A Comedian Dies Read online

  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

  The Charles Paris Mystery Series

  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

  A COMEDIAN DIES

  A Charles Paris Mystery

  Simon Brett

  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.

  First published in Great Britain in 1979 by Victor Gollancz

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

  Copyright © 1979 Simon Brett.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0004-4 (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

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  TO ALASTAIR

  who’s quite funny sometimes

  CHAPTER ONE

  FEED: Did you have a nice holiday?

  COMIC: Oh yes, what a week it was. Only rained twice – once for three days, once for four.

  Sun ’n’ Funtime at the Winter Gardens, Hunstanton, was, according to the posters that faded on bus-shelter walls and the brochures that were shuffled onto boarding-house coffee tables, ‘A Summer Tonic, Music and Laughter for All the Family’.

  The queue that Charles Paris and his wife Frances joined that wet Tuesday afternoon in September looked as though they could do with a tonic. In most cases an oxygen mask would have been more appropriate. Their average age was about seventy-nine and they had the washed-out look of torn bunting clinging to the grille of a drain. These were the dream-realizers, enjoying either a seaside holiday or, in some cases, the life sentence of retirement by the sea.

  The Winter Gardens reflected their air of bewildered decay. Maybe once the iron framework had boasted brighter colours than the local council’s chlorine blue paint, which fought a losing battle against the encrustations of salt and the eruptions of rust. Maybe once the white planks which filled in the lower parts of the frame had not been pitted and scratched and aerosoled with lewd invitations. Maybe once the windows had not been mended with flapping strips of polythene and none had rattled, puttyless, like old teeth in shrunken gums. But in 1977 the Winter Gardens was a building which had given up the will to live.

  Perversely, Charles felt quite cheerful. The depressing nature of his surroundings seemed, by counterpoint, to enhance his sunny mood.

  It was nice being with Frances. That was the main thing. They were together, in another attempt to mend their marriage, which had never been quite the same after Charles walked out sixteen years previously. Since that time there had been so many attempts to mend it that the marriage, like an old tea-service, was bumpy with rivets. Each attempt started well, in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance, but soon degenerated into the old cycle of bickering. After each failure Charles left again, depressed, convinced that an acting career was incompatible with a settled home-life. And each time he drifted into some inferior affair, which gave him even less than the flawed marriage.

  But this time it seemed to be working. At least, after three days it was still working. Maybe it was just that they were older, with Charles turned fifty. Maybe it was being in unfamiliar surroundings, in the anonymity and slippery nylon sheets of the Waves Crest Guest House, Hunstanton. Whatever it was, Charles didn’t want to analyze it or talk about it in case it went away.

  They bought a programme and found their seats well in advance of the rest of the audience, who were delayed by wheelchairs, crutches and other obstacles such as their feet.

  ‘Well, what delights have they to offer to our jaded intellects?’ asked Charles as he opened the programme. ‘Hmm. It’s a packed variety show, I see. Bill Peaky in Sun ’n’ Funtime. Since I haven’t heard of the star above the title, I’m not very optimistic that I’ll know any of the others.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ve heard of Bill Peaky.’ Frances wrinkled her brow. ‘Seen him on television or something. Comedian with a guitar, isn’t he?’

  ‘No idea. As you know, I don’t watch television much. Only when I’m on. Which means hardly ever.’

  ‘There must be someone in the show you know, Charles. After all, you’re in the same business.’

  ‘Different ends of the same business, dear lady.’ In his best Actor Laddie voice. ‘I am an actor in the legitimate theatre; these are mere variety artistes. Oh, things haven’t been the same since Equity merged with that Variety lot.’

  ‘Comes to the same thing really. It’s just different forms of showing off.’

  ‘With that attitude to my art, it’s hardly surprising that you weren’t the ideal wife for me.’ But it was said without malice, just teasing. How long was it since they had been sufficiently relaxed together to tease each other?

  ‘Anyway, who else is on the bill? Good God, programmes these days get more and more advertisements and less and less about the show. Ah, here we are – just between ‘Ladies, for the very best in Modern Hairdressing, go to Dorita’s’ and ‘After the show why not enjoy the best Tandoori chicken on the East Coast?’. Now, who is there? Hmm. We start with These Foolish Things (whatever they may be), then Karamba and Judy, Vita Maureen (accompanied by Norman del Rosa), Mixed Bathing, Lennie Barber and – Good God – that couldn’t be Lennie Barber of Barber and Pole, could it?’

  ‘Of who?’

  ‘Oh come on, Frances, even with your limited knowledge of show business, you must remember Barber and Pole. All those radio shows after the war. And then telly. The Barber and Pole Show. It was one of the first big variety shows on the box. In the fifties. You must remember.’

  ‘Oh yes, I do. That’s right, they had all those terrible catch-phrases.’

  Charles dropped into a gormless Lancastrian accent. ‘Bepardon?’

  ‘Of course, your party trick.’

  ‘Yes, my one and only show busi
ness impersonation. Wilkie Pole of Barber and Pole. I used to do it all the time.’

  ‘You can say that again. Particularly when you were drunk.’

  ‘It’s all coming back. What was that other catch-phrase Pole had? Oh . . . um . . . Oh yes.’ Again the accent. ‘You’re rushing me.’

  ‘I remember that one too. God, it seems a long time ago.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Why did they break up, Charles?’

  ‘Barber and Pole? Wilkie Pole died. Right at the peak of their popularity. Late fifties. Then I seem to remember they tried to launch Lennie Barber on his own, but it just didn’t work.’

  ‘What’s he done since then?’

  ‘Don’t know. Kept reading about him in the papers in the early sixties. Bad publicity mostly. Divorce, arrests for drunkenness, that sort of thing – all the symptoms of a successful career suddenly gone wrong. Then nothing. I suppose he’s been on the bottle ever since. And who knows . . . maybe touring the clubs all that time, going lower and lower down the league. What a way to end up though – if it is the same Lennie Barber – playing way down the bill to some jumped-up comic nobody’s heard of.’

  ‘But everybody will have heard of him soon.’ Charles and Frances turned in surprise to the voice from the row behind. ‘Sorry to have been rubbernecking, Charles. I couldn’t believe it was you.’

  ‘Good heavens – Walter Proud. How are you?’ Charles reached out and the two men shook hands. ‘You know Frances, don’t you? My . . . er . . . er . . . my wife,’ he concluded with some surprise.

  ‘Of course I know Frances.’ The man leaned across and kissed her effusively, enveloping her in the fumes of a rather good lunch.

  From Frances’ expression she didn’t share the recognition. Charles came to the rescue. ‘Walter’s a television director at the BBC. I worked with him on –’

  ‘You’re out of date, Charles. I left the Beeb last year. We . . . um . . . didn’t see eye to eye. I’ve gone over to the other side, gone commercial.’

  ‘What, you’re part of the Brain Drain? On the staff of one of the . . .’

  ‘No, no, freelance. I’m only on a three-month contract at the moment, as a producer, but, if the project I’m on goes well, it’s bound to lead to other things.’

  ‘Sounds good. You enjoying it?’

  ‘Well, er . . . Do you know Paul Royce?’ The producer indicated a dark young man who was studying the programme by his side.

  ‘No, I don’t. Hello, I’m Charles Paris.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Paul’s one of the brightest new writers I’ve come across for some time. Straight out of . . . where was it? Oxford?’

  ‘Cambridge.’

  ‘Yes, and already been nominated for a UEF award for his first series. Radio thing, of course. Did you ever hear The Three-Legged Giraffe Show?’

  ‘The Two-Legged Giraffe Show,’ Paul Royce corrected testily.

  Charles said sorry, he didn’t listen to the radio that much and, anyway, what the hell was Walter doing at a matinée of a summer show in Hunstanton?

  ‘Ah, Charles, that brings me back to where I interrupted you. We’ve come down to see Bill Peaky. The project on which I’m working is a fifty-minute special with him. Bound to go to a series, should be very big. Paul here’s going to be doing some writing for the show.’

  ‘Not if Mr Peaky thinks the same of the rest of my material as he did of the first batch I sent,’ Paul Royce interjected sourly.

  Proud was momentarily thrown. ‘That remains to be seen, eh? But, Charles, have you really not heard of Bill Peaky?’

  ‘’Fraid not.’

  ‘He came out of New Faces.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The talent show that ATV do. He won the All-Winners. I tell you, he’s a very hot property. Going to be very big. We’re going to see him after the show, talk about our series.’

  Music tinkled upwards from the pit. Most of the pensioners had been tucked into their seats. The show would be starting in a moment. Charles felt he should say something else and flicked through his mind for subjects. Oh yes, domestic life. ‘Angela and the girls well, Walter?’

  ‘Angela and I got divorced two years ago.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Best thing, probably. I still see the girls at weekends. Sometimes. Work and . . . er . . . things permitting.’

  ‘Glad to see you and Frances are still together anyway.’

  ‘Yes. Oh . . . er, yes.’ Frances’ hand found Charles’. He could feel it trembling with a suppressed giggle.

  The lights began to dim and the noise from the pit grew louder. Walter leaned forward and hissed, ‘See you in the interval for a drink, eh? And maybe after the show we could go out for a meal or something . . .?’ Charles remembered from their previous acquaintance that Walter suffered from the television man’s terror of being alone, the need to surround himself with people, to buy company with interminable expense account drinks, to extend every convivial evening as long as possible.

  He didn’t take up the hint about a meal afterwards, but commented on the chances of an interval drink. ‘Likely to be tea, isn’t it? Bars won’t be open for a matinée, will they?’

  ‘Oh no, they won’t.’ Walter Proud leaned back in his seat. ‘No.’ He sounded deeply disappointed and Charles identified the smell that he had been conscious of since his conversation with the producer began. Neat gin.

  The curtain of the Winter Gardens, Hunstanton, went up to reveal These Foolish Things. They turned out to be a dance group of four boys and four girls.

  In fact, they were not just a dance group, but the latest in a long line of dance groups, all of which had been started by a choreographer called Chuck Sheba (known in the business as the Queen of Sheba). The first group he created was called The Young Things, who enjoyed reasonable success in television, cabaret and stage shows, until personnel changes and internal dissensions led to their disbanding and reforming as Some of Those Things and A Thing or Two. This process of binary fission continued so that these new amoeboid groups split again: Some of Those Things became The Thing-Songs and The Best Thing. These Foolish Things, the group in Hunstanton, were born from the break-up of The Best Thing. But they retained the three trademarks which distinguished all Chuck Sheba’s groups – namely, they all bought their smiles from the same shop, they all mimed to taped singing, and they all did the same dance. This dance consisted of kicking a bit, pointing quite a bit, turning round a lot and gyrating the hips a great deal.

  And that was the dance to which the crumbling audience in the Winter Gardens, Hunstanton, was treated. On this particular occasion it was done to music called Do the Shuffle, but that didn’t make any difference.

  The overamplified sound died as the eight dancers froze into a human fan. The lights were doused and the audience, against the odds, proved they were still alive by lurching into asthmatic applause. They then clutched their prescriptions in anticipation of the wonders of Karamba and Judy.

  Karamba should have been billed as – and in fact made quite a scene with the local Entertainments Officer because he wasn’t billed as – Karamba, THE INTERNATIONAL ILLUSIONIST, and Judy. He appeared in a greening tailcoat and top hat and, with the help of Judy (an escaped traffic warden in darned fishnet tights), he ‘amazed the audience until they could no longer trust the evidence of their own senses’. The audience seemed in greater danger of losing the evidence of their senses in sleep than anything else. The tricks which Karamba performed were all right in their way (for people who like seeing coins disappearing into glasses of water, billiard balls passing through sheets of cardboard and strings of bunting being produced from escaped traffic warden’s ears), but they were accompanied by patter of such stultifying banality that sleep was the only refuge. Everything Karamba said was delivered in the same relentless monotone, regardless of meaning or audience reaction. If he was truly, as his publicity claimed, the INTERNATIONAL illusionist, it must have been by virtue of his ability
to be dull in many languages. His finale, a long-drawn-out illusion which apparently involved the burning of a five-pound note reluctantly donated by a member of the audience, received the most diluted of applause.

  Charles strained in the darkness to read what delights would follow, but his effort was unnecessary as the next act introduced itself.

  The curtain rose on a lady in a long pale blue dress, cut high at the waist so as to push her bosom up into a mold like a soap dish. She was not over-endowed and her bosom was spread thin like a birthday cake run out of icing. The woman’s face was the sort that went out with ration books, dating back to the days when wives were called Rita and Valerie, and everyone looked like Vera Lynn. Her modern flowing hair style seemed only to heighten the anachronism.

  ‘Good afternoon, everybody,’ she trilled, ‘my name is Vita Maureen and I would like to sing for you a little bundle of songs, some of your old favourites, some right up to date, accompanied of course, by – on the piano – Norman del Rosa.’

  A tubby gentleman in a red smoking jacket and an auburn wig twenty years younger than his face looked up from the keyboard to acknowledge his applause. Since there was none, he returned busily to his piano. He played flashy chords loudly, without any music in front of him.

  Vita Maureen continued. ‘And first, in holiday mood, what could be more apt than that lovely number On a Wonderful Day Like Today . . .’

  As the wind which blew uninterrupted from the Urals vented itself against the exterior of the Winter Gardens, Charles could think of quite a few tunes more apt, but Vita Maureen was not to be daunted, and burgeoned into song.

  It soon became apparent that she was one of those rare creatures who have gone out of fashion in popular music – a straight soprano. Not for her the transatlantic vowels and broken rhythms of pop. She sang everything like a teenager taking an Associated Board music exam. Every note was right and the interpretation was unsullied by the elaborations of pace and understanding. Everything she sang sounded the same. Her finale, Bring On the Clowns, was indistinguishable from My Secret Love, which preceded it. She was frozen like a defunct insect in the amber of musical comedy.