The drive to Ealing took a lot longer than Sarah thought it would. The traffic into and out of London these days seemed to be in a constant state of rush-hour gridlock.
And they both needed to be back in time for Lady Repton’s Halloween party.
Lady R — a good and flinty friend — wouldn’t brook their missing it!
Which meant finding enough time to get into their costumes.
(And, once again, Sarah had to question her own final costume choice, still hidden from Jack. A last-minute change of plan. Bit much, she thought? She’d find out soon enough.)
Jack hadn’t said much on the journey, just peering out of the window as open fields turned to London suburbs.
When the pieces didn’t fit, she knew he turned quiet, as if somehow — from his past decades of being a detective — waiting for something to pop up.
A bit of instinct.
A suspicion that hadn’t reared its head.
Yet.
And as Sarah slowed to crawl beside the stream of lorries and vans, she had to admit … a similar feeling.
Something was here that wasn’t being seen.
Could this trip to Ealing, a trip to the world of Basil’s past, provide a clue to what that might be?
Now, with Ealing Broadway minutes away, she hoped that they would find that missing piece.
Basil was gone.
But maybe his story wasn’t quite finished.
*
They parked as near to the famous Ealing Studios as they could, then headed off on foot. But as they neared the entrance gate, Sarah realised that they hadn’t actually planned how to get in.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “Looks like we need a badge. Got a bunch of security guards there.”
Jack touched her elbow.
“Hang on.” He dug out his phone.
Then he leaned close. “I’m pretending to talk on the phone so we can think and not look like we’re, um …”
“Is stymied the word you’re looking for?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Sprawling film studio … makes sense that there’s tight security.”
Sarah nodded — but she also looked at the stream of people passing through the gate.
PAs, grips, technicians, office people — the army that a film production must require.
Most of them just walked through with a nod to the guards. She watched as one or two stepped up into the small guardhouse, signed in, then reappeared.
“Any ideas?” Jack said, smile still on his face.
And now she nodded. “Think … I do. You game to try something?”
“If it gets us in, why not?”
Jack slid his prop phone away, and followed Sarah as she walked, as confidently as she could, up to the gate.
*
She spoke to the first guard who scanned people’s passes as they passed in.
“Hi, we’re here to see Tommy Gammon. FX Department. Just need to sign in.”
The guard responded with the slightest of nods.
Sarah smiled. “Cheers.”
And she walked up the steps to the gatehouse, where another guard stood in the doorway. He moved to the side, allowing her in to the small room.
So far, so good, she thought.
*
Once inside the tiny gatehouse, she saw a security guard in his fluorescent yellow jacket, sitting and looking at a quartet of small video screens.
“Morning. Here to see Tommy Gammon. I usually sign in for both of us — that okay?”
The guard looked up at her, clearly not recognising her at all — and for a second Sarah thought she’d blown it.
But then the other guard stuck his head round the door: “Boss — gate.”
Sarah turned and saw a sleek black limo with tinted windows waiting at the barrier.
“Sure, just sign,” said the guard to her, leaning over to operate the barrier controls and peering out at the limo.
Can’t keep one of the stars waiting, she thought.
A quick signing in: her name, then Jack’s, and the time.
And that, she guessed, was it.
As the limo drew away and the barrier closed, she walked down the steps from the gatehouse, ready to join the others streaming into the studio grounds.
“Let’s grab a coffee, shall we?” she said to Jack, joining the general throng as if it was what she did every morning.
Jack was quick to fall in line beside her.
“Nice,” he said.
“Bit of luck always helps,” she said. “But it’s like those Oxford colleges. Just got to act like you own the place.”
Jack grinned, and shook his head. “Now to find the FX department. This place looks big.”
And Sarah kept her pace brisk as if she knew where they were going, until they turned a corner and could stop in the shade of one of the buildings.
Tommy Gammon was here, somewhere.
But where?
*
Jack took a moment to take all this in.
The historic Ealing Studios. So many classic British films made here for decades, the thirties, all through the war years, and well into the seventies.
Jack even remembered catching some of the black and white classics as a kid on TV.
Now he stood here, where they had been filmed.
Sarah turned to him.
“What now?”
“Well, it’s always an advantage to surprise someone you want to question. But, then, there is always the risk you may not find said target.”
Jack turned around, and saw — on the wall he faced — an enormous plaque.
“Hey, look at that. Up there. Year by year. Lists of films made here. The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951. One of the greats. And there? Scott of the Antarctic? Ever see it?”
“I think they’d retired those chestnuts by the time I came along.”
“Don’t they teach you kids anything about the movies? Scott. Amazing story. Saw it on TV when I was … nine … ten? Been fascinated with tales of polar exploration ever since.”
Jack could have stood there, just looking at the years of films, all inscribed with gold lettering on a giant black sign.
Glory days indeed.
But Sarah tapped his arm.
“Jack — look.”
He turned to see a man in tri-corn hat and Restoration era clothes, breeches and all, come walking out of, well, what appeared to be the men’s toilet.
“An actor?” she said. “Think maybe he’ll know?”
A quick nod. “Give it a shot.”
Sarah hurried to the man, who looked more as if he just emerged from a time machine than a loo, and tapped his shoulder. He turned around.
“Excuse me,” Sarah said. “We’re looking for the FX department? But we seem to have got lost.”
The soldier nodded, and, as he did so, he slid a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, and lit one.
Guess he figures if he’s aiding a damsel in distress, Jack thought, he might as well have a smoke.
“The whole motion capture studio is one big special-effects department. That’s just over there.”
Jack took a step closer.
“Think this is more the props and stuff you’d have in a movie. Like the one … you’re doing?”
“Oh, this? TV series. Good jobbing work but hardly a movie.”
“And any effects for it would be done …?”
“Right. Well, the prop and tech departments are all round the back of this stage — down the alley in that big building over there.”
He took a deep drag of his cigarette and then tossed it to the ground, stamping it out with his shoes, which were each tied with a lacy ribbon. “Ah well. No rest for the wicked — aka the actors.”
“Thanks,” Sarah said, as the seventeenth-century character strode off to whatever scene awaited.
Jack pointed in the direction of the building the actor had indicated. In the alleyway, some men stood drinking coffee from plastic cups, enjoying the chilly but bright late-October sun.
“Okay. Let’s see if we can find Tommy Gammon.”
*
Sarah kept her eyes on the building ahead. Large doors stood open, letting the cool air in.
She headed towards it, Jack at her side.
But then, immediately, someone stopped them.
“Yes. Can I help you?”
A young woman, with big black-framed glasses and clipboard in her hand, blocked their path.
“Oh, yes,” Sarah said. “We’re looking for Tommy Gammon. Works in FX.”
The woman’s eyes darted from left to right.
“This is a closed set, you know. Is he expecting you?”
The question gave Sarah pause.
But Jack jumped into the gap.
“Not really, but we need to talk to him. We’re mates. Got some bad news about an old friend of his. Need to deliver it in person. Know what I mean?”
Amazing how persuasive he can be, Sarah thought. Just that tone of voice of his.
Open sesame.
“And I think he’d want to speak with us.”
The woman looked down at her clipboard as if it might, Magic 8-ball fashion, reveal her next response.
She looked up.
“Okay. He’s through there at the back of the stage. Just mind your step. Lot of gear around.”
And as Sarah, minding her step, looked at Jack, he was also stepping carefully.
They walked across the studio, past sections of film set, until they came to a small courtyard surrounded by stores and workshops. A couple of cars were parked — and a dark blue van, with Gammon FX in silver lettering on the side.
Sarah nodded to Jack, who’d also seen it.
Next to the van, in front of an open workshop stood a man bent over a realistic looking cannon.
She stopped.
The man, straightened up.
“All set,” he shouted, backing up.
Getting away from the cannon.
And instinctively, only metres away herself, Sarah’s hands went to cover her ears.