The Dead Side of the Mike by Simon Brett Page B

the launderette – first, he always forgot to take his own soap, and, second, he always forgot to take whatever book he was reading. It was not from lack of foresight. He would put out the packet of detergent and the book long in advance of his departure; he would even sometimes put them just in front of the door of his bedsitter, so that he could not leave without tripping over them; but, whatever form of physical mnemonic he used, the result was always the same. He would arrive at the launderette clutching only the broken handle of his polythene bag of dirty washing.
    This meant recourse to the soap machine. Since he never had the right change and could never find anyone else there who either had it and was prepared to part with it, or who spoke enough English to understand what he wanted, it usually took some time to get his soap. Often he would have to forage abroad for change and return with piles of matches and chocolate bars which he had bought rather than ask directly for what he wanted. He would then, having set his machine in motion, sit bored out of his mind, wondering why the hell he hadn’t brought his book, and feeling agreeably abject, a contented piece of flotsam beached by the sea of humanity.
    He should have known that something special was going to happen on that particular Friday, because as soon as he arrived at the launderette and made the regular discovery that he had left his soap at home, he found the right coin for the machine in the lining of his sports jacket. (There had been a hole in the pocket for so long that he reached his hand into the lining automatically.) To add to this serendipity, after he had started his wash and made the regular discovery that he had left his book at home, he found an abandoned newspaper on the chair next to him.
    Here was riches indeed. A copy of the previous day’s
Mirror
. He looked round to see if the newspaper had a potential owner, but decided that neither of the two impassive Chinese nor the dauntingly beaked Arab girl was likely to want it. He settled down to the luxury of reading every word. There was nothing else he could do. That, he decided, was probably why he liked the launderette – all the normal imperatives of life were suspended for half an hour, obedient to the inexorable sequence of rinses and spins.
    As always with an unfamiliar newspaper, the
Mirror
seemed to have discovered a completely fresh hoard of news which his regular
Times
hadn’t been told about. Or maybe it was just a difference of emphasis and style that made the stories seem unfamiliar. Or maybe (and this he suspected probably to be the real reason) he didn’t actually take in anything from
The Times
as he flipped through it over his morning cup of coffee.
    The item which shook him rigid appeared on Page 7. Had he not had time to read every word he would not have stopped for it. The headline read ‘WOODCOTE CAR BODY IDENTIFIED’ and underneath was this report:
    The man found dead yesterday in a car in a lonely wood near Woodcote, Oxfordshire, has been identified as Daniel Klinger, an American record producer who had recently arrived in this country from New York. Police, who removed a length of plastic tubing from the hired car, say they do not suspect the involvement of another person in the death.
    He read it again to make sure that he hadn’t jumped to conclusions, but the main facts didn’t change. Someone called Daniel (or quite possibly Danny) Klinger had arrived recently from New York and (the tubing the police removed suggested) had committed suicide. This had happened less than a week after Andrea Gower had returned from a holiday in New York and had committed suicide. And she had had Klinger’s name written on a cassette she had brought back from the States.
    It wasn’t enough information to produce any meaningful conclusion, but it was at least an interesting coincidence.
    And, from the limited facts at his disposal, Charles