“Mr. Steven?” Diamond asked.
“Glad-handing champion of the world.” Spoken with a touch of envy that Deans glossed over by adding, “Of course, it’s good business to keep in with the great and the good.”
“Leaving you to run the show here?”
“That’s the way I like it.” He waved his visitor towards a chair and offered tea, coffee or “something stronger,” which Diamond declined.
“How did Swift come about? His doing or yours?”
“Neither. All the credit goes to Mary, who had this job before I did.”
Diamond recalled the name from the press report. “Mary Wroxeter?”
“She was a one-off. Came up with the concept, found a fantastic scriptwriter and saw it through every stage of development, virtually directing as well as producing. The casting, the music, Mary knew exactly what she wanted. Believe me, it took genius to achieve all that. Sadly, she needed liquid fuel to keep going. Except it didn’t keep her going. The vodka killed her.”
“An alcoholic?”
Deans looked down, as if the memory was too painful to put into words. “We all knew and she seemed to cope with it. The night she died she had some in the pub — we were there with her — and she bought an extra bottle to take home with her. What could any of us say? She was the boss.”
“Was she alone?”
“So I was told. One of the other women drove her home, but didn’t go in.”
“Who was that?”
“Her former assistant, Candida. She appeared at the inquest along with several others and the pathologist who revealed the cause of death as alcohol.”
Diamond made a mental note to learn all he could about that inquest. “You knew her personally?”
“I was one of her assistants, forever trying to keep up. A lot of Mary’s best ideas weren’t in the script. She liked to improve a scene on the hoof, changing the lighting, shooting from angles no one had considered and axing chunks of dialogue. She’d win over the director with a smile like the sun rising and it was my job to square it with the cameramen and the cast.”
“Tough.”
“It’s a miracle I didn’t hit the bottle myself.”
“People like that can be a nightmare to work with.”
“But she was always right. After her death, I was asked to take over. Talk about a hard act to follow. I was totally unprepared. Season six with me in charge was rubbish and the critics said so. We only kept going because Mary had laid such good foundations. I was learning as I went and I improved, but they were tough times for me and I don’t mind admitting the episodes I produce still aren’t the equal of hers.”
“The show is extremely popular.”
“Top of the ratings, thanks be to God — and Mary. She won our audience in the first place. Do you watch it? Don’t worry, love, I won’t stamp my foot if you don’t.”
Put on the spot, Diamond scarcely noticed the endearment. “We work irregular hours. I can never settle down to a series.”
“Likewise,” Deans said. “I ought to be looking at other people’s shows to check what the opposition is doing. Never do.”
With that pitfall avoided, Diamond got down to business. “I’m here about one of your crew, Jake Nicol, the rigger who is missing.”
“Have you found him?”
“Not yet. We wouldn’t normally get involved, but we were told there was a possibility of violence, some blood at his lodgings, which we’ve since confirmed.”
“Oh my hat, that’s so disturbing.”
“And now I need to know more about his life outside work.”
“You’re asking the wrong person, I’m afraid. I hardly know him. He joined the crew only two days before he went absent. New staff sometimes find the work is all too much.”
“You say you hardly know him. Wouldn’t you have hired him?”
Deans shook his head. “The rigging company finds its own people. We use a firm who go by the delightful name of Gripmasters, which turns me all of a quiver when I hear it. They supply the equipment and the staff. We’re a bit stretched at this time, with units filming here and in Bristol, so they will have brought him in to make up the numbers.”
“I’ll need to speak to them.”
“They’re based at Cold Ashton. I can give you the details.”
“So you won’t have a picture of him here?”
“Au contraire, chéri. Everyone on site is in the system for security reasons.” He took out his phone, tapped, scrolled and found a JPEG of a pale, thin-faced individual with signs of middle age around the eyes, a receding hairline and a Clark Gable moustache that had looked better on Clark Gable. “Jacob Nicol.”
Success. A first sight of the elusive rigger. “Could you copy this to my phone?”
“I don’t see why not.” Deans was more phone-wise than Diamond and had it done in seconds.
Diamond felt he was on a roll now. “Would you by any chance have a photo of the other man who went missing some years back, when the third season was being filmed, the assistant producer called Tudor?”
“Dave? I’d almost forgotten he existed until I saw that article in the Post.” Deans worked his phone again. “I’ve got my doubts. We don’t keep everyone online.” He shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t access him. Your best chance is with personnel records in the old-fashioned filing system in the next room. I’ll show you.”
“Before you do, I’d like your opinion on the jinx story.”
Deans shrugged. “Horsefeathers, isn’t it?”
“Any thoughts who might have fed the story to the press?”
“Well, it wasn’t me and it wasn’t a PR stunt by the production company.”
“What do they hope to achieve?”
“The Post?”
“Their source.”
“Who knows? There’s no shortage of disappointed people in our industry. For everyone who gets to work on Swift, there are plenty who don’t. But I’m thinking it must be an insider. Not all those incidents were public knowledge before the story broke.”
“You don’t seem too troubled.”
“Too late to get fussed now it’s all over social media, the ultimate rumour machine. They say any publicity is good publicity. We’ll find out. In confidence, my main worry is how our leading lady will take it. Sabine has some weird superstitions, like refusing point-blank to work with anyone called John. We ask any Johns in the crew to call themselves Jack while filming is going on, but you can’t ask that of well-known actors. It’s a pain for the casting director.”
“Is that why you turned down Mr. Depp?”
Deans grinned.
“Has Sabine seen the newspaper?”
“I wouldn’t know. If she has, she’s probably reading the tea leaves right now to see when it’s safe to come back. She’s been off for four days. We’re filming with her stunt double.”
“Did the show turn her into a star?”
“She already had a profile on stage and screen, but nothing as big as this. Between ourselves, Sabine has become quite the diva. Owns an American motorhome the size of a bus that she takes to shoots so she has somewhere to relax between takes, but that’s not enough. Employs the toughest agent in the business who insists we pay her driver as well. What’s more, she is booked into the best suite at Homewood during filming.”
Diamond knew about Homewood, a five-star hotel at Freshford in ten acres of beautiful gardens.
Deans was working up quite a sweat about his leading lady. “You should see her contract. We have to fund a private trainer for her, so that she looks strong enough to perform the stunts she refuses to do for safety reasons. She’s fitter than Wonder Woman.”