Heartbreaker (27 page)

Alex tried to reconcile the Johnny she knew with that image. She’d had a taste of his bad behaviour this past month, but it was still hard to visualise him sinking so low.

‘We came to see him after the crash. Gerry was keeping an eye on Johnny, keeping us informed as to how things were. But Johnny still wouldn’t listen.’ She took a drink of her wine. ‘He had all sorts of people living here then. God alone knows who they were. I’d certainly never seen any of them before. Mark Killian told me he’d come to stay for a weekend and come to his senses a month later. He’d been hoping to sort Johnny out, and ended up off his face the whole time. It did major damage to his reputation and his career, he’d a load of work booked in that he just didn’t turn up for. He kept his distance after that until Johnny was better. It took Mark ages to get back on track. And as for here, it was dreadful. Chaotic. Filthy. It was an asylum, no other word for it.’ Her voice dropped. ‘Alex, Johnny was such a mess. He’d always been such a good-looking guy, taken a pride in his appearance, but if you’d seen him. Christ only knows when he’d last washed or shaved. Or eaten. He was so thin, you could practically see through him. Mind you, he managed to get into an even worse state before he was done.’

Alex had seen pictures of Johnny taken just before his overdose, spectrally thin, baggy clothes failing to disguise the wraith-like state of his body. His face was gaunt, eyes two deep, black, haunted pools.

‘After the overdose, while Johnny was in hospital, Dan, Paul and Colin came round and helped Gerry to clear the house of people. There were foxes living in the pool house. The pool looked like an old canal; there was even a rusty old shopping trolley dumped in it. We got a cleaning squad and some gardeners in and sorted the place out. Christ knows how much was stolen. Some of his paintings and antiques vanished over that period, that’s for sure.’ She paused. ‘But we got Johnny back, that was the pay-off. In a way, dying was the best thing that could have happened to him.’

‘I can’t believe how he behaved then, Siobhan.’

‘I know, it was insane. His mother cried her eyes out when she saw him.’

‘The rest of you coped, even Tiffany. And Johnny’s strong. How come he tipped over the edge like that, do you reckon?’

Siobhan studied her glass, turning it by the stem. ‘There’s something I’ve never told anyone, but it’s always niggled at me. Something my son told me.’ She topped up their wine glasses. ‘Around that time, before Andy and Tom died, we were all here for a get-together one weekend. I think it was the Easter. Anyway, little Peter, he’d have been six or seven, told me one day that he’d seen Uncle Tom kissing Auntie Nicci. I assumed Tom had just been giving Nicci a hug, but he said no, Mummy, they were kissing like people do in films. I thought he’d been mistaken and told him to forget it, and he did. But I didn’t. It stayed with me.’ She looked up at Alex. ‘It could be a whole lot of nothing. Don’t read anything into it unless you’ve got something to back it up.’

Alex’s mind was made up. She was going home next day as planned, but on the way back on Sunday, she would go to the Nottingham address Siobhan had given her for Gemma Carson and set about tracking her down.

Chapter 74

Alex set off early the next day, aiming to get home late morning. She made good time and drove straight to the hospital, where Isabel was pleased to see her. ‘So, how’s it going?’ asked Alex.

Isabel wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m fed up, to be honest. I’m bored. I wish I could be at home, painting the nursery and getting things ready. Nest building, you know.’ She sighed. ‘Robert’s great, but he won’t do things the way I would. And there’s a limit to how many magazines you can read. Oh, Alex, I just want this little mite out, so I can get to know him.’

Alex hugged her. ‘It won’t be long now, though, will it?’

Isabel shook her head. ‘No, not too long, anyway. Let’s see, I’ve been in here five weeks now. There can only be another four or five to go.’ She gave Alex a little smile. ‘Will you be here to see the baby?’

‘Of course I will. I wouldn’t miss meeting this little critter for the world.’

‘Make sure you don’t. I feel you slipping away and I don’t like it.’

‘You’ll have to meet Johnny. That should put your mind at rest.’ Alex said a silent prayer that it would. If Isabel had met him just recently, she’d have thought Alex was off her head. How Carol would crow if she knew. She had to get him back on track, whatever it took.

Greg turned up while Alex was there. She reckoned things would be okay between them in time, but after the initial euphoria of reconciliation had worn off, they had been awkward in each other’s company again.

Alex headed off mid-afternoon, promising to keep in touch, and went to her flat. She hadn’t been there since the day she and Johnny had gone to France and Dave had turned up.

There was a mountain of mail, most of which went straight into the bin. She didn’t notice how much junk she received when she took care of it on a daily basis, but when it got a chance to build up, it was frightening. Alex had heard that the Royal Mail was pretty much kept going by rubbish like that. She could believe it; the junk outnumbered the useful stuff by about four to one.

Among the stuff classified initially as ‘useful,’ she found three letters from Dave postmarked a couple of weeks previously. Alex scanned rather than read them.
You don’t take my calls, you don’t answer my emails, you don’t know what I’m going through, I love you, I’ve changed, can’t we try again
. She dropped them in the bin. Took them out again, ripped them up angrily and threw them back in with the other junk.

She leaned back in her chair, feeling weary. He had no idea what he had set in motion when he had slept with Molly on the afternoon she caught them together.
Or did I set it in motion by not ringing ahead
? she wondered. Whatever; as a direct result of that, she had got to work with Johnny on his life story, she had fallen in love with him, and she now had a ringside seat as he unravelled because he couldn’t cope with the stuff from his past that they were stirring up.

What on earth can it be?
she wondered. If Siobhan’s son was right, then it was possible Tom Watson and Nicci Burns had been having an affair. That would also tie in with what Gerry had told her about the men arguing, Johnny angry and Tom conciliatory. It would have been a terrible betrayal. But did it merit the reaction she was seeing in Johnny now? Alex didn’t think so. There had to be more to it. She rubbed her eyes. Or less. There might have been no affair. It might all be circumstantial. Tom and Johnny might have been arguing about the direction the next album should take or what the sets should contain on the upcoming tour. Hell, they could have been arguing about what to do that afternoon.

But she didn’t think so. Not for one minute.

Christabel had told her she thought there was trouble between Nicci and Johnny before Tom and Andy died. That might support the affair theory. But even if it did, how far did that get her? Absolutely nowhere. She was still playing guessing games.

Alex got out her laptop, got online, and checked the route for the next day’s journey. Maybe Gemma, whatever her name might be by now, would be there. And if she was, maybe she would know something. And if she did, maybe she would tell Alex. And if Alex heard what she had to say, maybe she would begin to understand what was going on in Johnny’s head. Which was one fuck of a lot of maybes; but it was all she had to go on, so for now, it would have to do.

She rang Carol. Things might be strained between them, but she was still her friend and she wanted to see her. They arranged to meet in one of their old haunts, agreed to avoid speaking about Johnny Burns.

Chapter 75

Alex was up bright and early next morning, having alternated between half pints of beer and glasses of lemonade the night before. She wanted to get on the road by eight, which ought to get her to Nottingham by about eleven. She hoped Gemma wasn’t planning to go out for Sunday lunch. Assuming, of course, that she was there at all.

As she drove, Alex reflected on her conversation with Carol the previous evening. They had been pleased to see each other, the strain in their relationship forgotten. Alex had kept her part of the bargain and not mentioned Johnny, which hadn’t been easy, but a deal was a deal. Carol, however, had started asking about him once she got a few drinks inside her. Alex answered her questions about the stuff that had been in the paper as honestly as she could. Finally, Carol had said, ‘It just doesn’t seem fair, does it Alex, that they can print that stuff when it isn’t true?’

Alex shrugged. ‘They do it all the time. How many careers have you seen ruined because of revelations or allegations about this or that, that have eventually been proven to be untrue? But the damage is done by then. Mud sticks. People have still lost their reputations and, sometimes, their livelihoods as well.’

She warmed to her theme. ‘Think about it. If Johnny had put his side of the story forward, how would that have been presented? Man has affair with woman almost thirty years his junior. Most of the men who read about it are jealous, they couldn’t pull a woman who looked like Candy when they were her age, never mind twenty-odd years older, but most of them say how scandalous it is. You get all of this “old enough to be her father” shit, which immediately tags Johnny as some kind of paedophile character, using his worldly wisdom to prey on younger women. Never mind that the lovely psycho-Candy taught him a thing or two.

‘The affair ends, she gets hooked on drugs. Perhaps, by the time the papers have finished with it, to help her cope with rejection at the hands of an uncaring, wealthy, older man who’s had his fun and got bored, moved on to the next bit of skirt. Then she goes back to him because he’s a good source of funds. Ah, they say, now we understand the relationship. He buys his women.

‘Who would be interested in the truth? That they had a relationship when they were both free and single, he was generous while they were together, they finished, she tried to use him, he wouldn’t let her, but he still helped her as much as he could. There’s no headline in that, Carol. That wouldn’t sell a single fucking paper.’

Carol nodded, thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps I’ve been a bit hasty, Alex. I’m sorry, mate.’ She had an idea. ‘Hey, next time you come up, why don’t you get Johnny to come with you and we’ll all have a night out?’

Alex nodded. ‘Great idea. I’ll sort something out.’ She couldn’t believe it; Carol was starting to come round to the idea that Johnny might be a decent human being after all, just as he had begun to turn into a manipulative drunk.
Fucking marvellous
.

***

Alex made good time. The roads were pretty clear and she put her foot down, keen to get where she was going and find out what she could. She pulled up outside the house before eleven, took a good look at it before she got out of the car. It was at the head of a leafy cul-de-sac, shielded from the road by mature trees and a fairly high wall. Through the wrought iron gate, she could see that the house was a substantial red-brick structure, three storeys including attic rooms; Alex could see dormer windows at the front.
Right
, she thought,
here we go
.

The path up to the door was block paved and there was a separate double gate for cars. A double garage stood to one side, shielded from the house by trees, and a Mercedes stood on the drive, gleaming in the sunshine. A middle-aged man in cords and a checked shirt came round to the car from the back of the house, carrying a car vac. If Gemma still lived here, she evidently didn’t live alone.

‘Hi,’ he called, spotting Alex. ‘Can I help you?’

They walked towards each other, Alex waiting until they were close enough to speak without shouting. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Gemma Willis. That’s her maiden name. Her married name was Gemma Carson.’

He nodded, looked Alex up and down, spent too long looking at her chest. ‘She’s Gemma Jackson now. We bought this place off her and her husband about a year ago. She used to be married to that musician, didn’t she? What was the band, again?’

‘Heartbreaker. I’m working on a story about the band.’ She took in the look he gave her. ‘I’m not a journalist. It’s an official biography. The band gave me this address, but they’ve lost touch with Gemma. Thing is, I could really do with speaking to her, she might have some information that would clear up something in the Heartbreaker story.’ She gave him her best smile. ‘I don’t suppose you have a forwarding address, do you?’

‘I might have. Come on in a minute.’ They headed round to the back of the house, Alex being shepherded in front. She felt his eyes crawling over her body and wished she was wearing something loose and flowing. They went into the kitchen, a huge, expensive-looking high-tech room.
How the other half live
, she thought, and then checked herself. Now that she was living with Johnny practically full time, she was the other half.

‘Piers Blackman,’ the man said, holding out his hand. Alex shook it, cringing inwardly. It was like caressing a corpse.

‘Alex Weston.’

As he rummaged, he continued their conversation. ‘So, you know Heartbreaker, then?’

‘Yes, I’m staying with Johnny Burns while I work on the book.’

‘How exciting. Are you enjoying the work?’

‘Very much. I’m a fan of their music, so it doesn’t really feel like a job, more a labour of love.’ She smiled. ‘But of course, I’m very keen to accurately represent what happened in their history, which is why I really need to speak to Gemma.’ Just reminding him why she was there, what he was meant to be doing.

‘Of course. Bit of a fan of theirs myself, actually. Don’t suppose you could send me their autographs?’ He pulled a sheet of paper out of a kitchen drawer. ‘Here we are. Vincent and Gemma Jackson’s forwarding address.’

‘Sure,’ said Alex, ‘I’ll post them to you.

‘I’ll just copy this out for you,’ he told her chest.