We Are Toten Herzen

by C Harrison

  RavensWish - decided to change my life gonna travel until I meet @TotenHerzen desire to be a vampire stronger than ever #liberated is what I want to feel

  2 (April)

  When the third bang on the wall knocked Dee Vincent off her feet she knew something was seriously wrong. One bang was probably an accident, two bangs would be a temper tantrum, but three bangs. Three was bad. Three meant a pattern was emerging. Dee sat on the floor of her hotel room staring at the wall and waiting, waiting for the next impact, the next statement of intent. But it didn't happen. In the lull she checked her smartphone again and saw another tweet, a continuation of the chat she had been reading out loud just before it all kicked off in the room next to hers.

  "He's just said Susan Bekker's Flying V would look better if she wore it over her face. Hashtag, metal sucks, Toten Herzen fuck off and die, old hags. Charming."

  A cry came back from the room next door. "Will you shut the fuck up!" Dee grinned just as the fourth bang shook the wall and a heavy sheet of stainless steel burst through the florid wallpaper, lodging itself in the masonry several feet up.

  "What's that?" Dee said to herself. She stood up to inspect it and tasted some of the blood dripping off one corner of the reflective metal. It was fragrant, imbued with Susan's perfume and as dark as her anger. "Are you upset because of me?" Dee asked, but there was no reply. She looked around her own room and saw the stainless steel mini bar built into a cabinet. "What?" She spoke again to the wall. "They're only tweets, don't take it like this. Listen. Flying V, er . . . f-f-s, whatever that means, maybe that's her pet name for her, hashtag, minge. God, I haven't heard that word since 1987."

  The mini bar door was yanked back into Susan's room with a savagery that took part of the brickwork with it. An unholy crashing sound continued for several raucous minutes before Dee looked through the hole in the wall and saw her friend covered in blood and standing rigid on a carpet of shattered mirrors.

  Dee travelled through the wall. "Is it safe to speak?" No reply. Susan was recharging, taking ever deeper breaths until she let out a howl that vibrated the hotel's fixtures and fittings. When the din had subsided Dee wiped her eyes and turned her phone back on. "Do you know everything switches off when you do that." Car alarms outside were crying for their owners.

  Susan slowly acknowledged the devastation around her and the increasing noise of footsteps and panic out in the corridor. Dee stroked the hair back from Susan's face and brushed away the remaining few crumbs of glass still embedded in her skin. "I feel better now."

  "Do you? You don't look it."

  Susan's eyes were reddening. "Don't I? How would I know? This world of walls is driving me fucking mad. Just once, just one fucking time I'd like to see my face in a mirror; check my hair, brush my teeth, just once do it and decide for myself that I look okay."

  "Well I'm sorry, but you can't," said Dee playing with her phone. "I've told you, go over there, introduce yourself. Let him see he's wrong." She looked up. "Then rip his face off."

  "Who is that fucker anyway?"

  Dee studied her phone. "Mike Gannon. Ah, look, his username. The greatmickeygee. He has seven hundred and thirty five followers. More than you."

  "You think this is funny?"

  "Sort of. You gotta laugh. He called me a geriatric goblin, am I ripping up my hotel suite? Am I studding my waxen face with bits of glass? No, I'm dealing with it and so should you."

  "I'm not dealing with it. I don't want to deal with it." She froze again. "I want to do something about it. There's no point to any of this, the comeback, reunion, whatever you wanna call it, if we just let the same things happen all over again." She snatched her jacket off a chair.

  "Do you want me to come?"

  "No."

  "I could film it." Dee waved her phone.

  "What? Why?"

  "That's what everyone does these days. Don't they? Film the victim. Capture the moment, share it with your friends. Upload it to the cloud! In a hundred years time you'll have a memento of this evening to share with your grandchildren."

  "You're sick." Susan vanished.

  "Get some Werther's Originals on your way back." Dee texted Rene and Elaine: 'watch yourselves bekkers upset!!'

  -

  Mike Gannon's flat was in darkness, but as Susan travelled from one room to another she caught sight of him now and then in the glow of his open fridge or the fluorescence of his laptop screen. As she explored his sanctuary she could hear him laughing, giggling, sniffing, tapping his caustic messages on the keys of his smartphone. She could smell the beer he was swigging. The leftover vegetables of an earlier salad covered in olive oil were already in the first stages of decay. The bathroom reeked of lemon bleach. She drifted alongside him and spied on his messages: 'not backing out phone suddenly went off but its back on now'. He shivered and gulped another mouthful of beer as he waited for the response then continued wandering round his flat in a state of bored lethargy, unaware of his stalker, unaware of the attention.

  She heard him mumble. "Yeah, my pleasure. Twat." He threw his phone into a chair, took another swig from his bottle and turned off the laptop.

  Now was the time. She would have his exclusive attention. First stop was the kitchen and the mirror on the wall next to the extractor fan. She dropped it into the sink on top of a mound of cups. Second stop was the hallway and the mirror facing the door. She headbutted it and threw it into the lounge. Alerted by the noises, Gannon was racing from room to room, shouting out at the unseen intruder, his late night poltergeist. In the bedroom Susan picked up the long mirror standing in the corner and threw it down again onto the wood flooring. Seconds later Gannon barged up to the bedroom door and put his hand to the light switch. Hesitation. Susan could smell a flourish of sweat as Gannon paused, desperate to make sense of what was going on. He glanced at the window. It was unbroken; no one had come through there. Vicious fragments of glass were waiting for his bare feet to slice across them, but he remained in the doorway, breathing rapidly, his heartbeat audible, echoing inside his chest cavity.

  The devilry had stopped, but Susan wasn't finished just yet. She was stood behind Gannon with an eight inch shard of glass in her right hand. "Hey," she breathed just loud enough not to startle him. He turned his head and she rammed the shard deep into his right eye. The scream filled the apartment as the blood painted a demented arc across the wall. Gannon bent double unable to touch the shard, unable to stem the bleeding. He stumbled towards the lounge, his left eye still open, but before he could reach the chair and the discarded phone Susan stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

  "Mirror mirror on the wall. . . ." she whispered. Leaning her head against his cheek she could see his eye bulging and looking at the reflective shard cantilevered out of his skull. He could see her in his peripheral vision, looming over his shoulder, but there was nothing in the mirror. "I'm looking at you looking at me," she said. "Do I look like an old hag now, Michael? Explain this to your followers, all seven hundred and thirty five of them." Susan figured he had seconds to go before passing out so she propped his flaccid body upright and sank her teeth into his flesh down to the collarbone. Their bodies danced awkwardly for a few more seconds before she found herself biting into a lifeless carcass. It dropped with a thud and settled into a pathetic foetal position.

  Susan licked the blood off her upper lip, tasting the olive oil molecules and iron! She grinned and tapped the back of his head with the toe of her boot. "Thought you didn't like metal. See, we all have our little secrets, Michael. Even you."

  -

  Dee was prone on her settee when Elaine Daley appeared in the room shortly after six am. "Quiet?" said Dee.

  Elaine nodded. Her attention was caught by the hole in the wall. As she stepped towards it Rene van Voor's face peered between the bricks.

  "Have you seen this place?" he said.

  Elaine stood surrounded by the debris in Susan's room. Rene was walking round, hands on hips, studying the mini bar and its m
issing door. "She must have been fucking thirsty," said Elaine. Pushing bits of broken mirror around with her foot she ran a finger along the top of the television screen, wiping away the glass. "At least she didn't throw this out the window. What a cliche that would have been."

  3 (April)

  No one spoke on the fourth floor of Gillard House in south London. Staff at the headquarters of Gillard Publishing were in shock at the news of one of their own, music critic Mike Gannon, being brutally murdered four days earlier. Gannon's editor Chris Sparios from Pucker Up magazine was in a crisis meeting with several members of the board of directors. They wanted to know, just to be clear on things, (investors were asking) if Gannon had brought on the attack by his own conduct.

  "You mean shouldn't he have kept his mouth shut?" said Sparios.

  "He criticised the band in no uncertain terms and we want your opinion on whether he went beyond what is, let's say, responsible journalism. People are getting more sensitive to these things, Chris."

  "Mike was always outspoken," said Sparios. "That's what made him a popular critic. That's why you hired him. His work was syndicated all over Europe. You can't expect to muzzle someone like that. He didn't libel anyone. And you know the rules: if you can't take the stick don't join a rock band. You wanted him and his provocative style so long as none of it poisoned your own reputation."

  "Not exactly the sort of people you'd want to upset though." The finance director read from a memo: "Band members suspected of killing their own manager, suspected of killing the head of their own record label, suspected of killing the person suspected of killing them!"

  "It's all a load of bollocks," laughed Sparios. "It's publicity. For Christ's sake they were a wild rock band who are now a bunch of sixty year olds wanting to make a comeback. For all we know Mike's probably sitting in the bar of a five star hotel in Hampshire while we sit here fretting about his alleged brutal murder."

  The finance director placed his memo carefully on the table. "Mike Gannon is lying in a mortuary in south London. Mike Gannon is dead, Chris, and Toten Herzen's long blood-soaked history has just added another victim. And can I just add," he repositioned himself in his chair, "that Gillard Publishing can consider itself collateral damage in all this."

  "Advertisers pulling out?" said Sparios.

  "On the contrary, we think revenues might actually increase in the short term, but in the longer term we don't want clients advertising in our magazines who specialise in chainsaws and body bags."

  -

  A wall mounted screen in the reception area was streaming a live feed from the BBC. The calm of Cromwell Road in Hounslow had been interrupted by a mass of camera wielding bodies fighting for space as a solitary figure was led from his flat to a police van. In the pushing and shoving strobe flashes lit up the evening, but none of them caught the features of the man under arrest. Fifteen minutes later he was in a secure room at an undisclosed police location.

  BBC News 24

  "Police have arrested a man in connection with the murder of music critic Mike Gannon. The Metropolitan Police refused to name the suspect, but did say a 46 year old man was helping them with their enquiries. The man is believed to be Rob Wallet, the publicist of the rock band Toten Herzen who recently announced plans for a comeback. Rob Wallet is also wanted under a European arrest warrant as a suspect in the murder of a British man, Leonard Harper, who was found dead in Germany in March earlier this year."

  4 (April)

  Back in 1977, not long after Toten Herzen had been murdered, a young boy sat in the office of his school's deputy headmistress. He wasn't expecting the cane, but he wasn't in line for an award either. Having loosened the tops of fifteen vinegar bottles he was in deep shit for ruining over a dozen school meals, including a plate of roast pork and chips about to be eaten by a maths teacher. The boy was summoned, made to wait, admonished by Mrs Baxter and her magnificent bouffant hairstyle and given detention. The tampering of the bottles didn't quite go down in the folklore of the school, but for several days the boy was a hero amongst his closest mates.

  Not so now. Rob Wallet looked back on that innocent time and felt a slight feeling of regret that he didn't appreciate it more. For as long as he could remember Wallet had told anyone born after 1979 that the seventies were the lost years of civilisation; the decade was a social and cultural black hole swallowing anything that might one day be considered enlightening. There was no avoiding the smothering sepias and ochres, and when their time was up they were replaced by the even more soul destroying magnolia. It was a time of FA Cup confrontations across windswept mud baths and brainwashed teenagers in tank tops dancing to Living Next Door to Alice on Top of the Pops. After the power cuts the lights would come back on and the carnage of another IRA atrocity made itself apparent. The Sweeney always got their villain, usually because the villains were trying to escape in cars made by British Leyland.

  But incarceration changes a man. Locked up all weekend and now slumped on an uncomfortable plastic chair, he sat in a glowing white police interview room alone with his juvenile thoughts. Wallet remembered a time when coming home from school meant holding his own FA Cup fixtures on his Subbuteo pitch, played by two teams with three meticulously painted Adidas stripes down their sleeves. The miniature Tango footballs were the closest he'd ever get to owning one of those spectacular black and white footballs they used in the '74 World Cup finals. He saw British Leyland cars at the first Motor Show at the NEC in 1977 (six months after Toten Herzen had been murdered); they were shiny, rust free and were almost as tempting as the Panther 6 and Saab Turbo. Curly Wurlys and Haunted House, a Revell Space Shuttle on the back of a Jumbo Jet and too many packs of Top Trumps. Maybe he was wrong about the seventies. Van der Valk, Jeux sans Frontiers, Fawlty Towers on a Tuesday night after Pot Black. Wallet started to make a mental list of stuff he was going to find and collect when the police let him go.

  The door rattled, stuck in its frame, and then blew open. "Don't you have any better chairs than these?" said Wallet to DI Toker, the arresting officer.

  "We don't want you settling down," said Toker. He placed an A4 size photograph on the table and sat down.

  "Lovely. What's that got to do with me?"

  "Well, I think you should look at it again, Mr Wallet, because I think you know what happened to the man in that photograph." The man was Mike Gannon. "You knew Mike Gannon, didn't you?"

  "Of course I knew him. Before I started working with Toten Herzen we were both music journalists. Well, he was a music critic, so strictly speaking not a proper journalist, a sort of pretend journalist actually, but yeah, I knew him. If there were any parties or celebrations the minute he walked in the place would empty."

  "Really," said Toker. "I've heard he was very popular."

  Wallet tutted. "Having a girlfriend isn't enough to describe yourself as popular. Gannon was a first class twat. Whoever writes his obituary will be a better writer than me. I suppose you could praise him by saying he wasn't as bad as Adolf Hitler."

  "Really?"

  "Well, at least Hitler had a go at painting. Gannon had no artistic flair whatsoever. He was born to be a critic. Nearly everyone in the music industry had an excuse to kill him and quite a few outside it too."

  "Hated him enough to do this?" Toker held up the grisly photo.

  "Have you found my DNA at the scene of this crime? Any evidence at all? If you ask me body piercing's a mug's game."

  "Yeah," said Toker. "Lots of people seem to die in ugly ways where you're concerned. Micky Redwall, Lenny Harper, now this." Toker sat back with his hands in his pockets.

  "That's three, and I'd be about twelve years old for one of them."

  "Granted Redwall's death was too early for you, but Lenny Harper in Germany. There wasn't much left of him either."

  "That's not what I heard."

  "You were the last person to see Harper alive according to the police in Germany. You show up at a motel near Obergrau and a few days later you're on the f
erry home and Lenny Harper's dead in his back garden. You don't have an alibi for last Monday."

  "Ask the other members of the band. I was with them."

  "And where will I find them?"

  "I don't know. They don't tell me everything. It's a bit frustrating at times."

  "I know the feeling." Toker sat forward again and took a pen out of his inside pocket. "They weren't at your flat."

  "I went back to organise some things. I'm moving out to Europe with them and needed to arrange the shipment of some stuff, storage of some other things. . . ."

  "What were they doing in London?"

  "There were legal issues over publishing rights, mechanical rights and they came to collect the master tapes of their albums. They were based in England before they moved to Europe. If they're gonna make a comeback they need all the legalities to be in place and they need to get the master tapes before someone else gets them."

  Toker was satisfied with the answers, but he wasn't going to go soft just yet. He chewed the end of his pen as he listened to Wallet speak. "If you are innocent why don't they walk into the station and verify your whereabouts for last Monday?"

  "That's not how they work. They won't just turn up like that."

  "Why not?"

  Wallet looked Toker right in the eye. "Because they're vampires."

  -

  Outside the interview room, seeking comfort in a cig, DI Toker found himself surprised by his reaction to Wallet's menacing expression. He was over-familiar with the audacity and cockiness of some of the people he'd met in that room, seasoned criminals, legal experts, others knowing that a deal would soon be on the table, but Wallet? Wallet was a muso, a hack, where was his self-confidence coming from? Toker needed two cigarettes before he was ready to go back in, but only after commandeering DI Evan Silvers for some post-nicotine support.

  "Oh, this isn't good cop bad cop, is it?" said Wallet.

  "No," said Toker. "This is DI Evan Silvers. I want him here as a witness when you start answering my questions."

  "Why no tape recorder?"

  "You don't need one."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you're not like other people." Toker couldn't stop adjusting his coat, crossing his legs, rubbing his nicotine stained fingers. "Don't believe everything you see on those daytime tv programmes."

  "Okay. Okay, Susan did it."

  "Susan?"

  "Susan did it all."

  "Susan who?" said Toker.

  "Bekker. Susan Bekker."

  DI Toker studied Wallet's body language; he didn't seem that uncomfortable on the chair, slouching at a casual angle towards his questioners. "Go on."

  "Well," said Wallet, "based on what she told me it went something like this."

  -

  Obergrau was smothered by one of its regular cloud invasions. When the mist was blown in by a strong wind the village would appear and disappear, but the locals had become accustomed to losing their orientation and relied on instinct to get about. Then the mist would lift and the world around them would re-emerge, familiar and reassuring, with everything exactly where it was before it had vanished.

  Lenny Harper looked through the window of his small kitchen, but the view was only as far as the thickness of the glass. He could just see his own pale hazy reflection like a watermark. His drawn, tired eyes stared back at him with equal weariness and his mouth drooped, pulled down by the aged excess of flesh draped over his jaws.

  But he was not alone.

  Susan Bekker announced herself. She had travelled under the cover of the cloud, so thick and dense it was blocking out direct sunlight. Lenny was astonished to meet her so early in the day.

  "I couldn't sleep," she said.

  "Can I do anything for you?" Lenny was worried.

  "No. And that's the reason I'm here," said Susan. "You look tired, Lenny. You look like you're past it."

  "I have to admit life in these mountains doesn't get any easier." He sat down at his kitchen table and swirled around the dregs of his coffee cup. "Maybe I'll survive one more summer, but next winter is going to be a hard one."

  "Are you expecting sympathy?"

  "No. I've come to expect anything but. Are you ever going to let me leave here?"

  "Oh, someday. In one form or another. Don't forget the reason you're here." Susan joined him at the table. "Truth is, Lenny, I'm as bored as you are living up on this mountain and now this opportunity has come our way."

  Lenny knew what she was referring to. "Have you turned him?"

  "Yeah. He seems to have reacted to it okay. Suppose he had a bit of time to think about it. He wouldn't have come otherwise."

  "And he knows the deal? He knows what he's letting himself in for?"

  "Maybe." Susan thought a moment. She picked up the sugar bowl, dipped her little finger in it and sucked off the sugar coating. "But it's not really my concern what he knows or thinks he's knows. But we can say your days are done here. We don't need you any more, Lenny."

  Lenny put his head in his hands. "Is this going to hurt?"

  "Twenty years ago definitely, ten years ago maybe, but, I don't know. I don't think I have the energy any more to make you suffer for what you did."

  With enormous effort Lenny lifted himself off the chair. "Give me a moment." He left Susan alone with the sugar bowl. She examined the spartan little kitchen with its wall clock, stopped at six forty, the surface of the cooker stained with baked gravy and food remnants, an upturned mug on the sink, half finished loaf of bread, and what was once a rectangular block of butter was now reduced to a greasy smear of yellow slime on a small saucer. An attempt had been made to decorate, but the painting had been abandoned half way along the wall where the extractor fan had proved too much of an obstacle to persevere. Was death preferable to this? Was Lenny Harper any more alive in this kitchen than he would be in a grave where he would be unaware of the limits of his existence? Everyday he would come downstairs to this mess, this confinement, with its view of the birch trees when the mist allowed and another tasteless meal, another cup of over-sweet coffee.

  Shuffling footsteps gave Lenny away as he appeared with a long samurai sword. "I bought this in Munich eight years ago," he said almost proudly. "It isn't genuine Samurai, but I've always kept it sharp in case I ever needed it."

  "For what?"

  "For a day like this." Lenny looked at the blade, running his right thumb ever so gently along its edge. Susan took another fingertip of sugar from the bowl. "If you swing it correctly I shouldn't feel a thing." Lenny knelt down as he spoke.

  "There isn't room in here to swing a cat, Lenny, let alone a three foot long Samurai sword. Come outside."

  Lenny handed the sword to Susan and unlocked the back door. Outside he moved far enough away from the house and knelt down again. The ground was cold against his knees and the cool floating mist stung his face. Susan was barely visible in front of him.

  "Hold your head up," she said. Lenny looked to the sky with eyes closed.

  "Consider this a favour, Lenny. Your first and your last." And Susan swung the blade.

  -

  "So don't give me any bullshit about Lenny Harper being a mess, unless the wolves got him," said Wallet as DI Silvers studied a photo of Lenny's headless body lying face down in a light layer of snow at the back of his small mountain home.

  "And can you testify in court that Susan Bekker killed him?"

  "Course not."

  "Course not, no. So we've just got the murder of Mike Gannon for now. That's still good enough to put you away."

  "You can't put me at the scene any more than you can put DI Silvers there. The CPS don't prosecute on a hunch. They don't watch daytime tv programmes either"

  DI Silvers tried to compose himself with a swift flattening of his jacket before asking: "Why did Susan Bekker kill Lenny Harper?"

  "She'd finished with him. They all had. I'd come along and they had someone younger to feed on, someone who could get them back into the music business a
nd Susan Bekker was ready to make a comeback. She was crawling the walls up there on that mountainside."

  "Hang on, hang on. You're talking about this like it's all perfectly normal," said Toker.

  "What do you mean, feed on?" asked Silvers disgusted.

  "The four of them," said Toker, "used Harper to bring them blood, now they use Mr Wallet here. Is that a fair summary?"

  "Close enough."

  "Fuck off! You're not vampires. Just stop the act now, Mr Wallet. I don't know what the fuck you are, but you're not fucking vampires." Toker stood up, his chair went flying. "I'm going for a smoke."

  "Bad for you," said Wallet. "You feel safe in here on your own with me, DI Silvers?"

  The two men remained in the room for several minutes, separated by an awkward silence. Both of them were alerted by a commotion in the corridor before DI Toker came back in a state of anger and disbelief.

  "Get lost Wallet," he said gathering up all the crime scene photos.

  "DI Silvers was looking at them," said Wallet.

  "Well he can have a look at some new ones."

  "What's wrong?" said Silvers.

  "There's been four more. Last ten minutes right across London."

  Silvers watched nervously as Toker rolled up the photographs. Rob Wallet stood up and stretched. "Don't leave the country," Silvers said as Wallet stepped past him.

  "Or you'll do what?"

  Wallet quietly collected his belongings from the desk in reception: money, the keys to his flat and a phone. He stepped outside and said hello to the constellations visible through the gaps in the dark settled clouds. Draco was visible, as always, watching and waiting. Up there, somewhere, the others were travelling this way and that, unseen and with barely a whisper. He wasn't sure yet how they did it and he hadn't been let in on the secret. He wasn't trusted with the power. They could move as they wished through the infinite vacuum, but Wallet, well, he still had to travel by taxi.

  5 (April)

  Twenty four hours had passed since Wallet had slipped away from the police station without fanfare or publicity thanks to the secrecy and embarrassment of his arrest. The investigation that had been a sure fire result was upside down and Interpol had been put on hold. Now he was at the Cromwell Hotel reading the modest reports of his release and why the police had been forced to let him go.

  Perched on an arse-numbing chair and watched over for five hours, left alone for only six or seven minutes, there was no way he could have left the interview room, visit four more music critics spread across London and kill them all in the time it took DI Toker to smoke a couple of cigarettes. All the papers were now running page after page of lurid details and sickening conjectures of the night's events.

  The Times announced Toten Herzen manager released after multiple murders. Rob Wallet, the man behind the comeback of the 70s rock band Toten Herzen, was last night released by the Metropolitan Police after four more music critics were found murdered across London. A spokesperson said the Met had no option but to release Wallet. The statement did reveal that the murders followed a similar pattern to that carried out on Mike Gannon. The spokesperson went on to say that the charge against Wallet for the murder of Gannon will now be dropped.

  The Daily Mail included an article on other music critics 'going underground' to avoid becoming the next victim. The Mail had arranged for its own critics to receive security surveillance until the murderer or murderers were caught.

  The Independent had a map of London and a time-line of events with the location of each attack indicated by an explosion symbol!

  6.09 pmPolice are called to an address in Southwark. Officers find the body of sixty two year old Andreas Buscher on his own doorstep.

  6.11 pmNeighbours alert police after a pedestrian is hit by the body of Martha Croft, aged sixty nine, thrown from the upstairs window of her flat in Tottenham.

  6.12 pmPolice arrived at an address in Ealing after the body of Johnny Taylor, seventy one, is found by his wife.

  6.15 pmThe body of Trevor Mercetti, fifty nine, is found in a wheelie bin outside his apartment in Wapping.

  The Sun's front page had the cover of the band's blood soaked second album We Are Toten Herzen with the two word headline 'THEY'RE BACK.'

  As Wallet immersed himself in report after report he sensed Elaine Daley at the far side of the room sat with one leg over the arm of her chair. "Does it surprise you how quickly the press can produce so much work in such a short space of time?" she said.

  "Suppose they've had years of practice."

  "It surprises me. Forty to fifty pages of news and pictures, maps and illustrations, eye witness accounts, police statements. There must have been an army of people running around yesterday to come up with all that. That takes organisation. How do they do it?"

  "Editors, sub editors, desk editors, duty editors. I suppose it is a small army. Everything is in place before a story breaks and it all goes into action. Lines of command and responsibilities. I always admired the speed that they got the papers out across the country."

  "You were part of it once," said Elaine. "Do you miss it?"

  "When I see all this going on, no. But, I don't know. Maybe not. Ask me again in a few month's time."

  Whenever Elaine spoke it was always to the space in front of her as if she was talking to herself. She had a distance that still unnerved Wallet; in her calm manner there was an unpredictability that made him anxious. Her physical appearance, her outward display, was as fascinating as any painting or sculpture; it was meticulous and modern, a carefully chosen palette of vivid colours that complemented her engineered hairstyle of spikes and contrasted with the ancient symbol tattooed on the side of her head. Elaine was the only member of the band with a facial tattoo, the others had fantastic animals and names drawn across shoulders, arms, ankles and no doubt other places he would never see. But Elaine's tattoo was married to her facial features and acted like an exclamation mark to her expressions, transforming and confusing them.

  Wallet took great care when he was close to Elaine. "Susan was feeling guilty that you got arrested for Gannon's killing," she said. "She wanted to make it up to you."

  "But now it looks like a gang of killers are on the loose. Four of you, four murders. They'll put two and two together. . . ."

  Elaine laughed. "Yeah and come to four. You've got such a way with words. I'd like to see their forensics teams deal with the science behind all this. They must be a lot better than they were in '77."

  "They're probably a lot better than they were in '77. So it was Susan's idea?"

  "Yep. Heart of gold, that girl."

  "I should thank her."

  "Don't bother. You're evens now."

  "Wasn't four people a bit of an over reaction?"

  Elaine came over to look at the pages spread out before Wallet on the dining table. "Don't ask too many questions, Rob. A few scores were settled last night." Elaine ran a sharpened fingernail across the Times, slicing the paper open at the headline. "So, you're our manager now? Does Susan know that?"

  "Their words, not mine."

  "Mm. Don't start to believe everything you read in the press. But then I don't need to tell you that, do I?"

  6 (April)

  After the washing up was done and everything dried and tidied away, the moment came for Patrick Wells to relax. His ritual now, as an evening of homework marking began, was to carefully and fastidiously select the right music to supplement his mood and prepare him mentally for the grammatical battlefield ahead. The study of his house was a small converted bedroom. It had a large desk facing the window and an antique low backed chair with hand carved arms crafted from rosewood. One wall was covered by shelves of reference books, another concealed by his record collection and it was here at approximately seven pm every night that Wells would run an index finger across the spines of his album sleeves looking for the right choice. The perfect choice.

  His day had been fraught, yet no more nerve shredding than usual. His evening
meal was still settling, but the choice of wine had been good enough to prevent too much interruption. Now his gaze glided across John Coltrane and Robin Trower before arriving at Pat Metheny. Jazz, blues, no, he wasn't free wheeling tonight, he wasn't feeling smooth enough to let his homework soundtrack mollycoddle the text-speak interpretations of Twelfth Night; he needed something edgier to counter the gangsta cap poppin and bitch lickin of Aguecheek and Malvolio.

  He continued on past Loreena MacKennitt's Alhambra concert; too much attention needed there. Dan ar Braz was seriously considered, but then the Celtic sounds might start to make him confrontational. He wasn't looking for a fight. He passed Stravinsky and Mussorgsky, even Elgar drifted by, dismissed as too bombastic. James Last, Mantovani, Matt Munro. Not even the toothy charms of Olivia Newton John circa 1972 could stop his roving finger! Wells stood back a moment, hands on hips, his square shoulders topping off a tall mathematically angular body as his head looked right, left, up and down. Maybe he should just continue listening to Radio 4 until his mind was made up. Perhaps Mark Lawson would have the answer.

  "HelloPacoGrano's new one man show at the Omnicon in Washington finally arrives at Covent Garden after two years of legal arguments. I'll be asking him what it's like to be caught up in the expensive world of the corporate lawyer. The comeback announcement of seventies band Toten Herzen has once more put the subject of old rockers who can't give up their guitars back into the spotlight. And why an Iraqi film about tortured Sunni insurgents is causing headaches for organisers of the first Liverpool Film Festival."

  Wells had frozen. His whole body solidified in a tight, gripping strangulation. The wall of record sleeves was suddenly an unrecognisable puzzle of narrow lines and slivers of meaningless titles. This was a tiny room, he thought. A tiny world. A world in which time wasn't linear, it was all around us, swirling and swooping like a flock of birds. He sat down, swivelling his antique chair to face the radio and waited; waited for the feature on Paco Grano to end, waited for the Sunni insurgents to miss out on a chance to tell their story to the festival-goers in Liverpool. No, he waited to hear how and why Toten Herzen were coming back now, why now and not in a hundred years or a thousand years or any time long enough for Wells to die without hearing it, seeing it, experiencing it and all the sick nastiness that followed them as surely as plague follows infected rats.

  An unsteady personal truce that had lasted thirty years was gone in a moment. All the bad feelings that had settled like sediment would now be stirred up again. Outside the study the sun had already set. Wells knew it would return in the morning, but he could feel an inner sunlight fading. The stubby pile of exercise books on his desk was the first victim of anger churning inside him: they were scattered across the room. He pinched his forehead, pushed himself back from the table immediately regretting what he had just done and stepped out around his desk to gently pick them all up. But there, already, the dagger-like logo of Toten Herzen had been carefully drawn on one of the covers. He shook his head. Why is this happening now? Slumping into his chair and faced with the outward symbol of a group of people he detested, he mined his subconscious, dug down and extracted every particle that might provide a response.

  After three hours of silence he found the answer.

  Terence Pearl: Blog post

  Are we at risk from ourselves? Human and antihumans cannot exist side by side in a relativistic universe.

  A question that came up in a recent pub quiz I frequent left me in a confused state for several days. It was a trick question: who devised the thought experiment known as Schrödinger’s cat? Now the obvious answer is of course, Erwin Schrödinger (a detail predictably lost on the other quiz contestants), but the reason for leaving its mark on me wasn't the fact that the question came up, but the implications of the original experiment. In short, a cat in a box is either dead or alive; until the box is opened and the cat's condition observed it is both dead and alive.

  The idea that a cat can be both dead and alive is called superposition: being in two opposite states at the same time, and the reduction to one state at the moment of observation is described as a collapse. There have been numerous interpretations of the experiment, but what struck me was the possibility that the issue of matter and antimatter had not been taken into account. If everything has a duplicate, it's anti-form, let's call it, then objects can exist in two states. Not necessarily alive and dead, but in some other form of superposition. That would mean somewhere in the universe there is another Terence Pearl!

  Associates of mine would probably shriek at the thought of there being two copies of me, but Yves Sunier and Diana May Ronson at the Institute of Quantum Biological Studies in Vienna have considered the possibility and implications of every human being possessing an anti-matter version of themselves. In a recent paper published in the Vienna School's journal they gave a name to this anti-human: the Janome, after the double faced Roman god Janus, and postulate what properties a Janome would have. Where antimatter differs in that it has opposite charge and spin to matter, a Janome would have to portray some outward (anti)human equivalent of this opposition.

  So, just as scientists question why matter seems to outweigh antimatter in the observable universe, an asymmetry brought about by baryogenesis, Sunier and Ronson have left open the question: where are the Janomes?

  All around us, according to Alexei Berkoff, the Ukrainian philosopher and author of the book Quantum Effect and Supernature (Megelev, 2002). Berkoff argues that all elements of myth and folklore can be explained by looking to quantum mechanics and theoretical physics. In a symposium held in September 2011 at the University of Kiev, Berkoff, Sunier and Ronson shared a stage and discussed the possibility that Janomes could account for the myth of the vampire, werewolf, ghosts and other elemental forms that are found throughout the world's cultures in their folklore.

  Accepting for a moment the idea that the vampire is an example of a Janome, separated from its original body it would contain a different physiology on account of the charge and spin of its component antiparticles, it could be prone to annihilation if it came into contact with some bosons and hadrons (the particles responsible for forces), it might well interact differently with light resulting in three dimensional shadows where its four dimensional self blocks out antiphotons (Solidity of Nothing: the effect of anti-light in four dimensional space. Wadjanewski and Soamas, 2009).

  What Berkoff refuses to be drawn on is what happens to the real human if the antihuman comes into existence? 'That is a postulation that strays too far into moralistic philosophy, which Erwin Schrödinger may have been prepared to discuss, but not me. The ephemera of morality is a radioactive by-product of factual research.' What is common to many myths and legends is that the human body must first die before its Janome can come into existence.

  Is death caused deliberately or accidentally by contact with the Janome? Does it kill us or come into existence after death? Is there a superposition regarding human existence and what causes the collapse that brings about the Janome's life? Sunier and Ronson don't have the answers yet, but as scientists in the field of theoretical and experimental physics continue to unravel one quantum mystery after another we may soon know how these supernatural creatures come to exist and perhaps, if they pose a threat, how to stop them existing in the first place.

  7 (April)

  The flowering of the daffodils and crocus was an event Terence Pearl could relate to. Finally, after the long winter, and the sneaky hide and seek with early spring cold snaps and snow, these delicate characters were able to safely uncurl their heads and look out across a garden exhausted, but alive. The vivid striped green leaves and chaotic mix of colours were the first tentative musical notes of a composition still in its opening bars, but give it another couple of months and the symphony would be in full flow.

  The philadelphus would blind with its white brilliance, the messy hebes spreading their gangly stems over everything around them. Teasels and astilbes wooing the bees and butterflies,
as the ajuga continued its mission to carpet the flower beds with its green and purple leaves before throwing up spikes of dark violet blossom. Even the interlopers from the buttercup family and the clover clans would be allowed their days in the sun, polka dotting the rich, springy lawn. It didn't look like that yet, but Pearl's memories were as accurate as a photograph; he knew where everything was, what it would look like, how it would make him feel. Green finches and the resident greedy blackbird would provide a choral backing, arguing territory with the blue tits and wobbling wild pigeons blundering in for their scraps of dried bread. The sudden surprise of a leaping frog and the bashful delight of a wandering hedgehog would add the finishing touches to his carefully crafted, meticulously managed Suffolk haven on the edge of the village of Westerfield.

  And then there was the tree. Out of the corner of his eye Pearl could see Cedric next door in his kitchen. Washing, brewing up, polishing his cutlery; without sight of his hands it was impossible to know exactly what Cedric was up to, but you could bet any minute now he would be out, standing at the fence to engage in small talk that was merely a pretence to raise the subject of the tree. Here he came. Cedric vanished from the window and his back door opened.

  "Hello, Terence."

  "Cedric."

  "Bit warmer than the weekend."

  "Yes. I think there's another cold blast coming though. Maybe one more and then we can relax."

  "Aye." Cedric was studying Pearl's garden enviously. Cedric's garden was a cliché. Square lawn, straight path down to the shed. A rag tag of shrubs planted with no awareness of colour combinations or consideration for complimentary forms and textures. He had a potentilla next to a berberis! No height contrast, similar leaf size. It was offensive. But what did Cedric know? He was a retired engineer. His shed was probably bomb proof, but the garden was an affront to aesthetic study.

  "It'll be time for a first cut."

  "Yes. Be nice to see the stripes in the lawn again, Terence. I still don't know how you do it."

  Now that's a bare face lie, thought Pearl. Cedric was told every year to get a mower with a heavy roller, not one of the plastic excuses that doesn't flatten the grass after the blades have passed over it. But no, Cedric doesn't listen and he doesn't listen because he's only after one thing.

  "And the tree will be a bit bigger this year. You don't mind if I trim some of the branches again? Keep Wanda from complaining, you know."

  "No, not at all." Why doesn't Wanda say this? She gives Cedric the bullets to fire. The tree's branches don't go anywhere near the washing, but Wanda won't have it. It's a territorial thing. Pearl's tree was invading Wanda's space, but Wanda never came out to argue. Instead she sent Cedric forward to start the argument and Cedric wasn't man enough to stand up to her.

  "Can I ask you something, Terence," said Cedric leaning on the fence, pushing it forward by several millimetres.

  "What?"

  "At the quiz last night, Tony's Tractor Boys won the play off, but they were wrong weren't they? The first communications satellite was Telstar not Sputnik."

  "It was. I've said for a while now the reason we never win is because we keep coming up with all the right answers." Pearl could hear the phone ringing.

  "It's about time we told the question setter. . . ."

  "Excuse me Cedric, I need to answer that." Cedric complied. The fence sprang back a few millimetres as Pearl jogged into the house, through the kitchen, down the short corridor and grabbed the phone. "Hello, Terence Pearl."

  "Good morning."

  "Oh, hello." Pearl repositioned the solitary umbrella in the rack next to the front door.

  "How are you, hope you're well?"

  "Oh pottering, you know."

  "Good, good. Liked the article, by the way. Very informative."

  "Oh thank you. Pretty good opening salvo, I thought," Pearl said.

  "Yes." The word came out with an uncertain drag about it. "Thing is Terence, it was all true wasn't it?"

  "True. I'm not sure what you're implying. Yes, it was researched and checked if that's what you mean."

  "Yes. And a fine piece of writing it was, don't get me wrong, but I felt it could have been, how can I put this, more sensational."

  "I see."

  "Good. The whole point of this exercise is to provoke and I mean get people talking, not in an inspirational sort of way, there's a time and a place for all that, but cause a stir, whip things up a bit, put Schrödinger’s cat amongst the pigeons." The voice laughed heartily.

  "Oh, very good, very droll. I wish I'd thought of that." Pearl spoke with all his weight on the umbrella, rocking back and forth.

  "Maybe the next one, you can make it a bit more... dare I say controversial."

  "Controversial?"

  "Smoke the bastards out, Terence."

  "Ah! Yes." Pearl had owned the umbrella for more years than he could remember. British made, built to last. Not like the ones you buy for a pound, but you get what you pay for.

  "I thought you were going to write something about anthropology and the expectations of human behaviour?"

  "Yes, waiting for confirmation of some references," said Pearl awkwardly.

  "You're not writing for the Royal Academy, Terence. This is the internet. We need to wake up the ignorati, all those antagonistic Janomes that have already collapsed on top of the host body."

  Pearl laughed again, but apparently the comment wasn't meant to be funny.

  "Are you having second thoughts? I'd rather you were honest with me than make excuses."

  "They're not excuses. I always mean what I say," said Pearl. "I was looking for an important reference which eludes me, but I spoke to a friend of mine last night, haven't seen him for months. Apparently he's been ill with an irregular heart beat."

  "I'm not interested, Terence."

  "No, but I spoke to him and he gave me the nod as to the direction I need to look to find this reference, so, you know, we're good to go."

  "You mean you're good to go. I hope you haven't told this friend what you're doing."

  "Heavens, no. I've been discreet all along. I keep telling you I haven't mentioned it to a soul."

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Terence. I don't mean to put pressure on you. You are doing me an enormous favour and I do appreciate the detail and the level of thought you apply to everything that you do. The education system's loss is my gain and you must remind me of that when I get above myself."

  "No, that's all right." The umbrella was not prepared to stay in position. Pearl lifted it and put the point down in a slightly different position . . . It worked.

  "I'll look forward to the next article."

  "Okay. I'll get onto it right away."

  "Thank you. Bye."

  Pearl put the phone down and considered the possibility that Cedric was, at that very moment, hacking his tree down to the stump. Or maybe he wasn't. The only way of knowing was to go back outside and observe.

  8 (April)

  There weren't many people who could wake Todd Moonaj at 4am without being sacked. Since being promoted to Sony's Acting Chief Commissioning Officer (and he often left off the word Acting, or used a small 'a' in his correspondence) he had set out on a drive to find the saviours of the music industry: the pushers and pullers of debate; the engine rooms of fashion, the drivers of trends; those with the magic ability to make headlines that write themselves. And above all anyone who could make a quick buck. To do this he needed his sleep and only Constance, his hand chosen PA, had the authority to wake him, preferably in extreme circumstances such as assassination attempts, deliberate asteroid attack or the end of the world. She wasn't sure which category this message fell into so she had taken a chance and called him anyway.

  "This is either a wrong number or it's you Constance," said Moonaj fumbling for the bedside phone.

  "It's me, Constance."

  "Is it the Soviets or al-Qa’ida?" said Moonaj.

  "The Europeans."

  "Fuck. As bad as that!" He sat u
p.

  Moonaj listened to a summary before rolling out of bed, putting on his robe and heading for his home office for a conference call. His labrador groggily followed to listen in. Coffee cup in hand, he turned on his computer screen and listened patiently to some incomprehensible jibberdy jabbery history lesson about a lunatic journo who had tracked down a dead band (a dead band!), tried to steal a seventy thousand dollar album sleeve, slept in a tomb in a cemetery, killed the band's bodyguard in a former East German ski resort and walked into the offices of EMI in London with a reunion concert deal. Naturally he had been laughed at and thrown out by security. So he tried a smaller label a few blocks away called Sanatorium Treatment.

  "And what did they say?" asked Moonaj.

  "They wanted him to pay them."

  Moonaj paused a moment. He was weighing up whether to have more coffee to keep him awake or give up now and hope he was still drowsy enough to get back to sleep. Nobody spoke. Constance was already sliding off her stool in the kitchen of her apartment and in Europe, Jan Moencker stood in his office in Berlin fully sentient. He was part of the A&R team in Europe with his ears usually stuck in the sub-woofers of industrial metal or the clubs playing Europop, but even he was confused by the noises he was hearing over his Skype connection.

  "Can I say something, Todd?" said Constance.

  "Go ahead."

  "Wasn't there a music critic in London murdered last week after saying bad things about Toten Herzen."

  "So what? John Lennon was murdered for having no connection whatsoever to Jodie Foster."

  "Sorry, I just thought it might be relevant."

  "Well it isn't and I still don't understand why this was worth waking me up at four in the morning. A dead band from East Germany. How we going to hear them?"

  "There is potential here, Todd," said Moencker.

  "I don't think so. You've been getting more and more desperate over the last twelve months, Jan. That group you convinced my predecessor to sign, the Abba-meets-Laibach bunch, are all back in Denmark taking their welfare cheques. I think Sanatorium Treatment had it about right. And Constance, take some time off. Take as long as you want. I'm going back to bed people."

  -

  Jan Moencker blinked in disbelief. He was sure he'd found the deal Moonaj was looking for. It ticked all the boxes: backstory, tick; back catalogue no one owned, tick; predominantly female, tick; (good looking females, especially the vocalist, tick;) good press potential, tick; retro angle to appeal to older people, tick. He could go on all day ticking a list of boxes as long as the Danube. What did Moonaj want? Blood? Fuck it, he could even tick that box! If the target was something that appealed to a contemporary audience with monetizing potential there was no reason why a writing team couldn't be put together, line up a group of A-list producers to add a 21st century name to a 20th century legend, photograph them with a fleet of Volkswagens and off we go.

  For now there was an appointment to keep so Moencker pulled on his winter jacket and grabbed his car keys and mobile. As he drove away from his office on Marienburger Strasse he noticed a woman waving to him. He forced a smile and wound down his window. "Eva Matheus? What are you doing here?"

  Eva stepped forward. "Sorry, I'm not stalking you. I was coming to drop off the disc you asked for." She waved a cd in the air like a tiny flag. "It's the four tracks you asked us to work on."

  "Oh, great," said Moencker. "I was going to an appointment, but. . . ." He could see Eva was shivering in a long overcoat, thin flowery dress just long enough to cover her knees, big clunky boots and beeny hat. "Do you need a lift somewhere? Maybe it's on the way."

  "Sure." Eva jumped in without saying where she wanted to go. "Do you have a cd player in here?" She pulled the seatbelt on. The car was filled with an aroma of citrus and cigarettes.

  "Yeah." Moencker ejected the current disc and watched out for traffic as Eva eagerly inserted her own recording. "It's good of you to do this, thanks."

  "Where are you going?" said Moencker.

  "Oh, all the way hopefully."

  "No, I mean where do you want me to drop you off?"

  "Anywhere." The music started. Oh god, an acoustic guitar!

  "My boss," said Moencker, "if you can call him that, doesn't know where he wants to go. He doesn't know what he wants. Well, he does, but it's nothing musical."

  "I wrote this section here with an aunt of mine who lives in Hamburg."

  "He wants tie-ins and three sixty degree potential, he wants to inherit existing publishing deals. To him these are just acquisitions like buying a soup factory or a travel company." Eva half listened wondering what it all meant. "He has to trust his A&R team or there's no point having one."

  Eva nodded. "What do you think so far, are we sounding better?"

  "Yeah, much better. Maybe he doesn't like European acts. But David Guetta's European, U2, people are going nuts for Kraftwerk again, Air, Daft Punk, Coldplay, Radiohead," Moencker tickled the steering wheel, "you know, lots of successful European acts."

  "Sorry, who are you talking about?"

  "Todd Moonaj at Sony. Okay, so he likes his stars to be American, but Toten Herzen were big in America."

  "Toten Herzen?"

  "You heard of them? You might be too young. They were successful in the seventies. Now they want to make a comeback. Their management are fishing for opportunities."

  Eva studied the traffic building up. "Are they like the Scorpions?"

  Moencker hesitated and pulled faces. "They, well, no, sort of yes, but not all the time. They're early seventies. No, not as explicit as the Scorpions. They were influenced at the start by Deep Purple." The second song on the disc started. Another acoustic guitar! "Did you write this one with your aunt too?"

  "No."

  "Guitars only get you so far in the digital age, unless you're stadium drum and bass or already big. But Toten Herzen were already big."

  "This song is about homecoming, the relief to be home, the sadness that the journey has ended. You know you want to go back, but it's not the same the second time. Can never be the same," said Eva to the windscreen.

  Moencker heard half of that. Eva had a very attractive profile. A strong outline. "We should make them big. What are marketing people for? They make small things big."

  Half way through the song they arrived at Granzer Studio and Moencker found a space to park. The band he had come to meet were already here and the session with an engineer was under way. Blast did anything but what their name suggested and Moencker couldn't get Moonaj's criticism out of his head. Here he was in a chilly, matt grey Berlin recording studio surrounded by framed prints of musicians unheard of outside the building. In front of him a band of gangly young men covered in tattoos and superfluous sweatbands, posed with their guitars round their knees. Next to him stood a twenty first century flower child with a disc full of earnest songs recorded beautifully alongside two of her friends from the same squat. He had lied. She sounded better live than on disc, but his centre of attention had been shoved so far out that nothing from the last forty hours sounded tolerable. Everything either annoyed him or bored him rigid. Blast were puny, following a set of instructions; an unfocused tribute band with a derivative sound and a template attitude. They sounded so good in the club where he first heard them, obscured by the feedback and flattered by the attention of an admittedly enthusiastic crowd. But between that night and this afternoon Moencker had been listening to We Are Toten Herzen almost non stop and had made it his new benchmark.

  He felt guilty and turned to Eva. "I need time to give your disc proper attention. I've got a head full of rock and it's a little difficult to switch between this kind of noise and your kind of poetry. When are you playing live again?"

  "We are due to play at the Goldenkellar a week tomorrow night."

  Moencker made a note in his smartphone diary. "Okay. I'll listen to the disc between now and then. I'll come down to see you and let you know if there's some news for you."

  "Okay, thank y
ou." She tried to look excited, but it was hard to tell. But then if you jump out at someone in the street you can't expect a rational response. Moencker had been ambushed, but at least his indifference wasn't just about her. He wasn't listening to Blast either and he'd made a point of coming down here to see them.

  "Can I ask you a personal question?" Moencker was easily heard over the tinny roar of the music in the control room.

  "Yes."

  "How old are you?"

  "Twenty three. Why?"

  He led her over to a computer at the back of the studio and found a website. It was Rob Wallet's blog. "Have a look at these pictures and tell me what you think."

  Eva studied the first image. It was obviously old, taken way back when; certainly before her time. "Who is that? Toten Herzen?"

  "Yes," said Moencker. "This was taken in 1975 at the Astoria in London. There's the singer Dee Vincent," he pointed out each band member, "Susan Bekker, that is Elaine Daley and the guy there is Rene van Voors, the drummer. Okay, now look at this image." Moencker navigated to another part of the blog where Wallet had uploaded a photo of a group of unnamed friends. "This is a hotel somewhere in London and there is Dee Vincent, Susan Bekker, Elaine Daley and Rene van Voors." Eva could see that. "Nothing leap out at you."

  "Dressed differently, a little more fashionable."

  "This was taken three weeks ago."

  Eva's eyebrows raised. She was impressed. Then the eyebrows changed shape. "Three weeks! The first was in 1975 you said?"

  "Yes, nearly forty years ago."

  "They look good," she said hesitantly.

  "Not bad for a load of sixty year olds."

  -

  Todd Moonaj walked into his office on Madison Avenue and tried not to look too interested in the printouts on his desk. He had to get his coat off, calm himself after the traffic. He had to arrive properly.

  "They were emailed through about twenty minutes ago," said his secretary.

  "From who?"

  "Jan in Berlin."

  Moonaj leaned towards them. The first printout was a photo of four people, one holding an old guitar. He looked at each of them closely. A woman, smaller than the others, short black hair, white as a ghost, leather jacket, black jeans. The second had long black or dark greyish hair, shadowy eyes, looked dead on her feet, as pale as the first. The third woman had a hairstyle that Moonaj couldn't easily identify; part mohican part Statue of Liberty, but like her colleagues she was the embodiment of late nights and ill health. The man, only identifiable as a man by heavy stubble, was also black haired and white faced, a sort of musketeer from the other side.

  Moonaj shook his head and continued to hang up his coat. "What are they goths, emos, vampires, what?" He picked up the second printout. Again, the same four figures stood together, not looking at the camera, but the image was of a poorer quality, slightly blue and faded. In a corner were the handwritten words 'Toten Herzen c1975.' On the other image 'Toten Herzen 2013. Notice the difference? Me neither.'

  "What am I missing here?" asked Moonaj, "I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at here. Is it a hairstyling mailshot? Why are people even bothering me with all this?"

  The secretary took the images and studied them. She could see the discolouration, the ageing of the second image, but apart from the band looking the same in each photo the significance was lost on her too. "Well, I guess they've aged well for a rock band. I mean, look at Ronnie Wood. He doesn't look as good as these guys."

  "Ronnie Wood's seventy if he's a day. How old are these people? Twenty, thirty."

  "In 1975, twenty something, so that would make them fifty something, almost sixty something. . . ."

  "What?" Moonaj looked at the first image again. "They're the same people."

  "I didn't think there were plastic surgeons in Europe as good as that," said the secretary.

  "Plastic surgery my merry ass. The only doctors these guys have seen is Dr Photoshop. Whoever sent the email, get back to them, tell them to stop wasting my time." Moonaj tore up the pictures, threw the pieces in the bin, loosened his tie, repositioned the photograph of his wife and sat back in his chair. "Who else do I have to endure today?"

  His secretary checked the diary. "Dianne Warren has another song she'd like you to hear."

  "Oh, for fuck's sake."

  Terence Pearl: Blog post

  Cathar survivors or the new apocalypse

  In my book 'The Hidden Agendum in Art and Musik' by Terence Pearl I identified numerous examples of occult practice hidden by the symbolism of the creative arts. I have now identified a bigger more specific threat.

  Five murders in as many days and they all have one thing in common: Toten Herzen. If you didn't know about this group of people before you certainly will now. They present themselves, when they choose a moment to do so, as a rock and roll band, but the truth goes far beyond that.

  Back in 1977 they performed a ritualistic suicide, abetted by a man from Norfolk who had been brainwashed into doing so. (Fortunately for him the Metropolitan Police saw through the escapade and brought no charges against him except one of wasting police time.) Leonard Harper was only one of many other such unfortunate people lured into a cult of personality that involved other forms of animalistic sacrifice including that of a horse. The group were successful in earning huge sums of money, all of which was done in the guise of record sales and concert tickets, but a closer inspection of their output reveals some tell tale signs of what was really going on.

  Their first long playing record was called Pass On By, an ironic title in which the group are calling out to their followers and anyone else ready to receive their message. They specialised in attracting those marginalised by society: drug users and anti-social drop outs. Pass On By was also a poem by the 15th Century necromancer Thomas Gwynn, a Scottish Catholic who was accused of heresy. To quote Gwynn (with somewhat modernised wording) 'Go not the path of deceitful righteousness, but pass on by all signs that claim to offer salvation.' The group will have been in no doubt as to the provenance of their title, knowing that they alone were aware of its significance.

  We Are Toten Herzen was the name given to their second long playing record. We Are Dead Hearts is the translation and whilst Dead Hearts may seem an innocuous albeit melodramatic name for a rock band, Die Toten Herzen were a Germanic branch of the Cathars who rejected the gospels and indulged in various shape shifting practices using herbs and potions. The lead figure of Die Toten Herzen, Augustus Wurlichter, was beheaded during the Albigensian Crusade in 1225, but his colleagues escaped persecution. Their whereabouts remains a mystery to this day. Or does it?Records show that four men close to Wurlichter had the names Beckersteiner, Dalen, Vincentius and Vornemburg. The four members of the group Toten Herzen are named Bekker, Daley, Vincent and van Voors. This is more than coincidental.

  Nocturn, the group's third long playing record, is a reference to the night and the various forms of life that exist there when the rest of us are asleep. There are stories throughout history of people subjected to 'night terrors' and there is an obvious allegiance to these creatures, in the same way that various tribes and warriors call on the spirits of animals to help them in their activities. The group call upon the various night creatures to instil them with malevolence, powers, physical strength and the ability to draw energy from innocent people.

  The final long playing record released by the group was Black Rose and it is here that the first indications of their ritualistic suicide appear. For many practitioners of the black arts the black rose is a potent symbol of death and life combined: the blackness of death along with the life embodiment of the rose. The songs on the record Black Rose were, in total, fifty eight minutes long. This seemingly arbitrary number takes on a macabre significance when you multiply it by four (one for each member of the group) to make two hundred and thirty two, double it (two being the lowest prime number and very important in ritualistic practices dating back to the third century) and you arrive at four hundred an
d sixty four. From the group entering a recording studio to work on Black Rose to their ritualistic suicide on March 21st 1977 was precisely four hundred and sixty four days.

  Toten Herzen will one day make announcements regarding new concert shows and records and it will be interesting to note the significance of titles and related numerological correlations. Having survived death the group will be ready to elevate to the next level of consciousness as they leave this realm. However, there will be a danger in that they will not go alone. How many people, both willing and unwilling, they take with them should be of great concern to all of us.

  THE INDEPENDENT

  Toten Herzen Have Not Been Spotted Alive

  The Mirror's 'Catch the Vampires' Campaign has produced hundreds of false sightings

  The villagers of Sabden in Lancashire's Forest of Bowland have grown used to being associated with witchcraft. The Pendle Witches of the seventeenth century have long been a magnet for tourists to the small upland village in the shadow of Pendle Hill, but vampires have never been part of local folklore until the Daily Mirror was informed of the four members of Toten Herzen buying a book of stamps in the local post office.

  "I didn't even know who Toten Herzen were until a reporter from the press rang," said a surprised Emily Connor, the village postmistress and manager of the attached newsagents. "He asked me how old they were and to be honest I had no idea who he was talking about."

  The confusion follows a campaign run by the Mirror inviting members of the public to send in evidence of the reclusive rock band following a surprise reunion announcement. Sightings have been reported from the Isles of Scilly to Aberdeen, with one man claiming he had seen them on a bus in Darlington 'looking a bit worse for wear.' The fact that this was at three in the afternoon somewhat undermined the campaign's title Catch the Vampires; a breed not known for its fondness for daylight.

  The band's spokesman Rob Wallet has tried to calm the Mirror's fevered initiative by claiming the band are currently located in Rotterdam, which resulted in a number of sightings on a Rotterdam to Hull ferry. The Mirror is offering ten cases of wine (red obviously) for the first verified sighting of the band, but for now pensioners all over the country are the subject of speculation and smartphone photography. And history repeats itself; just as they were in the seventies, Toten Herzen are again at the centre of press attention with not so much as a curl of the lip. Modern celebrities take note and learn the dark art of minimal effort publicity.

  DAILY MAIL

  Anger Over Toten Herzen Misidentification

  I am not a vampire, says Susan Buckley of Milton Keynes

  A retired headmistress from Milton Keynes has expressed outrage after being wrongly identified as a member of the seventies rock band Toten Herzen. Sixty two year old Susan Buckley has seen her home become a campsite for the local press, goths, heavy metal fans and a devil worshipper from Italy.

  The confusion began after Mrs Buckley was mistaken for the Toten Herzen guitarist Susan Bekker. A tip off to the Daily Mirror's Catch the Vampires campaign led to her detached home on the outskirts of Milton Keynes being besieged by dozens of people.

  "They started turning up last Tuesday. I can only think someone must have tipped them off after I bought a cd in Sainsburys. If I was a vampire would I be shopping in Sainsburys at eleven in the morning?"

  Mrs Buckley initially began making cups of tea for the first visitors, but as the numbers swelled she was forced to call the police. A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said they can't do anything because the visitors are all on the public highway and not causing an obstruction.

  "I don't play the guitar, I've never been in a rock band and I'm certainly not a vampire." Mrs Buckley also observed the fact that the press contingency was the worst behaved and had made friends with the devil worshipper from Italy. "He's called Mauro and works for Starbucks. He's quite a gentleman, but I don't agree with his beliefs."

  The Daily Mirror has asked for the visitors to Mrs Buckley's house to leave her alone, but when a reporter from the Mail arrived yesterday there were still over twenty people camped out on the pavement.

  "Of course she's gonna deny who she is," said eighteen year old goth Mary Ann Bloom from Luton. "If I had her history I'd deny it as well."

  9 (May)

  The police had blocked the road bringing the traffic out of Rotterdam to a crawl. The blue lights of emergency vehicles were multiplied in the raindrops across the windscreen forming flashing constellations before the wipers flicked them away. But back they came, again and again. There was an accident somewhere and a victim hidden in the confusion of hi-vis clothing. Bad night to have an accident, thought Jan Moencker. Bad timing too. He needed to get going, to get a result, but someone somewhere was conspiring against him.

  He was in the passenger seat of Rob Wallet's car being taken to a farmhouse a few kilometres east of the centre of Rotterdam, located in a hideously black countryside, which late at night was made all the more forbidding by the rain. Either side of the road there was nothing, no indication of life or where it might again emerge. Wallet had picked him up from his hotel near Central Station and was now taking him out into the void to meet the band. They had spoken a couple of times by phone and Moencker had insisted Sony might be ready to speak to them, but there was a snag that had to be sorted out first. "Did EMI give you a reason for not signing them?" asked Moencker as the accident scene rolled by. There was some activity behind the ambulance, nothing that could be identified.

  "It'll be a motorbike," said Wallet.

  "Uh?"

  "The accident. I bet it's someone come off their bike."

  "Oh, right."

  "EMI? No, nothing at all. I don't think I went about it the right way to be honest. I knew a guy there and thought I'd try to get an introduction, but when I met up with him he just said he couldn't get any interest from anyone who mattered. I was a bit too eager, I think. Didn't plan properly, just went at it. Then I knew I wasn't far from the Sanatorium Treatment office so went over there and wished I hadn't, to be honest. Spoke to a twenty year old so-called executive who asked me to put thirty thousand on the table before he'd even invite me in. He could have been the building's caretaker for all I know. It's been a long time since I've felt as old as I did when I was in there."

  "You're wasting your time with EMI anyway. They'll be gone in eighteen months. No use if you're planning to last longer than that." Moencker relaxed into his seat as the traffic passed the last ambulance and was waved off by a soaking wet policeman. A hundred metres farther on were three more officers stood around a prone motorbike, buckled and scratched, lying on its side like a dead two wheeled animal.

  "You were right," said Moencker. "You see a lot of these accidents do you?"

  "Call it insight," said Wallet. He put his foot down and accelerated into a wall of darkness.

  "So what do I need to know about these four?" said Moencker.

  Wallet gathered himself and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Be honest with them. One thing I've learned is they don't like bullshit, don't like lies and liars. Susan is the decision maker, pretty much everything goes through her, so if you get her approval you're pretty much in. She can read people like a book so don't try to be clever with her. Dee Vincent reads books like a book. Never stops reading and talking, very mercurial, hard to get a straight answer out of her and I think sometimes it's a game she plays until she's ready to trust you. Rene is like a second opinion on everything. Susan has known him since childhood and trusts him more than anyone. I get the impression that he's like a, I don't know, a filter or a valve that keeps her on the straight, if you know what I mean."

  "Not really."

  "She can be very volatile. He's probably the only person who can make her see sense, but he's not always successful."

  "There's always one member with a stronger personality than the rest."

  "Don't get me wrong, she's not a tyrant, but she is the engine of the band. It was her decision to
make the comeback."

  "She say why?"

  "Not in any way that I understood." Wallet looked at Moencker as if he had some insight, what the hell, he'd never heard of her a week ago.

  "There are four of them?" said Moencker.

  "Yeah," Wallet's hands gripped the wheel momentarily. "Elaine. All I can say is you'll have to make up you own mind about Elaine. She's scares the fuck out of me. Quiet. Hardly moves. I wouldn't like to be on the end of her temper. Then again, I don't think she needs an excuse to turn. Just step carefully around her."

  "The mad bass player. It's all fitting a pattern."

  "You've met bands like this before?"

  "Quite a few."

  Wallet turned to Moencker and grinned. "No you haven't."

  Moencker received a text. He read it and put his phone away. "What exactly do they want from this reunion?"

  "It's not a reunion because they never split up. It's a comeback. And what do they want out of it? I could only speculate. Maybe they got bored, maybe they need the money."

  "That's the usual reason. And why are you here?"

  Wallet entered that zone where the driver of a car is so deep in thought that it almost drives itself. "A sense of achievement. I want to achieve something in life. When you write about music, or anything for that matter, for as long as I have you start to get frustrated and want to be closer to it, part of it. You want to cross over from spectator to performer or at least part of the production and make it happen. The chance came my way and I took it. It was a risk, but I could see my life ahead of me and it looked like this road."

  The car was taking them both along an illuminated strip of tarmac no more than twenty or thirty metres in length and beyond that there was nothing. An unbearable unknown gloom. When they did finally arrive at the farmhouse there was evidence of life, but it was extraterrestrial. The cloud was breaking up and glimpses of constellations normally dimmed by the latent light of the city were hanging like tiny beads of light filled raindrops, their patterns gradually emerging out of the background. That's where all the light had gone, up there, to illuminate those stars and nebulae and gas clouds, leaving this part of the earth as black as the deepest pit and as quiet as a tomb. Moencker wanted to do the deal and get away.

  -

  "But you need to understand that whatever I do I'm only a middle operator. There's a big team of people way above my head, some of whom I will never meet, who make the final decisions." Moencker was presenting his case to the four members of the band who were gathered in a spacious living room in their farmhouse. Moencker had been surprised by the modern furniture and, more than that, the tidiness and order of the place. It wasn't the ransacked hovel that he expected four members of a 'notorious rock band' to inhabit. He didn't need to think hard about it; he'd never met a band like this. They politely shook his hand and when he spoke they quietly listened like a small class of schoolchildren. Susan Bekker sat in a large chair next to a table with an elaborate stainless steel candelabra and four golden flickering smoking candles. On a large l-shaped settee was Dee Vincent, cross legged, almost meditating, next to her was Rene van Voors, arms folded across his chest. And at right angles to them Elaine Daley, just as Wallet had described; her feet up, motionless as a sculpture, her eyes locked onto him all the time he was talking.

  The mood, with the reflective light catching the edges and corners of the furniture, was warm, welcoming and tranquil. It could almost have been the perfect place to live, a refuge from the incessant demands of his job, but Moencker couldn't shake off an insistent unease. The feeling of being suspended inside a gently glowing bubble surrounded by the infinity of nothingness outside the walls of the room made him twitch, occasionally shiver even though he wasn't cold. No one in the room joined him to drink. They had offered him slices of meats and cheeses, with mango pickle, fruit and chilli sauces, but they weren't hungry and ate nothing. He was relieved to be in a place of sanity and calm and unnerved by its abnormality. A threatening peace like a lull in some localised conflict. Wallet's words were never far away and Moencker told himself again he hadn't met a band like this before.

  He continued to explain the structure of Sony, their aspirations and those of Todd Moonaj with his remit and expectations. "So, any questions?" he asked.

  "This remix, you mentioned earlier," said Susan, "what exactly does that involve and what control do we have over that?"

  "As I said, having listened to your back catalogue over and over again there are two issues: the quality of the original recordings is technically lower now than most home made demos. What people can do on their computers at home is better than the original sounds of your albums. The people at Sony will simply not listen to those original recordings. They want to hear what you're going to sound like if you walked into a recording studio right now and then they'll compare that to what everyone else sounds like."

  "We don't want to sound like everyone else," said Dee.

  "I don't mean that in terms of style, I mean the technical sound: the engineering, the mixing, the mastering. Will you sound as loud as other similar bands, does your producer understand what a modern audience expects to hear in the mix of a rock song."

  "Think back to when you recorded Nocturn," said Rob, "how many tracks would you have on a song, typically?"

  Susan pulled a 'don't know face.' Did anyone know? Could anyone remember?

  "A dozen, maybe" said Elaine. "Depended on the song. Two or three on the drums, one on me," Rene nodded, "two or three on vocals if there were harmonies, two, maybe three on lead guitar, maybe one or two on rhythm guitar. The main melody in your solos, Susan, was usually recorded in mono and panned hard left and right. Sometime's Dee's rhythm guitar might fill in on a lead guitar track to fill the sound out, give it a little more dimension."

  "Micky Redwall had us in and out of the studio as quick as possible to keep costs down," said Rene. "Lucky we could work as quickly as we did, but it never got complex. And we only played the instruments we had. There were no synthesizers or piano. A few bits of percussion now and again."

  "Even so, two or three overdubs on lead guitar, a dozen tracks in total." said Moencker. "Evanescence, doing what you might be doing, used a hundred and fifty tracks on a single of theirs. What You Want. Over twenty tracks on drums, twenty for vocals."

  They didn't look impressed. Susan was teasing a flame on one of the candles next to her, waving her index finger through the tiny playful fire. "Evanescence? Is that where you see us?"

  "No, I'm not making any comparisons, I'm simply reminding you how far on production has moved, especially, from what you're saying, the production methods you had to work with. You have so much more available to you now and you need to demonstrate what you would do with all that production power." Moencker was mesmerised by Susan's trick of holding her finger in the flame as she listened.

  "So what do you want us to do?" asked Rene. "Record something new for 2013?"

  "No," said Moencker. "There isn't time for that. Better to take an original track, Rob told me you have the master tapes now, and remix it, bring the sound up to date. Fill it out. Let Sony hear the genuine Toten Herzen song, but with a twenty first century production quality."

  "I'd like to think about this," said Susan looking at Wallet.

  "It's your music," he replied. "You shouldn't rush things, but at the same time this is a real opportunity."

  "True," said Moencker, "but also this isn't double glazing. There's no fourteen day cooling off period. I'd prefer to hear a decision tonight." For the first time in the evening he felt uncomfortable with the way Susan Bekker was now looking at him. He tried to sit back in his chair, but he was already sat back, he crossed his legs, scratched his chin, he should have shaved before coming out here, but there wasn't time.

  "And we can trust you?" she finally said.

  "Of course you can. It's in everyone's interest that we make the best impression we can to get that introduction to the process that'll bring you back. O
nce we've got this part out of the way and all the directors and managers and executives have made their financial decisions, we can get on with new material and planning concerts and production design. But we can't do anything until we've got their attention."

  "You weren't there in 1973, Jan," said Dee looking at Rene. The drummer nodded.

  "What happened in '73, what do you mean," said Moencker.

  Rene explained. "Micky Redwall heard the band we were in and the band Dee and Elaine were in and pulled them both apart to create Toten Herzen. Wim Segers and Marco Jongbloed from After Sunset, our band, were promised their fare to get back to Holland. That was Redwall's deal. They agree to let Susan and me go and he pays for them to get home. He gave them petrol money to get to Felixstowe and when they arrived at the ferry terminal there were no tickets. He said it was a mix up, but they were stuck there for two days going through rubbish bins for food until the police caught up with them and they were deported. They got a bill once they got home and blamed us for it all."

  "It took three years to persuade them it wasn't our fault," Susan said to the candle flame.

  "We're very wary of promises, Jan," said Elaine. "We've been stung a lot of times. It's not happening any more."

  Moencker surrendered to them. "I'm not going to fuck you guys, believe me."

  "Damn right you're not," said Susan. "We'll go along with what you're recommending. We'll put our trust in you, but you have to come good on that."

  "Let me give you one more piece of advice, please," said Moencker. "If you can't trust me the music industry today is going to eat you alive."

  Wallet rolled his eyes.

  "You need to develop a thicker skin than what I can see tonight. There's a lot of shit heading your way. I'm saying this because Rob told me you respect honesty. It's not going to be easy. This comeback is going to generate a lot of interest and a lot of comment. You need to be prepared for that. I'd like to say you should have the wisdom of age and all the experience you have, but I have to admit seeing four people who look as young as you do," he threw his hands in the air, "I'm finding it difficult to believe that you were in a band in the mid-nineteen seventies." He waited for an explanation. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

  Susan snuffed out a single candle on the chair-side table. "You couldn't handle it, Jan. Let's wait until we know you a little better before we start going into all that."

  "I'll need to know sooner or later," said Moencker.

  "Don't worry, you will," said Dee smiling innocently. "We'll just have to hope you're ready for it."

  -

  On his way out of the farmhouse Jan Moencker would have stopped for a quick smoke, except he didn't smoke! Away from the living room - and he really did like that room, it was just a pity it was surrounded by the world's end - a short corridor linked the front hall to the kitchen and he noticed a dotted line of blood drops, maybe a metre in length. He jumped slightly as Rob Wallet caught up with him to take him back to his hotel. "Cut yourself shaving, Rob?" asked Moencker.

  Wallet noticed the blood. "They're a clumsy bunch."

  "You don't have a cigarette on you by any chance," said Moencker.

  "Don't smoke. Never have."

  "Me neither, but it's what I want more than anything in the world right now."

  "They weren't that bad. Or did you experience something I hadn't warned you about?"

  They stepped outside and the late night chill gripped Moencker a little too eagerly. "This whole thing, the vampire image," he said wondering if he should finish his sentence, "do they want to continue with that?"

  "Whole vampire image," said Wallet. "What image? They never had an image, Jan. It was the press and Micky Redwall who concocted all that."

  "Maybe, but it's been killed by so many tv programmes and novels. They might want to rethink how they market themselves otherwise they're going to find a nice little niche that nobody else knows about or cares about."

  A satellite passed overhead. A tiny star, unblinking, travelling slowly in a perfect line, unmoved by the universe around it. "Sky's cleared after all that rain," said Wallet.

  "Yeah. Are you not cold?" said Moencker waiting for Wallet to unlock the car.

  "No. I'm English. If you can't get used to cold weather you'll be dead by the time you're five years old. See there, Pegasus, the big square of stars." Wallet was looking round for the rest of the cast. "Cassiopeia, still flaunting it. Shameless hussy."

  Moencker wasn't listening. "How do they do it?"

  "And the dragon's still watching us. How do they do what?"

  "Cause so much trouble without actually doing anything? Five murders, all connected to them, but yet they've been in a hotel and a farmhouse, gone nowhere near an awards ceremony or celebrity party. They do nothing and yet all this turmoil is going on around them."

  "Jan," Wallet leaned against the car, "stop reading the papers. Believe only what you see with your own eyes." The alarm blipped and the doors unlocked. "Ride the publicity, milk it, use it, exploit it, whatever. That's how it's always been. Just don't fall for any of it. You want to compare them to other bands. The other bands couldn't begin to comprehend what this lot can do."

  Moencker was relieved to finally get in the car and get away. Back to latent light, streetlamps and civilisation for all its mess and disorder.

  10 (May)

  No one entering the Ring of Strawberries did so without leaving a damp stain on the doormat. The rain was teeming down and made an uninvited dash for the bar and every time the door opened, blown in by a combination of strong wind, high pressure and the shock waves of thunder. One by one the participants of the Monday Night Quiz, hosted by Dave and Donna and attracting eggheads and thickos in equal numbers, settled their sodden backsides in anticipation of a first prize of thirty pounds and free ham sandwiches. The bigger the team the better the chance of success, but the thinner the spoils were spread. Terence Pearl's combatants, the Jolly Troubadours, were already in place. Pearl (chief brain and arbitrator) sat opposite his bearded nephew Clive and his wife Kylie, a former pupil of Pearl and not named after a pop diva whose early hits were written by Stock, Aitken and Waterman following an acting career in which Australian soap opera? Patrick was an English teacher and in spite of working at the same school as Pearl before his retirement, didn't socialise with him except on a Monday night when he attached himself to the team for no particular reason. Cedric from next door was parked up next to his sly, ammunition producing wife Wanda. And finally, Liz. Liz, the school librarian who had contributed a large sum of money to Pearl's early retirement present. Liz, the fellow author who once joined the same postal writers' circle even though she had never written anything and had to leave. Liz, the starstruck admirer who wished Pearl would join her on the local coach tours to Caister and Stretford Mill.

  A weekly ritual was carried out in which everyone had their quiz drinks supplied and a handful of pens of mixed provenance were scattered across the table. Clive wrote down the answers, ninety per cent of which were supplied by Pearl, forty per cent of which were usually wrong, but no one dared to complain. Around the oak beamed room, those punters not allied to one of the factions stayed close to the bar while the Creeky Cruisers, Tony's Tractor Boys, Red Letter Day, The Mucky Nuns, the Lemondrops, Laurel and Hardy and The Bad Hair Mob joined the Jolly Troubadours in what was often billed as a battle to the death, but was usually a race to the bottom.

  Rounds one and two covered art and the human body. At the end of the questioning, answer sheets were swapped between adjacent teams for marking. As usual the answers supplied by the Creeky Cruisers, sat close to Pearl's table, had a disturbing correlation to the Jolly Troubadours' answers and as the night wore on the two teams fought for position.

  "Round three is the music quiz," announced Dave putting his glasses back on. "As our local heroes have been all over the press recently," there were collective groans around the pub, "this round is about Toten Herzen. Five questions and a maximum of sev
enteen points."

  "I've never heard them," said Clive.

  "You've never heard of them?" Pearl's biro was blocking up again.

  "No, I've heard of them, I've just never heard them."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "I've never listened to any of their songs," said Clive. Bubbles from the head of his pint spilled onto the table. He wiped them away with the edge of his beermat.

  "No, you don't want to," said Liz. "I saw them one night, about 1974, with an ex-boyfriend and the crowd was just, I don't know, pure evil. That's the best way I can describe them. They were holding up dead rats and mice by the tales. It was horrible." Patrick nodded.

  "Question number one. Two members of the band are originally from Rotterdam. The other two are originally from Lincoln. Can you name the two members from Lincoln? Two points for each name."

  "No idea," said Liz.

  "You went to see them," said Patrick.

  "We didn't speak to them though, did we."

  "Dee Vincent and Elaine Daley," said Pearl.

  Clive wrote the names down. "What does the D stand for?"

  "It doesn't stand for anything. D double-e. As in Dee, short for Denise."

  "Oh, sorry."

  "Denise Leslie Vincent and Elaine Daley. No middle name. Parents probably couldn't afford one," said Pearl confidently.

  "Since when have you been an expert on Toten Herzen?" asked Cedric.

  "I thought everyone knew that."

  "Question number two. Toten Herzen had six chart hits." The quiz master was interrupted by a clap of thunder so severe it blew a window open. Women screamed, pints went over, the lights flickered, but no one died. There were mutterings that the spirit of the band was watching over them. Pearl wasn't amused and felt a hot flush dance all over his skin. Patrick glanced nervously at the ceiling. "Toten Herzen had six chart hits. Can you name two of them for two points each. And there are two bonus points if you can name the albums from which the hits came from."

  "Go on Terence, amaze us again," said Kylie.

  "Were you in the band?" said Clive.

  "I most certainly was not. You could have Facelift, from the second album We Are Toten Herzen. That got to number four in the charts. And After I'm Gone from the Nocturn album. That got to number two."

  "You know 'em all don't you," said Clive.

  "I'm starting to worry about you, Terence," said Cedric.

  "Any self respecting citizen of Ipswich will be familiar with local lore and legend. Even the bad bits."

  "And keep your voice down," said Wanda. "The Creeky Cruisers are trying to listen in." Pearl gave a disapproving glare across to the boat owners sitting within eavesdropping distance. "We'll know if they have an identical score."

  "Question three. Which famous American rock star invited the band to tour with him in the States, but was turned down. Two points."

  "It wasn't Elvis, was it?" said Wanda shaking her head.

  "Of course it wasn't Elvis. Alice Cooper," said Pearl quietly, then he raised his voice towards the Creeky Cruisers, "although it might have been Pat Boone."

  "So who is it?" said Clive.

  "What? Alice Cooper!"

  "Question four. The author Jonathan Knight claims to have written a novel based on Toten Herzen. For two points what was the name of the novel? And for another bonus point, can you name the vampire story written by Sheridan le Fanu?"

  Pearl squinted, the title, both titles, eluded him. The rest of the team sat silent to allow his thoughts to arrange themselves. Patrick observed the muttering and conferring going on around the room. The other teams looked equally stumped and their ignorance forced a barely perceptible swelling of pride, and some relief, in Patrick's stomach. Individual punters sat at the bar watched the quiz as if it were a game of chess with multiple players.

  "Oh, dah!" Pearl clicked his fingers furiously. The Creeky Cruisers waited patiently.

  "The Dead Heart Weeps," whispered Patrick to Clive's pen. "And Carmilla. That's the le Fanu story."

  "Got it," said Clive. He grinned at the Cruisers.

  "Of course," said Pearl. "Carmilla."

  "Question five and you're going to hear a little bit of music. If you're wearing a hearing aid you might want to turn it off a minute." A blast of music competed with the thunder outside. "Hang on a minute, Donna," said Dave. "You're going to hear a clip from the live album, DeadHearts Live, but for two points I want you to name the band who recorded the original version of this song." Panic set in at Pearl's table. No one, including Pearl, had ever heard any of the music, and Pearl knew next to nothing about rock music other than Toten Herzen's raucous contributions. He recalled Susan Bekker and Rene van Voors being influenced by a British rock band, but he couldn't remember if it was Black Sabbath or Deep Purple. The music went by without acknowledgement; a cacophony, a live blur almost drowned out by the sound of the audience; a frenetic display of guitar notes that pierced the ears with all the subtlety of a blunt masonry drill.

  Wanda blinked and rubbed her eyes with a handkerchief. "Deep Purple," whispered Pearl. Clive made a note.

  The round over, answer sheets were exchanged and sure enough, according to the cheating swine at the next table, Toten Herzen had turned down a lucrative offer from that arch-hellraiser himself Pat Boone. The bastards. And the pattern was repeated for the rest of the night. In round four the Cruisers blagged Pearl's audible suggestion that the pre-revolution leader of Iran was Ali Baba. In round five, the picture round, the Cruisers mistook Richard Nixon for Harry Corbett. And in round six, the science and technology round, which Cedric always sat up for, but never answered anything, the Cruisers graciously and surreptitiously accepted the answer, a chemist's shop, to the question: where would you go to look for the Higgs boson?

  Competition over and the winners, by a single point, were the Bad Hair Mob, but the usual controversy, played out every week as the ham sandwiches came around, blighted the hairdressers' success. According to Dave, Toten Herzen were influenced in their formative years by Black Sabbath. The quiz master’s crime was compounded when he reeled off a list of Black Sabbath's greatest hits which included the apocryphal Smoke on the Water. Pearl wanted to join in, but he didn't know who had written Smoke on the Water, Highway Star or Strange Kind of Woman, but he was certain it wasn't Black Sabbath. His only consolation was that the Bad Hair Mob had also answered Deep Purple - and been marked wrong - so they hadn't won on the strength of an error, but as one punter suggested, with a mouthful of ham sandwich, "It's the same bloody tale every week, Dave. You get the answer wrong. One of these days there'll be a decent sum of money at stake."

  With the battle over, normal pub chat was resumed and Kylie showed off her new iPad. "Have you ever googled your own name," she said. "I mean, obviously I know what's going to show up if I google my name, but what about you Cedric. Cedric Fowler? Let's have a look." Pearl, uninterested in Kylie's faddish toy or Cedric's accidental online presence, stood up to go to the bar. "Oh, One Against the World, by Cedric Fowler, didn't know you'd written a book." Wanda looked at her husband; Cedric blushed. He wouldn't know where to start unless his wife told him, thought Pearl.

  When Pearl returned to the table he was greeted with silence. Liz fiddled with her glass, Kylie had put the iPad away and Patrick was playing the one armed bandit. Clive offered a smile, a strange kind of facial shape formed by the contortion of his beard. Cedric sat with his arms crossed in a mirror image of his wife. "Something wrong?" asked Pearl. "Has Dave corrected the scores?"

  "You were right about Deep Purple," said Clive. "Not sure we agree with you about the Black Death being a form of germ warfare."

  "You've got some funny ideas, Terence," said Wanda.

  "I'm not with you."

  "We found your website," she whispered. Cedric was still blushing. "Bit of a dark horse aren't you."

  Pearl didn't answer. Outside, the thunder rolled and the rain battered the windows with long intensive sweeps of anger. The storm rag
ed, it's victims unable to escape a vicious saturating. Pearl decided now was the best and only moment to go. "One likes to provoke debate, Wanda," he said as he put his coat on. "It's such a dull world, don't you think?" He left the Jolly Troubadours with that thought and threw himself to the mercy of the deluge. Patrick was distracted by the one armed bandit and didn't see him leave.

  11 (May)

  The band had given Wallet a nickname: Worker B. He wanted to believe it was affectionate, but he knew he wasn't fully part of their world yet; he was still the feeder, the errand boy, going out most nights to gather blood and take it back to the nest. He had the responsibility of guiding the comeback, using those 'contacts' he liked to boast about; most of them had turned out to be nothing more than strangers' phone numbers and part time acquaintances who had forgotten him a long time ago. Let's face it, Jan Moencker had found him and the band were aware of it. Wallet may have been steering the ship, but he wasn't the captain.

  Tonight he took the opportunity to call at the band's office to check the post. They had arranged to rent the first floor rooms on Zaagmolenstraat in Rotterdam from a local businessman they knew from years back. There was the usual business junk mail in a sloppy pile behind the door, but amongst the litter lay a large manilla envelope addressed to him care of the Rotterdam address. It must have been intended for his flat in London before being redirected by the Post Office. The envelope was marked HM Revenue and Customs. He opened it.