‘I’ll ring the rest of the band,’ Dan said to no one in particular and went off to find a payphone. He flipped through his address book from back to front, ringing Tom first, worn down with his own grief and that of his friends by the time he got to Johnny.
‘So there’ll be no tour,’ he said stupidly when he’d told Johnny the awful news.
‘It was already off,’ Johnny told him. ‘Tom was supposed to have let people know.’ Dan heard tears in Johnny’s voice. ‘Christ, Dan. Poor fucking Andy.’ He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘How are Tiff and the kids?’
Dan answered his questions and promised to keep him informed as to developments, but he was on autopilot. He had latched onto what Johnny said about Tom.
It was the early hours of the morning before Dan got away, but he drove straight to Tom’s house. Tom was at the lounge window, gave Dan a wave and went down to let him in. Dan burst through the door, anger driving him on.
‘What’s up?’ asked Tom, caught off balance by Dan’s demeanour.
‘You fucking murdering cunt,’ Dan said, his voice low and menacing.
‘What? For fuck’s sake, man, come on in and tell me what you’re talking about.’ Tom headed back up the stairs and Dan followed him up and into the sitting room.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Tom asked him.
Dan could barely control his rage. ‘No, I don’t want a fucking drink. I want an explanation.’
‘What about? I’m not with you, I thought you were here because of Andy.’
‘I am. I want you to tell me why you let him go to his death tonight when he had no need to be there at all.’
‘Wha—?’ The penny dropped and Tom sat down suddenly. ‘Christ, I hadn’t even thought of that.’
‘What happened with you and Johnny?’ Dan asked, pacing the room, unable to stand still.
‘It was stupid. We’d have made it up in time.’ Tom scratched his head. ‘It was Nicci.’
‘What about Nicci?’
‘She and I were … you know. Johnny found out. He wasn’t happy about it.’
‘You and Nicci? Are you telling me Andy’s dead because you don’t know where you can and can’t stick your dick?’
‘What? No! It’s not that simple.’
‘It seems simple enough to me. You fucked Johnny’s wife, Johnny left the band, the tour was off. Andy shouldn’t have been at that restaurant to be murdered. This is all down to you.’
Tom stood up and walked over to Dan. ‘Mate, I’m sorry. I thought I could pull it all back together, you know? I had no idea anything like that would — could — happen. How could I?’
‘You selfish bastard. All you ever think about is yourself.’ Dan pushed him. Tom staggered back.
‘No, mate. It wasn’t planned, it just happened, you know? What happened to Andy … I didn’t cause that.’
‘You fucking did.’ Dan pushed him again.
‘Take it easy, Dan. I know you’re upset, but—’
‘But what, you murdering fuck?’ Dan put his hands out to push Tom again, but Tom got in first and shoved Dan away from him. He regained his balance and swung a punch. Tom tried to duck out of the way and Dan’s fist caught him a glancing blow on the cheek. He followed up with the other fist and knocked Tom backwards onto the small balcony. Off balance, dizzy and disorientated, Tom’s heel caught on the railing and he disappeared backwards out of sight.
Dan stared, not registering at first what had happened. A sickening thud drove his feet forwards and he looked down to see Tom lying on the pavement below, a scarlet halo beginning to form around his head as blood seeped from his ruined skull. Dan ran downstairs, but one look at Tom told him there was nothing to be done. He jogged back to his car and drove home, sick at heart.
Chapter 101
‘If Tom had been honest about what was going on, the tour would have been cancelled and Andy wouldn’t have been there to be stabbed,’ said Dan. ‘It’s that simple.’
‘What happened to Andy was awful, but that lad might have done the same thing another time, another place. He seemed pretty determined.’
‘It was Tom’s fault.’ Dan was adamant. ‘He as good as killed my cousin.’
‘So you pushed him out of a window? Dan, you murdered him.’
‘It was an accident. Tom tripped. I was angry. I’d just come from the hospital, Andy was dead, Tiffany was a mess, his folks were in bits.’
‘You just left him there.’
‘He was already dead, Johnny. He was beyond help.’
‘He was my best friend. I thought his death was my fault. For years, I thought that.’
‘I told you it wasn’t.’
‘Oh, Dan, this is serious, mate.’
‘Are you going to go to the police?’
Johnny looked at him, long and hard. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘This is band business, it goes no further.’ He swirled the liquid in his glass around. ‘Didn’t you realise what a risk you were taking when you pushed us into writing the book?’
Dan let out a long breath. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I knew it was a risk. But I had to do something to stop the other one I told you about. The guy who was planning to write it was an investigative journalist. I saw him as a threat.’
‘So this was a … what, a calculated risk?’
‘I was banking on you to kill the project, mate. At the very least to stall it. And I’ll be honest, I never expected Alex to be as tenacious as she turned out to be. I figured once you two got together and she tasted the sweet life, she’d settle for writing something flattering, something vanilla, for your sake.’
‘How the hell could you know we’d get together?’
Dan snorted. ‘Oh, come on, mate, I’ve known you for thirty years.’
‘Come on, let’s get back before we’re missed.’ They walked back to rejoin the others. ‘But, Dan?’
‘What?’
‘This isn’t over.’
‘They look serious,’ Chrissie said to Alex as she saw the men come back into the house. ‘What do you reckon that’s all about?’
‘Johnny and Dan?’ Colin asked, strolling over to the women and putting his arm around Chris. ‘Deciding what to make public, I should think,’ he said. ‘They’ll want teasers in the press about the tapes being found.’
‘They look pretty serious for just that,’ Chrissie observed.
‘Well, I can’t think what else it would be, can you?’ he asked, including Alex in the question.
She wondered, but said nothing.
***
A couple of weeks later, everyone flew north to Edinburgh to meet Jackie and Tom Price. It was a hugely emotional occasion, especially since Tom was so like his father in looks. Becky was along for the trip, keen to meet her half-brother. Johnny had told Christabel about Becky’s parentage and she had helped him bring pressure to bear on Nicci to tell the truth about what had happened. Nicci had finally given in and she and Johnny had sat her down and explained things. Becky’s response had been to pack a bag and go back with Johnny to his house, where her half-sister was already living. She wanted little to do with her mother but, perversely, became closer to Johnny than ever before.
When Dan Cross came face to face with Tom Price, he was especially shaken. Alex noticed him staring at the boy. Again, she wondered, but Jackie treated Dan the same as everyone else, she didn’t seem to take her ‘dream’, or whatever it had been, so seriously that it made her suspicious of him.
Becky and Tom Price quickly became firm friends. Tom celebrated his seventeenth birthday in the same week as Becky turned twenty, and they got together to mark the occasion. Plans were already afoot for the joint eighteenth and twenty-first party they intended to throw the following year.
Isabel and Robert had a little boy and Alex gained a nephew.
Alex gave up her flat and moved with Bones into Johnny’s house. She was living there anyway, the flat was just an added long-distance responsibility. To take Bones’ and Baker’s minds off each other, Johnny and Alex went to a rescue centre and picked out a little tabby queen to join the family. Zooma, as the new girl was named, ruled the roost in no time.
Over the next six months, a new DVD and double album based on the recovered tapes were produced. Anticipation among fans was electric: online discussion forums and music magazines were buzzing with excitement.
The book project was abandoned and the advance returned.
‘Let’s face it,’ said Johnny, ‘if anyone wants to know our story, all they have to do is listen to the songs. Our whole lives are documented right there. Everything we felt, or saw, or did, anything that was done to us, we wrote about it. We bared our souls every time we played. Surely that’s enough.’
When it came to the launch party the following Easter, they all gathered at Crawdaddy Records. It was quite a bash, with family, friends, fellow musicians and the press there to see the DVD and talk to the band.
Late in the evening, Paul wandered over to Alex. ‘Have you seen or heard from Dan?’ he asked her.
‘No, I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks,’ she said. ‘I thought he’d be here tonight.’
‘We all did. No one can raise him.’
‘That’s odd,’ she said, worry beginning to nibble at her. ‘Has anyone spoken to the police?’
‘Too early to report him missing. Has he been to the house lately?’
‘No,’ said Alex. ‘Johnny’s been working flat out recently, we’ve seen hardly anyone. Mind you, there was a bloke turned up a few weeks ago that I hadn’t seen before. I asked Johnny about him and he said he was nobody.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Squat, shaven-headed. To be honest, Paul, he looked like a thug. He had a tattoo of a dragon or a lizard or something on his hand.’
‘How old was he?’
‘About forty, I would guess. Something like that. Why, do you know him?’
‘No, but I think I knew his dad. Same look, same tattoo, but he’d be in his sixties by now.’
‘Who is he?’
‘You don’t want to know, Alex. He’s a wrong ‘un, or at least his dad was. I can’t believe he had the nerve to get in touch with Johnny.’
Paul excused himself and went to speak with Colin.
Next day, Dan was reported missing. Alex asked Johnny again about the man with the tattoo, but he remained tight-lipped about the whole thing.
Dan Cross was never seen again.
Epilogue
Ten years gone
Alex clutched Christabel’s hand as the limousine crept through the crowds that lined the way. As they neared the crematorium, more people were gathered and the cars, already at a crawl, slowed almost to a stop. The driver darkened the windows to give his passengers as much privacy as possible. People were peering in through the glass as though the car was arriving at some celebrity event, not the funeral of one of rock’s most celebrated guitarists.
The police kept the crowds in check once they were in the grounds of the crematorium and as the car drew to a halt, Alex sat back in her seat and stared at the hearse in front. The back door was being opened and the coffin taken out. She heard Chrissie choke back a sob and hugged her.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘we’ve got to get through this.’
‘For Johnny,’ Chrissie said, her voice breaking as she said her father’s name. Becky, sitting on the other side of Chrissie, echoed her words, her voice barely a whisper.
As they got out of the car, the coffin was being lifted with great care onto the shoulders of the pall bearers. Paul and Colin, sombre-faced, looked over and nodded as they took the weight of their friend on their shoulders. Mark Killian, Gerry and his son, Monty, and Tom Price were helping to carry him, too. The undertaker placed a spray of lilies on top of the coffin.
There were many more flowers, from simple posies to an ornate wreath that was a facsimile of a Johnny Burns special edition Gibson guitar, despite requests for donations to a range of cancer research and support charities to be made in lieu. The floral tributes would all be arranged for people to view as they walked out after the service.
The service had been planned by Johnny himself, everything from how it would be conducted and by whom, to the music that would be played. He had even taken time in his last weeks to put together some music to be played at the wake. Desperately ill, paper-thin, his spirit had never dimmed. Alex hadn’t left his side and both she and Chrissie were holding his hands as he drew his last breath. Everything since his diagnosis, just months earlier, had seemed unreal.
Alex, Chrissie, Becky and others from the Heartbreaker family fell into step behind the coffin as they prepared to say their last farewell to Johnny. Words were spoken, music was played, a time of silence was observed to allow people to remember Johnny in their own way, then they were all filing out again, past the flowers and into a side garden. Alex and Chrissie found themselves shaking hands with people, some of whom they had never before met, helping to console them even though their own grief and sense of loss was still so raw.
***
That evening, having assured everyone she was fine and just needed a bit of time on her own, Alex put a much-loved DVD into the player and settled down on the couch with a glass of wine.
For two and a half hours she watched, rapt, as Heartbreaker ran through their set, familiarity with the music failing to take the edge off the sense of awe she felt. Alex hit the pause button as the show ended, sat back and stared at the image on the screen: a shot of Johnny, one hand on the neck of his guitar, the other punching the air in a salute to the crowd. Of all the images and memories of him that she had, this was one of her favourites. It summed up the man she had known perfectly.
Zooma had crept onto her lap as she watched and she gently lifted the cat onto the seat next to her. Then she stood up, turned off lamps and equipment, and headed for bed. She had a busy day ahead of her. In the morning, Colin, Paul and Chrissie were coming round and together they were going to work out how to create a fitting tribute to Johnny, some way of honouring his life, his music and Heartbreaker.
###
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