December (89 page)

      
'Why are you smiling, Eddie?'

      
'I wasn't. Not really.' Eddie stands up too.

      
'I want to go to the vicarage,' Gwyn says, 'and talk to the woman.
God almighty, there may even be something which falls within the general
curtilage of what we might call
police
business.'

Moira's sitting on the
drumstool, the Martin M38 in her arms, hugging it to her breast and rocking to
and fro, eyes closed, making a keening sound.

      
Like a seagull, Prof thinks.

      
Nobody has spoken.

      
The only sound is the keening.

      
The last sound was the sound of pumping breath. Simon's mouth
on Dave's then wrenched away, a gasp of air and back down, and Simon looking
up, shaking his head, eyes glassy with tears, while Dave's own eyes are wide
and clear and full of frozen terror.

      
Dave is dead.

      
Dead in a flash. A single blue flash dividing the black air
like a razor.

      
They've all known this from the moment of the flash and Moira's
trailing, curdled shriek of self-berating, God-cursing outrage.

      
First the outrage, now the remorse.

      
Prof stares in disbelief at the empty booth, at the space where
Dave lay before Tom bent down and lifted the body in his arms and Simon ran
ahead and opened the rear door for him. They have taken him - although no one
has said so - to the Portakabin, the oasis of space which is
not Abbey
.

      
In the air, a mingling of rich and awful smells, the obscene reality
of sudden death.

      
Dave is dead.

      
Dave Reilly, who agonised fourteen long years over the killing
of John Lennon, has been blown away even more suddenly.
      
Gone.

      
The booth is empty.

      
The walls and the vaulted ceiling are perfectly white again,
and, if a little damp, no longer icy to the touch.

      
Prof remembers the verse Dave sang towards the end.

Echoes
of slaughter
The wine turns to water
the water to blood
the blood back to water.

      
And the blood on the walls (
cemented
in blood, who said that?) turned to water and the water
seeped down to the socket into which was plugged the McCarthy Dual amplifier on
which sat Dave Reilly, as was his wont.

      
As Prof suspected, the earth wire has been removed from the
amplifier's plug. This is not uncommon in recording studios, where earthing sometimes
causes a hum.

      
The McCarthy is built like a packing case, with metal corners
and a metal handle where Dave was sitting.

      
With who knows how many volts surging through it, the McCarthy
chassis is a killer.

      
And so everything is eminently explainable. At the inquest, the
coroner will call for a new safety code for recording studios.

      
So neat. All ends tied. A large wreath from TMM and a small
obituary in Q magazine.

      
The keening has died away. Moira looks up. Her eyes reflect
the pain Prof feels, and also the glitter of cold rage, white surf on a distant
shore.

      
Prof walks slowly across to the drums. 'And we're both thinking,
why did we let this happen?'

      
Both of them knowing he isn't talking about studio safety, unearthed
amplifier flex.

      
'The optimism when you came back just now ... the really good
atmosphere ... the way Simon scored last night. Dave thought, I know he did, we
all thought . .

      
'That we were winning,' Moira says.

      
'What's so ironic,' Prof says, 'is he was more worried about you
than himself. He thought it was you who was ... under shadow. He kept seeing ...
well, you know what he was seeing.'

      
Moira's black hair has fallen over her eyes. She doesn't brush
it away. She goes on hugging the guitar, as if she's absorbing the last essence
of Dave.

      
'The one person you're never gonna see it on,' she says very quietly,
'is yourself. There
was
a death hanging
over us - fourteen years ago, the Abbey was due a death. Dave was in the frame,
through Aelwyn, and then this Dakota business comes through and he gets the
hell out and the death passes across the studio and starts to hover over me.'

      
Prof decides he's no longer frightened by this kind of talk, just
angry. He glares at the walls of whitewashed stone. The Abbey. The fucking
Abbey.

      
'I felt it,' he says. 'I felt that death. When I heard the
tapes.'
      
'Yeah. It can be just so ...
alluring. Like sleep. As simple as that. All you want to do is drift away.
Moments of extraordinary peace. Ecstasy, almost. That's death at its most
insidious. And I was headed down that road ... and then good old Tom comes in
with
the
most brutal guitar break ...
just like tonight's.'

      
'Why didn't it work tonight?'

      
'Because the Abbey knew. It'd happened once and the Abbey digested
the information. It was Dave ...'
      
Moira stops to regain self-control.

      
'... Dave. Who said something like, this is the oldest recording
studio in the world. And he was right. It stores emotions and hatred. And
blood.'

      
'If... this death ... was
passed
across to you, where did it go next? Did Tom ...?'

      
'Sure.' The words overflowing from Moira now. 'Tom thought he
could deal with it. But when we came back here with Dave after his Dakota
stuff, there's Tom striding around the courtyard rambling about the ghosts he's
seen and getting more and more worked up - and everybody thinks the poor guy's
cracking up. But Tom thinks - and I can see this now, isn't hindsight
wonderful? - Tom thinks,
I have to get
out of here ... I have to take the death away from the Abbey and then maybe
it'll, like dissipate in the fresh air or something.'
      
'Only it doesn't work like that.'
Prof is thinking of Soup Kitchen, who took death all the way back to their
rooms in Oxford.

      
'No. I remember Tom screaming at Russell for the keys to the Land
Rover. And I'm saying, no, hang on, and Russell - Russell just walks away,
because the bastard, God rest his sordid soul, knows the keys are in the Land
Rover. Russell's become the agent of the Abbey. Those who co-operate with the
Abbey find they come to no harm at all in the material world.'
      
'Right.' Prof is thinking of a
Rolls-Royce Corniche parked outside the Manor. And then a body hanging from a
tree. 'I wonder how it caught up with him.'
      
'Something in the night.'

      
To counter a shiver, Prof walks quickly over to the glass panel
and peers through into the control room. The spool is still running, although
the tape has wound itself through. He has to destroy that tape. He doesn't want
that
being played to any inquest.
      
Inquest.

      
'Poor Dave,' he says uselessly.
      
Poor Davey, poor Debbie.'

      
Jesus.' Prof realises. 'Tom was carrying the ... the death … when
he ... when they crashed.'

      
He looks across at the booth where an amplifier became an electric
chair.
      
Execution.
      
Crucifixion.

      
'Way things are go ...
win"

      
'That it then, Moira? That ii for another seven sodding, fucking
years?'

      
'Correct,' another voice says, a flat voice, matter-of-fact, without
emotion or concern.

      
Sile Copesake has come in the back way.
      
'You can all go home now,' he says,
'if you like.'

No lights on. No sound.

      
Martin hammers again on the vicarage door. It's a modern door
with a glass pane in it which he wants to put a fist through.

      
Shelley shakes the handle. 'Vanessa!'

      
'It's no good.' Martin thrusts his hands deep into the pockets
of his Barbour jacket, stands back, looks towards the upper rooms.

      
No sign of life.

      
Shelley is back on the threshold of a breakdown. 'Why are they
doing
this to us?
Why
?'

      
'I don't think that woman was lying. She didn't seem the type.
She seemed sincere. This
is
the right
place, isn't it?'

      
'No,' Shelley snaps. 'That's why it says "vicarage"
on the gate. Oh, this is a nightmare, Martin. It just goes on and on like this
damned mist.'

      
'OK, look. Let's go back to the Abbey and get Tom out. It's his
daughter. Time he shared some of the burden, don't you think?' Martin takes
Shelley's arm. 'Come on.'

      
As they emerge from the gate, a tall man and a short man are
crossing the road towards them.

      
'Another thing that bothers me,' Martin says, 'is Meryl. Where
is
Meryl?
'

Prof says coldly, 'We were
just talking about you, Sile.'

      
Moira pushes back her hair. Her eyes are red and swollen. Prof
remembers how they had to pull her gently away from Dave; she was holding him
like she's now holding his guitar.
      
'And Russell Hornby,' Prof says.
'And Debbie. And Barney Gwil…'

      
'Hush, Prof,' Moira says.

      
'They're getting a doctor from the village,' Sile says in his
sandpaper drawl. 'Just a formality. And the police'll have to be told.'

      
He never changes. leather jacket, close-cut hair, stubbly beard.
And flat eyes, flat as slate. About the same age as Prof, but he looks fifty,
always has. The Godfather of the British blues.

      
Moira says, 'Formality?'
      
'Another tragic recording industry
accident. Were you close to him, lass?'

      
A question entirely without sympathy. Like you'd say, were you
at University?

      
'Yes,' Moira says. 'We all were. We're a band.'

      
Sile pulls up a stool. 'Mixed up character, Dave.'
      
'Like Russell,' Prof says. 'Like
Barney. Like Debbie.' Anger lodges in his throat. Is this a human being?

      
'Never mind,' Sile says philosophically, as if he's heard none
of this. 'He's at peace now, eh?'

      
Moira says, very calmly. 'You're saying he wanted to die?'

      
Sile shrugs. 'Like I say, another tragic accident in the recording
industry.' He slaps his knees, as if to say, well, that's that. 'Look, if the
rest of you want to complete the session, you can come back in a week or two.'

      
'But it doesny matter to you, huh?'

      
'No.' Sile rises lithely to his feet. 'You're right. It
doesn't matter any more.'

      
Prof can't believe it. He's washing his hands. He's saying,
Look we all know what
really
happened. Just be thankful it's him and not either of you. Because the Abbey's
not particularly selective.

      
Prof wants to kill him and half-rises; Sile's smile stops him.

      
A small smile, containing just sufficient pity to make it a cruel
smile. What it says is, we're about the same age. Prof, I'm a very fit man and
you're a clapped-out alky.

      
Sile nods, pleasantly enough, and walks away. There's a barely
perceptible snigger in the air.

      
'No,' Moira whispers. 'Don't rise to it.'

      
'Fuck this, Moira.' Fury courses through Prof like the electricity
that killed Dave. When Sile reaches the Gothic door. Prof calls out, 'As we're
unlikely to work together in the future, and just to show I'm not like Russell,
I'd like to ask something.'