The Song Never Dies (11 page)

“What about Sarinda?”

“She’s interesting. Online megastar — but hardly any online footprint. Sure, she does all the social media, invites fans round to her London house, blogs, tweets, you name it. But the
real
Sarinda? Who is she? Where did she come from? Total blank. All part of the mystery of course. Her fans love that.”

“Interesting,” said Jack. “You know, Sarah, I don’t remember you ever drawing a blank on anyone like that.”

“Me neither,” said Sarah. “I don’t really understand it. But that’s what I got. Now how about you? I’m all ears …”

She listened as Jack told her about the studio, Carlton Flame, the CDs — and then finding the camera.

Then she watched Jack reach into his jacket pocket and place the tap on the table.

“Wait. You mean you
haven’t
watched it yet?” she said.

“Don’t have a camera.”

Sarah picked up the tape and inspected it.

“Nor do I, she said. “But I know someone who does.”

And she took out her phone to make a call …

*

“Now are you absolutely sure I can’t make you a coffee, Jack?” said Sarah’s mother.

“I’m fine, Helen, really,” said Jack, taking a seat next to Sarah on the small leather sofa.

Any other time, he would have said yes — but Jack was keen on playing the tape.

He watched Helen hover, wanting so much to help.

Parents never stop being parents,
thought Jack.
Heck, I should know.

“Not even a biscuit?” said Helen.

“Now do stop fussing, darling,” said Michael, putting his arm around his wife’s shoulder and gently moving her towards the sitting room door. “Can’t you see they’re working? Isn’t that right Sarah?”

“Thanks, Dad,” said Sarah.

“You two just give me a shout if you have any problems,” said Michael. “I know that camera like the back of my hand.”

“Will do,” said Jack.

He watched them both finally shut the door, then turned to Sarah.

“Ready?” he said.

She took a breath. “Ready.”

She lifted her father’s old video camera onto her lap and flicked on the switch.

“Not a holiday went by without dad filming us all on this,” she said. “We’ve got hours and hours of the stuff.”

“You must show me one day,” said Jack.

“No way,” said Sarah. “Me aged fifteen? Not a pretty sight. Braces!”

Jack saw her press play and the big TV screen flickered into life.

“Here we go,” said Sarah.

Jack sat back in the sofa and watched the screen.

It was real home video stuff. The band on tour. Hand held, badly lit, sometimes the camera spinning wildly, sometimes static for minutes on end, as if just left standing on a hotel table or a tour bus seat.

But, for all that, it was powerful, vivid.

And all the characters that he and Sarah had now met, looking so young and so outrageous in their 90s rock star clothes.

“This in the States?” said Sarah.

“Looks like it,” said Jack. “Midwest somewhere, I think.”

“They look so young.”

“Should have seen me then,” said Jack.

“Film star looks, hmm?”

“Boxer’s nose and bags under my eyes.”

More scenes flickered by. There was backstage footage — the guys goofing around. Diners in small towns, fans queuing for autographs.

Lauren putting her makeup on, turning and smiling to camera.

Other women now appearing, sharing the bus rides.

Then gone.

Impromptu jamming sessions in truck-stop parking lots.

Then …

“New York,” said Jack.

He recognised East Village street corners filmed through the tour bus windows.

Still so gritty back then.

“Maybe we’ll see you, Jack,” said Sarah.

“Keep a look-out,” said Jack. “I was still in uniform.”

Then a jump. He watched the screen now showing the band running around the Sheep Meadow, playing in Central Park, mock-fighting for the camera.

Another cut. Then the Staten Island Ferry, pointing at the Statue of Liberty.

“Just like normal tourists,” said Sarah.

“Hmm,” said Jack. “How much tape left?”

“Ten minutes.”

Maybe this is all we get,
thought Jack.
Maybe Alex King was just reliving happier times.

And then.

The Chelsea Hotel exterior.

Focussing on the plaques honouring the hotel’s famous guests.

Arthur C. Clarke. Brendan Behan. Sid Vicious.

Jack sat up.

The rat-run of stairs and corridors.

A dismal bedroom.

The Chelsea was never a place for luxury.

Then Jack watched as Carlton Flame suddenly loomed into frame, as if he was picking up the camera.

The image swung round and pointed towards a bathroom door.

Jack saw Sarah punch up the volume.

As the camera moved towards the door, a guitar and a voice could just be heard, the song now clearer, echoing from within the bathroom.

The Song that Never Dies …

The camera moved further — and there was Alex King, sitting on the edge of the bath, guitar on lap, strumming the ballad.

Not just a few chords, or the odd line, but unmistakeably the song, formed, recognisable.

The camera lingered on Alex, then abruptly swung back into the bedroom — where a young Nick Taylor sat on the double bed, smoking, listening.

Listening and nodding to the music.

Alex asked a question …

“Whatcha think?”

Then Nick answered …

“It’s ok. If you like that kind of thing. But it ain’t goin’ in our set, Alex …”

The screen went blank, then cut to what was clearly a party somewhere.

Jack turned to Sarah.

“Wow,” she said.

“Wow, indeed,” said Jack.

“So that’s the proof,” said Sarah.

“Beats a CD,” said Jack.

He turned back to the screen. The party was still going on — in some wild club, from the look of the lights and bar.

People dancing, drinking, sprawled on sofas together.

The guys in the band at the heart of it.

Jack watched them all, feeling himself drawn back into the New York of those times.

Then he saw something.

“Pause the tape a second.”

Sarah picked up the camera, pressed a button.

The action froze.

Jack got up from the sofa and walked over to the TV, knelt down.

“See the guy heading out of frame?” he said, pointing.

“Looks like Will,” said Sarah.

“Now look at the couple on the sofa,” he said. “And press play …”

The image moved again. The camera seemed to linger on the man and the woman with their faces locked in the flickering light.

And locked in a kiss, oblivious to the camera.

“Well waddya know,” said Sarah. “That’s Lauren, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” said Jack. “And Chris Wickes. And they’re not playing solitaire.”

As Jack watched, the tape suddenly ended and the screen went blank.

“Remember you said you thought Lauren was lying about what she did that night?” said Jack.

“Soon as I mentioned Chris Wickes — it was like I’d set off an alarm.”

“So what if she and Chris decided to take a trip down memory lane — down by the pool house?”

“And saw something they shouldn’t …” said Sarah. “So what do we do now?”

“We make a plan,” said Jack. “We do this right — and I think the pieces will fall just where we want them.”

Sarah went to the bay window of her parents’ sitting room and peered out at the drive.

“Any sign?” Jack said.

Sarah turned back to him.

“No. Maybe she won’t come.”

Jack looked away, brow furrowed.

“I think she will. On the phone she sounded glad when I suggested she meet us here rather than at her home.”

“No chance of her husband coming back, hmm?”

“Right. Or nosey neighbours. I have noticed that you villagers do like to check up on everyone’s coming and goings.”

Sarah smiled at that. “You ‘villagers’. I thought you were one of us.”

Jack laughed. “Of course. Though I think some of the village elders would say that the full transformation process takes more than a few years.”

Then — from behind her — Sarah heard the sound of car wheels kicking up the gravel of the driveway.

A push of the curtain to one side. To see the silver Vauxhall — Lauren’s car — pull up to the house.

“She’s here,” Sarah said.

Lauren hesitated inside the car for a few moments. Then the driver’s door popped open and Lauren came out, clutching her handbag tight as if might protect her.

She stopped to look up at the house.

No mansion, at least by Cotswold standards. But so much more the type of home someone like Lauren probably wished she lived in.

Then — and Sarah could only imagine what the woman must be thinking — she let the curtain fall back in place and waited for the drummer’s wife to come to the door.

*

Sarah’s mum was totally gracious, fetching more tea, another cup and saucer, and more of Huffington’s best while Lauren sat on the edge of the small leather wingback chair, her dad’s favourite.

The woman looked as if a stiff breeze could blow her off her perch.

And when Helen left, it was time to start.

Jack offered to take the lead. And as tough as Sarah knew Jack could be, questioning, interrogating …

She also knew he could be careful, discrete.

Sensitive in a way that could be surprising.

Disarming.

To match Lauren’s pose, Jack put down his cup and leaned forward, clasping his hands together.

A quick look and nod to Sarah.

“Lauren, we asked you here because we want to talk to you about that night.”

The woman was quick to respond. “B-but we talked about all that. Sarah here, and I,
we
—”

Jack nodded. “I understand.” Then, after a pause. “Really. But we’ve learned something … seen something, we want to show you.”

Then with added significance.

“Something we didn’t know.”

Sarah walked over to the video camera, the ancient tape cued to just the right spot.

They only wanted her to see one thing.

“
It will be a crap shoot
,” Jack had told Sarah before they called Lauren. “
No telling whether she will talk or go stone quiet.”

Sarah leaned down to turn the video on, but not before another glance at Lauren, her eyes wide, not knowing what was coming.

But the apprehension, fear in her eyes … was something that filled the room.

The video began.

In moments, they could all watch Lauren, Chris Wickes.

Lost to each other while Will was away.

Just the two of them, captured by a sneaky video camera.

The two of them
.

As it must have been the other night.

*

For a moment — when Sarah stopped the video — Lauren said nothing.

Then, summoning up all the defiance she could, her protective purse squarely in her lap, “That was the past. Decades ago.”

Sarah looked at Jack.

This might be the very thing they feared. Lauren would say nothing.

“Yes, Lauren. Long time ago. But that night when Alex King died … there was a time … when two people were off on their own.”

Lauren had already begun shaking her head.

“You, Chris. Off by yourselves, weren’t you? And maybe the years — what’s the expression — melted away?”

“You don’t
know
that. Y-you don’t know anything.”

Now it was time for Jack’s gamble. More of hunch, despite the bit of evidence they had.

“If you were away from the party. Outside taking a walk. You could have seen someone go to the pool house.”

Jack’s voice was low, as if this was so hard for him to do.

He looked at Sarah. “We know that someone went in there, Lauren. We have the evidence.”

Lauren started shaking her head. “You don’t think, can’t think that I—”

Jack’s clasped hands sprung free, open, as if calming troubled waters …

“No. Not you.” A deep breath now. Sarah wanted to hold the woman at that point.

This had to be so scary for her.

Jack continued. “But you could have … seen someone else.”

Now Sarah took steps towards her.

“That’s all we care about, Lauren. What you saw.” Then — as reassuring as she could be — “nothing else.”

Lauren, Sarah thought, probably imagining her life in the village, a sleepy life of struggle and family … of so many quickly cooked meals and endless bills.

But still, despite whatever she and Chris did out in the gardens of Kingfishers, a life.

That life, endangered.

“Nothing else but that.”

Lauren opened her mouth, as if she might again mount a protest, to claim that she had done nothing, seen nothing …

But on the screen — the video, freeze framed, flickering in the way old videos did — remained locked on a young Lauren and Chris wrapped in each other’s arms.

Then it was Lauren’s turn to take a breath.

Deep, as if she had been holding in the words for too long and — despite her fear — it might be a relief to finally speak the truth.

“Right. Yes. I was out there.” She fired a look at Sarah, maybe concerned that she was being judged.

Though Sarah was long past that.

In Jack’s world, which had become her world, judgements had no place.

Then the woman turned back to Jack, who sat still, listening.

“The two of us, out there. The old days, you know they were exciting.” Another breath. “He was exciting. And I’d had a bit too much … You know …”

Jack again nodded, as if it all made perfect sense.

“The lot of them, the band, with their bickering, arguing over money.” Lauren shook her head. “The years, I suppose, ‘melting away’ for them as well as they started their fighting. While me, and Chris … we …”

She stopped.

Sarah wondered whether Jack would have to push her a bit more.

To get what they really wanted to know.

Finally Lauren sat as upright as possible. “And, when Chris went back in — going first, you know, to make things look alright — I did see someone go down to the pool house.”