Dying for Millions

by Judith Cutler

  ‘I’d be very grateful,’ he said, smiling as if she were doing him a favour.

  But this time her face didn’t soften.

  Chapter Eight

  It was all over. The last rapturous yells, the last wild applause, the last blown kisses. The stewards had pulled in the last bucketful of money for Andy’s Foundation – this time it would be shared, as he’d told the fans, with the injured roadie’s family, so they’d been extra-generous with their donations.

  ‘Birmingham, I love you!’ Andy had called for the last time.

  And for the last time the stage plunged into darkness around him.

  The official fan club had booked one of the smaller Music Centre halls for the party, and had decorated it to look like a giant tent – as if Andy’s connection with Africa were more in the nature of a safari than a life-saving commitment. When he and his party – including Ian and me – went in, it was pitch black. Then the lights blazed up and there, in the centre of the room, her mouth taped ostentatiously, was Ruth.

  Andy ran to her. The room boomed with applause, catcalls and cheers. When, clutching a glass of champagne, I eventually made my way over, she had discarded the blue sticking-plaster and was flourishing a note pad and thick pen. ‘Drove up this afternoon,’ she wrote. ‘Heard the concert. Brilliant!’

  He hugged her again.

  ‘Roadie?’ she wrote.

  ‘Still alive. Just,’ Ian said, clearly entranced.

  It couldn’t be by her looks: Ruth was no bimbo, and I reckoned that anyone could have identified her as a teacher at a hundred paces. On the other hand, the obvious intelligence of her eyes made her attractive, and I’d always envied her long, elegant hands. She’d got a good figure too: worked with weights and cycled a lot down in Devon. Just now she was wearing jeans, like most of us, and a silk shirt which by its very lack of ostentation – and there were some very showy garments indeed there tonight – declared its exclusive origins. She tried not to take much money from Andy – she’d been earning about three times my salary anyway when she gave up her job as the head of a mega-comprehensive school. I suspect she’d been a very good head: Labour shadow cabinet parents had queued up to send their children there, and, if they’d had any sense, Tory ministers would have done the same. Now she was bringing her administrative skills to bear on the Foundation. She drew a respectable salary from it, largely so she could make it public knowledge and prevent whispers.

  Everyone worked very hard to make the party go with a suitable bang. There was a corner set aside for the roadies’ and musicians’ children: a climbing frame, a net full of plastic balls for them to wriggle through, quantities of Lego and Duplo, and a lovely wooden train. There were even a couple of women – proper nannies, according to Jonty – to look after them, so the mothers could let their hair down. At first people were predictably subdued, but the crush, the lavish provision of food – there had been, so Sam said, two teams of caterers competing to demonstrate their supremacy – and copious quantities of booze had guaranteed that if things could warm up, they would. And they did.

  Karen brought her mother over to say thank you. Mrs Harris was probably about seven or eight years older than me, putting her in her mid-forties. She had a white blouse that aspired very hard to be posh, with a lot of gold chains lurking in the frilly neckline. Her skirt was shorter than I’d have expected, but she had very good legs, although they might have been improved by the absence of her shoes, which were much too low cut at the front in relation to the height of the heels. The poor woman was blushing painfully, as if I were someone important; I could hardly hear her husky whisper.

  ‘Does he know – you know – lots of other stars?’

  ‘I suppose so. But he doesn’t name-drop very much.’

  ‘Would he know people like – like Cliff? Or BarryanRobinanMaurice?’

  I couldn’t work that out, so I was pleased to spot Andy in host mode. So Mrs Harris and daughter were photographed one on each side of him, his arms round their shoulders, as he gave each of them a professionally affectionate kiss.

  Ian spent most of his time with Ruth, whom he plied with champagne as if it were medicinal. By the time he’d finished, her note pad was full of scribbled comments on brands of dry sherry. I fended off the attentions of Phiz, and instead had a quick flirt with Jess, the extremely handsome black drummer. I caught a whiff of Duck’s breath before he found me. In fact, things were going so well I completely forgot to miss Chris.

  Then I found Griff by my side, looking serious. I followed him out into the quiet of the mall.

  ‘I want Andy out of here,’ he said. ‘Pete’s died.’

  I shook my head to commiserate. Then I looked at him. ‘What’s the connection?’

  ‘They want to do a post mortem. There are symptoms that might suggest something other than an accident. Something to do with his pupil dilation. You know what that means, Sophie?’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Right. Now, Pete was a good clean guy.’

  ‘So where did he get the drugs? Hang on. Andy’s flask goes walkabout; Pete dives off the gantry: Andy’s flask is found, and the contents smell distinctly odd. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  ‘Let’s just say I shall be very interested in the results of the PM on Pete and on the analysis of Andy’s flask.’

  ‘So will the police,’ I said. ‘So how do we protect Andy? Presuming that if the juice was spiked it was intended for Andy.’

  ‘I think we have to assume it was. What I’ve been thinking is this. They know where he lives in Devon. They may have twigged where he stays in Brum. I’d like to get him and Ruth off up north to a place run by a friend of mine. Like a safe house. Ruth’s brought clothes and things for them both. I phoned her,’ he added. ‘And no, she didn’t come up in her Merc. A friend of mine drives a tatty old Lada. Apparently.’

  I found I was beginning to like Griff. Then I wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Just to make sure they get away clean and easy, like, I’d like you to drive Andy back to yours as usual. Only it won’t be Andy, see – it’ll be a look-alike. And you’ll find your car inside the building – in the unloading bay. I just wanted to make sure no one got their grubby little fingers on it.’

  ‘Who will the look-alike be … No! No! Don’t even begin to contemplate it! Phiz does not share a car with Sophie. Still less does he occupy Sophie’s spare room.’

  ‘He does look remarkably like Andy – from the back at least,’ Griff said mildly. ‘No, Sophie, as it happens, it will be my good self. I’ve provided myself with a wig and sunglasses for just such an eventuality. And I have to inform you that I will sleep with my door shut, because I snore, and that I will be happy to prepare breakfast at whatever hour you choose.’

  I grinned. ‘God, it’s after well after two now. How do we break up the party?’

  ‘Jonty’s job. Nothing for you to worry about. And I’ll sort out Andy and Ruth. Their driver’s police-trained, by the way.’

  ‘I’ll bet you are too. Would you like to drive tonight, Mr Rivers? Feel like a bit of slumming with your old cousin?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  Since – ostensibly – I was taking Andy home, I could scarcely say goodbye to him and Ruth. But I wandered back in, not wanting them to think – I didn’t know what. I felt totally exhausted. If I closed my eyes, I saw Pete Hughes’ broken body; my ears were still ringing from the concert despite the earplugs. When I found Andy and Ruth, I managed to imply – I hope – that I was going to say my farewells and get back to them. ‘See you later,’ I said: that’s what we say in Brum, even when we know full well we won’t see someone for weeks, so I wasn’t, strictly, lying.

  Griff drove home swiftly, unostentatiously. When we got back he waved a laminated sheet of tablets in a bubble-pack at me: sleeping tablets. Homeopathic ones. I’d seen them in health-food shops but never thought of trying them. Better than cleaning any more of the kitchen, perhaps.

  ‘Might as we
ll get some kip, love,’ he said. ‘You look as if you could use it. Might even try a couple myself.’ He popped a couple and chewed them and passed me the sheet.

  ‘Why is it,’ Griff began, tipping scrambled eggs on to toast, ‘that you can spend half the night listening to the God-awful row Andy produces and hardly notice the noise, but when you get out into leafy suburbia, and it’s all quiet and allegedly peaceful, you can’t sleep for the yelping of some bloody dog fox? And the little bleeder switches your security lights on too – just to make sure. Here, try that for size.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The eggs were wondrously fluffy. ‘Learn this in the Met, did you?’

  ‘There are few things you don’t learn in the Met. Hmm – a little light on the cayenne … Thing is, Sophie, my wife wouldn’t recognise a frying pan if it jumped up and hit her. She was the woman for whom TV dinners and microwaves were invented.’

  ‘What’s she do?’

  ‘She’s a housewife. Raised the kids.’ He sounded slightly shocked.

  I was slightly shocked. I didn’t know any housewives. Those of my friends who had had children had taken maternity leave, or at the very most career breaks. I wondered what it would be like to spend endless hours in the house. Never a dull moment when the kids were small – but surely when they were older, when they left home?

  ‘What does she do now?’

  He looked puzzled. ‘Looks after me, of course. Apart from the cooking, that is.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘What else do you want her to do? A bit of brain surgery on the side?’

  I shrugged. ‘It was just that I wondered if she might be a bit – bored?’

  ‘Never mentioned it to me.’

  It was clear I wasn’t endearing myself to him; in any case there were more important things to talk about, once we’d finished eating.

  ‘Is there any way of learning if Andy’s arrived safely wherever it is?’ I asked at last.

  ‘Where’s your phone?’

  I gestured to the living room. He pulled himself to his feet, and plodded off: I half-expected him to close the door behind him, but he didn’t. There was no way of hearing what he said without shamelessly eavesdropping, so I simply gathered up the eggy plates and shoved them into the dishwasher – let that new powder I was using prove its efficacy. Come to think of it, it had to clean yesterday’s eggy plates too, complete with bacon fat. That would really be a challenge.

  He was back before I could switch it on.

  ‘They’ve arrived safely. Ruth’s a bit knocked-up, that’s all.’

  ‘I suppose I couldn’t talk to Andy?’

  ‘Hardly. I haven’t spoken to them, Sophie, just to an intermediary, who called them earlier. A simple precaution, in case anyone happens to be interested in your phone calls.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I sat down heavily.

  ‘What’s up, kid?’

  ‘Sorry. Don’t mean to be stupid, over such a little thing. It’s just that someone bugged my house and my office last spring. I—’

  ‘Come on, now.’ He patted my shoulder. ‘I don’t reckon it’s the thought of being bugged that’s doing this to you. It’s all yesterday’s goings-on. Though it’s not nice being bugged, of course. Not that you’re bugged now. Checked it over while you were still sending your pigs to market.’

  ‘I don’t snore!’ I sat upright. ‘And how did you check, anyway?’

  ‘Let’s just say I didn’t have to crawl round on my hands and knees. Science and technology, Sophie. Now, how d’you propose to spend the rest of the day?’

  ‘Marking,’ I said, horribly promptly.

  It suited him to spend the day lying low; it would, he observed, be a real bummer for anyone hoping for some action. Not that we could see any cars or vans loitering with or without intent. And the only telephone calls were from my friends. We both found ourselves drawn to live football on TV in the afternoon, watching – in my case with despair – West Bromwich Albion courting defeat with some determination. He enjoyed the roast lamb I cooked for supper. I marked some more. He watched TV some more.

  The following morning I was required to wave him a very public goodbye as, bewigged again and looking every inch the rock star, he got into a taxi, the exhaust emissions of which would have acted as highly effective a smoke-screen had he wanted one. He headed off to New Street Station – in theory, at least – and I went off to work, wondering if I would miss his stolidly comforting presence. I should have taught like a dream, secure in the knowledge that West Midlands Police were conducting post mortems, initiating forensic science examinations of the contents of Andy’s flask, seeking what I knew in my heart of hearts was a murderer. Instead I found myself staring bleakly from the windows, as if being on the fifteenth floor cut me off from more areas of life than I’d ever imagined.

  Chapter Nine

  Gurjit, having knocked deferentially at the staff room door, found me just as I was piling my sandwiches and apple on top of a heap of papers for a lunch-time meeting. Monday morning with a vengeance! My agenda had gone astray, and I couldn’t for the life of me recall having ever seen the minutes of the last meeting; someone had boiled the staff room kettle dry, and the nearest machine was on the eighth floor – at the far end of the earth when you’re five minutes late for a meeting on the fifteenth. In any case the chances were someone would have jammed it up with superglued metal discs. I’d have to manage without a drink.

  ‘Gurjit!’ I managed to find a smile.

  ‘My parents,’ she began, ‘have been kind enough to give their consent.’

  I must have looked blank.

  ‘The airport work experience,’ she explained. ‘They’ve given permission for me to take up the offer. Since I seem to be on top of my assignments at the moment, it would seem sensible to start this week if possible.’

  I nodded. ‘I’ll phone Mark Winfield to set it up as soon as I can. Later this afternoon, probably. Could you pop back about five?’

  ‘My class finishes at four,’ she said. ‘My parents expect me straight back.’

  At least now that she had a car her father wasn’t sitting outside in his Mercedes, waiting for her to emerge from the building the moment classes finished.

  ‘I’ll phone you at home then – tell me your number.’ I grabbed a pencil.

  ‘We’re ex-directory.’ She looked distraught.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to tell me then.’

  ‘I could phone you.’

  ‘I’m ex-directory too,’ I snapped. ‘Do you want this work experience or not?’

  Her eyes filled. What was this job turning me into?

  We agreed that she would come to see me the following morning before classes began.

  I could hardly explain the reason for my delay to Richard, who was chairing the meeting. He looked pointedly at his watch as I arrived, particularly as my apple chose that moment to leap from my hand and rebound from one end of the room to the other.

  I managed to get hold of Mark Winfield at about five-thirty.

  ‘You remember that drink we’d organised? Well—’

  ‘You will be able to come?’

  ‘Yes! Of course. It’s just that I’ve got a student for you, and I wondered – well, she ought to see the place and all it involves before she commits herself.’

  ‘Hm. I suppose it makes sense. OK. Look here—’ He broke off; I could hear another voice in the background. ‘Sorry, Sophie – there’s a bit of a crisis. See you tomorrow, eh?’

  When I finally tried to squeeze out of the car park, the traffic was solid to Five Ways, so I decided to turn towards Handsworth and back via City Road, a route circuitous and not entirely lovely, but preferable to sitting pumping carbon dioxide and goodness knows what else into the atmosphere. But traffic was slow there, too. A cheery voice on Classic FM told me there’d been a diesel spillage on the A4123 in Warley, so presumably all this chaos was the tailback from that. Miles and miles of hot, frustrated cars and drivers, all watching their windscreen wipers slap
ping backwards and forwards against the mean, vicious drizzle. And me in the middle of them.

  At least I could take advantage of my position and push further still from home to Smethwick High Street. Most of the shops were still open, which made parking a bit of a pig. I hoped it was worth it for a little vegetable shopping. Yes: lovely fresh aubergines jostled coriander and methi. I bought three bunches of both to pick over, chop and freeze. Then a shameless dive into a Indian sweet shop for a bag of halva, jalabi, and gulab jamans.

  Back along Bearwood Road the traffic thickened again, but the police had taken control of the lights, so at least those of us on the Outer Circle could cross the traffic, solid on the A456. I took my usual dodge route, picking my way round the Beech Lanes Estate. As I slowed at the last giveway sign, it occurred to me that I hadn’t chafed against the delays because I didn’t especially want to go home.

  But it was all right. The intruder light obligingly switched on as I walked up the path; the door was still deadlocked, the burglar alarm chirruped as soon as I opened the door. Post on the mat; a couple of messages on the answering machine. Home.

  Dropping my goodies on the kitchen table I went back for the post. The phone calls were from Dillons, saying some CDs I’d ordered were waiting for me – and from Carl, a William Murdock colleague who persisted in paying me attentions. This time he had a reasonable excuse for phoning, as I found out when I called back: he’d been asked to help run an Environmental Studies field trip, and many of the Asian girls could only go if there was a woman present. The trip itself would normally be the province of Beth, who taught the subject; he’d agreed to go simply as an extra whipper-in. Now, however, Beth had succumbed to the breakdown many of us had long predicted, and her doctor had signed her off for three weeks, with the probability of many more to follow. So now Carl was suddenly in charge of the trip – no mean feat for a Pharmacy lecturer – and in need of a woman. It all sounded convoluted to me, and I had a strong suspicion that Carl’s wife would find it hard to credit.