Death of a Cave Dweller (27 page)

Woodend, being the man he was, had soon left his despondency behind him, and was plunging headlong into the world of the Liverpool music scene. He learned, among other things, that the Fantastics were soon to follow the Beatles and the Seagulls and play in the Star Club in Hamburg, that Johnny and the Deltas had split up, and that a big bash was being organised in three weeks time at the New Brighton Tower Ballroom.

Woodend reached the classified advertisements at the back of the paper, and a gentle smile of anticipation came to his lips. He'd always loved the classifieds, because to him they weren't just about buying and selling goods and services, they were also about needs and desires – which were not the same things at all.

‘BSA 250 cc. motorbike, 1954, 50,000 miles on the clock,' he read. ‘Will swap for Fender bass guitar in good condition.'

The chief inspector's smile broadened. Despite what Geoff Platt might say about most of the kids in Liverpool joining groups for fun, there were still enough Steve Walkers around, and here was one of them – a young hopeful willing to give up what was probably his most prized possession on the off-chance that it might help him to find fame and fortune.

‘Band needs singer,' said another. ‘Must be tall, good looking and have his own van.'

But Woodend was willing to bet that if the singer who applied could satisfy the third requirement, the group would be more than willing to overlook the need for the first two.

‘The Seagulls, one of Liverpool's premier groups, are looking for a new lead guitarist,' said a third advertisement.

The Seagulls, one of Liverpool's premier groups, are looking for a new lead guitarist.

Jesus!

Woodend involuntarily scrunched up the paper in his big hands. “I want Terry Garner found!” he said urgently to Rutter. “Now! Get on to Inspector Hopgood. Tell him to put as many men as he can spare out on the streets lookin' for the lad. An' make sure he sends a couple of bobbies to Terry's home.”

“What's happened, sir?” Rutter asked.

“Never mind that,” the chief inspector said. “Just get on the bloody phone to that prat Hopgood.” He glanced across at the bar. Steve Walker was still there, nursing a half-pint of bitter.

Thank God!

“Steve! Do you know where Terry Garner lives?” the chief inspector shouted.

Walker turned round. “Yeah. I've been round to his place a few times. We done a couple of jam sessions, an'—”

“I'm not interested in your bloody
social life,” Woodend interrupted. “Take me round to
Terry's now – before the poor lad ends up like Eddie
Barnes.”

T
he black Liverpool taxi hurtled down the road – its headlights flashing, its horn blaring. It wove its way dangerously between Austin Cambridges and Ford Anglias, leaving their drivers pale and shaking. It narrowly missed buses and came perilously close to scraping against the sides of high lorries. And still, wedged as he was against the back door of the vehicle, Woodend fretted that they weren't going fast enough and would arrive too late.

If only we had a proper siren! the chief inspector thought. If only this was a proper police car!

But there just hadn't been the time to wait for one of
them
to turn up outside the Grapes.

The taxi shot tightly round a sharp corner, and the tyres screamed out in protest.

“We're hardly movin',” Woodend yelled through the glass partition at the cabbie. “You're drivin' like an old woman. Get your bloody clog down, man!”

“You're sure that Terry Garner's in real danger, are you, sir?” Bob Rutter asked, as the taxi swung again, and he was cannoned into his boss.

“Of course I'm bloody sure,” Woodend said. “I wouldn't be riskin' life an' limb if I wasn't!”

“If anything's happened to Terry, I'll never forgive myself,” Steve Walked moaned from the other side of Rutter.

“It's not your fault,” Woodend told him. “Always remember that. Whatever happens, it's not your fault!”

But in a way, it was. It was Steve Walker's fault because he was Steve Walker – the cool kid who everybody wanted to get close to.

The taxi turned on to a side street lined with dilapidated three-storey terraced houses.

“Fifth door down!” Steve Walker shouted to the cabbie.

The taxi screeched to a halt, but even before it had finally finished moving, Woodend had his door open. “Wait here,” he ordered the driver. “We might be needin' you again.”

The chief inspector dashed across the pavement to the front door, with Steve Walker close on his heels.

“The place is all bedsits,” Walker explained. “Terry lives up on the top floor.”

Woodend stabbed the two top bells, and, without waiting for a response, punched all the others for good measure. There was the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Then the door swung open to reveal a youngish woman with her hair already in night-time curlers and a Park Drive hanging lethargically from the corner of her mouth.

“Police! Emergency!” Woodend said, barging straight past her and heading for the stairs.

He took the steep stairs three at time. Behind him he could hear the pounding feet of the others. Even from only half-way up the last flight, Woodend could smell the gas which had managed to insinuate its way under Terry Garner's door.

He reached the top floor. There were two doors on the landing. “Which one is it?” he called down the stairs. “The left or right?”

“The right!” Steve Walker gasped.

Woodend hammered furiously on the right-hand door, then immediately turned the handle. The door was locked – but he was prepared to wager that they would find no key inside.

The chief inspector stepped back, braced himself against the wall, and lashed out with his right leg. His foot made contact with the lock, but though the door groaned, it did not give. He swung his leg again, and this time the door splintered, and swung open.

Woodend rushed into the room, the other two men now close behind him. The smell inside was almost overpowering, and its source was easily identified. The fire set into the far wall was hissing like an angry snake, but there was no flame to burn off the gas.

Terry Garner, the young man the chief inspector would have considered suitable dating material for his own daughter, was lying directly in front of the fire, his head resting on a pillow – as if all this had really been his own choice.

“Open the bloody window!” Woodend shouted over his shoulder to Rutter. “And turn the bloody gas off.”

Garner was lying on his stomach. Woodend turned him over and placed his index finger against the young guitarist's neck, hoping against hope that he would find some evidence of a pulse.

It was drizzling slightly as Woodend walked down the cobbled street towards the Grapes. On the other side of the road, in front of the Cellar Club, stood a muscular man sheltering under an umbrella – Rick Johnson, newly released from the cells and already attending to his mother's business.

Woodend crossed the street. “I wouldn't have thought a hard man like you would be bothered by a bit of rain,” he said, looking first at Johnson and then up at his brolley.

“I've given up bein' hard,” Johnson told him, and though his tone could not have been called exactly friendly, perhaps some of his customary aggressiveness was missing.

“Good for you,” Woodend said. “Any particular reason?”

“I don't want the kids me an' Lucy plan to have only seein' me on visitin' day. I don't want them to grow up thinkin' I belong behind bars.”

An' maybe you just can't allow yourself to value hardness any more, Woodend thought – not after you've been beaten up by your runt of a brother-in-law.

“I'm goin' into the club,” he said. “Is that all right with you?”

Johnson shrugged. “I can't stop you, can I? You're the law.” As he opened the door, he bit his lower lip. “I'd still have been in the nick if it hadn't been for you. Thanks.”

He'd been thanked twice in the same day, Woodend told himself. That had to be some kind of record. If this went on, he'd probably start thinking he was the bloody Lone Ranger.

He made his way down the narrow stairs, the noise level increasing with every step he took. He didn't recognise the group who were performing on the stage, but it certainly wasn't one of those which had been playing in the club the night before Eddie Barnes died.

The chief inspector took what he knew would be his last look round the Cellar Club – at the hard chairs which faced the stage, at the girls dancing in the far tunnel – and wondered why he always found it so hard to leave the scene of the crime behind him.

He crossed the tunnel, stopping at the edge of it so he was still some distance from the snack bar, and found himself looking across at some faces which had become all too familiar. There was Alice Pollard, her brassy hair having regained some of its springiness now that Rick had been released. There was Ron Clarke, the mild, unassuming man who could be so powerful when he was just a disembodied voice coming through the tannoy system.

Two of the Seagulls were by the bar, too. Pete Foster, who was following his mother's dream while trying to tell himself that it was his own, was talking to a girl he might later persuade to go behind the curtain with him. And Billie Simmons, who seemed to have reduced all life's complexities into the single act of banging the drum skins, was smoking a cigarette and waving occasionally to girls who had waved to him first.

The fifth familiar face belonged to Jack Towers, who was standing just as he must have been when Steve Walker first noticed him – watching the stage yet totally unmoved by the music.

Though the music was too loud for Woodend to hear their words, he could not fail to notice the sudden reaction of the teenagers closest to the entrance. With surprised – or perhaps apprehensive – expressions on their faces, they were looking up the stairs at the two pairs of legs, clad in blue serge, which had just appeared there.

The legs continued their downward path, blue tunics became visible, and now there could be no doubt that two uniformed policemen were entering the club. Word of their arrival was travelling rapidly up the tunnels. Girls stopped dancing, boys stopped trying to chat them up, and finally the group playing on stage fell silent.

An eerie silence followed, in which no one said a word, yet the music continued to ring in everyone's ears.

The two constables made their way over to where Woodend was standing. The one who was leading saluted. “Inspector Hopgood told us that you had a job for us, sir,” he said.

Woodend nodded. “That's right,” he agreed.

It was only a few steps to the snack bar, but as he took them Woodend was aware of five pairs of eyes which were looking at him so intently that they were almost burning holes in him.

He came to halt in front of the Seagulls'
manager. “It's all over, Mr Towers,” he
said.

A
fter a brief pause, it had started to rain again. Woodend stood by the window of the brown and cream interview room, watching as the drops of water spattered against the pane, then slid slowly down to the sill. They made the same sort of noise on impact as might be made by a small timid animal which was begging to let in out of the cold, he thought fancifully.

He turned from the window to face the man who had been out in the cold for most of his life. Jack Towers was sitting at the table, his head in his hands. He no longer looked like the tall, gangly clown who had nervously tried to talk Steve Walker into seeing things his way. Now, even through his despair, it was possible to gain some sense of the ruthlessness which had led him to cast away human life without a second's thought.

“You'd probably been planning to get rid of Eddie Barnes for quite some time, but it was the audition with the record company in London which really spurred you into immediate action,” Woodend said.

Towers looked up, peering through his outstretched fingers as if he were already in gaol. “Eddie would have let the Seagulls down,” he said. “He just wasn't good enough to play with them.”

“So why didn't you, as their manager – as the guidin' force in their career – simply say that to the rest of the group?” the chief inspector asked.

Towers closed his fingers again, as if, by doing so, he could shut out the world.

“I'll tell you why, shall I?” Woodend said – but it was a rhetorical question, and he expected no response. “You weren't just afraid that Steve would ignore your suggestion – you were terrified that if you criticised his mate, he'd get rid of you. In other words, if he had to choose between you an' Eddie, he would have picked Eddie every time.”

Even though Towers' hands still covered his face, it was obvious from the way his body slumped even more that the barb had hit home – just as Woodend had intended it to. The chief inspector lit up a Capstan Full Strength, and felt the harsh smoke rasp against the back of his throat. He was getting old, he thought, and the years of heavy drinking, smoking and fried food were starting to catch up on him. Maybe it was time he switched to the kind of poncy cigarettes his sergeant smoked.

“So you decided that the only way out was to kill Eddie,” he continued. “An' you had to kill him
quickly
, because you thought that his replacement needed to get plenty of practice in with the group before you went down to London for the audition.” He took another drag on the cigarette. It still irritated his throat. “I don't know exactly what method of murderin' him you were workin' on,” he continued, “but when the fight broke out between Mike Finn and Steve Walker, it seemed like fate had dropped the perfect opportunity right into your lap, didn't it?”

The manager sighed, but said nothing.

“Only it didn't quite work out like that, did it, Mr Towers? Because Steve's the sort of feller who needs to have his mates around him, an' so he brought in Terry Garner, who was a far worse guitarist all the time than Eddie was even on his worst day. But again, you didn't dare complain, so you soon realised you were goin' to have to kill for a second time. It was almost too easy, wasn't it? Terry would have been frightened to let most people into his flat, but he trusted
you
. An' you took advantage of that trust to feed him doped whisky an' fake a suicide attempt. That should add another ten or fifteen years to your sentence.”