“Disney?” said Nevada.
“Yes, or DreamWorks, but the point is that there are also many other parties who would be happy to acquire the rights to my father’s books. And not all of them are reputable or willing to pay a fair sum. Of course, I have been seeing off such time-wasters in no uncertain terms.” She smiled thinly. “But if I was to suddenly and unexpectedly pass away, my father’s estate would fall into the hands of lawyers who aren’t as scrupulous or motivated as I am and who might also be rather impatient and greedy. They might not be willing to go to the trouble of a painstaking and protracted negotiating process of the sort I am currently conducting.”
I said, “You think they might go for a quick sale.”
She nodded. “Yes. For a quick profit. Luckily I am still here, to prevent something like that happening.”
Nevada said, “But you actually think someone tried to deliberately run you off the road and—”
“That is what I suspect, yes. But that’s all right. Because now they’ve made their move. And failed.”
I said, “What makes you think they won’t try again?”
She smiled at me. “Because I have just issued a press release, stating that if I should die before negotiations are completed—”
“Heaven forbid,” said Nevada.
“Heaven forbid, if I should die before negotiations are completed, then my father’s entire estate—lock, stock and barrel—goes to one of our largest and most robust charities.” She nodded with satisfaction. “And then no one will see a penny from it.”
“Except the charity.”
“Except the charity.” She suddenly stood up. I was expecting her to reach for her cane, but she seemed determined not to use it as she took a few careful steps around the room. Her walking seemed to have improved since I’d last seen her. She sat down on the sofa and picked up the book that was lying on the coffee table. It was Farmer Henry Versus the Locusts. She studied it fondly for a moment, then looked at me.
“Have you been reading this?”
“Yes. Somehow I missed it when I was a kid.”
“What do you think of it?”
Nevada shot me a warning look. I said, “Well, I…”
Miss Honeyland leafed through the book. “I know, I know, so gruesome and bloodthirsty! All those descriptions of locusts being crushed and crunched and spurting goo and split open and baked in pies.” She closed the book and set it down again. “I suppose it was the war. I mean, my father’s sensibilities were inevitably shaped—I imagine ‘coarsened’ some might say—by the violence and the bloodshed.” She smiled impishly. “But children love it!”
“No kidding,” I said. Nevada refilled Miss Honeyland’s teacup and took it over to her.
“Yes, they absolutely love it. And it’s the gruesome gore that they love best. Thank you, dear.”
Nevada handed her the cup and sat down beside her on the sofa. “He must have been quite a character, your father.”
“Oh yes.” She looked at me. “You would have got along like a house on fire. He loved jazz, too. When he was off duty he could generally be found roaring around England on his motorbike, whizzing down country roads in the blackout, racing off to hear jazz being played in some godforsaken place. Bomber Command gave him a special permit so he’d get waved through at checkpoints.” She smiled nostalgically, nodding.
“His boss, Bomber Harris, intervened personally when there was talk of my father being reprimanded for listening to German broadcasts featuring a particular Berlin swing band that he adored.” She drained her cup and set it down. “And he could have got into a great deal of trouble for that. His sister, my aunt, had been a notorious Nazi sympathiser before the war—sort of a Mitford in a minor key—and the stink of her reputation lingered, damaging his career.”
She stood up decisively. “Still, I mustn’t bore you with ancient history.”
“You’re not boring anyone,” said Nevada.
“You’re very kind. But I must be off. Albert has an appointment at the doctor’s.” She smiled, showing her many healthy and sizeable teeth. “And the Mercedes has an appointment at the garage.”
After she was gone, Nevada said, “Nine figures. Maybe I should write a children’s book.”
We caught the news that evening and it gave the official version of Miss Honeyland and Albert’s close encounter—joyriders, shockingly dangerous behaviour, a stolen vehicle abandoned without a trace of the culprits.
4. SHEDS
I said, “The problem is, I know about vinyl. All my sources are for vinyl.”
Nevada smiled a superior little smile. “You always say something like this, you always have to have your moan. And then you buckle down to the job at hand, and it turns out you actually know exactly what to do. Who to speak to.”
“To whom to speak,” said Tinkler. He was sitting opposite me at the breakfast table, polishing his cutlery with a paper towel. This was one of his annoying habits. I think he’d once seen a movie about Howard Hughes.
“Fuck off, Tinkler,” said Nevada. She looked at him, eyebrows raised in studious enquiry. “How was my grammar there?”
“Spot on.”
She sat down at the dining table, and I went into the kitchen and finished sautéing some mushrooms while they bickered. I added asparagus, cooked earlier, to the pan then poured in the eggs. As they began to set I stirred in sweet butter and truffle oil. Scenting that things were hotting up, Nevada came in and started making toast. I served up and we rejoined Tinkler, who couldn’t conceal his delight at the arrival of food. We all sat down.
“What was I saying?” I took a sip of my coffee.
Nevada started to eat her scrambled eggs, realised they were too hot and shoved them aside for the time being. “You were making excuses about not being an expert on 78s and shellac and all that. But you must know someone who is an expert.”
I sipped my coffee. It was just a little too cold. I considered trying my eggs but I suspected they would be just a little too hot. Something’s never quite right. “Well,” I said, “I suppose there is Leo Noel.”
“The human palindrome,” said Tinkler. He had already enthusiastically started his eggs. I tried mine but they were indeed still a little too hot. This didn’t seem to deter Tinkler, though.
“The human what?” said Nevada. Then, “Oh, I see.”
“But I’m trying to avoid that option at all costs.”
“Why?” said Nevada.
“Yeah, why?” said Tinkler. “You’re so negative.”
“Tinkler, it’s ten in the morning. What are you even doing here?”
He looked contrite, but kept eating. “I heard you were making the scrambled eggs with the truffle oil. I couldn’t stay away. I’m sorry.”
“How did you know…” I looked at Nevada.
“Yes,” she said. “Sorry.”
I shook my head. “We could be having a nice quiet breakfast on our own, you know.”
“We have to keep old Tinkler sweet. We may need a ride in his car sometime.”
“That’s right. You might need a ride in my car sometime.” Tinkler stirred the eggs with his fork. “Ah, you’ve used the thin little asparagus spears this time. They’re much nicer.”
I said, “I’m so pleased.”
Nevada said, “Now, about the 78s.” She was all business. “Didn’t you say that nice chap Lenny is a bit of an expert? Lenny at the Vinyl Vault?”
“Nice chap?” I said.
“Nice to me. Gave me some nice wine. Wanted to take me to the Greek islands…”
“Just one island,” I said. “The problem with Lenny is that he only collects classical and opera. Not jazz or swing.”
“Well, surely it’s still worth giving him a ring?”
So I gave him a ring, explained what I was looking for, and he laughed derisively. “I don’t collect that sort of stuff. How long have you known me? Ten years? More? And you still don’t know that I only collect classical and opera.”
“Is that right, Lenny?” I said patiently.
“Why don’t you try our old friend, the human palindrome? Did you think of that?”
“Yes.” I suppressed a sigh. “But I’m trying to avoid the possibility.”
“I know what you mean. By the way, that friend of yours, Nebraska…”
“Nevada. Girlfriend actually. She isn’t going on holiday with you, Lenny.”
“Pity. You can’t blame a bloke for trying, though. Anyway I’ve never heard of those pillocks. What were they called? The Flared Pants Orchestra?”
“The Flare Path Orchestra.”
“Never heard of them.”
* * *
I went to Styli, a record shop located just off Tottenham Court Road. It had once been a great establishment under its old owner, Jerry. Since his untimely death it had gone subtly but emphatically into decline. Tinkler tagged along with me. He had once bought a staggering collection of original Chess blues LPs from the place and he had never quite got over it. Now he was like those tragic water fowl you read about who keep returning to their wetland habitat long after it has been transformed into a shopping mall, hoping somehow that the good old days will recur.
They didn’t recur today. I asked about 78s and had to listen to a long-winded explanation about how Jerry had been the shellac expert, which I knew. And that he was dead. Which I also knew. I also knew who had killed him, or at least had a pretty good idea.
Which is more than most people could say, including the police.
“So nobody here specialises in 78s anymore?” I asked. Solemnly shaken heads all round. “So what happens if somebody comes in with a big collection on shellac?”
“We send them to Lenny at the Vinyl Vault. But he only buys classical and opera.”
Tinkler and I said our goodbyes at Putney. When I got home Nevada saw how glum I looked and instantly inferred that my mission had come to nothing. She picked up Fanny and sat down beside me and said, “Why don’t you try your friend the human anagram?”
“Palindrome. All right. I suppose it has come to that.”
* * *
We caught the train to Enfield Town and then walked to Leo’s house. This involved going along Willow Road, past Peartree Road and Orchard Way. It had been a long time since the willows and pears and orchards had been here—if indeed they ever had. But there was still a surprising number of plane trees lining the street, and the big houses had equally big gardens lurking in the shadows behind them.
I surprised myself by remembering the way, and we didn’t have to consult Nevada’s smartphone at any point. We walked past high hedges up to the house, and I rang the doorbell. As we waited for Leo to let us in I said, “I’ve arranged for him to play us a record before we look for anything. Just so you can hear what a 78 sounded like on an old phonograph. Get the whole historical shellac experience, so to speak.”
“That was sweet of you.”
“That way at least we have achieved something by coming here.”
Nevada shook her head. “Tinkler’s right. You are negative.” Then she smiled as the door opened and Leo Noel let us in. He was a tall, thin man in his late thirties, though he looked older. His blond hair was thinning while still managing to be unruly. He smiled as he shook hands with us, but his watery blue eyes were wary. Leo had lived in this house alone since his mother had died and he didn’t get out as much as perhaps he should.
He had dressed for company, though, and looked improbably dapper in flannel cricket trousers, white shirt, white cricket sweater and navy cricket blazer. A gleaming blue and yellow striped tie was loosely knotted at his throat. I suspected it was the club tie that matched the badge on the blazer.
Leo didn’t actually play cricket. All the clothes had belonged to his father. They fit him quite nicely, though.
“Would you like a glass of Perrier?”
“Oh, yes please,” said Nevada, who had been briefed for this eventuality. Somewhere Leo had got hold of the notion that Perrier water was the ultimate luxury to proffer to your guests. This also, of course, got him neatly off the hook for making tea and—more to the point—coffee for anyone who visited. He did quite a nice job of presentation, though, serving the Perrier with ice and a slice of either lemon or lime. Today it was lime.
We sipped and carried our cool, tinkling glasses through to what had once been the family sitting room. But now all the furniture had been removed except for a varied horde of small tables of all different shapes and sizes. And on every table was an old-fashioned gramophone. It was like a museum, although no museum would have jammed its exhibits so close together. You had to edge through the crowded room, finding a route to thread your way between the tables. Sometimes you had to walk sideways.
Leo knew the path, though, and we followed him.
First he went to the far side of the room. There were bookcases lining all the walls of the room, and of course these were full of not books but 78rpm records. They were stored in anonymous, generic brown cardboard sleeves but each one had a computer-printed label on it, full of cryptic information. Small rectangles of coloured paper stuck out from the shelves of records at intervals. There were numbers and letters written on the slips of paper. I had no idea what his cataloguing system was, but it was clearly nothing as straightforward as alphabetical order.
In any case, Leo knew what he was looking for; he set his drink aside, went straight to it and took it down from the shelf, his eyes gleaming. “Good choice,” he said, turning to us.
Nevada looked at me. “You chose a record especially for me?”
I had indeed rung Leo the night before and suggested what he should choose for his demonstration disc. “Something I thought you’d like.”
“Oh, you’ll like this,” agreed Leo, winding his way back among the tables. We followed.
“How sweet,” said Nevada.
Leo chose one of his gramophones and put the record on its turntable. The gramophone had a large, florid horn. He tapped it. “Note the fact that the horn is made out of steel,” he said, “an immediate indication that this is a proper vintage machine and not a modern counterfeit cunningly fabricated on the Indian subcontinent. All the so-called ‘Bombay Fakes’ have brass horns of course.”
“Of course.”
“And naturally the brass they use on them is shiny and new because they can’t be bothered to go to the trouble of making it look properly aged. A proper counterfeit would involve treating the brass to make it look like it had verdigris and the proper patina of age.”
Finally, lecture concluded, he played the record for us. It was old and scratchy and tinny, but it sounded wonderful. It was ‘Black Bottom’, sung by Annette Hanshaw, recorded in 1926. It wasn’t really jazz, despite the presence of Red Nichols on the session, and it was way too early for me. And yet…
I’d heard Annette Hanshaw on the radio once and immediately fallen in love.
Nevada listened, rapt. I found myself swaying in time to the music. Leo regarded us happily, the master magician watching his illusion unfold. As the song came to an end, Annette signed off with a pert spoken aside. “That’s all!” she said. From another world, from another century, she was alive again in those mischievous words.
“That’s all!” repeated Nevada delightedly.
“It was kind of her catchphrase,” I said. “She says it at the end of quite a few of her songs.”
“I can find out the exact number,” offered Leo. “I’ve got my annotated copies of the Brian Rust discography next door.”
“That won’t be necessary, Leo. But could we hear it again?” Leo cheerfully played the record again and Nevada listened, spellbound. I was tapping my feet. Even Leo was nodding in time to the music. It was a good rhythm number. Again it ended and Annette Hanshaw declared, “That’s all.”
“That’s all!” said Nevada. She looked at me. “What a charming performance. She’s lovely, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” I said.
Leo was inspecting the tonearm on t
he record player, frowning at it. “Time I changed the needle on this.” He glanced at us. “You have to change the needle virtually every time you play a record, otherwise they become blunt and you risk damage to the playing surface. It means one gets through a great many needles.”
“Why don’t you use cactus needles?” said Nevada.
Leo gaped at her. “You know what? That is exactly what I was planning to do. How unusual to meet a girl—I mean a woman—who knows about such things.” He grinned at her, enchanted. I wondered glumly if invitations to an Hellenic idyll would be forthcoming. He saw that Nevada’s glass was half empty and he took it from her and rushed out to refill it.
Nevada turned to me. “What a lovely song you chose for me.” She kissed me. “Although one must have reservations about the lyrics, with their unforgivable period reference to ‘darkies’. I wouldn’t be in a hurry to play it to Clean Head, in case she might throw it out the window like a Frisbee.”
“While giving the Black Power salute,” I said.
* * *
Leo sat us down beside his computer, a surprisingly modern PC incongruously perched between two ancient gramophones, while he looked through his database for anything recorded by the Flare Path Orchestra. He did several different kinds of searches, using different fields. It was clearly an elaborate piece of bespoke software. A sudden suspicion came over me. “Where did you get your database, Leo?”
“Tinkler designed it for me. I swapped him some John Mayall albums I found at a boot fair.”
“Typical.”
He shook his head as he studied the screen. “Sorry. It looks like I’ve got nothing at all by them.” He turned and smiled at us. “We can still look out in the garden, though.”
“The garden?” said Nevada.
“Yes. Only a small part of my collection has been catalogued on the computer. The bulk of it is outside.” We followed him out the back door into what had once been a very large garden.
I suppose it was still large, it just didn’t seem that way because it was now as densely crowded with small sheds as his dining room had been with tables. Unlike the tables, though, the sheds were all of a uniform design—virtually identical, in fact—and arranged in neat rows. Between the sheds were thin bands of grass planted with crocus and daffodil bulbs, which were just beginning to come into blossom, small splashes of yellow and purple and blue.
Victory Disc Page 4
