Hunting for Crows (17 page)

The kettle clicked off and a tired Suzy Hannah rose from her chair to make tea, wondering why her lazy bitch of a sister couldn’t do it herself.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ Lorna asked.

She sighed. This conversation seemed to have gone on for most of the morning as she’d insisted on dissecting Eric’s car accident in minute detail. It ranged from the ‘official’ version as it appeared in the local paper, to the laughable conspiracy rumours popping up on the web like fairground ‘knock ’em downs.’ One suggested it was a drug hit and another said a rival fan had taken his revenge. Suzy didn’t have anything else to add, but Lorna could always find something.

‘I’m not sure,’ Suzy said as she poured the tea. She placed the mugs on the kitchen table, and with her mind elsewhere as if in a dream, she returned to her seat.

‘Ahem, I take two sugars and milk,’ the snotty cow said. She sounded like the strict headmistress she might have become if a promising teaching career hadn’t been thrown out of the window like a half-chewed apple after she’d married a useless shit like Dave, and if she’d kept her legs closed when the number of kids reached two.

At forty-one, she was nine years older than Suzy and sometimes when they went out together Lorna would be mistaken for her mother, making Suzy laugh and Lorna mad. It didn’t help that her sister never put on makeup, her hair was cut in the same old way, and her frumpy clothes did nothing to disguise an overweight frame.

Suzy rose from her seat, tipped in a little milk and searched in the cupboard for the sugar container, something she and Eric didn’t use. It would serve her sister right for winding her up if she picked up a packet of Eric’s constipation tablets or the garlic powder by mistake.

‘The house is paid for,’ Suzy said, after resuming her seat, ‘and I earn enough at the salon to keep the kids in shoes, but no more holidays for a while.’

Lorna sipped her tea, a look of disgust crinkling her eyes, suggesting too much sugar, not enough milk, too much tannin from a pot sitting on the hob, or her mug handle didn’t face Mecca. Whatever the problem, she wasn’t moving.

‘Don’t be daft girl, there’s the Jeans & Co business. It must be worth something?’

‘According to Eric it hasn’t made any money for years.’

‘He was lying to you, same as he lied about everything else. Sell it girl, I’ll help you.’

Oh my Lord. The word ‘help’ from her sister’s lips was like hearing ‘fuck’ from a priest or ‘free sample’ from a drug dealer; seldom spoken and only in the most extreme of circumstances. The same sister who’d refused to give her refuge when Eric was off his rocker and away on another of his wild and drunken phases. When his paranoid mind believed the world was conspiring against him and he thought nothing of punching her in the face or kicking her in the stomach when he thought she was pregnant. Lorna had refused to lend her any money when Suzy didn’t possess more than five pounds in her purse after her prick of a husband spent the housekeeping on a ‘must have’ and ‘not to be missed’ dope deal.

Eric had been an immature and self-centred sod who’d liked to think himself as sly as a fox, but he could be as open and readable as one of her kids’ comics. He was convinced she didn’t know about the drugs in the shed or the booze in the fridge, but she did, and she also knew the only reason he went down there was to smoke weed and drink, a fact he would not admit to himself.

He’d believed his real purpose in religiously heading into the ‘studio’ was to keep his guitar playing up to speed, in case the band reformed and decided to tour again. Eric couldn’t see it, but the delusional sap smoked so much dope that even a music novice such as herself could hear he sounded crap. No way could he could remember the riffs, notes and words of one song, never mind the full twenty-song repertoire of a performing band.

‘No, I’m not going to sell it, not yet.’

‘You should girl, you’ll need the money.’

‘I don’t know enough about it, I need to take advice.’

‘What about all his gear in the shed? Some of the guitars in there are worth thousands.’

‘Which ones?’

‘The blue Rickenbacker and the signed Fender Stratocaster Eric Clapton used to play.’

‘How come you know so much about his guitars, then?’

‘You told me.’

‘No, I didn’t; I didn’t know.’

‘It must have been him then.’

‘How often did you go in the shed?’

‘I don’t know, once or twice.’

‘Funny how he would let you go in, but he never allowed me.’

Suzy could read her like a book, always could. She knew when she was telling lies and knew when she was trying to hide something.

‘You were screwing him, weren’t you?’

‘Suzy that’s outrageous, even for you. You’re upset about Eric’s death and not thinking straight but I’m trying my best to help you.’

‘I’m thinking straight all right and it’s coming back to me now. The sly looks you gave him when you thought I wasn’t looking, the times he disappeared upstairs to help you with the kids when he did bugger-all for his own, and the days he went around to your place, while moaning to me he couldn’t stand Dave. I could never work it out then, but I can now.’

‘Calm down Suze, we can talk about it.’

‘Talk about what Lorna? The size of his dick or the sexual positions he liked best?’

‘Suze stop shouting, it wasn’t serious, just a casual fling.’

‘Well, you won’t mind if I casually fling you out of my bloody house! Go on, get the hell out!’

Lorna stood, unsure what to do, how to react to this crazy outburst from her underling. The servants sure didn’t behave like this at Downton Abbey.

‘Look Suze I’m sorry for your loss. Don’t let us fall out. I can help you sell his things and the business, we can work together.’

‘Yeah, so you can take a big cut out of the proceeds? No thanks. I know you too well, all you want to do is take, take, take and give nothing back. You haven’t changed one bit. Now get the hell out of my house and don’t come back.’

‘Suze...’

‘Out I said!’

The front door slammed shut and Suzy returned to her seat in the kitchen, where she buried her head in her hands and cried. She cried, not for her dead husband, the moribund relationship with her sister, or for her mother who’d died last year, but for herself.

How could she have been so stupid to marry Eric Hannah and stay married to him for so long? She knew about his affairs, perhaps not every one of them, but enough to realise he could never be a faithful husband. He’d possessed all the traits her mother warned her about: no ambition, no morals and no love for anyone other than himself.

She wiped away the tears and began to clear away the mess left by her sister, who made more crumbs than her kids. They were at a young age and didn’t feel death in the same way as teenagers or adults. They would miss Eric as their love was unconditional and unencumbered by an understanding of what had happened, and in any case, most of the shit in their relationship was directed at her.

She walked into the bedroom, determined to start again. Once Eric was buried, she would make an effort to enjoy life, but right now what she needed was money; money to bury him, money to keep the kids lives as normal as possible, and money to buy her some time until she could get her head straight.

At the top of the wardrobe sat a suitcase she had been warned never to open. She felt sure it contained something valuable, as any time she went near it he’d make such a fuss. She placed a chair close to the wardrobe, stretched up and pulled the case down. A smile creased her face at a taboo now smashed, but it died on her lips when she noticed the lock was broken. With a keen sense of apprehension and anticipation she threw the lid open, but was crestfallen to discover it was filled with old stage clothes giving off a rancid and mouldy smell, as if none of them had ever been washed.

Tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks. Like everything else in Eric Hannah’s life, it was all smoke and mirrors. There would be no world tour, no new five-album deal, no big pension pot to see him comfortable into his old age and bury him in fine style, or to pay a builder to smarten their tatty house.

She wiped her face and stood close to the wardrobe door and swung the suitcase back in place, but it wouldn’t sit right. She didn’t suffer from OCD but if something in her line of sight wasn’t straight, be it a picture on the wall, cushions on the settee or magazines under the coffee table, she would correct it. The problem was one of height. At five-foot four she couldn’t reach the top of the wardrobe, and in order to shift the item blocking the case, she needed to climb higher.

She returned to the kitchen and reached for the shed keys, but hesitated, borne of a thousand warnings to desist from progressing further. She grabbed the keys in triumph and headed into the garden. What Eric called the ‘shed’ was his fantasy house where he indulged himself like the rock musician he aspired to be. Behind it, and under a tree, stood a run-of-the-mill garden shed where all the tools and ladders were stored.

She opened Eric’s musical playhouse first. If she didn’t know what went on in there, it wouldn’t take the skills of a seasoned detective to find out; the air was seasoned with the sweet, fragrant aroma of cannabis. On the table beside the settee sat a packet of cigarette papers and his stash from the Lebanon or Afghanistan, bought at great expense when she didn’t have enough money in her purse to buy the kids sweets.

She knew little about guitars, but even she had to admit seeing them lined up on the wall was impressive and gave the place the look of an arty music shop, but she vowed not to touch anything until after the funeral. By then, she could be sure this little dream wasn’t part of some elaborate insurance scam to remove him from financial difficulty and jettison her out of his life, and only then would she take them down to an auction house and sell them.

She knew it was stupid to think he could come back, as she’d seen pictures of the burnt-out car and knew no one could have survived such carnage. The undertakers were coming in the morning to discuss arrangements but there wouldn’t be much to bury. She was tempted to tell them he was an eco-warrior and insist on a bio-degradable coffin made of cardboard, however, his old mother was a religious zealot, making the Taliban look like intelligent moderates, and would demand only the best for her boy. Woe betide her if he was interred in anything less than polished mahogany or walnut.

She shut the dope house, opened the garden shed and lugged the step-ladder back to the house. The problem throughout their marriage was money, the lack of it. On paper, they were well-off with a multi-site retail business, two cars and a big detached house, but in short supply was the green, folding stuff. Eric was, in his own words, a hand-to-mouth kind of guy. He didn’t trust banks, stock brokers or insurance companies and she knew there was no point in searching for a well-loaded bank account or an insurance policy to cash in.

She climbed the ladder and could now see the suitcase she had been trying to put up was being blocked by another, smaller case. It was the size of a large camera bag, but when she tried to move it out of the way, found it heavy and bulked out, as if something inside was putting a severe strain on the seams. She carried it to the bed but it took her several minutes to open, as the zip was stiff and proved difficult to move.

To her utter amazement, the bag was stuffed full of money; fifties and twenties. She picked up one of the notes and took a good look to make sure it wasn’t counterfeit or discontinued twenty years ago, before holding it up to the light and checking for watermarks.

Satisfied of its authenticity, she fished out handful after handful and laid them on the bed, and for a moment, had the urge to remove her clothes and wallow in the stuff like a decadent film star. Near the bottom of the bag, her hand touched something cold and metallic and slowly, slowly, she extracted two shiny gold bars.

Frannie Copeland had been the manager of the Crazy Crows throughout their career. However, it wasn’t the Crows’ limited success that fuelled his well documented cigar-chomping, jet-set and champagne-guzzling lifestyle, but way-more successful outfits from his stable such as Big Door, Tree House and pop sensation, the Indies.

The Docklands riverside penthouse was long gone, and home for Frannie now was Fairfield House, a large and elegant Georgian-style house set in several acres of ground, tucked behind the village of Ide Hill in Kent. Frannie’s wife, Mary, opened the door and welcomed him inside, before guiding him into a room overlooking the front lawn where Henderson found her husband sitting in a chair, reading a newspaper.

‘Good afternoon Mr Copeland, I’m Detective Inspector Angus Henderson. We spoke on the phone.’ The DI was on his own today, not ideal as a second officer often noticed things the first one didn’t and could corroborate any statements made, but Frannie wasn’t big on visitors or the police, so he kept it simple.

Frannie took off his glasses, put down the newspaper and in a slow, deliberate movement which was hard to watch, he got out of the chair. The wheeze of his breathing and the rattle in his chest indicated he was not a well man, and the pasty complexion and red, deep-set eyes did nothing to detract from Henderson’s amateur prognosis.

‘Hello,’ Frannie said shaking his hand, ‘good to meet you. Take a seat.’

He was smaller than Henderson by at least six inches, and portly around the middle, giving his body a Teletubby shape. His face was angular, as if all parts pointed towards an area between nose and mouth, leaving him with a permanent scowl. It was disconcerting at first, but he could see it would be a valuable weapon in dealing with diva-infused rock stars and in terse contract negotiations with obdurate record companies.

Frannie sat down, movements just as slow, giving Henderson an opportunity to take a look round. At first glance, he assumed the dark wooden bookshelves behind him were full of books, but on closer inspection he could see it wasn’t books but hundreds of LPs, CDs and DVDs, all segregated and neatly lined up.

With Frannie settled in the chair, Henderson began the same spiel he’d given Sam Schweinsteiger, and as he did so, the man’s face crumpled.

‘What a bloody shame, I liked those boys. I mean, Derek was all right but he could be a handful and liked to throw his weight around, but I was no pushover either.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Barry was quiet and thoughtful and just got on with things, Pete’s the same but always trying new things, trying improve his playing.’

‘Eric Hannah?’

‘Hannah was a sparky, lively character, life and soul of the party but he gave me nothing but grief.’

‘Was he as good a guitarist as everyone says?’

‘He had a brilliant, raw talent. You see, good guitar players don’t just learn their craft and become rock-gods, they refine it week-by-week by discovering new chords and riffs, they experiment and jam with different musicians and bring in sound effects boxes and amplifiers and try out new sounds. Eric didn’t do any of this, he was too busy having a good time. I mean, we all liked to party, who didn’t, but he couldn’t drink alone. Oh no, he needed to take everyone else along with him and it didn’t take long before the whole band were pissed out of their heads on stage and wasting valuable time in recording studios and hacking people off in radio interviews with stupid antics.’

‘I suppose you must have had similar experiences with a lot of bands at the time.’

‘Sure I did, but when it came to the crunch, they got down and did the business, but the Crows needed a good boot up the arse before they’d start working.’ He started to cough, a thick, lung-wrenching hack that brought colour to his cheeks, but probably knocked weeks off his life expectancy. ‘Let’s take a walk in the garden,’ Frannie said in a strangled voice, ‘I can’t breathe in this bloody house.’

It was a warm afternoon after a chilly start, and in driving over here, he’d found many of the dips and valley bottoms still with a residual layer of fog and frost. Out of sight of the house and shielded by a high hedge, Frannie took out a fat cigar and sparked up.

‘It helps my breathing, but her indoors says I’m talking crap,’ he said as he chugged it alight. ‘Sod it,’ he said behind a cloud of not unpleasant-smelling smoke, ‘we’ve all got to die of something.’

‘True enough.’ However, some deaths were less awful than others, and gasping for air at the slightest hint of anxiety and sucking on an oxygen mask on the way to bed would come close to the bottom of Henderson’s ‘Ways to Die’ bucket list.

‘As I was saying back in the house, the band were going nowhere musically until the record company drafted in Big Sam Schweinsteiger to try and salvage something.’

‘Did it bother you to have a producer shoe-horned in?’

‘I recommended him. Have you met him yet?’

He nodded.

‘He’s a good man; doesn’t take shit from anybody. If you can’t play or you can’t be bothered, he doesn’t care one bit, just piss off out of his face. He’s a man after my own heart.’

‘He hasn’t changed much.’

He laughed. ‘I’m pleased to hear it. When Sam came on board and started knocking them into shape, it didn’t take long to see the signs of what was to come on their third album.’

There followed a short bout of coughing, but after a few puffs on the cigar, he was back in the land of mortals once again. They resumed walking.

‘They had a strong following in Germany, Holland and Belgium, much better than in England where fans were getting a bit pissed off with the heavy rock scene, but out there, the Krauts couldn’t get enough. I put together a tour, the biggest for them, and to their credit they knuckled down and rehearsed and played. Derek wrote a load of new material and gradually introduced it to the shows and the fans seemed to like it.’

‘It sounds as though things were moving in the right direction.’

‘They were, but I knew it wouldn’t last; it never does. After the tour and playing a few gigs in Scandinavia, they were ready to make a new album. When the boys finished writing, I persuaded the record company to book us into one of the best recording studios in London, and there Big Sam worked his magic.’

‘
Black Saturday
?’

‘Yeah, and black it sounded as the lyrics were bleak and dark. It had a lot to do with the influence of Danny Winter in song writing and keyboard playing, as he’d had a troubled childhood.’

‘Were you pleased with it?’

‘We all were. It was a huge improvement over the previous stuff, and something to shut the critics and naysayers up. Miracle of miracles, the phone started ringing with offers of tours and interviews in the UK and I thought, at last I can do something with this bunch. Like I said, it didn’t last as one day out of the blue, Derek announced he wanted out.’

‘It must have come as a shock.’

‘Shock? I could have wrung his fucking neck.’

Frannie was away in a daze for a moment, shaking his head like a dog.

‘This happened after the death of Danny Winter?’ Henderson said, trying to nudge the needle back onto the record.

‘Yeah, right, the death of Danny. Derek said he was so upset about losing the boy he couldn’t go on, but it was bullshit. Derek was a hard-hearted bastard, he still is from what I read in the papers, and he didn’t give a shit about anybody, not even his own brother.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘If Barry ever got into trouble with someone and providing it didn’t affect him or the band, he’d let him get on with it and he got beaten up a few times by skinheads and punks. Derek could have replaced Danny like this,’ he said, clicking thumb and middle finger together, ‘if he really wanted to.’

‘So why didn’t he?’

‘He wanted out.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know the answer to that one. I asked around at the time and some said Derek wanted to start the tanker business with his uncle, others said he thought the record company were chivvying too much. If you can believe it, he even said to me I was charging them too much.’ A rare smile parted his lips. ‘Derek could be a pig-headed bastard when he set his mind to it, and so when the wheels started rolling there was nothing much I, or anyone else, could do to stop the bus.’

He coughed again, this time not a mighty phlegm shifter but a mini throat clearer.

‘You see, the band signed a contract to deliver four albums and at the end of the day, they gave us four albums. It also said something about promotion and advertising, the bit the Crows didn’t do and the main point of contention between me and the record company in subsequent negotiations. Of course, I’d seen it all before with an American band called Pale Rider…’

Henderson wasn’t too fussed to hear about Frannie’s nostalgic sojourn down Tin Pan Alley and wanted him back on the song-sheet as soon as, but he didn’t seem the sort of man who appreciated being told what to do. Instead he nodded at various points in his dialogue and admired the garden.

A section close to the back of the house looked recently dug-over, as he could see a succession of little plants struggling to push their faces closer to the sun, although he thought it unlikely the handiwork of Mr Wheeze beside him as it was a sizeable plot.

Frannie finished his monologue and quietly enjoyed an elongated puff.

‘Is there anyone from the time,’ Henderson said, ‘who became, at the risk of sounding too melodramatic, an enemy of the band, or warned them he would take revenge for something they’d done?’

Frannie thought about it for a moment or two. ‘A couple of promoters threatened to break my legs,’ he said smiling, ‘but I guess I did stitch them up at the time.’ He puffed at the cigar, thinking. ‘Revenge, enemy; yeah I guess it sums up this guy.’

‘Who?’

‘Close to the release of their third album, the band were doing bigger gigs, and while there was a nucleus of roadies like Fast Eddie and Smelly Dave, we brought in contract guys for the larger tours. This one guy worked for them on and off for a number of years, a little geezer, strong as an elephant and a good man to have around, but rumoured to be a serious criminal with jail time behind him.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, he knew loads of crooks who were involved in knocking off warehouses and delivery vans and could bring us anything, like clothes, radios, food, you name it. Derek liked reading some American gun magazines and joke magazines he couldn’t get over here, and Eric would hang around with him at his gaff, saying he liked courting with danger or some crap like that.’

He stopped and looked into the distance as if searching for a long, lost memory. ‘Yeah, he knew Danny. When Derek started the search for a keyboard player, he told Derek to take a look at this boy Danny Winter as he’d seen him in some East End pub and thought he was good. He might have been a relative or something, I don’t know.’

‘Can you remember the man’s name?’ Henderson asked.

‘I can see his face. A little guy with a serious, weather beaten face and eyes like a cornered ferret. I would imagine he’s dead now, I know I should be.’

He stopped walking and puffed the cigar in the still air, sending a large plume spiralling skywards, like Indian smoke signals warning of the approach of a neighbouring tribe. If his wife didn’t know he was still smoking, she was either turning the proverbial blind eye of Nelson, or had to be as thick as a plank.

‘His name will come back to me in a mo.’

They started walking again. ‘Don’t you think it’s great,’ Frannie said, ‘rock music is still being played today on those new digital radio stations like Planet Rock? I love hearing all the old stuff.’

There came a shout from the house which either Frannie didn’t hear or chose to ignore.

‘I think your wife is calling,’ Henderson said. ‘She says you need to go back inside and take your medicine.’

‘Did she? I’m a bit Mutt and Jeff. Perhaps I better go in as I’ve been feeling like crap today and the medicine does give me a lift.’

They turned and walked towards the house. ‘Her indoors does great work out here, don’t you think? She’s planted beetroot,’ he said pointing, ‘celeriac, onions, potatoes, celery and loads of other stuff like peas, rhubarb...Mattie Street. I’m sure that’s it.’

‘If that’s a vegetable, I’ve never heard of it.’

‘Ha, ha it’s not a bloody vegetable, detective. It’s the name of Eric Hannah’s favourite little criminal. I remember him now, it was Mathew Street.’