A Comedian Dies Read online

  ‘Credit card . . . in the lock.’

  ‘And you hoped to frighten me off, but you weren’t sure that you had, so when Chox came to the studios . . . But why did he come if he wasn’t after me?’

  ‘Money,’ Barber mouthed painfully.

  ‘Oh, I see. He’d come for his next instalment. But, rather than give him the money to buy the heroin, you gave him the heroin itself. Adulterated heroin. And so he died.’

  Again the frozen features managed a smile as Barber pronounced, ‘Got . . . there . . . at last.’

  ‘OK, Lennie, I see how you did it, but I still don’t understand why. No, I take that back. I understand why you killed Chox. You had to, if you weren’t to pay him off for the rest of your life and always go in fear of discovery. But why did you kill Bill Peaky?’

  There was a pause. When the voice came, it was very weak. ‘He . . . didn’t matter.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was . . . nothing.’

  ‘Yes, from what I’ve heard of him, I agree, but you don’t kill someone for that. Why did you kill him?’

  There was a long silence. ‘He . . . passed a remark about my . . . father.’

  The words sounded so feeble, the reason for murder so pathetic, and yet Charles could feel through them the enormous ground-swell of resentment that they represented. The clash of two traditions, on the one side, the long history of music hall, of hard work and foul digs for insufficient money, of talent flourishing unrecognised in provincial flea-pits; and on the other, the smart world of television, instant stardom, mushroom reputations fed with all the conveniences and luxuries of script-writers, sycophantic production teams and sharp agents. Given that background, he could understand how a single remark from the swaggering young comedian about the old comedian’s idolized father could have signed his death-warrant. Lennie Barber was beyond morality; for him Bill Peaky was nothing but an ugly parasite on the surface of the earth and, as such, to be removed.

  The long talk had taken its toll on the comedian. His breathing was slower and the moving eye in his twisted face was heavy. Charles sat with him quietly, wondering whether he had lost consciousness.

  But no. The eye flickered again and the voice, soft and distorted almost beyond recognition, murmured, ‘Funny, you know I needed . . . Wilkie Pole . . . the bastard.’

  Once more he seemed to pass out, but after a long moment he spoke again. This time the voice was clearer, stronger. ‘Funny . . . a stroke . . . Never thought of a stroke. Thought it would be the old guts.’

  The idea seemed to give him satisfaction. Maybe it was the knowledge that he had finally escaped his father’s shadow, that he was not destined to die of a perforated ulcer backstage at the Derby Hippodrome.

  He didn’t speak again after that and was unconscious when the ambulance men arrived.

  Charles wandered back down to the bar in a daze. It had only just closed. His interview with Barber had taken no more than twenty minutes. He met Gerald Venables pulling on his immaculate camel overcoat.

  ‘Well, Charles,’ said the solicitor urgently. ‘You said you’d know who killed Bill Peaky in half an hour and that was half an hour ago. Do you, know who did it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Chox Morton,’ said Charles Paris.