Dead Girl Walking (12 page)

Jenny nodded, an uncertain smile on her face: the smile of someone who was happy to report good news but knew she couldn’t take anything for granted.

‘Still in the clear. Due another follow-up in a couple of months, but so far so good. Apart from being one tit down on the whole deal.’

Parlabane laughed, though he wasn’t sure it was appropriate. Actually, he knew it wasn’t, but that was why Jenny said it. God, he’d missed this woman.

‘So what can I do for you?’ she asked. ‘Is it about getting these Met wankers off your back, because that’s out of my jurisdiction.’

‘No. Had two of them follow me here today, though, as it happens. Can you lift them for stalking?’

‘’Fraid not. Anything else?’

‘Yes. It’s concerning Heike Gunn. You know who that is?’

‘What are you insinuating?’ Jenny fired back, mock-defensive. ‘Dykey Heikey? Did you come to me with this just because I’m a lesbian? Watch your step or I’ll slap you with an order to attend a four-week awareness-training course.’

‘She’s missing,’ Parlabane told her, feeling a bit of a dick at having to bring down the serious.

Jenny’s features sharpened.

‘How missing is missing?’

‘Missing enough for her manager to have hired me to look into it, but not missing enough for anybody to be allowed to know. It’s very delicate.’

‘What do you need from me?’

‘Apart from your silence, I was wondering if you could get the Border Agency to confirm whether she re-entered the UK. She was last seen in Berlin, and I’d like to at least know which haystack I’m looking in.’

Jenny wrote something down on a notepad.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thanks, Jenny. I really appreciate it.’

‘There’s a quid pro quo,’ she told him. ‘I could actually use your help in locating a missing person myself.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Jack Parlabane. If you see him, tell him there’s a sad-sack miserable bastard going around using his name.’

Heike was dressed in Roman battle gear, complete with helmet and breastplate, her legs bare beneath a red knee-length tunic, her feet criss-crossed by the leather straps of her sandals. In her right hand she held a microphone stand like a spear, an acoustic guitar at her left side instead of a shield.

We were standing in the main courtyard of the British Museum in Bloomsbury, Heike between two Roman columns while the photographer and his staff adjusted collapsible reflectors, umbrellas, lighting stands and flashes. Hair and make-up artists buzzed around Heike, never quite happy with what they were seeing.

I was sitting a few feet away on a folding stool, my violin in its case at my feet, wondering why Heike had asked me to bring it. I was only supposed to be here for company and moral support. She didn’t look like she needed that, as she was confident in the spotlight, but she had seemed a bit nervy in the cab over, so maybe she was good at putting a calm face on it. The shoot was for
Tatler
, for God’s sake. I’d have been in bits.

Heike had natural grace. There was no other word for it. She didn’t have supermodel looks, but there was just something pleasing about her face, a timelessness, I guess, that made it easy to picture her in any era. Maybe that was what the photographer had seen when he came up with the concept for the shoot. It was obvious from the way they were talking that he had worked with Heike in the past, or at least had met her before. His name was Steff Kennedy. I had heard of him, but for some reason thought he would be English or American. It turned out he was from Motherwell.

He snapped away at her for about ten minutes, then got his assistants to start moving kit again. He and Heike spoke quietly, almost conspiratorially to one another, then I noticed him glancing towards me. Maybe I was to play now: I couldn’t see what that would add to the shoot, but what did I know? Besides, one of his team was videoing the whole thing for their website.

‘We think you should be in the shot,’ Heike announced.

I thought she was messing with me, then I glanced at Steff and saw that he was totally sincere; worse than that, determined. He was about six foot seven with long hair, and beneath the Roman columns he looked like a warrior or a pagan god. Either way, I wasn’t sure I could defy him. I felt horribly trapped.

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said weakly.

‘No, seriously,’ Heike insisted. ‘Steff thinks it will be more dynamic to have both of us.’

‘But I’m not good in front of a camera. Trust me, I’ll ruin the shot.’

‘You’ve got more than you give yourself credit for, and you’re only going to see that once you get to look through someone else’s eyes. Besides, I already did the interview, and half of it was about you joining the band, about how it’s changed us to have two women at the heart of things. The magazine really wants both of us in the spread.’

I made a face, but I could see one of Steff’s assistants already holding up a costume and gesturing me towards the changing area they had set up using stands and drapes.

‘Just give it a shot. Come on, if you can get up on a stage in front of two thousand people, you can pose for a photo.’

That sounded like an okay comparison, as long as you ignored that it would be seen by ten times that number, and that wasn’t even including the internet. I was thinking to myself, I didn’t sign up for this, when I realised that I actually had, by joining the band. I just hadn’t thought it through.

Steff’s assistant handed me a tunic that looked like it was made of thousands of leather scales, and a headpiece she called a khepresh. I thought for a moment whether these were from the museum, worrying about damaging them. Then I noticed the scales weren’t real leather and kicked myself for being stupid: like they’d be letting us play dressing up with priceless archaeological artefacts.

I stripped to my underwear and put the tunic on, grateful that it sat high and tight around my shoulders. I didn’t think a visible bra strap would be acceptable and I really didn’t fancy what this thing would do to bare nipples.

I stepped out barefoot, feeling a bit of a lemon, and the hair and make-up girls promptly sat me back down as they got to work. Heike took a seat beside me, while Steff got busy taking light readings and moving gear around.

‘Couldnae see this working with your last fiddle player,’ he said.

‘No, he wasn’t as pretty as Monica,’ Heike replied. It sounded like a deflection.

‘Or as obliging,’ Steff said, batting it back but looking at me with a smile.

‘Yeah, I heard he wasn’t the most reliable,’ I offered. I felt I was on the spot and expected to make some kind of a response.

There was a sudden alertness to Heike’s face, like she needed to be on guard.

‘What else did you hear?’

I felt guilty about what I knew, like I had been caught snooping into something personal that was none of my business. This was daft, though: I was in the band. If that meant I was dressing like an Egyptian charioteer, then it also meant that Maxi
was
my business. But I didn’t want to seem coy, or leave Heike wondering how much I really knew.

‘I heard about the last tour,’ I said. ‘I also heard that you and he were once, you know, a thing.’

She raised her eyebrows and allowed herself a small smile.

‘A thing. That’s as good a description as any.’

I thought she was going to leave it there, but I was rewarded for fessing up. Either that, or Heike needed to share.

‘I got to know him when I moved to Glasgow from Islay, when I first became involved in the music scene. He was a few years older and he knew everybody. He’d played with so many bands. I really looked up to him. I was totally thrilled when we started to play together: it felt like a kind of endorsement, you know?’

I wanted to nod, but the make-up girl was working around my eyes and I didn’t think moving my head was a wise idea.

‘Oh yeah,’ I said instead. ‘I can relate. There was this quite experienced singer who took an interest in me. At first I was flattered, but next thing I knew I was dressed up like a haddy outside a museum.’

Heike gave me the finger.

‘I’m reaching out to you here,’ she said, feigning a huff.

‘I know. And I do know what you mean.’

‘So you’ll appreciate, I was a bit doe-eyed over him at first, and that impression stayed with me. It swayed my judgement for a long time: I saw the guy I initially looked up to rather than the one who was in front of me. I learned a lot from him, and I don’t mean in a “bitter experience” way.’

‘Musically?’

‘Yeah. My songwriting definitely improved from working with him. We wrote a few things together. This was before Savage Earth Heart, though: that stuff’s all mine.’

‘Did I read that you were with him in your first band too?’

Heike looked upwards, a weirdly innocent smile on her face, like the sun had just come out.

‘No, my first band was actually with Angus, back on Islay.’

‘Angus? The guitar roadie?’

‘Yeah. We were in the same class at school. We wrote some songs together as well. Angus is actually a really interesting songwriter, but…’

She frowned, then shook her head sadly.

‘Wasted potential,’ she said. ‘He never had the conviction to put in the hours.’

She reached across and took hold of my hand. I think it was the first time we had touched that way, and I started ever so slightly, wondering what she was doing. She ran her fingers along the tips of mine.

‘I bet those were like leather by the time you were about twelve,’ she said.

‘Ten,’ I countered.

‘Me too. I practised every hour I had. Later than I should, in fact, as my dad wasn’t always the most responsible about telling me to go to bed because I’d school in the morning. Bohemian arty types – what can you do?’

I got what she was saying.

‘But not Angus?’

‘No. He could play guitar well enough but he was as likely to be playing video games or chasing the lassies. Scott, on the other hand: he was a man with a mission once I showed him his first chords.’

‘He’s your cousin, yeah?’

‘That’s right. He grew up in a really rough scheme. Came to stay with us for the whole summer holidays one year, because there had been trouble with gangs where he lived. Serious trouble: stabbings and the lot. The wee man just seemed so delighted with the sounds he could make: like he couldn’t believe it was coming from him. I think it gave him a glimpse of things that he thought weren’t possible, doors he’d assumed were closed.’

The regret she felt about Angus was matched by happiness at how her cousin had turned out. I could easily appreciate then her dismay at finding them both doing coke before rehearsals. It wasn’t all about Maxi.

She was back to talking about him now, though.

‘I felt like a bit of an idiot when Maxi broke things off. He made me feel like a daft wee lassie, or a bloody groupie who didn’t realise her time was up and the next girl was waiting. Part of me was determined to show him I was more than that, and I sometimes wonder if I kept him in my band as much for those reasons as for his playing. It sounds nuts, but it seemed important to me to prove myself to him.’

‘No, I get that,’ I said, though I didn’t admit that it wasn’t from any personal experience. I bluffed on, hoping
Gossip Girl
hadn’t lied to me. ‘You want guys to know they’re the one who’s not bloody worthy. But they never see that, do they?’

‘No kidding. No matter how things went for me and for the band, I think Maxi still saw me as a daft wee lassie who looked up to him. That’s why I wasn’t very effective at reining in his behaviour. Until I sacked him,’ she added.

‘I bet that felt good.’

‘It felt awful, actually. Nothing satisfying or vindicating about it. Now, imagining his face the day “Do It to Julia” broke the
Billboard
top ten?’ Heike grinned. ‘
That
felt good.’

The make-up artist finally decided she was happy with her work and showed me a mirror. I gasped with such an intake of breath that I was lucky there were no flies going past, or even small birds. I looked like some Egyptian princess, and if I didn’t know I was looking in a mirror I wouldn’t have recognised myself.

It was strangely empowering; or maybe liberating is more accurate. I was able to throw myself into the shoot without any self-consciousness (or at least the usual quantity of self-consciousness) as I felt like I was playing a part.

Steff directed us to prowl around each other like gladiators. Heike repeated her shield and spear poses while I used my bow like its archery namesake, threatening to fire my violin like a giant arrow. I decided this was just wrong, as well as likely to damage both, so switched to gripping them like my own sword and shield. He got us to snarl at one another, which lasted for about twenty seconds before we broke down hopelessly into giggles. Once we had recovered, he stuck to directing still poses, all of them with us holding the instruments like weapons.

As Steff took my arms and posed me like a doll, dressed as I was in this second costume they
just happened
to have brought along, I wondered about Heike’s insistence that I bring my fiddle.

I went through about a dozen cleansing wipes getting all the gunk off my face, then nipped behind the screens and got changed back into my own clothes, which felt really light after the weight of the faux leather. When I emerged, Heike was excitedly beckoning me across to where Steff’s laptop sat on a table.

Steff was scrolling through uploads from the shoot, the images startling in their vivid detail. I was standing feet from where they’d been taken, but they seemed to belong in another, more glamorous world.

‘She looks brilliant,’ Heike said, to everyone and no one in particular. ‘Doesn’t she look brilliant?’

She sounded delighted, like she’d forgotten that she was the main subject of the shoot. It reminded me of my mother’s excited pleasure whenever I did something she felt proud of.

Steff’s hand paused.

‘Oh, this is the shot,’ he said, taking his fingers away from the keyboard. ‘This. Is. The. Shot. That is a front cover right there.’