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The Cinderella Killer

A Charles Paris Novel

Severn House Publishers Limited

FAIRY GODMOTHER: So welcome! Everything is grand In good Prince Charming's happy land!

'Sure, I know what pantomime means,' asserted Kenny Polizzi.

'Really?' said Charles Paris.

'Hell, yes. It's all that whiteface shtick, isn't it? Stuff that kids at theatre school do, before hopefully growing out of it. Pretending they're locked in boxes and feeling their way out, leaning against invisible bars, garbage like that. Who's that French guy who did it all the time? Marcel Somebody?'

'Marcel Marceau. But no, that's not pantomime. That's mime.'

'Pantomime – mime – what's the difference?' The large man shrugged. He seemed unaware that everyone in the Sea Dog pub in Eastbourne, while pretending not to, was looking at him. Maybe he genuinely hadn't noticed. More likely, it seemed to Charles, Kenny Polizzi was just used to being recognized everywhere he went.

He was the star of the American sitcom The Dwight House. Though the show had been discontinued some five years previously, so many episodes had been made during its glory years that there wasn't any time day or night when one wasn't being screened somewhere in the world. Dwight Bredon, as played by Kenny Polizzi, had the same kind of brand recognition as Ronald McDonald.

He was trimmer than he had been in The Dwight House years. His formerly ample figure had suited the slightly slobbish character of Dwight Bredon, whose house was home to his children from three marriages and, as the writers became increasingly desperate for storylines, any number of cousins, school friends, waifs, strays, dogs, cats, gerbils and even an alien.

Though Kenny Polizzi was probably about the same age as Charles Paris himself, in his late fifties, his body's contours suggested habitual attendance at a gym (not a venue ever frequented by Charles). The gingerish wig he wore exactly copied the style adopted by Dwight Bredon in all those many episodes. It was a very good wig, though not so good that Charles was left in any doubt it was one. Having been an actor for so long, his antennae for unnatural hair enhancement were particularly sensitive. He was fortunate still to have a good covering on top of his head, so Charles Paris only wore wigs when – as female actors say when justifying taking their clothes off – 'the script demanded it'.

His hair was getting increasingly grey at the temples – still hopefully just on the side of distingué rather than decrepit – and he hoped when the grey had colonized all of his head he'd resist the temptation to dye it. So far as Charles could see from the evidence of other actors, the only tint available for men was the colour of conkers. And he didn't fancy going around looking like that. He had his pride.

Charles was drinking a large Bell's with ice. Kenny had a sparkling mineral water, without even ice or lemon. Though he had been through the phases of hellraising, alcohol and other substance abuse required for the CV of a major star, all that was now apparently behind him. The body of the new squeaky clean Kenny Polizzi was a temple (whereas that of Charles Paris was more like a small deconsecrated chapel in need of restoration).

Kenny had just arrived in England. He had been due the previous day, Monday the twenty-sixth of November, for the first rehearsal for the Empire Theatre Eastbourne's Christmas production of Cinderella, but a terrorist alert had closed Heathrow. As a result he'd arrived in a limo at the end of the second day's rehearsal, by which time the producer, director and most of the cast had left. So the limo had drawn up at the rehearsal venue, St Asaph's Church Halls, virtually next door to the Empire Theatre, to find only one young harassed stage manager.

She knew it was a fairly safe bet that Charles Paris would be in the Sea Dog, so she had taken the American star to meet him there, while she tried to sort out what had happened to the PR company who were meant to be looking after him.

Given all these upheavals, Kenny was remarkably laid-back and gracious. Many considerably smaller stars might by this stage have been stamping their little feet and throwing their toys out of the pram, but Kenny seemed almost serene about the delays and disruptions.

When Charles mentioned this, he was rewarded by a Dwight Bredon smile and the words, 'Man, I just needed to get outta the States. Now I'm outta the States everything's cool.'

'And it was the prospect of acting in Cinderella that lured you away?'

'Charles, I didn't need no luring. I was gagging to get away. I told the agent, "Find me some work, as far away from Hollywood as you can get it." He came up with Cinderella in Westbourne – great.'

'Eastbourne.'

'Whatever. Just so long as I'm outta the States.'

'You make it sound like you're on the run from the Mafia,' said Charles with a chuckle.

Kenny's eyes narrowed. And with a new level of seriousness he said, 'You might not be a million miles from the truth there.'

Charles was a little shaken. Was Kenny joking? Or was he serious? Probably not the moment to dwell on Mafia connections, so Charles asked, 'So you really don't know what pantomime is?'

'I told you – it's black tights and white faces.'

'No, it isn't. Didn't you ask your agent what you were letting yourself in for?'

'I did not. I just checked with Lefty that the money was OK – which it is – and got on a plane. Or rather didn't get on a plane till twenty-four hours later because Heathrow was closed.'

Charles looked at his watch. 'Your car'll be here soon to take you to the Johnny Martin recording.'

'Is that a big show?'

'Probably our most popular late-night chat show. Used to just be on a Friday and prerecorded as live. Now it's three nights a week, still pre-recorded, though, a few hours before it goes out.' Kenny nodded with satisfaction. 'And Bix thinks it's important you know a bit about pantomime before you talk to Johnny.' Charles referred to Cinderella's director, the former choreographer Bix Rogers.

'Sounds reasonable. But it can't be that difficult. We're talking Cinderella here, aren't we? I know Cinderella. Everyone knows Cinderella. If you're my age, there's no way you got through grade school without having seen Cinderella.'

'You're talking about the Walt Disney version?'

'Sure. Is there any other one?'

'In pantomime there are quite a lot of other ones.'

'OK, tell me about them.'

'Well, the basic story is much the same as the one you know. Cinderella is the downtrodden youngest daughter of three, and the older two are her Ugly Sisters – stepsisters, actually. She wants to go to Prince Charming's ball, but—'

'Charles, I know this stuff.'

'Yes, I'm sure you do. But what you don't know is that in pantomime Prince Charming is played by a girl.'

'A girl?'

'And the two Ugly Sisters are played by men.'

'Yeah?'

'And then Dandini, who's Prince Charming's friend, is usually played by a girl too.'

Kenny looked dubious. 'So pantomime's some kind of kinky transgender thing? It's not going to do my image much good to get involved in—'

'No, pantomime's the ultimate all-age entertainment. Part of the regular Christmas ritual for many British families.'

'Oh.' Kenny thought for a moment, then asked anxiously, 'Does this mean I'm going to have to drag up for the show?'

'No, no. The character of Baron Hardup is a man, and he's played by a man.'

'Thank the Lord for that. And where does he fit into the story?'

Charles was surprised by how little Kenny seemed to know about the job he'd agreed to take on. 'He's Cinderella's father. And of course stepfather to the Ugly Sisters too.'

'Is he one of the good guys?'

'Yes. I've played the part. It's quite fun.'

'When did you play it?'

'Oh, years ago.' Charles thought nostalgically of that production in Worthing. And of Jacqui, the dancer who was playing A Villager, White Mouse and Court Lady (for the Finale). He had fond memories of the time they'd spent together back then. No commitment on either side, just very nice sex for the duration of the run. He had less fond memories of the review his performance had received from the Worthing Herald. 'Charles Paris played Baron Hardup, and lost.'

'So what does the Baron do?' asked Kenny.

'He often gets involved in the slapstick routines with the Ugly Sisters.'

'Slapstick? Hell, I thought that went out with the Three Stooges.'

'It lives on in pantomime. It's one of the traditions.'

'Are there a lot of these traditions, Charles?'

'You bet. Built up over three centuries. Where shall I start? As I said, there's the slapstick scene. Then there's the transformation scene, and at the end you have special costumes for the Walkdown. And there's the audience-participation song, for which the song sheet is brought down from the flies. The Good Fairy always enters stage right, the Demon stage left. Then there'll be a "Behind you!" exchange with the audience, and at least one "Oh yes, it is!/Oh no, it isn't!" routine. And of course don't let's forget the pantomime horse, where one person's the front and one's the back.'

'You're kidding me,' said Kenny Polizzi.

Charles Paris didn't normally watch chat shows. He found that the guests rarely had anything interesting to say, and when they were actors it just rubbed in how much more successful than his their careers were.

But he did watch the Johnny Martin Show that evening. He wanted to see how much Kenny Polizzi had taken in from his crash course in the mysteries of pantomime.

In the event Johnny and his star guest said very little about the subject. There was a statutory plug in the intro, the news that Kenny Polizzi would be opening in Cinderella at the Empire Theatre, Eastbourne on Friday the seventh of December, running till the middle of January, but that was it. There was much more interest in the glory days of The Dwight House.

Johnny Martin was a very straight, almost old-fashioned, interviewer. The vogue for outlandish gay comedians fronting chat shows – and making the encounters more about them than about their guests – seemed to be on the wane. Which was very good news as far as Charles Paris was concerned. Johnny Martin's approach, by contrast, was in the traditional style pioneered by David Frost, Michael Parkinson and Terry Wogan. His research was impeccable, he cued his guests seamlessly to wheel out their well-oiled anecdotes and could almost be said to take a back seat during his interviews. It was a refreshing change after the rash of egotistical exhibitionists who seemed to Charles to have commandeered the air waves recently.

But Johnny Martin was not a complete pussy cat. He was very good at soft-soaping his guests, lulling them into a sense of serene bonhomie and then snapping a controversial question at them. Whatever agreements might have been made before about the subject-matter for interview, Johnny would disregard them. He was particularly adept at this method with politicians. He knew all MPs love appearing on television and love even more talking about things other than politics, their hobbies and little quirks that make them come across as regular, normal, even nice people.

Then, just when the discussion was at its cosiest, Johnny would throw in a barbed dart of a question which really got under his interviewee's skin. Some issue of an expenses irregularity, a well-paid consultancy with a company of dubious morality, an inappropriate closeness to a lobbyist, the hint of a sexual misdemeanour ... these would suddenly be raised without any change in the mask of the interviewer's bland smile.

As a result, though politicians always preferred appearances on chat shows to programmes of serious debate like Newsnight, quite a few of them chose never to appear on The Johnny Martin Show for a second time.

The host's early questions about The Dwight House were predictably lightweight. Johnny catalogued the show's amazing statistics, the awards it had won, the stars whose careers had been quick-started by appearances as Dwight Bredon's children, the number of countries round the world it had been sold to.

Kenny Polizzi was used to this routine. He had a few finely honed humorous responses to these familiar facts. He said what a privilege it had been to work on the show, how no one knew at the start the huge showbiz phenomenon it would become, how the whole company had been like one happy family, and how The Dwight House's success had had nothing to do with him. It had been a team effort and though he was the show's figurehead, he would never forget the important contribution made by every single individual connected with it.

This was all standard stuff, much of which Kenny had wheeled out in various award-collecting moments. It was bland and self-congratulatory, but he managed to inject a little of the bewilderment which had been so much part of his character in the show. Dwight Bredon was a lovable goofball, a man to whom things happened, who was in a state of constant surprise at events erupting around him. Cleverly, Kenny gave the impression that that was what had happened to him too. He's just been standing there, doing nothing in his usual way, and he'd been offered the part. And he was still a little in shock from all the wonderful things that had followed from that initial piece of good fortune.

What came across to the audience of The Johnny Martin Show was exactly what was intended to come across. Kenny Polizzi was a regular guy who you'd happily meet in a bar and have a beer with. There was no side to him. And given the scale of his international success, he remained a very modest man.

It was then, just when interviewer, interviewee and audience had achieved the cosy warmth of a friendly chat, that Johnny Martin threw in the first of his loaded questions.

'Kenny, I must say you're looking very fit.'

'Well, thank you for that, Johnny. I have been working out a bit. I have this very good personal trainer back in the States, and he's worked out a programme that I'll be following while I'm over here. Yes, I'm glad to say I am very fit.'

'And very clean?' asked Johnny slyly.

But Kenny wasn't going to be caught out that easily. 'Perfectly clean, thank you. I shower regularly – as I hope you do too.'

This got a friendly laugh from the audience, but it did not divert Johnny from his line of questioning. 'I was meaning "clean" in the sense of "clean from all substance abuse".'

'Well, I'm clean that way too.'

'Good news.' A little pause. 'Because that wasn't always the case, was it, Kenny?'

That he was annoyed by this was shown by the slightest change of expression, so minimal that only a behavioural psychologist – or a fellow actor – would have picked up.

'What're you saying here?' asked Kenny Polizzi.

'Just that you had a reputation in the past for being a bit of a hellraiser.'

'I don't know about a hellraiser. I did have a reputation in the past for being considerably younger than I am now. But I guess that goes for all of us, Johnny boy.'

'So how long have you been completely free of drugs?'

It was a question so leading that it would not have been allowed in any British court of law, but Kenny was wise to it. 'I've been free of any but prescription drugs since I emerged from my mother's womb.'

'What about alcohol?'

'I don't recall there being any around in the maternity suite.'

That got a big laugh. Unusually, Johnny Martin was being turned over in the contest. And he didn't like it. 'Kenny, there were lots of rumours in the gossip columns about you partying rather heavily and—'

'Sure, I liked to party. Name me an actor who doesn't. I dare say even you in your time have been something of a party animal, Johnny boy.' Having coined the diminishing nickname, Kenny was going to stick with it.

'Well, I, er ...'

'Anyway, do you believe stuff you read in the gossip columns? If you believed everything that's been written about me, then you'd think I was a drug fiend and alcoholic who's been to bed with every woman in Hollywood.'

'Is that not true?'

'No, I couldn't manage all of them.'

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Excerpted from The Cinderella Killer by Simon Brett. Copyright © 2014 Simon Brett. Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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