He reckons Mavis killed him all those years ago. I estimate next Thursday's Barstows will be the crucial episode, when 'Roget' and 'Canberra' are established as characters …"
"That's when the voodoo is done," said Richard. "When our 'dolls' are fixed in the public mind."
Barbara shivered. "The way things are going," she said, "I suspect we'll be horribly killed the week after. Does that sound right?"
"Just about," said Richard.
"They really are Barstards," spat Barbara. Good. She had progressed from fear to anger.
"We've a week and a half to defy the Saturday Man," said Richard. "A challenge. I enjoy a challenge."
"And I enjoy breathing," said Barbara, "so rise to it, Richard."
· · · · ·
Annotations
59. Fortnum's. Posh department store. Formally, Fortnum and Mason's.
60. Round the Horne. BBC radio comedy programme, hosted by Kenneth Horne. The performers Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick played recurring characters, Julian and Sandy, who popularised camp patois ("polari") at a time when male homosexuality was technically a criminal offence. "How bona to vada your eek" means "How nice to see your face."
61. Recce. An initial scout-around. Military slang for "reconnaissance."
62. Mangle-worzel. White turnip. The vegetable, hence the accent, is associated with the West Country (Somerset, Devon, Dorset, Cornwall).
63. Mummerset. Another term for a non-specific West Country accent, like that used by Robert Newton as Long John Silver (or, more often, people impersonating Robert Newton as Long John Silver).
64. Chits. Invoices.
65. Full English. Cooked breakfast.
66. Norton. British make of motorbike.
67. Fred Perry. Type of shirt, named after a tennis player.
68. Torpedo. Outmoded American gangland slang, a hit man or hired gun.
69. Crims. Criminals.
70. Three-piece suite. A sofa and two armchairs, inevitable in the parlours of lower middle-class or upper working-class families with aspirations to gentility.
71. Sides. Theatrical term for an actor's lines.
72. Chivvy. Hurry, hustle.
73. Mangle. US. Mangler, an antique washing implement.
74. Lady Bracknell. Grand dame in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, famous of the line, "A handbag?"
75. Oiks. Low-class brutes.
76. Marie Lloyd. English music hall artiste of the turn of the century (nineteenth into twentieth). Her song "She Sits Among the Cabbages and Peas" was considered scandalous.
77. Harold Steptoe. The long-suffering son, played by Harry H. Corbett, in the classic BBC TV sitcom Steptoe and Son, which was Americanised as Sanford and Son.
78. Barclay's Bank. High Street bank, much boycotted in the 1970s for its ties with South Africa.
79. Bradford. Town in Yorkshire.
80. Vest. Undershirt, not a waistcoat.
81. Penny for the Guy. The cry of children soliciting coins for showing off their stuffed effigies of Guy Fawkes in the build-up to Guy Fawkes Night.
82. Peter Wyngarde. A '70s icon in the shows Department S and Jason King, playing a dandyish fashion-plate mystery novelist turned detective. He's also in The Innocents as a ghost, Night of the Eagle, the "Touch of Brimstone" episode of The Avengers, and the remake of Flash Gordon.
83. Spotlight. The UK directory of actors.
84. The Ruling Cabal. The governing committee of the Diogenes Club.
85. War on Want. A charity campaign.
86. Structuralists. Followers of a critical school ascendant in academe in the 1970s.
87. Frank Bough. UK TV sports commentator and news presenter, roughly equivalent to Howard Cosell in America.
88. We're on a sticky wicket, up against the ropes, down to the last man, and facing a penalty in injury time. Bad situations in cricket, boxing, cricket and soccer. |
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