by Rick Blechta
I hoped the service was a comfort to the family, since it didn’t seem to do a lot for most of the music business people I was observing.
I sat alone at the back, but it wasn’t long before the Neurotica crew started motioning for me to come forward to join them. I couldn’t graciously say no to that, so during a break in proceedings, I scooted forward, sliding in at the end of their aisle.
Quietly shaking hands with Tommy (the drummer) and his wife, Margaret (better known as Mags), and nodding over at John (guitar), without his wife, and Lee (bass), perennially divorced, I stared at Rolly down on the end, who kept his gaze steadfastly forward and fidgeted. I found out why when he got up to deliver the eulogy.
Tommy leaned across Mags and whispered, “How come you’re not doing this?”
“Wasn’t asked.”
“Figures,” Mags grumbled, then added pithily, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the wanker gave the eulogy at his own funeral. He always was a conceited arse.”
Tommy looked heavier and had lost a good bit of hair on top. He’d stopped playing professionally, joining his dad’s plumbing business. I remembered Mags as a stylish, leggy blonde in her twenties, and while she’d put on a bit of weight, she looked pretty good. Her tongue was still as tart as ever. I liked them both and was glad things had worked out between them.
John had always been dark and brooding, and that hadn’t changed. He remained rake-thin and still wore his hair long, although it was now greying and pulled back in a ponytail like a lot of other aging rockers. He naturally tended to regard everyone as being less intelligent than he, but he was undoubtedly a brilliant guitarist, and the most musically successful of the group, post-Neurotica, having become a sought-after studio musician.
At nineteen, Lee had been the youngest of us when we’d hit it big. I remembered him as a gawky free spirit who’d needed a lot of looking after. Lee was a good enough player when he kept his mind on business at hand. Apparently, he’d spent the last ten years kicking around the UK with various club bands, since, with three marriages behind him, he was also completely broke. He’d never written any of Neurotica’s material, and we hadn’t shared writing credits as some bands do. Other than Rolly, he was (naturally) the most interested in a Neurotica reunion. I was sad to see that he now looked older than any of us. The years had not been kind.
Rolly’s eulogy was as bad as might have been expected—but only to insiders. On tour, Rolly had been a very demanding performer who’d required a lot of Angus’s time and attention and never made anything easy. His words that afternoon made it sound like the glory days of Neurotica had been a case of “all for one and one for all”. I remembered it as a hard slog: long days stuck in buses (and later, planes) and even longer nights, where the only places I felt truly comfortable were on stage or in the studio. Rolly made it all sound like a mad lark. Perhaps for him it had been.
At the conclusion of the service, we naturally congregated at the front of the church, speaking quietly about our departed friend and renewing our acquaintance. They’d seen each other far more frequently, but we easily fell into our old speech patterns and attitudes.
“I wondered if you’d show,” Tommy said, looking toward the street, where our lead singer was surrounded by the media. “You must be mad as hell at Rolly.”
“You figured it out, then?” I asked.
“Rolly told me he was going to do it. I told him it was a bad idea.”
Lee sidled up next to me. “You are going to play, though, Michael, aren’t you?”
I sighed. “I have to now. Angus always wanted it. But I’m not going to get involved in any of the planning, and we have to find an appropriate charity to give the proceeds to.” I stopped and smiled at them. “Unless we’re all willing to foot the bill and make the gig a free one.”
Mags guffawed, and the others, especially Lee, looked unhappy. It had been a childish thing to say, and I was immediately sorry I’d needled them, a bad habit from times past.
Before I could apologize, the coffin came out of the church, carried by Angus’s five nephews and his old dad. It was apparent that he shouldn’t have attempted this, but the man was as stubborn as his son had been.
I stepped forward and said, “Please, sir, allow me. It would be shame if you stumbled. You can follow behind.”
He must have been thinking the same thing, because he acquiesced a immediately, and I took his place, unfortunately providing a terrific photo-op for the media who surged forward.
Once the coffin was safely in the hearse, the family got into the three waiting limos behind and headed off for the ferry dock. The cremation ceremony was for family members only. Rolly and I went back into the church to join the others. The press called after us to no avail, and the cops kept them well away. Several of the stars who’d come to the service nodded at us as they went by and thankfully gave the news-hounds something to do.
“You’ve met MacDonald?” Rolly asked me.
“Yes. And from what I gather, everyone is invited to the reading of the will. I still have no idea what’s in it, though.”
“Angus was tight-lipped about it, but knowing him, there’ll be a zinger of some sort.” He turned to the other Neurotica members. “We don’t have to be back to Angus’s until three. What do you say we get a bite and hoist a few pints? It will be just like the old days.”
They all looked at me to see my response, and I suppose I looked suitably perturbed, because Tommy hastily added, “It will be an opportunity to talk about Angus and remember the good times.”
“I’ll drink to that!” Rolly said—something I hoped he wouldn’t do to excess.
***
During the remainder of that day, Neurotica had its first meal together in twenty-four years (missing Angus mightily), and found out that our road manager had left an estate surprisingly larger than one would have imagined. The instruments were to go to each of us, but they had to be off the premises as soon as possible, because the family was going to sell the property.
As executor, I found I didn’t have much to do. MacDonald explained that my job was simply to make sure the estate was concluded properly, all the death duties paid and Angus’s wishes followed.
It also turned out that Rolly and Lee had, to no one’s surprise, engineered the meeting not to be held in Glasgow simply to get all of us (primarily me) out to where our instruments were kept, hoping that it would be a simple matter to have an impromptu jam session. Having been manipulated far more than I liked the past two days, I declined and managed to piss off everyone but Tommy, who later confided that he was so out of shape, he didn’t think he could play the old material without making a fool of himself.
To soften the blow of my refusal, I again confirmed that I would do the concert and would also take care of getting the instruments safely stored somewhere in Glasgow so they’d be handy for rehearsals.
Everyone left fairly quickly after that, except for Tommy and Mags who stayed to help put the equipment into the flight cases. Lee also stayed, but only because he was forced to. John had made it perfectly clear that the extra seat in Rolly’s Porsche would be taken up by his bum, not Lee’s. In consequence, Lee had to wait around for Tommy, Mags and me. He wandered around for a while, rolling up the odd guitar cord, but eventually disappeared outside to have a smoke, not returning until we were finished.
“You have a drum kit at home?” I asked Tommy as we lowered the flight case lid over the organ.
“Yeah, but it’s not mine. My son’s taken up drums, don’t you know. Quite good, really.” He stopped and looked long at me. “I can’t believe you’re actually going to do it.”
“I can’t believe I’m actually going to, either, to be honest.”
“Is there any hope of this becoming something more involved?”
I took a deep breath. “I know how much this means to the rest of you, but no. I feel I owe this concert to Angus, and that’s the start and finish of it. He wanted it more than any of us, and now he’s the
only one who won’t be there to see it.”
Tommy clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, I for one am happy that you’re at least able to do this much. We can crank up the real Neurotica one last time and give Angus a send-off that would make him proud!”
It took over an hour to get everything in the cases. Lee stuck his head in the door from time to time, grumbling about how long it was taking. Mags told him to shut his gob and help. Several times I caught her smiling at Tommy. It was clear she knew how much playing around with these instruments and re-living his glory years as a musician meant to her old man.
Tommy and I were pretty sweaty by the time the gear had beenstowed in the flight cases. Now I’d only need to find someone to pick it up and cart it off to storage. While that would probably take a few phone calls, with my connections in the business, I could get the job done without much trouble. At the top of my mind, though, was making arrangements for my flight home.
We were putting on our overcoats when Tommy turned and said, “Rolly told me yesterday that the coppers have been talking to you.”
Probably to keep me in a good frame of mind, nothing had been mentioned about that all day. “Yeah. I was here two days before the poor sod bought it.”
“Do you have any idea what happened?”
I could only stare. How the hell do you respond to a question like that?
Tommy’s face grew hard. “I’d like to kill the bastards who did it,” he growled.
Nine
My old nightmares returned with a thumping vengeance that night, as I’d feared all along they would.
A week earlier, I would have smugly stated that I’d laid all my demons to rest years ago. I guess seeing all the old faces, combined with the horrendous circumstances that had returned me to Scotland, allowed my “night horrors” to creep so easily out of their dark hiding place. I can see now they were never really defeated, simply waiting.
To be afraid to close your eyes, to know that as soon as you drop off, you’re going to face the same gut-wrenching product of your tortured conscience yet again is no way to live. For someone who’s never suffered through more than losing the odd night to bad dreams, there can be no comprehension of how debilitating having the same dream night after bloody night can become. For years after leaving Neurotica, I’d been a walking zombie, living in a mental and physical twilight. Sleeping pills (even prescribed ones) did no good. Hypnosis, ditto. I’d even tried drinking myself into oblivion in the hopes that passing out would give me a few hours of blessed relief. The images my brain treated me to on those occasions were even more awful, distorted grotesquely through the haze of alcohol. The only thing that had gradually allowed me to resume a normal life had been distance and time.
There had been nothing I could do when it had been fresh and raw in my brain, and I had the horrible feeling that there would be nothing I could do now.
So I lay futilely on the bed that night, scared to drop off, with my mind a hopeless jumble of half-formed suppositions and even more fragmented conclusions. It felt as if someone had dumped me in the middle of a dark, tangled forest with no way to see or move more than a few feet in any direction without being stopped by a web of clawing undergrowth. One moment my life had been ordered, regular, something which I could stand in the middle of and be satisfied with, and the next moment everything had changed—all because of that damned girl who had jumped into my car.
By the time the meagre light of a Scottish winter dawn began to filter through the curtains of my hotel room, the only thing I was certain of was that this was one mess I couldn’t run away from. The silent phantom of my friend sitting the entire night bound to the chair opposite my bed would never allow me that escape.
***
Determined to try out that hoary adage that the best defense is a good offense, I was showered, shaved, dressed and sitting on a bench at the Dunoon police station by eight thirty. I wanted to catch Campbell as soon as he returned. I had way too much to do before I could get the hell out of Scotland and begin trying to get my life back on track.
Dressed in his usual three-piece suit (this one dark greenish tweed), Campbell strode in shortly after nine, looking impatient and unhappy, especially when he noticed me sitting in a corner. Without a word, the detective indicated with a stiff flick of his head that I should follow. Once in his borrowed office again, he hung his overcoat on a peg behind the door, carefully smoothing out any wrinkles. Then, taking his place behind the desk, the DCI opened his leather briefcase to remove some papers and his notebook. I tried hard not to smile when I saw it also contained a sandwich and an apple.
Glancing up at me, he said curtly, “Well, come in lad, and take a seat. Or do you prefer standing in the doorway all morning?”
I did as I was told and sat in one of the chairs across the desk from him, trying hard not to look as if I were twelve years old and had just been summoned to the headmaster’s office.
“You were on television last night,” he began.
“I expected I would be.”
“Besides your friend’s funeral, they ran some old footage of you playing and being interviewed, followed by a news conference when you quit that pop band of yours.” Campbell pulled a fountain pen out of his inside jacket pocket, staring at it for a moment. “Why did you leave right in the middle of a supposedly very successful tour?”
My eyes felt as if they were bugging out of my head, although I’m certain they weren’t. Every action and reaction takes on magnified significance in this kind of situation. This was not the way I’d envisioned the meeting when I’d planned it during the dark hours of the previous night.
Struggling to keep my face a blank slate, I managed to say evenly, “It was due to artistic differences.” Not a complete lie.
“You walked away from an act on the verge of becoming the biggest thing since, since...”
“Since the Beatles,” I finished for him. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all that before. It was more some publicist’s hyperbole than truth.”
Campbell looked at me shrewdly, and I wondered if he actually knew something or was just fishing. He put down the pen. “From what I’ve been told, you were this pop band; it was supposed to be your brilliance behind the group’s sound. What happened to their sales of recordings after you left certainly bears that out. My question to you is: why haven’t you done anything since? If you’d had artistic differences, that wouldn’t have been enough to cause you to walk away from a very promising career. I find that hard to fathom. Was there perhaps another reason you left?”
I tried not to bore holes through the detective with my eyes. His probing was hitting awfully close to something I was firmly determined not to share with anyone, no matter the reason. “I was totally disillusioned with the music business.”
“Yet you’re still part of that business, from what you’ve told me.”
“I rent bloody musical instruments! Doesn’t that make sense? I know about things like that. It was natural to start that sort of business.”
Campbell looked more unhappy, but kept his thoughts to himself.
“What could something that happened nearly a quarter century ago have to do with my friend’s murder?” I continued. “Are you interested in finding his killers or just in hassling me?”
“I am interested in getting at the truth by knowing the complete story, and since you were visiting Mr. MacDougall two days before his murder, I need to know about you—especially since it seems this girl you told me about has disappeared.” He must have read my expression accurately, because he added, “You see, we have been following up on your story.”
“I was afraid this would happen.”
He picked up his pen and opened the notebook. For a moment he hesitated with his hand above the phone, probably about to call for a stenographer and tape recorder. “Clarify what you mean.”
I snorted disgustedly. “I tried calling her. I didn’t want her to freak out if the police came around. She’s vanished, and worse, she ran
out on her hotel bill. The name she gave me doesn’t appear to be good, either. I have no idea if anything she told me was true.”
“Elaborate, please,” the detective said as he readied his pen over a clean page in the notebook.
This time I held back absolutely nothing. Regina could rot in hell for all I cared.
“Do you believe what I’ve just told you?” I asked him when I’d finished. “What you’ve told me could explain our lack of success at locating any record of the girl. We’ll have to start all over again with this new name—not that she couldn’t have used a different false identity to purchase her plane ticket in Glasgow.”
“But you do believe that I had nothing to do with the death of my friend?” I persisted.
Campbell looked out the window, where the sun was finally making a decent showing, and spoke without turning his head back to me. “I am keeping all options open at this point, Mr. Quinn.”
“Did you send someone around asking questions at my business back in Toronto?”
The DCI shook his head sadly. “Surely, you can’t expect me to answer that.”
“Maybe I should have got a lawyer before I told you anything,” I said more to myself.
He finally turned back to look at me. “You have cooperated to a large extent, and I can assure you that if you’ve told the truth, then you won’t come to any harm. But,” and his gaze sharpened again,“I believe that there is still more to your story than you’ve related to me.”
“I know nothing more about Angus’s death than I’ve told you. I swear it!”
“I hope for your sake you’re telling the truth, laddie. Believe me when I say that if you’ve omitted anything, I will discover it, then it will go very badly with you. That I can guarantee.”
