Hunting for Crows (12 page)

Former Metropolitan Police Chief Inspector Bill Paterson emerged from St James’s Park Underground Station looking dishevelled, as if at the end of the day and not the start. He didn’t mind wearing a crumpled raincoat and shoes looking as if they hadn’t been polished since the day they were bought, but he did agree with the bathroom mirror that he now needed a haircut and the use of a sharper razor blade.

He believed when interviewing anyone on police business he would have an advantage if he wasn’t as smartly dressed as they were, because if the subject felt superior, their complacency might lead them into making a mistake. In any case, detective work taught him that many substances could be spilt on clothes during the working week: blood and puke of a witness or a drunk, oil and grime from wrestling a suspect to the pavement, and food and beer, as even he would have to admit he was a messy eater.

Through old contacts at Sussex Police, he had visited the accident scenes of Barry Crow and Peter Grant and found the official conclusions sound, court-sound as he used to call it. Mindful this news would not put Derek Crow’s mind at rest and not deposit much in his threadbare bank account, he encouraged Derek to come up with a ‘hate’ list. This was a list of people from the past that members of the Crows had messed up big-time, sufficient for them to hold a long-term grudge. He was sure many people could complete the same exercise, but Derek’s list was longer than most.

In Caxton Street, in an area of London called Petty France, he stopped outside a red stone town house. He reached into his pocket for a piece of paper and among the detritus: an empty wrapper of wine gums, a half-smoked cigarette, a tube ticket, house keys and an old paper hanky, he found it and pulled it out. Address confirmed, he rang the bell.

The door opened and a small dumpy woman of Mediterranean origin, wearing a simple black dress covered by a white apron, stood there wiping her hands on the apron.

‘Bill Paterson here to see Mr Strider.’

‘Ah, Meester Paterson,’ the lady said, ‘come inside, Mr Strider is expecting you.’

She guided him into a spacious living room, surprising as the house didn’t look so big on the outside. It was decorated in something the west-end nobs would call minimalist modern, with pale colours on the wall, a few squiggles on canvases masquerading as art, and a few bits of furniture, all colourful and trendy. The room was trying hard to look like the inside of some up-market furniture shop in the King’s Road, but it reminded him of IKEA, a place he would only return to if the barrel of a gun was being held against his temple.

He stood at the window looking down on the street when he heard Strider walk in. Derek Crow had told him he was a top session guitarist, whatever that was, and he’d imagined a long-haired spotty bloke with an ugly, pock-marked face and a beer gut to equal his own. Strider was tall and thin, with overlong fair hair, not bad for a man in his early fifties, and exuding the confidence of a seasoned businessman.

‘Good morning, Detective Paterson. It’s good to meet you,’ he said sticking out a hand.

They shook. His hand felt cool and feminine.

‘Take a seat. Can I get you tea?’

‘Aye, grand.’

‘We’ve got Darjeeling, Green, Camomile or Oolong.’

‘Bloody hell, there’s more choice here than Starbucks. Any builder’s tea, Typhoo?’

Striker shook his mane.

‘How about a coffee? Columbian, Nicaraguan, or Ecuadorian, I’m not fussy.’

‘Sure,’ Strider said as he walked. ‘I hope instant is ok, I never touch the stuff myself.’

He must have given instructions to the cook or the housekeeper or whoever the woman who let him in was, as he came back into the room in less than a minute, empty handed.

Paterson knew little about him, only that he had been a session guitarist for over thirty years and he’d worked with the Crazy Crows for a while, and after a big dust-up, they never saw him again. From reading his autobiography, Derek said he didn’t smoke or drink and claimed to have bedded two thousand women. Paterson had never met a thousand women and he used to work in Vice.

‘Mr Strider…’

‘Call me Boz, everyone else does.’

Boz, what kind of fucking name is Boz? He wouldn’t name a parrot anything as daft and he hated parrots.

‘Boz, as I said on the phone I’m investigating the deaths of two members of the Crazy Crows–’

‘Yeah, I’d heard about it; tragic I’m sure.’

‘Yes, indeed. Now Derek Crow has asked me–’

‘Derek Crow? Fuck me, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. He must be shit-scared now, ha, ha. I bet many gravediggers are out there sharpening their shovels.’

Strider was sitting across the chair now, his long legs, shod in tight jeans, dangling over the side. This was perhaps a rock ‘n’ roll way to sit, or the furniture was as uncomfortable as it looked. Either way, Paterson found his behaviour disconcerting and it didn’t do for a copper, even an ex, to feel this way. If he still possessed a warrant card, he would order him to sit like a normal person.

‘Why do think Derek should feel scared?’

‘Wouldn’t you if two of your mates suddenly croaked?’

He nodded as if in agreement, but being a copper didn’t endear him to many people and the odd working hours often made relationships unworkable. He doubted he could rustle up two friends if his brother and son were taken out of the equation.

In came the drinks, carried by the Mediterranean woman, a cup of the instant stuff for him and what smelled like a herbal face wash for Boz. Miss Portugal 1968 gave him a warm smile and departed.

‘While it appears Barry Crow and Peter Grant both died in bona fide accidents, Derek is of the opinion some incident in the band’s past may be triggering it.’

‘What, like some bloke Derek fucked around all those years ago has stepped up to the plate and is doing his pals in? Do me a favour, there would be a big queue if you asked for volunteers.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Derek is, and was, a cold-hearted bastard who would stamp on anyone who got in his way.’

‘Perhaps we can come back to that point later. Can you tell me what you did for them? I’m not sure I know what a guitarist like yourself does.’

‘I’m a session man,’ he said, changing his position and sitting like a normal person. ‘I’m the guy you hear on the record but the other guy gets the credit.’

‘Why?’ Paterson said, a bit more intrigued than he would care to admit.

‘Y’see, some bands make it to the front page because they look good or sound interesting, but maybe they’re not very good musicians. They call me in and I play the guitar parts and make them seem a lot better than they really are.’

‘What about the Crows? Everybody tells me Eric Hannah was a good guitarist.’

‘He was, might still be for all I know, but he was raw; all talent and no finesse, y’know? Big balls and a small cock as we used to call it.’

He nodded as if he did.

‘The guys in the Crows would have an idea of what they wanted in a guitar solo or a riff or something,’ Strider continued, ‘and they would ask Hannah to play it. He would do it all right, but play it different each time and add bits here and there as he saw fit. In my mind, he was fucking about. Noodling we guitarists call it, but we save all that stuff for the rehearsal room. A studio costs big money, so you go in, do your thing and get the hell out. There’s no room for pissing around.’

‘So you did the guitar parts instead of him?’

‘Yep, but not all the time, you understand. I did a lot in the second and a bit on the third album.’

‘I’m told you had a big bust up with them. What happened?’

‘Yep, we did.’ His eyes clouded over, recalling a bad time.

Paterson waited and sipped his coffee. If they served this bitter and tasteless stuff to visiting tradesmen they’d leave marbles in the waste pipes and hide an alarm clock in the loft.

‘Hannah didn’t know I was doing it, can you believe it? The bastards didn’t tell him.’

‘Derek didn’t mention this.’

‘He wouldn’t, the bastard. It was late one night while we were working in the studio at Maida Vale, adding guitar over-dubs to a couple of songs from their second album. Hannah was supposed to be shacking up with some bird in Islington, but he wandered into the studio and went ape-shite when he saw me. He called me all the names he could think of, it’s all in my book if you wanna read it, but when he grabbed my guitar, I saw red and I socked him. Next thing I know, Derek is pummelling into me, and seconds later, Hannah joins in, kicking me. I end up in hospital with broken ribs and a smashed face, and you wanna know the kicker?’

‘What?’

‘One of those bastards stamped on my hand. I couldn’t work for months.’

*

Paterson left the home of Boz Strider ten minutes later, the cup of instant grumbling away in his dickey stomach like the miserable old geezer with the stained shirt and moth-eaten cardigan living in the flat above his in Woolwich.

He headed back to the Tube and after a couple of changes, took the Jubilee Line to Kilburn. The phrase ‘chalk and cheese’ didn’t cut it. Not only did Simon Rother’s house in Charteris Road look much smaller on the outside than Boz Strider’s, a two or three bedroom terrace with a bin-sized garden, inside it was a mess. Nothing minimalist or modern about this place.

While walking towards the living room, he passed the open door of a spare room, the walls festooned with posters of Jesus, religious gatherings in America and dozens of postcard-sized photographs. He didn’t see any posters in the lounge except for a big picture of Jesus above the fireplace, but loads of religious books, magazines and pamphlets lay over every flat surface including the floor, and at the far end of the room, the kitchen was piled up with dirty dishes.

This time he didn’t get offered a cup of tea, served by a busty maid giving him the eye, just as well as he didn’t want to hang around here any longer than was necessary. He gave Rother his preamble about the accidents suffered by two members of the Crazy Crows and cut to the chase.

‘Simon, you are in a cult called the Children of Jesus and you and your mates used to harass the Crazy Crows at gigs, and later, in the hotel where they were staying. I also understand you sent Derek Crow a large pile of nasty letters.’

‘They deserved it,’ he said, with way more venom than could be expected from a middle-aged, overwrought and overweight B&Q worker with a threadbare dead ferret for a mullet and bad teeth.

‘Why?’

‘Their lyrics glorified Satan and convinced many young people to turn their backs on Jesus and the word of God.’

Paterson didn’t do religion and couldn’t understand the zealot’s fervour for ancient ideas and outmoded thinking. Why did they feel they needed to embrace restrictions on their lives when making a success of it was hard enough, as this room bore testament?

‘What did you want to happen to them?’

‘My followers and I wanted them to stop playing such heathen music and we would use every means at our disposal to achieve it.’

‘Did this stretch to killing them?’

He looked at him, aghast. ‘We are a religious order who believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus would never condone violence, no matter how much he was provoked.’

‘I beg to differ.’ Paterson didn’t own a computer, not because he didn’t like modern technology but he couldn’t be bothered learning how it worked. In any case, his local library in Woolwich had a couple of pcs and one afternoon he’d researched Rother’s ‘Children of Jesus’ outfit.

‘In a vicious campaign against the Crazy Crows, you threw paint, disrupted concerts by chanting and harassing the audience, banged on hotel room doors during the night and set off fire alarms. Does any of this ring any bells with you?’

‘That wasn’t me, it was some hot-heads who took our name in vain.’

‘Bollocks. You’ve received convictions for harassment, public order offences, criminal damage and assault. But it doesn’t stop there, does it? Only last month your lot were outside Tesco in this neck of the woods, annoying shoppers, maybe about using too many plastic carrier bags or the price of fish, I don’t know.’

His face crumpled as if he was about to cry but then it hardened. ‘You don’t know the half of it. You are nothing but the soiled instrument of the capitalist machine.’

In his time in Vice, he had been called ‘pimp’, ‘tosser’, ‘pensioner shagger’ and a whole lot worse but never a ‘soiled instrument.’ He couldn’t stop to ask if it was an insult or a compliment as Rother launched into a long diatribe about the corrupt morals of the young, the distorted capitalist system that favoured the rich, and was moving on to the legacy of tyrants like Mao Tse Tung and George W. Bush when he called a halt.

‘Hold it, hold it, Rother. I didn’t come here to listen to all this tosh about dictators or to be brainwashed into joining your little tribe of savages.’

‘It’s not tosh, it’s the truth.’

‘It’s the truth to you and your blockhead friends, but quite frankly, I like to drink my beer in a different pub, if you catch my drift. Now, listen to me, mate. Two members of the Crazy Crows band are dead and it’s my job to find out why.’