Dead Girl Walking Read online

  ‘I know it goes against the grain, Jack, but that’s why I’m prepared to pay.’

  ‘So why not hire a private investigator?’

  ‘It’s delicate. I need someone who can investigate people without them realising they’re being investigated. A journalist asking questions would be perfectly normal, and you’ve got a plausible pedigree.’

  So she knew about all the soft-soap stuff he’d written for the music glossies. It had been during a time post-Leveson when he still had friends in the industry and his hard-bitten reputation was actually a plus point for the magazines when they were pitching to bands for an interview. Even then he had regarded it as a form of selling out, but that was before. These days he’d bite your hand off if you offered a gig interviewing One Direction for Hello!.

  ‘Why don’t you just tell me, Mairi?’ he reasoned. ‘There’s something redundant about demanding a non-disclosure agreement from a guy that nobody would listen to even if he did disclose it. Which I won’t, by the way. You’ve come to me in confidence.’

  Mairi sighed and gave her head a tiny shake.

  ‘Sorry, Jack. I can’t do that. No offence, and I appreciate how it must sound, me not taking you at your word after all you did for Donald, but that’s just how this has to be.’

  Christ, he thought: how big must this story be if she’s prepared to walk away, after admitting she was low on alternatives?

  Even as he asked himself this, consumed by the eager curiosity he had been addicted to for decades, he realised that she wasn’t prepared to walk away, and not because she was bluffing. She had known before she called him at King’s Cross that it wouldn’t come to this, because he would be the one to fold.

  ‘Okay,’ he told her. ‘I’m not fighting off alternative employment offers with a shitty stick, but then I think you probably knew that.’

  Just to underline that she did, Mairi produced the pre-prepared NDA from inside the blue folder.

  Parlabane paused only a moment over the document before applying his pen, pondering whether being paid not to write a story marked a new low.

  ‘At least I don’t need to sweat that this is some Mephistophelean deal. I sold my soul so long ago I’d need to ring my accountant to find out who bought it.’

  Mairi didn’t laugh, nor even smile.

  ‘If that were true, I wouldn’t have asked you here.’

  ‘So why have you asked me here?’ he enquired, having signed for the right to do so.

  Mairi slid her copies of Q and Mojo out of the way and pointed, rather unexpectedly, to Tatler, which she spun around so that it was facing Parlabane the right way up. He scanned the tag lines, picking up on the words ‘Savage Earth Heart’s warrior women’, which was when he realised that one of the two figures posed in ancient battle dress on the cover was Heike Gunn. He hadn’t recognised her at first, not so much because of the Roman costume, but due to her signature porcelain-blonde curls having been replaced by flowing locks dyed a cheap-looking shade of pink.

  ‘You manage Savage Earth Heart?’ he asked, impressed, but this time unable to conceal the surprise in his tone.

  ‘For the past two years, just about.’

  ‘I gather Ms Gunn’s a bit of a control freak.’

  This was the polite version. ‘Manipulative psycho bitch’ was the phrase that best suited the accounts he’d heard.

  ‘She takes on too many burdens,’ Mairi replied, with what sounded like dutiful neutrality. There was something else there too, but he couldn’t pinpoint what.

  ‘She emptied one of the founding members, if I recall. Who’s playing fiddle for them now?’

  Mairi pointed to Tatler again, indicating the other cover girl. Parlabane belatedly noticed that the object she was balletically thrusting towards Heike was not in fact a sword, but a violin bow.

  ‘Monica Halcrow,’ Mairi said, slightly incredulous, slightly irritated. ‘You telling me you didn’t see the photos?’

  Parlabane realised he was a few pages behind and haemorrhaging ‘down with the kids’ points.

  ‘What photos? Safe to say I’ve been focused on other stuff recently.’

  ‘Never mind. What’s more pertinent is that the third album – Smuggler’s Soul – is due for release in just over a fortnight, coinciding with a thirty-five-date US tour. It’s the first major-label release of a three-album deal with Sentinel, who are putting serious marketing muscle behind this. The band have just completed a sell-out tour of Europe and the new single, “Stolen Glances”, is currently top ten in seventeen territories. The world is at Heike’s feet.’

  ‘It certainly sounds like it. So what’s the problem?’

  ‘I don’t know where the fuck she is.’

  The Money Trench

  Maria glanced down briefly at the NDA then back at Parlabane, all having become clear.

  ‘I take it this isn’t simply a case of not taking your calls? I mean, if she’s just finished a European tour and she’s got all this action coming up, is it feasible she’s on an islet in the Maldives where she knows there’s no mobile reception?’

  ‘She’s missing, Jack, and you are now one of a very exclusive number of people who knows this. She went missing in Berlin, final day of the tour. The last person to see her was Monica, that morning. Heike’s final words to her were: “See you at the soundcheck”, but she never showed up for it. They had to cancel the show: tour manager told the venue she had a throat infection so that it didn’t become a story. Nobody’s seen her since. She didn’t turn up for the flight home and her neighbours say she hasn’t been back to her flat in Glasgow. There’s been no answer on her phone, no reply to emails, no tweets. It’s like one minute the eyes of the world were upon her and the next she’s vanished from the face of the Earth.’

  Mairi sounded exasperated, but Parlabane could tell there was genuine worry there too. This wasn’t merely a business matter needing to be dealt with, albeit delicately and discreetly. Nonetheless, having been played to disastrous effect so very recently, he couldn’t help his suspicions.

  ‘No offence, Mairi, but the first thing that comes to mind is that this is a publicity stunt, and if that turns out to be the case and you have roped me into it…’

  ‘A publicity stunt?’ she responded, with sufficient outrage as to indicate the ‘no offence’ disclaimer hadn’t cut it. ‘Are you fucking kidding me, Jack?’

  Nonetheless, this would be precisely how he’d expect her to respond if indeed this was a ploy.

  ‘You’re in the music business, Mairi, a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.’

  ‘There is also a negative side,’ she responded archly, completing the quote. ‘I’m familiar with the words. I just didn’t think you were quite as cynical as Hunter S. Thompson.’

  ‘I’m simply telling you how it looks from here. Two weeks before her biggest-ever album gets released, Heike’s manager is asking a journalist to look into her sudden disappearance; and how better to disguise her true intentions – not to mention bait the hook – than to get him to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Then, when the story breaks, you can even get out of paying him.’

  Mairi swallowed back whatever she was about to unleash, professionalism taking over.

  ‘Point taken,’ she said, just about keeping her voice steady. ‘But I want you to ask yourself: after what you did for Donald, do you actually think I would try to use you like that?’

  Parlabane met her gaze and answered honestly.

  ‘After what I’ve been through lately, I truly don’t know what anybody is or isn’t capable of any more. But because I don’t want to live in that world where my accusation is true, I’m going to take you at face value.’

  She nodded subtly by way of acknowledgement.

  ‘That said,’ Parlabane went on, ‘could it still be a stunt that you’re not in on?’

  She didn’t even think about the question, which told him she’d asked it herself
already.

  ‘Not a chance. This is Heike we’re talking about. After the shit she’s been through with the media, and given how much she likes to micro-manage everything down to the last press release, there’s no way she’d willingly put herself at the centre of a storm she couldn’t control.’

  Mairi glanced down at Heike’s photograph on the magazine: elegantly poised, as graceful as she was formidable.

  ‘The very reason I’m worried is that this isn’t like her,’ she said. ‘I need you to find her, but I can’t let it get out that she’s missing, and you know how little it would take for a rumour to start in this business. The band don’t even know. I got Jan, the tour manager, to tell them she had been in touch to say she was ill and had flown home as it was the last night of the tour.’

  ‘They bought that?’

  ‘They knew there was something iffy about it, but they’ve all been around Heike long enough to have witnessed her, shall we say, self-protective side. Besides, they’re all governed by the golden rule that what happens on tour stays on tour. But something must have happened. I heard through other sources that Heike had a minor breakdown on-stage in Hamburg, two nights before she went missing. I can’t get anything out of the band, though, and if I push hard on the subject, they’ll get suspicious. That’s why I need you.’

  ‘Why are you so desperate to keep it quiet? Surely the more people who know someone as recognisable as Heike Gunn is missing, the greater the likelihood of her being spotted.’

  ‘I can’t have this turning into a media circus. For one thing, once it’s all resolved – inshallah – I don’t want Heike thinking that we in any way milked this. But to be brutally honest, I don’t want the record company spooked. Nobody at Sentinel knows about this, and if it all blows up they might get very nervous about authorising that seven-figure marketing spend.’

  ‘Well, that tracks, at least.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s your meal ticket.’

  He thought Mairi might bridle at this, but she seemed to let it bounce off her.

  ‘Heike is a lot of people’s meal ticket, and that has to be quite a responsibility. Like I said, she takes a lot on her shoulders. She’s got a tough reputation, but she’s far more fragile than people assume. I’m worried about her, Jack. I need you to bring her home.’

  Running Away with the Circus

  I will always associate the sound of the fiddle with my grandfather.

  It was the sound I heard whenever I went to his house, and whenever he came over to ours. I mean, it wasn’t like he carried the thing about with him all the time, just that I have a more vivid recollection of those visits when he had his violin with him. Looking back, these are probably brighter memories because they were social gatherings, and when I was really wee, I loved a busy house and a crowd of familiar faces in the living room and the kitchen.

  When I got a bit older, I was less comfortable with such shindigs, as I would be asked to demonstrate how my own playing was coming along. It felt horrible to be put on the spot, and sometimes I would compound my faulty fingering as I got more and more flustered. But when I was playing well it was a thrill to be getting it right in front of other people. Even now, whenever I’m in front of an audience there’s still this tension between my fear of flustering under the spotlight and the way adrenaline can bring out a level of performance that would be impossible if I was by myself.

  Even when I got more confident and my abilities were really starting to develop, I would still get butterflies whenever I was asked up in front of family, mainly because I could feel how nervous my mum was. She was always anxious that I should play well, especially in front of Granda.

  They sometimes say that talent skips a generation. I don’t know about that, but I’m sure my mum believed it. Growing up on Shetland, where the fiddle is practically a way of life, she was always worrying she had disappointed Granda. She had put in the hours and achieved a certain competence, but she didn’t have a gift and she didn’t have a passion. That was why she was so adamant that I’d be a great fiddle player, and so hard on me about practising. She desperately wanted my playing to please her father in the way hers never could.

  I could always sense that she was on edge whenever I played in front of him, or even in front of anybody who knew him; which on a place like Shetland didn’t leave out many people. And just as she didn’t want to disappoint her dad, I never wanted to let down my mum.

  It’s why I’ve always been a bit of a goody two-shoes. I was never in trouble as a child, not even a hint, because my mum is a teacher. At primary school, while the other kids knew that their carry-on might earn them a punny but that would be the end of it, I just assumed that if I stepped out of line, it would get back to her before I even got home. And at my secondary school, where she actually taught, I reckoned she would find out in the staff room by the end of the next interval.

  So I was hard-working, well behaved and a bit quiet. Too quiet still, I think. I’m shy, which is hardly a vice, but sometimes I hate myself for shrinking into the background when I’ve got something to say. I know it’s easier for other people, but deep down I know I’m being cowardly.

  I can take the spotlight if I’m playing my fiddle, but otherwise, those sidelines look quite comfy, thank you. That’s why folk were amazed to learn I was joining a band: not just doing session work in a studio, but actually going on the road. They could picture me taking my place in the orchestra, even travelling to the Mod each year, as it was easy to imagine me playing my wee part of something so respectable. But a band?

  They’d even double-check the word, carefully chosen by me. A band, you say? Yes. Not a group, as in folk, or a quartet, as in string. A band. As in … well, let’s let the critics argue about that one. (Rock? Indy? Grind-core death metal? Maybe not the last.)

  And if folk who knew me were amazed, there aren’t the words to convey my own levels of surprise, which continued to plague me all the more the closer it came to the start of the tour.

  I know I was in denial during the rehearsals. It didn’t feel that different to studio work: just a bigger soundproofed room, except more of the floor was messy with flight cases and there was no recording console.

  Whenever we all sat in the pub afterwards, or went for a curry, it went through my mind that I was about to go away for months with these people I barely knew. And this wasn’t going to be like going on tour with an orchestra. This was … well, I didn’t know, and was trying not to let my imagination run away with me. How wild could it get? I asked myself. We were never out that late on those pub nights. Damien, the lead guitarist and the most rock-looking guy in the band, was always imposing a curfew by buying the ‘last round’, reminding everybody of their professional obligations to turn up to rehearsals on time in the morning and to be able to give our best.

  It wasn’t Mötley Crüe I was going out there with.

  People still loved winding me up about what I was getting myself into though, especially old orchestra colleagues and friends from back home. All the usual rubbish about throwing televisions out of hotel windows. Yeah, yeah: sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. Please. My fiancé Keith was always making duff jokes about it, failing to hide his own unease. When he wasn’t acting like he couldn’t take it seriously, he was acting like it wasn’t happening at all, or that things would get back to normal once it was over.

  We never discussed what ‘over’ would mean.

  I got more nervous and more impatient the closer I came to that opening night. I just needed it all to be under way. Then, only a few days before we were due to kick off the tour, Granda died.

  It wasn’t exactly out of nowhere. He was ninety-two and he’d been fading over the past three years, requiring him to move into assisted accommodation and then into a nursing home, but it still felt sudden, as he hadn’t been ill or anything.

  Dad came back for the funeral, flying in from London. First time I’d seen him in close to a year. He fronted up I guessed as a ges
ture of respect and affection for Granda. Given the way he’d acted over the last few years of their marriage, nobody was going to mistake it as a show of support for Mum.

  I admit I got a weird buzz from the look of shock and worry on his face when I told him why I’d be flying out first thing the next morning.

  Aye, Jamie, your first-born daughter is running away with the circus. Suck it up.

  Then he kind of neutralised it by telling me that he had Savage Earth Heart’s last album on his iPod. Actually he said ‘the’ album, obviously ignorant of it being their second, but then that went for just about everybody who bought The Venal Tribe after ‘Do It to Julia’ got used on that American TV show. No matter. The point was, if my dad listened to them, then how hell-raisey could Savage Earth Heart be?

  It was a good funeral. We do generally give good funeral in Shetland, which is not to say that we sent Granda off to sea in a floating pyre, but that it was more of a celebration than a wake. I saw lots of familiar faces, got a lot of hugs, and we all cried good tears, warm tears, the kind that make you feel better.

  Despite the temptations of such a gathering, maybe haunted by the image of Damien standing over me and glancing at the clock, I got myself a comparatively early night. Keith came up to bed around the same time too, under the pretence of making sure I was all right but actually a bit frisky. The combination of such an emotional day and a few too many drinks had much the same effect on me.

  We had sex for what was actually only the third time. (I’m not even sure if the second one really counts, as he barely got it in. Things were even tighter than the first time, as I kept tensing up.) It went better than on both previous occasions, but to be honest, it still didn’t feel anything like as good as before we lost our virginities. Prior to that, there had always been the thrill of pushing things to the next stage, then for a long time just getting good at what we did do.

  This is not a blog, by the way. I mean, it is a blog, obviously, but that doesn’t mean it’s for anyone else to read. In fact, it’s absolutely NOT for anyone else to read, so I suppose it’s a diary then, but that doesn’t sound right.