“Yes.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I’d had a hell of a day, a bang on the head in that underground fire. She put me up for the night.”
“You were welcome to stay here.”
“Natalie wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“It’s my house too!”
“I didn’t want to cause any trouble. Thing is, although I’ve only met Natalie a couple of times, the fact is she never makes me feel welcome. For some reason she doesn’t like me.”
Ken slumped back in the armchair, looking sad and defeated. “No, Jack, it’s not that. It’s not that at all, honestly, she likes you well enough. She just has so much to do, and, as you can see I’m not the world’s best housekeeper. She hasn’t time to fix the house up herself, I’m no good at it, so she’s ashamed of having visitors.”
“Any visitors?”
“That’s right. Gets pretty lonely at times, I can tell you. The girl next door sometimes pops in to babysit for the odd afternoon, allows me to go out occasionally, but shopping is about all I have time to do. Natalie hardly talks to me these days, she’s so preoccupied with work and worried about how we’re going to make ends meet. All-in-all life’s pretty wretched at the moment.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged. “My fault for not getting a job.”
“Come on Ken, no one thinks that. Decent jobs are like gold dust these days.”
He nodded miserably.
“So are you going to see her again?” he asked.
“Who?” I answered.
“Shelly of course.”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t bear to go into the fiasco of last night. I was too embarrassed to talk, or even to think about it.
“But you fancy her, don’t you?” Ken probed again.
“Look, drop it, Ken, would you? I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. Sorry. Your business mate. I’m only thinking of your welfare. After that Cornish holiday, the way Miranda let you down, I wouldn’t like to see you hurt again, that’s all.”
“I never understood why it happened.” I was glad to switch the subject away from Ken’s morbid soul-searching and my nonexistent love life. “Fair enough that Miranda went away with that married guy, but I thought I knew her well enough to tell me what she’d planned, not just leave me in the lurch like that. Do you remember his name?”
“Clive, or something, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Clive.”
“Thing is, I know you Jack. If you’ve got a thing for this girl Shelly–”
“I haven’t got a thing for her, all right? Just shut up, Ken. I told you, I don’t bloody well want to discuss it!”
“Okay, okay, don’t be so damned touchy!”
I passed a hand across my eyes, realised I was still shaken from what happened this morning. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It’s the stress of everything that’s happening. There’s something I haven’t told anyone else, and it’s really worrying me. I’m afraid I’m losing it. That I’ll be back in St Michael’s.”
“Why?”
“Because everywhere I go I keep seeing Edward Van Meer.”
I confessed to the terror that was dominating my life, that I hadn’t dared mention to anyone else, for fear of them thinking me insane. “And repeatedly seeing a man who’s locked up in a high security prison is obviously impossible. Which means I must be imagining it. Thing is, Ken, I’m scared stiff I’m losing my grip on reality. As well as imagining I keep seeing Van Meer following me, something worse happened this morning. A car drove up on the pavement, it was moving fast, aiming straight at me. I only just jumped out of the way in time. I thought the driver was Van Meer.”
He leaned forward in alarm. “For God’s sake, why didn’t you tell me? When did it happen?”
“Shortly after I’d got the bad news from Giles.”
“After your interview with Alfie Goldstein?” He stared at me for a few moments. “Just after he’d told you your idea about Maggi O’Kane being murdered was ridiculous?”
“Yes, shortly after that.”
“Consider this, Jack, and think about it carefully. We’re fairly confident that Maggi O’Kane was murdered, right?”
“Right.”
“But we don’t know why. Yet, according to that diary you found, there could be some kind of connection with John Lennon’s death. What if Maggi knew something about John Lennon’s assassination? Something that no one wanted made public, and she was murdered to shut her up? John Lennon was a nationally important figure, and if there was anything strange about his murder plenty of people would want to know. Even nowadays, 28 years on, people would care if there’s been some kind of official cover-up.”
“So?”
“What if someone thinks you have that same nationally embarrassing information and you’re about to make it public?”
“You mean Goldstein phoned someone? And arranged my accident?”
“Who knows?”
“Blimey, what next?” I sighed. “You could be right. And as if that’s not bad enough, now I’ve lost the contract for Crash and Burn I have no income. God knows what I’m going to do.”
“Now there, I may be able to help,” Ken said, looking thoughtful. “I can’t promise anything, of course. But I do still have contacts in publishing. If you can establish the facts of the Maggi O’Kane business, and maybe look into some more unexplained deaths, such as Lucinda Lee’s, I might be able to find someone who’d be interested in another book deal. It would be problematic legally, but, I don’t know, something along the lines of ‘mysterious deaths that were never properly explained’. Make sure no person or company is actually accused of anything, but inferring possibilities. That would be the way to handle it.”
“Sounds a bit vague.”
“Well of course these things are always a gamble, but a pretty safe one I’d say. Alfie Goldstein fobbed you off, but Giles’s cancellation of the book contract right after you talked to that bastard suggests that the big man was instrumental in it – one phone call to a director at Figaro and Giles gets told what to do. Okay, to be honest, Giles wasn’t really my kind of guy, we weren’t friends, as you know. But he’s not a bad bloke. We argued, but he never went behind my back and did the dirty on me. He definitely isn’t the sort of character who’d want to deliberately shaft a writer at a moment’s notice. As you told me before, he’s scared of losing his job, wary of making mistakes. Sounds to me as if he had no choice in the matter. And if Alfie Goldstein was prepared to go to those lengths to shut you up, you’ve uncovered something pretty nasty.”
* * * *
When I got back home I tried calling Barry Kite’s number again, and this time someone answered. I was told that he didn’t live there anymore, but they could give me the number of the retirement home in Ramsgate, Kent, that he’d moved to. I phoned and got through to the matron. Would it be possible to talk to Barry Kite, I asked, telling her that it was a business matter? She told me that I wasn’t likely to get much sense out of him on the phone, but that I was welcome to visit anytime up to six pm during weekdays. I looked up the website for Cedar Lodge, the retirement home where Barry Kite was living, and discovered that it specialised in providing care for ‘elderly people who have early or late stage mental deterioration conditions’.
The following morning I set out along the A299 for the Isle of Thanet, which was only about an hour away from home. Reaching the seaside town of Ramsgate I drove through the old town, and halfway along one of the roads that led down to the sea I saw the tall stone gateposts with Eagles on top, and a large blue sign saying ‘Cedar Lodge’. I parked in the tiny car park in front of the grim red-brick structure. A century-and-a-half ago, the rambling house had probably belonged to a rich family who had an army of servants to look after them. Now it had the gloomy demeanour of an official building, reinforced by the sight of a portly woman in a dark blue nurse’s uniform walking down the front steps.
The woman a
t the reception desk directed me to Thomson Ward, and I followed the signs on the wall, up a couple of flights of steps, uncomfortably aware of the musty smell of cooking vegetables and stale urine that pervaded the very fabric of the place. The nurse in charge of the ward led me across to a skinny small elderly man with long sparse silver hair, tied at the back in a somewhat pathetic ponytail, who was sitting in a wheelchair on his own. Most of the people I passed were also elderly, some of them muttering to themselves, others looking scared and distracted. One lady in a turquoise dressing gown was marching purposefully around the room, stopping everyone she encountered and talking in a quiet urgent voice and waving her hands around.
“Do I know you?” said the old man, whom I was assured was Barry Kite. I sat down in the plastic chair opposite him, noticing the large brown liver marks on his hands.
“No. My name’s Jack Lockwood. I’m researching the life and death of Maggi O’Kane.”
“Maggi?” He smiled at me. I noticed how white and fragile his skin looked, bunched and wrinkled at his throat and eyes, as delicate as ancient parchment. A tartan blanket covered his knees and he was picking at its edge. “How is she? Haven’t seen her for years.”
“She died.”
“Did she? When?”
“1980.”
“1980?” He frowned to himself, still plucking at the woollen material, a distant look in his eyes. “That was a hot summer. I remember that summer. Or was that 1976?” He passed a hand over his forehead, smiling as if in a trance. “She died, you say? Sorry, but I just can’t remember. My memory isn’t what it was.”
“I wondered if you remembered working on an album cover for her during that same year?”
His eyes focused on me, then looked away, lost in some distant thoughts.
“The artwork, designing a cover for an album called Assassination?”
He stared at me and frowned. “An album cover? I used to do the artwork for a lot of those. Wasn’t easy. Those boys always had these grand ideas, flamboyant notions that simply weren’t possible. I did album covers for some big names, you know. The Stones. Procul Harum. Fleetwood Mac.”
“This one was for Maggi O’Kane’s group, Border Crossing.”
“Border Crossing?”
“Yes. Maggi O’Kane’s band. They had a recording studio out near Bath. They called it the Mansh.”
“The Mansh?”
“Did you do that artwork for a Border Crossing album called Assassination?”
“Assassination?” Again the concentrated look in his eyes, but eventually he shook his head sadly, staring down at the floor. “Sorry pal. It’s gone. Lots of things have gone now. It’s so bloody sad. My whole working life, and it’s just... Gone.” His wrinkled face behind the wispy silver beard collapsed into sorrowful folds.
“I’m sorry,” I said ineffectually, laying a hand on his skinny tattooed wrist that projected beyond the sleeve of the food-stained brown dressing gown. The smell of stale urine in the room was more powerful now, a waft arriving as the door was opened at the end of the ward. A man sitting in a chair nearby was talking loudly, ranting and raving about something. “Thanks for seeing me, Mr Kite. I’ll leave you in peace.”
“Are you in the music business?” he asked, completely recovered now, his sadness forgotten.
“No. I’m writing a book.”
“A book eh?” He looked wistful. “That’s nice.”
I got up to leave.
“Well thank you Mr Kite.” I lifted my hand from his wrist and stood up.
“Do you know what’s happening about the house?” he asked me abruptly, eyes instantly alert and probing.
“The house?”
“My house. Scandal it is. It’s falling into the sea you know.”
I sat down again. The poor old fellow was rambling, but he seemed to want to talk.
“Coastal erosion. Nobody told us when we bought it. Bastards. We lost a foot of garden during the first year we moved in. Tried to get the damned solicitors to get our money back, but it was no good. No insurance cover either. Stuck with the bloody place. Blighted poor Eileen’s last years, worrying about where we were going to live once the place became completely uninhabitable. Obviously no one would buy it. By the time my sons stuck me in this place the back garden had completely gone and so had the patio. They cleared out all the furniture, of course, but all my papers were in the loft. They promised to get them down for me, they told me they would, but Paul and Jonathan think I’m confused, that I don’t know what I'm talking about. You see, some of the documents were in the studio, they’ve moved those into storage, but the important bits and pieces – all my projects, accounts for most of the 70s, they’re all in the loft, and they’ll be gone for good. Probably too late already...”
“Are they in boxes?”
“Yes!” He stared at me, gripping my arm in his bony fingers. “There are photos too – personal photos that I’d love to see just one more time. Albums of photos of Eileen and the family, holidays, you know?”
“What’s the address?”
“Clifftop Paradise, St Kilda’s. Not that far from here. Go to the village and ask – anyone’ll direct you.”
“I’ll see what I can do. If I find them I’ll bring them here.”
“I’d be ever so grateful if you would.”
“What about keys? How can I get inside?”
“Keys?” He smiled for a moment, a second’s twinkle in those tragic eyes. “Believe me mate, you won’t have any problems getting in…”
* * * *
After a 40-minute drive, I’d found the village of St Kilda’s, near Dover, and been directed up the coast road. There was nothing at all, until right at the top to my right I could see a white-painted house outlined against the sky. It was two in the afternoon, but the early day’s sunshine had evaporated, and the sky was grey.
As I pulled into the side of the road I could read the DANGER UNSAFE STRUCTURE – DO NOT ENTER. KEEP OUT sign across the front door.
Parking in the lay-by I crossed the deserted hill-side road, the black, drizzle-spitting clouds seemingly low enough to graze my head. The miserable dampness filled the air as I bent against the hair-tearing wind and listened to the honking shriek of seagulls, dipping and swooping overhead. The wind was whipping up now, targeting the drizzle, so that I had to screw up my eyes. As I pulled up the hood of my coat, I was dimly aware of a car passing behind me on the road, but it didn’t stop and I didn’t turn back to look.
My mobile phone rang, and I took it out of my pocket and held it against my ear inside the hood, aware of the chill wind’s harsh bite against the stinging skin of my face.
“Jack? It’s Shelly.”
Oh God! Why hadn’t I remembered to switch it off?
“Hi.”
“What have I done wrong, Jack?” She sounded close to tears.
“What do you mean?”
“Why haven’t you called me?” She was sobbing now. I pictured her face, wild eyed and tearful, her skinny hands clutching the phone. The scars on her wrist, that terrible grid of pale striations, ghosts of suicide slashings.
“I’m sorry,” The ground beneath my feet was tussocky with scrub grass and the rain was relentless. My mind blanked out, so I couldn’t think of how to face this awful situation. “I’m doing something right now. I’ll call you later.”
I heard another muffled sob on the line. “I came on too heavy – I realise that now. I thought spicing things up like that might turn you on, but I was wrong and I’m sorry. I’m not into pain, really I’m not, it’s just that I know a lot of guys are. But I’m not like that, I swear it, I didn’t really want you to choke me. I was drunk, I was stupid and I was wrong. I’m truly sorry Jack, I’ve obviously upset you and I didn’t mean to.”
“Look, Shelly, I can’t talk now, I’m in the middle of something–”
“Please don’t just end it like this, Jack! Why won’t you just talk to me?” She was screaming into my ear, clearly hysterical.
<
br /> “Okay, okay. But I’m busy right now, but I’ll call you.”
“Promise?”
“Look—”
“—I’m desperate, Jack, please. Swear you’ll call me back soon?”
“Yes.”
“Because I thought we had a real connection, that I had something in my life to live for. But if you don’t want me, I just don’t want to go on. I’ve been drinking vodka all morning, to give me the courage. It’s not that hard to do it. I tried it once before, but someone found me in time. This time I know what to do. This time I’ll get it right.”
I closed my eyes in horror.
This couldn’t be happening.
“Shelly, please, listen, don’t do anything like that, promise me you won’t–”
“Why not? What have I got to live for?” Her words were slurred, drunken and racing. “Just what? Tell me Jack? What have I got to live for?”
“Shelly listen to me–”
But there was nothing. My phone’s battery had chosen that moment to die. I put it back in my pocket, making a mental note to put it on charge in the car.
Shelly was mentally disturbed, drunk and suicidal. She would think I’d hung up on her. But what could I do? Drive hotfoot to London to see her, try to make her understand that our fleeting relationship was doomed? And supposing I did? She might use the same kind of emotional blackmail to make me run back to her again and again, and where would it end?
All I could do was shelve the problem, try to think out what to do later. If she killed herself...
No. I willed myself to put it out of my mind. Don’t go there.
Right now I had more important business to attend to.
As if to match my dark mood the drizzle had hatched into steady rainfall, that was soaking the red-painted notice on plywood nailed across the front door. Close up, the DANGEROUS UNSAFE STRUCTURE in blood-red paint was scuffed and dirty, the plywood chipped and split at the edges, the scrawled letters childlike, amateurish, the red paint bleeding downwards, as unloved as dirty bathwater sliding down a plughole. Clifftop Paradise appeared to have once been a sizeable Georgian detached house, with large front ground-floor windows. Now it was a skeleton. All the glazing was smashed, and, looking closer, I could see right through the house to the sky beyond.
Rock'n'Roll Suicide (Jack Lockwood Mystery Series Book 1) Page 9