Death of a Cave Dweller (11 page)

“So why did you take him on?” Woodend asked, offering Walker a Capstan Full Strength. “Because it was what the others wanted?”

Walker puffed on his cigarette, and shook his head again. “Things don't happen in the Seagulls unless
I
want them to happen.”

“Well then, what did make you agree?”

“Jack has his uses. He does make bookings for us, even if it's only in crappy little clubs in back streets. He always drives the van, so the rest of us can get pissed after a gig. And whenever we're short of a few bob, we can rely on him to put his hand in his wallet.”

Woodend shook his head disbelievingly. “That's just not good enough,” he said.

Anger flashed briefly in Walker's eyes. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“I mean, you're not convincin' me. If you're as good as you claim you are, you shouldn't have any trouble getting a better-connected manager than a young shippin' clerk.”

Walker grinned again, and this time there was a definite rueful edge to it. “If I tell you the real reason, will you keep it to yourself?”

“Might it have anythin' to do with the investigation?”

“No.”

“Then I won't tell a soul.”

Walker took another deep drag on his cigarette. “If you thought I was being a bit hard on Jack back in the Cellar, you were dead right,” he said. “I can't help myself sometimes. The feller gets up my nose so much that I just have to lash out. But deep down, I like him.”

“Go on,” Woodend said encouragingly.

“There's a lot of people who could probably manage us better than he does, but there's no one in the whole of Liverpool who
wants
to manage us as much as Jack. I saw that the moment I met him. It was desperately important to him. An' I didn't have the heart to say no.”

“So you put your careers on the line just to make someone you'd only just met a little bit happier?”

Walker shrugged. “It's more than a little bit happier. He's on top of the world. Anyway, the way I see it, we'd make it if we had a monkey as a manager. It just might take a bit longer, that's all.”

Woodend remembered the scene back in the club. How Towers had looked so stressed when bringing up the issue of a new guitarist to replace Eddie Barnes. How he'd thought then that such scenes could not be uncommon when dealing with a volatile personality like Steve Walker.

“What's in it for him?” he asked.

“Who? Jack?” Walker asked evasively.

“That is who we're talkin' about, isn't it?”

“What's in it for any manager?” Walker countered, still evasive.

Woodend sighed. “Look, from what you've said, he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in the music. An' bein' your manager is costin' him both money an' effort. So why's he doin' it?”

Another shrug. “Jack's got a lot of free time on his hands since his wife left him.”

“When did this happen?”

“A few weeks before he met us. She ran off with the coal man. That's like the end of a bad joke, isn't it?”

“How did he take it?”

“Like I said, it happened before we met him, so I've no idea what he was like before.”

“I still don't see why he should decide to manage a group,” Woodend mused. “If he wanted somethin' to keep him occupied, why didn't he just join some kind of social club?”

“Don't ask me,” Steve Walker said, with the hint of evasion back in his voice. “I've given up mind-readin' for Lent.”

“There's somethin' you're not tellin' me, isn't there, lad?” Woodend asked.

“There's a lot of things I'm not tellin' you,” Walker replied, “an' the reason for that is they're none of your bloody business.”

Bob Rutter returned to the table, looking considerably more tense than he had when he'd left it, and carrying a large scotch in his hand.

A bad sign, Woodend thought, but aloud he just said, “Mr Walker and me have just been havin' a very interestin' little talk while you were away phonin' home, Sergeant.”

“About anything in particular?” Rutter asked, sitting down.

Steve Walker shot the chief inspector a worried look, as if, having exposed what he probably thought of as his weaknesses to Woodend, he was eager not to have knowledge of it spread any further.

“We talked about music, mainly,” Woodend lied. “Who do you like, Sergeant, apart from this Buddy Mistletoe feller of yours?”

Rutter sighed indulgently. “Holly, sir,” he said. “The man's name is Buddy
Holly
.”

Woodend turned to Walker. “I'm a slow learner, as you'll probably have gathered by now,” he said. “But I usually get it right in the end. So who
do
you listen to, Bob?”

“I like the Everly Brothers,” Rutter said. “And I'm a big fan of the Drifters and Ricky Valance.”

Steve Walker stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, and snorted in what could only have been disgust.

“I get the impression Mr Walker's not too impressed with your taste in music,” Woodend said, with some amusement in his voice.

“You're dead right there,” Walker told him. “The Everly Brothers! The Drifters! It's all so bloody tame. It's like the corporation bogs when the council's been down there with their disinfectant. It's all so . . . so . . .”

“Sanitised?” Woodend suggested.

“Yeah, that's the word,” Walker agreed. “Groups like the Drifters take somethin' with real life in it, an' scrub away at it until there's nothin' left that's any good.”

“How do you feel about Huddie Leadbetter?” Woodend asked, completely out of the blue.

Walker nearly dropped his pint. “Leadbelly!” he said. “
You've
heard of Leadbelly?”

“Aye, that surprised you, didn't it? In point of fact, I've done more than just heard of him – I've got some of his music on old seventy-eights.”

“An' you really do like him?” Steve Walker asked, as if he suspected that Woodend was playing some kind of game.

“Aye, I do. My main interest's New Orleans jazz, but I appreciate a bit of blues now an' again.” Woodend took another swig of his pint. “Who do you think killed Eddie Barnes, Mr Walker?” he asked, suddenly changing tack.

“I've no idea,” Steve Walker said.

Woodend shook his head again. “Don't come that with me. You're far too smart a lad not to have thought it over. An' once you
had
given it some thought, you're too smart not to have come up with some conclusion on the matter. Shall I tell you what I think?”

The young guitarist shrugged. “You might as well.”

“I think you take Eddie's death personally . . .”

“Well, of course I take it bloody personally. He was my best mate.”

“. . . an' it's crossed your mind that if anybody's goin' to punish the killer, it should be you.”

Walker hurriedly knocked back the rest of his drink, and stood up. “I'd better be goin',” he said.

“Interestin' feller, Huddie Leadbetter,” Woodend said, looking up at him. “He was jailed for murder, you know. Not just once, but twice. An' both times he got a free pardon because he was considered such a unique musician that it seemed a crime to keep him in gaol.”

“What's your point?” Steve Walker asked.

“Isn't it obvious? You're not Leadbelly, an' this isn't the American Deep South in the 1930s. So bearin' all that in mind, I'd go very carefully if I was you, Mr Walker.”

The temperature had dropped as night had fallen, and standing in the hallway of his small terraced house, the telephone receiver in his hand, Jack Towers felt a shiver run through him.

He wondered how long the man on the other end of the line had been keeping him waiting. Two minutes? Three? Possibly even longer than that. But he knew that he had no choice but to hang on and wait until the all-powerful club owner was ready to speak to him.

“You still there?” a voice from the receiver crackled.

“Yes, I'm still here.”

“Might have a slot for your lads next Saturday. Course, they'll only be the openin' act, so I can't pay them more than a fiver.”

“A fiver!” Towers repeated. “A fiver's peanuts. It'll barely cover the cost of the petrol.”

“That's really not my problem, Mr Towers,” the club owner said. “If the Seagulls aren't willin' to do the gig for that money, then all I can tell you is, there's plenty of other groups that will.”

Towers pictured himself having to tell Steve Walker that he'd only managed to negotiate a five-pound fee for a Saturday night. He could already see the look of derision on the young guitarist's face – could already hear Walker's hurtful words buzzing in his ears:

Five quid! You expect us to play our guts out for one pound five shillin's each? What kind of manager are you, Jack? Our cat could get us a better deal than that.

“The group's got an audition with a record company in London in less than two weeks' time,” Towers argued, trying his best not to sound desperate. “The man in charge has already heard a demo, and he thinks that they're going to be the next big thing.”

“Well, when they are the next big thing, ring me up again an' I'll probably be willin' to pay them more,” the club owner said tartly. “But for the moment, a fiver's as high as I'm prepared to go. Do you want the bookin' or what?”

If he could scrape together five pounds of his own, he could tell Steve Walker that they were getting paid ten pounds for the gig, Towers thought.

“Yes, we want the booking,” he said wearily.

“Right. I'll see you on the night.”

Towers replaced the receiver on its cradle. Even for ten pounds Steve was not going to be happy about playing in yet another seedy club, he told himself. But a seedy club was better than no club at all. Besides, it would give the group the opportunity to practice with their new guitarist in front of a live audience. And practice was what they needed. If the truth be told, he was terrified that the lads wouldn't be well enough prepared for the audition, and so would blow the one real chance they were ever likely to get. And what Steve Walker say then? Who would he blame for their failure? The answer was so obvious that it brought Towers out in a cold sweat.

He heard a soft plop behind him. He turned round towards the front door and saw that someone had pushed an envelope through his letterbox. He bent down to pick it up, noting as he did that the envelope was not the classy kind like Basildon Bond – which was what he always used for all Seagulls business – but instead was tatty, and so thin that it was almost transparent.

He held the envelope up to the light. There was no address written on it, but that was hardly surprising, since it was far too late for it to have delivered by a postman. He slit the envelope open, and took out the single piece of paper which lay nestled inside.

There was neither handwriting nor typing on the sheet. Instead, a number of words had been cut out of newspapers and magazines, then glued to the page.

It did not take him long to read the message, but even before he had finished it, he could feel the bile rising to his throat.

Who could have put together such a dreadful thing? he asked himself, as the hallway began to swim before his eyes.

A sudden thought hit him like a thunderbolt. Why was he just standing there like a bloody fool, he wondered, when whoever had put the letter together had probably also been the person who'd pushed it through his letterbox a minute or so earlier?

On legs which felt as if they were made of rubber, he staggered up the hall and flung open the front door.

There was a distinct chill edge to the air, but
he didn't even notice it. He glanced frantically up and down
the road. The street lamps were shining brightly – far too
brightly, it seemed to him, for his eyes to take. A row of
dustbins stood lined up, ready for an early-morning collection.
Further down the street, a neighbour he vaguely recognised was
putting her milk bottles out on the step, and from across the road
a stray cat stared wildly at him, then made a dash for freedom.
But of the author of the vile message, there was absolutely no
sign.

D
espite his intermittent nagging worries about his wife, Bob Rutter found he really enjoyed his first night's sleep in the Adelphi Hotel. Luxury, he decided, as he shaved in his
en suite
bathroom the following morning, was something he could very easily become accustomed to. And there was more luxury to come, he thought as he stepped out of the lift – a breakfast eaten off fine china plates, coffee poured from a silver-plated pot, crisp white tablecloths and napkins.

It was not to be. “You know what I really fancy for me breakfast?” Woodend asked him, when they met in the lobby. “An egg-an'-bacon buttie, smothered in thick brown sauce. An' since I reckon I've got as much chance of gettin' one of them in this poncy place as I have of bein' elected Pope, why don't we go an' find a decent, honest cafe?”

With a regretful sigh, Rutter followed his boss out on to the street. On the corner a newspaper vendor, wearing a cloth cap and a heavy muffler, was bawling out the day's headlines.

“Read all about it! Russians put the first man in space! Read all about it!”

Woodend stopped and bought a copy of the
Daily Sketch
. “So, the Comrades have got there first,” he said. “Well, the Yanks won't like that – especially not that President Kennedy of theirs.”

“It's a tremendous achievement, isn't it?” Rutter said enthusiastically, as they walked along the street.

“I suppose it is,” Woodend replied, sounding unconvinced. “But where's it all leadin', that's what I want to know? They'll be wantin' to go to the moon next, though God only knows why – the place is about as desolate as a Butlin's holiday camp on a wet Thursday in March.”