Harry wondered what to do. It was easy to understand why Cyril had taken the line of least resistance. Edwin was one of those clients who don’t help themselves. The likelihood was that he had sought to withdraw his confession only when the extent of his peril had begun to sink in. When he came to understand that there was little hope of escape, he’d given up.
Yet Harry had in his time known other inadequates prepared to accept punishment for crimes they had not committed. The old file did not disprove Miller’s theory, although if Edwin was innocent, much was unclear. How had he learned about the scarf and what Carole had been wearing? What had prompted him to confess? And did he have any idea, however remote, of the identity of the true culprit?
The telephone rang. Suzanne, the switchboard girl, had a clutch of messages for him.
‘I’m on my way out,’ he said hastily. After the unexpected adjournment of the Kevin Walter case, he told himself, he could afford an hour or two off. It was past one o’clock and his breakfast at The Condemned Man was no more than a distant memory. He decided to escape in search of a sandwich and the opportunity to muse about Edwin Smith’s fate free from the intrusion of clients and computer salesmen alike.
At the bottom of the steps which led from the building, he ran into Leo Devaney, who ran the second-hand record shop in the basement in partnership with a boyfriend called Simon. A thin man in his late forties who seemed to have worn the same scuffed leather jacket and jeans since his student days, Leo had the pallid skin of someone who regards fresh air as a health hazard and the pinched, abstracted look that comes from endless hours spent listening to music on ill-fitting headphones.
‘Harry, I was meaning to call you. That old Dionne Warwick album you were asking after has come in.’
‘I’m looking for another record at present. Do you have anything by the Brill Brothers?’
Leo shook his head. ‘Sorry, madrigals by Meat Loaf are easier to find.’
‘Don’t tell me the records of such a minor duo have become collectors’ items?’
‘You’d be surprised how sought after many of those sixties albums are, especially those in good condition. Bear in mind that the records weren’t manufactured in big numbers. They were always sure to prove scarcer than something like Sergeant Pepper, which sold by the million. But I’ll keep an eye out for you, if you like. Record fairs are often the best bet and there’s a good one at Empire Hall next week. Simon and I will have a stand there and you might like to look in.’
‘Sure. In the meantime, what can you tell me about the Brill Brothers?’
Leo pondered for a second, then began to speak rapidly. ‘Formed in late ’61, a couple of good-looking lads who met at the Cavern and decided they could do as well as the acts on stage. They soon proved themselves right. Ray Brill sang like a gospeller, Ian McCalliog was a quiet boy who played the bass. Like most of their rivals they covered hits from the States. “Please Stay”, an old Drifters track, was one, Chuck Jackson’s “Any Day Now” another. Most of them were written in the Brill Building song factory in New York. Some people even thought Ray took his surname from the place, but in fact it appeared on his birth certificate. A pleasing coincidence.’
As Leo paused for breath, Harry said, ‘Now I see why you were asked to contribute to The Pop Encyclopaedia.’
‘If only I knew as much about balance sheets as I do about pop, I’d be rich enough to buy out Richard Branson.’
‘What happened to the Brill Brothers?’
‘Overshadowed by the Beatles, like everyone else. When the young girls stopped screaming for them, they lacked the originality and the staying power to survive. No shame in that, they did well enough for a couple of years. They were managed by Warren Hull and after their own Svengali died, they soon began to run out of steam.’
‘Warren Hull? I’ve heard the name. Wasn’t he a sort of poor man’s Brian Epstein?’
‘Got it in one. Warren was a pianist who accompanied several acts in the fifties without ever making the big time. When rock ’n’ roll came along, he turned to pop star management with mixed results. So the story goes, he let Brian have the Beatles because he didn’t like their looks. I can’t believe it’s true, because by all accounts he would have fallen head over heels for both Lennon and McCartney.’
‘So Hull was gay? What happened to him? Did he kill himself, by any chance, like Epstein?’
‘I think you’re wrong about Brian. The best guess is that he took an accidental overdose. In any event, Warren Hull’s death was very different. He was battered to death in his own bedroom. The police found his naked body there. Presumably he said the wrong thing at the wrong moment and his rough trade turned violent.’
‘Who killed him?’
‘God knows, some back-street rent boy, I suppose. As far as I’m aware, no-one was ever charged.’ Leo grimaced. ‘Let’s face it, we’re talking about the dark ages, long before the age of equal opportunities. Gay love was illegal and the police weren’t going to bust a gut to avenge someone they’d have been happy to give a good kicking themselves.’
‘This was when?’
‘The Christmas of ’63.’
‘Did you know Ray Brill’s girlfriend was strangled a couple of months later?’
‘Murder’s more your province than mine, Harry.’ Leo gave him a searching glance. ‘Am I right in guessing that’s why you’ve taken a sudden interest in a couple of guys who were hardly in the class of the Everlys or the Righteous Brothers?’
‘Turning detective yourself? Yes, you’re spot on. I wonder — do you happen to know what Ray Brill is up to now?’
‘He stayed in the business, of course, after the two of them split and Ian found himself a proper job as a number-cruncher for some shipping line. He formed a foursome which he called the Brilliants, but it didn’t last long. Once the Beatles moved on and Merseybeat’s golden age began to look a little tarnished, he found it as hard as everyone else. Nobody is forgotten as fast as yesterday’s teen idols.’
‘I’m almost glad I never was one.’
‘Personally, I could have coped with the adulation. Anyway, Ray kept recording solo for as long as he could find people willing to invest in pressing his vinyl, but none of his songs meant a light after he went on his own. Now, can I take some money off you for that Dionne album?’
Harry followed Leo downstairs into the Aladdin’s cave that was Devaney Records, but his mind was no longer on the record he had spent twelve months hunting for. What fascinated him at the moment was the Sefton Park case and the mixed fortunes of the people linked to it.
Two people close to Ray Brill, his manager and his sweetheart, had been brutally slain. One of the crimes had never been solved; the other had seemed at the time to be an open and shut case. It had all happened within the space of a couple of months. A fatal coincidence — and Harry wondered how much it had scarred Brill.
‘Any idea where I could find Ray?’
‘You’re not just after his autograph, are you?’
‘No, I’m interested in the girlfriend who was killed — but that makes me interested in Ray as well. Didn’t he have a reputation as a ladies’ man?’
Leo winked. ‘It takes all sorts.’
‘I suppose he married eventually, did he?’
‘Three times, at the last count. Ray was alway unlucky in love, you might say. The first was an air hostess — she soon blew off with a pilot. Then came a barmaid and after that a black girl who was on the game. None of them stayed with him for long, but it was his own fault. He liked them young and willing and he liked plenty of them. And he was a betting man as well. Not just an odd flutter on the gee-gees, but anything at all. When I saw him doing a gig in one of Southport’s seedier clubs a year ago, he had a couple of teenagers making eyes at him and he was giving odds as to which of them he’d manage to lay first. He was incorrigible. I think he was living up there at the time, though whether he’s still in the neighbourhood, I haven’t a clue.’
‘You’re sure he is still alive?’
Leo grinned. ‘Certain of it. The price of his merchandise would have shot up if he’d gone to the Cavern in the sky. Have you ever wondered why so many pop stars die young? It’s a great career move, that’s why. No, Ray Brill isn’t dead yet.’ He paused and added, ‘Though with his lifestyle, he bloody well ought to be.’
Chapter Eight
