The I-Spy Murders Read online

  “Disabled,” said the steward.

  “I’m disabled,” Sheila said from the passenger seat.

  The steward looked doubtful. “Well…”

  “Honestly, she is,” Joe promised.

  “You have your parking badge with you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Joe lied.

  “Well all right. Put it in one of those gaps, but don’t forget to display your badge.” Joe drove along, leaving the steward to negotiate with the next driver. Nosing the car into a gap between a people carrier and a 4x4, he killed the engine, and while his friends climbed out to retrieve Brenda’s suitcase from the boot, he took a sheet of paper from his notebook, and began to draw on it.

  “What the hell are you doing, Joe?” Brenda demanded.

  “Showing my disabled badge,” he said, and put the piece of notepaper on the windscreen.

  Sheila studied it. He had drawn something that might have been a wheelchair as depicted by a 5-year-old child, and underneath it, he had written, ‘disbled’.

  “I wouldn’t care but you’ve spelled disabled wrong,” Sheila complained.

  “Can we please get a move on?” Brenda demanded.

  Joe locked up the car, and took the handle of her suitcase. “You got your letter with you, Brenda?” Sheila asked.

  She patted her handbag as Joe retrieved her suitcase from the rear.

  “Feeling nervous?” Sheila asked, and Brenda could only nod.

  “You’ll be all right,” Joe assured her. “Just be yourself. You’ll skewer the women with that warning eye of yours, and knock the guys out with your…”

  “Careful Joe,” Brenda warned finding her voice.

  “I was going to say personality,” Joe pleaded.

  Most of the drivers and their passengers were making their way to the top corner of the field, from which direction they could hear loud music and, at intervals, equally loud cheering.

  “That’s where the live show is put on for the public,” Sheila said.

  “It’s not likely to be where we want, then,” Joe said, and led the way out on to the road where he spoke to one of the police officers on traffic duty. Returning to his companions, he said, “It’s along here. Only a couple of hundred yards, Brenda.”

  She checked her watch. “Ten past eleven. Can we please get a move on?”

  The hot, summer air hung even heavier with the tag of exhaust fumes from the queue of traffic. Joe led the way along the edge of the carriageway, grumbling at the noise, the fumes, the expense, while Brenda became more and more anxious with every step.

  Police manned the junction at Gibraltar Hall Lane, where a temporary barrier had been erected.

  “This lady is a contestant,” Joe told the sergeant on duty, showing Brenda’s letter of authorisation.

  “You really should have made your way in by car, sir,” the sergeant replied.

  “Would you have charged me a fiver for parking?”

  “No.”

  “In that case, you’re right,” Joe agreed. “Now, can we get Mrs Jump into the house?”

  “You and the other lady won’t be allowed past the gates, sir, but go on through.” The sergeant nodded to one of his constables and they lifted the barrier to let the trio past.

  In contrast to the main road, the lane was heavily wooded, and it seemed to Joe that they had passed into another dimension the moment they crossed the checkpoint. The noise of the traffic had dissipated, the sounds from the entertainment field were muffled by the trees, and he could even hear the occasional call of wood pigeons.

  A hundred yards ahead lay the entrance to the hall, and as they neared, so the sounds of civilisation returned: noisy generator vans, supplying power to a cabin sited by the gates. Security men, easily identified in their chocolate-coloured uniforms, prowled the gates, like hungry wolves ready to leap on any unsuspecting interloper.

  Joe introduced Brenda to the nearest officer, and while she negotiated, he looked through the gates at the I-Spy house.

  Having seen pictures of the hall when Brenda first applied, Joe knew that at the rear, there was a large, well-tended, south-facing garden, with more flower beds, fine lawns, and topiary in the shapes of birds, people and animals, but at the front, Gibraltar Hall did not live up to its grandiose name. A three-storey house of redbrick, four storeys if the obvious attics in the pitched roof were counted, but for its size, it could have come from any council estate in post-war England. Rows of paned windows gazed out from the bland front, and the door was a simple, black affair set into a broad frame.

  The level expanse of the gravel forecourt was broken up by flowerbeds, and even they were bordered by concrete rather than brick or stone. On the outside, the place was surrounded by an eight-foot wall of faded brick, and the most ornate thing about Gibraltar Hall were the wrought iron gates, as tall as the wall, but decorated with some fancy coat of arms.

  “Joe. Brenda’s about to go in.”

  Sheila’s reminder brought him back from his glum thoughts. “What. Oh, yeah.” He moved forward, leaned into her and pecked Brenda on the cheek. “Good luck, and remember, knock ’em dead.”

  She gave them both a nervous smile. “Careful on the way back, you two. No funny business on the back seat of the car.” She hugged Sheila, then Joe, and then disappeared into the reception cabin.

  Once she had gone, Joe and Sheila made their way back to the main road, and the noise of traffic fighting its way into the car park.

  “There’s no rush to get back, Joe,” Sheila suggested. “Shall we stay and watch Brenda introduced on the big screens at the live show? If we drive back, we’ll miss it anyway.”

  Joe had been anxious to get back to the Lazy Luncheonette, but the sense of Sheila’s words coupled with memories of the heavy traffic persuaded him otherwise. “Yeah, okay.”

  Turning into the car park, Joe found the steward who had caused him so much trouble, studying the note in the car window.

  “Problem?” Joe asked.

  “Oh, it’s you, is it?” The steward scowled. “You told me you were disabled.”

  “Get your facts right. Mrs Riley told you she was disabled, I merely confirmed it.”

  “That,” the steward said pointing at Joe’s makeshift disabled badge, “is not valid, and you’re gonna have to pay extra.”

  Joe shook his head and aimed a finger at the grass. “No markings to indicate disabled only parking,” he declared.

  “I told you about it,” the steward retorted, giving vent to his sense of outrage.

  “Insufficient. If you don’t believe me, try talking to my friend, here.” Joe gestured at Sheila. “Chief Inspector Sheila Riley of the Sanford traffic division. Now retired.”

  The steward gawped.

  “Inadequate marking and no warning notices,” Sheila tutted. “Under the Road Traffic Act of 2007, subsection 37, provision of parking places, and notification of parking restrictions, any attempt by you to impose a penalty could be seen as demanding money under false pretences, which carries a maximum fine of £2,000 and one year in prison.”

  The steward gawped. “Road Traffic Act?”

  “Two thousand and seven,” Joe said.

  “Subsection 37,” Sheila confirmed.

  The steward coughed to hide his embarrassment. “I, er, well, in that case, I’ll overlook it this once.”

  The steward wandered off. With a superior smile, Joe took Sheila’s arm and they walked on. “Is there a Road Traffic Act of 2007?” he asked.

  “Probably,” Sheila replied as they joined the crowds funnelling into the upper field.

  “And subsection 37?” Joe wanted to know.

  “Probably,” she repeated.

  “But you don’t know if it has anything to do with the notification of parking restrictions?”

  “He bought it, Joe. Why won’t you?”

  Joe grinned savagely. “And you accuse me of confusing people.”

  Where access to Gibraltar Hall Lane had been confined to TV crew, authorise
d news teams, reporters and photographers, the upper field had no such restrictions. Vast crowds had descended on it and Joe and Sheila found themselves some distance from the arched, temporary stage, where a rock band sang and danced. Huge TV screens stood centre stage and either side, showing a digital countdown that now registered less than five minutes. There were food stalls and other traders selling souvenirs, all adding to the carnival atmosphere.

  Beyond the stage was the woodland, and beyond the trees, Joe could just make out the high, pitched roof of Gibraltar Hall, and up above, a pair of helicopters flew in circles. The police, Joe guessed, and possibly media.

  “I-Spy is certainly big news in this quarter,” Sheila said.

  “I wonder when it’ll come to Sanford?” Joe said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Well, if they brought it to the Memorial Park, I could set up a hot dog stand.” Joe nodded at the food traders lined up to one side of the field. “They’re making a bloody fortune.”

  ***

  From the reception cabin, Brenda was led into the grounds, then around the side of the house to the rear, where she looked out over the large, lush garden and high retaining walls. Large screens had been erected down the centre of the garden. The Housies were not permitted any contact with anyone outside the house for the coming week, and this side of the screen was the production crew’s entrance. The Housies’ half of the garden was on the other side.

  Before she could give too much thought to the prospect, a security officer ushered her in through the back door to a security station. Her luggage was searched, and then scanned, and her mobile phone taken for safe keeping. She was asked to sign to the effect that she carried no mobile telephones or any other communications device, such as a pager, that would permit her to contact anyone outside Gibraltar Hall, and then she was shown to a side room where her seven fellow Housies were already waiting, enjoying tea, coffee or juice, and chatting amongst themselves.

  At the invitation of a young, dark-haired woman by the name of Katy Flitt, who introduced herself as the assistant director, Brenda helped herself to a much-needed cup of tea. Her nerves had settled a little now that she was actually in the house, but there was still that edginess, butterflies in the tummy, shaking hands, and a thirst that could only be conquered by tea.

  A large whiteboard stood at the front of the room with eight names written on it. Brenda’s was towards the bottom of the list, but its presence signalled that they were the names of the Housies.

  Producer Helen Catterick joined them at midday and there followed a tedious forty minutes in which the pair laid down the house rules. Helen, particularly, spoke in drab monotones, and several times throughout the lecture Brenda had to suppress a yawn.

  The debate sparked a little towards the end when the Housies were invited to ask questions.

  “Just how much privacy do we get?” a blonde woman by the name of Ursula Kenney asked. Dressed in a tight mini-dress which showed more of the ample cleavage and strong legs than Brenda considered decent, she had already interrupted Helen on several occasions and it was clear from her various expressions, that the producer did not care for Ursula.

  “A little,” Helen replied. “In the bathroom, for instance.”

  “Excuse me,” Brenda said, “but I thought I heard you say there are cameras in the bathrooms.”

  “There are, Brenda,” Helen replied, “but they’re carefully angled to show no more than your head and shoulders while you are taking a shower.”

  Dylan Yorke, one of the men, laughed. “So I can’t show off me finest assets.” He looked down between his muscular thighs.

  Helen frowned. “Not in the bathroom, you can’t, Dylan. If you wish to parade yourself in the bedroom, that is entirely your own affair.” Addressing the whole group, she went on, “We’re all adults, and it’s in the nature of this kind of programme, that, er, shall we say, liaisons will form. There is one room in the house without cameras. It’s on the landing between the two dormitories. Its official title is the Private Room. For those of you who have followed previous series, you’ll know that the Housies christened it the Romping Room. If you wish to meet another Housey in private, then that is the place to do so, but please think of your fellow Housies. Make sure you lock the door while you’re in there.”

  Her final words, delivered with a wincing smile, created a ripple of naughty laughter through the room.

  “And that brings me nicely to the subject of language,” Helen went on. “Once again, we’re all adults, but I would ask you to try to modulate your language for the sake of younger viewers.”

  “I thought you used a bleeper,” Ursula Kenney challenged.

  “We do. There’s a 20-second delay between live action and broadcast that permits us to override unacceptable language, but if you come out with too much, it can create problems for the crew. So I ask again, please make an effort to moderate your language.”

  With the induction over, they were shown into and around the house. Brenda noticed instantly that their permitted areas of activity bore no resemblance to the actual size of the hall. The house was vast, but so many places remained off limits to them, and when she boiled it all down, they would see only the living room, the kitchen/dining room, the staircase, dormitories, with their en suite bathrooms, and (if they so wished) the Romping Room.

  Brenda had already decided that she would have no need of the latter area. Amongst the members of the Sanford 3rd Age Club, she had a reputation as a merry widow which was largely fictitious and unjustified. Unlike her best friend, Sheila, she enjoyed the company of men, but that did not make her loose-legged.

  Escorted to the exterior, Brenda got her first look at the Housies’ side of the garden. It seemed to her to be no different from the crew side, with its share of flowerbeds and topiary, but there was no exit… unless she could vault the eight-foot retaining wall.

  After the guided tour, they were led back to the reception room where each of them was fitted with a radio mike and power pack. The mikes were left disconnected for the time being.

  Helen and Katy addressed them once more.

  “Right, ladies and gentlemen, this is where it begins,” Helen announced. “Before we go on, do any of you have any further questions?”

  Silence greeted her.

  “All right. In a few minutes, we’ll cue your introduction to the watching public. You’ll go through alphabetically by surname. As your name is called, my assistant will guide you through that door.” She pointed to her left, the Housies’ right. “There you’ll meet Marlene and Ryan. There’ll be a brief chat in front of the cameras, and after that, they will point you to your entrance into the house, and beyond that, it’s I-Spy.”

  While Helen had a brief, whispered word with her assistant, Brenda glanced at the list of names on the whiteboard. It was in random order, with Ursula Kenney’s name at the top and Dylan Yorke’s at the bottom, but she quickly calculated that, alphabetically, she came third. A feeling of relief quelled some of her nervousness. At least she was not first. She would have the performances of Tanya Drake and Greg Ingham to guide her before she had to face the cameras.

  Helen left. Her assistant, Katy, switched on the TV set. “Your names will be called one by one,” she told them. “Tanya, you’re first, I’m afraid, but that gives the rest of you an idea of what to expect.”

  “Could be worse,” Tanya said. “They could have dragged us out in front of all those crowds in the public viewing area.”

  Her fellow Housies tittered, Brenda confined herself to a smile, but she had heard the slight trill in Tanya’s voice. It gave her small comfort to know that her companions for the coming week were as nervous as her.

  The TV screen came alive with a shot of Marlene Caldbeck and Ryan Rivers lounging on a large settee, chattering garrulously to the cameras. Katy turned up the volume.

  “It’s no sweat,” Ursula Kenney said suddenly. “Try to remember not to look at the camera and just be yourself.”

&n
bsp; “You sound as if you know something about it,” Brenda observed.

  Ursula turned her baby blue eyes on Brenda, but they were no longer the eyes of a woman seeking friendship. Their stare was cold and calculating. In a second they had swept over Brenda’s frame and assessed her.

  “I am an actress,” Ursula declared, with exaggerated emphasis on the personal pronoun.

  Brenda pursed her lips. “That should give you an edge on the rest of us, then.”

  At the front, Katy paid attention to her headphones for a moment, then smiled at them. “Right Housies, we are go. Tanya. Do your stuff.”

  They watched Tanya make her way to the far door and disappear through it. Attention swung to the TV where Ryan Rivers beamed into the camera. “Let’s welcome the first of our Housies… Tanya Drake.”

  While Rivers and Marlene greeted Tanya, Ursula scowled again at Brenda. “I don’t need any advantage to beat you. Any of you.”

  ***

  Brenda put the woman’s arrogance down to nerves, and did not rise to it. Fifteen minutes later, when Katy called her name, she completely forgot about Ursula.

  Her legs trembled and for a moment she felt like her knees would give way. She opened the door, took a deep breath, and stepped through.

  When the door closed behind her, she found herself off stage, several yards to the right of the presenters. A studio assistant stopped her from going further while Marlene Caldbeck spoke to camera.

  “That’s Greg Ingham. Sure to be a great success on this week’s I-Spy.” Marlene beamed at her partner. “Okay, Ryan, your turn.”

  The former stand-up comedian fixed a smile on his face. “Our next lady describes herself as a fun loving third ager from West Yorkshire, with the accent on fun-loving. So let’s welcome our third Housey… Brenda Jump.”

  Brenda recalled the days when Rivers did a stand up act. Back then he would have had no hesitation in picking up on her surname and its sexual connotations. Surely he would not be so crass here?

  While he had been speaking, the floor assistant had reached under Brenda’s blouse to plug her radio mike into its power pack. Now the woman nodded Brenda forward. With her legs turning to jelly, Brenda strode across the floor and took Rivers’ hands so he could lean in and peck her on the cheek, filling her nostrils with the scent of heavy aftershave.