A Comedian Dies (11 page)

He was fully prepared to get his face slapped for that, but her reply was surprisingly mild. ‘He was away a lot. I suppose in the nature of things he must have met other girls, had the occasional fling. I never asked. At least he had the decency to keep that sort of thing away from his own doorstep.'

‘He never talked about any girl-friends?'

‘No. We had a good marriage.' Her persistence on this point was again unsettling. If the marriage was that good, if she had been so desolated by her husband's death, how could she be so cool and collected and even sexy (yes, definitely sexy) so soon afterwards?

‘And you never met any of his girl-friends?'

‘Never. He wouldn't humiliate me. It was a good marriage,' she insisted.

‘Yes. Of course. So the name Janine Bentley doesn't mean anything to you?'

She shook her head. Charles elaborated. ‘Janine Bentley is a dancer. She was in the Hunstanton company. Backstage gossip said she was having an affair with your husband just before he died. Backstage gossip also said they had a serious row on the afternoon of his death.'

‘What? And you think she might have murdered him out of spite?' Carla asked with wonderment.

Charles shrugged. ‘It's a theory. I'd certainly like to talk to her. Unfortunately she's disappeared.'

‘But she's your main suspect?'

‘I wouldn't say that, but she seems to have had more motive than anyone else. Also opportunity. If I found out something more which pointed to her guilt, I'd be prepared to be very suspicious.'

‘I see.' Carla Pratt seemed to be thinking something out. When she spoke again, it was with much greater fluency. Maybe now for the first time she felt that she was not under suspicion and could speak freely. ‘I think I have heard of her.'

‘From Bill?'

‘In a way.'

‘I heard a rumour that she was very serious about him. Talking about marriage, expecting him to divorce you, that sort of thing.'

‘Bill would never have divorced me.'

‘You sound almost as if you wish he had.'

The wistfulness of its tone had given her remark that flavour, but she bridled strongly at the suggestion. ‘Certainly not. You got me all wrong if you think that. All I ever wanted was to go on being with Bill. It was a very good marriage.'

‘Yes, I'm sorry. I was being facetious. Going back to Janine. The rumours I heard suggested that the row she had with your husband on the afternoon of his death was caused by her threat to tell you about their relationship.'

Carla Pratt was silent for a long time after this. When she did speak, for the first time in their conversation her voice was a little unsteady with emotion. ‘You seem to know so much, I might as well tell you.'

Charles made a sympathetic grunt, unwilling to break her new confidential mood with words.

‘She did tell me. She rang up here. About a week before Bill died. She said they were having this affair and they wanted to get married and I ought to know.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I didn't believe her. I mean, I believed Bill was having a bit of fun with her – he liked girls – but nothing serious, no. So after she'd spoken, I rang him and asked. He admitted the affair, but he said she had got it all out of proportion. Apparently she was very mixed-up. Strange kid, a bit unbalanced, so Bill said. Certainly she sounded it when she talked to me.'

‘What did she say?'

‘She talked about men. Other men she had known. How they'd all been bastards until she met Bill. Apparently she'd had some long affair with a guy in a rock group, trailing round the country, following his tours. That had turned sour. She sounded sort of manic, if that's the word.' As Carla Pratt talked, her posh accent was eroded and the Cockney showed through.

‘Did she make any threats against Bill – or indeed against you?'

‘No. If she had, I daresay I'd have thought about it when he died and put two and two together.' The last word came out as ‘togevver.'

‘You didn't have any further contact with her?'

‘None at all. She was really weird on the phone, sort of spooky, like people in those exorcism films.'

‘And you've no idea where she is now? As I say, she's disappeared.'

‘Haven't a clue. Never even met her. Only spoke to her the once. And you know, now I come to think of it, after I come off the phone from talking to her, I felt really frightened.'

As the Underground slowly took him back into central London, Charles went through the interview in his mind. It was full of strange inconsistencies. Carla's image of her husband seemed so at variance with everyone else's. Still, marriage must involve a degree of blindness to the partner's faults. Perhaps it was natural enough. So, come to think of it, was her initial fear that Charles was suspicious of her as her husband's killer. However illogical, everyone's first instinct is to feel guilty. And no doubt her poised sexy exterior was just a carefully built up bastion against uncontrollable emotion.

More important than the contradiction in Carla Pratt's character was the illumination she had given into the character of Janine Bentley. He had had difficulty visualizing the girl as a calculating killer. Other descriptions had suggested a rather anonymous, quiet little thing.

But a girl who sounded unbalanced, indeed a girl who would make the kind of phone-call described, was a much more disturbing proposition. And there was another important detail – a girl who had spent a lot of time trailing round after a rock group would pick up some sort of knowledge of how their equipment worked and might well know how to stage a fatal ‘accident'.

It was even more imperative that he should find Janine Bentley.

COMIC
:
Did you hear about the Irish tap dancer?

FEED: No.

COMIC
:
He fell in the sink.

Charles thought it would be tempting providence to approach Mr. Mike Green (he who conducted business under an assumed nose) in another disguise. The ‘raincoat débâcle' had dealt a blow to his faith in his protean abilities.

Vocally, though, he retained his confidence and it was the perky voice he had used in
Fings Ain't What They Used To Be
(‘The boldness of choosing this piece was not justified by the company's abilities' —
Leamington Spa Courier
) that was transferred through by the suspicious secretary to Mr. Green.

‘Hello. You say you are from
The Sun
?'

‘That's right. Bob Cherry of Photographic Features department.' Oops. Silly choice of name.

But fortunately Mr. Green did not seem to be a reader of the Billy Bunter stories. ‘I see. What can I do for you?'

‘Idea came up at an editorial meeting for doing a series of features on dance groups – gather you represent These Foolish Things – wonder if I could contact the group, have a bit of a chat, background stuff, then if the idea seems to be working send along a photographer, take a few pics. Any objections in principle?'

‘No, not in principle, no. When would you want to do this?'

‘'Fraid it's a bit of a rush job – want to get something rough mapped out today, so that the editor can run his peepers over it, give us the go-ahead on the series.'

‘Hmm. It might be difficult today. The boys and girls are in rehearsal at the moment.'

Charles took a risk. ‘Oh well, if it's not convenient, never mind. I've got a long list of other dance groups drawn up. Thank you for your time.'

‘No, no, just a minute.' As Charles had hoped, the lure of publicity in the national press was too strong. ‘Look, I'm sure they could take a break for a quick chat. Wouldn't be long, would it?'

‘Quarter of an hour top-weight.'

‘Fine. Then I'll tell you where they are rehearsing. It's – just a minute, there is one thing.'

‘Yes?'

‘About these photographs . . . I know your paper has a reputation for rather . . . frank pictures. I hope that wasn't the sort of thing you had in mind. I mean, they're lovely girls and that, but the appeal of the group has to be universal. Family audience stuff, they've been booked for kids' telly shows, that sort of thing. Don't want the image let down. They're not your topless go-go dancers, it's a more artistic thing altogether.'

‘Of course,' Charles soothed. ‘No, this isn't a Page Three feature. Sort of light-weight serious piece on how groups start and get formed and so on.'

‘Ah, if you're going to ask them that sort of thing, perhaps I ought to be there.'

Boobed again. ‘No, I don't think that'll be necessary. Very straight-forward stuff, not trying to get any angle.'

‘I see. Oh, that should be all right. When's it likely to be in the paper?'

‘Can't say exactly, I'm afraid, chum. As I say, just a mock-up we're working on at the moment – Editor's bound to give the go-ahead, though – next couple of weeks, I should think.'

‘OK.' Mr. Green gave the address of the rehearsal room, a police gymnasium in Heme Hill. ‘I'll give them a buzz to say you're coming.'

‘Oh, you needn't,' said Charles hastily, seeing himself committed to continuing his inquiries in the same identity.

But there was no escape. ‘Yes, I'd better. Then there'll be no problem about their letting you in. Get some funny types hanging round the girls, you know. Bob . . . Cherry did you say the name was?'

Charles confirmed it, blushing on two counts. First for the choice of name and second for the reference to funny types hanging round the girls. ‘Right. Well, thank you very much for the help, Mr. Green.'

‘My pleasure . . . By the way, if you ever are looking for, girls for the more . . . adult sort of feature you do, I might be able to put you in touch with a very useful agency, for the . . . less, inhibited sort of mode.'

Touting for more work for brother Joe's end of the business, Charles reflected, as he rang off.

He was a bit worried about approaching the group in his new identity (particularly on police premises) but his fears were unfounded. Mr. Green's call had prepared the ground well and the dancers' vanity that someone from the Press was interested in them precluded any doubts about his authenticity.

They gathered round at one end of the gymnasium, the girls sitting on low benches with their legs stretched out on the floor and the boys in sculptured poses with hands on hips.

The girls were a great disappointment in rehearsal clothes. Onstage in Hunstanton, even in the publicity photographs he'd seen, he wouldn't have kicked any of them out of bed, but seeing them here, he felt that his feet might be more actively employed. Their leotards and bulky leg-warmers did not do a lot for their figures, creating the impression of a randomly-lagged water system in the loft of an old house. Their faces were testimonials to the skill of modern makeup and hair-dressing. With the paint scoured off and hair swept back into rubber bands, they looked like peeled grapes. In spite of his long experience of the Jekyll and Hyde propensities of actresses, Charles still found it a shock.

Interviewing them was not difficult. Like most performers, they needed little prompting to talk about themselves. The difficulty Charles found was in pretending to be interested in their anecdotes of early promise and not rushing on to the questions he really wanted to ask.

But after eight histories of stage school, ballet lessons, studio dance training and unsuccessful attempts at acting in musicals, he managed to ask how long they had all been together.

The tallest boy, who posed like a pampas grass in a fireplace and acted as spokesman, replied, ‘Ooh, about eighteen months now. Leonie and I came from The Best Thing, Wayne and Darryl were with the Black and White Minstrels, Polly, Boots and Cookie were from a little set-up called The Tootsies, and . . . er, Barbie is straight out of Italia Conti.'

The last-named looked less like a poulterer's wares than the other girls. She was probably only seventeen, but the dark circles under her eyes bespoke more than a nodding acquaintance with the endless round of rehearsals and performances. She was the one unfamiliar face in the group, obviously Janine Bentley's replacement.

‘Have you had your hair done differently?' Bob Cherry asked ingenuously. ‘I've seen publicity photos of the group and I'm sure you used to look different.'

‘Wasn't me, I've only just joined last week.'

‘What happened to the other girl?' Bob Cherry asked casually.

‘She left for personal reasons,' supplied the tallest boy.

‘What does that mean?'

‘Just what it says. Nothing to do with the group. No quarrel or anything.'

‘I think she'd been having boy-friend trouble,' supplied the girl called Cookie. ‘Been having a rough time for a few months. I think she left because she wanted a bit of time to get her head together.'

‘Ah.' Charles wouldn't liked to have defined exactly what that meant, but he thought he got the gist of it. ‘Any idea how I can contact her?'

‘She's left the group. Not much point in contacting her, really,' the tallest boy insisted, seeing the available publicity about to be divided nine ways instead of eight.

‘Sure, but as I say this article's about how groups are made up. It would be a great help if I could find her and have a chat.'

‘She won't tell you anything shocking or awful. As I say, there wasn't any quarrel.'

‘No, no, it's not a muck-raking article. I'm not after that sort of thing. When did she leave you?'

‘Just after we finished our summer season in Hunstanton, couple of weeks back.'

‘Be a pity if I couldn't contact her. Talking to an ex-member of the group would add that little something to the article, sort of extra dimension the Editor always wants. Without something different, who knows, he might not give the go-ahead for the series.'