Death of a Cave Dweller (2 page)

“You're a good lad, Jack,” he said, “but you've got to learn that we're the musicians around here – an' we're the ones who make the decisions about the act.” He put his hand in his trouser pocket, and rattled his change. “Must be at least two bob in there,” he guessed. “How about we set up the gear, then nip across to the Grapes for a quick half?”

The other members of the group nodded their agreement. Jack Towers nodded too, and said, with some relief in his voice, “That's a good idea, but I'm buying, so you'll all have pints.”

The argument had ended just as he'd thought it would, Ron Clarke told himself – which was to say it had ended not with anything being settled, but simply because Steve Walker had decided he'd had enough.

The drums were already on stage, but the rest of the equipment had been stacked at the far end of the dressing room. Clarke watched the Seagulls pick up their guitars and amplifiers. The guitars were not the best that money could buy, but they were adequate for the job. The amplifiers, on the other hand, were a disaster. They had been cobbled together from pieces of other amps which had long ago given up the ghost, and if they could be relied on to do anything, they could be relied on to break down. Which was a pity, Ron Clarke thought, because the Seagulls were a talented group and really did deserve better.

The group, guitars and amps in their hands, squeezed through the narrow space between the DJ and the wall. As they passed him, Ron Clarke caught a distinct whiff of aftershave. It came as a surprise to him, as he knew the Seagulls had always considered such things effeminate – and though he could not swear to it, he was almost sure that the person who was wearing it was Eddie Barnes.

The big red-haired man opened the door, and the girls began to stream in through the gap. Balanced precariously on their high heels, they clacked and clattered their way carefully down the twenty steep stone steps which led to the club.

The place was, in fact, no more than three parallel interconnected tunnels, each supported by a series of brick archways. The first tunnel could have best been described as a reception area – it was there that the money was paid and the coats deposited. The furthest tunnel, which was shorter than the other two because of the bricked-off dressing room, served as a dance area. But it was the middle tunnel which, inevitably, was the centre of attention. At one end of it stood the snack bar, which served milk, Coke, pies and sandwiches. At the other end was the concrete-floored stage. And between the two were row after row of hard wooden seats.

The stage itself was not much to speak of. Even with the minimal equipment they carried around with them, the groups who played on it found very little room for manoeuvre, often banging into the ancient upright piano which stood at one side of it, or almost falling through the gap in the wall which led to the dressing room on the other.

The cellar had minimal ventilation and once a group had been playing for a while, moisture would drip down the walls, sometimes fusing the crude amplifiers. As the lunchtime session progressed, the place would grow hotter and hotter, clothes would become little more than wet rags, and the atmosphere would be thick with the smell of sweat and cheap perfume. Nor were the cellar's acoustics much to write home about. Almost anywhere – even a rickety village hall used for a boy scouts' meeting one day and a Women's Institute tea party the next – would have allowed a cleaner, clearer sound than was possible in the brick vault.

Noisy, suffocating, muffled. None of that mattered. The echoes of the drumbeats might bounce off the walls, drowning the vocals, but the audience knew, with an absolute certainty, that they were in the most exciting place in the world, and experiencing something they would remember for the rest of their lives.

For a few minutes the girls wandered around aimlessly, patting their helmet-like hairdos, lighting a fresh cigarette or ordering a meat-and-potato pie at the bar. Then a sound like the hiss of an angry snake filled the air – a sign that the disc jockey, crouched in front of a cupboard in the dressing room, had switched on his equipment – and a ripple of anticipation ran through the room.

Ron Clarke spoke, using just the words they'd known he would. “Hi, all you cave dwellers – welcome to the best of cellars.” And before even the first few beats of the pulsating R&B assaulted their ears, some of the girls were already dancing.

At a quarter past twelve, Ron Clarke put a fresh record on the turntable, then stuck his head out on to the stage to see if there was any sign of the Seagulls. They were just arriving back from the pub, making their way past the hard wooden seats towards the stage. Not that it was an uninterrupted journey, Clarke noted, but then he'd never thought it would be. The Seagulls were local heroes, and it was only natural that some of the people who had come to see them – especially the girls – would want a few words with them before they went on stage.

He watched the way the four of them dealt with their admirers, and decided that in this, as in so many other ways, they were four very distinct personalities. Steve Walker just stood there, soaking up this show of minor adoration as if it were no more than his due. Billie Simmons, his long nose and thick lips twisted in a comical expression, was making the girls around him giggle. Pete Foster had an uncertain half-smile on his face – a smile which said that while he was loving all this, there was a part of him which was already worrying about how long his popularity would last. And Eddie Barnes? Eddie was trying to be polite to the girls who had surrounded him, but it was plain that he saw listening to them as nothing more than a distraction from his real purpose, which was to play his guitar.

They were all good lads, Ron thought. Steve could be a little abrasive, but he had a heart of gold. Pete was insecure – and with a mother like his, who wouldn't be? – which sometimes caused him to be less than honest, but he'd probably grow out of that. It was impossible not to like Billie, with his droll approach to life. But it was Eddie Barnes, Ron decided, who he had the softest spot for. Eddie was so serious and so gentle. He hardly ever said a word, yet the DJ sensed that it was he, rather than one of the others, that people would go to when they were in trouble.

The four young men climbed up on to the stage. Ron Clarke nodded to them, then retreated into the dressing room. Billie Simmons got behind his drum kit, and the rest of the group picked up their instruments.

The record which had been playing came to an end. There was a click as the needle navigated its way through the empty groove, then another hiss from the tannoy system. The uncomfortable seats were all occupied, and most of the girls who'd been dancing in the third tunnel now stood in the archways, craning their necks to get a good view of the stage.

From the cramped space in front of his record player, Ron Clarke made his announcement. “Put your hands together, boys and girls, and give a big welcome to one of Liverpool's greatest groups – the Seagulls!”

The young men just stood there while the applause filled the air. “
Never start playing until the clapping's begun to fade
,” Jack Towers had told them more than once – and in this matter, at least, Steve Walker was prepared to follow the manager's instructions.

It was perhaps a minute before the applause did start to die down. Steve Walker and Pete Foster quickly stepped forward, but it was Steve who won the race to the microphone.

“Are you feelin' good?” he asked his audience.

A couple of hundred voices screamed back that they were.

Walker stamped his left foot on the ground, then dragged his heel a few inches, so that the metal studs imbedded in it threw up sparks. Make a show, they'd been told in Germany. Well, didn't he always? And with the lads behind him, there was none better.

“I mean, are you feelin'
really
good?” he yelled at the girls.

The screaming got louder.

Behind him, Steve could sense Pete's growing resentment that he was hogging the limelight. “This first number we'd like to do for you is one written by our lead guitarist, Eddie,” he said. “It's called ‘Lime Street Rock'.”

He took a couple of steps backwards, to allow the pale young guitarist to take the central stage. Over his shoulder, he heard Billie Simmons start the introductory beat. Eddie lifted his pick to play the opening chords.

Instead of the frenetic explosion of sound which
had been expected, there was nothing more than a weak
‘plink'. Eddie shrugged his shoulders in disgust, then
stepped back, turned, and bent over the crude amplifier, as he had
done so often in the past. This time, however, it was different.
This time, the moment his slim fingers touched the bass control,
he began to writhe like a maniac. The fans turned to look at each
other – puzzled expressions on their faces. They were used
to Steve and Pete playing the wild man during the act – but
Eddie was always the intense one, concentrating on the music as if
each note was a huge effort. Later, of course, when those same
fans were recounting the incident to friends who hadn't been
there, they would say that they'd known something was wrong
right from the start. Some of them would even claim that
they'd been able to smell the burning flesh.

T
he murder of Eddie Barnes had been splashed across the front page of the
Liverpool Echo
in screaming headlines, but even before the paper came out, news of the young guitarist's tragic death had spread across the city by word of mouth. A small crowd had gathered outside the Cellar Club within a couple of hours, and had not dispersed until late in the evening. Another crowd – though perhaps not the same people – had appeared the following morning, and by eight thirty there were more than fifty onlookers standing in the street.

Not that there was much for them to see. True, five police cars were parked near the club door, making it almost impossible for lorries to make their deliveries to the warehouses. And true, behind the heavy wood and metal police barriers which sealed off the club were half a dozen uniformed constables who frowned at anyone who seemed likely to put even a foot inside the restricted area. But the spectators could only guess at the atmosphere inside the club itself. Still, when they did eventually begin to drift away, it was with the feeling that however far the investigation had progressed, it was at least steaming ahead purposefully.

There was very little sense of purpose in the two men who stood on the stage of the club, looking aimlessly into the cramped dressing room.

The elder of the two, a superintendent, glanced down at his watch. “It's now just over twenty hours since this Eddie Barnes kid got himself fried,” he said. “An' what do we know now that we didn't know at the start of this case, Frank? I'll tell you. Absolutely bugger all!”

“It's early days yet, guv,” said his sergeant.

“An' furthermore, I don't see how we're
ever
goin' to find out anythin',” the superintendent continued, as if his bagman hadn't spoken the reassuring words which bagmen are always supposed to speak. “Look at the case usin' the standard procedural guidelines – means, motive and opportunity.” He held out three fingers. “Means,” he touched the first finger with his other hand. “Anybody who knew a little bit about electrical wirin' had that. Opportunity,” he struck the second finger. “A lot of fellers had the opportunity – a bloody sight
too
many for my likin'. An' motive?” He brushed the third finger. “There
isn't
one! Eddie Barnes, accordin' to everybody we've spoken to, was a little saint. An' if all that's not enough to make you despair, there's the fact that the murderer didn't even have to be here when Barnes died.”

“Point taken, sir,” the sergeant said. “It's goin' to be a very tough case to crack.”

“Tough!” the superintendent repeated scornfully. “It's goin' to be more than tough – it's goin' to be bloody impossible.”

“So what are you goin' to do, sir?” the sergeant asked, picking his words carefully. “I mean, we can't just give up on it, can we?”

“I already have. That's why I'm goin' to tell the Chief Constable that we need outside help.”

“Scotland Yard? You're callin' in Scotland Yard!”

“Who else?” The superintendent gave his sergeant a piercing stare. “You don't seem very keen on the idea, Frank.”

“I'm not,” the sergeant admitted. “To tell you the truth, I don't like the thought of somebody from London invadin' our patch – an' neither will most of the rest of the lads on the case.”

“I'm not over the moon about it either,” the superintendent told him. “But look at it this way. We've got two choices. We can fail to solve the murder ourselves, or we can let the Yard fail to solve it. If we do the second, then the moment they've gone back to London with their tails between their legs, we can start droppin' hints to the local press that without fancy detectives from London buggerin' it up, we'd have had the case cracked within the week.”

“An' if they do crack it?”

“Then we let the local reporters know that we did most of the work. Either way, we can't lose.”

“Even so . . .” the sergeant said dubiously.

“You talk about them invadin' our patch, but they won't be,” the superintendent argued. “They'll be dealin' with a liaison officer who I'll have hand-picked. They'll be usin' my lads for their footwork, and they'll be workin' out of the local nick. Bloody hell, Frank, we'll have them under our thumb from the moment they get here.”

“That might be true of most of them, sir,” the sergeant said, with doubt still evident in his voice. “But what if they send us Mr Woodend? An' it's very likely that they will, because from what I've heard, the top brass at the Yard are never happier than when he's workin' a couple of hundred miles away from them.”