"Kim Newman - The Serial Murders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

"Barstards!"
The landlady came in, like a hurry-the-plot-along bit player, and told Vanessa she had a call.
"The Phantom Phoner," she said and left the room.
Richard pulled Barbara toward him. The professor was not used to being in supernatural crosshairs, and her
mind was racing to keep up. A few weeks ago, she hadn't even known there were such things as curses, and
now she was at the sharp end of one.
"I should have specialised in nineteenth century woman novelists," she said. "My post-graduate thesis was
on George Eliot. But the field was so crowded. The bloody structuralists were moving in, throwing their weight
about. No one was thinking hard about television. So, here I am тАж I suppose I brought this on myself. You
might have mentioned this was dangerous, though. If I'd stayed on campus, the worst that could happen was
тАж well, getting burned at the stake during the next student demo тАж but being cursed is fairly bloody drastic."
Vanessa came back.
"That was my agent," she said. "The one Della set us up with. Your scoop was on the money. Priscilla of the
Lovely Legs is off to Nepal to find her missing father in a lamasery. She's left a note for Ben, which will make
matters worse. I don't even get an exit scene. My pay packet is waiting at the studio, and I can swap my
entry lozenge for it any time in the next two days. My digs are no longer being paid for by O'Dell-Squiers. She
tells me, if it's any consolation, that 'Victoria Plant' has had a ton of fan mail, plus a film offer."
"Exciting?" asked Fred.
"Not really. Sexploits of a Suburban Housewife. More in your lady friend's line than mine."
Zarana, Fred's girlfriend, was an "exotic dancer" who cheerfully admitted to being a stripper and did
occasional modelling and actress jobs. She had been gruesomely murdered in several movies.
Vanessa looked glum at the sudden end of her brief television career.
"Knock knock?" said Fred.
"Who's there?" asked Barbara, trying to cheer up.
"Victoria тАж"
"Victoria who?"
Fred spread his hands. "That's showbiz!"
Vanessa laughed but chucked a newspaper at him too. Which made him concentrate on business again.
"If the assistant's working against us, is this wardrobe woman behind the scam?" he asked. "The voodoo
princess?"
"No," said Richard, "Mama-Lou is sympathetic to our cause. She knows or at least suspects what's going on
and sees it as a transgression of her religion. She gave me a hat."
Fred whistled.
"Not a very nice hat," Richard admitted. "But a significant hat. We've seen its like about the place."
He pulled the flat cap out of his pocket and set it on his head.
"'Ey oop, there's trooble at t'mill," said Fred, in a Londoner's impression of a Northshire accent. "What do you
look like?"
"Anyone?" asked Richard.
"You've got a producer's hat on," said Barbara. "Now I remember where Squiers got it. There's one exactly
like it on the set. It's been on a hook since the programme started. Mavis left it there where her husband hung
it just before his fatal stroke."
"Da Barstow," said Fred. "Our hit man."
"Da Barstow used to be married to Mavis," said Richard.
"And Marcus Squiers used to be married to June," said Vanessa. "He's put himself right in the frame."
"Literally," said Richard, taking off the cap. "Da's wearing this in his portrait."
"So this little bald git is diabolical mastermind of the month?" said Fred, who only knew Squiers from press
cuttings. "Can't say I'm surprised. He's a dead ringer for Donald Pleasence."
"Is that a dupe?" asked Vanessa.
Richard looked at the stained lining-band. He had noticed how much Squiers sweated. He fingered the cap.
"It may be a dupe of the cap on the set, but it's the original 'producer's hat.' I imagine Mama-Lou's slipped