I thought of when I was a child and I’d fished with my dad on a holiday in Scotland and the line had snagged on something and broken and we’d forgotten about it.
‘That was lucky,’ I said.
‘A colleague has already talked to your friend Mrs Corday and she said you’d be a good person to talk to about people who knew Hayden Booth.’
‘I know a few,’ I said. ‘Not many.’
DI Wallis paused for a moment and ran her finger gently along the edge of the file. ‘Close friend, were you?’
This moment had come too soon. How much did other people know about Hayden and me? What would they tell the police? Meanwhile the phone was ringing and we heard my answering-machine message over and over again.
‘The word’s getting around,’ I said. ‘Sorry. This has been a terrible shock. I’ve only known him a couple of weeks, really. A few weeks. I agreed to play at a friend’s wedding and I needed some musicians. I met him through a friend. I can’t believe this has happened.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said DI Wade. ‘This must be difficult for you. But you could be a great help in catching whoever’s done this.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Can I make you some tea or coffee?’
They said yes and I was able to bustle around the kitchen and collect my thoughts. I came back with a tray of coffee and biscuits. I got my address book and my mobile phone and my laptop and I read out a few phone numbers, addresses and email addresses of people who knew or might know Hayden, or know someone who had known him, and DI Wade laboriously copied them onto two sheets of paper. It was all very low tech.
‘Tell me about him,’ said DI Wallis, after the list was complete.
‘Tell you what?’
‘Anything you like.’
I gave an abbreviated and highly edited version of how I’d met Hayden, how he’d played with us, how I’d met some of his friends. So slowly and laboriously that I almost wanted to help her, DI Wallis leafed through the file page by page until she seemed to find what she wanted. ‘My colleague talked to you,’ she said.
‘Becky something.’
‘PC Horton. And you told her you didn’t really know his friends?’ She looked up at me. ‘Is that right?’
I felt my face getting hot. Was I blushing? Police officers can probably tell when you’ve got things to conceal. ‘I met some other people he’d played with. I don’t know if they were his friends exactly.’
‘What can you tell us about his personal life?’ said DI Wade.
‘I don’t know what you mean by that,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t really someone who divided his life into compartments. He played music, he hung out, that was basically it.’
‘I mean, was he in a relationship?’
‘I don’t think he was someone who had steady, permanent relationships, if that’s what you mean.’
‘So he didn’t have a girlfriend?’
‘Not that I knew of,’ I said, which was true, or not exactly a lie. I wouldn’t ever have described myself as his girlfriend.
‘Can you think of anyone who could have done this?’ said DI Wade.
‘When you talk to people, you’re going to find out that Hayden had a gift for rubbing them up the wrong way. He could be charming and he could be… well, difficult.’
‘Did
you
find him difficult?’
‘I think pretty much everybody did. He wasn’t malicious, but he took what he wanted from people and moved on. He pissed quite a few people off. As you’ll discover.’
‘This wasn’t just pissing someone off,’ said DI Wade. ‘Somebody battered him to death and they went to a lot of trouble to dispose of the body.’
‘That’s what I’ve been thinking,’ I said. ‘I can’t make sense of it.’
‘Did he have money problems?’ asked DI Wallis.
‘Of course he did,’ I said. ‘He was a musician. All musicians are basically broke. Except for Sting and Phil Collins.’
‘Was it a source of conflict?’
‘A couple of the names I’ve given you are people he used to play with. As far as I know, they had a bit of a bust-up over some money. They’ll tell you about it.’
‘A serious bust-up?’
‘It’s the kind of thing all bands go through. It’s always about the money – it doesn’t arrive or it goes to the wrong person or gets frittered away. But it was just the normal unpleasant band stuff. This wasn’t the Mafia. It wasn’t worth killing him over.’
‘You wouldn’t believe what people would kill over,’ said DI Wade. ‘It doesn’t generally seem worth it.’
‘It’s such a waste,’ I said, into the pause.
DI Wallis flicked through her notes as if she was looking for something. Then she raised her eyes towards me. ‘Did you like him?’ she said.
‘Like?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Did you like him?’
I was completely floored by that simple question. ‘That doesn’t seem the right word for someone like Hayden,’ I said. ‘It sounds too normal.’ I felt I’d said too much. I’d got too close to telling the truth.
At last I rang Sally, dreading the conversation, but Richard answered. He said she and Lola had gone to stay with her mother for a while. When I asked when she’d be back, he said he didn’t know. His voice was heavy. Even listening to it made me feel wretched. I knew why Sally had gone and presumably he knew that I knew, but neither of us said anything.
I called Sally on her mobile but only got her voicemail. I left a message saying that if she needed to speak to me, I was there. It was the least I could do.
Before
That evening, back from the seaside, we lay in Liza’s bed together, our skin burned by the sun. Drowsily we kissed and made love and lay entangled with each other, and I half slept and when I woke he was there, looking at me. Maybe it didn’t matter how long this went on. It was the summer. What happened in the summer was like a dream, cut off from before and after, obeying its own impossible rules. I could lose myself in this until September, when work and real life began.
After
I made my way through the market at Camden Lock, pushing through the cartoon-style punks with their huge Mohicans, past the Goths and the tourists. Nat’s instructions turned out not to be very accurate and it took me some time to find the meeting-place. When I got there, I couldn’t see him at first. Eventually I caught sight of him some distance away. He was leaning on a bollard near the canal. As I approached, I saw that Jan was with him, bent over slightly, the way tall people often are, as if they’ve spent too much of their lives avoiding low ceilings.
‘Where have you been?’ Nat said.
‘I’m sorry. Some people arrived just as I was leaving. Police.’
‘Jesus,’ said Nat.
‘Why did you want to see me? Was there a reason?’
‘A friend of ours has just been pulled out of a reservoir,’ said Nat. ‘I’d call that some kind of a reason.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
Nat fumbled in his jacket and produced a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. He offered me the packet.
‘I’ve given up,’ I said.
‘It’s time to fucking start again.’
He handed a cigarette to Jan and the two of them lit up. I felt an overwhelming urge to join them but instead I jammed my hands into my pockets as if that was a way of avoiding reaching out for a cigarette. ‘So?’ I said. ‘You needed to see me.’
He looked at Jan and then at me. ‘Hello?’ he said, in a raised voice. ‘Hayden’s fucking dead. Somebody dumped him in a reservoir.’
‘It’s a terrible shock,’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ said Jan, in an odd, muted voice. It was the first time he had spoken.
‘How did you get my phone number?’ I asked.
‘Hayden gave it to me one time,’ said Nat. ‘In my notebook I’ve literally got about thirty different numbers that he gave me at different times where he could be reached, most of them crossed out. Now I guess I can cross them all out. Do you want to go for a walk? I’m cold just standing here.’
‘It’s a warm summer day,’ I said.
‘I get cold when I stand around.’
We moved off and made slow progress through the crowd.
‘What is it with these punks?’ said Jan, fretfully. ‘I was a kid when punk happened and people didn’t look like that. The real punks didn’t look like punks.’
‘What do you mean they didn’t look like punks?’ said Nat.
‘Look at the old pictures of the Sex Pistols. They don’t look like punk rockers. The uniform came later.’
‘We all wear uniforms,’ said Nat. He turned to me. ‘
You
don’t. Were you ever part of a tribe?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘For me it’s always just about the music.’
‘No wonder you and Hayden got together.’
‘We didn’t really get together…’ I began.
‘I’m just like those punks,’ said Nat. ‘What we play – played, should I say? – is a sort of alt-country so I dress like I was born in Texas. I grew up in Norfolk, for fuck’s sake. Hayden was never like that. He wouldn’t have seen the point.’ He stopped. ‘We’ve got to toast him.’
I checked my watch. ‘It’s ten past twelve.’
‘We’ve got to toast him.’
Jan looked at me and shrugged, and we followed Nat to a pub by the canal. We sat at a table outside and Nat went in. He emerged carrying a tray with three small glasses containing a dark liquid, and three packets of crisps. He sat down and handed them around. ‘Bourbon,’ he said. He picked up the glass and contemplated it. ‘Bonnie. Do you want to say a few words?’
Now there was a long pause because I really, really didn’t want to say any words at all. I didn’t want to be drinking bourbon at midday with two musicians I hardly knew. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know Hayden the way you two knew him.’
‘That’s true,’ said Jan, in a tone that made me feel sick.
‘Hayden was a great musician,’ I said. ‘Somehow I don’t think it ever quite worked out for him. It shouldn’t have ended like this.’
‘Of course it shouldn’t have fucking ended like this,’ said Nat. ‘That’s not much of a tribute.’
I looked at Jan. ‘Can you do any better?’
Jan dabbed his finger into the bourbon and touched his tongue with it. He picked the glass up. ‘To the memory of Hayden Booth. He took my money. He fucked up my career. He once stole my girl. But the good thing about Hayden: he’d do something terrible to you, but when he’d done it, it was over. He wouldn’t hold a grudge. To Hayden, and short memories.’
‘That’s not much of a tribute either,’ said Nat.
‘The last time I saw you together, there was a fight,’ I said.
Nat gave a grunt. ‘Like the man said, it’s only rock-and-roll. I can do better. To Hayden, who walked the walk.’
‘He did not walk the fucking walk,’ said Jan. ‘He talked the fucking talk, but he did not walk the fucking walk.’
‘Are we going to have this drink or not?’ said Nat.
‘I’m just not going to bullshit about the guy.’
‘All right, all right. What about this? To Hayden. He died young. Or kind of young. He died young and he left a beautiful corpse. What about that, Bonnie? Will you vouch for that? Did he leave a beautiful corpse?’
Until then it had all been oddly detached. It had been a relief to be with people I didn’t know or care about but suddenly the word ‘corpse’ hit me and I saw his body lying on the floor, and the blood and the unnatural position of it, and even caught a certain smell that I’d entirely forgotten. I made myself nod. ‘Yeah,’ I said, in hardly more than a whisper. ‘I guess he did.’
‘Fine,’ said Nat. ‘To Hayden.’
I lifted the glass and just felt the liquid against my lips but then I opened them and felt the hot stinging on my tongue, tipped the glass and swallowed it all in a gulp. Even before I had properly noticed what was happening, Jan had gone, come back and there was another glass of bourbon in front of me. Rather desperately I tore open a bag of crisps and crammed several into my mouth. The saltiness and sweet spiciness were repulsive and I had to force myself to swallow.
‘Why me?’ I said. ‘Why call me? And why are you both here?’
‘What did the police ask you?’ said Jan.
‘When you rang, I hadn’t seen the police.’
‘But it was obvious, wasn’t it? You’re the one he was with. You’d be the first person they’d talk to.’
‘I wasn’t with him.’
‘You were playing with him,’ said Nat. ‘You found him somewhere to live.’
‘I just suggested a place,’ I said. ‘Somewhere to flat-sit.’
‘I saw you together,’ said Nat. ‘I saw the way he looked at you. He depended on you.’
‘He adored you.’
‘The police didn’t ask anything special. There’s a murder inquiry. They just asked the stuff you’d expect.’
Jan picked up his glass, then set it down very gently, without tasting it. ‘Which is?’ he said.
‘Did he have enemies, did he have special friends, did he have money problems – that kind of thing.’
‘Did you mention us?’
‘Shouldn’t I have?’
‘Which means you did?’
‘If you really want to know, I said that I had very little knowledge of his life, but I did mention the musicians he’d been playing with, which means you. Is there a problem with that?’
‘No,’ said Nat. ‘No problem. So I guess they’ll be in touch.’
‘I didn’t give them your number, if that’s what you mean, but I suppose they’ll track you down. I mean, that’s what they do. What I also said is that they’d find quite a long list of people Hayden had pissed off. They asked me who might be angry with him.’
‘Only people who knew him,’ said Jan.
‘That’s roughly what I said.’
There was a pause and I stared at my drink. I definitely couldn’t manage any more of it. At the next table there was a group of people who were a wild mixture of tattoos and pink hair, thigh-length boots and tigerskin. What did these people do when they weren’t on holiday? Did they work in banks and primary schools?
‘What did Hayden say about us?’ asked Nat.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Or nothing that I can remember. Why?’
‘On the times we met, you must have seen we weren’t exactly on the best of terms. We just wanted to say that you shouldn’t get the wrong idea.’
In other circumstances I would have found it difficult to stop myself smiling. Not today, though. Today I didn’t feel the smallest temptation to smile. ‘Is that what you called me about?’ I said. ‘The two of you came all the way over here and plied me with drink to tell me that you weren’t on bad terms with Hayden?’