Death of a Cave Dweller Read online

  “So what gave you the idea for startin’ up the club?”

  “I was stuck with a useless hole in the ground which I didn’t know what to do with, and then I noticed that all the office and shop girls were spending most of their dinnertimes in the record shops. Put the two things together, and you’ve got the Cellar Club.”

  “You seem to have made a nice little business out of it, anyroad,” Woodend said.

  “Oh, I’m not complaining.”

  “Can I ask you about the night before the murder?”

  “Be my guest,” said Mrs Pollard, reaching under the counter and pulling out a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label.

  “Who went into the dressing room?”

  Mrs Pollard was suddenly very cagey. “We gave the local bobbies a list,” she said.

  “I know. An’ I’ve got it in my pocket. The question I’ve got to ask is, is it a complete list?”

  “As far as I know,” the club owner lied.

  “Look, I’m here to find a murderer – an’ for no other reason,” Woodend said. “I’m not in the least concerned about the fact that you’ve got booze on unlicensed premises . . .”

  “That’s just for personal use,” Mrs Pollard protested.

  “They could still do you for it, luv,” Woodend told her, “but like I said, it’s not my concern. Nor am I goin’ to worry my head with anythin’ else the local bobbies might get upset about – like you runnin’ a disorderly house. So why don’t you tell me about the girls?”

  “How did you know about them?” Mrs Pollard gasped.

  “The couch,” Woodend told her. “It was a dead give-away, especially with that curtain.”

  The club owner grinned ruefully. “When the boys asked if they could put it in there they said it was so they could grab a bit of shut-eye between sets, but I wasn’t fooled for a minute. How the hell could anybody sleep with all the noise going on a few feet away from their lug-holes?”

  “How many girls usually go backstage?”

  “It depends. Some nights there’s three or four, some nights only one, and other nights none at all.”

  “An’ the night before the murder?”

  “One, as far as I know.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t a regular, I’m sure of that. And I certainly haven’t seen her since.”

  Woodend’s next question was cut off by a loud, “Well, look what the cat’s dragged in!” from Steve Walker, who was sounding happier than he’d done all morning.

  Everyone in the club followed his gaze towards the back of the room, from where yet another young man carrying a guitar was just emerging.

  “How are you, Steve, you big tosspot?” the new arrival asked, a grin spreading across his face.

  “All the better for seein’ you, you little toe-rag,” Walker replied. “You know Terry Garner, don’t you?” he asked the other two members of the group. “He’ll be playin’ next.”

  “There’s others waitin’ their turn,” Pete Foster complained.

  “Yeah, but the thing is, they’ve got all day, an’ Terry has another appointment,” Steve Walker said airily. “Come on up, our kid, and show us what you can do.”

  Woodend turned his attention back to Mrs Pollard. “Who could have got to the amplifier between the time the club finally closed down for the night an’ the moment it killed Eddie Barnes . . .” He paused to give weight to his next few words. “Anybody apart from Rick Johnson, I mean?”

  Mrs Pollard tried to fake shock at the suggestion that he might suspect Johnson – and didn’t quite make it.

  “Rick might be a bit rough – that’s why I employ him – but he’s no murderer,” she said, with a mixture of anger and defensiveness.

  “Oh dear, have I touched a nerve?” Woodend asked.

  Mrs Pollard brushed a strand of brassy hair out of her right eye. “No,” she said, unconvincingly. “Of course not. I just don’t like hearing you make assumptions about Rick, that’s all.”

  “Is that what I was doin’?”

  “It’s what it sounded like.”

  The Seagulls and Terry Garner were doing a number which seemed to be called ‘The Hippy Hippy Shake’.

  “Talkin’ of sounds, do you know anythin’ about this kind of music?” Woodend asked.

  “I know enough to say whether it’s good or bad,” Mrs Pollard replied, obviously glad to get off the subject of Rick Johnson.

  “So what’s this new lad like?”

  Mrs Pollard listened to the song for perhaps half a minute. “He’s all right, but he’s nowhere near as good as the kid who was on before him,” she said. “Why are you asking?”

  “Just curious,” Woodend lied. “You were tellin’ me who might have been able to nobble the amplifier after the groups had gone home.”

  “Well, there was me, for a start.”

  “Who else?”

  “Rick, as you’ve already gone out of your way to mention. The two cleaners who come in first thing in the morning – but they’re old dears, pensioners who probably couldn’t even change their own light bulbs. And Ron Clarke, the disc jockey. That’s about it.”

  The song had reached its final chord. “We’ll do ‘What do you want to make those eyes at me for?’ next,” Steve Walker announced.

  “What do you mean ‘next’?” Pete Foster demanded. “There’s other people waitin’ to come on.”

  “Well, it won’t do them any harm to wait for another three minutes, will it?” Steve Walker asked.

  Pete Foster strode furiously across the stage and clamped his hand over the microphone, so the rest of his conversation with Walker wouldn’t be blasted across the club.

  “Do they always go on at each other like that?” the chief inspector asked Mrs Pollard.

  “There’s always a bit of tension – a bit of rivalry as you might call it,” the club owner replied. “But it doesn’t often reach this level. I expect it’s because Steve’s still upset over Eddie’s death.”

  “And Pete? Isn’t he upset, too?”

  “He didn’t have as close a relationship with Eddie as Steve did. And I sometimes got the impression that he thought he’d work better with Steve if Eddie wasn’t around.” Mrs Pollard put her hand up to her mouth. “Oh my God! I didn’t mean that to come out like it did.”

  Pete Foster had ended his argument with Steve Walker and had returned to his own microphone.

  “From now on, we’re goin’ to let everybody who’s auditionin’ play two songs,” he announced.

  “A compromise seems to have been reached,” Woodend remarked to Mrs Pollard.

  “It usually is. They might fight, but they both know they’re not half as good on their own as they are together. Listen, what I said about Pete and Eddie, I don’t want you to . . .”

  “I’d soon have found out from somebody else if I hadn’t got it from you,” Woodend told her. “Don’t worry, I’m not goin’ to put the cuffs on him the second he steps off the stage. For a start, I don’t have any on me.”

  Mrs Pollard was obviously still shaken, but managed a weak smile. Behind them, Terry Garner and the Seagulls broke into ‘What do you want to make those eyes at me for?’.

  “D’you know what’s one of the first things I do when I’m assigned to a case?” Woodend asked conversationally.

  “No. How could I?”

  “True enough,” Woodend agreed. “Well, what I do is, I seek out a Wise Man.”

  Mrs Pollard giggled. “You mean an old man with a long white beard?” she asked.

  “He doesn’t have to be old at all,” Woodend said seriously. “He can be quite young as long as he’s got the knowledge. I’ll give you an example. A couple of months ago, I was workin’ on a case in Hampshire. Now the Wise Man in that investigation was a local poacher who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. He was suspicious of me at first, naturally, but once I’d persuaded him I wasn’t goin’ to run him in, he turned out to be very helpful – told me things a
bout the area an’ the people I’d never have found out myself in a thousand years. So what I’m lookin’ for now is a Wise Man who knows about his way around here. Or should I say her way – because I think it might be you.”

  “I’m sure there are hundreds of people who know their way around Liverpool better than I do.”

  “I’m not talkin’ about Liverpool in general. I’m talkin’ about the rock’n’roll scene.”

  “I’m still not your woman,” Mrs Pollard replied. “I know some of the groups, because they play here, but there’s dozens of other clubs and hundreds of other bands. If you really want to find your Wise Man, then you should go and see Geoff Platt.”

  “Who’s he when he’s at home?”

  “He runs a weekly newspaper called the Mersey Sound. He’s got a mind like an encyclopaedia when it comes to music in the ’Pool.”

  “Where will I find him?”

  “His office is just at the end of the road. Right on the corner of North John Street.”

  “An’ when do you think would be a good time for me to pay this Mr Platt a call?”

  “Doesn’t really matter. The sign on the door says the office closes at five, but Geoff’s the sort who works around the clock.”

  The song had come to an end. “This next one’s called ‘Too Much Monkey Business’,” Steve Walker announced, as if he were performing before an audience instead of holding an audition.

  Terry Garner played the opening bars, and Steve Walker came in with the accompaniment. It was perhaps ten or fifteen more seconds before Billie Simmons added a drumbeat, and a full half-minute before a furious-looking Pete Foster finally gave up and joined in.

  “It’s been nice talkin’ to you, Mrs Pollard,” Woodend said. “Now if you’ll tell me how much I owe you for the tea . . .”

  “On the house,” the club owner told him.

  Woodend nodded his thanks, and headed towards the door. It was not until Jack Towers loomed in front of him that he remembered his promise to spare the manager a few minutes of his time.

  God, the man looked rough, Woodend thought. No wonder he hadn’t made any attempt to sort out the argument between Steve Walker and Pete Foster – it seemed to be taking all his effort just to stand up.

  “This came through my letterbox at around eleven o’clock last night,” Towers said, as he thrust a cheap brown envelope into Woodend’s hand. “I thought you’d better see it.”

  Woodend opened the envelope and read the short message.

  WHICH one will die Next?

  Maybe Steve Walker

  Get out of LIVERPOOL while

  You STILL GOT the chance

  “‘While you still got the chance’,” Woodend read aloud. “Well, he’s not much of a scholar, whoever put this together. Or maybe it’s just that he wants us to think he isn’t.”

  “Is it a serious threat?” Towers asked. “I mean, do you think it was actually sent by Eddie’s murderer?”

  “It could have been,” Woodend conceded. “Then again, it could simply have been sent by somebody with a screw loose. Whenever there’s a murder, any number of nutters come crawlin’ out of the woodwork. You have no idea yourself who might have sent it?”

  Towers shook his head. “I was in the hall at the time. I should have gone straight out on to the street the moment the letter landed on my mat,” he said regretfully. “If I had done, I’d have been bound to see him. But I didn’t think. I just didn’t think.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, sir,” Woodend said. “You’re not trained to handle this kind of situation.”

  “Bloody right I’m not,” Jack Towers agreed, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. “So now you’ve seen the letter, what are you going to do about it, Mr Woodend?”

  “I’ll ask Inspector Hopgood to send some of his lads round to question your neighbours,” Woodend told him. “It was quite late when the letter was delivered – which isn’t very helpful – but there’s always a chance that somebody walkin’ his dog or comin’ back from the pub might have seen somethin’ suspicious. An’ if your neighbours are anythin’ like mine, there’s bound to be at least one nosy old bat who peeps from behind her curtains every time she hears a noise.”

  “What about protection?” Towers asked, as if tracking down the author of the letter was not his main concern.

  “Protection?” the chief inspector repeated. “What exactly did you have in mind, sir?”

  Towers shrugged helplessly. “You’re the experts. But I should have thought that at a minimum you’d need to assign at least a couple of policemen to each of my boys.”

  If the manager hadn’t been so obviously earnest about it, Woodend would have laughed out loud.

  “A couple of policemen on each of your lads!” he repeated.

  “You think that’s too few?”

  “I think it’s far too bloody many. At three shifts a day, that’d take eighteen officers off the streets. How many bobbies do you think there are goin’ spare in this city?”

  “So many can we have?”

  “That’s up to the local Chief Super,” Woodend told him. “But if you want my opinion, I’d be surprised if you get a single officer.”

  “Then just what are the boys expected to do?” Jack Towers demanded, aggrieved.

  “Tell them to be extra careful,” Woodend advised. “Make sure they always check their equipment carefully before they plug it in, and that they never go anywhere alone.” He put his hand on the manager’s bony shoulder. “Don’t look so worried, Mr Towers. Like I said before, there’s a very good chance this letter was written by a crank. Most of them are.”

  “It wasn’t a crank who killed Eddie,” Towers pointed out.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Woodend agreed. “A lunatic, maybe, but not a crank.” He placed the anonymous letter carefully in one of the pockets of his hairy sports jacket. “I’ll get the fellers at the local police lab to give this a once-over,” he continued. “Not that I expect they’ll find anythin’. Whoever wrote it an’ posted it through your letterbox was probably wearin’ gloves. An’ even if he wasn’t, whatever prints he left will probably have been obscured by yours.”

  “‘Get out of Liverpool while you got the chance’,” Towers quoted, bitterly. “What have I been doing on all those trips down to record companies in London if it wasn’t trying to get my boys out of Liverpool?”

  Ten

  Mugs, half full of cold coffee, perched precariously on stacks of poorly printed handbills. Paper clips, linked together in a chain, lay discarded beside broken pencils and blunt crayons. The notice board was covered with reminders of events long since past, and the two typewriters were – at the very least – pre-war. The office in which the Mersey Sound was put together was just about as chaotic as any office can be while still being classified as a workplace.

  “I’m told you know more about local music than anybody else in Liverpool,” Woodend said to the plump man with wild, curly hair who was sitting behind the battered desk.

  “If I don’t, then I shouldn’t be running this newspaper,” Geoff Platt replied with no attempt at false modesty.

  “So paint me a picture of it.”

  Platt rested his interlocked hands on his ample belly. “A picture wouldn’t do you any good at all,” he said with a smile. “It’d be out of date almost before the paint was dry.”

  Woodend grinned. “You mean that things are changing very fast round here,” he said.

  Platt looked out of the window, which would have benefited from a good cleaning. “Put it like this,” he said. “There are lads who are playin’ together now who will be in rival groups by next month. Maybe even by next week.”

  As if to prove the truth of the statement, the phone on Platt’s desk chose that moment to ring.

  “Excuse me for a minute,” he said, picking up the receiver. “Geoff Platt speaking . . . Who? . . .” He rummaged around the surface of the desk and finally managed to come with a scrap of paper and badly chewed pencil. “Wh
at are they planning to call themselves? . . . The Black Aces? So they’ll be playing what kind of music? Mainly rhythm’n’blues?” He scribbled down a few names. “Thanks for the story, our kid. Next time I see you in the Grapes, remind me I owe you a couple of pints.”

  He replaced the phone on its cradle. “There are literally hundreds of groups playing all around the Liverpool area,” he told Woodend. “Some of them only last a couple of weeks before they break up. On the other hand, there are groups that have been around for two or three years, maybe even longer than that. And there are some kids who play in more than one group. It’s all very fluid. For instance, I know of one drummer who plays in five different groups. It’s not that he’s a particularly good musician, you understand, but he has got his own drum kit, and having a bad drummer backing you is a damn sight better than no drummer at all.”

  The phone rang again.

  “Is it always like this?” Woodend asked.

  “Yes, this is a pretty normal day,” Platt told him, searching for another scrap of paper on which to write the details of the break-up of a group which called itself the Deluxes.

  “So many young kids chasin’ so few available dreams of fame an’ fortune,” Woodend said, almost wistfully.

  Platt shook his head. “It’s not really like that. There are a handful of groups who have a real chance of getting their music heard by a much wider audience, but for most of the kids being in a band is a laugh, and a way to earn a bit of pocket money.” He winked. “And, of course, it’s a hell of a way to pull the judies.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” Woodend said, thinking of the girl who had been in the Cellar Club dressing room the night before Eddie Barnes had died.

  “The majority of the groups don’t really expect to make a record, or appear on television,” Platt continued. “If they manage to get the third spot on the bill at a dance in the New Brighton Tower Ballroom, they think they’re the kings of the world. And they are – because for them the ’Pool is the world.” He paused. “There’s a lot of fans – especially the girls – who hope none of the groups they like ever get famous, because then they wouldn’t just belong to the city, they’d belong to anybody with enough money to buy a record.”