by Neil Rowland
‘Takin the piss, dick ed? I dunt answer any moo-er yer stoopid fuckin questions.’
‘Straight up, Troy, so we’ve had your side of the blinkin story b’now, so if you hear any suspicious fucking talk from any other bloomin local criminals, no bullshit, we’d be grateful if you told us about it,’ Gorran suggested.
‘I ain’t makin no promises.’
‘Right, definitely, cos if we don’t get our money back I might have to pack up my blinkin turntables at the Hatter for good,’ Gorran warned.
Suddenly Junior Crock looked concerned. ‘Stop yer DJ-ing? Stop pullin in the punters? Nah, nah, Marty. You dunt wanna think abart it. What ud me dad say?’
‘No bullshit Troy, you’d better go and blinkin ask him, cos I’ve got this bloomin Battle of the Bands jamboree coming up. Fair play and my Turbo have a ‘Black Forest Chateau’ tour of Germany on the fucking horizon. So, straight up, Troy mate, how am I going to finance all this blinkin business now? Fair play, we’ve got Jack Squit chance of covering it all,’ Marty bemoaned.
‘I’ll let you know,’ Troy replied.
‘Not if you hear from us first,’ Steve said.
‘I ain’t dishonest, Marty boy. Dad brought me up honest. I got fuckin efics. Never do nufink under the ref’s nose. Keep in wi’ the law,’ Troy advised, taking a solemn tone. ‘Me dad’s prouda me. All right, so I wunt cut art to play fuckin football. So what about it? I’m a man’s man.’
Soon after the meeting he offered Marty some free rehearsal time for the bands. So we drove back to Crock Sound Studios - room 2 - where Snot and Billy were smoking rather than practicing, as if all their (creative) capital had grown legs, jumped out of the box and escaped by itself, as well.
29. A Misguided Tour of Troy’s Gaff
Marty was desperate to rescue his cash flow. He brooded over that testy altercation with Troy. In the end Fenton came up with a plan: we would go and explore Crock’s house without any invitation. Steve was at risk of going back to old back ways, if not more cramped living arrangements. It would be his first house break in years. Maybe he was rusty. Failing to come up with any better ideas, despite many pub conferences, the rest of us had to go along with the idea.
Fenton carried out all necessary groundwork. The old skills hadn’t deserted him: He seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of it. He even followed Troy home, before he left for Spain, to that suburb of a suburb. As soon as we had confirmation of the Crock family’s departure to Marbella, we went off on our Sunday afternoon trip to the thug’s dream home.
Coolly Fenton threw his tool bag into the back seat of Gorran’s Austin Sunbeam. This was proof for me that Fenton, for all his other talents, had many ways to earn a good living. I knew the lad was straight by then, but not inflexible.
They took Roy Smith and me along with them - as look-outs. It seemed a bit shocking for a socialist (as well as a tax officer) to get mixed up in common crime.
‘Ai man, the bas’tad’s a class traitor, nothing more. He’s been stealing from the working class for years, comrades! Appealing to their worst instincts, mind, and takin’ their wages. Let’s storm the place and put him up against the wall, comrades. Away, his name’s already written down here in my little book of traitors and class enemies,’ Roy insisted. He really did have that book - a diary or notepad - stuffed into an inside pocket of his parka.
‘Keep a grip on yourself Roy. No bullshit, I’ll be blinkin happy just to get my loot back and keep my bloomin nose in the same shape,’ Marty argued. While driving he was trying to work out a Rubik’s Cube of a new roundabout in town. Instead of finding Crock’s patch we might head off to Scotland by mistake.
Troy had a big detached house on a new Parrots’ Estate, stuck out on the outskirts. Steve’s info about family hols in Marbella proved accurate, because the place had a shut-down look: there were no vehicles on the driveway. Hopefully the oldest boy, Seth Crock, had gone with his parents too. Even at fourteen and on the short side, the lad was already a junior power lifter and kickboxer on a short fuse.
‘That’s his gaff,’ Fenton confirmed.
‘He’s doing well for himself,’ I remarked.
‘Yeah, a drug dealers’ neighbourhood.’
‘Away lads, under-occupied mansions for the bourgeoisie! After the revolution we’ll turn em all into flats for young homeless people, comrades.’
‘Great idea. Put me down on the waiting list,’ I suggested.
‘Right, definitely Roy, leave your bloomin reds’ revolution to another day, will you? Straight up, we’re blinkin busy right now and a bit fucking stressed out. So, fair play, let’s hop out of the car and take a closer blinkin look,’ Marty instructed us, cracking the driver’s side.
We had to move carefully, into the full glare of the suburban afternoon. There were plenty of their neighbours about; playing kids, lawn mowers, barbecuers, sprinklers, gardeners, loungers. We definitely stood out as a bunch of punks on an away-day crime jaunt.
‘Plenty of class traitors around here, comrades,’ Roy observed.
‘Fair play Smith, keep your blinkin specs clean, and your bloomin hood down. No bullshit, get yourself over on the corner for me,’ Marty told him.
The rock maverick was hopping about, in case any of those suburbanites grew suspicious. No, they weren’t used to seeing punks on their streets, just reading about us.
‘Straight up Bottle, hang around on the bloomin corner along with him. No bullshit, and keep a sharp eye for any more blinkin nosey fucking parkers,’ Marty instructed, wincing away.
‘No problem, comrade,’ Roy said, tugging his hood forward, despite the warm temperature. ‘We’re in the vanguard of the movement comrade. No need to worry, cos I’ve plenty of practice in class action mind.’
‘Fair play Roy, no more blinkin punch-ups with crew-cuts or anybody,’ the pop impresario advised.
So Gorran and Fenton set off, trying to look casual, towards the Crock property. Smithy and I positioned ourselves, using privet hedges as partial cover. I was inconspicuous as a hedgehog dipped into paint pots.
Body language jerky, globe of frizzy hair backlit by the sunset, Gorran dashed off and fixed a powerful smile for any potential passers-by.
Fenton cut a ramrod and unfussed figure alongside. Though he was dressed in black, carrying a carpetbag toolkit - right out of criminal central casting - the bass player was looking as calm and casual as Rod Stewart trying to pull at his own birthday party.
Marty - with a gas ball of dandelion hair, narrow shoulders, springy steps, knock-knees and new fluffy orange jumper - vanished from our view, around the hedge corner. The rest of this account follows from what they lived to tell me:
Gorran kept jangling nerves in check as, after scrambling over the wall, he set off up the Crock driveway. Steve evaluated doors and windows, based on years of experience. Fenton had many anonymous mentions in the Chronicle, apart from gig reviews. The Mortal bassist decided against cracking the front door, because Troy’s domestic security system was tighter than the Pentagon’s.
The Star Materials team went around the side of the house; Fenton scored out a double section of glass on suction pads. After neatly completing this work - casual as if working at his own home - Marty was urged to squeeze in through the resulting hole, making full use of Steve’s hands as stirrups.
The pop Svengali reluctantly did as he was told, for once. Despite whinges, complaints, curses and bad omens, Marty managed to wriggle through - he was skinny and wiry enough - until he tumbled into a corner settee arrangement within. Despite years of backstage ligging through the night and juggernaut loads of B&Hs, Gorran sprang back up on to his black-suede pixie boots.
‘Gord elp us, I hope you’re sure he’s off on these fucking holidays.’
Untroubled, Fenton told him to release the window catch - cos he wasn’t so skinny.
/> ‘Fair play, Steve mate, mind where you’re putting your bloomin winkle pickers,’ Marty complained.
In fact they were DMs.
Fenton expertly surveyed the room. The place was rigged up with laser-triggers, fanning around the spaces; one just inches above the (shaggy white) carpet.
‘Get under the beam, Marty. Crawl along to the control box. I’ll tell you what to do.’
‘Right definitely, good idea Steve mate,’ he objected. ‘Straight up, I’m starting to blinkin regret this plan of yours. Fair play, remind me whose blinkin bright idea this was?’
‘Just shape up, Marty. No time for complaints. We want our money back.’
So Marty dropped to his knock-knees, pressed down his crinkly hair low as possible (maybe it was too nebulous to set off alarms) and began groping along Crock’s shag pile. Inch by inch he went, threaded nimbly in and out and between that pattern of blue pin-prick light beams (like an ELO lightshow at Wembley in miniature) - each one connected to a control board, which was rigged to the local cop shop. One false move and the Nulton fuzz would descend on Troy’s house, perks and promotion depending on in. With these risks torturing his mind Gorran moved forward like a go-go girl caught in slow mo. At last, Fenton calmly calling last minute instructions, the pop guru managed get through, slip into the hallway, so as to disarm vital switches.
‘Thank Gord for that. I was wearing out the knees on these bloomin new jeans. Fair play, I thought was about to die of a blinkin heart attack in there,’ Gorran gasped.
‘Nice big house,’ Fenton observed, without pleasure or admiration.
‘Right, definitely Steve, but let’s make it fucking lively. Fair play, I don’t want to be hanging about in this blinkin playpen,’ Marty warned, grinning grimly.
‘Troy don’t keep money down here,’ Fenton decided. ‘He’d keep everything close. Most of all during the night time. That’s when he risks closing his eyes,’ Fenton suggested.
‘Right, definitely, don’t go giving me the blinkin creeps. No bullshit, if you reckon our loot’s stashed upstairs then lead the bloomin way.’
‘Upstairs, Marty,’ Fenton decided.
The thing was, at this point, something dreadful began to develop. There was a feeling of something sinister. A feeling, or an atmosphere, almost a smell. Marty hardly got his knobbly painted fingers on the banister, before he was shocked by the low registers of a hideous sound. This noise was approaching, gaining volume, from the end of the hallway. When the charismatic promoter looked back, he realised that the devil was rushing towards him. That’s right, as far as he was concerned, it had to be the devil, bearing down on him.
Marty was too terrified to even twitch a muscle, never mind to run or to shout out, in warning or horror. He couldn’t get enough air in his chest to reach scream level. The devil - red-eyed, drooling, ruthless and enraged, knotted with raw power and solid muscle - closed in a fury on our media-manipulator. The Mortal manager was locked into a posture of complete terror and surprise: even though he didn’t normally believe all that occult mumbo-jumbo. ‘Worst nightmare’ didn’t do this justice.
The devil was pounding towards him over new parquet flooring. This diabolical creature then launched itself, reared up on powerful back haunches. It flew through the air, leapt, exposing awful pointed fangs, making a truly blood-curdling howl (a roar of despairing fury) directed at the pop promoter, and closing.
If Marty hadn’t turned his back and slumped to the floor, at that very moment, the devil would have ripped his throat out, like Troy tucking into a burger. All the same, the creature’s rippling limbs clenched around Gorran’s wiry human frame, in a hug of horror, you might say; its fangs sinking viciously, into the back of the punk maverick’s trendy King’s Road fleecy orange jumper.
Cringing, Marty felt warm gob soaking through to his neck (surely this was a punk from hell), a desperate gnawing at the tender flesh. Horrified, reluctant, Marty twisted to make eye contact. He found two mad little, reddened black eyes, rolling back into sockets, in the middle of a sleek black face. As this the dark lord began to moan (in an almost sexual way) until Marty was not too optimistic about rock destiny. What had the Mortal manager ever done to deserve this?
As we might guess, this beast wasn’t really the devil incarnate. No, this dreadful creature was just ‘Archie’, the Crock family’s pet Rottweiler. He was a big beefy dog, bred for work in Germany, but not evil by nature, only nurture. Sadly Archie hadn’t been invited for a fortnight in Marbella with the rest of his family. Miffed, Archie had been lounging in the back garden, trying to fill his Sunday, feeling a bit bored, chewing over his latest basketball. This was his test - he couldn’t believe it. His master had taken him to special classes on how to maul humans who didn’t smell precisely like a Crock. Archie didn’t need to take a second sniff. His master would give him another biscuit as his reward.
Unfortunately the second bad-smelling (to him) human smell got away, and returned to whack him over the skull with a steak tenderiser. There wasn’t much Archie could do about that - even as a schooled Rottweiler. Feeling the impact he was gradually forced to loosen his grip. Howling, disorientated (brains mincemeat), woozy, Archie decided to tuck his stump between his haunches, and creep back out into the garden to regain his instincts. Really he wasn’t a devil, he was just a bit of a baby.
***
‘Brush yourself down, Marty.’
‘Gord elp us Fenton, all right for you to fucking talk! No bullshit mate, you got that mutt just in the nick of blinkin time. Straight up, I need a bloomin sponge to mop up all this fucking doggie spittle,’ he objected.
‘Did he break the skin?’
‘And a fucking tetanus jab up my blinkin arse!’
Still, he managed to calm down and refocus. Marty wasn’t ready to forget about his stolen money and the Battle of the Bands. Fenton’s feeling of hidden treasure was more powerful than the dog’s sense of smell. So our pair of music personalities continued to venture up Troy’s mock-Tudor Staircase: it was right out of Dallas; Grecian statuettes, Persian rugs, porcelain displays, the lot. There was a full-scale Airfix reproduction of a superbike proudly displayed on the landing. That plastic model of a racing motor cycle must have taken Troy months, if not years, of painstaking careful work, piece by piece to glue and to paint. Fenton destroyed it within a matter of seconds, by putting his boot through it.
‘Crock must have a safe box in the main bedroom. Trophy bride and family treasure close together at night.’
‘Right definitely, Steve mate, but let’s find this master bedroom, take back our loot and get our blinkin arses out of his bloomin dream home,’ Gorran suggested.
‘Get a grip, Marty.’
‘No bullshit, Steve, you didn’t have that blinkin hound in a bear hug, chewing your bloomin neck to the bone, did you.’
‘Second door to your right.’
The duo shuffled into the Crock couple’s frilly front bedroom. Steve only needed a few seconds to work the space out. He located a safe deposit box hidden at the head of their curtained four-poster. It was further concealed behind a reproduction painting of wild horses running through a raging river, resembling that Seeger LP cover, apparently designed by Woolworth’s. Fenton tossed down his kit bag on the shag and got to work. He picked out the appropriate tools and set about cracking the box. It made him feel nostalgic, except that no explosive charges were involved this time. With a gentle tap on a needle the safe door swung open.
The punk maestro leaned in to get a view of its interior. He saw that set of artists’ pens, which had once belonged to him.
‘Right, definitely, these are mine, but I don’t see our blinkin loot in here,’ Marty said, peering over the bassist’s shoulder.
‘Only a pile of videos,’ Steve reported.
‘Right, definitely, so Troy left us with a set of lot of blinkin
movies.’
‘Let’s take em anyway. We don’t know what’s on those vids. At least we won’t go empty handed. And Troy’s got our calling card,’ he remarked.
Back in the Sunbeam - out of sorts and half savaged - Marty grated through gears, to complete a U turn in violent jolts, and set off back into town.
‘Ai man, fascist propaganda films, most like,’ Roy predicted.
‘Right, definitely Smith, what do I care what’s on them. No bullshit, I’ll take em all home and record over the top of the blinkin lot of them,’ Marty complained.
‘Don’t be too hasty,’ Fenton advised.
The rock guru stared grimly down the dual-carriageway, brooding over his steering wheel, big hair squashed under the interior lining.
Maybe he didn’t get the stolen loot back, but those videos definitely proved to interesting viewing and no more left-leaning than Roy said.
30. Home Movies
Our next gig was at the maternity ward, when Nut’s missus gave birth. We were getting around the different departments of that hospital. Once again our appearance caused a rumpus, even before Sandra’s screams had ricocheted around the delivery room and surrounding corridors, as if in tribute to her partner’s vocal style.
Nutcase was a proud and humble new dad, grateful for our visit. ‘Fanks for comin lads,’ he told us. The baby resembled him, not only because it had a Mohican haircut at birth - though not a green one. ‘We’re really chuffed,’ he explained tearfully. There were sore rings of happiness around his puffy eyes. ‘I can’t believe my Sandra brought another rock fan in the world. It’s a fuckin miracle,’ he choked up.
‘Ai lads, look at him will ya, the little fella’s the spit a him like!’
Billy had taken an extra tea-break to join us.
Nut’s broad pasty features screwed up, ‘You’re right, the kids ave def’nitely changed me. Def’nitely. I look at life different. I aint the same bloke.’
