December (44 page)

      
Because Russell looked exactly the same. Spindly frame in
denims, shaven head.
Let's become calm
,
he used to say, wandering into their asylum.

      
Dave moved over to the table, facing Prof, behind Russell. He
set down Prof's pint of Guinness. 'Afraid they're clean out of whisky chasers,
Prof. What's yours, Russell?'

      
When Russell turned and saw him, the great gear lever lurched
into neutral. There
had
been a
change.

      
Not a pound of extra weight on him, not many more wrinkles. It
was, if anything, Dave thought, his eyes. His eyes were so much older, had seen
too much. And when they arrived on Dave, the eyes flared with ... what? Extreme
wariness?

      
'Thank you very much, David,' Prof said, glaring into his Guinness.
'I'll purchase my own flaming poison.'

      
Dave said, 'Still dry white, is it, Russell? Or are we into mineral
water these days?'

      
'Dave Reilly,' Russell said quietly. 'What an excellent surprise.'
      
'Clearly.'

      
Russell said, 'What's this about?'

      
Prof said, 'Dave and me had something to ask you.'

      
Russell's lips twitched. 'And you couldn't have phoned?'

      
'We could have sent you a postcard.' Dave sat down. 'But we
thought this would be cosier.'

      
'What's this band you're working with then, Russ?' Prof dredged
Guinness froth out of his beard.
      
'Mice. Bunch of precocious brats.'
      
'Never heard of 'em.'

      
'Nobody's heard of anybody these days,' Russell said wearily,
hardly moving his lips. 'Yeah, OK, dry white.'

      
'I'll get it.' Prof was up before Dave could move. Would return,
of course, with a whisky for himself.

      
'But you're doing well,' Dave said. 'You're keeping busy. Nice
car.'

      
'Sure.' Russell wasn't looking at him.
      
'Do much for TMM?'
      
'This and that.'

      
Russell gave him a sidelong glance. 'What is this, Dave?'
      
'It's a question. TMM, who, as you
know, have acquired the Epidemic back-catalogue, have apparently discovered a
missing gem.'

      
'Good for them.'

      
'Not in the archives, as such, but under the late Max Goff's
bed, along with the whips and handcuffs and things.'

      
Russell's time-hardened eyes narrowed.

      
Dave said, 'This is the master of an album including, among
other, possibly more intriguing items, the last known recorded works of the
reclusive genius Tom Storey.'

      
Russell said, 'I've had nothing to do with this. Believe it.'

      
'Nothing to do with what?'

      
'Anything. Any of it.' Russell stood up suddenly. 'I'm sorry. I
have no more time.'

      
A hand came down on his shoulder. 'Course you have, Russell,'
Prof Levin said.

Tom Storey said, 'How I
hate the fucking countryside.'

      
He was leaning against the dusty Volvo. He looked awful, still
in last night's clothes, except for the tie. White stubble among the veins on
his checks.

      
'Why do you live here, then?' Meryl asked him.

      
'I don't live in the countryside, as such,'
Tom said. 'I live in a house.
Used
to
live in a house. It's useless now.'

      
'I don't think so. The car went into the fence, that's all.'

      
'It's destroyed,' Tom said. 'It's ruptured. The stupid old gits
went frew the fence and they died there. They bust me wide open.' He turned his
head away impatiently. 'What's the fucking use telling
you
this?'

      
'No ... please.' Meryl reached out hesitantly and touched his
arm. 'Give me time. Let me think about it.'

      
Tom shook his head. His moustache drooped. His yellow-white
hair hung down like a lampshade. The sun had gone in; it was starting to feel
like November again.

      
'In one respect,' Meryl said slowly, 'I should've thought
countryside'd be better for you. Not so many vibrations as city, and slower.'

      
Tom said nothing. He'd come up behind her on the car park, big
and menacing, but she could feel his nerves vibrating in the air. What she had
to do now was persuade him, somehow, that she hadn't been sent here to bring
him back.

      
'They say your house was built with all new materials. And no
trees around it, just a fence. I'm truly thinking here. Mr Storey, I'm doing my
best. If that fence marks the perimeter of the area you've had protected, then
if something smashes that barrier ...'

      
Tom's head turned slowly back towards her.

      
"And, if, in smashing that barrier, somebody died ... Would
that mean, their spirit...?'

      
Tom said, 'You don't know nuffink.'

      
'I think I do.'

      
'You didn't know nuffink last night. You didn't see nuffink. You
kept well shtumm, lady.'

      
'I'm sorry about that,' Meryl said. Nothing quite like that
had ever happened to me before. I didn't know how to react. That s why I'm
here. I've come to ... apologise, I suppose.'
      
'Apology accepted,' said Tom. 'Now
Piss off and leave me alone.'

      
The chalet door, number eleven, was propped open and the
cleaning woman came out with her vacuum cleaner and her black bin-sack. She gave
Tom and Meryl a tiny smile and moved on number nine.

      
'I'd really like to talk to you, Tom,' Meryl said. 'Can we go
inside?'

      
'I'm
going inside,
you're leaving, and you're gonna forget you saw me, or else ...' Tom raised his
arms like a cartoon spook '... I'll make your nights miserable, I will.'

      
Meryl didn't move. She was quite unnerved but couldn't let him
see that. She looked him steadily in the eyes. 'I believe you could, too. But I
don't think you would.'

      
'Nah,' Tom said glumly. 'I'm frew wiv all that. Mug's game,
comes back on you. You wanna leave all that shit alone. You're too old.'

      
Meryl's spine stiffened.

      
'What I mean is,' Tom said hurriedly, 'is it's for kids.'
      
'I hope so.'

      
'Fuck it,' Tom said. 'I'm screwed. I ain't got a home no more.
Let's go in, make some tea.'

'Look,' Russell said. 'I'm
sorry. I got some clean tapes, scruffed them up a bit, changed the labels, gave
them to Simon. I'm sorry, but it's very much against my religion, burning
work-in -progress. Some bands are crazy, get stoned or blind pissed. Some of
the old punk bands, they'd grab a reel, go outside and wind the tape twice
around the bloody building, just for the hell of it. I'm paid to produce a record,
end of the week I serve up the goods.'

      
Dave thought it was exactly the kind of explanation you would
expect. If he'd been writing Russell's script this was what he'd have come up
with. Which didn't
necessarily
mean
it was a lie.

      
Prof said, 'What happened next? What did you do with the tapes?'

      
Russell relaxed, spread his arms behind his head, stretched, yawned;
this one was easier. 'Turned them over to Max. He called me up, I told him what
I'd done. He said to bring him the tapes, which I did. He took them off me, no
explanation, told me to forget all about it. End of story.'

      
'Not so.' Prof leaned forward. 'As I understand it, Russell,
Steve Case, of the TMM recording conglomerate, has plans to release this album.
What do we know about this?'

      
'Nothing,' Russell said. 'Those tapes are a hopeless
mish-mash. They don't make any sense. That album's ever released, it better not
have my name on it, that's all I can say.'
      
'You're telling us you haven't
heard from Case?'
      
Russell's eyes went wary again. 'I
didn't say that.'
      
'Shit, Russell, we got to hire you
by the hour to get some coherent facts?'

      
'I think you should hear this from Case, is all I'm saying.'
      
'Case and me are not speaking,'
Prof said. 'We've had words.'

      
'OK,' Russell said. 'I'll be brief, because I really do have
to get back to the Manor before the children wake up. Case called me last week
and asked me if I'd be interested in completing my contract. After we'd gone
through all the what-the-hell-is-this-about stuff, he said he thought it was
potentially a brilliant album and he wanted the Philosopher's Stone to go back
into the studio with me and finish it.'

      
There was silence. Russell leaned his chair back and smiled sweetly.

      
'Shiiiiit,' Dave breathed.

      
'I said, you must be joking,' Russell said. 'Do I look like
a
man who's desperate for money?'
      
'What did he say?'

      
'He said either you do it or you don't, but if you want to
work with us again, you keep quiet about this. Which is what I was trying to do
until you guys turned nasty.'

      
Dave drank some of Prof's whisky chaser and choked.

      
'Serves you fucking right,' Prof said.

      
'He wants us to go
back
?
To the Abbey?'

      
'Well, there's a turn-up.' Prof snatched his glass back,
swallowed the lot, began to laugh and then sing hoarsely, Fourteen years since
you heard the news, your last chance to
beat the Dakota Blues.'

      
'I'd be very grateful, guys,' Russell said, 'if you didn't go
blabbing this around. It certainly can't be a short-term proposition, that
place is derelict.'

      
'Yeah,' Prof said. 'I bet. Ever since Soup Kitchen, right?'
      
Russell, unsmiling, stood up.
'Right,' he said tightly. 'That's it. Thanks for the drink, guys.'

Sometimes Mrs Marina
Edwards worried about Eddie.

      
Always so
enthusiastic.
She'd found, quite early in their life together, that the one thing you must
never do was offer to help him with one of his hobbies. He'd assume you were
actually
interested.
Tiring? Well.
She felt exhausted just remembering the cycling phase, the quest for otters on
a tributary of the Usk which went on for about eight miles, the search for the foundations
of Owain Glyndwr's lost palace.

      
Nowadays, the words 'What's that you've got there?' seldom
passed her lips. She sang in the choir, attended the WI, went shopping in Ross
and Monmouth in her little Renault and left him to it, whatever it was.

      
But worried sometimes. You couldn't avoid that.

      
Especially when there were phone calls like this one while he was
out.

      
'Where is he, then?'

      
'Went off with the vicar, I think, to Abergavenny. Said he wouldn't
be back for lunch.'
      
'Shit.'

      
'I beg your pardon!'

      
'Look, I'm sorry, could you get him to ring me as soon as he
comes in. At work or at home. But absolutely as soon as he gets back.'

      
'Well, who shall I say ...'

      
'Sorry, yes, Ivor Speed. Dr Speed in Swansea. Tell him we're
probably looking at a police matter.'
      
'Oh heavens,' said Marina.

V

Curse of the Witchy Woman

'
I
gave your name, by the way,' she said, 'as next of kin.'

     
She thought Malcolm Kaufmann might have
looked less horrified on being told he'd been nominated for a charity bungee
jump from the Forth Bridge.