by Ray Connolly
She couldn't hurry him: there was nothing she could do but wait. It would have been good to have taken a look along the coast, but, unsure of how far the signal to her mobile would stretch in this rural area, she sat on her deck and watched the afternoon activity on the Sound.
He didn't call.
In the evening she went back to sifting through the Jesse Gadden websites, dinner being brought across from the dining room. Time passed slowly. At nine thirty she gave up, and went for a stroll down the road into Shakeston.
There wasn't much to see, just a pastel painted, mainly wooden fishing and sailing community with a couple of restaurants, which, this being Monday and out of season, were all closed. A bar was open. It was called the Fishing Hook, from where the sound of karaoke was escaping.
Wondering if any local people would like to talk about Kevin O’Brien, she went inside, and, buying a beer, watched a little wrinkled guy wearing a brown hair-piece sing the Eagles’ One Of These Nights. He wasn’t bad, but no-one was paying him much attention. He didn’t look right.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
She swung around.
It was Kevin O’Brien. “Don’t worry. That’s what a man says in a bar when he wants to get to know a little bit about a woman.” He paused. “I got your note.”
“I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“But now that I am…” And, picking up her drink, he led her to a table as far from the karaoke singer as they could get without being outside. “Didn’t they tell you in Galway, I don’t do interviews,” he said as they sat down.
“Yes. But Phil Bailey…”
“Jesus! Phil Bailey! What I want to know is, who the hell gave him my address? I’m retired now. Out of it all. Living a quiet life out here. Loving it, too.”
She dipped her head, but didn’t reply.
After a moment he softened. “Phil Bailey! How is he? Still starving to death writing his little rock reviews? God, but it’s pathetic. At his age, too. And he was always tone deaf.”
She had to smile.
He smiled, too. “Tell me something about yourself.”
“Well, I’m following up a story about Jesse Gadden, and…”
He stopped her. “No. I know about Jesse Gadden. I want to know about you.”
She looked at him. What to tell him?
He waited.
“I had a breakdown,” she found herself saying. “I saw terrible things. In Africa. Now everyone thinks I’m having a relapse, another breakdown. But I’m not.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He nodded. “It was brave of you to tell me.”
The little singer had now been replaced at the karaoke by a couple of local fortyish women friends who were charging into an old Whitney Houston hit.
O’Brien considered them with a wry smile. “Take a look at that? This is what I come to see. For a few minutes every Monday night those two fulfil their dreams and become famous rock singers, beautiful, young, sexy, rich and loved, albeit in a back of beyond place not far from the Canadian border when there’s hardly a soul in the place. You can’t beat it, though, can you! All it takes is a little pop song and your view of your life is changed.”
Kate didn’t say anything. O’Brien might have retired but he still couldn’t resist the romance of the live act, no matter how amateur. Nor, she suspected, could he quite resist a contact with someone who knew him in the old days in Galway. She’d come across this before, people who’d retired to get away from their old lives, but who always remained curious about those they’d left behind.
She watched the singers. One was shapelessly stout and the other small and thin: both their faces were weather beaten and lined from too much sea air. In jeans and sweatshirts, they were hardly dressed for a performance. But, then, they didn’t need to be. Their performance was for them alone, in their heads. “Oh, I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebody…” they sang.
“So you want to talk about Jesse,” O’Brien said as their last song finished, and the karaoke was switched off for the night. “Why?”
“Because I think things are happening that I don’t understand. Bad things. And no-one will believe me.”
“And you think I will?”
“I don’t know. You might.”
He ruminated a long time after that. Then, finishing his drink, he stood up. “Come on, I’ll drive you home. You might have too much imagination to find your way back by yourself.”
At the Oyster Bay Motor Inn, he pulled his pick-up into the drive. He’d been thoughtful on the short journey. “Bad things, you said. What kind of bad things!”
“Bad things where people die.”
In the light of the neon oyster shape which stood on a pole outside the inn she saw his forehead crease. “People die?”
“Suicide. And…”
“Yes?”
She didn’t answer.
“Did you tell Phil Bailey this?”
She nodded.
“And?”
“I suspect he thinks I’m insane.”
“So do I.”
“I’m not.”
Another silence followed. Then: "You may not know this, but part of my agreement with Jesse, part of everyone's agreement with Jesse, is that you don't talk or write your memoirs when you stop working for him or with him.”
"So I’ve been told. Does that mean he buys everyone's silence?"
"I think he might prefer the word 'discretion'. Most former managers and employees of rock stars sign similar deals. It stops them telling lies to the tabloid newspapers.”
"Does Jesse need that silence?"
"That's just the way he is. So, I'm sorry, you've had a wasted journey. It’s been nice meeting you." He was ending the conversation, wanting her to get out of his truck.
She didn’t move. "It seems to me,” she said quietly, “that if something bad is happening, and people stay silent, for reasons of discretion or loyalty or money or whatever….that makes them accessories."
That was enough. He leant across her and opened the passenger door. “Good night, Miss Merrimac. I hope you have a pleasant journey back to London.”
There was no point in going on. She climbed from the pick-up, then stopped as she was about to close the door. "Mr O'Brien, I know your career. I've read about the convictions and the drink and the drugs. I can understand it. That was part of the business you were in. But I never read anywhere that you were a violent man. And I don’t think you were ever involved in killing.”
And with that she closed the pick-up door, and, crossing the drive, went back to her cottage. He was, she knew, watching her. Only when she was inside did she hear the pick-up drive away.
Chapter Thirty One
His call came the following morning. He would be free to meet her that afternoon, he said. No promises.
She’d got to him. As Phil Bailey had told her, Kevin O’Brien was “all right”.
This time the gates swung open as she approached
1020 Nantucket Road
. By the time she reached the front door O’Brien had opened it. With an unsmiling nod he led her into a tennis court of a sitting room, scattered with huge, colourful furniture. In the background a Johnny Cash album was playing. Taking her coat, he indicated a carved Spanish chair at a weathered refectory table. Then, turning off the music, he sat facing her. When he finally spoke his voice was flat. "All right! Tell me what you think." She chose her words carefully. “I've no proof, but I think Jesse, or perhaps some of the people connected with him, may have been involved in the deaths of some friends of mine. But I don’t know how or why."
His expression didn't change. She'd been virtually laughed at by the police and put on indefinite leave by WSN for suggesting as much, but Kevin O'Brien’s features betrayed nothing. "Why would he or anyone else want to do that?" he asked.
"Perhaps because he was being investigated by them.”
“And now you’re inv
estigating him.”
“Yes.”
"I think you're imagining things."
"So does everybody else."
O’Brien considered her. "How do you know I won't call Jesse and tell him what you're doing?"
"Go ahead. But I think you'll probably find he already knows, although hopefully not that I’m here in the States. Besides, my guess is you like to keep your distance from him these days. Right?"
He didn't answer that. "I don't know anything about anybody killing anybody, I really don't," he said at last.
"But you didn't look particularly surprised when I told you."
He pulled a face that was both anxious yet impotent, then, lifting his head for a moment, he gazed out of the window across the sound. "The sorcerer has a lot of new apprentices these days. Who knows what some of those crazy people around him might get up to.”
"The sorcerer?" She played with the word. "Is that how you see him?"
He looked back at her. “Tell me everything.”
She did, though still his features betrayed not a single emotion. Even her account of finding Greg's body was heard without comment.
The initial tension between them was easing, but, perhaps because he needed time to think, he took her for a walk around the grounds of his house, crunching the leaves and showing her the views. At length, looking down across the sound, he said. "These people who died in Ireland and in London, these friends of yours..."
She pre-empted his question. “No. It wasn’t a coincidence. I’m certain.”
He screwed up his eyes. "It seems to me I could do one of two things. I could send you packing, maybe even warning you to take care, and then forget all about your visit. Or...?"
"Yes?"
He still struggled. "Jesus..."
Now she knew. She’d got to him. He’d been fighting this demon all night.
He gave in. "All right!"
"All right?"
He looked unhappy. "Let's put it this way. I don’t know if there’s a word of truth or sense in what you’ve been telling me. Frankly, I don’t think there is. But on the remotest off-chance that there might be, well…as I was the one who helped take the genie out of the bottle, maybe it's only right that I should do my bit to help put him back in."
"First Jesse was a sorcerer, now he's a genie. What else is he?"
He sighed. "I don't know, and I'm not sure he does." Then, putting out an arm, he indicated they return to the house. "Come on then, let's get on with this interview.”
"I'd heard about this weird boy playing the music pubs, but I'd thought it was probably exaggeration," he began. "Then one day he came into the Crazy Horse and asked to be
auditioned. He was about twenty one or so, but with no doubts, no nerves. I sat him down on a stool and he played and sang. Jesus, but it was like watching electricity come to life!"
They were sitting in his study, a captain's cabin at the top of the house, O'Brien at his desk, a microphone pinned to his shirt. Behind him on the panelled wall was a blizzard of framed platinum CDs. Kate sat facing him, the camera on its tripod an inch from the side of her head, switched on and left to run. She was hoping O’Brien didn't move out of frame.
"He had an effect upon everybody, right from the beginning. The gift of making everyone do what he wanted. People would go quiet when he came into a room, even before he was famous. I suppose he was a star before he was a star, if you get my meaning. It’s a state of mind you know…stardom. A star always believes he’s a star before the public have ever heard of him.”
"Did he ever talk about his mother or family?"
"Not his family. I knew that his mother was dead."
"Did he tell you how she died?"
"Only in so far as I once overheard him saying his single fear in life was ending up like his mother. When I asked him what he meant, he denied saying it, and accused me of making things up about him.” He smiled wryly. “Stars can be like that. It goes with the job.”
She hesitated before the next question. "Did he ever talk about someone called Sister Grace?"
"Not that I remember." He seemed quite certain.
She was disappointed. Methodically she went on through her questions, getting O'Brien to tell her how he'd launched Gadden's career, made a recording of a gig at the Crazy Horse and released it as Live in Galway, before promoting tours in Ireland, then England, Scotland and Scandinavia and then on across Europe.
Despite the talent, it hadn't been easy. "When he first came to me Jesse was incandescent with talent. It was so exciting, I can't tell you. He was so hungry, and so quick to learn. But there was an initial resistance to him in the wider context. No-one seemed to know what kind of singer he was. He was just so different…rock, Gaelic, but something other-worldly, too. He was good in the clubs and small halls where people could see and hear him properly, but he lost it in the big places where he couldn't get close to the audience.”
"So when did things change?"
He knew exactly. "When he began to get on TV…that was the breakthrough. He seemed to intuitively understand what he had to do in front of a camera. Soon he was even directing his own videos. Overnight the world discovered him. On tour he would have that big screen behind him so the fans could watch him in close up all the time. That made the difference.”
"And then?"
“Then we had the great years. He just grew and grew. America loved him, then the world. He had that extraordinary voice and presence and those weird songs that the kids loved to interpret. He was perfect for the YouTube generation.”
She nodded, noticing the sudden merriment in his eyes as he remembered the best times.
“Then suddenly he was untouchable. He had a new girl friend, too, someone who would do everything he wanted without question. They’d met in Estonia. She followed him to London. She was on his wavelength, a chum, someone to bounce his zany ideas off. And she brought an extra intensity to his performance.”
"And she would be...?" Kate probed for the camera, although she knew the answer.
"Petra Kerinova. She'd just come out of hospital when they met. For depression, I think. Before that I heard she'd been in some kind of circus or a night club act."
"Was she the reason you and Jesse split up?"
"No. That was later. But..."
“Yes?”
“There was something about him I never understood. It was there from the beginning. She just brought it out more.”
Kate waited as he tried to shape his words.
Then, becoming animated, he said: “Switch off the camera for a minute and I'll tell you something."
Disappointed, she did as she was asked. The best parts of interviews so often came when the camera was no longer running.
O’Brien watched as the record red light went out, and then stared at his large workmanlike hands for a few seconds before resuming. "They were doing a lot of drugs then, him and Petra, and one night a very bright, lovely girl they were with…someone they’d selected for their own amusement, if you follow my meaning, almost died. Petra liked to watch, they said, and, well, Jesse could get violent sometimes when girls didn't play the games he wanted.”
Kate felt herself blink. Had Petra been watching at Haverhill? Listening? Controlling the music? She knew she had.
"Anyway, I found out about the girl and the state she was in, and got her to a hospital. They saved her life and it was all hushed up, and no-one even knew that Jesse had been involved, but I'm not sure the girl was ever the same again. She's still with him, just one of the entourage now. They never leave, you know, those fans he employs. I suppose they become dependent. She files his Press cuttings or does some menial job. Her life is ruined. And Jesse just never seemed to care about what he'd done. That’s rock music, I suppose, but I didn't like it. I wanted out. It was no fun any more."
"This violence…it's never reported. No one would believe it of him."
"People only see what they want to see. And when you're as rich as Jesse you can pr
etty well control what people get to know about you. He's brilliant at that. Always has been."
She indicated the camera. He nodded. And she pressed the button to resume recording. "The missing couple of years…" she said, "what was happening then? Was it drugs or a breakdown, or…”
He shrugged. "Doctors. Everywhere, I heard. New York, London, Paris. He saw them all.”
"What about?"
"I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t involved by this time, living over here and everything. But I'd get the gossip, and we still have a couple of business interests together. Jesus, he could be impossible. I used to think he might be losing his mind, but…” He smiled. “He seems fine now, doesn’t he!” He hesitated. “Maybe you’d better cut the stuff about him losing his mind.”
She promised she would. "So, after you left him, Petra Kerinova took over managing him?"
He laughed aloud. "Christ, no! Jesse doesn't need a manager. He needs an army. He makes all the decisions himself. He's very bright, brilliant at figures, money, deals! Petra’s there for something else. I’m never sure what. There always seemed to be a hole in her personality, a vacuum, where her sense of self should have been, and somehow he’s filled it. Right now she just puts the troops in place, all those waifs and strays who turn up, and who he calls his family. But he runs everything. To be honest, by the end all I was doing was looking after his off-shore accounts and seeing tax lawyers.” He smiled at some private memory.
She hesitated. "Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Well, that depends.”
“Do you like him?"
“Do I like him? That's an odd one now. It wouldn't be enough to like Jesse. He doesn't want people to just like him, he demands that they love him. All stars want that, of course, all entertainers. But he wants it a hundred times more than the rest. He's like a hoover, sucking up all the love in the world. But it's never enough. And he never gives any of it back.”