Death of a Cave Dweller Read online

  “It could be a big bluff. Johnson could have calculated that we’d never think he did it because he’s such an obvious suspect,” Rutter countered, but without much conviction.

  “Aye, an’ maybe Eddie’s death was no more than an elaborate suicide,” Woodend said dryly, “but it doesn’t seem likely, does it?”

  “No,” Rutter agreed. “But it didn’t seem likely that a country vicar in Hampshire would have two bodies buried in the back garden of his rectory, either. Yet that’s what we found, isn’t it?” He checked his watch. “Mind if I go and make a phone call, sir?”

  “Maria?”

  Rutter nodded. “I like to ring her at about the same time every day. It gives her some kind of structure to work around.”

  “Then you’d better not be late,” Woodend told him.

  The chief inspector watched his sergeant head towards the public phone next to the toilets. He worried about Bob – worried rather more than he’d be prepared to admit. It was hard enough making your way in the police force, without needing to deal with the extra complication of having a blind wife. Yet the sergeant seemed to be handling it well enough – at least for the moment.

  A tingling sensation at the back of his neck told him that someone was watching him. He turned round, and saw Steve Walker was standing at the bar. Woodend raised his index finger, and beckoned to the young guitarist. For a moment, Walker just stood there, looking sullen, then he made his way slowly across to the table.

  “Yeah? What do you want?” he demanded.

  “Just a talk,” Woodend said.

  “What about?”

  The chief inspector smiled. “Well, if you don’t sit down, you’ll never know, will you?”

  Not without a show of reluctance, Walker lowered himself on to the stool opposite Woodend’s.

  “That was some kind of stroke that you pulled back in the Cellar Club,” he said.

  “Some kind of stroke? I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Woodend replied.

  “‘You’re goin’ to need a new guitarist, aren’t you?’” Steve Walker said, in a fair imitation of Woodend’s Lancashire accent. “You knew just what shit you were goin’ to stir up, didn’t you?”

  “No,” Woodend replied honestly. “But I had a pretty good idea that I’d be stirrin’ somethin’ up.”

  A grin appeared out of nowhere, filling Walker’s face and blunting the aggression of his thin features.

  “I suppose I can’t blame you for it,” he said. “In your place, I might have done the same thing.”

  Woodend signalled the waiter for two more pints. “You seem to have calmed down a lot since the last time I saw you,” he said.

  The grin acquired a sheepish edge. “Yeah, well, when all’s said an’ done, Jack was right. We are goin’ to need a new lead guitarist. An’ we’re goin’ to need him soon. Eddie wouldn’t have wanted the group to die with him. He cared almost as much about it as I do.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Woodend said.

  “Seems to me you slipped in a couple of questions already. But go ahead. Ask me another.”

  “Why do you call yourselves the Seagulls?”

  That was clearly not one of the questions Steve Walker had been anticipating. “Why do you want to know that?”

  “Just by the nature of his job, a bobby has to be curious,” Woodend told him. “But I was curious before I was a bobby. So indulge me.”

  “The kind of music we play started in America,” Steve Walker said earnestly. “But we’re not just copyin’ the Yanks. The songs we write have a lot of us in them, an’ a good part of what we are is Liverpudlian. If you listen to our songs – I mean really listen to them, get right below the surface – you’ll hear the clankin’ of the tram cars, the swish of the river, the hooters on the docks, an’, most of all, you’ll hear the screech of the seagulls, because they were here long before there ever was a Liverpool.”

  “You’re a bit of a poet on the quiet, aren’t you?” Woodend said, an amused smile playing on his lips.

  “I’m a rock’n’roller,” Steve Walker replied. “An’ one day soon I’m goin’ to be famous.”

  “Well, you don’t lack confidence, I’d say that much for you,” Woodend told him.

  “Would you?” Walker countered. “I play my music because I think I’m good. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. Would you be able to do your job if you didn’t think you’d catch the murderers?”

  “Good point,” Woodend agreed. “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your manager.”

  “Why would you want to know about him?” Walker asked, some of his aggression and suspicion returning.

  “Truthfully, I want to know about him because, of the four of you, he’s the one I really haven’t got figured out.”

  Steve Walker laughed scornfully. “You’ve talked to us once, and you think you know us, do you?”

  “Let’s just say I can sketch in the broad outlines.”

  “Go on, then,” Walker challenged him.

  Woodend took a sip of his pint. “Billie Simmons is an easy-goin’ sort of feller. He might like playin’ his drums, but he’d be just as happy drivin’ a bus. Pete Foster’s a different case altogether. He’s not very sure of himself, is he?”

  “Neither would you be if you had a mother like his.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothin’. Forget I ever spoke.”

  “Pete doesn’t like trouble, because he’s never quite convinced he’ll come out on top,” Woodend continued. “An’ he needs to get approval – you’ve only got to see the way he acts around your manager to realise that.” He paused. “How am I doin’ so far?”

  “Not bad,” Steve Walker admitted grudgingly. “What can you tell me about me?”

  “I think you’re drawn to victims,” Woodend said. “Eddie Barnes may have become your best mate, but the main reason you got to know him in the first place was because he needed your help. An’ I’m willin’ to bet that he’s not the only one you’ve protected over the years.”

  Steve Walker was beginning to look distinctly uncomfortable. “You’re makin’ me sound like a saint,” he said awkwardly.

  “No, not a saint,” Woodend replied. “Just a lad who needed help himself at one time – and didn’t get any.”

  Walker gave him a hard, assessing stare. “You’re not stupid, are you?”

  “Sometimes I do manage to get things right,” Woodend agreed. “So, now that we’ve finished dissectin’ the Seagulls, why don’t you tell me a little bit about Jack Towers?”

  Rutter had a finger in the ear which was not pressed against the telephone receiver, but with all the noise in the pub, hearing what his wife had to say was still not an easy business.

  “So how are you feeling?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” Maria replied. “Joan Woodend came to see me this afternoon, and we went for a walk in the park. It was lovely. When you can’t see, you notice sounds and smells so much more.”

  Her words would probably have fooled anyone else, but Rutter picked up a false note in them.

  “You’re sure you’re OK,” he persisted.

  “Yes.”

  “We had this agreement,” Rutter reminded her. “We said, right from the beginning, that if anything was bothering one of us, we wouldn’t keep it a secret from the other.”

  There was a pause, then Maria said, “I think I’ve had a touch of ’flu, but I’m over it now.”

  “’Flu?” Rutter repeated. “What were the symptoms?”

  “The usual ones. Giddiness. A nagging headache. But like I said, I’m over it now.”

  Rutter had suddenly developed a pounding headache himself. “I’ll catch the next train back to London,” he told his wife.

  “And what good would that do?” Maria asked, a hint of anger creeping into her voice.

  “I . . . I could look after you, until you feel better.”

  “Don’t you ever listen?” Maria dema
nded. “I’m already feeling better! Tell me the truth, Bob – would there have been any talk of catching the next train back if I wasn’t blind?”

  “I suppose not,” Rutter admitted guiltily.

  “We had another agreement,” Maria said. “Before I accepted your proposal, I made you promise that we’d lead as close a life as we could to any other married couple. Do you remember that?”

  “I remember.”

  “Keep that promise,” Maria urged him. “Stop being so protective all the time. I can’t breathe because of it.”

  “I only want to—”

  “You want to treat me like a helpless kitten,” Maria cut in. “Well, I’m too old to be a kitten, and I’m far from helpless.” She paused. “I love you, Bob. I always will. But unless things change, I can’t see this marriage of ours lasting.”

  “So you want to know about Jack, do you?” Steve Walker asked Woodend. “Anythin’ in particular you’d like to hear?”

  The chief inspector shook his head. “Just say what comes naturally. The details aren’t important. I just want to build up a picture of the man.”

  “The first time I noticed him was in the Cellar Club,” Walker said. “He was standin’ at the back of the room, near the coffee bar, watchin’ us. Understand what I’m sayin’? He wasn’t boppin’ to the music like everybody else in the place. He was just watchin’.”

  “I think I’m gettin’ the idea.”

  “He’d gone by the time we finished our set, an’ I never expected to see him again. But he was waitin’ in the street when we slipped out to the pub, like he’d known that was just what we were goin’ to do – so maybe he already knew more about us than we realised. Anyroad, he asked us if he could buy us a drink.”

  “An’ you, of course, said yes?”

  Walker’s grin was back in place. “We had enough money for four halves, an’ he looked like he was willin’ to shell out on pints. What would you have done in our place?”

  “I’d probably have said yes.”

  “Once we were in the pub, he made small talk for a while, sayin’ how much he liked the music we played, an’ how he thought that we had real talent. Then he started to feed us this line of crap about how he had all kinds of contacts in the record business an’ how he was a mate of a couple of the big promoters. You should have seen the look on Pete’s face. He was over the moon.”

  “But you weren’t?”

  Walker shook his head. “You’ve met Jack, haven’t you? Would you ever mistake him for somebody with important connections in the music world? I didn’t know he was a shippin’ clerk back then, but I knew he had to have some kind of minor clerical job.”

  “So why did you take him on?” Woodend asked, offering Walker a Capstan Full Strength. “Because it was what the others wanted?”

  Walker puffed on his cigarette, and shook his head again. “Things don’t happen in the Seagulls unless I want them to happen.”

  “Well then, what did make you agree?”

  “Jack has his uses. He does make bookings for us, even if it’s only in crappy little clubs in back streets. He always drives the van, so the rest of us can get pissed after a gig. And whenever we’re short of a few bob, we can rely on him to put his hand in his wallet.”

  Woodend shook his head disbelievingly. “That’s just not good enough,” he said.

  Anger flashed briefly in Walker’s eyes. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

  “I mean, you’re not convincin’ me. If you’re as good as you claim you are, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting a better-connected manager than a young shippin’ clerk.”

  Walker grinned again, and this time there was a definite rueful edge to it. “If I tell you the real reason, will you keep it to yourself?”

  “Might it have anythin’ to do with the investigation?”

  “No.”

  “Then I won’t tell a soul.”

  Walker took another deep drag on his cigarette. “If you thought I was being a bit hard on Jack back in the Cellar, you were dead right,” he said. “I can’t help myself sometimes. The feller gets up my nose so much that I just have to lash out. But deep down, I like him.”

  “Go on,” Woodend said encouragingly.

  “There’s a lot of people who could probably manage us better than he does, but there’s no one in the whole of Liverpool who wants to manage us as much as Jack. I saw that the moment I met him. It was desperately important to him. An’ I didn’t have the heart to say no.”

  “So you put your careers on the line just to make someone you’d only just met a little bit happier?”

  Walker shrugged. “It’s more than a little bit happier. He’s on top of the world. Anyway, the way I see it, we’d make it if we had a monkey as a manager. It just might take a bit longer, that’s all.”

  Woodend remembered the scene back in the club. How Towers had looked so stressed when bringing up the issue of a new guitarist to replace Eddie Barnes. How he’d thought then that such scenes could not be uncommon when dealing with a volatile personality like Steve Walker.

  “What’s in it for him?” he asked.

  “Who? Jack?” Walker asked evasively.

  “That is who we’re talkin’ about, isn’t it?”

  “What’s in it for any manager?” Walker countered, still evasive.

  Woodend sighed. “Look, from what you’ve said, he doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in the music. An’ bein’ your manager is costin’ him both money an’ effort. So why’s he doin’ it?”

  Another shrug. “Jack’s got a lot of free time on his hands since his wife left him.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A few weeks before he met us. She ran off with the coal man. That’s like the end of a bad joke, isn’t it?”

  “How did he take it?”

  “Like I said, it happened before we met him, so I’ve no idea what he was like before.”

  “I still don’t see why he should decide to manage a group,” Woodend mused. “If he wanted somethin’ to keep him occupied, why didn’t he just join some kind of social club?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Steve Walker said, with the hint of evasion back in his voice. “I’ve given up mind-readin’ for Lent.”

  “There’s somethin’ you’re not tellin’ me, isn’t there, lad?” Woodend asked.

  “There’s a lot of things I’m not tellin’ you,” Walker replied, “an’ the reason for that is they’re none of your bloody business.”

  Bob Rutter returned to the table, looking considerably more tense than he had when he’d left it, and carrying a large scotch in his hand.

  A bad sign, Woodend thought, but aloud he just said, “Mr Walker and me have just been havin’ a very interestin’ little talk while you were away phonin’ home, Sergeant.”

  “About anything in particular?” Rutter asked, sitting down.

  Steve Walker shot the chief inspector a worried look, as if, having exposed what he probably thought of as his weaknesses to Woodend, he was eager not to have knowledge of it spread any further.

  “We talked about music, mainly,” Woodend lied. “Who do you like, Sergeant, apart from this Buddy Mistletoe feller of yours?”

  Rutter sighed indulgently. “Holly, sir,” he said. “The man’s name is Buddy Holly.”

  Woodend turned to Walker. “I’m a slow learner, as you’ll probably have gathered by now,” he said. “But I usually get it right in the end. So who do you listen to, Bob?”

  “I like the Everly Brothers,” Rutter said. “And I’m a big fan of the Drifters and Ricky Valance.”

  Steve Walker stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, and snorted in what could only have been disgust.

  “I get the impression Mr Walker’s not too impressed with your taste in music,” Woodend said, with some amusement in his voice.

  “You’re dead right there,” Walker told him. “The Everly Brothers! The Drifters! It’s all so bloody tame. It’s like the corporation bogs when the
council’s been down there with their disinfectant. It’s all so . . . so . . .”

  “Sanitised?” Woodend suggested.

  “Yeah, that’s the word,” Walker agreed. “Groups like the Drifters take somethin’ with real life in it, an’ scrub away at it until there’s nothin’ left that’s any good.”

  “How do you feel about Huddie Leadbetter?” Woodend asked, completely out of the blue.

  Walker nearly dropped his pint. “Leadbelly!” he said. “You’ve heard of Leadbelly?”

  “Aye, that surprised you, didn’t it? In point of fact, I’ve done more than just heard of him – I’ve got some of his music on old seventy-eights.”

  “An’ you really do like him?” Steve Walker asked, as if he suspected that Woodend was playing some kind of game.

  “Aye, I do. My main interest’s New Orleans jazz, but I appreciate a bit of blues now an’ again.” Woodend took another swig of his pint. “Who do you think killed Eddie Barnes, Mr Walker?” he asked, suddenly changing tack.

  “I’ve no idea,” Steve Walker said.

  Woodend shook his head again. “Don’t come that with me. You’re far too smart a lad not to have thought it over. An’ once you had given it some thought, you’re too smart not to have come up with some conclusion on the matter. Shall I tell you what I think?”

  The young guitarist shrugged. “You might as well.”

  “I think you take Eddie’s death personally . . .”

  “Well, of course I take it bloody personally. He was my best mate.”

  “. . . an’ it’s crossed your mind that if anybody’s goin’ to punish the killer, it should be you.”

  Walker hurriedly knocked back the rest of his drink, and stood up. “I’d better be goin’,” he said.

  “Interestin’ feller, Huddie Leadbetter,” Woodend said, looking up at him. “He was jailed for murder, you know. Not just once, but twice. An’ both times he got a free pardon because he was considered such a unique musician that it seemed a crime to keep him in gaol.”

  “What’s your point?” Steve Walker asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? You’re not Leadbelly, an’ this isn’t the American Deep South in the 1930s. So bearin’ all that in mind, I’d go very carefully if I was you, Mr Walker.”