Death of a Cave Dweller

by Sally Spencer

  “But some of them are going to get famous eventually, aren’t they?” Woodend asked.

  “The Beatles will definitely make it sooner or later,” Platt said with conviction. “And they won’t just be one of these one-hit-wonder groups, either. It wouldn’t surprise me if they managed to get five or six discs into the Top Ten before they’re finished. They might even get around to making a long-playing record if they’re very lucky.”

  “What about the Seagulls?”

  “They’re another talented bunch of kids, and they’ve got a good chance of making it too. But they’re going to need a new lead guitarist first.”

  “They’ll have one by the end of the mornin’,” Woodend told him.

  “How do you know that?” Platt asked, surprised.

  “I’ve just seen them auditionin’ for one down in the Cellar Club.”

  “Have you, by God?” Platt asked, reaching for yet another scrap of paper and making a note on it, this time with a yellow crayon.

  “An’ I shouldn’t be at all surprised if their new guitarist’s name is Terry Garner,” Woodend said.

  Geoff Platt frowned. “Are you sure you’ve got the name right?”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “Terry’s a nice enough lad, but I wouldn’t have thought he was really up to the Seagulls’ standard. When I was drawing up my own list of possible replacements last week—”

  “Wait a minute,” Woodend interrupted. “You were drawin’ up a list of replacements last week?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Before the murder?”

  “I suppose it was, now I think about it.”

  Woodend leaned forward in his chair. “Are you tellin’ me that you knew in advance that Eddie Barnes was goin’ to be killed?”

  Platt looked thunderstruck. “No, of course I didn’t! But I knew he was planning to leave the Seagulls.”

  “If that’s true, why didn’t any of the group mention it to me?” Woodend demanded.

  “Probably because they didn’t know.”

  “So where did you get your information from?”

  An evasive look came to Geoff Platt’s face. “I got it from what we journalists call a ‘very reliable source’.”

  “And that would be?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  Woodend leant a little further, moving his own head a couple of inches closer to Platt’s. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

  “It’s the truth,” the editor said. “Look, you’ve seen what it’s like in here. People are calling me all the time. And what I write down is the information, not the source. Fellers come up to me in the pub and say I owe them a drink because they gave me this or that story, so I buy them a pint. But I couldn’t swear to the fact that they were ones who gave it to me. So what I’m saying is, I remember being told Eddie was leaving the Seagulls, and I remember thinking that the person who told me knew the business, so it had to be kosher. But I can’t actually come up with a name at the moment.”

  It was difficult to judge whether or not he was lying, Woodend thought, and more difficult still to decide whether or not Eddie Barnes’s decision to leave the group – if he really had made such a decision – had anything to do with his death.

  A new idea suddenly came to Woodend. “I’d like to buy some advertisin’ space in your paper,” he said.

  Platt grinned. “Thinking of forming a group yourself, are you? Chief Inspector Woodend and the Rockin’ Bobbies?”

  “No, I’m not formin’ a group,” Woodend said seriously. “But I do want to talk to anybody who might have any information about Eddie Barnes’s death, an’ since he was a musician, it seems to me like the best way to reach them is through the Mersey Sound.”

  “In that case, you can have your space. A whole page if you want it. And it won’t cost you a penny.”

  “That’s very generous of you.”

  “If I hadn’t liked Eddie – and I did – I’d still do anything I could to see his murderer caught.”

  “So you’ll put it in this week’s edition.”

  Platt shook his head. “Now that I can’t do, however much I might want to help.”

  “Why not?” Woodend asked. “Your paper comes out on a Tuesday, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “An’ it’s only Thursday now. That should leave you plenty of time to make the insertion.”

  “We work on a very tight budget here,” Platt said apologetically, “which means that we have to cut corners wherever we can. Printing costs is one of the ways we do it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The printers give us the best rates for the times when they’re least busy. Which means that though the paper comes out on Tuesday, it’s printed much earlier.” He looked down at his watch. “They should already have gone to press by now, which means it’s too late to make the next edition. But I’ll make sure it appears in the edition after that.”

  “Jesus, I was hopin’ to have the case wrapped up by then,” Woodend told the editor.

  “Really?” Platt said, with obvious surprise.

  “In my experience, there are two kinds of case,” Woodend said. “The first kind are the ones that drag on for months, or maybe even years, but eventually you get a result. Then there’s the other kind – the ones you either crack in the first few days on the job, or else or you never crack at all. I’ve got a feelin’ that this case is goin’ to be one of the latter.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Platt said. “I mean, right about getting an early result. We’ll never be able to put Eddie’s death entirely behind us as long as his killer’s on the loose.”

  Woodend took out his cigarettes out of his pocket, and offered one to the editor.

  “Make my job a bit easier for me, Mr Platt,” he said, after he’d held a match under the other man’s Capstan Full Strength. “Tell me who you think killed Eddie Barnes.”

  “I can honestly say I haven’t got a clue,” Platt said – and Woodend believed him. “Eddie was a really nice kid. Why should anybody want to hurt him?”

  The door swung open, and a man of about twenty-seven entered the room without knocking. He seemed both surprised and confused to find that Geoff Platt was not alone.

  “I . . . er . . . didn’t know you had company, Geoff,” he said. “I’ll come back later.”

  Woodend examined the man more closely. Nice suit – off the rack, but probably middle price range. Tired eyes. Delicate hands. If he’d had to put money on it, he would have bet the new arrival was a doctor.

  “No need for you to go, sir,” the chief inspector said. “I was just on the point of leavin’ myself.”

  But he made no move to rise from his seat, and after a few seconds’ silence which embarrassed the other two men much more than they embarrassed Woodend, Geoff Platt finally said, “Chief Inspector Woodend, I’d like you to meet Doctor Trevor Atkinson.”

  Now Woodend did stand up, and held out his hand.

  “Doctor Atkinson,” he said. “Are you one of them doctors I should come to see if I want to know somethin’ about Sumarian pottery in the third century bc, or one of them who can give me somethin’ to get rid of the chinky rot I’ve got between my toes?”

  Atkinson laughed – rather uneasily, Woodend thought. “I can get rid of your chinky rot in no time at all,” he promised.

  “Well, you should have a word with my GP,” Woodend said. “He’s been about as much use as a spare prick at a weddin’.”

  The doctor laughed a second time, and the note of unease was just as strong as it had been previously.

  “If you’d like to give me the name of your doctor . . .” he suggested.

  Woodend slapped him on the shoulder. “Only jokin’, lad,” he said. “I’ve not got chinky rot. You’re not allowed to have anythin’ wrong with you if you’re in the police force. Didn’t you know that? We’re superhuman.”

  “I . . . er . . . you’re joking again, aren’t y
ou?” the doctor said.

  “You catch on quick, don’t you,” Woodend replied. “Aye, I was joking, lad. But maybe you have to come from Lancashire to really appreciate it.” He turned his attention back to the editor. “Thank you for your time, Mr Platt. You’ve been a real help.”

  He opened the door, stepped out on to the stairs, and started to make his way down to the street. Why had the doctor seemed so nervous? he asked himself. Come to that, why had Atkinson been visiting the editor in the middle of the day? Was it a professional visit? Or a social one? As far as he could tell, there was nothing which even remotely tied Geoff Platt into the case, but Woodend still filed the encounter away in his mind for future use.

  Rutter stood in a phone box on the corner of Cook Street, listening to his home telephone ring.

  “There’s no reply,” the operator told him.

  “Keep on ringing. She might be upstairs.”

  “If she was in the house, she should have had time to answer the phone by now.”

  “She’s blind!” Rutter said, more aggressively than he’d intended. “It takes her longer to reach the phone than it takes most people. All right?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the operator said – and sounded it.

  “No. I’m sorry,” Rutter told her, feeling contrite. “There was no excuse for my snapping at you. It’s . . . it’s just everything’s so much more difficult for her than it is for normal people.”

  “Of course,” the operator said sympathetically.

  But Rutter was already drowning in guilt. What was it that he had just said? More difficult for her than a normal person? But Maria was a normal person. She just happened to be a normal person who was blind.

  The ringing continued, and Rutter suddenly had a nightmare vision of his wife tripping on a loose rail and tumbling all the way down the stairs.

  He had to get a grip, he told himself. He had to learn to have confidence in Maria’s ability to take care of herself.

  The ringing stopped, and the voice he knew so well said, “This is Clapham seven-two-seven-one.”

  “It’s me. Were you upstairs?”

  “That’s right.”

  “In the bathroom?”

  “No,” Maria admitted. “I . . . I was lying down.”

  “Have you been feeling ill again?”

  “A little. But it’s not as bad as it was the last time. I think I must be nearly over whatever bug I’ve caught.”

  “I could catch a late-night train down to London,” Rutter suggested. “It wouldn’t affect my work at all. I could be back in Liverpool in the morning, before Cloggin’-it Charlie even knew I’d gone.”

  “That really won’t be necessary,” Maria replied, with a warning edge to her voice.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I love you,” Rutter said.

  “I know you do,” his wife told him.

  Window cleaners were cleaning windows, shop assistants were standing behind their counters and pickpockets – probably – were picking pockets. If putting a man into space really had changed the world for ever, as the papers were suggesting, then there was little evidence of it on the streets of Liverpool that day. Yet despite what he’d said to Bob Rutter on the way to breakfast, Woodend did feel as if the Russian cosmonaut’s adventure had had an effect on him. It was all part of the feeling of vague unease that he’d had since he’d talked to Eddie Barnes’s parents – a feeling that he was losing touch. Certainly, he had summed up the characters of the three surviving Seagulls well enough to impress Steve Walker, but knowing what they were like was a big step from knowing how they would act.

  It was just after noon when he arrived at the Grapes, and already the place was filling up with postmen from the North John Street post office, knocking back pints of draught Guinness. Were these postmen troubled at how fast the world seemed to be moving? Did it bother them at all that although they had been born at a time when flying across the Atlantic Ocean was a novelty, they now found themselves living in an age when landing a man on the moon was more than a distinct possibility? Or were they just getting on with the life they had been given and enjoying their dinnertime pint? Probably the latter, Woodend thought. And maybe he would follow their example.

  He was just ordering a pint of bitter when he noticed Billie Simmons sitting alone in the corner.

  “Make that two pints,” he told the barman.

  He took the drinks over to Simmons’ table, placed one of them in front of the drummer, and sat down.

  Simmons looked at the glass for a couple of seconds, then said, “Is that for me?”

  “I’ve not quite got to the stage of drinkin’ my pints in doubles, so it must be,” Woodend told him.

  “It’s the first time a copper’s ever given me anythin’ other than a clout round the head,” Billie Simmons said, blunting the harshness of his words with an ironic smile. He raised the glass in the chief inspector’s general direction. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” Woodend responded, raising his own glass. “So you’re on your own then, are you?”

  Billie Simmons made a great show of looking under the table. “Seems that way.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Steve’s gone off for a drink somewhere else with Terry, Pete’s gone off in a sulk, an’ Jack’s stopped pretendin’ he’s a real manager an’ gone back to the shippin’ office.”

  “I take it that means that Terry Garner is goin’ to be the Seagulls’ new lead guitarist.”

  “Of course he is. He was at school with Steve, you see. One of his pals. An’ now that Eddie’s dead, he’s found himself suddenly promoted to the position of Steve’s best pal.”

  “Why do you always let Steve Walker get his own way over things?” Woodend asked.

  Billie shrugged. “We need him. Pete might be the brains of the group, but Steve’s the heart.”

  “And what about you?”

  The ironic smile played on Simmons’ lips again. “Me? Hasn’t anyone told you? I’m just the drummer.”

  “Tell me about the girl who was in the dressin’ room the night before Eddie Barnes died,” Woodend said.

  “Girl?” Simmons repeated. “What girl?”

  “The one that somebody had a quick session with on the sofa behind the curtain.”

  Simmons’ smile became a grin. “Oh, that girl,” he said. “I think her name was Mavis.”

  “Had you seen her before?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “But not since?”

  “No.”

  “Who took her behind the curtain?”

  “Steve.”

  “So he knew her, did he?”

  Billie Simmons shook his head. “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He spotted her when were on stage. As were comin’ off, he asked me if I knew what she was called.”

  Woodend pulled out his cigarettes, and offered Billie one. “Who do you remember bein’ in the dressin’ room after the club closed?” he asked.

  Simmons put his hand over his eyes, as if that would aid his concentration. “Let me see. All the Seagulls were there, an’ so were Mike Finn an’ his band. A couple of the Fantastics stayed behind. They had their manager with them. Jack turned up just after midnight, an’ hung about until we needed drivin’ home – like he usually does. Oh, an’ a couple of Pete’s mates were there an’ all.”

  “What were you all doin’?”

  Simmons grinned again. “Apart from Steve, you mean?”

  “Yes, apart from Steve.”

  “It’s like we told you in the club. We were talkin’, smokin’, drinkin’, messin’ about playin’ a few tunes. It’s what Steve calls ‘attendin’ the University of Rock’n’Roll’.”

  He had a way with words, did Steve Walker, Woodend thought. “An’ all your equipment was where, exactly?” he asked.

  “At the end of the dressin’ room. Next to the curtain.”

  “You know
what I think?” Woodend asked. “I think that for anybody to have time to change the wirin’ in Eddie’s amplifier, somethin’ must have happened to distract everybody else’s attention. Can you think what that might have been?”

  Billie Simmons blinked only once, but Woodend did not miss it. “Are you askin’ me if anythin’ unusual happened?” the young drummer asked. “Like a fire breakin’ out in the waste-paper basket, or somethin’ like that?”

  “That’s it,” Woodend agreed. “Or somethin’ like that.”

  “No, there was nothin’ out of the ordinary,” Simmons said, totally unconvincingly.

  “Everybody says they want me to catch this murderer, but nobody seems willing to do anythin’ to help me,” Woodend said impatiently. “If you know somethin’, Mr Simmons, for God’s sake spit it out.”

  A look of uncertainty crossed the drummer’s face. “I’m an only child,” he said. “My mum was nearly forty when she had me. My dad died when I was three. It wasn’t easy for her, bringin’ me up, but she always did the best she could, an’ I love her to bits.”

  “I’m not sure I know where you’re goin’ with this,” the chief inspector told him.

  “The only thing Mum has always worried about is me keepin’ my nose clean,” Billie Simmons said. “I think it’d just about kill her if I got into any trouble with the police.”

  “Do you think you are in trouble with the police?”

  “I could be.”

  “What for?”

  The hesitancy and uncertainty were still there on Billie Simmons’ face. “When we were in Hamburg, we had a pretty wild time,” he said finally. “We were playin’ in the club until the early hours of the mornin’, an’ then goin’ on to parties after that. I never added it up, but we can’t have got more than three or four hours’ sleep a day, an’ . . .”

  He stopped suddenly, and stared into the middle distance. Woodend turned around, and saw that Bob Rutter had just come through the door.

  Billie Simmons drained the half of his pint which remained in one quick gulp. “Look at the time. I have to be goin’,” he said.