Written in Dead Wax (5 page)

“You found you already had a near-mint mono Decca copy of it with unboxed red labels?”

“I already had five of them,” said Tinkler.

* * *

I had been looking for an excuse to avoid smoking dope with Tinkler, but I hadn’t been lying—I really did have an early start the following day. I got up as soon as the cats woke me, fed them, had a quick shower and then caught a train into town. Styli wasn’t yet open when I arrived, but I knocked on the window and Jerry let me in. “Put the kettle on while I finish opening up.” I made myself a coffee and a tea for Jerry and then went back into the front room and sat down opposite him. Jerry had a pile of
The Absolute Sound
magazines beside his chair. “A little light reading,” he said.

“How’s that new collection you bought?”

He nodded happily. “Very nice. Some very fine stuff.”

“And you say there’s some jazz?”

“Some rather excellent items, as it happens. I think you’ll definitely be interested. But I haven’t finished sorting them yet. The whole collection is still sitting at my house and it will be a few days before we can take the van around and bring the records back here.”

“That’s all right. No hurry. I actually didn’t come here to talk about that. I want some information about an obscure record label. It’s called Hathor.”

He nodded immediately. “A jazz label, of course—since it’s you that’s asking. Small West Coast firm. Mid 1950s. Named after the Egyptian goddess of music and beauty.” Well, that explained the stupid name. Come to think of it, there was an Egyptian look to the design of the label.

“It was run by a fellow called Bobby Schoolcraft,” said Jerry.

“Who committed suicide,” I said.

“That’s right.”

“Because the label went bust.”

Jerry shook his head. “Not quite. There was more to the story than that. I seem to remember reading something…” He frowned thoughtfully. “I’ll look it up when I go home tonight.” He had an extensive library of music-related books and journals in his house in Primrose Hill. I had never seen the place but I’d heard it was huge. It had to be, to house his record collection.

“But Hathor went bust because their records didn’t sell?”

“Oh no. On the contrary, their records sold very well indeed, at least initially, and for a while it looked like they were going to turn into a major jazz label.” Jerry sipped his tea.

I said, “They’re definitely an intriguing outfit. Danny DePriest was their engineer, wasn’t he?”

He nodded. “Ron Longmire was his mentor and the senior engineer. And I think Bones Howe might have worked there too.” Bones Howe was another great sound engineer of jazz in the fifties. He had gone on to fame in the rock era and memorably produced some classic Tom Waits albums. “I’ll check on all that when I get home,” he said.

I tried my coffee. It was instant but I could drink it. I said, “So if their records were selling so well, why did they go broke?”

Jerry set his teacup aside. “Legal problems. Rather nasty legal problems. They were being sued by some very heavy people.”

“Heavy in what way?”

“People who owned a major piece of the American entertainment industry. Have you ever heard of the Davenports?” I shook my head. “They were teenage impresarios. Second-generation show-business exploiters. Very unpleasant.”

“And they sued Bobby Schoolcraft.”

“It was a protracted and nasty—and costly—business and apparently the pressure got too much for poor old Schoolcraft. He put an end to himself and, along with him, one of the most promising record labels in America.”

* * *

I got back to my house mid-morning, just in time to make a sandwich and be greeted by the cats before my rendezvous with Miss N. Warren. It had turned cold and wet and she arrived wearing a dove-grey raincoat and white knit hat with a large red strawberry embroidered on it. On anyone else it might have looked ridiculous. On her it looked elegant and fetching.

I came out of the house and joined her. “How did you get here,” I said. “Taxi?”

She shook her head. “No, I got a lift with a friend. Well, I say
friend
. He’s actually this barrister I’m sleeping with.” I felt like I’d been stabbed in the heart. I turned away from her and locked the door. The cats came out through the cat flap to watch us leave. She waved goodbye to them.

“We shall catch a taxi now, though,” she said. We walked to the main road and flagged one down. There was always a black London cab cruising in the area thanks to the proximity of the Abbey. This one was driven by a striking young mixed-race woman with a shaved head. I gave directions.

“So, where are we going?” said N. Warren.

“Every charity shop between here and Chelsea,” I said.

“God, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a charity shop. I’m not sure I want to. Do they smell funny?”

* * *

She followed me into the first charity shop contentedly enough and waited patiently while I looked through about half the records in the first crate. But then she said, “Are you going to look at every single one?”

I was crouching over the box of records, squatting comfortably on my heels in my crate-digging shoes. I smiled up at her. “I don’t know any other way of doing it.”

She tapped her foot. “Can’t we go to another shop?”

“Not until we finish in this one.”

“You really are going to scrutinise every record?”

I looked up at her. “I could stop right now and we could leave the shop. And the very next record I was about to look at might be it, the one we’re looking for. And we’d have missed it.”

That shut her up. She turned away and began taking a pointed interest in the rest of the shop’s wares. She started going through a railing of women’s clothes. I could still feel her impatience weighing on me, though, as I looked through the records. I’d found a nice old Philips pressing of
Anatomy of a Murder
by Duke Ellington, but that was about it. Behind me I heard the impatient squeaking of coat hangers on a rail as she went through the clothes.

The squeaking gradually slowed down and then stopped. After a pause she came over to me and whispered excitedly, “There’s a Nicole Farhi linen biker jacket there and it’s exactly my size and it’s only twelve quid!”

“So, why are you telling me?” I said. “Do you want me to lend you the money?”

“Very funny. But it is exactly my size.” She gazed wistfully at the clothes rail. “And my colour.”

“So, go and buy it.”

She hesitated. “Do you think there will be a problem with insects?”

“Insects?”

“You know, vermin.”

I felt like informing her that the underclasses had got a lot cleaner since indoor plumbing had become the norm, but instead I just said, “I think they steam clean the clothes.”

She turned back to the clothes rack with a glint of determination in her eye. “Do you suppose they take credit cards?”

“I’m sure they do. You really haven’t ever been in a charity shop before, have you?”

“Why would I have wanted to?”

Now things were reversed. I would finish searching through the crates of vinyl in a shop and have to wait impatiently around while she combed through the clothes. She rapidly acquired a cluster of bags of purchases and soon had me carrying them. By the time we’d exhausted the charity shops, working our way back from the King’s Road, the light was fading.

“I suppose we should call it a day,” she said. She took out her phone and a business card.

“What’s that?” I said.

“It’s from our driver this morning. Was she or was she not the coolest taxi driver in London? I got her business card.” The woman was obsessed with business cards. “She can be our official driver.”

“I’m sure the two of you will be very happy together.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” She called the number and we waited in a coffee shop until the taxi came and picked us up. We sat in the back, headed home, tired after a long day of failing to find the Easy Geary album. We were surrounded by the bags containing our purchases—well,
her
purchases. We had just turned off the North End Road when she suddenly announced, “We are being followed.”

I had been going through the few records I’d found, trying to study their covers in the glow of the passing streetlights. She was sitting opposite me in the dark back of the cab, perched on the fold-down seat and peering intently out the rear window, watching London go past in the night.

“Oh, come on,” I said.

But she turned to the driver. “Excuse me, but I think that car is following us.” This was greeted with silence. She added, “Can you take some evasive manoeuvres, please?” More silence. “I’ll make it worth your while.” A disgusted sigh, then the clicking of the indicator as we took a sharp turn, then another turn, then another.

Then our driver said, “You’re right. We’re being followed.”

I felt a cold irrational chill on the back of my neck. We were streaking along dark streets through Fulham Broadway. The brightly lit shop windows looked inappropriately cheery.

“What do you want me to do?” said our driver. In the back we looked at each other. We were rolling towards Putney Bridge.

Miss N. Warren said, “We can’t lead them back to your place. Where shall we go?”

I said, “I have an idea.”

* * *

I had phoned ahead, so I wasn’t entirely surprised to discover that Tinkler had his hair neatly drawn back in a ponytail. He was also wearing a clean shirt, his face looked freshly scrubbed and there was a suspicious odour of aftershave in evidence. He held the door open for us and said, “Miss Warren. I’m so pleased to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“This is Jordon Tinkler,” I said. They shook hands.

She said, “Jordan like the glamour model and the breakfast cereal?”

“No,” he said, “it isn’t spelled with an ‘a’. It’s spelled with an ‘o’.”

She chuckled. “How unusual.”

“It isn’t that unusual,” said Tinkler, a little stung. “There was a very good midfielder who played for Birmingham called Jordon Mutch.”

“Oh, the Birmingham midfield, of course.”

I had to admire the way she’d managed to put him on the defensive within about three seconds of stepping through the door. Tinkler ushered us upstairs. “Thank you for letting us take refuge here,” she said. “We won’t bother you for long.”

“Oh, no bother,” said Tinkler, opening the door of his listening room. A waft of warm air flowed out to greet us. The amp was on.

Miss N. Warren went in and sat down on the sofa, glancing at me as I joined her. “He has more light bulbs on his system than you do.”

“They’re not light bulbs,” I said. “They’re valves. Thermionic valves.”

“In America they call them tubes,” added Tinkler. “Vacuum tubes.”

“Well, they certainly warm the room up nicely,” she said.

“It’s because my amp is OTL. Output transformerless.”

“What does that mean?”

I said, “It means it delivers a very pure sound, but if you get a spike in the DC your loudspeakers explode.”

Tinkler snorted. “Like that’s ever happened.” But I noticed that he began to double-check the output valves. Meanwhile, N. Warren was searching through her shopping bags. She handed one to me.

“Here you are,” she said.

“What is it?” I opened the bag and took out a dark blue jacket lined with silk printed in a winter camouflage pattern.

“It’s a Paul Smith jacket. Try it on.” I did as I was told. It was perhaps a little long in the sleeves, but otherwise a perfect fit. In fact it was very nice. She watched, nodding with grave approval as I walked around in it. Tinkler caught my eye and gave me a look.

She noticed the look and said, “If I’m going to accompany him on crate-diving expeditions, then he’s going to have to look presentable.”

“Crate-diving,” said Tinkler. “I like it. Now how about I fetch us all some snacks?”

She said, “Only if you can provide something containing a great deal of salt or sugar, and fat of course, and which has no nutritional value whatsoever.”

“I may have just the thing.”

He left the room and she turned to me to say something. But I held up my hand for silence and listened. There was a thunderous noise. “My god,” she said. “What’s that? It sounded like the house falling down.”

“No, just Tinkler falling down the stairs.”

“Christ, is he all right?”

“I’m all right,” called Tinkler.

She looked at me. “Does he often fall down the stairs?”

“Only when he’s been smoking dope. But that’s all the time.”

She leaned back on the sofa, then glanced at me again. Despite the heat in the room, I was still wearing the jacket. I was quite taken with it. She said, “It’s Nevada, by the way.”

“What is?”

“My name.”

I stared at her. “The N in N. Warren?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re Nevada Warren.”

She gave a mild sigh of exasperation. “Yes.”

“Was it where you were conceived?”

She spun around on the sofa and glared at me. “No it was not where I was fucking conceived. Why do people always say that? It’s a word. It means ‘snowfall’. It happens to be Spanish, but it’s one of the most beautiful words in any language.”

She sat fuming silently. Obviously people had floated the conception theory in her presence one time too often. I didn’t break the silence. Instead, I got up and went over to Tinkler’s record collection. I selected an LP and put it on the turntable. Music swelled from the big Tannoys, filling the room. After listening a while she said, grudgingly, “This is nice. What is it?”

“The Claude Thornhill orchestra,” I said.

“What’s the tune called?”

“‘Snowfall’.”

She looked at me bleakly then gradually cracked a smile. Her head was moving, just ever so slightly, to the music.

I said, “One of the most beautiful words in any language.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she said.

But she was still smiling.

* * *

I was anxious to hear what Jerry Muscutt’s research on the Hathor label had revealed, so I went to Styli first thing the next day. But as soon as I got there, it was clear something was wrong. The downstairs room of the shop was crowded with regular customers and members of staff, all looking downcast. Jerry was nowhere in sight. I went over to Kempton, who worked upstairs in jazz, and said, “What’s going on?”