Rock'n'Roll Suicide (Jack Lockwood Mystery Series Book 1)

by Geoffrey West

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “How dare you, Jack? How bloody dare you!” His voice was practically hysterical. “I’ve just saved your life! And before that, although you didn’t realise it at the time, I saved you three times! Surely marriage to Sarah must have proved to you that you’ll never be happy with a woman?”

  “What do you mean, You saved me?”

  “Miranda had her claws into you. I could see it, but you were way out of your depth, emotionally drained, at your weakest, ready to fall into the same ridiculous trap that I did with Natalie. But I knew better. I knew you better than you knew yourself, Jack. You’ve always loved me, you know it deep down, you just can’t admit it. But it’s not so hard. The hard part is admitting the truth to yourself.”

  “No Ken. That is not true. I don’t love you. I don’t love you like that and I never could–”

  “–I told you, Jack, you don’t know yourself,” he protested. “But I can make the decisions for both of us. You see we’re getting away, Jack. You and me. Life is as intolerable for you as it is for me. You have no proper job, you keep stumbling into these dead-end ridiculous relationships because you can’t face up to your true sexuality. We’re both confused and lost. Neither of us can ever make it as things stand, life’s knocked us back too many times. Don’t you see how much sense this makes? This is the only way. We take a stand and just jump off the world because it’s too much for us to hack. We’ll be together from now on.”

  “Give it up Ken. This is the end of the road.”

  “Yes of course it is. For both of us. It’s all over for me, Jack, but you must realise by now that it’s all over for you too? You’re never going to be happy if I’m sent away. We need each other. And there’s only one way we can be together forever.”

  Ken had clearly snapped. In his own mind the crazy fantasy he’d been living had become reality.

  “Haven’t you got the message, Jack? I’ve given up everything for you. When I was telling you that Natalie was having an affair, and how upset I was about it, that was all lies. Because I was upset, but I couldn’t tell you the real reason. I was afraid of losing you. You mean more to me than my life, my marriage, or those kids I took on that I thought were so important to me. We can’t run forever, so we have to do the brave thing. But we won’t do it here. We’ll go somewhere nice, and take our time. They’ll find our bodies together.”

  There was no option but to try and play for time.

  The concrete mixture still adhered to my skin here and there and I felt the shrinking discomfort as it hardened, dragging the skin tight.

  “Aren’t you going to take a shower then?”

  I shook my head, calculating my chances of jumping him and getting away with it. But I was still shattered from the stress of Van Meer’s attempt to kill me, my muscles tingling in agony, my reserves of energy down to zero. And one slip meant death: it made no odds to Ken whether he killed me now or later. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me.

  “We can take your car.”

  He made me drive, sitting beside me, the gun still in his hand, aimed at my head.

  We continued down Anstruther Lane, beside Hellvellyn Woods, the journey back to the M2.

  “Let’s go back to Cornwall,” Ken said. “We were happy there.”

  I nodded. A long journey meant the necessity for buying petrol. Good opportunities for getting away.

  “Do you know how I think they know I killed Miranda?” Ken asked. “Why they came after us?”

  “The St Christopher medal?”

  “That’s the most likely thing. You remember I lost it in Cornwall, was searching everywhere for the bloody thing? That must be where it went. I’ve got this memory of Miranda grabbing at it while I was squeezing her neck, clutching it so hard it snapped the chain. I didn’t even notice at the time. They’ll show it to Natalie and she’ll be able to identify it. That’s why I knew I had to get away while I still could.”

  I struggled to think in the darkness, determined to find a way out, deciding that humouring him was the best option.

  “You do know that I love you, don’t you?” Ken’s voice droned on. “Did you hear what I said, Jack?”

  “Yes, I heard.”

  “All those times at school you rescued me from the bullies, I knew how you felt then, but neither of us really acknowledged it did we? When you first came out of the hospital, and you told me everything, all your hopes and fears. We were so close then, do you remember? All those hours and hours we talked, and shared our innermost feelings, our most precious experiences.”

  “I remember.”

  “We were as close as bothers.”

  “Yes.”

  “Closer than brothers.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “And yet every time you nearly said those words to me, just before you crossed the physical barrier, something happened didn’t it? That fishing holiday in Cornwall, that was the happiest time of my life… That’s why we’re going back there.”

  I thought I heard him starting to cry.

  “We were so happy then, weren’t we?”

  I didn’t reply, simply stared ahead, driving through the darkness, struggling to think of a way out.

  “We were happy until you met Miranda. The first night, the first night we went out on our own, we wandered along the seashore, talking about old times. But after Nikki had introduced you to his bloody bitch of a sister, it was her you wanted to be with, wasn’t it? I used to lie there alone in my room picturing you touching her, holding her, making love to her. It nearly drove me insane.”

  “What happened?”

  “I phoned her, telling her that you’d been taken ill suddenly, but that I had a message from you to give her. You should have seen the excitement on her face when she came to the church – you remember St Martin’s, the vicar left it unlocked for me that night, I’d told him I wanted to do more brass rubbing.”

  “Yes, I remember the church.”

  “She looked up at me, and asked me what was wrong with you. Asked could she come and see you to tell you that she did want to start a relationship with you, that she was falling in love with you, and was even prepared to follow you to Kent if that’s what you wanted. Something inside me snapped when I saw that sick puppy-dog adoration in her eyes. She thought she was in love with you, but she had no idea of the meaning of the word. Because she had no idea that it was me. It was me! Even as I was choking her, she couldn’t believe what was happening, she couldn’t understand why she had to die, how nothing else mattered to me but getting rid of the silly little bitch. You never noticed I took the car that night, did you? That’s how I got rid of her body. Drove around until I saw that front drive being built in Penzance. After that it was easy. I had to do it. I knew what she was like, you see Jack. I knew what they all were like…”

  My mouth had gone dry. I felt the bitter taste of bile, as if I was going to be sick. “And Shelly?”

  “You phoned me to say that you could make it home on your own, that you didn’t need me to fetch you. But you were upset, keyed up, high on love, I knew that was it, Shelly was all you were thinking about. You told me shortly afterwards that she kept phoning you, and I knew that sooner or later you’d be going back to her. You pretended you were sick of her but I knew you felt sorry for her, that you were going to see her again, it was only a matter of her pushing the right buttons. So that day I drove up to her address. I hadn’t really worked out what I was going to say, what I was going to do. She answered the door, and when I mentioned your name, she looked excited hungry. I saw that predatory look in her eyes, that I knew meant she wanted you, that she was going to get you. And I thought, all these years, half a lifetime I’ve been waiting for you to come to your senses and be with me, and this little trollop thinks she can just click her fingers and have you just like that! Something happened to me, a kind of raging fury at the unfairness of it all. And I pictured you making love to her, there
in that flat on that bed. I managed to get through the hallway further inside the flat, and there, on the coffee table, was your watch. The watch I’d bought you, that you hadn’t even bothered to look after. Then, she was irritated with me. Stroking her hair, primping her lips, looking at her watch, obviously wanting me to leave, obviously wanting to talk to you, maybe even expecting you to arrive any minute. And when I looked into her eyes, and I knew that you’d been touching her, and kissing her... It’s not so hard to strangle someone, Jack. The hardest part is when you start, but once you’ve begun squeezing, things get easier, you just have to keep up the pressure…”

  * * * *

  We were on the A2990, approaching the junction with the A299, where a right turn would lead us in the direction of the M2.

  I’d been planning on jumping him when we got petrol at a service station. But judging by the maniacal look in his eyes I could tell he was wild, hyped up, beyond all reason. He needed only the slightest excuse to pull the trigger and kill me, then himself, and it didn’t really matter if he did it on a windswept motorway service station or on the beach at Penzance.

  My only chance was surprise.

  Instead of taking the turnoff right, I carried on, in the direction of Canterbury.

  “We should have turned off there!” Ken yelled.

  “Really? Sorry.”

  Then, for the first time, I noticed headlights in the rear-view mirror. I realised that the same vehicle seemed to have been behind us for ages, keeping close, as if he was following us.

  “What is it?” Ken snapped when he saw me looking.

  “Behind us. Someone’s following.”

  He craned round in his seat. “I think it’s a van. Why would a van be following your car?”

  “Search me.”

  We were entering a long straight road.

  Suddenly the headlights in my mirror became huge blinding saucers. I felt a bump, and the car rocked forwards.

  “Fuck!” Ken yelled as he jerked forward against his seatbelt.

  I accelerated to get away, but the van stayed behind, then it bumped us again.

  The car slewed across the road, almost reaching the grass verge. We were beside a farmer’s field, separated from it by a low hedge. I wrenched the wheel around, trying to get back on the right side of the carriageway.

  But the van came on again, ramming us in the side. Ken roared, the jolt causing him to drop the gun, as we were forced back onto the carriageway, on the wrong side off the road, broadside to the traffic. I remember hearing the blare of the oncoming lorry’s horn as I opened the door and leapt out, smashing headlong into the tarmac. Rolling for my life, chewing earth as I made it to the grass verge.

  The hiss of air brakes preceded the momentous crash as the roof of my car was partially torn off, and the two vehicles careered to an undignified halt. They were locked together like lovers in a mad crazy dance, with my car wedged firmly under the lorry’s undercarriage. The stink of burning rubber and hot metal was overpowering.

  Afterwards fragments are all I can remember. The car that pulled up across the road, its driver leaping out, mobile phone in hand, dithering in front of the conflagration, unsure what to do. Later the ambulances and police cars. The kind paramedic who helped me into the ambulance.

  But I got out again, insisting that I was okay, forcing my way to a police car, to make the officers listen about Jane’s murder. They refused to let me go with them, so I phoned for a cab to take me there.

  When I arrived, two police cars were already on the scene. And an ambulance.

  I looked up towards her flat’s window, dreading to see the patch of pavement where her body must have hit. Noticed the large Sky dish aerial that was blocking my view.

  And then I caught a glimpse of a woman’s shoe, stuck between the dish and the wall. In that moment, I had a single shred of hope.

  “It’s okay.” I heard Jane’s voice behind me. I pulled her close and held her tight, unable to believe what was happening.

  “He pushed me out of the window and I fell,” she whispered in my ear. “But Marcia and Alan’s satellite dish saved my life. It was just below my window, and it broke my fall. I managed to hang on to it. They heard me shouting.”

  A thirtyish couple, in tacky trousers and sweatshirts, were standing nearby, smiling. This was the dreadful ‘Marcia and Alan’ who Jane had hated, the pariahs of the block of flats, the beasts who held noisy parties, played music until late into the night and had arguments that were broadcast next day by outraged neighbours. Yet now they looked as if they were almost embarrassed when Jane broke away from me and pushed between them, sliding her arms around their waists.

  “I can never thank you enough,” she said.

  “Forget it, love, I’m just glad it all worked out,” Alan said, looking sheepish. “It’s kind of broken the ice with our neighbours. We thought they were a miserable lot. Up till now nobody’s spoken to us.”

  * * * *

  It was a week later. After my surreal experiences, the police were finally satisfied with my version of events. Ken had been killed instantaneously, his head pulverised by the lorry’s front bumper. The van driver who’d deliberately tailgated us, then caused the fatal accident, had been Adrian Hart, Shelly’s jealous husband, who’d previously promised me that if it turned out that I’d killed Shelly, he’d liquidate me. He was keeping his word, as a result of hearing from his police informant that the man they’d arrested for murdering his wife had been proven innocent, and that I was now the number-one suspect. So he’d followed my car and done his best to destroy me. He’d been arrested at the scene, initially despondent that he hadn’t killed me. But when he found out that by chance he actually had killed the person responsible for his wife’s death he was delighted – oblivious to the fact that he was going to spend a long time in jail. Shelly had been all he lived for, and now that she was gone his life held no interest for him.

  And despite the fact that Jane understood why I’d behaved as I had, she’d still not forgiven me for not being totally honest with her. There was not going to be any fairy tale ending, and I had to face the fact that I’d blown my chances with her, just like I’d blown my chances on so many other things in my life.

  I had finished off Crash and Burn and delivered it to Figaro, and gone out to lunch with Giles Mander to celebrate. He’d suggested a couple of ideas for future books, but leavened his enthusiasm with the proviso that times were very tight. No way could they promise to commission me for anything else right then, it was a question of asking and hoping. The recession that everyone was talking about was predicted to get much worse for the foreseeable future.

  I felt strangely alone. Ken had been my closest friend for a long period, and, although I had other friends nearby, people I knew in the local pub, Stuart to tinker with old cars with, what hurt most of all was that I had no girlfriend, nor did it seem likely that anyone was on the horizon. After meeting Jane I’d realised, too late, that I really wasn’t interested in meeting anyone else. I’d fallen for a woman who insisted that she never wanted to see me again. Despite phoning and emailing her, she told me she wouldn’t change her mind because she couldn’t trust me, because I’d ‘lied to her too many times’. She’d said I could contact her in a month, just as a way of keeping in touch. It was something to look forward to.

  Perhaps she was right. My life was simpler now, all there was left for me was blundering on, alone, as best I could, so I could try to recover from all that had happened in the past few weeks. My physical wounds healed pretty quickly, but the mental scars would remain for a long long time to come. The whole mess was over, and it was time to put it all behind me.

  Before that, however, there were some sinister loose ends that I was determined to unravel.

  * * * *

  Right from the start it had been the alleged mystery surrounding John Lennon’s murder that had been central to everything that had happened. I felt bitter and angry that Tony Woodley, the camera shop owner and
seventies music aficionado, must have made copies of my photos of the massacre at The Mansh, and sold the attenuated story to Making Sounds. In doing so he’d caused anguish and grief to Robert Malachi-Brown, the ex-musician who wanted nothing more than to enjoy his retirement in Hamburg without being pestered by the press. I’d promised Robert that I wouldn’t publicize the things he’d told me, and I knew he’d blame me for what had appeared in the press.

  What exactly was the truth about Lennon’s murder? Was it as a result of a blunder by a CIA agent, as Robert Malachi-Brown had said that Maggi O’Kane had claimed? It was anybody’s guess, but the mystery tugged at my mind, longing for an answer which I knew I’d probably never find.

  The insurance had covered a courtesy car while they sorted out the write-off value to give me for replacing the one that Ken had died in. It was a sunny Monday morning when I arrived in Bath, determined to tackle Tony Woodley and tell the treacherous bastard exactly what I thought of him.

  Bath was just as I remembered it: the golden-coloured stone buildings, the hills, the river running below the High Street and the grand semicircular terraces of houses. I parked in the multi-storey in the High Street and retraced my steps of a few weeks ago. Tony Woodley Photography was in a row of shops in the west of town, beyond the High Street.