A Pleasure to do Death With You

by Paul Charles

  Here he stopped to catch his breath, and just as Irvine was about to ask something, Rodney Stuart started back up again.

  “But none of us had the faintest clue how much it was going to explode. I mean, in twelve months Paddy had turned his five million quid investment into a clear million pound profit and extended Tim Dickens’ career (and Paddy’s joint income) by at least ten good years.”

  “When did Tim Dickens start to feel resentful about the deal?” Kennedy asked.

  “At the end of that first glorious year,” Stuart replied. “I mean, you could have set your watch to it. His accountant or lawyer or whoever was advising him looked at the figures and saw only what they were giving away, not what they’d made out of the deal.”

  “Did he speak to Mr Mylan about it?” Irvine asked.

  “Well, not at first. That’s not Tim Dickens’ style. He had his people do it while all the time keeping up this pleasant non-confrontational façade when he personally met up with Paddy. Tim Dickens’ lawyer wrote to me, politely enough, saying the deal had worked out great for all parties, and now that Mr Mylan had his investment repaid perhaps it was time to renegotiate.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Paddy replied, through me, saying he’d be more than happy to renegotiate and suggested that perhaps Tim Dickens could take 40 per cent, in which case he would be more than happy with the balance of 60 per cent!”

  Kennedy and Irvine laughed heartily. Rodney Stuart joined in.

  “I imagine Tim Dickens would have gone absolutely ballistic at that. A joke was a joke, and I counselled Paddy that perhaps we should throw them back ten points. My point was that the deal had turned out marvellously well for us, and so it would be good vibes for us to keep them sweet this early in the relationship. Paddy’s point… and on reflection he wasn’t wrong… He was cute enough in business.

  “He may not have known the ins and outs of a music business deal like I did, but he did know people. Anyway, he maintained that if we gave them back ten points, they’d be back the following year looking for another ten points, and they’d never stop until they’d got it all back again. In his world, a deal was a deal. He’d put his hand in his pocket for five big ones when no one cared about Tim Dickens or his songs. His money had bought him into the deal, and he wasn’t about to just hand it back again. Equally we should all remember that if the deal had gone wrong Paddy could have lost his five million. It was a non-returnable advance.”

  “What happened next?” Irvine asked.

  “Tim Dickens rang me up about it. He was very patient and patronising with me. He said, ‘Look, you know I thought we’d left all this slavery in the music business behind us.’ I told him that he was insulting to slaves; slaves didn’t have five million quid cash paid to them in advance and didn’t get a chance to sign a contract agreeing all the terms. He said it wasn’t fair. I told him it was very fair. I told him that as far as I was concerned his career had been, to all intents and purposes, over. I told him my view was when an investor matched his current wealth in exchange for a share of any future earnings, he’d secured a very fair deal. He said, ‘So that means you won’t recommend to your client that he change the deal to one that is more favourable to me as the artist?’ I told him to dream on. I also advised him that the reality was it really didn’t matter what I said. I told him Mr Mylan was the principal in the deal, and he most certainly would never change the terms of their agreement. Dickens terminated the call, man, without even saying goodbye.”

  “Then what happened?” Kennedy asked.

  “Then they tried the Don Arden approach.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Mr Arden used to be this sixties pop group manager, and when he couldn’t get what he needed through negotiation, he would allegedly try to persuade the artist, or current manager he wanted to replace, to his way of thinking.”

  “Oh, was he the guy who used to hang people outside windows by their ankles until they signed on the dotted line?” Irvine asked.

  “I couldn’t possibly say,” Stuart said, through a smirk that suggested he’d just love to spend a few hours saying everything, “but the fact that people thought that Mr Arden might have resorted to such tactics always worked in Mr Arden’s favour.”

  “So Tim Dickens did this to Mr Mylan?” Kennedy asked.

  “Well no, not exactly. As I said, he has people to do things for him. With this particular approach, I believe he sent the puissant Mr Marcus Urry to have words with Paddy.”

  “And who would Mr Marcus Urry be when he’s at home?” Irvine asked.

  “I’m sure if you check you’ll find he’s already on your radar. He’s been in Tim Dickens’ employ for getting on to twenty years now. He’s his fixer, security officer, and head roadie. In other words, any time Tim Dickens needs to not get his hands dirty…”

  “He uses Mr Urry’s hands?” Irvine suggested.

  “In a word, yes.”

  “So Marcus Urry went to see Mr Mylan?” Kennedy prompted.

  “Yes. Barged his way into the house past Jean Claude and demanded to have a private audience with Paddy. Paddy was no fool, and he didn’t scare easily. I’ve seen him in a few tricky situations; believe me, he could handle himself. Marcus barged around Paddy’s office, banging doors and desks and tabletops, shouting and screaming that he wasn’t going to leave until he’d a new, signed agreement. Paddy said, ‘Do your worst, son. There’s not going to be a new deal - not today, not any day!’”

  “Then what happened?” Irvine asked.

  “Well, as Paddy tells it, Marcus throws everything from Paddy’s desk and starts to come around to Paddy’s side of the desk. He sides up to Paddy, trying to give the impression of someone who could be breathing flames if he wanted to, telling Paddy that he was running out of time. Paddy grabbed a large volume of Shakespeare from the shelf behind him, bopped Urry over the head. Urry fell in a pile on the floor. I asked Paddy how everything turned out, and he said, ‘Oh not too bad Rodney, the book wasn’t too badly damaged; I don’t think I’ll have to reduce the price if I ever need to sell it.”

  “Okay, final question, Mr Stuart…”

  “Oops, this sounds official,” Rodney interrupted nervously.

  “Can you tell me what you were doing between sixteen hundred hours and twenty hundred hours on Saturday?”

  “You don’t think I murdered Paddy Mylan, do you? You couldn’t possibly.”

  “We’d like to eliminate you from our investigation,” Irvine continued, a little surprised by the accountant’s reaction, “so could you please tell me what you were doing between sixteen hundred hours and twenty hundred hours on Saturday?”

  “I really can’t,” Stuart replied, grimacing slightly.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m afraid I missed that particular lesson at school, but if you convert your hundred hour clock into English for me, I’ll be happy to help.”

  “Four and eight o’clock,” Irvine sighed.

  “In the afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s easy. I was in my office. I sometimes steal a full day here on Saturday. I find I can get so much more work done because the phones never ring.”

  “Anyone in the office with you?”

  “Nope. I was here all on my lonesome.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kennedy was obviously very keen to interview Tim Dickens, and Irvine filled him in on their earlier interview on their way over to Marylebone. On route Kennedy asked Desk Sgt Tim Flynn to contact his counterpart in Wimbledon and have them track down Chloe Simmons at the address supplied by Rodney Stuart.

  When Kennedy and Irvine arrived at Leinster Mews, Tim Dickens and his PA, Alice, were locking the door. As the police walked down the mews towards Dickens’ double-fronted property, Kennedy couldn’t help wondering exactly what details the PA might have on Dickens that she could be persuaded to surrender. The closer he got, the more he could see - from the look in her eye when she clocked ex
actly who it was who was returning to interview her boss - she was transparently, fiercely loyal and most likely wouldn’t give up anything easily. As Dickens and Robbins were both dressed head-to-toe in black, just this side of looking like Goth twins, they looked more like a romantic couple than business acquaintances.

  It was Alice who forced a smile for Kennedy and Irvine as she said, “Now is not a good time. We’re on our way to an important meeting.”

  “Going to see your lawyers,” Kennedy replied, addressing Dickens directly, “to see if it’s going to be easier now to get extracted from the deal you did with Patrick Mylan?”

  “Or were you planning on sending Marcus Urry over again to soften up Rodney Stuart before you sent in the legal team?” Irvine added as they arrived at the doorstep.

  Dickens stretched out both his arms out and turned his open palms to the heavens in a ‘who me?’ gesture. In the process, he offered a duplicitous smile, so successfully Hughie Green in his prime would have been proud of it.

  The PA attempted to intervene once more, but Tim Dickens put his hand softly on her shoulder and said, “Let’s open up again, Alice, and get the tea and coffee pots fired up again. I have a feeling we’re all going to need some caffeine for this.”

  She looked totally exasperated and wasn’t shy of showing it.

  “So you’ve obviously been talking to Rodney Stuart,” Tim Dickens continued as he showed them into his office beyond the reception room, the walls of which were decorated completely with the obligatorily gold, silver, and platinum discs. Try though he did, Kennedy, couldn’t spot any rhodium awards, like the one made by the Guinness Book of Records to celebrate Paul McCartney’s status as the most successful recording artist in the history of the world, ever!

  Before Kennedy or Irvine had a chance to respond, Tim Dickens said, “I wonder how a man as apparently indiscreet as Rodney ever managed to succeed in this business.”

  “So you didn’t actually do a deal with Mr Mylan then?” Irvine asked.

  “Yes, I did do a deal with Mr Mylan, but surely that’s no one’s business but mine and Mr Mylan’s?”

  “That’s not strictly the case, you see,” Kennedy started. “If your business partner dies in mysterious circumstances, as Mr Mylan did, and before he died you were in dispute with him, as you were, and if one of your representatives physically threatened Mr Mylan, as Mr Urry did, well, then I’m afraid to have to say that it does become very much our business.”

  “Don’t hold the actions of a keen, over protective employee against me.”

  “So, you didn’t ask him to pay Mr Mylan a visit?” Kennedy asked, looking directly into Tim Dickens’ eyes.

  Tim Dickens was favoured by the distraction of his PA arriving back with teas and coffees at that point. Everyone helped themselves to milk, sugar, and Penguin bars. Tim Dickens made a bit of a fuss over slicing his bar in half, claiming that was the only treat he allowed himself, half a chocolate Penguin biscuit, each day.

  Eventually, Alice left to reschedule the meetings they’d been leaving to attend.

  Kennedy repeated his question.

  “Look, Inspector, that just got out of hand. Marcus has been with me a long while. He’s been through the good and bad with me over the years. He’s been very supportive. Did he go and see Patrick on my behalf? Yes. We’d frustrated all options through the normal legal routes. Did he over-step the mark? Quite possibly, but as I say, you have to realise that he was coming from a good place and he had my interest at heart.”

  “Just so I’m clear about this, exactly what problem did you have with the deal?” Kennedy asked.

  Tim Dickens burst into laughter. It was a smug “you couldn’t possibly understand what we’re talking about here” kind of laugh.

  “Look, he was after 50 per cent of my total income for ever!” Dickens snarled.

  “But, correct me if I’m wrong, that was the deal you agreed, was it not?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t mean it was a fair deal, Inspector.”

  “But surely it’s the agreement you signed up to?” Kennedy asked.

  “Look, in the music business, a deal is only a deal until such times as you are in a position to renegotiate the deal. When you start off your career, all the deals are top-heavy in favour of your management company, your record company, your publishing company, and your merchandising company. That’s because all of the aforementioned companies are speculating on your career, on the chance that it, your career, will happen. Then, one of two things happens: either you flop and the companies drop you, or you break ­- you start to become successful and sell records, tickets, and T-shirts. Now if you are lucky enough for the latter to happen, then when some time has passed and the companies have recouped their initial investments and made a few bob on top, then it’s standard music business practice to have your lawyer go back in to said companies and renegotiate your deals, biasing them more in your favour.”

  “Yes, but again, correct me if I’m wrong, this wasn’t that kind of a deal,” Kennedy replied. “This was more like an investment bank transaction. This was where a company, or in this case a private individual, goes to you when your sales have all but disappeared and says, ‘Okay, I want to gamble on your future.’ In other words, they invest a good chuck of change in order to receive a piece of your future earnings.”

  “But half of my earnings?” Tim Dickens said, his voice uncharacteristically hitting the higher register.

  Kennedy tried a different approach. “Would there ever have been an instance where Mr Mylan would have come back to you during the deal and said, ‘Okay, look, I know I’ve already paid you your five million pounds, but this deal is not turning out as good for me as I expected, so what I’d like to do is for you to give me back a couple of million pounds of my money and change the percentage so that 60 per cent comes to me and you can keep 40 per cent?’”

  “Why no, of course not,” Tim Dickens laughed at Kennedy as though he were a five-year-old wanting to go into a pub and have a drink with his father. “Look, Inspector, what you have to realise is, the music business is different. Historically speaking, artists have been ripped off by the big companies. The artist pays for the recording of their albums; yet the record company, for some bizarre reason, known only to themselves, own the masters. The record company and publishing houses keep a large percentage of the artist’s royalties on reserve as an accounting procedure. The publishing houses all share in the black box fund - a fund of unclaimed or undistributed royalties. They do not, to my knowledge, share any of these funds with the artist. The record companies charge the artists for videos, which the companies claim and use as their own, doing separate deals with the likes of MTV. The record company can be earning profits on an album at the same time as the artist—due to accounting procedures—are unrecouped and still in debt. I mean, it just goes on and on,” Tim Dickens ranted, now seeming to loose the point he was trying to make.

  “Yes,” Kennedy said, pulling it back on track again, “but again, I repeat: the main difference to me seems to be that Patrick Mylan was neither a publisher nor a record company. He was an investor. From my understanding, he was very up front with you. He gambled five million pounds on you, which, at the time of the deal, was reportedly equal to your total wealth.”

  “According to Rodney Stuart, I suppose,” Tim Dickens grimaced.

  “Reportedly, he wasn’t ripping you off…”

  “According to Rodney bloody Stuart, no less…”

  “Do you have any reason to believe Mr Mylan was trying to rip you off?” Kennedy asked, sensing something.

  Tim Dickens stopped in his tracks, considering both members of Camden Town CID for a few seconds.

  “Well?” Kennedy pushed.

  “He had no need to, did he? His deal with me was pure highway robbery,” was all Tim Dickens managed to come up with. His PA returned to the room, nodding at Dickens and tapping her Gucci watch.

  “Look, if there’s nothing else,” Tim Dickens bega
n, “I really do have a busy day.”

  “We’re not quite finished yet,” Kennedy said firmly.

  “I know where this is going,” Tim Dickens declared with a large sigh, his frustration obvious. “You think I couldn’t get the deal I was after with Patrick, so I topped him? You really think I, a songwriter with my reputation, would murder him… pleeeeeease.”

  “We have to investigate all avenues, sir,” Irvine offered diplomatically.

  “But if that was the case, the London record companies would have been littered with corpses years ago, and from what I’ve been told about Patrick’s demise, none of them would have had as big a smile on their face as Patrick did.”

  “Tell me, sir,” Kennedy began, not entirely happy with the proceedings, “what were you doing between the hours of four o’clock on Saturday afternoon and eight o’clock on Saturday evening?”

  “But I’ve already answered that,” Dickens protested.

  “Yes, it seems our colleague DC King asked you about the incorrect day,” Kennedy apologised as he checked his notes. “She asked you what you were doing on Sunday. You replied that you were writing a song and were alone. What we need to know is what you were doing the day before; that’s Saturday last, between the hours of four o’clock and eight o’clock, please?”

  The question seemed to pull the rug out from under Tim Dickens’ feet. To be honest, the songwriter’s reaction took Kennedy totally by surprise too. Kennedy, Irvine, and Tim Dickens seemed to be locked in this moment when they were all disturbed again by Alice.

  “Oh, that’s easy to clear up,” she said sweetly, in a voice a lot less businesslike than she’d been using thus far, “Timothy was with me all day Saturday.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Okay,” Kennedy said, starting the proceedings by clapping his hands together loudly three times, “where exactly are we on this?”