A Series of Murders by Simon Brett Page A

ideal accompaniment to all meals,’ Charles spelled out, ‘and Gwen Rhymer used to be called the Blue Nun because she . . . went with everything.’
    â€˜Ah, with you. Nice one, Charles, nice.’
    â€˜So her daughter’s getting the part . . . hmm. Big advantage that can be for a young actress, having a parent in the business.’
    â€˜Yes, well, if you think of the number of producers who probably still fancy getting inside the lovely Gwen’s pants, the daughter could pick up quite a few favours, I’d imagine.’
    â€˜And of course if she does carry on the family tradition, she could pick up a good few in her own right. Oh, well, I will look forward to meeting her on Monday. That’s when we’ve got the read-through for ep. two, “The Italian Stiletto Murder”.’
    â€˜Still having read-throughs, are you?’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Well, most series like this, once you get up and running, they dispense with the read-through. Go straight into rehearsal.’
    â€˜I think to call the
Stanislas Braid
series “up and running” would be a gross distortion of the truth, Maurice. Apart from the problems raised by the recasting, Russell Bentley’s making very heavy weather of the whole thing. He’s not going to give up the read-throughs in a hurry. They give him his first opportunity to cut new directors down to size.’
    â€˜Dear, oh, dear,’ said Maurice with fond nostalgia. ‘Russell Bentley. He’s been around forever. I remember all those dreadful movies in the fifties –
The Hawk’s Prey
, was that one of them? They were all stinkers, anyway, that’s all I remember. Ah, well, there’s always been a strong spirit of forgiveness in the British public.’ He chuckled. ‘Anyway, have fun, Charles. Keep smiling.’
    â€˜Incidentally, Maurice, I’m intrigued. How is it you manage to know more about the production I’m working on than I do myself?’
    â€˜My job, isn’t it? Someone’s got to have their finger on the pulse of this business, haven’t they? I mean, where do you think you’d be if you hadn’t got me looking after your interests?’
    The possible answers to this question were so varied and the options they offered so attractive that Charles didn’t bother to say anything.
    Charles put down the receiver of the pay phone on the landing and went slowly back to his room. He filled the kettle and switched it on for coffee, then moved a couple of shirts spread out over his armchair in lieu of ironing and sat down.
    He looked around the bed-sitter and saw it as a stranger might. Tatty, tacky, and untidy. The bed lumpy under its crumpled yellow candlewick. The furniture, which had been painted grey so long ago that it might even have been at a time when grey was trendy. The discoloured, dead gas fire. The dusty plastic curtain that hid the sink and gas ring, and beside it, as if to mock his infirmity of purpose, the equally dusty but more attractive curtain he had bought some months previously to replace it.
    But that sort of activity required so much effort. Well, perhaps not effort. After all, it was simply a matter of transferring the hooks from the old curtain to the new one and hanging it up. No, the problem was more one of will. He had to want to do it, had to want to make his environment attractive, to turn the anonymous room into a home.
    It was something he had never been good at. Frances had been good, very good. She turned everywhere they lived into a home, and while they were living together, he had liked the warmth of that feeling. But after he had walked out on the marriage in pursuit of some unattainable concept of freedom, he had reverted to type. Reverted to the sense that everything was temporary, that he was just camping until he sorted his life out. But his life remained resolutely unsorted-out; his bed-sitter, resolutely unimproved and