Amphetamines and Pearls

by John Harvey

  ‘You were the man who found the body, weren’t you?’

  I was getting so famous I could become the next Burke or Hare—or both rolled into one.

  ‘I realised as soon as you showed me the card,’ she went on. ‘I hadn’t connected you before. Though we’ve all talked about it a lot at the office, of course.’

  Of course. But had she heard anything that sounded interesting, anything that anyone wouldn’t have read in the papers?

  ‘No-o, although a few people did say she might have been asking for it.’

  ‘What did they mean by that?’ I asked.

  She thought about it while she was taking her next sip at the coffee. It didn’t look as if she was in any hurry to get back to work.

  ‘Well, you must realise that I didn’t have much to do with her. She usually went straight past my office and up to see Patrick. But you get to hear things, you know.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  She was obviously unsure of how much she should say.

  I assured her that it would be all right so she went on.

  ‘There was a tour all set up, for the States, I don’t know if you knew anything about that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, I heard Patrick saying to somebody that he doubted it would ever go ahead. He doubted if she would be able to make it.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘I don’t know. It may have been that. Patrick didn’t say; but he did say she had been acting very strangely. Very difficult, apparently, whenever it came to doing recordings or getting anything together at all. I think he had a soft spot for her and that’s why he put up with it. But it sounded dreadful: as though she were throwing sudden fits in the studios and shouting out that everyone was trying to ruin her career. Just horrible things she would say sometimes. Then the next minute, almost, she would apparently forget about it all.’

  I asked: ‘Do you think she would have made any serious enemies doing that?’

  Jane thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think so. I mean, it wouldn’t have made her many friends. But we’re used to pretty crazy people in this business. No one would have hated her for what she did, not enough to want to kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  I paid the bill and offered her a brandy to compensate for the shock. I looked very carefully both ways, crossed the road with her and went into the pub opposite.

  ‘I imagine that if she did want to get hold of some dope of one form or another—more than just grass, say—it wouldn’t be too difficult for her to do so?’

  Jane swirled her brandy round at the bottom of her glass.

  I don’t know how but she managed to make that quite innocent gesture into something that was very sensuous. Or maybe that was a reflection of what was going on inside my head.

  ‘Some of the musicians who come in are on junk—I think—but she probably wouldn’t be able to get hold of it as easily. Though there are always people willing—aren’t there?’

  She looked at me with hesitation, as though afraid of showing that she knew more than perhaps at her age I would have thought she should.

  I shrugged my shoulders and she went on.

  ‘There are always big parties at weekends. Well, not so much big as strong …’ She faltered.

  ‘Strong?’

  ‘Yes … well, they have quite a sex scene going, so I’m told, and there’s blue movies and that sort of thing. There must be a lot of stuff pushed there … I suppose?’

  She looked oddly innocent, as if the things she was talking about were things she knew of but didn’t know. It was as if the world that surrounded her had just bounced off her so far: or was that what I wanted to think?

  ‘You said, “so I’m told”. You’ve, never been then?’

  ‘Certainly not! Though it’s not for want of being asked. Patrick is always on at me to go. He gets on to all the girls who work there to go—to fill out the numbers, not to get involved. Although no one would complain if you did.’ She laughed. ‘This girl Susan who works in the imports office, she went to one and she looks the least likely girl to want to join in with anything like that. Apparently it took three of them to keep her quiet! Normally they pay girls from outside to do that sort of thing.’

  I was very interested but I didn’t want her to think it was for the wrong reasons. Though had she known my real reasons she might have preferred good old-fashioned lust.

  ‘What sort of people go to these parties?’

  ‘Music people. Disc jockeys, singers, producers—anyone who Patrick wants to keep on the right side of, anyone he wants to sweeten up.’

  ‘With a spoonful of sex all provided free,’ I suggested.

  Jane nodded. Her brandy glass was empty. I offered her another but she said she had to be back at work.

  ‘How often are these parties held, Jane?’

  ‘Almost every weekend, as far as I know. I’ve been taken off the invitation list, I think.’

  ‘Could you get back on to it again?’

  I wasn’t sure of what was going on inside her head and I wasn’t clear what the change in expression in her eyes meant, though change it certainly did. It probably read: Oh, Christ, not another one!

  ‘I expect I could. But why?’

  ‘Because I’d like to go with you.’

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘if they ask me along it’s because they want another free girl. I can’t get invited, if I say I’m bringing a man with me.’

  ‘Then don’t tell them I’m going with you until we arrive on the doorstep. Then you can tell them you had misunderstood. They won’t keep us out once we’ve got that far.’

  Or so I hoped.

  I took Jane back to the offices of Dragon Records. She promised she would do her best for the coming weekend and then call me: and she thanked me for a nice lunch. She didn’t say anything about the hit-and-run, though. Perhaps it had gone clean out of her mind.

  I had to make two phone calls: the first was to Sandy. She was in and in a good mood. I made pleasant noises for a few minutes and then got down to business.

  ‘Anything about the Thurley girl?’

  ‘Something, but not much that’s any use. She tried to get a job in one or two strip clubs but no one would take her on. She looked young and one place thought she looked pretty high. But nothing else. Do you want me to keep trying?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Listen, Sandy, if she couldn’t get a job anywhere dancing what might she have to do?’

  ‘Well, she could go on the game, if she could get the connections—not that that would be difficult. They’re out waiting for kids like her. Or she could model. At least that’s what they call it. Dirty pictures—stills, movies, anything like that.’

  ‘Can you ask around then, Sandy? It might be important.’

  Her voice was getting less good-humoured by the minute.

  ‘That’s what you always say … and have you still got my car in one piece?’

  ‘Sure. Can I borrow it for another day?’

  I said good-bye before she could change her mind. Then I hung up and dialled the number of the Holborn Library. I asked to speak to Martin.

  When he came on the phone he sounded the busiest man in the bibliographical world. When I told him who it was he slowed down and sounded surprised and a little intrigued. When I said I wanted his advice about a book he sounded amazed. I don’t think that his picture of a private investigator included the reading of books. He probably put me down as a sub-species that couldn’t read at all.

  When I asked him to recommend me a good general work on drug abuse he was stopped short in his tracks. I heard a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line and when his voice came back on it sounded strangely high and almost quavery. But the professional in him won out. He named a couple of books and I asked if either was in stock. One was and he pro
mised to leave it at the check-out point with a note saying it was all right for me to take it. I thanked him, asked him to remember me to Vonnie, and put down the phone.

  I could picture him taking off his spectacles and wiping the mist clear. I bet that put his cataloguing back a little.

  I pulled in at the motorway service station but didn’t bother to try the coffee any more: it might prove to be addictive. Instead I opened the book on drugs and turned to the section on major stimulants.

  Amphetamines stimulate the central nervous system. They cause mental and physical activity at an increased rate, including a marked increase in the rate of the heart; they depress the appetite and keep tiredness at bay. Prolonged use, though, causes mental depression or fatigue. Use of amphetamines may often result in a feeling very like paranoia, with visual illusions and ideas of persecution.

  They are usually taken orally, though they can be injected. Severe reactions can occur after taking thirty milligrammes, but some addicted users have been known to need regular doses of as much as four to five hundred milligrammes.

  I shut the book. That could be a hell of a lot of dope. And it could cost a hell of a lot of money. Martin had given me a lot of what I wanted. I hoped my return visit to Howard would give me some more.

  The house was on one of the roads leading out of the city. It was large and stood in its own grounds, though a coat of paint would have done it no harm. It was not late but there were no lights to be seen from the windows. Yet I understood that Howard was at home; that when the club was closed he was always at home. I drove past the house and parked the car. With a torch in my pocket I walked back.

  The back door was easy. I pushed it shut behind me and tried the torch. A small rear hallway with a pantry down some stone steps to the left. I went on and tried the handle of the door at the far side of the hall. It turned quietly and a quick flash of the torch told me I was in the main entrance hall. More stairs, carpeted and to my right. Closed doors to left and right. No sign of any other light.

  Then my ears grew accustomed to a dull thump, a rhythmic bass that moved my foot slightly in time as I stood waiting. Waiting for what to happen? Christ knows!

  I tried the stairs: slow and easy does it. As I climbed the sounds grew more distinct. The first pulse was joined by the distant noise of a voice. Male, wiry, strong yet mournful; muffled by the doors and walls, by whatever was keeping it in. Slowly from door to door, listening. Then, with no light still from under or round it, I found the right one. And now I could hear the song. A black man singing the blues.

  ‘I walked all night long, with my 32-20 in my hand,

  I walked all night long, with my 32-20 in my hand,

  Lookin’ for my woman, well, I found her with another man.’

  The classic blues, the all-time statement of human jealousy aroused to the pitch of murder. It wasn’t only the eeriness of that disembodied Negro voice coming through the door into that black space in which I stood; it wasn’t only the edge to the voice as it sang of death which reminded me of Candi’s voice on her last recording; it was a pricking at the base of my skull, a crackling of the hairs along the back of my hands, a tightening of the skin across my forehead.

  For the time it took the singer to finish his statement I was held at that door. Then I moved away. If Howard was in there, listening in the dark, he was unlikely to hear me taking a look around.

  I searched and found nothing: nothing that I wanted. Whatever Howard was going to give he was going to give in person. Or not at all.

  I went back to the room. The piano began its introduction to another blues. I held the handle, thought for a split second, then went in—fast. I slammed the door shut behind me and its sound echoed dully in the darkness of the room. No other movement as the echo died on the air. Just the crackling surface of an old recording sending out a woman’s voice: rich, powerful, filled with scorn and knowledge.

  ‘I’ve had a man for fifteen years, given him his room and board;

  Once he was like a Cadillac, now’s he like an old, worn Ford;’

  Gradually my eyes were getting used to the light and I made out a shape away across the room. Not tall, not small. My hand was tight on the grip of my gun and now I raised it and aimed it at this shape.

  ‘I’m tired of buyin’ porkchops to grease his fat lips,

  And he has to find another place to park his old hips,’

  ‘Howard!’ My voice cut across the record and it sounded wrong in that room, intrusive and somehow out of time.

  ‘Howard! I said I’d be back to talk to you. Find the light switch.’

  No movement.

  ‘The light switch! If I fire this gun in this light I may only wound you in a very nasty place.’

  Slowly the shape started to move, away from me, towards the wall.

  ‘The groundhog even brings it and puts it in his hole,

  So my man’s got to bring it to satisfy my soul,’

  The light came on and I was ready for it with one hand up to shield my eyes. But Howard didn’t try anything. Just stood over by the wall. Even in the total blackness of that room he was wearing his dark glasses. A short, fat man with dark glasses and short, balding hair; plimsolls on his feet and fear in his hands as they moved up from his sides then fell back again, hopelessly.

  ‘You got to get it, bring it, and put it right here,

  Or else you can keep it out there.’

  The voice rose to a climax: the needle hissed off the record. I looked around the room. It was partly sound-proofed and the walls were covered in black fabric. To my right there was a huge record player, amplifier and a cabinet full of what looked like old 78’s. High on the wall at either side were two speakers. There was nothing else in the room.

  Except for Howard and myself—and I had a gun.

  When he spoke he didn’t say any of the things that I expected him to say.

  ‘That was Bessie Smith. Do you like Bessie? She was the greatest of them all of course. A fine singer. Fine singer.’

  I couldn’t tell if he was talking out of nervousness or if he was stalling for time. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but now I guess it could have been that at that moment Bessie’s voice was the most important thing to him. Even if I had thought it then, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Howard, then you tell me something. A few hours after Candi Carter was killed you made a phone call to London. You called a creep called Cook and told him you’d make it worth his while to tail me. Well, he believed you and he tried his best and now he’s been paid off all right but not by you. Now for you to call him then means one of two things. Either you murdered Candi, or you’ve got a good idea who did. Whichever it is, I want to know and I want to know fast.’

  He didn’t move. I did. I went over to the cabinet and picked out a record. Heavy black shellac. It broke easily when it hit the floor. So did the next. Howard still hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken.

  The next few records I smashed across my knee, the ones after that I threw at the wall above his head.

  In ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ the records belonged to Fortunio Bonanova and they were grand opera. Arias for a failed wop singer to sing along to. Now it was different. I might have liked to listen to a lot of these records. Instead I broke them into little pieces.

  But still Howard had not moved or spoken.

  ‘Tell me, Howard. Tell me before your collection gets down to zero.’

  I took one in my hand and went over to him. I looked at his face: from under his dark glasses the lines of his tears ran silently.

  I dropped the record and brought my hand back across his face; the glasses flew off and skidded over the floor. The eyes that had sheltered underneath them were white at the rims, pink at the centre. I slapped him again then punched him in his fat gut. He folded over and went down on to his knees.

 
I dropped down beside him and the .38 was so close that even with his eyes he couldn’t miss it.

  ‘You’ve got five seconds and then I’m going to start taking you to pieces like I’ve taken your precious records to pieces. Only you’ll feel it more. You might not believe that now, but once I start in on you then you will. Now! How did you find out I was at the flat when she was killed?’

  I hit him with the barrel of the gun and he flinched away and grasped his chest. But he started to talk.

  ‘I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know until he came, John came. He had been to see her. She owed money, a lot of money. He had been here first but I was fed up with paying her bills and getting the kind of treatment from her that I had been getting. So he went to see her himself.

  ‘When he came back he said that she was dead. Said that he heard someone inside the flat and waited. You came out and he knocked you down. He took some pills you were carrying and saw your name from your wallet. Then he went inside and found Candi. He came straight out and left you there. He went out of the building by the fire escape and came here. He said it didn’t look like the work of a private eye but I didn’t know. Cook had done some jobs for me before so I phoned him. I thought if he watched you for a few days he might pick up something I could use. I don’t really know why I did it. It was stupid. Stupid.’

  I put my gun away in its holster.

  Howard was still kneeling in the middle of the floor of his blacked-out room surrounded by broken pieces of rare recordings, spread like crazy paving over everywhere.

  He picked up the nearest section. He said: ‘This was Bessie Smith’s last ever Columbia recording. “Safety Mama”. November, 20th, 1931.’

  But I was no longer listening. I went out and shut the door behind me.

  12

  Patrick lived in a large block of flats near Regent’s Park. Lots of white paint everywhere and bushes in tubs outside, from behind which doormen in braid and peaked caps suddenly appeared to whisk open car doors.

  I left the keys to the Saab with a superannuated juvenile lead from the days of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and allowed myself to be ushered through the revolving doors. Jane went just ahead of me, turned in the foyer and waited. There was enough snob and chic in there to sink the QE2. She was wearing a short fur over a plain black dress with a neckline that did things to my blood pressure that sent it strictly over the limit. I asked one of the waxworks the way to Patrick Gordon-Brown’s flat and hated the sound of my voice as I did so. It was one of those scenes that tricked you into behaving as though you had manners. In the lift Jane stood close to me and squeezed my arm. She reached up her mouth and kissed me on the point of the chin. I was thinking that it was a long while since anybody kissed me there; the only contact that usually came the way of my jaw was in the manner of right hooks. I was still thinking that when the lift stopped and the door opened out on to a corridor with a few hundred yards of red carpet. They must have known we were on the way after all.