Corporate Bodies

Table of Contents

The Charles Paris Mystery Series

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

CAST, IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE

SO MUCH BLOOD

STAR TRAP

AN AMATEUR CORPSE

A COMEDIAN DIES

THE DEAD SIDE OF THE MIKE

SITUATION TRAGEDY

MURDER UNPROMPTED

MURDER IN THE TITLE

NOT DEAD, ONLY RESTING

DEAD GIVEAWAY

WHAT BLOODY MAN IS THAT?

A SERIES OF MURDERS

CORPORATE BODIES

A RECONSTRUCTED CORPSE

SICKEN AND SO DIE

DEAD ROOM FARCE

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

This title first published in Great Britain in 1991 by Victor Gollancz

eBook edition first published in 2012 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 1991 Simon Brett.

The right of Simon Brett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0016-7 (epub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This eBook produced by

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Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

To Roger and Hilary

ON OF THE reasons why I became an actor, Charles Paris reflected wryly as he swung the wheel of the forklift truck, was to avoid tedious jobs like this. To avoid any job in fact with a predictability about it, any job for which you had to turn up at the same predictable hour every day, in which you had to climb a predictable career structure, in anticipation of a predictable retirement age and a predictable pension.

Actually, when he came to think about it, he wouldn't have minded the predictable pension. Or the predictable salary, come to that. He'd survived more than thirty years of the actor's fluctuating fortunes – long periods of ‘signing on' enlivened by occasional bouts of work – but it was a kind of insecurity into which he'd never quite relaxed. As he got older, he did fantasise increasingly, with a slight wistfulness, about the idea of a regular income. This shaming thought was not one that he'd have mentioned to a fellow-actor, but it was there, lurking.

Maybe if he'd had a regular job, he conjectured, with regular hours, a regular salary and regular promotion, his life might have had more shape. Maybe his marriage might even have stayed together. Though it was difficult to envisage Frances in the role of a corporate wife. Everything might have been better, though. It was hard to be sure.

On the other hand, it was extremely easy to be sure that any employment of that kind would have driven him mad with boredom.

Charles Paris was an actor, like it or not. Even when, as in some years, his earnings were too low to qualify for taxation; even when, as in slightly better years, the taxman had the nerve to hound him for a slice of the little he had; even when directors, blind to his obvious genius, callously turned him down for parts; even when critics advised him to take up market gardening (as
The Financial Times
once had); whatever disasters arose, Charles Paris's mind couldn't cope with the idea of being in any other profession.

And driving a forklift truck in the Delmoleen warehouse for a morning was quite fun. It was only the idea of having to do it every morning – and every afternoon, come to that – that was insufferably tedious.

He looked across at Trevor, who actually did have to do it every day. The operator looked sullen. His bad temper, however, was not caused by the eternal tedium of his job, but by the fact that that particular morning Charles Paris was doing it.

The trouble was that that morning the job involved
speaking
and, while Trevor was a dab hand at forklifts, capable of performing pirouettes on a man-up orderpicker, or turning a narrow-aisle swivel-head reach-truck on a 5p piece to bring down a palletised ton's load stored twenty feet above his head, when it came to
speaking
he wasn't so hot. Which was why the company had brought in an actor to do the speaking for him.

Delmoleen was making a video to show at trade fairs, encourage recruitment and generally bolster company solidarity. Charles Paris had become involved in exactly the same way that he got most of his jobs – through a friend.

Charles did have an agent, but it often seemed that getting work for his clients was against Maurice Skellern's religion. Taking 15 per cent on the work they got for themselves was, however, quite within the Commandments, and Charles, who had set up the Delmoleen job direct, was anxious lest his agent should find out about it.

The friend who had introduced him to his first corporate video was called Will Parton, a writer whom Charles Paris had encountered on the
Stanislas Braid
television series. Will's destiny in life, as he kept telling anyone and everyone who would listen, was to write a major serious stage play. He'd had the idea for years, just a matter of carving out enough time actually to get the thing written.

But the creation of the
magnum opus
kept getting deferred by television work. ‘Well, you have to pay the bills,' as Will kept saying with an apologetic shrug. In fact, for Will Parton, as a single man in a highly-paid profession living in a two-bedroom flat, the bills were not too daunting. He could easily have afforded a six-month sabbatical to get the play written – had he really had the will to do so.

But he found television work so lucrative and – once he'd taken on board the fact that it involved more
re
writing than writing – so comparatively easy, that the serious stage play, like the horizon, constantly receded. Writing a corporate video for Delmoleen was, in spite of the way Will kept talking about ‘taking on a new challenge' and ‘broadening my range', simply another way of staving off the evil moment when he'd have to find out if his play idea really was any good.

But he wasn't involved just as writer. Will Parton, perhaps in reaction to the countless years he had spent being ordered around by countless directors, had recently gone into production. He had formed a company called
Parton Parcel,
through which he hoped to dip his own ladle into the corporate gravy train. Though its impressive letterhead featured the names of various friends to give a bit of
gravitas
, the organisation was in fact a one-man band. Will reckoned to bring in other staff as and when required. When he got a production, he would hire in freelance directors, cameramen, soundmen and so on. There was no shortage of such skilled personnel around; the recession in television was biting everywhere.

The Delmoleen contract was the first that
Parton Parcel
had secured. Will had followed up a contact in the company, who had introduced him to the Delmoleen Marketing Director just at the moment when the Managing Director had expressed the need for a morale-boosting video. Will Parton had had a meeting with the Marketing Director, who knew nothing of that particular world, and produced the requisite bullshit, as a result of which the
Parton Parcel
tender, suitably modest for such a relatively new set-up, had been accepted.

Charles Paris had had no compunction about accepting Will's offer to put him up for the video. The writer had rung one evening and said, ‘The Delmoleen people'll take you on my say-so, no problem. They don't know anything about actors.'

Deciding, as he usually did on such occasions, not to take offence at the inadvertent slight, Charles had responded enthusiastically. The previous few months had been, in Maurice Skellern's favourite phrase, ‘quiet, very quiet'. In fact, the previous year had been almost totally silent, one of the worst of Charles's career. The rumbles of approaching recession had led to cutbacks in the theatre and advertising and, as the commercial companies began the ritual circling which precedes the award of new franchises, television opportunities had also become very limited. Things were always bad in his profession, but Charles had never known them quite this bad.

‘What is Delmoleen?' he asked after Will had confirmed an interview time for the following day.

‘Bedtime drink . . .'

‘Well, yes, Delmoleen “Bedtime” is the best known product in this country, but they manufacture a whole bundle of other stuff. All food products. You'd be amazed at the diversity, and the places they export to. I tell you, Charles, I've had to read so much guff on Delmoleen that I'm now one of the world's experts. I could bore you for hours on the subject.'

‘Don't bother.'

‘No, I'll leave that to the Delmoleen executives. God, they take it all so seriously. Make Muslim Fundamentalists look insipid . . . Ooh, that is a thought. One thing, Charles . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘You have to take it seriously too. No giggling.'

His voice took on a tone of injured innocence. ‘Would I?'

‘Won't even answer that. No, please, whatever crap they talk – and I can guarantee you they will talk plenty of crap – straight face, OK? And don't you dare catch my eye.'

‘I will be as demure as a Jane Austen heroine.'

‘Hm.' The writer didn't sound convinced.

‘Oh, Will, what should I wear?'

‘For the interview?'

‘Right. In my experience of commercials and things, if you don't turn up in the right gear, you don't get the part.'

‘Yes, it'll be just the same with this lot. They haven't got the imagination to realise that an actor's capable of wearing different clothes.' Will dropped into the drawl of a theatrical pseud. ‘OK, love, the major role you are being considered for in my new oeuvre is that of . . . a forklift truck driver.'

‘A forklift truck driver?' Charles echoed in his best Lady Bracknell. ‘I don't believe I am familiar with the customary garb of forklift truck drivers.'

‘Well, if you follow the sartorial style of Trevor, who is one of the real ones on-site, you'll go for a tasteful Status Quo T-shirt, a pair of appropriately understated tracksuit bottoms and rather grubby trainers.'

Charles moved into his Victorian actor-manager voice. ‘I will obtain the requisite wardrobe. And vocally . . .? I dare say a person in such employment would favour the vowels of the proletariat . . .'

‘Yes, better be a bit “off”.'