Charles felt a cold pang of depression. Walter’s situation was too close to his own for comfort. Suppose something happened to Frances. Suppose she became ill or, worse, was suddenly killed in an accident, and he was nowhere around. . He must ring her.
Walter’s tale of woe wasn’t making it easy for him to get round to the real purpose of their meeting. It was bad enough suspecting a friend of murder, but to interrogate a friend in this sort of state was really kicking a man when he was down.
Fortunately, Walter seemed to realise how low he was getting and made a determined effort to pick himself out of his slough of despond. With something approaching the old bravado Charles remembered, he said, ‘Still, a man has to do what a man has to do. I don’t really regret any of it. Okay, I was very cosy at the BBC, and, to some extent, at home, but I was dying on my feet. At least I’ve seen a bit more of life and things by cutting loose.’
‘Things. . being women?’ Charles fed gently.
Walter responded to this man-of-the-world approach. ‘Oh yes, there have been one or two. It’s only when you’re on your own that you realise quite how many of them there are.’
Charles laughed conspiratorially, hoping to stimulate further information, but got nothing more than an answering chuckle. He would have to be a bit more direct in his approach. ‘Down at W.E.T., the other day, someone was saying you’d had a bit of a fling with someone there.’
‘Oh yes.’ Walter smiled a Lothario smile, but then seemed to recollect something unpleasant and changed his manner. ‘Yes, it was very unfortunate. The girl died.’
‘Really?’ said Charles ingenuously.
‘Yes, she was. . well, you were there.’
‘I was there?’
‘When you were making that pilot, you remember, the girl who fell off the fire escape.’
‘Oh, Good Lord, you mean that PA? What was her name. . Sadie?’
‘Sadie Wainwright.’ Walter nodded. ‘Yes, we had a thing. It went on. . well, on and off. . for two or three months.’
‘How awful for you, for her to have. .’
‘Yes, it was pretty upsetting. But in fact the affair was over, had been for a month. Didn’t work.’
‘But I seem to remember. .’ (Charles tried to disguise the interrogation in casualness) ‘. . that you said you’d talked to her on that evening.’
‘Oh, talked to her, yes. We were still on speaking terms. . at least I’d thought we were.
‘You mean she wasn’t pleased to see you?’
‘She was bloody rude, if you must know.’
‘Seems to have been a habit with her.’
‘Yes, she had a sharp tongue. Mind you, that was only her manner. She could be very. . well, different.’ Walter Proud seemed to recollect some moment of tenderness, but quickly snapped out of the mood. ‘No, I’d gone to see her because she knew everything that was going on at W.E.T.. I thought she might know of something coming up for me. The fact is, Charles, not to put too fine a point on it, I am out of a job. I’ve been out of a job now for five months. I’ve tried writing round all the companies, going to see people, using every contact I’ve ever made, and all of them lead to the same answer — nothing doing.’
‘Couldn’t you go back to the Beeb?’
‘No chance. They’re in as bad a state as anyone else. Worse. They’ve got no money and can’t think of taking on new staff. And if they did, I don’t think people who resigned three years ago at the age of fifty-four would be top of the list. The BBC is very paternalistic and looks after you very well, so long as you remain on the staff. But if you commit the unforgivable affront of resigning, well, you look after yourself, matey. It’s fair enough, but I’m afraid it means, in answer to your question, No, under no circumstances could I go back to the Beeb.’
‘Something’ll come up,’ Charles offered meaninglessly.
‘It’d better. Needless to say, I’ve screwed up the full pension I would have got if I’d stayed.’
‘Have you got any savings?’
Walter laughed shortly. ‘Never had many. By the time I’d sorted out the divorce and moved a couple of times. . And then being out of work is bloody expensive. Trying to get jobs is, anyway. I mean, if you’re chatting up an old friend who happens to be a Programme Controller somewhere, then you take him out to the sort of lunch you would have taken him out to in the old days. Except of course in the old days, you would have had an expense account. When you’re paying with real money, boy, you notice the difference.’
‘So Sadie. .’ Charles steered the conversation back on to the course he required.
‘Yes, Sadie was a last-ditch attempt. A contact. I thought she might know the scene at W.E.T.. Tell me if they’d got all the producer/directors they needed for the new stuff they were doing. I mean, I know they’ve got Wragg and Bowen coming up, and I worked with them at the BBC. And then there’s this series for the elderly. A real F.G., if ever I heard one.’
‘F.G.?’
‘Franchise-Grabber. You may have been aware, Charles, that all the ITV companies’ franchises run out in a year or so. And so suddenly all of them have started doing very worthy programmes — stuff for minorities, heavily subsidised operas, all kinds of noble enterprises that they wouldn’t normally do in a million years. It’s just so that they can show the IBA what public-spirited and responsible companies they are, and why they ought to continue to have their franchises and continue to make huge amounts of money from their usual run of crap.’
This cynicism was unlike Walter, who had always been one of those people, like Peter Lipscombe, who found television enormously exciting. He read Charles’s reaction. ‘Well, I’m just sick of the whole bloody business. God, I wish I’d just stayed in the BBC and coasted quietly down to my pension. Even taken an early retirement. I don’t think I’d have any pride left about that sort of thing now. Have you any idea what it’s like going round to people all the time, begging them to employ you?’
Charles shrugged. ‘I’m an actor.’
‘Yes, of course, so you know all about it. But at least you’ve had practice. I find it’s a bit late in life for me to learn how to cope with it.’
‘But Sadie,’ Charles insisted mildly, ‘couldn’t help?’
‘Wouldn’t help certainly. Probably couldn’t either.’ He looked very doleful. ‘Oh, she was probably right.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That I was past it. Past everything, she said. Certainly washed up as a television producer.’
‘Oh, come on. You did some terrific stuff in the past.’
‘In the past, yes. And what have I got to show for it? A few press clippings, some stills, cassettes of the later stuff — though that’s ironical; I can’t afford to keep up the rental of my video cassette recorder, so that’s gone back. So I’ve got nothing. Not even Angela. She’s dying quietly in Datchet and here am I drinking gin I can’t afford and. .’
Walter Proud seemed to be on the verge of tears, which Charles didn’t think he could cope with. He wrenched the conversation brutally on to another tack. ‘That evening of the pilot, when you came to see Sadie, when did you arrive?’
‘When did I arrive?’ the producer repeated blankly.
‘Yes.’
Suddenly Walter started to laugh. It was a weak and not a jovial sound. ‘Oh, Charles, I don’t believe it.’
‘What?’
‘You’re off on one of your bloody detective trips, aren’t you?’
‘Well. .’
‘Now you think Sadie was murdered and — ’
‘I think there may have been something strange about the death. I mean, she was a grown woman, she hadn’t been drinking, why should she suddenly fall off the fire escape?’
‘The railing gave way.’
‘Or was helped to give way.’
‘Oh really.’
‘I’m not the only person who said that.’
‘What, you mean all those self-dramatising fools at West End Television think someone gave her a shove?’
‘Not that, necessarily. She might have done it herself.’
‘Suicide?’
‘Possible.’