Blood Never Dies (17 page)

Slider got the picture – the golden boy, good at everything, flamboyant and attention-grabbing; the quiet sister who shared the parents’ values but somehow never got the praise. She might resent the situation, but not the beguiling brother.

With his musical background he was also in with the musical crowd, and after a couple of false starts he formed the band called Breaking Wave. They were popular among the students, and did various gigs on an amateur basis, but in a crowded field they didn’t stand out. But after graduation – ‘He never got better than a third in any part of the tripos, because he wouldn’t work, which is so typical of him!’ – his parents offered him a gap year, and instead of travelling, which is want they expected and wanted, he used it to work on his band.

He found a new bass guitarist-songwriter, and they collaborated on writing their own material, changing their style to something more funky. For a couple of years he did odd jobs – waiting, bar work – to earn money while the band did the club circuit (‘Paying your dues, it was called’) and sent demos to record companies. Their distinctive style took time to find its niche, and it wasn’t until 2004 they had a demo accepted, and
Not Even You
got into the charts at number forty-nine.

‘He used the name Ben Jackson,’ Jennifer Shepstone said, ‘because Mummy and Daddy didn’t quite approve of the band as a way of life, and would have been upset if “Benedict Corley” had become famous as a pop star.’

She told Slider the same story he had had from Delamitri, about Ben’s change to video directing. ‘He’d succeeded as a pop singer, so he had to do something else,’ she said. ‘I was pleased if anything – it seemed a better outlet for his talents. And he was very good at it. Some of his videos became very famous. He did
A Million Boys
for Asset Strippers and
Here Goes Nothing
for Okay Gurlz – he won awards for both of those.’

Slider smiled. ‘I don’t know much about pop music. My daughter likes Girls Aloud and The Saturdays.

‘
I
didn’t know anything until Ben got into that scene. Now I know more than I want to,’ she said with a downturned mouth. ‘I was glad he was successful, of course, but I couldn’t like what he was doing. I was glad when he got bored again and changed to music journalism. I thought his videos were hateful – very clever, I could see that, but all that sexual miming and the suppressed violence was – well, it’s just trash, isn’t it? Pernicious trash. When he could have been a concert pianist. But you can’t live other people’s lives for them.’

‘No,’ said Slider.

‘All I wanted was for him to be successful. And I’ve no regrets for myself. I’ve done well out of my chosen profession, though my parents rather pooh-poohed it, as if I’d said I wanted to be a hairdresser. But there’s a lot to learn in the beauty industry before you can get to where I have. Chemistry, biology, a certain amount of anatomy and medicine, dietetics, nutrition, all sorts of physical therapies. I started with a small high-street salon, opened the first women-only spa in central London, and now with Hugh’s backing – my husband – I have all this.’ She waved a hand round the grim grey bus shelter décor, which was probably the apogee of fashion, for all Slider knew. ‘Not bad for a mere girl,’ she concluded.

‘You think your parents favoured Ben because he was a boy?’ Slider put in, really just to keep her talking.

But it threw a switch and she stopped with a blank, arrested look in her eyes. ‘He’s dead. Talking like this, I’d forgotten why you’re here. How could I?’

‘It happens all the time,’ Slider said soothingly.

‘I can’t believe it. And how will I ever tell Mummy and Daddy?’

The time was fast approaching when he would have to tell her it wasn’t suicide, but before that there was the topic she hadn’t reached yet. ‘You were going to tell me about Annie,’ Slider said.

‘I
hated Ben’s time in the pop world,’ said Jennifer Shepstone. An assistant had brought in coffee, and she sipped slowly as she talked, holding the cup in two hands for comfort like someone drinking hot chocolate after a cold winter walk. ‘It wasn’t so bad at the beginning, when the band was doing the circuit and not very well known. He was having fun, and it all seemed very innocent. They would drink a lot of beer after the shows, and I suspect they sometimes smoked a joint. Well,’ she added reluctantly, ‘I know they did, because Ben told me. He insisted it wasn’t harmful, no different from Daddy’s after-dinner brandy. But at least he had the sense to keep it from Mummy and Daddy, because they would have had a fit if they knew.

‘But once the band became successful it didn’t stop there. It wasn’t just beer it was vodka, lots of it, and it wasn’t just pot –’ she used the old-fashioned word without embarrassment – ‘it was cocaine, and sometimes ecstasy as well. At first he was self-conscious about it – it was almost like a little boy showing off. But once he got into the video side, and he was mixing with the big name bands, it was just part of the scene. Everyone was doing it, and he didn’t see anything wrong with it. That was what worried me most – that it would escalate, because he wasn’t thinking about it any more. I was terrified he’d get on to something even worse.’

She poured more coffee, her hand shaking just a little, and offered him another cup.

‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘It’s excellent, but one cup’s enough for me.’ Each man to the drug of his choice. ‘So, did he? Get on to something worse?’

‘No, thank God,’ she resumed. ‘It was bad enough as it was, but we were spared that. And then he met Annie. Annabella Casari. English, despite the name, though the family was Italian by blood. Her parents owned a restaurant in the East End – ordinary people, comfortably off but not educated. Annie was a backing singer in Asset Strippers when Ben met her – he was doing the video for their new single. Oddly enough,’ she said, looking up at him, ‘it was because of seeing her in the video that he’d fallen for her in the first place. I never understood why. She was a skinny little thing, nothing to look at, and I could never see anything in her. Anyway, it seemed Ben didn’t like seeing her doing that half-naked sadomasochistic act in his video, even though he’d written it himself. He got all stern and protective – quite illogical.’ She gave a quavery smile. ‘He thought she was better than that, that she could make it as a solo artist, and introduced her to his agent Danny – Danny Ballantine. He saw the potential and took her on. Changed her look and her name, found her a writing team, launched her, and with Ben doing the videos she made a hit. I expect you’ve heard of her – her stage name was Kara.’

‘Oh,’ said Slider. When a pop singer was known by one name only, it was hard not to at least have
heard
of them; though searching memory, he could not accuse himself of knowingly having listened to anything she sang. The connection in his mind was from an incident – or was it two incidents? – of drink-and-drugs-fuelled public disorder leading to arrest and photographs in the paper the next day. And if two of them had made the papers, it was likely there had been more than two, on a rising scale of seriousness.

‘I can see you’ve heard of her,’ Mrs Shepstone said with some bitterness.

‘I think I’ve seen her picture in the papers,’ he said politely.

‘Yes, for all the wrong things. That was when I really started to learn about the way those people live. A few drinks after a show to wind down escalates into heavy drinking sessions and late-night parties. Beer becomes vodka – or any other spirit that comes to hand, but for some reason they seem to prefer vodka. And drink isn’t enough, so out comes the cocaine. But as the cocaine wears off they start feeling the down, so they drink more to compensate, and then they feel better so they take more cocaine.’

‘I know,’ said Slider.

But she wanted to talk. ‘And so it goes on. Waking up feeling terrible, breakfasting on vodka and orange juice, taking a line or two before rehearsal just to give them an edge, more drink before the show, more drugs, more and more of everything after the show. Staying up all night partying, not eating properly. Tremors, nausea, sweating, anxiety, paranoia, fits of temper, loss of boundaries, promiscuity, dangerous, stupid behaviour. Annie turned out to be as weak-minded as the worst of them. Got herself into such a mess, Ben and Danny persuaded her to go into a rehabilitation centre – The Denes. Not far from here, as it happens.’

‘I know it,’ said Slider.

‘When she came out, she promised Ben she wouldn’t take any more drugs. The one thing she did for him was to put him completely off it himself. After her first crash he stopped, and as far as I know he never touched another thing. He even moderated his drinking.’

‘And were they . . .’ He wasn’t sure what the right word was in this circumstance. ‘A couple? Were they together?’

‘Oh, he was mad about her. I could never understand why – unless it was a Svengali thing. And she loved him – well, why wouldn’t she? They weren’t living together officially, but they were together so much they might as well have been. She had her own place by then, a flat in St John’s Wood. He was still living at home, and the parents were around a lot more at that point, so he didn’t bring her there. They stayed at her place, when they weren’t on the road.’

‘So, what happened? After she came out of The Denes.’

‘It all went wrong again very quickly. I think she only stayed straight about a week. Weak-minded, as I said. She was back on the cocaine, and it just escalated until after a few months she was as bad as before. If not worse. I think I read somewhere she started smoking heroin as well. Can you smoke heroin? Anyway, eventually she got into some kind of trouble with the police outside a nightclub, got arrested, and it was all over the papers the next day. Her record company insisted she go back into The Denes. When she came out, Ben told her it was over between them.’

‘He’d fallen out of love?’

She hesitated. ‘I don’t think it was that. I think he still loved her – though he was angry and hurt that she’d let him down – but he couldn’t cope with what went with it. Now
he
was straight, the stupidity of the drugs scene bored him, and the one thing he could never cope with was boredom. They still met from time to time and they were still friends, but not lovers. He said she could have cocaine or him but not both.’

‘And she chose cocaine.’

‘I’m not sure there was much choice in it by then. You probably know better than me how these things go.’ She shrugged. ‘Ben had left the pop scene by then and gone into music journalism, though of course his contacts were what made him valuable and he still visited backstage to get interviews and gossip. So he watched Annie’s deterioration from a not very great distance. She spiralled downwards, lost her recording contract, lost everything, had to give up her flat and go home to her parents. Apparently with their help she got off the cocaine again, but it was too late. She died on the twenty-fourth of February from what they said was a heart attack. At the age of twenty-six.’

Slider knew the pathology: it was all too common. Cocaine increased the heart rate and the blood pressure, but in large doses it also reduced the heart’s ability to contract. So a decreasing myocardial oxygen supply met the increasing demand of the faster heart rate, leading to convulsions, respiratory failure, myocardial ischaemia or infarction. Not only that, but cocaine and alcohol taken together created a chemical called cocaethylene in the body which was extremely toxic and directly affected the heart. Parts of the heart tissue could die – he had seen extensive necrosis at post-mortems. Even someone who was now completely straight could have so damaged their heart that the slightest extra strain – getting up out of a chair – could be too much.

‘How did Ben take it?’ he asked.

‘Shocked, of course – she was so young – and, as I said, I think he still loved her. Angry about the whole drugs scene and how everybody just pretended it was all right, that cocaine was no different from a gin-and-tonic. In retrospect he hated the lifestyle he used to be part of – the stupidity of “living it large” as they say.’ She gave a tired smile. ‘It’s the zeal of the convert, isn’t it?’

‘There’s nothing worse than being stone-cold sober when everyone around you is giggling drunk,’ Slider said.

‘Hm,’ she said, as if doubting he was taking it seriously enough.

He went on quickly. ‘You said earlier that he became a bit strange. What did you mean by that?’

‘Well, for a while he went on about drugs and drug pushers and saying that Annie could have stayed straight if people hadn’t egged her on. Though personally, I doubt it. She was rather a whiny, defeatist sort of person, from the little I knew of her. Self-indulgent and self-pitying – she did what she wanted to, but the consequences were always someone else’s fault. But then it stopped and he went very quiet. All you could get out of him was a “Hmm”, and a “Sorry?”, as if he wasn’t really listening. The next thing I heard was that he had left his job with
Musical World
. He rang me one day and told me, and I asked him how he was going to earn his living. Mummy and Daddy let him live at the flat, but they’ve always insisted that he pays his way. Although they’re pretty well off, as I imagine you must have guessed, they’ve never allowed either of us to count on that. They wanted Ben in particular to stand on his own two feet.’

‘And what did he say he was going to do?’

‘That’s what I meant by strange. He was being secretive about it, which was not like him. He said, “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to be very busy for a while.” And when I asked him, busy doing what, he wouldn’t tell me.’

‘How did he sound when he said it? Happy, sad, excited – what?’

‘Nothing in particular. He just said it; as if it was quite ordinary, just something he had to do. That’s why I thought he was over Annie, and getting on with his life. I was pleased – only wondering why he wouldn’t tell me what it was.’

‘What did you
think
it was?’

‘I suppose I suspected it was something Mummy and Daddy might not approve of. Or some mad scheme he knew I would tell him was impractical. But he wouldn’t say any more, so I had to leave it. Oh, and he said he might be away from home quite a bit, so not to phone him – he would phone me.’