Kill For Love (9 page)

“There’s
a big difference between being a loyal worker and being in love, Kate.”

“Some
of them might not understand the difference.”

“Oh,
they know all right.”

Kate
stood her ground. “It’s some kind of love. I’m sure about that. Fan love, I
suppose.”

“And
if they are in love, is that good or bad?”

“I
suppose that depends upon you and what you choose to do with it.”

He
gave in. “All right, if it makes you happy, I’ll tell you the truth. They are
in love. Every last one of them. Smitten with me, they are. You should see the
Valentine cards they send me. In the old days rock stars just had groupies
flinging knickers at them. Now we get…what? A host of adoring disciples. But,
if you don’t mind, right now I think I’ll use that love to have one of them bring
me some raspberries and cream.” He paused, puckishly. “What do you say, Kate
Merrimac? Would you like some, too? Can I tempt you?

Chapter Fourteen

They
went riding in the afternoon, Kate on a little tan mare, Gadden's horse, a very
expensive looking Appaloosa. She wasn’t the most experienced or confident
rider, but she could stay upright. Gadden was so graceful it almost looked as
though he and the horse were one.

"Did
you learn to ride in Ireland?"
she asked as, side by side, they made their way through the woods of the estate
out of the main gates and down towards the sea.

He
nodded. "Without a saddle in those days, too. There's still nothing as
thrilling to me as a horse fair, buying and selling, trying to spot the broken-winded
one, or the cripple that's tanked up on painkilling injections and certain to
go permanently lame the minute you get him home."

"Were
there farmers in your family then?"

"Farmers
would be a grand name for them."

"What
would you call them?"

"Knackers
would be nearer the mark, I think, though I don't remember any family, to be
honest."

"You
mean like travellers?"

"I
mean like knackers," he retorted. "Don't tell me you didn't know that
we have knackers in Ireland."

"I
was thinking of the viewers," she laughed. "They might not
know."

He
took that in as they rode on. "In my experience people believe exactly
what they're told. No more and no less."

A
thought occurred to her and she tried again. "Do you know anyone called
Michael Lynch?"

"The
name doesn't ring a bell. Should it?"

"I
don't know. He's supposed to have been at school with you. My red hot producer and
his researcher are in Galway trying to come up
with some anecdotes about your schooldays that we can talk about in the
interview, but the best they've done so far is get a dosser on the phone. The
researcher's in love with you, too, by the way."

He
turned to her. "So you're investigating me, are you, Kate?"

"Hardly.
Television people call it research. It happens for every programme, and there's
very little background material in your cuttings. You don't mind, do you?"

"Why
would I mind? But I don't remember any Michael Lynch. If your producer or
besotted researcher...what was her name...?”

"Beverly. Beverly
Dennis."

"Well,
okay, if Beverly Dennis or her boss meets up with this fella, tell them to buy
him a drink on me, will you? He must have a better memory than I have."

And
with that he ended the conversation as they reached an open meadow and he urged
his horse into a lope.

She was
disappointed. All right, so Gadden had made a charismatic career out of
covering his traces, but he could hardly blame anyone for being curious. As
friendly as he was, getting a decent interview out of him was going to be
tricky.

They
didn't speak again for some minutes as in single file he led her down towards a
small inlet where the Atlantic cut deep into
the coast. Finally, crossing a road, and splashing through a stream they rode out
on to the hard sand of the beach.

At
the water's edge, Gadden reigned in and stared at the autumn sea mist which lay
just beyond the breakers. "I'll tell you one thing for your
research," he mused. “When I was a boy and moving around Ireland I liked to
think that when I reached the Atlantic Ocean I'd be able to see America if I
looked hard enough. All it took was a little willpower."

"And
magic."

"If
you have willpower, making magic's easy."

She
looked out to sea. "Do you have a house in Ireland, too? Somewhere else for
weekends when you aren't here."

"Not
any more. I never look back.”

"But
the children’s hospital you’re backing will be there?"

"That's
true. But they won't want me interfering, will they?" And turning his
horse away from her, he allowed it to paddle in the surf.

They
rode all afternoon, off the beach, along the cliffs, then back inland,
meandering through the fields and farms.

"Can
I ask you about Petra?"
she asked as they crossed a pasture scattered with wild flowers.

"Ask
me what about her?"

"Well,
I’m not quite sure what she is. I mean, is she, or was she, a girl friend, or a
p.a., or manager or, well, what?"

There
was a chuckle. "What indeed? I think she may have started out as a fan.
Then she sort of stayed involved."

"So
she
was
a girl friend?"

A
smile ended that line of enquiry.

It
meant, “yes”, she was sure. And now?
 
She
tried again. "Outside your organisation, she's known as the Gatekeeper."

"So
they tell me. I suppose sometimes she can be a bit over-zealous in keeping
people away from me."

"Would
that be because she's jealous of people getting too close to you?"

"Maybe
she's afraid of me getting to close to other people."
 

Kate
waited for a further explanation. Again none was given. Almost every question
ended in a smile and a tease. The Jesse Gadden she was getting to know may be
nothing like the man the fans thought they knew, but the enigma remained.

At
last, as her legs and back were beginning to ache from the riding, they reached
the stone wall that ran around the Haverhill
estate. Following it they came to side entrance at a narrow, arched gateway.

 
Gadden turned to her. "Okay, it’s rock
trivia time if we want to get home tonight. In what year was
Sergeant Pepper
released?"

Kate
pulled a face. "Oh, God. I wasn’t even born. Nor were you.”

"Have
a guess?"

"Well,
Sixties obviously. Late Sixties."

"Be
exact."

"I
don't know. Nineteen sixty...nine?"

"Now
let's see if you're right." And leaning from his horse he tapped the
figures
1-9-6-9
into a security system built into the wall.

There
was a sharp bleep and a red light came on. The gate remained closed.

"Oh
dear! And you the daughter of a historian,” he teased. “You're not very good on
dates, are you?"

Quickly
he entered another number. This time the gate swung open and they guided their
horses through.

"History
isn’t studied just by dates these days," Kate said, pretend prissily as
the gate closed automatically behind them. "Dates and figures are for
trainspotters."

"Handy
for remembering how to get in though, wouldn't you say?" and Gadden
steered the Appaloosa down the path back towards the house.

They
had a swim before dinner to relax their muscles, Kate wearing the one-piece
black bathing suit she wore when she went to Fulham Pools on Sunday mornings.
She was glad she’d remembered to pack it, just in case. Gadden wore long black shorts.
He was a good swimmer, his hair floating behind him as he slid through the
water, though his body was thinner than she’d expected.

The
pool had been dug in an old conservatory which lay behind the main house, and
at this hour of the day the surface of the water was caught by the evening sun
shining through high, curved, stained glass windows. After a couple of lengths
Kate relaxed and, floating on her back, stared up at the patterns and colours in
the glass. Suddenly Gadden popped up alongside her, tossing his hair out of his
eyes, his skin touching hers.

“You’re
not like your image,” she said, treading water, watching the reflections
dappling his skin.

“Nor
are you.”

“I
wasn’t aware that I had an image other than that of a bossy Englishwoman who
goes around the world...” She stopped, and corrected herself, “…who
went
around the world asking questions of people who don’t always want to answer
them.”

“That’s
what I mean,” he mocked. “You’re not like that. Well, you’re not bossy, anyway.”

“So,
where did all the Jesse Gadden enigma come from?”

He
didn’t answer.

She
tried again, her arms out now as, like two starfish, they floated alongside
each other. “What I mean is, no-one can have kept so much information about
himself secret by accident. You must have tried very hard. You must still have
to try.” She glanced across at him.

He
was smiling to himself.

“I
mean, why haven’t any of your old friends and distant cousins, or even old girl
friends, gone to the newspapers?”

“That
presupposes that there are old friends and distant family and past girl
friends.”

“Oh,
come on. There must be
someone
.”

He
didn’t answer.

“Do
you think you’d be any less successful if you were less mysterious?”

“I
don’t know. Do you?”

“What
about the missing eighteen months then…you dropping out of sight? What was that
about? Where were you? Were you here? Was that just an act, too?”

He’d
had enough. “Kate, let’s save all this for the interview, shall we, or we’ll
have nothing to talk about. All these questions can wait.”

“Will
it be easier for me to get answers then?”

“Who
knows?” And with a neat flip of his body he dived beneath her and swam away
underwater to the other end of the pool.

Chapter Fifteen

She wore her new blue dress for the evening, the
one she'd shown to Jeroboam. It looked better now, she thought, as she viewed
herself in the mirror, the colour set off by the slight tan she'd picked up
during the afternoon's riding. All the same, wondering if it was perhaps just
an inch too low, she hitched it further back at the neck and secured it with a
small safety pin.

Having taken her time showering and washing her
hair, she was in a state of slight anticipation. Would she look overdressed? In
any other country house the answer would have been “Yes”. But in this house?

"We don't often have a guest at Haverhill, not a real
guest from outside, so we like to make the most of it when we do," Gadden
had warned as they'd left the pool. "We think of such occasions as family
occasions."

And what a family! All day the youthful staff had
been politely disappearing into shadows as she'd approached, carefully
affording her the privacy Gadden must have requested. Now, as if satisfied that
she'd passed some test of his devising, she was to be welcomed among them. So,
as the sea mist rolled in and covered the sun, she made her way down to join
them.

Her first thought on reaching the panelled dining
room was that it was like entering a medieval court, as more than twenty young
men and women seated at a long oak table, their faces illuminated by flickering
candles, turned to welcome her.

"You're here, Kate! Up here with me,"
Gadden was calling immediately, his Irish accent cutting through the babbling
good humour of the greetings.

Aware of smiling eyes on her, she made her way
along the backs of the chairs to where he was standing at the head of the table,
his hair now tied back off his face.

As they sat down she noticed that he cast a quick
look towards Kerinova at the end of the room. The Estonian returned his glance,
then nodded to Kate. It was an expression that could have meant anything.

Acknowledging her, Kate turned and watched Gadden
smiling around the room at his young disciples, the girls pretty in the
colourful blouses that topped their jeans, the boys’ hair almost uniformly long
like that of their patron. It was all nonsense, of course, a famous, super-rich
man’s pretend world, but she couldn’t deny she was enjoying this bizarre
weekend.

To her immediate left sat the two recording
engineers she’d met at the studio, while immediately across from them was Dana,
the American girl, who’d refused to be drawn into conversation at breakfast,
and Peter, the young technician who’d stayed all night in the studio to play
her the new tracks. She waved him a hello. Then right at the end of the table,
almost apart from the others, were Stefano and Kish, his young assistant. Expressionless in
their track suits and with their shaven heads they didn’t fit in with the rest
of the company. They looked as though they didn’t care

“Stefano and Kish…they’re your minders, right?” she
guessed.

Gadden glanced at them and nodded. “Something
like that.”

A latecomer in a corner caught her eye. It was
the woman she'd seen with the sunflowers. A good fifteen years older than the
other girls, she was sitting next to Kerinova, obsessively watching Gadden,
nodding to herself from time to time, as though in some private conversation.
Everywhere else smiles and laughter filled the room.

"Quite a happy little household you’ve got
here,” Kate said as the soup was served by a pretty black girl.

"I like to think so,” Gadden grinned. “And
talented. That’s Stephie, for instance, and this is Willi. And he indicated a
bespectacled short haired young man. “He builds our website,
jessegadden.com
, and next to him is
Sonja, his assistant.” A small, dark haired, bird of a girl looked up as she
heard her name mentioned. “And this one here with the Alice
band, she’s Agnieta from Sweden.
Anything we want doing she can get it done.” As he spoke, Agnieta, fair and
freckled, dimpled with pleasure at being noticed.

Kate nodded to her, recalling dinners at college
when the most eager students had been thrilled to have caught the eye of the
most popular academics.

“Then there’s Brendan,” Gadden was continuing.
“He looks after the estate and the dogs.”

 
A muscular
ginger haired young man raised his head.

“You have dogs?” Kate asked.

“For security. We started out with wolves, but
they kept eating the fans who tried to sneak over the wall. It was terrible.”
And he laughed.

For two hours it was a jolly dinner as the staff
joked among themselves. Occasionally Kate sensed Kerinova watching her, and,
still mortified at having been caught snooping, she was glad that they were so
far apart. But, although Gadden was in good spirits, she was aware, too, of
times when he seemed to withdraw and watch those around him like an outsider.
Was that the lot of all stars, she wondered.

"What are you thinking?" she enquired
at one such moment.

"Just how happy I am," he came back.
"This second. Now. Wondering if there could be anything better in
life."

"And what's your conclusion?"

"Maybe. Maybe things could be just a little
tiny bit more perfect. A fraction."

“And if that happens?”

“I’ll try to preserve it.”

She smiled. It was all silly. But, then, the
whole weekend was silly.

“Will you sing us a song, Jesse,” Agnieta, the
freckled girl, asked as bowls of fruit were put on the table as dinner was
finishing.

“Well, now…” Gadden pretended shyness.

“Just one. Please.”

All faces turned towards him, encouraging.

“Well, maybe just the one.” And he put a hand in
the air.

Immediately a guitar was delivered to him. He
hadn’t needed much coaxing.

“Sorry about this,” he murmured to Kate. “It
looks like I’ve got to sing for me supper.” Then, standing, one foot on his
chair, he brought his hand down across the strings.
“I am a roving gambler, I gamble down in town, whenever I meet with a deck
of cards, I lay my money down, I lay my money down….”
he sang, his voice
soft and clear.

Kate was surprised. She’d seen him perform in
front of half a million fans in Hyde Park. But
that had been pure theatre. This was something simpler, something she could
better relate to, a folk singer playing the songs with which he’d started out.

The
Fields of Athenry
and
The
Irish
Rover
followed.
Then, as quickly
as the performance had begun,
he
ended it.
“Okay, that’s it for
tonight, folks. If you’ve enjoyed the show, you might put a few pennies into Petra’s hat as you leave. We
need every penny. Thank you and good night.” And as Petra Kerinova led the
applause, he took Kate’s hand. “I think we’d better make our exit now, before
they rush us.”

"Why don't you play us another record,
Kate," he said.

They were standing by the juke box in the room of
mirrors. Outside floodlights illuminated the gardens. It had been no more than
fifteen minutes since they’d finished dinner, but already the house was in
silence. Where had all those young people gone, Kate puzzled. To their
rooms?
 
Was there a communal sitting room
somewhere in one of the wings of the house? Or had they all gone down to the
local pub?
 
"You choose,” she
replied. “It's your turn tonight."

"All right."
 
And taking the dime from the coin return slot
he made his selection.

Again the machine whirred.

“Only
you, can make this world seem right, Only you…”
the song began.

Kate smiled in recognition. “I know this one.
It’s an old one, but I don’t know who’s singing.”

“The Platters.”
Gadden mused, his expression now distant. One hand on the glass
dome of the juke box, his head down as he listened and watched the record go
round.

 
“Why this
record…?”

 
“My mother
used to play it.”

“Your mother?”

“On an old Dansette thing she had.”

“I haven’t heard you mention your mother before.”

“No. Probably not.”

“When
you hold my hand I understand the magic that you do…”

Suddenly his face softened and putting his arms
on her shoulders he moved her gently around the floor in time with the song. It
was like old-time dancing. As the song reached its climax, he drew her closer.

“You’re
my dream come true, my one and only you.”
With a hiss the pick-up reached the end of the song and the record was
lifted back into the stack.

"Will we go to bed now, Kate?" he said.

Treading silently on the wide stairs, they went up
to her room where, closing the door, they moved across to the bed. Then,
kissing, they took their time, before, sinking on to the sheets, they started
to undress one another.

 
A woman of
her age and experience was supposed to be confident when embarking upon such a
course, able to slip from her clothes with casual ease, she told herself, as,
for a moment, the safety pin she’d fastened on her new dress became snagged in
her hair. But she wasn’t behaving like a woman of her age.

“Let me,” Gadden murmured as she tried to
untangle the knot.

She waited. Delicately he slipped the remaining
clothes from her. She helped. For a moment he hesitated, looking down at her
naked body. Then, bending forward, he sank his face into her, his long dark
hair, falling loosely around her thighs.

In the half light of the room, a glow still
shining up from the floodlights on the lawns and terraces, Kate gazed at the
canopy of the bed above her. Jesse Gadden and she were from different worlds
with nothing in common. This was all an adventure.