Worthless Remains (15 page)

I turned my attention to the remaining strawberries. ‘Everyone finished with the cream?'

‘W
hoever you are, go away.
Quietly
.' Middleton's voice sounded tragic on the other side of the door.

Last night I had failed abysmally in my task to stop Guy from drowning his brains with the hairy Britons. I had found him sitting on a crate outside Morgan's tent, sharing his whisky around and drinking from demijohns of rough cider with names like ‘Legbender' or ‘Skullcrusher'. I was full of good wine from Stoneking's table and in no mood to argue much with him, especially since he was surrounded by a hirsute bunch of Britons who seemed to have remained in character. They had decided that the first round of fighting had gone to them and were celebrating with the celebrity. The celebrity was showing off in front of his new friends. ‘Piss off, Honeysett,' Middleton had said. ‘I don't need a bloody nursemaid.'

This morning he sounded like he could possibly do with a nurse. I stopped banging on his door and tried opening it. There was resistance but it was easy enough to push it out of the way. Guy had set the bedside table in front of the door in a feeble attempt at a barricade against night prowlers. ‘Leave me alone. I can't possibly get up. I feel truly awful. Tell Cy I'm unwell. I need at least a day to recover.'

It felt cruel yet satisfying in a told-you-so kind of way to rip open the curtains and let the summer sun beam down on the cringing cripple curled up on the bed. ‘You can't take the day off; it would give Cy all the ammunition he needs. That's the one way he will be able to get rid of you, if you're not showing up for work because of a hangover.'

‘Hangover! There ought to be a completely new word for what I've got.' Middleton sat up in bed, hunched and dishevelled, the loose strands of his ponytail hanging thin and lifeless over his shoulders. He was holding his forehead as though he was afraid it might come apart. A few years ago he had been the soap-star heart throb; this morning he wouldn't have needed make-up for a vampire movie. ‘Right now I don't know who I hate more, you or him,' he growled.

‘I don't care. Every day I'm getting an earful from Cy about how useless you are and how I'm supposed to make sure you do your job and I'm getting nothing but crap from you. I'm on your side, Middleton. I may be the only one around here and
I'm
only here because I get paid. So stop the baby talk and get on with it or else pack it in and retire. Go and live quietly in your cottage in the Lakes.'

He swung his legs out of bed, grunting as though he'd been stabbed. ‘Huh.
Retire
. What on? I need this bloody gig. And I'll have to do it until I'm old and grey.'

Older and greyer, surely. ‘Then I suggest you get under that shower and come downstairs smiling. And apologize for last night's little outburst outside the dining room while you're at it. I hadn't told them you had been locked into the steam room so your accusations made you sound more than a bit mad.'

‘Oh, bugger. All right, I'll try. Look, Chris . . . You've no idea what pressure I'm under. There's other stuff. Not just Cy or the death threats. Other stuff.' He gave another grunt as he pushed himself off the bed and got to his feet. He shuffled into the shower. ‘I might tell you later.'

‘I can't wait.' I left him to it and went to get breakfast.

Ageing rock stars know how to live. Fresh orange juice, scrambled eggs, drop scones, smoked salmon and the whole English breakfast thing – Carla had to be up at the crack of dawn each day to build this wall of food in the dining room. The IT blokes were there, murmuring at each other through mouthfuls of croissant; cameraman and soundman were working through small mountains of fried food. Stoneking was sitting in the open window with a long glass of juice. He was watching Emms and Cy carry their cups of coffee across the sodden grass to the tent that had been erected over the larger trench the day before. Andrea was already there, staring inside. The Roman encampment was still in place and so was that of their enemies. It was bank holiday weekend and they would be with us until it was their time to return to reality.

‘The trench has flooded, despite the tent,' Stoneking called over his shoulder.

‘To be expected,' Paul said without looking up. ‘They'll pump it out and mop it up. Take at least an hour, though.'

‘Has the digger been repaired yet?' Stoneking asked.

‘Nah. Bloke stopped working when the rain started. What a lightweight. Back this morning, he said.'

I had nearly finished my pile of scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes when Guy turned up. ‘Morning, chaps.' He looked quite presentable, considering what state he'd been in twenty minutes ago. ‘Where is everyone, I'm not late, am I? Morning, Mark.' He walked over to the window where Stoneking sat. ‘Sorry about last night, I got a bit upset.' He quickly explained what had happened to him in the steam room.

‘Shit, that would have narked me off too,' Stoneking said. ‘Especially after that thing with the urn. You've got a practical joker on your case, Guy. Better watch out.'

Guy went to get himself some coffee and I went to join Stoneking, who was on the terrace now. ‘OK to climb through the window?'

‘Be my guest.'

‘Now you've mentioned the urn – have you had a look at the roof yet?'

‘I was up there first thing this morning. Called the roofers already.'

‘Did you check out the place where the urn fell off?'

Mark spoke quietly. ‘I didn't actually go out on the roof, I'm not completely mad, that's what roofers are for. But I'm pretty sure it was an accident.' He looked over his shoulder at Guy, who was sitting at the table nibbling toast. Stoneking left his glass on the windowsill and we ambled to the edge of the verandah out of earshot. ‘The place needs some serious maintenance; I do feel guilty. I will get the roofers to check out all the nonsense stuck to the parapet, see if any of it needs securing. Or pushing off, when it comes to it. I mean, this stuff's been up there for an age. You know what they say – what goes up . . . But what's this thing with Guy and the pranks? No wonder Guy's a bit paranoid now. First the note in his bed, now this steam room thing.'

‘I think for Guy the falling urn is also part of it.'

‘I have already apologized like mad to him. But he's not the most gracious man I've met. He has appalling manners. And, I mean, look who's talking here – even I think he's a pain in the arse and I'm not the politest man in the world. It's a rock ‘n' roll hangover.'

‘Do you rock ‘n' roll much still?'

‘Me?' He snorted. ‘I can't stand rock music.'

‘You're kidding.'

‘Straight up. Haven't played any for twenty years, don't listen to it. When I do listen to music these days it's mainly classical. Twentieth-century stuff. But three blokes with guitars and a drummer? Give us a break.'

‘My girlfriend's a Karmic fan; she'd be devastated to hear you say that.'

He wagged a finger. ‘Now, don't go round telling everyone. I rely on the money from all those people who never grew up and are still buying Best of Karmic Fire CDs. No offence to your girlfriend, OK? It was all right, Karmic was all right. But that's nearly forty bloody years ago. I don't even think about it from one year to the next. I think of the guys sometimes but they're all gone now.'

‘Sorry to hear that.'

‘Why should you be? You never met them. And you might not have liked them much if you had.'

‘Do you still play the guitar?'

He held up his right hand for my inspection. It was an old man's hand. ‘Arthritis in my finger joints. I haven't played guitar for years. Getting a bit deaf in one ear, too. I've no idea why I'm telling you this. Let's change the subject. Because . . . I have a little proposition. You're a painter as well as a minder, Cy told me. So I looked your stuff up on the internet last night and I really like it. It's got oomph. It's nice and big, too. I love abstract art, see? The crap we had on the album covers? I always hated that shit, even then. So I have a proposition. I was going to soften you up with a bottle of wine first but since we're talking I'll come straight out with it. I want you to do a mural for me. In the same style of your paintings. In the pool house.' Mark could read my expression and before I could open my mouth said: ‘I know, it's probably not what you usually do and it's not canvas but I'd give you a completely free hand. Whatever you come up with I'm sure it'll look great.'

‘It's not that . . .'

‘Look, you're here already, standing around half the day, so you might as well. And I'd pay good money, have no fear. You can charge whatever you want, I mean, within reason, obviously.'

‘Mark, the paintings you saw. On the website. I've changed my style since then. Quite radically. I've gone figurative. And I'm still feeling my way.'

‘Oh.'

‘But I have an idea and I think you're going to like it . . .'

A few minutes later Mark was studying the images on annisjordon.com on his phone. ‘Blimey. And are they big?'

‘Eight foot. But she'll be delighted to paint larger than that.'

‘I really like these images. I like them even better than yours, no offence. And you think you could persuade her?'

‘I think I might.'

Mark flicked to the biography page. ‘Is that her? Pretty. I always had a weakness for red hair and freckles. How do you know her?'

‘It's a long story.'

‘Would you ask her for me?'

I checked my watch – it was early here but the middle of the night in Annis Jordan's world. ‘I'll ask her later today.'

Despite yesterday's thunderstorm the atmosphere remained close. It was warm already and the gardens steamed in the hazy sunshine. We ambled across to the enlarged trench where diggers were removing the khaki tent, marching it to the tree line at the very edge of the lawn. A small diesel generator was started up and connected to a pump.

Andrea, lowering the business end into the trench, turned to Mark. ‘It's very muddy and we don't have enough hose to get it all the way to the lake. It'll make more mess of your lawn.' She pulled an apologetic face. ‘Are you sure you don't mind?'

‘Hell no, give my gardener some more to moan about but it's only mud. Pump all you like.'

Mark and I retreated as the operation got under way. ‘Your gardener. Sam, was that his name?' I asked.

‘Yeah, why?'

‘It was something the old lady said. She called him a villain, I think.'

‘That he is. Or was.'

‘He wouldn't be taking his sabbatical at Her Majesty's pleasure by any chance?'

Mark sighed and gave me a brief sideways glance as we kept walking in a loose, purposeless loop around the excavation. ‘Not for anything he's done recently. He's been pretty straight since he's been working here. They actually taught him horticulture while he was inside for a few years, and he was doing some of his apprenticeship here with the then gardener as part of his parole afterwards. When I bought the place the old gardener retired. I kept Sam on as a replacement. Never regretted it.'

‘So why's he inside now?'

‘It's DNA, isn't it? A robbery he never got fingered for back in the day, they could suddenly prove he'd been part of it. Not the big one, an earlier one.'

‘Big one?'

‘The Bristol Airport bullion robbery.'

I'd have whistled admiringly if I'd known how to whistle. ‘Oh, that.
Very
big.' I remembered it well: twelve million pounds worth of gold bars, gone in four minutes.

‘He was part of that, he drove the van. Took his gloves off because he couldn't get his chocolate bar unwrapped and left fingerprints on the steering wheel.'

‘Classic.'

‘Cost him four years. Most of the others got caught too, eventually.'

‘It was good of you to take him on. You didn't think it was a bit of a risk?'

‘Not really. I don't have any gold bullion lying about and you could tell he was really into this gardening thing. He's pretty straight now. I get on with Sam. I know where he's coming from. If it hadn't been for Karmic I might easily have gone that way myself. I was quite wild back then.'

‘So I heard. When's he coming out?'

‘This week if all goes to schedule. He'll go mental when he sees all this. I'll never hear the end of it.' Mark smiled to himself as though he was very much looking forward to it.

The pumping of the trench continued for a long time. Paul was there to capture the effort on camera. His prediction came true: it was a whole hour before they reached the bottom and even then it was only to reveal a mud bath. The smaller trench had been bailed out by hand by Julie and Adam, both covered in mud but looking unperturbed.

Now Guy was there too, in his usual hat and jacket, doing PTCs or at least trying to. Loss of short-term memory is the bane of all heavy drinkers. He kept forgetting his lines or mixing them up. He faltered for the third time. ‘Sorry, can I have another look at the script?'

Cy threw up his hands. ‘For Christ's sake, Guy, there's only four bloody sentences in the sequence. Do you need an idiot board?'

‘Don't swear at me,' Guy protested. ‘Anyone can forget his lines once in a while.'

‘What do you mean,
forget
them? You never knew them in the first place.' Cy, steaming with righteous anger, stomped a few yards away from the trench. ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent . . .' He looked to the heavens in frustration.

‘Beast?' Andrea supplied quietly.

If Guy had heard he didn't let on. He studied the script and nodded. ‘Got it now. Definitely.'

‘OK, from the top,' said the patient Emms.