Zip Gun Boogie (19 page)

23

I
sat Ninotchka down, and went to the bar and poured a couple of drinks. Two very large brandies. After what we'd been through I thought we deserved them. And even if we didn't, I for one needed something, and by the look of it so did she. The adrenalin rush seemed to have negated the night's alcohol intake. I felt stone-cold sober. And stone cold. The glass rattled against Ninotchka's teeth as she took a sip. When the colour started to return to her face, I said, ‘Are you absolutely sure you recognised that guy?'

She nodded.

‘I can't believe it. He looked like a skipper to me.'

‘A what?'

‘A tramp. A derelict. One of the street people. The lucky few who sleep in the West End for free.'

‘I'd recognise Bobby anywhere.'

‘He didn't look like my idea of a rock star.'

‘He's changed, Nick. He's been sick. He didn't used to look like that. He was pretty. Real pretty. He just took too much acid, that's all.'

‘But even so.'

‘Nick, I lived with the guy for six months. Some things you don't forget.'

‘Are there any of these guys you haven't had an affair with?'

‘Oh, Nick. For fuck's sake, don't be so straight.' She was the second person to call me that in a couple of days. Maybe I should grow a beard. ‘That's the way it is,' she went on.

Outside I could hear the scream of sirens getting closer. ‘In the wunnerful, fun world of rock and roll?' I said. ‘It hasn't been much fun for some poor fuckers lately. You didn't see the state of the geezer in the car park.'

‘God!' she said. ‘That poor guy. I forgot.'

‘It looks like your pal's number one suspect. Whatever you say.'

‘No. Not Bobby.'

‘Come on, Ninotchka. Give me a break.'

‘No!'

‘It's been a long time since you knew him.'

‘No.'

‘And you said yourself he'd taken too many drugs.'

‘No,' she said again. ‘Not Bobby. He's the gentlest guy I ever met.'

‘People change.'

‘Not that much. He couldn't do anything like that.'

The sirens were right outside now, whooping and hollering in the street below us.

‘I have to tell the police,' I said.

‘No. No, you can't!'

‘Ninotchka, two people are dead.'

‘Then I'll deny it. Say I was mistaken. It wasn't Bobby. It was what you said. A bum. Street trash.'

‘Hell, Ninotchka, don't give me that crap. I'll still tell them what you said.'

‘Don't.'

‘And do what instead?'

‘Try and find him yourself. He's hurting, Nick. Didn't you see his eyes?'

Yes, I thought. Mad eyes. Killers' eyes maybe. ‘And if he kills again?'

‘I keep telling you, he didn't kill anyone. Find him quickly and you'll know for yourself. Don't let the police get him first. They'll drive him even crazier. You can do it. You're good.'

‘I'll think about it,' I said. ‘I'll have to tell Roger.'

‘Why?'

‘Because he might have some idea where to start looking. He is the top man. Or at least the closest to the top that I trust.'

She smiled. She was beautiful when she smiled. Even through tear stains. ‘You trust Roger?' she asked.

‘Yeah.'

‘I like you, Nick. D'you know that? You're a good judge of character.'

‘I hope so.'

‘Promise me then? Promise you won't tell.'

‘OK,' I said reluctantly. ‘But I'm definitely telling Roger what I'm up to.'

I used the phone. Lomax answered after the ninth or tenth ring. ‘'lo,' he said.

‘Roger? Sharman.'

‘What? What the fuck? Do you know what time it is?'

‘What does it matter? The cops'll be waking you up soon enough. Can't you hear them?'

‘Why? What the hell's happened
now
?'

I told him, as concisely as I could, leaving out any mention of Bobby Boyle. ‘But I want to see you before they do,' I said when I'd finished.

‘What about?'

‘Not on the phone. Come up to Ninotchka's suite. I can't leave her alone, and Don is otherwise engaged.'

‘I'll be right up.'

‘Don't answer the phone again. Just get here.'

He arrived in less than five minutes. His thick hair was mussed and he had a dark five o'clock shadow. He was wearing jeans, a rugby shirt and a pair of Timberland shoes. ‘What's up?' he asked as soon as I let him in. ‘I should be downstairs. It sounds like all hell's breaking loose down there?'

‘Drink?' I asked before answering.

‘Perrier.'

I poured some into a tall glass over ice. ‘Bobby Boyle,' I said as I handed it to him.

‘What about him?'

‘Where is he?'

‘Slough, I think. I have an address for him. He lives with his father. Why?'

‘Get it for me.'

‘Why?' he asked again.

Then I told him the bits I'd left out on the phone. As I talked he kept looking from me to Ninotchka and back.

‘Shit,' he said when I'd finished. ‘Everyone thought he was all right.'

‘How do you mean?' I asked.

‘He was in a mental hospital. Paranoid schizophrenia was the diagnosis. But they seemed to have it under control. When Keith and I came over last year we visited him. He seemed fine. He was released a few months ago.'

‘Christ!' I said. ‘See, Ninotchka? The guy's as crazy as a coot.'

‘No,' she said. ‘He's not. He's just sick. I told you that.'

‘Tell it to the men in white coats.'

‘I don't care what you say, he still didn't kill anyone. Roger, you know him.'

Lomax shrugged. ‘Years ago, sure. But now? Who the hell knows?'

‘Nick's going to find him,' said Ninotchka, ‘and prove he didn't have anything to do with any killings.'

‘Yeah?' said Roger. ‘But if he is going around murdering people…' He didn't finish the sentence.

‘Yeah, I know, Rog,' I said. ‘But I promised Ninotchka. Give me just a few hours. You say he's in Slough?'

‘That's where we send his royalty cheques. He still gets plenty. His share of the big 'un. Ninotchka, we
should
tell the cops.'

‘No,' she insisted.

‘Listen,' I said, ‘I've agreed to keep shtuum 'til I get a chance to check on this Bobby Boyle character. Let's leave it at that for now. OK?'

I saw Lomax open his mouth to argue, when we were interrupted by an urgent banging on the door.

24

O
f course it was the cops, a pair of uniforms looking for the people in the car who had left the scene of the crime. When they saw Ninotchka, they removed their hats and began acting like a pair of groupies at a
Bay City Rollers
reunion. Ninotchka was the very soul of charm. I wouldn't have believed that she'd been scared half to death not thirty minutes earlier.

The coppers were not quite so polite to Lomax and me. But Lomax wasn't having any. He went straight to the phone and called up the top man in
The Box
's pet law firm. Not the junior this time, you note, but the big cheese himself. When he got through, he handed the receiver to the nearest copper, who turned red, white, and then green in the space of half a minute. When the policeman had made doubly sure that the call was over, he replaced the handset as if it was made of spun sugar, smiled feebly at Lomax and asked us very politely if we'd mind terribly staying where we were until one of his superiors arrived.

We all agreed that we would stay. The policeman who'd taken the call then informed us that his colleague would be outside if we needed anything and both coppers left. ‘Very good,' I said. ‘I wonder what was said.'

Lomax gave me a look.

‘To frighten him like that,' I continued.

‘He didn't have to say much,' Lomax said. ‘He's lunching with the Commissioner of the Met today, and dining with the Prime Minister tomorrow. And he didn't appreciate being woken up.'

‘Our Prime Minister?' I asked.

‘No, the Prime Minister of Lithuania. Of course your Prime Minister,' said Lomax sarcastically.

I was going to tell him that I was the one that did the witty lines, but I didn't. ‘Well, he certainly put him in his place,' I said.

Ten minutes later Carpenter and Ripley arrived. They weren't so easily put off as the uniform, but were still wary, I could tell. I would have been too, in their shoes.

Ninotchka and I went through the whole story. Neither one of us mentioned Bobby Boyle. I still wasn't sure it was a good idea, but it was one of those times when, once you've started lying, you've just got to carry on, no matter how bitter the end might turn out to be.

Eventually we were allowed to go to bed. I suppose by that time it was just after six. I didn't. I just had a shower and some of Wilfred's coffee, and got ready to go to Slough. I found Lomax in his room, and he gave me the address I needed. He wasn't happy about it, but I got him to promise to keep quiet until I reported back with whatever I found, if anything. I suppose the last thing he needed right then was more scandal involving the band.

Then I went to the parking garage and got my car. It started first time, and I pulled it up the ramp and through the barrier into the mews. The gatekeeper's hut had been taped off and two policemen I hadn't seen before were keeping a pair of eyes on things. A couple of Premiere men were on duty just inside the fence. By then, I think anyone with any sense was working in twos. I was alone again as usual.

But then, sense was never my long suit.

25

S
lough is a real shit hole, believe me. I think I read somewhere that once there was a plan to twin it with a public toilet in Belgrade, but the citizens of Belgrade turned down the deal. Slough is the sort of place that pit bull terriers go to die, but hardly, I thought, where ex-rock stars go to live. The address I was looking for was on the edge of the town. It was a three-up, three-down, red-brick dump in a street similar to every other street for miles. The front garden was three foot deep from wall to front window, and I pushed open the distressed wooden gate and knocked on the front door that last saw paint before litres took over from gallons and new pence from L.S.D.

There was no answer, so I knocked again. And somewhere, way back in the house, I heard a noise and saw some movement through the dusty pane of translucent glass.

I knocked for a third time and a tired old voice said: ‘Who's there?'

I didn't answer the question. ‘Mister Boyle?' I asked.

‘That's right.'

‘I want to talk to you about your son.'

‘He's not here.'

My heart sank. ‘Do you know where he is?'

‘No.'

‘Will you open the door?'

‘Who are you?'

‘My name's Sharman, I'm a private detective, and I'd like to talk privately.'

There was silence for a minute, but it seemed longer, and then the voice said again: ‘Have you any identification?'

I took out one of my cards and put it through the letter box. Another minute, and I heard a rattling of chains and turning of locks, and the door cracked open. A face the colour of cigarette smoke, topped with greying hair, appeared in the gap.

‘What about my son?'

‘Can we talk inside?' I asked.

For a moment I thought he was going to slam the door in my face, and I wouldn't have blamed him if he had. But he sighed and pulled the door all the way open, and walked down the dingy hall away from me. I stepped inside, and closed it quietly behind me, and followed him into the first room on the right. It was small and untidy inside, with a grime of dust on every surface. The man stood on the faded carpet and faced me, and he seemed to have a grime of dust on every surface too. The room was hot, and smelled of old chip fat, and the curtains were drawn against the world. The television was on with the sound turned down low. A table lamp with a canvas shade decorated with a picture of Beachy Head was sitting on top of the TV, and its dim light illuminated a man who looked as if he'd just about had enough of the pain the world could give him. He was wearing a ratty cardigan with stains of food or snot down the front, over a yellowed shirt that had once been white, and dark blue trousers, greasy and wrinkled. His bare feet were stuffed into grey corduroy slippers. It was one of the most depressing sights I've ever seen.

‘My son,' he said. ‘What about him? Is he all right?'

‘As far as I know, yes. But you say he doesn't live here?'

‘I didn't say that. I just said he's not here now.'

‘But he does still live here?'

‘Yes.'

‘How long since you last saw him?'

‘A few days.'

‘Do you remember exactly? It's very important.'

‘No. Monday, Tuesday. Who knows?'

I pressed him. ‘Please try and remember.'

‘I tell you, I can't.'

He was agitated, so I changed tack.

‘Does he often vanish for days at a time?'

He shrugged. ‘Months sometimes. Years even. He was in a pop group. One day he lived with us, the next he didn't.'

At least I knew we were talking about the same bloke. ‘Us?' I queried.

‘Me and his mother. She died. A long time ago. He was never the same. He loved his mother.' The man sat down in an old armchair that faced the TV set. ‘Why all these questions?' he said, more to the screen than to me.

‘Two men have been killed this week. Someone says they saw your son at the scene of one of the murders,' I replied.

He looked away from the TV, and at me. ‘Murder? You think my son had something to do with killing another human being?'

‘I don't know. Do you?'

He didn't answer. ‘Who were they?' he asked instead.

‘One was a road manager with his old band
Pandora's Box.
The other was a security man at the hotel where they're staying in London. And on Monday it appears that someone tried to kill one of the guitarists with the band. They didn't succeed.'

‘Those bastards,' he spat. ‘They deserve everything they get.'

‘Why?' I asked.

‘They treated Bobby like dirt.'

‘How?'

‘They drove him crazy. Especially that damned Pandora. It was the drugs that did it. Then they dumped him.'

‘They still pay him, I understand.'

‘Money,' he said contemptuously. ‘He thought they were his friends.'

That's life, I thought.

‘But I heard he was being paid very well,' I said.

‘So?'

‘This house – it's not what I expected.'

‘I know. You thought he'd live in a mansion.'

‘Something like that.'

‘He doesn't keep the money. He doesn't want anything from them.'

‘What does he do with it?'

‘He gives it away.'

‘All of it?'

‘Every penny.'

‘Who to?'

He shrugged. ‘Charities. The church. Sometimes he just walks around town handing out fifty-pound notes. That's why they put him away. They don't understand.'

‘How do you live?'

‘I have savings, and a small pension. We used to live in a bigger house. Bobby bought it for us years ago. I sold it and we moved here.'

‘You don't try and stop him? Giving the money away, that is.'

‘It's his money.'

Fair enough, I thought.

‘You say someone saw him. Who?' asked Boyle.

‘Ninotchka.'

For the first time I saw a ghost of a smile. ‘She was the only decent one out of the lot of them. I thought they might get married, her and Bobby. He brought her to the old house a few times when they were in the country.'

‘She still cares for him,' I said. ‘She wouldn't tell the police she saw him. Or let me.'

‘A good girl,' he said.

‘But that doesn't change the fact that she recognised him. And a man had been killed just a couple of minutes before.'

‘He wouldn't.'

‘That's what she said.'

‘You don't believe it?'

‘I don't know, Mr Boyle. That's why I'm here. You say the band treated him badly. Do you think he's looking for revenge?'

The old man put his head in his hands and I heard him sob. His thin back shook.

‘Mr Boyle?' I said.

He looked up at me and I saw tear stains like snail tracks on his cheeks. ‘I don't know.'

‘You say he was put away?'

‘Yes.'

‘In hospital?'

He nodded.

‘A mental hospital?'

‘Yes.' He looked ashamed. He needn't have been. I met some OK people when I was in one. But that was a long time ago. A different life. A different me.

‘They said he'd be fine,' Boyle went on.

They always say that when they let you out, I thought. Sometimes they're right, and sometimes they're not.

‘Can I see his room?' I asked.

‘Why?'

‘Why not?'

‘I suppose so.' He stood up and led me upstairs. At the top was a door. He opened it. Inside, the curtains were drawn tight and the room was in darkness. Bobby Boyle's father reached in and switched on the overhead electric light. It was a big room. Two smaller ones knocked into one, I guessed. It smelt bad. A mixture of dirty bedding, dirty clothes and dirty human being. With one exception it was a tip. The bed was a tangle of grey sheets and stained blankets. There were clothes, papers, full ashtrays, empty beer bottles and cups rimed with dry tea or coffee, dustballs, and all sorts of other sleazy shit all over the place.

The exception filled one half of the room. It was a drum kit. But just to call it that was to belittle it. It was like calling a Rolls-Royce merely a car. It was quite literally the king of drum kits. The biggest I've ever seen by a mile. The drums were sprayed red, a bright, vulgar red with tiny specks of silver glitter in the finish that sparkled in the electric light. I went for a closer look. There were twin bass drums with a pair of tiny tom toms and two cow bells mounted on top. Behind them was a chrome snare, and a drum stool, and no less than ten variously sized floor-mounted toms, five on each side of the kit. There was a hi-hat, and fifteen ride, crash and zizzle cymbals spread around it at various heights. Every part of the kit was immaculate, made even more so by the squalor of the rest of the room. The drums were polished, the skins pure white, and the cymbals and stands gleamed in shades of gold and silver.

‘He never plays it now,' said Boyle. ‘Just polishes it. All day long when he's here. He just polishes it.' It was one of the saddest things I'd ever heard.

I walked round and stood behind the kit. It was like being in Fort Drums.

Attached to the two big tom toms at the back of the kit, hooked over the silver rims that held the skins tight, were leather holders for drumsticks. They were like long narrow knife sheaths, graded in size from small to large. There must have been twenty sets at least. The largest holders were empty.

‘What happened to the sticks that go in these?' I asked.

‘How do I know?'

‘Do you know what size they were?'

He looked confused. ‘Size? No, I don't. I don't know anything about drums.'

‘Were they 2Bs?' I pressed.

‘I tell you I don't know.'

Or care, I thought, and who could blame him? He'd lost a son. What were drumstick sizes compared to that? ‘All right, Mr Boyle,' I said. ‘It's OK, it doesn't matter.' But it did.

‘Is that all?' he asked.

‘For now. But I have to tell you, Mr Boyle, that I think the police will want to talk to your son.'

He didn't answer.

‘So if you hear from him,' I went on, ‘I suggest you tell him to contact them. It'll be better for him in the long run.'

He nodded, and stepped back out of the room.

All of a sudden I wondered if in fact Bobby Boyle was in the house. Then I mentally shrugged. There was nothing I could do about it if he was.

I followed Boyle downstairs, and he opened the front door for me. As I went out he said, ‘Mr Sharman?'

I turned and stood on the doorstep. ‘Yes?'

‘If they find him and you're there, will you try and make sure they don't hurt him?'

That was when I knew he'd been telling the truth. He didn't know where his son was.

‘Of course,' I said. ‘Of course I will.' And I went back to the car.