by Stella Duffy
I do have one regret. I regret I had to be quite so fast about the actual act. I should have liked to spend a little more time with him. I have questions about the lyrics, about the music. Questions about her. And I wish I hadn’t been so nervous with the hitting. I should have liked to have been more exact. Less messy. But then a softball bat is hardly a precision instrument, is it? I can’t be expected to kill a drummer in perfect three four time. Not without a lot of practice anyway.
NINETEEN
No one other than Saz, Siobhan and Greg had any cause to link Alex’s messy murder to the letters and anonymous bouquets. The police least of all, because Siobhan refused to tell them. Or to show them the flowers that arrived the next morning, this time with no note attached but two red roses deep inside the yellow bouquet. Saz felt horribly certain that ignoring the possibility of a link meant another nasty surprise was lying just around the comer for them. She tried to explain as much to Siobhan, but to no avail. Siobhan, lying in bed—where she’d spent the twenty-four hours since Alex had been discovered, only two days after their return from Estonia—once again refused Saz’s attempts to discuss the matter. She swallowed another mouthful of too warm vodka and shook her head.
“No, Saz. It’s got nothing to do with them. I don’t want the fucking cops getting in on this.”
“But surely, just telling them you might think there’s a link?”
“You think there’s a link. I still don’t know.”
“Well, let me talk to them instead.”
“I spoke to those two detectives the morning they found him, then in the afternoon I repeated everything I knew to the policewoman and then told it all over again this morning to that dim bitch from victim support. Look, as far as they’re concerned, this is just another gay bashing, they don’t even want to find who did it. They don’t give a fuck about gay bashings.”
“Right, and you’d know.”
Siobhan rubbed a hand across her tired face. “Well, of course I wouldn’t, but that’s the impression I get. That’s the impression everyone gets, or are you suddenly a member of the police-loving right?”
“They’re not all fascists.”
Siobhan sighed, “No, and all priests aren’t child molesters either. It’s irrelevant anyway, I can’t just suddenly jump up and say, oh by the way, I forgot to tell you, I’m being harassed by a fan who won’t leave me alone.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Because of the tour, Saz. Because of the band. If the cops knew about the flowers as well, we’d never get out of the bloody country without an entourage of police and hangers-on.”
Saz stood up to look out at the autumn trees. She turned back to Siobhan, both worried and frustrated. “That might not be such a bad thing. Maybe you could do with some visible police presence.”
Siobhan finished her vodka. “Yeah, and maybe I could do with writing ‘victim’ across my forehead and seeing just how well that adds to the sex-goddess image.”
Saz moved away from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. She refilled Siobhan’s glass and stroked a wisp of hair away from the younger woman’s face. “Listen to me, Siobhan, I know you’d rather just pretend all this isn’t happening, but you can’t. Cowering in bed isn’t going to make all this go away. If you won’t tell them about the letters, you could at least mention the guy in Tallinn. Anyway, the cops already know that something isn’t adding up. They know Alex isn’t gay.”
“Wasn’t gay. But they know he was at a gay pub with Dan. Dan says he left Alex there and went home alone. ‘What more do they need? It’s just another sick bastard who thought he’d lucked out and killed a deserving queer. You know what Alex is like, he’d talk to any bastard who was buying the drinks.” She started to cry again, “Or he’d fight with any bastard who was buying the drinks.”
“The autopsy, Siobhan. This person was with him for longer than just a couple of drinks in the pub, whoever it was had coffee with Alex.”
“Or Alex had coffee by himself. And a cheese sandwich by himself. Yes, I know all about it.”
“How?”
“No mystery,” Siobhan replied wearily, “You got the autopsy info from your police lady friend, right?”
Saz nodded, “After a little persuasion, yes.”
“You told Greg, Greg told me. He tells me everything. I don’t know why you didn’t talk to me about it in the first place.”
Saz pointed to the empty vodka glass in Siobhan’s hand. “How about your lack of sobriety for a start? That and the fact that Greg thought we shouldn’t worry you.”
“Yeah, well, he stops being quite so sensitive about my worries when he’s coked out of his head and panicking about his own problems at four in the morning. Shame you aren’t here in the middle of the night to try and win him round the way you do with me.” Siobhan screwed up her face and finished off the rest of the vodka from the bottle, “Coke’s a brilliant drug for partying but probably not ideal when your best friend has just been beaten to death and you’re the one who has to identify him.”
Saz winced and tried one more time. She got as far as, “But couldn’t I just …?” when Siobhan’s irritation flipped over into rage.
“No, you fucking can’t. You can just bloody leave it alone. You can do what you’re paid to do and take care of me, and if that isn’t enough for you, then you can fuck off. I’ve worked on this for years with Greg. Our band. Eight, nine bloody years. We will go to LA. After that we will go to New Zealand and have our far-too-fucking-brief holiday and then plan the next nine years. The next album. The next tour. I’m sorry about Alex, I’m really fucking sorry and the man I love is devastated. I’ve barely slept for three days. About the only thing that’s keeping me going is the thought that there’s more work out there. Another gig to do. And with the record company kicking up a stink about us having to get on with the business regardless and the boys falling apart all around me and the police and the tabloids sticking their noses in every bloody place, I’m damn well going to cope as best I can.” She paused to catch her breath, “You know, I thought Greg and I had been through a lot, but this is worst thing that has ever happened to me, and I’m telling you, Saz, I’m fucked if I’m going to let some homophobic bastard killing Alex stop us. Not this, not that big git in Tallin and certainly not the inconsequential cunt who’s trying to scare me with his pathetic little letters and nasty fucking flowers. So you can either drop this whole idea of telling the cops right now or you can just piss off too. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get up, get dressed and exercise away some of this self-pity and alcohol and I’d like a little privacy to do that. Thank you.”
Siobhan threw herself back down into her pillows, pulling the duvet over her face and Saz, dismissed and stunned into silence, let herself out of the bedroom, walked down the stairs and out into the damp street. By the time she’d furiously wolfed down two bars of milk chocolate and one packet of smoky bacon crisps, Saz was feeling just about ready to face Kevin.
Kevin was less interested in talking to Saz. He came to his front door, opened it a crack and tried to slam it in her face. Saz got her winter booted foot through the door just in time. Kevin tried squeezing it but the steel toecap of the shoes Molly loathed most of all Saz’s apparel worked their trick and the door stayed firmly open.
“What the fuck do you want?” Kevin’s eloquence was matched only by the warmth of the snarl across his face.
“I wanted to talk to you about Alex. You do know …”
Kevin walked away from her and back into the dark recesses of his home, “Of course I fucking know. It’s in all the papers. It only fucking happened around the bloody corner.”
Saz followed him, pushing the door to behind her. She didn’t quite close it. In the kitchen Kevin turned to face her, “So are you a cop?”
“No. But I’m not a journalist either. I’m working for Siobhan.”
Kevin slumped down in front of a nearly finished bottle of cheap whisky, “Working as what?”<
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Saz reached for a glass from the newly wiped draining board, “Can I help myself?”
Kevin watched her help herself to half of the remaining whisky and take an unappreciative mouthful, “You’ve got some nerve, haven’t you?”
Saz sat down opposite him. “Sometimes. Siobhan Forrester’s being stalked. Someone’s been sending her nasty letters and bunches of roses and making anonymous phone calls and now someone’s killed Alex. She’s employed me to find out who.”
“Yeah, well, you’re barking up the wrong tree here, sweetheart.” He looked around at the plain room, “The budget doesn’t stretch to roses these days.”
“Can I ask what you were doing …”
“The night Alex got his head caved in?”
“Yes.”
“Sitting here feeling sorry for myself as usual. I went to the newsagents Friday morning. Bought the Guardian, thought I’d give myself a treat and choose not to check out the job section. I cracked a bottle, watched Richard and Judy, went to the shops, bought a can of tomato soup for lunch, watched the lunchtime news and then Neighbours and then whatever other crap was on the telly until Countdown. I thought about having a wank over the lovely Carol Vorderman but I just couldn’t get up the energy. Then I went to the pub where I stayed until chucking out time.”
“That’s very specific for someone who must have been pretty pissed.”
“No, darling, that’s very specific because it’s what I do every fucking day.”
“Weekends?”
“I go to church.”
Saz got up, scraping her chair against the floor as she did so. Kevin’s lolling head jolted up, “Mind the fucking floor, I’ve just washed it!”
Looking around at the depressingly clean emptiness of the room, Saz asked, “Why bother?”
Kevin smiled and poured the last of the bottle into his glass, “My mum’s coming for tea. Don’t forget to slam the door after you.”
Just as she was crossing the threshold, Kevin called after her. Saz looked up and saw his heavy frame taking up most of the kitchen doorway, “There is another reason I remember what I did that day.”
“Which is?”
“I figure I might even have passed them in the street, at closing time. That pub’s on my way home. I might have actually seen the bloke who did it. Bumped into him even. I keep replaying that night in my head, I keep thinking maybe I could have helped him …”
Uncertain whether to believe him or not, Saz chose to take the kindly understanding option, “I doubt it, you probably couldn’t have done anything for Alex …”
Kevin laughed out loud, “I don’t mean Alex, you stupid bitch.”
Saz slammed the door behind her and ran down the street as fast as she could.
As soon as she got home, Saz put in a call to Helen at home. She was relieved to find that Helen and Judith’s answerphone was on, glad not to have to explain her position any more than absolutely necessary.
“Look, I think you should let whoever is in charge of the Alex Cramer investigation know that they should check up on a Kevin Hogan. He’s a real charmer. The guy used to work for Beneath The Blonde and he’s not exactly happy about the treatment he received from them. Not enough severance pay apparently. And we must do dinner sometime. Bye.”
Molly knew Saz well enough to know that her interest in the case would only be heightened by the latest developments and so wasn’t at all surprised that Saz had decided she would accompany the band to the States and then on to New Zealand. She wasn’t too pleased about it either, but she kept her displeasure to herself, feeding an unusually quiet Saz homemade pasta with fresh basil pesto and two-thirds of a bottle of oak-aged chardonnay. Dessert was Molly’s own pistachio ice cream, laboriously churned and frozen all afternoon, supplemented with a third of a bottle of amaretto between them and thick, bitter coffee to wash it all down.
With Saz’s appetites for food and drink sated, Molly worked a little sexual blackmail to try to make her change her mind. She took Saz to bed and made love to her in as many ways and for as long as she could manage until all the muscles in her own body were screaming in exhaustion and Saz lay in her arms half-laughing, half-crying from fatigue and uncontained satisfaction.
As Saz closed her eyes, her head curled into the crook of Molly’s arm, Molly whispered, “See? How could you even contemplate going away from all that?”
Saz smiled and lifted her head just enough to allow Molly’s lips to nuzzle her cheek, “Good try, babe. It’ll certainly give me something to remember in my lonely hotel bed.”
They drifted into sleep, slowly disentangling their limbs, Saz to dream fitfully of Kevin and Alex holding broken heads and broken roses while occasionally having a single lucid thought about what she could wear to the wake and Molly to fantasize about living with a lover who actually stayed at home.
TWENTY
Waking up the morning after the wake the night before, Saz had one moment of pure blissful calm before the reality of the day set in. When she opened her eyes four seconds later, however, two heavy truths dawned on her. The first, and most pressing, was that she had only a day and a half in London to sort out whatever she could about the flower sender before she flew to LA with the rest of the band. That she had woken in Siobhan’s room and that she was also suffering from the worst hangover she’d ever experienced left her wanting to kick herself as hard as possible—something she might have done had not the mere action of opening her eyes provoked a headache more distressing than any kick might have been. Saz was suffering the aftereffects of Alex’s wake, an event more fierce and more partied than any she could recall. Though she wasn’t at all certain just how valid her own recollections were.
Given that Peta was understandably incapacitated by grief, the wake had been personally stage-managed by Cal who flew in the morning after the news broke about Alex’s murder. Cal had enlisted Saz as his assistant, working her full-out on the funeral arrangements and leaving her even less time to get on with her real job. Following two days of bargaining with the authorities and another day and a half of frantic preparations, Cal announced that, with police permission, they’d hold the funeral twenty hours later. He also announced that he fully expected it to not only be a better party than Alex could ever have envisioned, but that it would also “get the hot journo butts off this front doorstep and right into the music stores to order their copies of the new album and send you babies straight into the top ten”. His only disappointment was that the record company couldn’t get the album out any sooner. When Siobhan remonstrated that she didn’t think that the loss of Alex should necessarily be treated as a great marketing opportunity, Cal snapped back that unless she let him have his way, Alex’s euphemistically referred to “loss” would also be a death knell for the band and she had damn well better get used to the idea. As far as he was concerned, the only way to cope with a dead drummer—and even worse—a dead lyricist, was to make the dead man into a living myth. As quickly as humanly possible. Which is how Saz came to find herself poring over sheets of Beneath The Blonde lyrics and highlighting with a shiny new yellow marker any lines that might just hint at Alex’s premonitions of his surprise demise. For Cal, the pathos of Karen Carpenter’s singing “Goodbye To Love” was going to be as nothing compared to the fact that Alex had written a song for the new album, now rapidly promoted to single status, the last line of which was “And I never knew a friend’s kiss, to beat the kiss of death, miss”. The only thing that made Cal happier than underlining the words “beat” and “death” was one of the many bunches of flowers delivered on the morning of the funeral—he made sure the paparazzi got a clear shot of the card, handwritten by Courtney Love.
The funeral itself was a masterpiece of overstatement. Alex, an ex-Catholic atheist whose anti-belief was so fervent it was almost a religion in itself, would probably have been hugely impressed by Cal’s purposeful rejection of all things traditional. For a start, there were the invitations—embossed silver writing on black a
nd purple cards inviting those “close to or touched by Alex Cramer to a passionate commemoration of his brief but vital life”. The celebratory service (for one hundred invited guests only) took place on the Tuesday afternoon at a tiny South London pub, the scene of the band’s first ever gig, followed by a private cremation and, while the service was band and family only, the paparazzi still had easy access to great camera angles through the wire-link fence surrounding the cemetery. Those invited to the ceremony were told to wear “yellow, pink, sky-rocket blue—anything but black”. Kevin Hogan made it to the service dressed in a faded brown suit and looking suitably hung over. His mother sat by his side throughout and he smirkingly introduced her to Saz as “the chick who thinks I did him in”. Clucking her disapproval, Kevin’s mother pursed her lips and stalked off. Kevin wandered away in Siobhan’s direction to offer his condolences and the depleted contents of his hip flask. Surprisingly, even Alex’s family complied with the dress code, his mother wearing an elegant suit of dusty pink, edged in black piping. It was all the more striking when Siobhan and the boys arrived, each of them dressed in a smooth black velvet suit and Siobhan with the added touch of a veiled pillbox hat, looking for all the world like Jackie Kennedy. Cal had thoughtfully provided her with Alex’s besuited four-year-old nephew to hold her hand just in case anyone missed the comparison.