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Mike Waterford finally arrived at ten-fifteen. He was clearly hung-over, pale and with red rims to his dark eyes, his auburn hair only roughly combed. Before going off to make-up, he came over to Harriet.
‘Sorry I’m late, darling, I slept through my alarm. Touch of flu, I expect.’
‘Too much whisky, more likely,’ Annie muttered.
He ignored her, giving Harriet a coaxing smile. ‘Can you leave my scenes until I’ve had some black coffee? I’ve got a pig of a headache.’
‘There is some justice, then,’ Annie said and he turned on her, baring his very white teeth.
‘What’s your problem, sweetie? Time of the month – or haven’t you got it off lately?’
‘I’m just sick of you swanning in here four hours late when the rest of us have been here since crack of dawn!’
‘It shows, too,’ he sneered. ‘Or do you always look like death warmed up? Oh, yes, you do, don’t you?’
Harriet grabbed his arm and steered him away before Annie could hit him, took him off to wardrobe and sent someone to get him black coffee, and lots of it.
‘One day I’ll kill that bastard!’ Annie told her when she came back.
‘It was your idea to have him in the series!’ Harriet teased her, and her teeth met.
Unfortunately it was true, although the last thing Annie would have wanted was to put such an idea into Harriet’s head.
When they first began working together Annie had complained to Harriet that she couldn’t sleep late on a Saturday, although she usually had the day off, because at ten o’clock every Saturday morning the courier from the studio arrived on his motorbike with the script, which she had to go downstairs to accept in person.
‘No excuses. Billy has a bee in his bonnet about it,’ Harriet had said.
Billy Grenaby, the chairman of Midland TV, was approaching forty but looking much younger, a short man with wide shoulders and a deep chest, and dark hair turning grey in streaks. He had incredible amounts of sexual energy, which made him hyperactive; he couldn’t keep still for a second, and kept his eye on every single nut and bolt in the organisation. His marriage had failed a year ago when his much younger wife took off with a tennis player she met in Florida on a long holiday. The shock to his ego had left Billy’s temper on a short fuse, and he had become practically paranoid overnight.
The company offices came out in a rash of notices signed by Billy giving orders on everything from never, never going over budget down to remembering to turn off the light if you were the last to leave a room. He was unable to delegate, either because he didn’t trust anybody after his wife’s defection, or because he needed to know what everyone was doing.
‘But why can’t they just slip it through my letterbox?’ Annie had asked indignantly. ‘Why do I have to get up and sign for it?’
‘That’s what they used to do, but last year Mike Waterford turned up for a big day’s taping on that nuclear series, Meltdown, not knowing his words. Claimed he’d never been sent a script. The couriers swore one had been posted through his letterbox, but they couldn’t prove it. It was their word against Mike’s.’
Knowing Mike Waterford, Annie had backed the couriers. She had worked with Mike once or twice. Tall, with thick auburn hair and dark eyes, he was Sexy and charismatic, with a multitude of fans, but his colleagues knew him better than the public did. He was lazy, a heavy drinker, a womaniser, and a selfish actor, always turning up late, going out of his way to upstage and out-act anyone even if it ruined a production. In Annie’s book that was Mike’s unforgivable sin.
‘Billy should have sacked him,’ she said vindictively, and Harriet laughed, giving her an amused, knowing look.
‘What did he do to you? Personal, or professional?’
Annie had grimaced her distaste. ‘It would never be personal, I wouldn’t touch him with a barge-pole!’ Mike Waterford reminded her too much of Roger Keats – they were the same type. Under all that phony charm there was cruelty, malice, a delight in humiliating and hurting women.
‘He’s big box-office, though,’ Harriet had drawled, grinning. ‘Billy couldn’t sack him, much as he was tempted to – Mike was that series. No, they shot round him as much as they could, but it put the schedule back twenty-four hours and Billy went spare, you know how he hates delays. They cost money, and money is Billy’s life blood.’
‘Can I quote you?’
Harriet laughed wryly. ‘No, I like my job too much. Anyway, since Mike screwed up, a courier has to deliver a script to the actor in person, and get a signature for it. So don’t forget – you always have to be there on a Saturday morning to sign for the script.’
‘I won’t forget. At least Mike isn’t working on this series,’ Annie had muttered.
Harriet had done a double-take, her head whirling round as she stared with parted mouth and round eyes. Only six months later did Annie discover why – the day Mike Waterford’s name appeared in the tabloids as the new chief constable and co-star of The Force. It infuriated Annie that she had put the idea of hiring him into Harriet’s brain. Up till then, Annie had been the major name in the series: the rest of the cast were solid, well-known British character actors, trained in the theatre, highly professional, easy to work with, but none of them big names.
Annie herself hadn’t been a big name when she began working on The Force, but Mike was, undeniably, a star, with an enormous following and a big salary. Billy hadn’t wanted to pay anybody the sort of money a star would expect; the new police series had been intended to make money, not cost it.
Annie’s career had been considerably enhanced by appearing in the series. It had been a plus that she really enjoyed the part. What she had liked, particularly, was the fact that her policewoman didn’t have a man in the background.
Sean had created the central role of Inspector Ruth Granard as a very modern career woman, tough and ambitious, even abrasive in relation to the men she worked with, and so determined to get to the top that she had no time for a private life. She did not want to be distracted from her work.
