by Paul Charles
“Ah, so you like Graham Nash then?” Tim Dickens said with a smile as he sauntered into the room.
“Well yes, I suppose, but it’s the only song I can play,” King answered, not embarrassed in the slightest.
“He’s a very nice man is Graham. I mention it not as an excuse to name-drop, but because he’s the exception in our business.” Dickens took over King’s recently vacated piano stool. He continued playing the song and singing along for a verse before breaking into a warm smile, closing the keyboard lid, crossing his legs, and turning side-on to face the members of Camden Town’s CID. By this point, Miss Robbins had provided two white foldable chairs from a space under what Irvine thought must be the staircase.
“It’s one of those songs all songwriters wish they’d written. The idea was so simple we all kicked ourselves for not thinking of it first, but Mr Nash beat us all to it, showing us, as he and the Beatles often did, that writing simple songs is anything but simple.”
Irving thought Dickens was in his mid to late fifties. He was about five foot ten, slim, and was in good shape for his age. No, scrap that, Irvine thought; Dickens is in great shape. He looked and dressed affluently. His skin was clear and clean-shaven with only a few age lines to the sides and under the eyes. He wore black canvas flip-flops, loose-fitting grey trousers, a grey sleeveless cardigan, and a black shirt with the top button done up. He certainly had the air of a millionaire. He looked unhurried, safe and at peace in his own skin. Or maybe Irvine just thought he looked like a millionaire because the detective already knew he must be a millionaire.
“Do you still write songs?” Irvine asked.
Dickens smiled. It was a warm-hearted, gracious smile, which hinted at the tolerance of an often-asked question. He had brown eyes and a hairstyle appropriate for a man his age: well groomed, brown, dense enough to shelter his crown, with a tidy parting and the greyness of his years visible.
“I try,” he answered. His English accent was obviously influenced by a good few years in USA. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be modest. I enjoy writing a song. I take great pleasure from writing songs…” he paused to turn and look directly at King. “It’s probably the thing in my life I take most pleasure from.”
Irvine suspected he wasn’t finished, that Dickens was used to holding court and enjoyed the drama of a good pause in his narrative. Kennedy had long ago taught his favourite DS to be patient, to always work at the pace of the subject on the first interview. If there was to be a subsequent interview, then you might want to rattle them along a bit or even slow them down to take them out of their comfort zone of considering each and every thing they said.
“But I’d also have to say I no longer have a record company or manager for my new songs. There’s probably not even an audience for my new stuff for that matter. No one is banging on my door looking for new songs. There still seems to be a demand for the older material, no matter how many times it’s repackaged, but nowadays, the music business is predominately a young person’s business, particularly on the performing side. But writing songs is what I do, what I love doing, so I have to do it. I’ll spend a good part my day writing.”
“What do you do with the songs?” Irvine asked.
“Well, for my new material, I’m lucky enough to be with a great publishing house, Hornall Brothers. They’re old-fashioned in that they get out there looking for covers for my songs. Pretty much, these days, placing songs is a lost art, but, as I say, I’m lucky enough that they still find homes for some of my songs. Tom Waits famously said his songs are like children. They get older, leave home, and go out and earn a living for him. I love Hornall Brothers because they give me a very good excuse to continue to practise my chosen art. Sometimes they even find me a movie project to write for.”
“Do you still perform live?” King asked.
“Ah, no,” Dickens laughed heartily, “and every time I’m asked to, I’ll just dig out a recent live DVD of Tom Jones, and that’s the only reality check I need.”
“My mum and dad love Tom Jones,” King protested.
“Exactly,” Dickens laughed, “but I’m sure you’re not here to interview me for Mojo, so this is probably a very good point to talk about your business.”
“When we spoke to Alice, your PA, on the phone earlier, she said you were already aware that Patrick Mylan was dead,” Irvine started.
“Yes, very sad, isn’t it?”
“How did you find out?” King asked.
“A mutual friend rang and told me.”
“And who was this friend?”
“A mutual friend of DS Irvine here and mine, a Miss Nealey Dean,” Dickens replied, looking directly at Irvine.
“Right,” King replied, writing something in her notebook as Irvine asked, “How long have you known Mr Mylan?”
“Whooa,” Dickens more breathed than said as he turned to stare at the lid of the piano and then chose instead to turn around and lift his guitar. “Ah, let’s see now,” he continued as he absent-mindedly started to strum the guitar, “probably coming up to eight or nine years. Alice would know more accurately; she’s great with dates and diaries and things like where I’ve got to be at noon. We can check with her when you’re leaving.”
“How did you meet him?” Irvine asked.
“John Stevenson, a great concert promoter I know, his brother Tony is involved in investments in some way or other, and Tony is a business acquaintance and friend of Patrick’s. John invited me to drinks at Patrick’s one summer evening. I didn’t know if I was being lined up as a potential investment client or a future tennis partner.”
“Do you play tennis?” King asked.
“Not a lot, and nowhere near seriously enough to share a court with Patrick.”
“How well did you know him?” Irvine asked.
“Not very well, DS Irvine.”
Irvine gave a “that doesn’t really help” type of shrug, which Dickens must have correctly interpreted, because he continued, “I’m not being facetious. It’s just I’ve been thinking about nothing else this morning since I heard the news, and I can’t admit to being upset about the news. Over the last few years, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Patrick Mylan’s company. He was always pleasant and friendly to me and I to him, but neither would I claim that we made a connection beyond that with each other. You know, I haven’t a clue what he worried about or what made him happy. I didn’t know if he was single because there had been a big love of his life and she dumped him, leaving him scared for life. I sometimes saw him in female company, but again, I never saw him with anyone he seemed to really care about.”
“Did anyone you know really care about him?” King asked, a sad tone evident in her voice.
“Maggie Littlewood cared about him, she and her husband Roger, but particularly her. She was always at him to look after himself better; nagging him to find a good woman and settle down and have children. She was always telling him that having children was the making of a man.”
“Have you any children yourself?” King asked.
“In another life,” Dickens replied without regret.
King looked puzzled.
“I married my first girlfriend when I young. We had two children. We divorced when my son was three and my daughter was one. She remarried quite quickly and had another couple of children, and she felt it was important that they played happy families. Her version of happy families did not include me being involved in my children’s lives. I felt so bad about the break-up that I complied. By the time I came to my senses, my children had another father.”
“So you never see them?” King continued.
“No. But look, that’s my version of the story. If you spoke to my ex-wife, I’m sure she’d have a totally different slant on it. I think she felt I was living my life for material for my songs.”
“So, from what you’re saying,” Irvine began, picking his words carefully, “Patrick Mylan wasn’t exactly what you’d call a happy soul, was he?”
“
Well, you know,” Dickens replied, “it would be incorrect to claim Patrick was always down or dark. He’d laugh with the rest of the table. He seemed to really enjoy his own dinner parties. He loved playing tennis. I mean, he’d a real passion and a skill for it. He enjoyed playing more than needing to win every time he played, if you know what I mean. He wouldn’t be overtly depressed. Does your question mean you think it might have been suicide?”
“That’s what we’re trying to ascertain, sir,” Irvine said. “Were you aware of any trouble he might have been in?”
“From what I can gather, he did very well with his investments. Obviously we’ve all heard the stories about people losing millions overnight in the current climate, but he didn’t seem to suffer much from the recession. Obviously Rodney, that’s Rodney Stuart, his accountant stroke advisor in all things legal, would have a better handle on that area of his life.”
“When was the last time you would have seen him?” King asked.
King always had her shopping list of vital questions she would work her way through without ever disrupting the line of the conversation. Irving’s problem was that if he weren’t careful - or was out without King or Kennedy - he’d find himself concentrating too much on the questions he felt he really needed to ask, making that his preoccupation rather than the answers.
“Let’s see, the last dinner party I would have attended would have been a fortnight ago. We can also check that with Alice when you’re leaving.”
“And how did he seem?” Irvine asked.
“Same as usual. I didn’t notice anything unusual. That particular dinner party would have been the first I’d attended for ages, so maybe there was a wee bit more catching up than normal, but apart from that, nothing to note.”
Irvine hoped that his frustration wasn’t showing to either Dickens or King, but he was learning absolutely nothing about Patrick Mylan, even from the people who supposedly knew him. On top of which, there didn’t seem to be a lot of grieving going on in his circle of acquaintances either. Irvine couldn’t help wondering who’d miss him if anything happened to him. He went through the people outside of his family who he hoped would miss him. He got as far as Kennedy, Rose Butler, Bella Forysthe, Nealey Dean, and then, try as he might, he couldn’t think of a single person to hit the fifth finger.
The interview was running out of steam. King asked the only question left to be asked.
“What was I doing between the hours of four o’clock and eight o’clock on Sunday last?” Dickens recited her question back to her. “I believe I was here, working on a new song.”
He started to finger a different set of chords from the ones he’d been aimlessly strumming for a while. He played several bars, humming a sad melody to his precise guitar work.
“I’ve been trying to catch this one for several months now, and I’d a bit of a breakthrough on Sunday. I started just after lunch and worked on it into the evening. I think I’ve cracked it. With any luck I’ll get it finished this week. That happens to me a lot. I work on a song for ages - years on a couple of them - until something happens to make it all fall into place. Then it’s just a matter of polishing it up a bit.”
“What do you do first, the music or the lyrics?” Irvine asked.
“Both, I do them both at the same time, but nine times out of ten I’ll finish the music before I’m happy with the lyric.”
“Was there someone working with you - a producer, other musicians or technicians?” King asked.
“Ah no, the writing stage is a very solitary one. I find I need to be alone to have a chance of reaching the muse. But I think that’s why I enjoy this part of the process so much. Well, more like this part of my life so much.”
“So there’d have been no one with you between the hours of four p.m. and eight p.m.,” King offered, it appeared to Irvine, as much for her notebook’s benefit as for Dickens.’
“No one.”
Chapter Twelve
Kennedy’s day was progressing more quickly than he wanted - well, more quickly than he wanted without producing any results. Added to that was the pressure that he felt that he was beginning to feel very ungallant in respect of his dealings with Miss Sharenna Chada. He wasn’t exactly accusing himself of being a cad, and it wasn’t as though he were avoiding her or not returning her calls. At the same time he felt in his soul that after how close they’d been on Saturday and Sunday, he should try and make some kind of connection. But how gallant was he really being? Was there not a chance, he asked himself as he tidied up his desk of two weeks’ worth of junk circulars, that his interest was more lust driven?
He and Irvine were due to leave North Bridge House in ten minutes to interview Roger and Maggie Littlewood, who lived up on the borders of Hampstead. Changing his plan, Kennedy popped into Irvine’s office and advised him he’d an errand he needed to run and that he’d meet him outside the Roundhouse in half an hour.
The closer Kennedy walked towards Camden Lock, the less confident he grew about his decision. How would she feel about his just turning up at her place of work unannounced? How would he feel if Miss Chada just nipped into the reception area of North Bridge House and asked Sgt Tim Flynn to show her through to Kennedy? Not great, he had to admit. They’d parted without making any further plans. Had that been intentional on her part?
Self-conscious as he was approaching her part of the hippie haven that was Camden Lock, he felt he had to go and see her, but he hadn’t a clue what he was going to say. He toyed with the excuse of needing to see her because of his back ailment, but dismissed this out of hand. On careful consideration, he wondered if this was because he didn’t now want to appear weak in her eyes. He wondered about this power she seemed to have to pull him towards her. Perhaps it could simply be put down to abstinence making the libido grow keener, but then he hadn’t consciously abstained. No, he’d lost his mate. Could that be what this was all about? The fact that ann rea had left him?
Sharenna Chada was a truly beautiful and sensuous woman. Yes, there was something dark, lonely, and sad about her that Kennedy hadn’t yet figured out, but her overwhelming, prevailing power was that she had been put on this earth to make love. Yet Kennedy had never been attracted to this type of woman before, and he admitted to himself that before he’d met ann rea, he’d probably have run a mile from someone with Miss Chada’s silent power. She’d taken complete control; she’d seduced him. No matter how willing he’d been in the encounter, the bottom line was that he really had nothing to do with it. Maybe she’d taken pity on him due to the pain he’d been experiencing. Maybe the wine played a part. Maybe she too had been without a lover for just too long a period of time. Whatever the reason, she’d been the instigator, and Kennedy had most certainly been a willing and happy participant. As he walked across Dingwalls’ crowded and multi-cultured courtyard, he admitted to himself that it had been the most exciting sexual experience of his life.
Kennedy entered the refurbished warehouse that housed the tiny reception area and suite of rooms that made up the Unlocked treatment centre. Unlocked was a long established massage centre that had developed its own successful line of oils, candles, and herbal remedies. After visiting Miss Chada the osteopath at Unlocked for several months strictly as a patient, it felt very weird walking back into here wearing a different cloak.
Jan, the friendly and talkative Scottish receptionist, spotted him immediately.
“Ah, Mr Kennedy, Miss Chada said if you came by today, even though you don’t have an appointment, I was to disturb her.” She paused to pivot one hundred and eighty degrees in her chair, reach up above her, open a cupboard, take out a crisp white towel, close the door, and swivel back around to hand the towel to another masseuse who Kennedy hadn’t noticed standing behind him. Jan had her tiny reception laid out so she could do nearly everything from her swivel chair. “Let me just check here for you.” She flicked through the pages of her large, well-used appointment book, swung back around and checked the clock above the cupboards. �
��Can you wait five minutes? I don’t like to disturb her when she’s with a patient.”
“That’ll be perfectly fine,” Kennedy said.
“She’s got a break before her next patient. Not long enough to fit in a session for you though. Would you like to try some of our herbal tea? It’s brilliant, I’m really addicted to it, totally chills me out and makes me more mature in my dealings with the morons who still come in here expecting quick relief for a ten pound note.”
“Do you get much trouble from them?” Kennedy asked.
She laughed heartily.
“You see this button here?” She swung around to her right and pointed to what looked like a doorbell attached to the wall at about the height of her computer screen. “If I’m getting any grief from them, I just push this as I warn them they’d better get out before Geoff and Diesel throw them out.”
She laughed again, leaned across her crowded desk and whispered, “There is no Geoff, and there is no Diesel. The button isn’t even connected. But it always works. I picked the names because of Geoff Capes. My dad was always a big fan of his. He could pull a truck by himself. I’m not really sure why he would want to, mind you, but he could, and he did it every Christmas on that The World’s Strongest Men series. They’ve always got shows on like that at Christmas, haven’t they? I mean, people are so bored at Christmas they’ll watch anything, won’t they? Diesel, that’s after Diesel Van What’s his name. Oh yes, Geoff and Diesel have come to my rescue on lots of occasions.”
Jan excused herself as her phone rang. Everything she did was monitored by a security camera fixed to the ceiling. Kennedy noticed a wee red light pulsing on the camera and figured that it was at least connected and not part of the Geoff and Diesel scam.
Kennedy helped himself to a china cup full of herbal tea, which was brewing in a weird black oriental pot with a bamboo handle, on a small table just to the front of Jan’s desk. The tea was very refreshing and seemed to blend seamlessly with the Tibetan music and scented oils wafting gently from somewhere behind the reception desk.