The Cilla Rose Affair Read Free Page A

and off with red-flash urgency.
    Slipping off his shoes, he made himself comfortable on the couch, leaned back, and addressed his messages.
    Agent on the other side of the Atlantic. Did he want to play an insidious murderer in a made-for-TV thriller about an award statuette possessed by an unspeakable evil?
    “No one’ll suspect you, Evan—that’s the beauty of it: you’ve got that sort of face. Trusting. Kind. Fatherly. Let me know before Tuesday.”
    Evan made a note to call Richard in New York and turned his attention to the TV and VCR in the corner of the room. A tape was already in place; he aimed the remote control in the general vicinity of the cabinet, satisfied himself that all of the little red lights, green level indicators and blue digital readouts were appropriately primed, and settled back to watch himself Do Chat.
    There was Wally Green, the host of the programme, decked out with Union Jack patriotism in a blue suit and a red and white striped shirt—grinning hugely, a slightly astonished look about the eyes as he ambled across the set and pretended to be amazed by the tumultuous applause from his Shepherd’s Bush audience.
    And here was his first guest, who’d carved out a career for himself playing Jarrod Spencer 25 years ago in America, up to plenty of other things nowadays, of course, and here he is to tell us all about his most recent project, won’t you all please give a very warm welcome to Mr. Evan Harris.
    Up swelling applause, cheers from the diehards in the back, and The Star appeared from the curtains, shook his esteemed host’s hand and got comfortable in the celebrity swivel chair.
    Pleasant individual, Evan thought, offering up a quick assessment of himself. Interesting sort of face…Very kind, it was true. Very fatherly. Hair the right length, a few lines showing, yes—but only in mirth and then, only about the eyes. Not bad for sixty-something. He could still pass for fifty.
    “Welcome to the program, Evan. You played Jarrod Spencer, of course, in that enormously successful secret agent series in the 1960s. How long did it run?”
    “Three years, 1967 to 1970.” Expertly, he changed the subject. “I’m about to begin a new series this fall actually, about a man, he’s a gardener, a freelance gardener who hires himself out to various households and somehow manages to put himself in the way of whatever family plots happen to be hatching when he gets there.”
    “No James Bond gadgets in this one, I suppose, no secret telephones hidden in soles of shoes, cones of silence or Mrs. Peel karate chops across the old back of the neck—”
    “The odd creeping ivy,” Evan conceded, to scattered laughter.
    “And what’s it called, this intriguing new series of yours?”
    “ Bill and Ben . It’s a joke, really: Bill and Ben’s the name of this fellow’s gardening firm, as in Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men —”
    “And we all remember the lovely, demure Miss Weed, don’t we, children? Wee-eee-d.”
    “Wee-eee-d,” squeaked several members of the audience, in unison, and their embarrassed attempts dissolved into islands of self-conscious laughter.
    “—and there is only Ben, you see, as Bill’s fictitious.”
    “A sort of silent partner.”
    “You might say that, yes.”
    “And you’re Ben.”
    “As well as Bill, when Bill’s presence is required. It’s rather confusing.”
    “But funny.”
    “Outrageously funny, yes, hilarious, often muddy.”
    “Let’s talk about something you’re more often remembered for, Evan, and that’s that delightfully witty, often scathingly silly, television series, Spy Squad , in which you played the title role of Jarrod Spencer.”
    “I’m afraid so, yes.”
    “I gather you still have quite a following.”
    “Somewhere,” Evan said, checking cautiously beneath his seat cushions, while there was outrageous laughter from the same manic few who earlier had been screaming “Wee-eee-d” like a chorus of fingernails scratching on