the woman who’d had the good sense not to marry him some twenty years before. And he liked to drink.
A Bass man from way back, he could tolerate most beer, though he preferred it hand-pumped from the wood; in the right mood, he could appreciate a good wine; whisky, he preferred Islay single malts, Lagavulin, say, or Laphroaig. At a pinch, anything would do.
Kiley had come across him once, sprawled along a bench on the southbound platform of the Northern Line at Leicester Square. Vomit still drying on his shirt front, face bruised, a cut splintering the bridge of his nose. Kiley had pulled him straight and used a tissue to wipe what he could from round his mouth and eyes, pushed a tenner down into his top pocket and left him there to sleep it off. Thinking about it still gave him the occasional twinge of guilt.
That had been a good few years back, around the time Kiley had been forced to accept his brief foray into professional soccer was over: the writing on the wall, the stud marks on his shins; the ache in his muscles that never quite went away, one game to the next.
Becker was still playing jazz whenever he could, but instead of Ronnie’s, nowadays it was more likely to be the King’s Head in Bexley, the Coach and Horses at Isleworth, depping on second tenor at some big-band nostalgia weekend at Pontin’s.
And tonight Becker was looking sharp, sharper than Kiley had seen him in years and sounding good. Adams clearly thought so. Calling for silence, she sang a couple of tunes with the band. ‘Stormy Weather’, of course, and an up-tempo ‘Just One of Those Things’. Stepping aside to let Becker solo, she smiled at him broadly. Made a point of praising his playing. After that his eyes followed her everywhere she went.
‘She’s still got it, hasn’t she?’ Kate said, appearing at Kiley’s shoulder.
Kiley nodded. Kate was wearing an oatmeal-coloured suit that would have made most other people look like something out of storage. Her hair shone.
‘You didn’t mind me calling you?’ Kiley said.
Kate shook her head. ‘As long as it was only business.’ Accidentally brushing his arm as she moved away.
Later that night — that morning — Kiley, having delivered Dianne Adams safely to her hotel, was sitting with Derek Becker in a club on the edge of Soho. Both men were drinking Scotch, Becker sipping his slowly, plenty of water in between.
Before the reception had wound down, Adams had spoken to Costain, Costain had spoken to the management at Ronnie’s and Becker had been added to the trio Adams had brought over from Copenhagen to accompany her.
‘I suppose,’ Becker said, ‘I’ve got you to thank for that.’
Kiley shook his head. ‘Thank whoever straightened you out.’
Becker had another little taste of his Scotch. ‘Let me tell you,’ he said. ‘A year ago, it was as bad as it gets. I was living in Walthamstow, a one-room flat. Hadn’t worked in months. The last gig I’d had, a pub over in Chigwell, I hadn’t even made the three steps up on to the stage. I was starting the day with a six-pack and by lunch-time it’d be ruby port and cheap wine. Except there wasn’t any lunch. I hardly ate anything for weeks at a time and when I did I threw it back up. And I stank. People turned away from me on the street. My clothes stank and my skin stank. The only thing I had left, the only thing I hadn’t sold or hocked was my horn and then I hocked that. Bought enough pills, a bottle of cheap Scotch and a packet of old-fashioned razor blades. Enough was more than enough.’
He looked at Kiley and sipped his drink.
‘And then I found this.’
Snapping open his saxophone case, Becker flipped up the lid of the small compartment in which he kept his spare reeds. Lifting out something wrapped in dark velvet, he laid it in Kiley’s hand.
‘Open it.’
Inside the folds was a bracelet, solid gold or merely plated Kiley couldn’t be certain, though from the weight of it he guessed the former. Charms swayed and jingled lightly as he raised it up. A pair of dice. A key. What looked to be — an imitation this, surely? — a Faberge egg.
‘I was shitting myself,’ Becker said. ‘Literally. Shit scared of what I was going to do.’ He wiped his hand across his mouth before continuing. ‘I’d gone down into the toilets at Waterloo station, locked myself in one of the stalls. I suppose I fell, passed out maybe. Next thing I know I’m on my hands and knees, face down in God knows what and there it was. Waiting for me to find it.’
An old Presley song played for a moment at the back of Kiley’s head. ‘Your good-luck charm,’ he said.
‘If you like, yes. The first piece of luck I’d had in months, that’s for sure. Years. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. I just sat there, staring at it. I don’t know, waiting for it to disappear, I suppose.’
‘And when it didn’t?’
Becker smiled. ‘I tipped the pills into the toilet bowl, took a belt at the Scotch and then poured away the rest. The most I’ve had, that day to this, is a small glass of an evening, maybe two. I know you’ll hear people say you can’t kick it that way, all or nothing, has to be, but all I can say is it works for me.’ He held out his hand, arm extended, no tremor, the fingers perfectly still. ‘Well, you’ve heard me play.’
Kiley nodded. ‘And this?’ he said.
‘The bracelet?’
‘Yes.’
Forefinger and thumb, Becker took it from the palm of Kiley’s hand.
‘Used it to get my horn out of hock, buy a half-decent suit of clothes. When I was sober enough, I started phoning round, chasing work. Bar mitzvahs, weddings, anything, I didn’t care. When I had enough I went back and redeemed it.’ He rewrapped the bracelet and stowed it carefully away. ‘Been with me ever since.’ He winked. ‘Like you say, my good-luck charm, eh?’
Kiley drained what little remained in his glass. ‘Time I wasn’t here.’
Standing, Becker shook his hand. ‘I owe you one, Jack.’
‘Just keep playing like tonight. Okay?’
The first few days went down easily enough, the way good days sometimes do. Adam’s first set, opening night, was maybe just a little shaky, but after that everything gelled. The reviews were good, better than good, and by midweek word of mouth had kicked in and the place was packed. Becker, Kiley thought, was playing out of his skull, seizing his chance with both hands. Adams worked up a routine with him on ‘Ghost of a Chance’, just the two of them, voice and horn, winding around each other tighter and tighter as the song progressed. And, when they were through, Becker gazed at Dianne Adams with a mixture of gratitude and barely disguised desire.
Costain didn’t have to call in many favours to have Adams interviewed at length on Woman’s Hour and more succinctly on Front Row; after less than three hours’ sleep, she was smiling from behind her make-up on GMTV; Claire Martin prerecorded a piece for her Friday jazz show and had Adams and Becker do their thing in the studio. Kate’s profile in the Indy truthfully presented a woman with a genuine talent, a generous ego and a carapaced heart.
All of this Kiley watched from a close distance, grateful for Costain’s money without ever being sure why the agent had thought him necessary. Then, just shy of noon on the Thursday morning, he knew.
Adams paged him and had him come up to her room.
Pacing the floor in a hotel robe, sans paint and powder, she looked all of her age and then some. The photographs were spread out across the unmade bed. Dianne Adams on stage at Ronnie Scott’s, opening night; walking through a mostly deserted Soho after the show, Kiley at her side; Adams passing through the hotel lobby, walking along the corridor from the lift, unlocking the door to her room. And then several slightly blurred and taken, Kiley guessed, from across the street with a telephoto lens: Adams undressing; sitting on her bed in her underwear talking on the telephone; crossing from the shower, nude save for a towel wrapped round her head.
‘When did you get these?’ Kiley asked.
‘Sometime this morning. An hour ago, maybe. Less. Someone pushed them under the door.’
‘No note? No message?’
Adams shook her head.
Kiley looked again at the pictures on the bed. ‘This is not just an obsessive fan.’
Adams lit a cigarette and drew the smoke deep into her lungs. ‘No.’
He looked at her then. ‘You know who these are from.’
