The Vinyl Detective--Flip Back, page 32
“Hey,” said Tinkler fervently. “I’m just glad to be alive.”
I think he was also glad that it wasn’t Clean Head who fancied Gareth.
“Anyway, it turns out it isn’t a tracking device at all. It’s a recording device.”
“Recording?” I said. “Audio recording?”
“Yep. A state-of-the-art, long-life audio recorder. Foxy Alicia spotted it right away, what with being a trained sound engineer and all.”
And Alicia had also showed Clean Head how to play it back and listen to it. “I was sitting there at Miss Bebbington’s with earphones on and sipping a cup of tea. I wished it had been something stronger. I needed it.”
It was our turn to listen to the device when we arrived back at the B&B. It began with a helpful introduction by Max Shearwater. As soon as I heard that voice I had to stop listening. It had only recently been telling me, in its mellow and measured tones, how he was going to kill me and everyone I cared about.
“Too soon?” said Clean Head, as I pulled the earphones off.
I nodded. She looked at Nevada. “Do you want a go?”
Nevada shook her head. “I’m with him.”
We were sitting out in Miss Bebbington’s garden, and had been since we’d got back.
We’d been enormously relieved when, living up to her reputation as being the island’s leading nexus for gossip, Miss Bebbington had reported to us that the Shearwaters’ house was ‘crawling with cops’. No one knew quite what was going on, but there were still police arriving from the mainland, some in a helicopter.
Well, that was that.
Even so, I found that I didn’t want to be inside just at the moment. It seemed too easy to be trapped if you were inside. Outdoors there were plenty of directions in which one could flee. I was hoping this feeling would pass away before bedtime, otherwise I was going to be sleeping wrapped in a blanket under the stars.
The others seemed to feel much the same, and Miss Bebbington brought our supper out to us and we ate al fresco and then worked our way through a couple of bottles of the good wine that Nevada had brought with us. “The best wine,” she said. “No point scrimping or hoarding when one has just been reminded of one’s mortality.”
“Can one have a bit more wine in one’s glass?” said Tinkler.
It was dark by now, and perhaps not surprisingly the wine had gone instantly to my head. The way a sledgehammer might—albeit an extremely smooth, biodynamic red sledgehammer from the Rhône region.
A fat silver moon was playing hard to get behind a bank of clouds, occasionally revealing itself and then coyly disappearing again. The night smelled fresh and clean and a cool breeze was flowing in from the sea. I was just debating whether I had the energy to go inside and get myself a sweater, or if I could trick my beloved into getting it for me, when Miss Bebbington came out of the French windows. She was outlined against the lights of the lounge, but even in silhouette there was something about her posture that put me on full alert.
“What is it?” I said.
The tone of my voice cut through the happy chatter of my friends and they all fell silent. Miss Bebbington cleared her throat.
“Max Shearwater is dead,” she said. “And so is Ottoline.”
* * *
It had taken what seemed to me an unconscionable time for the police to turn up at Max Shearwater’s house. I suppose I was being particularly unforgiving because I was thinking that a delay like that might have led to us all being killed by the Shearwaters. Or, at the very least, having to listen to a load more of their pretentious bullshit.
But my first reaction on learning that Shearwater was gone, oddly, was a sudden desire to listen to that recording device after all. The one that had been fastened onto Perky.
I guess I could endure hearing his voice now that I knew he was dead, and that my loved ones and I were safe.
So I put the headphones on and lay back in one of the deckchairs and stared up at the night sky, the smell of warm canvas close and comforting. Nevada poured a brimming glass of the Chapoutier and brought it to me, then went back and sat on the grass with the others. The murmur of their conversation provided a faintly audible background to the recording—what I suppose Max would have called a sound-bed.
“Introduction to a new audio project,” said Max Shearwater’s voice in my ear. “To follow the life of a pig from its birth to its final destiny as the meat on our table. Note to self. End on sound of sizzling bacon but mix back to squealing of newborn piglet as used at the beginning. Adjust waveforms to make the two sounds blend seamlessly and move back and forth from one to the other in an almost oceanic way… the rising and falling of the waves—Ha! The rising and falling of the waveforms—until the listener is unable to tell if he is hearing the beginning of the pig’s journey or the very ending.”
There then ensued, sure enough, the squealing of newborn piglets. And much else besides. So, like Clean Head before me, I skipped ahead.
To the lethal night.
* * *
Max Shearwater had always been on the lookout for wacky audio projects. So when the Lorettos had obtained their pair of piglets, he’d dreamed up this one. And with the couple’s permission he fitted a recording device to one of the piglets, on an adjustable collar that could be loosened and expanded as the pig grew.
The problem was, Max could never remember which one of the two pigs he’d chosen. The similarity of names didn’t help. Nor did the fact that, as they grew, Perky had become porky and Porky had become perky.
So when Pete and Sarita returned from their nightmare odyssey taking Porky to the hippy pig killer, they’d been subject to a visit by a somewhat panic-stricken Max Shearwater, who demanded to know why they hadn’t been answering their phones, and if they’d remembered to salvage the recording device from the abattoir.
He’d got short shrift from the traumatised Sarita, who merely told him, “It’s fine,” then went upstairs to bed.
It was left to Pete to provide an enlarged explanation, along the lines of, “It’s fine because it’s the other pig who is wearing it, you moron, the one who hasn’t been killed yet.”
We know this because Sarita began using the recording collar as a kind of informal audio diary.
Which is also how we know that, when Pete was trying to find a way to make the dispatch of poor Perky less of a bloody disaster, and looking for something more reliable than the hippy fool’s hideous ‘humane killer’, it was Max Shearwater who suggested he obtain a proper gun. An automatic pistol. Indeed, Max sourced it for him. Just as he had done for the Loopy Groupie.
Because Max had suddenly seen an opportunity.
A chance to get rid of the Lorettos, as part of his continuing project to protect the money he’d stolen.
So he made sure he and Ottoline turned up, unexpected and uninvited, at the special fenced-in section of the Lorettos’ garden on the night scheduled for Perky’s killing. For moral support, they declared.
This was also the reason that Sarita was there. Although in her case she wanted to provide moral support for Perky. “I couldn’t let him die alone,” she’d said in her final post… where she also let slip that even at this late stage she was determined that Perky shouldn’t die at all. She was resolute that she’d talk Pete out of his course of action.
This blog was an essential part of Max Shearwater’s plan. Because he could shoot Pete with the pistol and, with Ottoline’s help, then shoot Sarita, making it look like she’d killed herself after murdering her husband. To save Perky the pig.
All of this should have worked. And it did indeed work, for a while. The police believed what they found at the staged crime scene.
And it might have continued to work.
Except for two things.
Perky, panicked by the shots, escaped. Surging through the fence as though it wasn’t there.
And Perky was still wearing the recording device, which had recorded everything…
Max: We’re not going to shoot you. Relax. Relax. We just want you to hold the gun.
Ottoline: We just want your fingerprints on the gun.
Sarita: Why?
Max: Never mind, darling. There.
Ottoline: Good girl.
Max: Perfect.
(Gunshot.)
(Battering noises.)
Max: What the fuck is that?
Ottoline: The pig. Trying to smash through the fence.
Max: Well, make him stop.
Ottoline: Don’t worry. He can’t break through it.
Max: I’m not worried. I just want him to stop.
Ottoline: How do you propose that I make that happen?
Max: Shoot him, just shoot him—
Ottoline: I’m not going to shoot a pig.
Max: No, shit, don’t you realise—
Ottoline: What?
Max: I forgot—
Ottoline: What?
Max: He’s still wearing the recorder.
Ottoline: But it’s not on, is it?
Max: Of course it’s fucking on. It’s on all the time.
Ottoline: Why didn’t you switch it off?
Max: I told you, I forgot!
(The battering noises build to a crescendo.)
Max: Shoot him! Give me the gun! Here, give it to me—
Ottoline: No, I’ll—
(A crashing sound.)
Ottoline: (Growing distant.) Christ! He got through!
Max: (Fading in the distance.) Stop him.
Ottoline: (Angry and loud, so still audible.) How?
Max: (Shouting, but just barely audible.) Come back, you fucking pig.
(Their voices fade in the distance as Perky flees.)
* * *
No wonder Max Shearwater hadn’t wanted anybody to hear this thing.
So he’d set about making sure people would steer clear of the pig—not that poor Perky had any great reason to trust people or approach them, but even if he did he was likely to find that Max’s negative PR had got there first. Stay away from the devil pig. It brings death with it.
Arguably he’d done a sufficiently good job to make anyone think twice—I’d even thought twice myself, and had been willing to perceive this peaceful, friendly creature as something frightening. But on Halig Island, with its oddball inclination to mysticism, and where Sarita and Pete Loretto had been well known and well liked, it proved particularly effective.
But in the end, for Perky at least, there had been a happy ending.
Not so for Max and Ottoline. The story that was spreading was that they’d both committed suicide. But Max being Max, he couldn’t just depart this world quietly. So instead of leaving a note, he’d filmed a farewell message.
And then released it on the Internet, of course.
He’d gone to some trouble to stage the affair, with contrived lighting and a carefully chosen camera angle. He was sitting on a sofa in their living room overlooking the sea. Indeed, he changed the angle of it so the windows and the sea view were visible in the background.
Nice composition, Max.
He had the body of his wife, face covered decorously with what looked like a pillowcase, lying on the sofa at his side. Max gazed directly into the camera and spoke solemnly and evenly, that sonorous voice giving its last performance.
He started by saying that his daughter Maxine knew absolutely nothing about his crimes. Then he went on to list those crimes. The murder of Norrie Nelson and the suicide of Berit Barsness, both at his instigation. The attempted murder of Tom Pyewell ‘and others’—we didn’t even get a name check—by Stanley Strangford, at his instigation. The murder of Pete and Sarita Loretto, actually by his hand. Ditto the murder of Valentyna Lynch.
He didn’t say anything about stealing the money from the band. It seemed clear to me he was hoping that this would be forgotten in the whirl of events and Maxine would be able to retain all the fruits of that particular crime.
I noticed that he didn’t implicate Ottoline directly in any of the killings. But maybe he thought her lying dead there beside him was comment enough. Personally I rather doubted that she’d actually killed herself. She just didn’t seem the type. I was more inclined to the view that Max had helped her on her way, possibly while she was still somewhat groggy from the clout Nevada had given her.
I also noticed that his attempt to murder me and my friends in his house didn’t feature anywhere in his final confession. But then an artist doesn’t like to dwell on his failures.
On the other hand, he went out of his way to make it clear that Jimmy Lynch was innocent and absolutely blameless, an action which, coming from anyone else, I might have described as decent.
When he finally shut up, Max proceeded to administer to himself an overdose of heroin, the same method he’d used on Ottoline and had intended to use on us. Luckily, the version of the clip I saw was one that cut off before the actual moment of death.
I suppose watching this thing should have made me sad. But to be honest I only felt a scorching contempt.
For all his worshipping of originality, Max Shearwater had basically pursued the same bloody pattern of murder and suicide every time he wanted to make his life more comfortable. He’d even used, or tried to use, the husband/ wife murder/suicide four consecutive times, if you included his and Ottoline’s final bow.
Call me vicious, call me vengeful, I like to think that this awful fact dawned on him, with all its irrefutable proof of his ultimate mediocrity, just as he put the needle in his arm and pushed the plunger. And thereby entirely spoiled his blissful evaporation into the universe.
I felt no pity for him.
The one I did feel sorry for was Maxine Shearwater. I’d never liked her, but you’d need a heart of stone not to be moved by what happened to the poor girl. Her parents may have been homicidal lunatics, but they’d been her parents, and by their own admission had been careful to hide from her any evidence of their more hideous transgressions.
And she’d not only lost both of them, she’d had to endure the hellish firestorm of publicity that ensued. I wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.
And there was one other thing…
As I understand it, when Max Shearwater rushed out of the house after his daughter that day, he found her. And spoke to her. And then he went back home, and killed his wife and himself.
What exactly did Maxine say to him that sent him home to do that?
Whatever it was, I was glad it wasn’t a burden I was carrying.
30. KIND OF RED
The next day we all felt pretty low, as you might imagine.
But Clean Head said she had something that would cheer us up.
So we trooped down with her along the seafront and up a side road to Gareth’s place of business. The man himself was standing outside, by the closed door of the garage, with a big smile on his bearded face.
He was genuinely pleased to see us, and not just Clean Head and Nevada. His truculence to me, so marked at the Viking funeral, seemed entirely gone. Perhaps Clean Head had told him about the near-death experience all of us had just been through and he was cutting me some slack. Or maybe she’d told him about the saga of Perky, the strictly non-demonic pig, and he was doing some hasty Mormon Hipster backpedalling.
Anyway, he smiled that big welcoming smile and rolled open the doors of his garage.
Inside was a car, which was not surprising.
What was surprising was that it was a Volvo DAF. Just like Tinkler’s old one. Except this one was red. A rather odd shade of red.
Kind of red…
So this was what all the conspiratorial business between Clean Head and Gareth had been about.
As we stared at the little red car in stunned silence, Clean Head said, “We found one pretty quickly, the right model and year and everything, but it needed some work, so it took a little while before we could spring it on you.” She looked at Tinkler. “It’s even got some of your old car’s parts in it. So it contains some of Kind of Blue’s DNA.”
“What a sweet gesture!” said Nevada. There were tears in her eyes. And mine, too. Also Tinkler, of course. And possibly even in the eyes of our hip Mormon friend.
Not so Clean Head. She merely grinned. “I just like to have access to a car I can drive really fast backwards.” She threw the keys to Tinkler, who for once in his life managed to catch something in mid-air.
“And you have to pay for it all, of course, Tinkler,” said Clean Head.
“But of course.”
* * *
It may not be entirely surprising that we checked the tide tables about twenty-seven times before we drove back across the causeway to the mainland. Luckily we were able to set off very early the next day, and then do the entire drive back to London in one hit.
Well, I say ‘we’. It was Clean Head who drove all the way.
It was late evening, with the sky just darkening to night, when she dropped us off in front of the Abbey, then set off to Putney to drop Tinkler and collect her taxi.
Nevada and I walked the last tiny distance towards our house with our bags. There was a little cry from the darkness and Fanny emerged from the patch of lavender beside the electrical junction box on the corner of our estate. She fell in beside us, making a running commentary in her squeaky voice, as if offering a list of complaints about how she’d been looked after while we were away.
As we approached our house there was a rustling in the dark jungle of foliage opposite and Turk came streaking out, dodged in front of us, dropped low and squeezed under the gate before we could open it, running to the door of our house where she turned and began, like Fanny, a long and complicated monologue.
“Now, girls,” said Nevada, taking out her keys, “I’m sure Auntie Maggie can’t have treated you that badly.”
Fanny immediately gave a high-pitched squeak and Turk simultaneously emitted a loud and sour yowl, as if by way of firm contradiction. Nevada laughed and opened the door and we all went inside.
* * *
Human nature being the ghoulish thing it is, the sensational death of the Shearwaters and the gruesome revelations of their murder spree led to a huge surge of new interest in Black Dog and their music.
