by Paul Charles
“So you start to make your success work for you. You teach yourself not to take it all so seriously. You have to or you’ll lose your sanity.”
“But Patrick Mylan wasn’t trying to rip you off, was he?” Allaway interrupted. He seemed frustrated by Dickens not addressing the issues as he saw them.
On the other hand, Irvine was happy to let Dickens continue. Kennedy had a theory that if you could just find a way of getting someone to talk, of getting them started naturally into a conversation where they weren’t stopping to consider the consequence of every sentence they uttered, then eventually, if they’ve something they were trying to hide, there was a good chance they’d reveal it.
“I’m getting to that,” Dickens replied, continuing to look and talk to DS James Irvine. “When Patrick came to me, I was flattered he would consider me in the same light as someone had considered David Bowie. Of course, in Patrick’s circles, he was never going to come into contact with a David Bowie. But Mylan was part of the new rich. He had made more money than he would ever spend, and even if the deal with me had gone pear-shaped, he was never going to miss his five million. But he was very clever. He did his research, and he worked out as near as he could what I was worth in real cash, as opposed to assets. At that point, I will admit to you that, apart from some publishing, PRS and a trickle of record royalties, my income had all but dried up.”
“PRS - can you explain that to me please?” Allaway asked.
“Good question. Recording artists make their money from several sources. One is from touring. From the touring you make money from your fee, which is financed directly from ticket sales, and from merchandising (selling T-shirts etc.) at concert venues.
“As I mentioned, I’d already stopped touring, so both of these avenues had dried up for me.
“Two is from record royalties. Every time you sell an album - sorry, make that a CD - or someone downloads your music, then the person who recorded the album receives a payment.
“Three is from publishing royalties. Every time a CD is sold or downloaded, then the person who wrote the song will also receive a payment. In my case, I am the writer and the recording artist, so I get both amounts from Two and Three and Four, which is:
“PRS - the Performing Rights collection Society. Every time a song is played live on the radio or TV, or as part of a video, money is paid to either the writer or the performer or both. There are various collection agencies such as the PRS who will collect these funds on the artist’s behalf and eventually, minus admin and collection costs, pay them on to the artist.”
“So most of these funds had dried up, and then along came Patrick with his proposal,” Irvine said, happy to draw a line under this part of the proceedings, although he noted how intrigued Allaway seemed to be by the information.
“Ye-s,” Dickens continued, drawing it out into two syllables, “then along came Patrick who, in one single deal, offered to double my personal monetary worth.”
“And then when the deal turned out so well for him, you were pissed off with him?” Allaway pushed.
“It’s not as simple as that, Detective Sergeant.”
“It never is,” Allaway said curtly. Irvine grimaced. He’d learned from Kennedy that, until you have to, there is no reason to piss off the person you’re interviewing, even if he is a suspect. Most often, naturally, if you niggled them too much, the shutters could come down.
“You see, by the time Patrick came to me,” Tim Dickens continued, again totally ignoring Allaway, “I’d already invested a considerable amount of time and even more money getting back the rights to my recordings (my masters) and the copyrights of my songs (my publishing). So what I’m saying is that it wasn’t just Patrick giving me a bunch of money and then me sitting on my backside and waiting for the deal to break. Yes, he’d invested in my future, but then so had I.”
“How much did you pay to get your masters and publishing rights back?” Irvine asked.
“Well, that’s also a difficult question to answer accurately. For a start, when I was re-signing with my record company several years back, I didn’t take anywhere near as big an advance as I could have. In order to secure the rights to my masters, I had to then lease the masters back to the record company.”
Irvine guessed that Dickens felt this wasn’t cutting much sympathy with the detectives, because he said, “Okay, including legal fees, payments, and time, I reckon I probably invested about one and a half million quid of my own money, and I probably lost about two million quid in advances with my record company to get my masters back.”
“Three and a half million,” Allaway said, after a wee bit of consideration; “that’s an awful lot of change.”
“So when the deal turned sweet, and Patrick was quids in, I felt - particularly in light of my investment and this new fabulous success, which was due in no small way to my songs - that maybe it was time to redress the balance of the deal.”
“Okay,” Irvine said, “but then why did you not put such provisions in the original deal when you and Patrick were finalising your negotiations?”
“Because I was greedy and bit his hand off when he offered me five million,” Dickens admitted.
That seemed to stop Allaway in his tracks.
“Look, I really believed my career was over. And that was fine. I’d had my day, a great day, but now it’s a younger person’s business, although I sometimes wonder if the present day’s crop will be mourned as much when they have to make way for the new wave. But the main point is, kids don’t want to see people older than their parents singing about what it’s like to be hurt in love. Someone my age can never make a connection with a teenager. But if the latest winner of X Factor sings one of my songs, then the penny drops big-time. I really need you to believe,” Dickens said, pausing, as he stared at Irvine, “this wasn’t about money. My point was this: I didn’t need the money, I really didn’t; I’ll never be able to spend what I have. When I was young and people said things like that, I thought it must be an amazing position to be in, but it’s not really. You lose your value for the simple things in life.”
“So why chase Mr Mylan so aggressively to get more money from him?”
“Simply because they were my songs generating this income; I was the one who was entitled. I tried to talk to Patrick about this, and that’s what annoyed me so much. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t give me a new deal; it was more that he didn’t care about the importance of my songs. You’ll never know how much that hurt.”
“Tell me this, Mr Dickens,” Irvine said, “do you have any idea what happens to your songs now that Mr Mylan is no longer alive?”
“Greedy and all as I was for the advance, I still had the suss to insist on a key man clause,” Dickens replied.
“Which means?” Allaway asked.
“Which basically means, no Patrick no deal.”
“Which basically means, unless I’m very much mistaken, you’ll be at least a few millions pounds better off now Mr Mylan is dead.”
“As in I had a lot of motive?” Dickens offered, and surprisingly through a smile.
“What we’d like to do now, Mr Dickens,” Irvine said, ignoring Dickens’ question, “is go through your alibi in greater detail than last time.”
“Okay,” Dickens said, dropping his clasped hands from his knee for the first time, “fire away.”
Noticing that the door to the control room of the studio was open, Irvine quietly walked across the recording room and shut the door.
“Okay, you and Miss Robbins were in here all day Saturday, analysing your royalty statements?”
“Yes, we were.”
“Is that not an exercise your accountant should have been present for?” Allaway asked.
“Ah no, but it’s not because he charges by the hour. I’ve known too many artists who get ripped off just because they haven’t a clue what’s going on. Some of these people really gift it to the people who rip them off. I’ve never allowed a lawyer or an accountant to run my l
ife. I like to have a hands-on approach to everything concerning my finances. That’s very easy for me to say only because Alice is my PA, and she’s really on top of all of this. She insists we do our own desktop audit on the statements, and then, if we find anything, we call in the big guns.”
“What time did you get here?” Irvine asked, conscious he was speaking more quietly.
“Alice picked me up at noon…”
“But I thought Miss Robbins said you were here all day?” Irvine interrupted.
“The music business, by legend, starts at the crack of lunchtime,” Dickens claimed, “so a noon start was, in fact, quite industrious.”
“Okay, then you got here at noon…” Irvine prompted.
“No, Miss Robbins picked me up at noon. We reached here about twelve forty-five.”
“Did you stop anywhere on the way.”
“Alice had already picked up two cappuccinos, so we drove straight here.”
“Where did she park?”
“Just by the front door. We have a parking permit.”
“What does she drive?”
“A dark blue Polo; it’s nippy enough for town.”
“Did you come in first or did she come in first?” Irvine asked.
“Oh, come on, does it matter who came in first? I didn’t stand around taking notes,” Dickens sighed.
“We’re only talking about Saturday past. You’ll remember if you think about it,” Irvine snapped, bordering on rudeness.
“Okay, let’s think… She would have parked with my side of the car to the door to here, so logically I would have come in first.”
“Did you use your keys or her keys?”
“My keys,” Dickens replied, sounding resigned.
“What was she wearing?”
“To be honest, I haven’t a clue. Please don’t tell her that though.”
“Think about it. It’ll still be in your memory; you just have to concentrate to recall it.”
“Okay, ehm, let’s see. I’m on safe ground with black: a long skirt, a black T-shirt, a black hooded fleece and a pair of those big black boots; you know, the ones with the silver clasps up the front.”
“There you go,” Irvine said, wondering for the first time if Dickens and his PA were lovers. “She’d be happy if she knew you noticed what she was wearing. What were you wearing?”
“Jeez, I haven’t felt under this amount of pressure since I took my A Levels. Ah, Saturday… I slept in, so I wouldn’t have had much chance to consider my clothes. I believe I was wearing black jeans, these Prada trainers, a dark purple v-neck cashmere jumper and my grey Armani jacket.”
“So what did you do first?”
“Sorry?”
“Did you start with record royalties or the songwriting royalties?”
“The record royalties; we always start with the record statements. To be honest, we’ve always found there’s more to be picked up there than in the publishing.”
“How long did that take?”
“Maybe four hours.”
“Did you pick up anything?”
“Not this time. Patrick’s people had already done their audit.”
“Really? Why bother then?”
“Tempting, but Alice reckons it’s foolish to depend on anyone else. She says if people know we are this thorough then they’re less likely to try anything on. Not only do you have to do it; you also have to be seen to have done it.”
“Did you have a tea break before starting into the publishing statement?”
“Nah, we just had fruit and mineral water. I like such days; they clean out your system.”
“Did you go out for a cigarette?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Did Miss Robbins go…”
“She doesn’t smoke either.”
“What time did you finish?”
“About nine-thirty.”
“Tell me this,” Irvine asked, sounding as if he were nearly through, “in your publishing statements, how much money did you earn from ‘No More Sad Lonely City Streets’?”
“Oh, that would be difficult to say. It’s all in different sections for different territories and different cover versions.”
“Ah, come on, Tim. You don’t mean to tell me you weren’t in the least bit curious to discover how much your biggest song had made for you in the previous six months?”
“Nope. That wasn’t the object of the exercise.”
Irvine was having trouble believing this. He was convinced this would have been the first figure Tim Dickens would have honed in on in his royalty statements.
“How did you get home afterwards?”
“Alice was off to something else, so I got a black cab out on the street.”
Which was also exactly what Tim Dickens did at the end of his interview with Irvine and Allaway, leaving them in the very competent company of Miss Alice Robbins.
***
Irvine thought it odd that he had never, until now, considered Miss Robbins to be her own person. He’d always looked upon her as Dickens’ PA. In his mind that was her job and that was her life. As she sat down before them in the studio, however, he realised how wrong he’d been.
“Have you not yet apprehended the person who murdered Patrick Mylan?” she asked before either of them had a chance to make their pitch.
“We’re still investigating exactly what happened to Mr Mylan,” Allaway replied as Irvine added, “So you met Mr Dickens here on Saturday morning?”
“Actually I picked him up from his hotel.”
“His hotel? I thought he lived in London?” Irvine was slightly taken aback.
“It’s true he has a few properties here, but when in London he much prefers to stay at Blake’s.”
“Where do you live yourself?”
Miss Robbins was dressed head to toe in expensive black, where it was difficult to work out where one garment finished and the next one started. Her long, thick, straight, centre-parted black hair cascaded all over her upper torso. Her face seemed make-up free, but maybe her skin colour was just a wee bit too pale to be a natural skin tone. Her eyes were green, small and serious. She was thin, which made her appear even taller than her five foot six inches.
“I live in a flat in Roland Gardens.”
“And that’s what part of London?” Allaway asked for his notebook’s benefit.
“South Ken, SW7,” she replied, as though addressing a civil servant.
“How long have you worked with Mr Dickens?”
“Just over twenty-one years.”
“Impossible. Sure, you’re only…” Irvine started.
“I was forty-one on my last birthday.”
“Sorry,” Irvine apologised with sincerity, “I would never have put…”
“I started out in Tim’s… in Mr Dickens’ manager’s office. I was the assistant to the secretary, and I dealt mostly with his fan club mail. Time passed, and eventually Tim moved me on to his payroll, still in the manager’s office. Then when he split with his management, he took me on as his PA.”
“What exactly do you do?” Irvine asked.
“Well, I’m involved in every aspect of his business and personal life, and I handle all of his details: make all his arrangements; organise all of his meetings; sit in on some of those (most of them these days); keep up to speed on everything for him; and I keep his diary. I suppose I’m really his organiser.”
“24/7?”
“I suppose, but it never works out like that. He likes his space. I don’t always know where he is, but he always knows where I am.”
“Could that play havoc with your social life?”
“Not really, and if it does, I don’t mind. He’s a good boss. The work is very interesting, and the salary is excellent.”
“Are you married?” Irvine asked, while Allaway took what looked like detailed notes.
“No,” she said.
“A boyfriend?”
“Isn’t this slightly personal for this interview?”
This time, the look was of someone who’d just been deeply hurt.
“Or you’re trying, in your roundabout Scottish way, to ascertain if I’m more than a PA to Mr Dickens.”
Now it was Irvine’s turn for his eyes to betray him.
“Can I just say,” she started more confidently, “Mr Dickens and I enjoy a very professional relationship. I admit I would count him as one of my true friends, and I would hope the same would be true for him. But we do not now, nor have we ever, had any kind of a romantic relationship.”
“Okay, Miss Robbins, thank you for being so candid with us.”
“Furthermore, I believe the reason our working relationship is so good is due in no small way to the fact that there has never been any mistaking the parameters of our relationship. Mind you, a lot of my friends fancy him something rotten.”
“Oh, did any of them ever date him?” Irvine asked innocently.
“My goodness, no. They’d be much too immature for him,” she replied, laughing for the first time.
“Can we discuss the deal Mr Dickens had with Mr Mylan?”
“Yes. Mr Dickens instructed me to be candid with you if this subject came up.”
“Right. So, we know Mr Dickens was really upset by the way the deal turned out.”
“Yes,” she readily agreed, “but not upset enough to murder Mr Mylan.”
“Mr Dickens admitted in this very room that he will be a lot better off financially now Mr Mylan is out of the picture. Alice, that’s a lot of motive.”
“It might be a lot of motive if you are penniless and you find a way to make a million or two overnight. Maybe, but only maybe, I would concede that in those circumstances it could be considered a motive. But please don’t forget that Mr Dickens is a very wealthy and successful man. Surely you can see he’s never going to jeopardise his liberty for financial gain. Mr Dickens is mature enough to separate his business dealing and his personal relationships with people. For instance, Mr Dickens attended a dinner party at Mr Mylan’s house a week to the day before Mr Mylan died. Tim quite liked Patrick.”