9
God and Music
THEY’D TURNED STOCK’S kiln-house into Dracula’s castle, rearing against the light, looking to Lol very much as it had on that first, milky night, only darker, more brooding.
It shrieked at him from the pile of newspapers in the shop, the top copy folded back to page five. Two other customers bought copies while he was still staring.
Christ, he hadn’t seen this one coming, had he? Nobody had, judging from the comments in the shop. ‘I’ve heard of this feller,’ a woman in sweatpants told the newsagent. ‘He’s an alcoholic.’
‘On bloody drugs, more like,’ an elderly man said.
The newsagent nodded. ‘Need to be one or the other to live in that place.’
Whichever, it was a development Prof Levin did not need to know about, Lol decided, driving back from Bishop’s Frome with a bunch of papers on the passenger seat. It was eight-thirty, the sun already high: another hot one. Prof was due to leave for London before ten, his cases already stowed in the back of his rotting Range Rover – Abbey Road beckoning. The unstable virtuoso Tom Storey would already be pacing the floor with his old Telecaster strapped on, spraying nervy riffs into the sacred space.
Lol considered leaving the
In the end, he gathered the papers into a fat stack, with the
‘Two things, Laurence. One: when I return, I expect to hear demos of five new songs. No excuses. You get St John over to help. If he don’t want to come, you get his wife to kick him up the behind – metaphorically speaking, in her case, as you’ll find out.’
‘The vicar’s married?’
Prof gave him a narrow look. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No particular—’
Prof frowned. ‘Robinson, I can read you like the
‘What was the second thing? You said two things…’
‘The second thing – maybe I mentioned this before – is you keep that bastard Stock out of here. Bad enough he shows up when I’m around, I don’t want him—
Lol sighed. He didn’t want to pass on Stock’s innuendo about Simon. He unrolled the newspapers:
‘What’s this crap?’ Prof held up the paper, squinting down through his bifocals. ‘What am I looking at?’
Lol said nothing.
After about half a minute, Prof peered over the page at him, looking uncharacteristically bewildered, glassy- eyed, as if he’d been winded by a punch from nowhere to the stomach. He put down the paper on the upturned packing case he was still using as a breakfast bar.
‘This man,’ he said at last, ‘is the most unbelievable piece of walking shit it was ever my misfortune to encounter. Is there
There were two pictures, one of them tall and narrow, running alongside the story. This was the Dracula’s Castle shot of the kiln house, doctored for dramatic effect. The other, near the foot of the page, showed an unsmiling Gerard Stock, holding a candle in a holder, his arm around a younger woman with curly hair.
OUR BLACK HELL IN THE HOUSE OF HORROR
And they claimed that a ‘rural mafia’ had condemned them to face the horror alone.
‘
Turn to page 2
Prof shook his head slowly.
‘Madness, Laurence.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Nah.’ Prof turned over the page and creased the spine of the paper, laid it back on the packing cases next to his coffee cup, contemptuously punched the crease flat with the heel of a fist. ‘Not in a million frigging years. Let me finish this, and then we’ll talk.’
Lol read the story over Prof’s shoulder.
‘Lake showed up here once,’ Prof said. ‘Made me an offer for this place even though it wasn’t part of his old man’s original estate. Crazy. The guy’s as mad and arrogant as Stock. Dresses like some old-style squire twice his age. Campaigns for fox-hunting. Jesus!’
‘I saw him the other night.’
‘He’s a buffoon. And he don’t fully realize the kind of desperate bastard he’s up against – though maybe he does now.’
‘You really think Stock’s making all this up, to try and publicly shame Lake into moving those barns?’