What Bloody Man Is That 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

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  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

  WHAT BLOODY MAN IS THAT?

  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.

  This title first published in Great Britain in 1987

  by Victor Gollancz

  eBook edition first published in 2012 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 1987 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: 978-1-4483-0012-9 (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 Lucy again,

  in case she feels neglected

  Chapter One

  CHARLES PARIS looked out from the bar of the Pinero Theatre, Warminster, over the gathering September twilight, and felt mildly guilty that he wasn’t really listening to what Gavin Scholes was saying. The warmth of the third large Bell’s and the glow of being in work cocooned him and he only caught the occasional word of the director’s exposition of Macbeth.

  ‘For me, Charles, it’s the tragedy of an unimaginative man, whose imagination, which has for so long lain dormant, is suddenly awakened. And he doesn’t know how to cope with this new dimension in his life.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Don’t you see it that way?’

  ‘Well, er . . .’

  ‘So, I mean, the Weird Sisters . . . well, they just knock him sideways. His mind’s kind of invaded by these alien thoughts that he can’t understand. You know, “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy” . . .’

  ‘Surely that’s Hamlet, isn’t it?’

  ‘Erm . . . yes, of course it is, but I always think that in approaching a Shakespeare, one has to think in terms of the Complete Works.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Each play is just another facet of the sparkling diamond that was Shakespeare’s Genius. Don’t you agree, Charles?’

  ‘Well, er . . .’ The actor didn’t feel up to pursuing this metaphor. He indicated the director’s wine glass. ‘Get you another of those, Gavin?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Charles looked along the counter, but there was no sign of the barman. Everything was empty and unready, the Pinero Theatre gearing itself up slowly to the start of another season of creative endeavour.

  ‘I think Norman’s just putting on another beer barrel,’ said Gavin. ‘He’ll be back in a min.’

  But the break in their conversation did not deflect him from his theorising. ‘You see, Charles, I think this is the only way that Macbeth’s behaviour makes any kind of sense. He’s not a particularly sensitive man – indeed, he’s probably the least sensitive of all Shakespeare’s tragic heroes – so when he suddenly develops an imagination, the shock is profound. Cataclysmic almost. Don’t you agree?’

  Charles nodded and, as he did so, remembered that Gavin had always been like this, always seeking agreement to bolster his vulnerable confidence. He remembered, too, that Gavin had always been a talker, and that he always selected one person in every production as his confidant, the honoured recipient of long anxieties over many drinks at the end of each day’s rehearsals. Charles was rather afraid that he had got that particular short straw, that he had been cast in the role for the duration of Gavin’s production of Macbeth.

  As the director continued to impose his preconceptions on Shakespeare, Charles thought back to how he had got the job, how elated he had been to hear about it, how conveniently his mind had forgotten what a bore Gavin Scholes in full flood could be.

  The call had come through from Charles’s agent, Maurice Skellern. One afternoon in early August, the actor had been lying on the yellow candlewick bedspread of his Hereford Road bedsitter, trying to remember what being in work felt like, when he had heard the payphone on the landing ring. Assuming it was yet another call connected with the bemusingly complicated sex-lives of the Amazonian Swedish girls who occupied most of the other bedsitters, he had let it ring on until it became clear that he was alone in the house. Only then had he stirred himself to answer it.

  ‘Charles, it’s Maurice.’

  For his agent to ring him was sufficiently unusual for Charles to do a quick mental checklist of what the call could possibly be about. A cheque for a fee due on the sale to Zambia of some long-forgotten television series had just come in? No, Maurice would never ring him to mention that; the agent’s method was to sit on any money that came in until he was virtually prised off his chair.

  The National Theatre had finally seen the error of its ways and was inviting him to give his Lear? No, no, Charles, don’t be ridiculous, you’re far too old and cynical even to give such fantasies mind-room (and yet he still did, he still did).

  No, to be realistic, if Maurice was calling him, it was bound to be something riveting like a National Insurance enquiry.

  So, without much optimism, he had replied, ‘Hello, Maurice. What gives?’

  ‘Charles, you know I’ve been saying for some time that you ought to be getting back to your roots, in the classical theatre . . .’

  Charles didn’t know this. So far as he could recall, Maurice had never said anything of the kind. On the rare occasions that the agent did proffer any advice on what the actor laughingly referred to as his career, the recommendation had always been, ‘Get a good telly, Charles. That’s where the money is.’

  But there was never any point in taking issue with Maurice on minor points like
the truth. Charles confined his response to a non-committal grunt.

  ‘Well, I think,’ Maurice went on, ‘that my careful groundwork’s beginning to pay off.’

  Again, Charles could not be bothered to contest this. Maurice was congenitally incapable of careful groundwork. If any offer of work had come in for one of his clients, it had nothing to do with the agent’s ministrations. Any groundwork that had been done had been done by the client himself. Or the offer had just come in out of the blue.

  So it proved. But Maurice once again demonstrated that, whatever his shortcomings in other aspects of an agent’s work, he was highly skilled at taking for himself any credit that might be available.

  ‘Listen, I’ve just had a call from Gavin Scholes . . .’

  ‘Oh yes? He’s Artistic Director of some place out in the West Country now, isn’t he?’

  ‘The Pinero Theatre, Warminster.’ There was a note of reproof in Maurice’s voice implying that the least his client could do was to keep up to date with who was in charge of the various provincial theatres. Since Charles was confident that his agent had been unaware of Gavin’s appointment until the moment of his telephone call, this too was mildly galling.

  ‘Anyway, he’s just starting a new season, doing Macbeth, and, thanks to all the ringing round and prodding I’ve been doing . . .’ (Lies, lies, thought Charles) he’s specifically asked for you to join the company.’

  ‘Oh.’ Any offer of work was gratifying. And, once again, despite the curbs his cynicism tried to impose on them, Charles’s fantasies strained at the end of their leashes. He’d worked with Gavin Scholes a couple of times, and the director had always seemed pleased with what he’d done. So it should be a substantial part. Banquo, maybe . . .? That was all right, you got the nice haunting bit in the Banquet scene . . . unless you’d got one of those stupid directors who thought the ghost should be invisible . . . Hmm, trouble with Banquo was, he did tend to fade away a bit in the second half. Excellent part, though, for nipping off to the pub after the interval and just staggering back in time for the curtain call.

  There are quite a few good Shakespearean parts like that, actually . . . Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, that’s terrific, killed off in Act Three Scene One . . . The one you want to avoid at all costs is bloody Fortinbras in Hamlet. One boring scene leading your soldiers, then you have to wait right till the very end of the play for your “Go, bid the soldiers shoot” routine . . . And Hamlet’s such a long play, it nearly always finishes after closing time, anyway . . .

  Or what about Duncan in Macbeth . . .? Charles wondered. He’s certainly a good boozer’s part . . . gets killed off good and early . . . Trouble is, though, he hasn’t got many lines, and directors have a nasty habit of doubling him with the Scottish Doctor in the Sleepwalking Scene, which really wreaks havoc with your drinking . . . And, surely, Charles thought, I’m not old enough for Duncan, am I? I mean, that’s a real old stager’s part . . . not right for someone who’s . . . well, let’s say in their fifties . . .

  Macduff, though . . . Not a bad part. True, he goes a bit quiet in the middle of the play, and he has got that turgid scene with Malcolm in England . . . But, on the other hand, he gets good chances of a bit of emoting when he hears his family’s been killed . . . And, of course, he’s got the sword fight at the end. Yes, quite a lot to be said for Macduff.

  Or . . . was it possible . . .? Charles had been around for a long time . . . He’d certainly got the experience for therole . . . And Gavin did like his work . . . Hadn’t the director said, when Charles had been giving his Lane the Manservant in The Importance of Being Earnest (‘subtly insolent’ – Yorkshire Post), that he’d like to work with him in a bigger part . . .? Yes, it was about time . . . After all, why not? Every director has to take a chance some time . . . And every actor has to get his big break some time . . . And, God knew, Charles had waited long enough.

  Yes, why not Charles Paris as Macbeth?

  All this flashed through his mind in actor’s mental shorthand before he casually asked Maurice, ‘What’s the part?’

  ‘Well, he definitely wants you to do the Bleeding Sergeant in Act One.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Charles. Thirty-six lines, if his memory served him correctly. Mind you, thirty-six lines of fairly long-winded poetry . . . a lot of directors cut a few of them.

  ‘And he wants you to double the Drunken Porter.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Thirty-three lines. And that worst of all fates, a Shakespearean character who’s meant to be funny. Charles was prepared to believe that lines like “Have napkins enow about you; here you’ll sweat for it” got belters from the groundlings at the Globe; but he knew that to a modern audience they were about as funny as a rise in the mortgage rate.

  ‘Still,’ Maurice went on, ‘Gavin says there could be other good parts in the offing.’

  ‘Oh.’ Well, that was encouraging. Maybe not in Macbeth, but there might be leads in later productions. ‘Is it a booking for the season?’

  ‘Well, no, it’s just Macbeth at the moment. Gavin’s booking one production at a time . . . but he was optimistic that there could be some other good parts.’

  ‘And what money are they offering?’

  Maurice told him.

  Charles winced. ‘They’ve got to pay more than that. You’re going to push for more, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, Charles . . .’ Maurice sounded mortally offended. ‘What do you take me for?’

  Charles restrained himself from answering that one.

  ‘I’ll be as tough as nails. Got to earn my fifteen per cent, haven’t I?’

  ‘Yes. Maurice, I’m still not happy about this fifteen per cent business. Most agents only take ten. I mean, I know you call it Personal Management, but I haven’t really seen much evidence that –’

  ‘Charles, trust me.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘I’ll screw them for every penny they’ve got. And then a few. Come on, Charles, you know me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charles agreed gloomily.

  He knew the sort of money he would get. Maurice might screw another five a week out of them, but it was still going to be an income most tea-ladies would reject with derision. A lot of actors, he knew, just said they couldn’t afford to do rep. ‘Love to do it, darling, super part, and I really want to get back to my roots in the live theatre, but I’m afraid, with the money they were offering, the sums just don’t add up.’

  But the people who said that were actors who had good chances of getting parts in television. The sums didn’t add up for Charles either, but in his case there weren’t at that moment any other options.

  And even the pittance that the Pinero Theatre, Warminster, was offering was more than the dole. Just.

  And it was work. He felt ridiculously elated when he put the phone down. Like most actors, he went into a sort of limbo, a suspended animation, when he wasn’t working. Now at least he had a chance to do what he was supposed to do.

  And the parts weren’t really that bad. Already he was starting to think of the accents he would use for the two. Something contrasting. Yes, be nice to get a notice like he had when playing Pompey and the Clown in Antony and Cleopatra (‘an acutely differentiated pair of cameos by Charles Paris’ – Western Evening News).

  Hmm, the Bleeding Sergeant and the Drunken Porter . . . Not at all bad.

  And it could have been a lot worse. Charles recalled the opening stage direction for Macbeth Act One Scene Seven: “Enter a Sewer”.’

  At least he hadn’t got that part.

  ‘Now the question is, of course, how much imagination has Lady Macbeth got? That’s the important thing, isn’t it, Charles?’

  ‘Er, sorry?’ With an effort he dragged his concentration back to what Gavin was saying. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, opting for a safe response.

  ‘She’s obviously not such a stranger to the imaginative dimension as Macbeth himself is. Is she?’

  ‘No,’ Charles agreed, continuing his safety play. So lon
g as he got the Yesses, Noes and Ahs in the right places, he reckoned he’d be all right.

  ‘I mean, clearly, when we first see her, reading Macbeth’s letter, she has already imagined the possibility of her husband becoming King. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He added the ‘Oh’ for simple variety.

  ‘But just how imaginative is she? I mean, could Lady Macbeth cope with the Weird Sisters?’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And indeed does she get less imaginative as Macbeth gets more imaginative? Does she actually –?’

  The US Cavalry, in the form of the barman, appeared at the end of the counter and Charles, whose ammunition against death by boredom was running dangerously low, hailed the lifesaver effusively.

  ‘Could we have the same again, please?’

  ‘Sure.’ The barman took their glasses. He was a quiet man, whose face was permanently set in an expression of rueful apology. While their drinks were being served, Charles made a determined effort to shift the conversation away from Gavin Scholes’ theory of hidden resonances in Shakespeare’s text. There’d be time enough for all that once they started actual rehearsal. It was the Saturday evening; they’d got till Monday morning before they had to address themselves to the problems of interpretation and characterisation. And Charles didn’t really think that finding the concealed behavioural triggers of the Bleeding Sergeant and the Drunken Porter was going to take him that long.

  ‘Who else is in the company, Gavin?’

  ‘Well, I told you George Birkitt is giving his Macbeth . . . You ever worked with him, Charles?’

  ‘Yes.’ Charles left it at that. No point in going into the details of his previous encounters with George, on a television sit com called The Strutters, in a play called The Hooded Owl which had transferred to the West End, most recently on the pilot of a ghastly television game-show entitled If the Cap Fits. Nor did Charles wish to be drawn on what he thought of George Birkitt’s talent as an actor.

  ‘Very lucky to get him,’ said Gavin. ‘Big telly name like that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s got to have a couple of rehearsal days out for filming some new sit com he’s doing, but basically we’ve got him right through.’