Chapter Twenty-three
Connie got them adjacent rooms at the Anglish Hotel at Gatwick. St. James put in a wake-up call for six. He woke, stretched, and put on a pair of tennis and sweat pants. Taking the elevator down to the lobby, he pushed his way through the lobby doors, out onto the street, and ran. The sky was overcast with a promise of rain, ozone heavy from the airplanes. It was a bleak, gray industrial neighborhood. At first St. James felt awkward and stiff. He hadn’t run in years.
As a pupil at Milford he’d been a star athlete at track. He’d run the hurdles, the relay, and the hundred meter. In his twenties, he’d run half-marathons.
St. James made it around the block before pushing back through the lobby doors, gasping and coughing, lungs burning. It was a big block. He went upstairs and showered, and was dressed and waiting when Connie came down at nine to arrange for a rental.
“We fly to New York Thursday morning. That gives us three days to get up there and look into this grave thing.” She gave him the twice over, noticing his clear eyes and clean clothes. He’d slapped on some cologne named after a spy.
A shuttle bus deposited them at Avis where they rented a British Focus with right hand drive. St. James produced his driver’s license. There was some kerfuffle as Connie tried to pay for it with her credit card. Rules required the driver to pay with his credit card. St. James dug up his one and only credit card.
“Richard will reimburse me, right?”
“Of course he will.”
Another shuttle took them beneath gray and lowering skies to an iridescent green Focus into which they stuffed their luggage. Using the GPS, Connie guided them through the maze of roundabouts to the M23 heading north, and from there to the M26. She repeated every phrase given by the female robot which St. James found endearing.
St. James kept his eyes on the road except when they strayed to Connie’s well-turned thigh on the seat next to him.
Don’t think about it, boyo. Think of HIV, think of AIDS. Rotting away like a leper, yeah, that’s the ticket. He’d had his share of groupies but the last groupie was long and long ago.
The Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen in Love” taunted him from the speakers.
They stopped at the Crown Pub in Derby for lunch by which time a light rain had begun to fall. They crouched over steaming shepherd’s pie in a booth. St. James drank Coke.
“What do we know about Paddy’s father?” Connie said.
“Ah, old Peter. Tried to put the touch on me once. I don’t know where he got the idea I’d give him money. As if I had some. Apparently Paddy didn’t leave him a thing, and why would he? Paddy hated his old man. Peter forced Paddy to butcher lambs at age seven. Can you imagine?”
“I’m surprised the old man’s still alive,” Connie said. Her eyes were soft. Having seen them angry, St. James never wanted to see it again.
Fat chance, he thought. St. James had a tragic, Hobbesian view of life. He believed in Murphy’s Law.
“Nothing in the obits. Someone would have noted if he’d died. Melody Maker, NME, somebody. He’s a tosser. Like father like son, eh? Me old man was a tosser, too, but everybody knows that.”
“I’m pleased to see you rested and sober for a change,” Connie smiled.
“One day at a time.”
“How are we going to convince Peter to let us dig up Paddy?”
“That’d be easy. We bring a bottle of Scotland’s best, and if that doesn’t do it, your boy Serafin could always throw him a hundred quid.”
“Why do you drag that guitar around?” she asked abruptly.
“That’s a good question. Maybe I’ll show you.”
“I’d like that.”
They took off in the cold drizzle. Several blocks from the pub a flash of movement caught St. James’ eye. He and Connie both looked to see two teenage boys dragging a struggling dog into an alley with a rope.
St. James immediately pulled to the left side of the road. “Fuck me,” he spat, jumped out of the car, and dashed across the cobbled road in the rain, splashing through puddles. Connie waited a minute, dug around in the back for the brolly, opened it up and followed, automatically pulling out her iPhone.
By the time she caught up with St. James, the boys were gone. St. James was soaked through, holding a rope connected to some kind of mastiff that sat at his feet wagging its stubby tail and grinning up at him like an idiot.
St. James looked up. “Sorry ’bout that. Somethin’ about that lot didn’t look right. I know that type. They start out hurting animals.”
Connie knelt to the grinning mastiff. The rope was tied cruelly tight around its neck. It had no collar. Connie struggled with the knot in the rain until she had loosened it sufficiently.
“Now what? We can’t take it with us.” She looked with distaste at the wet muddy dog.
“Well, we can’t leave ’im here,” St. James said. “Look. We’ll drop ’im off at the police station on the way out of town.”
The GPS showed the station was right on the way. The dog made itself comfortable in the back seat amid the bags, leaving a wet brown stain on the cloth upholstery when they led it into the cop shop.
St. James explained what had happened to a kindly, red-nosed desk sergeant.
“You did the roight thing, son. We have some roight villains in this town already cut up two dogs this spring.”
Connie perked up. “What was their motive?”
The sergeant looked at her with sad brown eyes. “These young people believe all sorts of shite, excuse my French, and we think there’s a bit of Satanism goin’ on.”
Connie looked like she wanted to say more. She thanked the officer, took St. James by the arm, and steered him back out into the street.
“Let’s go. We’re losing time.”
Connie found a classic rock station out of Birmingham and left it pegged. Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Genesis, the Move, the Stones, the Attack. They drove for two hours when the skies broke and a zag of lightning pierced the earth so close they could smell the ozone. A second later caissons of thunder rolled across the land. The opening riff of the Banshees’ “Shake Your Money Maker” blasted from the radio at full volume.
St. James nearly drove off the road. Connie clutched the side grip with white knuckles, reached out and turned the volume down. St. James hadn’t heard the song in years. He never played his father’s music. She pushed a button. A loud commercial came on.
St. James turned the volume down further. “That’s the first time I’ve heard the Banshees on the radio in eons.”
“Me, too …” The rain was getting worse. “I thought you were going to lose it back there.”
“No sudden moves, that’s the ticket.”
“How far to Dunkeld?” Connie asked.
“You’re the navigator.”
Connie used the GPS. “Another hour at least. So. What does Ian St. James listen to?”
“Power Pop. Queen. Bryan Scary, the Plimsouls, Explorers Club, Marco Joachim, Farrah, the Foreign Films, Merrymakers, Jellyfish …”
“I’ve never heard of any of those.”
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you? The so-called music industry, guys like Burke are on their way out. They just don’t know it yet. In-Crowd? They are clueless. When the industry dinosaurs go down they’re taking Serafin with them.
“These bands I’m talking aboot record their own material at home and sell it through the Internet. Often there’s no bloody packaging—nothing to hold in your hands. No liner notes. I don’t like that. Fails to satisfy the collector’s urges. But I can’t complain about the music. We’re livin’ through a golden age of pop, but it’s all underground.”
“Would you repeat those names, please?”
St. James glanced over. Connie was taking notes.