The Sound of Murder
CRIME SHORT STORY BY ALISON CARTER
In this crime short story, set in 1985, In a radio recording studio, there is always someone listening…
It was an ordinary day in Studio Six. Thirty minutes of a 90-minute drama had to be in the can by seven o’clock.
Then Amanda Jones could go home to a new episode of “Blackadder” and a bowl of spaghetti.
Carson Dawlish put his head round the control room door just before ten. Amanda had just finished rigging the microphones.
It was a modest set-up – few different locations. She’d told her junior studio manager Keith to come in late, ready to record.
“Mandy, Mandy!” Carson heaved the sound-proof door open. “It’s you! Always a joy to work with!”
Amanda took off her headphones and prepared for the Carson embrace.
He was a big man, perfect for playing Henry VIII (which he’d done, twice, on the London stage). His bear hugs were famous.
Today he moved more slowly, and Amanda recalled his gammy hip. A six-month Radio Repertory Company contract was perfect for him as it healed.
“Three days of gentle fun!” He wrapped her in a scratchy cardigan and the odour of cigars and whisky.
A lot of actors liked radio. It paid badly, but no-one had to wear make-up or period costume and there was a lot less waiting around.
“Miserable play,” Carson remarked.
“I think the writer’s new.”
“Can we play jokes on him, darling? It’s such fun with new folk.”
“He’s a she. And no, Carson, you can’t.”
“Darling, you temper my worst excesses! I’ll see you after the read-through.”
Ellis Hughes dropped in before going to the green room for the read.
A seasoned producer, he’d whip the play into shape by the time recording started at eleven-thirty.
Amanda was at the sound desk making notes when Keith arrived. He was very young, only out of training for six months, and so eager to please that Amanda found him exhausting.
He was also, she noticed, still upset. Keith had split up with his boyfriend three weeks ago, a charming young man in Marketing.
“So, scene eleven,” Keith said immediately.
He flung his anorak and bag into a corner and began prising open new boxes of quarter-inch audiotape.
“Scene eleven is a nightmare.”
“We’ll tweak it, don’t worry,” Amanda assured him.
“But acting inside a wardrobe!” Keith cried. “Two of them! With coats on hangers in there, too?”
In every radio play was a moment that a studio manager marked in red pen.
No-one else – not the writer, producer or actors – noticed its difficulty from a technical point of view.
It might be a car chase, or a scene with an unlikely number of doors that let in different external noises.
Amanda had learned these moments rarely go as badly as feared, but Keith would not rest easy until he’d reassured himself.
It was his job to manage the practical effects in the studio. If there was a wardrobe, he had to build it.
“Why don’t you go in before I take mic levels?” She pointed at the glass that separated the control room from the huge studio. “And you can set that up.”
Keith wheeled portable doors across the floor to make his cupboard, and gathered coat hangers and metal poles to try to construct a hanging rail.
She smiled. Once he had a few more audio plays under his belt he’d make a solid member of the team.
Amanda sat back to look again at the cast, listed on the front page of the script.
Lara Haddington was the female lead – dependable and skilled.
Then there was Carson, and Dane Ambrose in the junior male role.
Dane had cut short his Radio Repertory Company contract, tempted away to make a spy film in the US.
He was good-looking, craggy-jawed and beefy, and it was no surprise that Hollywood had called.
The film had been unexpectedly successful.
The control room door opened again and the long, horse-like face of Teddy Novak appeared.
“Talking of Hollywood . . .” Amanda said softly.
“Huh?” Teddy sat in the producer’s chair, long legs sticking out. He’d left America two decades ago for London.
“Oh, nothing,” Amanda replied. “We’ve got Dane Ambrose in this play.”
Teddy nodded.
He’s an OK actor. I saw his spy movie – totally inaccurate, but diverting.
“What’s on your schedule today?” Amanda asked.
It was a good idea to get Teddy moving. He was prone to very long chats.
“I got called in because Charlotte’s off sick. I have to take over producing ‘Tracks Of My Life’ and it’s a drag.”
“Who have you got?”
Teddy rose to his full six feet four inches.
“Ah,” he said. “I hate the programme – famous people being self-indulgent. But today it’s Vasily Mirov.”
“The dancer?”
“The dissident.”
“But such a marvellous dancer.” Amanda had seen him in “The Nutcracker”.
“It is great cover, being a dancer,” Teddy replied.
“Cover?” This was heading into one of Teddy’s conspiracy theories. He was funny about UFOs, and especially the terrors of communism.
Most staff in Drama and Features found him amusing, but he could bore for America on the topic of the Soviet Union.
“Mirov was the next Nureyev when he came to London,” Teddy said. “I’ve spoken to the guy a few times, and I think he’s still one of them.”
“Really, Teddy?”
“If you were the KGB and you wanted the ultimate cover story, what would you do? Who would you send?”
Amanda sighed. It was easier to agree. She could see Keith through the glass, standing back from his wardrobe lash-up, a roll of gaffer tape on his arm.
“I think I might arrange for my guy to defect,” she said. “I mean, pretend to defect.”
Teddy banged his hand on the producer’s desk.
“Exactly! It’s the only reason I agreed to produce ‘Tracks Of My Life’ today. I can see what this Mirov is really like. See if he’ll crack.”
“Crack while listening to his favourite pop songs?”
“He’s a spy, Amanda. Talking about his past may be a strain – he’ll be lying.”
Teddy finally left and Keith came back in.
“I had a job to keep my clothes rail in place,” he said, “but I think it’s all right. The acoustic in there sounds good. Shall I rig a mic for scene eleven?”
“Later,” Amanda replied. “Right now I need tea. The cast will be back soon.”
On the way to the canteen, Amanda met Dane Ambrose.
He greeted her with a cry of delight and her second cuddle of the day.
Actors tended to be over-the-top and Dane was particularly enthusiastic.
People called him Tigger, as he was always on to the next thing, talked too much, and was often indiscreet.
“Are you still in that flat in the Oval?” Dane asked.
Amanda had held a party there a couple of years ago – around Christmas of 1983 – and Dane had pretty much invited himself.
“Still there,” Amanda replied.
“Great! We’ll have to arrange something!”
Dane glanced at the dingy painted brickwork and cables sagging from the ceiling.
“It’s great to be back in radio,” he said. “California is adorable, but –”
“Camden Town in the rain is better?” Amanda interrupted.
“You’d be amazed. We should meet for dinner! Tonight? No! I’m seeing my new agent. I’ve got so much to tell you.
“How about that Turkish café over the road at lunch? I have to buy aspirin, but I’ll see you there five minutes after we break.”
“Aspirin? Are you OK?” Amanda asked.
“A tiny headache. I might have been out last night.”
“Might?”
“At a fabulous flat owned by some foreign guy who works in Covent Garden. Somebody I was at drama school with took me along.
“It was all silk hangings and stuff. I’ve been in Hollywood, so I know a nice place when I see one.
“I’ll tell you all about Hollywood at lunch.”
Amanda liked Dane, though she switched off from listening on occasion.
“I don’t want Ellis kept waiting,” she said. “I’d better get my cuppa.”
“Go, go! Chat later.”
The first scenes of the play went well.
At lunchtime they were on schedule and Ellis gave everyone an hour and a quarter break.
Amanda adjusted microphones for the scene they’d be recording after lunch, while cast members chatted, deciding where to buy their sandwiches.
Back in the control room, she said to Keith, “Bung a fresh reel on machine one and press record, will you?
“This nattering will make a nice wild-track of chat for the background of that job centre scene.”
“OK.” Keith grabbed a new box of tape. “Do you know which CD those saloon car engines are on – the ones with good braking noises?”
“Discs twenty-eight and twenty-nine,” Amanda replied.
“Thanks,” Keith said.
Work had perked him up, but she could see he was starting to brood again.
The actors filtered out and Amanda left Studio Six with Keith, satisfied with his pile of effects CDs.
She went via the ladies’ to reception, then to the café to wait for Dane.
Dane didn’t show up.
After 40 minutes she gave up and went back, hungry and annoyed.
“Have you seen Mr Ambrose?” she asked Malik on reception.
“Is he the one in ‘The Dark Network’?” Malik asked. “If so, then no.”
That was the title of Dane’s spy blockbuster.
“Yeah,” Amanda replied. “He just stood me up.”
She went back to the studio, hoping there was a chocolate bar in her bag.
The lights were off in the control room and studio.
Amanda made her way into the studio, turning on lights as she went.
She stopped, seeing what she thought was a rehearsal skirt on the parquet floor.
Drama studios were full of these black nylon taffeta creations; tied around the waists of actors, they rustled like Victorian gowns.
Amanda bent to pick up the skirt and rocked on her heels in shock.
The dark pool wasn’t fabric; it was blood, almost purple in the low light.
Lying on the dusty floor she saw the unmistakable form of Dane Ambrose, his golden hair streaked with more blood.
A stage weight lay nearby at an odd angle.
Amanda stifled a sob of panic.
She ran into the control room and called 999, then called the building’s first aid number.
But she knew there was no use in getting medical help.
Dane was dead.
The police came quickly, a small team led by an efficient young officer.
“I’m DS Riley. No! DI Riley. It’s a recent promotion.”
“Congratulations,” Amanda said automatically.
She was trying to process what had happened.
She looked down at the script, open ready for the next scene, with Dane’s name repeated down the left-hand side.
“He’s in this scene,” she said to the young policeman. “He was.”
Already a team in pale overalls was filtering into the studio area.
Amanda wondered where the actors were, and then remembered they’d been sent to the green room.
“In what?” DI Riley asked.
“Scene nine.”
“It might be best if you left the paperwork alone. I will be examining and labelling in there, and possibly in here, too.”
It was murder, then?
Amanda asked.
“That’s the working hypothesis. The team will gather evidence.”
“What happened?”
“We’ll find that out. Now, can you take me through who was here today?”
“I was.”
“Yes, I gathered that.” DI Riley coughed. “I’ll be taking a statement from you.”
Amanda jumped.
“You mean I might have killed Dane?” She shook her head, confused. “I didn’t kill him.”
“We’ll sort all this out, Amanda,” he replied.
He knew her name already. It felt better that he did, Amanda thought.
He had a nice face – a normal face – and a smile that reassured her.
She listed those present that morning, including Ellis, his assistant and the cast.
The DI went away to question them. Other officers came and went.
DI Riley came back and escorted her to the green room to join the others.
The building had been closed to anyone coming in or out, and on her way Amanda saw Teddy Novak through an office door.
He looked irritable.
With him sat an elegant man in a silk shirt and jeans whom she guessed was Vasily Mirov, now deprived of talking on ‘Tracks Of My Life’ because all recording had been postponed.
Just as Amanda was about to be ushered by DI Riley into the green room, a woman in her late twenties came bowling along from the lifts, her shaggy blonde perm flying.
She was faintly familiar to Amanda.
“Where is he?” she called out. “Where’s the swine?”
As the woman took a ninety-degree turn to enter the green room, DI Riley stepped forward smartly.
“I’ll just ask you to stop there,” he said. “A crime has been committed –”
“I’ll say!” she exclaimed, her face pink. “When a man says he loves you and you’re engaged, and then he disappears off to America without thinking to mention it – I’d say that’s a crime.”
Her East End accent grew stronger with every word.
Amanda remembered who she was – Sandra Bright, one-time fiancée of Dane Ambrose, make-up artist on a soap opera.
DI Riley seized his opportunity.
“America?” he prompted her. “Is this Mr Ambrose we’re talking about?”
It appeared the detective knew a bit about Dane already, or had found out.
“You betcha!” Sandra fixed her glare on DI Riley. “I bet you’d never do that. Breach of promise. Is that still the law?”
“Miss, er . . . ?” he asked, moving her along gently.
“Sandra Bright.” Sandra began to cry.
Her shoulders drooped and a leopard print bag slipped to her elbow.
“I only came in to talk to him, my lovely Dane. I just have to know why!”
Amanda wondered how DI Riley would handle this.
Sandra was one in a colourful line of fianceés whom Dane had brought along to after-parties with his customary enthusiasm.
DI Riley composed his face. Amanda saw in it a care and a shrewdness, and realised Sandra might be a suspect.
If Sandra was shown to be in the building during the crucial period, she might have come to kill him.
Possibly she was murderous, hiding behind the mask of a jilted lover.
Amanda tried to calculate whether or not she was a suspect herself.
When exactly had Dane died? Was she in the café at the time?
“Miss Bright,” DI Riley said. “Shall we sit down?”
When Sandra Bright heard the news she became hysterical.
It took Amanda and DI Riley several minutes to calm her down.
Everyone in the green room stared dully out through the glass.
Lara patted Carson’s hand. The others clutched mugs.
Caroline Batty was chewing her hair.
Another Repertory Company actor smoked frantically.
“But I loved him!” Sandra sobbed. “It destroyed me that he didn’t care.”
DI Riley asked about her movements that day.
“I came in to see Ellis,” she explained. “I thought he’d be free, but the woman in the next office said he was in the studio.”
“And how do you know Ellis Hughes?”
“We worked on a soap called ‘Henderson Road’. Do you know it? It’s a gritty tale of urban life set in Birmingham. We filmed it in Berkshire. Three million viewers on Christmas Day, 1981.”
DI Riley confessed he didn’t know the programme.
“I do award-winning make-up. Ellis did an attachment in telly and so we know each other.
“He’s so knowledgeable – I thought I’d ask him about a career change. You can do too much make-up.”
The detective was calm.
“Miss Bright, you said that you came to speak to the victim, Mr Ambrose.”
Sandra paused.
“That was a coincidence. I was in main reception and I heard the girls there saying Dane Ambrose was in.
“I’d already been given an entry thingy because Ellis had left a note to let me in.
“‘So he’s back,’ I thought, ‘and no word to the woman who’s devoted to him’.”
She was crying again. DI Riley wrote in his notebook.
He took all her details, including the fact that between one o’clock and ten to two (when Amanda found the body) Sandra was apparently wandering the building unaccompanied.
DI Riley said she could go, and then along with a detective constable went to take statements from Ellis, his PA and the cast.
He sent them home with orders to stay near a phone.
Amanda felt like she had been hit by a train, but as the senior studio manager, she was in charge.
“Can I offer you and your team tea?” she asked.
Half of her hoped they’d refuse; the other half hoped that DI Riley might stay a little longer.
She still had a funny tremor in her hand.
“You’re shaking,” he said. “Tom, Pauline, you get off home and I’ll wind up here.”
They sat in an empty canteen and after some small talk, Amanda said, “So, about me being a suspect.”
DI Riley held up a hand.
“I sent Pauline to check out your movements, Miss Jones, and we can’t see how you could have done it.
“The owner of the café knows you well, as does the receptionist here. Both had accurate timings for you leaving the studio, reaching the café and heading back.
“I don’t think you had time to kill a man and raise that alarm in the two minutes you had at your disposal.
“Now, your colleague – is it Keith? He also has –”
“Oh, poor Keith! Where is he?” Amanda cried.
“In your office, but on his way out. Tom will send Keith home with instructions about staying in touch.
“We think he has an alibi. He told Tom he spoke to his sister in Blackpool on an internal office phone from the moment he left the studio until he returned – when you raised the alarm.
“Once we’ve looked at phone logs we’ll call him.
“Anyway, about you,” DI Riley went on. “Keith confirms when you left the studio. He also saw you pass from the ladies’ loo to your lunch. I’m not looking at you.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m not looking at you for the crime, Miss Jones.”
They both looked away, embarrassed.
A new shiver passed up Amanda’s spine.
“I liked Dane,” she said. “He was a bit much, the sort of actor who brags. He was immature but not a bad man. This is awful, DI Riley.”
“I’m your point of contact.” DI Riley pulled out a business card. “Call me any time.
“You might as well call me Fraser. I think I’ll be around for a while and this is your patch, so . . .”
“Fraser. OK. When can I use Studio Six again?”
“Not until we say it’s no longer a crime scene.”
The whole building was speculating about what happened to Dane.
Producers and actors paused outside Studio Six with its yellow tape, shaking their heads and reminiscing about TV crime series they’d worked on.
They made helpful comments to visiting police and technicians, using as much jargon as they could muster. “SOCO” popped up a lot, as did “forensics”.
Teddy went about tutting until Amanda could bear it no longer.
“What, Teddy?” she asked in the canteen.
He was sitting like Rodin’s “Thinker”, with a hand to his brow and letting an Earl Grey go cold.
“They haven’t considered the thing that is staring them in the face,” Teddy whispered.
“We’re alone, Teddy. You can talk normally.”
Amanda sat eyeing the fried bread at the hot counter, which was crisp now but would be soggy soon.
“That communist was in on the same day. I said so to the Detective Inspector and he looked at me sceptically.”
She sighed.
“Tell me. But I have to edit a reading in ten minutes.”
“Let’s assume Vasily Mirov is a Soviet agent.”
“Must we?”
“He just happens to be here on the day of Ambrose’s death. You do know Ambrose attended a party at Mirov’s apartment?”
“Oh!” Amanda tried to recall her conversation with Dane. He’d mentioned a party and a host who worked in Covent Garden.
Vasily Mirov danced at the Royal Opera House regularly.
“How do you know about that?” she asked.
“They acknowledged each other in the corridor that day.
“Then, while my studio manager for the stupid music programme was taking a level from Mirov’s microphone, he said Dane had been at his party.”
Teddy leaned closer.
“You knew Dane Ambrose – a talkative, presumptuous type. I’ve been at house parties with him, too.
“I’ve seen him poking in kitchen drawers, putting on women’s coats to draw attention, all that stuff.”
“So?”
“Think about it. He’s at this party, he rummages around and sees something that makes him think – or understand – that Vasily Mirov is more than a principal dancer.”
“You think Mirov nipped into Studio Six during our lunch break and threw a weight at Dane?” Amanda asked.
“He was here very early for ‘Tracks Of My Life’ and was a free agent in the building.”
Amanda made a mental note to review visitor arrangements.
Teddy continued.
“I let him in at reception and bought him coffee, but then I had to review the script in my office. He said he was going on the roof to get some air.”
He shrugged.
“Why not wait until Dane is free, lure him back into Studio Six and kill him?”
“If so, why acknowledge Dane in the corridor?”
“Maybe at that moment he hadn’t planned it. Until today he didn’t even know Dane was in the building.”
“Well, I didn’t see Mirov anywhere near Studio Six.”
“That doesn’t prove he wasn’t there,” Teddy pointed out.
“Let’s see if there’s any evidence, Teddy.”
Amanda told Fraser, who listened attentively.
“There’s always the possibility of political motives,” he admitted. “At the Met we have to keep that in mind. I’ll talk to this Mirov.”
“The thing is,” Amanda replied, “in my exchange with Dane that morning, he was casual about the party; he could barely recall the man who invited him.
“He certainly didn’t know the name of the host.”
“Unless he was being careful, aware of the implications of talking freely and planning what action to take,” Fraser suggested.
“Having said that,” he added, “it’s rare for spies to leave evidence of their work lying about.”
Fraser asked if Amanda thought Dane was the sort of man to get involved if he suspected treason.
Dane mostly liked to go shopping and talk about himself, but then Amanda remembered something.
“Have you seen ‘Agent In Siberia’?” she asked. “It was a TV series. Dane played an MI6 agent.
“He said he’d be great at Secret Service work because he could act. I didn’t point out he only got four O-Levels.”
Fraser smiled.
“So not Secret Service material.”
“But he’d like to have been. Look, Fraser, you need to talk to Teddy Novak. He thinks Mirov is a spy.”
“Leave it with me,” Fraser told her. “If Mirov murdered Dane to keep him quiet, there will be avenues we can explore.
“And if Mr Novak has made it all up, I’ll arrest him for wasting police time.”
He grinned.
“Only joking.”
Cast members began calling Amanda. They were at a loose end, and jumpy.
Caroline Batty called first.
“You hear about people with vendettas. What if this killer comes for us?”
Caroline had once had an affair with Teddy Novak and they had competed in their catastrophising.
“I don’t think so, Caroline,” Amanda replied. “There’s bound to be a far less interesting explanation.”
“It could have been one of us, of course,” Caroline pointed out. “Actors and their hot tempers. Steven hated Dane after Dane got engaged to his ex-girlfriend.”
Steven Harris was the actor who smoked.
“Dane was engaged to most people’s ex-girlfriends at one time or another,” Amanda returned. “There’s a wide potential field.”
“Still. Then there’s Macy – she has such a temper.”
“She only eats twelve calories a day and would be unable to throw a weight. She went home at noon – she’d done all her scenes.”
Caroline whimpered.
“Carson, darling Carson, was a bit tired of Dane going on about Hollywood. Well, we all were.”
“Carson, jealous?” Amanda exclaimed. “He’s got rows of awards! Caroline, make some Horlicks and get some sleep.”
“OK. That handsome policeman is talking to all of us again in the morning.”
Amanda put the phone down.
Fraser was handsome. But did she only like him because he made her feel safe?
Fraser interviewed Sandra Bright again the next day.
Amanda met him in reception.
“You know Miss Bright?” he asked her.
“Barely.”
She’s got motive. Simple revenge.
“Yes. Was all that wild emotion for show? Did she get in, kill Dane, then fly into fake hysteria when we told her he was dead?”
“It was an Oscar-winning performance if she did,” Amanda replied.
“She’d have had access to the studio.”
“Everyone signed in that day had access. She knew Ellis, and he signed her in.”
“Ellis Hughes has an alibi that holds up. He had lunch with the Head of Drama and the head’s PA confirms the timings – similar to yours.
“We’ve ruled him out, and he confirmed Sandra Bright did ask to talk to him about a career change.”
“I’ve just remembered,” Amanda said. “Ellis has a thing for Sandra Bright. When he talked about the soap they were on, it was all about her. He’s pretty transparent.”
“Do you think he might have backed Sandra up, even if he knew she had another reason to be here?” Fraser asked.
“It’s unlikely. He’s a good bloke. And Sandra’s all mouth, I reckon.”
“Even so, I think she was giving some sort of performance.” Fraser took out his notebook. “You should try policing.”
“And give up twelve-hour days with no windows and a team of insecure prima donnas? I don’t think so.
“I’d love to know more, though,” she admitted. “We should go for a burger some time.”
Fraser looked surprised.
“Why not? When we know what happened to Dane, that would be nice.”
Three days later, Keith came to find Amanda in the studio managers’ office.
He stood by the shared desk for a good minute before he said, “Was it me?”
“Was what you, Keith?”
“Did I cause Dane’s death? You saw me rig up that wardrobe. I was distracted that day. I wonder if maybe it wasn’t murder at all, that the weight I taped on top –”
“What weight?” Amanda stood up. “What did you use a weight for?”
“I couldn’t get a pole to stay in place with coat hangers on. It kept rolling. So I taped a stage weight to one end.”
“Surely they know the weight was dropped on Dane deliberately?” Amanda replied, but she wasn’t sure.
She was struggling to recall how the scene had looked when she found Dane.
If Keith’s hanging rail creation had collapsed, the police might not know it existed.
If Dane had disturbed it . . .
“This is awful,” Keith said in a panicked voice.
Amanda felt sorry for him.
“An accident sounds very unlikely to me,” she said.
“Will you find out for me, Amanda? What they know about the weight?”
“Yes. Go home, Keith. Get some rest. I’ll call you.”
Fraser came to tell Amanda that she could have Studio Six back.
“I’m sorry about all the dust,” he said. “You’ll find a film of fingerprint powder everywhere.”
She thought of Keith.
“Are you allowed to tell me about the prints?”
“None from the studio are on our records,” Fraser replied. “The few on the weight were smudged. Someone wiped it.”
Amanda tried to recall that day.
She saw Keith in her mind’s eye, a half-used roll of gaffer tape over his arm.
If the weight had fallen from his lash-up swathed in tape, those could be Keith’s prints on it.
If he’d caused the death of Dane Ambrose, what would happen to him?
Amanda knew she ought to tell Fraser about the wardrobe rig, but he was speaking again.
“Could you show me round the studio from a technical point of view?”
“Sure.” She took him first to the control room.
“You’ve got six CD players and three gramophones?” Fraser asked, looking around. “And four reel-to-reel tape machines?”
“Yes. Is this relevant?”
“No.” Fraser smiled. “I’ve just always wanted to know. My mum loves ‘The Archers’.”
He paced round, looking adorably like an old-time policeman with his hands behind his back.
“This one’s got the tape all on the left-hand spool.”
“That’s a brand-new reel, ready to roll. Keith normally records on that machine. It was set up for recording the next scene after lunch. They hold thirty minutes.”
Fraser stopped.
“But on this machine, all the tape is on the right.”
“Oh?” Amanda frowned. “Ah, I remember now. I set it recording a wild-track. Both of us forgot to stop it when we left for lunch.”
“What’s a wild-track?”
“We often need a recording of our cast of actors for background noise – it might be a crowd at a fair, or distant chatter in a café.
“That lunchtime, I rolled that tape to capture the cast chatting on. I must have got distracted.”
Fraser scratched his chin.
“So on there is the first half of the lunch hour – whatever was going on in the studio when it was supposedly empty?”
Amanda stared at him.
“Well, yes. Most of the first half hour.”
“May I listen? It looks as if no-one in my team has done that yet.”
“Of course.” Amanda hurried over.
Too long had passed without her mentioning Keith’s confession and she was becoming agitated.
Fumbling and distracted, she laced the end of the magnetic tape back across the “play” and “record” heads and secured it on the left spool.
Then she rewound the tape at speed.
“There.” She pressed “stop” seconds from the start of the tape. “Press there to play.
“I’ll leave you to it, DI Riley. Call me if you need anything.”
Half an hour later Amanda crept back in.
Fraser had his eyes closed. The reel of quarter-inch tape was all back on the right-hand side.
“That was scintillating,” he said. “Not a sound. Well, a faint hiss.”
“Tape noise. Actually you’d have heard the silence of the studio, too – I had a stereo mic wide open.”
“I think I did – faint rumbles.”
“Tube trains. We’re near the Metropolitan Line.” Amanda waited a moment before she said, “That stage weight . . .?”
“It’s in there,” Fraser replied. “It came back from forensics. They put it back on the stairs from where we believe it was thrown.”
“It was thrown from the stairs?”
“We can’t be sure, but that’s the hypothesis, based on angles and impact. Do weights like that often have black tape all over them?”
Amanda took a deep breath.
“I wanted to mention something,” she said, then she told the tale.
Ten minutes later they were back in the studio and Fraser was re-examining the remains of Keith’s “wardrobe”, portable doors made into a three-sided chamber, and a metal pole that lay on the floor.
“You can see gaffer tape glue still up there on the lintels,” he pointed out. “My guys established that the weight probably originated from here.
“We had no idea that it was meant to be a wardrobe.
“I’ll get the science girls and boys back in now that we can reconstruct the wardrobe and reposition that pole. Thanks.”
“Keith’s lovely,” Amanda told him.
Fraser turned to her.
His expression was neutral – a police officer on duty.
“I’ll let you know,” he replied.
Amanda was relieved to find she was booked for two days in an edit suite, trimming a sitcom recorded weeks before.
It wasn’t funny, but its producer thought it was, which made the edit more tiresome, but Amanda made it through the first half day.
Slicing through the tape with her razor blade, as lengths of dark brown tape fell to the floor, she thought of Dane.
Then she thought about Keith, and of Vasily Mirov, who might have murdered Dane thinking Dane might unmask him, and Sandra Bright, who was so angry.
They didn’t seem like killers, but what did she know? Who else had the opportunity?
Any of the cast might have slipped back in.
“But not for half an hour,” she said aloud.
“What did you say?” the producer asked, a silly woman called Brenda who had a special skill in cutting the best jokes out of her programmes.
“Nothing,” Amanda lied.
She was thinking of that fatal lunch hour.
Fraser had deduced from the empty half-hour reel that nothing had happened for 30 minutes.
Dane must have been brought back in later. Who would have done that?
“Is it one o’clock yet?” she enquired.
“Not enjoying episode five?” Brenda asked archly.
“I just remembered an errand,” Amanda replied.
Brenda agreed on an early lunch and Amanda telephoned Fraser.
“It’s not my business,” she said, “but that half hour . . .?”
“I know,” he replied.
I’ve been wondering, too. Why wait to bring Dane in and kill him if there was the intention? It was a risk.
“Yes, people wander back into studios as breaks go on. Keith often comes back early to use the piano.”
She wished immediately that she hadn’t said that.
Fraser might be imagining Keith anchoring that weight badly, and a collapse, and Dane underneath . . .
“I’m on my way in,” Fraser told her. “Can I buy you a coffee in the canteen?”
“I’ll buy – staff discount. But no coffee. It’s horrible.”
Three members of the Radio Rep were in the canteen when they got there, among them Carson.
Repertory actors were given parts in anything being recorded, including features programmes and announcements.
Carson looked dejected.
Seeing Amanda, he gave her a sympathetic smile.
“Bearing up, darling?” he asked as she passed him.
“Yeah. Just about.”
“Chin up. Lara here was asking if the police have got anywhere.”
“I’m not sure, but I’ve got DI Riley here.”
Fraser was investigating the tea bags. Carson waved.
“We wish we could help.”
Lara shook her head sadly.
“You know Carson and I could both have done it? I was reading on the roof and he was wandering the streets smoking.”
“I was trying to get a voiceover right, looking like a madman,” Carson explained.
Steven Harris laughed.
“I believe that,” he said. “You are bonkers – you should give your Lear at the Old Vic one of these days.”
Carson grinned.
“Too lame, darling. Mandy, your divine policeman will be making sure Lara and I were seen, I imagine.”
“I’ve left my bag in the edit suite.” Amanda patted her pockets.
Lara reached for her purse, but kind old Carson got in first.
“Here – you’re good for a pound,” he said with a smile.
Fraser came over as Carson opened a large leather wallet with a zip.
“You’ve got a chinagraph in there!” Amanda cried. “You cheeky blighter.”
“Have I?”
Amanda reached in, pulled out a pencil and showed Fraser its white lead.
“These are like gold dust,” she told him. “No studio or suite ever has enough.
“We mark the start and end of the bit of audio we want to cut out of the tape. SMs hoard them and –”
“And actors mistake them for pencils to mark scripts with,” Carson interrupted.
His jovial laugh rolled round the canteen.
“Have it, darling. I promise not to do it again.”
Steve laughed.
We also pinch each other’s biscuits – it’s a hotbed of petty crime. The glamour of broadcasting!
Over tea, Fraser told Amanda that there was no way Dane could have been killed by a stage weight falling from the metal pole.
“It wouldn’t have had the momentum,” he said. “The lab is in no doubt.”
“Thank goodness,” Amanda replied. “I’ll go and ring Keith.”
“Then could you meet me in Studio Six?”
“Sure. We’re finally using it again – some afternoon play set during the Russian revolution.”
They set off walking from the canteen.
“Talk of Russians, any news on Vasily Mirov?”
Fraser shrugged.
“He has no alibi. He just insists he’s no spy, didn’t know Dane Ambrose, and I am ruining his artistic flow.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I suppose I do, but then if he was a spy he’d be good at denying it. Where are we going for that burger?”
Amanda felt her spirits lift.
“If you clear up this ghastly death, I’ll pick a place,” she responded. “For now, I’ll see you outside the studio in twenty.”
Twenty minutes later they were pushing open the studio door.
“No-one is here. They’re all . . .” Amanda swallowed.
“At lunch? It’s OK,” Fraser replied. “You will feel odd in her for a bit. It’ll pass.”
The front part of the studio, below the stairs, was set up for a domestic scene with soft chairs around a low microphone.
Fraser strode to the stairs and climbed halfway up.
“What are you doing?” Amanda asked.
“Yes, I can see it,” he said.
Curious, she followed him.
“Is that how you’d usually have the lights?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“The tape machine you let me play – I can see it from here. We know the murderer stood here, so he or she could see it.”
She fixed her gaze on the machine behind the glass.
“You think they saw it was recording what they were doing?” She felt cold.
He sighed.
“But there was nothing on the tape.”
He ran down the stairs, picked up a stage weight, kicked off his shoes and carried the weight back up.
“I can be almost silent doing that,” he said, “but what if I then drop it on a passing actor? The impact could be quietish, maybe, but the weight hitting the parquet?”
“Go on,” Amanda prompted him. “I take responsibility for any dents in the floor.”
Fraser let the weight fall, aiming for an armchair below in lieu of a person.
It bounced off, hit the wood with a dull, splintering sound, ricocheted off and rolled before hitting a door.
“Nothing like that was on the tape,” he said.
They wandered into the studio and perched on the producer’s desk.
“Is that the same tape?” Amanda asked.
It was on the machine on which Fraser had played it.
“Yeah. It has a little dent in the metal spool.”
Amanda examined it.
“It can’t be the same one.”
“No, it is. I wrote the case number on it with one of those white pencils. You’ll find the number on every bit of evidence and paper I’m allowed to touch.”
Amanda picked up the spool, frowning.
“But it’s short,” she said.
“By five minutes, maybe,” came a voice from the door.
It was Keith.
“I live round the corner,” he told Fraser. “I’m working on this play this afternoon and tomorrow.”
He smiled widely.
“I feel like I have a life again.”
He walked over and took the spool from Amanda, hugged her, then stepped back with the reel in his hand.
“There aren’t thirty minutes of tape on here,” he declared.
“But it was a new reel that day,” Amanda said.
Fraser peered at it.
“Where could the missing section have gone?”
“The studio’s been cleared since, and the bins have been emptied,” Keith told him. “Is this important?”
They explained about the wild-track and he whistled.
“So whoever killed Dane might have whipped off the incriminating section of audio and destroyed it?”
“I need that piece of audio,” Fraser said.
The cast of the play was coming back in so they left Keith to his work.
Fraser went back to the station, arranging to pick up Amanda at six.
“The murder’s not solved, so no burger,” he said, “but there was no mention in our deal of a quick beer.”
At the end of the following day, Keith came to find Amanda.
He held up a small plastic spool.
“We did a final scene for the Russian revolution play, set in a woodland at night.
“The whole cast was in it – bayonets, clinking horse brasses, the works. So I go in with the actors to do the practical sound effects.”
Fraser arrived wearing jeans and a casual shirt.
Keith gave Amanda an enquiring look and smiled.
“Keep talking,” Amanda told him.
“The producer comes across on the talkback: the undergrowth isn’t making any noise.”
Amanda leapt from her chair.
“A new tape!”
“Can someone explain?” Fraser asked.
“Sorry,” Amanda said. “We have buckets of used tape in each studio. Scrunched tape makes the noise of leaves and twigs when you walk in it. It’s amazing.”
Keith fitted the small spool to a nearby machine.
“Show him, Amanda,” he said.
Amanda dashed out and returned with handfuls of crinkled quarter-inch tape.
She dropped it to the floor.
“Walk,” she ordered him.
Fraser paced on the spot and his face lit up.
“It sounds just like that!”
Amanda went on.
“We need old tape – stuff we’ve recorded on too often. We play it on to the floor and chuck it in the tape bins.”
Keith had now laced up the small spool.
“This stuff was new! I wound it back on to this mini-reel.”
“Have you listened to it yet?” Amanda asked.
“I decided to wait until you could hear it. And your favourite detective.”
Fraser coughed.
“If there’s something on here, can I prove when it happened?”
Amanda shook her head.
“OK. Play it anyway,” Fraser said.
What they heard, in clear stereo, was a terrible drama enacted between a man and his victim.
It was short but intense, anger building in one man while another defended himself, said that he was over-reacting, urged that they talk it through.
Then it was just the final, shocking sounds – a terrifying thud, a body falling, a man lumbering away, the suck of a sound-proof door opening and closing.
Then silence.
“I think I can make an arrest,” Fraser declared. “Put that tape in a plastic bag.”
Poor Dane Ambrose had been too much of a bouncy Tigger for his own good.
He bragged to every actor he met about the Hollywood life and VIPs he met at actor hang-outs.
Most took it with a pinch of salt. But Carson Dawlish was not in a good place, and Dane was too much for him.
Fraser allowed Amanda to accompany him to Carson’s flat.
On the way, still shocked, she mulled over Carson’s situation.
“There was a time when he loved his job on the humble Radio Repertory Company,” she said, “but I think his advancing age must be a burden.
“It’s an occupational hazard with actors, but only if they’re vain and insecure. Carson exuded bonhomie but he was a mass of insecurities.
“His bad hip limited what he could do; it was terrible for him.”
“In her statement Lara said she’d noticed Carson being distant with Dane.”
“He’s so good at playing the charming thespian. He’s a good actor – that’s the irony. We loved him.
“I’m guessing that Dane’s harping about his own shiny future and Carson finally lost control.”
They had reached Carson’s apartment and Fraser rang the bell.
Carson’s delighted smile fell into a look of misery when he saw Fraser’s face.
He led them upstairs.
“I didn’t mean it to happen,” he told them. “We met in the gents and he was so smug.
“He said he’d left his new agent’s number in Studio Six and was going to nip back for it; he had to chat to her about another movie.
“So I followed – I just meant to suggest he stop being such an idiot. But he kept on and on. I saw red.”
Carson dropped on to a sofa.
“I saw a weight above my eye level, but it stuck when I reached for it – someone had taped it to the bloody door.
“That would have stopped me in my tracks, but Dane threw in a comment about which roles I can play now I’m chubby.”
“Did you remove evidence from a recording tape?” Fraser asked.
“So you found that. Yes, I saw that wild-track going round. I knew someone might listen to it.”
“The chinagraph pencil,” Amanda said.
“I must have shoved it in my bag without thinking.” Carson laughed weakly. “In case I ever needed to edit a tape again.”
He looked at her.
“Yes, I can edit – not very well, but I have been in radio a long time.
“I thought of taking the whole tape, but the things are enormous. I thought my idea of the undergrowth bin was pretty nifty.”
Carson never acted again.
Sandra Bright admitted she’d been giving a performance: she wanted money from Dane Ambrose.
She had come to the building to make a scene, aware that he needed a squeaky-clean image now that he was a rising screen star.
Ellis Hughes didn’t seem to mind: he and Sandra got engaged shortly after Carson’s trial.
Vasily Mirov wasn’t a spy. He was offended by the suggestion and would not contribute to “Tracks Of My Life”.
Teddy was happy about that and persisted in his belief that the dancer was a foreign agent, even when Vasily was made an OBE for services to dance.
Amanda got engaged, too, a year after the terrible events in Studio Six.
These days, when making crime drama, she asks her handsome policeman husband for technical advice.
Enjoy exclusive short stories every week within the pages of “The People’s Friend”. On sale every Wednesday.
