Heartbreaker (36 page)

Jackie went cold. ‘No!’ she said. She went to Tom, sat next to him and rubbed his back, put her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. He didn’t make a move to touch or to hold her, but he didn’t push her away either; just sat crying quietly as the news sank in. After a time, Tom stood up, picked up his drink and downed it in one. He turned to Jackie and held out his hand. ‘I’m going to bed. Are you coming?’ She nodded, took his hand and allowed him to lead her through into the bedroom.

Jackie took off Tom’s dressing gown and hung it up. She climbed into bed and watched him undress, his long, lean body bone white in the moonlight, the dressing on his head and the scar on his cheek seeming to gleam faintly. He got in beside her and stroked her hair. She touched the scar on his face, her fingers absently tracing the old, curved path left by the broken glass. She thought maybe they could make a go of it after all, couldn’t imagine her life without him in it. They kissed, made love gently and without speaking, more to do with love and comfort than lust and passion. Afterwards, Jackie watched Tom sleep, his hair an inky puddle against the white linen, long, curved eyelashes outlined against his cheek. In the morning she would tell him about the baby. They would put all this behind them and go away, just the two of them, make a new life and be a family. She drifted off to sleep with that thought in mind.

***

Jackie jolted awake, heart hammering, an image of a faceless man chasing her with a knife, blood on his hands, gaining on her with every stride he took, fading to nothing as she blinked in the half light and willed her panic to subside. The bedside clock read ten past one and Tom was nowhere to be seen. She rolled out of bed, shivering as her night fears toyed with her perceptions, searching the shadows for sinister shapes, pulled on Tom’s dressing gown and headed off in search of him. She found him dressed in jeans and an open shirt, drinking brandy and chain-smoking as he stood on the small balcony at the middle window, looking out over the city. She moved next to him and he put his arm around her.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said.

‘I had a nightmare.’

‘What was it about?’

She shook her head. ‘Let’s not talk about it.’ She snuggled into him and they stood gazing out at the night, seeing little of what was in front of them.

‘Have you got any sleeping pills?’ Jackie asked, knowing Tom generally had pills for every possible ailment or situation. He nodded and she followed him through to the bedroom. He rummaged in the bottom drawer of his bedside cabinet and took out a bag of pills.

‘Here,’ he said, shaking a couple into her palm, ‘these should do the trick.’

‘Thanks, love. Are you taking any?’

Tom shook his head. ‘Maybe in a little while.’

Jackie dry-swallowed the pills and went through into the front room with Tom, went back to staring and thinking. Eventually the pills kicked in and Jackie, told Tom she was going back to bed, and padded off without him.

Dreams of angry voices and running feet cut through the drug-induced stupor and after what seemed a relatively short rest, Jackie was awake once more. Tom was still missing. She got up and went to look for him, intending to bring him back to bed, thinking with his warmth to snuggle into, she could feel safe and get some proper sleep.

There was no sign of him in the living room, so she headed downstairs, searched the house. Nothing. Back in the lounge she went to the open window and looked out to see if she could see him outside somewhere. Leaned a little further and her heart missed a beat. She could see Tom lying spread-eagled on the pavement below, looking like he was wearing some strange glistening headdress, the kind of thing a Las Vegas show girl might wear. After a moment it dawned on Jackie that what she was seeing was blood fanning out from a wound in Tom’s head. Not just blood. There was some other stuff, too. Her stomach lurched and she just made it into the bathroom in time to throw up.

She sat on the edge of the bath, where Tom had sat earlier when she cleaned the wound on his head, and tried to pull herself together. She had to go out and see if Tom was alive. She was sure that he couldn’t be, but needed to know for certain. Barefoot, wrapped once again in Tom’s dressing gown, she crept downstairs and opened the front door. There was not a soul in sight.

She tiptoed to Tom, careful not to step in anything, and felt for a pulse. Nothing, although his skin still felt warm to the touch. She put the back of her hand to his parted lips; no breath whispered against her flesh. She hadn’t expected it to; she could see by the odd shape of his skull that something was very badly wrong.

Jackie bolted back indoors and sat on the stairs, her breathing shallow, her heart pounding. She had no idea what to do. Tom was dead. No doctor could help him, she saw no point in ringing an ambulance. All her recently resurrected dreams vanished in a puff of smoke. She felt sick with loss and grief, first Andy, now Tom, she couldn’t think straight. All she wanted to do was to go home and hide from everything and everyone. She ran back upstairs, hurried around the bedroom pulling her clothes on and gathering up her things. In her haste she tripped and almost fell. Ignoring the pain in her toes, she saw a box on the floor near the foot of the bed. On the lid was taped an envelope and on the envelope was her name, written in Tom’s forward-sloping hand. She snatched it up and was out of the door before five minutes had passed. Two minutes later she was in her car, driving erratically through silent streets back to her flat. By the time the storm broke, the sudden, violent downpour washing Tom’s and Andy’s blood off London pavements, she had barricaded herself in and was howling with grief.

Chapter 98

2003

‘It was three days before I ventured out,’ Jackie told Johnny and Alex. ‘I got the local paper and there was just a paragraph in about Andy and Tom, it didn’t really tell me anything. I went to a little café I used to go to sometimes and they had a national newspaper from the day before. I read it while I had coffee and some food; that was when I learned how Andy had been killed. Tom had only said that he was dead, some sicko had killed him, I hadn’t pressed him for details. That weekend, the papers were full of it. I bought a few, tried to learn as much as I could. I felt sick, dead inside, I missed Tom so much and I was in shock over Andy. Then I hit upon the idea of ringing Nicci.’ She looked at Johnny. ‘You answered a few times and I hung up. I wish I hadn’t, now.’

‘Jackie,’ said Alex, ‘what was in the note and the box Tom left?’

Johnny looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t thought to ask.

‘I almost forgot about it. I found the note in my coat pocket about a week later. The day Nicci came to see me.’ She paused, her face thoughtful.

‘Do you still have it?’ Alex asked the question, sure Jackie would say yes. Surely it wasn’t the kind of thing you threw away?

‘No,’ said Jackie. ‘I showed it to Nicci and she took it away with her. She said to forget it.’

‘What did it say?’ asked Johnny.

‘It said that Tom was sorry. That he loved me, and Becky, and you, Johnny. He’d made a mess of things. He couldn’t believe Andy was dead. He knew that the band was over, but he was finding it hard to accept.’

‘Did it say he was going to … you know …’

‘Kill himself? No, Johnny, it said he was going to go away for a while to sort himself out. He planned to leave early in the morning, that’s why he left me a note. He said he didn’t want to wake me, but I think it saved on goodbyes for him. He was going to a place called Arisaig on the west coast of Scotland. Said he’d been there as a kid, knew it was peaceful and beautiful. He thought it would help him to get his head straight.’

‘So how did he die?’ asked Alex.

Jackie shook her head sadly. ‘It was just a stupid accident, there’s no other explanation I can think of. He had drunk a hell of a lot of brandy. He can’t have been too steady on his legs.’

‘Jackie,’ said Alex, ‘did Tom ring Nicci after Johnny left?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Dan called to tell him about Andy. That was the only phone call all evening.’

‘Did anybody else turn up at the flat?’ said Alex.

Jackie shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t sound too sure,’ said Johnny.

‘I had a dream. I think it was a dream, anyway. My head was fuzzy with the pills Tom gave me. Dan was shouting at Tom, saying it was his fault Andy was dead, that Andy wouldn’t have even been there if Tom had been honest about what had happened with Johnny. But I know Tom hadn’t told anyone about that, so it can’t have been real, can it?’

‘I told him,’ said Johnny.

‘When?’

‘Dan rang me after he spoke to Tom. I told him about what had happened. Dan was deeply unhappy about it, as you can imagine.’

‘So Dan might have really been there?’ asked Jackie.

Alex had other priorities just then. She held Johnny’s hand tightly. He was grim-faced. ‘You aren’t responsible,’ she said. ‘Do you believe me now? It wasn’t suicide, it was an accident. Tom was fine. He planned to go to Scotland to sort himself out. It’s time you stopped punishing yourself.’ She made a mental note to challenge Nicci about the note when she next saw her. She missed that particular detail out of the version of events she told Alex. Then there was the phone call she had lied about. No wonder she had wanted to keep Johnny and Jackie apart.

They heard the front door bang. ‘That’ll be my boy,’ said Jackie. Sure enough a young lad popped his head round the door and said hello to everyone.

Johnny looked at him in wonder. ‘Tom,’ he said softly.

The boy nodded. ‘Hey, aren’t you Johnny Burns?’

‘Yes. And you’re Tom Watson.’

Tom grinned. ‘He’s my dad. I’m Tom Price. I think I look like him, though.’ Johnny looked like he’d seen a ghost.

‘Actually,’ said Tom, ‘I’ve got something to show you. I’ll just be a minute.’ He thundered upstairs and rummaged around his bedroom. When he came back down he was clutching a battered box, which he gave to Johnny. ‘These were my dad’s. I’ve got nothing to play them on, though, so I’ve no idea what’s on them. Can you help?’

‘That’s the box Tom left me,’ Jackie said.

Johnny took the top off the box. It was full of reels of tape, audio and visual, marked up in his and Tom’s handwriting. He looked at Alex, his eyes as wide as a child’s. ‘It’s the tapes,’ he said. ‘The lost tapes. Tom had them all the time.’

Chapter 99

The weekend after he and Alex had met with Jackie Price, Johnny invited Dan, Paul and Siobhan to come and stay. Chrissie and Colin had already temporarily moved in. He used his and Christabel’s birthdays as an excuse for the get-together, but his main intention was to tell them about everything he and Alex had found out. He especially wanted to share the lost tapes with them.

The tapes themselves had proved to be in good condition for the most part and Johnny had arranged for a film montage to be produced by a company he had contracted to digitise the content. Everyone piled into the home cinema on the Saturday afternoon for a viewing.

‘What we’ve got here today is just a fragment, a taste, if you like, of everything there was,’ Johnny told them. ‘Once it’s all been digitised, we need to get together to go through it all and decide what to do with it.’

‘Let’s see it then,’ Colin said, impatiently.

‘I can’t wait,’ said Siobhan, excitement in her voice.

‘Okay, here we go, then,’ said Johnny, and Alex dimmed the lights as he pressed ‘play’ on the remote.

The first scenes were of the band on the tour bus, Andy clowning around for the camera, Colin egging him on. That cut quickly to some behind the scenes footage at the venue they were playing.

‘Is that Glasgow Apollo?’ asked Paul.

‘Well spotted,’ said Johnny. ‘Here we go.’ The image changed to one of the band on stage. They were playing
Rescued
but Andy’s vocals were practically inaudible due to the volume of the crowd as they belted out the lyrics. ‘That’s the Apollo Choir in action,’ Johnny told Alex.

‘They were in fine voice that night, weren’t they?’ Colin said. ‘I remember that gig, it was a blinder.’

The images changed again, showed the band climbing aboard the plane with their name on the side. It cut to a shot of them all on board as Tom raised a glass to the camera, his other arm crooked round Johnny’s neck, their heads close together, then panned to Paul and Dan, deep in conversation.

There was only about half an hour’s worth of material, but it was an amazing experience. By the time Alex put the lights up again, there was hardly a dry eye in the house.

Later in the day, Alex saw Johnny draw Dan to one side. ‘Have you got a minute, mate?’ she heard him ask, and they disappeared together as Johnny led Dan into the studio, away from the others.

Alone with him, Johnny turned to face Dan. ‘I know about Tom,’ he said simply.

Dan studied the drink in his hand for a long moment. ‘It was his fault Andy died,’ he said, finally looking up and meeting Johnny’s eyes.

Chapter 100

1986

Dan had been in his study sorting out last minute details in readiness for Heartbreaker’s UK tour. He was looking forward to it. It was only a short tour, close to home, and he planned to be with them for the duration. He answered the phone and was surprised to hear his father’s voice.

‘Are you sitting down, son?’ he asked. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.’

Dan listened to the known details of Andy’s death with a sense of detachment. The next thing he remembered clearly was walking into the hospital and seeing his father and Andy’s parents, asking about Tiffany, being told she had been sedated and was in a private room. He went in to see her and wished he hadn’t. Whatever it was that made Tiff sparkle was gone. It wasn’t just the drugs, it was as if someone had turned off the light in her eyes.

As he went back to the waiting room, he saw his mother come in with the twins. ‘They want their mother,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘They need Tiffany.’