December (66 page)

      
It was only half-nine. Prof sat down, turned to page five and
looked at the two paragraphs again. The words hadn't altered.
      
'Strewth,' he said,
      
Morning, Prof.'

      
Prof mashed the paper between his hands.
      
'Not you as well,' Moira said.

      
She was wearing a short woollen dress and looked very
fetching. And she was alone.
      
'Where's Dave?'

      
'We're no' connected at the waist, Prof,' Moira said, a little
more Scottish today. 'If he doesny show in the next half hour I'll go up and
tap lightly on his door.'

      
'Moira, would you ...?' In the absence of Simon, who'd spent
the night at his vicarage, Moira had to be the most balanced of them. 'Would
you take a look at this?'
      
He folded, halved and quartered the
Telegraph,
handed it to her. Moira
stood with one hand on the back of his chair and read where he'd pointed.

      
It didn't take her long. She sat down opposite him and laid
the paper on the table, upturned to the small headline

RECORD PRODUCER
FOUND DEAD

      
Moira bit her upper Up. 'You saw him ... when? Couple a days
ago? I mean, how was he?' She was white.

      
Prof breathed out heavily. 'I have to say he was not happy to
see us.'

      
'Dave says Stephen Case asked him if he was interested in going
back to the Abbey to produce us.'

      
'And Russell said he wasn't that strapped for cash, or words
to that effect. Least, that's what he told us he said.'

      
'You got the feeling Russell was nervous about going back?'

      
'He was certainly tense. He didn't want to talk to us at all,
I had to lean on him a bit.'

      
'But suicidal?' One hand squeezing the other.

      
Prof blew out his lips. 'What's a suicidal guy look like?'

      
The young waitress came in then to take their orders and Prof
and Moira looked at each other and said 'coffee' simultaneously. When she'd gone,
Moira leaned across the table.
      
'Prof, I ... Did Dave mention
seeing anything ... around Russell?'

      
'What d'you mean?' And then he understood, closed his eyes,
rubbed his face with his hands. 'I hate this.' Talked through his hands. 'It
gives me the creeps so bad.' He lowered his hands. 'No. He didn't. If he'd seen
anything, he would have said it, the mood he was in that day. Maybe it's only
sick people - how should I know?'

      
'I'm sorry to even mention it. And you're thinking, I've got
to go in there and do the job Russell was supposed to've done. Listen, you no'
under contract, Prof. You can still back out.'

      
Both Prof's hands were trembling. 'I was feeling really good
about it yesterday, what with nailing Case and Copesake in the bar. I'd got it
nicely under control, all the other stuff. I thought this is just another record-industry
scam. They love rumours and deaths and is Elvis alive and living in Ipswich.
I'd forgotten my own nightmares - two full, uninterrupted night's sleep in a
row and you think, What am I getting so worked up about? It's like Maurice at Audico.
You put one working day between you and the weirdness and you're eager to put
the whole thing down to imagination.'
      
Moira said, 'Who's Maurice?'

      
Prof stuck his head back into his hands and moaned.
      
Moira read the
Telegraph
report again. 'It says No suspicious circumstances.
That's police-speak for suicide. But what else could it be? I've never been to
the Manor, is this tree a feature?'
      
'Huh?'

      
'Be no leaves on it either, this time of year. I was just
thinking of everybody waking up and looking out their windows and there's poor
Russell dangling there. It's horrible, Prof. I never really liked the guy,
especially the way he conned us over the tapes and wouldn't lift a finger to
stop Tom driving off in the Land Rover. But it's such a lonely death. And yet
there's, I don't know, an element of exhibitionism to it. Kind of, screw
you, take a good look, this is what you drove me to.'
      
'I hate it,' Prof groaned. 'I hate
it. I'd rather be producing Van Morrison.'
      
Then he went quiet.

      
The coffee came. Moira thanked the kid, poured.
      
Prof said, 'Tree.'

      
'Sorry?'

      
'We were walking along the lawn at the Manor - this was where
we saw Russell, he wasn't up yet - and there's this tree, Dave said it was like
- the way its branches were - like a man. Then he went kind of shaky, and I
said, what's wrong, goose on your grave? Something like that.'
      
'What did Dave say?'

      
'He just started going on about how Tom wouldn't come to a
place like this on account of it being old.'

      
'Right.'
      
'Is this the same tree?"

      
Moira said, 'Are there many trees at the Manor?'
      
'Dozens. It's in, like, parkland.'

      
'Then let's assume it's a different tree, huh, Prof?'
      
Prof said, 'Barney Gwilliam and now
Russell. Both topped themselves.'

      
'Look. Don't think twice about it. Go. Finish your coffee and get
your bags, we'll settle the bill. We'll self-produce, too. Don't worry about a
thing.'

      
'It'll sound - no offence, but it'll sound like crap.'
      
'Not your problem, Prof. Really.
And we'll tell Tom your old mother's been taken sick.'

      
'Bollocks,' said Prof. 'Bollocks to all that. I'm too old to matter,
anyway.'

      
If he kept saying that all the way to the Abbey he might even convince
himself.

Circencester turned out to
be a mistake on the part of Wendy in the warehouse. They didn't need their soya
sausage shelves topping up until Thursday at least, so Weasel didn't even have to
open the back of the van in Circencester.

      
This meant he didn't find out what he was carrying until he was
outside Broadbank's superstore on the less salubrious side of Cheltenham.

      
Well, how was he to know? There was a thick partition between
the cab and the storage area, with only a six-inch square glass pane which he
hadn't got round to cleaning yet this year.

      
'Princess,' he said. 'You'll get me bleeding fired.'

      
She was crouching like a little puppy between two big
cardboard boxes, for warmth probably, this van being partly refrigerated.

      
'As well as catching your death,' said Weasel, holding out his
hand to help her out of there. Jeez, no wonder she'd been so quiet on the way
into Stroud. Playing her cards close to her chest, crafty little sod. And they
said these kids was simple.

      
'Your dad, is it? Fought I knew where your dad was and wasn't
saying, right?'

      
Vanessa gave him the full, solemn, I'm-only-a-handicapped-kid-who-can't-be-held-responsible
look.
      
'Yeah, you're breaking my heart,'
Weasel said. 'Come on. In the cab. You'll get expelled from that convent, you
will. Ninety-seven Hail Marys, if you're very lucky.'

      
Little bleeder. What was he gonna do now? He cast an eye at
the cars in the employees' section, wondering if Broadbank himself was in
residence this morning. He maybe wouldn't be adverse to taking her back. Give
him another shot at Shelley,
      
Nah. Nothing big or posh enough out
there for Broadbank.
      
'What we gonna do wiv you then?'

      
Vanessa
was offering no suggestions.
He didn't want to take her to Ross. Certainly not to the Abbey. But if he
whizzed her back now, by the time he got back to Ross it'd be too late to go
check out the Abbey. In daylight, anyway.
      
'Right.' Lap of the gods job. 'What
we'll do is we'll go to a phone box and we'll ring Shelley. See how she wants
to handle it.'

      
'No!'

      
'Now, listen, Princess, I ain't got time for this '
      
'Nooooooooo!' Vanessa stood at the'
back of the van and screamed at him, which wasn't like her at all.
      
Then she turned and ran away.

      
Weasel went after her across the loading bay and into the car
park. Vanessa screamed as she ran, and a few people coining out the supermarket
with their trolleys started to take notice.
      
'Shit,' Weasel muttered. All this
talk of child-abuse, it wouldn't be long before somebody would get the idea she
was escaping from this sinister-looking old hippie who'd been trying lure her
into his cab. Besides which, she was faster than him.
      
'All right!' Weasel shouted. 'You
win, Princess, you win!'
      
Vanessa stopped.

      
'You can come wiv me and I won't ring Shelley. She'll fink
you're at school anyway. You can come wiv me to Ross, but you gotta be a good
girl and wear your seatbelt.'
      
Vanessa grinned and walked back
towards the van.

      
'These kids,' Weasel said to a couple of old ladies who'd been
directing heavy-duty suspicion his way. 'Don't get their own way, they show you
up summink rotten.'

      
It's like a bleeding conspiracy, he thought. Looks like the Abbey's
out of the question.

      
He'd think about that when they got to Ross.

'I'm not staying here,'
Meryl said. 'And that's final.'

      
Tom shrugged. 'Up to you. You're a free person. Go home. Go
back to old Broadarse, you want to.'

      
Prof thought Meryl was setting up to strangle him.

      
They were loading their gear into three cars: Simon's Astra,
Moira's BMW and Dave's Fiat. Prof would be travelling with Dave, Tom with
Simon, Moira with a couple of guitars.

      
'I'm telling you,' Tom said. 'Not only are we having no
passengers, but there's probably no room to spare there anyway. Simon?'

      
'I think Tom probably
is
right,' Simon told Meryl. 'They've been refurbishing the place as fast as they
can, but there's a possibility we'll have to share rooms.'

      
'She'll
be sleeping
with a man, then.' Meryl nodded towards Moira.

      
'Can't be ruled out,' Moira said, more than a little curtly.
      
Prof didn't think she was too fond
of Meryl and he could see why. He, too, could see a great deal of sense in not
having a woman around who seemed to think that what you might call
non-material
matters were just a big
adventure, an exciting voyage of discovery.

      
'If I do go back to the Cotswolds,' Meryl said dangerously,
'Shelley's going to know exactly where you are.'

      
'Only if you tell her, darlin'.' Tom reared menacingly, like
one of those giant dinosaurs, a
Tyrannosaurus
rex
. He was probably going to snap her in half.

      
'Look.' The ever-diplomatic Simon hastily put himself between
them. 'I've got an idea. My house is only about a mile from the Abbey. Why
don't you stay there? There's always a guest room prepared and I'll arrange for
my housekeeper to pop round and show you where everything is. It's quite
modern. If you were to stay there, perhaps you could pop in sometime when we're
not recording, make sure Tom's OK. Or he could come over to you, if he's in
need of ... therapy. How would that be?'

      
Might as well take it, lady, Prof thought. It's the best offer
you're going to get. He'd been secretly rather hoping he'd have to sleep
elsewhere. Wondering where the late Russell Hornby had slept. And the late
Barney Gwilliam.
      
The mist had descended around them
like ice-cold candy-floss. Prof gazed over to where the holy, crooked mountain
was, nothing of it visible now. For the first time it occurred to him that the
protective magnetic field around the Skirrid might be the reason he'd had two
consecutive nights of restful, dreamless sleep.

      
Pah. Such crap you got to thinking when the mist came down in
the afternoon.