‘That is appalling,’ said Jonny. ‘I would never think of doing such a thing.’
‘But if I am a figment of your imagination, then you just did.’
‘I’ll get to the bottom of you,’ said Jonny.
‘Or “Look Out Behind You”,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘That’s another game. You shout “Look out behind you” at people. Now sometimes they will and sometimes they won’t, but whatever they do, we do something painful to them. Or there’s “Whoops Sorry I Pushed You Into the Path of a Speeding Car”. Or “Smack the Commoner”. Or we could go to Argos and look through The Laminated Book of Dreams. You always like that.’
Jonny Hooker sighed. ‘The Laminated Book of Dreams,’ he said. Dreamily.
‘But the point is,’ said Mr Giggles, ‘that that’s the kind of jolly good fellow I am. All laughter and jolly japes. How could you ever think that I could murder people?’
‘Hm,’ went Jonny. And left it at that.
And presently arrived at the house of the late James Crawford.
‘All right,’ said Mr Giggles, ‘if you are determined upon this reckless course of action, the best way to approach the situation is—’
But, ‘Shut up!’ Jonny told him.
The road was taped across and police constables stood on guard. They carried semi-automatic weapons, because there was always the off chance that this might just have something to do with international terrorism, so you could never be too careful. Numerous newspaper and media Johnnies stood about, smoking cigarettes and making lewd remarks to passing women PCs.
Jonny drove the police car right up to the tape, scattering numerous newspaper types before him. A constable with an AK-47 gestured for Jonny to wind down his window. Jonny wound it down.
‘Drop the tape please, Constable,’ said Jonny.
‘On whose authorisation?’ asked the PC
‘On whose authorisation, what?’ asked Jonny.
‘On whose authorisation, sir!’ said the PC
‘Drop the tape at once,’ commanded Jonny.
The constable dropped the tape.
And then saluted.
‘Ludicrous,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘Tell me that that did not just happen.’
Jonny Hooker grinned a wicked grin.
‘And stop doing that,’ said Mr Giggles. ‘You’re frightening me.’
Jonny Hooker drove slowly down the blocked-off road. Of course, it had been too easy. Ridiculously easy. Impossibly easy. But that wasn’t to say that it was impossible. Implausible, perhaps. But not impossible.
And that, perhaps, was the point.
There was a big white van double-parked before the house of the late James Crawford. The back was open and men in environmental suits were unloading picnic chairs and a table-tennis table. Jonny drove around them and parked up. Then he hooted the horn.
A constable issued from the house of the deceased. He carried a General Electric minigun.
Jonny beckoned to him through the open car window.
‘Hurry up, lad,’ he called as he beckoned. ‘This door won’t go opening itself, will it?’
‘No, sir,’ said the constable.
And he opened up the door.
‘So what do we have here?’ asked Jonny Hooker, inside the house now and in the front room.
‘And who are you?’ asked a certain body.
‘Chicoteen, Special Branch, hence the dress uniform. And you?’
‘Inspector Westlake,’ said Inspector Westlake, ‘on special secondment from the Bramfield Constabulary. I am awaiting information regarding the very special and top-secret assignment that I have been called here to deal with. In the meantime I thought I might as well solve this murder. It is within my compass, as it were.’ Inspector Westlake made a certain gesture.
‘I see,’ said Jonny. And it sounded as if he did. And he made a certain gesture of his own. ‘Well, just carry on. I’ll take a little look around on my own, if you don’t mind.’
‘Well, actually I do,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘Might I see your ID?’
‘I trust you noted that,’ said Jonny, pointing to a stain upon the wallpaper just to the right of the fireplace. ‘Suggestive, would you not agree?’
‘Eh?’ said the inspector.
Jonny considered an ‘Eh what?’ But then thought better of it. ‘I’m sure you know your own business best,’ he said. ‘I’ll just leave you to it.’
Inspector Westlake went to examine the stain.
Jonny cast an eye about the room.
Now, some rooms are certainly happy. They have a jolly feel to them. They have cheerful wallpaper and a sunny disposition. One can sit in such a room and feel elevated. Happy. Given to a peacefulness of mind.
This was not one of those rooms.
This room was a sorry room. A room given to despair. A lost room, a room that had abandoned all hope. A room that was crying inside. And all around and about.
Glum was this room.
Glum and grim. Of dismal aspect.
‘No natural light,’ Jonny observed.
‘Pardon?’ said a constable, who was carrying a rocket launcher.
‘No natural light. What is that over the window?’
‘Soundproofing,’ said the constable. ‘It’s all over the room – there, there and even up there.’ He swung his rocket launcher up towards the ceiling, nearly putting Jonny’s eye out. ‘This whole room is soundproofed, and double thickness. I know these things, see, because I’m in a band and we’ve recorded in a real recording studio.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Jonny.
‘Do you really think so? I have one of our CDs here. Perhaps you’d like to hear it.’
‘Love to,’ said Jonny, and he accepted the proffered CD. ‘Dry Rot,’ he continued. And a smile appeared upon Jonny’s face. It was a sort-of secretive smile, a smile that, if you’d asked it what it meant, would have replied that it meant something that you didn’t know but wasn’t going to tell.
‘That’s the name of our band,’ said the constable. ‘We play at The Middle Man on Metal Nights. You should come along sometime.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Jonny. ‘But in the meantime, if you don’t start calling me “sir”, I will have you court-martialled, or whatever the police equivalent of that is.’
‘Pork-martialled?’ suggested the PC. ‘I’m not really into the respect-for-your-superiors side of policing. I joined up for the weapons and the suspect interrogation. I’ve got really long hair tucked up inside my helmet.’
‘Where is the body?’ Jonny asked. ‘Has it been removed to the morgue?’
‘No, it’s over there, behind the upturned armchair. But I wouldn’t go looking at it if I were you. It’s pretty grisly.’
Jonny glanced some more about the miserable room. ‘He had a lot of gramophone records,’ he said, sighting many a shelf-load.
‘About thirty thousand by my reckoning,’ said the constable, ‘and some real gems amongst them. I had a little delve. All catalogued, alphabetical order. Pick a band, have a look. I’ll bet there’s a copy here.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Jonny.
‘Name a band,’ said the constable.
‘Dry Rot,’ said Jonny.
‘Oh, that’s not fair,’ said the constable. ‘We only cut a dozen copies on vinyl. They’re very expensive to get done. Mind you, a damn fine mini-album, it was, called Pretence of Strategy. The best track is “Sides to a Story”. But there won’t be a copy here. He’s not likely to have got hold of one.’
‘He might,’ said Jonny.
‘He won’t have,’ said the constable.
‘Humour me,’ said Jonny.
‘All right,’ said the constable. He pushed past Inspector Westlake, who was studying a stain upon the wallpaper with the aid of a magnifying glass, and applied himself to one of the record shelves.
‘Some Call Me Laz,’ he went, ‘by Lazlo Woodbine and the Wood-binettes. Blimey, that’s rare. And the original soundtrack album for Plan Nine from Outer Space. A
nd … blimey.’
‘Blimey?’ said Jonny.
‘A copy of our demo,’ said the constable. ‘The first copy. I thought I had that.’
‘Where are the Js?’ Jonny asked.
‘Js?’ asked the constable.
‘For Johnson, Robert Johnson.’
‘King of the Delta Blues?’
‘You’ve heard of him?’
‘He was the man,’ said the constable. ‘He invented it all.’
‘Would you check the Js, please, Constable?’
And whilst Inspector Westlake continued to inspect a stain upon the wallpaper and a couple of chaps in environmental suits fussed about at this and that whilst erecting a swingball in the centre of the room, the musically inclined constable checked the Js for Robert Johnson.
‘Damn me,’ he said. ‘Yep, the full complement. A collector’s dream.’
‘All thirty?’ asked Jonny.
‘He only recorded twenty-nine,’ said the constable. ‘See, all numbered, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine—’
‘And thirty,’ said Jonny, and he pulled a brown card slip-sleeve from the shelf. “Apocalypse Blues,” he read. ‘Recorded London, August 16th, nineteen thirty-eight.’
‘No way!’ said the constable.
Jonny put his hand through the hole in the centre of the sleeve. ‘Empty,’ said he. ‘The recording is gone.’
‘We’re going to move the body now, sir,’ came a muffled voice, muffled by the plastic face-mask jobbie on the Scientific Support chap’s environmental suit.
‘Get to it, then,’ said Inspector Westlake.
Jonny peeped on as two of the environmentally suited fellows pulled aside the toppled armchair to reveal the body of Mr James Crawford.
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Jonny as he viewed it.
‘Oh yes,’ said Inspector Westlake. ‘Very messy business. Same as that Doctor Archy. Head chopped right off the body, and taken away as a trophy by the murderer. We’re dealing with a psycho serial killer here. This won’t be the last, you mark my words.’
And Jonny marked his words.
14
Jonny Hooker’s hand was tightly over his gob.
The sight of a headless body can elicit a degree of queasiness. In fact, most of us go through life without ever seeing a headless body and so our mettle, as it were, is never tested.
Jonny Hooker swallowed and swallowed again. It would not look good, indeed not professional, for him to hurl up his stomach contents over the chaps in the white environmental suits. Questions might be asked.
Questions!
Jonny Hooker had a moment. Took in a moment. Reality seemed to be long gone. He had bumbled along, a no-mark, a nonsuch for all of his life. True, he was a talented musician, but it had never taken him anywhere. For he had never taken it anywhere. He had been too wound up in himself. In the problems he had with himself. Simply with trying to be himself. Simply trying to survive.
But this, all this, was as ridiculous as it was exciting. And it was exciting. And he was involved in it. Involved directly in something for possibly the very first time in his life. He was attached to this. There was something about this that allowed him a degree of control. Which enabled him.
But it was all so absurd. So unreal. You just can’t bluff your way into a crime scene dressed as a park ranger but posing as a high-ranking police officer, especially when you are the prime suspect.
It simply cannot be done.
Yet.
‘Sir,’ said the constable with the rocket launcher, ‘and please understand me, I do hate to have to call you “sir”. But sir, as you are evidently possessed of a certain intuition that has clearly not been granted to other senior officers of the law–’ He gestured towards Inspector Westlake with the business end of his rocker launcher and nearly put Jonny’s left testicle out. ‘–I am thinking that perhaps you should have a look at this.’ And he did a bit of discreet finger-pointing with his non-trigger finger.
Jonny followed the direction of the pointing, a skill that he was now raising to almost an art form, and spied out the object of the pointing: a book, somewhat bloody about the edges, that lay upon the seat of a woebegone armchair.
The constable now raised his trigger-free hand and spoke behind it in a whispery, secretive manner. ‘I was first on the crime scene,’ he secretively whispered, ‘and I had a little flick through that – it was lying on the floor. You might find it of interest. Perhaps a clue or two lies within.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Jonny, and then, ‘What is that?’ And he pointed up to the ceiling. It was a loud, ‘What is that?’ and it drew the attention of all who were present in the melancholy room. The men in the environmental suits dropped the headless body.
Inspector Westlake just said, ‘What?’
Jonny scooped the book from the armchair and swept it into his pocket.
‘What?’ said Inspector Westlake, once again.
‘Ah,’ said Jonny. ‘Apparently nothing. I thought I saw something, but no, it was nothing.’
‘As nothing as this stain by the fireplace,’ said the inspector. ‘It’s a damp patch, been here for years by the look of it.’
‘Bravo,’ said Jonny. ‘Has anyone checked out the rest of the premises?’
‘Of course,’ said Inspector Westlake.
‘Splendid,’ said Jonny. ‘I’ll just follow up on the details, then. This young officer will accompany me.’
Inspector Westlake waved them away.
‘Are we off to the pub, then?’ asked the police constable, once he and Jonny had left the room of dolefulness.
‘Have you checked out the rest of the house?’
‘Well, I did have a bit of a snoop about. The bedroom’s pretty weird.’
‘Weird?’
‘Up there, see for yourself.’
The constable led Jonny to the bedroom. He pushed open the door and turned on a light and Jonny peered within. It was not a happy bedroom. Indeed, if the room directly beneath this bedroom had been a heart-sinking and death-wish-leading-to-suicidal-tendency room, this bedroom surpassed it, or possibly undermined it in the field of wretched disconsolateness, or indeed suchlike.
And this was a rather smelly room. A room that was rank indeed.
‘Phewee,’ went Jonny, fanning at his nose.
‘I’d join you in such fanning,’ said the constable, ‘but I might, like as not, put my nose out with this rocker launcher.’
‘You could use your other hand.’
‘I could,’ said the constable, ‘but I don’t want to, all right?’
‘Fine with me,’ said Jonny. ‘So what is with the horrid smell?’
‘Same business,’ said the constable. ‘Window all soundproofed over. All the walls, too, as you can see.’
‘I do see,’ said Jonny. ‘But what is this all over the walls? They’re scrawled all over with felt-tip pen or something.’
‘Take a close look,’ said the constable.
And Jonny did so.
‘Music,’ he said. ‘Musical notation. Lines and lines of music all over every wall.’
‘And the ceiling,’ said the constable, ‘and what can be seen of the floor beneath the wank-mags and the used tissues.’
‘I don’t feel that there was any need for you to mention them,’ said Jonny.
‘Really? I felt it added a certain shock value.’
‘Do you read music?’ Jonny asked.
‘I’m in a band, aren’t I?’ said the constable.
Jonny nodded. ‘So do you read music?’
‘Of course not. Who reads music nowadays?’
‘Well, actually I do,’ said Jonny. ‘Curious thing – I was able to read music before I was even taught to read and write.’
‘That’s the first I’ve heard of that,’ said the constable.
‘It’s the first time I’ve mentioned it,’ said Jonny.
‘So do you think it’s significant?’
‘What do you think?’
 
; ‘I’m not paid to think,’ said the constable. ‘I’m paid to do what I’m told. And hopefully be told once in a while to shoot at someone with this here rocket launcher. A swarthy terrorist, hopefully.’
Jonny Hooker sighed.
‘And could I offer you some advice, whilst we’re on the subject of terrorists?’
‘We’re not on the subject of terrorists,’ said Jonny.
‘Of murderers, then, or at least wanted suspects.’
‘Go on,’ said Jonny, slowly.
‘Well,’ said the constable, ‘and no offence meant, but you really are crap at impersonating a police officer. Don’t you think that wearing a Gunnersbury park ranger’s uniform is a bit of a giveaway, as it were?’
‘What?’ went Jonny.
‘I’m not thinking to turn you in, or even arrest you myself but—’
‘What?’ went Jonny. An even louder ‘what?’ than before.
‘But I really would hightail it out of here if I were you,’ said the constable. ‘Before the truth dawns upon Westlake.’
Jonny’s mouth went flap-flap-flap, but the word ‘what’ accompanied by a question mark did not issue from it yet again. After a moment or two, the words, ‘You recognised me?’ did, though.
‘You’re kidding, right?’ said the constable.
‘I’m not kidding,’ said Jonny.
‘Jonny,’ said the constable, ‘it’s me, Paul – we went to school together, remember?’
‘Ah,’ said Jonny. ‘School together, was it?’
‘It was,’ said Constable Paul. ‘You sat next to me in Mister Vaux’s class. And Mister Jenner took us for music and you used to show off because you could read the music to concertos better than him, so he used to make you go outside and stand in the quadrangle, remember?’
‘I do remember,’ said Jonny. ‘I remember all too well. Jonny looked Paul up and down. ‘I didn’t recognise you,’ he said. ‘It must be the uniform.’