Kill For Love

by Ray Connolly

  He looked down at the gardener in the flowerbed, and then across at the American girl who’d served lunch and was now hovering waiting for further commands. “I don’t know. We pay them well, treat them fairly, give them good lodgings, amenable hours, make them feel important. Something like that.”

  “And a good pension scheme? Opportunities for promotion? Luncheon Vouchers?”

  “All that, as well. They say I’m nominated for Employer of the Year.”

  “They’re in love with you, aren’t they?”

  “Oh, come on, away with you.” He pulled a face.

  “It’s obvious. They’re fans and they’re in love.”

  He shook his head. “Sure, Petra recruits from fans, but she chooses very carefully, looking for those she thinks will be the most useful, but love...no…”

  She smiled. “Love…yes! Where does she find them? Do they write in, sending CVs or something?”

  “All kinds of ways. The internet’s very good in that respect. It’s a bit like internet dating, only we’re hiring. You can have quite a lengthy correspondence before you actually meet. We have a couple of very good IT people working for us.”

  “And they help you weed out the lunatics...”

  “Or maybe weed them in.”

  She laughed. “Making sure you only get the ones who are head over heels.”

  “There’s a big difference between being a loyal worker and being in love, Kate.”

  “Some of them might not understand the difference.”

  “Oh, they know all right.”

  Kate stood her ground. “It’s some kind of love. I’m sure about that. Fan love, I suppose.”

  “And if they are in love, is that good or bad?”

  “I suppose that depends upon you and what you choose to do with it.”

  He gave in. “All right, if it makes you happy, I’ll tell you the truth. They are in love. Every last one of them. Smitten with me, they are. You should see the Valentine cards they send me. In the old days rock stars just had groupies flinging knickers at them. Now we get…what? A host of adoring disciples. But, if you don’t mind, right now I think I’ll use that love to have one of them bring me some raspberries and cream.” He paused, puckishly. “What do you say, Kate Merrimac? Would you like some, too? Can I tempt you?

  Chapter Fourteen

  They went riding in the afternoon, Kate on a little tan mare, Gadden's horse, a very expensive looking Appaloosa. She wasn’t the most experienced or confident rider, but she could stay upright. Gadden was so graceful it almost looked as though he and the horse were one.

  "Did you learn to ride in Ireland?" she asked as, side by side, they made their way through the woods of the estate out of the main gates and down towards the sea.

  He nodded. "Without a saddle in those days, too. There's still nothing as thrilling to me as a horse fair, buying and selling, trying to spot the broken-winded one, or the cripple that's tanked up on painkilling injections and certain to go permanently lame the minute you get him home."

  "Were there farmers in your family then?"

  "Farmers would be a grand name for them."

  "What would you call them?"

  "Knackers would be nearer the mark, I think, though I don't remember any family, to be honest."

  "You mean like travellers?"

  "I mean like knackers," he retorted. "Don't tell me you didn't know that we have knackers in Ireland."

  "I was thinking of the viewers," she laughed. "They might not know."

  He took that in as they rode on. "In my experience people believe exactly what they're told. No more and no less."

  A thought occurred to her and she tried again. "Do you know anyone called Michael Lynch?"

  "The name doesn't ring a bell. Should it?"

  "I don't know. He's supposed to have been at school with you. My red hot producer and his researcher are in Galway trying to come up with some anecdotes about your schooldays that we can talk about in the interview, but the best they've done so far is get a dosser on the phone. The researcher's in love with you, too, by the way."

  He turned to her. "So you're investigating me, are you, Kate?"

  "Hardly. Television people call it research. It happens for every programme, and there's very little background material in your cuttings. You don't mind, do you?"

  "Why would I mind? But I don't remember any Michael Lynch. If your producer or besotted researcher...what was her name...?”

  "Beverly. Beverly Dennis."

  "Well, okay, if Beverly Dennis or her boss meets up with this fella, tell them to buy him a drink on me, will you? He must have a better memory than I have."

  And with that he ended the conversation as they reached an open meadow and he urged his horse into a lope.

  She was disappointed. All right, so Gadden had made a charismatic career out of covering his traces, but he could hardly blame anyone for being curious. As friendly as he was, getting a decent interview out of him was going to be tricky.

  They didn't speak again for some minutes as in single file he led her down towards a small inlet where the Atlantic cut deep into the coast. Finally, crossing a road, and splashing through a stream they rode out on to the hard sand of the beach.

  At the water's edge, Gadden reigned in and stared at the autumn sea mist which lay just beyond the breakers. "I'll tell you one thing for your research," he mused. “When I was a boy and moving around Ireland I liked to think that when I reached the Atlantic Ocean I'd be able to see America if I looked hard enough. All it took was a little willpower."

  "And magic."

  "If you have willpower, making magic's easy."

  She looked out to sea. "Do you have a house in Ireland, too? Somewhere else for weekends when you aren't here."

  "Not any more. I never look back.”

  "But the children’s hospital you’re backing will be there?"

  "That's true. But they won't want me interfering, will they?" And turning his horse away from her, he allowed it to paddle in the surf.

  They rode all afternoon, off the beach, along the cliffs, then back inland, meandering through the fields and farms.

  "Can I ask you about Petra?" she asked as they crossed a pasture scattered with wild flowers.

  "Ask me what about her?"

  "Well, I’m not quite sure what she is. I mean, is she, or was she, a girl friend, or a p.a., or manager or, well, what?"

  There was a chuckle. "What indeed? I think she may have started out as a fan. Then she sort of stayed involved."

  "So she was a girl friend?"

  A smile ended that line of enquiry.

  It meant, “yes”, she was sure. And now? She tried again. "Outside your organisation, she's known as the Gatekeeper."

  "So they tell me. I suppose sometimes she can be a bit over-zealous in keeping people away from me."

  "Would that be because she's jealous of people getting too close to you?"

  "Maybe she's afraid of me getting to close to other people."

  Kate waited for a further explanation. Again none was given. Almost every question ended in a smile and a tease. The Jesse Gadden she was getting to know may be nothing like the man the fans thought they knew, but the enigma remained.

  At last, as her legs and back were beginning to ache from the riding, they reached the stone wall that ran around the Haverhill estate. Following it they came to side entrance at a narrow, arched gateway.

  Gadden turned to her. "Okay, it’s rock trivia time if we want to get home tonight. In what year was Sergeant Pepper released?"

  Kate pulled a face. "Oh, God. I wasn’t even born. Nor were you.”

  "Have a guess?"

  "Well, Sixties obviously. Late Sixties."

  "Be exact."

  "I don't know. Nineteen sixty...nine?"

  "Now let's see if you're right." And leaning from his horse he tapped the figures 1-9-6-9 into a security system built into the wall.

  There was a sharp bleep and a red light came on
. The gate remained closed.

  "Oh dear! And you the daughter of a historian,” he teased. “You're not very good on dates, are you?"

  Quickly he entered another number. This time the gate swung open and they guided their horses through.

  "History isn’t studied just by dates these days," Kate said, pretend prissily as the gate closed automatically behind them. "Dates and figures are for trainspotters."

  "Handy for remembering how to get in though, wouldn't you say?" and Gadden steered the Appaloosa down the path back towards the house.

  They had a swim before dinner to relax their muscles, Kate wearing the one-piece black bathing suit she wore when she went to Fulham Pools on Sunday mornings. She was glad she’d remembered to pack it, just in case. Gadden wore long black shorts. He was a good swimmer, his hair floating behind him as he slid through the water, though his body was thinner than she’d expected.

  The pool had been dug in an old conservatory which lay behind the main house, and at this hour of the day the surface of the water was caught by the evening sun shining through high, curved, stained glass windows. After a couple of lengths Kate relaxed and, floating on her back, stared up at the patterns and colours in the glass. Suddenly Gadden popped up alongside her, tossing his hair out of his eyes, his skin touching hers.

  “You’re not like your image,” she said, treading water, watching the reflections dappling his skin.

  “Nor are you.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I had an image other than that of a bossy Englishwoman who goes around the world...” She stopped, and corrected herself, “…who went around the world asking questions of people who don’t always want to answer them.”

  “That’s what I mean,” he mocked. “You’re not like that. Well, you’re not bossy, anyway.”

  “So, where did all the Jesse Gadden enigma come from?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She tried again, her arms out now as, like two starfish, they floated alongside each other. “What I mean is, no-one can have kept so much information about himself secret by accident. You must have tried very hard. You must still have to try.” She glanced across at him.

  He was smiling to himself.

  “I mean, why haven’t any of your old friends and distant cousins, or even old girl friends, gone to the newspapers?”

  “That presupposes that there are old friends and distant family and past girl friends.”

  “Oh, come on. There must be someone.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Do you think you’d be any less successful if you were less mysterious?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “What about the missing eighteen months then…you dropping out of sight? What was that about? Where were you? Were you here? Was that just an act, too?”

  He’d had enough. “Kate, let’s save all this for the interview, shall we, or we’ll have nothing to talk about. All these questions can wait.”

  “Will it be easier for me to get answers then?”

  “Who knows?” And with a neat flip of his body he dived beneath her and swam away underwater to the other end of the pool.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She wore her new blue dress for the evening, the one she'd shown to Jeroboam. It looked better now, she thought, as she viewed herself in the mirror, the colour set off by the slight tan she'd picked up during the afternoon's riding. All the same, wondering if it was perhaps just an inch too low, she hitched it further back at the neck and secured it with a small safety pin.

  Having taken her time showering and washing her hair, she was in a state of slight anticipation. Would she look overdressed? In any other country house the answer would have been “Yes”. But in this house?

  "We don't often have a guest at Haverhill, not a real guest from outside, so we like to make the most of it when we do," Gadden had warned as they'd left the pool. "We think of such occasions as family occasions."

  And what a family! All day the youthful staff had been politely disappearing into shadows as she'd approached, carefully affording her the privacy Gadden must have requested. Now, as if satisfied that she'd passed some test of his devising, she was to be welcomed among them. So, as the sea mist rolled in and covered the sun, she made her way down to join them.

  Her first thought on reaching the panelled dining room was that it was like entering a medieval court, as more than twenty young men and women seated at a long oak table, their faces illuminated by flickering candles, turned to welcome her.

  "You're here, Kate! Up here with me," Gadden was calling immediately, his Irish accent cutting through the babbling good humour of the greetings.

  Aware of smiling eyes on her, she made her way along the backs of the chairs to where he was standing at the head of the table, his hair now tied back off his face.

  As they sat down she noticed that he cast a quick look towards Kerinova at the end of the room. The Estonian returned his glance, then nodded to Kate. It was an expression that could have meant anything.

  Acknowledging her, Kate turned and watched Gadden smiling around the room at his young disciples, the girls pretty in the colourful blouses that topped their jeans, the boys’ hair almost uniformly long like that of their patron. It was all nonsense, of course, a famous, super-rich man’s pretend world, but she couldn’t deny she was enjoying this bizarre weekend.

  To her immediate left sat the two recording engineers she’d met at the studio, while immediately across from them was Dana, the American girl, who’d refused to be drawn into conversation at breakfast, and Peter, the young technician who’d stayed all night in the studio to play her the new tracks. She waved him a hello. Then right at the end of the table, almost apart from the others, were Stefano and Kish, his young assistant. Expressionless in their track suits and with their shaven heads they didn’t fit in with the rest of the company. They looked as though they didn’t care

  “Stefano and Kish…they’re your minders, right?” she guessed.

  Gadden glanced at them and nodded. “Something like that.”

  A latecomer in a corner caught her eye. It was the woman she'd seen with the sunflowers. A good fifteen years older than the other girls, she was sitting next to Kerinova, obsessively watching Gadden, nodding to herself from time to time, as though in some private conversation. Everywhere else smiles and laughter filled the room.

  "Quite a happy little household you’ve got here,” Kate said as the soup was served by a pretty black girl.

  "I like to think so,” Gadden grinned. “And talented. That’s Stephie, for instance, and this is Willi. And he indicated a bespectacled short haired young man. “He builds our website, jessegadden.com, and next to him is Sonja, his assistant.” A small, dark haired, bird of a girl looked up as she heard her name mentioned. “And this one here with the Alice band, she’s Agnieta from Sweden. Anything we want doing she can get it done.” As he spoke, Agnieta, fair and freckled, dimpled with pleasure at being noticed.

  Kate nodded to her, recalling dinners at college when the most eager students had been thrilled to have caught the eye of the most popular academics.

  “Then there’s Brendan,” Gadden was continuing. “He looks after the estate and the dogs.”

  A muscular ginger haired young man raised his head.

  “You have dogs?” Kate asked.

  “For security. We started out with wolves, but they kept eating the fans who tried to sneak over the wall. It was terrible.” And he laughed.

  For two hours it was a jolly dinner as the staff joked among themselves. Occasionally Kate sensed Kerinova watching her, and, still mortified at having been caught snooping, she was glad that they were so far apart. But, although Gadden was in good spirits, she was aware, too, of times when he seemed to withdraw and watch those around him like an outsider. Was that the lot of all stars, she wondered.

  "What are you thinking?" she enquired at one such moment.

  "Just how happy I am," he came back. "This second. Now. Wond
ering if there could be anything better in life."

  "And what's your conclusion?"

  "Maybe. Maybe things could be just a little tiny bit more perfect. A fraction."

  “And if that happens?”

  “I’ll try to preserve it.”

  She smiled. It was all silly. But, then, the whole weekend was silly.

  “Will you sing us a song, Jesse,” Agnieta, the freckled girl, asked as bowls of fruit were put on the table as dinner was finishing.

  “Well, now…” Gadden pretended shyness.

  “Just one. Please.”

  All faces turned towards him, encouraging.

  “Well, maybe just the one.” And he put a hand in the air.

  Immediately a guitar was delivered to him. He hadn’t needed much coaxing.

  “Sorry about this,” he murmured to Kate. “It looks like I’ve got to sing for me supper.” Then, standing, one foot on his chair, he brought his hand down across the strings. “I am a roving gambler, I gamble down in town, whenever I meet with a deck of cards, I lay my money down, I lay my money down….” he sang, his voice soft and clear.

  Kate was surprised. She’d seen him perform in front of half a million fans in Hyde Park. But that had been pure theatre. This was something simpler, something she could better relate to, a folk singer playing the songs with which he’d started out.

  The Fields of Athenry and The Irish Rover followed. Then, as quickly as the performance had begun, he ended it. “Okay, that’s it for tonight, folks. If you’ve enjoyed the show, you might put a few pennies into Petra’s hat as you leave. We need every penny. Thank you and good night.” And as Petra Kerinova led the applause, he took Kate’s hand. “I think we’d better make our exit now, before they rush us.”

  "Why don't you play us another record, Kate," he said.

  They were standing by the juke box in the room of mirrors. Outside floodlights illuminated the gardens. It had been no more than fifteen minutes since they’d finished dinner, but already the house was in silence. Where had all those young people gone, Kate puzzled. To their rooms? Was there a communal sitting room somewhere in one of the wings of the house? Or had they all gone down to the local pub? "You choose,” she replied. “It's your turn tonight."