Death of a Cave Dweller

Table of Contents

By Sally Spencer

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Dedication

Author's Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

By Sally Spencer

The Charlie Woodend Mysteries

THE SALTON KILLINGS

MURDER AT SWANN'S LAKE

DEATH OF A CAVE DWELLER

THE DARK LADY

THE GOLDEN MILE TO MURDER

DEAD ON CUE

DEATH OF AN INNOCENT

THE RED HERRING

THE ENEMY WITHIN

A DEATH LEFT HANGING

THE WITCH MAKER

THE BUTCHER BEYOND

DYING IN THE DARK

STONE KILLER

A LONG TIME DEAD

SINS OF THE FATHERS

DANGEROUS GAMES

DEATH WATCH

A DYING FALL

FATAL QUEST

The Monika Paniatowski Mysteries

THE DEAD HAND OF HISTORY

THE RING OF DEATH

ECHOES OF THE DEAD

BACKLASH

LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

First published in Great Britain and the USA 2000 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

This eBook edition first published in 2012 by Severn Select an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2000 by Sally Spencer.

The right of Sally Spencer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0050-1 (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-5543-5 (cased)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

“Remember all you cave dwellers, the Cavern is the best of cellars.”

Bob Wooler, the Cavern's disc jockey

For Andy Jack, who still holds the torch high

so long after so many others have laid it down.

And for Connie, a tiny cat with the heart of a lion and the spirit of an explorer. Wherever you are, Little One, I hope you're happy.

Anyone lucky enough to have been familiar with the music scene in Liverpool in those thrilling days of the early sixties – as I was myself – will instantly recognise the fact that the Cellar Club is based very heavily on the Cavern, and that the
Mersey Sound
bears more than a passing resemblance to
Mersey Beat
. The characters I have chosen to fill these two venerable institutions with, however, have never done more than live in my imagination.

N
o one even suspected there was going to be a murder. But then why would they? Murders took place in dark alleys and on vast empty commons. They were essentially private acts, shared only by the victim and the killer – not a spectator sport for nearly three hundred people. And it seemed somehow wrong that anyone should lose his life between the hours of noon and one, which nature had decreed was the time when all respectable people should be eating their dinner.

The girls, unaware that anything as horrific as homicide was about to happen, were queuing patiently outside an unprepossessing wooden door on a cobbled street which was just wide enough to allow two small lorries to pass one another at a slow speed. Most of the girls were wearing the kind of high-heeled shoes which their mothers disapproved of, and had their lacquered hair piled high on their heads, in what the newspapers were calling the ‘beehive' look. They were typists and shop assistants, junior shipping clerks and hairdressers. After work, many of them returned to homes where their fathers' word was still law; but now, in the middle of the day, they were about to experience true freedom. Though the rest of the world was still ignorant of the musical explosion which was soon to hit it,
they
knew the revolution had already happened, and that for the payment of just one shilling, they could shimmy and shake to the liberating rhythms of rock'n'roll.

Ron Clarke, the Cellar Club's resident disc jockey and a grand old man of nearly thirty-five, was sorting through his collection of records and only half listening to the conversation which was going on behind him in the bricked-off alcove at the edge of the stage, generously called ‘the dressing room'.

“Now remember, boys,” said a voice Clarke recognised as belonging to Jack Towers, the group's manager, “this isn't just any old performance. It's
never
any old performance. This could be the day somebody really important comes into the club, and catches your act – so no messing about.”

Ron Clarke shook his head and clicked his tongue. Would Jack Towers never learn? Hadn't he been the Seagulls' manager long enough to know that this kind of approach would never work with a lad like Steve Walker?

“You know somethin', Jack?” Walker asked. “Listenin' to you is just like bein' back at school.” He slipped effortlessly into a middle-class accent. “‘Are you
chewing
, Walker? You should be listening to me, not doodling, Walker. You'll never get anywhere in life with your attitude, Walker.' So what will
you
do if I misbehave, Jack?” he continued in his normal voice. “Give me the cane? Or just make me write out ‘I must learn not to be a naughty little rhythm guitarist' a hundred times?”

The disc jockey turned slightly to watch the rest of the little drama between the manager and the guitarist play itself out, though why he was interested he couldn't really say, since he'd seen variations on the same theme at least a dozen times.

Central to the drama – for the moment at least – was Jack Towers. He was tall and gangly, and always looked to Ron Clarke like a scarecrow who had at last saved up enough for a decent suit, but remained a scarecrow nonetheless. He was standing awkwardly in front of the group, who were lounging with studied cool in four battered armchairs.

Towers lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of the one he'd just been smoking, and shifted his position slightly.

A wiser man would leave things as they were, Clarke thought, but not Jack. The problem with him is, he just doesn't know when to keep his gob shut.

“What you don't seem to realise, Steve, is you don't get to be successful just because your music's good,” Towers said. “Presentation counts too.” He ran his eyes over the blue jeans, black sweaters and brown boots which the Seagulls wore almost as a uniform. “Now if you'd just tone down your act a bit, and wear nice matching suits like the Shadows do—”

“Dang, dang, dang, dangderang, dang . . .” Steve Walker interrupted, imitating a twanging guitar.

“Listen, Steve—”

Walker sprang to his feet so suddenly that for a moment Ron thought the boy was going to take a swing at his manager. But it soon became plain that the reason he'd stood up was to imitate the synchronised steps the Shadows used in their stage act as he continued to ‘dang dang', drowning out whatever it was Jack Towers had wanted to say.

Steve had a reputation as a hard bugger, Ron Clarke reminded himself, and he looked the part with his solid muscular body and his face which was all angles – pointed nose, sharp cheekbones and a jaw which looked like it could open tin cans. Even his dark eyes seemed to have a cutting edge to them, especially on occasions like this, when he was starting to get angry.

Walker had finished his performance, and flopped back on to the couch again. “Do you really call that kind of rubbish
music
, Jack?” he demanded.

“The Shadows are very popular,” Jack Towers said in a long-suffering voice. “They're one of the top acts in the country – and they look good on television.”

“An' in twelve months' time, everybody will be wonderin' what the fuss was all about,” Steve Walker said. “They're nothin' but a novelty act. But we're
real
, and we're goin' to be bigger than they could ever be – twice as big. So don't talk about the Shadows to me – we'll be
leavin'
them in the shadows. Only we're goin' to do it our own way.” He turned to the pale, thin-faced boy sitting next to him. “Isn't that right, Eddie?”

Eddie Barnes had huge eyes which were so intense they could look either haunted or haunting, depending on his mood, but now, as he turned them on Steve Walker, they were full of hero worship. “That's right, Steve,” the young lead guitarist said.

Walker should have left it there, Ron thought, but just like Jack Towers, he didn't know when to shut up.

“You tell him, Billie,” he said to the group's drummer, managing to make it sound almost like an order. “You tell him we're goin' to be massive.”

Billie Simmons, the only member of the group to favour a cowlick curl over the quiffs the rest wore, let a slight smile play on his rubbery lips. “We're goin' to be massive,” he said, but in such a deadpan drawl that it was impossible to say whether or not he believed it – or even if he cared one way or the other.

“So that's almost unanimous, isn't it?” Steve Walker said, looking pointedly at Pete Foster, the bass player and the fourth member of the group.

Ron Clarke saw the hesitant expression fill Foster's boyish face. He doesn't like arguments, this one, the DJ thought. He prefers to pretend that things are going absolutely fine, even when it's perfectly obvious to everybody else that they aren't.

“Well?” Steve Walker asked.

“There's no point in bein' a good group if nobody outside Liverpool ever hears us,” Pete Foster argued. “An' there's no point in you an' Eddie writin' all those songs if we're the only ones who ever sing them.”

Steve Walker's dark eyes became almost black. “Is that you talkin', Pete – or is it your mum?” he said, with a dangerous edge creeping into his voice.

“Leave my mum out of it,” Pete Foster answered, for once seeming on the verge of getting angry himself.

“All right, I'll leave her out of it,” Steve said curtly. “An' I'll leave you out of it an' all, if you like. You understand what I'm sayin', our kid? Any time you're not happy with the way the group's goin', you know where the door is.” He turned his attention to their manager. “An' that goes for you as well, Jack.”

Jack Towers looked crushed. “I only want what's best for you,” he said helplessly. “You know that. I only want the group to do well.”

His words – or perhaps their tone of desolation – seemed to soften Steve Walker. The coiled-up tension left his body, and he leaned forward to pat the manager on the arm.