The Dead Side of the Mike (15 page)

And, finally, in a long, apologetic monologue, Harry Bassett from Leeds let them know that, in a sense, he was, not to put too fine a point on it and speaking with his regional hat on, not a little disappointed to hear that the minutes contained no reference to the regions.

All this took time to iron out and Charles began to wonder why he had come. The primary reason was that John Christie had rung and asked him and he couldn't think of a previous engagement in time. But also he knew he wanted to see Steve Kennett again, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the mortification which he had experienced at their last meeting.

And he still wanted to know more about Andrea Gower's death. Any contact with the BBC offered the prospect of illumination. He didn't know what he thought now about the case, mostly just confusion, but through it percolated a conviction that a crime had been committed. His strange, in retrospect almost surreal, interview with Fat Otto in New York only went to reinforce that conviction. Something odd was going on somewhere.

The case was only one of the elements of his life that was in a state of suspended animation. There was also his relationship with Frances. The New York trip, in spite of its circumstances, had been good for both of them. They had, in a way, rediscovered each other. The sex had been good, Frances revelling in a new, post-menopausal freedom. In fact they had grown increasingly amorous. The Italian waiter in the coffee shop, who had let the information about the funeral, like all information he received from his customers, slip in one ear and out the other, asked on their last morning if they were on a second honeymoon. And that had certainly been the feeling of the latter part of the trip.

But arrival at Heathrow and the tedious business of getting back into Central London had dissipated the mood. It was all too mundane, too ordinary. They had caught the new Underground line from the airport and, though Charles had contemplated some kind of declaration and offer to accompany Frances back to Muswell Hill, when the parting of the ways came at Earl's Court, he had only given her a peck on the cheek and the eternal promise that he would ring her. As the doors closed, he had seen her sitting on the train, surrounded by luggage and new purchases, and, not for the first time in his life, felt a heel.

And somehow, in the forty-eight hours they'd been back, he hadn't phoned her. And here he was sitting all maudlin, because he was in the same room as Steve Kennett, whom he believed to be having an affair with another. And he had never even expressed any interest in her.

Once again, he felt confused by the male psyche. Confused by the whole system of marriage. Once again, he concluded that it was a generalised system, designed to suit everyone in general terms all of the time, and suiting no one in detail any of the time.

Helmut Winkler, the mad German, was talking, his fingers embroidering the air. ‘How can ye expect to produce interesting features yen ye are zo hidebound in our sinking about ze whole concept off radio? Now ye should not sink in narrow terms about radio, but in more general terms, of ze philosophy off sound. Radio is not just ze programmes zat are broadcast, it is ze whole mechanizmus off radio, discs, ze cassette players, even television. Each vun off zeese media is anuzzer facet off ze same diamond zat is sound. And any sinking ye do into sound must recognise zese different elements and ze effect zey have on ze philosophical attitudes off man in an audio-society. Radio is not just radio, it is man in radio – more zan zat, it is audio-man in audio-environment. And yet ye go on producing ze same kind off programmes uninformed by zis realisation.

‘Vy, for instance, do ve always use ze best bit off tape, vy ze best take? Isn't it better zat ye should use all ze tape, ze bad bits and mistakes viz ze good? Vy shouldn't ye pick up all ze bits off tape zat are left after an editing session and edit zem together in random sequence to create an alternative audio experience? After all, ze creative process should be unpredictable. Vy are ye in radio so committed to outdated concepts of sense and intelligibility? Surely sometimes, and particularly in ze features area, it is necessary to lose the audience to gain truth.'

Charles was convinced that the guy was completely dotty, but he knew from Nick Monckton that such pronouncements had often appeared in
The Listener
under Winkler's name and been greeted with serious academic approbation. Winkler was a licensed BBC intellectual, a species of which management preserved a few in reservations, and who they wheeled out to baffle and side-track any committee that might be set up to investigate the future of broadcasting.

But his views were not allowed to pass completely unopposed. The lady from
Woman's Hour
objected, ‘I disagree completely. To be intelligible is the first duty of any broadcaster. When we did our feature on hysterectomy, not only did we make a damn good feature, we also made one that every damn person in the listening audience could understand.'

Ronnie Barron of the SMs department had another objection. ‘I'm no intellectual, Helmut, but it strikes me that what you suggest is going to be very wasteful of tape. Every year recording tape costs more and we seem to use more of it. In times of straitened financial circumstances, I feel it hardly appropriate that we should be finding new ways of using tape; we should be economising on it, particularly when we have just received a directive from MDR insisting that we do just that.'

Winkler's hands swept away Barron's arguments like shoulder-high reeds. ‘I am not concerned viz economy; I am concerned viz ze philosophy off audio.'

‘Well, we still have to pay for it. We've recently done a survey on the amount of tape we actually used in the last year and, let me tell you, the findings are pretty shocking. Pretty shocking. Just on normal usage. I mean, setting aside the amount that gets spoiled and the still distressing amount which gets stolen, we –'

Winkler came in again forcibly. ‘Look, I'm not concerned zat your staff are a bunch off crooks who keep valking off viz reels of tape –'

‘Now that's not true! There have been very few cases where SMs have been found to be guilty of –'

‘Now, gentlemen, gentlemen,' John Christie came in, trimming as ever, ‘don't let's lose sight of the main issues.'

‘But zis is vun off ze main issues. How can ye produce excellent features yen ye are hampered by incompetent studio staff?'

‘They are not incompetent! You won't find a more highly trained group of –'

‘If they are so good, vy vas it zat my feature on
Ze Metaphor off Similitude vas
massacred in ze editing channel? Mein Gott, I could haf killed ze girl who did zat. Zat blonde girl, Andrea, I could haf killed her.'

Everyone else in the room went cold, but Winkler was unaware of the implications of what he had said, and continued with his diatribe. Charles did a quick mental check. Yes, Winkler had arrived late for the meeting on the evening of Andrea's death, so he could in theory have had time to murder her. Certainly he was mad enough to do anything to someone who didn't share his view of ‘ze philosophy off audio' and who threatened his precious programmes. On the other hand, it did seem pretty unlikely that this loony would set up such an elaborately disguised crime. Still, it was all food for thought.

John Christie managed to defuse the argument between Winkler and Barron, but unfortunately surrendered the floor to Harry Bassett from Leeds. ‘I think it may be that I have a, as it were, solution to what can only be defined as the problem which we are, in a sense, talking about. It's something that most of us – and I hope I'm not being ungallant to any of the weaker sex amongst us –'

‘I don't know who you're talking about,' seethed the girl with Shredded Wheat hair.

‘Pardon me, I'm sure.' Bassett wiped his moustache. ‘As I say, it's something many of us grew up on and something that we, out in what I hope are not the backwoods of regional broadcasting, are still not averse to the practice of. I refer, as those of you who have anticipated me will realise, to Live Broadcasting. We didn't use so much tape back in the halcyon days when everything was, as it were, live. Just the broadcaster there was, with the old apple-and-biscuit microphone . . .'

He droned on. Charles stifled a yawn. Not over the jet lag yet. His mind wandered.

He came back to life when he heard his name mentioned. John Christie was looking at him. ‘Do you think that's the sort of thing you'd be interested in doing, Charles?'

‘Well . . .'

‘Oh, I'm sure it'd really be your scene,' bubbled Nita Lawson enthusiastically. ‘I mean, with your experience of writing features and a subject like Dave Sheridan, I think it could really be a knockout.'

‘Er . . . yes.'

‘And you think it should be pitched at Radio Three, Nita?'

‘Yes, I do, John, quite definitely. I figure one of the big hassles in this media – and all the others – and one of the reasons why things like this whole features scene get so heavy is that there isn't any cross-fertilisation between the different arts. I mean, particularly in music. Like I'm not saying the LSO and ELO are exactly the same, but they are in the same bag. I think we all gotta get less uptight about the differences between the arts and really get it together on the similarities. Radios One and Two are very big in the national culture and are going to be even bigger when twenty-four-hour broadcasting really gets away. And I think that for Radio Three heads to get into what Radio Two or Radio One heads dig has gotta be good news, hasn't it? And I mean, Dave Sheridan is a really great guy. I mean, like the public have got this really wrong image of what disc jockeys are about. They seem to think they're just mindless jerks who talk nonsense all the time. I don't know why.'

‘Maybe they've listened to them,' murmured Nick Monckton.

‘So I think a feature like this could really get everyone into the same groove, a bit of an eye-opener all round.'

John Christie gave an Olympian smile. ‘Well, that's terrific. Our first positive proposal for a feature, and I must say it sounds a most interesting one. The idea of a mix of cultures is exactly the sort of lateral thinking that a creative umbrella unit like the Features Action Committee should be coming up with. A programme about a Radio Two personality, written by someone with a background of writing poetry features and aimed at a Radio Three audience cannot fail to be a stimulating departure.'

Or a total disaster, thought Charles. He saw Steve Kennett was looking at him. She smiled. He looked away.

‘Charles, Charles.' She caught up with him as he hurried along the Sixth Floor corridor.

‘Hello.'

‘Don't rush off like that, please. There's something I've got to explain to you.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes. It struck me, after I left you last time, you must have thought I meant that Mark had spent the night with me.'

‘Well, that's what you said.'

‘Yes, but what I meant was – yes, he did spend the night at my flat, but no,
he didn't spend the night with me.
Do I make myself clear?'

Charles felt the beginning of a warmth within him. ‘Yes, you do.'

‘I would just hate you to have got the wrong impression.'

It really seemed to concern her. The warmth grew. She continued, ‘I'll explain. Do you fancy a drink?'

‘What, in the club?'

‘No, I'm sick of this place, been here all day. We can have one back at the flat. It's on your way. Okay?'

‘Okay.' Charles positively glowed with warmth.

‘He is such a sod. He claimed he just wanted to come round to talk about Andrea, but of course he was trying to get into bed with me. I was meant to be all sympathetic and fall for his vulnerability and boyish charm. Well, I'm afraid the magic didn't work.'

‘So he left in the small hours?' Charles's mind was making quick calculations. If Mark had left even at three o'clock, he would still in theory have had time to drive down to Woodcote, meet up with Klinger and . . .

But that idea was soon quashed. ‘No, he was here all night. Gave me some pathetic line about being afraid to go back to his empty house, where he would just lie awake, haunted by the memory of Andrea. God, he was so spineless. So I let him spend the night in here. I think in his devious little mind he thought I might soften and come rushing in, begging him to honour my bed with his presence. Mark is one of those awful men who was told by someone – probably his mother – at a very early age that he was irresistibly attractive to women, and no amount of evidence to the contrary can shift that conviction.' She added ruefully, ‘That seems to be the only sort of men I meet.'

‘Do I gather from your tone that there's another of them on the scene at the moment?'

‘There was. A young man called Robin. Also convinced he's God's gift to the female race. Works in the Beeb, inevitably. News reporter – travels a lot. We were quite – what should I say? close? thick? – until a couple of months ago. But now I think I can finally say it is over. Yes, I am an unattached bachelor girl, footloose and fancy-free.' There was more irony than insouciance in her words.

‘I see.' Charles stored the information and tried to sound businesslike. ‘Anyway, it seems that Mark is ruled out of any connection with Klinger's death.'

‘Seems so.'

‘What about Andrea's, though? Did you find out any more about his movements on the evening
she
died?' he asked.

‘You mean, when he left the meeting for the booze?' Charles nodded. ‘Yes. He told me that he did talk to her.'

‘You mean he went into the channel where she was working?'

‘Yes.'

Charles sat up, nearly spilling his wine. ‘Good God. That changes everything, doesn't it?'

Steve sighed. ‘I don't know whether it does really. Certainly not if you are still thinking it may have been murder. I mean, if he'd killed her and kept his visit to the channel a secret all this time, surely he wouldn't tell me about it.'