A Comedian Dies by Simon Brett Page A

he was God’s gift to the entertainment business.’
    â€˜What about the girls? Did they like him?’
    â€˜If you mean was he shafting any of them, the answer was yes. I think he was trying to work his way through all the dancers.’
    â€˜These Foolish Things?’
    â€˜Yes. Maybe he thought when he’d had all of them, he could send off for a free badge or something.’
    â€˜How far had he got when he died?’
    â€˜He’d made it with a couple of them, I know. But I think he may have come unstuck with one called Janine.’
    â€˜What, she wasn’t having any?’
    â€˜Oh no, not that. But she got a bit serious about him. He’d seen it as wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, but I think she had something more permanent in mind. They had a fairly major bust-up about it. Lots of shouting in the dressing rooms and slamming doors.’
    That confirmed what Vita Maureen had hinted at so decorously.
    And suddenly something else slotted into place. Charles thought back to the show in the Winter Gardens, Hunstanton. To the end of the first half. When These Foolish Things had mimed and danced to
When You Need Me
. When, contrary to all the teaching of Chuck Sheba the great choreographer, there had been four boys and only three girls. Charles reckoned he could put money on the name of the missing girl.
    In fact, to find the murderer of Bill Peaky, the first essential was to trace a Foolish Thing called Janine.

CHAPTER FOUR
    COMIC: An out-of-work actor came home one day and found his wife in a hysterical state, her clothes torn, her face and arms scratched to pieces.
    â€˜My God,’ he cried. ‘What happened?’
    â€˜It was terrible,’ his wife replied. ‘This man came round and raped me.’
    â€˜Who was it?’ shouted the actor in fury. ‘Who was it?’
    â€˜Your agent.’
    â€˜My agent? Did he leave a message?’
    There was only one member of the
Sun ’n’ Funtime
company over whom Charles had any hold. And fortunately Vita Maureen, anticipating a reciprocal genteel tea party, had given him their phone number in Dollis Hill.
    Norman sounded guilty when he answered the phone, as if he had been caught in the lavatory with a dirty book. From what Charles knew of the pianist’s character, it was quite possible that he
had
been caught in the lavatory with a dirty book.
    â€˜I’m sorry, Vita’s out.’ He didn’t entertain the possibility of anyone wanting to speak to him rather than to his lovely wife. ‘She’s doing an audition for a new rock musical about the Boston Strangler.’
    While Charles’ mind stove to digest this incongruity, his voice said he didn’t want to speak to Vita anyway.
    â€˜Oh.’ Norman sounded desperately unhappy.
    â€˜It’s about the dancers in the Hunstanton show.’
    Of course Norman took it wrong. ‘Look, you said you’d never mention that. Are you trying to blackmail me, because I daren’t let Vita find out about –’
    â€˜No, no,’ Charles soothed. ‘I wouldn’t dream of breaking your confidence.’
    â€˜Oh.’ Norman sounded appeased but still suspicious. ‘Then what do you want?’
    â€˜I’m trying to trace one of the dancers. Janine. She was the one who was having an affair with Peaky, wasn’t she?’
    â€˜Everyone reckoned so. Mind you, I don’t think she was the first in the company.’ This was said with a kind of wistful relish. Maybe Norman del Rosa didn’t confine his voyeurism to peeking at girls changing.
    â€˜And she had a row with Peaky on the day he died?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜When he broke off the affair.’
    â€˜That’s what everyone reckoned.’ Norman del Rosa was unwilling to answer anything off his own bat; he needed the support of majority opinion.
    â€˜And then she went off in the middle of the show?’
    â€˜Yes, she wasn’t