Convictions (29 page)

This was a terrific read. Highly recommended to any crime, drama, or thriller fans. (Smashwords)

Julie Morrigan is a rare find, tight smart prose used to tell dark, wildly entertaining tales of the darker side of the street. I WANT MORE. (GoodReads)

Judging from this collection, it's safe to say that from the dark and gritty depths of urban noir a new queen has risen. (GoodReads)

Julie Morrigan’s second novel
Heartbreaker
will be published in October 2011.

All Johnny Burns ever wanted was to be in a band. When he and his best friend Tom Watson founded Heartbreaker, they realised their wildest dreams a hundred times over.

If the sixties was a naive and charming flower child, then the seventies was her big, bad older brother; darker, more worldly, less giving … and the eighties was his garishly-painted and promiscuous girlfriend. It’s no wonder against such a backdrop that things could become confused — and that dreams could turn to heartbreak.

When Alex Weston is hired to ghostwrite a book about the life of Johnny Burns and his band — from playing down-and-dirty pubs and clubs in the sixties, through the excesses of seventies stadium rock to eighties meltdown — even she isn’t prepared for the depths of excess, betrayal and guilt that she uncovers.

At the heart of the Heartbreaker story lies the tragic deaths of two members of a band at the very summit of its success — deaths wrapped in a web of secrets and lies. As Alex sets out to learn more and digs deeper into the past, she is forced to realise that she may have to confront Johnny’s part in the devastating events of all those years ago …

Heartbreaker — an extract

Chapter 1

2003

Alex started the DVD and settled back in her chair with a beer. The image on the screen showed a field full of people in the evening, mostly long-haired, some in denim, others in long, printed skirts, some in T-shirts, others in cheesecloth tops. Many were barefoot; grubby toes sinking into soft earth as they waited expectantly, chants and shouts rippling through the crowd. At the fringes where fires burned, patchouli oil vied with wood smoke for supremacy and small groups gathered around the flames in an attempt to stave off the darkness, the threat of cold playing around bare flesh, for just a little while longer.

The camera framed what was little more than a raised platform, the focus of attention. As dusk settled, the road crew set up gear quickly and efficiently, the practised choreography of the men in black conjuring a wall of sound out of the gloomy depths.

With the lighting rig yet to be turned on, the activity on stage was shadow play. Alex made out the band moving quietly and without fuss to their spots. The crowd saw them too and thundered encouragement, eager for the show to begin. Paul Scott got behind his drum kit and tested cymbals and pedals. Colin Carson plugged in his guitar and took up his position near the drum riser. Three tall figures, two wearing guitars that they plugged in when they were in position, strode out further towards the front of the stage. Andy Airey, the singer, was centre stage with bass player Tom Watson to his right and lead guitarist Johnny Burns to the left.

They looked at each other and despite the poor light Alex could have sworn she saw them grin. Then Paul Scott rapped his sticks together to the count of four, the lights flashed on and the crowd roared as the band crashed in, bass, rhythm guitar and drums pounding out a hermetic pile-driving riff. Johnny Burns’s guitar screamed into life, pouring notes as sweet as the Devil’s lies into the depths of the night skies, spurring bodies into motion as the crowd began to dance. Right on cue, one of the best blues wailers in the business opened his throat and let out a primal scream that pierced the heavens as Andy Airey, delighted by the ecstatic greeting they’d received, launched heart and soul into the first number.

Alex put her beer down; she had chills, the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. This was the earliest available footage of Heartbreaker, showing the band just as they were breaking big. There were live albums available and they were powerful, raw, but seeing them play, even on screen, was something else. It took little effort for her to imagine herself there, dancing in the moonlight, the heady scent of a summer’s night in her nostrils, head filled with rhythm and riff. No wonder they’d grown to be so successful. They were incredible, even at this distance. It had to be nearer thirty than twenty years since this gig had been filmed, despite which she reckoned they could give a number of today’s so-called supergroups a run for their money.

She watched, rapt, for the next two and a half hours as the band ran through their set, throwing in blues and rock ‘n’ roll standards alongside their own material, then played a series of encores. They seemed reluctant to leave the stage; the crowd was certainly reluctant to let them go. As the final number came to an end, credits rolled over images of a band that had played its heart out, musicians slick with sweat and wreathed in smiles. It ended with a shot of Johnny Burns, one hand on the neck of his guitar, the other punching the air in a salute to the crowd.

Alex punched the button on the remote, then sat back in her chair and stared at the blank screen. She had been a fan of Heartbreaker for as long as she could remember, but felt like she was discovering them all over again every time she watched the footage of the Robson’s Farm gig. She felt a familiar pang of regret that she had never seen them play live. Wondered not for the first time if the fabled lost tapes were real and if they would ever turn up. Stirring herself, she straightened the room and turned off lamps and equipment, then headed for bed. She had a busy day ahead of her. In the morning she was jumping on a train to London to attend a job interview, an interview she really wanted to be successful in. If she landed the job, she would be working with Johnny Burns on a book about his life, his music and Heartbreaker.

Chapter 2

Two months earlier

Johnny Burns was in the office of his manager, Dan Cross. A ‘best of’ double album of remastered Heartbreaker material plus a couple of previously unreleased tracks was ready for release. The album was called
Labour of Love
, a title Johnny hated but had been outvoted on.

‘I’ll need you all to get involved in promoting this,’ Dan was saying. ‘You’ll have to put yourselves about.’

Johnny’s heart sank. He had been sceptical about the album anyway, had been talked into it by Dan, and his old bandmates Paul Scott and Colin Carson. Now this. ‘You know I just like a quiet life these days, mate.’

‘Even so, you’re going to have to get into town for a while to do some work. All of you. Especially you.’

‘What do you have in mind?’ Johnny knew from experience that there would be dates already set, deals already made.

‘First off, there’s a big launch party at Crawdaddy. That’s planned for February the fourteenth. Valentine’s day, Heartbreaker,
Labour of Love
. You see the connection.’

‘It’s not exactly subtle.’ Johnny was surprised some especially talented little marketing pixie hadn’t suggested the surviving band members wear hearts on their sleeves, or something equally inspired. They should pick on Dan for a change, he reckoned, he was practically one of the band anyway. He imagined him in a shiny shirt covered in padded hearts, pictured a bright red heart-shaped hat on Dan’s head while he was about it. He felt the corners of his mouth start to twitch and blinked to clear the image as he tuned back in to what Dan was saying.

‘… the press. Music press principally, but you’ll have to talk to the other buggers as well.’

‘I hate the press.’

‘They love you.’

‘Of course they do. That’s why they’ve been so kind to me over the years.’

Dan rubbed his eyes. ‘They haven’t been too bad, mate. There’ve been a couple of times they gave us a rough ride, but whatever any of it might have meant to us, it was just another job to them. We were fair game.’

‘You’re forgetting what the bastards did to me when I died.’

‘The story was that you didn’t, if you remember.’

‘I was trying to get my life back together. They took pictures of Nicci and the kids and God knows what else. We’d split up by then, it was nothing to do with them.’ Johnny raised his chin, challenging Dan; Dan remained impassive. Johnny ran his hands through his hair, recognising the inevitable when it stared him in the face. ‘Bare minimum, promise me.’

‘I’ll email you a schedule. There are some straightforward promo interviews set up and a couple of the mags want to do profiles of the band. Bit of history, remind the youngsters of who influenced the people they listen to, you know the sort of stuff.’ Johnny nodded. ‘
Melody Maker
wants to do a big feature on you. Come to the house, look round, do an in-depth interview. They want to hear about what you’re working on now and talk about your plans for the future, to balance out all the stuff from the past.’

‘No.’

‘Johnny—’

‘I’m not doing it.’

‘Listen—’

‘You listen. General stuff about the band is one thing, but I’m not letting them into my life. No fucking way, Dan. No.’

‘Okay then, think about this. If you don’t talk to them, they’ll write the feature anyway. You know they will. If you talk to them, they’ll be more … onside.’ He winced, anticipating Johnny’s reaction.

‘“Onside?” Fucking “onside?”’ Johnny spat the words out, angry and irritated. ‘When did you start talking like that? You come from North London, not fucking LA.’

‘Look, I need you to do this. You owe it to the band.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘There’s something else. I want you to think about writing an autobiography. We’ll get you a good ghostwriter, put it out as your story, as told by you.’

‘Are you not listening to a word of what I’m saying to you? No.’

‘Johnny, people are interested. I’ve had a lot of enquiries over the years and it’ll kick off again with the release of the album. The time’s right. If we don’t do it, someone else will.’

‘Goodbye, Dan.’ Johnny grabbed his coat, put his collar up and strode out into the cold, winter afternoon.

***

Over the next couple of weeks Paul and Colin went to work on him and Johnny realised how much they wanted to do all the promotional stuff for the album. Colin in particular missed the kind of attention he’d had in the band’s heyday. This was a chance for him to remind people of who he was and what he had been a part of.

‘One last shot, mate, for Heartbreaker. What do you say?’ he said to Johnny.

So Johnny eventually agreed. ‘But the first time some dipshit journo asks me about my star sign or my favourite fucking colour, I’m out of there.’

Colin grinned. ‘It’s a more discerning bunch we’ve got lined up, don’t worry. Besides,’ he teased, ‘Leo and blue. Dan’s already emailed that sort of shit over to them.’

***

At the Valentine’s Day launch party at Crawdaddy Records, Johnny and Dan Cross were holed up in a corner near the bar. The place was busy and buzzing, the promise of free booze enough to draw a good crowd of music journalists, Crawdaddy execs and other musicians. The new album was playing and people seemed almost universally to be ignoring it, a fact that wouldn’t stop at least some of them from basing a review purely on that hearing.

‘Do you remember I mentioned to you about doing a book?’ Dan was saying.

Johnny swirled Jack Daniel’s round in the glass he was holding, kept his eyes down and his voice even. ‘What of it?’

‘Well, a mate of mine in publishing has tipped me the wink that his company is considering a proposal for a new Heartbreaker book. They really want to do it, they feel the time is right.’ Dan looked at Johnny. ‘Nothing like the two that are already out; a real, honest account, talking about the history, the music, the influences, the impact. They want to tell the true story of the band, from start to finish.’

‘So?’

‘They would rather do a book with you. If you don’t agree, then they’ll do the other one. We’re lucky to have been given the option, Johnny. They could have just gone ahead anyway.’

‘They wouldn’t make as much money.’

‘They would make enough, believe me. The fans are clamouring for something new.’

‘The fans are checking their retirement funds and debating a property abroad.’

Dan smiled. ‘Some of them, maybe. Others are deciding what GCSEs to do, or what university to study at, or who they want to work for, or how many kids to have. The album has created fresh interest in the band, as well. The back catalogue is flying out of the shops. We’re expecting
Rescued
to chart again.’

Johnny ran a hand through his hair. ‘Why can’t people leave us in peace?’

‘Because they want to know. If you tell your story your way, you’ve got control. If you don’t, someone else will, and they’ll have control.’ Dan put his hand on Johnny’s arm. ‘Look, mate, people are going to be digging up your past whatever happens. Wouldn’t you rather have a hand on the shovel?’

‘Christ, Dan, this is blackmail.’

Dan held his tongue. Johnny, paced, fretted and fumed, but there really was no choice, when all was said and done.