“No, no, I don’t …”
“The way you were staring at me.”
“Sorry.”
“As if you thought you might know me from somewhere.”
“I’m afraid not.”
She stopped then and looked at him, the broadness some pounds short of overweight, the suit with more shine than his shoes.
“I was going to ask for directions.”
She nodded. “To?”
“I’ve got an appointment”
“Reception’s around the corner from that white building over there.”
“Harold Roy.”
“Ah.”
“You know him?”
“Yes. We’re working together, the same show.”
“Perhaps you could take me to him.”
“I think, maybe, you should still go via reception.”
“Wouldn’t this be quicker?”
She began to walk and Resnick fell into step alongside her; if they had a long way to go, he thought he’d have trouble keeping up.
“What are you seeing Harold about?”
“I probably shouldn’t say.”
“You’re not his agent?”
“No.”
She stopped by a single door marked No Entry. “He does know you’re coming, I suppose? I mean, what I don’t want to do is steer you past security and find you’ve come to deliver a writ or something.”
“I can promise you it’s not that. And, yes, I did phone ahead to say I was coming.”
“Fine,” she pushed the door open and held it as Resnick walked through.
“You’re not the police, are you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Do I look like a policeman?”
“No.”
They were walking down a long corridor, narrow, with walls that had been painted a muted shade of lime green. For no apparent reason, a typist’s swivel chair sat midway along, unoccupied. Resnick allowed her to gain half a pace on him so that he could look again at her hair, the way it shifted slightly as she walked, dark and then darker shades of red.
“You’re not expecting Mr. Roy to be arrested?”
She turned her face towards him. “Only on grounds of taste.”
“His clothes?”
She stopped. They were almost at the end of the corridor. “Have you seen any of his work? Anything he’s made?”
“Not that I know of.”
“If you had …” Her mouth moved into a smile and for an instant the tip of her tongue pressed against the underside of her lip. “Forget I ever said it. I never said that, okay?”
“Right”
“Not a word.”
Resnick nodded his agreement. Her eyes were green and they were brown and although she was no longer smiling there was still amusement in those eyes.
The first corridor opened out on to a second, broader, photographs and posters from programs framed along both walls.
“You go down here and take the first right. The Dividends production office is at the end.”
“Dividends?”
“The show Harold’s directing.” Resnick moved away, not too far. “If he’s not there, he’s already in the studio. That’s Studio Three. Back on to this corridor and keep going, you’ll see the signs.”
“Thanks.”
“Diane Woolf,” she said. “In case we’re ever in another car park.”
Resnick wanted to offer her his hand, but wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. Before he could make up his mind, she was making her way through the door into the ladies: he hadn’t as much as told her his name.
There were two people in the production office and neither of them was Harold Roy. Resnick found him close to the studio entrance, slamming down the receiver to end a call with his agent. His late agent. Who’d be stupid enough to carry on shelling out 10 percent to a mealy-mouthed former child star with a receding hairline, whose idea of doing business was sitting around the Groucho Club half the day, reading Screen International? Especially when the only advice he was prepared to give in a situation like this was to keep talking and watch your back.
“Mr. Roy …”
“Harold …”
“Harold …”
Resnick had arrived at the same time as Robert Deleval, now waving another few pages of script, and Chris, the first assistant, still in star-spangled baseball boots.
“Mr. Roy, I wonder if …”
“Harold, we’ve got to do something about this dialogue.”
“Five minutes, Harold, and we’ll be ready to go.”
Harold Roy slapped both hands against his ears, closed his eyes, opened his mouth and let out an almost soundless scream. When he looked again, Chris had hunched her shoulders and bounced away, leaving Resnick and Robert Deleval as they were.
“You heard what she said, five minutes.”
“Not with this script, Harold.”
“What’s wrong with the script? Aside from the fact that you wrote it.”
“Not this one, I didn’t.” Deleval fanned Harold Roy’s face with the page. “Not this load of crap.”
Harold snatched them from his hand. “This load of crap exists because what you delivered in the first place was a real load of crap. And I now have four minutes and a few seconds to turn this crap into television.”
He pushed the script back at the writer as he turned towards the outer studio door. Resnick placed himself so that the door would open no more than six inches.
“I phoned,” he said.
“Four minutes,” said Harold, “and counting.”
“That might be enough,” said Resnick, “though I can’t promise.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Burglary, sir.”
“Burglary? What …” And then he remembered. “You’re, em …”
“Resnick. Detective inspector.”
“Oh, shit!” Harold looked at his watch, at the green light above the studio door. If Mackenzie was really intending to produce Freeman Davis, Harold certainly intended to have things in hand when he arrived. Two scenes wrapped, at least, and another ready to go this side of lunch.
“I can see you’ve got a lot on,” said Resnick, “but there are one or two things I need to check.”
“My wife …”
“I know. It’s a matter of verification, really. It needn’t take long.”
In his mind’s eye, Harold Roy could see himself kneeling up on the bed and pushing the packet containing the cocaine to the back of the safe.
“As soon as it’s sorted,” Resnick said, “we can get out of your hair for good. Shouldn’t be any need to trouble you again.”
Harold leaned back against the wall alongside the door. “Inspector, bear with me. Let me get this first scene finished. It’s not complicated. An hour at most. While they’re setting up for the next, we can talk.” He eased himself off the wall. “It’s the best I can do.”
“All right,” agreed Resnick. “If I could make a couple of calls from your office …”
“Help yourself.”
Harold Roy walked through into the studio and when Resnick started back along the corridor he found that he had Robert Deleval at his side.
“You’re a detective?”
“Inspector. Yes, that’s right.”
“Murder-you deal with murders?”
“Sometimes.”
“In that case I might be seeing you again.”
Resnick looked at him. “How’s that?”
“Because,” said Deleval with feeling, “if that bastard continues to murder my scripts the way he has up to now, I might end up by killing him.”
Twelve
All the way in the taxi he hadn’t touched her: not then, nor down the pebble drive, nor on the step behind her while she nervously fitted her key into the lock. Which was why, when he set his hand, spread flat and wide, against the small of her back, the shock nearly jolted her off her feet.
“Wait,” she said. Maria. “Wait.”
Her head was being pressed awkwardly back against the wall; a table, low and spilling with circulars and misdirected post, cut into the backs of her legs.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
But already his thumbs were moving against her nipples, his head bending towards her breasts.
“What’s your name? I don’t even know your name.”