Free The Edge by Dick Francis Page B

their coats.
    ‘Don’t you have a script?’ I asked Zak.
    ‘Not formal words to learn, if that’s what you mean. No. We all know what we’ve got to establish in each scene, and we improvise. When we plan a mystery, the actors get a brief outline of what’s going to happen and basically what sort of people they are, then they invent their own imaginary life stories, so that if any passenger asks questions in conversation, they have the answers ready. I’d advise you to do it, too. Invent a background, a childhood … as near as possible to the real thing is always easiest.’
    ‘Thanks for the tip,’ I said. ‘Will you let me know your plans each day, and also tell me instantly if anything odd happens you don’t expect? Even small things, really.’
    ‘Yes, sure. Ask Nell, too. She knows the story. And there are some actors who weren’t here today because they don’t get activated until later on the trip. They’re on the passenger list. Nell will point them out.’
    He stifled a yawn and looked suddenly very tired, a complete contrast to two minutes earlier, and I suspected he was one of those people who could turn energy on and off like a tap. One of Aunt Viv’s best friends had been an elderly actor who could walk down to the theatre like a tired old pensioner and go out on the stage and make the audience’s hair stand on end with his power.
    David Flynn, offering me a lift if I needed one, was beginning to move with a sort of lassitude that one would never have seen in Zak. He picked up Nell’s large envelope, opened it and distributed its contents to the others: luggage labels saying ‘Merry & Co’, and photocopied sheets of ‘Information and Advice to Passengers’.
    Scene dressing, I supposed. I asked him if he would be going anywhere near the Merry & Co office and he said he would detour that way and was as good as his word.
    ‘Do you do this all the time?’ I asked on the way.
    ‘Act, do you mean? Or mysteries?’
    ‘Either.’
    ‘Anything I’m offered,’ he said frankly. ‘Plays. Commercials. Bitparts in series. But I do mostly mysteries now that they’re so popular, and nearly all for Merry & Co. I write the stories to suit the occasion. I was engaged for a doctors’ convention last week, so we did a medical crime. Just now it’s racing. Next month I’ve got to think up something for a fishing club weekend train trip to Halifax. It keeps me employed. It pays the bills. It’s quite good fun. It’s not Stratford-upon-Avon.’
    ‘What about the other actors?’ I asked. ‘The ones in the garage.’
    ‘Much the same. It’s work. They like the train trips, even if it does mean shouting all the scenes against the wheel noise when we’re going along, because the dining cars are so long. Not by any means the right shape for a stage. We don’t always use the same actors, it depends on the characters, but they’re all friendly, we never take anyone who can’t get along. It’s essential to be tolerant and generous, to make our sort of improvisation work.’
    ‘I’d no idea mysteries were such an industry.’
    He gave a small sideways smile. ‘They have a lot in England too, these days.’
    ‘Um …’ I said, as he braked to a halt outside the Merry & Co offices. ‘How English do I sound to you?’
    ‘Very. An educated Englishman in an expensive suit.’
    ‘Well, the original plan was for me to go on the train as a wealthy owner. What would you think of my accent if I were dressed as a waiter in a deep yellow waistcoat?’
    ‘Harvest gold, that’s what they call that colour,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I wouldn’t notice your accent so much, perhaps. There are thousands of English immigrants in this country, after all. You’ll get by all right, I should think.’
    I thanked him for the lift and got out of the car. He yawned and turned that into a laugh, but I reckoned the tiredness was real. ‘See you Sunday, Tommy,’ he said, and I dryly said, ‘Sure thing, Zak.’ He