As I approached I was shocked to see that the boarded-up front window and steel shuttered door belonged to the right shop: Tony Woodley Photography’s name was smudged and disfigured by blackness, almost indecipherable. I went into the florists’ store next door, where a jolly looking dark-haired lady was bustling around, picking flowers and ferns that she was assembling into a large bouquet on the shop counter.
“Terrible thing – the fire happened two days ago. Poor old Tony had apparently been in the back room, messing about with some equipment, or developing film they think – course he was always fooling about with photographic bits and bobs. The fire people reckon as how it was the chemicals he was using. Fumes or something probably caught fire. It’s a wonder the blaze didn’t spread. The entire shop was gutted – everything’s been destroyed.”
“And Tony?”
“Overcome by fumes apparently. They found his body in the back room.”
I thanked the lady.
Tony had sent away my film to be developed, and I’d assumed that only specialist labs used chemicals for developing old films these days. Of course he’d have a lot of electrical equipment, and perhaps there’d been some kind of fire-inducing short circuit. Presumably the authorities would be investigating if they suspected the cause was not accidental.
Back in the car I phoned the Making Sounds editorial offices, introducing myself as Tony Woodley. “Yeah,” the man said cheerfully, “Thanks very much Mr Woodley. We would be very interested in more titbits like you gave us before, very interested indeed. That piece about John Lennon’s murder went down very well – got quite a reader response. If you can come up with anything else like that we might be able to pay a bit more than last time.”
“Fine, well I’ll check my facts and get back to you.”
“Someone phoned us about you the other day. Was interested in your article, keen to talk to you about it – a music enthusiast I suppose. Hope you didn’t mind us giving him your contact details?”
“No problem at all. I never turn away business.”
“Good. Keep in touch then, mate.”
I clicked disconnect. Of course there was no reason why the Making Sounds offices would have heard about Tony’s demise. But it did double check for me the fact that anyone, for instance the CIA, would have no problem establishing who had given Making Sounds the Lennon story, and it sounded as if someone had done just that.
Crazy speculation or reasoned assumptions? The secret services of every nation are always prepared to silence their critics, or those who have information that’s detrimental to them. Supposing Maggi O’Kane’s theory was true, and supposing that Maggi and her band were exterminated to keep secret the details of Lennon’s death, it wasn’t much of a leap of faith to imagine that Tony’s death had not been an accident. After all, they didn’t know if he had the original photos that Maggi O’Kane claimed to have. No wonder his shop was engulfed in an inferno that destroyed all the photos and photographic materials on his premises.
I was never going to know the truth
Driving back to the Mansh was a journey of pure nostalgia. Unlike the last time I’d seen it, in the blizzard conditions, today was a sunny day, and the turrets on the roof and the red brick frontage and gaping empty windows seemed to stare at me, willing me to plunge inside and find more of its secrets.
As I parked in the approach road, I heard the hum and roar of lorries’ engines.
The house looked grand, majestic, the turrets on the rooftops, the vast façade, the huge stone windows and red bricks.
But it wasn’t alone and forlorn any more.
I saw the brutish name-lettering in white on the green lorries and machinery: DAVID DEMOLITION.
The Mansh was facing its end with as much dignity as it could muster, rather like an aristocrat going to the scaffold during the French Revolution. Parked in the front drive were two massive DAVID DEMOLITION caterpillar machines, their huge metal beaks chewing at the edges of the roof, crunching into the tiles and pulling away with segments of building in their jaws, like giant crabs feasting. As I watched, they sank their teeth into the central section of the roof, and part of the main front central gable collapsed inwards, leaving jagged timbers and bricks dangling. Dust rose up, covering everything in a red mist, as the demolition proceeded.
I’d seen enough. I’d had all I could take of death, decay and destruction to last me a lifetime. The Mansh was soon going to be a flat field, and in time no one would even remember it had ever been there. Along with the crumbling bricks and timber went the memories of bands jamming together, friendships forged, love affairs begun and hatreds festering. It would be a field, with no trace of what had once been there, soon overgrown with tussocky grass, if the land wasn’t going to be used for new constructions.
Maybe it was a good thing, a suitable end for a building that for almost thirty years had outlived its usefulness.
* * * *
A fortnight later I read in one of the national daily papers a big spread about a skeleton that had been found during site levelling of The Mansh, headed 30-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY SOLVED?. Apparently after the demolition it had been necessary to break up and excavate the remains of the swimming pool along with parts of the garden, and it was here that the grim discovery had been made. Dental records, a ring on a finger and a subsequent DNA test had confirmed that it was the corpse of Leonora Duncan, the 15-year-old daughter of a once high-profile MP, who had gone missing in 1979, her last known sighting having been when a friend had left her outside the gates of The Mansh, Maggi O’Kane’s country estate. Leonora, according to the newspaper report, was an avid Border Crossing fan who’d attended all their concerts, and she’d gone to The Mansh in the hope of seeing them. She was specially keen on Ben Frensham, the bass player. She’d been much more than a casual groupie, she had been what’s known in the trade as a ‘sticky fan’, someone obsessed with a particular band or musician, who follows their every move. The now deceased MP, Harry Duncan, had authorised extensive enquiries and put pressure on the police to grill Maggi O’Kane and her band, but they denied all knowledge of having seen her, even though Leonora’s friend maintained that she’d left Leonora outside the front gates of the Mansh late one Friday night, and no one had ever seen her again. Police had obtained a warrant to search the large house, but no trace of Leonora had ever been found.
The Right Honourable Harry Duncan had been, according to Wikipedia, a junior cabinet minister. Someone with substantial influence and power.
Had Leonora met her end at the hands of members of her band, or guests at the Mansh, and her body buried hastily by them, no one else the wiser? I thought of other possible scenarios. Influential Harry Duncan, desperate to find his daughter, somehow discovering beyond doubt that she’d died at The Mansh, perhaps at the hands of Ben Frensham himself – I remembered the stories of Ben’s vicious cruelty to groupies, his partiality to sadomasochistic sex play. Yet, despite being certain of the truth, Duncan and the police had been unable to prove a thing, because her body had never been found.
Retribution for the heinous crime had been impossible, but had Harry Duncan been able to authorise covert operations by the security services? Not directly of course, but via some powerful cabinet colleague who was in a position to inform people at MI6 that it was necessary to liquidate Maggi O’Kane and her band as a matter of national security. It was something an influential MP might be able to trump up at short notice, inventing stories that the ‘targets’ were involved in Arab or IRA terrorism, the latter who I think were bombing mainland Britain at that time. It made about as much sense as my other theory, that it was American security services who had done the job. But, if so, who had been responsible for Tony Woodley’s murder? Or had it been murder, or simply an accident? No one would ever know.
I should have learned the truth by now: the past can be an ugly stranger whom you never really get to know.
And maybe that’s the way it should be.
Chapter 19
SPEICHERSTADT
The following week, two days before Christmas, I was in Hamburg, on the banks of the Harbour, standing near the red brick Spiecherstadt, according to my guide book the biggest warehouse complex in the world. I could see the Kehrwiedersteg Bridge spanning the river, ancient and picturesque buildings basking lazily along the bank. The spot was close to where I’d had my long talk with Robert Malachi-Brown a few weeks ago. The silvery foam on top of the waves smelt fresh and clear and in the distance there was a pleasure boat moored to the quay, bright cheerful people climbing aboard, all smiles. It seemed more like ten years since I’d last been here, so much had happened. I would like to have just forgotten about my involvement with Robert Malachi-Brown, but my conscience forced me to confront him face-to-face with the truth. I’d phoned to arrange our meeting, and, instead of being curt and blunt with me, he’d been reasonably friendly, suggesting that we should meet at the Harbour again.
There was one good thing to think about. In my pocket was the letter from the National Policing Improvement Agency, telling me that I was being considered for being reinstated on their list of recognised BIAs. I kept reading and re-reading it, wallowing in the pleasure of this amazing new development in my life. It had happened because my old enemy DCI Harcourt had been recently arrested and charged with ‘conspiring to pervert the course of justice’ along with a raft of other misdemeanours. The case of Edward Van Meer’s involvement with the murders of Ann and Jackie Aggrette was being reopened in the light of recent discoveries, and two of the detective sergeants on the case were prepared to testify that it had been evidence that I had submitted that had led to the breakthrough and final arrest of Van Meer, not the input of DCI Harcourt, as had been claimed. Van Meer’s words to me, that I was indeed responsible for solving the case, had proved correct, and belatedly, the authorities were doing what they could to make amends. I could only hope that it would be enough to resurrect my career.
Crackerjack. The veiled jeers, the sneering attitude and taunts from the police I was working with. Did I really want that again? On the other hand, every murder investigation team was different, and a lot depended on the attitude of the Senior Investigating Officer. Times were changing, BIAs were gradually becoming more accepted into the police hierarchy, and most forward thinking officers knew that even if they didn’t like psychologists they were likely to have an increasing role to play in investigations in the future. I’d been unlucky with DCI Harcourt, but why would I necessarily be unlucky again? At least I’d be doing what I’d been trained for. Working as a self employed peripatetic BIA, with jobs cropping up every now and again, to take or refuse as I wanted, was perfectly compatible with writing, an activity I’d decided to continue with.
But, overall, I felt desperately weary and lonely, as if my whole world as I knew it had been turned upside down. I’d thought of Ken as a close friend, and the ramifications of our friendship were too awful to think about. Coupled with that, for a long time I’d known another side of Ken, the decent side. I missed the good part of him, missed his easy-going laugh, his friendly concern, his agreeable chatter.
It was as if I was always destined to be alone, struggling to form relationships that were sabotaged for one reason or another, or that turned sour. Looking back on the past few weeks, meeting Jane had been the best thing that had happened in my life. I could still remember her smile, her laugh, the touch of her hand. Now that it was too late I knew beyond doubt that I didn’t want a madly beautiful woman with a perfect figure. I wanted Jane, with her homely features, generous proportions and kind smile. I had a link to her mind, and it was her mind, her thoughts, her feelings, everything that was her, that I wanted. And I’d realised all this far too late to tell her. But she’d said I could contact her in a month. I’d tell her then.
It was raining. A dirty grey drizzle, dark clouds crowding the sky, augmenting my feelings of gloom.
Robert Malachi-Brown appeared at the brow of the hill and approached. From the distance I couldn’t see his expression, just the wild hair, the emaciated wrinkled face, the slightly crazy air that surrounded him as if he was frozen in time, out of sync with the 21st century, forever trapped in a 1970s world of drink, drugs and rock music.
“Look, Robert, that article in Making Sounds had nothing to do with me,” I stood up to talk to him as he got closer. “Remember, it came out just a day after we spoke, and the magazine was printed over three weeks before that time. It was the photographic studio guy who developed my film. He got a glimpse of Geertrud’s diary, made some guesses, that’s all. That’s why there were no details of what you told me, and your name wasn’t involved.”
“Calm down, mate, I know I know.” He sat down on the bench and lit a cigarette. Then he smiled, the expression softening the crags of his face, lightening the wild look in his eyes. “A mate of mine drew my attention to that piece, I read it, I was ready to have your bollocks, until I realised the timescale meant it couldn’t have been you who wrote it. Besides, if you had, there’d have been all the details I told you – the stuff about what actually happened – or rather what Maggi claimed happened.”
I sat down beside him. Both of us were looking out across the river rather than at each other. It seemed more relaxed that way.
“They’ve knocked down The Mansh.”
“Have they? Well, big old place. Someone told me it just festered away since what happened in 1980. Best thing really.”
“Has it ever struck you, Robert, that none of it really mattered? As you said, if the CIA man accidentally killed Lennon, or all the bullets were fired by Mark Chapman, it doesn’t really make any odds, does it?”
“Nope. Nobody cares a fuck anymore.”
He took another drag on his cigarette. It looked much too long to be an ordinary smoke, the smell strange, more like some kind of exotic bonfire, and I wondered how he dared take such a chance in a public place.
“Come on Jack.” He got to his feet after we’d chatted while he finished his spliff. “I promised you I’d show you the haunts of Hamburg. Where the Beatles played in 1961, the Star Club, the Keiserkellar. And I can show you the secret parts of the city no one else ever gets to see.”
He was good company, and by the time I’d had an impromptu tour of Hamburg and we’d had a lunch of frankfurters and good strong German beer, we parted company as good friends, promising to keep in touch.
“Funny really mate, but meeting you has kinda galvanised me into playing music again,” he said. “You reminded me of all the old times, the friends I had, the music I made, the sheer joy of living we all shared. Those guys are all gone now – retired, dead or somewhere else. But I went down to a few clubs the other night, jammed with some younger guys. And found I’d still got it. Still got that buzz, you know? That buzz of excitement you get when you create a new song. You can’t put that excitement of writing a new piece of music into words. It’s something you just kinda feel. Just to be doing a bit of jamming again is great, you know? After Trudy died, everything seemed to stop. But now I feel as if I’ve got something to get up in the morning for.”
Once we parted I strolled along the quay and went for a long walk across the city ending up in the centre in front of the Rathaus, looking at the fountain in the courtyard in front of the place, wondering how to fill in the time until my flight in the evening. It had started to rain. My mobile rang and I answered it.
“Jack? It’s Jane.”
“Hi.”
My heart beat faster. I couldn’t believe that she was ringing me.
“Look, Jack I want to tell you something.”
I’d forgotten the high tone of her voice when she was excited, the northern twang and the smile in her words that I’d missed so much.
“Remember, I told you that I always regretted abandoning medicine? It was what you said to me that tipped the balance – you saying to me that it was never too late to change direction in your life. It’s not too late for me now, but in a year or two it will be. So…” She
gave her short trademark laugh, part-nerves, part-excitement. “That’s it. I made the decision. I’ve been applying to universities, and most of them rejected me, as I expected. But, amazingly enough, Sheffield is prepared to give me a second chance. And I’m going to grab it.”
“It’s a new beginning.”
“It’s giving a lot of things up, it’s throwing away my career in the police.”
“But it’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want.”
“Then you have to do it.”
“I knew you’d understand. All my friends think I’m crazy.”
“Then they don’t care about you, what you really want in your life. You were meant to be a doctor.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“I wouldn’t just say it. You were meant to be a doctor.”
“I had to phone you, to thank you for helping me see things clearly, for helping me make the decision.”
“Sheffield’s not so far–”
“That’s the other thing I had to tell you. This is hard for me, Jack, but I’ve done a lot of thinking. Thing is, I’ve given in my notice and I’ve got some leave due, meaning I can leave work more or less immediately. I’ve decided I’m going to let my flat to a friend and go travelling around Europe for a few months until September, when term starts. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I want to move on in my life. I want to start afresh and leave the past behind.”
“And the past includes me?”
“The past includes everything. We never had a relationship Jack, you know that. As I told you, I’m getting divorced, and if I meet someone in future then that’s fine, but I’m sorry. The past days have made me realise that it could never be you.”
“You said I could phone you in a month.”
“I’ve changed my mind, Jack. There’s no point. I’m sorry.”
The rain fell harder, soaking my face and my hair. I tried to keep the phone dry by covering it with my hand.
Rock'n'Roll Suicide (Jack Lockwood Mystery Series Book 1) Page 30