Written in Dead Wax

by Andrew Cartmel

  No doubt he’d been making notes.

  Since Stinky had a radio show he also had a constant voracious need for new material. And because he had a virtually infallible tin ear himself, he needed to get ideas from people like me.

  After some desultory conversation and much bragging—both professional and sexual—from Stinky, I finally managed to get rid of him, shutting the door behind him with a small moan of relief. He had let himself in by using the key I kept under the plant pot. I decided I would have to hide the key somewhere else. But if I did that, would I remember where I put it? I stood there, holding it in my hand, then I sighed and returned the key to its traditional place.

  I got on the computer and listed the Elvis LP on my website. It sold within the hour and for slightly more than I’d hoped. I decided I would go out and celebrate. It so happened it was half-price burger night at Albert’s, my local gastropub. So I went there and had a meal and a glass of wine. It was a very good burger—they filled the beef patty with butter and herbs—but rather spoiled by Albert insisting on switching on the radio behind the bar. No one else in the pub seemed to mind, but I felt someone had to speak out against noise pollution.

  “Can’t we have a bit of hush?” I said.

  “Just want to catch this one programme,” said Albert.

  “I thought there was a no-music rule in here.”

  “This is the exception that proves the rule.” He tuned in the radio and as he did so three cute Eastern European au pairs, all with matching blonde hair, hipster jeans and discreet tattoos, drifted towards the bar to listen. A treacly, insinuating voice came on and I realised with a sinking feeling of inevitability that it was Stinky.

  Of course. The Stinky Stanmer show.

  “That was a CD,” said Stinky. “After all, I have to listen to something while I’m changing records. And turning them over, eh? Now here on vinyl is a little something I found.” The music started and, thankfully, he stopped talking. I recognised the music. Godzilla versus Anguirus by Akira Ifukube. It sounded great. It was, of course, the LP I’d had on my turntable when he’d come around. He must have raced out and bought a copy as soon as he’d left my place. Or, more likely, had one of his minions do so.

  I reflected philosophically that at least he’d had the good sense to choose the best track on the record. Then I realised it was the first track on the record.

  He probably hadn’t got any further.

  All three au pairs were swaying their hips to the music. It sounded like Sonny Blount commissioned to score a sixties spy movie. As the au pairs began to bop around, Albert gazed worshipfully at the radio like Nipper in an old HMV advertisement and shook his head in admiration.

  “Where does he find this stuff?”

  I got very drunk.

  * * *

  The next morning I woke to a hammering hangover and the ringing of the doorbell. I jumped out of bed, displacing a scandalised Fanny, and pulled on my ratty old dressing gown. I shuffled to the door and opened it, blinking in the daylight.

  A young woman was standing there. She was wearing jeans, a camelhair coat and black polo neck sweater. Her jet-black hair was cut short in the manner of the silent movie star Louise Brooks. She looked at me. Her implausible, almost laughable, physical perfection suggested she was a model or actress. I knew at once why she was here.

  “I’m not the gatekeeper,” I said.

  She brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Well, that sounds rather alarming.”

  “This isn’t the gatehouse.”

  “Just as well, since you aren’t the gatekeeper.”

  “You want the Abbey. It’s the large white building behind my house. But this isn’t the gatehouse and I’m not the gatekeeper.”

  “Well, maybe you should be. I’m sure it’s a nice job. There’s probably a uniform.” She gazed at me in my dressing gown. “And it might involve epaulettes. I like epaulettes. In fact, I just like the word.” She looked at me. “Epaulettes.” Her eyes were a disconcerting clear cornflower blue. I studied them for signs of blatant drug abuse, but could find none.

  “To get to the Abbey,” I told her, “you need to go back onto the main road, drive about fifty metres and turn right.”

  “Who said I was driving?”

  “How else did you get here?”

  “Perhaps a friend dropped me off.”

  “Well, you can walk from here. It’s only two minutes. A minute and a half. The Abbey.”

  “I don’t want the Abbey,” she said. “I want you.”

  Despite the evidence of her clear blue eyes I decided she must be off her rocker on something. I said, “Me? Really? Why?” She took out a card and handed it to me. It was a cheap and rather gaudy business card and it was very familiar.

  Because it was one of mine.

  Underneath my name and address I’d printed the words VINYL DETECTIVE.

  2. FIREBIRD

  “Where did you get this?” I’d handed out a bunch of the cards, at record shops and gigs, pubs and clubs. But that had been years ago.

  She looked at me and then at the card in my hand. “Is this you?”

  “This is me.”

  She took back my card and handed me one of her own. I felt like I was in a novel by Trollope. Her card read:

  N. Warren

  CONSULTANT | INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIES GMBH

  Unlike my card, it was printed on heavy cream paper stock and beautifully embossed. I gave it back to her. “The thing is, if you’re trying to sell me something…”

  “I am not trying to sell you something,” she said, somewhat impatiently. She glanced over my shoulder. “Look, could we talk indoors?”

  “Of course. But I have to tell you I really don’t have any money to invest in any… schemes.”

  She turned in the narrow hallway to watch me as I closed the door behind us. “I told you, I am not selling you anything. I am not trying to get you to invest in anything. I don’t have any schemes.” She gazed at me.

  I became suddenly very conscious of how scruffy I must look, wearing my ratty old black cotton bathrobe, my bony knees and hairy toes on display. Meanwhile there she was, poised, chic and flawless. Compared to her I was basically a Basil Wolverton cartoon.

  She said, “I am here to offer you a job.” At least her mouth moved and words came out that sounded like that.

  I clutched my dressing gown a little closer around me. “A job?”

  “Yes. You are capable of doing what you claim here?”

  “What do I claim?” I said. I’d printed up the cards in an airport once when I was between flights and very bored. Possibly also very drunk.

  She sighed and handed me the card. It had my name and address and some nonsense about how I could find any record for anyone. For a fee. It was boastful trash—but perhaps not sufficiently boastful or trashy because it had failed to ensnare a single client.

  Until now.

  My heart began to beat a little faster. Maybe I was about to get a job. I told myself not to get too excited. Obviously this would turn out to be some kind of hilarious misunderstanding.

  “You know what,” I said. “If you’re looking for a record, really the best thing to do is search on the Internet.”

  “The Internet will be of no help in this situation.”

  “I see.” I didn’t.

  She tapped the card on her thumbnail. “What we need is someone who can do what you say you can do. Well, can you?”

  “Can I do what I say I can do?”

  “Yes.” Her impatient blue eyes were steady on mine. A cold draught was blowing up under my dressing gown, probing my nether regions with icy tendrils.

  “Yes,” I said. “Look, let’s go into the kitchen where it’s warm. Can I make you a coffee?”

  “I don’t know. Can you?”

  * * *

  Stung by her remark, I got out the good coffee beans and commenced the whole elaborate ritual of making it properly. While the kettle was gasping and sputtering in its batt
le with its no doubt horrendously calcified heating element, I managed to dart into my bedroom and put some clothes on. I might also have sparingly applied some expensive aftershave. I got back just before the water boiled and switched the kettle off.

  If you’re making tea you want the water boiling, but if you’re making coffee you want the water just short of boiling. It’s an article of faith.

  My guest was sitting in the orange plastic Robin Day chair which resided in my kitchen, chiefly so I could hang the tea towel on the back of it to dry. She seemed quite relaxed. At home, almost. Which was galling because at the moment even I didn’t feel at home, and it was my home.

  When I commenced grinding the beans she put her iPod on. I didn’t entirely blame her. The unearthly scream of the coffee grinder always caused my cats to flee and hide, only to emerge and give me scandalised looks after I’d safely silenced the evil thing and put it away again. When I finished grinding the beans I had a nasty moment, remembering I didn’t have any filters. Then I recalled there were some stored with my German record cleaner. I took down the box from its appointed place, lurking above the kitchen cupboard. She switched off her iPod and looked up.

  “What in god’s name is that?” she said.

  “A record cleaner.” I unpacked the box and took out every component: the record bath, the drying rack and drip tray, the bottle of cleaning solution, the funnel, the label protector and spindle and finally the coffee filters that were lurking at the bottom. “I use it for cleaning records.”

  “I see. That would follow. And it comes complete with coffee filters?”

  “No, I substituted the coffee filters, which in my humble opinion work just as well but are considerably cheaper than the paper filters specifically designed for use with it. The record cleaner, that is.”

  “How thrifty of you.”

  I fixed the filter above the coffee pot and poured in the dark brown, fragrant grounds. At last. We were almost there. “In fact, they work slightly better. What are you listening to on your iPod?”

  “‘Gloria’.”

  “By Van Morrison?”

  “By Vivaldi.”

  I shut up at that point and got on with making the coffee. It was soon smelling so good I began to feel glad I’d embarked on the whole marathon. The cats didn’t quite see it that way. Turk was only now emerging from her hiding place behind one of the big Quad speakers.

  As I started clattering through cupboards, looking for the good cups, N. Warren rose from her chair. She said, “Do you mind if I snoop?” She didn’t wait for an answer. My bungalow is mostly open plan, so you wander straight from the kitchen into a large sitting room and dining area. From the sitting room further doors lead off to the bedroom, bathroom, a spare bedroom and a small area which had once contained the hot water tank but now housed shelves filled with, perhaps not entirely unexpectedly, records.

  I poured her coffee and followed her into the sitting room. She was staring at the records. She glanced at me. “Maybe you are the right man for the job,” she allowed. “How many vinyls do you have here?”

  I put her cup down on the table by the sofa. “We don’t say vinyls, plural.”

  “What do we say?”

  “LPs or albums. Records, if you like.”

  “Well, how many do you have here?”

  “In this room? I don’t know. A few hundred. Those are just the ones I’m currently listening to. There’s plenty more scattered around the house.”

  “Currently listening to,” she said. She gave me a look and then went and sat down on the sofa and picked up her coffee. She was evidently entirely unaware of the cat’s presence nearby as she sat there, warming her hands with the cup.

  Turk silently stole up and jumped onto the back of the sofa behind her, landing lightly and without a sound. I’d once had a female visitor who reacted rather badly when a cat unexpectedly hopped into her lap. She had jumped out of her skin and commenced screaming in a manner that had rather raised my stock with the neighbours.

  Now, as my new guest sat leaning forward, sniffing her coffee with suspicion, Turk took the opportunity to stride silently behind her back. Then she eased down, one slow paw at a time, onto a cushion beside our guest, who still showed no sign of having registered her presence.

  I was beginning to think I should issue a warning, to prevent a terrible accident involving hot coffee, when she reached out absent-mindedly with one hand and began stroking Turk.

  “Who’s beautiful then, who’s lovely then, who wants to be rubbed under the chin then? Do you? Do you? Under the chin? Oh yes, oh yes. That’s right, you do, you do, you do, don’t you? Who’s lovely then? Who’s lovely then? Who likes having his chin rubbed then?”

  “Her,” I said.

  She paused and looked at me. “Sorry?”

  “Her chin. She’s a girl.”

  She resumed rubbing Turk’s chin while Turk exalted. “What’s her name?”

  “Turk.”

  “Funny name for a girl.”

  “Short for Turquoise.”

  “Because of her eyes.” She got it immediately. “They’re gorgeous eyes. Who’s got gorgeous eyes? Gorgeous-gorgeous turquoise eyes?” She stroked Turk’s head, gently pinning the cat’s ears back then releasing them. “It is you? Yes, I think it is you. It is. It is you, isn’t it?”

  “That’s her sister.” I pointed at Fanny who’d emerged from under a chair at the sight of Turk getting all the attention.

  “Oh, I didn’t realise there were two of them.”

  I felt it was time to get down to business. “So you want to hire me to find a record?”

  “My employer wants to hire you.”

  “Can I ask who your employer is?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “If he wanted to get acquainted with you he wouldn’t have sent an emissary. To wit, me.” She sipped her coffee. “Besides, he’s very busy.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me who I’m working for?”

  She looked up. “For all intents and purposes, you are working for me.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me who you are working for?”

  “A businessman.”

  “A very busy businessman?”

  She sighed. “The senior head of a very large corporation. Who wishes to remain anonymous. However I can tell you that he, like you, is a vinyl devotee.” She looked at the shelves of records. “And he has the money to indulge his pastime.”

  It’s more than a pastime, I thought. But I didn’t say anything. She looked at me. “And he is willing to pay you to find a particular record for him.”

  I sat down in the only one of the armchairs that wasn’t covered in records. It was a modernist black leather chair that matched the sofa. I’d bought leather furniture because I thought it would prove cat-proof. One of many fondly held theories that had fallen by the wayside over the years. As if to demonstrate this point, Fanny stood up on her hind legs and began to diligently scratch the leather with her front claws, scoring and gouging it.

  I said, “Okay. What’s the record you’re after?”

  She set her coffee aside and took out an iPhone. Studying the screen, she said, “Have you heard of Everest?”

  “The record label?”

  “No. The mountain. Yes, of course the record label.”

  I smiled happily. She could be as sarcastic as she liked; I was on my home ground here. I said, “I know it quite well. Everest was founded in the late 1950s by Harry Belock, an American who’d spent the Cold War running a company that manufactured precision components for intercontinental missiles. He decided that instead of dreaming up better ways to blow up the world, his talents would be more happily employed finding better ways of recording music. Which he proceeded to do. One of his innovations was to record onto 35mm film.”

  I could see that, despite herself, I’d got her attention. “Why on earth would he do that?”

  “More bandwidth.”

  “But it’s
film. Surely it’s for recording pictures, not sound?”

  “It’s all information,” I said complacently. This was my specialist subject.

  “And it sounded good, did it, this 35mm film?”

  “It sounded great. Belock knew what he was doing. He spent a fortune on making custom-built recording decks that could handle the film and he hired a terrific engineer, Bert Whyte, who used them to record music with a classic three-microphone configuration.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “The classic three-microphone configuration.”

  “They recorded good repertoire using top orchestras and conductors in acoustically ideal locations like Walthamstow Town Hall.”

  “Of course. Good old Walthamstow Town Hall.” She consulted the screen of her iPhone. “Well, my employer is looking for a recording of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite on the Everest label, conducted by Eugene Goossens with the London Symphony Orchestra.” She gave me the catalogue number.

  “Have you got the matrix number?” I said.

  “What’s a matrix number?”

  “It’s written in the dead wax,” I said.

  For the first time I saw a trace of hesitancy in her. “No.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said and wrote down the information she’d given me on the back of an envelope. Fanny came over and attacked the pen as it moved in my hand. When I finished writing I gave her the pen to play with. “All right,” I said, looking up at my visitor. I tried to keep my voice normal. “Now, about money…”

  “There’s a thousand-pound finder’s fee.”

  I tried not to let the happy astonishment show on my face. With a thousand pounds I could install underfloor heating and finally build shelves for the records I’d had lying around in crates ever since I’d bought them from an unhinged clergyman who lived in Barnes.

  I forced myself to speak. “I’ll need a daily fee as well.”

  “What? A daily fee? Why?”

  “I’ll be spending all day looking for records.”