LITMIR.BIZ

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a point. I suppose she figured she was paying me so much she needed to win some of it back.

      I looked at my hand. ‘Redoubled,’ I said boldly. Clive raised one eyebrow. My bid passed round the table, and we started playing. I soon realized that the other three were so used to each other’s game that they only needed a small proportion of their brains to choose the next card. The bridge game was just an excuse to gossip in the relative privacy of Gloria’s dressing room.

      ‘Seen the Sun this morning?’ Clive asked, casually tossing a card down.

      ‘It’d be hard to miss it,’ Gloria pointed out. ‘I don’t know about where you live, but every newsagent we passed on the way in had a board outside. Gay soap star exposed: Exclusive. I sometimes wonder if this is the end of the nineteenth century, not the twentieth. I mean, who gives a stuff if Gary Bond’s a poof? None of us does, and we’re the ones as have to work with the lad.’

      ‘They’re bloody idle, them hacks,’ Teddy grumbled, sweeping a trick from the table that I’d thought my ace of diamonds was bound to win.

      Clive sucked his breath in over his teeth. ‘How d’you mean?’

      ‘It couldn’t have taken much digging out. It’s not like it’s a state secret, Gary being a homo. He’s always going on about lads he’s pulled on a night out in the gay village.’ Teddy sighed. ‘I remember when it were just the red light district round Canal Street. Back in them days, if you fancied a bit, at least you could be sure it was a woman under the frock.’

      ‘And it’s not as if he’s messing about with kids,’ Gloria continued, taking the next trick. ‘Nice lead, Teddy. I mean, Gary always goes for fellas his own age.’

      ‘There’s been a lot of heavy stories about Northerners lately,’ I said. I might be playing dummy in this hand, but that didn’t mean I had to take the job literally.

      ‘You’re not kidding,’ Clive said with feeling, sweeping his thin hair back from his narrow forehead in a familiar gesture. ‘You get used to living in a goldfish bowl, but lately it’s been ridiculous. We’re all behaving like Sunday-school teachers.’

      ‘Aye, but you can be as good as gold for all the benefit you’ll get if the skeletons are already in the cupboard,’ said Gloria. ‘Seventeen years since Tony Peverell got nicked for waving his willy at a couple of lasses. He must have thought that were dead and buried long since. Then up it pops on the front of the News of the World. And his wife a churchwarden.’ She shook her head. I remembered the story.

      ‘He quit the programme, didn’t he?’ I asked, making a note of our winning score and gathering the cards to me so I could shuffle while Gloria dealt the next hand with the other pack.

      ‘Did he fall or was he pushed?’ Clive intoned. It would have sounded sinister from someone who didn’t have a snub nose and a dimple in his chin and a manner only marginally less camp than Kenneth Williams. It was hard to believe he was happily married with three kids, but according to Gloria, the limp-wristed routine was nothing more than a backstage affectation. ‘And I should know,’ she’d winked. I didn’t ask.

      ‘What do you mean?’ I asked now.

      ‘John Turpin’s what he means,’ Gloria said. ‘I told you about Turpin, didn’t I? The management’s hatchet man. Administration and Production Coordinator, they call him. Scumbag, we call him. Just a typical bloody TV executive who’s never made a programme all his born days but thinks he knows better than everybody else what makes good telly.’

      ‘Turpin’s in charge of cast contracts,’ Clive explained, sorting his cards. ‘So he’s the one who’s technically responsible when there’s a leak to the press. He’s been running around like all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rolled into one for the last six months. He threatens, he rants, he rages, but still the stories keep leaking out. One diamond.’

      ‘Pass. It drives him demented,’ Teddy said with a smug little smile that revealed rodent teeth.

      ‘One heart?’ I tried, wondering what message that was sending to my partner. When he’d asked what system of bidding I preferred, I’d had to smile weakly and say, ‘Psychic?’ He hadn’t looked impressed.

      ‘It’s not the scandals that really push his blood pressure through the ceiling. It’s the storyline leaks.’ Gloria lit a cigarette, eyeing Teddy speculatively. ‘Two clubs. Remember when the Sunday Mirror got hold of that tale about Colette’s charity?’

      ‘Colette Darvall?’ I asked.

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘I must have missed that one,’ I said.

      ‘Two diamonds,’ Clive said firmly. ‘Off the planet that month, were you? When her daughter was diagnosed with MS, Colette met up with all these other people who had kids in the same boat. So she let them use her as a sort of figurehead for a charity. She worked her socks off for them. She was always doing PAs for free, giving them stuff to raffle, donating interview fees and all sorts. Then it turns out one of the organizers has been ripping the charity off. He legged it to the West Indies with all the cash. Which would have been nothing more than a rather embarrassing tragedy for everyone concerned if it hadn’t been for the unfortunate detail that he’d been shagging Colette’s brains out for the previous three months.’

      ‘Oops,’ I said.

      ‘By heck, you private eyes know how to swear, don’t you?’ Teddy said acidly. ‘I don’t think “oops” was quite what Colette was saying. But Turpin was all right about that. He stuck one of the press officers on her doorstep night and day for a week and told her not to worry about her job.’

      ‘That’s because having a fling with somebody else’s husband is sexy in PR terms, whereas flashing at schoolgirls is just sleazy,’ Clive said. ‘Have you taken a vow of silence, Teddy? Or are you going to bid?’

      ‘Oh God,’ Teddy groaned. ‘Who dealt this dross? I’m going to have to pass. Sorry, Glo.’

      ‘Pass,’ I echoed.

      ‘And I make it three in a row. It’s all yours, Clive.’ Gloria leaned back in her chair and blew a plume of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘God, I love it when Rita’s not here to whinge about me smoking.’

      ‘Better not let Turpin catch you,’ Clive said.

      ‘He sounds a real prize, this Turpin,’ I said. ‘I met him yesterday and he was nice as ninepence to me. Told me nothing, mind you, but did it charmingly.’

      ‘Smooth-talking bastard. He did the square root of bugger-all about sorting out my security. Bloody chocolate teapot,’ Gloria said dismissively. ‘At least this latest furore about the future of the show has stopped him going on about finding out who’s leaking the storylines to the press.’

      ‘The future of the show? They’re surely not going to axe Northerners?’ It was a more radical suggestion than abolishing the monarchy, and one that would have had a lot more people rioting in the streets. For some reason, the public forgave the sins of the cast of their favourite soap far more readily than those of the House of Windsor, even though they paid both lots of wages, one via their taxes, the other via the hidden tax of advertising.

      ‘Don’t be daft,’ Gloria said. ‘Of course they’re not going to axe Northerners. That’d be like chocolate voting for Easter. No, what they’re on about is moving us to a satellite or cable channel.’

      I stared blankly at her, the cards forgotten. ‘But that would mean losing all your viewers. There’s only two people and a dog watch cable.’

      ‘And the dog’s a guide dog,’ Teddy chipped in gloomily.

      ‘The theory is that if Northerners defects to one of the pay-to-view channels, the viewers will follow,’ Clive said. ‘The men in suits think our following is so addicted that they’d rather shell out for a satellite dish than lose their three times weekly fix

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