The Sound of Broken Glass Read online

  Not to mention the opportunity it gave him for adult—and, he had to admit, female—company. He did his best to ignore the fact that his capitulation got easier by the day.

  “We could have played Clerkenwell.” George looked up from tightening his snare drum, his round face already turning pink from the heat in the pub, his tone aggrieved.

  “How many times have we played every bloody pub in North London?” Andy shot back. The fact that he knew he was in the wrong made him defensive. The gig they’d turned down had been at the Slaughtered Lamb, a good music venue with a reputation for launching up-and-coming bands. “It was time we did something different.” It sounded weak, even to him.

  Nick kept his head bent over the tuners on his bass, not looking at either of them. “It was time you did something different, you mean,” he said, the hurt in his voice evident whingeing.

  Members of bands tended to find separate personality niches. In theirs, George, despite his slightly chubby, jolly looks, was the moaner. Andy had the lead guitarist’s attitude. And Nick, the lead singer and bass player, had a bass player’s imperturbable cool. If Nick was angry, you knew you’d crossed a line.

  “Look, guys,” Andy began, but he had to raise his voice over the increasing racket from the Friday-night post-happy-hour drinkers. It was a good pub, but the band was obviously secondary to the food and drink and they were jammed into a small space at the back on one side of the bar. “Tam said this producer would be here—”

  “To hear you,” said George, now in full scowl. “Not that anyone is likely to hear anything in this place. And do you know how far away I had to park the fucking van?” They’d unloaded their equipment at the White Stag, with the van on the double yellows. Then George had driven off to find a place to put his battered Ford Transit. It had been a full twenty minutes before he’d reappeared, damp from the rain and huffing. “We might as well be marooned on a desert island. Bloody Crystal Palace, I ask you.”

  Bloody Crystal Palace was right, thought Andy, and cursed himself. He’d known it was a bad idea, but Tam had been so persuasive. As managers went, Tam wasn’t a bad egg. He’d done his best for them, but lately Andy had begun to sense even Tam’s good-natured optimism flagging. Bands had a shelf life, and theirs was expiring. Chances were that if they hadn’t made it by now, they weren’t going to.

  The fact that they all knew it didn’t make it any easier, or mean that they talked about it. But Nick had enrolled in an accounting course. George was working days in his dad’s dry-cleaning business in Hackney. And Tam had been booking Andy more and more session work on his own. The truth was that he was better than they were, and they all knew that, too. But as much as Andy had groused about the band and about needing a change, he was finding the reality of it bitterly hard. They were mates. They’d been together, off and on, in various groups, for nearly ten years. Nick and George were the closest thing he had to family, and he’d only now begun to realize what it would mean to lose them.

  “Look, guys,” Andy said again. “It’s only one night, all right? Then we can—”

  “Tam’s here.” George settled onto his stool and gave a little tap on the snare for emphasis. “So where’s this mysterious producer who’s coming to see if you can play with a girl.”

  “Just shut up, will you,” Andy hissed. He could see Tam pushing his way through the crowd, an expectant smile on his face. Their manager’s real name was Mick Moran, although few remembered it. He was a Glasgow Scot, and had acquired the nickname courtesy of the wool tam he wore, winter and summer, to cover his balding pate. The hat was so old that its red-and-green Moran tartan had long since faded into clan neutrality.

  “Lads,” said Tam when he reached them. “All set, then? Looks a good crowd.” He rocked on the balls of his feet, grinning at them.

  “Right, Tam.” Andy forced a smile, restraining himself from saying that the crowd looked the sort that would shout over the music and request the lamest covers imaginable. Neither Nick nor George responded, and when he glanced round, both looked mutinous.

  Right, then, Andy thought. If that was their attitude, so be it. He ran his pick across the strings of his Strat to check the tuning one last time, then launched into the distinctive opening chords of Green Day’s “Good Riddance.” He usually sang backup, but this was one of the few songs where he rather than Nick sang the lead.

  The evening went downhill from there. Nick and George were off on their timing, and when Nick took the lead he mumbled and slurred the lyrics. Glimpsing Tam’s worried face in the back of the room, Andy played faster and louder. If his bandmates were determined to bugger this for him, they were doing a bloody good job.

  Then he saw another man with Tam. Tall, with close-cropped hair and beard and wire-rimmed glasses. Caleb Hart, the producer who had asked Tam to book them here. The producer who had discovered a promising girl singer, and who needed a guitarist to record with her. Caleb Hart and Tam went way back, and when Tam had told him he had a good session man, Hart had suggested this gig and a practice session the next day in a studio he used in Crystal Palace. He’d wanted to hear Andy with the band, and Andy had made the mistake of telling Nick and George the reason for the booking.

  Now Hart said something in Tam’s ear and shook his head.

  The band shuddered to a halt at the end of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Andy felt the sweat of desperation. Someone in the crowd yelled, “Mumford!”

  A joker on the other side of the room shouted back, “‘Stairway to Heaven,’ you wanker.” A groan went up. “‘Stairway,’ ‘Stairway,’” the joker’s friends began to chant, and a rumble ran through the room. The temperature in the bar had risen along with the alcohol consumption and Andy knew things could turn ugly fast.

  “Stairway” topped most bands’ hated-cover list, and Nick couldn’t sing the Robert Plant vocal to save his life. But Andy could play the hell out of Jimmy Page’s lead, so he hit the effects pedal and launched straight into the guitar solo, giving it a bluesy-reggae twist that had the crowd stomping within a minute.

  When he knew he had them, he segued into Dr. Feelgood’s “Milk and Alcohol,” playing Wilko Johnson’s lead and singing Lee Brilleaux’s husky vocal, which thank God was simple enough that he could play and sing at the same time.

  It wasn’t until he hit the last chord and gave a bow to the audience that he realized he was bleeding. He’d cut his left thumb and the bright blood had splattered, almost invisible against the Strat’s red finish.

  “Time for some of that alcohol,” he said into the mike. “We’ll be back in a few.”

  He scanned the audience. Tam and Caleb Hart were nowhere to be seen. But then he caught a glimpse of a profile, just a flash of a woman’s face in the back of the room as she moved among taller punters. Then she too was gone, but memory pricked him, and he felt dislocated, breathless, as if the air had been sucked from the room.

  Then he heard George laugh, a high-pitched snigger, and he was aware again of the blood on his thumb and of his own fury. “You bastards,” he said, turning on Nick and George. “What the hell do you think you were playing at?”

  George raised a full pint and gave him a mock salute. “To our guitar hero.”

  “You bastards,” Andy said again. He was shaking, and wondered fleetingly if he was ill. “You deliberately—”

  A hand tugged at his sleeve. “Hey, mate.” The voice was slightly slurred.

  Turning, Andy found himself facing a bloke about his own age in a scruffy hoodie. When Andy frowned at him, the bloke pushed his hood back, revealing short brown hair that still managed to look unkempt. Light caught the wisp of a soul patch under a lower lip that was just a bit too full.

  “Look,” said Andy, “I’m in the middle of—”

  “Always knew you’d be good. Nice guitar.” The guy reached towards the Strat.

  “Don’t touch my guitar.” Andy’s response was automatic. Memory was tugging at him again, and he felt queasy. “You—�
� He shook his head and peered again at the bloke’s face, wishing he’d worn his glasses. “Do I know you?”

  “Ha bloody ha. Always the joker, our Andy.”

  What the hell was this bloke on about? Andy stepped back. “Look, just bugger off. And don’t call me—”

  “You really don’t remember me?” Soul-patch sounded petulant now, and something in the tone blasted Andy’s vague perception of familiarity into full-blown recognition.

  “Joe?”

  “I knew it was you when I saw the poster for the band. I knew you’d come back someday.” Soul-patch smiled, showing white, even teeth that seemed at odds with his overall air of neglect. “I thought we could have a pint, maybe. Old times, yeah? Or are you too good for us now? Andy the rock star.”

  Soul-patch. Joe. Bloody Joe, grown up to be even more pathetic than he had been as a kid. The anger boiled up in Andy, so fierce it almost doubled him over. “Old times? You little shit.” He knew he must be shouting, but he didn’t care. “You—Why would you think I ever wanted to see your stupid face again?” Andy saw the crowd around them as a blur through a red, beating haze.

  “Hey, man, it’s been years.” Joe was wheedling now. “Water under the bridge. Can’t we just for—”

  “Forget? Don’t you even think it,” Andy spat at him, his hands balling into fists without his volition. Nick stepped up behind him, murmuring something, but Andy shoved him back with his shoulder.

  “I just wanted to be friends, that’s all—”

  “Friends? Friends? You should have thought about that then, shouldn’t you?” Andy went cold, the room fading until there was only a hum in his ears. He wanted nothing but to blot that face from his vision. “Just. Fuck. Off.” His right fist slammed into Joe’s face.

  Then Nick was wrapping his arms around him, dragging him backwards through the jumble of cables, pushing him down onto his amp.

  A new face loomed over him, a silver-haired man, booming at him in authoritarian tones. “. . . can’t have that in a public place . . . management should call the police . . . assaulting customers, you little hooligan.”

  “Hooligan?” Andy managed a strangled laugh. “You’ve no idea. Who the hell are you?” He struggled to get up, to tell this wanker what he thought of him, but Nick still had him firmly by the shoulders.

  “Leave the laddie be.” It was Tam’s voice. “And take care with the wee guitar,” Tam added, his strained face swimming into Andy’s vision as he pulled the Strat over Andy’s head and set it in its stand. “You, laddie, outside,” he ordered, yanking Andy to his feet, and the crowd parted as Tam marched him through. There was no sign of Joe or the silver-haired man.

  Tam pushed him out the side door that faced on Church Road and Andy gasped at the sudden enveloping chill. The drizzle had turned to fog, dense as cotton wool.

  Spinning Andy round to face him, Tam gave him a shake. “What the hell were you thinking in there? First you let those idiots sabotage the gig and then you start a bloody barroom brawl?” The fog muted his voice, but Andy had never seen Tam so angry.

  “I—”

  “Tell me you havenae broken your bloody hand,” Tam went on, gentler now, but the Glasgow accent was still in full force. “Let me see it.”

  Andy held his right hand up, wondering that he hadn’t felt the pain.

  “Can ye move your fingers?”

  Andy gave them an experimental wiggle and nodded, then cradled his hand to his chest. It stung like bloody hell now.

  “Ice. You’d best get ice on it.” Tam’s voice went steely again. “But first you’re going to tell me what happened in there. And you’d better be bloody glad that Caleb Hart left before you pulled your little stunt.”

  “They were pissed off, Nick and George,” Andy said, hoping to deflect Tam from what had happened after. “I suppose they had a right—”

  “They have a right to play in their fricking locals on Saturday nights if they get their jollies from it. They’re amateurs. But you—” Tam stabbed a finger at Andy’s chest, narrowly missing his injured hand. “You just barely pulled that one out of the barrel. Caleb still wants you to play with the lassie tomorrow, and you bloody well better be able to use those fingers on the guitar.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “I don’t want tae hear it.” Tam stepped back, his eyes narrowed, his voice gone quiet, and that was worse than the temper. “If you screw this up, lad, you don’t have the brains God gave a sheep, and your talent isn’t worth your fricking piece-of-crap guitar case.” He drew a breath, then said even more softly, “If you walk away from this, I’m finished with you. You hear me, laddie? Ten years I’ve given you, for a break like this, and you’re just too bloody scared to take it.”

  Tam should have looked ridiculous, his stubby hands clenched at his sides, his lips pinched into a bloodless line, but he didn’t.

  Andy shivered. He felt a swirl of violence in the chill air, a pulse of emotion that made the hair rise on the back of his neck.

  But it hadn’t come from Tam—Tam’s anger was palpable, direct. This was something else, some indefinable malice that moved in the fog, and Andy was, suddenly, frightened.

  And he also knew that Tam was right.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The exact boundary for the Crystal Palace area isn’t precise, because it takes the name from Crystal Palace Park. There is also a Crystal Palace Railway Station and a Crystal Palace Ward in the London Borough of Bromley.

  —www.crystalpalace.co.uk

  The persistent sound tugged Gemma from the depths of sleep.

  She rolled over and groaned, pulling the pillow over her head to shut out the irritating tune. Duncan patted her shoulder and mumbled something.

  “Phone,” he said more distinctly. “It’s yours.” It was, she realized—the annoying stock ring tone that everyone in the family griped at her to change. Emerging from under the pillow, she realized that pale gray daylight had infiltrated the room, and when she squinted at the clock it read 8:05.

  “Oh, God,” she said, her heart thumping into overdrive as she came thoroughly awake. How had they slept so late? Why weren’t the children up? Kit could manage to sleep in on weekends, but Charlotte and Toby were usually bouncing on the bed by seven.

  Then she remembered. Last night had been Duncan’s newly instituted family pizza-and-game night. Pizza, homemade. Game, Scrabble. Nothing electronic allowed, and no takeaway. Kit had complained mightily when his phone and his iPod were both banned, but in the end even he had seemed to enjoy the evening. The little ones had stayed up late, and once they were tucked in and Kit was in his room, she and Duncan had polished off a very nice bottle of Bordeaux in front of the fire, planning how they’d spend the weekend. Today was for shopping and lunch with the kids; then on Sunday she’d promised to take the children to Leyton to visit her parents.

  Her phone fell silent, but before she could breathe a sigh of relief, it started ringing again. Not a good sign. Sitting up, she yanked the duvet up to her shoulders, then fumbled the mobile from the charger. She glanced at the caller ID before clicking on.

  “Melody,” she said on a yawn.

  “Sorry, boss.” Melody sounded wide awake. “Saturday’s canceled, I’m afraid. We’ve got a call-out.”

  “Domestic?” asked Gemma, still holding on to a smidgen of hope for her weekend. Friday nights were notorious for domestic disputes escalating into alcohol-fueled violence, but the cases were usually fairly straightforward.

  “No. Something much more interesting,” Melody said cheerfully. “A man found in a hotel room. Naked, bound, and strangled. I can pick you up in”—as she paused, Gemma knew they were making the same calculations, how long for a barely wet shower, clothes, a minimum of makeup—“twenty minutes,” Melody said. “Twenty-five, max.”

  With an apologetic shrug aimed at Duncan, Gemma slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. “Where are we going?” she asked Melody.

  “Crystal Palace.”

 
; By midday that August, you could fry an egg on the tarmac of Crystal Palace Parade, and the air in the town center reeked of bus exhaust mixed with just a hint of candy floss.

  In the mornings, Andy had his cornflakes in the kitchen, then read or watched telly—quietly, so as not to wake his mum. When she got up, he made her breakfast, then walked her to the pub. He had a rotating list of excuses for doing so, and never said that it was because he wanted to make sure she actually got there. She’d grumble as they climbed up Woodland Road to Westow Hill, frown at him as they rounded the corner into Church Road. Then, as they reached the pub and she tied on her barmaid’s pinny, her face would soften for an instant and she’d tell him to stay out of trouble.

  When he’d seen her safely inside, he’d wander down the Parade and into the park with his guitar.

  He liked Crystal Palace Park, summer or winter, but in this long stretch of fine weather, it had taken on a carnival atmosphere. Two of the old Crystal Palace sphinxes flanked either side of a flight of steps, marooned between one empty terrace and another. Here he liked to sit, in the shade of one of the great stone beasts, watching the holidaymakers as he picked at the guitar.

  His mum hated the old standard Höfner, hated him playing it even more. His dad had left it behind when he abandoned them, and the sight of it could still make his mum livid when she was having a particularly bad day.

  Andy barely remembered his dad, who had moved out when he was four. He held a fuzzy image in his mind of his dad sitting on the front steps of the house in Woodland Road, playing the guitar while the smoke curled up from the cigarette he held between his lips, but he wasn’t sure if it was an actual memory or something he’d conjured up from wishful thinking.

  He did remember his mum telling him that his dad had “gone to greener pastures.” He’d thought that meant his dad had died and gone to heaven, but when he’d said it at school, one of the nuns had taken him aside and explained that his dad was alive and well and working on a gas rig off Canvey Island. The memory still made him cringe with embarrassment, and he wasn’t sure now if he’d felt any relief at knowing his dad wasn’t dead.